Cynthia,

Thank you for your informative reply.

Railroads were my first thought. I'd seen a PBS program a few years back abt. a group of Irish immigrants on a work gang who'd all died working on a railroad construction project & whose burial locations were unknown. Remembering that program had me considering railroads now.

Knowing now from you that LaSalle was a railroad town, they just might have needed more labor for construction or other railroad labor than was available in the surrounding area so maybe that is a reason for John Keegan going out there from Providence, RI.

In my searches I've seen M & H Zinc works mentioned & wondered if it was large enough an operation as to need to solicit workers from out of the immediate LaSalle area.

That caused me to wonder if John Keegan had perhaps gone to LaSalle to work at M & H with the intention of bringing his wife & children out at some point later on when he'd made enough money to do so but, unfortunately, lost his life instead & thus the remainder of the family stayed in Providence.

I saw mention of a canal also but, as you've noted & I, too, found, that project was just about complete by the time period I'm looking at.

Thanks for suggesting LaSalle County Genealogy Guild. My Googling seemed to have missed them w/the search terms I was using. I'll have to remember to add the term "guild" to the list of words to include in future searches for historical groups.

I've just sent the Guild an email so perhaps they will be able to help me. I hope I'll hear something positive from them.

Thanks again!