"Sligo" is the name of a county in northeastern Ireland, overlooking the Donegal Bay to the north; a stretch of old Erin, bounded by County Mayo on the east, Roscommon on the south, and Leitrim on the west, with seventy-five or eighty miles of ragged coastline bordering the bay. It is a very small county, not more than thirty miles across at its greatest breadth. We are in doubt as to why its name was selected by the earliest Irish immigrants as the one to be applied to the locality they settled, in the town now known as Dellona, yet it was, and many settlers of recent memory knew Dellona in its early days as Sligo...
Several families appear to have come to Sligo during the following year, 1847, but we are able to make mention of only two: that of Mrs. Margaret Hooben, a widowed woman, who brought her family hither from County Galway, Ireland. A granddaughter, Mrs. Frank Darrenogue, now resides in Reedsburg. The family of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Timlin also came that year, 1847. The year of 1848 brought two other families into Sligo, those of James Slaven and Patrick Mulliagn. Of these, possibly the Slaven family were first, for one record states that they came as early as 1847, while another places the date as 1848.
James Slaven, a native of County Tyrone, Ireland, was of French ancestors, who to escape the persecutions, fled to Ireland, during the early 1600's, where for several generations, they remained, and the man whose name introduces this paragraph was the only one of his name to come to Sauk County. He was born December 25, 1788, and died April 28, 1872. His wife, whom he married in Ireland, was Mary Denny. She was born August 15, 1818, and died October 11, 1873, and was a native of Kings County, Ireland. The family came to America at a very early date, and settled in Dane County, Wisconsin, prior to coming to Dellona. They located on the farm later owned and occupied by their son John Slaven. They were the parents of five children, three of whom, Mrs. Casey, Lyndon, John, just mentioned and Mary, who became the wife of Francis Burns of Ironton, were lifelong residents of this community.
History of Reedsburg and the Upper Baraboo Valley, by Merton Edwin Krug.
Published February 1929 by the author, printed by Democrat Printing Company, Madison, Wisconsin.