Matthew Jude Barker

My third-great-grandfather, Cornelius “Con” Connell (1835-1892) emigrated from County Cork to the United States in 1854. He settled in Hingham, Massachusetts, and married fellow Corkonian Catherine Pyne, where they had three children before moving to Boston, where they had many more children. Con Connell was a veteran of the Civil War, and even spent time as a prisoner of war in a Confederate prison. He is the grandfather of my great-grandmother Margaret Josephine (Catherine Anne) Connell Newell (1886-1962), mother of my beloved grandmother Frances Rita Newell Gillan (1916-1996).

Cornelius was born on April 1, 1835, in the townland of Knockardbane, in the parish of Liscarroll (Churchtown), County Cork, the son of Philip Connell (1801-?) and Mary Sheehan. He was perhaps the grandson or the great-grandson of Cornelius Connell who appeared in the 1766 Religious Census of Liscarroll. Cornelius was baptized in April 1835, his sponsors (godparents) being John Sullivan and Mary Connell. Cornelius had many siblings, including Margaret Connell Dunn, Hannah Connell Kent, Ellen Connell Quinn, Mary, Bartholomew O’Connell, and Dennis, four of whom also emigrated to Hingham. His father Philip appeared in the “field books” for Knockardbane, in 1846-1849, but does not appear in the 1855 Grifftih’s Valuation (a land register), so he may have died during the Great Hunger (the Great Irish Potato Famine, 1845-52), or soon after. In the Liscarroll Catholic church registers (which luckily begin early, in 1813), there are countless Sheehans and Connells until the mid-1840s. By Griffith’s Valuation, in 1855, most had either died or emigrated. I have been in touch for almost ten years now with genealogist Erik Holler of Hingham, MA, who is a descendant of Ellen Connell Quinn through her daughter Mary Quinn Connell, who married Daniel Connell, also from Liscarroll, County Cork.

According to his naturalization petition, Cornelius emigrated to New York (Castle Garden), on May 1, 1854, and went to Massachusetts soon after. On June 19, 1859, he married Catherine Pyne (1838-1918), a native of Kilworth, County Cork, at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Randolph, MA. She was the daughter of Walter Pyne (1793-1874) and Johanna Nolan (1798-1868), who came with their seven children to Hingham in the 1850s. Cornelius and Catherine had Mary Anne Connell (1859-1923), Johanna L. “Annie” Connell Carroll (1861-1921), and Philip J. Connell (1862-1896), before moving to Boston in 1866, where they had six more children, including Walter (1866-1867), Margaret (1868-1868), Cornelius (1869-1873), Walter Francis (1871-1908), David Vincent (1873-1948), and Cornelius Joseph Connell (1875-1945).

Two years after the Civil War had erupted, Cornelius enlisted in Company D, 4th Cavalry Regiment, Massachusets, on December 1, 1863, at the age of 28, leaving behind his wife and three young children in Hingham. This vallant regiment saw extensive battlefield action, including participating in the infamous Battles of Cedar Creek and Petersburg in Viriginia, and Camden, South Carolina, as well as many others. One of the first battles Cornelius participated in was at Barber’s Place, Florida, on February 10, 1864. He saw action in Virginia, Florida, and South Carolina, and was captured by the Confederate Army at some point, imprisoned in Florence, South Carolina. He escaped (a grandson said he escaped!) or was exchanged for a Confederate prisoner, and was back with his regiment when it mustered out in Novevember 1865, in Boston, six months after the war had ended. Con Connell’s regiment, during the war, had four officers killed, as well as 28 enlisted men killed in battle or mortally wounded. Unfortunately, an incredible 128 soldiers died of disease or by accident.

Cornelius was a cabinetmaker and the Connells made their home in Boston and South Boston, residing on multiple streets. Their children, amazingly, were baptized in five Boston Catholic churches: Sts. Peter & Paul, St. Augustine’s, St. Patrick’s, Gate of Heaven, and St. Bridget’s (baptismal records were accessed on Americanancestors.org).

At some point, Cornelius, unfortunately, developed a serious drinking problem. He probably suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), due to his Civil War service and having spent months in a Confederate prison. He often went to the home of his friend Mary Buckley, an Irish bootlegger, to visit and drink, and secure more alcohol. On the night of March 26, 1892, the fifty-seven-year old Cornelius went to Mary’s home at 1 Calvert Place in Boston, and started drinking. She went out to secure some meat for the next day’s meal, and when she returned, Cornelius was lying on the floor near the stove and stones, with “a severe bruise” on his left cheek. He was dead. A Medical Examiner determined he died from “natural causes,” but his death certificate stated he died from “alcoholism.” Mary Buckley, aged “about 50,” was at first brought to a Boston police station “on suspicion of being connected with the death of” Cornelius. She was released soon after (The Boston Globe, March 28, 1892). Cornelius appeared to have fallen to the kitchen floor near the stove and bruised his face on some nearby stones, but it was not sufficient to have caused his death (“Con” Connell Dead,” article in the Boston Globe. It is interesting that they called him “Con” Connell).

Cornelius “Con” Connell was waked at his home at 80 West Dedham Street, where they held funeral services, before a Requiem High Mass was held at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. “Relatives and friends were invited to attend without further notice.” Unfortunately, there was no obituary. Cornelius was four days shy of his 57th birthday. He was buried in St. Paul’s Catholic Cemetery in Hingham. He was survived by his wife Catherine, sons Philip, Walter, David, and Cornelius, daughters Mary A. Connell and Annie Carroll, and by one grandchild, Catherine Anne Connell (my great-grandmother). Ironically, and sadly, Cornelius started to receive a pension just six weeks after he died, from his Civil War services. His widow Catherine applied for and started to receive his pension in 1893.

Catherine Pyne Connell, resided in Boston for years, and then returned to Hingham with her daughter Mary A. Connell, where she died in 1918, at the age of 80. Catherine had outlived her six siblings.

Cornelius and Catherine’s son Philip J. Connell married County Donegal native Catherine “Kate” Doherty (1865-?) in Boston in 1885. They had four known children, Catherine Anne (March 30, 1886-March 30, 1962), Philip James (1887-1888), Philip J. (1892-1930), who was placed in a children’s home and later lived, worked and died in a epileptic home in Massachusetts, and Mary Ellen (1896-1900), who died from burns while playing with matches at age 4. Philip, a waiter, died in 1896, at the age of only 34 from pneumonia. Catherine Anne, my great-grandmother, was apparently placed in a Catholic orphanage in Boston at some point, and then put on a “orphan train” and sent to Portland, Maine, where a Catholic couple on Munjoy Hill adopted her. They were James H. Hermans (1851-1910), a native of Hanover, Germany, and Johanna O’Connor (1858-1901), a native of County Limerick. The Portland couple changed her name to Margaret Josephine Hermans. In 1906, she married James Lawrence Newell (1883-1948), son of County Galway immigrants, and had ten children. Margaret never knew anything about her siblings, but her story is for another day!

Johanna L. “Annie” Connell (1861-1921) married Stephen H. Carroll and they had a daughter, Catherine (1886-1950), who never married. They lived, worked, and died in Lynn, MA.

Walter Francis Connell (1871-1908), son of Con and Catherine, married Dora Imelda Heffernan in 1896, the year he joined the Boston Fire Department, and they had four children, born in Boston between 1897-1902: Mary, Dora V., Walter Francis, and Frances G. Connell. Sadly, Dora the mother died in 1904, aged 30, of tuberculosis. Walter did not remarry. He became a prominent and popular member of Chemical Fire Engine 10, Boston Fire Deparment, where for years he drove and trained two “Blue Ribbon fire horses, “Tom and Jerry.” In 1906, Walter started to suffer from multiple diseases, fighting cancer of the intestines for over two years until he died in 1908, at the age of only 36. Perhaps he developed cancer from years in the chemical department of the BFD? I have been in touch for many years with his great-great-granddaughter, Melissa Milligan, who supplied me with a great photo of him in his fireman’s uniform. His detailed obituary stated he was a “plucky fireman,” and “a premier reinsman.”

Cornelius Joseph Connell (1875-1945), a “trooper” in the 6th Massachusetts, National Guard in 1899, married Mary Abby Osier (1874-1950) in Rockland, Maine in 1900. She was born on Mount Desert Island, Maine (home of the famous Acadia National Park). They had two children, Thomas J. and Thelma. I have been in touch with the granddaughters of Cornelius and Mary: Dale Connell Bernhard and Karin Connell Vetorino.