Genealogy

Marin Boucher Pioneer of New France

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The Percheron Immigration recruiting of the mid 1600’s was designed specifically to establish a permanent colony in New France. Robert Giffard (1587- 1668) was the first colonizing seigneur and did so at the request of the French King Louis XIII.

There was a specific condition attached. Giffard became Seigneur of Beauport as he was to be granted a large tract of land, including the resources. This area became known as the Seigniory of Beauport located close to Quebec City. It was the beginning of the Seigneurial system of land holding in New France based on the feudal system in France.1. He was persuasive and able to recruit skilled craftsmen to join him in this new adventure.                                          

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Marin Boucher, my 9th great-grandfather was one of the skilled stonemasons who was up to the challenge of joining

Giffard. He joined the Percheron immigrants. Although he had already established his family, he, his second wife, Perrine and three of his children chose to embark on this great new adventure.2.

Marin Boucher was born on the 15th of April 1589 in the Parish of Saint Langis, Mortagne-au-Perche. His first marriage took place in 1611. He married Julienne Barry. Together they had seven children. She died in 1627. Several years later he married Perrine Mallet. This marriage also produced seven children.3.

In 1634 Marin was already 45 years old. Nevertheless, he made the decision to join the other recruited Percheron families. They made their way overland to Dieppe with family souvenirs, their tools, and high hopes. The ships were waiting for them. They boarded the ship Captain Pierre de Nesle, Le Petit Saint- Christophe in April. 4.  They arrived in Quebec City June 4, 1634

Marin, with other skilled workers built Giffard’s home and 11 houses for the settlers. At that time, he also acquired a piece of land on the St. Charles River. He settled there with his family and worked as a stone mason and cultivated his land.

 Eventually he sold that home. In 1641 he had staked out land for both he and his son and son-in-law in Beauport on the St. Lawrence River. In 1650 upon receiving the formal title to that property he settled in Beauport Seigneury on property that was 1150 feet wide along the river and 4 miles in length away from the river. 5

Map of the property of Marin Boucher, and those given to his son Jean-Galeran, and Jean Plante. his son-in-law..

  Marin Boucher’s signature6.

In 1663 it was noted that Marin Boucher’s land was in Chateau Richer. Several of Robert Giffard’s disgruntled settlers had relocated after his death. His son, Joseph had revoked their land. They then moved to Chateau Richer. The parish grew and a new stone church was built. Bishop Francois de Laval confirmed 170 parishioners, including Marin and his wife Perrine along with their family members.6.

Marin’s decision to settle in New France proved to be a positive one. He is considered the first pioneer of New France. The 1667 census noted that Marin owned 8 head of cattle and 20 arpents of cultivated land. He and his family prospered. At that point he also owned enough land to provide for each of his children and their families.

At the age of 82, on the 28th of March 1671 Marin Boucher died.

Translation of the Burial record

“In the year of Our Lord Jesus Christ 1671, on the 29th of March died Marin Boucher after having lived as a good Christian and received the Holy sacraments of eucharist, penance and the last rights of extreme unction, was buried in the cemetery of Chateau-Richer by Monsieur Morel accompanied by the Reverend Father Nouvelle and by me doing priestly functions for them on the coast of Beaupre.” 7

(signed) F. Pillion, missionary priest

Marin Boucher is buried in La visitation-de-Notre-Dame Cemetery in Chateau Richer.

There are an estimated 350,000 descendants of Marin Boucher in North America. Are you also one of them?

Sources:

  1. http://www.perche-quebec.com/files/perche/individus/giffard-robert.htm   Accessed Sept. 1, 2020
  2. http://www.perche-quebec.com/files/perche/individus/boucher-marin.htm    Accessed Sept. 1, 2020
  3. www.prdh-igd.com      Accessed Sept. 1,2020
  4. https://naviresnouvellefrance.net/html/vaisseaux2/gensdemer/gensdemerGermanGi.html#gensdemerGermanGi
  5. 5.https://www.google.com/search?q=First+Families+of+New+France+Boucher+Drouin+cote&rlz=1C1CHBF_enCA912CA912&oq=First+Families+of+New+France+Boucher+Drouin+cote&aqs=chrome..69i57j33l2.49159j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8   Accessed Sept. 1, 2020

6.https://gw.geneanet.org/loiseau?lang=en&n=boucher&oc=0&p=marin  

7.https://www.google.com/search?q=First+Families+of+New+France+Boucher+Drouin+cote&rlz=1C1CHBF_enCA912CA912&oq=First+Families+of+New+France+Boucher+Drouin+cote&aqs=chrome..69i57j33l2.49159j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8   Accessed Sept. 1, 2020

8. https://www.wikitree.com/photo.php/8/80/Boucher-64.jpg   Accessed Sept. 1, 2020

Other references used:

https://gw.geneanet.org/loiseau?lang=en&n=boucher&oc=0&p=marin  Accessed Sept 1, 2020

https://www.geni.com/people/Marin-Boucher/6000000005948363015Free! Accessed Sept 1, 2020

https://www.wikitree.com/photo/pdf/Boucher-94  Accessed Sept 1, 2020

https://sites.rootsweb.com/~villandra/RenoP/2154.html   Accessed Sept 1, 2020

https://www.nosorigines.qc.ca/genealogieQuebec.aspx?name=Marin_Boucher&pid=774&lng=en Accessed 09.01.20

https://greenerpasture.com/Ancestors/Details/852 Accessed Sept 1, 2020

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/seigneurial-system

 

England, Genealogy

A Policeman’s Lot Is Not A Happy One.

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A policeman’s lot is not a happy one. When constabulary duty’s to be done, to be done, a policeman’s lot is not a happy one, happy one. [1]

 

Francis Bulford (Front row, 2nd from the left) With Newquay, Cornwall Division 1929/30

(I can’t help but notice their enormous feet!)

My Grampy, Francis Bulford, was born in Devonport, Devon, England on 28th October 1884.

In 1905, he was a 20-year-old seaman in the Royal Navy when he decided to join the Cornwall Constabulary, and on the 1st November 1906, he was appointed to the force as Police Constable number 106. He retired in 1936 with 29 years of service.

After reading various newspaper clippings about the doings of my Grampy, I thought of the above verses by Gilbert and Sullivan as his duties were usually routine, but sometimes they were unusual, or even frightening.

His first posting was to Porthleven, a small fishing port not far from Helston. His ‘beat’ included the village streets, as well as the surrounding meadows, beaches and cliffs.

During Grampy’s time on the police force, he and his family lived at a three-bedroom rented property in a street known then as “Little Gue” at either number 14 or 15. My cousin Diane tells me her Mum (one of Grampy’s daughters) identified the building some 35 years ago. It was their home as well as the Police Station and the two small windows at street level were then barred.

This was where the cells were. The property is still standing, and the photo shows the modern window frames.

The house in Little Gue Street

Diane also told me about a time early on in his career when he was tied to a rope around his waist and was lowered down the cliffs to bring up a dead body at a place called Hell’s Mouth, on the north cliffs of Cornwall. Even the name sounds frightening.

It was Monday evening, January 1916 and Constable Bulford was doing his ’rounds’ at 10:30 pm when he happened upon a dead body, washed ashore on the rocks at Breageside, Porthleven.

Porthleven 1906

When PC Bulford was interviewed by the local newspaper, The Cornishman, a month later, he described the bodies as follows: [2]

The first body found was a big body, about 6′ 6″ stoutly built, badly cut upon the rocks with no clothing and decomposed, and headless. PC Bulford sent for a stretcher and the local doctor, Dr Spaight.

The next day, Tuesday, at about 9:30 a.m., a second body was found by PC Bulford on the Sithney side of Porthleven. This body was about 5 feet in height, slightly built, with no identifying marks except cuts from the rocks, decomposed, nude and again headless.

The local doctor examined the bodies, but there was no possibility of identifying them or finding the cause of death.

The newspaper suggested that these were two of the crew of the SS Heidrun, a Norwegian collier ship that had departed from Swansea, Wales with coal for Rouen, France. It was wrecked on December 27th, 1915, four miles off of Mullion, with the loss of all 16 hands.

The crew members whose bodies were found are buried at Church Cove, The Lizard Landewednack, Helston, Cornwall. The church overlooks the English Channel, so it seems this was a fitting resting place for these sailors.

Headstone for the crew of the SS Heidrun

(Photo Credit: https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?181509)

Sources:

[1] https://www.gsarchive.net/pirates/web_op/pirates24.htm Opera, The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan

[2] “The Cornishman” 27th January 1916. Newspaper cutting in the Bulford Family archives

Notes of interest about Porthleven, Cornwall England.

Porthleven was the home town of the ‘Dambusters’ Commanding Officer Guy Gibson, and there is a road named in his memory.

http://www.helstonhistory.co.uk/local-people/wg-cdr-guy-gibson-raf-vc/

It is a town, civil parish and fishing port near Helston in Cornwall and was originally developed as a harbour of refuge when this part of the Cornish coastline was recognised as a black spot for wrecks in the days of sail.

Porthleven has exploited its location and exposure to powerful swells to become one of the best-known and highly regarded surfing spots in Britain and has been described as “Cornwall’s best reef break”. Waves often exceeding 6.6 feet (2.0 m), break on the shallow reef that was shaped by blasting the harbour. Kayaking is also popular. RNLI lifeguards patrol the beach during the holiday season. The beach is separated from the harbour by a granite pier, which stands in front of the Porthleven institute and clock tower. When the tide is out it is possible to walk east along Porthleven beach for approximately three miles.

Read more about this wonderful part of Cornwall, England here:

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

Two previous stories about my Grampy and his police adventures in Porthleven can be found here;

https://genealogyensemble.com/2018/10/10/all-in-a-days-work/

https://genealogyensemble.com/2018/12/12/plucky-police-constable/

Genealogy

The not-at-all wicked stepmother – Part 1 (The Unsung Hero)

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Elizabeth Fulcher emigrated to Montreal, Quebec, from England in 1961 at age 23, to fulfill a teaching contract at a private girls’ school. Little did she know that within two years time she would marry my father, a widower 20 years her senior, and become step-mother to his four children aged six to 14.

Does the movie “The Sound of Music” come to mind? Perhaps…but we couldn’t sing and, thankfully, our father didn’t blow a whistle to discipline us!

July 1938 was a busy time at Friston Hall1, the village between Saxmundham and Aldeburgh, north of the river Alde in Suffolk on the East Coast of England. Elizabeth and her twin sister, Diana, were born and their sister Margaret (Maggie) was only 11 months old. They were often mistaken for triplets much to Maggie’s dismay.

Map of Suffolk area near Aldeburgh with Friston (north of the River Alde ) and Iken (south of the River Alde)

Some six years later, during Hitler’s last offensive air attack during WWII, the empty family home was doodlebugged1 in August 1944. Luckily, all three girls were at their cousin’s birthday party.

Their father, Henry Fulcher (1906-1985), moved the family to one of the farm cottages while their mother, Tweedie Mann (1908-1952), retrieved whatever could be salvaged from the bombed main house. During their nine month stay in the farm cottage, they endured outside plumbing and indulged in weekly baths in a tub by the fireplace.

When Elizabeth and her family eventually moved back to the main house, they all slept together in the dining room, as the upstairs remained in shambles and the chickens occupied the lounge.

As the war raged on, families all over Britain managed their food frugally with coupons. The farm labourers “enjoyed” extra rations twice a year but they only lasted a week.

“There was always enough food because we lived on the farm. At one point for breakfast, we each had a third of an egg on toast with a third of a rasher of bacon which was rationed. We would have cereal before this, so we weren’t hungry”.

Elizabeth’s father ran a small dairy farm in Friston as well as his father’s dairy and prize winning barley farm in Aldeburgh. He sold his father’s farm in 1948 to buy another in Iken five miles away across the river Alde. “Poplar Farm” consisted of 13 separate properties – three farmhouses and ten cottages – and 800 acres of land. The local milk truck collected the milk produced by the 60 Friesians1 (dairy cows) daily which supplemented the farm’s income from wheat, barley and sugar beet.

Around this time, the three young girls were sent away to St. Felix Boarding School2, some 30 miles away from the farm. Elizabeth, only ten at the time, remembers: “I didn’t like it there, as I was afraid of the teachers. I would cry every time someone spoke to me. I couldn’t remember the poems we needed to recite, and I couldn’t spell well either”.

Elizabeth, Margaret (Maggie) and twin Diana – 1949 – Poplar Farm, Iken, Suffolk, UK

Two years later, in 1950 when the twins were 12 years old, the birth of their brother Roger surprised the family. And just two years after his birth, while the girls were still away at boarding school, their mother died suddenly from polio.

“Auntie Marion4 looked after Roger and Henry when Tweedie first died in July and stayed with us for the summer. We went back to school in September. We were worried about Roger, he was only three years old. Auntie Ophie came to look after Roger, but she had a bad temper, and our Father wasn’t very involved. No one said Roger had down syndrome, they just said he was slow.”

The whole class came to Poplar Farm for a picnic and a swim at Iken Cliff to celebrate the twins’ graduation from boarding school. One of their school friends, Judith, came as well and it was her mother Eileen who eventually married the twins’ father Henry in 1957.

Eileen stepped into multiple roles as Henry’s wife, farm accounts manager, step-mother (especially to Roger) and encouraged a more social lifestyle. As an example, she hosted a catered party for 120 guests for Elizabeth and Diana’s 21st Birthday.

Elizabeth, being more athletic than academic, excelled at sports. “The only people we knew growing up were farmers or teachers and we didn’t want to stay on the farm so we became teachers”. She pursued a degree in Physical Education at a teacher’s college in Aberdeen, Scotland while her twin attended teacher’s college in London.

After teaching for a couple of years in Aberdeen, Elizabeth wanted something more and accepted a job with the Trafalgar School for Girls in Montreal, emigrating to Canada in 1961.

And “more” was what she found!

1https://wiki2.org/en/V-1_flying_bomb as accessed 2020-07-17

2https://wiki2.org/en/Holstein_Friesian_cattle as accessed 2020-08-24

3https://wiki2.org/en/St._Felix_School as accessed 2020-07-17

4Auntie Ophie and Auntie Marion were Tweedie’s sisters

Genealogy, Immigration, Montreal, Scotland

Good wages, employment guaranteed

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Good wages. Employment guaranteed. These words echoed over and over again in Mary McHugh’s head. And only some domestic experience required. Mary thought that she had quite enough domestic experience, thank you, as she was the only daughter still at home.

It was 1910 and Mary had turned 20 in February.1 Old enough to be married. No prospects in sight. She had been working at the jute factory since she finished school at 14.2 Like her older brother, Thomas McHugh, she immediately got a job in the jute factory as soon as she could. Mary’s mother, Sarah McLaughlin, was happy that Mary was working as Sarah was a widow and still had three children at home. Her husband, Michael McHugh, had died of tuberculosis when Mary’s brother, Francis, was just three months old.3  It had been a struggle for Sarah to make ends meet. Even though Sarah had managed to get a job as a charwoman,4 it was not easy. Sarah was exhausted when she got home, too, and it was up to Mary to help with the housework and cooking for her younger brothers. Mary’s older brother, Thomas, was already married with six children. He helped when he could but he had his own worries.

Mary thought ruefully about her job. She was a jute spinner at the flax mill.5 The mill was noisy and crowded. Mary worked twelve hours a day and it was back-breaking work. The women worked hard in the mills but made less wages than the men. The machines were dangerous. Accidents happened often.6 And then there was mill fever or brown lung. Most people who worked in the mill had a dry cough and sometimes even a fever.7

Mill Workers

Photograph from the BBC8

Mary liked the idea of being a domestic. The hours would be long and she would be on her feet all day but the air would be clean and it would be quiet. But Canada? So far away? All by herself? Could she do it?

These thoughts were the beginning of Mary’s plan to emigrate to Canada. Mary McHugh was my great aunt and she arrived on the S.S. Grampion that sailed from Glasgow and arrived in Quebec City in July 1911.9

In the early 1900s the demand for domestic servants in Canada exceeded the number of young Canadian women willing to do this type of work. Governments, employers, and women’s organizations made a special effort to encourage the immigration of household workers.8 More specifically, British immigrants were considered as desirable immigrants to Canada. As of 1888, steamship agents received a bonus for selling the passage of a female immigrant whose intent was to work as a domestic servant in Canada. This was called the British Bonus and it came into effect by an Order-in-Council on September 27, 1890. Its purpose was to offer an incentive to desirable British immigrants. Often the Canadian employer would pay the fare of the immigrant to the steamship company.10 The emigrating domestic would then have to pay it back out to her employer out of her wages. This meant that the young immigrant woman was already indebted to her employer even before she started working. If she was unhappy with her employment, it made it difficult for her to find a better employment as long as she owed money.11

It is probable that Mary’s fare to Canada was paid by her employer. Beside Mary McHugh’s name on the passenger manifest of the Grampion there is a stamp British Bonus Allowed.

Hopefully Mary enjoyed her employment. She was the first member of the McHugh family to arrive in Montreal in 1911. She was probably delighted when her mother, Sarah, and three brothers, Thomas, Edward and Francis, followed her to Montreal in May 1912. And Thomas’ wife, Elsie Orrock, and their seven children, Ann, Elsie, Sarah, Francis, Mary, Adam, and Thomas arrived in October 1912. Mary married John Mervin Porter in June 1913 and her family would have been there to celebrate with her.

 

Notes and sources:

This poster from the Canadian Museum of History is from a 1926 pamphlet entitled Housework in Canada: duties, wages, conditions and opportunities for household workers but there would have been similar pamphlets advertising for immigrants that may have given Mary the idea.  This pamphlet says that “Canada welcomes men and women of the right type who come to seek their fortune in this broad new land … (people) of good moral character, and in good health, mentally and physically.” You can see this on the Canadian Museum of History web site in the section Advertising in Britain in the 1920s, https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/hist/advertis/ads7-06e.html

Household work

  1. Scotland’s People, Register of Births, Mary Ann McHugh, born February 4, 1890, accessed November 18, 2017.
  2. Wikipedia web site, History of Education in Scotland, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_education_in_Scotland, accessed August 17, 2020.
  3. Scotland’s People, Registers of Death, Michael McHugh, died May 16, 1895, accessed November 27, 2017 and Scotland’s People, Registers of Births, Francis McHugh, born February 21, 1895, accessed November 27, 2017.
  4. Scotland’s People, 1911 Census, Sarah McHugh, 1 Tait Lane, Dundee, Scotland, accessed February 15, 2018.
  5. Scotland’s People, 1911 Census, Mary McHugh, 1 Tait Lane, Dundee, Scotland, accessed February 15, 2018.
  6. DD Tours web site, Workers of the mills, September 16, 2014, https://www.ddtours.co.uk/archive/workers-of-the-mills/, accessed August 17, 2020.
  7. com web site, Byssinosis, https://www.healthline.com/health/byssinosis, accessed August 19, 2020.
  8. BBC web site, Tayside and Central Scotland, The history of mills in Dundee, December 2, 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/taysideandcentralscotland/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8390000/8390747.stm, accessed August 17, 2020.
  9. Passenger list, S.S. Grampion, July 1911, Glasgow – Quebec City.
  10. British Bonus Paid, British Home Children web site, https://www.britishhomechildren.com/single-post/2014/11/09/British-Bonus-Paid, accessed August 18, 2020
  11. Barber, M.J., Immigrant Domestic Servants in Canada, Canadian Historical Association, Ottawa, 1991, p. 9
Genealogy, Ontario

Phineas Rixon and His Three Wives

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Do you have a photo of Phineas? I am writing a family history book, and would love to include his picture, but I’ve never come across one. If you can help, please contact me at janhamilton66@gmail.com.

Farmer Phineas Rixon and his wife Barbara had been out doing errands in town. After they returned home, he was getting ready to do chores when he was stricken by a heart attack. The doctor came, but Phineas never regained consciousness. He died two days later, age 78, on Friday, September 9, 1938, on the farm he had operated for almost 40 years.

The local newspaper, The Colborne Express, reported, “the large number floral tributes and friends present [at the funeral] showed the high esteem in which he was held.”1

These few facts about his last days are the most detail I found about my great-great uncle’s long life. Phineas seldom moved far from his birthplace in rural Northumberland County, Ontario, a few miles from the shores of Lake Ontario. However, considering that his first two wives and his daughter predeceased him, and that he married a third time at age 76, his home life must have had its ups and downs.

Phineas (also spelled Phinehas, Phenas, and other variations) was born on May 8, 1859,2 the son of Martha Rixon and probably of her cousin Thomas Rixon.3 His unmarried mother moved to the United States when he was about nine, leaving him and his sister Samantha (my great-grandmother) to be brought up by their grandparents, Thomas and Betsey Rixon, on their farm in Cramahe Township.

It is not clear where Samantha and Phineas lived after their grandparent’s deaths; by then they were teenagers, and they likely stayed with relatives.

In 1878, Phineas joined the militia and was listed as a private in the 40th Regiment Northumberland. He next appeared in the 1880 U.S. Census (as “Fenis Rickson,”) working as a labourer in Michigan. He must have stayed in the United States for at least a year as he was not counted in the 1881 Census of Canada.

At age 24, he married 18-year-old Almeda Warner, daughter of John Warner and Harriet Morden. Phineas’s and Almeda’s daughter, Samantha Almeda Rixon (usually known as Mattie or Medie,) was born in June, 1884. Almeda died of typhoid fever in December, 1897, aged 32, leaving Phineas with a 13-year-old to raise and a farm to run on his own.

Within four years, Phineas had remarried. The 1901 census showed Phineas, 41, married to Mary Leslie, 34. With them were his daughter, Mattie, 16, and Mary’s mother and her two sisters, both in their twenties. He had also moved from Cramahe Township to lot 6, Concession 4, Haldimand Township.4 An advertisement for an estate auction held soon after Phineas’s death said the auction would be held on the John Leslie Homestead, about a mile east of the village of Vernonville, so Phineas and Mary must have lived on what had been her parents’ farm. 

Phineas and Mary were married for about 30 years. After she died in January, 1931, he remained single for the next five years. In May, 1936, he remarried. His third wife was a widow, Barbara Jemima (Haynes) Cowey.5

Phineas was buried in Castleton Cemetery, Cramahe, Northumberland County, with his first wife and his daughter. Medie, who was married in 1906 to farmer Claude Tweed and had six children, died in 1915.  Barbara, died in 1939, age 73.

Photos: courtesy Gabrielle Blaschuk

Sources:

1. The Colborne Express, Thursday Sept. 15, 1938, p. 1.

2. Year: 1901; Census Place: Haldimand, Northumberland (West/Ouest), Ontario; Page: 3; Family No: 26. Ancestry.ca, 1901 Census of Canada (database on-line, entry for Phineas Rixon, accessed Aug. 9, 2020,) citing Library and Archives Canada. Census of Canada, 1901. Ottawa, Ontario, 2004, Series RG31-C-1, Statistics Canada Fonds, Microfilm reels: T-6428 to T-6556.

3. This complex story is recounted in the following two posts:

“The Ancestor Who Did Not Exist,” Writing Up the Ancestors, April 11, 2017, http://writinguptheancestors.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-ancestor-who-did-not-exist.html

“Martha J. Rixon’s Short and Difficult Life,” Writing Up the Ancestors, May 14, 2017, http://writinguptheancestors.blogspot.com/2017/05/martha-j-rixons-short-and-difficult-life.html

4. Reference Number: RG 31; Folder Number: 74; Census Place: 74, Northumberland, Ontario; Page Number: 7, Ancestry.com. 1921 Census of Canada (database on-line, entry for Phineas Rixon, accessed Aug. 9, 2020,) citing Library and Archives Canada. Sixth Census of Canada, 1921. Library and Archives Canada, 2013, Ottawa, Ontario. Series RG31. Statistics Canada Fonds.

5. Archives of Ontario; Registration of Marriages 1936; Ontario, Canada, Marriages, 1826-1938, online database, Ancestry.ca and Genealogical Research Library (http://ancestry.ca, accessed Aug. 4, 2020,) entry for Barbara Cowey, citing Ontario, Canada, Select Marriages, Archives of Ontario, Toronto.

Genealogy

Petunias and Brown Betty

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A singular memory of my childhood is the summer I spent with my Angus grandparents in Quebec City. I was nine years old.

My family had moved to La Tuque several months before my sister’s birth. The move, a difficult pregnancy, and a three-day labour left my mother exhausted. Caring for a new- born and two school age children set free for the summer was overwhelming. In an effort to help out, my grandmother invited me to come to Quebec.

My grandparents lived in a third-floor walk-up apartment on St. Cyrille Blvd. (now Rene Levesque) at the corner of Maple Ave. During the Depression, they moved from an elegant home on Fraser Avenue while my grandfather fought to save his book store. The store eventually failed but my grandparents remained in the apartment until my grandfather’s death.

A large porch extended the full length of the apartment overlooking the street below. The sun shone down on it all morning so Grandpa planted petunias in boxes that grew into a beautiful profusion of pinks, lavenders and burgundies. My job that summer was to water and deadhead, a responsibility I took very seriously. “A new blossom will not grow until the dead one is removed”, Grandpa explained. “We want lots and lots of blooms.”

The various rooms of the apartment were strung out along a narrow hallway stretching from the front door to the back bedroom: an elegant parlour with life size china dogs standing sentinel on either side of an artificial fireplace; a very large dining room with several china cabinets and a table for twelve; and a sitting room with three walls lined with books salvaged from the store that were the core of my grandmother’s lending library. There was a bathroom and two bedrooms, the largest of which looked out on the city stables. How I loved to watch the caliche horses going and coming each morning and evening. I imagined them to be my very own and gave each one a name.

Then there was the kitchen tucked into the middle of the flat. It was a very tiny room, only big enough for a stove, a fridge, an ironing board that dropped from the wall, and the food prep table where my grandmother sat to work her daily cross word puzzle. The sink was folded into a back corner beneath a set of cupboards. The dark, cramped room had but one window in the door leading to the back porch and another in the walk-in pantry. How different from my Willett grandparents’ large, sunny farm kitchen in the Gaspe that housed not one but two stoves and a pair of day beds.

Yet it was in this tiny kitchen that my grandmother cooked daily meals for two (three that summer) as well as large family meals for various holiday occasions: Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving. She carried dishes of food through the swinging door into the dining room in what I now recognise as priceless Spode and Limoges bowls and platters. Nothing was served onto plates in the kitchen and brought to the table. Glasses and desert dishes were cut crystal. I even ate my morning boiled egg from a silver cup. Such a little princess.

Lazy summer afternoons were spent in the park. A friend and I would meet there, walking by ourselves from our homes, carrying our dolls and their accessories along with several umbrellas. The umbrellas served to demarcate the various rooms of our “doll house”. Who today would allow two young girls to spend an afternoon alone in a park? The caliche drivers came to know us and would wave, pointing us out to their tourist passengers as a quaint part of the old city.

I walked a lot that summer – my grandparents didn’t own a car. I walked with my grandmother to buy groceries on Cartier Avenue or dolls’ clothes at Woolworths on St. John’s Street. I walked with grandpa to Earl Grey Terrace to watch ships sailing the St. Lawrence to and from exotic ports. On Sundays I walked to church with both of them. The Sundays that babies were baptised were the best. As a church elder, Grampa would walk the family to the font and stand, straight and proud, while the minister performed the ceremony.

Evenings were spent reading, doing puzzles, or completing paint-by-number kits. My grandparents didn’t have a television – televisions were still too new and expensive. Sometimes on our walks Grampa and I would stop and watch the news on a TV in a store window. I don’t think Grampa would ever stoop to that if he were alone. I was the excuse for him to take a peek.

I learned to cook that summer in the tiny kitchen. My grandmother must have had the patience of Job. How much faster and easier it would have been to do it herself. Apple Brown Betty became my speciality. Eventually I could peel and slice the apples myself, measure and mix the flour, oats and brown sugar, and work in the butter with my fingers. The final touch was the nutmeg grated by hand over the top before the desert went into the oven. So delicious served with a slice of ice cream!  Remember, Ice cream was purchased in a brick-shape wrapped in cardboard.

The days passed slowly with a pleasant and predictable sameness. I was loved and indulged. Before I knew it, it was time for me to return home.

I would be sixteen when next I lived with my grandparents for my final year of high school. Although I loved being back with them, life was never again as simple as the summer when I was nine.

 

 

 

 

 

Aboriginals, Montreal, New France, Quebec

Slavery in New France in the 17th & 18th Centuries

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August 1, 2020, Emancipation Day in Canada

In 1734, a huge fire destroyed part of Montreal. Marie-Joseph Angélique, a black slave, was accused on setting the fire deliberately as she tried to escape from her owner. She was arrested and found guilty, then she was tortured and hanged and her body was burned.

Angélique was one of many slaves, some black, others Indigenous, in New France.  Slavery was legal in Canada for more than 200 years. The Slavery Abolition Act brought an end to chattel slavery throughout the British Empire, coming into effect on August 1, 1834 in Britain, Canada, and several other colonies.

The attached PDF  Slavery in New France   is a 23-page research guide to the topic of slavery in New France in the 17th and 18th centuries. It contains the following contents:

Page 2     A link to a complete online copy of the book L’Esclavage au Canada français – 17e et 18e siècles” (in French) Author: Marcel Trudel – 474 pages Publisher- Les Presses Universitaires Laval, Quebec, Canada 1960

Pages 3-17    A List of authors who have written about slavery in Canada

Page 17- 20       Repositories in Quebec

Pages 21-22     Various online sites

Pages 22-23     Publishers

 

Genealogy, Quebec

Brush with a (Messy) Icon

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Marion1FIXED

Marion Blair, my mother-in-law, 1990s

There were no teenagers back in the old days, my mother-in-law, Marion Blair, used to say. You were a girl one day and a woman the next – at least when it came to the way you dressed and the way you arranged your hair.

Somewhere, I have a black and white studio photo of Marion looking rather glamorous wearing what appears to be bright red lipstick, (it’s hard to tell for certain) taken in 1929.

I find the photo a bit freaky, because Marion was born in 1917! At a mere 12 years of age she certainly had achieved that polished ‘movie-star’ look and she maintained that impeccably groomed image right up until her death in 2002.

So it was no surprise to me when my husband came into the room a while back as I was watching an old Bette Davis movie on TCM and said, “That woman looks just like my mother.”

“Your mom didn’t look at all like Bette Davis,” I replied. “But, I can see your point. The movies, back then as now, instructed girls – and boys – on how to be grown up.”

Now, this was doubly ironic as here in Quebec in the 1930’s children under 16 were banned from the cinema because of the 1927 Laurier Palace Theatre Fire where 72 children had died in a crush to the exit.

So what did these deprived Depression Era English Quebec children do to bend the rules and partake of some healthy Hollywood escapism? According to my mother-in-law, they sneaked into the movie theatres and comported themselves like adults. That meant no shouting and no jostling. Girls often applied make-up to enhance the illusion.

Marion Blair was the middle of three sisters, so it is no surprise, really, that her appearance meant a lot to her, especially since her sisters were, let’s face it, much better looking. Think Rita Hayworth and Merle Oberon.

She was the skinny sister with the slightly wonky left eye and a wild boy-crazy “biker chick” personality that had to be tamed with two years at Trafalgar all-girls school. (Hmm. Maybe, there were ‘teenagers’ in the 1930’s after all.)

The 1930’s Hollywood Dream Factory inspired more than Marion’s hair and makeup. She was a wannabe thespian. At McGill in the late 30’s she got to play comedic parts in the famed Red and White Revue.

Somewhere, I have some clippings from the early WWII McGill Daily. In one of them Marion is flying in the air attached to cables with a giant wand in her hand and an enormous toothy grin on her face.

Marion Blair was a natural for the theatre, but in 1941, with war raging, she chose a domestic existence and married Thomas Wells, a Westmount boy who had played semi-pro  hockey with her brother and who had recently enlisted in the RCAF.

mariaondancefixe

Marion, ballerina, 1942, Dunville, Ontario RCAF training base.

As a young mother in the 1950’s, Marion continued to act in local amateur theatre out in the suburbs with the Hudson Players Club. (I guess the stage was the only place she felt safe ‘letting her hair down.’)

Her own mother, Marion Nicholson Blair, had been widowed in 1927, when Marion Jr. was just 10 years old. Mother Marion had been cut out of her husband’s family lumber fortune, but instead of remarrying one of her many suitors she went back to work as a teacher at the Montreal Board and also got involved with the Protestant Teachers Union, rising to President during WWII.

The Nicholson/Blair female-run family had little money to spare but being a natural wheeler-dealer, mother Marion found patrons to send her children to university which is why daughter Marion could swing from the rafters at McGill’s Morris Hall.

Which brings me to another related story – about another photograph, one I actually have on hand to show you.

My mother-in-law’s patron was a friend of her mother’s, a Mr. Dean from the local Westmount Church. One summer in 1936 he took them to Saranac Lake, New York on a vacation.

One morning,  as they walked on the waterfront, at the marina, Marion spotted a portly older man with very disheveled hair on the pier beside a small sailboat. “What messy hair that man has,” said Marion to her companions. “Disgraceful.”

Mr. Dean would have no part of it. “That, my dear,” he told her, in a hushed and reverent tone, “is Professor Einstein.”

So my mother in law snapped a photograph – and here it is.

Saranac Lake

This picture is more than mere family memorabilia.

With a little online research I soon figured out that my mother in law caught the Man of the Century setting up for a famous AP photo shoot. (Or perhaps shutting down from it.)

Here’s that photo “Einstein at Play” taken a few minutes before or after my mother-in- law snapped the photo of the physicist icon with the famously messy head of white hair.

EinsteinatPLAY

 

A pic of Marion on on stage and a clip from the December 1955 Lake of Two Mountains Gazette.

Genealogy, Montreal, New France, Quebec

My Prudhommes

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How do you get to be you? First you must have your parents, then your grandparents and as you trace back through your family trees you find all the coincidences needed for people to come together at a time and place for you to be who you are.

When Louis Prudhomme arrived in New France around 1640 I am sure that he never thought his seven times great-granddaughter would live there almost four hundred years later. He was an early settler in Ville-Marie (Montreal), a brewer, churchwarden and a member of the Montreal Militia. I descend from Louis and his wife Roberte Gadois. This marriage almost didn’t take place. Roberte came to New France as a child with her parents Pierre Gadois and Louise Mauger. Then when just 15, a marriage contract was drawn up between Roberte and Cesar Leger with the ceremony happening four days later. After six years, the marriage was annulled, most likely because there were no children. The survival of the colony depended on couples having children. On the same day her first marriage was annulled, Roberte married Louis Prudhomme. This wasn’t a quick decision as their marriage contract had been drawn up a year earlier. Roberte proved her fertility by soon giving birth. Their first child, son Francois-Xavier Prudhomme (1651 – 1741) is my ancestor.

Finally, well into his thirties, Francois Xavier married Cecile Gervais, only 13 at the time. This marriage too might not have taken place. Cecile’s parents were Jean Gervais and Anne Archambault. Her mother Anne had previously been married to Michel Chauvin. Michel had owned the property next to Louis Prudhomme. Louis, on a trip back to France, learned that Michel had a wife and children still living there. On his return to New France, he accused Michel of bigamy and reported him to the Governor Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve. Michel, expelled from the colony, went back to France leaving Anne free to marry again and give birth to Cecile. Francois Xavier Prudhomme and Cecile eventually had nine children.

Their first child Francois Prudhomme (1685 – 1748) married Marie-Anne Courault. This couple appeared to have lead uneventful lives except for having eight children.

One of their children, Nicolas Prudhomme (1722 – 1810 ) married Francine Roy. This couple had at least five children before Francine died at age 34. Their youngest child Eustache was just two at the time so not surprisingly Nicholas soon married again.

It was the marriage with his second wife Helene Simone Delorme that produced Jeramie Marie Prudhomme (1766 – 1846) my three times great grandfather. Seven years had past before this child entered the world. Helene must have been busy raising her step children. In 1818 Jeramie is listed by the Sulpicians as one of the twenty family heads living and farming in Côte Saint-Luc, west of the original settlement but still on the Island of Montreal. He married Marie Louise Décarie (1769-1855), from another important farming family. Jérémie and Marie Louise had seven children. Their last child Sophie Marie Louise married Barnabé Bruneau. The Prudhommes had lived on the island of Montreal since the 1640s. Sophie left her ancestral home and moved south across the St Lawrence River to St. Constant.

It is with Sophie Marie Prudhomme that my direct Prudhomme line ended. Other branches of the Prudhomme family continued to flourish. My Great Grandfather Ismael Bruneau chose the middle name Prudhomme in honour of his mother.

Notes:

7th Great Grandfather Louis Prudhomme (1611- 1671) married Roberte Gadois (1628- 1716)

6th Great grandfather Francois Xavier Prudhomme (1651-1741) married Cecile Gervais (1671-1760)

5th Great Grandfather Francois Prudhomme (1685-1748) married Marie Anne Courault (1689-

4th Great grandfather Nicolas Prudhomme (1722-1810) married Helene Simone Delorme (1730-

3rd Great Grandfather Jeramie Marie Prudhomme (1766-1846) married Marie Louise Decarie (1769- 1855)

Two times Great Grandmother Sophie Marie Prudhomme married Barnabé Bruneau

Jean-Jacques Lefebvre http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/prud_homme_louis_1E.html accessed May 13, 2020.

https://www.geni.com/people/Fran%C3%A7ois-Xavier-Prud-homme/6000000002352538874 accessed May 13, 2020.

Making Lime: http://www.minervaconservation.com/articles/abriefhistoryoflime.html accessed May 24, 2020.

https://csllibrary.org/the-prudhomme-family/ accesses May 12, 2020.

Genealogy

The Antoine Pilon Home Part 2

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Antoine Pilon arrived in Ville Marie in 1668 and by 1707 he was a land owner in the growing village of Pointe-Claire, on the shores of Lake St. Louis.

In a recent blog there is a biographical sketch of Antoine, my 7th great grandfather. He sailed from Normandy, France to New France. His family were among the first residents of Pointe-Claire. When he died at the age of fifty, the home he built in 1707 remained in the family for 120 years.

The Antoine Pilon Home Part 1, https://genealogyensemble.com/2020/05/06/the-antoine-pilon-home/

The home is still standing, thanks to the tireless efforts of André Charbonneau. It is the oldest home in Pointe-Claire and one of the oldest on the island of Montreal.  Records indicate the many owners over the 300+ years.

Capture.JPGAP HOUSE Googlw

A Google Earth street view of the Antoine Pilon House 258 Bord du lac Pointe-Claire

History of the Owners and the Land Transactions 1.

1707 -2020

Below is a list of the many landowners who lived in the Antoine Pilon house over the years. Several owners inherited the property, while others purchased theirs.

The house lies on lot 88 of the present survey, forming a part of lot number 154 in the original land registry of the Island of Montreal.2

  • Lot 154-D was conceded by the Sulpicians to Pierre Sauvé dit Laplante on November 24th, At the time it was property of 3 acres of frontage and 60 acres deep, on the shore of Lac Saint-Louis.
  • Pierre Sauvé and his wife Marie-Michel sold this land to Jean du Tartre dit Desrosiers on October 27th,
  • Du Tartre gave the concession to Madeleine LeMoyne, widow of Jean-Baptiste Beauvais, September 19th,
  • Dame LeMoyne immediately sold lot 154-D September 19th,1706 to Antoine Pilon, who had already purchased from her the adjoining lot 155-D
  • Antoine Pilon built his house in 1707 on this property
  • Marie-Anne (Brunet) Pilon’s widow gave the land to her son Mathieu on January 22nd, 1729, land of 5 acres of frontage to 20 acres deep, consisting of lots 154-D and 155-D.
  • Gabriel Pilon, son of Mathieu and Marie-Josephte Daoust, became the next owner purchasing it from his parents’ – lot 154-D measuring 3 acres by 28 acres.
  • Pierre Pilon, the farmer and inn-keeper son of Gabriel and Suzanne Meloche, inherited the land on December 7th,
  • The Pilons left the property for good on July 1st, 1826 after 4 generations of family ownership. The home passed from mother to son and then father to son during 120 years.
  • W. Glasford, Carpenter purchased the property on July 1st, 1826.
  • Félix Amesse, carpenter, husband of Marguerite Pilon purchased it on March 1st,1832
  • Francois Larivée, shoemaker, became the new owner on April 5th,1834
  • Jean-Baptiste Legault dit Deslauriers, son, painter obtained the home May 11th,1865
  • Damase Alexandre Valois bought the property July 19th,1873.
  • Isidore Valoix inherited it in 1914.
  • Charles-Benoît Valois acquired the property December 31st,1921.
  • Joseph Duhame, next owner purchased the property on February 21st,1944.
  • André Charbonneau bought the property in 1968 and is the current owner- (2020).

There was a total  of 18 landowners over nearly 320 years.

Pilon property

 

The area in green indicates the extent of the Pilon Property right to the shore line.                   Capture.JPG map text

Capture.JPG current map of village

Current map of Pointe-Claire Village

André Charbonneau purchased the large property when he was 25 years old. At the time he was a young hairdresser living in Pointe-Claire.3. He is now retired and has hopes and dreams that his efforts to refurbish the 300+-year-old home could become a museum or an interpretation center. If so, this would promote the history of the area. André is also the founder of la  Société pour la Sauvegarde du Patrimoine de Pointe-Claire, https://patrimoinepointeclaire.org/ and has spent time educating the citizens about the history of their community3. Over the years Charbonneau has attempted to have the home declared a Heritage site.  He has approached the City of Pointe-Claire to develop the home.

Funding for a  project of that type is usually based on the following percentages:

25% Municipality,     25% Private donations.           50% Federal funding.

Several years ago, a feasibility study estimated the cost of the project would be approximately $1 million.

Charbonneau lived in the home for a short time until 1973. Time was spent researching, notably at the National Archives, with the aim of restoring the house and having it classified by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs. His request for classification was denied. Despite the refusal, he chose to restore the home to the original plans according to the French Regime, using the building methods of that era.4.

Andre in house

Owner, André Charbonneau

The better part of Andre’s life has been focused on reconstructing the Pilon home to its former glory. He began using an architectural technique of numbering all the stones and wooden planks to rebuild the house.5.

The original size of the house is 25’ x 23’ and he added an extension of 20’ x 18’  He took great pains to research minute details such as the nails used in the new roofing and the flooring on the first floor, made from new wooden beams giving the appearance of the wood of the time. He left no stone unturned, including as noted, enlarging the home . He has maintained the original appearance of the first floor, a single open room. Behind the fireplace there was an oven, over the years had been condemned and hidden. The major work on the home was done by reliable,  workers, carpenters, and a blacksmith. They all worked using the same skills as those of 17th century craftsmen.

André Charbonneau has received numerous awards and recognition for his dedication and ongoing efforts in his attempt to establish a heritage site. In 2002 he received the Distinguished Heritage Award and in that same year won the Heritage Emeritus Prize for the neighbouring house that he also owns. There have been other awards over the years, but, his main goal  is yet to be accomplished.

La  Société pour la Sauvegarde de la Patrimoine de Pointe-Claire continues to this day to find a way to showcase this home that has been so painstakingly restored. If you have an opportunity, take a drive through the Village of Pointe-Claire and note the many homes that have been lovingly preserved.

Sources:

  1. http://www.piloninternational.ca/international/histoires/maison/maisonantoinf.html
  2. https://www.wikitree.com/photo/jpg/Pilon-239.
  3. https://patrimoinepointeclaire.org/
  4. https://www.lapresse.ca/maison/architecture/maisons/200711/12/01-871145-la-maison-pilon-revit-grace-un-proprietaire-tenace.php
  5. https://montrealgazette.com/news/world/trying-to-keep-a-piece-of-pointe-claire-history-alive

Notes:

http://home.globility.com/~pilon/photos.html – contains several interesting photographs

https://shariblaukopf.com/2015/07/09/the-garden-at-antoine-pilon-house/ -an artist’s point of view

 

Antoine Pilon Google earth

Google Street View – Pilon Home 258 Bord du lac. Pointe-Claire, Québec https://earth.google.com/web/data=Mj8KPQo7CiExX2c2cFNQNjR2SlhwODBIZTI3R0Vtc2ZyN2UwVzVENUESFgoUMEE3OTk3NjlGNTE0NUY0M0VCMTM

Capture.JPG Aerial Google Pilon House

Google Aerial View of Antoine Pilon Home

https://earth.google.com/web/@45.42828134,-73.82327819,19.97449138a,670.74299124d,30.00000005y,0h,0t,0r/data=MicKJQojCiExX2c2cFNQNjR2SlhwODBIZTI3R0Vtc2ZyN2UwVzVENUE

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