CORRIGAN, TEXAS (Bee County). Corrigan (Corrigan Settlement), six miles east of Skidmore on Aransas Creek in southern Bee County, was established in 1835 by Irish immigrants and received its name some thirteen years later. The community's earliest settlers included James O'Reilly and Jeremiah O'Toole; O'Toole had moved from Ireland to New York in 1825. In 1826, with hopes of obtaining land from the Mexican government (see MEXICAN TEXAS), O'Toole and O'Reilly visited the area on Aransas Creek. After returning to New York, O'Toole took his family aboard the New Packet, which arrived in Texas in 1829. Five years later he acquired 12,000 acres on Aransas Creek. In 1835 the family built a home at a site on the San Patricio-La Bahía road. The area's early settlers attempted ranching but were hindered in their efforts and sometimes forced to flee in the face of Indian attacks and raiding Mexicans. When O'Toole's daughter, Ellen, married Irish immigrant John Corrigan in 1848, the couple built their home on O'Toole's land, and the hamlet that developed was subsequently named Corrigan Settlement. In 1871 Ellen (O'Toole) Corrigan and her brother Martin O'Toole transferred to the bishop of Galveston several acres for a Catholic church and cemetery; the Sacred Heart of Jesus Church and the Campo Santo cemetery were constructed at the site. In 1898 the settlement had a school with one teacher and ten students. By 1936 the community had four or five scattered dwellings. The cemetery, marked by a state historical marker, remained in 1990, when several families resided on nearby lands. At that time the area was still referred to as Corrigan.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Grace Bauer, Bee County Centennial, 1858-1958 (Bee County Centennial, 1958). Camp Ezell, Historical Story of Bee County, Texas (Beeville: Beeville Publishing, 1973). Rachel Bluntzer Hébert, The Forgotten Colony: San Patricio de Hibernia (Burnet, Texas: Eakin Press, 1981). St. Joseph's Catholic Church: 50th Anniversary, 1927-1977 (Beeville, Texas, 1978?).

Adrian D. Ramirez