After a recent blog post on early Mt Margaret Deaths, I received a most interesting email from Margaret (Margo) Lanagan, who was able to give us a little more information on the two HEFFERNAN’S in that list. The following are the two entries from that post.
HEFFERNAN James, d 10 Feb 1897, 36yrs, at Black Flag, Occ: Miner, Cause: Struck by lightning, Buried at British Flag by mates, Reg 3/1897 Mt Margaret.
HEFFERNAN MAY – Laverton Cemetery
HEFFERNAN May, d 8 Dec 1901, 35yrs, at Laver St, Laverton, Cause: Perianal Haemorrhage, Father: Enoch BATER (Labourer), Mother: Margaret FLYNN, Registered by Husband, Buried: Laverton Cemetery, Born: Footscray VIC, In VIC 32yrs, In WA 3yrs, Married to William Cahill HEFFERNAN in Laverton WA at age 35yrs, Child: Charles NEIL 17yrs by 1st marriage, (surname NEIL), Reg 1/1901 Mt Margaret, Buried in the Laverton Cemetery.
Margaret was able to add the following details:
James was the son of John HEFFERNAN and Mary (Minna) Jemima Johnson GRANT of Inverell NSW.
May was very briefly married to William Cahill HEFFERNAN, another son of John and Mary.
John HEFFERNAN was a bounty immigrant (Larne 1841) aged 17 from Tipperary. He came over with a sister and brother-in-law, and a cousin. John’s parents were both deceased. Mary, because of her very common name, I’ve been unable to definitively trace beyond the fact that she was Scottish and worked on Hugh GORDON’s property, Strathbogie. She was Presbyterian converting to Catholic when she married John. John was a carpenter / builder and an innkeeper – kept inns at Rocky River diggings, then at Bundarra and Inverell. He had a property outside Inverell, “Glen Patrick”, which he never was able to make profitable.
John and Mary were married in 1857, and they had the following children:
John Thomas, 1858–1879
James, 1860–1897
Mary Catherine, 1862–1947
William Cahill, 1864–1933 (husband of May NEIL/NEILL)
Lucy Anna Maria, 1866–1952
Marian, 1868–1927 (my great-grandmother)
Mary, their mother, died very young, at only 35, in 1872, just a year after John had retired to the farm. John was 50 then. John Thomas turned 14yrs that year, James 12yrs, Mary Catherine 10yrs, William Cahill 8yrs, Lucy Anna Maria 6yrs and Marion 4yrs. John went insolvent that year, blaming the falling off of business and a lot of outstanding debts of hotel guests. John Thomas died of a fever in 1879, by which time John senior had begun to exhibit signs of the mental illness (a sort of paranoid mania) which would eventually lead to his being committed to the Gladesville Hospital for the Insane in Sydney in 1895, where he died a year later.
It seems the older children decided that they wouldn’t marry, with the threat of their father’s
madness hanging over their family line.
Lucy was in domestic service in 1895, but she later went with her sister Catherine to Yarraford, where Catherine taught at the school, and they lived there for 45 years. Marian married John LANAGAN, who was a widower with two children (Leslie Clarence and Maud Mary, by Martha CAVANAGH), and had three children with him (my grandfather Lloyd Athol Cuthbert (“At”), Thomas Lancelot (“Lance”), and Madge).
James and William became gold prospectors. William went to WA first with Charles MUNSIE to prospect—there are many different applications for gold leases in their names, and in William’s along with other working partners.
James, I think, had not been in WA very long when he was killed.
It was not small-bore Maxim guns that belched a ceaseless fire;
The wrathful elements waged war with awful vengeful ire.
Heav’n’s hundred ton artillery all roared and rent the air
And vivid lightning, pink and blue, zig zagged with blinding glare,
The shrieking, devastating gale swept o’er the hapless town,
The floodgates oped and let the rain in one vast ponderous sheet.
How puny seemed poor mortal man amidst that great, display
When cheeks blanched pale and conscience smote with terror and dismay.
The poor fellow, who was killed almost instantaneously, was a native of Inverell, N. S. Wales, and the esteem in which he was held was shown by the presence of over thirty hardy miners who assembled to assist in the last sad rites. The body was as carefully and neatly attended to as if the work had been done by the deft and tender hands of the softer sex, properly coffined, and all that remained
James Heffernan, the intrepid gold seeker, who had crossed 600 miles of desolation in search of a fortune, laid to eternal rest in a lonely nook. Jeremiah Barnett, a mate, who was with Heffernan at the time of the fatal occurrence, had a most miraculous escape. He was struck at the base of the skull and the hair scorched off the back of his head. The electric current appears to have travelled all over his body, yet after being restored by Dr. Laver he did not seem to suffer much from his terrible experience. The two were playing draughts, with the board on their knees, when they were struck, and the only mark on Heffernan, the younger and more vigorous, was on the breast where the hair was all scorched.
The full story of James’s death by lightning (and his funeral) is recounted in detail here: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article233107558
William “made a lot of money and a good friend relieved him of it”, according to my great-uncle Lance. He was also tremendously physically strong. “I remember as a child he could pick up a chair with one hand underneath the seat of a chair, with myself sitting upon it and lifted it up without any trouble. He could stand beside a 3 foot 6 inch netting fence with a couple of wires on the top of it, and in a standing jump he could jump over it without the slightest trouble.” Over in WA he had a fever, and was blinded in one eye by a flying chip of wood while splitting a mulga log, but that did not stop him”.
He married “Nurse Neill” three weeks before she died. The papers reported her death as due to heart failure, so I was interested to see your record of the cause of her death being perirenal hemorrhage—that’s an awful way to go, and I can see why they reported it differently. (I also didn’t know her maiden surname.)
William had been on the hospital committee that had been investigating both the doctor in charge of the Laverton Hospital and Nurse Neill herself, who was matron of the hospital. They discovered that she in fact had no nursing certificate, although she had been faithfully serving the community for some years. They found a certified nurse and had told May (regretfully, it seems—everyone seemed to like her) that she would have to be subordinate to this new nurse, being uncertified. They gave her a month’s leave on full pay, and she told them she would not return to the hospital after that. She married William on 13 November 1901:
Laverton and Beria Mercury (Laverton, WA : 1899 – 1921), Saturday 16 November 1901, page 2
An extremely popular wedding was celebrated at the Wesleyan Church, Lavertvon on Wednesday afternoon, the contracting parties being Mr. William C Heffernan and Mrs. M. Neill, both well known residents of the district. Mrs. Neill having been connected with the Laverton Hospital as matron since its inception up to a few months ago, whilst Mr. Heffernan is one of the oldest prospectors of the field. The Rev. R. Rooney officiated. The bride, who was in a very pretty travelling costume, was given away by Mr. G. McOmish, whilst Mr. F. Brown supported the groom as best man. After the ceremony an adjournment was made to the British Flag Hotel, where the health of the newly married couple was drunk in bumpers of “goldtop,” amidst, the customary showers of rice, old, boots, etc., and the cheer of the assembled well wishers. Mr and Mrs. Heffernan drove away to Morgans, where they will spend their honeymoon. Although it was intended that the wedding should be a quiet one, the news of the approaching event leaked out and quite as many assembled at the church as though invitations had been issued, and the quantity of rice strewn on the floor was convincing proof of this.
And her death a few weeks later is recounted here:
Laverton and Beria Mercury 14 December 1901, page 2
DEATH OF MRS. HEFFERNAN.
It is with sincere regret we have to record the death of one of the best known and respected residents of the Mt, Margaret Goldfield in the late ‘Mrs. W. Heffernan. The deceased lady, who was in the prime of life, being 35 years of age, only the dfty previous to her death was in the best of health and spirits. On Saturday evening last she was paying a visit to Mrs. Mickle, of this town, and when just about to leave for her home at the Lancefield became suddenly ill, and was prevented, from proceeding any further. Her condition gradually became worse, until at 1 o’clock on Sunday death relieved her suffering. The death came as a great shock to the inhabitants, as none had the slightest intimation of her illness.
The deceased was more widely known as Nurse Neill, having been connected with the local hospital, in the capacity* of matron since its inception, up to a few months ago,”in. which position she was known to the patients and to all who had been under her care, or who visited the sick, as kind, attentive and loving, and by whom the memory of her kindness will always be cherished. It is more sad when we think that only a few weeks ago we published in the columns of this paper an account of her wedding with Mr. W. Heffernan, a well-known and much respected identity of these fields,
William died at Leonora in 1933: He left a few hundred pounds—it took lawyers quite a while to find his next of kin, but eventually the family agreed that the money should go to Lucy and Mary Catherine (his sisters).
Kalgoorlie Miner 4 July 1933, page 3
Mr. William Heffernan died in the Leonora Hospital on Tuesday last after an illness of two months. The late Mr. Heffernan was one of the oldest and best known prospectors in this State, and was associated with Mr. Charles Swanson as a prospecting mate for a quarter of a century. Both men did war service, and resumed prospecting on their return. During their long partnership, they made several good finds, although nothing of a permanent nature. The funeral on Wednesday was well attended, and a large number of wreaths were laid on the grave. The deceased was a cultured and refined gentleman, and leaves many sorrowing friends.
Williams Death certificate has the following information which we will now be able to add to.
HEFFERNAN William Cahill, 67yrs, at the Leonora Hospital, Leonora, Occ: Prospector, Cause: Chronic Myocarditis, Valve Disease, Heart Failure, Father: Heffernan (Hotel Keeper), Born: Bundarra NSW, In WA 39yrs, Married to Mary O’NEIL in Laverton WA at age 38yrs, No children, RC, Buried Leonora Cemetery.
Moya Sharp
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