Bands of Brothers: Civil War Siblings

My paternal  great grandmother Virginia's life was marked by the Civil War. Her future 1st husband, a young blacksmith named Antoine Bouvier   would serve early in the conflict. He enlisted at age 19, May 2 1861 with his two brothers Peter and Joseph, in Company A of the 1st Vermont Infantry. He participated in the battle of Big Bethel Church , Va on June 10 1861. This battle was one of the earliest of the war and received wide press coverage. He was mustered out August 15 of that year and returned home to Vermont and his sweetheart Virginia. 

Did his example or stories of the Battle of Big Bethel church spur one of Virginia's brothers Israel to sign up in September of that year? He joined the 5th Vermont Infantry in nearby St. Albans, VT. in September 1861. They were stationed in and about Washington until the spring of 1862 when Israel would see action in several major battles Antietam, Gettysburg, Fredericksburg and was wounded twice in the battle of Petersburg. He saw action in Petersburg, Cold Harbor, Spotsylvania and Wilderness. A full list of all the action he would have seen is found in Page of the descendants of the 5th Infantry

The 2nd Vermont Volunteer Infantry at Camp Griffin near Washington DC(Library of Congress)

Were his brothers Marcel and Tuffield* inspired by his letters, newspaper reports or impelled by patriotism or  the draft to   enlist in the conflict in late 1863 and 1864?  The Civil War was the first in which the US instituted a draft. As the war dragged on the government began to draft able bodied men who had not volunteered. This led to the draft riots in NY but evidently was accepted by the Vermonters. Those drafted could pay a substitute to take their place and I wonder if the bounty would have been attractive especially to Marcel with a growing family. Whatever the reason they both enlisted in Dec 1863 and Feb 1864 participating in action in Virginia until the engagement in the battle of Wilderness that would claim Marcel's life.

Mustered into U.S. service Sept. 16, 1861; mustered out June 29, 1865
5th Vermont Infantry Ensign

Thus three of her brothers: Marcel, Israel and Tuffield all served in the conflict in the same company of the 5th Vermont Infantry. Israel, who signed up in St. Albans in September 1861 when he was about 19. would later boast that he was the youngest soldier. That honor, however, went to his brother Tuffied who was probably about 16 when he enlisted. Israel would see action in several battles and was wounded twice in the battle of Petersburg. He saw action in Petersburg, Cold Harbor, Spotsylvania and lastly Wilderness. Perhaps it was his example, rather than Antoine's that inspired the two other Raymond  brothers to enlist.

Virginia would marry Antoine Bouvier  in Feb 1863 while Israel was on his way to participate in the Chancelorsville campaign. Their son, Antoine Jr.  was born in  December of that year just as his uncle Marcel was heading off to war. Virginia and Antoine would have a daughter Phoebe in 1865 but Antoine would die in a logging accident in 1866. In 1869 she would marry my great grandfather Paul Chicoine.  Paul did not serve in the Civil War. Virginia survived him and married a third time in 1885 to William Cook. He registered for the draft late in the Civil War July 1 1863 but there is no record that he served.

Bouvier grave Highgate Vermont

When his brother Israel enlisted Marcel was already married to married Sarah Dussault  and the couple had two small children. One of those toddlers died the year their third child was born in 1862. So it was not until two weeks before Christmas 1863 that Marcel joined the same company as his brother Israel. In the inconclusive battle of Wilderness in May of the new year Marcel would be wounded and ten days later die of his wounds probably in the field hospital established nearby in Fredericksburg.,

Their younger brother Tuffield would follow his siblings to battle in February 1864. He was only 16. He participated in the battles of Cold Harbor, Spottsylvania and Petersburg and was fighting along side his brother when Marcel was wounded May 5 of that year. The trenches (see picturewhere the 5th Vermont dug in are still visible in the Wilderness battlefied today.

Like many kin of those who fell in the  Civil War Virginia would have no body to bury in their cemetery in Highgate Vermont. She would have the consolation of an account of her brother's death from his two companions in arms.

* (christened Theophile)

Warriors

Ohio from Robert N.Dennis' collection of stereoscopic views

Some families have a strong military tradition. That wasn't true of mine - a cousin who served in Vietnam, an uncle by marriage who was a medic in the Pacific during WWII and another who was gassed in France during WWI. When I started doing family history research I discovered more collateral relatives: four great granduncles from my father's side who served in the Union army, one of whom died in the second battle of Wilderness, VA. On my mother's side there was a brother of my great grandfather who served in the Civil war but the closest to action he had was guard duty in Washington DC. Then I began to research a clue from my mother who vaguely remembered that her grandmother Mary Shea Corbett had received a military pension. Her sister, my aunt,  7 years younger, strongly denied that.

My great grandfather Dominic Corbett had enlisted in the US Navy in Boston in what is now the Boston ship yard. He had trained there perhaps on the relic of the war of 1812 the Ohio .

Massasoit

a sister ship to "old Ironsides" still visible today in the navy yard of Boston. He was assigned to the Massasoit - a river gun boat an early steam powered vessel see in the photo to the right. Such vessels were used to blockade river ports. At that time he became the ship's carpenter. In the summer of 1864 the navy was refitting a captured Confederate blockade runner in the Charleston navy yard. .The Tristram Shandy built in 1864 in Scotland was iron hulled and steam powered. The USS Kansas had pursued the British ship for two hours capturing it trying to take a cargo of cotton, tobacco and turpentine from Wilmington NC to fund the Confederate states When the refitting was finished Dominic was assigned to the Tristram Shandy starting again as a landsman -  a person with less than a year's sea service but soon became the ship's carpenter. .

Officer with artillery 

Looking at the Navy records using Google books to find correspondence and histories, Dominck’s movements during his Navy career can be followed. His pension record includes a record of wounds received around Dec 5 and of his treatment on Dec 7-10 on board the Tristram Shandy. It is possible that Dominic was injured during an incident which began on Dec 3 when a blockade runner ran aground near Wilmington near Fort Fisher. The Tristram Shandy, armed with a Parrott rifle and 3 pounders , destroyed the disabled ship before she could be used again. The report of the incident said that although the ship was in range of Fort Fisher guns and was bombarded it escaped injury. Injury on a vessel of this trip in such an engagement could come not only from enemy guns but as a result of  steam burns and injury on board his own vessel. The Navy report in his personnel record gives no indication how Dominic was injured..His wife noted he was wounded in left thigh and side and she attributed his later heart disease to this war experience. (since his father and at least two of his brothers appear to have died before the age of 50 probably from heart disease  the cause was probably genetic) 

A Parrott Rifle

The medical record from the log of the Tristram Shandy quoted in the pension record says that the cause of the illness was not noted. His wife indicated that they were wounds not just an illness, The treatment appears to have been only a cathartic pill and another medication which is hard to read and may be “doveri or Dovers grx with the notation “at nightly rush”. After three days the notation is “much improved, Whiskey duty”. 

A sidewheeler ship similar to the Tristram Shandy

A study of the movements of the ship Tristram Shandy show that it is part of the North Atlantic Squadron which blockaded the North Carolina coast and was situated off Wilmington, NC.  Navy correspondence during this time including some from the Tristram Shandy captain and from other ships mentioned the capture of a blockade runner. In the pension records it is noted that Dominic received “prize money” and the incident that led to this, capture of the blockade runner Bleinheim coming from Nassau to Wilmington, is described in the Navy reports.. The Blenheim was active Oct. 1864 to Jan 1865, 4 for 5 in successful trips; and captured by the U.S.S. Tristram Shandy at Wilmington on Jan. 25, 1865 Although it does not say how much Dominick received another sailor (John Dunlap alias Isaac Babb a former Confederate soldier) who also served on the Tristram Shandy as a Landsman received $18.26. This sailor also enlisted in Boston and served on many of the same ships as Dominick Corbett.  

In the diagram of the battle the Tristram Shandy is third from the top in the outermost ring of ships

      

        The diagram of ships for the 2nd assault on Ft. Fisher shows the ship as part of the “reserves” behind the main warships. This second battle of Fort Fisher NC was designed to totally cut off the crucial Confederate port of Wilmington, North Carolina and was successful. The Atlantic blockade which Dominic's vessel participated in made expansion of the Navy from a small fleet of about 90 vessels to a large fleet of "hybrid" vessels that used both steam and sail, gunboats that patrolled the rivers and the beginning of the US submarine service. See this link for more information  
More about the development of Naval warfare in the Civil War
For more about the ship Tristram Shandy see Google Books on Tristram Shandy history

Dominic return to Vermont after the war, married and had five children. My grandmother, Kathryn was the youngest of the four girls. Although she had little memory of her father since he died when she was a toddler, she did remember her mother getting a military pension which led me to research Dominick's military service.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

What's in a Name?

There are times when a genealogist feels like some of their ancestors were in some primitive version of the witness protection program. Finding them is like a detective novel. It doesn't help that some names morph with their passage through public records, with garbled spelling and pronunciation.Contrary to popular legend agents at the border of the US  did not necessarily change immigrants' names - sometimes they recorded them as they heard them, translated them, or the immigrants themselves made a change.  In looking for  names I have found it helps to say the name as the immigrant might have said it. Comparing that with the sometimes misspelled name in the census can be very helpful - Leary must have sounded like Lary to American ears and my Shea's like Chay. On the French side the problem is complicated by American spelling of French names by sound - Theophile becomes Tuffield, Marcel becomes Marshal, LaFleur, Lafley, Fortier, Firkey. Some names were just translated: Salome Dupuis when she moved to upstate Vermont became Sally Wells in public records.

The French Canadians  also have a system of "alias' " called "dit" names. Some families used these alternative names instead of the main surname, some flipped back and forth from one to the other. My Raymond line originally was Bertrand - the first immigrant from Toulouse France - a  Jean Baptiste Bertrand dit Raymond dit Toulouse was the son of Raymond Bertrand. For some reason Jean's son Francois took Raymond as his last name and added the dit name Toulouse to it. Although my Raymond's usually used that surname they appear in the 1840 US census as Toulouse in the only instance of that use in my line I have found. Of course the name is often spelled as it is said - Raymo, Ramo, Reymo, Rameau. Although my Chicoine surname usually doesn't use the dit name of Dozois attached to it spelling gets creative. The first immigrant that I have found (1822) learned to write his name in the US and signs it on his daughter's wedding record as "John Chequin" and on others as Chequine. (One branch of the family just gave up and used Shequine which made spelling for people less of a chore!)  The Desmarais dit Beaulac line become Demara, Demaray and Bolac with one line using only the dit name. The same occured with my Desrosier surname which turned out to be a dit name for Moreau. Without that realization I could never have traced the line back since they used only Moreau. I could never figure why they didn't stick with Moreau which although creatively spelled Moro or Morrow, is a  lot easier than Desmarais!  In doing research the dit name is important to know and the proper one for your line is essential. There are more than one unrelated lines of some surnames i.e. Raymond dit Toulouse is different than Raymond dit LaFreniere.

Naming patterns exist in different cultures - on my Irish side there are two - and helpful if you can get all the names of children in correct age order. The eldest son is named for his paternal grandfather, the eldest daughter for the maternal grandmother, second son for maternal grandfather and second daughter for paternal grandmother, next son and daughter are named for parents and in large families siblings of parents names start to appear. (An alternative pattern has first son and first daughter named for father's parents and second for his wife's.) However, this doesn't work if there is another person living in the family with same first name - James Leary and Julia Bresnahan did not name their second oldest son Corneilius for her father since her nephew Cornelius was living with them. Also check out Irish families children's middle names - I discovered that many times a maiden name of a grandmother would appear.

The French Canadians seemed to follow a different pattern with the eldest son named for the father. If that son died a younger brother or brothers would often receive the same name. I would suspect the use of "dit names" was helpful in villages where inhabitants had the same first and surnames. Multiple baptism names occur in this culture with "Marie" and "Joseph" appearing for every child in the family (even boys sometimes got "Marie") for religious reasons. My father disliked his name "Elphege Bernard" and did not know he was baptized "Joseph Elphege Bernard" - if he did he would have used it. Persons dropped or picked up their first names for different reasons - in one case a women dropped her first name and used one of her other baptismal names when she married a man whose sister in law had the same first name. Guess it got confusing.

Nick names were popular especially with the Irish - Mamie, Kitty, Bridie, Maggy, Peggy and Bridie. Some people adopted variations on their name: Cleophas became Charles, Michael Joseph decided he was Joseph Michael. Ellen Helen, Nellie, all were the same woman. Joanna, Hannah, Annie too. The genealogist looking for someone has to try all of the possible variations. Anastasia became Anty and later generations called her Anna.  So beware - names can be deceiving and do not get stuck on exact first and last names for the person you are researching. 

The Cursed Wedding

Most French Canadian wedding records are fairly predictable - name of groom, his parents, residence, age, name of bride, her parents, residence, age. Sometimes you get lucky and the priest recording the marriage will make a note of the relationship of the witnesses or guests present to either of the couple. If anyone is capable of signing their name you may also be able to see that on a digital copy. You may also learn if the parents are dead or alive. You can get fairly cross eyed trying to read the handwriting and the French with the added challenge of paper that has bled through from the other side, blots, tears and great variety of handwriting - some quite undecipherable. While going through the register of Notre Dame parish  for my eighth great grandmother Marie Pontonnier's wedding  I discovered the record of her first marriage to Jean Gadois. Stuck in the pages of the register was a decree of annulment for the marriage. I thought I was misreading the crabbed handwriting when I saw the cause: non consummation because of sorcery.

Church annulments in the 17th century were rare - almost non existent. The story of my ancestor's annulment was not typical. Marie had immigrated from Lude in the old province of Anjou, France when she was a young teenager perhaps only about 13. She was born there in 1642 to Urbain Pontonnier and his wife Felice Janin. Was she an orphan when she traveled to New France? She arrived around 1656 and on arrival lived at the Hotel Dieu in Montreal under the care of its foundress,  Jeanne Mance, along with other young women awaiting a marriage alliance in the colony. The uneven ratio of men to women made such immigrants prized.

Through another girl at Hotel Dieu, Elizabeth Moyen, she met a dashing young corporal Rene Besnard, twice her age, a friend of Elizabeth's suitor Major Lambert Closse. Initially attracted to the man her interest cooled when she began to hear gossip about his amorous adventures. For Marie that ended any relationship but not for Rene who was not used to being rejected. He became, what we would call today, a stalker. Seething with rage and injured pride he watched Marie form a relationship with the son of one of the founders of Montreal, Pierre Gadois. Age 25, Pierre was younger and a a gunsmith with a solid reputation as a brave Indian fighter. . 

On May 6 1657 Marie and Pierre signed a contract to marry which was witnessed by her guardian Jeanne Mance as well as others including Major Closse. As was customary an announcement of the pending marriage (wedding bans) was done at the parish church for three Sundays. When Rene heard of the marriage he threatened Marie and informed her that he had occult powers. If she went ahead with the marriage he would put a curse on her that would prevent her from having children. Despite this, she and Pierre decided to go ahead with the wedding. Friends advised Pierre that to ward off the curse he should recite psalm 51 in Latin backwards during the wedding. One wonders if an already nervous groom could manage to carry this off! Marie and her friend Elizabeth scheduled their wedding on the same day August 12, 1657.

Rene Besnard attending the wedding - after all Major Closse, Elizabeth's fiance, was his commanding officer. During the ceremony he was observed knotting a cord and mumbling. Accounts don't mention if Pierre had the presence of mind to say the psalm backwards but obviously he was shaken by the experience. As a result, although Elizabeth and her new groom were soon awaiting their first child he was unable to consummate the marriage with Marie. He believed in the curse.  After a year the young couple approached the bishop in the hope that a bishop's blessing might remove the curse but nothing seemed to help.  In the meantime their persecutor was having problems himself. Marie and Pierre brought charges against him claiming  that he had propositioned Marie and sought to exchange sexual favors in return for removing the curse. He had boasted to others of  his role in their childlessness and two other people joined the couple as witnesses. Rene had a sudden lapse of memory about these conversations and tried to turn the charge around. He accused Marie of offering sex to him meeting with him when her husband was out of the house. Eventually the judge was able to sort out the charges and counter charges and Rene admitted to having made the threat of the curse but only to seduce Marie - and for that was jailed.

Witchcraft was taken seriously in the 17th century in New France as well as other parts of North America and Europe. Although Rene said he had not put the curse on Marie and Pierre but only threatened it he was liable to be tried on the charge of sorcery and even could have been burned at the stake. Although the court found Rene guilty he was lucky since he was only fined 300 pounds and banished to live no closer than 75 miles from Montreal.  Rene settled up the St. Lawrence river in Trois Rivieres and his reputation doesn't seem to have damaged his career or his marriage prospects. He married there in 1661 and was corporal of the Trois Rivieres garrison by his marriage. He was later named a public prosecutor and even  became a respectable church warden. He had some legal difficulties over the next 20 years  but managed to become a fairly prosperous farmer by 1681. .

Nearly two years had gone by since the wedding and even the trial of Rene did not cure Pierre's impotence. The couple had to wait another year according to church law to see if the situation could be remedied. When it wasn't they received the decree of annulment that I found over 300 years later in the pages of the wedding record of the parish of Notre Dame in Montreal. The marriage was annulled  August 30, 1660 because of "perpetual impotence caused by sorcery" and both were free to marry another. Pierre was ordered to provide compensation to his former wife both in money and beaver skins which would allow her to have a dowry and form another alliance. In her case she didn't take much time making a decision and was married to Pierre Martin November 3, 1660. Pierre was an immigrant from La Fleche also in the old province of Anjou and had arrived in 1653 with a large group of settlers referred to as the "Grand Recue". He was both a surgeon and a lawyer. It didn't take long for Marie to become pregnant - the curse was broken.

Unfortunately she had little time to enjoy her new married happiness, Pierre Martin was caught up in an Iroquois ambush four months later and decapitated. His body was found in June 1661. His posthumous daughter was born Nov 9 of that year to the young widow. A month later Marie married Honore Langlois about 10 years her senior who had been recruited to come Quebec in 1651. At the request of the governor of Montreal he was one of ten men recruited to move there to aid in the defense of the settlement against the Iroquois. Honore had made his home in Montreal buying cattle and clearing a large tract of land.

Montreal was a small settlement of perhaps 50 families. The census of 1666 enumerated 627 men, women and children. In that enumeration were Marie Pontonnier and her husband Honore Langlois with her daughter Marie and two of their children, a daughter Jeanne b. 1664 and a small son Honore who would die that same year. However she and Honore would go on to have 8 more children. In the same census is found her former husband Pierre Gadois who, perhaps with good reason after his experience with his first marriage, waiting until 1665 to marry. He and his bride Jeanne Bresnard (no relation to Rene) married in April of 1665 and were awaiting the birth of their first child. He and Jeanne had 14 children successfully overcoming the curse.

Looking over the census of 1666 I can see several other families who appear in my own family tree: Interestingly my direct ancestor Pierre Chicoine is living in the village having arrived a few years before. He is still single as are a number of men in the village. A scarcity of French women is being remedied by importation of the "Filles du Roi" imported brides begun three years previously. His future bride Madeleine Chretien would arrive in 1670. Also in the village were the LeMoyne family. Charles Lemoyne and his wife Catherine Thierry and sons would play a role in my family history since Pierre would work for them and settle in their seigneury of Longueuil.. Charles would be a witness at Pierre and Madeliene's wedding and sign the register. His son Pierre known as d'Iberville, soldier and explorer with his younger brother Jean Baptiste LeMoyne would survey the territory of Louisiana. Jean Baptiste would be the  first governor of the colony and in 1718 found the city of New Orleans where I currently reside. .

(for more information see  series of biographies in Our French Canadian Ancestors/Nos Ancetres by Gerard Leber and Thomas LaForest - Marie Pontonnier and the men in her life )

Connecting the Callahans of Concord

One of the brick walls in my Irish family history on my mother's side is the connection of her great grandmother Abbie Callahan Leary to the other Callahan's living in the town of Concord NH where they settled in the 1850's. Abbie died in 1875 and when her death was registered her husband John Leary did not give her parents' names even though he must have known them. Since they followed the traditional Irish naming pattern I suspect that her father was Daniel (from her second son Daniel who died in Ireland) and her mother was Mary (from her second oldest daughter). John's parents' names James and Hannah were given to the first son and the oldest daughter. (note - other areas of Ireland have a slightly different pattern with eldest son named for paternal grandfather and the eldest daughter for maternal grandmother)

So I began collecting Callahans in Concord - hoping that somehow I could make the connection. After exhausting all the vital records available I checked out the parish registers in Concord and Manchester where some family weddings were recorded for Learys and Callahans. Baptisms and weddings required two witnesses for each. The Irish custom was to ask family members when possible,  to serve as sponsors for these events. I came across two possible links - At the wedding of Abbie's daughter Mary to Andrew Bresnahan in 1854 at St. Ann's in Manchester one of the witnesses was a John Callahan. In 1859 Margaret Callahan daughter of John and Mary Walsh had Catherine Leary (daughter of John and Abbie) as her godmother. Joseph Patrick Leary baptized 1879 had an Eugene and Margaret Callahan as his godparents. A John Callahan served as pall bearer for John Leary Sr. at his funeral in 1881.

The next task was to figure out which "John", "Margaret" or "Eugene" was the person mentioned in the record since the Irish are often repeat similar names in each generation. I was able to eliminate some who were deceased before the event took place, too young to serve as a godparent or living in another state.

The most likely of the Callahans in town (although other Callahans may also be related) are two brothers Michael and John P. Callahan who were born in Ireland and arrived in Concord in around 1849-54. Their parents are Eugene (Owen) Callahan born 1799 in Ireland and Margaret O'Connell  from the brothers' death records. There is no indication that their parents immigrated. 

In Irish records I have found a Eugene Callahan and a Margaret O'Connell living in Glen Flesk Kerry who baptized three children - a son Eugene born 20 June 1837, a daughter Johannah born in 1839 and a son Jeremiah born in 1844. Since the father's name was usually given to the third born son according to the Irish tradition,  they could be the parents of Michael (who could have been born as early as 1825) and John born about 1833. Records from earlier times are sometimes not extant. There are no earlier entries for this family so if  this is the family  of Michael and John Callahan who settled in Concord they might have been the only ones who immigrated to America.

I strongly believe that Eugene is related to Abbie Callahan Leary based on the involvement of this family in events in the Leary family and viceversa. Based on his age he could be her elder brother. It also might explain why the Leary family immigrated to Concord NH (John possibly first with his two eldest daughters Mary and Hannah landing in Boston and then John going back to bring the rest with him) In 1853 when John and wife Abbie Callahan landed in NYC with James, Catherine and John they went directly to Concord NH. The families lived close to one another in Concord and members of each worked for the railroad.

Michael born in 1825-1830 in Ireland was married in 1854 to Hannah Prendeville. He and Hannah had three children between 1857 and 1860. Michael served in the Civil War and served in Company E of the New Hampshire 18th Infantry Regiment 24 Sept 1864 to 10 June 1865.  He, with wife and  his sons Eugene and John  appear in the 1870 census in Concord, His daughter Margaret b. 1860 can't be found in the 1870 census so she may have  died. All three Michael, Eugene and John die in 1871 - perhaps from some illness.

John P. born in 1833 in Ireland married two years later to Mary Walsh. If his is the immigration record from 1855 for a John Callahan from Concord, NH,  he arrived in 1849. John and Mary had 10 children and they alone are the progenitors of most of the Callahan's who live in Concord. (I have found several other families Barney F.and wife Ellen Kelliher, another John and wife Bridget Fitzgerald and some other stray Callahans but I cannot connect them with each other or with this Callahan line.)

I suspect that John P. Callahan was the man who witnessed the marriage of Mary Leary, daughter of John and Abbie, in 1854 to Andrew Bresnahan. Catherine Leary, daughter of Abbie Callahan Leary was godmother for John and Mary Walsh's daughter Margaret born in 1859. Their first born son Eugene (named for his grandfather) with his sister Margaret were godparents to Abbie's grandson Joseph Patrick in 1879. Michael and Hannah Prendeville also had a daughter Margaret about the same age as her cousin so she also could be the godmother. John P. was living near the Leary family when John Leary Sr. died and is probably the John Callahan who was a pall bearer for his funeral in 1881. There are other John Callahans in town at that time but they seem less likely because there is no other connection with the Leary clan.

St. John the Evangelist Church Concord

Msgr. Eugene O'Callaghan

Even the parish priest in Concord at the time my family lived there was O'Callaghan - Msgr. Eugene O Callaghan from Kinsale, Co. Cork.  No connection found with him either although he officiated at a number of family baptisms and weddings. The Leary family had a persistent oral tradition handed down in both lines of the immigrant family (James - mine and his brother John) that they were from Cork which is likely since they lived about a mile from the Kerry Cork border. Certainly Abbie could have been from Cork. It is also possible that the Callahan's were from Kerry.

Oh, if only my great great grandfather had remembered to put his wife's parents on her death record!

Complicated cousins

As a child traveling to visit family in Highgate, Vermont I would ask how people we met were related and most of the time Dad just replied that we were cousins. It seemed like the entire town was related to us. As I began to study family history I realized just how complicated the relationships were. My Chicoine-Raymond-Dupuis ancestors and their blended families of Bouvier Lemelin, Cook and Raymond half siblings began to settle there in the 1830's and first appear in the 1840 census. My Chicoine-Beaulac ancestors appear in nearby Swanton in the 1820's moving back and forth to Canada until the early 20th century when my Dad and his family finally settled there for good.

Chicoine- Bouvier-Cook-Raymond cousins ca 1920

This confusing mix can be seen through the story of my 2nd great grandmother Salome Dupuis. She grew up in the town of Lacadie (L'Acadie) in the province of Quebec situated in the Richelieu river valley south of Montreal. It was founded by her ancestors. Her grandparents Charles Dupuis and Anne Doucet arrived there around 1770 after meeting and marrying in exile in Connecticut during the Acadian expulsion in 1763..

Ste. Marguerite Parish church Lacadie QC

Salome was the youngest of a large Dupuis family. She was married in 1840  at age 18 to Louis Lemelin age 42. Louis was from a Lacadie family and had married there in 1816 before Salome was born,  to Marguerite Herbert. From that first marriage 12 children were born but only two sons, and a girl of 10 were living with him in Napierville when his wife died.

Louis married Salome in 1851, a woman of about the same age as his sons. She became a second mother for his young daughter Marie Marguerite. Louis and Salome had a baby which they named Salome but sadly she died during infancy. Their 4 other children thrived.Louis and Salome lived most of their married life in the town of Henryville, only one of their four children was born elsewhere, in 1844 in Napierville.Then almost 9 years and 5 children later he died leaving Salome age 27 alone with her four living children.

How did she support herself after her husband's death? Or did she depend on her extended family for help? It is quite possible that her stepsons Leon and Louis both close to her own age were still living at home. (Louis' sons by his first marriage.) They later married but not until after 1850. Using census and church records I have tried to trace her marriages and migrations from her hometown of Lacadie, QC  to the border towns of Henryville, Quebec and Highgate, Vermont. In the process, like many other French-speaking  immigrants to an English speaking world her name was anglicized to Sally Wells (a translation of Du-puis or Du puit - well)

Salome Dupuis' sister in law Domithilde Allard  was married to Salome's brother Joseph Dupuis. Domithilde's sister Emeliene had married Marcel Raymond brother of Julien Raymond. The Raymond family probably knew the Dupuis family as they lived in Lacadie from before her birth until around 1829 when they moved first to Napierville and then to Henryville.. After 1837 the two oldest Raymond sons were living in Highgate Vermont just across the border. Since Henryville was the nearest Catholic parish to Highgate in the 1830's it is possible that Salome and Julien met at family weddings and baptisms.  However they met, Salome wed  Julien Raymond in 1851. He was a recent widower age 33 with at least three children under 10 according to the 1850 census but perhaps 7 under 10 according to the ages of children listed in the 1860  US census who were born before 1850. 

Bouvier-Chicoine-Cook blended family

Julien Raymond had lived in the US since before 1840 - perhaps immigrating there as a result of the uprising of 1837 and its disruptions of life in the area of the Richelieu valley. He may have come with his father Antoine and mother Marie Garand and sibling Marcel who also appears in the 1840 census. Both men are listed under their surname's "dit" name, the nickname Toulouse, he as Jules and his brother as Marshall..Julien who married Theotiste Fontaine in 1837 in St. Valentin has no children in the census but they would go on to have 7 children. In the same 1840 census my Dad's great grandfather Jean Baptiste Chicoine (John Chequin)  and family were listed as residents of nearby Swanton, VT..

Chicoine Lemelin (Lemnah) cousins 1918

Salome and Julie and their blended family of at least 7 and perhaps 11 lived in Highgate in a section that was called Frenchtown. In an 1871 map of the area there are at least two Raymond families listed (Rainmount). Adult children of their previous marriages: Julien and Theotiste, Salome and Louis Lemelin also settled in Highgate and some of their descendants wound up marrying each other. Eventually Jean Baptiste Chicoine's children and the descendants of the Raymond-Lemelin clan married. Two of my Dad's grandmothers were Raymonds - Adelaide the daughter of Julien and Salome and Virginia - the daughter of his brother Marcel and Emeliene Allard.  Virginia Raymond was married three times and raised a blended family of Bouvier, Chicoine and Cook children thereby  adding to the confusion.  

No wonder my Dad's explanation for everyone we would meet in Highgate was - we are just cousins!

Louisiana Cousins: Broussard

Until I did two blog entries about my 5th great grandparents, Charles Dupuis and Anne Doucet I had not thought about relatives in Louisiana. After doing that research I discovered that I probably have quite a few cousins,* some from their siblings and others from other lines. One of them, my 6th great grand uncle Joseph Broussard,  is famous. Joseph was a sibling of Anne Doucet's grandmother Marie Broussard, daughter of Jean Francis Broussard and his wife Catherine Richard.

The Broussard family lived in Port Royal, L'Acadie, now Nova Scotia. Following the "expulsion" from Nova Scotia in 1755 by the British, Joseph and his brother Alexandre,  formed a resistance group which would fight the British and the expulsion for 4 years. Both were nicknamed "dit Beausoliel" meaning good sun, which in turn referred to that area of Nova Scotia which they had settled. Finally, to avoid killing their group off by starvation, Joseph negotiated a surrender which provided for his group being housed,fed and kept together as prisoners until 1763. Following the "Treaty of Paris" in 1764 Joseph chartered a schooner on which a large group of Acadian refugees sailed for "any land where French was spoken". 

This voyage taking the group initially to Santo Domingo (St.Dominique) and eventually to Louisiana in 1765. Upon arriving in Louisiana the group of Acadians were dispatched with tools to the Attakapas region with Joseph named as group leader with the rank of Captain in the militia. Shortly after his arrival at the Attakapas, Joseph would contract yellow fever and die, as did his brother Alexandre and other members of their family.

The Broussard clan would survive in Louisiana through their children. The Broussards are a particularly prolific family.

For more information see  http://kandrtell.tripod.com/gen/broussard.html. 

Descendants of Joseph, Alexandre and their siblings Catherine (1st Landry and 2nd Prejean) Isabelle (Trahan), Timothee, Armand, Charles Eloy and Francoise (LaBauve) settled in  St. Martinsville, Louisiana and surrounding areas. More information on St. Martinsville, LA.

more information on St. Martinsville, LA

http://www.cajuncountry.org/st-martinville.php

*I will be blogging about my other Louisiana cousins just as soon as I sort them all out. They include the surnames Dupuis, Doucet, Landry, Dugas, Bourg and Robichaud. 

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From Desc. of Francois & Nicolas Broussard CD ROM

Lost in the California Gold Rush: Where is Uncle Richard?

I was surprised when I learned that I was not the only member of my family who lived in California. My great granduncle Richard Corbett was a ship's carpenter who had preceded the Corbett family, my great-grandfather Dominick, his widowed mother Anastasia and big brother Patrick to the US. They were settled in Taunton, Massachusetts by 1855 where Patrick and  Dominick followed the trade of carpenter. They appear in the 1855 state census. However brother Richard is not with them in either the 1855 or 1865 state census or the 1860 US census when they were joined by three other siblings, Johanna, Ellen and William.

Two ads posted in the Boston Pilot http://infowanted.bc.edu/ gave me information allowing me to trace the family back to their place of origin in both Ireland and the US and recover baptism records for my great grandfather and some of his siblings. Richard was baptized March 21, 1830 in the parish of Oning and Templelorm, Fiddown, Kilkenny. His family was living nearby in Turkstown, Kilkenny when he was a young man. That town had a ship building business run by the Dwan brothers who lived on the same property as the Corbetts. Perhaps Richard and his brothers gained their carpentry skills working in it. He also may have experienced the lure of the sea since vessels could come up the Suire river from the seaport of Waterford as far as this small town.  The ads note that he “followed the sea for some years” . He had arrived in the US “some years before”. 

I believe that based on that information Richard appears on a passenger list, a carpenter coming into NYC  on the Siddons Jan 6, 1851. Did he jump ship there and decide to travel to the gold fields influenced by the many ads for travel there and stories of quick riches?

If so It is possible he is the R. Corbett listed on one of the ships heading for the Isthmus of Panama (where passengers crossed on foot or riding donkeys to meet a ship on the other side to head to California.) 1849 gold had been discovered and a "gold fever" seized many miners seeking to hit it rich. Ads like this one  in newspapers promised a swift journey instead of the long one round the tip of South America or the long and arduous one across the US by wagon. All the family knew was that he had arrived and was working in San Francisco when they wrote the ad looking for him in June 1855.

San Francisco early 1850's

If Richard signed on as a ship’s carpenter (on the Siddons or another) to get free passage,  he might have taken the much longer and more dangerous passage via Cape Horn. Whichever way he traveled Richard apparently reached San Francisco between 1852 and 53 and wrote to his family. He is not listed in the California State census of 1852. By the time he arrived in San Francisco the nearby fields were overcrowded and not producing the prodigious amounts of gold that they had in the early days. He  lost no time heading north – perhaps by stage coach or coastal boat for northern California writing from Shasta Co to his family that he was heading from Shasta to Yreka in Siskyou co. In June of 1855 the family was trying to get in touch with Richard and referred to his letter of May 1854. This much the family knew when his brother Patrick tried again to find him in another ad in 1857 searching for him in Yreka.They had evidently had at least two letters from him - the original from San Francisco and a later one from Shasta.

Stage Yreka California

Gold was discovered in Yreka in 1851 at a spot called "Thompson's Dry Diggins". Miners poured into the town which was called Shasta Butte City. Residents found this confusing with the town of Shasta, in Shasta County, so the name was changed.  Joaquin Miller described Yreka during 1853-54 as a bustling place with "...a tide of people up and down and across other streets, as strong as if in New York". More stage lines used the town for a stage stop than any other community in the state. The Deadwood district of Siskiyou included the towns of Liberty, Sawyers Bar. The miners produced a steady stream of gold until late in the 19^th century.

The rugged area on the California Oregon border

Chinese andCaucasian miners in No California

In the 1860 census for the Deadwood district in the town of Liberty there is a Richard Corbett of about the right age living with three other miners. All are Irish ranging in age from 33-22 and each has a total of $250 in property.  In that census the miners are mostly living in groups of less than 10 grouped perhaps by language. There are men from all over the US and from Europe. The town is predominately male and young. Large groups of Chinese miners are also listed, sometimes only listed by one name or only "Chinaman" and one age for all in the group. They were perhaps 1/3 of the population. Only 3 Chinese women appear none of them married.

There are only 13 families in the town 7 of whom have about 24 children between them in the 14 page census. Women and children are a definite minority. For the most part the census taker didn't bother to total them correctly in the tally at the end of the page. A recent widow runs a hotel with her California born children, the youngest of which is only a year. There must have been enough of school age children for a schoolhouse since one of the women is listed as a schoolteacher. All of the other white women are married most of them to miners.

Rare woman at a mining site

Those who run a business such as a hotel, a stable or a blacksmith shop, are considerably better off than the average miner like Richard with real estate and personal property worth $1000 to $10,000. The wealthiest persons in town are the lone lawyer, merchants and hotel owners. The presence of many Irish like Richard led to the  location of Catholic places of worship at Liberty and Sawyers dating from the mid 1850’s. There are two other Corbet(t) in town: a Mike also from Ireland and a William born in Massachusetts. If they were related to Richard they are not living with him. 

Since there were no other ads by his family one wonders if they were hearing from him by this time or had given up hope of finding him? Unfortunately the correspondence did not survive the death of his older brother Patrick around 1870 or his mother in 1873. His younger brother Dominick, my great grandfather was in New London, Connecticut in 1860, later moving to Vermont and fighting in the Civil War as a ship's carpenter in the Union Navy. He married in Vermont in 1867. My grandmother had little memory of her father who died in 1877 and never mentioned an uncle or her grandmother Anastasia. Dominick had named her older sister Anastasia “Annie” but evidently she didn’t know the connection.  Dominick named his his only son, John Richard,  after his father and Richard after the long lost brother.

John R. Corbett nephew

Richard does not appear on any of the Voter Rolls for California but then again he may not have become a citizen. Richard’s who appear in 1870 and 1880 in US census in California are not likely matches because age is too far off and most live far south of where he was in 1860. There is a Roger Corbett who settled in the Liberty area and is buried in the Catholic cemetary of Sawyer's Bar but he is younger and born in 1844 in Massachusetts. There are Army enlistment records for several Richard Corbetts, from Kilkenny who served in the 1860-1875 period. Is one of them Richard? In the 1870 census for Boise, Idaho there is listed a Richard Corbett,  born in Ireland, about the right age, now a US citizen, working as a miner. It makes sense that Richard would follow the mining lure still hoping to “strike it rich”.

So where is Richard? Even what I have discovered shows me that he was a person who liked adventure and was a risk taker.

 It is possible that Richard died before he was 50 as did his father and three of his four brothers. There appears that some congenital defect – perhaps heart trouble plagued these men. No record of death has been found in Idaho but their death records start in 1890.A search of California death records also came up a blank.record.

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/californiagoldrush.htm