Category Archives: Canadian Province

The Mystery of Pamela Stanley

September 9, 2026 Lucy H. Anglin Leave a comment

By Lucy Anglin and Janice Hamilton (2nd cousins)

One of the biggest challenges in researching our family history was discovering what happened to our four-times-great-grandmother, Pamela Stanley, the wife of Phineas Bagg (c. 1750–1823). Like many women in colonial America, Pamela left very few records behind.

We knew that Phineas and his children moved from Massachusetts to Canada around 1795. But what about Pamela? Did she make the journey with them, or had she already died in the United States?

Pamela’s story is especially interesting because her maiden name, Stanley, was carried on through four generations of our family. Her son, Montreal merchant Stanley Bagg (1788–1853), was followed by his son Stanley Clark Bagg (1820–1873), his grandson Robert Stanley Bagg (1848–1912), and his great-grandson Stanley Bagg Lindsay (1889–1965).

Pamela’s Early Life

We do have a record of Pamela’s birth. She was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, in 1760.¹ She was the fourth of eight children born to Timothy Stanley Jr., originally from Hartford, Connecticut, and his wife, Mary Hopkins, who came from Harwinton, Connecticut.²

Pamela’s father probably ran a small clothier’s business in Litchfield, a village in northern Connecticut. When the American Revolution began, he enlisted in the military. Unfortunately, he was captured by the British and died aboard a prison ship in New York Harbour in 1776.

Pamela’s mother had died around 1770, and her father left no will. Sometime after his death, Pamela appears to have moved to Massachusetts. She would have been about sixteen at the time.

Pamela and Phineas

On March 29, 1780, Pamela Stanley, age 20, and Phineas Bagg, age 30, both of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, announced their intention to marry.³

Phineas was a farmer who lived in the remote Berkshire Hills, about 90 kilometres (60 miles) from Litchfield.

There may have been a family connection that brought Pamela to Pittsfield. Her uncle, Caleb Stanley, lived there for many years and served as the town clerk from 1777 until his death in 1781. Perhaps Pamela went to live with him after her father died.⁴

There was another interesting connection between the two families. Pamela’s brother Frederick and Phineas’s brother Martin served together in the same militia unit in 1777.

Pamela as a Wife and Mother

Life for Pamela as a young wife would have been busy and demanding. Women helped their husbands in the fields, especially during planting and harvest. They also spent countless hours tending their gardens, preparing food, preserving supplies and caring for their families.

Women often formed strong relationships with other women in their communities. They traded or bartered the goods they produced with their neighbours, and charity was an important part of community life. They also tended to be more religious than their husbands.

Pamela was no doubt a loving mother, although motherhood in those days was often described as “a kind of travail, an unavoidable though potentially rewarding labor ordained by God.”⁵

Pamela’s Children

Unfortunately, no records have survived showing the baptisms of Phineas and Pamela’s children. Most published records list only two sons, Stanley and Abner.

However, research by my cousin revealed that the couple actually had four children who survived to adulthood:

Polly (1785–1856)
Stanley (1788–1853)
Abner (c. 1790–1852)
Sophia (c. 1791–1860)⁶

Phineas’s household appeared in a local Pittsfield census in 1786 and again in the 1790 U.S. federal census. Unfortunately, Phineas was the only member of the family personally identified in those records.

What Happened to Pamela?

This is where the mystery begins.

We still don’t know exactly when Pamela died.

The minister of the First Congregational Church in Pittsfield kept careful records of births and deaths among his parishioners and often even recorded the cause of death. But the early 1790s were especially difficult years for the community.

About 30 people died in Pittsfield in 1792, followed by another 26 in 1793. The following year was even worse: 36 people died in 1794, including 14 adults.⁷

The minister must have been exhausted and overwhelmed by so much illness and grief.

It is possible that Pamela died during this difficult period, leaving her four children without their mother and Phineas to raise them alone. Unfortunately, there is no known record of her grave. Perhaps Phineas could not afford a gravestone, or perhaps a stone once existed but was lost or deteriorated over the years.

A New Life in Canada

Sometime between 1794 and 1797, Phineas found himself deeply in debt. He lost almost all of his farmland, along with his barn and half of his house, to repay his creditors.⁸

If Pamela had already died, Phineas was now a widower with four children to raise. Perhaps this difficult situation helped convince him that it was time for a fresh start.

He eventually moved to Canada, where he became an innkeeper in La Prairie, Quebec. Later, he ran a tavern called the Mile End Tavern near Montreal. His son Stanley eventually married the only daughter of the tavern’s owner.

And so the family’s Canadian story began.

What If Pamela Had Lived?

We often wonder what would have happened if Pamela had not died.

Would Phineas still have left Massachusetts and come to Canada? Would he have brought Pamela and their four children with him?

We sure hope so.

Otherwise, Janice and I wouldn’t be here!

Captain Stanley Lindsay

Footnotes

1. Connecticut: Vital Records (The Barbour Collection), 1630-1870 (Online Database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2011.) From original typescripts, Lucius Barnes Barbour Collection, 1928. https://www.americanancestors.org/DB414/i/13218/203/234906257

2. The children of Timothy Stanley Jr. and Mary Hopkins were:

Timothy, b. 1754, m. Lucy Woodruff

Mary, b. 1756, m. Amasa Castle

Frederick, b. 1758, m. 1. M.S. Bishop; 2. M.K. Grosvenor

Pamela, b. 1760, m. Phineas Bagg

Abigail, b. 1762

Eunice, m 1764

Huldah, b. 1766, m. Levi DeWolf

Rufus, b. 1767, m. Lydia Collins

Source: Israel P. Warren, The Stanley Families of America, as descended from John, Timothy and Thomas Stanley of Hartford, CT. 1636. Timothy Stanley, #74, p. 24, Portland, Maine: B. Thurston & Co, 1887, https://archive.org/details/stanleyfamilieso00byuwarr

3. Early Vital Records of Berkshire, Franklin, Hampden & Hampshire Counties, Mass. to about 1850 (electronic resource) Wheat Ridge, CO: Search and Research Publ Corp. c2000, p. 22 of sheet 99, F94/p6/M37.

4. Warren, Ibid. #81, p. 245.

5. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750, p. 239.

6. Stanley Bagg and his brother Abner were both baptized as adults in Christ Church (Anglican) Montreal in 1831. At that time Stanley gave his date of birth as June 27, 1788. “Quebec, Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1968” [database on-line]. Ancestry.com, (www.ancestry.ca, accessed 2 Oct. 2016), entry for Stanley Bagg, 2 April, 1831; citing Gabriel Drouin, comp. Drouin Collection. Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Institut Généalogique Drouin.

The same source gives Abner’s date of birth as August 5, 1790, however, this date does not make sense in light of his sister Sophia’s calculated birthdate. At his death in 1852, Abner’s age was recorded as 64, which would have meant he was born in 1788, the year brother Stanley was supposed to have been born. When he was married in 1814, Abner gave his age as 25, which would have meant he was born in 1789.

Sophia was probably the youngest of Pamela’s children. Dame Sophia Bagg, veuve (widow) Gabriel Roy died Nov. 12, 1860, and at the time was said to have been 69 years, eight months of age. (“Quebec, Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1968” [database on-line]. Ancestry.com.) Calculating her date of birth from that, she would have been born around February 20, 1791. She is probably buried with her husband in the parish church in Saint-Laurent, Quebec.

According to her date of birth calculated from age, Pamela’s oldest daughter, Polly, was born April 22, 1785. She married farmer William Bush and lived in West Haven, Vermont, a rural area near the southern tip of Lake Champlain. The family later moved to southern Illinois and Polly died there on Jan 9, 1856.

7. Records pf the First Church, Pittsfield, Rollins H. Cooke Collection, Berkshire County, vols 26 and 27, reel #2.

8. Massachusetts Land Records 1620-1986, Berkshire, Deeds, 1792-1813, vol 31-32, images 438- 442. www.familysearch.org, Accessed Sept. 26, 2018.

genealogy, Ontario, Toronto

The House on Seaton Street

August 26, 2026 Mary Sutherland Leave a comment

71 & 69 Seaton Street in the early 1900s in the author’s collection and in the 2020s from Google.

All houses have a history, and number 69 Seaton Street, Toronto, had my family members living in it for more than 60 of its 150-year life. It was part of a five-row house. Houses in the Cabbage Town area were built in the 1850s to the 1880s for the workers. The houses were small, usually three or four rooms, built quickly, but still many of them have survived to this day.

William Eagle, my great-grandfather, purchased the house in 1903. William came from County Monaghan, Ireland. It says so on his tombstone. I don’t know when he immigrated but he, his father Alexander, mother Martha McClelland, sister Elizabeth, and brothers Alexander and James all ended up in Canada, where records of them exist, some dating before 1861.

William Eagle and his mother, Martha McClelland Eagle, picture from R.M. Bunse

William became a wagonmaker following in the footsteps of his uncle and brother-in-law. Being a wheelwright or wainwright was an important job in the 19th century as wagons, carriages and sleighs were the main modes of transportation. There was great demand for wagonmakers’ services, and a skilled craftsman could make a very comfortable living in the trade. It seems that William did just that.

Family was important to him. He felt his family responsibilities strongly. William lived with and looked after his mother after his father’s death and then kept an eye on his brother’s family after his brother’s death. He postponed his marriage to Eliza Jane Bailey as he didn’t want his wife to be his mother’s nursemaid. They eventually married in 1881.

William Eagle photograph in the collection of the author

William and Eliza Jane first lived on Ontario St in a small cottage, almost back-to-back with the house on Seaton Street. They only moved to the larger house in 1905. Unfortunately, William died the next year. His will, written two days before he died, left everything he had to his wife Eliza Jane. It was signed on his deathbed with an X, after he indicated he understood what the will said. The will had to go through probate and the results were published in the newspapers. It was there that I learned that he owned not one but two houses! He had purchased both 71 and 69 Seaton, attached houses.

Number 71 was rented out, so the income received would have helped support Eliza Jane and her two daughters. They continued to live in #69. When Eliza Jane died in 1931, her estate went to her daughters Amy and Minnie. At this time, Minnie, my grandmother, had married and was living in Montreal. Amy, still single, lived in the house. Minnie sold her share of #71 to Amy for $100 and “Natural Love and Affection.” This rather unusual sale was recorded as such in the Toronto Land Records. This transaction was consented to by the Provincial Treasury, as the house was worth more than $100.

Amy sold #71 in 1945 for $6,000, $3,500 cash and a mortgage of $2,500. It seems she was the mortgage holder until it was paid off in 1950. This money enabled Amy to continue living in her other house until her death in 1965. After her death, the house was finally sold for $8,000.

This was a small house, just 13.02 feet wide but on a lot 95.5 feet deep. When William bought it, the ground floor had a parlour, a dining room with the kitchen off the back. The second floor had two bedrooms and a bathroom. The toilet had a wooden tank on the wall with a pull chain, that intregued us when we visited as children. The attic had two rooms, one with a window a facing west toward City Hall. This was the vantage point for watching the New Year’s fireworks.

The house is still standing and when recently sold, was advertised as a duplex with the possibility of a third occupant. The selling price was $1,099,900!

NOTES:

The Estate of Waggonmaker, The Toronto Telegram (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) · Fri, Oct 19, 1906 . Page 15. Newspapers.com downloaded on May 19, 2026.

I started with Newspapers.com when Gail Devers mentioned on her blog, Genealogy a la Carte, that the Toronto Telegram was online. That was the first hint that William owned two houses, since The Toronto Star reported only the estate’s total value.

Full-text searches for William Eagle Toronto on FamilySearch.org revealed some interesting documents related to his will, the probate and house purchases.

William Eagle’s Will: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C3M4-W3TT-4?view=fullText

Toronto Land Records 1800-1958 Plan 127 – Lot 24 East Side of Seaton Street https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C3H6-PGDL?view=fullText

Searches for recent sales of 69 Seaton Street brought up pictures of the house, current values and this description of the house and its location. An original small house could could become a triplex!

“Welcome to 69 Seaton Street a rare gem in the city, fronting on to Seaton St with its 2 distinct upper & lower address; while backing onto Nighthawk Lane, with a possible third separate residence (if you wish to rent or entertain hanging a shingle and having a business at home). This downtown core Cabbage Town century-old Victorian charmer in the heart of the city of Toronto is close to all amenities, situated near the universities, arts, entertainment, business, and theatre districts while bordering all the cosmopolitan businesses in all areas of Toronto. This legal conforming duplex with the potential as a legal Triplex in its duality is a rare & unique find in this or any city. Built in the late 1800’s & fully renovated this Victorian charmer is a rare gem in deed.”

Quebec

11th Grade Math Class

August 19, 2026 Dorothy Nixon 2 Comments

These days, when I need to employ some math to figure out a household problem, such as how many pesos to take to Cancun or what is more economical, using Keurig pods or canned coffee, I rely on Google.

That’s because much like my handwriting, my math skills have atrophied over the years.

But, was I ever good at math? That I really can’t tell you.

During my childhood, I used to help my mother double and triple her recipes for our hungry family. A precocious learner with a terrific memory, my mom had skipped two grades at her convent school, she said, so she missed out on a key component of her math education, fractions. Her cakes always turned turned out scrumptious proving, I think, my early math ability.

My own math implosion happened in the 10^th grade. I was in advanced math in grade 10 with all of my friends from the ‘enriched’ stream and I did so poorly on the final exam I plummeted the next year into remedial math, totally skipping general math. My parents’ divorce that year likely had something to do with it.

Still, a friend of mine who went on to major in genetics in university, claimed she too ‘hit the wall’ in the 10^th grade. Her father, an engineer, helped her through it, she said.

Ironically, my father, a chartered accountant, majored in math at Oxford around WWII. While I was still in the single digits age-wise, he often gave me math puzzles in the hope I would prove to be some kind of math genius: If a bath fills at this rate and empties at that rate how much water is left after 10 minutes? I’m not joking. My father, apparently, had never heard of scaffolding.

My 10^th grade math teacher, judging from Facebook posts upon his death, was a terrific teacher. He just didn’t put much store in my abilities. Maybe he was put off by my loudmouth ‘women’s lib’ lecturing. Let’s face it, in those days, they expected girls to fumble in math at around 16 years of age. Hormones and all.

I recall how achingly awful it was to be in this 11th grade remedial math class not only because I didn’t know anybody but because the teacher treated the students as if they were so stupid -and I wasn’t used to that. I remember the man entering the classroom room once with a styrofoam coffee cup over his face, snorting like a pig.

I don’t recall my final matriculation mark in math. I do recall the SATS, those aptitude tests you took at the end of school. I remember approaching the desk set up outside the gym oh-so- timidly to learn my score. The desk attendant handed it to me on a little piece of paper: a 92 percentile for language and 75 percentile for math.

The girl beside me with much lower numbers announced that ‘lower is better” and with such confidence I half-believed her. Then Jay, one of the smartest and coolest kids in our grade sauntered up to the desk, his glistening head of golden hair catching the morning light. The desk attendant handed him his score. The boy gave a hint of a shrug then (rather snootily) waved the paper in my face. 99th and 99th percentile. But of course.

So on these Scholastic Aptitude Tests I got the same math score as my friend Wayne, a funny hard working boy with a penchant for public speaking who was in advanced math. He once told a teacher who was polling another class that he did two full hours of homework a night when the rest of us admitted with misguided pride to doing around ten minutes or even five minutes or even none at all. This boy went on to become a much celebrated scientist and he now gives talks around the world. Surprise!

I got a much better math score than my gal-pal, Tessa, from an artsy family, who told me she could read by age three which may have been ‘a creative exaggeration’ (she was prone to them) and who already had a short story published in an American teen magazine. (This I can verify.)Tessa often showed me the portfolio of photographs and poems she had ready to submit to a prestigious college film program. On the SATS, Tessa got a high high 90’s score for language and a low low 20 percentile score for the math. And she had been in the general math class!

My 75^th percentile high school score in mathematics isn’t Bill Gates territory, but it’s OK. I do recall that I loved solving long division in elementary school and quadratic equations in grade 9, before the divorce.

Anyway, it evened out because being in the enriched English stream I could spit on a page and get an A. That being said, Mrs. B. my 11^th grade teacher, did not appreciate me choosing “the rock star” Bob Dylan as a poet for an end-of-term project so she gave me an A-.

I had been inspired by my 10^th grade teacher who let us kids listen to Jesus Christ Superstar in class instead of deconstructing some dull Dickens novel. For this 11th grade Dylan project, I listened to my older brother’s Best Of Bob long play album over and over to transcribe the lyrics, my index finger recklessly jiggering the stylus on the turntable of his beloved brand new stereo system. I didn’t get all of the words. For My Back Pages, I transcribed “half racked refrigerators” instead of “half wracked prejudice.” Maybe that was why I lost the marks. Doubt it, though.

Still, in hindsight, who was right about Bob Dylan, my teacher Mrs. B or me? Nobel Prize, eh? Today, I regularly listen to both Bob Dylan and Murray Head on Spotify, my musical sensibilities firmly entrenched in that time period.

Back then, in the early 1970’s Jay, the cool and the clever, wasn’t afraid of ever getting less than an A in any subject. I recall him blithely waltzing into grade eleven English class on the very last day, his arms piled high with long overdue essays that, apparently, he had tossed off the night before. And then, performing for the class, he casually let go of them one-by-one onto the teacher’s desk. What style he had! What panache! I should have married him.

Dundee, genealogy, Migration, Quebec, Scotland, WWI

A Twist of Fate

August 12, 2026 Sandra McHugh Leave a comment

By Susan Gingras Calcagni

My great-grandfather, William Irvine, born on 31 August 1864 in Maryton, Kirriemuir, Forfar, Scotland¹ was devastated by the death of his eldest daughter, Mary Ann, in 1911.² Heartbroken, William was ready to hand over his lease as a publican and make preparations to sail to Canada with one of his daughters, Georgina. The 1911 census reveals that William was a Spirit Merchant at the Camperdown Pub located at 144 High Street in Dundee, Scotland. William and his family were living at 22 Peel Street in Lochee, Dundee,³ just a 10-minute walk from the pub. This was a popular pub with the workers of the Camperdown Works, the largest jute factory in the world at the time.⁴ By spring 1912 William had found a new owner who was interested in taking over the pub and William had finalized preparations to emigrate to Canada.

Subsequently, William was shocked and dismayed to learn that his emigration to Canada would need to be delayed. James Jones, the new owner, could not take over the lease to the pub as planned. His son was due to return from India and the transfer of the lease had to wait until his return. This would have been overwhelming for William and this new development significantly altered the plans he had set in motion for a new life. He had come this far and would hold on to the one silver thread to achieve his goal. I can only imagine his strength and determination in the face of this situation and the need to change his plans.

While I was growing up, my Aunt Gladys Fairlie, my mum’s sister, was very keen to learn from her grandmother, Betsy, William’s wife, about her family history. As William Irvine died in 1931 in Montreal, Quebec,⁵ Betsy was the only one living to tell the family stories. Now here is where the family lore comes into play. Gladys was born in Canada, and not having immigrated, she would ask her grandmother why they came to Canada. Betsy told her that it was due to the death of their eldest daughter. It was said that this broke William’s heart and therefore he decided to leave Scotland for Canada. One can only dare say how devastated they must have been when forced to contend with the loss of their daughter, Mary Ann, at the tender age of 17 years old. As genealogists, we are often under the impression that our ancestors usually emigrated for economic reasons and opportunities to better their lives. In this case, it was not the sole cause for my family. It was heartbreak, and further research revealed that it was an overwhelming one for William.

While researching William and Betsy’s immigration to Canada, I found that William was a widower at the time of his marriage to Betsy (something we weren’t aware of).⁶ A well-known step in researching family history is to leave no stone unturned, so I dug deeper into the records to learn that William had first married in December 1887.⁷ Unfortunately the death of Mary Ann in 1911 was not the first tragedy in his life. On 8 February 1888, his first wife, Mary McGregor Grimmond died days after giving birth.⁸ This was followed quickly by the death of their twin daughters, [Mary and unknown] on 29 February 1888.⁹ Chills ran through my body as I could only imagine how devastated my great-grandfather must have felt with grief and sorrow in his heart. My quest to learn more had increased ten-fold.

Moving forward, in 2002 plans for travel to Scotland were underway to learn more about my ancestors and especially about William and Betsy’s emigration to Canada. My Aunt Gladys and I were embarking on a fact-finding mission with the hope of confirming the stories she had been told by her grandmother over the years. Airline tickets were purchased and reservations were booked with plans to spend time in Dundee. I sent emails to the Dundee City Archives to book appointments to review the records to locate the address of the Public House where William was a publican and any other pertinent particulars we may extract. Meanwhile, I contacted the Balgay Cemetery in Dundee to plan a visit to the gravesite of Mary Ann Irvine. My Aunt Gladys had always yearned to locate and visit her grandfather’s pub and her Aunt Mary Ann’s gravesite. My desire to seek out these details were equally shared. My mission was underway and there was no disappointing my aunt.

With all the information swirling in my head, I was eager to start my quest. However, here is where my curiosity really started to unfold. Gladys was also told that William had his passage to Canada in the making and that the new owner of the Public House requested that William delay his departure, as noted above in this story. When we visited the Dundee Archives, you can imagine how thrilled we were when shown the entry at the Dundee City Archives¹⁰ with evidence that there was indeed an alteration in the transfer of the lease for the Public House located at 144 High Street, Lochee, Dundee between William Irvine and James Jones, Spirit dealers. Betsy, William’s wife, told the story that William was dismayed that he was required to stay on longer just until Mr. Jones’ son arrived back from India. Mr. Brian Cullens of the Dundee City Archives, who I had contacted by email, remarked that day on our visit that William probably had needed to alter his arrangements for his passage to Canada. This delay in the transfer of the lease saved William and Georgina’s lives. Originally William and Georgina had booked their passage on the RMS Titanic that left Southampton, England on April 15, 1912 but these tickets had to be cancelled. Eventually William and Georgina travelled on the Allan Line’s SS Scandinavian which departed from Glasgow on June 29, 1912, two months after the RMS Titanic’s fated voyage.¹¹ After confirming at the Dundee City Archives that William did, indeed, change his travel plans made Aunt Gladys and I realize that we were in Dundee in 2002 because of this remarkable twist of fate.

Extracts from the Dundee City Archives, 2002

While in Dundee in 2002, we also visited the site of William Irvine’s pub which was then called the “Last Tram” located at 144-146 High Street. Below is a picture taken during this trip. This name of the pub honoured the historic end of the Dundee’s tram service in October 1956. In earlier years, the Camperdown Tavern, was nicknamed the “Tommy” or the Wounded Tommy. The soldiers of WWI who were badly wounded and who recuperated in Bright Street nearby the tavern at the Union Street Church Hall were nicknamed the “Tommies.” They were patrons of the tavern because the wounded soldiers would find it easy to enter and exit with no steps from the street level.¹²

The Last Tram, Dundee, Scotland, family photo by author, 2002

Often, as genealogists, we are asked why we do family history. Greater than the sum of these fragments, here is one of my responses. On the train ride leaving Dundee, Gladys and I were sitting there, and while crossing the Tay Rail Bridge, my aunt turned and looked at me. In a surreal tone she expressed her thoughts, “What would my grandparents and my mother think to know that I was there and sat in the family’s Public House, the same brick and mortar, and visited the Balgay Cemetery gravesite of my aunt that I had never met.” This squeezed my heart knowing that I had fulfilled a dream of the person who has always been my soul mate and inspiration in life and genealogy, my dearest Aunt Gladys.

New Register House Scotland, Statutory Birth Records, 1864, William Irvine, accessed 2000.
ScotlandsPeople, Statutory Death Records, 1911 Mary Ann Irvine, accessed 2006.
ScotlandsPeople, 1911 UK Census, accessed 2011.
Wikipedia, Camperdown Works, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camperdown_Works, accessed 22 June 2026.
Ancestry, Drouin Collection, Grace Anglican Church, Montreal, Quebec, accessed 5 August 2026.
New Register House Scotland, Statutory Marriage Records, 1892, William Irvine and Betsy Smith Lawson, accessed 2000.
ScotlandsPeople, Statutory Marriage Records, 1887,William Irvine and Mary McGregor Grimmond, accessed 2008.
ScotlandsPeople, Statutory Death Records, 1888, Mary McGregor Grimmond, accessed 2008.
ScotlandsPeople, Statutory Death Records, 1888, Mary McGregor Grimmond Irvine, accessed 2008.
Dundee City Archives, Liquor Licensing Records, William Irvine, accessed 2002.
Findmypast, Passenger Lists leaving UK 1890 -1960, William Irvine, accessed 2007.
Wikipedia, Camperdown Works, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camperdown_Works, accessed 6 August 2026.

genealogy, Montreal, Quebec

The Life and Times of Stanley Clark Bagg, part 2

July 1, 2026 Janice Hamilton Leave a comment

(condensed and revised from several articles that appeared on my personal family history page, Writing Up the Ancestors, around 2020)

In February 1841, my future great-great-grandfather wrote a letter to my future great-great-grandmother, explaining that his grandmother had asked him to write. It doesn’t take much reading between the lines for me to suspect that he was smitten. Perhaps his grandmother had also noticed.

Stanley Clark Bagg (SCB), 20, who lived in Montreal, wrote to Catharine Mitcheson, 18, in Philadelphia: “Grandmother not having received a letter from yourself or your respected parents for a very long time, felt desirous to hear from you or them, and requested me to write, hoping that you or someone of the family would have the goodness to write.”¹

SCB and Catharine were first cousins once removed. SCB’s grandmother, Mary (Mitcheson) Clark (1776-1856) was the older sister of Catharine’s father, Robert Mitcheson (1779-1859.) Both Mary and Robert grew up in County Durham, England and immigrated to North America as adults, she to Montreal and he to Philadelphia. Mary married young, while Robert didn’t marry until he was around 40.

Catharine Mitcheson Bagg, William Notman, year unknown, private collection.

In the summer of 1840, Catharine and her brother Robert visited Montreal to attend another cousin’s wedding. That was probably when SCB and his future bride first encountered each other.

In his letter to Catharine, SCB wrote, “This winter is quite a gay one and scarcely anything is talked of but the parties and concerts, but still we are very lonesome and have been so since you and Robert left here, particularly after (cousin) Mary was married. We all regret very much that you and Robert are not here to participate in the pleasures of the season, but hope shortly to have the pleasure of again seeing you here. Father has gone a few days journey and now I am entirely alone, and can assure you that keeping ‘Bachelor’s Hall’ is not the most agreeable mode of living.” After adding some gossip, SCB ended the letter, “Wishing you every happiness that this world can afford. I subscribe myself, your affectionate cousin, SC Bagg”.

If anyone objected to the fact that SCB and Catharine were related, the couple must have overcome those objections. They were married on September 9, 1844, at Grace Church Episcopal Chapel, Philadelphia. Catharine’s brother, now Reverend Robert McGregor Mitcheson, performed the service.²

They signed a marriage contract several days before the wedding, stipulating that they were to be separate as to property.³ SCB pledged to pay all household expenses and expenses for their children. He stated that he had mortgaged one of the properties he had inherited from his grandfather. If he died before Catharine did, that money would be used to fund a $100-a-year annuity for her, however, if she remarried, she would no longer receive this annual payment. These clauses were designed to ensure she would live comfortably, and to protect her from his creditors, but also to protect his property from a second husband if she remarried.

SCB and Catharine settled in Montreal, where he worked as a notary and where he owned extensive properties. They spent their first year or two of marriage living with SCB’s father in his home, Durham House, while their own house, Fairmount Villa, was under construction nearby. Their first child, Mary Ann Frances Bagg, was born at Durham House on Aug. 19, 1845. She died at age two while they were visiting Catharine’s parents in Philadelphia.⁴ Twenty years later, SCB wrote a poem about losing his first-born daughter. ⁵

Eventually, the couple went on to have five children, one boy and four girls: Robert Stanley (1848-1912), Katharine Sophia (1850-1938), Amelia Josephine (1852-1943), Mary Heloise (1854-1938) and Helen Frances (1861-1935.) Fairmount Villa was a large house and it must have been filled with noise and activity. SCB probably had to get used to this because his own upbringing had been so different: he was an only child who lived in the countryside, his father was often occupied with business concerns, and his mother had died when he was 14.

SCB’s Career

SCB had graduated as a notary in 1842, about a year after he started corresponding with Catharine. After graduation, he and his father took a trip to England together, and SCB opened his practice after they returned. His first recorded notarial act was a rental agreement dated Nov. 1, 1842.

Through 1843 and 1844, clients hired him to write wills and leases and protest unpaid debts. For example, he prepared a lease for his grandmother, dated 17 Jan. 1844. His index described a “lease of a two-story stone house on the continuation of St. Lawrence Street, by Mrs. Mary Clark to P.R. Turner.”⁶

He also managed his own properties, and perhaps he did not find being a notary very interesting. His index shows he took several long breaks in 1846 and 1847 and only prepared two or three notarial acts a year in the 1850s. He closed the practice completely in 1856. Three years later, he was named a Justice of the Peace in Montreal. Numerous Justices of the Peace had been named, so they shared the workload. It must have been his turn in 1865 because he heard almost 40 cases that year.⁷

Continental Notes

The family took a year-long trip through Europe in 1868-1869, and SCB wrote a small book about some of the places they visited, including Paris, Venice, Strasbourg, Waterloo and the ruins of Pompeii. Published in 1870, he called the book Continental Notes for Private Circulation.⁸ The irony is that, 150 years after this book appeared, it is far from private: it can be found in university libraries, and it is also available on the Internet.

I hoped to get to know my great-great grandfather better by reading his own words. At first glance, the book seemed dry and impersonal. This was disappointing, considering that SCB had made the trip with his wife, her sister and the five children, ranging in age from seven to 20. Surely there must have been some amusing incidents along the way that he could have described. But SCB explained in the introduction that the book was based on his personal notes, some of which were written before leaving Montreal.

On closer reading, however, it became clear that Continental Notes reflected his personal interests, which included history (especially the Roman Empire and the early history of Christianity) and archaeology.

He described the Hôtel de Cluny in Paris as one of the finest remains of the ancient mansions of Paris of the 16^th Century, adding that the Palais des Thermes, once the residence of the Roman Governor of Gaul, was connected to Hôtel de Cluny and housed a collection of antiquities that was open to the public. That museum of medieval art is still there and is home to a famous series of tapestries, The Lady and the Unicorn.

Stanley Clark Bagg, portrait by William Raphael done from a photograph after SCB’s death. Private collection.

One of the other spots SCB mentioned was Hyères, a town located near the Mediterranean coast of France. It had been a winter resort for centuries, with French kings among its regular visitors. SCB mentioned its warm winter climate, which may have been one of its attractions, and went on to write, “The environs of Hyères abound in vineyards and olive gardens.… This reminds me of the good Samaritan who poured oil and wine into the wounds of the man that fell among thieves. Who can walk through these pleasant vineyards without thinking of our blessed Lord when he said, ’I am the true vine, and my Father the husbandman.’”

Many years later, I came across some notes that probably referred to that family trip to Europe. Someone had put them in the Bagg family Bible, perhaps so they wouldn’t get lost.⁹These little reminders, including hints such as, “Do not fill trunks, nor take too many; read up references, prepare routine, currency, etc.; letter of introduction useful; a soft answer turneth wrath away; keep cool, be firm, good-tempered, polite.” probably reveal as much of SCB’s attitude about travel as his book does, and most of them remain good advice today.

The Coin Collector

When SCB’s name appeared in a Montreal city directory in 1866, he was not listed as a “gentleman,” as one might expect. Instead, he gave his occupation as President of the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Montreal, a voluntary position related to his hobby.¹⁰In fact, numismatics, or the study of old coins, was probably his greatest interest.

In an article for the Society’s journal, he wrote: “In coins and medals, more than in any other monuments, the past is preserved and its heroes and great events are kept memorable, forms of worship, manners and customs of nations; titles of kings and emperors may thus be determined; — in fact, coins have been frequently of the greatest service, by illustrating doubtful points of history, and even by bringing to light circumstances and events unknown to us before.”¹¹

He gave the example of the Roman Empire: while most of the statues, arches and palaces the Romans built have crumbled to dust, “paltry coins remain monuments of the might of the age; they represent, and record, fresh as the day they were coined …”¹²

A small group of English- and French-speaking numismatic enthusiasts started getting together around 1860. When they founded the 20-member Numismatic Society of Montreal on Dec. 8 1862, it became the first numismatic society in Canada and the fifth in North America. SCB was founding vice-president.

In 1863, SCB read the first paper before the Montreal society, an article titled “Notes on Coins.” His second presentation, given later that year, was “Coins & medals as aids to the study and verification of holy writ.” The society’s name changed in 1866 to the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Montreal. At that time, SCB was the organization’s president.¹³ He also served as an editor of the society’s quarterly journal.

In order to keep up with the latest discoveries about coins, archaeology and science, SCB was a member of several organizations, including numismatic societies in London and in Philadelphia. He was also a corresponding member of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin and a life member of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the Natural History Society of Montreal.

His own coin collection was not exceptional, however. In his will, he left it to daughter Mary Heloise, and at some later time, the collection was sold. In 2016, a coin-carrying case that SCB had owned, as well as an inventory and about 40 coins and medals, came on the market. At that time I corresponded with the dealer, who sent me some photos.

Coin expert Ted Banning suggests that SCB’s most important contribution to the field was not as a collector, nor even as a writer, but as one of the founders of the Numismatic Society, because 20 years after his death, the society played an important role in saving one of Montreal’s most important heritage buildings, the Chateau Ramezay.¹⁴

Built in 1705 by Claude de Ramezay, a Governor of Montreal in colonial New France, over the years it had various owners and uses, including the offices of a fur trading company and the headquarters of invading American forces in 1776. When the government decided to sell the building in 1893, the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Montreal rallied public opinion to save it from demolition. The City of Montreal acquired the building and rented it to the society, which converted it into a museum. In 1929, the city ceded the building to the society and today it remains a museum and a UNESCO-recognized historic site.

As for SCB, he lived a charmed life, but it was not a long one. Montreal was an unsanitary city, with a high death rate, especially for the poor. Wealthy people like SCB fared better, but they were not immune. SCB died of typhoid fever on August 8, 1873, age 53, at Fairmount Villa, surrounded by family members.

Sources:

1. Transcription of SCB’s letter, plus notes, probably by grandson Stanley Bagg Lindsay; Lindsay family collection.

2. Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Historic Pennsylvania Church and Town Records; Reel: 1078, database, Ancestry.com (http://:Ancestry.ca, accessed Dec. 22, 2019,) entry for Stanley Clark Bagg, 9 Sept. 1844; citing Historic Pennsylvania Church and Town Records. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

3. Nicholas-Benjamin Doucet, “Marriage entre Stanley Clark Bagg et Catharine Mitcheson,” notarial act # 30488, Sept. 5, 1844, BAnQ.

To learn more about the laws of Quebec regarding civil matters, including community of property in marriage, see Bettina Bradbury. Wife to Widow. Lives, Laws and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Montreal. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011.

4. The child’s death is recorded in the Bagg family Bible, Bagg Family Fonds, McCord Museum, Montreal. She died in Philadelphia on Oct. 14, 1847. The funeral was held on Oct. 21, 1847 at Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal, (Ancestry.ca, citing Gabriel Drouin, comp. Drouin Collection. Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Institut Généalogique Drouin) and she is buried with her parents, grandparents and other family members in the Bagg family crypt, Mount Royal Cemetery.

5. Stella (pseudonym of Stanley Clark Bagg), Leisure Moments: A Few Poems, Montreal: printed by Daniel Rose, 1871. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=aeu.ark:/13960/t92819p4n&view=1up&seq=10

6. Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, “Archives des notaires du Québec, Montréal District judiciaire de Montréal; Stanley Clark Bagg, 1842-1856, CN601,S11” http://bibnum2.banq.qc.ca/bna/notaires/affichage.html?serie=06M_CN601S11 (accessed Dec. 31, 2019)

7. Library and Archives Canada; “Cases Before Justices of the Peace,” The Canada Gazette, vol. XXIV, no. 8, Published by Authority, Quebec: Feb. 25, 1865, p. 781, entry for Stanley Clark Bagg; http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/canada-gazette/093/001060-119.01-e.php?image_id_nbr=55914&document_id_nbr=3045&f=p&PHPSESSID=oo3dok1snqetmppvat92ncmo44 (accessed Jan. 11, 2020).

8. Stanley Clark Bagg, Continental Notes for Private Circulation, Montreal, printed by Daniel Rose 1870. https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.02377/1?r=0&s=1 (accessed April 8, 2020)

9. I found these notes in the family Bible at the McCord Museum, Montreal and copied them then, but when I looked again a few years later, they were no longer there.

10. “Stanley Clark Bagg, JP, President of Numismatic and Antiquarian Society, Fairmount Villa, 583 Sherbrooke Street.” Mackay’s Montreal Directory, 1866; p. 76, entry for Stanley Clark Bagg; digital image, Ancestry.ca, Canada, City and Area Directories, 1819-1906, (database on-line, accessed March 17, 2020.)

11. Stanley C. Bagg, “Notes on Coins,” The Canadian Antiquarian and Numismatic Journal, p 4, Montreal: The Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Montreal, October, 1873. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=aeu.ark:/13960/t77s8v32h&view=1up&seq=10 (accessed March 19, 2020)

12. Ibid p. 8., https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=aeu.ark:/13960/t77s8v32h&view=1up&seq=15 (accessed March 19, 2020)

13. Warren Baker, “The First Twelve Years: Canadian Numismatic Publishing 1863-1875, an Annotated Bibliography,” Montreal, 1989.

14. Ted Banning, “Bagg helped bring social numismatics to Montreal,” Canadian Coin News, March 19, 2012.

genealogy, Quebec, Stanley Clark Bagg

The Life and Times of Stanley Clark Bagg, part 1

June 10, 2026 Janice Hamilton 1 Comment

Revised and Condensed

In this article, I refer to Stanley Clark Bagg (1820-1873) as SCB to differentiate him from his father, Stanley Bagg (1788-1853,) and from his son, Robert Stanley Bagg (1844-1912).

Many young people spend a long time deciding what they want to be when they grow up. The career of Stanley Clark Bagg, however, was determined long before he was born.

Stanley Clark Bagg, Montreal, QC, 1863, photo by William Notman; McCord Stewart Museum, Montreal.

SCB was destined to become a large landowner on the Island in Montreal, thanks to the foresight of his grandfather. John Clark, a butcher who had immigrated to Canada in the late 1790s and purchased several adjoining farms along the west side of Saint Lawrence Street. This was the road that led out of the old city gates and past the eastern slope of Mount Royal, to the north shore of the Island of Montreal.

When Clark died in 1827, he left some of this property to his daughter, Mary Ann (Clark) Bagg, but he left most of his estate to SCB, his only grandchild.¹ SCB was just seven years old then, and he spent much of his youth preparing for his future responsibilities as a landlord and a gentleman. For many people whose ancestors had settled in Canada, or who had themselves immigrated to North America in the 19^th century, owning land was their greatest dream, so property brought social status, as well as having monetary value. SCB was set for life.

Unfortunately, being a landowner wasn’t what he really wanted to do. According to grandson Stanley Bagg Lindsay, SCB wanted to be an Anglican minister. “He was a very religious man and I understand would have entered the ministry, but for the fact that would have entailed leaving Montreal, where there was no theological college, and going to Lennoxville (in Quebec’s Eastern Townships), where theology could be studied at the University of Bishops College. With all his property interests in Montreal and getting married in 1844, it was not possible for SCB to be away from Montreal for so long.”² Fortunately, SCB had the means and the time to read, write (including articles, poetry and hymns), travel and support philanthropic organizations, such as the English Workingman’s Benefit Society of Montreal, which he founded.

SCB’s mother, Mary Ann Clark, wife of Montreal merchant Stanley Bagg. She was born in Durham, England and came to Canada as a baby. artist unknown. private collection.

Stanley Clark Bagg was born on Dec. 23, 1820, the son of American-born merchant Stanley Bagg and his English-born wife, Mary Ann Clark (1795-1835.)³He grew up at his parents’ home, Durham House, on St. Lawrence Street, just outside what was then the small city of Montreal.

SCB probably grew up playing in his father’s orchard and learning to ride a horse – a necessary skill in those days. He was educated by an Anglican minister and studied at McGill, then just a small college. A hired farm hand would have looked after the cows, chickens and other animals at Durham House, but perhaps SCB was also required to do some farm chores.

On Feb 10, 1835, when SCB was 14, his mother died. His father never remarried, although he probably hired a housekeeper to cook and help look after young Stanley. Soon after Mary Ann’s death, Stanley senior met with a group of friends and relatives in front of a judge to choose a tutor, or guardian, for the boy. Stanley was named his son’s tutor and Gabriel Roy, husband of Stanley’s sister Sophia, became sub-tutor.⁴ Stanley also acted as executor of both John Clark’s and Mary Ann’s wills, so he managed the properties and SCB’s funds until his son turned 21.

Two years after Mary Ann’s death, Lower Canada faced a crisis as some moderate nationalists and members of a more radical group known as the Patriotes took up arms in a rebellion, demanding responsible government. Troops from the regular British army, joined by members of the local volunteer militia, prepared to defend the status quo.

Stanley Bagg was a major in the 1^st Batallion Loyal Montreal Volunteers⁵ and SCB served as a standard-bearer at the Battle of Saint-Eustache.⁶ About two weeks before his 17^th birthday, he witnessed the bloodiest battle of the rebellion in the village of Saint-Eustache, northwest of Montreal. Fought in December 1837, this event resulted in the deaths of 100 rebels, and many buildings in the area were destroyed by fire.

SCB continued to participate in the volunteer militia for more than 20 years, going on inactive status in 1859 with the rank of captain.⁷

At about age 16, he started to train to be a notary. Notaries played an important role in Quebec society, recording people’s wills, marriage contracts, business agreements, disputes (especially when money was owed) and, most importantly for SCB, property deeds and rentals. As a notary, SCB would be familiar with the laws pertaining to property transfers.

He served a four-year apprenticeship with notary W.S. Hunter and, in August 1841, his father indentured him for a final eight months to N.B. Doucet, a well-known Montreal notary.⁸ Doucet undertook to instruct him, give him access to books and render him fit to serve as a notary, while SCB undertook to apply himself.

The Custom of Paris

In 1840, many English-speaking citizens of Quebec could not read the civil laws that governed their everyday activities. Although Quebec had been a British colony for almost 80 years, the collection of civil laws called the Coutume de Paris (Custom of Paris) had not been translated from French into English. So in 1841, SCB translated excerpts of the Coutume de Paris, completing the project shortly before he finished his apprenticeship.

Today this manuscript — the earliest recorded translation of the Coutume de Paris into English — is housed in the library of York University’s Osgood Hall Law School in Toronto, and it can be found online at https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/library_digital/1/

The first page of SCB’s translation of the Coutume de Paris.

SCB’s translation consists of about 200 pages, neatly handwritten in a small, hardcover notebook.⁹ He focused on definitions of French legal terms in English, and English translations of laws governing rights of property ownership, marriage and inheritance. On the final page he noted, “The laws of every nation are more or less mixed with the laws of nations that have passed away, but none more than the laws of Canada, which have for their basis the jurisprudence of France and England.”

By the spring of 1842, a few months after he turned 21, he had finished his apprenticeship. As a legal adult, he could now manage his inheritance, collect the rent for the farms he owned and buy and sell properties. Perhaps he also started to think about marriage and opening an office as a notary. First, though, he and his father travelled to England to explore County Durham, in the northeast, where his mother had been born.

A Trip to England in 1842

The trip was a combination of business and pleasure. The business involved selling property that SCB’s maternal grandfather had owned in Durham, and the pleasure involved a whirlwind tour of London, Scotland, Ireland and France, as well as visits with various great-aunts and great-uncles who still lived in England.

A few months after his return to Montreal, SCB wrote to his cousin in Philadelphia, describing the trip. Unfortunately, he did not include any details or impressions of their adventures, but he listed the places they visited.

Their trip across the Atlantic was fast. The age of the trans-Atlantic steamship had arrived in the 1830s, and SCB wrote, “We made the passage to Liverpool from Halifax in the incredible short space of nine days and six hours, which was I believe the shortest passage ever made across the Atlantic. From Liverpool we went to London, thence to Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, York, Darlington, Durham, Stockton, Sunderland, Newcastle, Shields, Tynemouth, Otterburn …. ”¹⁰

In Scotland, they explored both Glasgow and Edinburgh. After a few days in London, they crossed the Channel to France, visiting Paris and several other cities before returning to London. SCB wrote, “We left London shortly afterwards for Ireland, and having visited Kingstown, Dublin and Kilmainham, returned to Liverpool, where … we embarked on board a steamship and after a boisterous passage of 14 days arrived at Boston exceedingly gratified with our tour.”¹¹

Anchor-maker William Mitcheson, brother of SCB’s grandmother Mary Mitcheson Clark, lived in London, and the Baggs visited him there. While in County Durham, they visited more Mitcheson relations, including Mrs. Dodd (Mary Mitcheson’s sister Margaret) near Ryton, and Mrs. Maugham (Mary’s sister Elizabeth) at Sunderland.

It is clear that the visit to Durham was the highlight of the trip, but not because of the business they finalized there. In fact, SCB did not mention it at all in his letter. When he turned 21, he gained control over an inheritance of property in Durham from his grandfather, John Clark (1767-1827). The property generated rental income, but SCB wanted to sell. In a notarized document dated after their return to Montreal, Stanley Bagg listed the sales of three properties in Durham.¹²

Meanwhile, SCB’s real interest was in ancient legends, old coins, Norman castles and the like, and he was enthralled with the ancient city of Durham. More than 20 years later, he presented a lecture to the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Montreal on “The Antiquities and Legends of Durham.”

He described the legend surrounding the founding of Durham city by 9^th century monks. When Danes attacked England’s northeast coast, the monks fled their monastery on the Island of Lindisfarne with the miraculously well-preserved body of their former bishop. Eventually they built an abbey at the future site of the city and buried him there. Today, that bishop is remembered as Saint Cuthbert, and pilgrims still visit the huge abbey church, Durham Cathedral.

In his 1866 lecture to the Numismatic Society, SCB described his feelings on that trip. He recalled, “The first time I had the privilege of attending a divine service in Durham Abbey, I was enraptured with the sweet and masterly chanting, unsurpassed in the empire. My father and I obtained seats in the choir. The service was exceedingly impressive, so much so, that …. whenever the portion of the Psalter chanted upon that occasion recurs in the services of the church, it carries me back in imagination to the first service I attended in the venerable abbey of my mother’s native city.”¹³

This article is condensed from a series of articles about Stanley Clark Bagg (my two-times great-grandfather) posted in 2020 on my personal family history blog Writing Up the Ancestors (www.writinguptheancestors.ca). Part 2 will follow on July 1, 2026.

Notes

King Louis XIV made the Coutume de Paris the civil law of New France in 1664. It did not include criminal law or cover commercial law. Some of its provisions dated from feudal times and were based on concepts such as moveable property (objects that can be moved) and immovable property (such as land and buildings), as well as community of property between married couples, provisions to protect widows and inheritances for daughters.

After the British Conquest of New France, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 introduced British Common Law to the colony, however, French Canadians resisted this new way of doing things. In 1774, the government passed the Quebec Act, bringing back the property and family laws of the Coutume de Paris, while British Common Law applied to criminal matters. Some reforms were made in 1840, but legislators realized that the laws had to be updated to meet the needs of a changing society. The old seigneurial system of land ownership was being phased out, and new laws were needed to make it easier for commerce, investment and industrialization to expand.

The new Civil Code of Lower Canada, which came into force in 1866, clearly had some roots in the Custom of Paris, making Quebec’s legal traditions unique in Canada. Today, Quebecers still rely on notaries to prepare their wills, property deeds and marriage contracts.

Sources

1. Henry Griffin, notarial act #5989, “Last Will and Testament of Mr. John Clark of Montreal,” 29 August 1825, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ); also, George Dorland Arnoldi, notarial act # 3842, “Last Will and Testament of Mrs. Mary Ann Clark, wife of Stanley Bagg,” 10 December 1834, BAnQ

2. Unsigned, undated (probably Stanley Bagg Lindsay), “Stanley Clark Bagg,” Lindsay family collection.

3. Stanley Clark Bagg, born Dec. 22, 1820; baptized Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal, July 2, 1822. Institut Généalogique Drouin; Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Drouin Collection; Author: Gabriel Drouin, comp.,Quebec, Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1968 [database, Ancestry.ca: on-line]. (Accessed 23 Dec. 2019) entry for Stanley Clark Bagg, citing Gabriel Drouin, comp. Drouin Collection. Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Institut Généalogique Drouin.

4. Although Lower Canada was a British colony at the time, it retained many legal traditions, including this one, stemming from the French Regime. “Tutorship: minor Stanley Bagg” BAnQ microfilm #1857, Tutelles, 5 Decembre 1834 au 20 Mars 1835, Document 174 – 27 Feb. 1835.

5. Elinor Kyte Senior, Redcoats and Patriots: The Rebellions in Lower Canada. 1837-38, p 214, Stittsville, ON: Canada’s Wings, Inc., 1985.

6. Pierre B. Landry, “BAGG, STANLEY CLARK,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 10, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed December 24, 2019, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/bagg_stanley_clark_10E.html.

7. “List of Officers of the Sedentary militia of Lower Canada, 1862,” database, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.ca: accessed Dec. 23, 2019), entry for Stanley C. Bagg, citing List of Officers of the Sedentary militia of Lower Canada, 1862, Quebec: S. Derbyshire and G. Desbarats, 1863.

8. Joseph-Hilarion Jobin, notarial act #2977 23 Aug 1841, “Indenture of Stanley C. Bagg to N.B. Doucet,” Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec; abstract by Sherry Olson.

9. Bagg, Stanley Clark, “A Collection of Extracts from the Coutume de Paris: Translated from the French,” 1841. https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/library_digital/1/

10. Letter from Stanley Clark Bagg to Rev. R. M. Mitcheson, Dec. 6, 1842, probably transcribed by Stanley Bagg Lindsay; Lindsay family collection.

11. Record in a passenger list of Stanley Bagg and S.C. Bagg travelling from Liverpool to Boston aboard the Acadia. Boston Courier (Boston, Massachusetts, Monday, Sept. 19, 1842, issue 1921;) 19th Century Newspapers Collection, special interest databases, www.americanancestors.org (accessed April 18, 2019.)

12. Joseph-Hilarion Jobin, “Account and mortgages from Stanley Bagg Esq to Stanley Clark Bagg,” 8 October 1842, notarial act #3537, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.

13. Stanley Clark Bagg, “The Antiquities and Legends of Durham: a Lecture before the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Montreal,” p. 21, Montreal, 1866. https://archive.org/details/cihm_48731/page/n4 (accessed Dec. 27, 2019) This article can also be found here: http://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.48731/1?r=0&s=1

genealogy, Montreal, Quebec

Thomas Workman’s Legacy

May 6, 2026 Janice Hamilton Leave a comment

A wealthy Montreal businessman during his lifetime, Thomas Workman (1813-1889) has been largely forgotten, however, several of the companies he helped to found still exist, and his bequest to McGill University supports cutting-edge research today.

Thomas was the eighth of the nine children of Joseph Workman (1759-1848), a teacher turned estate manager, and his wife, Catherine Gowdy (1769-1872). Thomas was probably born at the family home in Ballymacash, a village near Belfast, Ireland (now Northern Ireland). His parents were strict and ambitious for their children and believed that too much hugging would spoil them.

Members of Thomas’s family moved to Canada a few at a time. In 1819, the oldest son, Benjamin, decided to start a new life in North America and booked passage on a ship bound for Quebec. Over the next few years, brothers Alexander and John followed. Fourteen-year-old Thomas, accompanied by Samuel (16) and Francis (12), arrived in Montreal in 1827, following a hazardous voyage across the Atlantic. The brothers lived with Ben and his wife and attended the Union School that Ben owned, studying grammar, mathematics and the classics. Their parents, sister Ann (who was my two-times great-grandmother) and brothers William and Joseph followed in 1829.

In Ireland, the family attended the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland in Dunmurray, and, like its minister, they strongly believed in freedom of thought in religion. When Thomas first arrived in Montreal, he attended a Presbyterian church, but after his brother Benjamin played a key role in founding a Unitarian congregation in the city in 1842, Thomas became a life-long Unitarian.

Like a number of Irish-born Protestants, Thomas joined the Doric Club, an organization founded in Montreal in 1836 to help maintain Lower Canada’s British connection.¹ Along with a number of other Doric Club members, Thomas participated as a loyalist volunteer in the bloody battle of Sainte-Eustache during the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837-38. The following spring, he was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant.

Thomas was described as someone who did not show much emotion, but he did have a life-long close bond with his brother Dr. Joseph Workman, who lived in Toronto. They visited each other and shared interests, such as the new theory of evolution.²

In 1845, Thomas married Scottish-born Anna Eadie (1822-1889). Although they had no children, they moved into a large house at the northwest corner of Sherbrooke and University Street in 1877.

Thomas Workman’s house on Sherbrooke Street, Montreal. Photos of this house have sometimes been erroneously identified as his brother William Workman’s home.

Thomas began his business career working for a Montreal merchant. In 1834, he was hired as a junior clerk at the hardware firm Frothingham and Workman, where his brother William was a partner. Nine years later, Thomas became a partner, and when both William Workman and John Frothingham retired in 1859, Thomas became head of the company. At this time, Frothingham and Workman was the largest hardware wholesaler in Canada, importing tools and supplies from Britain and the U.S. and with its own manufacturing facilities near Montreal’s Lachine Canal.

Like many of his peers, Thomas was involved with several companies over the course of his career. He was a director and later the vice-president of Molson’s Bank, which was incorporated in 1855 and merged with the Bank of Montreal 70 years later. He was a founding director and first president of Sun Mutual Life Insurance Company of Montreal (now simply known as Sun Life) from 1871 until his death 18 years later. He was also involved with the City and District Savings Bank, founded by the Bishop of Montreal and a group of city business leaders to help working people save money. It later became the Laurentian Bank. His other business interests included shipping, insurance and real estate.

A Liberal in politics, Thomas was elected in 1867 to Canada’s first federal parliament, representing the riding of Montreal Center. He did not run in the following two elections, but in 1875 he returned to the House of Commons as the Member of Parliament for Montreal West. The topics he addressed in parliament mainly focused on business interests such as canals, railways and exports and imports.

Governments did not fund health and social services as they do today, so Montreal’s wealthy citizens gave generously to a variety of causes. Thomas donated to the Mackay Institution for Protestant Deaf Mutes (now the Mackay Centre School), and he was president of the Irish Protestant Benevolent Society for two years. He was also a governor of the Fraser Institute and Free Library of Montreal, known in recent years as the Fraser Hickson Library.

Thomas’s wife Anna died in June 1889, and his brother Joseph commented that when Thomas succumbed to diabetes a few months later, he probably died of a broken heart.

Thomas and Anna are buried in the Workman family plot in Mount Royal Cemetery, where their massive headstone is inscribed with their names on one side, and the names of his parents and brother Samuel on the other.

The smith workshop in the Workman Engineering Building at McGill, around 1901.

Thomas was reputed to be a millionaire – a rare achievement in Canada at the time. The organization that benefited the most from his estate was his neighbour, McGill College, now McGill University. He bequeathed his house to McGill, and it became home to the School of Music. The Otto Maass Chemistry Building is now located on this spot.

In addition, he left $120,000 to the fledgling department of mechanical engineering, then known as the Applied Science Faculty. Half of that sum paid for the construction of a new building to house machine and technical shops, including a foundry, hydraulics and electrical science.³ The Governor General of Canada laid the building’s cornerstone at a ceremony on Oct. 30, 1890.⁴The Workman Wing of the Engineering Building is still there, although it has undergone many changes over the past century and a quarter.⁵

Thomas also provided long-lasting funds for research. The current Thomas Workman Professor of Mechanical Engineering studies satellites and space robotics, while the current Thomas Workman Emeritus Professor’s expertise is in the interactions between fluids and structures, with applications in the power-generating industry and the aeronautical industry.

This article is also posted on my personal family history blog, http://www.writinguptheancestors.ca

Photo credits:

Thomas Workman, Montreal, QC, 1869. William Notman, I-36832, McCord Stewart Museum

Thomas Workman’s House, Sherbrooke Street, Montreal, Quebec, 1912-13. Wm. Notman & Son, VIEW-12850, McCord Stewart Museum

Smith’s Shop in the Workman Building, McGill University, Montreal, about 1901. Photographer unknown. MP-000025286, McCord Stewart Museum

Sources:

1. Gerald J. J. Tulchinsky, “WORKMAN, THOMAS,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 11, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/workman_thomas_11E.html, accessed May 4, 2026.

2. Christine I. M. Johnston, The Father of Canadian Psychiatry: Joseph Workman, Victoria: The Ogden Press, 2000, p. 94.

3. MacDonald Engineering, the Workman Wing and the Electrical Wing. https://cac.mcgill.ca/campus/buildings/Macdonald_Engineering.html, accessed May 4, 2026.

4. Keen Science’s New Home. Laying the Corner Stone of McGill’s Latest Buildings, The Gazette, Oct. 31, 1890, p. 2. www.newspapers.com accessed March 10, 2026.

5. McGill. Civil Engineering. History of the Department, https://www.mcgill.ca/civil/about-us/history, accessed May 4, 2026.

Quebec, Research tips, Technology

Archived Web Sites at the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ)

April 8, 2026 Sandra McHugh Leave a comment

Delete. Delete. Delete. All family historians and genealogists fret about what will happen to their research once they are dead. Before the digital age, they worried about their research being chucked in the garbage or, more recently, tossed into the recycling bin. Now they worry about the word DELETE.

Those of us who post our research on web sites and blogs know that once the domain no longer exists, our research will also disappear. Quebec’s national library, the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ) has put an extraordinary initiative in place, the Archivage Web. This is a wonderful collection of Quebec web sites. Its objective is to preserve Quebec’s digital heritage and Quebec’s presence on the web. Quebec has harvested Quebec-centric web sites since 2012 and these sites can be accessed using a specialized web archiving interface. This initiative responds to the mission of the BAnQ to gather, conserve, and disseminate Quebec’s documentary heritage.

Here is the link to this extraordinary collection:

https://www2.banq.qc.ca/collections/collections_patrimoniales/archives_web/?language_id=1

This link brings you to a thorough explanation of the program:

https://www.banq.qc.ca/notre-institution/bibliotheque-nationale/programme-de-collecte-de-sites-web/

With this collection of archived web sites, the BAnQ desires to create a representative portrait of Quebec society through its digital presence. It selects web site to archive using the following criteria:

Of interest to the general public
Is well known in its domain
Has a current and historical value
Has original content and is compatible with the content of the BAnQ’s collections
Has a quality site

Genealogy Ensemble applied to the BAnQ to become part of its archived collection and we are delighted to announce that we have been accepted. The BAnQ uses a data-collection robot to collect the sites that are part of its collection and has already been harvested twice.

Genealogy Ensemble is honoured to be chosen to be part of the BAnQ’s digital heritage collection. Members of the public can access our web site through Archivage Web. When you access this page, just type in Genealogy Ensemble and this will take you to a calendar with highlighted dates. These dates represent the dates that a “snapshot” was taken. While you cannot search with these snapshots, you will be able to browse them. The advantage is that these snapshots will be part of BAnQ’s permanent selection and will survive after our blog is no longer active.

Of course, our hope is that genealogists and historians will use this tool for years to come. Even though the snapshoots cannot be searched in the same way that the live site can be searched, it does not mean that this will not be possible in the future. After all, our ancestors would never have imagined the digitization of their important documents.

genealogy, Quebec

The Surviving Daughter

March 25, 2026 Janice Hamilton Leave a comment

It must have been a happy wedding. For a girl from humble American roots to marry the owner of one of Lower Canada’s (Quebec) vast seigneuries, this must have seemed like a wonderful match. And the groom had recently lost his parents, so his family members were no doubt pleased to see him marry.

Unfortunately, there was no fairy-tale ending to this story.

Detail of a 19th-century painting showing Sainte Anne with local landowner C.A.M. Globensky and his wife and cousin, Virginie Lambert Dumont. JH photo.

The bride was Sophia Mary Roy Bush. She was born Sophia Mary Bush around 1815, the daughter of farmer William Bush, of West Haven, Vermont, and his wife, Polly Bagg Bush. This family struggled financially, so Sophia had come to Lower Canada to live with her aunt and uncle, Sophia Bagg and Gabriel Roy, a landowner and politician, who had no children of their own.

The groom was Charles-Louis Lambert Dumont, born in 1806, the son of Eustache Nicolas Lambert Dumont.¹ Eustache Nicolas had been a judge, militia officer, politician and co-seigneur of Milles-Îles, but he had accumulated crippling debts running the seigneury and had fallen out with his sister because their father had left them unequal shares of the seigneury.

On the bride’s side, Sophia Bagg and Gabriel Roy signed the parish record book, as did the bride’s uncle Stanley Bagg, his 15-year-old son, Stanley Clark Bagg, and his mother-in-law, Mary Mitcheson Clark. Abner Bagg’s wife, Mary Ann Mittleberger, signed the register, as did her daughter Mary Ann. Among Louis Charles’ relatives who signed the book were his sister Elmire, her husband, Pierre Laviolette, and seven other members of the Laviolette family. The groom’s brother, Louis Sévère Dumont, was also present. Source: Quebec Canada Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection) 1621-1968 for BM Dush, Saint Laurent, 1830-1840, Sept. 25, 1835, p. 106, www.Ancestry,ca.

The Dumont family had been seigneurs of Milles-Îles since 1743, owning a vast area of wilderness and fertile farmland northwest of Montreal. According to traditions that went back to the time of New France, the habitants, or farmers, paid rent annually to the seigneur, cleared the land and grew crops. The seigneur was responsible for building grist mills, saw mills and roads. In 1770, the Dumont family donated land for the construction of a Catholic church, and the village of Saint-Eustache grew up next to it. They later built the seigneurial manor house near the church.²

Charles-Louis’ and Sophia’s wedding was held at the parish church in Saint-Laurent, where the Roy family lived, on September 22, 1835. The newlyweds lived in the manor house in Saint-Eustache, but their life was not easy. Charles-Louis was learning how to administer the debt-ridden seigneury, arguing over money with his brother and fighting off court challenges over the property from his aunt. Then the couple’s first-born child, a daughter, died in 1837, shortly after her first birthday.

Meanwhile, social and political tensions were increasing in Lower Canada, and when the government refused to approve reforms, an armed rebellion broke out. On December 14, 1837, 1500 government troops and loyalist volunteers attacked the Patriotes, or rebels, who had barricaded themselves inside the church at Saint-Eustache. The government forces burned the church, the convent and much of the village. Seventy Patriotes died during the battle and 120 were taken prisoner.

The Catholic parish church in Saint-Eustache. JH photo.

Charles-Louis and Sophia had anticipated trouble and left Saint-Eustache for Montreal in November. When they returned in the spring, they discovered the manor house had been destroyed so they moved into a smaller house down the road. Their second child, Marguerite Virginie Lambert Dumont, was born there on August 21, 1838.

On June 27, 1841, Sophia died suddenly, age 26. The body of Charles-Louis, 36, was discovered in his house on November 1. His brother, Louis Sévère, died eight weeks later, age 31. None of the accounts of this family’s history explains these deaths, and several historians seem to suggest that these events were suspicious.⁴

Three-year-old Marguerite Virginie Lambert Dumont was now an orphan and future heiress.to the seigneury of Milles-Îles.

An arranged marriage

Her father had named Gabriel Roy as the little girl’s legal guardian in case something happened to him. Virginie was sent to live with the Roy couple in Saint-Laurent, but Roy, now 71 years old, realized he was unable to raise the child. She returned to Saint-Eustache where notary Frédéric-Eugène Globensky became her new guardian. He and his wife, who had no children of their own, brought her up, and she attended school at the convent in the village.

Everyone expected that when Virginie became an adult, she would marry her cousin Charles-Auguste-Maximilien Globensky (1830-1906), known as C.A.M. But in 1854, the government announced that the seigneurial system was to be abolished. Virginie’s marriage to C.A.M. was fast-tracked, with special permission from the church, and on July 21, 1854 she married C.A.M. She was just 15 years old.

In Quebec, a married woman’s property belonged to her husband unless they had signed a marriage contract making them separate as to property. In Virginie’s case, the seigneury was the dowry she gave to C.A.M.. He now became co-seigneur.⁵

C.A.M. was a tall and imposing man, not always liked in the community, but respected for his honesty and known for his intellect and his many interests, especially agriculture and railways. He is still remembered for the book he wrote about the causes of the Rebellion of 1837 in Saint-Eustache. His father, Maximilien Globensky, a lieutenant-colonel in the British Army, had led a company of volunteer militia at the Battle of Saint-Eustache.

The bitter fallout from the rebellion hung over Saint-Eustache for many years. But the aftermath of the battle was not the only shadow over Virginie’s life. There were disputes over the shared inheritance of the seigneury and its large debts. Virginie was in court several times, fighting family members over various property disputes.

Although the seigneurial system had been abolished, it took decades to dismantle. A committee evaluated property values and the habitants had the right to buy their farms from the seigneurs or continue to pay rent. As co-seigneurs of Milles-Îles, a territory so vast that it included the sites of the city of Saint-Jerome and the town of Saint-Sauveur, Virginie and C.A.M. were very wealthy.

Altar of Saint-Eustache parish church, with the painting of Sainte Anne, C.A.M. and Virginie behind it on the right. JH photo.

C.A.M. built a new seigneurial manor house in Saint-Eustache and the family moved into it in 1865. Every Sunday, Virginie and her growing family sat in the front pew of the church, a privilege reserved for seigneurs.

Virginie and C.A.M. had eight children. When Virginie became ill, she made out her will, leaving C.A.M. as her sole beneficiary. She died August 19, 1874, age 36, and he remarried two years later.

The year Virginie died, C.A.M. visited Rome and brought home a painting of the Adoration of Saint Anne in which Virginie, C.A.M. and the village priest were portrayed sitting at the saint’s feet. This huge painting hangs behind the altar of the parish church in Saint-Eustache to this day.⁶

Notes Concerning the Extended Bagg Family

Some written accounts refer to Sophia Mary Roy Bush as Gabriel Roy’s adopted daughter. The parish marriage record simply refers to her as the daughter of William Bush and Polly Bagg. Sophia’s birth parents were Protestant, so in 1827, Sophia was baptized Catholic and added Roy to her name. That church record refers to Gabriel Roy and Sophia Bagg as her sponsors. She was age 12 at the time and signed the parish record book herself. In French-speaking Quebec, people probably called her Sophie.

Polly (Bagg) Bush (1785-1856), Stanley Bagg (1788-1853), Abner Bagg (1790-1852) and Sophia (Bagg) Roy (1791-1860) were siblings. Their father was Phineas Bagg, a farmer from Pittsfield, Massachusetts who moved to the Montreal area with his family around 1795. Their mother, Pamela Stanley, was born in Litchfield, Connecticut and probably died in Pittsfield. Stanley and Abner were well-known Montreal merchants, but I had never heard of Polly or Sophia until I started researching the family.

Polly and William Bush had three other children besides Sophia. They were Pamelia Ann (1812-1880), who married Methodist Episcopal minister John W. York and lived in Benton County, Oregon; William Stanley (1816-1892), a Baptist preacher in the Lake George area of New York State; and Phineas (1820-1867) who moved to the Midwest with his parents before 1850. He is buried in Harrison Cemetery, Marion County, Illinois, along with his parents and three young daughters. (Polly’s grave in Illinois can be viewed on Findagrave.com, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/65952231/bush) After Phineas’ death, his widow, Louisa, and two surviving daughters moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Gabriel Roy (1770-1848) was born in Montreal, the son of a market gardener from France.⁸ His first wife was a widow 24 years older than him. She named him the guardian of her adopted daughter, Marie-Rosalie Sabrevois de Bleury, the heiress of a wealthy Montreal family, and he managed their affairs. Shortly after his first wife died in 1810, Gabriel married 19-year-old Sophia Bagg. The couple moved from the city to Saint-Laurent, now a Montreal suburb but at that time a rural area. He became a wealthy landowner, school commissioner and road commissioner, and in 1841 he was appointed to the Legislative Council of the Province of Canada,⁹ a position he held until his death at age 78. He was then referred to as l’Honorable Gabriel Roy. After his death, Sophia referred to herself as Sophia Bagg, veuve (widow) Gabriel Roy. In her will, she left money to the Catholic church and to many relatives. As requested in her will, and according to the church funeral record, she was buried in the Saint-Laurent parish church.

This article is a condensed version of several stories I wrote in 2014, 2015 and 2016 and posted on my personal family history blog, Writing Up the Ancestors (www.writinguptheancestors.ca). They were: The Doomed Marriage of Mary Sophia Roy Bush and Charles-Louis Lambert Dumont, posted Jan. 28, 2015; Marguerite Virginie Globensky, posted Jan. 28, 2015; Polly Bagg Bush: a Surprise Sister, posted May 23, 2014; Polly Bagg Bush and her Family, posted April 28, 2016 and William S. Bush, Baptist Preacher, posted May 19, 2016.

Sources:

1. In collaboration with W. Stanford Reid, “LAMBERT DUMONT, NICOLAS-EUSTACHE (Eustache-Nicolas),” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 6, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed March 21, 2026, https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/lambert_dumont_nicolas_eustache_6E.html, accessed March 22, 2026.

2. André Giroux, Histoire du territoire de la ville de Saint-Eustache, tome 1, L’époque seigneuriale 1683-1854, Québec: Les Éditions GID, 2009, p. 49.

3. Samuel Venière, “Battle of Saint-Eustache” The Canadian Encyclopedia, https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/battle-of-st-eustache, accessed March 22, 2026.

4. André Giroux, Les héritiers d’Eustache-Nicolas, http://www.patriotes.cc/portal/fr/docs/revuedm/06/revuedm06_6.pdf accessed March 23, 2026.

5. Yvon Globensky, Histoire de la Famille Globensky, Montreal: Les Éditions du Fleuve, 1991, p. 110.

6. Globensky, p. 122

7. Notary J.A. Labadie, 18 mai, 1856, #14278, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec

8. E.-Z. Massicotte, “l’Honorable Gabriel Roy,” Bulletin des Recherches Historiques, vol. 31, Septembre, 1925, p347-348, https://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/2657299?docsearchtext=347%20Gabriel%20Roy accessed March 23, 2026.

9. “Legislative Council of the Province of Canada”, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legislative_Council_of_the_Province_of_Canada, accessed March 23, 2026.

genealogy, Montreal, Quebec

Montreal Mayor William Workman

March 4, 2026 Janice Hamilton Leave a comment

Mayor William Workman in his robes of office, 1870.

In 1848, Montreal hardware merchant William Workman was encouraged to run for mayor. He refused. Twenty years later, Workman was elected as the city’s mayor, bringing his extensive experience in business, banking and philanthropy to the position for three years.

A Protestant immigrant from Ireland, Workman (1807-1878) came from a middle-class family. He became a partner with the Montreal wholesale hardware company Frothingham and Workman and, after retirement in 1859, he remained active on the boards of several banks and philanthropic organizations.¹

In politics, he was a liberal and, like several of his eight siblings, a member of the Unitarian Church. “All the (Workman) brothers had been instilled with a strong sense of morality, had learned skills to earn their living, possessed an ability to think through issues for themselves, and seemed to seek knowledge for its own sake,” Christine Johnston wrote in her biography of Willam’s brother Dr. Joseph Workman.²

In 1868, when Workman agreed to run, democratic institutions were relatively new. Montreal had been incorporated as a city in 1833, but its mayor was not elected by public voters until 1852, and there was no secret ballot until 1889. At first, only property owners were eligible to vote. As of 1860, renters – and in this city, most people were renters – could vote, provided they had paid their taxes. Anyone running for mayor, however, had to own property worth at least 1000 pounds.³ Thus, most of the city’s early mayors were from the business community, and about 60 percent of the people elected to city council were anglophones.

Banker and railway entrepreneur William Molson put Workman’s name forward at a nomination meeting. His opponent was Jean-Louis-Beaudry, a businessman who had already served several years as mayor. At first, there was a question as to whether Workman was eligible to run, then Beaudry claimed that Workman should be disqualified. His objections were dismissed and Workman beat Beaudry with 3134 votes to 1862.⁴

In 1869 and 1870, Workman was acclaimed mayor, but he did not run again in 1871.

When Workman was mayor, the municipal council met on the ground floor of the Bonsecours Market building, in what is now known as Old Montreal. In this 1870 photo, Workman was standing on the raised area at the far end of the room.

The most distressing of Montreal’s problems was the high mortality rate for young children. Some people suspected that this was linked to its water supply. Cholera epidemics had reached Montreal in 1832, 1849 and 1854, but even most physicians did not understand that cholera was caused by bacteria, spread in contaminated drinking water. Instead, they believed that disease was spread by miasma, or unpleasant vapours in the air. William Workman, however, may have had some understanding of the contagiousness of cholera because his brother Joseph had done his thesis on cholera while a medical student at McGill University.⁶

As president of the Montreal Sanitary Association, William realized the importance of clean water. Over the three years he served as mayor, he looked at municipal economic development and urban life as two sides of the same coin. He was the first mayor to do so.⁷ His administration focused on improving the city’s water system, improving sanitation and making the city more livable for residents.

Workman improved the city’s aqueduct system to ensure it could provide enough water to everyone. He ensured that the sewer system was modernized, replacing rotting wooden sewer pipes with clay ones. He also saw to it that low-lying areas, where potentially contaminated water could accumulate, were drained.⁷

He turned his attention to garbage collection, introducing regulations concerning the pickup of manure, dead animals, soot and ashes. People were required to store waste in boxes or barrels, and the city now picked up garbage on a daily basis. The city built public baths, since many homes did not have hot running water, and it constructed municipal slaughterhouses.

To ensure that the city benefit all residents, he advocated for the creation of large public parks, on the top of Mount Royal and on Île Sainte-Hélène, where people could breathe pure air.⁸ Not long after Workman left office, the city purchased the necessary land and hired famous landscape architect Frederick Olmstead to design Mount Royal Park. It was officially opened in 1876 and it is still today a much-loved feature of Montreal. Île Sainte-Hélène, in the St. Lawrence River, also remains a popular green space.

One of the most exciting events of Workman’s time as mayor may have been the clear, crisp October day in 1869 when 19-year-old Prince Arthur, Queen Victoria’s third son, arrived in Montreal as part of a Canadian tour. Workman greeted the prince in the old port and made a short welcoming speech, then he and his guest took part in a procession through the streets. People cheered as they passed by, and homes and commercial buildings were decked out with banners and flags. The following day a lacrosse tournament took place.

On the day of the 1869 lacrosse tournament, Workman, back row on the left, posed with a group of indigenous people.

Workman proved to be a very popular mayor among both English- and French-speaking Montrealers, and when he left office, citizens showed their appreciation. A public banquet was organized in his honour, and people from all classes came to thank him for his hard work and the generous hospitality he had offered to visitors. The Gazette was effusive in its description of the banquet and the expensive thank-you gifts of a diamond ring and silver dishes that Workman received.

The speech Workman gave during this dinner revealed that he had had concerns about going into politics. Addressing the crowd, and especially members of municipal council, he said, “I entered upon the duties of my office under great inexperience.… I laboured under great misgivings and suspicions as to the conduct of affairs in your corporate administration. Then, as now, the press had been sounding the alarm as to combinations, jobs and rings. I watched with great attention and anxiety in every department to discover the truth of these assertions, but I watched in vain and, after three years experience, I can truly say that, if it is one of the great blessings of a city … and of the citizens to find the corporate action of its representatives in unison with right and honest discharge of duty, then Montreal enjoys that blessing to its fullest extent.”

This story is also posted on my personal family history blog, http://www.writinguptheancestors.ca.

See also:

Janice Hamilton, “William Workman: Public Successes, Personal Problems” Genealogy Ensemble, Jan. 7, 2026, https://genealogyensemble.com/2026/01/07/william-workman-public-successes-personal-problems/

Photo credits:

Mayor William Workman, Montreal, QC, 1870, photo by William Notman, McCord Stewart Museum, 432611, accessed March 3, 2026

Archives de Montreal, Bref historique des élues et élus de la Ville de Montréal, https://archivesdemontreal.com/2021/06/01/bref-historique-des-elues-et-elus-de-la-ville-de-montreal/, Galerie photo,1870, https://archivesdemontreal.com/documents/2021/06/1870_VM166-D00015-22-5-002.jpg, accessed March 4, 2026

Kanien’kehá:ka group with William Workman, Mayor of Montreal, Montreal, QC, 1869; 1869 10 09; photo by James Inglis, McCord Stewart Museum, M6308, accessed March 4, 2026

Sources:

1. G. Tulchinsky, “WORKMAN, WILLIAM,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 10, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed February 22, 2026. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/workman_william_10E.html.

2. Christine I. M. Johnston, The Father of Canadian Psychiatry: Joseph Workman, Victoria: The Ogden Press, 2000, p. 38.

3. Archives de Montreal. Montreal: Democracy in Montreal from 1830 to the present: Electoral system. http://www2.ville.montreal.qc.ca/archives/democratie/democratie_en/expo/institutions-municipales/systeme-electoral/index.shtm, accessed Feb. 22, 2026.

4. Claude-V. Marsolais, Luc Desrochers, Robert Comeau, Histoire des maires de Montréal, Montreal: VLB Éditeur, 1993, p. 309

5. Paul-Andre Linteau, translated by Peter McCambridge, The History of Montreal: the story of a Great North American City, Montreal: Baraka Books, 2013. p 87.

6. Johnston, The Father of Canadian Psychiatry: Joseph Workman, p. 22.

7. Marsolais et al, Histoire des maires de Montreal, p. 87.

8. Archives de Montreal. Montreal: Democracy in Montreal from 1830 to the present: Mayors of Montreal: William Workman. (1868-1871), http://www2.ville.montreal.qc.ca/archives/democratie/democratie_en/expo/maires/workman/index.shtm, accessed Feb. 21, 2026

9. “Dinner to Wm. Workman, Esq.” The Gazette, March 8, 1871, p. 2. Newspapers.com, accessed Feb. 23, 2026.

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