52 Ancestors #24: Enos Moynahan (and brother James)

No Story Too Small has issued a New Year's Challenge: "Have one blog post each week devoted to a specific ancestor. It could be a story, a biography, a photograph, an outline of a research problem — anything that focuses on one ancestor.”

This week's blog post is about one of the most notorious characters I have ever come across in my family research Enos Moynahan (and his brother James..)

Enos Moynahan (son of Timothy Moynahan and Archange Parent) was a marine reporter (1888), cigars & tobacconist (1891), noted smuggler (1891) robber (Glun's Shoes 1893), opium dealer (1893) and went to prison twice.

In the article below we also learn about his brother James who was a policeman (1888) turned hotel keeper (1891). What we learn is that the smuggling between Detroit in Windsor was in its heyday in the 1890s.

From The Milwaukee Journal 1891

Scenes on the Border in 1891

In 1891, "Windsor a town of some 10,000 inhabitants is reached from Detroit by ferry. The distance across is less than a mile.....the suspicion arose that all the policeman in the town were under double pay. A man who goes on the force there never remains for over a year or two. As a general rule he becomes independent.

After serving a few years James Moynahan resigned and opened a hotel on the riverfront between Windsor and Walkerville. It was here that Enos Moynahan made his headquarters. Here also other smugglers were shielded from police interference."

Daily Journal: Milwaukee Dec 3, 1891

Enos and James both die at 34 years of age

Enos death was the subject of newspaper articles and autopsy investigations. 

Windsor Evening Record August 8, 1903

(The coroner discovered strychnine and arsenic 
and ruled poisoning as the cause of death. ) 


James married and was found in the 1891 census with Elizabeth (Bloomfield)

James died four years earlier than Enos (1899) from cerebral meningitis.

St. Alphonsus cemetery, Windsor, On

Source: Detroit Free Press: Sat Feb 25, 1899

Old Detroit Hotels