Beginnings of Moville
Taken from A History of Moville and its neighbourhood by Rt. Rev. Bishop Henry Montgomery 1847 - 1932

My great-grandfather, Samuel Montgomery was a wholesale and retail wine merchant in Derry. He was reared in Killaghtee (Dunkineely), where our family settled about 1628, and we still own part of this property acquired there three centuries ago.

I think Samuel Montgomery came into business in Derry about the year 1750. The firm was Montgomery and Gamble, but where the business premises were situated, I have never been able to discover. He lived in 13, London Street, which was, I suppose, considered in those days to be a fashionable street. Here he reared a large family, and he and all belonging to him are buried in an altar tomb in St. Augustine's Church. The last to be brought there was my father, Sir Robert Montgomery, in 1887. There is no room there for any more of the family.

Samuel Montgomery came into the Killaghtee property in 1768, and in the same year he bought from Lord Donegal, on a lease of "three lives, renewable for ever," about 800 acres, Cunningham measure, in Ballynelly, called the seven ballyboes of Ballynelly. This was the beginning of Moville. My great-grandfather had married Mary Porter soon after 1768. Her father was surveyor of Greencastle, and she herself was a Cary of Carrowtrasna, near Shrove.

It is obvious; therefore, that Samuel Montgomery was intimately acquainted with the road from Derry along the lough and away to Shrove Head. He chose well for a site of his property, for his house, Newpark, seems to face exactly towards that fine hill, Benevenagh, across the lough, and also it possesses a South aspect. His demesne consisted of sixty Cunningham acres, and it will be locally interesting to know that it comprised all what is now Gortgowan, Ravenscliff and the Bath Green, and also extended up Ballynelly lane.

West of his demesne, and at the time of his purchase, there seemed to be something like a farm held by Owen Gubbon, and on my great-grandfathers estate there were the following tenants: - Hemphill, Kerland, McLaughlin, Gillane, M'Diard, Conally, Henry, M'Dowall, Morrison. I give the old spelling.

Samuel Montgomery built Newpark in 1774. At the same time he built the old mill, the remains of which are still to be seen below the big corn store, which I think may have been built soon after. The place was called the eighth (mill) ballyboe. Prices and figures of 170 years ago have an antiquarian interest, so I set down from the list in Samuel Montgomery's own hand writing the details of the building of Newpark and of the mill. He built by day labour, and was apparently his own architect and clerk of the works and bought all materials. The house and "stable loft" cost £693; enclosing walls, 639 perches of stone walls, £71; 370 perches of ditches planted with white thorn, chestnuts, and sycamore, £50; a corn mill and an addition to its house, £130. In all, he spent £1,000. It may also be of interest locally that the avenue leading to the house from the road went straight on, leaving the house on its left and passing into the yard.

Up to the building of Newpark, Moville did not exist, for in 1780 my great grandfather gave a lease to Hugh Dougherty for a farm of thirty Cunningham acres, and the farm covered the whole area now occupied by the town of Moville. The lease reserves to the landlord the right-of-way to his mill, and also to the shore for the purpose of gathering "wreck". The farmers house was situate, I think, on the site of what is now the garage of M' Connell's Hotel, and there was certainly a road by that time leading from that second bridge of which I have spoken through the town past Newpark and onward to Greencastle. How long Hugh Dougherty held his farm I do not know, and indeed, there was very little progress in house building in those early days.

In 1820, there were only fifty people in Moville. The first houses for additional families were built at the beginning of the Malin Road, on the side away from the river. I suppose all the neighbourhood knew a good deal of what we may call wild life, largely connected with smuggling, as I will now proceed to relate.

Mr. Samuel Montgomery died in 1803, and was succeeded by his son, the Rev. Samuel Law Montgomery, who became rector of Lower Moville in 1812 and lived in his own house, Newpark, there being no rectory.

In 1813, the Rector wrote the following letter to the Government:-

"Dear Sir - A military party has been at length stationed in our village, where a market is regularly held for the sale of whiskey brought from all parts of Inishowen, and to which purchasers daily resort from the counties of Derry and Antrim. Nothing is now wanting but the presence of Excise officers to put down this traffic, not more disgraceful to the individuals concerned in it than to the Government of the country by which it has been permitted to exist so long. I understand from the Collector of Excise that he finds a difficulty in procuring a sentinel for the protection of his officers, and I am very apprehensive that without a guard these persons would not be safe. I hope I do not take too great a liberty in respectfully soliciting your orders to that effect . . . "

It is clear that the military presence referred to above indicated the arrival of soldiers at the Fort at Greencastle. The two Martello towers one on each side of the entrance to the lough, date from the year 1812. The scare of a Napoleonic landing on any part of the British Isles led the Duke of Wellington to advise the erection of these forts on all parts of our coasts. In regard to the fear expressed by the soldiers, there was certainly ground for it. I suppose the whole of the inhabitants were engaged in the illicit trade.

My father, born in 1809, used to tell of an incident that occurred when he was a child at Newpark. One day a smuggler was seen galloping down from Greencastle into Moville with kegs of whiskey slung across his saddle. About 100 yards behind him, also riding, came the gauger; thought, as he was smoking a pipe, he could hardly have been in the same hurry as his potential victim. Anyhow, as he passed along the hedge where the church now stands, a man concealed behind the hedge fired at the gauger and knocked the pipe out of his mouth!

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