Eileen Houlihan was a school teacher and a former Argentia resident. She has perpetuated some of the misinformation that has been circulating about Argentia for several decades. In relation to the date that the name Little Placentia was changed to Argentia, she wrote:
Her date of 1904 was nine years after the name Argentia was conceived and three years later than when the official change went into effect. Being a Roman Catholic priest, Father St. John referred to Latin, the language of his Church — not to the French language, as Houlihan and other authors have claimed over the years — when selecting the new name. He chose a derivative of “Argentum,” meaning, “silver.” His choice of “Argentia,” or “land of silver,” was because of the presence of the Silver Cliffs Mine located in Broad Cove, on the eastern side of the harbour. Stating that the name of her former home had been changed in 1904 was a significant error for someone who grew up in Argentia and claimed to have a lot of knowledge about its history. It was rather strange how an event that was considered to have been one of the most important in the people's lives could have been so misconstrued within two decades of Argentia's demise through expropriation. Between 1942 and 1947, there were two burial sites on Long Hill — both with all the graves marked by white crosses — and one of them has intrigued many, many people for more than half a century. The first site was the main cemetery … Hillview Cemetery, Fort McAndrew. It became known as “Boot Hill,” or the burial ground for “all the traitors and spies who were executed in Argentia.” On page 48 of her book Uprooted: The Argentia Story, Houlihan alluded to her belief that Hillview Cemetery, Fort McAndrew was the burial ground of those “traitors” and “spies” when she wrote:
The last sentence in the preceding statement is quite ambiguous! Since the graves “opposite from people who were killed by accident” were, “unmarked,” as she claimed, how would she have known that they existed? The area to which she was referring was off limits to everyone except those who had specific security clearance, and it was in full view of the U.S. Marine security guards at the Main Gate. Nobody would have had the opportunity to study the area and determine that there were unmarked graves in existence. For the record, there were two burial sites on Long Hill in Argentia, but there were no “unmarked graves” anywhere in Argentia. Houlihan's statement was pure conjecture based on stories she had heard over the years, and not on personal observation. By her own admission in public many, many times, Houlihan had a general dislike for Americans and did not return to Argentia after she and her family moved away in 1941. Thus, she could not have seen any graves on “Boot Hill,” marked or unmarked. Indeed, several decades passed before she went to Argentia as a visitor at an annual U.S. Navy Open House. On page 10 of Uprooted: The Argentia Story, Eileen Houlihan published the following photograph and caption. Have a good look at the photo and caption before reading the explanation that follows.
The inclusion of that photograph is one of the most blatant examples of misdirected plagiarism that show up from time to time in Newfoundland. While the author's sister may have given her a copy of that photo, she was not the photographer. Moreover, as anyone who is familiar with Argentia can attest, that is not Argentia harbour. Also, the time frame is off by a significant number of years. That image on page 10 was a copy of one of four “official” photographs that were produced at a famous event in the history of a community at the head of Conception Bay. They were taken on Friday, May 20, 1932, as a record of the visitation of the famous German “Flying Boat” DO-X to Holyrood. The event was noted in The Daily News with the following headlines, “DO-X arrived at Holyrood. Fully 5,000 people visited Holyrood to see flying boat. Amelia Earhart Putnam leaves Harbor Grace on solo flight across at Atlantic.” Here is a copy the first photograph that was taken at Holyrood that day in 1932:
It is obvious from her published work that Eileen Houlihan did not remember nearly as much about her former home in Argentia as she maintained. For example, her description of “The Reach” in the caption of the preceding photograph is completely erroneous. The Reach was one of 19 place-names that existed on the peninsular section of Argentia. It was the name given to that section of harbour that stretched or “reached” eastward from the Argentia peninsula toward Fox Harbour. As the water in The Reach was quite deep, the Americans used it as a “holding anchorage” for large vessels when there was no room at the Fleet Dock. They referred to the holding anchorage area as the “Inner Harbour, East” when accepting vessels for stand-ins. Although the section of Argentia described in the photo caption by Houlihan had no official name, people living in the Marquise area commonly referred to it as the “Head of the Harbour.” Many of the residents on the peninsula called it the “Foot of the Harbour.” On page 8 of her book, Eileen Houlihan displayed a poem that was written by “William Murphy who returned to Argentia in the 1920s to find a railway terminal built on his homestead.” While that part of the caption was correct, she included only nine verses of the 14-verse poem, and not all of the lines were correct. She did not include the title of the poem either. That was a very significant omission because that poem had become somewhat of an anthem for most of the former Argentia residents who had been displaced from their homes in 1941. The property of Patrick Murphy was expropriated by the government in 1920, as the replacement site for the railway terminal they planned on transferring from Jerseyside. The new railway and coastal boat facility was completed and officially began operation on Wednesday, December 21, 1921. Patrick Murphy's son, William, had moved away many years before the upheaval in the lives of his family. He was an English professor at Fordham University in New York and visited his home every three to five years. His last visit was in the summer of 1920, prior to the time a decision was made to expropriate his family's property. By the time he had put enough money aside for his next visit, everything he knew in childhood had disappeared. William Murphy's next, and last, visit to Argentia was during the month of July in 1922. He was devastated to find that not the slightest recognizable remnant of his family's property existed. On Sunday, July 23, Murphy climbed to the top of John Hunt's Pinnacle — now known as Pearce's Peak — to take one last look at the entire area he used to explore as a child. While sitting on a large rock at the edge of the pinnacle, he composed a very emotional poem, which he named Memory of Home. Some former Argentia residents often referred to it as Argentia Revisited. On pages 12 and 13, Eileen Houlihan included the 12-verse poem “The Bridge At Placentia Gut,” which she identified as having been written by “some local residents.” That, too, was inaccurate in several ways. Firstly, the original song was 15 verses long and the proper title was “The Bridge on, not “At” Placentia Gut.” Secondly, it was not written by “some local residents.” Many of the local residents who were very familiar with the four-way tidal movement in Placentia Gut had warned the Americans in 1941 that building a pontoon bridge would not be successful. The overconfident Americans did not listen and scornfully dismissed the local people's advice. Parts of the pontoon bridge were swept away so often that it prompted many of the local people to ridicule the Americans' stubbornness. All the controversy surrounding the pontoon bridge led Father John Murray of Sacred Heart Parish in Placentia to compose a song of derision. When the Americans were first establishing their presence in Argentia, it was still a time of widespread racial prejudice and intolerance … even in quiet, peaceful Newfoundland. Priests and other high-profile residents of the region were not above the appalling practice either. Father Murray revealed his prejudiced side in the ninth verse of his song when he referred to a Chinese man named Thomas (Tom) Ling as “Chink.” Ling owned and operated Ling's Laundry and Ling's Photo Development Shop in Jerseyside. Eileen Houlihan was a “devout” Roman Catholic, and as such “would not dare say anything bad” about a priest, especially in writing. Perhaps that was the reason why she did not identify Father Murray as the author of the critical song. Maybe she simply did not know who wrote it and the statement about “some local residents” was just pure conjecture on her part. In oral and written accounts, as well as comments during radio and television interviews, Eileen Houlihan was also responsible for the propagation of misinformation pertaining to the transfer of the three cemeteries in Argentia to Freshwater in 1942. She maintained that the transfer of the cemeteries was a “slipshod job” in which many remains were dug up “any old way and all stuck in together in a common grave in Freshwater.” She was particularly angry that her father's remains were in that common grave site and she did not know where. The reality of the situation pertaining to the graves transfer was much different from that portrayed by Eileen Houlihan. Initially, U.S. Navy officials in Argentia, led by Lieutenant Jay Silliman, ROICC (Resident Officer In Charge of Construction) wanted to cover the three cemeteries with concrete slabs and place a monument on each one. During the last week of November 1941, after several meetings with Father Adrian Dee and the Commission of Government, American officials finally agreed to re-locate all three cemeteries to Freshwater … where the majority of the Argentia residents would be re-settling. In the meantime, the government purchased 2.75 acres of land in Freshwater from Michael Kelly Jr. and added 1.5 acres of Crown Land. The 4.25-acre section of land was located southeast of the primary re-location site, at coordinates 47° 15' N by 53° 58' W. The land was cleared and leveled by an American bulldozer operator named John (Tiny) Noonan. Upon completion of the work, the Commission of Government turned the deed to the land over to the R.C. Episcopal Corporation … on the condition that it would be used only as a cemetery. By the time the decision to move the cemeteries was made, the winter weather made the task, which was titled “Project 500,” impossible. The project was postponed until the summer of 1942. Alexander Bishop, the chief health inspector for the Newfoundland government, was appointed to supervise the disinterment and re-interment of the remains. The exhumation work was complicated by the fact that no records were kept regarding the locations of many of the graves, or the dates of burials. The workers had to rely on grave markers, which resulted in only 41.8 percent of the remains being identified. Although the cemeteries at Point Roche and The Harbour had been officially closed for nearly 20 years, they contained graves as recent as 1939. Most of the three cemeteries were poorly maintained. Many were completely overgrown and were found only because of the slow and methodical excavation on the part of the excavator operator. The workers tried to keep graves of the same family together in the new cemetery, but it was not always done … primarily because of the actual inscriptions on the grave markers. It was not unusual to see two or three graves from the same family, and yet the surname on each marker was spelled differently. When the remains from each grave were transferred to Freshwater, the corresponding headstones or markers — if there were any — were also transferred to the new cemetery and placed on the appropriate graves. When it was begun, the central grave site in Freshwater was in the shape of the letter T. Upon completion of the transfer, the entire cemetery was fenced and a 15-foot-high wooden cross on a concrete base was erected at the south end of the cemetery. A section was fenced at the top of the T-shape, so that the central gravesite was in the shape of a cross. Over the years, Eileen Houlihan maintained that the transfer of the cemeteries was “disrespectful to our dead.” She formed that opinion because the remains of so many were put into common boxes and graves. Her comments were contrary to those of Father Dee, whom she praised so often. In reality, the idea of placing the remains from the three cemeteries in Argentia into a common grave at Freshwater was not that of the Americans, or the Commission of Government. That idea was first proposed by Father Dee in a letter that he wrote to Sir John Puddister, Commissioner of Public Health and Welfare on Thursday, September 11, 1941. His exact words were, “I think it is suitable that the remains in the cemeteries down here should be put in a common grave or vault and the headstones arranged around the side of it.” In retrospect, and according to records and unbiased accounts of the whole process, the project was carried out in a dignified and systematic manner. After the project had been completed, Father Dee sent letters to Alexander Bishop, George A. Fuller Company and Merritt-Chapman & Scott Corporation, and Sir John Puddister thanking them for “a job well done, and for the respect they showed to the remains of the residents' departed loved ones.” The remains of Houlihan's father were placed in a common grave at Freshwater because there was no identifying marker of any kind on his grave in Argentia. It is fair to say that if there was any disrespect, it was on the part of those residents who did not mark or maintain the graves of their departed relatives. Otherwise, the creation of a common grave would not have been necessary. There is one important fact that gets overlooked whenever the subject of the Argentia cemeteries arises. Many communities have been re-located in North America, especially in Newfoundland, and the Argentia people were the only ones known to have all their dead moved with them. Update, Sunday, May 20, 2007 Regarding the photo of the DO-X, today is the 75th anniversary of that photograph. Actually, the world's largest seaplane landed in Dildo, Trinity Bay on Thursday, May 19, 1932 and flew to Holyrood, Conception Bay the following day, May 20 … this date in history. |
