Hughesville, Walking from Mt. Morris to Detroit, My CUZ Daniel O'Connell and the Abolition of Slavery

St. Patrick's Day passed as March whistled through the Midwest with mere hints of Spring flowers and temperatures. I often think about my Irish Heritage at this time of the year.  I found myself looking over records and photos of relatives and remembering stories I heard growing up.

The Hughes' showed up in Michigan in the 1830's and settled in Mt. Morris which became known as Hughesville.  I didn't discover the cemetery behind Mt. Morris' St. Mary's Church until I was in middle age---it was full of Hughes graves.  The Church itself contains stained glass windows  donated by various Hughes ancestors. When I visited Ireland in 2008 with six of my first cousins, we found our cousin  Kathleen Hughes Doherty east of Dublin;  she toured Mt. Morris with us a couple of years later.  She was floored by seeing all the graves and windows in St. Mary's  Mt. Morris and marveled that:

"Here's where all the relatives came when they left Ireland before The Great Famine."

A "lifetime story" in our family states the one of the first Hughes farmer/ settlers walked from Mt. Morris to Detroit and back to ask the Bishop to establish a parish in Mt. Morris.  That happened with land donated by a Hughes. So many questions about all that and nobody around to ask......

"How did the Hughes' get the  land in the first place as new immigrants?" This was when Michigan was a territory inhabited by many Indigenous people.  

Was the land purchased from the Native Americans? Was it taken when the Native Americans were "removed " during the Andrew Jackson administration?

Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it....

Now to Daniel O'Connell.....

According to "lifetime stories' on my mother's side, we are related to Daniel O'Connell. Janie's  mother was  Marie Houran, whose mother was a Ryan , whose mother was an O'Connell.  (This was documented in a old Michigan History Book I found in our basement that had a detailed story about my Great Grandfather Michael Houran who immigrated from Ireland, ran a lumber business in Flint and was a philanthropist, prominent Democrat, and donated land to establish the Park system in Flint.)

Daniel O'Connell was the acknowledged political leader of Ireland's Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century. He became a member of the UK Parliament in 1829, and,  according to Wikipedia,    

"O'Connell played a major part in passage of the Reform Act of 1832 and in the abolition of Slavery (1833) (a cause in which he continued to campaign).^[18] He welcomed the revolutions of 1830 in Belgium and France,^[18] and advocated "a complete severance of the Church from the State".^[19] Such liberalism made all the more intolerable to O'Connell the charge that as "Papists" he and his co-religionists could not be trusted with the defence of constitutional liberties." (History repeated itself in 1960 when JFK campaigned for the US Presidency)

O'Connell was a strong advocate of the separation of church and state. When I discovered this, it reminded my of my own father's stance in the 1960's when "Parochiad" was debated as a way to funnel Michigan tax dollars to Catholic Parish schools. Despite pressure from the local priests , Dad wanted no part of the state's money for St. Luke's or St. Mike's, figuring that if he wanted his kids to get a Catholic education he'd  be the one to pay for it!

Daniel O'Connell was a strong Abolitionist and challenge the institution of slavery throughout the world.

Again from Wikipedia:

"When in 1845, Frederick Douglass, touring the British Isles following publication of his Life of an American Slave, attended unannounced a meeting in Conciliation Hall, Dublin, he heard O'Connell explain to a roused audience:^[113][114]

I have been assailed for attacking the American institution, as it is called,—Negro slavery. I am not ashamed of that attack. I do not shrink from it. I am the advocate of civil and religious liberty, all over the globe, and wherever tyranny exists, I am the foe of the tyrant; wherever oppression shows itself, I am the foe of the oppressor; wherever slavery rears its head, I am the enemy of the system, or the institution, call it by what name you will.

I am the friend of liberty in every clime, class and color. My sympathy with distress is not confined within the narrow bounds of my own green island. No—it extends itself to every corner of the earth. My heart walks abroad, and wherever the miserable are to be succored, or the slave to be set free, there my spirit is at home, and I delight to dwell."

Apparently , O'Connell caught criticism for taking a position against American slavery because he was seen as "interfering" in the affairs of another country. He was vilified by many Irish American immigrants who wanted to maintain the status quo on slavery in the U.S.A.

The ensuing years certainly make clear that O'Connell  was "on the right side of history"as far as the abolition of slavery is concerned..   

Personally, reading and learning about all this both raises and answers lots of questions about how my own beliefs have been shaped. I've discovered that it's well worth the time and effort to learn as much as I can about history from a wide variety of perspectives.

Strong faith and a belief in justice for all springs from these stories of ancestors. My own intention is to stay curious and learn as much as I can about the stories of our pasts in order to enlighten our futures.