Tag Archive for Hourigan

Catholic Records

Hourigan twins baptized

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Thomas Hourigan and John Hourigan were born in March township on 14 September 1849, the sons of Patrick Hourigan and Ann Teevens. I have no idea whether they were identical, or fraternal, twins, but in any case, the priest who baptized the infants — Fr. J. Ryan — made an interesting distinction between the two:1

hourigan thomas and john notredame 28sep1849

These are twin brothers, born on the same day (14 September 1849), of the same parents (Patrick Hourigan and Ann Teevens), and baptized on the same day (29 September 1849) by the same priest. And I see no less than four surname spellings here: Horehan; Honan; Hurican; and Hurrican. And then there is a Julia Lahay sponsoring Thomas Horehan, and a John Lahy sponsoring John Hurican.

Just to be clear, I don’t really believe these spelling variations have anything to do with distinguishing between twins! This kind of surname spelling variation is pretty much the norm in the early parish registers.

As I’ve said before (but I’ll say it again): Spelling does not count in genealogy.

  1. Notre Dame d’Ottawa (Ottawa, Carleton), Baptisms, marriages, burials 1848-1849, p. 102, B. 288, Thomas Horehan baptism; and B. 289, John Hurican baptism: database, FamilySearch.org (http://www.familysearch.org/: accessed 13 April 2015), Ontario, Roman Catholic Church Records, 1760-1923. ↩

Canadian Records, Census Substitutes

1836 petition of inhabitants of Bathurst and Ottawa districts

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As I mentioned in my previous post, there is now a huge amount of LAC (Library and Archives Canada) material at Canadiana.org’s Héritage website. This material includes 94 digitized microfilm reels of LAC’s Upper Canada Sundries (RG 5 A1), 1766-1841 series. Héritage describes the series as follows:

This series is part of the Civil Secretary’s Correspondence for Upper Canada and Canada West. It consists of letters, petitions, reports, returns and schedules, certificates, accounts, warrants, legal opinions, instructions and regulations, proclamations and other documents received by the Civil Secretary of Upper Canada, 1791-1841, together with copies of some documents of 1766-1809, made for reference purposes.

As every aspect of Ontario life was covered in the correspondence, there is much to offer for those interested in Ontario’s early history. There is also much material of genealogical interest: character references, land and settler petitions, family histories, licenses, pardons, requests for war losses compensation, etc.

— About the Records, Upper Canada Sundries, 1766-1841, Héritage (http://heritage.canadiana.ca/support/sundries)

The Upper Canada Sundries collection does include some finding aids, on microfilms C-9822, C-9823, C-9824, and C-9825. See the above-linked Canadiana.org page for more information on how to search the series.

And for some really good advice on how and why to search the Upper Canada Sundries, also see The Olive Tree Genealogy Blog (here, here, and here).

Did your Bytown area ancestor sign this petition?

That the cost of transmitting a Prisoner from Bytown to the Gaol at Perth is at least Five Pounds Currency, and that of 17 Prisoners confined in that Prison during the Quarter ending in September 1835, 13 were sent from Bytown.

— Petition of inhabitants of certain districts of Bathurst and Ottawa for division of their district, with Bytown as the capital of the new one, 18361

On microfilm C-6892 (images 1239-1252), there is a petition, dated [December?] 1836, of some (male) inhabitants of certain townships in the Bathurst and Ottawa districts. The petitioners were asking for the formation of a new administrative district, with Bytown as its capital, so that they would no longer have to travel to Perth, L’Original, and Cornwall to attend the King’s Bench and Quarter Sessions; and so that, as the above quote explains, they would no longer have to pay the costs of transporting prisoners from Bytown to the Perth Gaol. The Ottawa district townships are given as: Gloucester, Osgood [Osgoode], Cumberland and Russell. The Bathurst district townships are given as: Nepean, Goulburn, March, Huntly [Huntley], Torbolton, Fitzroy, Packenham [Pakenham], McNab, Horton, Ross, Westmeath and Pembroke (these last four would later become part of Renfrew County).

1836 petition inhabitants bathurst lahy

From image 1247 of C-6892. See footnote 1 for full citation.

There are hundreds of names on the 1836 petition. If you think your ancestors might have been in the Bytown area by 1836, you might want to check this document.

Here is a page with many March Township names (see image at right, and click on image to view a larger version). I have highlighted the names that are especially of interest to me: John Lahy; James Lahy; Mathew [Matthew] Daly (husband of Ellen Killeen and son-in-law of Denis Killeen); Pat Quinn (son of Catherine Lahey and her first husband Patrick Quinn); Patrick Lahy; Michal [Michael] Quin (son of Catherine Lahey and her first husband Patrick Quinn); Michael Hourigan (son of Mary Lahey and Timothy Hourigan); Daniel Lahy (second husband of Catherine Lahey); and D. [Denis] Killeen. The name at the top of this page is that of Hamnett Pinhey, a large landowner and politician, and a leading member of the local elite.

And speaking of prisoners being transported from the Bytown area to the Gaol at Perth: It’s a bit odd to see the name Michael Hourigan followed immediately by that of Daniel Lahy, knowing the similar fate that awaited these two men. In November 1837, Daniel Lahey would be killed by his brother-in-law James Lahey; in April 1841, Michael Hourigan would be killed by his brother-in-law John Kelly (see The Queen vs. Kelly). And yes, both James Lahey and John Kelly were sent from March Township to the Perth Gaol (James Lahey ended up back in March, apparently having been acquitted of the crime; John Kelly served a sentence of one year’s hard labour at the Dominion Penitentiary in Kingston).

From image 1245 of C-6892. See footnote 1 for full citation.

From image 1245 of C-6892. See footnote 1 for full citation.

What percentage of adult male inhabitants of the above-named townships can be found on this petition? I have no idea. But I’m not sure that every name is that of an adult male. At image 1245, a page with many Huntley Township names (see image at left, and click on the image to view a larger version), I see the name James Morin (James Moran), but I also see a James Mourin, a Thomas Morne and an Alexander Morne. Could these two Mornes be James’s sons Thomas Moran and Alexander Michael Moran, who were about 14 and 6 years old, respectively, in 1836? and might one of the two James Morins/Mourins refer to James’s son James Moran, who was about 12 years old at the time? I am reasonably confident that the family of James Moran and Margaret Jamieson was the only Moran family in Huntley Township at the time. I am also somewhat confident that James Moran could not sign his name: my question “Did your ancestor sign this petition?” should really be “Is your ancestor listed on this petition?”

The petition can be found at images 1239 to 1252 of microfilm C-6892; the first page of names is at image 1242. A typewritten list of these names can be found in the finding aid, Upper Canada Sundries Finding Aid C-9824, images 388-395.

On Ontario’s early districts and counties, see the online exhibit The Changing Shape of Ontario at the Archives of Ontario website. Here is Upper Canada (Ontario) in 1826; and here is Upper Canada (Ontario) in 1838.

  1.  Petition of inhabitants of certain districts of Bathurst and Ottawa for division of their district, with Bytown as the capital of the new one, December 1836, Upper Canada Sundries, RG 5 A1, vol. 173, pp. 94966-94967, LAC microfilm C-6892; database, Canadiana.org, (http://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c6892: accessed 11 July 2014), images 1239-1252 of C-6892. ↩

Catholic Records, Migration

Formerly of the father’s Irish county

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(Or formerly of [the father’s native] England, as the case may be.)

This is bordering on fussy pedantry, perhaps. Or maybe it crosses that border?

But genealogical research is all about paying attention to the small details. And Irish genealogy, especially, requires close attention to the small details. Given the paucity of Irish records, and with so few, so very few, records to work with: you need to work those records to the ground, and then turn them inside out and work them over again. Let no detail escape! no matter how small, no matter how seemingly insignificant.

So, pedantry or not, it’s going to bother me if I don’t correct the following misleading statement:

In Irish Counties in Fitzroy Harbour Mission Marriage Records, 1852-1856, I wrote that the Rev. Bernard McFeely’s “formerly of the County [Irish county] Ireland” refers to at least the parents of the bride or groom, but in some (probably quite a few) cases, will also refer to the bride or groom as well. 

And in the majority of cases for these Fitzroy Harbour Mission marriages, the father’s and the mother’s county of origin will be one and the same (so: the parents’ county of origin). But not always. And, having read through a run of about twelve years of these marriage records, it seems clear to me that Father McFeely’s “formerly of the County [Irish county] Ireland” refers first and foremost to the father’s county of origin (which, again, will usually also be the mother’s county of origin, but not always).

Here, for example, is a marriage record where the bridegroom’s mother’s Irish county of origin is not recorded at all, and where her origins are misleadingly subsumed under those of her husband:

finner william breslin catherine 26jun1861

St. Michael (Fitzroy Harbour, Carleton), Register of Baptisms and Marriages, 1852-1863, 26 June 1861, image 65 of 80, M. 5, William Finner-Catherine Breslin marriage, database: FamilySearch.org (http://www.familysearch.org), Ontario, Roman Catholic Church Records, 1760-1923.

Father McFeely here identifies William Finner as the son of Benjamin Finner and Mary Mantle, “formerly of England.” However, while Benjamin Finner was born in England (about 1796), his wife Mary Mantle certainly was not. Mary Mantle was born about 1808 in Rathcormac, Co. Cork, the daughter of Peter Robinson settlers John Mantle and Ellen Hourigan.

This is, by the way, the only “formerly of England” reference that I’ve yet to come across in the early marriage records for Fitzroy Harbour Mission. There are at least a couple of “formerly of Scotland” references, and also a few references to Quebec birthplaces. But the vast majority of recorded origins for these early marriage records refer back to counties in Ireland.

Documents, Land Records

John Lahey the Elder’s Will

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Bytown Gazette, 29 November 1837

Bytown Gazette, 29 November 1837. The “Lachie” named here was Daniel Lahey, husband of Catherine Lahey, and “the person who struck the blow” was his brother-in-law, James Lahey.

John Lahey the Elder was the eldest of six known Lahey siblings who emigrated from Ballymacegan, Lorrha, Co. Tipperary to March Township, Carleton Co., Ontario in the 1820s and early 1830s.

John Lahey the Elder never married; and, having no children of his own to inherit his land (100 acres at Concession 3, Lot 14, March Township), he left his farm to his youngest brother, my “black sheep” ancestor James Lahey. My 3x-great-grandfather James Lahey earned his “black sheep ancestor” status by killing his own brother-in-law Daniel Lahey in a drunken altercation, apparently by hitting him on the back of the head with the handle of a spade.

But John Lahey the Elder did not leave all 100 acres of his land to his younger brother James. He bequeathed to James Lahey 98 acres, reserving 2 acres to the Roman Catholic Church. As I wrote in ‘Wilful Murder’ and Black Sheep Ancestors, my dad used to joke that the reason why John Lahey left that land to the Church was that the family had so many sins to atone for. But my father was also known to say, more seriously, of James Lahey’s killing of his brother-in-law: “that’s a godawful thing to have in your family.”

And it is a godawful thing, no doubt. But, eh, there is too much ancestor worship in genealogical circles, in my humble opinion. Let’s face it, some of our ancestors were scoundrels, scofflaws, and rogues. Or hotheaded young men who lacked impulse control, and then one night they got into the poitín … (which I suspect was the case with James Lahey).

In any case, James Lahey’s murder (or manslaughter) of his sister Catherine Lahey’s husband Daniel Lahey was an act of infamy, and a horrible deed; and, by all accounts, it tore the Lahey family apart. Ultimately, John Lahey the Elder stood behind his younger brother James, and then he left him his land:

Memorial of John Lahey the Elder’s Last Will and Testament

(Written 21 December 1853; registered 17 January 1859.)

A memorial to be registered of a will made in the words and figures following that is today. In the name of God Amen.

I John Lahey the Elder of the township of March, County of Carleton, and the Province of Canada, Yeoman, being of sound mind, memory and understanding but sick and weak of body, do hereby publish and declare this to be my last will and testament hereby revoking and making void all former will or wills, that I may have hereto have made.

In the first place I nominate, constitute, and appoint George Morgan the Elder and Thomas Horrigan, both of the aforesaid Township of March Yeoman Executors of this my will. I direct that all my past debts funeral and testamentary expenses be fully paid with all convenient speed after my decease, and I subject, in the first place, my personal estate, and if the same should be insufficient, my real estate for the payment.

Therefore I give and bequeath unto my brother James and after his decease to his heirs all that parcel or track of land and premises, being composed of South East half of lot number fourteen on the third concession of the aforesaid Township of March, containing one hundred acres of land more or less, reserving to the Roman Catholic Church the two acres of land of said lot upon which the chapel now stands, together with all houses outhouses, barns stables, that are now erected and built or that may be hereafter erected and built by my said brother James, his heirs or any of them. He shall at no time sell or mortgage the said land hereby so devised. And I give unto him all stock, farming utensils that I may stand possessed of at the time of my decease and all my chattles and personal property.

In witness whereof I have to this my last will and testament written on two sides of a paper to the first side at the bottom therefore affixed my name and to the last my name and seal this twenty first day of December Eighteen Hundred and Fifty Three.

From the Carleton County Land Registry, March. Citation forthcoming.

Canadian Records, Migration, Queries

Currie/Curry or Corry, from Fermanagh to the Ottawa Valley

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A reader is looking for information on a family who emigrated from Co. Fermanagh, Ireland to the Ottawa Valley in the early- to mid-19th century. The family name was Currie/Curry or Corry, and the forenames were Patrick, Frank, Thomas, and Christopher. They apparently left Ireland with the Lunney family who settled at Pakenham (Lanark Co., Ontario).

The Lunneys were in Canada by the mid-1830s: on 24 January 1836 (Notre Dame, Bytown/Ottawa), Edward Joseph Lunney (son of Patrick Lunney and Rose Reilly) married Johanna Mantle (daughter of John Mantle and Ellen Hourigan).

Any information on this Currie/Curry/Corry family of Fermanagh would be much appreciated.

Canadian Records, Census Records, Death and Burial, Oral History

Scarlet fever deaths in March Township, 1870-1871

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You know you’re a census geek when you find yourself reading the “Nominal Return(s) of Deaths” from the Canadian census returns.

The “Nominal Return of the Deaths within the last twelve months” (1871 Census of Canada, Ontario, Carleton County, Township of March) for the Township of March records twenty deaths in the township for the period roughly covering April 1870 to April 1871 (census enumeration officially began on 2 April, 1871, and the schedule of deaths was to cover the past twelve months).

Of these twenty recorded deaths, I count three adults, and seventeen children.

I am counting James “Houricane” [= James Hourigan, son of Thomas Hourigan and Mary Moran] as an adult, though he was only eighteen years of age when he died, in October 1870, apparently of “Inflammation on the Lungs.” In oral family history, as recorded, for example, by Peter Alexander (“Alec”) Lunney (see “‘My Maternal Ancestors,’ by Alec Lunney”), James Hourigan’s death has been attributed to the Great Fire of 1870. While his death did not occur on the night (the night of August 17, 1870, that is) of the Great Fire, perhaps his “Inflammation on the Lungs” was a result of injuries sustained through exposure to the fire? Or did James Hourigan’s untimely death, coming so soon after the dramatic event of the Great Fire, get mixed in with accounts of the fire, so that it was (mistakenly or confusedly) handed down as a result of that fire, when it was the result of some other cause entirely?

Three of the deaths (one adult, with two of his children) were undoubtedly the tragic result of the Great Fire of 1870. John Hogan, aged 35, and his sons John (aged 9) and Richard (aged two months) were “Burnt to death on the night of the great fire of the 17 of August.” A ghastly incident. I’m sure I have come across an account of John Hogan’s desperate, and unsuccessful, attempt to save his two young sons — in a local history, perhaps? At the moment, I cannot remember where.

In addition to James Hourigan and John Hogan, the other adult death was that of Mary Williams, who died of “Dropsy” in June 1870, at the age of 33. 1

Nominal return of deaths in March township

Nominal return of deaths in March township

So: three adult deaths, at least one of them the result of Great Fire of 1870 (but possibly two, if James Hourigan’s “Inflammation on the Lungs” was fire-related), and two childhood deaths also the horrible outcome of that fire. The remaining fifteen deaths were those of children, several of them infants, and most of them very young.

A Michael (here given as “Michel”) Moran died of “infantile debility” at the age of one month (no connection to my Morans of Huntley Township that I know of, by the way).

At least eight of the children died of scarlet fever (or “Scarlet Feaver,” as written above). And some of the deaths are not attributed to any recorded cause: for “Disease, or other cause of Death,” there is just a blank, with no information supplied. But some of these blanks immediately follow upon ditto marks for the cause of “Scarlet Feaver” — perhaps more ditto marks were implied, so that even more of the deaths were the result of scarlet fever? In any case, of the fifteen childhood deaths that can presumably be attributed to childhood illness (and not to the dreadful calamity of the Great Fire), over half (at least eight) were reportedly the result of scarlet fever.

Scarlet fever (a highly contagious bacterial infection) was once a horrible scourge, but thankfully is no longer: “once a very serious childhood disease,” it is now “easily treatable” by antibiotics.

So many childhood illnesses that used to run rampant, unchallenged and unchecked, through villages and towns and communities, and carry off too many infants and children in their wake: now readily treated, or easily prevented through vaccination.

  1. On “dropsy” (= excess fluid buildup) as a “symptom rather than a cause of a disease,” see “Dropsy, and Researching Other Archaic Medical Terms” at Kim Smith’s Dead and Gone. ↩

Canadian Records, Land Records

“she & her infant family are left totally destitute”: the Widow Hourigan petitions the Crown (part I)

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LAC’s Upper Canada Land Petitions (1763-1865) database is an index to the petitions, with the actual (that is to say, the digitized microforms of the actual) petitions found elsewhere at the LAC site. Somewhat annoyingly, there is no direct link from the index to the digitized microforms of the actual petitions.

In order to locate a petition, you will need to first consult the index. From the index listing, you will want to note the microform number, the bundle number, and the petition number.

Here is how I found the petition of Mary Lahey, widow of Timothy Hourigan.

Who was the Widow Hourigan?

Mary Lahey was born about 1790 in Ballymacegan, parish of Lorrha, Tipperary, and was one of seven known Lahey siblings who emigrated from Ireland to Upper Canada in the 1820s and early 1830s. She married (in Ireland) Timothy Hourigan about 1815, and the couple came to Canada (to March township) in the summer of 1824, with their children Michael, Mary, and Patrick (a fourth child, Thomas, was born in Canada about six months after the death of his father).1

On or about 26 August 1825 (26 August 1825 is the date given in her petition), Mary Lahey’s husband Timothy Hourigan was “killed by the falling of a tree whilst working for the support of his large family,” which family “have been left,” her petition adds, “destitute by his death.” Elsewhere in the paperwork that made up her petition: “her husband having been killed by the falling of a tree, she & her infant family are left totally destitute.”

Well, perhaps not totally destitute. As her brother Patrick Lahey explained in a letter to Peter Robinson (see “The Queen vs. Kelly [Part I]”), when “me brother in law [Timothy Hourigan] was killed by the fall of a tree,” the “widow and three children fell in charge to us.” She was not without some family support, in other words. But her case was dire enough: she and her brothers had only recently arrived in Upper Canada; and her brothers had not yet acquired lots of land, and were still trying to get established. If her brothers would not see their sister and her children starve, they were scarcely in a position to offer generous assistance to a widow with three young children (and with a fourth child on the way). Hence her need to acquire a lot of land “for the support of herself and fatherless Children.”

Finding the Widow Hourigan’s Petition

Searching the Index: Given the many spelling variations for Hourigan (Horahan, Horgan, Horhan, Houroghan, to name just a few), I decided to begin with a search for Name: Ho* in Place: March:

finding_uppercanland_hourigan_6

 

I figured Ho plus the wildcard character (*) would call up most, if not all, possible surname variations (Hourigan, Horgan, Horhan, Houroghan, and so on).

This brought up a listing for HORHAN, Mary in March [township] in 1827. Bingo! Clicking on the listing brought up this Item Display:

finding_uppercanland_hourigan3

I now had the information I needed — Microform no. (C-2050), Bundle no. (H 15) and petition no. (15) — to find the actual petition (the digitized copy of the actual petition, that is).

Finding the Petition: To find the petition, I went to ARCHIVED – Microform Digitization, and found Upper Canada Land Petitions as Title no. 21. Again, the petitions are at:

Clicking on that title brought me to the hyperlinked display of all 327 available digitized microforms (from c-1609 to c-2985). I knew that I was looking for c-2050 (see the Item Display for HORHAN, Mary, above).

This is a hefty file, containing 1075 pages (or images). I  knew (again, from the Item Display above) that I was looking for Bundle H 15, and then for petition no. 15 of that bundle. Scrolling through the file (not page by page! with a thousand-page file, I search by 100s — page 100, page 200, page 300, and so on — to narrow things down), I found it at pages/images 789-795:

finding_uppercanland_hourigan4

finding_uppercanland_hourigan5

It probably took me less than 15 minutes to find the Widow Hourigan’s petition (online, digitized sources: they are amazing!).

To be continued…

  1.  Thomas Hourigan married Julia Moran, daughter of James Moran and Margaret Jamieson. ↩

Census Records, Death and Burial

Cause of Death for James Hourigan?

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A couple of family connections have told me that James Hourigan, son of Thomas Hourigan and Julia Moran, died in the Great Fire of 1870. Their source of information was apparently Alec Lunney’s “My Maternal Ancestors,” which I posted here.1

But looking closely at Alec Lunney’s “My Maternal Ancestors,” I can’t help but notice that he doesn’t actually say that James Hourigan died in the Great Fire of 1870. Rather, he refers to James Hourigan as “James who died as a youth of 18 in the year of the Great Fire of 1870.” Well, details, details…but so much of genealogical research has to do with the details; and there is a difference, after all, between dying as a direct result of a catastrophe, and dying of some other cause altogether around about the time that the catastrophe occurred.

James Hourigan baptism.

Baptism of James Hourigan, son of Thomas Hourigan and Julia Moran, 12 Dec 1852. Basilique Notre Dame d’Ottawa (Ottawa, Ontario), Register of Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1852-1855, image 35 of 244, B. 271, James Hurrigan [Hourigan], database, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca/: accessed 19 February 2013), Ontario, Canada, Catholic Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1747-1967.

I have not (yet) found a church burial record for James Hourigan, though I do have his baptismal record (see above). Nor have I discovered an Ontario civil death registration, and this document I do not really expect to find: for the province of Ontario, the registration of deaths only began on 1 July 1869, and for the first decade or so after its inception, the record-keeping was quite spotty.

Read more

  1. From Alec Lunney’s  “A Collection of Family and Ottawa Area Information.” ↩

Catholic Records, Census Records, Crime and Punishment, Oral History, Translation

The Queen vs. Kelly: Part V

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Continued from The Queen vs Kelly: Part IV (see also Part III, Part II, and Part I).

What Happened to John Kelly and Mary Hourigan?

When I wrote Part I of “The Queen vs. Kelly,” I had no idea what had happened to John Kelly after his release from the Dominion Penitentiary in May 1842. Nor did I have any expectation of finding him, once I had determined that he did not return to March township.

According to family lore, he had “gone to the States,” which certainly didn’t sound too promising. The States covers a vast territory, of course, and with a common surname like Kelly, and the even commoner forenames of John, Mary (his wife) and Ann (his daughter), searching for this family seemed like looking for a needle in a haystack. I did do a search of the 19th-century US federal census returns, but (not surprisingly, as it turns out) came up with nothing.1

It was while searching for another record (unrelated to the Kellys and the Hourigans, as a matter of fact) in the parish register for the Mission at Mattawa that I happened upon the burial record for Mary Hourigan, who was buried as  “Mary Horrigan, Dame John Kelly:”

Burial record for Mary Hourigan, widow of John Kelly.

Read more

  1. If the Kellys had gone to the United States, by the way, their daughter Ann’s Canadian birthplace would have been the best bet for identifying them in the US federal census. Since both John Kelly and his wife Mary Hourigan were born in Ireland, they would have been listed in the US census as John and Mary Kelly, born in Ireland and now living in America, but with no indication of a decade or two spent in Canada. Their daughter Ann’s birthplace, on the other hand, if accurately listed (and there are many such ifs when it comes to census data) would have been recorded as Canada. I have found other Ireland-to-Canada-to-America families in the US census by searching for children born in Canada. ↩

Crime and Punishment, Stories

The Queen vs Kelly: Part IV

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Continued from The Queen vs. Kelly: Part III.

Hard Times, Hard Labour

As reported in Part III, John Kelly entered the Dominion Penitentiary at Kingston on 15 May 1841, to serve a one-year sentence for the manslaughter of his brother-in-law Michael Hourigan.

Dickens described the penitentiary as ‘well and wisely governed’…

While we don’t have any details specific to Kelly’s one-year confinement in the penitentiary, we can assume it was a harsh, if not hellish experience. Though touted as a model of the new, and more humane approach to punishment and rehabilitation — when Charles Dickens visited the Dominion Penitentiary in the 1840s, he described it as “an admirable jail,…well and wisely governed, and excellently regulated, in every respect” 1 — the new prison at Kingston was in fact “a place of violence and oppression.” From an online history at Correctional Service Canada:

At the root of its problems in the early years was its first warden, Henry Smith. Smith’s use of flogging, even in an age when it was an accepted form of discipline, was flagrant. In 1847, inmates were given 6,063 floggings, an average of 12 per inmate. Women, and children as young as eight were flogged. As well, Smith punished inmates with shackling, solitary confinement, bread-and-water diets, darkened cells, submersion in water, 35-pound yokes, and imprisonment in the “box,” an upright coffin. His son ran the kitchen, profiteering by diverting food and serving rotten meat. In his spare time, he tortured inmates, once putting out a prisoner’s eye at archery practice.

Even by the severe standards of the day, Smith’s treatment of the prisoners was considered outrageous, and he was removed from his post as warden after an investigation into his abuses in 1848.

Read more

  1. Charles Dickens, American Notes (London: Chapman and Hall: 1874), etext edition, University of Virginia Library Electronic Text Center 1996, pp. 240-241. ↩