Introductory Note:
As mentioned in the previous blog post, The Demers Family on the 6th Range Road, the small town of Saint-Fortunat, Québec, celebrated the 150th anniversary of the establishment of the parish of Saint-Fortunat-de-Wolfestown in 2021. One of the events marking the anniversary was the publication of a commemorative book, St-Fortunat 1871-2021: 150 ans d’histoire à se raconter (June 2021). I was invited by Charles Bédard, a member of the Comité des fêtes du 150e, to write articles on the Demers and Lamontagne families for the section devoted to the town's pioneer families. As might be expected, the book was published entirely in French, so the previous post and this one provide for the first time English translations for the articles I wrote.
For the blog article on the Lamontagne family, I’ve included some additional information and images not included in the book, particularly on the boundary of the parish of Saint-Ferdinand-d'Halifax in 1852, the genealogy of my great-great grandmother Marie Madeleine Legendre’s family, the 1886 land contract between Simon Lamontagne and his daughter Julie and her husband Narcisse Girard, and on the army service of Donat Girard in France during WWI.
I thank Charles Bédard once more for giving me the chance to contribute to the commemorative book and, thus, to be a part of the 150th anniversary of the parish.
Dennis Doiron, Gardiner, Maine, February 2022.
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This tin-type photograph was probably taken about 1868 when Simon was 50 years old and living on the 6th Range Road, the chemin du 6e rang, in the Township of Wolfestown. According to family oral history, Simon was a short-man known for his hunting skills, someone who could move through the forest as silently as an Indian.
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The Family of Simon Lamontagne and Marie Madeleine Legendre
Shortly after the Gosford Road was built in 1843 from St-Gilles-de-Beaurivage into the Eastern Townships of Québec Province, Simon Lamontagne, 25, made a decision that altered the course of his life and that of his family. Likely a day laborer in the parish of Saint-Antoine-de-Tilly in the old Seigneurie de Lotbinière on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River, Simon decided to settle on newly opened land in the Appalachian foothills of the Township of Wolfestown.
Simon belonged to a family whose first Canadian ancestor, his third great-grandfather François Baquet dit Lamontagne, arrived in Canada in 1666 as a soldier in the famed Carignan-Salières Regiment, which had been sent to protect the colony against the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, also known as the Iroquois Confederacy or the Six Nations. After his service, François first settled on Ile-d’Orléan and then permanently across the Saint Lawrence River in St-Michel-de-Bellechasse. Through several generations, many of François’ descendants spread out along the south shore of the river, from Saint-Michel to Saint-Antoine, and elsewhere in Canada.
In 1842, Simon, the son of Michel Lamontagne and Magdeleine Marion, married Marie Madeleine Legendre in Saint-Antoine-de-Tilly. Marie was born in 1824 in the neighboring parish of Sainte-Croix-de-Lotbinière, the daughter of Charles Legendre and Marie Magdeleine Bergeron. By the time of Marie’s birth, four generations of Legendres had lived in Sainte-Croix, beginning with her great-great-grandfather Jean Baptiste Legendre who was born in Le Ferré, Brittany, France, in 1699 and arrived in Québec sometime before his first marriage in Saint-Augustine-Desmaures in 1720.
After their first child, Philomène, was born in Saint-Antoine in 1843, the couple prepared for the move to Wolfestown, where they settled sometime before their second child, Victoria, was baptized in the parish of Saint-Ferdinand-d’Halifax in 1846. They settled on lot three, range three, which was one of the 15 lots in Wolfestown that had been ceded to the parish of Saint-Ferdinand. The road they lived on is still called today the chemin de Quinze lots, or Fifteen Lots Road.
It appears that they were joined immediately or shortly thereafter by Simon’s brother Francois and by Louis Garneau, both from Saint-Antoine, and Francois Guay of Pointe-Saint-Joseph-de-Lévis. The four men apparently shared lot three as squatters, a status that they would have shared at the time with many of the early settlers in Wolfestown and nearby townships.
More than 15 years after first settling on the third range, the four men entered into a contract for the purchase of the land from the Bank of Québec, the owner of much of the land in this part of the Eastern Townships. This 1861 contract stated that the men had fulfilled certain requirements or obligations, thus indicating the men had been squatters. “[T]he purchasers declare themselves to have satisfied [their obligations] by clearing and improving part of the said land over a long time of time." Attached to the contract is a sworn statement by their neighbors Isaïe Demers and Edmond Houde which says: “That it is their knowledge that the said Simon and François Lamontagne, Louis Garneau and François Guay occupy lot number three of the third row of the said township [and] that they alone occupy it, and that they alone are entitled, ‘as occupants,’ to purchase the said land.”
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The Parishes of Saint-Sophie and Saint-Ferdinand
in the Township of Halifax, 1858.
This 1858 map was made to show the boundaries between the parishes of Saint-Ferdinand-d'Halifax and Saint-Sophie-d'Halifax. The 15 lots of the northwest corner of the Township of Wolfestown that had been ceded to the parish of Saint-Ferdinand-d'Halifax are shown in the lower right corner, to the left of the letters "WO" (the beginning of the word Wolfestown). Lot 3 of the 3rd range was the location of the Lamontagne farm from about 1845 to 1865.
From: Plan indiquant les limites de la paroisse de Saint-Ferdinand d'Halifax, érigée par décret canonique du 2 mars 1858 et de celle de Sainte-Sophie d'Halifax érigée canoniquement par un décret du 3 mars 1858. Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec: //numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/3139495.
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For almost 20 years, Simon and Marie farmed in Saint-Ferdinand and saw the birth of eight children there. On August 15, 1853, however, a ninth child, Virginie, was born and baptized in Saint-Nicolas-de-Lauzon, the ancestral parish of the Lamontagne family where many of Simon's relatives still lived. The baptismal record for Virginie states that her parents were parishioners in Saint-Nicolas, that Simon was a day-laborer, and that his brother Francois and his wife were also there as godparents. The presence of the families of the two brothers in Saint-Nicolas at that time is a bit of a mystery as it is clear that their long-term residency remained in Wolfestown, but perhaps Simon and Francois were in Saint-Nicolas simply to earn some much needed cash by working as day laborers for several months in the summer of 1853.
Around 1865, before daughter Victoria was married in the chapel of Saint-Julien-de-Wolfestown, the family appears to have moved to another parcel of land in Wolfestown township, in the middle of lot three, range five, that fronted on the 6th Range Road. This area of the township was served by the parish of Saint-Julien and would later come within the limits of the new parish of Saint-Fortunat.
It was only later, in 1869, that Simon formally purchased the land on the 6th Range Road from Napoleon Martel. Rather than having squatted on this land before 1869, it seems more likely he rented it or had some other arrangement with Martel because the 1869 land contract contains no language related to having occupied the land or having satisfied obligations necessary to purchase it. The contract describes the land as : “A lot of four and a half arpents frontage to the depth of the lot in lot number three of the fifth range of the said township of Wolfestown, bounded on one side to the south by Olivier Desharnais and on the other side to the north by the remainder of the said lot and being taken in the middle of the said lot with the above-built buildings and improvements.” Shortly thereafter, Simon purchased most of the southern portion of lot three from Olivier Desharnais, part of which he would sell to his son Janvier in 1872.
We can only speculate why Simon and Madeleine decided to leave their farm of 20 years on the 3rd range to move a short distance away to the 5th range. Perhaps they were having difficulty making mortgage payments to the Bank of Québec, or that the land on the 5th range was better for farming, or that more land was available nearby upon which to settle their sons and daughters in the future.
But one likely reason was the presence of the large Damase Demers family with which they had at least two close family connections: Euphrasie Lamontagne, Simon’s first cousin who was married to Damase Demers, Sr., and their eldest daughter, Philomène, who in 1862 married Euphrasie’s oldest son, Théodore Demers. Shortly before or after the move, another daughter married into the Demers family, Victoria to Honoré in 1865, and then a third, Henriette, married Télesphore Demers in 1869. All three daughters would raise their families on the 6th Range Road close to the Lamontagne farm for about twenty years.
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Euphrasie Lamontagne, circa 1882.
Euphrasie Lamontagne, Simon Lamontagne’s first cousin and the wife of Damase Demers, Sr., and the mother of Saint-Fortunat’s first mayor, Télesphore Demers. Euphrasie was the daughter of Ambroise Lamontagne of Saint-Nicolas-de-Lauzon, a brother of Simon's father, Michel.
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Other Lamontagne’s also settled on the 6th Range Road in the 1860s or early 1870s, including Simon’s brother François, and his wife Émerance Delage dit Larivière, who had five children in 1871, and two nephews (the sons of Isaïe Lamontagne): David Lamontagne and his wife, Marie Bergeron, married in 1861, with three children in 1871, and Ferdinand Lamontagne and his wife, Aurelie Tardif, married in 1866, with one child in 1871. In all, the extended Lamontagne family on the 6th Range Road, including all the relations with the closely connected Demers and Aubin families, numbered about 70 when the parish of Saint-Fortunat was established in 1871.
Because he was now living on the 6th Range Road, Simon was able to play an active role in the start of the parish and municipality of Saint-Fortunat in the early 1870s. He was a signatory to the petition that asked the archbishop of Quebec to establish a new parish, participated in the first town meeting that elected members of the first town council, was the president of the second elected school board, and led the parish council as the marguillier en charge in 1875.
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Simon Lamontagne and some of his children a few years after the death in 1881 of his wife, Marie Madeleine Legendre. The family was remarkable for the number of its daughters, eight, compared to three sons.
Standing: Alphonsine (born 1867 in Saint-Julien; died 1896 in New Bedford, Mass.), Joseph (born 1871 in Saint-Julien; died 1940 in St-Eleuthere-de-Kamouraska), and Délienne (born 1863 in St-Ferdinand; died 1924 in unknown location (in 1908, she was living in Saint-Antoine)).
Sitting: Philomène (born 1843 in Saint-Antoine; died 1913 in Lewiston, Maine), Simon Lamontagne (born 1818 in Saint-Antoine; died 1900 in Saint-Fortunat), and Victoria Lamontagne (born 1846 in Saint-Ferdinand; died 1917 in Saint-Samuel-de-Gayhurst, now Lac-Drolet, Québec).
Not shown in the photo: Henriette (born 1851 in Saint-Ferdinand; died 1923 in Sanford, Maine), Janvier (born 1848 in Saint-Ferdinand; died 1916 in Saint-Fortunat), Virginie (born 1853 in Saint-Nicolas; died 1879 in Saint-Fortunat); Louise (born 1855 in Saint-Ferdinand, died 1874 in Saint Fortunat); Celina (1858 - 1864 in Saint-Ferdinand); and Télesphore (born 1860 in Saint-Ferdinand; died 1937, perhaps in Woonsocket, Rhode Island); and Julie (born 1864 in Saint-Ferdinand; died 1935 in Disraeli).
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In addition to daughters Philomène, Victoria, and Henriette, and their husbands, Simon’s oldest son, Janvier, also established a farm of his own on the south-western third of lot number 3, range 5, on the 6th Range Road. Janvier purchased this land from his father in 1872. He and his wife, Marguerite Pelletier, raised most of their 14 children on this farm after their marriage in 1871.
Many years later, shortly after their marriage in 1886, one of Simon’s youngest daughters, Julie Lamontagne, and her husband, Narcisse Girard, acquired Simon’s farm. The land contract with Simon described the land as: “ . . . containing two acres fronting [on the 6th range road] to the depth of the lot, being the northwestern part of the southeastern half of lot number three of the fifth range in the said township of Wolfestown, with the buildings erected thereon . . . ." This appears to be on part of the land that Simon had purchased from Napoléon Martel in 1869.
The land contract between Simon and his daughter and son-in-law also offers a glimpse into a time when the family farm was the primary source of wealth for small farmers and when there were no pensions or other social programs to care for the elderly or minor children. It was not uncommon, therefore, to establish specific obligations like the following from the contract, which also give a good indication of what was considered the most important aspects of life in a farming community during that time and place:
The said grantees [Julie and Narcisse] are charged with lodging [Simon] in their house; feeding him at their own table as they feed themselves; providing him clothing, laundering and mending; providing him a warm and clean bed and heat and light during his life; procuring him the priest as needed and the doctor in case of sickness, as well as remedies and other medicines as necessary; bringing him to divine services in a wagon and bringing him back home; arranging for his Christian burial after his death and for a common church service to be sung while his body is present, if possible, on the day of his funeral, and another common church service at the end of the year of his death, both services being for the repose of his soul; and, in sum, to behave toward [Simon] and to do for him everything that Christian and charitable children would do for their father and father-in-law;
and in case of conflict between them or theirs, the said [Julie and Narcisse], in lieu of the above said charges toward the said [Simon], promise and obligate themselves to pay him a pension for life in the amount of 40 piastres [dollars] per year which will start upon his demand, and without other obligations to him during his life.
The said [Julie and Narcisse] are also charged with continuing to raise their brother and brother-in-law Joseph . . . until he is 18 years old, furnishing him all that is necessary for life and for his clothing as can be afforded by the grantees. [Julie and Narcisse] are also charged to give to each of [Simon's] daughters, Deliénne and Alphonsine, when they marry or otherwise, a good milk cow, a fertile ewe and a furnished bed.
From: Donation de Simon Lamontagne à Narcisse Girard et sa femme, Julie Lamontagne. 15 août 1886, par le notaire A. S. Chambier, St-Ferdinand-d'Halifax, Québec.
As was so typical of the time, almost all of Simon and Marie's children left Saint-Fortunat to find a better life elsewhere, just as they themselves had left Saint-Antoine-de-Tilly in the 1840s for Wolfestown. But their children went much farther afield. Oldest son Janvier immigrated to New Bedford, Massachusetts, with most of his family in the 1890s; he later returned to Saint-Fortunat with his wife, where they both would die. Another son, Joseph, moved to the region of Kamarouska on the lower Saint Lawrence River. The last son, Télesphore immigrated to Woonsocket, Rhode Island. Simon’s daughters Philomène, Victoria, Henriette, Délienne, and Alphonsine immigrated to the United States, the first four to Maine, and the last to New Bedford, Massachusetts. Délienne and Victoria later returned to Québec, respectively to Saint-Antoine-de-Tilly and Saint-Samuel-de-Gayhurst (now Lac-Drolet). Julie was Simon’s only child (other than Virginie, who died in 1879, and Celina in 1881) who lived on the 6th Range Road throughout almost all her life.
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Janvier Lamontagne and Marguerite Pelletier Family, circa 1899.
Photo likely taken in New Bedford, Mass.
Janvier was the only son of Simon Lamontagne and Marie Legendre to farm his own land on the 6th Range Road. He and his wife Marguerite Pelletier were married in November 1871 and lived in Saint-Fortunat until they immigrated around 1886 to New Bedford, Massachusetts. They eventually returned to Saint-Fortunat, where Marguerite died in 1909. Janvier then returned to Massachusetts, but came back to Saint-Fortunat, dying there in 1916. Most of their children permanently emigrated to the United States or elsewhere in Canada, but many of their descendants, especially those from their son Arthur, still live in the region of Saint-Fortunat.
Sitting: Hermenegilde (1891-1955, died in Massachusetts), Emilia (1888-1978, died in Massachusetts), Marguerite Pelletier (1853-1909, died in Saint-Fortunat); Noella (1895-1970, died in Massachusetts), Janvier (1848-1916, died in Saint-Fortunat), Leonie (1886-1966, died in Black Lake, Québec) and Emile (1893-1960, buried in Massachusetts).
Standing : Alphee (1884-1930, died in Massachusetts), Arthur (1881-1958, died in Saint-Julien), Albina (1879-1915, died in Massachusetts), Arsene (1876-1937, died in Sanford, Maine); Lucy Boisclair, the wife of Pierre; and Pierre (1874-1940, died in Massachusetts).
Not shown in photo: Joseph Noe (1872-1876, died in Saint-Fortunat); Joseph Thomas (1877-1951, buried in Massachusetts); Marie (1898-1898, died in Massachusetts); and Joseph (1900; year and place of death unknown).
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Gravestone of Janvier Lamontagne and his wife, Marguerite Pelletier.
Old Cemetery, Saint-Fortunat, Québec.
Javier was the oldest son of Simon Lamontagne and Marie Madeleine Legendre. Born in 1848 on the chemin du 15 lots (15 Lots Road), Janvier was one of the first French-Canadians born in the Township of Wolfestown in the Eastern Townships, Québec Province. His parents are also buried in this cemetery, but their graves are unmarked.
(Photo: Anita Demers Olko, July 16, 1991)
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In 1898, Simon’s granddaughter Odélie Demers wrote about a visit with her grandfather, who was then 80 years old and still living with his daughter Julie and her husband, Narcisse Girard, on Simon’s old farm. “We found them all in good spirits, including our old grandfather, who seemed to have aged a lot, although he still seemed rather capable. His sight and hearing were as good as we young people, and his speech was not troubled at all.”
Two years later, Simon died at the age of 82, after living for over a half-century in Wolfestown Township, first on 15 Lots Road, then on the 6th Range Road. He lived to see a virgin forest turn into farmlands and maple groves crisscrossed with range roads, a central village with a church and presbytery, a post office, sawmills, and small shops, and a population of more than 1,000, mostly farmers and their families. He lived to see the birth of 12 children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but he would also see almost all of them move away to the United States or elsewhere in Canada. Simon is buried in an unmarked grave in the old cemetery in Saint-Fortunat, presumably next to his wife Marie Madeleine, also in an unmarked grave.
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Narcisse Girard and Julie Lamontagne, circa 1905.
Narcisse, the mayor of Saint-Fortunat in 1895, and Julie are standing before their farmhouse in the middle of lot three, range five, on the 6th Range Road, which is likely a house her father Simon Lamontagne had built and where he spent his last days. Julie and Narcisse raised three children here: Donat (1887-1918); Éva Julie Girard (1888-1896) and Marie Anna Girard 1898-1973. An unnamed child died at birth in 1890. In 1935, Julie died in Disraeli, where she is buried. Several months later, Narcisse died in Saint-Fortunat and is buried in the old cemetery there.
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Donat Girard and Philomène Martel Family, circa 1915.
From left to right: Jeannette Berthe (b. 1912), Gerard Rosario Girard (b. 1911), Philomène Martel (b. 1886 in Ste-Helene-de-Chester), Donat (b. 1887), and Josaphat (b. 1914). All except Philomène were born in Saint-Fortunat. After Donat's death, Philomène married Alfred Laflamme in 1919.
Julie and Narcisse’s son Donat immigrated to New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1900 (he likely lived with his Uncle Janvier), but returned to Saint-Fortunat after his marriage in 1910. He worked as a farmer, perhaps on his parents' land, until 1916, when he joined the Canadian Army, despite having a wife and three young children. Donat’s army enrollment papers state he was a farmer, 5 feet 7 inches tall, and had black hair and blue eyes.
He served in the 24th Battalion of the Québec Regiment and was killed in the Battle of Arras (France) on August 28, 1918. Military records describe how he was killed: “He was in an evacuation party during operations in the vicinity of Cherisy and was one of four men carrying a wounded man on a stretcher. He was instantly killed by an enemy shell [ ] when it landed and exploded just beneath the stretcher.” He is buried in a British military cemetery in Cherisy. There is an engraving to his memory on a gravestone in the old cemetery in Saint-Fortunat.
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Donat Girard, Private, 24th Battalion, Québec Regiment, c. 1918.
Donat was one of at least three of Simon and Marie Lamontagne’s grandsons to serve in WWI. The others were Herménégilde Lamontagne, Janvier’s son, and Odias Demers, the youngest son of Télesphore Demers and Henriette Lamontagne. Both served in the U.S. Army and survived the war.
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The Canadian military report on the combat death of Donat Girard.
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Gravestone in memory of Donat Girard and his sister Éva,
Old Cemetery, Rue Principale, St-Fortunat, Quebec.
Translation: To the sweet memory of Donat Girard, died at the Front in Arras, France, at the age of 31 years and 7 months. Husband of Philomène Martel.
Here rests the body of Eva Girard, died April 10, 1896, at the age of 7 years.
(Photo: Anita Demers Olko, May 14, 1993)
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Gravestone of Donat Girard in the British military cemetery in Cherisy, France.
(Photo: https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/memorials/canadian-virtual-war-memorial/detail/534968)
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Cousins Noella Lamontagne, daughter of Janvier and Marguerite, and Marie Anna Girard, daughter of Narcisse and Julie, probably on the 6th Range Road.
Circa 1915.
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Anna, the only child of Narcisse Girard and Julie Lamontagne to reach old age, married Amédée Côté in 1917. The couple raised ten children (Juliette, Claire, Lucille, Josaphat, Noël, Paul, Aldei, Gertrude, Jean Marc, Armand ) on a farm on range five at the corner of 6th Range Road and Route to the 6th Range. This family was the last of Simon Lamontagne and Marie Legendre descendants to have a family farm in Saint-Fortunat.
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Acknowledgements
Once more, as with so many blog posts, 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 generously shared their knowledge on our ancestors and on the history of Saint-Fortunat.
The five of us are related to each other through both the Demers family the Lamontagne family. Jeanne d’Arc and Cécile, who are sisters, are distant cousins of Simon Lamontagne and Marie Legendre, I am a great-great-grandson, and Anita is a great-great-great-granddaughter.
In addition, Suzanne Demers and Johanne Demers provided invaluable help with the French texts in both the Demers and Lamontagne articles that appeared in the anniversary book. Suzanne and Johanne are very active members of the Association of Demers Families, Inc., based in Québec, and are members of its board. You can visit the association’s Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/Associationdesfamillesdemersinc.
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