Category Archives: Montreal

Montreal, New France, Quebec

Enslaved by Poverty

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Recently, I’ve been wondering about the white slave who successfully escaped after allegedly burning down New France’s third Hotel-Dieu hospital and 45 homes in what is now Old Montreal in 1735.

I can’t help feel sorry for the man who was brought to Canada as an indentured slave (engagé or trente-six mois due to the thirty-six month duration of his contract) primarily because he was young, healthy, strong enough to serve as a labourer and poor. In return for his work, he got room and board, clothing and a salary, but he had no rights beyond that. His employers could send him anywhere to do just about anything; and according to New France law he had little recourse.

A brief summary of his life appears online in the Canadian Mysteries series dedicated to the fire.

Originally from Butenne in Franche-Comté, Claude Thibault was found guilty of salt trafficking [illegal sale of salt]. Condemned to end his days in the king’s galleys, his sentence was commuted to a life in exile in Canada. He arrived in Québec with a dozen other salt traffickers, including Jacques Jalleteau, in September 1732.

On the night of April 10, he was seen at the site of the fire, but disappeared when Angélique was arrested the following day. Despite warrants issued for a wanted person throughout the colony, Thibault was never again seen.1

I imagine he used his acumen to create a new life under a new name, perhaps in the fur-trading industry. After all, as a faux-saunier (salt smuggler), he had to develop a lot of entrepreneurial skills. As someone who purchased salt in low-tax regions and sold it on the black market in high tax regions, he had to be skilled at finding clients and creating a distribution hub without being caught by the King’s agents.

The King’s decision to set up an unfair tax regime began in 1680, when he decided to pass a law varying the taxes (gabelle) on salt per region. Salt was an important commodity at the time, and controlling it was an important economic lever. In addition to using it to spice and cure food, people in France also needed enough salt to tan animal skins. In some regions, such as Brittany, people could buy one “minot” (about 37 litres) of salt for as little as 1 livre, while citizens of Main, Anjou and other “high gabelle” regions had to pay as much as 61 livres per minot. The law even forced them to buy a minimum quantity of salt every year, whether they needed it or not.

Smugglers thrived in the seeming injustice, but if they were caught, punishment was severe. They faced fines beginning at 300 livres and leading to jail time of anywhere from 10 days to three months. At first, only the most serious convicts were exiled to New France, but in 1730, Jean Frédéric Phélypeaux, the Comte de Maurepas, began insisting that convicted faux-sauniers should be sorted, with the most healthy or those with useful skills be sent overseas as enslaved labourers on three-year contracts. Eventually, the scheme ended in when King Louis XV of France removed Maurepas from his job in 1749.

Unfortunately, Thibault was caught when Maurepas’ scheme was fully underway, and he had few other ressources to avoid exile.

Alain Racineau, who has studied salt traffickers like Thibault at length, describes most of them as poor rural people, primarily day labourers and small merchants struggling to survive.

They were recruited from the poorest levels of society: casual agricultural labourers, petty artisans and traders, unemployed vagabonds. They frequently affirmed that they had taken up smuggling “pour gagner leurs vies.”2

Thibault’s life didn’t get any easier once he arrived in New France. His contract was purchased by fur-trader and merchant Francois Poulin de Francheville and his wife Thérèse de Couagne, who owned several slaves. After M. Francheville died in late 1733, the widow decided to sell Thibault’s girlfriend to a friend in Quebec City. Plans were established for her to be sent away in the spring of 1734, after the ice melted from the Saint Lawrence River.

On February 22, 1734, Thibault and his lover decided to run away, setting fire to her bed as a distraction. They had hoped to reach the English colonies, but bad weather stopped them. They got stuck in Châteauguay and were eventually captured by three militia captains.

Thibault was thrown into jail on March 5 for breaking his contract. He was released on April 9, just one day before the large fire that began in the Francheville home on St. Paul Street.

Thibault disappeared just before his girlfriend got arrested, was convicted and executed. On April 19, authorities set up a manhunt

…given that we are in no State at present to forward the description of the said Thibault with the present order, the Said Captains will take care to arrest and Interrogate all Young men who are unknown vagabonds coming from the direction of Montréal toward Québec and passing through their area, to ask of Them their names and surnames, who they are, where they come from, and where They are going; and upon failure by the said passers-by to provide adequate Information on their persons, And for the slightest doubt or suspicion regarding their responses, And in consideration of public safety, We expressly ordain that the said Captains have them arrested Immediately, and taken under sound and due guard to the gaols of This city;3

They never found him.

Two years later, authorities officially took him off the most wanted list.

1Beaugrand-Champagne, Denyse, Léon Robichaud, Dorothy W. Williams, Marquise Lepage, and Monique Dauphin. “Torture and Truth: Angélique and the Burning of Montreal,” Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History Project, 2006, https://canadianmysteries.ca/sites/angelique/contexte/references/personnages/2229en.html

2Racineaux, Alain, ‘Du faux-saunage à la chouannerie, au sud-est de la Bretagne’, Mémoires de la Société d’histoire et d’archéologie de Bretagne, 1989.

3Archives nationales du Québec, Centre de Québec, Fonds des Ordonnances des intendants de la Nouvelle-France, E1, S1 P2622, Hocquart, Gilles, Ordinance given to the captains of the militia for the arrest of Claude Thibault, April 19, 1734, https://canadianmysteries.ca/sites/angelique/proces/rumeurcircule/1889en.html .

Montreal, Quebec

R. Stanley Bagg, Tory Politician

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Robert Stanley Bagg (1848-1912), was a Montreal businessman, sportsman and life-long Tory. A newspaper report of his death noted, “He was a staunch Conservative both in and out of power, and some years ago was president of the Liberal-Conservative Club giving a great deal of his time to the work of organizing as well as well as to public discussion. He was well known amongst the French-Canadian people and spoke French almost as fluently as his mother tongue.”1

My great-grandfather’s interest in politics was not limited to reading about the issues of the day in the newspaper (The Gazette was a die-hard Conservative-leaning publication) or debating issues privately with his friends. Stanley became actively involved in the Liberal-Conservative Club after it was founded in 1895 as a rallying point for English and French-speaking Conservatives in Montreal. The club took a leading role in the Dominion (federal) election of 1896, and the Quebec campaign of 1897. No doubt to Stanley’s dismay, the Conservatives lost in both elections.

The Conservatives had been the party of Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. MacDonald, who is said to have been a personal friend of Stanley’s father, Stanley Clark Bagg (1820-1873). They were in power until 1896, when Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s Liberals defeated them, and Laurier remained prime minister for the next 15 years. One of the main differences between the two parties was that the Conservatives promoted loyalty to the British Empire, independence from the United States and protectionism in trade, while the Liberals were in favour of free trade.

Robert Stanley Bagg, portrait by Adam Sheriff Scott. Bagg family collection.

Stanley played a role in many party activities, especially after his retirement from the family real-estate business at the turn of the century. Trained as a lawyer, he frequently chaired public meetings, he served for several years in the early 1900s as president of the Liberal-Conservative Club, and he twice attempted to run for a seat in the House of Commons in Ottawa. The first time was during the Dominion election of 1896 in the St. Lawrence riding, east of Mount Royal. This was the area where Stanley’s ancestors had lived and owned property for almost a century. Stanley was the third candidate in the riding, and the nomination papers he submitted showed he had considerable support among both English and French-speaking party members. However, four days later, when it became apparent that the other Conservative candidate had broader support, Stanley withdrew his name.

In 1905, The Gazette anticipated that Mr. R. Stanley Bagg might run as an independent candidate for the provincial legislature vacancy in the St. Lawrence division caused by the death of the incumbent.2 The newspaper’s prediction was wrong, however, and he did not run. A few years later, in the federal election of 1908, Stanley did put his name in for the Conservative nomination for the St. Lawrence division. This time, Henry Archer Ekers, the outgoing mayor of Montreal, won the nomination by a narrow margin, and Stanley called on the meeting to make the choice unanimous.

Although he never did run for office, Stanley appears to have been a popular speaker at Conservative party functions, and the newspapers reported on his speeches on several occasions.

When he addressed a meeting during the 1897 provincial campaign, The Montreal Star summed up his remarks:

“Mr. R. Stanley Bagg was the last speaker. In a really eloquent and polished speech this gentleman drew a picture of the possibilities of the Province of Quebec under good government. Especially strong were his commendations of the Flynn educational programme, which would bestow that priceless boon of education upon the poor as well as upon the rich. This education would enable the growing generation to intelligently study the questions appertaining to the government of the province, and when the young people became enfranchised, such study would enable them to vote for honest government, for the party and platform that best represented the best interests of Quebec.“3

In January 1900, Stanley was president-elect of the Liberal Conservative Club and a general election was coming soon. In remarks to a meeting, he pledged to put forward the interests of the club, the Conservative party and the county, adding that the Conservative party was the “true patriotic party of Canada.”4

Later that year, during the Dominion election campaign, The Montreal Star quoted his remarks to a Tory campaign rally: “Never in the history of Canada has there been an election so important, so fraught with vital interest in the whole Dominion, as that in which the people of this country are now engaged. The relations between Canada and the Mother Country are, at the present time, peculiar. The South African (Boer) war afforded Canada an opportunity to demonstrate Canadian loyalty and Canadian valour, and today we have as a result an exceptional chance to secure favours from the Mother Country, which never before presented itself. The Imperial sentiment is strong throughout the Empire and the British people are disposed to accord to the colonies trade concessions the value of which to ourselves cannot be overestimated.

“There is but one way in which Canada can benefit from this opportunity, and that way lies through the return of the Conservative party to power. The Conservative party is pledged to use its best efforts to secure a mutual imperial preferential tariff …. The Conservative party stands for protection, for stability in the tariff, for patriotism and for progress.…”5

Eleven years later, Stanley again focused on the topic of reciprocity (free trade) with the U.S. In an hour-long address, he noted that, as someone who had taken part in a large number of election campaigns and given close and continuous study to public affairs, he had been invited to give his views on the great question now before the voters. He “emphatically urged that reciprocity be thrown out. He not only showed that the pact would be commercially injurious to Canada, but appealed to the patriotism of the electors, their spirt as Canadians and Britons. He reminded them, amidst ringing applause, how Sir John A. Macdonald had denounced the attempts of Liberal leaders to bring about unrestricted reciprocity in 1891 as ‘veiled treason’.”6

These accounts of Stanley’s speeches may seem old fashioned today, but I was pleased to discover them as they provided a window into my ancestor’s thoughts. He clearly identified as Canadian and British, although his ancestors also included Americans and Scots.

This story is also posted on http://www.writinguptheancestors.ca

See also:

Janice Hamilton, “Horses, Snowshoes and Family Life”, Writing Up the Ancestors, Sept 21, 2024, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2024/09/horses-snowshoes-and-family-life.html

Janice Hamilton, “The Silver Spoon”, Writing Up the Ancestors, ”, June 12, 2024, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2024/06/the-silver-spoon.html

Sources:

  1. “R. Stanley Bagg Died Yesterday,” The Gazette, (Montreal, Quebec), July 23, 1912, digital image, https://www.newspapers.com/image/419604976 accessed Aug. 4, 2024.
  • “St. Louis Division; Mr. Parizeau’s Supporters Enthusiastic.” The Montreal Daily Star (Montreal, Quebec), 10 May, 1897, p. 4, digital image, https://www.newspapers.com/image/740883625 accessed Oct. 1, 2024.

Montreal, Quebec, Verdun

Sundays and the Great Depression

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I used to hate Sundays. I had to go to Sunday school. I really didn’t understand why I had to attend because my parents just dropped me off. That’s right. They didn’t even go to church. And no one asked me if I wanted to go.

After they picked me up, things got worse. It was homework time until lunch. Of course, I could have done my homework on Friday night but Fridays were reserved for movies on the television and reading in bed with a flashlight until all hours.

And worst of all, some Sunday afternoons were for Visiting the Elderly Relatives. In my mind, my aunts and uncles were ancient. Plus my brother, being a boy and older than me, was apparently able to take care of himself, as he always seemed to be absent from these visits. So I would sit in the living rooms of my aunts and uncles, with no toys or any other amusements, and listen to the adults talk.

I now cherish the memories of these visits because they provided me with an appreciation of the social history of Montreal, as well as significant events such as the Depression and World War II.

The stories about the Depression are the ones that struck me the most. During the Depression, a quarter of Canada’s workforce was unemployed.1  My dad, Edward McHugh, was a young man out of work in Montreal and he joined his older brother and sister in Drummondville, to work for the Celanese. At the peak of the Depression, the Celanese employed 1,757 workers.2

None of the McHughs had cars in those days so they must have travelled back and forth to Drummondville by train. And Uncle Thomas McHugh married a local girl. I can just imagine the McHughs, from Verdun, arriving in Drummondville for the wedding. I doubt very many people spoke English in Drummondville at the time. The culture shock must have been intense.

My aunts and uncles, even into the 1960s, were thankful that they were able to have had some work during the Depression. Uncle Al Scott worked for the Northern Telecom for 40 years, although with reduced hours during the Depression. Luckily Uncle Frank McHugh worked for the Montreal Tramway Company so he was able to keep working during the Depression. He was a tram driver for tram number 24 that started in Montreal West and crossed the city on Sherbrooke Street. His job was safe.

Dad’s siblings loved to have a good time and the Depression did not stop them. My Aunt Elsie used to describe their card parties. There was only one bottle of scotch, some ginger ale, one can of salmon and one loaf of sliced white bread. My aunt was able to spread the salmon so thinly that she could make sandwiches out of the whole loaf of bread.

It was very clear to me that the Depression was a very frightening time in their lives. During this period, the future must have seemed bleak. Life was a struggle to make ends meet. But they made the most of it and persevered. Today I feel lucky to have listened and to remember their stories.

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression_in_Canada

2 http://www.patrimoine-culturel.gouv.qc.ca/rpcq/detail.do?methode=consulter&id=14311&type=pge#.WSNY7Gg1-Uk

Montreal

The Silver Spoon

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In this article I refer to Robert Stanley Bagg by his middle name since it was the name by which he was best known. In other articles I have referred to him as RSB to differentiate him from his father, Stanley Clark Bagg (SCB) and his grandfather, Stanley Bagg.

My great-grandfather Robert Stanley Clark Bagg, or R. Stanley Bagg (1848-1912), was born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth, however, working in the family real estate business was not what he really wanted to do in life. It wasn’t until after he retired that he was able to follow his true passion: politics.

I never heard any family stories about Stanley, perhaps because he died several years before my mother was born. It wasn’t until Montreal’s two major English-language newspapers were digitized a few years ago that I learned about his various interests and activities. In fact, his name appeared in Montreal newspapers frequently, especially after the late 1890s when he became active in the Conservative party.  

Portrait of Robert Stanley Bagg by Adam Sheriff Scott. Private collection.

Stanley was the second child of Montreal notary and land-owner Stanley Clark Bagg (1820-1873) and Philadelphia-born Catharine Mitcheson (1821-1914). The couple’s first child died before Stanley was born. Three younger sisters, Katharine, Amelia and Mary, were born in 1850, 1852 and 1854, and a fourth sister, Helen, arrived in 1861. Even as a child, Stanley must have been told that he would have a leadership role in the family, not only as the eldest, but also as the only male.

According to his obituary in the Montreal Gazette,1 Stanley studied law at McGill University and passed the bar in 1873. He then left Montreal for England, intending to further his studies, however, his father died unexpectedly in August of that year and Stanley came home. For a short time, he was in partnership with lawyer Donald Macmaster, sharing an office on St. James Street, in the old business heart of the city, but he gave up his legal practice to concentrate on the administration of his late father’s real estate. Nevertheless, throughout his life, Stanley identified himself as a lawyer or an advocate, a term used to refer to the practice of Quebec’s civil law.  

The job Stanley undertook as administrator of his father’s estate was not an easy one. Montreal was growing rapidly, with thousands of new immigrants arriving, manufacturing, railroads and industries expanding and construction of new residences ongoing. The farmland that comprised the vast S. C. Bagg Estate, mostly located on the west side of St. Laurent Boulevard in a corridor north of Sherbrooke Street, increased in value as the city grew. Sales, mainly of residential properties, became a profitable business.

This map shows the extent of the late Stanley Clark Bagg’s properties, shaded in beige, in 1875, when an inventory was made of his estate. These properties are overlaid over a modern map of the island of Montreal. At that time, the actual city of Montreal was south of Sherbrooke Street, extending down to the banks of the Saint Lawrence River. The eastern slope of Mount Royal is adjacent to the Mile End properties. Map created by Justin Bur, based on two open data sources: physical geography from CanVec, Natural Resources Canada and modern streets from Geobase, City of Montreal.

Stanley does not seem to have been interested in developing and promoting housing or commercial real estate projects himself, but he did decide which pieces of land to subdivide into lots and he supervised sales. The Estate also rented small residential and commercial buildings, and some of the land was sold to the city for civic projects such as parks.

He encountered many unexpected headaches over the years. He had to ask the provincial government to pass a special law in 1875 to override a provision in SCB’s will in order to make the lot prices competitive.2 There were misunderstandings in 1889-91 over which properties were part of the estate and which belonged to the five children. And sister Helen’s husband disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 1897, owing the family large sums of money.

Although Stanley was the main administrator of his father’s estate, several family members acted as advisors. His mother had a great deal of input, and sister Amelia kept track of some of the property sales. When a major decision had to be made, family members got together to discuss it, or if that was not possible, they communicated through letters.

Robert Stanley Bagg and Clara Smithers were married in 1882 at St. Martin’s Anglican Church, on what was then the corner of Saint Urban and Bagg Streets. Bagg Street was later renamed Prince Arthur and the current Bagg Street is located several blocks further north. St. Martin’s never acquired a spire and it was eventually demolished. Image source: St. Martin’s Church, Historical Sketch of St. Martin’s Church : 1874-1902, Montreal, Canada, 1902?; Canadiana, https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.85997  Accessed June 14, 2023.

When Stanley announced his retirement as of January, 1901, his mother arranged to hire someone to succeed him, and she wrote Stanley a thank-you letter.3 She described her husband’s unexpected death as a calamity for the family, especially for Stanley who was “so young and inexperienced in the ways of the world.”  She commended him for the “able, honourable and efficient manner” in which he had performed his arduous duties for 27 years. She added, “I am most anxious that you should have a complete rest from all the worry and anxiety that is unavoidably connected with the responsible position you have occupied for such a long time – and while personally I shall greatly miss you, I hope that your absence and a complete change will allow you to regain your usual health and strength.”

One activity Stanley found helped to restore his health was travel, especially ocean voyages.  Perhaps he got the travel bug when he was 20 and spent a year exploring the highlights of Europe with his parents, his aunt and his sisters.

In 1875, Stanley visited England again with his mother and one of his sisters, and he returned to Europe with his new wife, Clara Smithers, on their two-month-long honeymoon in the summer of 1882.

In 1891, he and Clara spent an extended period of time in England, taking along their two young daughters. That year’s Census of England showed Stanley, Clara, the children, a governess and a cook staying in a lodging house in St. George Hanover Square, in central London. Ten years later, after his retirement, Stanley returned to Europe, this time touring for eight months.

While real estate management, legal training and travel seem to have been family traditions, so was military service. Stanley’s father had served in the military, and his grandfather had been a major in the 1st Battalion Loyal Volunteers during the Rebellion of 1837. His great-grandfather Phineas Bagg had served during the American Revolution ((1775-1783) before immigrating to Canada.

In 1877, the Canada Gazette reported that R. Stanley Bagg, gentleman, began his military service as an ensign with the 5th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, Montreal. When he retired in 1882, he retained the rank of captain from what had become the Royal Scots Fusiliers. Although his military career was relatively short, it appears to have been a success. The Montreal Star quoted the following article about Stanley that had appeared in the paper 30 years earlier:4

“There are few better-known figures in Montreal than Captain Stanley Bagg. He was an enthusiastic volunteer and belonged to the old 5th Royals before and after they had become a kilted regiment. At the time of the ship labourers’ riots in Quebec, when several regiments of Montreal were sent to restore order and liberate the regular garrison, who were practically prisoners in the Citadel, the 5th Royal Scots were marched up Mountain Hill and the honour of leading them was conferred by the colonel of the regiment on Captain Bagg owing to his height and commanding presence. Captain Bagg has always been an ardent supporter of and participant in athletic sports. A good rider and one of the old Dowell school of boxers, he kept himself in such first-class condition that he can stand almost any fatigue.”

I had read the letter written by Stanley’s mother about his retirement many years ago, and it had left me with an image of my great-grandfather as a tired and anxious man. This newspaper article made me realize that he had indeed once been a strong leader and an good athlete.

This article is also posted on http://www.writinguptheancestors.ca

Footnotes:

1. “R. Stanley Bagg Died Yesterday,” The Gazette, July 23, 1912, p. 4, accessed June 9, 2024.

2. “38 Vict. cap. XCIV, assented to 23 February 1875”, Statutes of the Province of Quebec passed in the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, part 1, p. 474, https://books.google.ca, accessed June 9, 2024.

3. Catharine Mitcheson Bagg, Correspondence, P070/B6.4, Bagg Family Fonds, McCord Stewart Museum, https://collections.musee-mccord-stewart.ca/en/objects/details/176488; classification scheme; personal documents; correspondence. Accessed June 14, 2024.

4. “From the Star Files 30 Years Ago Today” The Montreal Star, Sept. 17, 1909, p. 10, www.newspapers.com, accessed June 9, 2024.

See also:

Janice Hamilton, “Bagg Family Dispute part 1: Stanley Clark Bagg’s Estate”, Writing Up the Ancestors, Dec. 13, 2023, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2023/12/bagg-family-dispute-part-1-stanley-clark-baggs-estate.html

Janice Hamilton, “The Bagg Family Dispute part 2”, Writing Up the Ancestors, Feb. 14, 2024, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2024/02/the-bagg-family-dispute-part-2.html

Janice Hamilton, “Helen Frances Bagg: A Happy Exile”, Writing Up the Ancestors, Jan. 6, 2016, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2016/01/helen-frances-bagg-happy-exile.html

Janice Hamilton, “Continental Notes for Public Circulation”, Writing Up the Ancestors, April 8, 2020, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2020/04/continental-notes-for-public-circulation.html

Janice Hamilton, “Aunt Amelia’s Ledger”, Writing Up the Ancestors, April 26, 2023, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2023/04/aunt-amelias-ledger.html

Clara Smithers Weds R. Stanley Bagg, Writing Up the Ancestors, March 2, 2014, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2014/03/clara-smithers-weds-r-stanley-bagg.html

Janice Hamilton, “The Life and Times of Stanley Bagg, 1788-1853”, Writing Up the Ancestors, Oct. 5, 2016, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2016/10/the-life-and-times-of-stanley-bagg-1788.html

Montreal, Quebec

The Bagg Family Dispute, part 2

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In collaboration with Justin Bur

When my great-great grandfather Stanley Clark Bagg died in 1873, his wife and five children inherited large tracts of farmland on the island of Montreal, land that they made a family business of selling.1 But misunderstandings over who owned what and how to keep track of the income created a lot of difficulties. 

Stanley Clark Bagg (I usually refer to him as SCB to differentiate him from his father, Stanley Bagg, and his son, Robert Stanley Bagg,) had inherited most of this property from his grandfather John Clark (1767-1827).2 But there were conditions attached to some of these bequests: Clark’s 1825 will stated that land that comprised the Durham House property, and land comprising Mile End Farm, should pass down through three generations of descendants before it could be sold. The legal term for this, in civil law, is a substitution. However, a change in the law, passed in 1866, limited substitutions to two generations.3 That meant that the generation of Robert Stanley Bagg and his sisters Katharine, Amelia, Mary and Helen were the last generation affected by the substitutions and they could do what they liked with these properties.

The substitution clause referring to Durham House was part of the 1819 marriage contract between SCB’s parents, in which John Clark gave that property to his daughter as a wedding present.4 (It is shown in dark green on the map below.)

Robert Stanley Bagg, # II-57308.1, 1880, Notman & Sandham, McCord-Stewart Museum; Bagg family collection.

When SCB died at age 53, none of his family members was ready to manage these properties. His only son, Robert Stanley Bagg, or RSB, (1848-1912) had recently graduated in law, but he had no experience in renting or selling properties. Furthermore, neither the notary who completed the inventory of SCB’s estate in 1875,5 nor SCB’s widow, nor his children were aware of the substitutions. The Durham House and Mile End Farm properties were treated as though they were no different than the other properties belonging to the late SCB’s estate.

The 22-acre Durham House property (lots 19–28 and 101–115, cadastre of the Saint-Laurent ward) was located north of Sherbrooke Street, on the west side of today’s Saint-Laurent Boulevard. SCB had subdivided part of it and sold lots from it as early as 1846. In 1889, RSB, who was an executor of his father’s estate, subdivided the Upper Garden of Durham House (lot 19, Saint-Laurent ward) and began to sell those lots. He signed the property documents as “R. Stanley Bagg for the estate,” and his mother, Catharine Mitcheson Bagg, also signed.

But the Durham House property actually belonged jointly to the five Bagg siblings. It was not part of SCB’s estate, and his widow could not inherit this land, sell lots from it or acquire income from it. Yet that is what she did: the name Dame Catharine Mitcheson, widow of Stanley Clark Bagg, appeared on five deeds of sale in 1889.  

It is not clear who discovered the error, but perhaps someone close to the Bagg family took a good look at the property documents and noticed these details. SCB’s middle daughter, Amelia Bagg, was to marry Joseph Mulholland the following year, and he worked as a real estate agent for the Stanley Clark Bagg Estate. Also, Joseph’s brother-in-law, John Murray Smith, was about to purchase several of the Durham House lots. Any one of these people could have discovered the marriage contract and John Clark’s will, which SCB had registered at the provincial land registry office.6

This map shows details of several of the late Stanley Clark Bagg’s properties in 1875, when an inventory was made of his estate. Durham House and its upper garden, as well as a small part of the Mile End Farm and SCB’s home, Fairmount Villa, are overlaid over a modern map of the island of Montreal. Mile End Lodge had been John Clark’s home. At that time, the densely populated part of Montreal was south of Sherbrooke Street. Mount Royal Park, opened in 1876, is on the left. Map created by Justin Bur, based on two open data sources: physical geography from CanVec, Natural Resources Canada and modern streets from Geobase, City of Montreal.

As soon as they became aware of the situation, the Bagg siblings tried to remedy it with a notarized document called a Ratification.7 It said that, as the actual owners, they ratified and approved the five sales made by their mother. A few weeks later, in January and April of 1890, the Bagg siblings sold five lots to John Murray Smith and four to James Baxter, and this time, the vendors named in the deeds were correct.

Next, Catharine and her five children took a step to sort out the income from lots from the Durham House property that SCB had sold in his lifetime. They did not involve a notary, but tried to look after the issue as a family, signing a document called an Indenture on May 12, 1890.8

The indenture stated that neither Catharine nor her children had known about the marriage contract until December, 1889. The Bagg children (by now all were adults) declared the love and affection they had for their mother and their desire to settle the matter amicably, and released her from all claims and demands. For her part, Catharine agreed to repay to her children the capital sums she had received from the sale of these properties. Because she had paid taxes and expenses on them, the children made no claim for the interest payments she had received.

Action Demanded

No doubt confident that everything had been resolved, RSB took his wife and two young daughters on an extended trip to England, leaving his mother and sisters to handle offers for land sales during his absence. After his return, however, the family dispute blew up once more, this time over the Mile End Farm property. Two of the married sisters, Katharine Sophia Mills and Mary Heloise Lindsay, hired a notary to represent their interests.

Notary Henry Fry sent a complaint on their behalf to the three living executors of SCB’s will — Catharine Mitcheson Bagg, Robert Stanley Bagg and notary J.E.O. Labadie – demanding immediate action. Dated July 22, 1891 and titled Signification and Demand,9   this document stated that the executors of SCB’s will were bound, upon his death, to deliver over the Durham House and Mile End Farm properties to his children, and to produce an account of the administration of these properties.

Catharine Mitcheson Bagg, #71147, 1883, William Notman & Son, McCord-Stewart Museum; Bagg family collection.

It stated that the executors “have wholly failed and neglected to render such account, but on the contrary, have, since the death of the said Stanley Clark Bagg, continued in possession of the said substituted property and have even sold and alienated portions thereof and have received the consideration money of such sales and have received and retained the entire revenues therefrom and that although they have been recently requested to render such account, the said executors have neglected and refused to do so.”

The executors had until August 10 to provide an account of the property belonging to the substitutions. They must have met this demand because no further complaints have turned up. Furthermore, the Bagg siblings seem to have found a better solution to their dilemma: they partitioned the Durham House property and sold a large chunk of the Mile End Farm.

In September 1891, the remaining unsold lots of the Durham House property were grouped into five batches, and the five siblings pulled numbers out of a hat to determine who got which ones.10 They could then sell these lots, or keep them, as they pleased.

Two months later, the five siblings sold 145 arpents of land, including most of the Mile End Farm and a section of the adjoining Black Gate Farm, to Clarence James McCuaig and Rienzi Athel Mainwaring,11 These Toronto land developers had plans to develop an exclusive housing development they called Montreal Annex in the area.12

As for keeping track of property sales, Amelia, the middle Bagg sibling who was now married to Joseph Mulholland, took on that responsibility. Starting in 1892, she kept a ledger in which she wrote down the dates, names of purchasers and prices paid for each of the lots that were part of the Mile End Farm and Durham House properties.13

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

See also:

Janice Hamilton, “Bagg Family Dispute Part 1: Stanley Clark Bagg’s Estate”, Writing Up the Ancestors, Dec. 13, 2023, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2023/12/bagg-family-dispute-part-1-stanley-clark-baggs-estate.html

Janice Hamilton, “Aunt Amelia’s Ledger” Writing Up the Ancestors, April 26, 2023,  https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2023/04/aunt-amelias-ledger.html

Janice Hamilton, “Stanley Clark Bagg’s Family”, Writing Up the Ancestors, Feb. 29, 2020,  https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2020/02/stanley-clark-baggs-family.html

Janice Hamilton, “My Great-Great Aunts, Montreal Real-Estate Developers”, Writing Up the Ancestors, October 11, 2017, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2017/10/my-great-great-great-aunts-montreal.html

Janice Hamilton, “A Home Well Lived In”, Writing Up the Ancestors, Jan. 21, 2014, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2014/01/a-home-well-lived-in.html

Notes:

The Indenture, the Deed of Ratification and several other documents mentioned in this article were donated to the archives of the McCord Stewart Museum in Montreal around 1975 by my cousin.

This article was written in collaboration with urban historian Justin Bur. Justin has done a great deal of historical research on the Mile End neighbourhood of Montreal (around Saint-Laurent Blvd. and Mount Royal Ave.) and is a longtime member of the Mile End Memories/Memoire du Mile-End community history group (http://memoire.mile-end.qc.ca/en/). He is one of the authors of Dictionnaire historique du Plateau Mont-Royal (Montreal, Éditions Écosociété, 2017), along with Yves Desjardins, Jean-Claude Robert, Bernard Vallée and Joshua Wolfe. His most recent article about the Bagg family is La famille Bagg et le Mile End, published in Bulletin de la Société d’histoire du Plateau-Mont-Royal, Vol. 18, no. 3, Automne 2023.

Sources:

  1. Stanley Clark Bagg will, J.A. Labadie, n.p. no 15635, 7 July 1866
  2. John Clark will, Henry Griffin, n.p. no 5989, 29 August 1825
  3. In 1866 the government of Lower Canada enacted the Civil Code. This was a compilation and revision of the civil law inherited from the French regime; article 932 of the code put a two-generation limit on substitutions.
  4. Marriage contract between Stanley Bagg and Mary Ann Clark, N.B. Doucet, n.p. no 6489, 5 August 1819
  5. Stanley Clark Bagg inventory, J.A. Labadie, n.p. no 16733, 7 June 1875
  6. John Clark’s will and the marriage contract between Stanley Bagg and Mary Ann Clark are still publicly available at the Registre foncier du Québec. John Clark’s will had been transcribed there in 1844 (Montréal ancien #4752). The marriage contract (Montréal Ouest #66032) was transcribed in 1872. SCB’s will was transcribed into the register (Montréal Ouest #74545) in 1873.
  7. Deed of Ratification, Adolphe Labadie, n.p. no 2063, December 12, 1889, register Montreal Est #25109, McCord Stewart Museum (P070/66,3) This notary was a son of notary J.E.O. Labadie, who was an executor of the will, and grandson of notary J.A. Labadie, who had handled SCB’s will and the inventory of his estate.
  8. Indenture, May 12, 1890, McCord Stewart Museum (P070/B6,3).
  9. Signification and Demand, Henry Fry, n.p. no. 2234, 22 July 1891, McCord Stewart Museum (P070/B6,3).
  10. Deed of Partition, John Fair, n.p no 3100, Sept. 10, 1891, register Montreal Est #29503, McCord Stewart Museum (P070/B8,4).
  11. Deed of Sale, William de Montmollin Marler, n.p. #17571, 20 November, 1891, register Hochelaga-Jacques-Cartier #40225
  12. Justin Bur, Yves Desjardins, Jean-Claude Robert, Bernard Vallée, Joshua Wolfe, Dictionnaire historique du Plateau Mont-Royal (Montreal, Éditions Écosociété, 2017), p 271.
  13. Amelia Josephine Bagg Mulholland, Grand livre, 1891-1927, McCord Museum, Fonds Bagg, P070/B07,1. https://collections.musee-mccord-stewart.ca/en/objects/293626/a-j-mulholland-ledger (accessed April 3, 2023)
Montreal, Quebec

The Bagg Family Dispute, part 1: Stanley Clark Bagg’s Estate

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Written by Janice Hamilton, with research by Justin Bur

Note: there were three generations named Stanley Bagg, so for the sake of brevity I use their initials: SCB for generation two, Stanley Clark Bagg, and RSB for generation three, Robert Stanley Bagg.

   Be careful what you wish for, especially when it comes to writing a will and placing conditions on how your descendants are to use their inheritance. That was a lesson my ancestors learned the hard way.

It took a special piece of provincial legislation in 1875 and what appears to have been a family crisis before these issues were finally resolved many years later. 

The estate at the heart of these problems was that of the late Stanley Clark Bagg (1820-1873), or SCB. He had owned extensive properties on the Island of Montreal. Several adjacent farms, including Mile End Farm and Clark Cottage Farm, stretched from around Sherbrooke Street, along the west side of Saint Lawrence Street (now Saint-Laurent Boulevard), while three other farms extended along the old country road, north to the Rivière des Prairies. SCB had inherited most of this land from his grandfather John Clark (1767-1827).  Although he trained as a notary, SCB did not practise this profession for long, but made a living renting and selling these and other smaller properties.  

This map shows the extent of the late Stanley Clark Bagg’s properties, shaded in beige, in 1875, when an inventory was made of his estate. These properties are overlaid over a modern map of the island of Montreal. At that time, the actual city of Montreal was south of Sherbrooke Street, extending down to the banks of the Saint Lawrence River. The slope of Mount Royal is just west of the SCB estate. Map created by Justin Bur, based on two open data sources: physical geography from CanVec, Natural Resources Canada and modern streets from Geobase, City of Montreal.

At age 52, SCB suddenly died of typhoid. In his will, written in 1866, he named his wife, Catharine Mitcheson Bagg (1822-1914), as the main beneficiary of his estate, to use and enjoy for her lifetime, and then pass it on to their descendants. He also made her an executor, along with his son Robert Stanley Bagg (RSB, 1848-1912). There were two other executors: Montreal notary J.E.O. Labadie and his wife’s brother, Philadelphia lawyer McGregor J. Mitcheson.

But SCB’s estate was large and complicated, and no one was prepared to handle it. RSB had recently graduated in law from McGill and was continuing his studies in Europe at the time of his father’s death. As for Catharine, she became involved in decisions regarding property sales over the years, but she must have felt overwhelmed at first.

Notary J.A. Labadie spent two years doing an inventory of all of SCB’s properties, listing where they were located, their boundaries, and when and from whom they had been acquired, but he did not mention two key documents. One of these was the marriage contract between SCB’s parents, the other was John Clark’s will.

John Clark, a butcher, was born in County Durham, England and came to Montreal around 1797. Bagg family collection.

In the marriage contract, John Clark gave a wedding present to his daughter, Mary Ann Clark (1795-1835), and her husband, Stanley Bagg (1788-1853): a stone house and about 22 acres of land on Saint Lawrence Street. Clark named the property Durham House. But it was not a straight donation; it was a substitution, similar to a trust, to benefit three generations: Mary Ann’s and Stanley’s child (SCB), grandchildren (RSB and his four sisters) and the great-grandchildren. Each intervening generation was to have the use and income from the property, and was responsible for transmitting it to the next generation. That meant SCB could not bequeath it in his will because his children automatically gained possession, and so on, with the final recipients being the great-grandchildren.

In his 1825 will, Clark had made an even more restrictive condition regarding the Mile End Farm. This time the substitution was intended to be perpetual “unto the said Mary Ann Clark and unto her said heirs, issue of her said marriage and to their lawful heirs entailed forever.”

Perhaps Clark imposed these conditions on his descendants for sentimental reasons. Durham House was his daughter’s family home, and Stanley Bagg had probably courted Mary Ann on the Mile End Farm while he was running a tavern there with his father. Or maybe Clark simply believed that these provisions would give the best financial protection to his future descendants. SCB must have thought this was a good idea because his will also included a substitution of three generations.

Clark and SCB did not foresee, however, that the laws regarding inheritances would change. In fact, the provincial government changed the law regarding substitutions a few months after SCB wrote his will. This new law limited substitutions to two generations. Meanwhile, when SCB died in 1873, no one seems to have remembered that the substituted legacies Clark had created even existed. 

Stanley Clark Bagg, Montreal, QC, 1863, William Notman, McCord Stewart Museum #1-5660.1

Real estate sales practices also changed over the years. Clark had written a codicil specifying that any lot sales from the Mile End Lodge property, where he and his wife lived and which he left to her, were subject to a rente constituée. The buyer paid the vendor an amount once a year (usually 6% of the redemption value), but it was like a mortgage that could never be paid off. In the early 1800s this had been a common practice in Quebec, designed to provide funds to the seller’s family members for several generations.

SCB similarly stipulated that nothing on the Durham House property could be sold outright, but only by rente constituée. By the time he died, some of the properties located near the city outskirts were becoming attractive to speculators and to people wanting to build houses or businesses, but the inconvenience of a rente constituée was discouraging sales. It became clear that the executors had to resolve the issue.

They asked the provincial legislature to pass a special law. On February 23, 1875, the legislature assented to “An Act to authorize the Executors of the will of Stanley C. Bagg, Esq., late of the City of Montreal, to sell, exchange, alienate and convey certain Real Estate, charged with substitution in said will, and to invest the proceeds thereof.” (According to the Quebec Official Gazette, this was one of about 100 acts that received royal assent that day after having been passed in the legislative session to incorporate various companies and organizations, approve personal name changes, amend articles in the municipal and civil codes, etc.)

This act allowed the executors of the SCB estate, after obtaining authorization from a judge of the superior court, and in consultation with the curator to the substitution, to sell land outright, provided that the proceeds were reinvested in real estate or mortgages for the benefit of the estate. In other words, the rente constituée was no longer required, and sales previously made by the estate were considered valid.

No more changes were made until 1889, when family members realized that part of SCB’s property actually belonged to his children, and not to his estate, and a family dispute erupted. The story of how they resolved this issue and remained on good terms will be posted soon.

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

Notes and Sources:

I could not have written this article without the help of urban historian Justin Bur. Justin has done a great deal of historical research on the Mile End neighbourhood of Montreal (around Saint-Laurent Blvd. and Mount Royal Ave.) and is a longtime member of the Mile End Memories/Memoire du Mile-End community history group (http://memoire.mile-end.qc.ca/en/). He is one of the authors of Dictionnaire historique du Plateau Mont-Royal (Montreal, Éditions Écosociété, 2017), along with Yves Desjardins, Jean-Claude Robert, Bernard Vallée and Joshua Wolfe. His most recent article about the Bagg family is La famille Bagg et le Mile End, published in Bulletin de la Société d’histoire du Plateau-Mont-Royal, Vol. 18, no. 3, Automne 2023.

Documents referenced:

Mile End Tavern lease, Jonathan Abraham Gray, n.p. no 2874, 17 October 1810

Marriage contract between Stanley Bagg and Mary Ann Clark, N.B. Doucet, n.p. no 6489, 5 August 1819/ reg. Montreal (Ouest) 66032

John Clark will, Henry Griffin, n.p. no 5989, 29 August 1825

Stanley Clark Bagg will, J.A. Labadie, n.p. no 15635, 7 July 1866

Stanley Clark Bagg inventory, J.A. Labadie, n.p. no 16733, 7 June 1875

Quebec legislation: 38 Vict. cap. XCIV, assented to 23 February 1875

See also:

Janice Hamilton, “Stanley Clark Bagg’s Early Years,” Writing Up the Ancestors, Jan. 8, 2020, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2020/01/stanley-clark-baggs-early-years.html

Janice Hamilton, “John Clark, 19th Century Real Estate Visionary,” Writing Up the Ancestors,   May 22, 2019, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2019/05/john-clark-19th-century-real-estate.html

Dundee, Immigration, Montreal, Newspapers, Quebec, Scotland, Verdun

The Trip of a Lifetime

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My father, Edward McHugh, didn’t really talk about his family’s trip of a lifetime. After all, Dad wasn’t even born yet. But it must have been discussed by everyone when he was a boy. In 1911, the first member of the family, Mary Ann McHugh, moved from Dundee, Scotland to Montreal.

At the time, booking agents in the United Kingdom advertised and recruited potential immigrants to Canada. There was an acute need of domestic help and agricultural workers. Between 1890 and 1920, Canada experienced its third wave of immigration and its peak was between 1911 and 1913, just before World War I.1 The following type of advertisement was common in the newspapers.2

Booking agent advertisement

Maybe one of these advertisements gave the McHugh family the idea to emigrate to Canada. Or maybe Mary was ready for an adventure. She was just 21 when she disembarked from the SS Grampian that had left Glasgow on June 24, 1911 and arrived in Quebec City on July 9, 1911.  She would have had a medical exam when she arrived to ensure that she was in good health and did not have an infectious disease. Conditions for immigration to the colonies were well known in the United Kingdom. The February 11, 1911 edition of the Hamilton Observer, in its article, Canadian Notes, People Prohibited, details the reason some potential immigrants could expect to be refused by Canada. The article explains the booking agent’s liability for the immigrants that arrived in Canada for a period of three years following their arrival:

“The following classes of people are prohibited from landing … feeble minded, idiotic, insane, or who have been insane within five years, afflicted with any loathsome, contagious, or infectious disease; anyone who is a pauper, who is destitute, who is a professional beggar or vagrant.”3

All of the members of the McHugh family worked in the jute mills in Dundee. The 1911 census indicates Mary was a jute weaver, which probably meant that she operated a jute weaving machine.4 She lived with her mother, Sarah Jane McLaughlin, and her brothers, Edward and Francis. They lived at 1 Tait Lane, Dundee. Her other brother, Thomas, my grandfather, lived with his wife and seven children at 9 Tait Lane.

The picture below shows the jute weaving machine.5

Mary must have been satisfied with her new life in Montreal, Quebec. Within a year, her mother and her two brothers, along with my grandfather, had followed her to Canada. Six months later, my grandmother, Elsie Orrock, and her seven children joined her husband, Thomas, in Montreal.

The McHughs lived close together in Dundee and they also lived close together in Verdun, Quebec. While I will never know for sure why they decided to emigrate, I can guess that they wanted a life that was not as hard as the one working in the jute mills. There are a few clues that this was not a spur of a moment decision but a planned family decision.

Mary left first and, if it did not suit her to live in Canada, she would have been able to easily return to Dundee. Her mother and brothers were still there. By the time her mother emigrated, along with her three sons, they arrived with $150 CAD, about $4,750 in today’s dollars. Browsing through the passenger lists, I can see that they had a lot more money than many of their fellow passengers. 6 They were not a rich family, so this amount of money would have taken some time to save up.

Coincidentally my grandfather joined the Freemasons in 1910 and achieved a Master Mason diploma and a Mark Mason diploma.7 By that time, he already had six children. He worked long hours in the jute mill, including Saturdays. Why would he join the masons when he was already a very busy man providing for his family, plus taking care of his widowed mother, and his siblings who still lived at home? There is no evidence that he ever joined the masons when he arrived in Canada. I believe that it is possible that he joined the masons to in case he needed the contacts to find employment. As he quickly found work, his busy family life prevented him from pursuing his membership in the masons.

Only one of my grandfather’s siblings stayed in Scotland, Sarah Jane McHugh. She was not living with the other McHughs at the time of the 1911 census. But she remained close to the family. Surprisingly, she travelled to Montreal to be a witness at her brother’s wedding at the Notre Dame Basilica in Montreal on May 8, 1913.8 That would have been quite a trip for Sarah Jane to make.

  1. Wikipedia, Immigration to Canada, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Canada, accessed 27 September 2023.
  2. Irvine Herald and Ayrshire Advertiser (Irvine, Strathclyde, Scotland) · 13 Oct 1911, accessed Newspapers.com, downloaded 24 August 2023.
  3. The Hamilton Advertiser (Hamilton, Strathclyde, Scotland) · 11 Feb 1911, accessed Newspapers.com, downloaded 24 August 2023.
  4. Scotland’s People, National Records of Scotland, 1911 Census, Sarah Jane McHugh, downloaded 23 June 2019.
  5. V&A Dundee Design Museum, Women’s Day tweet, 6 March 2020.
  6. Passengers lists for S.S. Grampian arriving in Port of Quebec, May 21, 1912, Library and Archives Canada, https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/immigration/immigration-records/passenger-lists/passenger-lists-1865-1922/Pages/image.aspx?Image=e003578022&URLjpg=http%3a%2f%2fcentral.bac-lac.gc.ca%2f.item%2f%3fid%3de003578022%26op%3dimg%26app%3dpassengerlist&Ecopy=e003578022, accessed February 3, 2022.
  7. Thomas McHugh, registration of the Grand Lodge of Scotland, dated 25 August 1910.
  8. Registration of marriage of Francis McHugh and Helen Smith, 8 May 1913, downloaded 6 January 2022.
genealogy, Montreal

Peacocks and Cherubim: My Mysterious Aunt Cecile

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My Aunts Flo and Cecile, circa 1930, in what I assume are bathing suits maybe at Old Orchard Beach Maine where the family vacationed.

It was 1962 or so and my mom, twin brother and I had taken a bus from Old Orchard Beach to Ogunquit, Maine to visit my Aunt Cecile, who was on vacation at the same time as us.

As my brother and I crawled over the jagged and slippery shoreline in front of her hotel we openly wondered why anyone in their right mind would want to vacation in this spot. It was all rocks!

Well, much time has passed and my husband and I love to spend time at picturesque Perkin’s Cove on our short trips to Maine in the spring or fall.

On one such weekend visit, I recall the owners of our b-n-b telling us about pre-WWII Ogunquit: it had once been a bohemian artist’s colony with open air classes and nude models posing on the Marginal Way.

An artist’s colony! Now that explains it. My Aunt Cecile was an artist and a good one at that – but a bohemian, never! I remember her only as sober and serious – and seriously pious. Children were a foreign country to her and her main ambition with regards to me was to convert me to Roman Catholicism.

Marie-Catherine Cecile Crepeau was born in Montreal 1909 to Jules Crepeau and Maria Roy, my grandparents. She had an older brother and sister, Louis and Alice and in 1914 or so another girl her age, Florida, was plucked off the scruffy streets of south central Montreal and brought into the family fold. My mother would appear much later in 1921.

Cecile contracted scarlet fever as a child and suffered severe heart damage. According to her sisters, she was ‘babied’ for most of her childhood, not asked to do very much.

So, it seems she learned to paint.

This battered canvas of young Flo is the only one of Cecile’s that I own. It was painted in 1927 when both Cecile and Flo were 18. It is pretty accomplished for so young an artist, I think.

Indeed, in a few years later Cecile would be accepted into the Beaux-Arts in Montreal (perhaps using this portrait in a portfolio) and she would win the first prize for oil painting (considered very much a male domain) in 1937.

I have the medal somewhere and I found this tidbit from a tabloid called “L’illustre” describing the 1937 Beaux-Art exhibition: “Although the Hall of Paintings has little that is very striking, Therese Boucher’s “Reclining Man’ is vigorously treated. Among the angels, Cecile Crepeau’s is most alluring, in large part because of the curious golden tonality of the ensemble. Her study of a face, placed to the right of the entrance, has life and sincerity, despite some weaknesses. Her blue vase beside a pewter bowl also merits a mention. The female nudes are unimpressive.”

The angel picture I remember well. It loomed over Cecile’s living room and, yes, it was very golden. Another tall tall wall hanging I remember was an oil painting of a statue of St John the Baptist holding his own very hairy head.

I don’t recall the still life mentioned in the newspaper article, but I wish she had put some pretty vases behind Aunt Flo in my painting. It seems unfinished somehow.

The gorgeous and heavy ‘gold’ medal. I wish

My aunt was ‘a perfectionist’ (who suffered migraines for it) said my mother, which might account for why she created so few completed canvases..

Again, according to my mother, a teacher at the Beaux-Arts told her she had the technique but to be a superior artist but she had to ‘live a little.” (I wonder if the teacher was hitting on her.)

In the 1940’s, Cecile is listed in Lovell’s Directory as “housekeeper’ at my widowed grandmother’s Oxford Avenue flat. My mother is working as a stenographer at RKO Motion Pictures just down the street and my Aunt Flo as a greeter at Henry Morgan’s department store downtown. They are providing the financial support. My grandfather, former Director of City Services, had died under mysterious circumstances in 1938.

My brother and aunts in Cecile’s garden on Beaconsfield Avenue. It was lined with statuesque poplars and showcased an ornate wrought iron and marble birdbath! 1956 or so.

In 1951 my grandmother passed away. My mother had already married and moved a short distance way. Flo, too, would soon marry, leaving Cecile to figure out what to do with the rest of her life.

The story goes Cecile tried to became a nun but was turned down ‘due to her bad heart.’ Instead, she married a friend’s father, Amedee Buteau, a retired professor almost 30 years her senior. 1They would take a lower duplex apartment in NDG, filling it with my grandparents’ elegant furnishings. It was a marriage of convenience, no doubt, but it worked.

In the 1960’s, I just loved visiting Cecile’s home. Unlike our dingy and unadorned upper duplex apartment not far away, Cecile’s home was spic-n-span, every surface polished to a high sheen. There was no TV blaring Bonanza or Star Trek, just a giant grandfather clock solemnly marking each quarter hour with a click and a ping. The place felt like a museum with all the curio cabinets filled with so many intriguing things.

1955, My mom with her sisters.

And mixed in with the fin-de-siecle family treasures were her many multi-media artworks: sculptures, ceramics, watercolours. There were quite a few confusing (to me) religious subjects like bleeding hearts but also some adorable cherubim and many nature studies especially of flowers, birds and butterflies. Indeed, Cecile painted an immense peacock in full display on a wooden blind on the wall behind her bed. The tension between Eros and Thanatos in her beautiful Beaconsfield Avenue abode was quite evident to me, even as a child.

My mother had a very choppy relationship with her sister Cecile so even though we lived but a short bus ride away we didn’t visit her that often. – and I don’t recall her ever visiting us. Cecile’s hair went from red to grey between 1960’s visits I recall.

On at least one occasion I was sent on a sleepover. My aunt was awkward with me and I was determined not to like her, probably picking up on my mom’s vibes. It didn’t help that Cecile brought me to a scary Latin mass at Notre Dame Cathedral, pinning a silly handkerchief to the top of my head. Unfortunately, she did no art with me. Too messy I guess. Too bad as she was a wizard with pastels.

Cecile passed away in 1974 a year or two before her aged spouse. She was 65. My mother sobbed with grief at her passing. “You were always fighting with her,” I recall saying to my mom. “So why are you crying so much?” How naive of me.

All of the family heirlooms fell into the hands of ‘strangers’ upsetting my mother, but one lost canvas pained her in particular. “It was Cecile’s best painting,” she said, “of Alice putting a flower in Florida’s hair before a dance.”

Classic! I can hardly blame my mother for coveting that particular oil painting, one that involved all of her sisters: I wonder who owns it now.

  1. Mon Oncle Amedee was so comically vague in his dotage, seated in his armchair snoozing away with an upside down Le Devoir newspaper folded onto his lap, we children assumed he was expert in some airy-fairy field like ancient philosophy. But, no, quite the opposite. A short search on the Web reveals that in the 1920’s Amadee was a civil engineer, Dean of a Technical College and expert in technical education giving lectures, meeting with policy makers, even writing a book.

British Columbia, Iceland, Montreal, Quebec, WWII

Ralph Dodds, Signalman, Royal Canadian Navy

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My aunt, Sarah Jane McHugh, was delighted to host the linen shower to celebrate her daughter, Dawna Day’s upcoming marriage to Ralph Dodds. The happy couple announced their engagement in October 1947. Ralph had recently been discharged after serving in the Royal Canadian Navy for over six years.  The couple’s wedding would take place in Vancouver, Ralph’s home town. Dawna was from Montreal.

Ralph was just 20 when he started his navy career in Esquimalt, British Columbia in 1939.1 With the advent of World War II, the Esquimalt Navy base became the largest naval training center in western Canada. 2 Ralph Dodds trained to become a signalman would have learned all aspects of military communications in the Canadian Navy. He would have used semaphore flags, read and transmitted morse code messages, and assured radio communications.3 During his training, Ralph would not have predicted that he would participate in the sinking of a German U-boat during the Battle of the Atlantic, that he would be on a destroyer that participated in a sea fight on D-Day, or that the destroyer he was on would be shipwrecked off the coast of Iceland.

King George VI presents the King’s Colours to the Royal Canadian Navy at Beacon Hill Park, Victoria, 1939. Photo: CFB Esquimalt Naval and Military Museum collection

While Ralph was assigned to a naval station, and to a corvette (small destroyer), for most of his naval career, he was assigned to the HMCS Skeena.

HMCS Skeena, D59, Government of Canada website, Ships’ histories

The HMCS Skeena was commissioned in 1931 in Portsmouth, U.K. and was one of the first two ships built to Canadian order. With the outbreak of the war, the Skeena initially performed domestic escort duties. In May 1940, she was sent to Plymouth, U.K. and became part of the Western Approaches Command, taking part in the evacuation of France and escorting convoys in British waters. She was later assigned to continuous convoy duty.

During one of its escort duties in the Atlantic, the Skeena destroyed U-boat U-588. This happened during ON-115 (ON means Outbound to North America).  There were twelve escort ships for a trade convoy of 43 merchant ships that left Liverpool on July 12, 1942. On July 29, seven U-boats of the Wolfpack Wolf had spotted them. This Wolfpack was quickly joined by another six U-boats of the Wolfpack Pirat. The Wolf Pack tactic, or the “Rudeltaktik,” was devised to attack the Allied convoy system by forming into position effecting a massed organized attack.4 This particular battle resulted in the loss of three of the ships in the convoy and significant damage to two of the ships in the convoy. One of the damaged ships returned to the U.K. and one was escorted to St. John’s, Newfoundland. The Skeena, on which Ralph was a signalman, and the HMCS Wetaskiwin, an escort corvette, destroyed U-boat 588 with depth charges (antisubmarine missiles) on July 31. The hostilities lasted until August 3 when the U-boats lost contact with the convoy due to misty weather. The convoy with the remaining ships reached Boston on August 8, 1942.5

The sinking of American freighters, Edward Rutledge, Tasker H. Bliss and Hugh L. Scott at Fedala Roads, November 12, 1942
Commodore Leonard Murray congratulating the ship’s companies of HMCS Skeena and HMCS Wetaskiwin for sinking the German submarine U-588 on 31 July 1942. St. John’s, Newfoundland, Aug. 4, 1942. (NAC PA-115347)

The Skeena also participated in a hot sea fight in the Channel on D-Day. The Skeena’s assignment was to prevent enemy U-boats from attacking Allied ships while the Invasion of France was being carried out.

“Torpedoes were shooting about in the Channel and missed the Skeena by only a matter of feet,” said Ralph in an interview he gave to the Vancouver Sun.

The destroyer also had to contend with German Dorniers (bombers) that were bombing the destroyers in the Channel. One of the aerial missiles fell so close to the Skeena that shrapnel was later found on the deck.6

Ships and blimps sit off the coast of France on D-Day, June 6, 1944. War Footage From the George Stevens Collection at the Library of Congress

After five years of war, the HMCS Skeena met her end as she sheltered from a violent gale with 15-metre waves off the coast of Iceland, at Videy Island on October 24, 1944. Even though the crew had thrown out a second anchor to secure the ship, the Skeena smashed into the rocks. When the crew abandoned ship, the men were unable to hold the lines. Some crew members were smashed into the rocks, while others were tossed into the sea. Fifteen sailors died.7 Ralph Dodds survived.

HMCS Skeena aground on Videy Island. (Image Source: http://www.forposterityssake.ca/Navy/HMCS_SKEENA_D59.htm#Photos)
  1. Vancouver Sun, D-Day Fight in Channel Recalled by B.C. Sailor, 13 December 1944.
  2. Vance, Emily. Capital Daily, How Canada’s Pacific Fleet Shaped Greater Victoria Over Two Centuries, 1 May 2021, https://www.capitaldaily.ca/news/canadas-pacific-fleet-greater-victoria-two-centuries, accessed 24 July 2023.
  3. Wikipedia, Signaller, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signaller, accessed 24 July 2023.
  4. Uboataces, German U-Boat, U-Boat Tactics, The Wolf Pack, http://www.uboataces.com/tactics-wolfpack.shtml, accessed 31 July 2023.
  5. Wikipedia, Convoy ON115, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convoy_ON_115, accessed 26 July 2023.
  6. Vancouver Sun, D-Day Fight in Channel Recalled by B.C. Sailor, 13 December 1944.
  7. Military History Now, HMCS Skeena – Meet One of the Toughest Warships of the Battle of the Atlantic, 12 November 2020, https://militaryhistorynow.com/2020/11/12/hmcs-skeena-meet-one-of-the-toughest-warships-of-the-battle-of-the-atlantic/, accessed 2 August 2023.
genealogy, Montreal, Quebec

The Life and Times of Great-Aunt Amelia

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My mother used to tell me that Amelia Norton was her favourite of her four great-aunts on her mother’s side of the family. From what I have learned about Amelia’s life, it appears she was indeed a kind and generous person.

Amelia Josephine Bagg was born in Montreal in 1852. Her father, Stanley Clark Bagg, was a wealthy landowner in Montreal, so Amelia had a privileged upbringing that included a year-long tour of Europe with the whole family in 1868-69, when she was 16.

After her father died in 1873, her brother, Robert Stanley Bagg, took over management of their late father’s real estate, renting out some properties and selling others. Amelia had a strong interest in the Bagg family real estate business, helping to keep the records of sales, and she also owned property in her own name.

Mr. and Mrs. Mulholland. 1891. Wm. Notman and Son, McCord-Stewart Museum, II-95084 1.

Amelia lived with her mother, Catharine Mitcheson Bagg, until she married at age 38. The wedding took place on Dec. 18, 1890 at Christ Church, Montreal’s largest Anglican church. Her husband was Joseph Mulholland, the eldest son of hardware merchant Henry Mulholland and his wife, Ann Workman. Born in Montreal in 1840, Joseph had a twin who died as an infant. Joseph is connected to me in two ways: in addition to being married to Amelia, his sister Jane Mulholland (1847-1938) and her husband, Montreal banker John Murray Smith (1838-1894), were my great-grandparents on my mother’s father’s side.

As a young man, Joseph had worked in the hardware business. Now, as Amelia’s husband, he started a new career in real estate. In 1891, he and his brother-in-law collaborated in a business venture: Joseph and John purchased a vacant piece of land from Robert Stanley Bagg on Saint Charles Borromée Street (now renamed Clark Street) near Pine Avenue and built a row of attached house there.1 The building, designed by architect Eric Mann, survives to this day.

Amelia was known as a talented amateur artist. This watercolour painting of the Montreal waterfront belongs to one of the Bagg family descendants.

Joseph died, age 57, in 1897. Five years later, Amelia married again, this time to Reverend John George Norton, Archdeacon of Montreal.It was a relatively small wedding with only family members and a few close friends present.2 John was born in Ireland in 1840 and he was educated there. He moved to Montreal in 1884 with his wife and two children. His wife died five years later.

As the wife of one of the leading clerics in Montreal’s English-speaking community, Amelia took on a new role, especially in church charities. According to a biography of Archdeacon Norton in The Storied Province of Quebec, “Mrs. Norton is a lady of culture and refinement. Mrs. Norton was a valued ally and helpmate in all the parochial work of the church.”3

At that time, governments gave little funding to health care or social services, so benevolent societies played an essential role in society. As president of the Women’s Auxiliary of Christ Church Cathedral for many years, Amelia was especially interested in its missionary work.4 In addition, her name appeared regularly in lists of donors to various charities published in the local newspapers.

This memorial to Amelia is in Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal. Photo by Genevieve Rosseel.

The couple lived in the church rectory for many years and after John retired, they moved into their own house on McTavish Street, near McGill University. When the Venerable John George Norton, Rector Emeritus and Archdeacon of Montreal John died in 1924 at the age of 84, many people attended his funeral service at Christ Church, where he had officiated for 37 years.

Meanwhile, Amelia seems to have been the go-to person when family members needed help. After Amelia’s Aunt Fanny (Mitcheson) Hague was widowed in 1915, Fanny came to live with the Nortons and remained there until she died in 1919.

My grandparents also went to Amelia for help. They had built a new house just before the Depression hit and my grandfather lost his job. Amelia helped to support the family until my grandfather found a new job after the Depression.

Amelia died in 1943, at age 91, at home on McTavish Street, following a long illness. She is buried with her first husband in the Mulholland-Workman family plot in Montreal’s Mount Royal Cemetery.

Sources

  1. Le Prix Courant: le journal de commerce, 10 Avril 1891, p 13, https://numerique.banq.qc.ca, entry for John Murray Smith, https://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/2746357?docsearchtext=%22John%20Murray%20Smith%22, accessed June 18, 2023.
  • 2. “Marriage at the Cathedral”, The Gazette, 25 June, 1902, p. 6, Newspapers.com, accessed June 18, 2023.
  • 3. William Wood, editor, The Storied Province of Quebec, Past and Present, Dominion Publishing Company, 1931, vol. 3, p. 118.
  • 4.  “Obituary: Mrs. J. Norton, 91, Dies at Home Here,” The Gazette, April 13, 1943, p. 14, Newspapers.com, entry for Amelia Norton, accessed June 20. 2023.

5.    Mount Royal Cemetery, section F200-c

See also

Frank Dawson Adams, A History of Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal, Montreal: Burton’s Limited, 1941, https://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/2561503

Janice Hamilton, “Continental Notes for Public Circulation”, April 8, 2020, Writing Up the Ancestors, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2020/04/continental-notes-for-public-circulation.html

Janice Hamilton, “Aunt Amelia’s Ledger”, April 26, 2023, Writing Up the Ancestors,          https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2023/04/aunt-amelias-ledger.html

Janice Hamilton, “Henry Mulholland, Montreal Hardware Merchant”, March 17, 2016, Writing Up the Ancestors, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2016/03/henry-mulholland-montreal-hardware.html

Janice Hamilton, “The World of Mrs. Murray Smith”, Feb.24, 2016, Writing Up the Ancestors, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2016/02/the-small-world-of-mrs-murray-smith.html

Janice Hamilton, “Never Too Late for Love,” April 4, 2014.  Writing Up the Ancestors, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2014/04/never-too-late-for-love.html

This article is also posted on the family history blog Writing Up the Ancestors.