Patrick McCANN and Elizabeth BRIEN
County Wicklow, Ireland to Gloucester Township
February 26, 2008:
Hi Al,
I had an email from a man in NS who saw the McCann family listed in our chart on
B or B, and one of his ancestors seems to be the Ann in the attached family.
I was astonished to find that I had the Clonmore parish, County Wicklow, baptisms of
3 of the McCann children. Here they are:
CATHERINE of PATRICK McCANN and ELIZABETH BRIEN
bapt. 22nd OCT. 1826
sp: MICHAEL DOYLE and BETTY DOYLE
PATRICK of PATRICK McCANN and ELIZABETH BRIEN
bapt. 20th MAY 1832
sp: HUGH DOYLE and MARY BYRNE
JOHN of PATRICK McCANN and ELIZABETH BRIEN
bapt. 11th OCT. 1823
sp: PATRICK DOYLE and MARY WHELAN
I suspect those Doyles would be relatives. (The son, John, maybe stayed in ireland.)
... Anne
_____________________________
Fitzwilliam Tenants from County Wicklow - Family Group
ID: 742 Parish Aghowle
Year Listed: 1851
Surname McCann
Reference No. 72
Group Members:
Eliza 54, Bryan 29, Catherine 24, Pat 19, Ann 17, George 15.
Voyage Townland
Ship Pilgrim As spelt in the Emigration
Departure New Ross. May 1st Aghold
Arrival Quebec Official Aghowle
Other Information Holding
Chest/Graves in side column.
__________________________
Hi Al,
I've been corresponding with a Gary Long, descendant of Ann McCann and Richard Brady,
and from what he gave me, plus what you have on B or B, I've put this material
together on the FW McCanns in Ottawa. I asked Gary Long to send you a family tree
for Ann McCann and descendants, and he said he could do that.
George McCann, b c1837 Co. Wicklow, s/o Patrick McCann and Elizabeth Brien,
married Mary Bambrick, d/o Michael Bambrick and Mary Long (ND Cathedral)
- known children: Patrick (b c1868); Michael (b c1870)
Patrick McCann, b 20-5-1832, Aghowle, Co. Wicklow, s/o Patrick McCann and Elizabeth
Brien, m. Margaret Hogg
- known child: Margaret, b c1865, m. Victor Auger b c1861, s/o Joseph Auger and Martha
Isabella Leslie
Ann McCann, b c1833 Co. Wicklow, s/o Patrick McCann and Elizabeth Brien, m. Richard Brady
- known child, Margaret, b c1864, m. John Allen Long, b c1849, s/o John Long and
Mary Allen, on 21-11-1883. (Mr. Long was previously married (14-5-1874) to Elizabeth
Kill, s/o John Kill and Isabella Henry.)
Al, do you suppose John Long was related to the Mary Long who m. Michael Bambrick
at Notre Dame Cathedral: 26 June 1835, whose daughter Mary m. George McCann, above??
Bryan McCann, b c1822 Co. Wicklow, was in Gloucester Township in 1851 (census page attached),
listed next to Robert Sharp, also from Aghowle (mentioned in the letter from Thomas
Dowling on the Wicklow emigrants' page on B or B).
Bryan McCann was on the same 1851 census page as Moses Doyle, who kept us so
busy last week!
I've found nothing on Catherine McCann.
... Anne
___________________________
don't know how I missed this yesterday, Al: the marriage of the parents of that
FW McCann family:
Clonmore RC parish, Co. Wicklow:
PATRICK McCANN of KILLINURE married ELIZABETH BRIEN of UPPER MUNNY alias
MONEY 4th DEC. 1817 wit : JOHN DONOHOE and KITTY DOYLE.
This couple must have moved into AGHOLD after their marriage,
... Anne
____________________________
Here's a possible tangent or red herring, not my first:
Anne:
Look at this list of labourers from the 1851 census.
There are several large farm families plus numerous "labourers", all Catholic,
INCLUDING our Robert Sharp. It's as if they were all working on a construction project
together. Maybe clearing land for one of the farmers, maybe building Our Lady of the
Visitation Church, maybe working at the locks at Long Island, or maybe working or
staying at the large RC operation (retreat / seminary / boarding place?) on the
Bowesville Road, not far from South Gloucester. I wish I knew more about that place --
maybe it was a boarding place for new immigrants from Ireland. Was Robert Sharp a
Catholic, or is the census record incorrect?
Note: Michael Daley has informed me that this property was the 200 acre Spratt farm.
It is now called "Wapoos Farm" and is owned by the Oblate Fathers. It was not owned
by the Oblates until the late 1950's.
I believe that some of these men belonged to farms in the area, Patrick Fox, the
Redmonds, etc. What were they doing all apparently working together and not working
their farms at the time of the 1851 census?
... Al
(names for search engine: Patrick Fox, John Redmond, Bryan McCann, Robert Sharp, William Chapman,
Owen O'Donnell?, Thomas Rourke / O'Rourke, Mary Redmond, Patrick Whelan and John Doyle).
___________________________
Hi Al:
I think that Catholic designation for Robert Sharp is an error, Al. I think, since
he could write, that he was a Methodist / Presbyterian like Barb Dowling's people.
Would these men have been stonecutters in Ireland? In last week's discussion about
Brian Doyle's Hill, Mary Quinn mentioned quarries in
the area. Clearing land for the farmers is a very likely occupation for them, too,
as you suggest.
Now the following is a bit off the wall.
When I asked John O to search for Brian Doyle, he had no success, and said Brian / Bryan
would be an unusual first name in Ireland then; it was more commonly a surname.
Here's the off-the-wall part: Could Brian Doyle's first name perhaps have come from
his mother's surname, Brien / Bryan? (Notice that Bryan McCann of Gloucester carries
his mother's surname as his first name, AND that in 1851 he was on the next page to
Brian Doyle, b. Wicklow.)
Lower Aghowle is about a mile (probably less) from the Carlow border.
... Anne
________________________
Anne: There are very few men using Brian as a first name among the Peter Robinson
Settlers of 1823, the 1818 military settlers in Goulbourn or mentioned on the
McCabe List.
However, here are a couple of real Irish names in early Bytown. These first names
are also likely last names. Here are the names -- poetry in a name:
Callahan Fitzgerald.
Farrell O'Finan.
... Al
February 27, 2008:
Thanks to Michael Daley for reminding us that the Bytown and Prescott Railway was
being built in this area in the early 1850's.
Hi Al & Anne ,
Your list of labourers, in the 1851 census, I stand to be corrected, may have been
labourers working on, the building of the Bytown and Prescott Railway which passes
by the farms of the REDMOND , the Fox, and the Doyle families, and the Rourks were
not too far away. the first train went through CHRISTMAS Day ,1854. in my day,there
were Fox, Nolan, and Redmond men, and others still working as section men, on
that route, I do have a book on the building of that railway , but I lent it out a
couple years ago. there may have been a work camp set up , and MARY REDMOND may have
been the cook.???.
hope this helps,
... Michael Daley
_______________________________
Thank you, Michael; that's fascinating that there was a train there so early. That
would be the one that Al said later ran into the By Ward market area--an earlier
version of the O Train??
It sounds like very rocky terrain in that area, so not pleasant work at all. In
transcribing the Fitzwilliam rental records, I see the occupation "stonecutter"
quite often.
... Anne
______________________________
And here's another possibility: this group of labourers may have been staying at
John Cunningham's Inn which was located at Gloucester Station. Many of the railroad
men spent time there. One of my Great Uncles, William (Willie) CHRISTOPHER, worked
for the railroad. He married Isabella Leslie from the Gloucester Station neighbourhood.
Anne: I think that you sent me something yesterday about an Isabella Leslie being
married to a man named "AUGER" in the 1860's. This could be the same lady.
... Al
May 2, 2011:
from Anne Burgess:
Hi Al,
I was looking at the Ottawa Citizen article on Lewis Byrne this a.m., and found a reference to
an Anne Brady—from Wicklow to Sandy Hill--married to Richard Brady. She was an Fitzwilliam Estate McCann:
http://news.google.ca/newspapers?id=uTk0AAAAIBAJ&sjid=kvUIAAAAIBAJ&pg=2518,4853493&dq=richard+brady+cumberland&hl=en
and this page has her obituary:
http://news.google.ca/newspapers?id=F28vAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NdsFAAAAIBAJ&pg=7029,5294887&dq=brady+wicklow&hl=en
It’s so frustrating not to be able to print those Citizen pages!! I’ve been reading the long piece about the McCanns (the first one above),
who came in 1851, from the townland of Aghowle and parish of Aghowle, according to the CD. But there’s such additional
good stuff in that Citizen article:
1) It says they came from Kilquiggan, which is a townland in Aghowle;
2) It says the McCanns had received a letter in Kilquiggan from a former neighbour, telling everyone to come to Bytown
where there were riches for everyone. The letter was written for the Wicklow person by a Bytown schoolteacher,
who fabricated the story about the riches.
The former Kilquiggan neighbour, living in Bytown, is named in the newspaper as a “Mrs. Blank”, real name withheld. But…it
says that the next morning Mrs. Blank was moving to Osgoode, where someone belonging to her husband had died, and they
had the chance to buy a small piece of land for not too much money.
So, Al: here’s your task for today: what was the real name of these Blanks who moved to Osgoode c1851???
3) It says the McCanns came “up from Grenville”; (we’ve always wondered how some of these
Fitzwilliam Estate emigrants came to Bytown).
... Anne
_______________________________________
Hi Anne:
Thanks for this interesting material. I’d like to hope that the following is the Mrs. Blank and her husband:
As you know, there were the two confusing Burns families on the Manotick Station Road. My ancestor Lawrence Burns
and his family. He settled on Lot 10. About 1845, my great great grandmother, Margaret Doyle died.
Out of the blue, a James Burns and his wife (Elizabeth Walsh), and children appeared in
the early 1850’s and were able to buy a piece of land on Lot 12. This James Burns and family used similar names for
their children – Lawrence, James, etc. as my Burns ancestors.
Lot 12 was owned by the Jordan family. When the James Burns family came to Osgoode Township, they bought Lot 11,
between my ancestors on Lot 10 and the Jordans on Lot 12. Now: My Lawrence Burns (Lot 10) married Bridget Jordan
as his second wife, in 1845. There was one unoccupied lot available in the neighbourhood – Lot 11, and this is where
James Burns and Elizabeth Walsh settled.
I remember there was a great flurry of legal paperwork done when this transaction took place. James Burns brought the
property from Mrs. Jordan.
The Mrs. Blank would then have been Mrs. James Burns and they obtained land on Lot 11 in the early 1850’s. The
“someone belonging to her husband” would likely have been the Lawrence Burns family and Mrs. Blank would then have
bought the land from Bridget Jordan who would have been related to the Jordans through her husband.
This is interesting. I could never find out where this James Burns and Elizabeth Walsh came from – they seemed to
have a connection to my family, maybe cousins, but they definitely just dropped into Osgoode Township in the early
1850’s, apparently out of thin air.
The land deal is recorded on a microfilm numbered “TP-2” at the Osgoode Museum in Vernon. I saw the papers early
on and it seemed to be a complicated transaction. The Jordans and James Burns were the principals involved.
A couple of years later, I was curious enough to go back and take a look again to see if I could figure it out.
But by this time the Museum had decided to charge something like $10.00 per hour to look through the records.
This is a very large microfilm reel and the records are all hand-written so I declined, but there is no doubt that
the land records recorded there is a goldmine for that neighbourhood. I think that these records on TP-2 were
originally held at L’Orignal which may have been the county seat at that time.
... Al
______________________________
Isn’t that funny, Al – I’d thought of James Byrne right away when I read the thing. And your details fit so
very well – I’m sure you have it right.
I’ve just had a look at the Clonmore records, and all the Byrnes seem to have been centred around Ballynultagh / Ballyraheen,
etc., which includes Kilquiggan. I also had a look at the CD for bodies coming from Kilquiggan, and all I’ve
found wound up in Camden / Sheffield area *northwest of Kingston, Ontario). I’ve asked Marg T if she has records
of anyone married to the Bryan McCann who went to Kingston for a job and was never heard from again.
Since the Citizen said that the McCanns moved into the Blanks’ vacated house, would there be Bytown records
that would note these two families’ presence at the Deep Cut? (I remember a million years ago a priest at Canadian
Martyrs described Ottawa East as “beginning at the Deep Cut and ending at…” I’ve forgotten the end point –
Riverdale Ave. probably.)
And did you see the mention in the Citizen article (one of them) about a William Kehoe – a farrier – and his wife,
Ms. Ring. Remember Bytown’s Wicklow Kehoes divided themselves into the Steel Kehoes (blacksmiths) and the Wood Kehoes –
Matthew and company, who were carpenters.
This is a very nice turnout to the day!
... Anne
E-mail Anne Burgess, Mary Quinn, Michael Daley and Al Lewis
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