Benjamin Heard of Dover, NH and Salisbury, MA

Benjamin Heard was the oldest child of John and Elizabeth Hull Heard.  He was born in Dover, New Hampshire on 20 Feb. 1643/44.  He lived most of his life in New Hampshire but after the death of his first wife, Elizabeth, he moved south to Salisbury, Massachusetts.  

early life and first marriage

Benjamin seems to have followed the usual path to adulthood.  He lived with his parents until his marriage, at which time he established his own family unit.  He took the Oath of Fidelity in 1669 at age 25 and was married the following year.  His wife was Elizabeth Roberts, daughter of Thomas Roberts, also of Dover.  And, as expected, their first child arrived a year or so later. 

John Heard, his father, gave Benjamin 40 acres of land located on "Fresh Creek" which was on the road from Dover to South Berwick.  Benjamin and his family made their home there. Benjamin was a cordwainer (shoemaker or cobbler) by trade and like most men of the time he did his civic duty by serving on the grand jury, trial jury and acting as constable. 

Elizabeth died sometime prior to 1690, she did not live to see the death of her oldest child nor did she have to endure the agony of having a child kidnapped by Indians and not knowing their fate. 

Children of Benjamin and Elizabeth:

1. Benjamin Heard Jr. , born 1673; died unmarried on February 10, 1697 of “malignant fever.” age 24

2. Lydia Heard, born 1674. She married, first, Jonathan Norris in June 1696. He was the son of Nicholas and Sarah (Cox) Norris and died in 1718. He lived in Exeter and Stratham. She married, second, Joseph Rollins. He was born on May 6, 1674 and died on January 20, 1749. 

3. Anna Heard, born 1675. She was captured by Indians on a visit to York on January 25, 1692. She was later returned. She married Sebastian Cholet on October 19, 1705. They had eight children.

4. Rebecca Heard, born 1678. She married Thomas Gordon after April 10, 1709. He was born in 1678, the son of Alexander and Mary (Lissen) Gordon. It was his second marriage. They had five children.

5. James Heard, born 1680; died 1748. He married Deborah ----- who predeceased him. They and their three eldest children were baptized in Dover on September 28, 1718. James and Deborah joined the church in Dover on August 11, 1728. James was elected a constable in Dover in 1713 and refused to serve, for which he paid a fine of five pounds. 

6. Sarah Heard. She married Simon French of Kingston, NH on November 24, 1709. They had children born between 1711 and 1719. She joined the church at Kingston on May 25, 1729.

a fresh start, move to salisbury

For whatever reason, Benjamin Sr. left Dover, New Hampshire for Salisbury, MA some 30 miles to the south. It may have been the constant threat of Indian attack which drove him fromhis home.  He married there for the second time on 23 May 1690. His wife was 30 year old Ruth Eastman, daughter of Roger and Sarah.  Not much is know about their life other than that Ruth joined the Salisbury church in 1699. 

children of benjamin and ruth

1. Elizabeth b. 25 May 1691 m. in Salisbury William Baker on 24 Sept 1713

2. Samuel b. 28 Feb 1691/2 

3. Benjamin b. 16 Dec 1702 d. 8 March 1705/6

Death and Will

Benjamin died 20 Jan 1709/10 his will was proved that February  In his will he supposedly named all but his first and last child, both named Benjamin and both predeceased him.  He also included his captive daughter Anna if she came out of captivity to get it. 

Benjamin's date of death has been confusing to researchers for many years.  His brother Tristram Heard went to court in New Hampshire in 1703 to contest his father's will, claiming it had not been probated.  He also claimed that he was the only living son of John Heard, meaning his brother Benjamin was dead. Therefore many sources about Benjamin state that he died prior to the 1703 court case. 

Ruth

Ruth seems a bit unusual for the time, at least to me.  She didn't marry until she was about 30 years old. That marriage ended after 8 years when her husband died, in 1709.  She didn't remarry until 1717 when she was 56 years old.  Her second husband was John Tappan also of Salisbury. His wife died only months prior to his marriage to Ruth.  He died in 1723, six years later. Ruth died in 1741 aged about 80.

Related Posts:
John Heard and Elizabeth Hull
Joseph Hull

Sources;

Hoyt, Old Families of Salisbury and Amesbury

Noyes, Libby, Davis, Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire

John Scales, Colonial Era of Dover, New Hampshire 

Thomas Hastings of Watertown, MA

diagnosis: ancestor inflation
Thomas Hastings; yet another ancestor suffering from a genealogical condition I call "ancestor inflation".  As great as the big ancestry websites are, there is a downside to most of them.  They allow for the perpetuation of bad genealogy almost like spreading a virus.  The infected researcher gets a giddy feeling and begins to have visions of grandeur.  They believe they are related to someone famous or some member of royalty or even worse, an Indian Princess.  And instead of taking their genealogical temperature and listening to the voices of reason, they too pass on the infection to everyone who looks at their tree.  

I wish that there was some way to "call out" a tree that has bogus information, ancestry.com does not have that option. There are some new sites that have a more communal style where everyone can edit a shared ancestor, which would seem to lead to a more authentic family tree. The ones I like are We Relate and Wikitree they both allow registered users to correct mistakes.

If you have done research on Thomas Hastings and believe that you are related to Sir Henry Hastings and Eleanor Knyvett than you have been infected!  So here is what I know to be true about Thomas Hastings of England and Watertown, Massachusetts.

English origins
Thomas' English origins are unknown, not where he was born, not his parents were, nothing can be written about his ancestry that is based on fact. For information about his ancestors, who they were not and who they might have been see this webpage by Scott Billigmeier he does an excellent job of dispelling the junky genealogy attached to Thomas.

What is known is that Thomas Hastings aged 29 and his wife Susan aged 34,  boarded the ship "The Elizabeth" in Ipswich, Suffolk, England on 30 April 1634, bound for New England.  As most of the other travelers aboard the ship were from East Anglia it is likely that Thomas and Susan were as well.

Watertown
Thomas' first and only stop in Massachusetts was Watertown, which was begun  in 1630. The first town records were begun in 1634 and Thomas' name appears on Dec 10, 1638 when he was elected one of the Prudential Men for the following year. He would hold this post for many years to come. In addition to serving as a Prudential Man, Thomas' was appointed and paid for various town jobs such as fence building and to build a house for another Watertown resident. In the town records of 1647 Thomas is called Deacon Hastings and he was chosen to be on a commission to set the county rates (taxes). Thomas was still active in town government in 1680 at age 75.

Family
Thomas and Susan do not seem to have had any children or at least had none that survived early childhood.  Susan died on Feb 20, 1650, she would have been about 50 years old.  Thomas married for the second time some time prior to the 1652 birth of his child Thomas Jr.  His new wife was Margaret Cheney daughter of William and Margaret Cheney.  At the time of their marriage Thomas was about 45 and Margaret 22 or 23. Thomas and Margaret had eight children all of whom lived to adulthood, a rarity in those harsh days.

Children
Thomas Jr. b. 1 July 1652 in Watertown, married Anne Hawkes 10 Nov. 1672, married (2) Mary Burt 14 Feb 1706.
John b. 1 March 1653/4 Watertown, m. Abigail Hammond 18 June 1679
William b. 8 August 1655 Watertown, drowned in August 1669
Joseph b. 12 September 1657 Watertown, m. 21 Nov. 1682 Ruth Rice, m (2) Martha Sheppard 8 Jan 1684
Benjamin b. 9 Aug 1659, m. Elizabeth Graves 1683, m. (2) Mary Clark Parsons 1699
Nathaniel 25 Sept 1661, m. Mary Nevinson 1690
Hepzibah b. 31 Jan 1663/4 m. William Bond 2 June 1680
Samuel b. 12 March 1665/6, m. Lydia Church

Deacon
Thomas was obviously an upstanding member of his community.  He served the town for many many years as a Prudential Man or Selectmen as they were later called and holding other civic positions. Thomas also served in a ministerial position in his church. The job of Deacon entailed multiple duties including filling in for the Minister if he was absent.  In most churches or meeting houses as they called them, the Deacons faced the congregation  seating on a slightly raised platform.

Susanna Woodward
In 1671 The Hastings Family became embroiled in a scandal involving the pregnancy of Thomas' servant Susanna Woodward.  Susanna claimed that Thomas Hastings Jr., her master's son, was father of the child. This must have been very embarrassing for Thomas, especially given his role as Deacon in the church.  The family denied her claims and put forth the name of John Chadwick as the father.  He too denied that he was the father.

The paternity of the child was very important as the father was expected to pay for the maintenance of his offspring. The case was dragged through the courts with the final decision that Thomas was the father.  He married the next year and left town, becoming a reputable doctor.

RIP
Thomas wrote his will on March 18 1682.  He was survived by his wife Margaret and all of their children. His will was proved Sept. 7 1685.  Margaret's death was not recorded.


Sources:
Watertown Records
Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins 1634-1635
Roger Thompson, Divided We Stand, Watertown 1630-1680

Note about Roger Thompson's book: Divided We Stand.  This book is an excellent description of life in Watertown from it's beginning.  I have read it several times and refer to it frequently as a source for my blog. Some of my ancestors are described in the book including Thomas Hastings.  I highly recommend it.

Reverend Joseph Hull of Somerset, England and New England

English Origins

Reverend Joseph Hull, father of Elizabeth Hull Heard,  was the son of Thomas and Joane Peson Hull of Crewkerne, Somerset, England.  He was born in 1595, the youngest of eleven children. His elder brother William was also a clergyman.  Both William and Joseph attended St. Mary's Hall at Oxford University.  William matriculated in 1592 and Joseph in 1612 and on November 14, 1614 he received his Bachelor of Arts. In 1612 William became the vicar of Colyton in Devonshire.  Joseph served as a curate under William at Colyton, he was ordained in 1620 and in 1621 was given the Rectory at St. Giles in North Leigh where he served until 1632. William his brother died in 1627. 

Influences

In March of 1630  fellow classmate and lecturer at Crewekerne, the Reverend John Wareham, immigrated with his congregation to Massachusetts. They sailed on the "Mary and John" from Plymouth, England, landing in Nantasket (Hull) on the 30th of May. John Wareham had had a few run ins with church authorities and seemed to have involved Joseph in some of them. Joseph's brother George Hull is said to have also sailed on the Mary and John, but he settled in Dorchester for a while before going to Connecticut in 1636. 

Coming to America

Joseph resigned as Rector at North Leigh in 1632 for unknown reasons and became the officiating curate in Broadway, Somerset.  He was cited by the Church for various infractions over the next few years and in 1635 decided to take his family and his congregation of about 100 members and head to New England.

The company sailed on March 20th, 1635 from the port of Weymouth in England aboard the "Marygould", landing in Boston on May 6th.  Joseph had with him his wife Agnes and seven children, including the seven year old Elizabeth, my ancestor.

On July 8, 1635 Joseph Hull and his congregation were given the right to settle at Wessaguscus, which they promptly renamed Weymouth.  It did not take long for Joseph to again be in trouble with the local Ministers.  He left Weymouth and was in Hingham by 1636 where he served as commissioner to end small causes. 

Trouble in Plymouth

By 1639, Joseph and his followers had left the Massachusetts Bay Colony for the Plymouth Colony (a separate entity) and established the town of Barnstable on Cape Cod. Life was no easier in the Plymouth Colony and trouble followed.  He was excommunicated for breaking communion with Barnstable and preaching in Yarmouth. On 7 March 1642 a warrant was issued by the General Court to apprehend Joseph for leaving Barnstable. In 1643 he returned briefly, but by the end of the year he and his family were in York, Maine. 

Return to England

Joseph was in Maine until about 1645, when he left America to return to England. He took his wife and the youngest children, but left the rest behind.  The oldest ones, including Elizabeth were presumably married by that time. In 1648 he was the Vicar of Launceston, Cornwall and in 1656 the Rector of St. Buryan, Cornwall. With the death of Oliver Cromwell and the restoration of the monarchy came more turmoil for Joseph, he was, like thousands of nonconformist ministers, ejected from his parish. 

Back to America

By 1662 Joseph was back in New England, working as a minister in Oyster River.  He died on November 19, 1665 at the age of 70. The "trouble" that followed the Reverend Joseph Hull was of a religious nature.  He was not a true Puritan and the Ministers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony intensely disagreed with his view.  The Reverend was too Puritan for the Anglicans and to Anglican for the Puritans. Governor Winthrop described his as a "very contentious man" and he was excommunicated by the Bay Colony.

Family
Joseph Hull was twice married, the name and ancestry of his first wife are unknown. She was not Joanna Coffin as claimed by many on ancestry.com.  In fact, Robert Charles Anderson says in his Great Migration Series that there is no reason to believe that her name was even Joanna.  When the Hull family immigrated Hull's wife Agnes was listed as being 25 years old.  Given the age of the first three children, she could not possibly be their mother, and may not have been the mother of any of the first seven children.

Joseph Hull's children born in England:
Joana b. 1619/20 Colyton, Devon d. after 1693
Joseph Jr. b. 1622 prob. Northleigh
Tristram b. abt. 1624
Temperence bap. March 1625/6
Grissell b. abt. 1630
Dorothy b. abt. 1632


Children born in New England:

Hopewell b. 1636 probably in Hingham in the Plymouth Colony
Benjamin bap. Hingham
Naomi bap. 23 March  1639 Barnstable
Ruth bap. 9 March 1641 Barnstable
Dodavah b. 1643 may or may not be his child, RCA of Great Migration says yes
Samuel b. 1645-47?
Phineas b. 1647? may or may not be his, again RCA says yes

Children born on the return trip to England
Reuben bap. 23 Jan 1648/9 Launceston, Cornwall
Ephraim bap. 13 Feb 1649/50
Isaac bap. 25 March 1651 d. 1653
Pricilla b. March 1652 died June 1652

Sources:
Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration series
The Hull Family Association 
Laurence Cook, The Exodus of Rev. Joseph Hull, www.laurencecook.com

Under Household Government

I just finished reading a great book entitled "Under Household Government"  by M. Michelle Jarrett Morris.  The book is subtitled Sex and Family in Puritan Massachusetts. It was published in 2013 by Harvard Press. 

I got the book from my Library through the intersytem loan, as it seems be hard to find. 

The book takes a really close look at the Puritan family structure and how they governed themselves.  It reviews multiple cases that were brought to the courts for trial.  If you have any interest in Puritan life I would recommend this excellent book.

Canker Rash and Putrid Sore Thoat: Life before Antibiotics

In a recent post about my gggrandfather's brother David Thornton, and the loss in a single day of three of his young children, I speculated that they may have died of Influenza or some other communicable disease.  I was wrong about the flu.  I found their death certificates on a recent search on familysearch.com.  Two of the boys died of "canker rash" and the other of "scarlatina". 

canker rash and scarlatina

I don't think I would like to die of a canker rash, also known as putrid sore throat, just trying to imagine what it is makes me cringe, somehow scarlatina sounds less awful.  Of course I had to look these up and both are forms of scarlet fever.  Scarlet fever is rare today but between  1820 and 1880 there was a world pandemic. In 1859 the diagnosis was made based on the symptoms exhibited by the patient, these included a rash, fever, sore throat, swelling of the lymph nodes and ulceration of the throat and tonsils. 

before antibiotics
Today we know that scarlet fever is cause by a group A streptococci, easily treated with antibiotics.  The bacteria which cause scarlet fever was first identified in 1884, but it was not until the discovery of penicillin in the 1920's that a cure could be found for this deadly disease.  The disease progressed quickly after onset of the first symptoms  usually fever and sore throat and death could occur within 48 hours.  

Treatment was limited and ranged from the bizarre to the ineffective. The disease was passed via airborne particles as well as by direct contact. Multiple people in the same family might be infected and each be affected differently by the disease.  Some might have a mild case while others died, depending on their reaction to the toxins released by the bacteria.
  
I don't want to know what that must have been like, watching your children struck down by disease,  but it was a tragedy that occurred all to often to our ancestors.  

sources:
familysearch.org
Swedland and Donta, Scarlet Fever Epidemics of the Nineteenth Century, a case of an evolved pathogenic virulence. 

James Banks 1851-1891 Manchester, England

I am a great fan of the PBS show Downton Abbey.  The acting is great, the setting is beautiful, who wouldn't want to live in that house!  I start to think that I would love to live that life, but then Lady Sibyl up and dies in children birth.  Her death was a stark reminder of the realities of living in the early 1900's without modern medicine, not to mention all the other technological advances that make our lives easier. 

If things were not so great for the very rich then I can only imagine how terrible it was for the working poor. Many of my Manchester ancestors were Irish immigrants looking for a better living in the industrial North of England.  Did they find it?  I'm not sure what their answer would be.  

My Grandmother left England in 1923.  She never said much about the relatives she left behind including her own parents. I am trying to piece together what I can about them and  I can tell that their lives were filled with hard work, and not much else.  

James Banks was born in County Mayo, Ireland around the year 1841. All I know of his parents is that his father's name was Thomas.  I don't know when or why James left Ireland, but it coincides with the Great Famine, so that may be the why.  In the 1851 census he was about ten years old, he lived as a lodger at 66 Old Mount St. in the home of Bridget Cavil, an Irish woman.  James worked as a "rope hawker".  There are no other Banks family members there, so I can only assume that James was either an orphan or abandoned.  Maybe his family had died in Ireland and he came with Bridget, but all I can do is make conjectures, I doubt we will ever know.

By the 1861 census James has changed jobs and addresses.  He was still a lodger, this time at the home of a "beer seller". He was working as a cotton spinner, working in one of the large cotton mills nearby.  

On August 6th 1865 James married Mary Lynch, daughter of John and Bridget Lynch.  Mary was also a hawker and may have met James when he was hawking, in fact James lived quite close to the Lynch home in 1841. Mary was also Irish, having arrived with her family sometime prior to the 1851 census.  James and Mary were married at St. Chad's catholic church on Cheetham St. in Manchester. This was the last catholic wedding, their children married in either a registrars office or the Church of England. 
Over the next ten years James and Mary had at least five children.  I think there might have been one daughter that died young.  In the 1871 census James and Mary live on Brighton St. with her mother.  The Lynches had lived on Brighton since the 1851 census. They had two children, John Thomas age 4 and Michael Joseph aged 11 months. James continued to work as a cotton spinner and Mary as a hawker.  
The 1881 census reveals the terrible changes that have occurred in the family over the past few years.  Mary died in 1879 leaving five children aged 13 to 3.  Her own mother, Bridget, had died in 1873 so there was no female to look after the children.  James and his oldest son John Thomas lived together in what was called the Chadwick Buildings. The rest of the children are living a pauper house also known as a work house called Crumpsall. 

Think Charles Dickens!  The people who lived in the work house were call inmates.  God only knows what life was like for these children. John Thomas the oldest of the children was at 14 years of age working in the cotton mills.
In 1886 James married for the second time, the new wife is Emily Dodson.  They had four daughters in rapid succession, the last one Teresa Caroline did not survive her first year. The 1891 census is the last one in which I can find James, that doesn't mean he isn't there but it is possible that he died.  

James' children with Mary Lynch were:

John Thomas Banks b. 1866 in Boston by 1894, last found in a Boston directory in 1904
Michael Joseph Banks b. 1870 in Boston by 1895, marries Mary L. Scott, but they divorce as she is an alcoholic.  He had three children.  He died sometime after 1940.
Margaret Ann Banks b. 1873. Married William Bowker. Two of their children emigrate to Boston.  She died in 1914.
Catherine Banks b. 1875, I think she married William Frost but cannot locate her.
James Patrick Banks b. 1876, in Boston by 1896, never married.  Died after the 1940 census.  

James' children with Emily were:
Alice b. 1886
Bridget b. 1887
Mary Ellen b. 1889
Theresa Carolina b. 1891 d. 1892
I cannot find anything on the daughters of Emily.

I'm not sure that James found a better life in Manchester but I know that his children, at least those by his first wife Mary Lynch seemed to have done better for themselves. 

The Lynch Family of Brighton Street, Manchester 1851-1871

Roscommon in dark green

1846, the height of the Irish Famine.  The province of Connacht, including the counties of Roscommon and Mayo, was ground zero for death from starvation and flight from Ireland is in full swing.  America, Canada and Australia were prime destinations, but so was England and it's growing cities, fueled by the Industrial Revolution.  Manchester, on the west coast of England was booming, driven by the manufacture of textiles, especially cotton, and it was only a short boat ride away. 

The Irish immigrants flooded into Manchester looking for jobs.  They  tended to congregate in one area on the east side, known as "Little Ireland". By 1841 a tenth of the population of Manchester was Irish, most of the immigrants came from the West Country of Ireland.  

The overwhelming majority of those immigrants left Ireland because of poverty.  But in Ireland they were living off the land and were probably unprepared for the condition in which they would find themselves. Fredrick Engles described Little Ireland as follows:

"The New Town, known also as Irish Town, stretches up a hill of clay, beyond the Old Town, between the Irk and St. George's Road. Here all the features of a city are lost. Single rows of houses or groups of streets stand, here and there, like little villages on the naked, not even grass-grown clay soil; the houses, or rather cottages, are in bad order, never repaired, filthy, with damp, unclean, cellar dwellings; the lanes are neither paved nor supplied with sewers, but harbour numerous colonies of swine penned in small sties or yards, or wandering unrestrained through the neighbourhood. The mud in the streets is so deep that there is never a chance, except in the dryest weather, of walking without sinking into it ankle deep at every step. In the vicinity of St. George's Road, the separate groups of buildings approach each other more closely, ending in a continuation of lanes, blind alleys, back lanes and courts, which grow more and more crowded and irregular the nearer they approach the heart of the town. True, they are here oftener paved or supplied with paved sidewalks and gutters; but the filth, the bad order of the houses, and especially of the cellars, remain the same." 

Many, if not most of those immigrants traded one poverty ridden life for another.  In one study it was shown that over 18,000 Irish lived in dank, windowless cellars.  The Irish who lived upstairs fared no better, sleeping three or more to a bed, no sanitation and no running water. Life expectancy was half that of the upper classes and in one year the infant mortality rate was 570 per 1000 live births.  

An alternative job to working in the Cotton Mills was Hawking.  The majority of hawkers (peddlers) were Irish.  I suppose this was marginally better than being cooped up in a factory all day, but they had to work rain or shine or cold outside, so maybe it was a trade off.  

So these are the conditions into which my ancestors found themselves when they left Roscommon, Ireland sometime after 1843 and the 1851 census.  (their last child was born in Ireland in 1843 and they are found in the 1851 census). 

John Lynch was born in Roscommon around 1788. He and his wife Bridget and their children: Michael, Thomas, Catherine, Patrick and Mary are first found in the 1851 English census living on Brighton St. in Northeast Manchester.  John is listed as age 60, Bridget is 53 and the children are ages 25 to 10.  While John is an agricultural laborer the children are all hawkers. 

In the 1861 census John Lynch age 69 is a laborer and Bridget 64 has no occupation.  At home are Catherine and Mary, both hawkers as well as son Patrick and his wife Mary and 4 month old child Ann.  Patrick is a hawker but his wife Mary is cotton spinner in a mill. Bridge probably took care of Ann and her other grandchildren so their parents could work. Oldest son Michael, now married to Bridget and with five children, also lived on Brighton St.  He and his wife are hawkers.  Thomas Lynch was also married, he and his wife Ellen had two children, they too lives on Brighton St.  Thomas was also a hawker.  

It's hard to tell on the map but Brighton St. seems quite short, yet there were a lot of houses on it.  Each house was probably only two rooms down and two up.  House were not only built side by side but another row backed up to the first. 

The 1871 census shows big changes in the extended Lynch family. John was dead and Bridget his widow lived with her youngest child Mary. She was married and had two children, John Thomas and Michael.  James Banks her husband was a cotton spinner, Mary continued to work as a hawker.

Patrick and his wife and family are not found in the 1871 census. By 1880 they are living in Massachusetts, the first of the family to immigrate to the USA.

John and Bridget's son Thomas died in 1867 and his children were living with their Uncle Michael in 1871. Their mother Ellen may  possibly be dead, I cannot find her.

Also dead is John and Bridget's daughter Catherine Lynch Durr.  She was murdered by her husband Patrick in a drunken rage. He was arrested, tried and found guilty and hanged shortly thereafter at nearby Strangeways Prison. 

Strangeways Prison

If England was their promised land, it was sadly disappointing. Bridget died in 1873.  Mary her daughter and my direct ancestor was dead by 1879, only 36 years old, leaving 5 small children. The saddest story to my mind is that of Catherine Lynch Durr, sister of Mary.  She and her husband also lived on Brighton St, and her husband Patrick was from Roscommon in Ireland.  He was unemployed at the time of the murder and had previously done two years in prison. They were both described as alcoholics.  On the night of the murder, the 18th of August 1870, they both left the beerhouse and headed home together. Once home Patrick accused Catherine of pawning his shirt, which she denied, saying in was in the mangle.  Patrick obviously didn't believe her and strangled her with a piece of rope in front of their two children. Patrick was arrested on the 20th of August and was executed on the 26th of December of that year.  

Sources:

www.prideofmanchester.com

Fredrick Engles, Conditions of the Working Class

www.openedu.com  

ancestry.com