The Potato Famine
Growing potatoes in Ireland became very popular because potatoes were handy to have around, especially during times of war. The edible underground tubers were likely to escape the notice of invading troops. The growing green tops could not be set afire as could fields of wheat or barley. Even if a potato field was trampled by soldiers, the tubers would be undamaged. Armies and outlaws were not likely to take the time to dig them up. After being dug up, the potatoes could be taken directly to the kitchen to be cooked and eaten without having to be ground at a mill first. They could be stored in a root cellar for months, to be eaten in leaner times. People with very little land could still grow lots of potatoes, which was not the case with grains. Potatoes thrived in Ireland’s very poor soil, and all that was needed to plant them was a spade. The potato blight has been around as long as there have been potatoes, and there is still no cure for it. Beginning in the year 1845, Ireland’s entire potato crop failed three years in a row, causing devastating starvation and social upheaval. The potato crop failed in America at the same time it failed in Ireland. In Ireland, however, the potato was the sole food crop on which the majority of the people depended upon for nourishment. In America, corn, oats, wheat, barley and other crops were grown in sufficient amounts so that Americans had other crops to feed them.

The Fentons of Ardpatrick, County Limerick, Ireland
Timothy Fenton was born about 1807 in Sunville Upper (now Ardpatrick), County Limerick, Ireland. He married Johanna O’Brien, who was also born in the same region about 1814. As was the custom at that time, Timothy was a tenant farmer. To this union were born six sons and one daughter. The children in order of their birth are, Jeremiah, Thomas, Hanora, John, Denis, William and Patrick. The Kilfinane parish records only commence from 1832 forward, so there is no baptismal record for Jeremiah. The baptismal records of the other six children are recorded as follows:

Date/ Name/ Godparents
08/13/1833 Thomas- Matt O’Brien & Hanora Fenton
04/18/1836 Hanora- John Quinlan and Ellen Lyons
12/16/1838 John- William Lyons & Mary O’Brien
05/27/1841 Denis- John Quinlan & Mary Quinlan
05/26/1844 William- William Quinlan & Mary Fitzgerald
03/07/1847 Patrick- Martin O’Brien & Mary Flynn

The spellings above, are how the names were recorded in the parish records and also the common Irish spellings of their names. Thomas and John’s surnames are recorded as “Finaghty.”  Apparently, it was around this time that their surname was Anglicized.  It is assumed that the youngest son, Patrick, died in infancy prior to the time of Johanna’s emigration since he is not mentioned in any other records and we only recently learned of him through the baptismal records. It was customary at that time to baptize infants within a few days after their birth. So, the baptismal records should give us an idea of when they were born.

Timothy was killed in an uprising against the Crown during the potato famine when Jeremiah was only 15 years of age. The verbal family history passed down was that Timothy had attacked an Englishman and that he became a wanted man with a price put on his head. Whatever followed remains a mystery. However, what is known fact is recorded by William Fenton in the Dawson Reporter following the death of his brother, Jeremiah (known as Jerry)….”When but a boy of 15 years of age, his father (Timothy) died and he being the eldest of a family of five brothers and a sister, upon him devolved the duty of assisting his widowed mother to care for the younger members of the family. The cruel and inhumane conditions that confronted the sorely afflicted widowed mother were disheartening in the extreme; with the father’s demise also expired the lease of the ancestral homestead, and as the heartless landlord was more interested in the propagation of cattle for the English markets than robust Irish boys who were liable to grow up rebellious to foreign rule, he not only refused to continue the widow in her holding, but employed a force of bailiffs to haul away the crop intended for the sustenance of his children by a provident father….”

An address (house and garden) for Johanna O’Brien Fenton is recorded in the Griffith’s Valuation Survey of 1852 in Sunville Upper (now known as Ardpatrick). It is assumed that since Johanna’s name is recorded on the Survey instead of Timothy’s, that Johanna was widowed by this time. Since we know that Patrick Fenton, the youngest child of Timothy and Johanna was baptized in 1847, we presume that Timothy’s death occurred between that date, 1847 and the date Johanna is listed as “head of household” in 1852.

The townland of Sunville Upper consisted in total of 553 acres. The landlords were Frederick Charles Trench, Esq. and Miss E.O. Gascoigne. Sunville Upper includes part of Ardpatrick village and is in the civil parish of Particles.

Daughter, Hanora, an expert weaver, came to America earlier in 1847 with some other emigrants, Michael Riley, among them who looked after her. She saved her money and sent it back to her mother, which enabled Johanna to bring the rest of the family to America.  William Fenton wrote: “At last, the mother realized the only hope of retaining her children about her lay in immigrating to the Great Republic, and with aching heart Johanna bid a final adieu and cheerfully severed the sacred ties that bound her to the scenes of all that was sacred to her heart, and actuated solely in the future welfare of her children.”  On May 19, 1854 Johanna O’Brien Fenton and her six children arrived on a ship named Progress from Liverpool, England to New York.  Aboard, were the following passengers originating from Ireland:

Johanna Fenton Age 40
Jerry Fenton Age 20
Thomas Fenton Age 18
John Fenton Age 12
Dennis Fenton Age 10
William Fenton Age 9
Winefred Fenton Age 5

Winefred Fenton is a mystery to us. The child is listed as a male on the ship manifest. The name of a Winifred O’Brien shows up in the baptismal records we received. Perhaps, he/she was an O’Brien and not a Fenton? Upon arrival to the U.S., Johanna and her children followed other Irish emigrants to settle at Norwich, Connecticut.  They became part of what is known as the “Connecticut Colony.”  In Norwich, all who were old enough to be useful, found employment in cotton factories.  Child labor laws did not exist at that time, so the children were able to work at a very young age. The eldest son, Jeremiah (Jerry) as William wrote “continued to exercise the functions of a most exacting parent and to his credit, was an unrelenting disciplinarian.”

William further records “Arriving at a stage when the mother could be depended on to manage without his cooperation, Jeremiah went to Virginia and found employment in the gas works at Charlottesville, and soon after found a place for his brother Tom.  Here the two brothers diligently worked for seven years and continued to hoard every cent of the limited salary with laudable ambition of purchasing a home in the west for their mother Johanna, where all could again be united in a home where they could bid defiance to the land pirate of the old world.

On Dec. 21, 1861, Jeremiah married Miss Kate Calinan.  Soon after their marriage that section of Virginia became the battleground of the Civil War.  The demand for able-bodied men for the Confederate army warned Jeremiah and Tom that they should either enter the army or leave the country.  They chose the latter alternative.  Tom made his way to the north and left Jeremiah to look after any fragment of the wrecked fortune.  Rather than take up arms on the side of the Southern Confederacy, Jeremiah confided his young wife and first born baby Johanna to the care of relatives and he at once took to the mountains and managed to elude the rebel scouts until he was safe within the Union lines.

On reaching Washington in the autumn of 1863 a letter from Jeremiah under a flag of truce was conveyed back to Charlottesville advising his wife to dispose of the personal effects to the best advantage possible and at once proceed to rejoin her husband in the North.  After the exchange of nearly $2,000 in Confederate money for $100 of Uncle Sam’s greenbacks, the plucky young wife and daughter were met in New York by Jeremiah and they proceeded to again renew the battle of life, with a cash capital of $20 out of a savings account of $5,000 at the opening of the war. 

Later on, the two brothers were tendered positions at their old occupation in the Norwich gas works where they continued with renewed zeal and diligence to retrieve as far as possible their blighted fortunes, and to form new plans for the future.  While the great loss of their years of saving in the south was a severe blow, it did not in the least extinguish their aspirations to someday attain homes of their own.

With news from Michael Riley and Thomas Farrell of the Connecticut Colony that impressive land was out west, Thomas, Dennis and Nora Fenton proceeded west to check it out.  They took the rail at St. Joseph, Missouri, and after passage on the river steamboat to Aspinwall and a drive across the boundless prairie, they came across the hospitable log home of Michael Riley, located on the bank of the Nemaha, not far from site of the village of Dawson, Richardson County, Nebraska.  After breakfast the following morning and a look through the yards of fine cattle and fat hogs, not overlooking well-filled smoke houses and bulging corncribs, Thomas gave way to a desire to possess a portion of the rich soil and at once returned to his home in Norwich, Connecticut to report progress and organize a colony of neighbors and relatives to return the following spring.

In April, 1867, Thomas Fenton, backed by encouraging letters, resulted in a colony of about twenty families setting out for the west.  They were The Ryans, Rileys, Fentons, O’Gradys, Rigans, Keims, Rourkes, Sullivans, Murphys, Clancys, Carvers and O’Donnels, besides a number of young people who located in Omaha.  Those neighbors and relatives constituted what was termed the Irish Settlement, or the Dawson Catholic Colony.

Jeremiah, through close application and perseverance, established a comfortable home on a farm near Dawson.  Jeremiah and his wife, Catherine had 11 children.  Jeremiah continued general farming and stock raising successfully on his farm of one hundred and sixty acres until about five years prior to his death.  He died in 1914, at the age of 84 years.  He was an influential man in his community and helped organize nearly all the schools of the Dawson neighborhood.  He was active in the Catholic Church and was the only trustee of the church in his vicinity.  After serving in every local position with fidelity, Jeremiah was elected as a member of the 15^th Session of the legislature in Nebraska and serviced 1879-1881.”

This information was provided by Kathy (Fenton) Ahroon. If you have information about this line, please contact her at the following: