Genealogy

The Life of a Church

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St. Andrews United Church Westmount, Quebec 

The night St. Andrews United Church, Westmount was razed by fire in 1965, I was thirteen. The whole sanctuary gone. Stained glass windows, memorials to many, melted, the organ burned and the small tower toppled. Charred red bricks littered Staunton Street. Only the tall tower and walls remained of the 57-year-old church.

Montreal Star Aug 4, 1965

This devastating fire occurred, even though the church sat just across the street from the Westmount fire station. The caretaker lived in the back of the building and when he smelled smoke in the afternoon, he went across the street to the fire station. The firemen looked through the whole church without finding anything amiss. They closed the fire doors to the Sunday School and left. Around midnight the church was engulfed in flames and all the firemen in the city couldn’t save the building. It was determined that the fire started in the basement under the sanctuary and hidden there, smouldered for hours. The minister, Reverend D.M. Grant holidaying in Nova Scotia was awakened with a telegram saying his church was burning.

My family was not some of the early Westmount Presbyterians who worshiped in the Mission School from 1869 until 1886. They weren’t even members when a small frame church, Melville Presbyterian, was built on the corner of Cote St Antoine and Stanton St.

Church with an addition

According to the booklets written for the Church’s golden and diamond Jubilees, St Andrew’s Church in Westmount was formally founded in 1900. “A difference of opinion caused the division of the members. One group retained the name of Melville Presbyterian Church and moved to Melville Ave where they built a new church. The other group, retained the present church site and became St Andrew’s Church.” In the newspapers of the day I found the reason for the split, alcohol consumption! When Rev. T. W. Winfield was hired, “a promise was extracted from the Reverend gentleman that he would refrain from intoxicating liquors while pastor of Melville Church.” Some members accused him of breaking that promise. The minority moved with the Minister and took the Melville name while the majority stayed in the building and chose the new name St Andrews Presbyterian. 

This congregation continued to grow, so in 1908 the red brick church was built. The large sanctuary, surrounded on three sides with balconies held 1100 worshipers. There was a rose window over the front doors and many other stained glass windows on the side walls. It was one of the Presbyterian churches that united with the Methodists and the Congregationalists in 1925 and became St. Andrews United Church.

St Andrew’s Church 1908-1965

I spent many hours in St Andrews Church growing up, as did my father. My grandparents joined the church when they moved from Chomedy Street to Grosvenor Ave in 1912. My grandfather, William Sutherland was a church elder and later so were both my parents. My grandmother Minnie Eagle Sutherland was very involved in church life being president of the Women’s Missionary Society and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. My mother taught Sunday School and was the head of the Primary department for many years.

Church Interior photo by Alfred Peter Jorbes

We went to Church and Sunday School every week and won prizes for attendance. It was a church of many staircases. The hall behind the church had three sets and before and after church children would run around, up and down the stairs and through the halls. A back staircase off the kindergarten room led down to the basement. It was dark and gloomy and we would only venture down a few stairs before running somewhere else.

I remember Christmas pageants with Roman soldiers in costumes, clanking down the aisle with swords, helmets and leather skirts. I so admired the angels in their light blue satin dresses with wings that I wished I could be one. I was promised I could be an angel the next time they had a pageant but before that happened, the church burned including all the costumes stored in the basement.

After the fire, the Church was rebuilt although with some controversy and another split. Some of the congregation left because they thought the million-dollar insurance money should be put to better use than having three underused United Churches in Westmount. They were out-voted and the new modern church opened in October 1967. It only held 500 people.

The rebuilt Church 1967

The congregation continued to age, fewer young families joined and people such as myself attended irregularly. St Andrews and Dominion Douglas United, amalgamated in 1985. The committee discussed which church to keep. Dominion Douglas, an old stone church on The Boulevard became the new home with the St Andrew’s congregation moving up the hill. Selwyn House School, across the street, bought St. Andrews. for their expansion. The chapel, including stain glass windows was deconstructed and rebuilt in the Dominion Douglas basement. In 2004 Erskine American United Church, on Sherbrooke Street joined St. Andrews-Dominion Douglas and another name was needed. The congregation became Mountainside United Church.

In less than twenty years Mountainside United Church became impossible to maintain and heat with a diminishing congregation. That building was sold to a developer and the congregation moved to the Birks Chapel on the McGill Campus. I have not attended a service there.

References:

Church Fire: The Montreal Star; Aug 4, 1965 page 3. Downloaded from newspapers.com Dec 29, 2022.

Westmount Mayor Praises Firemen: Montreal Star; August 10, 1965 page 6. Accessed from Newspapers.comDecember 29, 2022

Rising from its Ashes: Montreal Star; June 3, 1967 page 58 Accessed from Newspapers.com December 29, 2022.

Melville Church Difficulty: Montreal Gazette; 28, March 1900 page 10. Accesses from Newspaper.com January 25, 2023.

Date of Separation: Montreal Star; 12 May 1900 page 10. Accessed from Newspapers.com January 26, 2023.

Melville Presbyterian Church: https://cac.mcgill.ca/maxwells/details.php?recordCount=165&Page=4&id=155&pn=&cn=All&pr=All&ct=All&str=&mj=All&mn=All&sta=Built

St Andrew,s Church Golden Jubilee Celebration Bulletin November 5th to 12th 1950. IN the hands of the author.

Our Heritage St Andrew’s Church Diamond Jubilee 1900-1960 booklet. In the hands of the author.

Notes:

The back annex which housed the Sunday school was saved by the fire doors. Books and papers recovered from the Sunday school were stored in our basement for a time but they continued to smell of smoke and were later discarded. The manse next door was also saved but torn down for the new church. 

After the church fire may local churches and synagogues offered the congregation space to worship including Melville Presbyterian Church. I went to confirmation classes at Melville but we had Sunday services in the auditorium of Westmount High School.

Melville Presbyterian Church was built on Elgin Avenue later changed to Melville Avenue, facing Westmount Park. It is now Holy Trinity Serbian Orthodox Church. After the founding of the United Church in 1925, Melville Presbyterian Church amalgamated with Westmount Methodist to form Westmount Park-Melville United Church. The combined congregation worshipped in the Melville Church building for two years, until it was sold [back] to former members who remained with the Presbyterian Church. Victoria Hall served as a temporary site while the new Westmount Park-Melville Church, which is now known as the Westmount Park United Church was built on the western edge of Westmount Park.

Genealogy

The Liverpool Lad

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In my last story, https://genealogyensemble.com/2023/06/07/harrys-story/ I wrote about Harry Jolliffe and his trials and tribulations in a Prisoner of War Camp in Japan.

Relating this to my husband, John, he mentioned a memory of his maternal Uncle Ben and his Uncles’ time as a POW in Japan.

It was all second-hand because Benjamin Ronald Hughes died the year my husband was born, in 1948. However, John did have stories from his Mum, about her brother. According to her Uncle Ben suffered terribly during his 3 years as a prisoner.

Ben was born on the 27th of March 1910 the only boy in the family of six in the Toxteth area of Liverpool, Lancashire. His occupation was a messenger. That could have been for the Post Office delivering telegrams or perhaps riding a bicycle delivering groceries and goods.

When Uncle Ben was 15 years old, he joined the Royal Navy as a second-class boy entrant. When he reached 18 years old, in 1929 he was by then a Boy First Class and volunteered again, as an adult Able Seaman, and was posted to HMS Egmont II on 25 September 1931.

During his service, Uncle Ben served on 15 various Royal Navy ships. War was declared on the 1st of September 1939. On the 1st of March 1942, after three years of fighting, Uncle Ben was reported missing to his family. He was listed as a prisoner of war, by the Japanese. When captured and according to his Japanese POW file below, he was on HMS Encounter which had picked up allies from Malaysia and was scuttled (sunk) by her own crew, after being damaged by gunfire from heavy Japanese heavy cruisers in the Java Sea. (1)

Whilst researching I managed to find Ben’s Japanese POW information. There was not much on it, and I don’t read Japanese. I wanted to find the name of his camp and what he would have laboured at.

Eventually, I found that he was a POW in Fukuoka- Camp 26 prisoner number 51. The link (2) lists all the prisoners with information on nationality, name, age, and home address. it does make for interesting reading. There were British, Australian and two Dutch prisoners. The servicemen listed were Royal Navy and Army. ALL the men apart from eleven who had obvious illnesses, were listed as ‘Healthy’. The camp prisoners were used for labour in mines in this particular area of Japan.

The first pages of prisoners’ information.

At the war’s end, in 945, Uncle Ben was in the Royal Naval Hospital Chatham, in Kent. It states on his Service Record that he was Invalided out of the Royal Navy from RN Hospital Chatham on the 7th of August 1946. He would have spent time recovering from his terrible experiences.

He was granted a war gratuity and a medal. Later, on the 25th of January 1946. Benjamin Ronald Hughes is ‘Mentioned in Dispatches in the London Gazette. It reads as follows.

“Able Seaman. Benjamin Ronald HUGHES, C/J. 114923.
For bravery, endurance and marked devotion to duty whilst serving in H.M> ships Kuda, Isis, Scorpion and Sultan and H.M. M. MXS, 310 and 1062 during the withdrawal of troops from Sungai Punggor and in the harassing of the advancing Japanese in Malay, December 1941 – January 1942“.

My mother-in-law told her son John, that when Uncle Ben returned to his home in Liverpool he was a wreck. Emaciated, haunted, ill and looking twice his age. He was 36 years old. Uncle Ben did not live long to enjoy life and died in 1948 at the age of 38. Because of his young age, a Post Mortem was performed and he was found to have died of bacterial endocarditis. RIP Uncle Ben.

This ‘Ghost’ photo of Ben with his wife, Jessie, is the only photo we have.

(1) https://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/4378.html

(2) http://www.mansell.com/pow_resources/camplists/fukuoka/fuk_26_keisen/FUK-26_Rosters_1946-02-16.pdf

NOTES

Keisen Yoshikuma Coal Mine Branch Camp (Fukuoka 26-B) Established as Fukuoka No.26 Branch Camp at Yoshikuma Coal Mine in Keisen-cho, Kaho-gun, Fukuoka Prefecture on May 10, 1945.

The POWs were used for mine labour by Aso Mining Company. The son and heir Taro Aso was a past President of Japan in 2008 and the controversy surrounding his family’s use of Korean and Allied POW labour clouded his term of office.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aso_Mining_forced_labor_controversy

During the “White Rice Period”, lasting from January to October 1942, Allied prisoners were granted a maximum of ten ounces of rice per day, in addition to two ounces of rancid pork and four ounces of fish monthly. This official figure was often larger than that provided, with theft by Japanese soldiers, themselves suffering from starvation towards the latter days of the war, commonplace within the camps. Red Cross parcels, containing necessary essentials, were accepted by the Japanese authorities, but rather than being redistributed among the prisoners were kept by the Japanese soldiers themselves.

https://historycollection.com/20-horrific-details-about-japanese-pow-camps-during-world-war-ii/

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.
England, Genealogy, Loyalists, New Brunswick

William Hanington comes to Canada in 1785

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… and now his church celebrates its 200th Anniversary in 2023

(upcoming celebration details below)

The deed described the property as “a commodious estate upon the outskirts of the thriving town of Halifax, in the Colony of Nova Scotia, Canada”. Imagine William’s surprise to arrive in Halifax in February to discover that “outskirts” meant a 200-mile hike through thick forest and deep snow!

My great-great-great grandfather, William Hanington, was born in London, England, in 1759. As the son of a fish dealer, he trained as an apprentice to the Fishmonger’s Company but became a freeman in 1782. Two years later, at the age of 25, this adventurous young man paid £500 sterling for 5,000 acres of land “near” Halifax, Nova Scotia, from Captain Joseph Williams.

After the initial shock upon their arrival, William and his companion found an Indian guide, loaded all their worldly belongings onto a hand sled, trudged through the snow, slept in the open and finally arrived in bitterly cold Shediac in March 1785. His discouraged companion quickly returned to Halifax and sailed back to England on the first available ship!

Large Lower left piece of land belonged to William Hanington 1785

William, however, was obviously made of sturdier stuff and delighted by what he found! A good size stream flowed into the bay and he had never seen such giant trees! He must have pictured the lucrative possibilities for trade in lumber, fish, furs and more.

Seven years after his arrival in Shediac, at the age of 33, he hired a couple of Indian guides to paddle a canoe over to Ile St. Jean (now known as Prince Edward Island) where there were other English settlers. The Darbys were Loyalist sympathizers who escaped from the rebels in New York. While riding along in an oxcart through St. Eleanor’s (now known as Summerside), he spotted a young lady (age 18) named Mary Darby, drawing water in her father’s yard. After a brief stay with her family, William and Mary married and paddled back to Shediac where they eventually raised a large family of 13 children.

After the first three years together, they persuaded Mary’s sister Elizabeth and her husband John Welling to come over from Ile St. Jean and settle on their land – becoming the second English family in Shediac.

And in the next five years, William boasted eight families on his property of about one hundred acres of cleared land. He opened a general store and dealt in fish, fur and lumber. The furs and timber were shipped to England and the fish to Halifax and the West Indies! He imported English goods from Halifax and West Indies products – mainly sugar, molasses and rum from St. Pierre. He also bartered with the friendly Indians for furs and helped them clear land.

Before long, a considerable village clustered about the Hanington Store – including a post office and a tavern. William remained the leading figure of the community and acted as the Collector of Customs of the Port, Supervisor of Roads and Magistrate enabling him to officiate over the marriages of many couples. To top it all off, in 1800, just 15 years after his arrival from England, this remarkable young man built a shipyard 10 miles north of Shediac in Cocagne.

The only thing lacking in this delightful little community was a church. Until then, William being a religious man, conducted service in his home every Sunday and welcomed all to attend. Then in 1823, William donated the necessary land and lumber and oversaw the completion of St. Martin-in-the-Woods, the first Protestant church. He named it after his church in England; the famous St. Martin-in-the-Fields overlooking Trafalgar Square in London.

Painting of

St Martin-in-the-Woods Church

by Charles Kelsey

In 1934, my grandfather Canon Sydenham Lindsay (Shediac summer resident at Iona Cottage – She Owned A Cottage – with his wife Millicent Hanington and sometimes stand-in priest at the church) dedicated a large memorial stain glass window in the sanctuary to his father-in-law, Dr. James Peters Hanington (1846-1927) who was my great-grandfather and William’s grandson. The window was designed and installed by Charles W. Kelsey of Montreal and described as follows:

“The centre light of the window represents the Crucifixion, with Mary Magdalene at the foot of the cross, while the two side windows represent the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint John the Evangelist.” (1934 – The Montreal Gazette)

Stain Glass Window in St Martin-in-the-Woods (photo credit Paul Almond)

Also mounted inside on the church’s side walls are two honourary brass plaques. One in memory of William and his wife and one in memory of his son Hon. Daniel Hanington (1804-1889) and his wife Margaret Ann Peters – my great great grandparents.

William died in 1838 at age 79. A huge memorial of native freestone marked his grave, in the cemetery beside his beloved church nestled in the community of Shediac, where he spent a lifetime building a “commodious estate” from a forest of giant trees.

Two hundred years later on this anniversary of the St. Martin-in-the-Woods church, William and Mary are lovingly encircled by the graves of several generations of their descendants.

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A memorial plaque to William and his wife Mary, was erected in 2001 by the Hanington Reunion Association. This year the Association will be adding a bench in the cemetery in celebration of the 200 years.

Close-up of the Headstone of William Hanington (1759-1838)

(L)Hanington Reunion Association Plaque (2001) honouring William Hanington and his wife Mary Darby and (R) photo by Scotty Horsman showing William’s large headstone at the side of the church.

In 2015, my sister and I visited the church and our ancestors in the graveyard and also enjoyed meeting some Hanington cousins as well!

Read our story here: Sister Pilgrimage

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ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION DETAILS FOR SEPT 16-17, 2023:

The main events for the 200th Anniversary will be Sept. 16th and 17th with a corn boil, hotdog/hamburger barbecue and cake on Saturday, Sept. 16th. There will also be games, a bonfire, fireworks and music at the church shore.

The Anglican Bishop, David Edwards, of Fredericton will be attending this celebration. He will also be at the 10:30 AM church service on Sunday, Sept. 17th. After the church service there will be a pot luck lunch and a skit in the hall. There will also be items on display in thechurch basement and in the hall. There will be items for sale – glasses, mugs and lapel pins, with the Hanington crest as well as lapel pins. ornaments and trivets with the church on them.

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If anyone would like a PDF copy of Lilian Hamilton’s famous Hanington genealogy family tree book from 1988, please email me at anglinlucy@gmail.com

My cousin was kind enough to take the time to copy the book into PDF so that everyone can have a digital copy.

My Hanington number is 6-9-7-3-4 if anyone wants to know who I am!

Genealogy

Quebec and Acadia Prior to New France

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Grand Pré

The Memorial Church of Grand Pré located in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia in the Grand Pré National Historic Site, a park commemorating the deportation of the Acadians between 1755 and 1763 . (Photo taken on: June 21, 2008.)© Verena Matthew/Dreamstime

Introduction:

“Renowned historian Marcel Trudel in one of his many books described the above time period as; The Failed Attempts of the French Colonies of Canada prior to New France.

 Among the many authors, historians, archivists selected, few agree that the period of time prior to Samuel de Champlain in both Acadia and Quebec, the administrators, governors appointed by the kings of France in comparison to those appointed by various kings of England who administered the New England British Colonies were no match to those residing in Boston, Massachusetts.

Many historians are also in agreement that New France needed more individuals of the high calibre of Jean Talon who served as intendant (administrator) of the French colony from 1665 to 1668 and 1670 to 1672.

 Still the colony survived until September of 1759 at the Plains of Abraham.”

 By Jacques Gagné

Download

https://genealogyensemble.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/quebec-prior-to-new-france-4.pdf

Click on the above link to open the pdf file.

Genealogy

Unto Death Do Us Part

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No one knows how their lives will take shape over the years. Little did my fourth great-grandfather, Joseph Antoine Gauthier dit Landreville know the path that lay before him. Joseph Antoine was one of 9 children, born in the midst of winter, February 20, 1731 to Jean Gauthier dit Landreville and Therese Moreau dite Latopine in Varennes, a village west of Ville Marie ( Montreal) on the banks of the St. Lawrence River

Baptism of Joseph Antoine Gauthier

Map of the area including Varennes and L’Assomption

“In 1647, the L’Assomption Seignory was granted to Pierre Legardeur de Repentigny, named after the river, already named such since the seventeenth century. Between 1640 and 1700, a settlement formed inside a large horseshoe-shaped meander of the L’Assomption River. Amerindians had already been visiting this site since ancient times and called it Outaragasipi meaning widening river, in reference to the river’s course. They would drag their canoes across the peninsula as a short-cut for the meander, and therefore the settlement was first called Le Portage.

In 1717, the parish was formed, known thereafter as Saint-Pierre-du-Portage-de-l’Assomption and also as Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul-du-Portage. In 1766, the village saw an influx of Acadian settlers. Between 1774 and 1888, L’Assomption was the most prosperous and important town between Montreal and Trois-Rivieres. 3.”

When Joseph Antoine was almost 25 years old on the 12th of January 1756, in L’Assomption he married a young 23-year-old widow, Agathe Laperche dit Saint Jean, along with her young daughter, Marie. The young couple had 2 sons, Joseph, and Pierre.

Almost 4 years into their marriage tragedy struck with no mention as to the cause, Agathe died leaving Joseph Antoine with three young children. Guardianship was arranged for the children.

Below is a translation of the first several lines of the above burial record for Agathe Laperche dite St Jean 4.

In the year seventeen hundred and fifty-nine, the 25th of November by the undersigned priest Vicar of this parish inhumed in this cemetery the body of Agathe Laperche dit St Jean spouse of Joseph Gautier Landreville at the age of  twenty three who died yesterday…..

Three long years passed.

In February of 1762 Joseph Antoine married his second wife, 19-year-old, Louise Gregoire. Within three months tragedy struck and she, along with 9 other young women perished while crossing the Assomption River.

Marriage record of Louise Gregoire and Joseph Antoine Gauthier dit Landreville 5.

Below are the first two and half lines translated from the above Marriage record of Joseph Antoine to Louise Gregoire. 

Joseph Gauthier dit Landreville widower of Agathe  Laperche from this parish on one part and Louise Gregoire daughter of defunct Basil Gregoire and Marie Clemence Proulx, mother from this same parish declare no impeachment to this marriage.

Three months after their wedding tragedy struck and Louise, along with 9 other young women perished while crossing the Assomption River on the 20th of May 1762. They ranged in age from single girls 16 -17 years old and young wives who were around 19 or 20. Were they returning home to their farms across the river from the village?

The Assomption River meanders forming a peninsula around the village.6.

The above is the burial record of Louise and the other young ladies who drowned in the Assomption River. 7.

A year and half after Louise’s drowning Joseph Antoine married for the third time in October 1763. Both he and his new bride, Francoise Loiselle, were born in the same year, 1731, and were now 32 years old.

Marriage of Francoise Loiselle and Joseph Antoine 8.

On August 15, 1764, Francoise gave birth to a daughter Marie Francoise, however, the baby’s stay on earth was very brief and she died two weeks later. Another year went by and on August 31, 1765, Louis Stanislas was born. He had a long life and died at the age of eighty-three. Francoise on the other hand was not as fortunate. Her life was cut short. After less than three years of marriage to Joseph Antoine, she died in January 1767.

At this point in his life, Joseph Antoine at age thirty-six had been married three times, lost a daughter, buried three wives, and now had five children between 2 and 14 years of age in his care, no doubt a daunting task. How would he cope? Where would he find the courage and strength to continue? His life thus far adhered to the saying “Things come in 3s” or “Jamais deux sans trois”.

When were the tragedies going to end? He had experienced more upheavals in his short life than the average person. Would there be a brighter future in store for him?

Not letting the grass grow under his feet and with firm determination, within a year and a half on August 22, 1768, he married an Acadian, Marie Leblanc. He was thirty-seven and she was in her mid-twenties. She too had endured hardships in her life. Her family had been deported along with many other Acadians who made their way to Massachusetts, then eventually settled in L’Assomption, Quebec and surrounding area.

                     The marriage record for Joseph Antoine and Marie Leblanc 9.

                                        Translation of the first few lines:

In the year seventeen hundred and sixty-eight on the 22 of August, after publishing the bans at Mass for three consecutive Sundays……. Joseph Gauthier dit Landreville widower of Marie Francoise Loiselle from this parish on the one hand between Marie Leblanc, daughter of Francois Leblanc and Elizabeth Dugas the father and mother from the same parish….

“In Québec, the Acadians settled in every corner of the province starting in the late 1760s. Mostly concentrated along the St. Lawrence River, they progressively settled in other areas where agriculture was predominant. The province of Québec is where the largest Acadian population was living by the end of the 18th century. Because of the similarities in religion, language, and social status with the Canadiens (French Canadians, today’s Québecois), the Acadians easily integrated into mainstream society. The Acadians who lived in the province embraced the struggle for the rights of French speakers that drove politics and social discourse in Québec throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Despite their integration, these communities maintained an awareness of their ancestry and contact with the Acadian communities of eastern Canada. In the late 19th century. 10.

In May of 1769 Marie gave birth to Marie Josephe. Alas, their joys were dashed. The little girl did not survive her first winter and died the following February. One more heartache.

Their lives took a positive turn and in March of 1771 Alexis was born. Between 1771 and 1778 three more sons and a daughter rounded out the family. At long last stability had become a part of their lives. There was joy in the Gauthier household.

Alas! At the age of forty-eight and in the prime of life Joseph Antoine’s life abruptly came to an end. He had experienced more than his fair share of trials and tribulations during his short life. He had endured many heartaches and misery beyond belief. Despite all all the turbulence in his life, in the end he finally found companionship, joy, and happiness. Joseph Antoine died of unknown causes on the 8th of July 1779. He was buried in L’ Assomption the following day.

Burial Record of Joseph Antoine Gauthier dit Landreville

 Translation of the burial record for Joseph Antoine Gauthier dit Landreville

                   In the year seventeen hundred and seventy-nine…….in the cemetery of this parish the body of Joseph Landreville…..

Marie Leblanc married a second time in the fall of 1780 and had several more children. She lived to the age of 82 and died in 1824 in the neighbouring community of St. Joseph de l’Achigan.

Note:

In the scope of this research there was no mention of Joseph Antoine’s occupation, however, given the fertile land around the Assomption River one could surmise that he was a farmer…. un “cultivateur’…

In this research I have maintained the French spelling that is used in the province of Quebec for the name of the town and river. The spelling in English is ‘Assumption’.

Sources:

1.https://www.myheritage.com/names/joseph_gauthier%20dit%20landrevilleJoseph Antoine Gauthier dit Landreville, 1731 – 1779

2.Ibid

3.https://www.google.com/search?q=map+of+southern+quebec+province&rlz=1C1YTUH_enCA1032CA1032&oq=map+of+southern+Quebec&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBwgBEAAYgAQyBwgAEAAYgAQyBwgBEAAYgAQyBwgCEAAYgAQyCAgDEAAYFhgeMggIBBAAGBYYHjIICAUQABgWGB4yCggGEAAYChgWGB4yCggHEAAYChgWGB4yCAgIEAAYFhge0gEONDEwMTIzNTAyajBqMTWoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#vhid=Ewr6KV_ljOM7JM&vssid=l

4.https://famille-arbour.com/2012/04/14/gauthier-joseph-1731-laperche-agathe-1736/

5.https://www.myheritage.com/names/joseph_gauthier%20dit%20landreville

6.https://www.google.com/maps/place/L’Assomption,+QC,+Canada/@45.7152305,-73.4005752,11z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x4cc8ebc2c89a8083:0x74c64a2b19247dd5!8m2!3d45.8519896!4d-73.4123978!16zL20vMDM3a2xi?hl=en-US&entry=ttu

7.Ancestry.com. Quebec, Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1968 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2008.
Original data:Gabriel Drouin, comp. Drouin Collection. Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Institut Généalogique Drouin.

8. https://www.myheritage.com/names/joseph_gauthier%20dit%20landreville

    9. https://www.genealogiequebec.com/en/

https://www.myheritage.com/names/joseph_gauthier%20dit%20landreville

 10. http://www.landscapeofgrandpre.ca/deportation-and-new-settlement-1755ndash1810.html

 11. familysearch.org

      

..

Genealogy

Letters

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Nothing gets a genealogist’s heart beating faster than finding an old letter written by an ancestor. These are as close as we come to knowing what they really thought, gleaning a little bit of an ancestor’s character. “Thank you very much for your good wishes for my 65th birthday and it seems to me only yesterday that I was your age. Oh! Life goes fast; we should use it well so as not to have one regret on reaching the end.”¹ I am lucky as I have a number of family letters but one always wishes for more.

Many of the letters are somewhat disappointing. People seem to be just filling the page. How are you? We are all fine and the neighbours too, unless of course they aren’t and then the neighbours ailments are itemized. They often finish with please write soon as we have waited such a long time to hear back from you. Other than knowing the letter writer is still alive not much other information is given. Still the recipient was happy to receive the note.

Letter written by Ismael Bruneau

Before the telephone became ubiquitous people would just drop a note in the mail. It might just be a postcard with thanks for a visit, even to a neighbour around the corner. They used the post as a means of keeping in touch.

Some letters are heartfelt, such as a father wishing his sons wouldn’t go to war. “ I am sorry to tell you that I do not approve of your plans to go to war. Alas I certainly had greater and nobler ambitions for my boys than to make simple soldiers of them.”² If they did go he prayed that God would keep them safe. All his congregation was praying for them. My great-grandfather Ismael Bruneau wrote many letters to his son Sydney during the First World War. He signed most, “ton père affectionné I.P. Bruneau”. Sydney kept the letters and his daughter translated some. I only have photocopies which are hard to read.

These letters have only snippets about the family as he writes, “Your mother told you about the family so I won’t.” Only one letter written by Ida Bruneau survives and that was written just after Ismael’s death.

Letter written by Ida Girod Bruneau

Handwriting can be difficult to decipher and letters written in other languages make them even harder to read. Some people had beautiful even cursive script and their letters are still a pleasure to read. They learned “real writing” in school with much practice. Other letters are covered in tiny script as they didn’t want to waste the paper. Most difficult to read are those with writing perpendicular to the first lines, again to save paper or a just remembered thought.

Unfortunately, there are also some letters you wished you had never found as they say things you didn’t want to hear. Letters from people recounting their hard times and mental struggles you never heard about and negative opinions about people you thought you knew.

Did those who saved the letters ever think someone would read them many, many years later? Most often there is just one side of the correspondence. I have a series of letters my grandfather wrote to my grandmother before they were married. He mentions often rereading her letters so he didn’t immediately discard them but they didn’t survive. Were they too personal or showed too much anger or just stupid thoughts? I imagine my grandmother found them and was embarrassed by her openness and she threw them out.

What will future generations find? Nothing? Emails and texts they can’t access, Facebook pages that have disappeared or meaningless tweets but almost no letters. There will be no papers touched by a loved one’s hand to find, tied with a ribbon or tucked into a fancy box. So after reading this, go and write someone a letter. They just might keep it!

Notes:


  1. Letter from Ismael P. Bruneau to his son Sydney Bruneau: Y.M.C.A., Quebec, 30 March 1917. Ismael died before his 66th birthday.
  2. Letter from Ismael P. Bruneau to his son Sydney Bruneau: Cornwell, ONT, 15 March 1915. Both Sydney and his brother Edgar survived the war.
  3. Letter from Ismael P. Bruneau to his son Sydney Bruneau: Cornwall, Ont, 18 July 1915.

These letters were translated by Sydney Bruneau’s daughter Ida Bruneau.

Genealogy

The Whalers of the Gaspe Coast

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https://www.britannica.com/topic/

An excerpt from https://www.patrimoine-culturel.gouv.qc.ca/rpcq/detail.do?methode=consulter&id=74&type=imma

“Introduced around 1804 by the Loyalists established in Gaspé Bay after the American Revolution (1775-1783), whaling played a leading role in the regional economy and even on the Canadian scale for nearly a century. Gaspé and Saint-Jean, New Brunswick, were the only two ports in the country to have a total fleet of a dozen whaling schooners in 1846. But nothing to do with the American fleet, which then had 635 whaling ships. tracking cetaceans on the seas of the world. On the other hand, Gaspé stands out as the leading Canadian port with a fleet of seven schooners which supply 80% of the country’s demand for whale oil.

In Gaspé, whaling is a family affair. Originally from Nantucket and New Bedford, the main whaling centers on the American east coast, the Coffins and the Boyles were the first families to perpetuate the practice of whaling in Gaspé. Oral tradition attributes to the Coffin family, settled in Anse-aux-Cousins, the role of precursor of the profession of whaler. However, the Boyle family turns out to have a head start in oil production. In 1809, the whaling captain Boyle produced 90% of the local oils.”

************

The following database prepared by Jacques Gagné consists of various documents and books written about whaling in the Gaspe.

The Whalers of Gaspé and of the Lower St. Lawrence (1)Download

Below is a link to a map of the Gaspe Coast

https://www.tourisme-gaspesie.com/images/Upload/cartes/carte_routiere_gaspesie_2023.pdf

England, Quebec

The Ugly Vases

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“Here men and women were working side by side, the women subordinate to the men. All were preoccupied, wrapped up in their respective operations, and there was the sound of irregular whirring movements from every part of the big room. The air was laden with whitish dust, and clay was omnipresent—on the floor, the walls, the benches, the windows, on clothes, hands and faces. It was in this shop, where both hollow-ware pressers and flat pressers were busy as only craftsmen on piecework can be busy, that more than anywhere else clay was to be seen in the hand of the potter.” Anna of the Five Towns by Arnold Bennett.

Family heirlooms are loaded both with history and with sentiment. While an heirloom’s historical significance often grows over time, the sentimental side of it inevitably diminishes down the generations.

A once-cherished heirloom very often becomes something a baffled descendant holds up in the air while wondering “Is this teacup pretty enough to keep?” “Does this glass lamp match my decor?” Or more likely. “I wonder if this hideous silver ladle is worth something.”


In my house, I have many heirlooms from my husband’s side –and have disposed of even more – and only a few from my mother’s side. My mother’s much older sisters got all the delightful bourgeois bric-a-brac from the family, my mother ended up with only a few turn-of-the-last-century vases.

I gave my sister-in law this Austrian Amphora with a cascade of cherries. She has more baroque decorating tastes than I do.

This classic Schneider Verre Francaise I keep in an Art Deco place of honour – on the floor – so my kamikaze cat won’t knock it over.

And the two rather ugly portrait vases once belonging to my chere Grandmaman Crepeau, I keep up on a shelf in the spare bedroom

for one reason and one reason only: I was practically born under them.

December 1954. That’s me in father’s arms. We are at my Aunt’s home in NDG

Twenty years ago, I investigated the provenance of the ugly vases for my Mom. She had just inherited them from my Aunt. They had a certain Pre-Raphaelite feel, I told her. Maybe they were worth something.

It didn’t take too long to figure out. These vases were English “art nouveau’1 Rembrandt vases out of the Thomas Forester factory in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, a business supplying “useful and decorative” pottery to the masses.

1912 Thomas Forester Showroom, Glasgow. The company specialized in Phoenix ware, a bright blue kind of pottery.

Later, I brought the ugly vases to a woman who was holding a “road show” event locally and she seemed impressed that I knew of their provenance. She said my Rembrandt vases were worth 400 dollars. Well, OK. Today, I can see a nearly identical pair on auction in Yorkshire for a mere 30 British pounds.

These days, I display the vases beside a print-out of a painting of the Pompeii Cleopatra. (I am a classical history enthusiast which, let’s face it, is largely about pottery – or pottery shards.) There’s a similarity in style, I think, especially with the girl on the left. I’ve always called her the Egyptian girl.

The back of the vases. Poppies? The Road Show lady said all the ugly bleeding is a mark of multiple firings and a good thing.

The designer of the vases is likely one Thomas Deans 2. I wonder if Mr. Deans ever visited Pompeii. Still, I don’t find these vases very appealing. Too chiaroscuro3 for my tastes. Too rough around the edges. The auction sites agree 🙂

Now, wouldn’t you know, Mary, the Queen of England, expressed a fondness for Rembrandt vases in 1913, the very year my vases were thrown. I know because Their Majesties made a tour of the Potteries (five towns in Staffordshire) in April . The tour was recounted in detail in the May 1913 issue of The Pottery Gazette.

The pottery industry was so important in England in 1913 that it warranted a Royal tour.

The King and Queen were also there, I suspect, to help calm down the natives who were upset over muscly new workplace laws threatening their businesses.5

This Royal visit was a PR masterclass, skilfully curated in support of the English pottery industry: The Royal Couple was on a tight schedule but they always seemed to linger longer than permitted, “so interested they were in the orchid paintings of Mr. Dewsbury; such pleasure they took in the engravings of Mr. Wyze; how attentively they watched the Wedgewood throwers at their work.”

And at every turn, Her Majesty revealed a vast knowledge of all things moulded, pressed and thrown.

Their Majesties did not stop at the two Thomas Forester factories in Longton but they did visit another factory-of-the-masses in that town signifying that they were not pottery snobs and very much interested in the ‘utilitarian’ aspect of the products.

They also went upscale. It was at the Doulton Factory toward the end of their tour where Queen Mary expressed a keen interest in my vases, ah, well, similar ones. “The Rembrandtware was singled out by the Queen for special inspection.” I guess, she really liked those gloomy vases gilded with gold.

So, my ugly art nouveau vases do contain a bit of history, even if it can’t be proved that Thomas Dean the designer ever visited Pompeii; even if Queen Mary of Teck, King Charles’ great-grandmother, never set eyes on them. 4

The vases certainly contain loads of sentiment: that photo is the only one I have of me as a baby and I’m in my Dad’s arms. For all I know, I first learned to focus my eyes on one of those gilded West Midlands maidens as my father moved toward the couch for this first-ever family photo-op.

Reminder to self: Put a copy of this story in one of the vases for when my my kids are deciding whether to give it to the VON. Also. Reread Anna of the Five Towns.

Thomas Forester: A local self-made man with good business sense. He would have two factories on Longton, his home town.

1. Art Nouveau. I love Art Nouveau. But where are the Mucha-like flowers in the hair? Forester produced prettier vases with women adorned like that. Just not here. My vases are a mishmash (miss match) of Dutch Golden Age, Art Nouveau and Classical Antiquity, I think anyway.

2. My vases have no Forester stamp, just a squiggly line, but online at auction an identical vase was designated Deans.

3. Rembrandt style as in clear/dark. I remember the term from an art history lecture in college. Funny what sticks in your head. Doulton Rembrandt vases are worth a fair bit on the auction sites. They have traditional portraits of hoary old men.

4. Maybe she did, after all. To put a stamp on the Royal visit, the Potteries mounted a huge exhibit for the benefit of all citizens.

5. Children under fourteen were banned from the workplace. The glass industry said this would ruin them. Boys needed to start work at 10 or so in order to become apprentices at 14. Not to worry, the children would only work 44 hours a week! There were new laws regarding the unbearable heat in the buildings, too, and lead-poisoning (of women and children) was also a topical issue.

Genealogy, Quebec

Caught up in Change

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When he was twelve years old, the person who answered the census described my great, great grandpa as a French-speaking Roman Catholic person.1 As he grew up, I wonder whether that dual identity became even more firm and important to him, perhaps as a rebellious response to massive societal changes where he lived.

Isadore Azilda Doucet was born in 1869 in Ile Verte, fourteen years after the seigneurial system was officially abolished in Quebec. His home in the Témiscouata Valley on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River east of Quebec City was a key outpost for English-speaking Anglican Lords who purchased manors for colonial purposes and later became Quebec’s most important industrialists.

Researcher Maude Flamand Hubert describes the process underway during great great grandpa’s lifetime as follows:

Dans la première moitié du xixe siècle, l’accession à la propriété seigneuriale constitue encore la voie privilégiée afin d’acquérir ce statut socioéconomique tant convoité. Ce brassage s’effectue tout juste à la veille de l’abolition du régime seigneurial, en pleine période d’essor de l’industrialisation et d’une économie capitaliste de plus en plus orientée vers les marchés. Selon le modèle proposé par Serge Courville, comme de nombreux noyaux paroissiaux issus d’une colonisation seigneuriale timide, L’Isle-Verte prend véritablement son élan dans le deuxième quart du xixe siècle (Courville, 1990, p. 26).

In the first half of the 19th century, accession to seigneurial property was still the privileged way to acquire a coveted socioeconomic status. This mixing took place just on the eve of the abolition of the seigneurial regime, in the midst of a boom in industrialization and an increasingly market-oriented capitalist economy. According to the model proposed by Serge Courville, like many parish centres resulting from a timid seigneurial colonization, L’Isle-Verte really took off in the second quarter of the 19th century (Courville, 1990, p. 26).2

Reminders of the old system remained throughout great great grandpa’s lifetime. The area in which he lived once formed part of the Sieur Charles-Aubert de la Chesnaye manor, which was purchased by Alexander Fraser from Lord Caldwell on August 2, 1801.

Eight different waterfalls and a series of salt marshes attracted visitors to the largest settlement in the region, which served as a natural amphitheatre at the head of the Temiscouata Valley. It became a key military post during the wars of independence and the War of 1812.

Alexander Fraser died in 1837 and passed his manor on to his son, Malcolm Fraser. Malcolm died five years later, passing the region on to his brothers William and Edward.

Lord Elgin baptized the largest settlement in the area “Fraserville” in 1850.3 Settlement rapidly increased over the following decades, with schools, courthouses and communication services established. Canada’s first Prime Minister Sir John A. MacDonald lived in the town during the summers throughout the late 1800s.

By 1870, when great great grandpa was only a year old, the Grand Trunk Railway Company opened a terminal in the town creating a dependence on railways that would last for the following 150 years.

By the time he was 17 years old, the Témiscouata Railway connected his city with New-Brunswick. A big pulp and paper mill opened up shortly after.

Doucet lived in Fraserville Town when he turned 22 years of age, and at that time, he still defined himself as Roman Catholic and French-speaking.4 I don’t know what he did for a living, although perhaps he remained on the family farm, given my grandmothers’ farming life two generations later.

There were many other job opportunities around him, but between 1850 and 1919, the city saw large increases in its anglophone population. Perhaps they were the ones to get the well-paying forestry, paper mill and railway jobs.

By the time great great grandpa died on January 4, 1905, the community he lived in was commercial, secular and an industrial powerhouse. Yet the original Francophone farming community continued to thrive. The city reverted to its original name, Rivière-du-Loup, in 1919 and 98% of the current population speaks French.

Photo caption

1880 Mill at Rivière du Loup by the Baroness Agnes Macdonald of Earnscliffe (1836-1920) on September 7, 1880, watercolour / aquarelle : watercolour / aquarelle on wove paper, http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=fonandcol&id=3007587&lang=eng, accessed on May 30, 2023

Sources

1 Canada Census, 1881, database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MVND-LJS : 2 March 2021), Isidore Doucet in household of Alfred Doucet, L’Isle-Verte, Témiscouata, Quebec, Canada; from “1881 Canadian Census.” Database with images. Ancestry. (www.ancestry.com : 2008); citing Alfred Doucet, citing Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa, Ontario.

2 Flamand-Hubert, Maude. Louis Bertrand à L’Isle-Verte (1811-1871): Propriété foncière et exploitation des ressources. PUQ, 2012.

3 Société d’Histoire et de Généalogie de Rivière-du-Loup, https://www.shgrdl.org/rdla.htm

4 Canada Census, 1891, database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MW5P-9L1 : 4 August 2016), Isidore Doucet, Fraserville Town, Témiscouata, Quebec, Canada; Public Archives, Ottawa, Ontario; Library and Archives Canada film number 30953_148224.

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