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Murder in Ontario – The Donnelly Family Massacre – Part 2: The night of the murders

July 6, 2023   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

It was well past midnight in the early morning hours of February 4, 1880, when a drunken mob, led by Constable James Carroll, headed down the Roman Line in Biddulph Township, torches ablaze and armed with clubs, pitchforks, and some firearms.

There are 32 known members of the group – there could have been more whose names are lost to history.

Sleeping in the house at the Donnelly homestead that night were James Donnelly Senior, his wife, Johanna, their son Tom, and a niece visiting from Ireland – 21-year-old Bridget. What the mob didn’t know was that an 11-year-old neighbour boy (some sources quote him as being 12 or 13), Johnny O’Connor, was spending the night at the house so he could help with chores in the morning.

The mob formed a perimeter around the building. James Carroll entered the house and found Tom sleeping on a bed in the ‘summer’ kitchen.

He quickly handcuffed him.

Tom awoke and demanded to know what was going on. Carroll told him he was under arrest.

The commotion roused everyone else in the house, and James and Johanna came out of their rooms to find Tom handcuffed and James Carroll in their home.

James asked Carroll, “what have you got against us now?”

Tom demanded to see the arrest warrant – which of course, didn’t exist.

At this point, Carroll gave out some kind of signal, and the mob stormed into the house in a violent rage.

Terrified, Bridget ran up to a room on the second floor, followed by Johnny. She slammed the door behind her locking Johnny out.

The boy ran back into the room he had been sleeping in and hid under the bed, and pulled a clothes basket in front of him for cover.

The Donnellys didn’t die without a fight. All three, including Johanna, put up a real battle but were overcome by numbers and weapons.

Tom tried to make a break for it through the front door after repelling several attacks, but a man named Tom Ryder thrust a pitchfork into his chest as he tried to escape. Tom was carried back into the house, and another man proceeded to smash his skull in with a shovel.

James was beaten unconscious with a shovel, and the mob reigned more blows on him as he was on the floor.

Johanna, a strong farm woman, was the last of the three to go down. She fought hard but was badly beaten.

The mob realized there was still the problem of Bridget. Bridget was killed to avoid leaving any witnesses.

Several of the men went up to her room and beat her, then dragged her limp body down the stairs to finish her off. She was a totally innocent victim of a bloodthirsty mob who was murdered only for being at the house.

If the men had realized that Johnny O’Connor had witnessed the killings, it is likely that he, too, would have been murdered.

With the four victims lying on the floor, and possibly one or two of them still alive, they set fire to the house using oil from the lamps.

After the mob left, the terrified Johnny escaped the burning house, stepping over the bodies of his hosts. He ran barefoot to a neighbour’s house up the road to report what he had seen.

The murderers then set off for their second target – the home of William Donnelly – three miles away at a place called Whalen Corners.

Many in the group, especially Carroll, had a real hatred for William in particular, as they believed he was the leader of the family and behind much of the trouble. Carroll referred to him as “that clubfooted devil,” as William had been born with a clubfoot.

By the time the Vigilance Committee arrived at William Donnelly’s house, the group was considerably smaller as many of the men broke off from the group to walk home.

No doubt, as they sobered up, many of them realized the horror of the situation and the result of the evil deed they had just been a part of.

Arriving at William’s house, the mob had lost much of its zeal, and instead of storming the farmhouse, they started yelling for William to come out.

The door to the house opened, but it wasn’t William on the doorstep; it was his brother John, who was staying at the house for the night. Whoever pulled the trigger didn’t care or couldn’t identify his target in the darkness.

John had woken first upon hearing the yelling outside and went out to investigate.

John Donnelly was hit from both barrels of a shotgun and riddled with shots from his shoulders to his knees. At almost the same time, a shot from a rifle hit him in the lower abdomen.

William and his wife, Norah, hid inside the cabin. William probably realized that the mob had come for him, and if he made himself known as still alive, the mob would kill him and his wife, who was pregnant with his first child, as well.

William could view the men from a window and could identify several of them.

Finally, one of the mob, a man named Jim Feeheley, said, “There’s been enough bloodshed tonight boys. Let’s go home.”

The remaining mob made their way home in the early morning hours.

Five family members were dead.

As the sun rose in the town of Lucan that morning, word quickly spread of the massacre that happened during the night.

Most of the town’s residents were both horrified and alarmed that a mass murder had taken place in their community. There were a few residents who said ‘they got what they deserved.’

Local newspapers referred to the event as the “Lucan Horror.”

An investigation into the murders was launched immediately.

Next week – The trials and aftermath.

Editor’s note: This article is Part II in a three-part series exploring the Donnelly Family Massacre. Part III will be published on July 13.

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