Tombstone Tuesday/The Sad Death of Darby Hogan

   Darby Hogan was born in Tipperary in 1815 and like so many of his countrymen, came to seek his fortune in America.  I'm not sure exactly how Darby is related to my family, I suspect through marriage as a Bridget Hogan married my 3x great uncle Andrew Ryan in Palmyra, New York.  At any rate several of my Ryan ancestors are buried in Darby's cemetery plot at St. Annes's in Palmyra so I'm confident there is a relationship there.
    Darby appears to have been married twice, as his wife at the time of his violent demise was too young to have a child living on it's own in Ireland as his  obituary mentions:

April, 1861:     Darby Hogan, who had been for 8 or 9 years, employed by the Central RR as a watchman and switch tender at the Palmyra Station, was killed Friday morning last by a train of cars passing over him.  Mr. Hogan was returning home from the station where he had been on duty the night previous, when he was overtaken by the New York mail train going west.  He stepped from the track to allow the train to pass, and not knowing that the work train was a short distance in the rear on the same track, he resumed his position on the track- seeing which, the brakeman on the mail train made a motion with his hands intended as a warning that another train was close at hand; but Hogan mistaking this for a salutation, responded cordially, and remained on the track.  

     The noise made by the mail train prevented his hearing the approach of the work train – and the wind blew the smoke to the rear of the train and enveloped Hogan in smoke that he was not seen by the engineer of the work train in time even to check the speed of his engine.  As soon as the man was discovered, every means was taken to warn him, by the engineer, and a woman standing near the tracks, calling him by name and gesticulating violently with her hands, but such was the noise that he heard not and heeded not.  The engine came upon him unawares, throwing him across the track, and the entire train passing over him.  Hogan was nearly severed in twain, the heart and lungs being thrown some distance.  The men on the work train placed the mangled corpse on a board and carried it to the former home of the deceased about 6 rods from the scene of the disaster, where his wife had been awaiting his return home to breakfast.  She had seen him approaching, and had placed his breakfast upon the table – but alas, instead of her husband partaking of the goodness she had provided for him, he was ushered into her presence a mangled corpse.  The scene at the house was heartrending in the extreme, and can better be imagined than described.  

     Mr. Hogan was an honest, industrious and worthy man, an affectionate husband and kind father.  His wife and children, frantic with grief, clung to his mangled remains, unwilling to leave them to allow an inquest.  Deceased was born in County Tipperary, Ireland Dec. 10 1815.  He was faithful to his employer, his family and friends, and to his church.  He leaves a wife and 8 children to mourn his fate.  One son is yet in Ireland and is expected in this country.   Who can imagine his feelings on arrival to find his mother a widow?  By his industry and frugality, Hogan had saved means to purchase and nearly pay for a small, but comfortable house for his family. 

Irish Genealogy Database

     The search for the birthplace in Ireland of my Gunn ancestors has finally been successful thanks to my new favorite internet database  http://www.irishgenealogy.ie .  From her marriage record, I knew the names of my great grandmother Mary Gunn's parents and that she was born in Ireland, but that was all I knew.  The clues have been few and far between, but they've finally come together.  The first came in a small Catholic cemetery located in Palmyra, NY.  There, next to the maintenance shed stood the badly weathered gravestone of my presumed great, great uncle George Gunn.  It bore what looked like the inscription, "Native of Listo, County Kerry, Ireland".  George, I later discovered, is next to the shed because at the time of his death, he was deemed undeserving of a Catholic burial and was placed in non-sacred ground.  The joke was on them though, the cemetery has grown to such an extent that George is now surrounded on all sides by holy ground.
     The second clue was his death certificate.  It named his birthplace as County Kerry, and his parents as John Gunn and Margaret Browne, the very same parents listed in Mary's marriage record.  Mary's name also appeared on the death certificate as the informant.  Taken together I concluded they were almost certainly siblings.  Clue three was finding George's name on the passenger list of a ship arriving in America in 1890, his address --  Listowel, now the partial word Listo on his stone made sense.  Listowel is a town, but also a parish so I knew the family's home wasn't necessarily in the town of Listowel.

     The breakthrough came from the Irish Genealogy site. There I found the baptismal records of not just George Gunn, but his sister Mary, brother Francis and a previously unknown sister Seragh.  The information included names of parents and godparents, and more remarkably, those transcriptions contained a townland, Ballygologue, County Kerry!  The site has records from Roman Catholic parishes in Kerry, Dublin and Cork.  Church of Ireland records are available from Carlow and Kerry along with Presbyterian records from Dublin.  The site is easy to navigate, and although there are as yet no images of my records, they promise they are coming, along with new records.  If only there were more sites like this one, and did I mention, it’s free!