The Story of Daniel Downey, an Irish-born Catholic Priest Accused of Murder

Creative writing:

Write Daniel Downey's memoirs as he would have written them. Incorporate all that you have learned.

or

Traditional essay:

What does Daniel Downey's life suggest about crime, ethnicity, religion, and/or the ante-bellum and the Reconstruction periods of nineteenth century America?

Use this class period to search the Valley of the Shadow archives, take notes, and write a basic outline for your paper.

After you have shared your findings with the other teams in your group, edit your outline as you feel necessary.

Research suggestions

• Go to The Augusta County, Virginia, newspaper search page and select "all" for the year, and type "Downey" in the Keyword box. Once you have gotten the results of your search, click the dates of the newspapers you wish to see abstracts of. Then use the browser's "find" function to go directly to the articles of interest.

• Search the Augusta County Virginia census for the names of all of the individuals mentioned in the newspaper articles you find. Then search the Augusta census by "priest" to see if there were other Catholic priests in the county.

• Search the Staunton tax records and the Augusta County slave owner census to see what kind of property, if any, Downey owned.

• Read the Downey family papers. Of particular interest is his last will and testament, the letters to and from Mr. Frenger, and the certification of loyalty.