It was May and June,
1830, respectively, when Michael and Catherine Sweeney stepped
aboard ships bound outward from Sligo to Quebec.
As we read the newspapers from that time, it may
have been the copper-sheathed Cyclops or the good
brig Enterprise that took them on the month's
journey over the waves. I speculate that Michael
Sweeney was recruited by brokers in Ireland to
work on one of the canal projects in the Montreal
or Ottawa area. The most likely candidate is the
Rideau Canal. Incredibly, after a tiff and outburst by Michael, he left for America without her.
Not to be outdone or abandoned, the plucky Catherine caught the very next ship for the same port.
However, the ship on which Catherine sailed second got their first!!! She was waiting for him on the dock in Quebec when
he landed, and they remained together for the next 47 years until she died. This story was passed down by their granddaughter,
Lizzie Sweeney Frawley, to her son Alvin who, in 1977, told the tale to an inlaw who wrote it down. A copy of the story was given to me
in 1999. In such ways is family history preserved!
Now let's meet Bob Sweeney and his family. Bob is the creator and administrator of the Sullivan County PAGENWEB site and the author of the history you are about to read. His wife Lynn is a leading genealogist of families in Western Tennessee, where the Sweeneys live today. Here they are:
Robert E. "Bob" Sweeney, Lynn Franklin and Becca Ariella (Sweeney) Metzger
At the Farm of Joyce Tice
Mainesburg, Bradford County, PA
September 29, 2005
Photo Taken by Joyce Tice
Note: Joyce is the Bradford County PAGENWEB coordinator; Bob and his family were making a courtesy call to her home.
And now let's meet the ancestral Sweeney characters in this family "play".
- Michael
Francis Sweeney, 1802-1894, born
Kilglass, County Sligo, Ireland, son of
Owen Sweeney and Catherine Hebren, became
a farmer in Cherry, PA, buried St.
Basil's Church, Dushore, PA. The
Hebron(en) name was common in nearby
Roscommon County and may have been in
Sligo before the Famine.
- Catherine
Sweeney, wife of Michael, 1811-1877, born
Kilglass, County Sligo, Ireland, Cherry,
PA, buried St. Basil's Church, Dushore,
PA. Same family name, but not an
immediate relative.
- Patrick
"Sweeny", 1815-1854, born
Kilglass, buried St. Basil's, married
Catherine Donahoo, the
daughter of Martin and Mary (Walsh) Donahoo who
farmed land next to the Sweeneys.
Patrick was the younger
brother of Michael. They lived next to
each other in Wyalusing in the 1840 Federal
census, where they must have still been
working on the North Branch canal. We know from other sources that many of the Irish families that would end up in
Sullivan County, such as the Harrison and Rouss lines, first lived in the Wyalusing or Tunkhannock area and worked on the
North Branch Canal. You can learn more about these hardy pioneers, how and why they came to the canals of northern
Pennsylvania, and their amazing lives both on the canals and subsequently on the remote hilltop farms of Sullivan County. One remarkable source is an interview with Thomas Rouss, published in the Sullivan Review on October 14, 1943. Rouss was over 100 years old at the time; his memories and detailed recollections of the lives of the Irish canal workers and farmers, and their families, is extracted at
The Life of Thomas Rouss: From Sligo to Sullivan County.
immediate relative.
-
Back to our story..... Patrick Sweeney subsequently had three children
by Catherine that we know of: Bridget (who may have died in infancy),
Ann (sometimes listed in the census as "Nancy") and
Patrick. After his death from causes
still not known, Ann and Patrick were
adopted by Catherine's father Martin
(they were listed as "Adopted" in the 1860 census). There is no
further mention of Bridget except for a possible maid-in-waiting at
the wedding of Martin Sweeney and Julia Wright in 1861, but that is
a sole reference, written in Latin, in the St. Basil's records. For that reason, we surmise
that she did not survive long beyond the 1850 census where she first appears. The
only one of the children I have been able
to trace with any accuracy thereafter is Patrick who lived from 1852
to 1922, married and had three daughters,
and died in 1922 as the result of a mine
accident where he worked in Bernice,
Pennsylvania. His wife Elizabeth (Kinsley), born in the Irish Settlement in Stowell, PA
in 1850, lived on until 1929 on German Street in Dushore. Her father James Kinsley was one of
three brothers who came to the wilderness of the Stowell area in the early 19th century, as
described in
John Kinsley and the Irish Settlement: 1830-1986, Settlers Page XXVI on this site. The other daughter, Ann ("Nancy"), shows up as a domestic in the 1870 Federal census, then disappears. A November 2, 1882 death notice in the local Sullivan Review mentions a "Miss Sweeney", formerly of Cherry but now married to a Mr. Hill of Hughesville in Lycoming County, PA. I have not been able to determine anything further at this point, but she is the only Sweeney woman of that age and background that otherwise cannot be accounted for at this time. As for Catherine Donahoo (1831-1897), the widow of Patrick Sweeney, she later married Edward Nolan, a local farmer, and had at least three children by him. She lies buried behind the Sacred Heart Church and Cemetery in Laporte, PA with two of her daughters. She outlived both her husbands.
The
Sweeneys entered Maine, a year after landing in Canada, in 1831, possibly at Oswego, NY, as did many other
Irish immigrants who first journeyed to Canada, then a part of the British Empire. The largest Irish
community in Maine then was in and near Portland,
which was also the site of a major canal-building
effort at that time. After intermediate stops in
New Jersey, Greene (NY) and the Bradford County area, where Michael and his younger brother Patrick worked on the
North Branch Canal and are listed in the 1830 Federal census for Wyalusing Township,
they bought land on Ringer Hill near Dushore,
Sullivan County, Pennsylvania, in 1842-3.
Their first
child Mary was born in 1831. We believe she was married
before 1850 and settled with her husband in the Wellsville, NY area
where she eventually passed away. There are two Sweeney families in the history of that area, and the evidence seems to be that they were related in some way to Catherine Sweeney, wife of Michael the emigrant.
Extensive research in 2005 revealed that one of these families was descended from a Patrick Sweeney of County Sligo. Over time, he had three wives, and eventually emigrated with his final wife, Anne, along with or after his children to the Wellsville area. Back in Ireland, his family had been fishermen. It is possible that he was the father of our Catherine by one of his wives or at least had some close connection. There is direct evidence that one of his sons, Roger Sweeney, was the first husband of Mary Sweeney, the orphaned daughter of Michael Sweeney's niece by Margaret Conmey (see photo below). This Mary subsequently married Peter Fagan after Rodger died in 1869. Another son of Patrick may have been the husband of Michael and Catherine's daughter, also Mary Sweeney, mentioned above. That husband's name was Thomas J. Sweeney. We do know that Thomas died in 1879 and his widow, perhaps our Mary, was raising several children in the nearby village of Willing, NY at the time of the 1880 census. It appears that all the Sweeneys who lived in the area of Wellsville and stayed in that county are buried at Sacred Heart Cemetery in Wellsville, NY. We are still trying to sort out the relationships.
An important source of information for our reserach on the Wellsville Sweeney families is Adele Dolan, great-great granddaughter of Martin and Margaret (Conmey) Sweeney and great-granddaughter of Peter and Mary (Sweeney) Fagan. In 2009, she shared both of the following photos with us:
Mary Sweeney (1839-1908)
Daughter of Martin and Margaret (Conmey) Sweeney
Wife of (1) Rodger Sweeney and (2) Peter FaganPhoto Courtesy of Adele Dolan of Rochester, NY, her great granddaughter
Sweeneys and Fagans of Wellsville, NY Area
Taken Between 1928 and 1930
L to r: Martin Sweeney, Mary (Fagan) Flanagan, Christopher Flanagan, "Aunt Ellie" Sweeney, John Francis Dolan, Angela Flanagan, Margaret (Fagan) Dolan, "Aunt Elizabeth" Fagan, and "Uncle Dan" FaganPhoto Courtesy of Adele Dolan of Rochester, NY, granddaughter of John Francis Dolan and Margaret (Fagan) Dolan
You can learn more and see photos related to the Wellsville Sweeney, Dolan, Fagan and other related families at A Photo Visit to Wellsville.
When Michael and Catherine came to "Ringer Hill", they had at least two other
children, sons Owen (1835-1921) and Martin (1837-1926).
The subsequent children were named Anna (died at 18 months),
Michael, Jr. (1843-1925), Patrick (1846-1928), and Ellen
(1853-1900?). Patrick became a sawyer and moved to Elk County,
then subsequently to McKean County, both in Pennsylvania,
and finally to Salamanca, New York, in Cattaraugus County.
He married Waleberga Krieg about 1874 and raised a typical
large Irish family. The younger Michael became a woodsman,
never married, and died broke at the "Poor Farm" at Retreat,
PA, in Luzerne County, of gangrene in 1925. Before the advent of Social Security, most
Americans faced toughed prospects if they lived into old age. According to an article by Cynthia Crossen in the
Wall Street Journal (September 15, 2004), by 1920 more Americans were living in cities. Old people could no longer rely upon
the secuirty of living with their grown children on the farm, where they could age and die gracefully. Without work and
without a retirement fund, the elderly often ended up in a poorhouse. This appears to have been the case with Michael Sweeney, Jr. Institutions such as the
Poor Farm at Retreat were often little more than insane asylums, orphanages or human warehouses. Ed Sweeney (no relative as far as
we know) wrote Poorhouse Sweeney: Life in a County Poorhouse (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1927; written with Theodore Dreiser), a memoir of his desperate life in one of these places. In 2006, there was also an online discussion forum on this topic at Poorhouse Story.
We will say more about their sister, Ellen Sweeney, below.
You can see pictures of Patrick Sweeney , Patrick's adult children and his brother, also named
Michael, at Faces and Families, Group One..
Michael
married Catherine shortly before they emigrated
from Ireland to Montreal in 1830. We speculate that they
were not literate, from census records, but he at least became a
citizen of the US at some point. Patrick,
Michael's younger brother, was naturalized in
Dushore in 1851. In 1837, son Martin was born at
Hemlock Run near Towanda. He is my
great-grandfather.
The
Sweeneys bought land on Ringer Hill in Cherry, PA
in Sullivan County in 1843. The land map of 1872
shows the actual locations of the lands and
houses of Michael, Martin and Owen Sweeney. I
have examined to some extent the land deed
records in the Sullivan County Courthouse in
LaPorte and found tracts of land owned by
Michael's sons Owen, Martin (my
great-grandfather ) and Michael, Jr. I suspect
that Michael divided up part of his original land
among his sons. In 1998, my wife and I
discovered the foundation ruins of the original
Sweeney house on Ringer Hill. We were guided by
Ray McDonald, who remembers the house as a tall,
thin two-story structure abandoned in a
field. In the summer of 1999, we took
several photographs of the ruins. These
pictures show the still remaining cellar and part
of the wooden wall remains. One of these pictures is shown below.
In March 2005, Pat Corgan of Lancaster, PA sent the
following information to this web site:
My son directed me to your website. We currently have a house on Ringer Hill
on Thall Road. I recognize many of the names in your description of Dushore:
Cain (my uncle once owned the Cain property), Rohe (Art Rohe used to plant potatoes
in our field), and a Donohoe married one of my great uncles.
The "foundation picture" is on property that my brothers and I own. My dad
bought the property when it went up for a tax sale - about 1950 to 1955 I
believe. I remember walking through the house as a child and it was scarey
because the clothes and furniture and pictures were still there. It was as
if the people just left everything. My Dad used to say they were displaced persons from
the war. How long did your family - the Sweeneys - own that property? I
don't think it was in that name when my dad bought it. We have always
referred to it as the "bungalow" property and it was indeed still standing
into the 1960s or early 1970s. As I remember it, the siding looked like roofing
shingles. When we were kids we used to walk down to the bungalow from our
properties farther up the road. You have a great web site.
This is a good example of how the strands of history can be
reassembled and understood from the most unpredictable sources. To Pat, we are grateful and appreciative for this
story.
Foundation of
the Home of Michael Sweeney and Catherine
Sweeney, Ringer Hill, Cherry, PA
Photo by Lynn
Franklin, June 1999
Now back to Ringer Hill in the 19th century.
Owen and Martin Sweeney farmed next to each other on Ringer Hill. We can infer that they shared the lives,
challenges and
celebrations of other farm families in the community. For example, an article in the
Laporte, PA Grant Standard and Press for October 25, 1873 reads:
On Tuesday last a serious accident occurred at a raising at James Cain's in Cherry township.
A bent gave way and Martin Jordan, Owen Sweeney and Michael Cain fell to the ground. Martin Jordan
had four ribs broken and one bone of his leg below the knee. The others escaped with a few bruises.
Here are two pictures of Owen Sweeney. One was taken with with his wife Margaret Jordan Sweeney, late in life, holding
one of their grandchildren, known from the original caption only as "Junior McDonald". The other shows
Owen in the company of Cecilia Waldron, his private servant and housekeeper (per the 1920 federal census) and
also the younger sister of Anna Waldron, the wife of his son Martin Patrick Sweeney. The pictures were among
several discovered in July 2000 by Violet Thomas Frawley, a great-grand-daughter of Owen and Margaret, and therefore another third cousin to
me. They were among the papers of her father-in-law Alvin Frawley at her home in Elmira, New York.
We are most grateful to Violet for their recovery and for these pictures of our cherished ancestors.
Margaret Jordan and Owen Sweeney
With
"Junior McDonald"
Unknown Date, Probably at Home, Cherry Mills, PA
Contributed by
Violet Thomas Frawley
Owen Sweeney and Cecilia Waldron
About 1920, at Home, Cherry Mills, PA
Contributed by Violet Thomas Frawley
As mentioned, Martin Sweeney was Owen's brother and
my great-grandfather. Martin's
wife Julia (Wright) emigrated from Liverpool,
England in 1850 on the ship Fidelia, after leaving her
birthplace of Carn, in County Sligo, Ireland
with her parents, James and Bridget (Dougherty)
in 1845. The family, including three children
arrived in New York on January 17, 1850.
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"I speculate that Michael Sweeney was
recruited by brokers in Ireland to work on one of
the canal projects in the Montreal or Ottawa
area."
Margaret
Jordan Sweeney 1839-1929
Wife of Owen Sweeney
Contributed by Hugh and Mary Ann McDonald Montpetit
"Michael married Catherine shortly before
they emigrated from Ireland to Montreal in
1830."
Daughters of Owen and Margaret
Sweeney circa 1890
"Michael married Catherine shortly before
they emigrated from Ireland to Montreal in
1830."
Ella Bridget Sweeney (1870-1947)
Daughter of
Owen and Margaret Jordan Sweeney
Picture Probably Taken About 1921
Outside Home in Cherry Mills, PA Near John Gross Hotel
(Now the Cherry Mills Lodge)
Becca Ariella Sweeney in 2000
Great-Great-Niece
of Owen and Margaret
Daughter of Robert E. Sweeney and Lynn
Franklin
Photo by Lynn Franklin
Anna and Catherine Sweeney
Daughters of
Owen and Margaret
Picture Taken About 1870
Contributed by Hugh
and Mary Ann McDonald Montpetit
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I found some property tax records for Michael and
Patrick Sweeney from the early 1850's in the Sullivan
County Courthouse. These more or less continue until the
end of the century. There are no organized death records
in this location. There are also some partial wills and
land records. I have a copy of the will that Michael
executed in 1878, the year after his wife died. It
reflects what appears to have been an earlier (1869)
arrangement to parcel the land up among his sons, with
protections for his daughters as well. This earlier document had been given in trust to Valentine Rohe, their next door neighbor, but could not be
found when Catherine Sweeney died June 24, 1877. The reason escaped me until I learned that Valentine himself had died on February 10, 1873. The 1869 document could
easily have been destroyed or lost after its keeper passed away. For the 1878 will, Michael Sweeney's youngest
daughter, Ellen (sometimes referred to as "Ella"), was the executor, presumably because, as
a schoolteacher, she could read and write. Ellen, as we mentioned above, eventually married Mr. Thomas Lavelle
in May, 1884. In the spring of 1885, however, Ellen, apparently without her husband,
but accompanied by her 83-year-old widower father and her brother also named Michael, relocated to the
newly annexed Indian territory in Cheyenne County, Kansas, to become homesteaders!!!! the government passed a
little known Timer Culture Act in 1874 that more or less granted the same homesteading rights to adventureres who would try to harvest timber on the frontier, as to those who went there to farm. It comes as no great surprise that folks like the Sweeneys, who were expert woodsmen and lumberjacks as a secondary profession, might find this appealing. However, growing timber as a cash crop on the windswept Kansas-Nebraska border exceeded the skills of even the most diligent veteran of Eastern timber stands. The venture in Kansas did not work out for these Sweeneys. A message from a local historian, Marian Holzwarth, in 2001 reported as follows:
Evidently Michael Sweeney never finished the proving to get a land
patent. I do have him on my 1890 index of people I believed were here
in 1890. He was in the 1889 voter registration list. The CHEYENNE COUNTY
RUSTLER for July 1888 identifies him as a juror, and, in the same paper, in May 1889, he
was a witness for someone else's proof. The same paper in March 1890,
published that there was a letter for him at the post office--that
usually means the person had gone.
We really do not know why Ellen left her husband either. He later ended up living in Walla Walla, Washington, before
returning to Sullivan County, it would appear, before 1910, where he is listed as a widower in the 1910 census.
Thomas died in 1926 in Laporte, PA, from carcinoma of the esophagus, under the care of his niece, Mrs. Thomas Cavanaugh.
As indicated previously, we do not know as of yet exactly what happened to Ellen. The Sullivan Review for June 9, 1885 reports that the homesteading trio were working
320 acres of government land in Wano, Kansas. However, the town of Wano itself was relocated to nearby St. Francis, KS in 1887. There is another record that
"Ellen Sweeney", daughter of "Michael", married Elijah Bray there in October 1886. However, the records also show that she left by 1888, after being granted a divorce on grounds of
cruelty. We do know that Michael returned at some point to Ringer Hill to his old
home, and died there on February 14, 1894, perhaps from pneumonia or lagrippe, both of which
besieged the local community that year. There is also an old family rumor, which I heard once from my father, that Michael, "the oldest man in the county", died
when he fell off a ladder. This story remained unconfirmed in 2001, but would not be surprising given Michael's previous adventures.
We don't know as yet the whereabouts of Ellen after 1888, when or where she died, or if she returned with her
father to Pennsylvania. Stay tuned as several family genealogists continue to research this intriguing story. There is a woman by this name and the correct age and birth location listed as a boarder in the Federal census for 1900 in Philadelphia; we suspect this is Ellen, but cannot say for sure. No word has passed down in the family of her fate, perhaps because she was viewed as some kind of "black sheep".
We know as well that her brother Michael returned to
Pennsylvania at some point, likely as a laborer and woodsman. He is listed as such in the 1920 census where he is living with his brother Owen at Cherry Mills. He also is known to have spent some time with his brother Patrick at the
latter's home in Salamanca, NY around 1920, and that he died in 1925 in Luzerne County, PA, from gangrene.
By the way, Ellen's niece Ella B. Sweeney, daughter of Owen, was also a schoolteacher and was the
executor of Owen's will in 1921. In November, 1921, at
the age of 51, after all those years of caring for her
aged parents, Ella married Chris Murphy and resumed her
life as a well-regarded teacher in the local school
system. Her mother, Owen's widow, went to live with her
eldest child Annie ("Grandma Annie" to her
children and grandchildren) (Sweeney) McDonald at the
family house in Dushore. She died there in 1929 at the
age of 89. The house still stands and is owned by
McDonalds to this day.
Ella used to love to send postcards to her family and friends, and to get them as well. We have several examples on the Harrison family page at the start of Faces and Families of Old Sullivan County, Group Two. Here is an example that was posted on eBay in June 2005. The card was signed by Ella and mailed before her marriage in 1921. It reads: "We have some pretty views of Dushore. Thanks for the card--Ella B. Sweeney, Dushore, PA".
On the Loyalsock Creek, Dushore, PA
Postcard from Ella Bridget Sweeney
Mailed Before 1921
Source: eBay Auction July 2005
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The oldest son was James Sweeney, named for his mother's father James
Wright. James (1862-1931) married Bertha Kuhnle (1860-1935), daughter
of Charles Kuhnle and Louise Keck. The Kuhnle family was part of the
German community in Sullivan County. James was known as "Big Jim"
and we know he was employed in the lumber industry. His obituary describes
him as a lumber scaler, a job that involved measuring the lengths of
pieces of cut timber. Big Jim and his wife lived in the lumber town
of Jamison City down along the border of Columbia County. Bertha was known for her home made ice cream, as reported in Catherine Casey Chapin's 1976 memoir entitled Jamison City As I Remember It:
Mrs. James Sweeney had an ice cream parlor; it was home made ice cream. People came from everywhere for her ice cream.
In the future,
we will add pictures and information about the lumber industry that
the second-and third-generation Sweeneys worked in. That may be Big
Jim on the left with his brother John in the picture half way down the page at Frank Farrell: A Death in the
Forest. James and Bertha also had a
son named Arthur Sweeney. The family history is silent
about this child; we know little about him except his name, that he died at four months
of age in 1891 (see death notice below),
and that his lonesome gravestone sits beside that of his parents in St. John's Lutheran Cemetery of Wilmot, PA. Many of the German families
are buried in this graveyard which is just over the line into Bradford
county. You can see the tombstones of James, Bertha and Arthur Sweeney
either by personally visiting the hillside cemetery or by going to the
index of the Churches and Cemeteries section
of this page. We do not know if James became a Lutheran or was just
buried there because his wife's family had a plot there and he died
before she did. James died of a stroke in November 1931. Here is a picture of his wife, Bertha, date and
location unknown, as well as the obituary for their infant son, Arthur.
Bertha (Kuhnle) Sweeney [on left]
With Unidentified Friend
About 1930-1935
Contributed in November 2005 by Ray and Linda (Karge) McDonald
from the Collected Photos of Linda's Maternal Aunt
Alta Maude (Crawford) Pekurney
The Sullivan Review
Dushore, PA
October 1, 1891
The four months old infant of Mr. and Mrs. James Sweeney, of Lopez, was
buried in St. John's Lutheran Cemetery at Wilmot Sunday.
Another son of Martin and Julia, named Edward L. Sweeney,
born in 1873, stayed single but grew up to become a
prominent local lawyer. He graduated from the University
of Valparaiso (Indiana) Law School in 1914 and was still
practicing in 1949 when he died of a heart attack at his
brother Michael's home in Albany, Pennsylvania. He walked
with a cane as a result of polio.
One daughter of Martin and Julia was also named Annie
and she married William M. Kelly. Kelly in turn was first
cousin to Agnes E. Kelly, the wife of Annie's brother
Peter Francis Sweeney, another son of Martin and Julia
and my grandfather. Aunt Rose Marie remembers Annie as a
fussy older woman dressed in black who was treated as
royalty when she visited Rose Marie's home, the household
of Peter and Agnes (Kelly) Sweeney in Towanda. Here is her obituary:
Sullivan Review
Dushore, PA
August 1, 1946
Mrs. Anna E. Kelly, a highly respected citizen of Forks township, died at her home Friday night July 26th., after a short illness at the age of 81 years.
She is survived by five sons and one daughter, Mrs. Henry Bustin of Johnson City, Robert, James and Sullivan of Binghamton, Raymond of Johnson City, and Charles at home; also, eight grandchildren and two sisters, Mrs. Nell Cummings and Blanche Wayman. Three brothers, M. D. Sweeney of Albany township, John and E. L. Sweeney of Dushore.
Funeral services were held Monday morning with Mass at St. Francis Xavier Church, Overton. The Rev. T. J. McCormick celebrated the Mass. Interment was in the family plot in the adjoining cemetery.
Two other daughters of Martin and Julia were Ellen
(always called "Nell") and Blanche. Nell
married into the Cummings family from Towanda,
but was widowed early. Her husband Stephen was killed while working on the Rainbow
Bridge, the first bridge from the US to Canada at Niagara
Falls. In 1900, she was living at the farm of Martin and
Julia near Dushore with her two children -- five-year old
Rachel Marie and three-year-old Eugene. Eventually, she
ended up living on Pleasant Street in Sayre two houses
away from the home of her sister Blanche and Blanche's
husband Frank Wayman. The Waymans also had two children,
Alma and Eugene (who became disabled by polio).
One other astonishing factor is that Kate Sperduti's
husband Fred had a brother John. John was actually
working in the same room at the Sayre shops where my
grandfather Peter Francis Sweeney was killed by a falling
boxcar end in March, 1934.
Peter and Agnes were married at St. Francis Xavier Church in Overton on January 7, 2004, Father Enright presiding. Agnes eventually
gave birth to twelve children, ten of whom survived to adulthood. The couple at first lived in Sayre, then moved to Towanda where they first
lived on Watt Avenue. In 1906, the family bought a home at 27 Pratt Avenue, one of five "new" houses at the time on the north edge of
town. This house would remain in the family for over fifty years until after Agnes died in 1960. The oldest child,
Ivan Joseph Sweeney, died in childhood. According to what my Aunt Mary told my Aunt Rose Marie before Mary died in 1989, Mary
could remember Ivan crawling through a fence on Watt Avenue where he was
supposed to be penned in. So, he must have been at least a toddler before he died. Some time after Agnes died, a new hospital was built on the property including the
house lot where Peter and Agnes raised their family. However, the house was not demolished. It was moved across the street, painted brown instead of its original green, located a few house lots further
north, and reversed so that the back porch now opens on Pratt Avenue. Here is a picture taken of the house by Angela Wallace, a granddaughter of Peter and Agnes via their daughter
Gertrude (Sweeney) Osmond, at the time of the Kelly Family Reunion in 2006.
Home of Peter Francis and Agnes Elizabeth (Kelly) Sweeney
Originally Located at 27 Pratt Avenue, Towanda, PA
Now located across the street
July 2006
Photo Courtesy of Angela Wallace
And, here is what the house originally looked like. This photo was taken in 1982. Bob Sweeney and his father, Robert Gerard Sweeney, are on the right. The shirtless man is unidentified. Bob's father was born in this
house.
Home of Peter Francis and Agnes Elizabeth (Kelly) Sweeney
27 Pratt Avenue, Towanda, PA
Fall 1982
July 2006
Photo Courtesy of Lynn Franklin
The next child was my Aunt Mary Bernice Sweeney, who
married Patrick Francis Godwin of Scranton, PA. You can look at the family chart for the Godwins at
The Godwin-Sweeney Lineage, produced courtesy of my first cousin,
Edward B. Godwin. The oldest survivng boy, Robert Gerard Sweeney, my father, was born October 15, 1918. He would grow up in Towanda, lose his father to an accidental death in 1934, and join the Marines in World
War Two. Dad was a veteran of the First Marine Division and Guadalcanal and Pelelieu, and was decorated
for bravery more than once. After the war, he married Teresa Alva Hughes from Wellington, New Zealand, whom he
met on duty there. She was born on January 11, 1924, the daughter of Bernard and Ellen (Hansby) Hughes. You can learn more about Teresa's adventures and the Hughes and Hansby family of New Zealand at A War Bride Comes to Pennsylvania. Incidentally, if you have a broader interest in this topic, there is also a page entitled The American War Bride Experience.
He became a teacher in small towns in Pennsylvania and she raised a family of nine children, all still living in 2005. In 1954, they moved to Binghamton, New York. Dad became a teacher and coach for baseball and basketball. Binghamton, in those days, was probably the typical American town, with summer baseball, hot sitcky summer days, ice cream trucks, and Easter Egg Hunts in the spring. See the 1956 egghunt in Recreation Park in the picture below, with the marking by my mother showing me in full flight. The Sweeney family lived at several addresses on the west side of town after 1976, and attended St. Thomas Aquinas Church. The kids went to the parochial school there.
Easter Egg Hunt at Recreation Park
April 09, 1956
Robert Emmett Sweeney, Age 9, Indicated in the Picture
Source: Binghamton Sunday Press, April 10, 1956
Eventually, Dad was promoted to Principal and toward the end of his career became
a member of the School Board and Superintendent of Schools in that community. He died of a massive heart attack on
October 4, 1996 just after watching his grandson Michael Ford play a high school football game. Ironically, both his mother
Agnes Kelly Sweeney and her father Daniel Kelly all died of heart attacks in their mid-70s as well, while the Sweeney paternal side of the family
tends to live to the mid- or late-eighties or even longer, if they don't die in accidents. Dad is buried at Calvary Catholic Cemetery in
Johnson City, NY. Here are five pictures of my parents: single shots of each about 1945, their wedding picture from November 5, 1945 at St.
Peter and Paul's Church in Towanda, a picture [embedded in a news story] of my dad taken in 1990, and a shot of them together about 1995 in Binghamton. I also include a
picture of me and my daughter Becca taken in late August 2000 in Memphis, TN; then, a picture of
my brother Kevin Bernard Sweeney and his two sons. Their names are Kris and Kevin, Jr. The pictures were taken in 1999 and 1997, respectively. My brother Kevin, born October 21, 1956, lived in
the Memphis area as well in 2002 and worked at that time for my partner in business, David Beard. He later moved back to Binghamton in 2005. These two boys, Kris and Kevin, Jr. are my daughter Becca's first cousins.
Robert Gerard Sweeney
1918-1996
Taken About 1945 in Towanda, PA
Teresa Alva Hughes Sweeney
1924-----
Taken About 1945 in Towanda, PA
Robert G. and Teresa A. Sweeney
Wedding Picture
November 5, 1945
Sts. Peter and Paul
Church, Towanda, PA
Robert G. Sweeney
Article and Picture
Upon Retirement from the
Binghamton City School Board
Published About April 5, 1990
Original source:
Binghamton Sun-Bulletin, Binghamton, NY
Robert G. and Teresa A. Sweeney
At Home in Binghamton, NY
About 1995
Robert Emmett Sweeney and Becca Ariella Sweeney
Gr-gr-grandson and gr-gr-gr-granddaughter
of Michael and Catherine Sweeney
Memphis, TN
Late August 2000
 >
Kevin Bernard Sweeney (1956-)
Brother of Robert E. Sweeney
Son of Robert G. and Teresa Alva (Hughes) Sweeney
Gr-gr-grandson of Michael and Catherine Sweeney
At work on the David Beard Property
Fisherville, TN
November 1999
 
Kris and Kevin Sweeney
Sons of Kevin Bernard Sweeney
Gr-gr-gr-grandsons
of Michael and Catherine Sweeney
My sister Colleen has lived in the Binghamton, NY area all her life. She became a high school history teacher and married Jim Ford, a musician of great talent who also builds and repairs harpsichords and pianos. In June 2006, their son Michael Ford married Alicia Kipikas at St. Patrick's Church in Binghamton. Many of Mike's uncles, aunts, cousins and other relatives made the trek to Binghamton for this event. You can meet the Fords and other members of my family at The Ford Wedding 2006.
Ashley Morgan Luttrell
Daughter of Terry Lou Sweeney
Gr-gr-gr-granddaughter
of Michael and Catherine Sweeney
High School Graudation Picture
June 2008
Johnson City High School
Johnson City, NY
Ashley is the daughter of my sister Terry Lou and, in June 2008, lived with her mom and grandmother, Teresa, on Beethoven Street in Binghamton, NY. There are more pictures of Ashley, her cousins and other members of my family at The Ford Wedding 2006.
Robert E. "Bob" Sweeney
Son of Robert Gerard and Teresa Alva (Hughes)
Sweeney
Sullivan County Historian and Administrator of the Sullivan County Web Page
Summer 2004
Just as an aside, I personally have had a somewhat unusual life. First, I have lived in at least 15 different residences in my adult life, from San Francisco to near Tel Aviv, Israel. In 2006, I had been living in
Memphis, Tennessee for the previous fifteen years. My wife and I had been married for 33 years at that time, and our daughter Becca Ariella Sweeney was nearly age 23. When I was a child, we were also an itinerant family, but the moves were within about 50 miles of an area centered on Bradford County, PA. I was born at the Robert Packer hospital in Sayre, while my family lived in Towanda. We spent a brief stint in East Orange, NJ, where my dad enrolled at Panzer College after World War II. In a year or so, we returned to Towanda, and dad transfered to Mansfiled State Teachers College, about 25 miles west of Towanda. When he graduated, we began our moves that paralleled his career as a teacher, coach and later school administrator. We lived in Alice Hollow and Leraysville, in rural Bradford County, PA. Then, in 1954, we moved to Binghamton, NY. I would live there from age 8 until age 25, with the exception of a stint in the Marine Corps in the late 1960s and two years at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio. By the way, that was the last year that Don Shula coached there before going to the pros! As a kid, I attended three different Cahtolic grade schools in Binghamton, and later went to Binghamton Central High School, where I was the valedictorian in 1964. Here are a few pictures of St. Thomas Aquinas church and school, where I was a student from 1956-1960. This is the actual original school building, but the church is a replacement for the old stone structure that used to stand across the street from, just east of, the school.
At first, I thought I wanted to be an academic; in the course of that
pursuit, I earned six univesity degrees--including four masters degrees and a doctorate in American history. However, my career has been in business. I never made a dime directly from being a scholar, but the things I learned about writing,
speaking and organizing information in those programs are what made it possible in many ways for me to advance in commerce. Also, when you spend a lot of time in learning environments, one becomes aware of how little one
really knows and one also develops a tolerance for other faiths, ethnicities and points of view. The most important thing my wife and I did was to raise a child without even the slightest iota of
prejudice in her heart for people of other colors, beliefs or orientations. Any way, here is a letter I got back from the famous biologist Steven Jay Gould after I complained to him about his treatment of the French
philosopher and scientist Antoine Lavoisier in one of his articles.
On my birthday, August 4, 2006, I was saddened and shocked to learn of the death of a nephew, Seth Michael Sweeney, age 32, of Binghamton. Seth was the son of my brother Phillip Peter Sweeney and therefore another first cousin of my daughter, Becca. He died of what
was reported a heart attack in his apartment; he was separated from his young wife, Kimberly (Gates) Sweeney and their three children: Conner, Maeve and Mairen. Here are his obituary and a picture. He was a good kid and his loss was
tragic.
Binghamton Sun Press
Binghamton, NY
August 7, 2006
Seth Michael Sweeney, of Binghamton
Seth Michael Sweeney, 32, of Binghamton, died unexpectedly on August 4, 2006. He is survived by his children,
Conner, Maeve, and Mairen; and his former wife, Kimberly Sweeney, all of Endicott. Seth is also survived by his parents,
David and Teri Tanenhaus, Binghamton, and Phillip Sweeney, Harpursville; his brothers, Adam (Heather) Sweeney, Princeton,
Massachusetts, and Gabriel Tanenhaus, NYC. Also surviving are his grandparents and many aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews.
Seth was a graduate of Binghamton High School and attended Herkimer College and Broome Community College. He lived in Arizona
for several years. He worked recently in construction, and was a gifted musician. A gentle man, Seth loved fishing, hiking, sports and all
animals. Seth was greatly loved and will be greatly missed.
A private burial will be held at Vestal Hills Memorial Park at the convenience
of the family. Arrangements are by Ernest H. Parsons Funeral Home.
Finally, let me share with you the Eulogy which I delivered on behalf of my father on October 8, 1996 at St. Patrick's Church in
Binghamton, NY:
EULOGY FOR AN UNKNOWN HERO
The things I have to say about my Father are meant mostly for the young people, the children and grandchildren. You knew him as a grandfather, but I knew him as a father of nine children and a leader in this community. A teacher, a coach, a principal. And also as a man who moonlighted parking cars at a drugstore and driving a bus for the Police Athletic League to help feed his children. All things we could and should be proud of, but not what I want to talk to you about today.
There were many issues where I disagreed with my Father. We had different ideas about politics, religion--all the things that sons and fathers are likely to argue about. But we came to respect each other's opinions and to accept that disagreement does not mean disregard. For me, it would be impossible to disregard the feelings and opinions of a man who put his life on the line so that we all might cherish our precious differences.
I am now 50 years old, which can seem like an eternity to a child. But 50 years, or the 77 years my Father lived, are really just a blink in the corridors of time. So, let me tell you a story about my Father....one that took place not so long ago as you may think. Let us go back those fifty years. Fifty years ago when real monsters walked the earth. Not the kind you see in movies about aliens or Friday the Thirteenth. These were real monsters-- monstrous people. Men filled with hate who burned and bombed cities.
Men who sent thousands, millions to suffer or die in concentration camps and gas chambers because they were Jews or Gypsies or Koreans. Men who thought nothing of starving or killing children, the old, the disabled, the mentally ill, and anybody else who looked or thought different than they did. They called themselves Supermen and the Master Race and said they would rule the earth for a thousand years. I'm not making this up--it really happened, and they nearly got away with their evil plans. But my Father, and others like him
said NO. We aren't going to let the monsters have their way.
Wounded on the shell-shocked island of Pelelieu, stricken with malaria, his hair turned prematurely white from the horrors of war, my Father returned to build a family and a life in a free country...a country whose freedom he helped insure with his bravery and his blood. He never bragged or talked a lot about the war or what he did there. He often told me that all the real heroes were dead. But I knew better. It would be easy to forget or misunderstand what was at stake, and what he did for us all. But you and I must never forget.
When skeptics try to deny that the slave labor, the Bataan march, the burned cities, the death camps and the gas chambers ever really happened, tell them you know better. And when you grandchildren have grandchildren of their own, be sure to say to them: "I knew a real hero--my grandfather,
Bob Sweeney. He answered the call for us all."
I sincerely believe that all of us share a common bond of life, a common origin, and a common destiny of shared awareness once we live out our time on earth. We may not see my father in the flesh, but he is here among us. And as long as we do not forget him, he will always live in the hearts of those who knew and loved him.
There is a Sweeney Reunion held every two years or so in Ireland.. You can learn more about these reunions and about the Sweeney history at The Sweeney Clan.
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