Folk Figure. Born Johannah Magee in County Tipperary, Ireland to Catherine Flannery and James Magee. At the age of 17, she married James Donnelly, and a year later gave birth to the first of eight children. In the troubled country, factionalism ruled and the Donnelly family were said to have been damned for patronizing the Protestant British merchants. To escape the troubles, the Donnellys emigrated to Canada between 1842 and 1844 where the rest of her children were born; William, John, Patrick, Michael, Robert, Thomas, and Jane whom they called Jennie. They moved to Wellington County, Biddulph Township and squatted on 100 acres of unsupervised government land, a property owned by an absentee landlord, and they worked it without his knowledge. They, however, turned the property into one of the more prosperous farms in the area. The family developed a reputation for confrontation, settling most arguments with their fists. Johannah encouraged her boys in this, and was quoted as saying, "From the time they could toddle, I taught my seven sons to be fine fist-and-club fighters.... 'tis I who taught them how to gouge, bite off an ear, and crack in a head with a club; showed them the best way to send a fast punch to the chin." After her husband killed a man in a fight and was sentenced to hang, she intervened. She petitioned for clemency, and campaigned hard. Her husband's death penalty was commuted to a seven-year sentence in Kingston Penitentiary, he was released 1865. In the community, however, the family continued to be at odds with other factions. When Donnelly enemies allegedly burn a barn belonging to a friend, and blamed it on Johannah and James, he said they had counter charges to lay. This threat is suggested as the reason for the raid in the early hours of 4 February 1880, during which some 30 men invaded the Donnelly homestead and brutally murdered James, Johannah, son Tom, and a visiting niece, Bridget. After two trials, none of the accused murderers were ever convicted. A legend sprang up that Johannah, as she lay dying, vowed revenge on her killers, which apparently haunted some of the guilty so that a surprising number of the killers actually did meet an unnatural death. The gravestone erected by a surviving son was removed and replaced in 1964 so the word "murdered" was not included.