Series 19 - Frank Langan letters

76pp

Gerald Perry of Langan Farm, County Meath donated reproductions of the Frank Langan letters to Kerby A. Miller.

Materials pertaining to the Frank Langan letters, a series of about 10 letters sent between Langan family members in Ontario and Montreal, Canada to family near Tara, County Meath in 1874.
Per Kerby A. Miller: 'In the 1870s, the donor's grandfather, Richard Langan, married Kate Keappock, and they built a house and settled on what is now the Langan Farm, then known as Poulbrock -- about 130 acres and part of a larger farm (in the Langan family?) known as Dorea or Dunreagh. Soon after their marriage, the "English" (?) landlord decided to sell his 3,400-acre estate, and Langan decided to try to purchase the Poulbrock holding. In getting legal advice on the matter, it appeared that there was a remote possibility that there was a potential legal flaw in Langan's title under his father's will, and in order to obviate this possibility it was decided to get the other members of Langan's family to sign a "Deed of Release" under which they would forego any possible claim to the place which they might legally have. Two of Langan's brothers were then in Canada, and it was necessary to send them the documents for their signatures, which they gave willingly; for these legal reasons, these particular letters were saved, and found by Perry in an old desk when he inherited the farm in 1966. Perry's mother was the daughter (Helen Langan) of Richard and Kate Langan; she married George Perry. Richard Langan's brothers emigrated to Canada in the 1870s. They got positions as salesmen "and did quite a bit of traveling." The brothers were: George, "who eventually returned to Ireland to the farm at Dorea"; and Frank, who married and remained in Canada. The Langan brothers also had sisters named Emma, Helen, Mary, etc. The Dorea farm must have been separated from the Poulbrock portion; George must have returned from Canada to assume control of it, since Perry wrote that it "was eventually inherited by a cousin of mine."'
The series contains: Miller's typed transcripts of the letters; two 1978 letters from Charles A. O'Neil in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, one responding to Miller's appeal for emigrant letters in The Irish Bulletin; a photocopied typed transcript of a letter from Thomas Lawless in Callystown, County Louth in 1846 and other materials relating to the Lawless family; a letter from Gerald Perry, donor of the Langan letters; typed transcripts of the letters and photocopies of the originals; Miller's research notes.

Kerby A. Miller's typed excerpt from the Thomas Lawless letter can be found in P155/69/17.