When the mob took over
Donnelly Massacre, Lucan Ontario 1880
Throughout history there have been numerous acts of vigilante justice, the mob has toppled monarchs, burned supposed witch's at the stake, hung innocent and guilty alike. Edgar Allen Poe probably put it best when he said, “The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quickly led”. Spurred on by religious righteousness, pure indignation, more often by ignorance, superstition and those seeking to assert themselves as a leader. But occasionally when the mob moves it is because civil authority has failed to deal with the offender. Not that the criminal justice system has failed to work properly, but more a case of acting to slowly. Such was the case in the old town of Lucan Ontario, Canada in the 1880s.
But to tell the story of Lucan and the Donnelly's one must start in Ireland where John and his wife Johannah met. Like many Irish Catholics of that time, they made their way as best they could, in a society that discriminated greatly against them because of their religion. Even while they still lived in the old country the two were well known to brawl in the pubs and the street. It was said that it was here that Johannah perfected the art of bashing her foes with her shillelagh. A large woman nearly six feet tall she could fight as well as any man. Femininity had passed Johannah by, her hard features leaving her with a troll like face to match her domineering nature.
But before leaving Ireland the family found themselves embroiled in a renewal of the century old Biddulph feud, pitting whiteboys (a group that defended tenant farmers by means of violence) against Orangemen, and blackfeet who sought to run off the farmers. The renewed fight for control of he township was yet another reason to hate authority.
Like so many others, the Donnelly's looked to Canada and the promise of land. In the spring of 1847 James and Johannah arrived in Canada with their sons James Jr. and William. (William had the disability of a clubbed foot). They headed to the edge of the frontier in Biddulph Township, Canada West. This would later become Ontario after the act of Canadian Confederation in 1867. They did as many poor immigrants did then, and squatted on a parcel of land located on what was called the Roman line. Squatting was a common practice of using land that no one else was, even if it was owned by an absentee owner. This was the case with the Donnelly's and soon a conflict would be raised by the new property owner Patrick Farrell, who had bought the property before emigrating from Ireland in 1856.
When Farrell arrived in Canada he was shocked to find people living on his land. He petitioned the court to have them evicted and as a result an agreement was struck that gave the Donnelly's 25 acres surrounding their home. Still, the indignity of having to surrender a portion of the land he had lawfully paid for festered within Ferrell.
On June 27, 1857, it all came to a head during a barn raising and a drunken brawl commenced between the larger Farrell and James Donnelly Sr. During the course of their fight Donnelly struck Farrell in the head with a hand spike. Farrell languished for two days before dying of that injury on June 29, 1857. A warrant was issued for the arrest of James Sr. but when constables arrived to arrest him he had fled. For almost two years James Sr. hide in their barn and worked his fields dressed in his wife's clothing.
Thinking the emotions in the community had died down he turned himself in to the local Justice of the peace and was put on trial. James was sentenced to be hanged on Sept 17, 1859. That sentence was later reduced to allow him to serve seven years in the penitentiary at Kingston. In the years before his incarceration he and Johannah had six more children. John 1847, Patrick 1849, Michael 1850, Robert 1853, Thomas 1854, and Jenny 1857. With seven boys between the age of two, and seventeen there would be plenty of help for Johanna while he was away.
Now more than ever before Johannah instilled in her children her ideas about right and wrong. Most importantly her ideas about cruelty and revenge. By 1866 when James was released his boys had a reputation for their ill temperament and unbridled drunken brawls.
In may of 1873 William Donnelly bought a stage line and began operation with his brothers, Micheal, John, and Thomas. They operated between Lucan, London, and Exeter in competition with existing lines. But soon a new feud broke out to monopolize the lines. Competing lines had their stages burned and destroyed. Stables were also burned and destroyed and their horses beaten and killed. By the time the feud ended the Donnelly reputation had grown so dark that nearly every crime committed in Lucan was associated with that family.
The Donnelly family was now known in the township for their criminal activity's that included arson, vicious verbal and physical assaults, trespassing, theft and robbery in their many altercations with residents and neighbors. As well as a physical assault of a constable. They always had their day in the courts however, many of the charges were dismissed. But their attitude for authority and their neighbors had created for them numerous enemies.
Soon a Vigilance Committee was formed by local residents. On the night of February 3, 1880 they met at Cedar Swamp School house following the burning of a barn (blamed on the Donnellys) before heading for the Donnelly farm in support of constable James Carroll, who had a warrant for James and Tom. According to farm hand and eye witness Johnny O'Connor, Carroll had arrived sometime between midnight and two am. The constable had already placed Tom Donnelly in handcuffs when his father entered the kitchen to goad the constable making a few remark about his intelligence. Then all hell broke loose as the vigilantly mob stormed into the house.
In the house that night were James Sr., Johanna, Tom, and a niece who had recently arrived from Ireland Bridgett. As the mob rushed in they began bludgeoning James and Tom with clubs and farm tools. Tom made a break for the door and was quickly surrounded and beaten to death in the front yard. Bridgett had run upstairs to escape while the men attacked James. When they finished with him they moved upstairs where they killed Johanna and the niece Bridgett. When they finished they torched the house and moved on to Williams house in Whalens corners.
There they shouted Fire, to lure the meanest of all the boy's, William from his house. When the door opened a shot rang out killing John Donnelly who the mob thought was William.
In the aftermath of the massacre five members of the family had been killed, the home of James and Johanna burnt to the ground. And an innocent niece slaughtered for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some members of the mob had been identified and were tried in London Ontario. The first trial resulted in a hung jury. Consequently, the second trial never got off the ground following the addition of a new suspect Father John Connelly the parish priest of the Donnelly's own church. Rather than risk creating a religious division in the Township the case was dismissed.
Surviving Donnelly family moved away from Lucan never to return.
In summary it is clear that mob justice though swift and direct failed to recognize innocence, the innocence that all are normally afforded until proven guilty. And what about the Township of Biddulph and its residents, do they not also bear responsibility by way of rumor and accusations. Clearly the Donnelly's themselves bear some responsibility with their decades of bullying and violence. Certainly, the greatest lesson is that the courts no matter how slow, are a better battle ground than vigilante action.
