Source: The Pioneer History of Pocahontas County, Iowa. Ed. Robert E. Flickinger. Fonda: G. Sanborn, 1904.

Crahan, Patrick (b. 1832; d. 1898), founder of the Crahan Place on sw 1/2 sec. 8, Lizard township, was a native of Clare county, Ireland, and was left an orphan at nine. Going to the Lowlands of Scotland at fifteen he found employment as a ditcher, and during the next six years earned his passage money to America. At 21 he came to Elmira, N.Y. and engaged in railroad construction. In 1854 he married Margaret McMahon, and soon afterward located at Winona, Wis., and then in Iowa along the Illinois Central R.R., successively at Julian, Manchester, Elk Run, Iowa Falls and in the spring of 1869 in Lizard township. Here he secured the homestead right of J.J. Bruce and began to farm. He returned to the railroad, however, when he suffered the loss of crops by the grasshoppers and other causes. Although he worked on the railroad more than twenty-five years he proved an aggressive and very successful farmer. As the years passed he added 460 acres to the homestead making 620 acres in the Crahan Place, which he made a beautiful home.

His wife in whose honor the Rolfe Catholic church was named "St. Margaret," died in 1895. He died at 66 in 1898. His family consisted of eleven children of whom seven are living.
Michael Crahan,
Mary in 1894, married Michael Fitzgerald, located on sec. 1, and died in 1895.
Thomas is the owner of a farm of 120 acres on sec. 18. In 1891 he married Maggie Bradigan.
John in 1897, married Sadie Tierney and occupies a farm of 120 acres on secs. 6 and 18.
Nellie, in 1897, married Patrick Connors, and lives on a farm near Barnum.
Katie, in 1896 married Wm. Tierney, and lives at Rolfe.
Bridget and William are at home.
Patrick died at 20 in 1896, and Maggie at 17, in 1899.