Michael Grogan was born in 1826 in Ireland. Being from a farming district, Grogan immigrated to the United States during the infamous potato famine which swept across Ireland from 1845 through 1847 and found himself in the area of Westborough, Massachusetts when the American Civil War broke out. At the time, he was employed as a shoe maker and  enlisted at the age of 35 into the 24th Massachusetts Regiment, on September 17, 1861; in the township of Newton, a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts. On September 19th he was mustered into Captain J. Crosby Maker’s Company K. The 24th Infantry Regiment was organized at Camp Massasoit, Readville, Massachusetts from September through December 1861, under the personal supervision of Maj. Thomas G. Stevenson, of the old New England Guards Battalion, the 4th Battalion, M. V. M., who became its first Colonel. The Regiment left Massachusetts for Annapolis, Maryland on December 9, 1861 and was first attached to Foster's 1st Brigade, Burnside's Expeditionary Coast Division until April 1862. It was then attached to the 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, Dept. of North Carolina with which it stayed until January 1863. From 1863 through 1866 it was attached to the Dept. of North Carolina, the Dept. of the South, the Dept. of Virginia and North Carolina and to the Department of Virginia again.

Burnside's Expedition sailed from Annapolis on January  9, 1862, as a part of the expedition bound for the coast of North Carolina, taking the 24th Massachusetts to the Hatteras Inlet and Roanoke Island, North Carolina; from January 6th through February 7th, 1862. They participated in the Battle of Roanoke Island on February 8th with losses and was again engaged at the Battle of New Berne on March 14, 1862,  where Grogan was was wounded  with a rifle ball in his right arm. That pretty much assured that Grogan would see no further action with his regiment, because he also contracted a disease called “dyspepsia”. Dyspepsia is considered a functional disease and refers to a condition in which there are upper abdominal pains, bloating, a feeling of unusual fullness with very little intake of food, nausea and/or belching. Such symptoms are often are provoked by eating. A French writer in 1862 called dyspepsia "the remorse of a guilty stomach." A military Certificate of Disability list called the disease one that often led to general debility and permanent disablement. Such was the case of Grogan, when the Assistant Surgeon for the 85th New York, J.M. Palmer in charge of the sick of the 24th, signed off on Grogan’s papers which led to his discharge on June 10, 1863 at New Bern, North Carolina; after which Grogan returned to Westborough, Massachusetts.

A little more than a year later, in 1865, Grogan returned to his home in Ireland, and like all Irish farmers, returned to working the farm his father and his father before him had worked. Meeting the daughter of a family in the village of Lagoo, on July 11, 1869, thirty-nine year old Michael married 20 year old Mary Cunnery; who spoke only Gaelic. Neither had ever received much schooling and when it came time to sign their marriage certificate, they did so by placing an X for their respective names.  Michael and Mary had a total of five children; Anne born May 25, 1867, Thomas born November 28, 1869, Catherine born February 25, 1872, Margaret born in 1874, Mary Katherine born August 1, 1878 and Patrick John born February 1, 1881. In 1881 Michael made contact with his brother Thomas who was home visiting in Ireland, but who had migrated to New South Wales in 1850, and Michael and Mary accompanied Thomas back to Australia. Thomas sponsored Michael and his family, paying the sponsorship fee himself. Michael in the meantime sold their home, land and belongings for 25 pounds and added to Thomas’s sponsorship money, Michael and Mary prepared for a trip to Australia.
 

The ship "Nerbudda"

British India Steam Navigation Company Ltd.
 
Michael, Mary and their five children, after paying 13 pounds, 7 shillings and 6 pence each, boarded the sailing ship “Nerbudda” at Plymouth, England on December 17, 1882 and after 91 days at sea, the birth of six children aboard the ship and the death of twenty passengers, they arrived at Sydney, New South Wales; on March 28, 1883. Anne being 16 years of age and Thomas being 14, they were required to be listed on the passenger log as a ”single female” and a “single male”.

Thomas Grogan, Michael’s brother, owning a grocery store in the town of Burwood, New South Wales, was well established and owned a large, house and several acres of land; bordered on the sides by Grogan’s-road (now Acton-street), Grogan-street and Dawson-street.

This is now demolished, and the land subdivided into what is known as Cowan Estate.  So they constructed a small house for Michael and his family on the south side of Grogan’s Road, which at the time was a dead-end private road.

Michael and Mary’s last son Joseph was born there in 1883, after which Michael’s brother Thomas died, in 1884. In 1895 There is a curious story connected with this old place, which occurred in 1895. It will be better understood by stating just here that Grogan’s-road was then not open to the public (being fenced with the Dawson Estate).

The story is that  “A poor brother was brought over form America, where he had fought in the Civil War. For this brother a house was erected on the south end of Grogan’s-road, where he lived for some time, the road at that time not being used and fenced off from Queen-street.

When the time came that this road was required for public use, the services of the Crown Law Officers had to be obtained for the purpose of evicting the quite innocent trespassers on the public highway, when the old cabin (which stood close to St. Peter’s C. of England School-room) was demolished”.

  
In 1895 the community government decided Grogan Road and the Grogan land was needed for the construction of a public street, so the city payed compensation for the road and land and Michael’s family moved to Five Dock, New South Wales, a suburb of Burwood.
 
In 1900 Michael began receiving a U.S. military pension of $12 (US) a month, under certificate number 1243271, for his period of service with the Union Army. Michael in the meantime had become an accomplished stonemason and continued working while receiving his pension, when he passed away on July 26, 1907. After a church ceremony Michael Grogan was buried in the Catholic Section of the Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney, New South Wales.
 

“A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion”, Frederick H. Dyer, 1959.

Birth, Marriage and Death Records, Boston, Mass.

Jennifer Fauxsmith, Massachusetts State Archives, Boston, Mass.

“Massachusetts Soldiers, Sailors and Marines in the Civil War”,

Massachusetts Adjutant General's Office, The Norwood Press, 1932.

 “New England Guard Regiment”, Alfred Seeleye Roe, Twenty-Fourth Veteran Association, 1907

 “Record of the Massachusetts volunteers, 1861-1865”,

Boston: The Adjutant General under a resolve of the General Court, 1868-1870

 Rookwood Cemetery Records -   Sands Directory, 1885 – 1894

Ships of the Royal Navy, J. J. Colledge, Greenhill Books, 1987

“The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union

and Confederate Armies”, United States War Department, Government Printing Office, 1880-1901

U. S. Pension Records # 1243271

“Reminiscences by G.S. (George Simpson) of ‘Burwood Municipal Jubilee official Souvenir”, published in 1924