Haughery was born in Cavan, Ireland in 1814. She was the daughter of Charles and Margaret (O'Rourke) Gaffney. When she was about eight years old, her parents brought her with them to America. Almost immediately after their arrival both parents died in Baltimore. Haughery's rearing was taken over by a Welsh family that had crossed in the vessel with her; they were people of great kindliness but very poor.
Haughery's family was unable to send her to school.
Haughery worked for a while as laundress in a hotel, and later, having saved enough funds, bought two cows and started a dairy. Her business prospered, and she soon put both it and herself at the disposal of a practically defunct Catholic orphan asylum. In behalf of her new interest, she peddled her butter and milk through the city, devoting the proceeds and as much discarded food as she could beg to the support of the orphan protégés who were constantly becoming dearer to her.
After a while, she took over for debt a small baker's shop. This business prospered also, becoming at length one of the largest bakeries in the South, and is said to have been the first there to employ steam.
Before long, she was known everywhere merely as "Margaret, " one of the institutions of the city. Money somehow flooded in to her, and she was in haste to release it, particularly for the well-being of orphans, for whom she was instrumental in establishing and sustaining three homes capable altogether of looking after 600 children.
She personally nursed masses of the victims of yellow-fever epidemics, paddled her own relief boat when the overflowing Mississippi made people destitute, and once, it is alleged, set aside from her path a Civil War sentry who attempted to halt her in a charitable expedition to a prison camp.
She died in New Orleans.
Margaret Gaffney Haughery was a beloved historical figure in New Orleans. She opened up four orphanages in the New Orleans area in the 19th century. Many years later in the 20th and 21st centuries several of the asylums Margaret founded as places of shelter for orphans and widows evolved into homes for the elderly. Countless thousands of all creeds considered her a living saint worthy of canonisation. Two years after her death a statue, representing her as the city remembered her - shawled and seated on a chair at her bakery door, with her arm about a symbolic orphan - was erected in a small park, known since as Margaret Place.
The death of her husband and child turned Haughery toward religion, and she became a member of the Catholic church.
Haughery was thrifty, shrewd, and kindly. She was as robust physically as she was sagacious.
In 1835 Margaret Haughery married Charles Haughery. Within a year his health failed and the two moved from Baltimore to New Orleans. Later, seeking the benefits of a sea voyage, her husband went to Ireland, and while there died, leaving her with a young child and practically without money. Within a brief time her child died too.
