The River Murder

By Patrick J. Collins

Harbour Grace
Newfoundland
June 1884

Sergeant Sean Ryan, an officer with the Terra Nova Constabulary, is transferred from St. John’s to police the very troubled and tense Catholic community of Riverhead, Harbour Grace, a place he thought he had left behind him. Just five months ago, the now-infamous religious riot known as the Harbour Grace Affray saw five men tragically killed—a lone Catholic, Patrick Callahan, and four Protestants.

Only a week into his new posting, Sean is thrust into action. Shockingly, Thomas Callahan, son of the popular Catholic man who had died in the Affray, is found shot and left for dead in the raging Bannerman River. The young policeman then discovers that Leah Thomey, his ex-lover, is still living in Riverhead, having given up her dream of a professional life in the Boston States. Sergeant Ryan is troubled to learn that Leah had become romantically involved with the deceased Thomas Callahan.

The young Catholic cop is challenged to find out who killed Thomas Callahan, the only son of Patrick Callahan, while he faces resistance from an untrusting public—including members of his own family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Flanker Press
• Release date: Sep 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781774571491

Patrick J. Collins

Patrick J. Collins is a writer and retired educator who has taught in various communities throughout Newfoundland and Labrador. He finished his career in education as a curriculum program specialist, working in several school districts on the Avalon Peninsula and in Western Labrador. Patrick also worked as a sales and marketing representative with Lifetouch Canada until June 2011. He recently retired as a sessional instructor at the Canadian Training Institute in Bay Roberts. Pat’s thirteenth and most recent work, The River Murder, is a crime novel inspired by true events. His literary works published since 2010 are as follows: a biography of Dr. Charles Cron, A Doctor for All Time: A Man Who Cured Our Hearts; The Harbour Grace Affray; The Spirit of the SS Kyle; Murder at Mosquito Cove; Belonging; Forsaken Children; Gibbet Hill; What Lies Below; The Fairy Ring; Tales Through Time; The Body on the Beach; and Murder at Lover’s Leap. Born and raised in Riverhead, Harbour Grace, Patrick J. Collins continues to enjoy researching and writing in his retirement. He can be reached by email at [e-mail].

Book preview

Cover: The River Murder, by Patrick J. Collins.' A body of a white man, with short dark hair floating in a river which is lined with trees. A blood stain can been seen on the shirt of the man in the left chest area.

The River Murder

---

A Novel Inspired by True Events

---

Flanker Press Limited

St. John’s

Copyright

---

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: The river murder : a novel / Patrick J. Collins.

Names: Collins, Patrick J., 1953- author.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 2023047053X | Canadiana (ebook) 20230470548 | ISBN

9781774571484 (softcover) | ISBN 9781774571491 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781774571507 (PDF)

Classification: LCC PS8605.O4683 R58 2023 | DDC C813/.6—dc23

———————————————————————————————————————————————------——

© 2023 by Patrick J. Collins

all rights reserved.

No part of the work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical—without the written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed to Access Copyright, The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 800, Toronto, ON M5E 1E5. This applies to classroom use as well.

Printed in Canada

Illustrated by Albert Taylor Cover Design by Graham Blair

Flanker Press Ltd.

1243 Kenmount Road, Unit 1

Paradise, NL

Canada

Telephone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Toll-free: 1-866-739-4420

www.flankerpress.com

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Department of Tourism, Culture, Industry and Innovation for our publishing activities. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $157 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 157 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.

Dedication

---

For all the great people from the River!

My beautiful home.



Prologue

---

Boxing Day, 1883

---

Incidents of sectarian violence were recorded throughout many areas of the island of Newfoundland for several decades leading up to the 1880s, but none were so tragic as the fracas known as the Harbour Grace Affray.

In 1880, Harbour Grace was a modern town of over 7,000 people with a varied workforce of tradespeople, professionals, fishermen, and people working in the mercantile business. It was mainly an English Protestant town comprised mostly of Anglican and Wesleyan faiths, along with a significant Catholic minority numbering about forty per cent of the total population. Although it was very much a commercial centre offering administrative serves, its economy was in decline due largely to a failing fishery.

The neighbouring community of Riverhead, Harbour Grace, had been settled by the Irish sometime during the late 1700s. The European migratory fishery brought Irish immigrants there to fish during the summer, with many staying on to make their homes in this tiny, protected hamlet at the head of the harbour. Between 1800 and the 1830s, Riverhead saw its greatest influx of new immigrants largely from the southern counties of Wexford, Waterford, and Cork.

Riverhead had a small population of less than a few hundred but had developed into an independent community, with agriculture, forestry, and fishing as its main industries. It had its own school and could boast of several enterprises, including a busy gristmill and cooperage. Relevant to Newfoundland standards, they were generally a well-educated population that included various craftsmen such as shipbuilders, carpenters, masons, and railway workers. Unlike Harbour Grace, it was one hundred per cent Catholic and considered itself fiercely independent. It had been totally segregated from the town of Harbour Grace, even though it was difficult to tell where one community physically ended and the other began.

For many years there had been clashes and uprisings around political campaigns in Newfoundland, including the Harbour Grace area, largely based on ethnic differences between Irish Catholic and Protestant populations. The perennial debate about confederation with Canada was the constant battleground between the two groups. By 1861, denominational power sharing allowed voters to cast their ballots along religious lines, which served to further enhance those ethnic tensions and divisions. By the latter part of the nineteenth century, Irish Catholics tended to vote Liberal as anti-confederates, while the Protestant population was inclined to vote with the Conservatives, who were pro-confederation.

By 1883, Orange Lodges in Newfoundland had grown in numbers. The first lodge was established in St. John’s in 1863, and the order quickly spread after the tumultuous election of 1869, where the political campaign was mostly about confederation. After that election, the Orange Society was framed as the defender of Protestantism, whose main purpose was to maintain and uphold the British connection.

By the time the Orange Lodge was established in Harbour Grace, the number of lodges had grown to twenty-one in the country and were overseen by a provincial Grand Lodge. At the same time, the general population of Newfoundland continued to increase, with the Protestant sector outgrowing the Catholics, which made the radical-Protestant contingent feel more confident that they could gain greater power than before. Orangeism had spread significantly!

Charles Fox Bennett had won an election in 1873, where he sided with the Catholic population in a highly sectarian-based campaign where he advocated publicly against Orangeism. But within months of his election as prime minister, his stand resulted in his political downfall and very likely served as a lightning rod that led to even more passionate debate. The 1874 election reflected this when Conservative prime minister F. B. T. Carter won a comfortable majority—the result being that the Orangemen now held several ministerial positions in government.

By the early 1880s, Riverhead had become even more ethnically isolated from Harbour Grace. Irish immigrants who arrived early in the century, just after the failed Irish uprising of 1798, were fleeing more British oppression. They brought with them the old-world idea that the British were once again maintaining their oppressive dominance over the Irish.

Since the community didn’t need or desire to interrelate with Harbour Gracians, successive generations in Riverhead nurtured that perspective well into the 1870s and 1880s. Even though Riverhead was just next door, there was little or no interaction between them. They were culturally and ethnically miles apart.

Signs of tensions continued to build in the Harbour Grace area between Riverhead and the neighbouring town. Catholics were goaded as they travelled through the town to attend Mass. Going through an area called Courage’s Beach, a section of Water Street that ran from Ship Head near the downtown area west to a street called the Pipe Track, was particularly risky. Men were beaten on occasion as they attempted to get to their workplace. Bridal parties, garlanded with greenery as they passed through that area, were taunted with insults.

The Pipe Track was considered to be the imaginary western boundary as far as the town of Harbour Grace was concerned. Pippy’s Lane, the lane west of the Pipe Track, was considered to be where the Catholic community of Riverhead began. (See map)

Marching through the area had become a common practice for organizations and groups to publicly celebrate their heritage. Similar to what was happening in England and Ireland, the Orange Society marched each year around the community with its members dressed in full regalia, waving the Orange flag and carrying their colours. It was a time for the Society to show great bravado as members pounded their drums and played celebratory hymns of victory, while their supporting sympathizers cheered and fired guns in celebration from the sides of the road.

In years prior to 1883 when the British Society marched through the town, and more recently when the same route was assumed by the Orange Society, the procession usually left one of the Protestant churches and marched around town, staying within their accepted boundary. They took care not to cross the imaginary boundary of the Pipe Track. The Protestant procession wound its way down Water Street, going out of its way to brazenly pass by the magnificent Catholic Cathedral after turning up Carbonear Road and onto Harvey, where it proceeded as far west as the Pipe Track. Traditionally, it turned back to Water Street via the Pipe Track and ended the march in the business district.

---

In past years during the Orange procession, there had been some jeering from Catholic bystanders, but there hadn’t been any major incidents of violence. However, on Christmas Eve, 1883, railway workers, many of them being Catholic men from Riverhead, gathered in the downtown area demanding wages owed to them by a railway company fraught with financial problems. The police charged the protesters with bayonets, causing Judge Thomas Bennett to read the riot act. The protest was put down, but not without arrests and criminal charges of violence.

The following day, the hostility that was fomenting between the Protestants and Roman Catholics came to a boiling point. On Wednesday, December 26, St. Stephen’s Day, about four to six hundred members of the Loyal Orange Lodge gathered at the British Hall and marched to the Methodist Church, where they attended a service. After church they began their procession marching along Water Street toward Bears Cove, up Carbonear Road, and then westward onto Harvey Street. Hundreds of supporters and Orange sympathizers were gathered on Nichol’s Hill and all along Harvey Street. Many were firing their guns into the sky as a show of support. Several of the supporting bystanders chased the parade as it proceeded west toward the Pipe Track area.

Meanwhile, at Riverhead, as was their custom, about one hundred to 150 people had gathered on the Middle Bridge. They began their own two-kilometre walk down Water Street toward Pippy Lane, where a man named Patrick Callahan was to plant a green flag on Brennan’s Corner, a property that cornered Harvey Street and the Pipe Track, to mark their territory.

Witnesses at the scene claimed that they carried only pitchforks and pickets, with no guns in their possession. However, further testimony showed they in fact had shotguns, some of which they obtained from residences on the way. At Pippy’s Lane the boisterous Catholic contingent took a stand, forming a line across Harvey Street to prevent the Orange Lodge from going past them onto Pippy’s Lane, which the Riverhead residents claimed as their land.

Head Constable Edward Doyle, a Terra Nova Constabulary officer, and former Ulster Protestant Royal Irish Constabulary policeman, tried to intervene with both groups. He urged the Orange Society to go down the Pipe Track and take their usual route back to the downtown area. He also pleaded with the Riverhead mob to return home, warning them there would be serious consequences if they came together. But the groups ignored his pleadings.

Nicholas Shanahan of Riverhead cried out to Edward Noseworthy, who led the Orange procession, Go back, Noseworthy! Noseworthy responded, What are we to go back for?

Shanahan responded, Go back! You’re trespassing on our land.

When the Society proceeded to try to get past the Pipe Track, all hell broke loose. Several shots rang out from both sides. The shooting was followed by three minutes of absolute mayhem. Head Constable Doyle was given a sharp blow to the head and rendered unconscious. More shots were fired, stones were hurled from both sides, and people hacked at each other with sticks. When the shooting subsided, two Orangemen, William Janes and William French, lay dead on the street. The Irish leader, Patrick Callahan, lay dead in the arms of his son, Thomas. The crowd scattered, leaving the street quiet and empty. John Bray, an aged man who was severely beaten, was carried away. He died later that day. In total, eighteen others were severely wounded.

Head Constable Edward Doyle along with six others were arrested and charged with the murder of Patrick Callahan. Nineteen members of the Riverhead party were also arrested for the murder of William Janes. Two public inquiries were held concurrently over several months during the spring of 1884 at the Harbour Grace courthouse. Both sessions were presided over by Judge Bennett, who called over a hundred witnesses to each hearing.

Following the hearings, Head Constable Edward Doyle was exonerated and reinstated to his position, while the nineteen Riverhead men were arrested again and sent to stand trial at the Supreme Court in St. John’s.

Two trials were held later at the Supreme Court. The first trial, for the murder of William Janes, ended with a not guilty verdict. The men were released. A second trial was ordered in November for the same prisoners on the charge of murdering William French. This trial also resulted in acquittal.

There was great tension in Riverhead and Harbour Grace as a result of these very public court inquiries and trials. Politicians and the press added to the tensions by taking sides in the debate. Scuffles and violent incidents followed throughout the district, which resulted in the authorities requesting a warship, the Tenedos, to be stationed in Harbour Grace that year to keep the peace.

A mixture of shame and resentment echoed from the Affray, carrying through future generations.

1

---

Riverhead, Harbour Grace

Monday, June 9, 1884

6:30 a.m.

---

Billy Dormody rose early every morning. Although he had been hired to be on the Bannerman River an hour before the milling process began, he always took great delight, especially on warm sunny mornings like this, to walk over to the giant water wheel. It was a duty he’d gladly undertake even without pay.

It was his job each morning to winch up the floodgate so that water from the Lower Dam could flow freely through the water wheel head race channel. He’d watch the water rise steadily until it reached the flat paddles of the water wheel, causing it to rotate. Some mornings he carried a bucket of lard to grease the large iron outboard bearing where the shaft entered the three-storey mill house.

The water wheel had been built in 1850, ten years before he was born. Two prominent Harbour Grace merchants, John Munn and Thomas Ridley, partnered to build the gristmill on the powerful Bannerman River, which flowed from the lake the river was named after three miles east of the harbour. Thirty-four years later, the mill was still in operation, powering two giant grist stones producing over a ton of flour per day, the largest mill in Conception Bay.

Most mornings, Billy sauntered along the Bannerman River following an older path used by folks from the community of Riverhead when they visited the swimming hole located just up the river from the Lower Dam. Taking a roundabout route each day, he hiked along the riverbank, a rugged incline up to the railway trestle. Following a sometimes treacherous pathway, he circled back toward the water wheel, passing the old swimming hole on the way.

No matter how often he hiked this trail, he never tired of the breathtaking view of Riverhead, especially from the trestle. This morning, as always, he stopped there for a moment to take in the scene from this height, which offered a panoramic view of the harbour and the community itself. Where the beautiful river valley reached the sea, it became a patchwork of green fields and gardens with houses, barns, and stores that clustered together near the ocean. As the sun began to break on the eastern horizon, it cast a golden ray over the entire area, tinting everything yellow.

Unbuttoning his top pocket, he took out his treasured pocket watch to check the time. It was still only 6:45. It would be more than an hour before the milling began.

Billy Dormody had never been anywhere else in this world other than this tiny village where he was born and raised. Nor had he any desire to be any place else but here. This was his home, the place and the people he loved most.

The mill itself was where Billy had made his closest friendships. It was where he felt most comfortable and got along well with most of the men, including the mill foreman, Robert Fleming. But he always found the assistant foreman and neighbour, Sam Callahan, much bossier. He and Sam had gotten along fine until recent times, when their relationship grew cold and became strained. He never figured out why, but Sam had distanced himself, opting not to connect with him as he had in the past. Sam had even stopped inviting him to any of the social events at his house, as he often had before.

After working in the same job for fifteen years, Billy knew what was expected of him. But a lot had changed. The sectarian violence between the Riverhead Catholics and the Orangemen from Harbour Grace had made a stifling impact on workers at the gristmill. Five men had been killed and many injured when the Orangemen attempted to march through the community on Boxing Day. Many investigations and court proceedings were still under way. There was a pervasive atmosphere of suspicion, anger, and resentment, especially in Riverhead, since one of their leading businessmen, Patrick Callahan, was one of the men killed.

All this made Fleming especially edgy as the workers themselves remained tense and anxious. The workforce, a mixture of men from Riverhead and Harbour Grace, rarely spoke to one another. Billy thought it very strange that grown men could work side by side in various roles but, during break time and lunch hour, choose to congregate in separate groups according to where they lived or which church they attended. He thought Sam Callahan didn’t do much to reduce the tension.

Billy, make certain there’s nothing in that head race before you do the lift. Wouldn’t take much to jam up that wheel. We can’t afford any downtime. Robert Fleming had called him aside and whispered the words in his ear. It was obvious that his boss didn’t want the others to know he was being extra vigilant these days. It was the fourth or fifth time that Fleming gave him the same explicit instruction, each time adding the statement, It would be easy enough for someone to drop a few junks of wood into the channel.

Yesterday, he had received a disturbing note from Thomas, his best friend and co-worker at the mill, concerning all the trouble in the community. Thomas was recently hired as the mill’s bookkeeper. Billy hoped his reply would help his friend’s desperate state of mind.

On this particular morning, just after Billy had left the trestle about halfway through his peaceful walk, the quiet silence of the early morning was disrupted by a loud, almost deafening explosion—the unmistakable sound of a gunshot! Instantly, several crows and birds took flight, leaving an uncanny stillness. It was a sound he’d often heard in the fall but hardly ever during the summer months. The sound echoed up through the narrow river gorge and reverberated back into the hills.

Billy wondered who was firing a gun so close to the community and so close to the mill. He had to find out who it was and what they were doing on the river. Without a doubt, the sound had come from the area of the Lower Dam.

The most challenging part of his return lay ahead. To get to the area of the Lower Dam meant taking a narrow, well-worn path etched into the towering cliff running along the river. It was a steep drop to the raging water for nearly the entire way back to the dam. A slip would be unforgiving. He treaded carefully along the high embankment as he manoeuvred around some dangerous rock outcrops where the trail almost disappeared. In several places, Billy could hear rocks and sand fall away from his boots and splash to the waters below.

Finally, when he broke over a small ridge, he was shocked to see that someone was in the swimming hole, a choice location in the river. It was only a short distance to reach the pool from here, and a thousand thoughts crossed his mind as he sprinted to the water.

When he got to the river’s edge, he saw his troubled friend, Thomas Callahan, fully clothed, floating on his back with outstretched arms, not unlike what he’d do while swimming here. He barely moved as the current pulled him toward a small waterfall that crashed into the pool, only to push him away again.

Thomas! Thomas! Billy cried out between breaths. Although he knew his lifelong friend was deaf, he shouted his name as he waded into the frigid pool. With the water up to his waist, he grabbed both of Thomas’s wrists, pulled them back over his head, and began walking backwards toward a rock at the head of the swimming hole. His friend’s eyes were wide open and still.

I got ya, Thomas! You’ll be okay! Billy continued to speak aloud. Thomas was unresponsive.

Oh my God! Thomas! I got ya. Come on, buddy! What happened?

Still gripping Thomas’s wrists, he stumbled as his feet slipped over the greasy rocks. Billy floated him along until they reached the top of the pool. After guiding himself up onto the flat rock, he managed to pull Thomas halfway out. Peering down over his friend’s shoulder, he was shocked to see a gaping hole in his chest, so large that his internal organs were exposed.

Billy screamed, Oh God, Thomas! You’ve been shot! Oh, God! Oh, God! No!

Releasing Thomas’s wrists, Billy rose to his feet and gently eased his friend’s upper body back down onto the rock.

He had to get help!

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a blur. Maybe something dark had moved in the trees on the west side of the river. When he looked more closely, he realized it was nothing—likely a shadow cast from the still rising sun hitting the tall timbers on Mr. Dawley’s land.

The pathway to the mill was still a short distance along the river. Within minutes, he found the overgrown trail back to Mill Lane, where he was able to reach the front of the mill house. Sprinting as best he could, he ignored the encroaching bushes and limbs that battered his face and arms.

He hoped someone would be at the mill, even if it was Thomas’s uncle, Sam Callahan.

Panting, unable to catch his breath, he arrived at the loading dock. But there was nobody! The doors were bolted. Where could he turn now? Too exhausted to run any more, he started to walk down Mill Lane back toward the community.

He wondered what could have happened to Thomas. How could he have possibly gotten shot?

Billy knew it was too late to save his best friend. He’d read Thomas’s letter yesterday and left it and his response stashed inside Thomas’s ledger on his desk in the mill office. Billy hoped he would find it this morning. But now he realized Thomas would never get a chance to see his reply.

Looking down the lane toward the head of the harbour, he saw a policeman riding his bicycle near Stapleton’s Beach and headed toward Dawley’s Bridge, which crossed over Bannerman River.

Sergeant Ryan was doing his regular beat. A cop from the Harbour Grace Terra Nova Constabulary was the last person he wanted to ask for help. But his options were limited.

Waving his arms above his head, he bawled, Officer! Come quick! Oh, God! I need help!

Just before crossing the bridge, the policeman stopped, jumped off his bicycle, and began to look around, turning his head sharply left and then right.

Up here, sir! Quick! Up here! I need help!

Finally, the cop looked directly at him.

Here, Officer! Up here!

The sergeant mounted his bike and began to pedal hard up Mill Lane.

2

---

Harvey Street, Harbour Grace

Monday, June 9, 1884

6:30 a.m.

---

It was just six thirty, and it was already sunny and humid. Sergeant Sean Ryan pedalled eastward along Harvey Street, away from the more densely populated area of the town, toward the quaint settlement at the top of the harbour called Riverhead. Sweat, draining from underneath his cap, began to trickle down his forehead, welling into the corners of his eyes. Damn it! he swore as his eyes began to burn. Plucking a kerchief from his top pocket, he pushed his cap to the back of his head and mopped away the perspiration, knowing it was a temporary fix.

An early morning mist had lifted above the low-lying river valley west of the town to allow the young policeman to see the Fairy Hills, the highest point of land on the northwestern horizon. Whenever he saw those tree-clad hills, with the morning sun now giving it a brilliantly blue carpet-like cast, it triggered memories of the hills around East Cork, Ireland, where he hunted and snared rabbits with his father. He marvelled at how similar the landscape here in Newfoundland was to that of his homeland.

While he was thankful for those memories of his father, the recollections also spurred feelings of melancholy. The death of his mother three years ago was still painfully raw. Not being home in Cork when she died made her passing even more difficult.

His childhood in Cork City was filled with positive memories, as he felt truly loved and protected. Sometimes he wished he could get back that endless sense of peace and happiness. For some reason, now that he had gotten older, inexplicable worry and torment seemed to come from nowhere. He often felt unnecessarily burdened and troubled.

Some of the issues he had experienced in St. John’s these past couple of years really couldn’t be spoken about. This wasn’t something a man could share with anyone. Not even with Susan, the woman now gone from his life.

Even when you’re here with me, Sean, your mind is always somewhere else! were her parting words to him. He missed her friendship, but any vestiges of romance had dissipated months before.

Damn it! Almost tumbling off his bicycle, Ryan swore as he steered hard to ride out of a deep rut created by the many drays and carriages using this busy section of Harvey Street. I’ll never get used to this machine on this damned road! he said aloud.

For the last