Introductory Note:
In 2021, the small, rural town of Saint-Fortunat, Québec (current population 277), celebrated the 150th anniversary of the December 1871 establishment of the parish of Saint-Fortunat-de-Wolfestown. Two years later, the same land area covered by the parish was incorporated as a town, also called Saint-Fortunat.
In the summer of 2020, Charles Bédard, a resident of Saint-Fortunat, contacted me after reading this blog while doing online research on the history of the parish and town. Charles was a member of the Comité des fêtes du 150e de Saint-Fortunat which was charged with developing activities to celebrate the anniversary year and of the Comité du livre which was responsible for producing a commemorative book. As a result of many emails between the two of us, some of the material in the blog and from my research made its way into the commemorative book, St-Fortunat 1871-2021: 150 ans d’histoire à se raconter (pub. June 2021). In addition, Charles invited me to write two articles for the section of the book about some of the pioneer families in Wolfestown: one on the family of Damase Demers and Euphrasie Lamontagne who settled there in 1859, and one on the family of Simon Lamontagne and Marie Madeleine Legendre, who arrived even earlier, about 1845.
Needless to say, it was very meaningful for me to participate in this way in the celebration of the establishment of Saint-Fortunat, even if from a distance during this time of closed borders between the U.S. and Canada. I want to give a heartfelt thank you to Charles for making me feel part of the anniversary year celebration.
The commemorative book is entirely in French, so this post provides the first published English translation of the Demers family article. I’ve also posted the French version on the blog. I’ll post the French and English translation of the Lamontagne family article soon.
As with much of the material that has appeared in the blog over the past several years, I’ve received help for the Demers and Lamontagne articles from several cousins. Anita Demers Olko from Lewiston, Maine, helped with genealogical information and the old photographs. And our two cousins, Jeanne d’Arc and Cécile Leblanc, who now live in Victoriaville, Québec, but who were born and raised on a farm in Saint-Fortunat in the 1930s and 40s, have shared with me their knowledge of family history and the history of the town and parish of Saint-Fortunat, much of which I’ve incorporated in many of the blog posts and in the two articles that appear in the book. They have also helped to improve almost all the French text that I’ve written since meeting them for the first time in 2016.
Anita, Jeanne d’Arc, Cécile and I are related to each other through the patriarch and matriarch of the Demers family that settled in Saint-Fortunat in 1859, Damase Demers and Euphrasie Lamontagne. Jeanne d’Arc and Cécile, who are sisters, are the great-grand-daughters of Damase and Euphrasie, I am a great-great-grandson, and Anita is a great-great-great-granddaughter. Although the family relationships among the four of us are rather distant, we consider ourselves family and have formed close friendships over the past five years as we’ve worked on family history projects, which have included visits with the sisters in Victoriaville and Saint-Fortunat.
Finally, even more distant cousins - and new friends, too - Suzanne Demers and Johanne Demers, provided invaluable help with the French texts in the Demers and Lamontagne articles. Suzanne and Johanne are very active members of the Association of Demers Families, Inc., based in Québec, and are members of its board. I thank them all, Anita, Jeanne d’Arc, Cécile, Suzanne and Johanne, for all of their help and encouragement in my ongoing quest to learn more about my family's Québec heritage.
Dennis Doiron, Gardiner, Maine, January 2022
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Saint-Fortunat, Quebec, in the Appalachian foothills in late October 2017. The church, with its white spire, is in the center of the photo. It was built beginning in 1872 and the first mass was held around Christmas 1873. This view of the village is from near the beginning of the 6th range road. The Demers family farm was on this road about two miles to the northwest (or to the right of the photo). (Photo: Dennis Doiron)
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The Demers Family of the 6th Range Road
In his old age, the first mayor of Saint Fortunat, Télesphore Demers, often told his grandchildren that his father was the first man to cut down trees by ax on the family lands on the chemin du sixième rang, the Sixth Range Road, in the Township of Wolfestown. His farmland was on both sides of the road between two ranges, or rangs, of land; one lot on the fourth lot of the fifth range and other land on the fourth and fifth lots of the 6th range. Many of the fields cleared by Damase and other members of his large family along the road are fields to this day, though not a single descendant remains there now.
Who was this family? And what became of them?
Damase (1811 - 1871) was part of a family that had settled in 1666 in one of the first seigneuries in Canada, the Seigneurie de Lauzon, not far from Québec City on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River. He was born in the parish of Saint-Nicholas and married Euphrasie Lamontagne (1817 -1890), also from the same parish, in 1838. Before his marriage, Damase had bought farmland in nearby Saint Gilles-de-Beaurivage upon which he and Euphrasie raised their young family for more than twenty years. But at the end of the 1850s, they were attracted to the idea of farming on the newly opened lands in the Eastern Townships. These lands must have appeared more promising than staying on the tired and overcrowded lands on the plains near the Saint Lawrence River. So in 1859, the entire family moved to the foothills of the Appalachian mountains, onto the virgin forest lands of Wolfestown Township: Damase, Sr., 48 years old, Euphrasie, 42, and their children, Théodore, 20, Marie Euphrasie, 19 (with her husband Hilaire Aubin, 29), Damase, Junior, 17, Télesphore, 12, Louis-Ferdinand, ten, Louis Octave-Alexis, three, and Delvina, one.
During the first years, their new farm fell within the parish of Saint Julien-de-Wolfestown, but later became part of the parish and town of Saint Fortunat. In 1917 or so, Télesphore wrote a brief description of the isolation of the farm during the family’s early years in the township:
My father sold his farm to settle in Saint-Julien-de-Wolfestown in the Eastern Townships. It was three miles in the forest, five miles from the nearest road, nine miles from the stores in Saint-Ferdinand-d'Halifax and six miles from the chapel in Saint-Julien. The mission priest came to Saint-Julien every two weeks to provide services to the settlers.
Damase and Euphrasie inspired many other members of the Demers family to settle on the Sixth Range Road, thereby becoming the patriarch and matriarch of a large extended family, which included nephews Honoré and Évangéliste (sons of Germain Demers), and Hilaire and Barthélemy Aubin (step-sons of Germain). Almost all the members in the younger generation listed below farmed their own land and raised families on the 6th Range Road during the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s.
