Edward Francis Hannan
With all of consistency may this publication enter a memorial tribute to the late Edward Francis Hannan, who wielded potent influence in connection with civic and business affairs in Lawrence County and whose life was guided and governed by the loftiest principles of integrity and honor. His character was the positive expression of a strong and noble nature, and he accounted well to himself and to the world, with the achievement that marked him as a man of superior ability and foresight. He was a native of Lawrence County and a representative of an honored pioneer family of the Hanging Rock Region, his having been the distinction of becoming eventually one of the most prominent and successful merchants and most popular and influential citizens of Ironton, in which city he died on Friday morning, September 19, 1913. The entire community manifested its deep sense of personal loss and bereavement when he passed forward to the life eternal, and it is well to perpetuate in a preliminary way quotations from an obituary published in an Ironton newspaper at the time of the death of Mr. Hannan, but slight change being made in the quoted context:
"With the departure of the clouds of night on Friday morning, the soul of Edward Francis Hannan, one of Ironton 's most prominent citizens, departed from the pain-wracked body, a few minutes after six o'clock. Mr. Hannan's death had been expected for a number of weeks, and some time ago the family was informed by specialists that there was no chance for his recovery. He was afflicted with a peculiar and baffling throat disease, against which the skill of the best physicians of the country was unable to combat successfully. He had undergone operations, but without avail. Despite the fact that death was expected, when the end of the life of this noble man was announced by the tolling of the chimes of St. Lawrence church, it came as a shock to his many friends and relatives throughout the city, and occasioned general regret, for all who knew Mr. Hannan, either in a personal or business way, have only the highest praise for him,—for honesty and uprightness were the prime factors in his life and won for him an enviable reputation as a business man whose honor and integrity were unquestioned."
Edward Francis Hannan was born at Vesuvius Furnace, Lawrence County, Ohio, on the 12th of July, 1860, and, as has been written, "his death, at the age of fifty-three years, cut him off in the prime of his manhood and at the height of a successful business career." He was a son of John and Bridget (McDennott) Hannan, both natives of Ireland, where the former was born in the year 1821 and the latter in 1824. The parents passed the closing years of their lives in Ironton, where the father died in 1893, the devoted wife and mother having been summoned to eternal rest in 1890; they became the parents of seven children, of whom Edward F. was the only son and the sixth in order of birth. The parents were reared and educated in their native land, where their marriage was solemnized, and upon their immigration to the United States they became pioneer settlers in the Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio, where John Hannan became actively identified with iron mining and the operation of iron furnaces. In 1876 he removed with his family to the City of Ironton, where he engaged in the retail grocery business, with which his only son soon became associated, and with this line of enterprise he continued to be identified until the close of his life, which was one of unswerving integrity and earnest application, both he and his wife having been communicants of the Catholic Church.
The public schools of the Vesuvius District of Lawrence County afforded to Edward F. Hannan his early educational privileges and he was sixteen years old at the time of the family removal to Ironton, where he continued his studies about one year in the high school. He then became actively associated with his father in the grocery business, and to this line of enterprise he continued to pay allegiance to the time of his demise. He developed a large and prosperous wholesale and retail grocery trade, and from 1881 until his death his business was established at the corner of Third and Railroad streets. The passing years brought increasing success and definite prosperity to Mr. Hannan, and he showed his progressiveness and civic loyalty by giving his capitalistic and executive support to many other representative business concerns in his native county, where he was a stockholder and director in a number of important corporations.
With inviolable place in popular confidence and esteem and known as a citizen of ability and worth, Mr. Hannan was naturally called upon to serve in various positions of public trust. He served for a total of nine years as a valued member of the city council of Ironton and in this connection exerted potent influence in the furtherance of wise and progressive administration of municipal affairs, as did he likewise during his eight years' membership on the city board of public safety. He was one of the prominent and active members of the Ironton Chamber of Commerce, was a democrat in his political allegiance, and was a most zealous and devout communicant of St. Lawrence Catholic Church, as is also his widow. He was most active and liberal in the support of the various activities of this parish and served many years as treasurer of the church organization. Mr. Hannan was for ten years president of the local organization of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and thereafter was its treasurer for four years, besides which he was in close affiliation with the Knights of Columbus, the Knights of St. George, and the Young Men's Institute.
At the home of the bride's parents, in the City of Ironton, on the 8th of September, 1886, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Hannan to Miss Anna C. Goldcamp, and thus was formed an ideal companionship that was severed only when death set its seal upon his mortal lips. Mrs. Hannan was born in Lawrence County, on the 15th of January, 1866, and is a daughter of the late John S. Goldcamp, an honored and influential citizen and pioneer to whom a special memoir is dedicated on other pages of this work. Mrs. Hannan still resides in the beautiful home which was provided by her honored husband and which is endeared to her by many hallowed memories and associations and as the gracious chatelaine of which she has made it a center of most charming hospitality. Concerning the four children of Mr. and Mrs. Hannan brief, record is given in conclusion of this memorial tribute to a man whose name and memory shall long be revered and honored in Ironton and throughout the county which always represented his home and which he dignified by his character and services: Olivia H. is the wife of Richard McMahon, who is successfully engaged in the practice of law in the City of Washington, D. C.; Lawrence J. remains with his widowed mother and is one of the representative young business men of Ironton; and at the family home are also to be found the younger daughters, Monica N. and Elizabeth G. Mr. and Mrs. McMahon have two children, Julia Anna and May Elizabeth. who are the only representatives in the third generation of the Hannan family in America.
The funeral of Mr. Hannan was held at St. Lawrence Church on the Monday following his death, and called forth a large concourse of citizens of all classes—all desiring to pay this last tribute of respect and sorrow. The requiem mass was sung by Rev. James H. Cotter, D. D., a priest who had been a most intimate friend of the deceased, and interment was made in beautiful Sacred Heart Cemetery. Five of his sisters survive Mr. Hannan.
From "A Standing History of the Hanging Rock Iron Region of Ohio" by Eugene B. Willard, Daniel W. Williams, George O. Newman and Charles B. Taylor. Published by Lewis Publishing Company, 1916