Canavan Journeys from Ireland to Philadelphia to Kankakee County to Iowa
Editor’s Note: Here Joe Hart lays out his own line of descent from Anthony Canavan Sr. and Ann Hughes. Anthony, his wife and the three oldest of their four Irish-born children left Ireland — daughter Mary stayed behind for a time — and went first to Philadelphia, then to Kankakee County, Illinois. Joe descends from Anthony’s son John Canavan, who made that journey as a child and later continued on to Iowa, settling on a farm near Grand Junction, a rail crossroads in the Fort Dodge area. John was Joe’s great-grandfather; John’s daughter Anna Dolores Canavan, Joe’s grandmother, married James Francis Hart, and they had seven sons.
Transcript
Speakers: WJB — William J. Bowe; JH — Joseph Hart. Transcribed from the recording; punctuation added and obvious mis-hearings corrected.
JH: So I’m a descendant of Anthony Senior as well. Of his four children that were born in Ireland before he and his four oldest children and his wife left — or actually, it was the three oldest, because they left Mary in Ireland for a while. And so I’m a descendant of Anthony Senior’s son, John, who obviously moved with the family because he was one of the children, to Philadelphia and then to Kankakee County, and then eventually continued on and ended up in Fort Dodge in, I think that’s Greene County or Webster County in Iowa. They actually traveled to a crossroads in the rail system, I think, called Grand Junction, and settled on farms there. So he’s my great-grandfather. And then —
WJB: So, John Canavan is your great-grandfather.
JH: Yes. And his daughter, Anna Dolores Canavan, is my grandmother. She married James Francis Hart. They had seven sons —
