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Reunion '09 -- Really Digging for Your Roots!Society to Return to Texas in June to Work with Archaeologists

The Ballykilcline Society plans its 2009 Society of Baltimore County. A number of ourReunion again in Texas, Maryland, next June members have published books related to18 through June 21, which have been re- Ballykilcline and surrounding areas, includingserved at the Holiday Inn (formerly Days Peter Duffy, author of The Killing of MajorHotel) in Timonium (Texas). The opportunity Denis Mahon, who has agreed to speak aboutpresented by the planned archaeology and his book and the research process. Thomp-history project in Texas (see related story) son will present her research on the evicteeswas the deciding factor in holding another (from Ballykilcline and nearby areas) whoreunion there, as well as the distressed came to Baltimore County, and the searcheconomy of our times making trans-Atlantic for the remaining "Lost Children of Ballykil-travel expensive. Texas was the site of our cline." Dr. Brighton will present the plans and2007 reunion. preliminary findings from the archaeology

Dr. Stephen Brighton, the lead archaeolo- work in Texas.

gist on the project will provide opportunities A panel discussion about researchingfor members to work on the dig and to tour historical records and other primary sourcesthe huge limestone and marble quarries has been proposed, along with a presentationwhere many of our ancestors may have on the state of the records held by the Bally-worked. Cassie Kilroy Thompson, the Texas kilcline Society, and planning for future pro-Project h.istorian as well as the President of jects. Day trips to the National Archives, thethe Ballykilcline Society, is busy securing Mormon library, and other places of interest inspeakers,entertainment, and guests of honor the Washington, D.C., area have beenfor the reunion events. (Maryland Governor See Page 2

Martin O'Malley has "penciled" us in!).The reunion activities will be held in con­

junction with The Friends of Texas, Maryland,the Center for Heritage Resources at theUniversity of Maryland) and the Historical

W Palin's Kilglass Roots Page 2o Charles Orser in NY. Page 2

en Some Keaveneys in MA Page 4

Z Pete Hanley Find~Callan",Page 6

Study of Texas' Irish PlannedDr. Stephen A. Brighton, Assistant Professor of Anthro­

pology at the University of Maryland, is interested in form­ing a research program along with the Ballykilcline Societythat focuses on the history and archaeology of Irish immi­grant and Irish-American quarrry workers and their familieswho settled an area in Baltimore County known as Texas.Of particular importance and interest is to study and detailthe lived experiences of those people of Texas who hailedfrom and were evicted from Ballykilcline, County Roscom­mon. Dr. Brighton's desire is to establish a research designSee Page 3

Fall 2008

Stephen Brighton

Newsletter of The Ballykilcline Soc!etyVol. 10, No.2Town SurnamesBEIRNEBRENNANCAROLANCARRINGTONCAVENEYCLEMENTSCLINECOLLIGANCONNORCONRYCOSTELLOCOUGHLANCOXCOYLECRAIGCROGHANDEFFLEYDONNELLANDOWNEYFALLONFARRELLFINN .•.

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Lhe 60nfiRe page ~ / r-:aLL '08

The Archaeology of Irish-America: 'First of Its Kind'From page 1

linking the social and materialhistory between Ballykilcline andTexas, Maryland.

Dr. Brighton has conductedarchaeological fieldwork and histori­cal research, along with Dr. CharlesOrser, into the material conditions ofdaily life in rural society during theearly modern history of Ireland fromthe 17th to the late 19th century.Archaeological fieldwork includeswork in Counties Sligo, Donegal, andRoscommon. The work completed inBallykilcline is directly related to theproposed historical and archaeologi­cal investigations of the house sitesin Texas, Maryland, as a predomi­nant numbe; of the Texas families

were from Ballykilcline.The focus has been on cabin sites

of landless tenants and tenant far­

mers during the first half of the 19thcentury where entire clusters offamilies were evicted. The archaeo­

logical collections include well over3,000 domestic artifacts and providea unique view of rural material culturein pre-Famine and Famine Irelandassociated with the thousands of Irish

coming to the United States through­out the 19th century. The collectionsinclude sponge-decorated and trans­fer-printed fine earthenware ceramics,several other kinds of ceramics, glassfragments from bottles and tumblers,buttons, thimbles, white clay smokingpipes, and iron agricultural tools. Thiscollection represents an importantaddition to the growing database of19th-century domestic material fromrural Ireland, but more importantlyserves as a comparative database tounderstand continuities and changesin the social and material life of Irish

immigrants once settled in the UnitedStates. This is perhaps one of the firstarchaeological investigations bringingtogether data linking families acrossspace (Ireland and the U.S.) and time

~ This work will[include] an­

cestors' material

remains and livingfamiliy members'stories ... combined

with already on-goingsophisticated histori­cal and genealogicalresea rch.

(1800-ca.1920).The aim of the current proposed

project is to work closely with theBallykilcline Society, as well as withother interested Texas-area commu­

nity organizations and individuals todevelop a research program address­ing broader questions of Maryland'simmigrant labor history and its ma­terial component, as well as thehistory and archaeology of the IrishDiaspora in Maryland. Moreoverthescope of the study will be guided bythe specific queries related to theneeds, interests, and concerns ofthe Ballykilcline Society in regardsto researching the lives of all Bally­kilcline individuals and families livingin Texas. This work will be the first of

its kind and will represent thearchaeology of Irish-America asseen through ancestors' materialremains and living familiy members'stories which combined with the

already on-going sophisticated his­torical and genealogical researchconducted by the Society will bringclarity to the lives of Irish-Americanmen, women, and children whoexperienced exile from their home­land and success in a new place.

The importance of this project is

its purpose to collect, record, andpreserve the quickly vanishingphysical evidence of Texas. Oneway to do this is to give it landmarkstatus and have it listed as one of

Maryland's important heritage sites.The archaeological data, along withthe oral, written, and pictorial historyof the area, will provide the neces­sary and vital tangible evidence tomake a heritage center a reality.

At this time it is uncertain what

remains of Texas, archaeologicallyspeaking, or whether any remainscan provide information. The work atthis stage is preliminary and anyplanning is tentative. However, thevoluminous work that has been

collected by the Society and theprevious small-scale excavations inthe area reveal the potential of muchmore to learn from the Texas land­

scape. The archaeological researchdesign will be flexible to accommo­date what is found in survey andexcavations, as well as any newquestions and concerns raised bymembers of the Society.

The idea is to conduct a sustain­

ing, long-term field school programalong with a laboratory component.The field school would include Uni­

versity of Maryland students, inter­ested students from regional col­leges and high schools, and moreimportantly any and all interestedmembers of the Ballykilcline Soci­ety. I feel that archaeological sur­veys and excavations will further thecause of the Ballykilcline Societyand act as a complimentary avenueto publicly voicing the group's com­pelling and distinguished history.

The immediate plan is to makeseveral visits to Texas this summer

with any and all interested membersof the Society to provide detailedinformation in regards to the location

See Page 4

d1e 60nfiRe page ~ /faLt '08

Husband Finds a Keaveney Family in Lawrence, MA, and CO

Study -- 'An Intimate Collaborative Effort'From Page 3

of the town, existing structures, andaccess to areas where potentialproperties may exist and explorewhich may have archaeologicalsignificance. The result of these walk­over surveys, as well as the compari­son of the modern landscape to thatof the 19th and early 20th centurieswill provide key information on whereto begin excavations. The intention ofthe survey this spring and summerwill result in GIS and topographicmaps of the Texas area that overlayhistoric maps to better facilitatearchaeological potential.

As mentioned above, archaeologi­cal surveys have been conducted inand around Texas. The excavations

were conducted by hired archaeolo­gists associated with Cultural Re­source Management firms (CRM) inresponse to the construction of theLight Rail and Beaver Dam Road. Thestudies, while extremely insightfuland necessary, do not contain in their

Only one Keaveney family wasevicted from Ballykilcline. They wereLuke, 46; his wife (name not given onthe list of evictees), 40; and children,Mary 19, Patrick, 17, Thomas, 15,Edward, 12, Luke, 10,Annie, 7, andCatherine, 1. They crossed the Atlan­tic in 1848 on the ship Progress.

After a Rootsweb researcher

referred family historian Bill Stewartto the Ballykilcline web site, he was"shocked (and pleased) to see aCavenney family, with the same chil­dren, ages, etc. listed as beingevicted and sent away." He wassearching for his wife's (Melanie)family and now believes that "theseare the same families." Melanie's

grandmother had consistently saidthat her family had lived in Roscom­mon and arri}'ed in New York in 1848aboard the p'l"ogress.

Bill and Melanie Stewart recentlymoved from California, to BowlingGreen, Kentucky, for their retirement.Bill's records from years of genealogi­cal research were still packed in 17boxes when he recalled the details ofhis search, so he talked about theCavenneys (family's spelling, frommemory. The surname was spelledmany different ways in the records.

Melanie's grandmother wasnamed Salva Catherine, born in 1878in Lawrence, MA, where the immi­

grants settled after they landed inNew York. Salva was the youngestdaughter of the child named Lukewho was evicted from Ballykilcline atage 10, according to Stewart'sresearch.

Luke grew up to become a sea­man and spent time in Durham, Eng­land, where he met and married Cath­erine Partland in September 1861.Their oldest two of six children were

born in England; the rest in Law­rence: Mary, born in September1863, John Patrick in 1864, Cath­erine, about 1870, Ida Mary in July1872, James F. in November 1875,

and Salva.

Their oldest daughter, Mary, wasone of the first women to graduatefrom the University of Colorado Med­ical School and she later practicedmedicine in that state. A skepticalStewart learned that indeed she had

graduated in 1896 and later becamethe head of the Colorado Sanitarium

and Hospital Association.John Patrick died about 1900;

Catherine disappeared from therecord. Ida married Harry Wilt in 1903in Denver and lived until 1966 when

she died in Hayward, CA Jamesmarried about 1900 in Colorado.

Salva claimed that she was to

become a nun until something thwar­ted her intentions. She married a rail­

road worker named Joseph Rausch in1907 in Denver, only five weeks afterthey met. Salva apparently was un­happy about her poor Irish roots and

put on "airs." In response, her hus­band would proclaim that "she waspoor as a church mouse." Pressedthough, Salva conceded that herparents were laboring people.

Melanie and sister Natalie were

adopted by Salva's son and wife assmall children. As they got older, thegirls "pestered" their GrandmaRausch to tell stories about her

family and Natalie kept notes. SaysBill, "So far, not one of the old familystories ... has turned out to be false

in essential details." Unfortunatelythough, he said, Salva "knew little ifanything about Ireland."

Bill Stewart believes his wife's

family is the one evicted from Bally­kilcline "unless this is a huge coin­cidence." With his evidence though,coincidence seems unlikely.

(Source: Bill Stewart's emails toMary Lee Dunn)

research program any space for in­clusion of descendant or interested

members of the community, nor didthey make recommendations forfuture study of the area and itspreservation. Regardless, the re­covered artifacts and site reports arehoused at the Maryland Archaeologi­cal Conservation Laboratory (MAClabs) and will be visited throughoutthe summer and fall to provide thenecessary material information.

It is with great excitement that Iwrite this very short and abstractsummary of the proposed work inthe Texas area and the ideas of anintimate collaborative effort with the

Ballykilcline Society. I look forwardto working closely with all interestedmembers to bring to light theimportance ofTexas, Maryland, notonly in the realm of Irish-Americanheritage, but within a larger scopeilluminating its part in the formationand construction of a broader

American history and heritage.