A "field trip" to Port Macquarie and Kempsey

Late last year, we took a "field trip" to Port Macquarie and Kempsey. We visited sites of significance to our Killion, Quinn and Hand family. Port Macquarie Historical Museum, pictured above, is thought to be the location of the 1851 marriage of our many times great grandparents, John Killion and Jane Feeney.

Making our way to the North Shore of Port Macquarie where John and Jane Killion had their home and farm on 53 acres. John purchased the land in 1859. It's to the right of the ferry. Jane lived there with her second husband, Thomas Seward, until the late 1860s. Edward, Rose, Thomas, Mary Jane and Margaret Killion and William and Annie Seward lived on the land. We're pretty sure that the family had moved back to Port Macquarie prior to the birth of Matilda and the twins, James and Richard.

The land as it is today! There was a water frontage to the river when the family lived there. It hardly seems like ideal farming land to my city eyes! It's difficult to imagine a young Irish woman raising her family there in the 1860! We located Bliss Beach House, a holiday rental, on the land but we'll be staying in Port on future trips!
John Killion is buried at Port Macquarie Historical Cemetery. His grave site isn't known but his name is inscribed on a plaque (shown at the base of the photo). In 2016, a memorial was erected on the site by The Port Macquarie Irish Association (bottom left of photo) "in loving memory of the 600 Irish men, women & children who came before us and are buried here".


Jane's burial site at West Kempsey Cemetery. Jane married Charles Moran after Thomas Seward's death. The inscription reads-

In Loving Memory 
Jane Moran 
Died August 11th 1907 
Aged 76 years 
'Thy will be done'.

The final image is of the four individual burial sites at West Kempsey Cemetery of Jane's youngest two daughters, Annie Quinn (third from left) and Matilda Hand (second from left), along with their husbands, Thomas Quinn (fourth from left) and John Hand (left).





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