Michael Edward Finn, from Craughwell to San Francisco, 1871

From Craughwell, Ireland 1871 to San Francisco, USA 1935 The Story of 14-year-old Immigrant: Michael Edward “The Duke” Finn and his contributions to American Professional Baseball.

Craughwell native son, Michael Edward Finn, later known in America as “The Duke of Santa Clara,” immigrated by himself to the United States as a teenager in 1871, the last of his family to make his way to America. While questions will remain unanswered about Finn’s early life in Craughwell, County Galway – when it comes to the question: “But did the lad make a good name for himself on those foreign shores?” the definitive answer is a resounding, “Grand so!”

Life for Michael, the first-born child of Patrick and Jane (nee Hanly) Finn, began in Craughwell but the life of his parents began in Lackagh, County Galway, 25 kilometers away. Michael’s mother, the young Jane Hanly of Lackagh, born in 1832, came of age during the Great Famine. Her future husband, Patrick Finn, also from Lackagh, was born 19 years before her. Their “May-December” relationship officially began on October 14, 1855 as they exchanged vows at Our Lady of Knock Church in Lackagh. Not much is currently known about the couple’s life but there is a note-worthy clue cast in stone that lives on in the nearby Killora graveyard.

The memorial for Michael’s father in the Killora Graveyard is a tabletop tomb made of stone; albeit, due to age and shifting soil, the table is halfway toppled over as of this writing. A tabletop tomb was much more expensive than a simple headstone and typically signified that a family had means and social standing. This type of monument was expensive to make because it required large stone slabs, supporting pillars and skilled stonemasonry. Compared to a plain upright headstone, a tabletop monument could cost several month’s wages for a farm laborer – an unlikely expense for one who was more concerned about keeping his family sheltered and fed than signage left behind. The tabletop tomb was a visible statement that gave the message of prosperity and respect in the parish. For Catholic families in particular, the tabletop tomb was a powerful expression of devotion and a theological statement. This type of tomb represented the alter of the Christian Eucharist as well as the table from the Last Supper of Christ. In the mid-1800’s such tombs were bold declarations of one’s Catholic identity which had been crushed and suppressed for centuries by the oppression of British rule.

Of the 181 souls buried in the Killora graveyard, Patrick’s is one of only a handful of tabletop tombs and his is the only Finn surname in this 16th century cemetery.

Patrick Finn’s tabletop tomb marker in the Killora Graveyard, September 25, 1858. Plot #83. Inscription: This monument has been erected by Jane Finn alias Hanly in memory of her beloved Husband Patrick Finn who departed this life Sept 25th 1858 aged 45 years. For him and posterity. A.D. 1858

The couple started in Lackagh but like many people from that parish, Finn and his bride relocated to the smaller parish of Craughwell to work for a landlord who bought land there at the time. Perhaps he was a land agent, an estate manager or held the role of an advisor to a landowner. Advisors shared their farming experience and/or local connections and this would have been seen as a valuable commodity. In 19th century rural Ireland people who had tabletop tombs were usually landholders, prosperous tenant farms, merchants and sometimes clergy. There is no documentation showing Patrick in any of those vocations, so the mystery remains.

Given their twenty-year age difference, theirs was probably an arranged marriage of convenience as Pat was considered “advanced in age” at 45 years at the time of his death. It was common and expected for couples to marry within their own social and economic rank so it can be assumed that was the case for Patrick Finn and Jane Hanly. Maybe true love abounded but unfortunately, with Pat’s untimely death, there wouldn’t have been much time for that love to grow.

Patrick Finn and Jane Hanly’s marriage record, Lackagh, County Galway, 1855.

There was time, however, to get the family started and proud parents welcomed their sturdy firstborn, Michael Edward Finn, on September 29, 1856 in Craughwell. Based on the significant life that Michael lived in America he certainly carried the warrior heart of his family namesake, the mythological Fionn MacCumhaill, also known as Finn MacCool. One can imagine that this vigorous baby entered the world with clenched fists and determined eyes, seemingly ready for the challenges and ambitious plans that lay before him in the coming days and years. At the time of Michael’s birth, over one million Irish citizens had already fled the Emerald Isle to save their lives and the lives of their loved ones, most heading to America. Three more million would leave in the next few decades. When Michael reached 14 years of age, he would become one of them where the legacy he built in America still endures today.

By the time Michael was nearly two years old, Jane’s prayers for a growing family were answered and his parents were expecting another child. Sadly, Patrick died just two weeks before Michael’s baby sister, Winnifred, was born, leaving 25-year-old Jane a young widow with a toddler son and newborn daughter. The cause of Patrick’s death is unknown. According to will and court records from the National Archives of Ireland, Patrick left his wife just under £200. This amount certainly would have been enough to purchase the lofty tomb for Pat in the Killora Graveyard, but the remaining money would have barely covered one year’s provision by today’s standards. With no widow’s pension at that time and no land to pass along to his young wife, Jane’s future would have been precarious. If Patrick was a land manager and theirs was an absentee landlord as was common in County Galway, the landlord would have reassigned the lease to someone else leaving Jane reliant on her relatives. Maybe she was fortunate and allowed to continue living on the leased land but without property of her own, her fate depended heavily on the goodwill of the landlord and the help of any male relatives. In spite of her limited resources it was still clearly important to Jane that her departed husband have this prominent and emblematic grave marker with its layered meanings.

After a “respectable” and expected period of mourning, Jane remarried Michael Finnegan of Craughwell two years later and by August of 1860, another baby girl, Mary Jane, is welcomed to the parish. Two more sons would come along, Peter and Francis, 1862 and 1865 respectively, and where there was once a Finn family of four there became a Finnegan family of seven.  Michael Edward Finn, however, the oldest child of Jane’s five children, kept his father’s surname all his days. Once a Finn, always a Finn.

By 1871, Michael was 14-years-old and his mother, stepfather and four siblings had made the trek across the Atlantic, settling on the west coast of America in San Francisco, California. Michael stayed behind for a full year, however. Some of the native Irish in west Ireland didn’t view America as the land of the opportunity but rather the “land of snakes” so the decision to immigrate was often considered a “forced exile.”  Jane may or may not have felt forced to immigrate. For most folks, life in Craughwell would remain a steady struggle for another fifty plus years and the desire for greater opportunity for one’s children is a strong motivating force. Michael’s stepfather immigrated first to the States in 1868 and worked diligently for two years prior to save the money needed to bring over Jane and the children. After two years of separation, in 1870 Jane and the four youngest children immigrated but her first born, Michael, stayed behind.

Why did teenager Michael E. Finn remain in Ireland for another year? Was there not enough money for his passage? Was he put to work to pay off some unsettled debts for the family? Maybe he was caring for elderly relatives until other arrangements could be made. How did he provide for himself? Perhaps he wanted to stay in Ireland against parental wishes and there were some heated late-night discussions between he and his mam on the matter. His mother must have felt painfully divided as she boarded her immigration ship with all but one of her children. The full immigration journey from rural West Ireland to the east coast of America could take several weeks, sometimes months. More prayers were needed for more family separation.

Whatever the reason for his delayed departure, Michael Finn’s name did indeed find its way to a ship’s manifest. Like his father, the only Finn buried in the Killora Graveyard, Michael was the only Finn passenger aboard the City of Brooklyn. For one today, it’s an impressive thing to ponder the courage and determination it took for this assuredly scrappy, strong-willed and persevering teen to cross the “pond” all by himself to New York City then wend his way across the United States another 2,000 miles to San Francisco, still alone, to meet up with his family.

Michael travelled to America on the steamship the City of Brooklyn. The sails were not just to provide auxiliary propulsion, but also were used in rough seas to keep the ship on an even keel and ensure that both paddle wheels remained in the water, driving the ship in a straight line.

Finn’s immigration ship departed Liverpool, England and arrived in New York in 1871. Though still unsavory, crowded and with the high risk of disease, this second wave of immigration vessels were a step up from the initial “coffin ships” with their horrific travel conditions and high mortality rates. The City of Brooklyn, about the size of an American football field, was a combination sailing and steam powered vessel making the journey across the Atlantic a safer endeavor than previous passages. Well before the journey across the Wild Atlantic, however, would be the journey of getting to Liverpool to catch the ship. Finn may have walked the 100-plus miles to either Cobh or Dublin to catch his ride across the Irish Sea to England; if he was lucky, he got a ride on a horse and cart. Depending on his financial status, he could have been working some odd jobs for food and lodging along the way. He would have needed his wits about him once arriving to the docks of Liverpool as there were plenty of exploitive types looking to rob, scam and trick the Irish out of their passage money.

Michael was 15 years too early to be greeted by the bonny Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, but the Manhattan shoreline was still an awe-inspiring sight with the beginnings of the iconic Brooklyn Bridge underway. He would have processed through Castle Garden as Ellis Island wasn’t built yet. The sea trip would have taken six to eight weeks but there were two or three more weeks needed by train to get to San Francisco and meet up with his family.

Finn didn’t linger long in New York City.  When his stepfather arrived four years earlier, he quickly learned that living and working conditions at the time for Irish immigrants, while somewhat improved from the first flood of the Great Famine immigration, were still paltry. Throughout the mid-nineteenth century the standard of living for the Irish in the major eastern cities wasn’t much better than life in Ireland. There was also the challenge of dealing with deep anti-Irish sentiment from the established Protestant Yanks in the northeast so the family set their sights on the burgeoning city of San Francisco on the west coast of America. “Go west, young man” was a frequent phrase in the States indicating greater opportunity in the development of the western part of the country. Plenty of work and scarcity of laborers brought higher wages than the Eastern seaboard, plus better weather in California meant employment all winter long. By 1870, San Francisco had grown from a village of less than 200 buildings to the tenth largest city in America to soon earn the name “Paris of the Pacific.” The rapidly growing city wasn’t as entrenched in the Protestant establishment of “historical” communities in the east making it less discriminatory towards the Irish and other immigrants. By the time Mike was 24 years old in 1880, one third of the population of San Francisco would be Irish. Go west, he did.

Finn wasted no time uniting his will and ambition with any opportunities that presented themselves; many of those opportunities he created himself. Judging by the paper trail of his life that is well documented in the American newspapers spanning a near 50-year period, there is no disputing that young Finn was an ambitious, focused and industrious man who implemented his big plans almost immediately after landing on those foreign shores.

There are countless American newspaper articles featuring the colorful and significant life of Mike Finn from the late 1870s through the mid 1930s; all from a variety of news outlets, most often the San Francisco Chronicle. The prevalent theme woven through these newsworthy mentions is that Michael “The Duke” Finn, as he later became known for his baseball exploits, was a man of great determination, no-nonsense, civic duty, high moral expectations, superstition, devoutly Catholic, a savvy businessman and no stranger to fisticuffs. On many occasions when he later became a baseball manager, Finn would pull his players by the collar out of saloons on a Saturday night to keep them away from the “chowder” before a game. In addition to self-discipline, honor and loyalty were essential values for Finn. The local papers recorded some public knock-downs where Finn openly tangled with others when his values were called into question.

Finn’s tobacco trading card when Manager/Player for the Pioneers.

Pennant Winners, 1887, San Jose Pioneers. Manager Mike Finn in the top hat, center.

As a teenager, Finn’s first job was working as a boot cutter in a local factory in the City by the Bay. While honing his tradesmen skills as a boot cutter he also honed his leadership skills and by the age of 22 was elected Captain of the Company B Second Infantry Regiment for the California National Guard. In his limited off-time, Mike discovered not only a love of baseball but that he possessed excellent skills for the sport. Adept at all positions, it was his pitching that gave him the most notoriety and his player standings are listed in multiple record books spanning almost a decade. Ever keeping his eye out for the next opportunity, Finn moved to a player/manager role, eventually owning a professional baseball team that won five championships – more than any other team during the California’s formative years of the new league (1886-1893). His contributions, along with a handful of others, led to the establishment of what is now known as the Pacific Coast League in American Major League baseball in 1903. Well into his advanced years and off the field, Finn remained a champion in the city and a front page of the San Francisco Chronicle in 1920 shows Finn holding court with the likes of Ty Cobb, where he hosted the future American baseball Hall of Fame in his own home.

Finn, 1920, hosted a reception in his home for American Hall of Famers, Ty Cobb. Quote from San Francisco Chronical article:  “Mike was pitching winning ball for the Pioneers before Cobb was born, but his heart is still young and he almost hugged Ty in the warmth of his greeting.”

Ten years after emigrating to America, in 1881 Finn met and married the love of his life, Mary Ann Dullea, a first generation born Irish-American, and they had 13 children together of whom 9 survived. Mike and Mary Ann were married 51 years before Mike’s passing. They survived the deaths of four children and carried on. They survived a home fire and rebuilt. A business fire and rebuilt. They survived the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906, losing everything except life and limb, and rebuilt. Faith. Family. Fortitude. Finn.

Mary Ann (nee Dullea) Finn, wife of Michael E. Finn

While not much is known about Finn’s formative years as a boy growing up in Craughwell, the generational anti-British sentiment in the area is very well known. Surely his devout Roman Catholic mother had more than a few things to say on the matter behind closed doors which would have served as the soundtrack to Finn’s early life and been instrumental in shaping his world view and values. It’s not hard to imagine that “The Duke” carried a deep love and loyalty of Ireland coupled with an inner force that drove his pursuits of building a good life for himself and family. Surely, he also held a sense of satisfaction as he gave his American response to the British enforced Penal Laws of his native land that were designed to oppress the Irish people.  For example, the Penal Laws made it illegal to own land and pass land down to descendants, the American Finn’s reply to this degradation was becoming a significant land and property owner in the San Francisco Bay area and passing down a home to each of his children. The Penal Laws forbade Catholics to vote or run for office – he did both in America; Finn was a stalwart in the Democratic Party and involved in San Francisco politics well into the 1920’s. The Duke must have also enjoyed poetic justice when he held a position as a deputy U.S. Marshall. His response to the harsh “no Irish horse ownership” law was to purchase and maintain a dozen thoroughbreds of his own. The old Penal Laws made it unlawful for the Irish to own or engage in most businesses. Finn answered the tyrannical mandate by not only owning several successful businesses but also owning a professional baseball team that was instrumental in establishing American Major League baseball on the west coast of the United States.

Pitcher, Michael “The Duke” Finn, 1880s In the Oakland Tribune’s opinion, “a pitching star of magnitude.”

Keeping the good time Irish spirit of craic alive and well (the Irish word for fun, enjoyment and connection), Finn hosted many a party in his large, well-appointed homes. The emphasis on music, dancing, storytelling and folklore of his west Ireland origins were played out in the brightly lit parlors in his stately Page Street home. The merrymaking was often fueled by the ragtime music his daughter, Ruth, would play on the family piano. The young Irish “living out” girls he hired as servants kept the top-shelf liquor flowing and the younger Finn children watched the festivities atop the grand winding staircase. In equal measure to generous party hosting, Finn was benevolent. He would often host charity baseball games where the entire receipts would be given to create funds for the city orphans. It would have been common practice at the time for Mike to send money back home to aid the cause for Irish independence. And of a more private nature, it wasn’t uncommon for the wayward vagabond to find a basket of food at the backdoor of Finn’s home.  His final years were spent further away from city life on his quiet farm in the nearby area of Concord. Gatherings were held on the property where the Finn farm home remained a focal point for friends and family for many years.

Mike, like many Irish immigrants, had a strong desire for his children to be fully and formally educated. He provided private Catholic education for each of his children. By the early 1900s, Irish-American-Catholics had surpassed educational levels of native-born Protestants. In addition to furnishing costly private education for his brood, he also ensured that each of his children had homes to call their own. With this great generosity, though, there must have been times where he felt the sting of a widening gap between that ambitious fire in his immigrant heart with what he likely saw as contented warm embers in the hearts of his American born children. The next generation of Irish generally didn’t consider themselves the fleeing fugitives who were seeking vengeance for the suffering and wrongdoing across the sea. The oldest Finn children could have heard distressing tales from their famine surviving Grandmother, Jane. While Jane probably grew up with steady housing and provision in her formative years in Lackagh, she would have absolutely seen the horrors of the Great Starvation and its lasting effects all around her in that small community. For her grandchildren, wealthy youngsters living in the cosmopolitan city of San Francisco, hearing tragic tales about life in a distant farmland across the sea must have seemed like another time and place altogether.

How did Mike feel as his children selected their spouses? No doubt the neighbors on Page Street would have heard the intense arguing between he and his firstborn daughter, Mamie, when she told her father that she didn’t want to become a nun after all and left the novitiate training she had begun; certainly a crushing disappointment for the devout Catholic father. To add insult to injury, Mamie also told Mike she had fallen in love with an Englishman, Alexander Shepherd, born to immigrant British parents, who himself left his nearly completed training for the priesthood in pursuit of her love. They would later become Presbyterians. But in spite of Michael experiencing great disappointment that his first born daughter turned her back on the convent and entered a “mixed” marriage, the generous father hosted a grand wedding affair for the couple and her new British immigrant family. Family first.

Finn with two of his daughters. Oldest daughter, Mamie Finn Shepherd, on the right, shortly after her wedding to Alexander Shepherd in 1904.

As with any Irish immigration story, success can be defined in four and half million ways – the number of Irish people who immigrated to the United States Between 1841 and 1900. For Michael Edward “The Duke” Finn of Craughwell, it’s clear that his definition of success was centered on providing for his family as well as keeping his proud Irish legacy alive both in his heart and in the new land where he walked. One of his enduring legacies is being instrumental in the establishment of professional baseball on the west coast of America leading to the founding of the Pacific Coast League which still endures today. A more in-depth narrative about Finn and his contributions can be found in the biography from the Society for American Baseball Research. His greatest legacy, however, is preserving and building upon the strong lambswool thread that connects his descendants in America to his many ancestors in Craughwell Parish, County Galway, knit together with his mother’s prayers and the prayers of all the Irish mothers before her.

Deborah Shepherd Hayes

Deborah Shepherd Hayes, Great-Great Granddaughter of Michael Edward “The Duke” Finn, the author of this story, is interested in the surnames Hanly, Finn and Finnegan in the Craughwell and Lackagh areas of county Galway, circa 1850-1870

Sources:

Miller, K. and Wagner, P. (1994) Out of Ireland

Elliott & Clark Publishing, Washington, DC. USA.

O’Regan, Finbarr. “The Young Fionn Mac Cumhail”. https://athenry.org

February 5, 2021. https://athenry.org/record/the-young-fionn-mac-cumhail-317/

Clooney, Gerry. (2018) Craughwell, A Parish in County Galway

Gerry Cloonan Publishing. Caherfurvaus, Craughwell, Co. Galway. Ireland.

Caledonian Maritime Research Trust. “Scottish Built Ships. The History of Shipbuilding in Scotland.” 2024.

https://www.clydeships.co.uk/view.php?a1PageSize=75&ship_listPage=17&a1Order=yard_number&a1Dir=ASC&a1Page=291&ref=22631&vessel=CITY+OF+BROOKLYN

Charlie Weatherby. “Michael E. Finn”. Society for American Baseball Research.

https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/michael-e-finn/

San Francisco Chronicle, 1878-1956
“Calendars of Wills and Administrations, 1858-1922.” The National Archives of Ireland. Accessed August 21, 2025. https://www.willcalendars.nationalarchives.ie/search/cwa/details.jsp?id=1639735265

Special thanks to Dr. Kieran Jordan of Ireland Reaching Out and Ms. Breda Finn, Historian at the Lackagh Museum and Heritage Centre.