Money Stolen from St. Joseph's

Pittston Gazette - June 23, 1884

This article gives you an idea of how miners supported St. Joseph's Church in Minooka. "Many miners [employed by William Connelll & Co.] are in the habit of paying over their contributions to the church to the mine office to be forwarded to the pastor."

Michael "Squire" O'Neill - Father of Baseball Players - Dies May 1911

Mrs. Mary O'Neill, Mother of Steve O'Neill, Dies in Minooka - January 24, 1934

John Burke Killed in Digging Bootleg Coal Accident - 1936

Minooka High School Basketball Team - 1936 and 1937

Updated:

Front row: Johnny Reilly, Manager, Paul Walsh, Tommy "Tip" Coyne, Bill Bauer and T.J. McHale

Second Row: Joe "Tinker" Egan, the undertaker's son, Joe Conaboy, Fran Walsh, Shamus Corbett, Joe Higgins, and Chris Powell

Another Legal Snarl Appears - Voting Irregularities - 1898

Minstrel Show - Hose Company - 1915

Minooka's Involvement in the Spanish-American War

Minooka Boys in Navy

The Little Town has Quite a Large Percentage

April 28, 1898 – Scranton Republican

“Minooka has probably a larger representation in the navy than the city of Scranton, having at least 11 young men now in Uncle Sam’s active service on the seas.

Minooka’s Prize

Scranton’s Small Suburb Claims Peculiar Honor

From Its Place in the Army and Navy

July 27, 1898 – Scranton Tribune

“Minooka, Scranton’s southern suburb, claims the proud record of furnishing to the defense of the nation in the present war more soldiers than any town of its size in the United States. It has a population of not over 1,500, and yet thirty-five of its sons are now at the front.

“Some enlisted in the volunteers, but the most of them went with the regulars. There are more young men gone from Minooka who are suspected of having joined the service, but it is not known for certain. There are also quite a few who wanted to go, but were not of age and could not get the consent of their parents; and still others who wanted to go but could not pass the physical examination. There were very few, however, of this description. The Minookaites are as a rule not very delicate in building.”

Spanish American War – Minooka Volunteers

John Barrett

Thomas Barrett – “The only Minooka boy who figured in the historic scrimmage at El Caney, Santiago, Cuba. He was a member of a regiment quartered at Montauk Point.”

The U.S.S. Raleigh

Patrick Carey – Serving on the USS Raleigh in Admiral Dewey’s feet. “Met at Scranton – April 20, 1899 – Scranton Republican – “Mr. Carey arrived in this city on the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western train from New York at 8:45 last night. John J. Coyne, the committee from the Minooka Young Men’s Institute appointed to go to New York to meet the sailor, accompanied him.

“Mr. Carey said: ‘You see I belong to the Raleigh. You’ve heard of the Raleigh and so has everyone in the civilized world. Well, in the battle of Manila Bay, our ship took a prominent part. I ain’s an officer. I am only a common sailor. You can wager we felt a bit shaky for that was the first time most of us were ever under fire, but after a while we became used to the noise and excitement and we didn’t mind it much. Oh, the men and officers acted fine to a man. No cowards on the Raleigh.”

Surgeon John F. Kane Dies at 32 - 1916

Mr. Coyne Was Satisfied - An Encounter with a Streetcar Fender - March 3, 1896

Minooka Fire-Swept - August 23, 1894

1875 - "Scranton's Burning Mine"

Reading Times
September 30, 1875

Irish Banquet Night - March 1920

Irish from County Mayo in Scranton

February 19, 1931

A Polling Place Between Two Saloons - 1898 - Minooka

Contributed by Bill Gaughan

Minooka's Old Timers - Circa 1914

Anthracite Museum, Dade Park, Scranton

Memories of Steve O'Neill by Scranton Newspaperman - 1935

Minooka Fire-Swept - August 24, 1894

St. Joseph's Founded in 1874

Wages of Sin - South Side News - October 1, 1894

Scranton Tribune
October 1, 1894
South Side News

Wages of Sin is Death

John Moran Flees to Escape the Law and Finds Refuge in Death

and Finds Refuge in Death

The remains of John Moran, son of Martin Moran, of the "Lower Patch," in the Twentieth ward, were yesterday afternoon interred in St. Joseph's Catholic cemetery, Minooka. There is a tragic lesson interwoven with the young man's death.

About five weeks ago the hotel of George Beamish, of Minooka, was burglarized during the night. Suspicion pointed to Moran, Michael Cannon and John Padden. When they heard the Hotelkeeper Beamish had a warrant issued for their arrest, they fled, and nothing further was heard about them until the friends of Moran saw in the Pittston correspondence of last Friday's TRIBUNE the account of the death and burial of a man who had been killed on the Lehigh Valley railroad, supposed to be Thomas Moran, of Carr's Patch. Becoming uneasy some of them went to Pittston, Saturday, and identified the clothes worn by the daed man as those of John Moran.

When the three young men hurriedly left home they went to Pittston and took up assumed names. Moran changed his first name from John to Thomas and Cannon masqueraded under the name of James White. They secured work at the Stevens colliery in West Pittston. On Friday, Sept. 21, Moran and Cannon visited Sturmerville, in company with a fellow boarder, Cormac McMonigal, whose parents live in Hazleton. They drank freely and at a late hour Moran and Cannon separated from McMonigal and walked from Sturmerville to the Lehigh Valley station at Pittston and near the Lackawanna and Bloomsburg Junction attempted to board a rapidly moving coal train. Moran was dragged several hundred yards, and at length his body was ground to pieces under the wheels. Cannon was also dragged, but fell to the side of the track and rolled into the ditch where he laid unconscious until morning.

When Moran's remains were gathered up, in one of his pockets was found a store book filled out in the name of Cormac McMonigal. The Pittston police notified McMonigal's folks, but their delay in answering rendered it necessary to inter the body, which was done at the expense of the Pittston Poor district. Later McMonigal turned up and that dissipated the belief that it was he who had been killed, but he informed the police who the dead man was; and Moran's relatives, as before stated, seeing the facts in the Pittston column of THE TRIBUNE investigated and found that it was John Moran who had been killed.

The remains were exhumed and further identified, and brought home for interment.

Advertisements in that day's paper:

"That tired feeling which is so common and so overpowering is entirely driven off by Hood's Sarsaparilla, the best blood purifier. Hood's Sarsaparilla overcomes weakness.

Hood's Pills are the best after-dinner pills, assist digestion, cure headache. 25 cents a box.

Minooka News - October 15, 1895

Scranton Tribune - October 15, 1985
The night school conducted by the members of the Young Men's Institute was re-opened last evening for the winter session. The class will assemble at their hall three nights each week. Martin H. McDonough and Joseph Mulderig will serve in the capacity of instructors.

Richard J. Cusick, P.J. Quinn, W.J. Burke, John B. O'Malley and John Kearney represented the St. Joseph Total Abstinence and Benevolent society at the quarterly convention of the second district of the Scranton Diocesan union yesterday.

Henry Shorten and Miss Annie Sullivan, of Miner's Hill, will be married on October 22.

Much interest is manifested in the coming shooting match between Martin Mangan and John Higgins, which takes place Oct. 21.

A valuable team of gray horses owned by Supervisor Gibbons was killed at the National breaker on Saturday by a trip of runaway gondolas.

From Coal Mine to Bin

Map of Omey Island

Religious Strife Between Protestants and Catholics on Omey Island

The Church of England Magazine - Church Pastoral-aid Society, London

Under the superintendence of Clergymen of the United Church of England and Ireland
December 1853

The two following were received in acknowledgement of some of the parcels of clothing sent by kind friends. I answer to the last appeal:

From the missionary at Sallerna: “With feelings of the most lively gratitude I beg to inform you that the parcels of clothing for the schools at Omey Island and Sallerna have all been disposed of according to your directions. The poor children are most wretched for want of food: a poor widow told me yesterday that her children had not tasted for two days; and it was truly lamentable to witness the distress of herself and her four little girls, You will rejoice to hear that the attendance has been very little decreased notwithstanding the want of food. There have been about sixty girls in Sallerna school yesterday; and, while I was speaking to them, one poor thing fainted from the effects of hunger and exhaustion. Our enemies are rejoiced at the state of things. The trial is a severe one; but the faith of the children fails not. A little boy told me yesterday that he knew by experience what is to pray for daily bread. The school at Omey Island has been quite full the whole week: the poor children expressed their determination to pray, and asked me to pray with them, at the same time remarking that when their heavenly Father thinks it fit he will send them food.”

London: John Hughs, 12 Ave-Maria Lane

The Church of England Magazine, Volume 35, pp. 111-112

J. Burns 1853

Original from the New York Public Library

Digitized, August 29, 2006

http://tinyurl.com/o56nwmz

St. Féchín (Festus) - Patron Saint of Omey Island

St. Fechin (anglicized Festus)

Feast Day: January 20

Patron of Fore Abbey, Cong Abbey, Omey Island, Ardoilén

Died: 665

Féchín is said to have been born in Bile, probably Billa, in what is now the parish of Collooney (Kilvarnet), County Sligo). The medieval Lives [of the Saints] calls his mother Lassair, identified in the Irish text as a member of a royal Munster line. The Lives tell us that Féchín received his monastic training from St Nath Í of Achonry and later moved on to Clonmacnoise

Ruins of the church founded by St. Feichin on Omey Island

Foundations - The first monastic houses said to have been founded by Féchín are those on the islands of Omey and Ardoilén, both off the coast of Galway, which fell under the protection of the king of Connacht, Guaire Aidne mac Colmáin. His principal foundation was Fobur, now Fore, Co. Westmeath.

Traditions of Omey Island

Traditions of Omey Island

Family names: Faherty, Toole, Mulkerin, Flaherty, King, Lacy, Kane, Bodkin

If the tourist, who contemplates a journey through the majestic scenery which intervenes between the towns of Clifden and Westport, consent to leave the high-road after crossing the bridge of Streamstown, about a mile and a half from the former place, and turn with us in a due westerly direction, we undertake to conduct him along one of not, the least interesting bye-ways of the wild region of West Connaught. The road lies for about two miles by the northern shore of the narrow channel or inlet known as Streamstown bay, which indeed in some places is scarcely a hundred yards across, and is frequently enclosed among rugged and blackened rocks of huge dimensions. We pass the old church-yard of Tempul Athdearg, or the church of the Red-ford; and a little further on, the ruins of the old house or castle of Doon, which stands on our side of the inlet, while on the other side of the water are the ruins of the ancient church of Kill, covered with ivy. This inlet was once a favorite resort of smugglers, and a good story is told of a contrivance by which they succeeded, on a certain occasion, in escaping from the crew of a revenue cruiser who pursued them in boats; a number of spade-handles having been so placed to resemble a formidable array of muskets projecting from a steep bank, and the king’s people being induced by these “threatening” preparations to make a rapid retreat to their vessel.

At length we obtain a view of the vast ocean, with the islands of Inisturk, Croagh, Omey, and others, scattered over its bosom, and the grandeur of that prospects compensates for the dreariness of the scene which immediately surrounds us; although this same granite wilderness of Claddaghduff rivals for barrenness and wretchedness any other spot in all Conamara. The road here deserts us at the low beach from which, at ebb-tide, we may cross almost dry-shod to the once famous island of Omey. But why do we call it famous? Can there be anything to distinguish that flat unpicturesque abode of misery from any other spot in which human wretchedness prevails along the most desolate tracts of the Irish coast? We answer, yes: that poor unfavoured island in the remote west, nearly half the surface of which is covered by a lough and spewy marsh, while the other half is little better than drifting sand, the scanty vegetation on which is frequently blasted by the “red wind” of the Atlantic—that island, we say, has a history of its own. It was the “Imagia insula” of the old Latin hagiologists, and was, as far as we know, the very last spot in which paganism lingered in Ireland. In the latter half of the seventh century, St. Feichin, the holy abbot of Fore, in Westmeath, found the inhabitants of Omey still pagans, and encountered violent opposition from them when building a monastery there, although he obtained the island from the good King of Connaught, Guaire the Generous. We are not, however about to ransack the pages of Colgan or Ussher for ancient references to Omey, but shall for the present content ourselves with such incidents of its history as we find preserved in the traditions of the islanders.