On the piece of land which lies behind the Clerkin cottage, are the ruins of a house once owned by the McHenry family in the 1850`s. This family apparently ran a tannery here. The head of the house was Thomas McHenry. By the 1880`s the place is occupied by a Mervyn Robinson and we have no other information about who lived here thereafter. There is a story about the son of Thomas McHenry heading off to Moneymore Fair on foot across the mountains. He was apparently sent by his father to buy hides and there for would have been carrying money on his mission. He never returned and that was the last contact his family ever had with him. They may have been tempted to think that having money with him, he headed for America or something. Then years later some men were cutting turf at Lough Patrick and they unearthed human remains. Thomas McHenry was sent for and he was able to identify the remains as that of his son by a leather belt which he had been wearing the day that he had set off for Moneymore. The remains were exhumed and reburied in his family graveyard. Did this tragedy have any bearing on this family name disappearing from Owenreagh. We probably will never know.
