Catherine Lonergan
By Kath Lonergan
TFHS Inc. Member No. 1123
Catherine Lonergan, nee Reader, although not directly related to me, is the ancestor of my husband and our children. Over the years many stories have been told regarding this amazing woman, which have fascinated me. So my search began to find out what life must have been like for her. Firstly the stories were told me by Catherine's daughter-in-law, Alice Lonergan and then by Alice's daughter, Pearl Cruise. A debt is owed to both these ladies for living to very old ages and being able to relate such stories about Catherine. Pearl was twelve when her grandmother died and she had lived with them for two years from the time Catherine's husband passed away.
Catherine was born in Cork, Ireland, about 1836. On her death certificate in 1912 it states she was seventy-one, which would have made her born in 1841, however her death certificate is wrong as she would not have been ten years old when she married. There is, however, some uncertainty over Catherine's age. When her father applied for his family to come to Van Diemen's Land, her age was put at fourteen. Catherine may have advanced her age when marrying, or her father was mistaken about her age.
Catherine was the daughter of Cornelius and Ellen Riordan (nee McNamara). Cornelius could neither read nor write so authorities wrote his name as Reader. Cornelius was transported in August 1843 aboard the Constant from Ireland. He was convicted of stealing sheep. He successfully applied for his wife and daughters, Catherine and Margaret, to come to Van Diemen's Land. They arrived in 1850. Cornelius was a convict at Long Point, Maria Island for some of the time that Catherine's future husband, Daniel was there.
Catherine was sister to: Margaret born Ireland 1842 married James Sullivan 1857; Mary born VDL 1853 married James Code 1877 and Daniel born VDL 1858 married Margaret Dwyer 1877.
When Catherine arrived in Van Diemen's Land, her father was working for Mr John Cornell in the district of Campbell Town and by records of births and marriages, the family remained there until at least 1857 when they moved to Port Cygnet where Cornelius became the owner of the farm 'Ellen Bridge'. Both Catherine's parents died at Cygnet. Cornelius in 1896, aged ninety-one and Ellen in 1891, aged seventy-two.
Daniel Lonergan, who was to become the husband of Catherine, was transported for life in 1843 aboard the Navarino together with three other men for their part in a plot to stop machinery being installed in mills in Cork City, Ireland. He was one of the many Irish Catholics transported to Van Diemen's Land, but like most other Irishmen who were forced here, Daniel and his three conspirators were not illiterate, but could all read and write.
The marriage of Catherine Reader to Daniel Lonergan took place on 15 November 1851 in the Commandant's Cottage at Ross. Catherine's age was given as sixteen and Daniel's thirty. Within the Lonergan family there is a mother-of-pearl buckle and bow of which is said, 'twelve of each adorned the bottom of her pale mauve wedding gown'. They were supposedly given to family members as keepsakes.
At the time of their marriage both Catherine and Daniel were working for Mr George Clark at 'Ellenthorpe', Ross. George Clark had an extensive property at Ross and he and his wife, Hannah, also operated a girls' school. The Clarks must have treated their employees justly as the couple remained there for two years before moving to Hobart Town.
On their marriage certificate, Catherine signed her name with an 'X' so we can presume she could not write and possibly, not read. However as her husband could, maybe he taught Catherine. By 1858 Catherine had applied in writing to have a 'Lonergan' relation bought out from Ireland.
In later years she read stories to her grand daughter, Pearl.
In 1853, Daniel received his Conditional Pardon. From records it has been established the couple remained in Hobart Town for two years before moving to the south-west. Their addresses over the following years were given as Snug River/North West Bay/Lune River and Victoria (Huon) where Daniel worked in the timber industry for fourteen years.
During the two years the couple lived in Hobart Town, Catherine and Daniel became the parents of two daughters, Mary and Ellen. From the years 1855 to 1869 they added Susannah; Margaret; Mary Ann (Annie); Hannah; John (Jack); Cornelius; Catherine; Kate; Daniel Joseph and Honora (Nora) to the family. This made twelve children. For a time they lived in Brown's River (Kingston) while Daniel cleared land, and planted fruit trees and vegetables for market on land he purchased at Summerleas. Then he built the family home and more children came along. There were Julia Ann, Laura, James (Jim), Theresa Ann, Rose, Francis Henry, Agnes Mabel, Henrietta and Elizabeth Josephine. In all, twenty-one children!
Poor Catherine! She was pregnant for over nineteen years of her life and maybe more as there were several gaps between some births during which time there could have been miscarriages or still-births. Of these children, five daughters and one son died between the ages of eighteen months and six years. Catherine and her husband had forty-six grandchildren that were traced; one hundred and six great grandchildren and fifty-two great great grandchildren. It would be impossible to estimate the progeny of this woman and her husband.
The strong will of Catherine made her able to cope with the harsh conditions the bush would have dealt out to her. As timber became scarce around the small settlements, Daniel would have had to work further inland and he could have been away months at a time. On her own, most of the time pregnant and with small children to look
after, one wonders at the constitution of this woman. There would be the ever-present threat of robbers and unsavoury characters who roamed the area. Home remedies would have been relied on for all sicknesses or medical emergencies and a good knowledge of these would have been required by the mother of the household.
In the winters Catherine would have had to cope with floods, trying to keep the children warm, continual mud on clothing and being walked into the home. The laundry would have been done in a creek while hauling along the entire family and the washing. All had to be carted home and dried, frequently hung indoors and smelling of smoke when the weather was severe, making it impossible to hang the clothes over bushes to dry.
Then came the heat and dust of summer. Threat of bush fires, shortage of water and food going bad. No matter what the weather, they had to be fed and with supplies corning from Hobart by boat and depending how close they lived to the sea or their money situation, many a time food would be scarce or even non-existent. They would have relied on trapping bush animals, birds or fish. One wonders how they survived, but survive they did by the sheer hard work put in by Catherine to keep her family safe and well. She was like all the other colonial women who lived in the bush-a settler's wife with the capability to work hard and with great strength in body and character.
The later years would have been easier, with the older girls helping with the younger children. A great grand daughter related to me that her grand father said the younger children in the family never really knew the older girls and they were regarded more like aunts than sisters.
A well-known story within the family tells of Catherine, pregnant in 1875 with daughter Rose, killed and slaughtered a bullock. During her task she went into labour, delivered the baby herself, slept for a while and taking the new born with her, went back to her butchering.
A good living must have been earned by her husband, Daniel. He had been a sawyer all his working life, even in Ireland and so his knowledge of timber while working in the south west would have been a bonus to him. Family hearsay has it he made extra money by hand-crafting furniture from Tasmanian timbers and selling illicit alcohol. So however Catherine's husband obtained his money, they had enough to feed and clothe all those children while saving to buy land, set up the farm and build a home.
The family home was constructed of timber and built close to Dunn's Creek at Summerleas in the district of Queenborough. A side road went down their property to Dunn's Creek and many persons used this shortcut down over Ridgeway to Hobart. The structure was built on the bottom side of what is now Summerleas Road and was burnt in approximately 1897. By now Catherine was approximately fifty-two and her husband sixty-six. Most people would have given up and walked away, but these were pioneering people and a second home was rebuilt on the same site, with another alongside to house their son, Cornelius and his family.
Religion and the church meant a lot to Catherine and Daniel. As each child was born, they were baptised at St Joseph's Church in Macquarie Street and later St Mary's Cathedral in Harrington Street, Hobart. This was done within approximately two months at the most of the child's birth. What a task it would have been for the family to travel from the south west by boat to have this ceremony performed. They were staunch Catholics, as were many of the timber workers in the south west and their religious needs would have been met by travelling priests. When they eventually moved to Summerleas the family were too many to go to church by horse and cart. Depending on the weather, they walked either down over Ridgeway, or up to the Fem Tree and down Huon Road every Sunday to Mass at St Joseph's Church. They were known to be a happy family, addicted to singing and this is what they did as they walked, in the cold and rain of winter and the heat of summer.
The farm was registered as a fruit and vegetable farm and it provided a living for Catherine's husband and their four sons until each one married. Their eldest son, Cornelius, remained on the farm and eventually became the owner. During hard times when prices were low for their market goods or crops failed, the five men worked for the railways.
The pleasant nature of Catherine was well known, but if someone angered her or something upset her, she would let fly in Gaelic. No one could understand her, save Daniel, and the children, not knowing what was happening to their mother, took off into the bush and hid until she calmed down. During her later years Catherine desperately wanted to return to Ireland to visit but Daniel would not accompany her and she would not go without him. Under the terms of his conditional pardon Daniel could not to return to Ireland, but in the circumstances of being a land owner and with such a large family here, he could have applied to go and most probably would have been granted permission. Memories and changes he never wanted to see would have stopped him.
Another story tells of the excise man coming to the farm looking for Daniel's whisky still, but Catherine took him in hand and got him drunk on cider. With the help of the children she put him on his horse and headed him down Summerleas Road. He never returned.
Many of the Lonergan descendants had, and still have, red curly hair. One great grand daughter told of her grandmother trying to dye her hair with cold tea. When asked why she was doing it, she said she did not want to be known as belonging to 'that red headed mob up on the mountain'.
In 1907, Catherine and Daniel moved to 80 Molle Street, Hobart. They lived here for three years and Daniel died in 1910 from complications he received when pushed into an iron fence by an angry dog, while out walking. Catherine nursed him for several months and upon his death, moved in with her son, Daniel Joseph Lonergan and his wife, Alice and their children in Cascades Road, Hobart. During this time Catherine loved to read and she was always knitting gloves and socks for the young ones of the family.
In her later years, Catherine liked a glass of gin of an evening before retiring. Fred, Daniel Joseph's son, would fill her glass up with water just to hear her native brogue. He usually ended up with the water thrown over him.
Catherine Lonergan has no claim to fame, save the fact she was a true pioneering woman who spent her time surviving life and rearing her large family in the Tasmanian bush. What a strong constitution for a woman to have borne so many children, toiled so hard and still have lived to an old age-an ancestor to be proud of. This lady, we can truly pay homage to as one of our contributing females, who through necessity, determination and hard work, helped in her own small way to make her island home into the great state it is today.
In the year 1912, Catherine died from old age and she was buried with her husband in the old Queenborough Cemetery, Sandy Bay. If there had been a head stone, it never survived.
References
Archives Office of Tasmania G033/70 Page 344 CON33/41
CON 14/2
NS 1052/13 No. 46 CON 33/34 RGDBDM
GO 33/70 Page 344 CON 33/41
CON 14/21
Arch Diocesan Archives, Mt St Canice, Sandy Bay, Tasmania Walch's Tasmanian Almanac 1863-1910
Tasmanian Post Office Directories 1892-1910
Colonial Times1845-1857
The Hobart Town Gazette(Tasmanian Gazette) 1843-1940 The Mercury 1857-1999
This story was originally published in 2001 by the Tasmanian Family History Society Inc in My Most Interesting Ancestor.
The original introduction to this publication may be found here.