My Moynahan Genealogy Blog: Patrolman Timothy Moynahan Robbed

Saturday, May 12, 2018

Patrolman Timothy Moynahan Robbed

I love reading old newspapers. I regularly buy a monthly subscription at newspapers.com and run queries for one month on surnames in my family tree.

A LOT of my greatest finds come from newspapers available for free online! (See my links below).

I was curious about this article about Special Officer Timothy Moynahan who was robbed in Detroit in 1911 while delivering the payroll to Detroit city garbage workers.

Source: The Amherstburg Echo, December 29, 1911

The article ends by saying that "Moynahan is a native of Maidstone township" which puts Timothy squarely into my Moynahan research files in Essex, Ontario.\

I found a photograph of Officer Moynahan with additional details on the robbery.

Source: Detroit Free Press; Thursday, December 28, 1911

Moynahan On The Police Force More Than 30 Years

The Detroit Free Press article states that:
"With one eye gashed and completely closed, and his right nostril cut badly, Moynahan was taken after the robbery to his home 685 Seventeenth St in the police patrol. Moynahan was on the Police force more than 30 years...."

"Every Wednesday for nearly five years Moynahan has carried the pay envelopes of these garbage wagon drivers to the station at at twenty Fourth St and the river. Three weeks ago it was moved to Eighteenth St."

Source: Detroit Free Press; Thursday, December 28, 1911

1884 Prevented Suicide

Patrolman Moynahan was written up in the newspapers again in 184 after he happened across a distraught woman on a Saturday night

Source: Detroit Free Press, Dec 15, 1884

1903 Timothy's Wife Committed Suicide

Unfortunately, Patrolman Timoth's wife Catherine (Murphy) Moynahan who struggled with mental health issues, died in 1903

On Catherine (Murphy) Moynahan's death certificate it indicates that the couple had seven children of which five were living in 1903.

Source: Michigan Department of Community Health, Division for Vital Records and Health Statistics; Lansing, Michigan; Death Records

On the 1880 census, there are three children: Cornelius, Felix and Frank. I believe that this may mean that Timothy's father's name was Cornelius.

Timothy and his family lived many, many years at 685 17th Street, Detroit Michigan and there were many other Moynahans in Corktown as well but I was unable to connect Patrolman Timothy Moynahan with our Maidstone Moynahans as reported in the Amherstburg Echo in 1911.