An American Experience

by
James Francis Kanavy

As a boy, I remember the family gathered around the supper table listening as my father related stories, handed down to him, about his parents, grandparents, and their neighbours experiences while migrating to America. He told us about how the English colonists, forced the native Irish to work their own land as indentured servants. He spoke of how the potato famines of the 19th century caused massive death and destruction forcing many to leave the Emerald Isle to find work. many, including my grandmother and great-grandparents, eventually migrated to the United States. The newly arrived would settle where friends neighbours and relatives had found work.

My father told how his mother, Ann Duddy, was born in Ireland and as a young girl moved with her parents to England where her father worked as a shipbuilder. They left an older sister in Ireland, never to be seen again. Anthracite coal found in abundance in northeastern Pennsylvania was called "black gold'. so, John Duddy and his children left England arriving in America hoping to get work in the anthracite mines as carpenters building mine cars to haul coal. Discovering that the mining industry held little opportunity for skilled workers, John Jr., Tom and Bridget Duddy moved west to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to use their carpenter skills building barges to transport goods down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to the Gulf of Mexico. they settled in Pittsburgh and Ohio.

My father, John, was only 18 months old when his father died. he told how my uncle Jim, only 14 years old, took over as head of the family, supporting his mother, sister, Ann, and brothers Walter, Richard, Paul and John. Tommy and John Duddy of Ohio and Pittsburgh helped the family financially, keeping the children out of the orphanage. Jim worked in the mines 18 hours a day as a "breaker boy", picking slate pieces out of the coal as it passed on a chute. The work was long and the bosses were unmerciful.

The mine owners were frequently wealthy Welsh or English who owned not only the mines but the homes where the miners lived and the stores where they obtained food and clothing. The mine owners would charge exorbitant amounts of money for rent, clothing, and groceries. If a miner broke a pick or a shovel while working in the mines, the cost was deducted from his pay. Ironically, once again the Irish miner found himself an indentured servant to the English. The only escape was through alcohol or death. Yet, undaunted, the Irish held hope for the next generation to do better through education and opportunity. Before jobs were found in the growing railroad industry and police work, my father and his peers escaped servitude to the wealthy mine owners by prize fighting bare knuckled for a purse and by bootlegging coal. Organising labour unions and politics, which well-suited the pugnacious Irish personality, provided the vehicles for power and prestige.

My father told how his grandfather and grandmother, Owen and Sarah Kanavy nee Moran, came to the small mining town of Minooka(an Indian name) 3 miles southwest of Scranton, Pennsylvania in the 1860's, when it consisted of nothing more than a general store, a bar, and tar paper covered shacks at the entrance to a mine. Sarah Kanavy was married in Ireland to William Lydon, and they had three children: Mary Lydon (born 1861), Michael Lydon (born 1863), and Richard Lydon (born 1864). The story is that she married Owen Kanavy in Ireland before coming to the United States in 1864. Owen Kanavy, also spelled Kinneavy and Keneavy, was from Co Galway. Their first child was my grandfather, Stephen Kanavy, born 1867 or 1868 in Minooka, Pennsylvania. Owen Kanavy was a miner, and he died between 1890 and 1893. Neither Owen nor Sarah could read or write, so the exact spelling of the name Kanavy is not known to my father; he only knows that it has been changed. Initially my father remembered only his aunt Mary Cusick nee Lydon and his uncle Patrick Kanavy. My father and the Corbetts were cousins. Mary Corbett nee Kanavy was a first cousin to my grandfather. She was the daughter of Owen Kanavy, born 1859, in Ireland. She married Joseph Corbett, born in Cor na Mona, Ireland. My father recalls the name Cor na Mona but few other details.

On his mother's side, my father remembers his mother had a much older sister, Mary or Margaret, who married a Jennings in Ireland and moved to another part of Ireland. His mother did not see her again, but her children, Mike Jennings, Helen Jennings, Margaret Jennings, and John Jennings migrated to the us and settled in Jersey City, New Jersey. We visited them often. My father's uncle James I Duddy, was killed in the Spanish American War. her other brothers and sisters were: John who ran a bar in Pittsburgh; Mike of Minooka, who trained heavy weight fighters; and Bridget Duddy, who lived in Ohio my father's grandfather, John Junior Duddy, was born in Ireland in 1835, possibly March. He worked as a miner and lived with my father's family in Minooka until his death between 1910 and 1920.

One evening the family discussion turned to the controversial book, origin of the species, and Darwin's theory that we evolved from apes, to which my father curtly remarked that "he didn't know about Darwin, but he is a descendant of an Irish King".

Armed with this sketchy information and having read an article in the Scranton Times stating that many of the residents of Minooka, now part of the city of Scranton, were from Co Mayo, I started my search. Scranton has established a "sister city" relationship with Ballina, Co Mayo. After questioning my father, I began to call and write other relatives to piece together a family tree. My search started with the US Census Records on microfilm at the Scranton public library. since Scranton and Minooka were part of Luzerne County until Lackawanna County was formed in 1878, I began with the 1860 Luzerne County census. The first reference to Owen and Sarah Kanavy was in 1870, which has handwritten spelling of Kenavey or Kineavy, gave date and place of birth, number of years married, children and their ages, and their date of entry into the us as 1864. The 1880 census gave additional children and occupation. Census records, except 1890 which was destroyed, were checked to 1920. the Kanavy name was spelled various ways in the census, at times brothers names were different in the same census. however, each spelling variation was a phonetic of Kinneavy.

The county directories were of little help because they were not printed every year. Courthouse deeds, naturalisation, wills and marriages were reviewed. The most helpful of these was the marriage licence application, which gives the age, occupation, residence, place of birth, parents and their place of birth for each party, as well as the place and a date of marriage. Marriage records begin about 1890. The deeds and wills contain sparse information because many early immigrants could not afford land and had nothing of value for an estate.

The search led to St Joesph's Church, founded in 1878 in Minooka, PA where the burial records that start in 1900 and marriage records start in 1890. It was here I found that my grandfather was buried October 1, 1914 and his name is spelled Stephen Kinneavy, not Kanavy as we use today. His death certificate gave me the names of his parents as Owen Kanavy and Sarah Moran. I could not find a burial reference to Owen, but Sarah Kanavy died December 31, 1909. Her death certificate was obtained through the state bureau of vital statistics and gave her place of birth in Ireland in 1843 and her parents as Rich Moran and Nappie Flanagan.

the historical societies were not much help because the Kanavy and Duddy families were not prominent. The Luzerne county historical society had a reference to Patrick and Thomas Duddy who immigrated to the us and lived in plains, Luzerne Co, about 20 miles from Minooka, Lackawanna Co. Patrick Duddy was born in Ballinrobe, Co Mayo, while Thomas Duddy was born May 22, 1860 in Staffordshire England. My father told me they were his mother's cousins but he did not know them he only "knew of them". Duddy's still live in Plains.

I interviewed older relatives and began to piece together the puzzle. In addition to the census records, members of my family and others who spelled their name Kanavy, Kenavy, Kineavy, Kinneavy, Knavy, and Kanavey were interviewed. one point stood clear, they all pronounce their name the same way that Kinneavy is pronounced in Ireland. They all said their relatives migrated from County Galway.

The census records revealed that my grandmother Ann Duddy and her father John J Duddy entered the US in 1884 or 1886, and John J Duddy was a widower. My father said he had first cousins in Jersey City, NJ named Jennings. I located their daughter, Margaret Forke nee Jennings (age 94), and she said the Jennings family home was in Co Mayo near the town of Clonbur, Co Galway. So I wrote to the genealogical research centres in Galway East, Galway West, Mayo South, and Mayo North, resulting in my finding that my grandmother, Ann Duddy, was born in Kilbride, Ballinrobe, Co Mayo on September 14, 1872. She was the daughter of John Duddy, a farmer, and Margaret Price. The birth was witnessed by Mary Duddy. I learned through Margaret Forke that the family travelled to Hebburn-on-Tyre, England, before coming to the US in 1884. Thomas Duddy, nephew of my grandmother, said his dad, John J Duddy Jr, was born in England in 1873, supposedly while the family was on a holiday. My grandmother's marriage licence to Stephen Kanavy in 1897 lists her as born in Ireland and the daughter of John and Margaret Price Duddy. She was attended by Margaret Duddy.

As a result of my findings, I was able to apply for Irish citizenship on march 14, 1996, based on my grandmother. Through family contacts and pure luck, I was able to find James Jennings, Dring, Finney, Stephen and Sarah Kinneavy, Duras, Cor na Mona, and I learned of Mary Corbett, Cor na Mona, Co Galway. Jerry Kinneavy, son of Stephen and Sarah, Duras, told me of his research revealing that the Kinneavy clan migrated from Sligo to Mayo before arriving in Co Galway. Jack Kinneavy, Roschaill, Co Galway, told my brother, also Jack Kanavy, that the Kinneavy's operated a pub near Roschaill since the early 1820's.

I was given a copy of research on the Kineavy (and its variations - Kanavy, Kinavy, Kinneevy, and Kinneavy) name quoting Reverand Patrick Woulfe, Irish Names and Surnames, Dublin, 1922, that the Kinneavys are a branch of the ui Fiachrach, ancient proprietors of a district in the barony of Carra, Co Mayo, where Kinneavy's are still extant. Us Fiachrach are descended from Eochaidh Muigh Meachoin, a King of Ireland from 357 to 365 a. d. so my father is right, he is descended from an Irish king. Darwin is wrong!

As many of the residents of the Minooka section of Scranton came from the Southern part of Co Mayo, the residents' names reflect the family names of Co Mayo, Moran, Kane, Walsh, Lydon, Joyce, Jeffers McDonough, Sullivan, and Flynn, to name a few. Mayo is alive and continues to strive in northeastern Pennsylvania. The descendants of the early immigrants, have risen to social prominence as professional baseball players, such as my father's godfather, Mike McNally, who played for the new York Yankees, as community leader, such as Jimmy Connors, Mayor of Scranton; and others who have become law enforcement professionals, like myself; doctors, lawyers, judges and business leaders. They have finally broken from indentured servitude. Mayo is alive and well!!

The Nallys of Rockstown in County Mayo, Ireland