Donnellys: Powder Keg, 1840-1880 , livre ebook

Ecw Press - John Little

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296 pages

English

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'A violent family living in violent times. In the 1840s, the Donnelly family immigrates from Ireland to the British province of Canada. Almost immediately problems develop as the patriarch of the family is sent to the Kingston Penitentiary for manslaughter, leaving his wife to raise their eight children on her own. The children are raised in an incredibly violent community and cultivate a devoted loyalty to their mother and siblings, which often leads to problems with the law and those outside of the family. The tensions between the family and their community escalate as the family s enemies begin to multiply. The brothers go into business running a stagecoach line and repay all acts of violence perpetrated against them, which only worsens the situation. Refusing to take a backwards step, the Donnellys stand alone against a growing power base that includes wealthy business interests in the town of Lucan, the local diocese of the Roman Catholic

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Publié par	Ecw Press
Date de parution	02 novembre 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781773058450
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	3 Mo

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The Donnellys: Powder Keg, 1840–1880
John Little

Contents Epigraph Dedication Maps Preface Prologue Chapter One: The Morning After Chapter Two: The Things We Do for Land Chapter Three: Growing Up Donnelly Chapter Four: Love and War Chapter Five: Hell on Wheels Chapter Six: Trials and Tribulations Chapter Seven: Hugh McKinnon, P.I. Chapter Eight: The Winds of Change Chapter Nine: Railroaded Chapter Ten: The New Arrival Chapter Eleven: The Priest and The Club-Footed Devil Chapter Twelve: The Cow and The Fiddle Chapter Thirteen: Divine Outlaws Chapter Fourteen: Death and Liberation Chapter Fifteen: The Night Pat Ryder’s Barn Went Up in Flames Chapter Sixteen: Final Days Notes on Text Bibliography Acknowledgements About the Author Index Copyright

Epigraph
“Shake my boy, we don’t have to go out in every rainstorm to wash the blood off our hands.”
— Bob Donnelly

Dedication
To the tireless efforts of Ray and Bev Fazakas, who not only researched this story but lived it for many decades.

Maps

Lucan, ON, 1880. Based on a hand-drawn map by Ray Fazakas during the early years of his research on the Donnelly story.

Preface

The Donnelly family headstone, indicating the family members who were murdered on February 4, 1880. (Photo by author)
It’s eleven o’clock on Saturday, November 8, 2014. My youngest son, Ben, and his South Muskoka Bears Minor Midget hockey team have just finished their first game of a tournament in St. Marys, Ontario. They won their game and Ben scored a nice goal, so I’m happy. But the team’s next game isn’t until two o’clock that afternoon, so we’re going to be doing a lot of sitting around until an hour or so before the next game. Ben, understandably, wants to hang out with his friends on the team during this interval, which means he’s going to park himself at the arena. Consequently, I now find myself alone with three hours on my hands to fill. It occurs to me that I’m not that far from the Roman Line, maybe a thirty-minute drive. I’ve always wanted to go there, as somewhere on that stretch of roadway sits the property upon which the Donnelly story played out. The infamous Donnelly children were raised on that lot of land and four members of the family were murdered there on a cold February night in 1880.
Despite being taught nothing of this bit of southern Ontario history in school, when I first learned about the Donnellys, their story gripped me like few stories have (before or since). Indeed, some thirty years previously, during my second year of university, a roommate had invited me to spend a weekend at his parents’ home in Mitchell, Ontario. During the course of meeting his parents, we sat down at the family table to eat. Some small talk was exchanged and then I posed a question that I thought would be a good icebreaker: “How far away is Lucan?” His father, a lawyer in town, answered, “Oh, about half an hour. Not far. Are you interested in going to Lucan?” “Definitely!” I replied enthusiastically. “Why?” he asked. “I understand that’s where the Donnellys were killed,” I replied. Although my statement was wrong (i.e., the Donnellys were killed within their farmhouse on the Roman Line in Biddulph — not Lucan, which is about four and a half miles southwest from where they lived), my enthusiasm was obvious. But then a look fell over the father’s face that immediately let me know I would not be going to Lucan. “We don’t talk about that here ,” he said. And the table fell quiet until someone introduced a subject that was evidently far less contentious. I never forgot that, and the father’s attitude only served to further fan the flames of my nascent curiosity.
So now, thirty years later, I find myself driving along Breen Drive, a country road in Biddulph Township, looking to intersect the infamous Roman Line concession road. Just my luck, it starts to rain. As the windshield wipers engage to sweep the water from my windshield, I keep looking left and right like I’m going to recognize something; perhaps a big neon arrow with the words “Donnelly home here!” will present itself. A stop sign looms up ahead, which causes me to slow down and then come to a complete stop. I must be lost. I hit the button to roll down the passenger side window of the truck to see if I can read the road sign that sits on my side of the small intersection. And there it is — the “Roman Line.” I throw the truck in park and step out. This is the road that author Thomas P. Kelley, in his book The Black Donnellys , had said horses were afraid to run along at night after the murders had occurred. An old wives’ tale to be certain, but such tales have grown into legends that, rightly or wrongly, have become accepted as facts. There is a deep history to this road and I am overtaken by the urge to stand right smack in the middle of it and take in the view. The weather has made it darker than it ought to be for a fall afternoon, but given the road’s connection to violence and murder, it seems eerily appropriate. I return to the truck, turn right and now find myself driving along the Roman Line. I’ve called ahead to the man who presently owns the old Donnelly property, Robert Salts. He’s a retired schoolteacher who used to give tours on his plot of land; he lives in a house that was constructed on the property by three of the surviving Donnelly brothers back in 1881. The house has been added to over the years but the original building still remains. He had told me that he would be happy to sign a copy of his book about the property ( You’re Never Alone ) for me, but he isn’t feeling up to conducting any more tours. This is fine by me. I’m excited just to see the land.
I pull up to the front of Lot 18, and immediately am taken by the fact that it was here, in this exact spot, that a group of twenty (some would claim forty) men came at 12:30 a.m. in the early morning hours of February 4, 1880, with the sole intent of murdering the Donnelly family. It’s admittedly creepy, and the house looks creepy too. The dark sky and rain are simply augmenting the uncomfortableness of the experience. I leave the truck and knock on the door of the house and Salts invites me in. He’s a nice person; so is his wife. After some small talk he presents me with a copy of his book and I hand him some cash. I get the feeling that he’d rather I leave. I’m sure he’s given the Donnelly talk thousands of times before and, since he’s recently closed his property to tours, he’s probably done with it. I’m fine with that, as I really just wanted to experience the place where it all went down. I ask if I can take a few photos from the driveway and roadway, to which he graciously consents. I snap away with my iPhone, photographing the exterior of the house and the original Donnelly barn that was built by the brothers of the family sometime in the 1880s and lifted onto a cement base by Bob Donnelly shortly after he acquired the property in 1905. I snap images of the fieldstones that are placed at distinct corners in the lawn beside the present house, said to mark the foundation of where the original Donnelly farmhouse stood. The area just in front of it is where Tom Donnelly, the youngest son, was beaten to death. In the corner of the property are the ruins of what once was the Donnelly schoolhouse — a place where the local children came to learn how to read and write. Across the road is nothing, although the Donnellys’ neighbours used to have homes on the east side of the road. Nothing stands there anymore. The rain picks up, but that’s okay. I’ve seen enough. Ben’s game starts in an hour. I get back in my truck and turn it toward St. Marys.
I decide to take a different route on my way back to the arena and find myself passing St. Patrick’s Church. This is cause to stop the truck again. St. Patrick’s played host to the Donnelly family — and those who killed them. They all attended church services here. Moreover, all but three of the Donnellys are buried in the church cemetery. It’s worth braving the rain once more to pay my respects. St. Patrick’s is a beautiful church with a huge wooden door that all the major players in the drama walked through at one time or another. Every member of the Donnelly family, and all of their friends and all of their enemies, came here to attend services, for confession, to attend family weddings and funerals. Father John Connolly, another major player in the story, once lived in the small stone rectory out back and when he ventured inside for his sermons he occasionally spoke out against the Donnelly family. After a while, I locate the headstone for the murdered family members. It’s standard in size, at least compared to its predecessor, which was an eleven-foot monument that stood over the grave like a sentinel for seventy-some years, until it was replaced by this more modest offering in the mid-1960s, when the administrators of the church had grown tired of having endless streams of people tramping through their property and holding drinking vigils next to it. In any event, it’s time to go.
On the way back, my memories of what had piqued my interest in the Donnelly story return. I see my friend’s father sternly telling me that the Donnellys were a subject that wasn’t talked about in this area. Twenty years before that, my sister Jane had read a passage to me from Kelley’s book while at our dining room table in Agincourt, in which Johannah Donnelly, the matriarch of the family, walloped one of her sons in the back of the head with a cast-iron frying pan, laying him out cold on the f