We are slowly gaining more information about the origins and early years of the Collins family. The earliest ancestors we know about at this stage are the brothers Timothy and Patrick Collins. They arrived in Canada in the 1827-28 period. We are still searching for passenger lists with their port of departure in Ireland. It is likely that they left from the port of Cobh just outside of the city of Cork (which had the Anglicized name Cove at the time they would have emigrated). We do know that the two brothers were in Canada in February, 1829. This date is a benchmark because Timothy and Patrick appear on what is called the McCabe list. This was a survey conducted at the request of Colonel By and covered those living in and around Bytown at the time. The purpose of the survey was to try to encourage more immigration through contacts that these early settlers might have had back in Ireland.

The entries in the McCabe list are very short. For Timothy, it is indicated only that he came from ‘Timlague’ in county Cork, was on his own with no wife or children, and could not write (he marked his entry with an ‘X’). In the case of Patrick, it is indicated he was from ‘Timleag’, Cork, and was married at the time. He also marked his entry with an ‘X’. A further item entered for Patrick stated that he had a brother-in-law Michael Feen residing in Roscarberry, and that Patrick was “known to Michael Galway of said place”. Unfortunately, the entries do not indicate the parents of the brothers – something that would open up new possibilities for tracing our ancestors within Ireland.

One of the issues you quickly face in looking at early records is the wide variation in names used for the same person or place. For example, it is certain that ‘Timlague’ and ‘Timleag’ are one and the same. The name now used is Timoleague, a small town in south-west Cork near Bandon. When you do research on places in Ireland in bygone days, you run into a complicated system of describing geographic areas. In the Irish land setup, Timoleague is the Civil Parish and Clonakilty is the Poor Law Union area. Moreover Timoleague parish is part of two baronies: Ibane and Barryroe. Land is also broken down into smaller units such as townlands and ploughlands.

When Marilyn and I were in Ireland in 2002, we went to the National Archives in Dublin and looked for an entry for Timothy Collins of Timoleague in what are called the Tithe Applotment Books. These were kept for the purposes of levying taxes on landholders. We found one such entry for 1828 indicating a 21 acre holding on the Ardmore Ploughlands – an area just a short walk out of the village of Timoleague. While we cannot be certain, there is a good chance that this is the land that Timothy farmed almost two centuries ago.

Timothy and Patrick were no doubt tenant farmers beholden to an English lord. It would be much easier to trace our ancestors if they were land owners rather than tenant farmers, as this would give access to documents such as wills and land titles. The two brothers would have been part of the early migration to Canada motivated by a desire to escape the deplorable conditions facing tenants at the time. This was well before the major Potato Famine in the mid-1840s, but it should be remembered that prior to the Great Famine there were recurring periods of crop disasters, widespread violence and lawlessness, and abuses by the ‘agents’ of absentee landlords.

Settlers in Bytown in the later 1820s were attracted by the availability of work on the building of the Rideau Canal system. This is very likely the occupation of Timothy and Patrick after they arrived in Canada. Given the large numbers of worker deaths - estimated at up to 1,000 - through sickness and accidents during the building of the Canal, the Collins line in Canada could have been terminated very early. Irish immigrants from County Cork in Ireland working on the canal gathered in a shanty town called Corktown. This stetched from what is now the National Arts Centre site down along the canal to the end of Somerset Street.

We do know that Timothy and Patrick occupied land just above the Black Rapids lock station as of 1831. As with many Rideau Canal workers, they were originally squatters - occupying about 26 acres each of Clergy Reserve Lands at the water’s edge. This may seem like a small amount of land for farming by our standards – but it was still much larger than the average land holding in their native Ireland. In February, 1857, the brothers got approval from the Canada Land Company to purchase the land on the basis that they had already occupied it for 26 years. Over this interval, they had acquired more adjoining land and the Gloucester tax rolls for 1860 indicate that their total holdings were 100 acres each. Timothy Collins’ land was located at the intersection of what is now River Road and Linebank road down to the river. It was part of a thriving community that came to be known as Bowesville – which was destroyed in the 1950s as part of the expansion of the airport.

Timothy Collins' marriage record for August, 1831 is held at Notre Dame (the current Notre Dame church was not yet built, but Notre Dame has many of the early pioneer records for Irish Catholics in and around old Bytown). The Notre Dame record indicates: “After three publications of banns, marriage of Thimothy Collins of the Black Rapids to Mary Kaine of the Notch of the Mountain. Witnesses: Michael Collins and Hanora Kaine.” Again, the flexible way names are used should be noted. The ‘Kaine’ name can show up in various formats elsewhere: Cain, Keane, Keehan, Kane. We have little information about Mary Kaine – although it appears that she was also from Timoleague. The reference to ‘Notch of the Mountain’ was puzzling at first – but we now know that it can be located as follows: stand on the Bank Street bridge over the canal at Lansdowne Park and look west towards Dow’s Lake, and the steep banks on either side - a stone’s throw from the bridge - were called “The Notch of the Mountains”. The reference to Michael Collins as a witness at the marriage of Timothy and Mary is interesting. We are quite sure this must be brother Patrick - whose full name may have been Patrick Michael Collins or Michael Patrick Collins (unless a third brother or other relative has escaped all detection prior or since).

Timothy Collins was twenty years older than Mary Kaine – not unusual in Irish marriages: he was born in 1791 and she was born in 1811. Timothy lived until age 82 (his older brother Patrick born in 1785 also lived until age 82). But Mary died at the young age of 39 in 1850. Again, early deaths for women at the time were not all that unusual given the rigours of child-birth and the burdens of pioneer life that fell upon wives.

Timothy and Mary had seven children born from 1832 to 1846: Mary, John, Matthew, Norah, Ellen, Bridget and Patrick. The home of Patrick, the youngest, is still standing at Black Rapids – a fine brick house with beautiful gingerbread trim. It is located at 1499 Jarvis Drive just off River Road. A picture of the house can be seen in Grace Johnson’s book “Bowesville: a place to remember”.

The story of the area where Matthew Collins settled after leaving Black Rapids can be found in “The Chronicle of Carlsbad Springs” written by Matthew's son - James Collins. This recounts the stories of the pioneers of Carlsbad Springs - among the first of whom were Matthew Collins and his bride Elizabeth McKenna. The McKennas had occupied land right beside the Collins brothers at Black Rapids.

Kevin Collins, June 27, 2003