They killed James, his wife Johannah, their youngest son Tom and their niece Bridgett before setting the house on fire and fleeing the scene. Having had enough, a group of vigilantes set out to kill the Donnellys on February 4, 1880. Much to the dismay of area residents, thefts and arsons, among other things, started happening around Lucan following James’ return home and the Donnellys were automatically suspected. Fortunately for him, his sentence was later reduced to seven years in jail.Īfter being released from Kingston Penitentiary in 1865, James Donnelly returned home to Lucan. Donnelly was taken to Goderich for his trial and found guilty and sentenced to ‘death by hanging’ which was to be carried out on September, 17, 1858. By May of 1858, however, James Donnelly decided to turn himself in, likely due to being fed up with hiding and because the harsh winter had taken its toll on him. For eleven months he hid in his stable and fields and wore his wife’s clothes to disguise himself if he was out working the fields. When the police came to arrest Donnelly, he had disappeared. Witness accounts of the conflict varied but one thing was certain, Donnelly had killed Patrick Farrell. This dispute turned deadly on Jwhen Donnelly and Farrell got into a fight that ended with Donnelly impaling Farrell with a handspike.

I turn, Maher rented the land out to a Patrick Farrell who took Donnelly to court to take control of the land he had rented. Grace sold off half of the land to a man by the name of Michael Maher. In 1855, about ten years after the Donnellys had squatted on their land, Mr. Regardless, James set about building a log cabin for his family to live in and began clearing the land so that he could farm on the land he had squatted on. This parcel of land was 100 acres and belonged to a man by the name of John Grace who was an absentee landlord. Having very little money, James Donnelly chose to become a squatter and took over a parcel of land on the Roman Line near Lucan. The Donnelly family, or the Black Donnellys as they have become known by, were a family of Irish immigrants that settled near Lucan, Ontario in the 1840s in hopes of finding a better life in Canada than what they had known in Ireland.

The Donnelly Album by Ray Fazakas