#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 5 So Far Away

#52 Ancestors 2020

Week 5 So Far Away

When the Crusader arrived in Sydney in January 1840, there were 283 passengers.  191 of them were Catholics from the Parish of Elphin, Roscommon, Ireland. 

It is heart wrenching to imagine the loss that those who were left behind must have felt when they went to Mass the Sunday after the ship sailed; the grief and sadness that the parents and grandparents left behind must have felt, knowing that they would never see their children and grandchildren again.

Several of those who sailed were members of one family – my family.  Anthony and Eleanor Power and Bernard and Catherine Murphy, all my 4 x great grandparents, said goodbye to 25 members of their extended family.

Ø  Peter and Mary Power (nee Murphy) and their children, Patrick 12, Catherine 10, Ann 9, Bridget 7 (my 2x great grandmother), Maria 6 and Anthony 4.

Ø  Mary Power’s sister, Bridget, widow of Peter’s brother, John, who had died in 1838 aged only 37 leaving her with 4 children - Peter 13, Patrick 11, Elizabeth 7 and John 3.

Ø  Peter Power’s brother Theophilus (known as Offey) and his wife Winifred.  He was coming to employment as a shoemaker for Mr Smith, of George St, Sydney.

Ø  Michael Power, aged 21, a clerk

Ø  Eleanor Power and her husband Kelly McKeone, who had a job as a carpenter in Sydney at 2pounds 8 shillings per week.  Their children were Eliza 12, Bridget 10, James 7, John 5 and Francis 3.  Their baby Ellen, aged 2, was the first of 13 people to die on the Crusader.*1

Bridget Mary Morgan (nee Power)

The Power and McKeone families sailed on the barque Crusader of 619 ton from Kingston Harbour (Dublin) on the 20th September,1839.  They were “Bounty Immigrants”, free immigrants whose passage was paid by the colonial Government under the Bounty Scheme.   Under this scheme, an incentive or reward was paid to recruiting agents in Britain to find suitable skilled labour and tradespeople then ship them out to the new colony which urgently needed their skills.

Bounties were paid to the ships’ masters for the safe delivery of their passengers – a typical bounty for an adult was 19 pounds, and 5 pounds for a child.

Most in demand were shepherds, ploughmen and agricultural labourers, but also desirable were tradesmen like carpenters, blacksmiths, tailors and needlewomen. Single people, or newly married (and childless) adults were preferred and large families generally not encouraged. Migrants had to bring their own clothing, bedding, personal articles and, in some cases, tools.
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Conditions in Ireland in 1839 were dire.  Although the potato famine was not to wreak its havoc on the community until the early 1840s, farm labourers and dairy women, as most of this family were,  lived in generally poor and crowded circumstances.  Infant mortality was high as was early death, such as that of John Power. The Irish writer Skeffington Gibbon wrote in 1829 of Roscommon, “there is not in Europe a more poor and wretched peasantry.”

 The Murphy and Power families were not as badly off as some, (for example, the adults could all read and write) but they were still very attracted to the offers being made by the new colony of NSW.  Farm labourers and dairy women were much in demand.  The colony needed shepherds, herdsmen and their wives to support the fledgling sheep and wool industries

It is likely that this group was also influenced in their decision to emigrate by their cousin who had gone before them. 

Bridget and Mary Power’s mother was Catherine Plunkett, connected to John Hubert Plunkett, who had grown up on his father’s land in moderate comfort, been educated at Trinity College, Dublin and become a lawyer.  In 1831 he was appointed to the position of Solicitor General of NSW, and he arrived with his wife,*2 his sister, and a female servant in June 1832.  He also managed to obtain a berth for Father John McEncroe who became the second Catholic priest in the Colony and a lifelong friend of Plunkett.

By 1836, John Plunkett had been appointed Attorney General and working with the Governor, Richard Bourke in the execution of a new church and schools act.  As an Irish Catholic who had faced discrimination, he was determined to establish equality before the law – he extended jury rights to emancipists, and then legal protections to convicts and assigned servants. He also attempted to protect aboriginals and twice charged the perpetrators of the Myall Creek massacre with murder.  The first trial resulted in an acquittal on a technical point but the second resulted in a conviction.*3

Plunkett’s achievements in the early Colony are enormous, and not the subject of this piece, but it is important to also mention that he was one of the strongest voices in the debate which resulted in the end of convict transportation to NSW.

John Hubert Plunkett

Far from home, some of the Power family flourished in Australia.  Bridget’s eldest son, Peter, became a Councillor and Mayor of Williamstown in Victoria.  Michael married and became a successful Auctioneer and General Commission Agent.  Although he died young (at 37) he left his family able to afford to educate his three sons in Ireland.  All returned to Australia – Virgil became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in Queensland, John was a successful and much – loved doctor in Gympie, Queensland, and Frank (who married another Plunkett cousin) was an MLC and Minister for Justice in Queensland.  These brothers sired a large number of lawyers and doctors.  One of Frank’s grandsons was Sir Noel Plunkett Power, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Hong Kong in the years immediately preceding the handover to China.

My direct ancestors, Bridget and her parents Peter and Mary, had less distinguished lives.  Peter and Mary lived in Paddington, in Sydney.  These days it’s a pricey address, but in the late 19^th century it was a very poor part of town.  They had two more children, James and Ellen in the years following their arrival. When Mary died at the age of 55, “after a long and painful illness, which she bore with Christian fortitude”*4, she was living with her daughter, Bridget and her husband, George Morgan.  Peter seems then to have moved in with their daughter Annie – he was there when he died of “apoplexy” in 1868.

There are thousands of Power and McKeone descendants in Australia, and I have found several cousins during the course of my research.  We are scattered across the country and are able to share our stories through the internet.  Some of us – not me, sadly – have been back to Elphin, where it all began.

*1The Commander of the Crusader was Captain Inglas, an experienced seaman. The Surgeon was Dr Birdcastle. There were 42 crew members and 283 immigrants. On the voyage there were 13 deaths, including 3 from smallpox. The Crusader arrived in Sydney on 15th January, 1840.

*2 Maria Charlotte McDonough was also a Plunkett cousin

*3 For a full account of this, I highly recommend “Murder at Myall Creek” by Mark Tedeschi QC.  Tedeschi is a huge admirer of Plunkett’s contribution to Australian life.

*4 Death notice SMH 27 Feb 1863

#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 4 Close to Home

#52 Ancestors 2020


Week 4 Close to Home

Map of South and Central Lismore - crosses mark the addresses of the White family

The children of my great grandfather, Robert White, almost all established homes within a short distance of their parents after they married, so their children grew up in a strong extended family – the cousins played together and all went to nearby South Lismore Public School. 

Robert and Ellizabeth White lived on the banks of the Wilson River in South Lismore, NSW at No 2 Crown St.  Like most Lismore homes of the times, it was weatherboard with wide verandahs, and built up on stilts to avoid the occasional flooding of the river.  I remember as a very small child going to visit my great grandmother and being fascinated by a family of kittens who were living under the house (She died in 1957, so I was probably about five at the time).

Robert and Elizabeth’s eldest child was Ellen, known as Nellie.  She married John Victor Lehmann in 1907, when she was 19 years old.  They moved into a house at No 4 Centre St, about a 2 minute walk from her parents and they stayed here for many years before moving to a house at No 19 Charles St, which was just across the road.  Victor Lehman died in 1945, and Nellie lived on in that house until her death, forty two years later at the age of 99.

The next White daughter was my grandmother Alice.  When she married John Gleeson in 1911, they moved into a house in Webster St, perhaps a three minute walk from her parents.  I think perhaps that Robert White might have owned the first house that Alice and Jack lived in, but they subsequently bought the house after Jack became a permanent employee of the Railway, with a guaranteed income.

The first four children were born in this tiny house, then they decided to build on the allotment next door.

My father wrote “The plan was that they would use much of the timber out of the old house, supplemented by whatever new timber had to be bought.  Since the weatherboards in the old house were teak, this was not a bad idea.  They employed a carpenter named Dan Saville to do the construction, with Dad, who had taken his holidays, acting as his labourer.  They borrowed 300 pounds ($600) from the Manchester Unity and went to work.  Dad was deputised to demolish the old house, the family being lodged with our maternal grandparents in the interim. I’m not too sure how long it took to build the new house.  I do know that it was not really finished and that, for the next few years, Dad, who was a reasonably competent bush carpenter, and a fair concrete worker and general handyman, spent most of his spare doing jobs that were left undone when the house was nominally “finished”. * These jobs included internal lining of two bedrooms, building of an outside shed to be a laundry as well as a general workshop, fencing the allotment with a solid picket fence, laying concrete paths, erecting a timber guard for the wide verandah that occupied the front and one side of the house and enclosing the back verandah which was our main eating area.  Eventually, too, the house was connected to the town electricity supply (about 1928) and the town sewerage system (about 1930-31).  All of these jobs were done along with the making of a few items of furniture needed as the family grew and grew up.

Of course, all of this was dependent upon the money being available.  The repayment of the housing loan had first priority.  I remember that this cost 3 guineas ($6.30) a month and it was one of my jobs, at regular intervals, to go to the Post Office to get a money order for that amount.  It seems a small amount today, but I am sure that Mum found it a hardship to have to rake up this amount every month, especially after the Great Depression hit us.”

Webster St house in the early 30s.

It is interesting that my grandparents and their children moved in with Alice's parents during this time.  It seems that the White family home was always available as a refuge as there is evidence that other grandchildren lived there at different times of their lives.

Violet White married Roy Goldsmith in 1912 and they moved into a cottage at No 49 Phyllis St, South Lismore.  This was about a six minute walk from her parents and close to Nellie, Alice, Sis and George.  Their two children, Edna and Edwin, were born here and then they moved across the river to Conway St, close to centre of town.  Roy was a tailor, so perhaps he needed to be closer to where his business was.  They moved again a few years later, around the corner to No 4 Lockett St, where they stayed until Roy retired. 

The youngest White girl was Sis (Mabel).  She married Walter Day in 1920 and they moved into No 12 Crown St, a few doors along the street from her parents.  All five of their children were born while they lived in South Lismore, and although they moved to Sydney for Walter’s work in the 40s and 50s they returned to nearby Ballina in the 70s, and Sis lived her last few years once more in Lismore.  She was interviewed at Maranoa Nursing Home in 1988, three years before her death at 91 in 1991, and had a clear recall of life in South Lismore, and the swimming hole at the end of Crown St where all the local children learnt to swim.

George White was the younger of the two White boys.  He was at one stage a dairy farmer near Lismore at Bexhill, but in 1930 the electoral roll shows him living at 144 Casino St, South Lismore – about a 10 minute walk from his parents.  By the 1950s, at the time of our family visit to his mother mentioned above, he was resident at No 1 Crown St, directly opposite the family home.  He was still there when he died, aged 90, in 1993.

Only two of Robert and Elizabeth’s seven children really left their home neighbourhood on marriage.  Weenie (Eliza Jane) married James Wood, who was a baker in Nimbin, which in those days was about an hour’s drive from Lismore.  When James died in 1941, Weenie was only 46 years old.  She returned to South Lismore – to Union St – and remained close to her family until she married again 4 years later and moved a few streets away to Exton St, North Lismore (a street coincidentally named after one of my husband’s ancestors)

Charles White, known as Boy, was the only one who left home and stayed away.  Boy had an apprenticeship as a fitter with NSW Government Railways, and on completing this, in 1918, he joined up to fight in WW1.  Luckily for him the War ended before his ship left Australian waters, so he returned to Lismore.  In 1920 he married Ida Elizabeth Staff and by the time their first child was born in 1921 they were living in Newcastle, NSW.

Boy lived all his working life in the Newcastle area, and then retired to the Gold Coast, but he stayed close to home in another important way.  Like his father, he was deeply committed to the Manchester Unity United Order of Oddfellows, and he held many positions over the years – he was a District Grand Master, and then was elected as Grand Master in 1947.

As a child, I accepted that my family would go where my father – a schoolteacher – was sent, so it seemed quaint to me that his parents, and his mother’s siblings, all lived in such close proximity to each other.  I see now that this was more the norm up until the middle of the 20^th century, and that it is really only in the last 50 or 60 years that families have come to expect to be separated.  As global mobility increases, our children live not just in different parts of this country, but in different parts of the world, and families have to find other ways  to maintain their closeness.

#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 3 Long Line

#52 Ancestors 2020

Week 3 Long Line

Our three grandsons, Max, Charlie and Jack are the 8^th generation of Australian born McCanns in an unbroken male line.

Their Irish born 6 x great grandfather was Peter McCann, a poor, illiterate thief, sentenced to 7 years transportation to New South Wales.  He arrived on 18 January 1800 after a voyage of five months on board the convict ship Minerva.

The convict ship "Minerva"

At the time the Minerva arrived in in Port Jackson, the total population of the colony was in the order of 5000 people, including approximately 1000 women and 1000 children.  Food was short and  was strictly rationed, although the Minerva brought some much-needed supplies.

There were some sanitised stories of Peter’s history in the family in the 19^th century, when having a convict ancestor was a shameful secret, but one of the family records that seems to be true is that Peter was a very tall man, said to be 6’3”.  This is so unusual for an Irishman of that time that it is probably an exaggeration but we do know that his son Nicholas and grandson Peter were also very tall men; his descendant Patrick (father of Max, Charlie and Jack) is also 6’3” tall.

Peter married another convict, Mary Fitzgerald, and they had two children, Nicholas and Catherine.

Nicholas McCann was born in Windsor on 28 November 1803 and baptised in St John’s Church of England, Parramatta on 9 January 1804, the day his parents were married in the same church.*1

In October 1806, Peter McCann drowned in Rickerby’s Creek at Windsor.  Mary married again the following year, but it seems from about this time that Nicholas’ godfather, John Norris, became a strong presence in his life.*2

John Norris was a skilled stonemason, and he seems to have taken Nicholas as an apprentice in this trade.    When Nicholas later applied (1827) for an allotment of land in Parramatta, a local magistrate, Major Lockyer, testified to his character. “He is an industrious clever tradesman and under such circumstances do not hesitate to recommend him for the indulgence applied for..”

Nicholas had an adventurous life.  He married twice and it was his first wife, Catherine Johnson, who was the mother of his son Charles John McCann, who was our boys’ 4 x great grandfather.  Catherine died at the age of 24, by which time Nicholas had already relocated to Tasmania leaving his eldest son, Charles in the care of relatives in Sydney*3.  (Although we have since learned much about Nicholas’ life in Tasmania, and then Victoria, he seems to have played little part in Charles’ life from about 1831)

Charles John McCann was born in Parramatta on 27 Jun 1827, and christened at St John’s Church of England, Parramatta on 24 February 1828.  We know very little about his early life in Parramatta but it seems reasonable that the adults who cared for him were his grandmothers Mary (now Mary Hill) and Rosetta Johnson (Beale), and his father’s godfather John Norris.

Charles married Mary Johnson at St Andrew’s Scots Church, Sydney on 20 September, 1847.  Mary was no relation to Rosetta and Catherine Johnson, but she was a member of a large family of Johnsons who intermarried with the McCanns for several generations, (creating many headaches for the genealogist).  Their first child, Catherine, was born in Sydney in 1848 and Charles gave his profession as “wheelwright” on the birth certificate, but by the time of his son’s birth they were in Geelong and the relationship with the rest of the family was briefly rekindled.

From 1853 to 1873, Charles and Mary had nine more children who were born either in the Ballarat region of Victoria, (the goldfields) or the Richmond River area of NSW ( the “red gold” fields).  The extended Johnson family were ever-present and at one time the wheelwright Charles and his blacksmith father-in-law William Johnson combined forces to construct “McCann Wagons” used to exploit the forests around Bullarook and Ballarat.

Typical settlement of North Coast timber cutters

Charles William McCann was the eldest of Charles and Mary’s sons, born in 1851.  He worked for most of his life as a timber getter and then as a farmer in the hills around Eureka, near Lismore in NSW.  At the age of 25, he married his first cousin, 17year-old Esther Johnson.  Together they had five children; the last one, Ettie, being born 7 months after her father’s death by drowning.

Charles died while trying to cross the flooded Wilson’s Creek, above Eureka.  According to the newspaper reports, his horse stumbled, and Charles was washed out of the saddle and drowned before anyone could reach him.  He is buried in the Pioneer Cemetery at North Lismore.

Eleanor married Charles’ brother, John Beale McCann within a year and went on to have three more children, although only one survived babyhood.

Charles William McCann's headstone - North Lismore

Charles and Esther’s first born was a son – Charles John McCann who was born on 19 December 1880 at Wilson’s Ridges (the area now between Goonellabah and Alphadale).  As a young man he worked as a timber getter, a cane cutter and a dairy farmer on his family farm.  Later, he established the business McCann’s Taxis, which was taken over by his sons Pat and Les.  Known as Charlie in the family, he was a jovial character and a renowned prankster.  He trained dogs, and loved a gamble.

He and his wife Alma were the first generation who were able to travel overseas from Australia – they went to the United States to visit their daughter Joyce, who had married an American serviceman during World War 11, and relocated to Florida.

Charles John married Alma Barrow in Lismore on 18 August 1900 – both he and Alma were only 20.  They had nine children together, and Cecil Eric McCann (always known as Pat) was the youngest boy.

Charles and Alma wedding photo

Charles John and Alma are buried in the family section of Alphadale Cemetery, near John Beale McCann and Esther, Esther’s father John Johnson and some of Charles’ sisters and their children.

Pat McCann was born in Goonellabah on 6 September 1914.  He lived on the family farm and attended the local school.  When he left, he took up an apprenticeship as a mechanic with Prattens Motors, a big car dealership in Lismore, and at the completion of his apprenticeship, left Prattens to work for his father repairing (and occasionally driving) his taxis.

Prattens continued to give him repair jobs, and the opportunity to sell the cars he fixed, so he soon needed a space to do this – he bought a service station, Speedy Auto in Dawson St, Lismore. 

At the same time, his taxi fleet grew to three or four taxis, which he eventually sold to concentrate on the car business – McCann’s Car Sales.

McCann's taxi in a Lismore parade

Pat was a keen shooter and fisherman with a network of mates to pursue these activities with.  Every year, he and some of them would take the whole month of May to move to Iluka and go fishing –they often reported home that they had unfortunately been stuck on Sedges Reef.  It was a while before Kath learnt that “Sedges Reef” was the name of the Iluka pub.

Pat married Kathleen Keogh in December 1936.  Together they had four children and there were 6 grandchildren at the time of his sudden death in Lismore in July 1971.  He was only 56 years old.

Paul John McCann was born in Lismore on 11 September 1944.  He was Pat and Kath’s third child. He attended the local Catholic schools and was the first member of the family to complete secondary school to Leaving Certificate level, and to go to University.  So he was the first who didn’t work with horses or carts or cars (both his brothers, Gary and Mick, worked in the auto industry, Gary as a mechanic, and then a car salesman, and Mick as a panelbeater and car salesman).

Paul was also the first member of the family to move away from the Northern Rivers area of NSW. After graduating with an Education degree, he taught in secondary schools in Cessnock and Armidale and then at Armidale Teachers’ College and The University of New England. 

Paul graduates with M.Ed (Hons1)

He married Frances Maria Baxter in 1968, and they had their first son, Patrick David McCann in 1972 and then Brendan Michael McCann in 1973.

After his divorce, Paul decided that he was more interested in business than teaching so for the rest of his working life, with his second wife Jill (nee Gleeson), he owned and operated a number of businesses.  They had restaurants in Lennox Head (La Contadina) and Dubbo (The Old Shire Restaurant), an antique business in Dubbo (The Old Shire Gallery) and then moved into hospitality, operating Spring Hill Mews Apartments (Brisbane) for 4 years.

And he came full circle, retiring back to the North Coast at Suffolk Park in 2008, where he continues to be a keen tennis player, golfer and cyclist.

Patrick David McCann was born in Armidale on 2 April 1972 and was named after his grandfather.  He moved with his mother and brother to Deia, Mallorca in 1977; he returned to Australia in 1981 with Brendan and they began their primary school education at Lennox Head.  In 1984, the family moved to Dubbo, Jill’s hometown, where both boys completed their secondary education. Patrick was Dux of Dubbo High School in 1990 and moved to Canberra in 1991 to study at the Australian National University.

After graduating with an Arts degree, Patrick obtained a Diploma of Education and later completed training as a School Counsellor.  He married another School Counsellor, Daniela McMahon, in 2013 and together they have three sons, Max, Charlie and Jack.  Charlie is the fourth Charles McCann in this line.  Jack's birth in 2017 was 217 years and one day after Peter McCann's arrival at Port Jackson.

  

Pat continues to work as a Counsellor for the NSW Department of Education and he too lives on the North Coast of NSW, not far from the rich cedar country where his forebears were pioneers.

*1 Peter McCann and Mary Fitzgerald were both Catholics but there were neither Catholic churches nor clergy in the colony at this time.

*2 John Norris was married to Eleanor Fitzgerald who had been convicted and transported with Mary and was probably her sister, although the age gap was such that she may even have been Mary’s mother or aunt.

*3 We know it was his “grandmother” but this could be Mary or Eleanor or Rosetta.

#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 2 Favourite Photo

#52 Ancestors 2020

Week 2 Favourite Photo

This photo was taken in 1912 – probably at the christening of the baby, who was my uncle Keith Whitten, my mother’s eldest brother.

The other person in the photo is Keith’s half - sister, Gladys Whitten.  Gladys was the only child of my grandfather’s first marriage, to Annie Newcombe, his childhood sweetheart.  They were married in Tamworth in 1902, and she died the following year on August 9, a week after giving birth to Gladys. 

Annie was 22 when she died.  The inscription on her headstone is heartbreaking to read.

Gladys was 8 when her father married again in 1911, to my grandmother Josephine Morgan.  In the early years of her childhood she had lived with her father and been cared for by the extended family whose property was next door.  She was adored by her grandmother Charlotte and cosseted by her uncles – there are other photos in which she is as beautifully dressed and presented as this one.  My mother thought that there were some tensions with her new stepmother – as a stepmother myself, I am not at all surprised – but there is no doubt that she loved all her half siblings as they arrived.  They maintained strong ties all their lives.

Keith looks uncomfortably overdressed in this picture.  I guess he is a few months old; it’s difficult to tell under all those clothes.  As the first born, he obviously had an elaborate christening outfit.  There are no surviving members of the family who could tell me if the six subsequent children were equally fussily dressed when they were christened.

One of the reasons I like this photo so much is that it shows Gladys looking innocent and trusting, as I think she was.  She was perhaps overprotected.  When she became pregnant at the age of 19, I’m sure it was out of ignorance.  At 20 gave birth to her son, whom she called Reginald Frank but who was known as Rex.  There are stories that the family wouldn’t let her marry the child’s father because he was Catholic, or because he was a farm hand – perhaps he didn’t want to marry her.  We don’t really know.  Gladys was sent to Sydney to have the child and she worked hard to keep him with her until he was about 7, when he went into a Salvation Army Boys’ Home.  It was scandalous to have a child “out of wedlock” in those days, but this very religious family always supported and loved her and her child, and they were always very much part of the extended family.*

Gladys never married; she was devoted to Rex, and then to his children and grandchildren.  She seems never to have had another relationship in all her long life.  She died at 84 and her remains are buried with her mother in Tamworth.

* Most of what I know about Gladys comes from my mother, her half-sister Gwynn.