The Anawer

 

The wonders of the Internet never ceases to amaze me! 

In October 2023 I wrote an article titled “Why Did Lonergan Kill Duffy?” detailing a P-Burg Mail article where J.C. Duffy was shot and killed by Michael Lonergan on Saturday January 8, 1916. Under-Sheriff A.R McDonald arrested Lonergan and by March he was convicted of Murder and sentenced to not less than thirty or more than forty years in the State Penitentiary. 

Michael was a well known miner that worked for the Bi-Metallic and Duffy had been in the area since at least 1875 when the New Northwest published his sale of placer claims in the “Wilson District”. He ran unsuccessfully for State Representative in 1898; his wife Lena (McDonald) died a few weeks after giving birth in 1900 and in 1910, J.C. became State Representative for Granite County and also a Deputy State Game Warden He was also very active and held offices in the Miner’s Union. 

James was born in County Donergal, Ardsmore Turaconnell, Ireland on January 2, 1866 and had lived in Granite County for over 24 years. He was interred in the Philipsburg Cemetery. 

On July 18, 2025 I received an email on the Granite County History Blog, from Davy Caldwell in Ireland: stating: “The above description of J.C. Duffy and his death on January 8, 1916 at the hands of Michael Lonergan on Philipsburg main Street is mostly accurate but does not answer the question “Why did Lonergan kill Duffy”. Lonergan approached James as he left the Post Office, pointed a pistol to his head and said” you have done me dirt. I judge I have got you now”. He discharged one shot striking James in the head and handed his gun to a shocked passerby. He made no attempt to escape. …. Under arrest and during his subsequent trial Lonergan refused to explain his actions other than to repeat “he did me dirt”… Although there was some evidence offered of premeditation he was found guilty of only second degree murder and was sentenced to 40 years hard labour. 

The reason for the murder did not emerge until about 100 years later when Lillian Byrne, a 90 year old niece of James Duffy told this writer that Lonergan and James young sister (her mother) Maggie declared their intentions to marry. James knew and saw Lonergan as a good for nothing wastrel and gravely disapproved. He forbade any such marriage. The distraught Lonergan genuinely in love with Maggie, pleaded privately with James and begged him not to intervene. James adamantly refused and as an Irish solution to family disgrace, he took Maggie, who it seems may have been pregnant with Lonergan’s child, far away to east Montana for many months. No child accompanied them on their return. 

Lonergan then, perhaps doubly anguished by the loss of Maggie and a child of his own lashed out in anguish and despair, That he made no attempt to tell his story in the hope of gaining some sympathy from the court, and a lesser sentence, suggests that he wanted to spare the woman he loved from from being the object of scandal  in Philipsburg. 

Lonergan's action that cold January afternoon was a crime of passion. A photograph of a ruggedly handsome man was found in a bundle of personal possessions left by Maggie when she died in 1936. A prison record of a scar and an injury to this man’s left hand confirms this to be a photograph of Mike Lonergan. It appears that Maggie kept the picture of  the man who killed  her brother to the end of her days."

I have requested a copy pf the picture but so far have received no reponse.