Category: Uncategorized

Feature Tours

tour	community	tour video link
East Street Cemetery	Chicopee	link
Cherry Lane Cemetery	Springfield	link
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Paid presentation videos are on my PATREON page. See collections at the bottom of this page for a discounted set. Links will bring you to the Patreon page for that video. These are grouped by topic – canal, church, cemetery, and houses.

CANALS

video	internal information about topic	notes	Patreon video LINK
Holyoke Canal System in Massachusetts	link	See similar video in free section.	LINK
Six Navigational Canals of the Connecticut River	link	Canals in Enfield, South Hadley, Montague, Bellow Falls, and more	LINK
Six Power Canals of the Chicopee River in Massachusetts	link	Canals also in Ludlow, Springfield, Wilbraham, and Palmer	LINK
Canals in the Connecticut River Valley of Massachusetts	link	See similar video in free section.	LINK
Skinner Silk Mill of Holyoke Massachusetts	link	How silk is made and how the mills were arranged.	LINK
Springfield Blanket Company in Holyoke Massachusetts	link	A Mill in Holyoke through Time	LINK

CEMETERIES

video	community	notes	LINK
Catholic Cemeteries of Chicopee Massachusetts	link	Look for the Protestant cemeteries too on another video.	LINK
Protestant and Jewish Cemeteries of Chicopee Massachusetts	link	Look for the Catholic cemeteries too on another video.	LINK
Burial Grounds of Ludlow Massachusetts throughout its History	link	History and properties of its cemeteries.	LINK
Burial Grounds of Holyoke throughout its History	link	Cemeteries used by people of Holyoke.	LINK
The Lost Grave in South Hadley Massachusetts	link	Bowdoin family	LINK
Burial Grounds of South Hadley and Granby (Massachusetts) throughout their Histories	link	History and properties of its cemeteries.	LINK
Burial Grounds of Longmeadow throughout its History	link	History and properties of its cemeteries.	LINK
Burial Grounds of Granby and South Hadley throughout their Histories	link	History and properties of its cemeteries.	LINK
Burial Grounds of Southampton throughout its History	link	History and properties of its cemeteries.	LINK
Slide Presentation of Ireland Parish Goes to War about Holyoke Massachusetts	link	Revolutionary War Veterans of Holyoke Massachusetts	LINK
Catholic Cemeteries of Springfield Massachusetts	link	History and properties of its cemeteries.	LINK

CHURCHES

video	community	notes	LINK
Precious Blood Church Fire of 1875 in Holyoke Massachusetts	link	Birth names and dates have been found.	LINK
Catholic Churches in Chicopee Massachusetts	link	Also see Protestant Churches in Chicopee Massachusetts	LINK

HOMES

video	community	notes	LINK
The House at 181 Linden Street in Holyoke Massachusetts	link	house history	LINK
159 Chestnut Street	link	House in Holyoke Massachusetts series	LINK
Lovering Schoolhouse of Holyoke Massachusetts	link	House in Holyoke Massachusetts series	LINK
House in Holyoke through Time – The Smith Homesteads	link	House in Holyoke Massachusetts series	LINK
General Discussion of the Olmsteds in Holyoke Massachusetts	link	General history not technical.	LINK
Olmsteds Designs in Holyoke Massachusetts	link	Discusses their designs.	LINK
House in South Hadley	link

Collections and others

video	community	notes	LINK
Sesquicentennial Ramble through Historic Holyoke Massachusetts	link	Veterans Memorial Park to High Street	LINK
Quebec Genealogy	link	genealogy	LINK
South Hadley Burial Sites	link	collection	LINK
Chicopee Churches and Cemeteries	link	collection	LINK
Holyoke Churches and Cemeteries	link	collection	LINK
Canals	link	collection	LINK
Olmsteds in Holyoke	link	collection	LINK
House in Holyoke	link	collection	LINK
Mill in Holyoke	link	collection	LINK

Feature Presentations

Presentations	community	Video links (external)
Catholic Cemeteries of Springfield Massachusetts	Springfield	LINK
A Holyoke House through Time The Smith Homesteads	Holyoke	LINK
Springfield Blanket Company in Holyoke Massachusetts	Holyoke	LINK
Canals of the Connecticut River Valley in Massachusetts	Northampton	LINK
Burial Grounds of Granby Massachusetts	Granby	LINK
Lovering School of Holyoke Massachusetts	Holyoke	LINK
Lost Grave in South Hadley	South Hadley	LINK
Precious Blood Church Fire of 1875	South Hadley	LINK
Canals of the Connecticut River Valley in Massachusetts	South Hadley	LINK
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Comeau family history from 1619 to 1755

Virtually all lines of any French-Canadian will expand in Canada back to the early pioneers of Quebec and Acadia (Nova Scotia).  Everyone is different in the specifics of those ancestors, but many pioneers will appear in every tree.  There are many ancestors at this era since the tree doubles with each generation.  Prior to 1619, most of our ancestors are in Europe – in France, Great Britain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, and more.  If we call my siblings and cousins generation 1, then generation 11 is the first born in Quebec, generation 12 was born in France and emigrated, and generation 13 lived their whole life in France.  At that 13th generation, they are called our 10th great grandparents, there are 4096 people just at that level alone.  I will thus just pick a few noteworthy settlers of that era.

Hélène Desportes is our 8th great grandmother.  She was the first child born in Canada to Europeans.  We have eight great grandparents and so which one did she come through – well our great grandfather Trefle Comeau.  Virginia Dare was the first child born in British territory in America from Europeans.  That was in 1587. Hélène was born in 1620 – 33 years later.  She then had 19 children in Quebec and afterwards in her old age became a midwife.

Pierre Comeau is the patriarch of the Comeau family in North America.  He is the only Comeau ever to immigrate from France to North America so all Comeau are related to him.  He was a barrel maker.  Due to a lack of women in Port Royal, Nova Scotia, he did not marry until he was 52 years old.  He is believed to have had 10 children and among them are Pierre Comeau dit L’Esturgeon and Antoine Comeau.  Pierre the younger would have 19 children with his wife Jeanne Bourg.  Next in our ancestry line is Abraham Comeau who would have 12 children.  What a start to getting the name around.

Antoine Comeau was mentioned before since he is the only one to leave Acadia.  He went with a friend to Maine in 1686.  There he tried to fit into the society by changing his name to Anthony Coombs and claiming that he once studied to be a priest.  He would have 11 children with Dorcas Wooden and spread the name Coombs around Massachusetts and Maine.  The separation that Coombs wanted from the Comeau name stood for 323 years until 8 members of Coombs and Comeau families had DNA tests done.  They all matched perfectly.  Anthony Coombs was Antoine Comeau.  The four Coombs that had the test were overjoyed, the four Comeau (one of which was me) were delighted to be of help.

In the previous post to this story, it was reported how Paul Brault had fared at Grand Pre.  His children and he were deported and went to Quebec.  They had left by overland flight from Grand Pre and walked or caught boats going to Quebec City.  His elderly father Pierre Brault was not so lucky.  Born in 1670 to Vincent Brault in the burgeoning city of Port Royal Acadia.  At age 85, when the British decided to clear out all French from Nova Scotia, he was forcibly placed on a ship of men only and set afloat on the Atlantic.  Some of the men must have had sailing experience, since they were able to make it to Boston.  There he lived out the rest of his life in humiliation. John Faragher writes in his 2005 book A Great and Noble Scheme that there should have been 40 thousand Acadians found in 1780 at the various sites that they went to.  But he could only get a number of 20 thousand.  Only half were accounted for and since they were in Acadian only villages around the globe, there must have been a net decrease by half.  It is known that a couple of ships of women only had sunk.  Other ships were rejected at world ports and left at sea until people starved.

Jan Wybesse Spoor left Harlingen in the Friesland of the Netherlands in 1662 and worked as a contract servant for a rich Dutchman near Albany.  He and his son Johannes were exceedingly frugal and after 30 years had enough money to buy land and build a home in Coxsackie in Greene County of New York.  This Spoor homestead is on Spoor’s Hill or Spoorenberg.  It was in Spoor hands for 180 years until it was sold outside the family in 1870.  It still exists and a Spoor family cemetery is nearby.  Our line passes from Jan to Johannes to Johannes to Johannes to Abraham and then picks up at a previous post of mine.  Our Dutch-America forebears were like all old time Dutch-Americans.  Hard-working and religious.  Each fought for the country when needed in every century that I looked at the family.  Abraham fought in the Revolutionary War and his grandson Orange Mansel Spoor would die of starvation during the American Civil War in a prison camp.

Jacques Archambault and Françoise Tourault arrived in Montreal in 1647 from La Rochelle of the western seaboard of France.  They were early pioneers and had stories like so many of their compatriots.  They needed to settle, build a house, and farm.  They had brought their young children with them and they needed to be educated and taught religious values.  These were the reasons that they had left La Rochelle.  The city provided a large number of emigrants to Quebec since they were adventurous seafaring people but mostly since there was religious conflict in La Rochelle.  It was very far from the Catholic monarchy that controlled Paris and nearby cities.  Protestants flocked to La Rochelle to obtain religious freedom.  The French army sieged the city and forced it to comply in 1573.  The inhabitants were never comfortable with central government rule and the Catholics there started immigrating to Quebec and the Protestants to New York State.  The Archambault family got caught up in this and took passage to the New World.  There they had political and religious freedom and an adventurous new start.

Adrien Charles Legrain is the last of our stories in this segment.  His father was born in France in the late 1600s but he came to Quebec to fight the British in a series of five wars fought in Quebec and New England.  These were known as the French and Indian Wars and they ruined the southern Quebec countryside.  Adrien was born near Fort Chambly in 1688.  His father must have told him stories about the wars that he and his own father had fought in.  Antoine readily joined the military.  Some Native Americans had raided Deerfield Massachusetts during one battle of these wars – it was called the Deerfield Massacre since all white settlers died save one Thankful Stebbins.  She was brought to Quebec by the Indians and adopted by Quebec pioneers.  She was given the chance to return to Massachusetts but wanted to stay with her new family since she was well cared for.  In 1711, Thankful Stebbins married the soldier Adrien Legrain in the church fort at Chambly.  This gives us one of the few lines of British ancestry that we have.

Comeau family history from 1765 to 1860

The Comeau and Spoor family history was looked at from 1861 to 1960 in a previous post.  Now we will look at the Comeau, Touchette, Henley, Deschênes, Spoor, Gauthier, Brault, and Hade families from 1755 to 1860.  The year 1755 is important since the British brutally kicked the French Acadians out of Nova Scotia then.  That event in full will be in the last of the three Comeau family stories that will come later.

Jean Comeau our 6th great grandfather was 50 years old when the British marched on the village of Chipoudy in New Brunswick.  His family and 200 other Acadian families had settled that village in order to keep away from the British rule.  That was on the isthmus that joins Acadia to New Brunswick in Canada.  The families hid in the woods while the British torched their homes.  They actually wanted to destroy the Acadians totally but the British could not find them.  They returned to their village and rebuilt it in the ensuing months.  Thus they were some of the few Acadians to escape the deportation of 1755.  His son Joseph Comeau moved two later to Quebec City and married Isabelle Élisabeth Laurt in 1759 in Notre Dame Cathedral.  They would settle into Pointe-du-Lac, Quebec which would become the second ancestral village of the Comeau family.  Among their 13 children would be a son Joseph Comeau who would marry Marie Anne Livernoche in 1786.  Comeau and Livernoche would have 12 children themselves.  Thus you sense that there are a lot of Comeau that come out of Pointe-du-Lac.

Joseph Touchet and his son Louis were farmers in the townships around Saint Mathias, Quebec.  They owned small farms but these through the decades were becoming more and more difficult to farm.  Overpopulation was a problem and mechanization of agriculture was on the increase. Few Quebec farmers ever tried to pick up a trade and move into the commercial cities of their province.  Most when they moved would do so to the small and medium sized towns of New England.  Connecticut and Massachusetts were only a one-day train ride away from southern Quebec.  When Joseph’s grandson Jean Louis became the first of the family to immigrate it was not as permanent as it would seem.  Summer returns were frequent to both help with the farming and to visit.  Additionally, 50% of all Quebec immigrants did not stay in New England but rather returned permanently to their ancestral villages in Quebec.

James Henley came from Ireland in the 1770s when he was a teenager.  He settled in Perce on the Gaspe Peninsula of Quebec.  He formed a union with a local named Catherine Chicoine dit Cotton.  About five years later a priest from France finally shown up and they had a formal marriage and baptisms for their first three children.  This was common in such remote villages and was called a natural wedding and natural children.  In 1791 in a violent storm, James Henley drowned in the ocean.  He was a fisherman by trade and met his untimely demise.  His wife petitioned for help from the government and received it since she had so many young children.  Their son Patrick moved to the village of Sainte-Anne-des-Monts in the Gaspe and had many children.  There are still many Henley in that village today.

The Deschenes family of Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière, Quebec was for over a century tied with the Henley family.  These were both fishing villages and very close to each other.  The patriarch of the family in that area would be Jacques Miville dit Deschênes.  He moved from the western neck of the Gaspe called Rivière-Ouelle to the fishing village eastward.  The same pressures that drove the Henley family south to Fall River did the same to the Deschenes.

Johannes Spoor was from a long line of Dutch settlers in the Hudson River Valley.  His brother inherited the family home so he moved to Sheffield Massachusetts.  His marriage to Catharina Halenbek Capersen gave him five sons.  The fourth of them Abraham Spoor is the 3rd great grandfather of the Spoor family of New Bedford.  With his 8 children he would move northward to Saint Albans Vermont in 1790.  After 25 years there they would all scattered across the USA.  A poor economy and religious fervour hit the USA in that era and they got caught up in it.  His last son Orange Spoor had opened a sawmill in Saint Albans but needed to move so he opened one next in Farnham Quebec.  With his son Edwin he would be a great success in the wood business of the area.

Michel Gauthier and his son François and then his grandson Charles were tradesmen in the medium and small cities along the Saint Lawrence River.  They must have had success since they stayed in the native cities for long periods of time.  Charles had a son Jean-Baptiste Gauthier dit Marcoux that moved to Farnham.  His daughter met William Spoor and they decided to move to a better life in New Bedford.  There was no mass movement from this extended family although when Jean-Baptiste died his wife Rosalie Hebert moved to join her daughter.

The Acadian deportation was harsh on the Paul Brault family.  In 1755, Grand Pre was brutally destroyed by the British and all citizens moved afar.  Paul and his children moved to Saint-Jacques-L`Achigan, Québec.  This was one of a series of villages north of Montreal along the L`Achigan River that was settled by Acadians.  Five generations of Brault would stay in these towns – Paul to Jean-Baptiste to Alexis to Julian to Damase.  They would marry into the Landry, Dupuis, Meunier, Piquet, and Gendreau families there.  Most were farmers and successful but large families pushed Damase south to the eastern townships.

The last family is the Hade family who settled in Chambly and in Saint Mathias. François Hade was a military man and many of his offspring were too.  He was a late immigrant from France since he only came over as a soldier to fight one of the many wars against the British.  His son, grandson, and great grandson were all named François.  They all lived near Fort Chambly (it is the largest fort in Quebec).  Gradually, they moved into agriculture in the towns around Chambly and Farnham.  Even the families that they married – Menard, Gemme, Sansouci, and Alix – followed the same path of military and later farming.  Quite the story so far but next we will go back in time to the France to North America immigration of the 1600s.

Robert Comeau family history

The Comeau family of New Bedford Massachusetts is from four lines of Quebec heritage.  Each immigrated separately from Canada during the 1861 to 1912 era due to economic pressures.  The home country remained to them a strong cultural base and this was evident in their need to build ethnic schools, churches, and clubs.  All came to work in the fiber mills of Massachusetts but all still retained their culture from Quebec.

Joseph Felix Comeau immigrated with his large family in 1875 from Pointe-du-Lac to Thompson, Connecticut.  They worked in the North Grosvenor Dale mills but by 1897 had left for New Bedford Massachusetts.  Thompson was an important location since the Comeau family met the Touchette family there and two members of each family married.  The Jean Louis Touchette family had immigrated in 1861 from Saint-Mathias-sur-Richelieu, Quebec.  Their large family had spread out across Windham County of Connecticut and many remain there still.

Trefle Comeau went to New Bedford with his growing family and they mostly set down roots there.  Two of his brothers did from there move onto Leominster and one Ferdinand onto Holyoke in 1900.  The fiber mills attracted them all to a better future than the agricultural life in Quebec.  Strong Quebec ghettoes were developing in all three cities and these Comeau families made heavy use of the churches and schools.

Patrick Henley and Caroline Fournier immigrated from the Gaspe Peninsula of Quebec in 1887 from the fishing community of Sainte-Anne-des-Monts.  They came with the Deschenes family of the same town and other families from there.  Their son Elzear would marry Marie Deschenes who he knew since youth.  Both families would live in the booming mill town of Fall River and their families would grow quickly like the town itself.

By the early 1920s, the Henleys would expand out to Martha’s Vineyard.  Many would stay there for many decades but some would move from there by the 1950s to Rhode Island, as they needed more jobs.  Work in home construction was common in both locations.  Most of Elzear and Marie Henley’s children followed this path and were successful.  Their first child however choose to remain in the Fall River / New Bedford area.  This was Leda Henley.  She would marry Laurent Comeau in 1922 and that is why she selected to not go to Martha’s Vineyard like the rest of her siblings.

Marie Deschenes’ parents never came to the United States for long.  Her mother came for a while but returned to the Gaspe.  Some of her sisters lived in Bristol County and had large families there.

William Spoor and Rosalie Gauthier immigrated in 1891 from Farnham Quebec with their child.  They would have more children in New Bedford and the family was quite settled in that region.  William Spoor’s grandfather Orange Spoor was a natural born American.  Orange due to economic pressure in the sawmill industry moved to Farnham in the 1850s.  Reverse immigration was possible in the lumber field since Canada had many trees.  Orange was of Dutch American ethnicity which was not common in Quebec in general but Farnham was a cosmopolitan town.  Orange gives us the only portion of our family that is not Catholic since he was of the United Methodist Church.

Jean-Baptiste Gauthier dit Marcoux and his wife Rosalie Hebert were also from Farnham.  Many of their children would immigrate to New England in the 1890s.  They went to scattered locales but remained a strong family and visited each other often.  Rosalie Hebert after her husband’s death immigrated to New Bedford and is buried at Sacred Heart Cemetery.

The Robert and Cecile Comeau children are of 10% Acadian ancestry and most of it comes from the Gauthier genealogical lines.  Their children are by nationality 100% Quebec.  By ethnicity, they are, however, 84% Quebec, 10% Nova Scotia, 3% British, 2% Irish, and 1% Dutch.  The Irish comes from the Henley family since James Henley in 1780s started a family in the Gaspe.  The British comes from both Abraham and Orange Spoor marrying British American women.

Damase Brault and Olympe Gendreau were from the greater Farnham area of Quebec.  They married and had 17 children together.  Six of their children would end up in northern Alberta Province as homesteaders.  Their children and grandchildren remain there to this day.  It was a nice family with two daughters of Damase and Olympe becoming nuns and one becoming a nurse.  Every family tree will have at least one dark character however.  Alphonse Brault was born in 1873 to Damase and Olympe.  He married Eliza Hade in 1895 and had 12 children with her.  Their life was far from settled and they lived a nomadic life due to his criminal behaviour. They lived in many small villages in the eastern townships of lower Quebec Province.  He ended up leaving the family behind in 1917 in New Bedford and settled in Clyde Albert until his death in 1927.

Édouard Hade and Elise Lagace would marry in 1873 in St-Mathias-sur-Richelieu but he would die three short years later.  They were basically migrant farm laborers.  Their daughter Eliza Hade would have a poor and hard life.  Her first husband died within a year due to malfeasance and her second husband was continually racing horses and selling alcohol.  Her third husband would die within two years.  Her last daughter would be Adrienne Brault.  She would live in an orphanage with her young brother from about three to eight years old.  People who endure hardship usually come out for the better.

Robert Comeau and Cecile Comeau married in New Bedford.  Due to a job loss in 1960 they moved to South Hadley.  There they raised 11 children and made a life of it.  A lot of the ethnic pride is gone but the family still remembers its past.

Barnes and Henchey family history from 1860 to 1960

Arthur Barnes was born in Georgia in about 1916 to 1919.  His father seems to have left the family when he was young so his mother and maternal grandparents raised him.  I have done a lot of work to find the names of his parents and grandparents and might have a good prospect.  By 1935, we find him in Perth Amboy of New Jersey.  He graduated from a local high school and was now working in a fertilizer plant.  In 1945, he joined the Army Corps of Engineers and went out to Honolulu Hawaii.  We pick up his trail again in 1948 in Springfield Massachusetts working first as maintenance at a bank but then a permanent career as a metal worker.

John Dacey and Isabella Mcmaron were recent immigrants from England to Connecticut when their daughter Isabella was born in 1903.  They stayed in Connecticut for a few decades.  Isabella met her future husband Andrew Peters in Connecticut but they soon moved to Springfield Massachusetts.  Andrew’s parents are not well known since it seems he was orphaned at three years old. Edwin and Maria Peters his paternal grandparents raised him on a farm in Tolland Connecticut although they were both in their 70s already.  Andrew and Isabella would have a daughter Eleanor Peters that would marry Arthur Barnes I in 1948.

Dennis Henchey and Catherine Lyons immigrated from Ireland in about 1854.  The Irish left Ireland for many destinations and for many reasons.  There were certainly a series of famines in the western farmlands of Ireland during the 1800s, but the Irish were on the move before any famine hit and after they ended.  Overpopulation was a grave problem on the island.  The potato blight was serious but was only one cause amidst many.  The Henchey couple settled in Northampton and had 8 children there.  Their son Michael married Mary Jane O’Connell from County Kerry of Ireland in 1887.  County Kerry was the source of most Irish that left the island.  It is on the far southwestern coast and most inhabitants did not speak English.  About 25% of all Irish left the country in the 1800s, but the percentage was far greater in the western counties.  The Henchey clan moved to Westfield in about 1900 and their son Thomas married Julia Svenson in 1919.

Julia was the daughter of Adolfus Svensson and Kerstin Olsson who had immigrated from Sweden in 1881.  The Svenson family lived in Canton, Connecticut. Kerstin lived to about 90 years old and stayed in Canton all that time.  Julia’s son Thomas married Geraldine Burke.  The Burke family like the Henchey family was an early arrival from Ireland – coming over in about 1830.  Michael Burke and Mary Cotter lived in many towns around Springfield.  Their son Florence was a soldier in 37th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry during the American Civil War.  He was killed in the trenches during the initial attack against Petersburg Virginia in 1864. He is buried in Saint Benedict’s Cemetery in Springfield.  His widow Ellen Daley continued to live in West Springfield with her four children.  One of them Jeremiah Burke married Mary Begley who parents had immigrated from Ireland.  In turn, their son Harry Burke married Grace Murphy who parents had also immigrated from Ireland.

Barthelette and Glynn family history from 1850 to 1950

Eustache Berthelet and Delia Stephens married in 1871 in Vermont as recent immigrants from Quebec.  They would be migrant farm workers for many decades between Quebec, Massachusetts, and Vermont.  They had 17 children but only 9 lived to adulthood.  If the child was born in Quebec, then they would give the baby a name of Berthelet, but if it was born in the USA, then they named it Barthelette or Bartlett.  After another generation all would use Barthelette.

They ended up permanently in Holyoke by 1886.  The father was able to find a job in the Parsons Paper Mill.  They settled down by moving onto a farm in northern Holyoke.  One of their sons Arthur Bartlett married a first generation Quebec immigrant Alexina Loiselle.  They are buried in the Barthelette family plot in Notre Dame Cemetery in South Hadley.  About 30 Barthelette members are buried together – quite a surprise to me since I was just cutting through the cemetery on my bike.  One of their sons Armand married Helen Donoghue whose grandparents came from County Kerry of Ireland in the 1870s.  The draw for all was their need for a stable job in the mills to escape the starvation of Quebec and Ireland in the 1870s.  Helen’s grandparents Hugh Donoghue and Catherine Looney had 10 children in Holyoke.  It is difficult to keep in mind that most of the Irish immigrants to Holyoke did not speak English but rather Irish or Gaelic.

Helen’s father Joseph Donoghue married Maude Sears of northern Vermont.  Maude had ancestry from the original settlers of Vermont.  Many Irish immigrants did not mind marrying Americans but usually they married farmers as their parents had been.  Most Quebec immigrants did not marry outside their ethnic group for three generations.  Only the fourth generation did in significant numbers.

The Glynn side of their family has an interesting story. Walter Glynn was born Walter Richard Boardway on November 19, 1893 in Holyoke Massachusetts.  His birth parents were William Boardway and Mary Wood.  Three years after his birth his parents divorced and his mother cared for him. Five years after his birth his mother remarried to an Alfred Glynn in Holyoke.  His mother selected to rename her son after her new married name.  Thus Walter Boardway became Walter Glynn on March 29 1899 – same boy but new name.  He used that name formally and informally throughout his life.  This includes naming his sons Richard Glynn and Donald Glynn when they were born.  He had married Estella Anson of New York state as his ancestry was.

Mary Graham married Donald Glynn and lived in South Hadley for many decades.  Graham is a Scottish name but her maternal ancestors are Irish.  Her maternal grandfather was John Somers of Holyoke.  He worked at the Holyoke City Hospital for many years in the 1910s.  This side of the family is hard to get facts and stories on but I still try.  Interesting case is that of Estella Anson.  Was a music teacher in Holyoke for her whole life.  Also was in various musical clubs of the city.  She gave private lessons in her home on Maple Street.  Her ads in the Holyoke directory are informative.  Quite different from the typical person in a mill city.

Cox and Savageau family tree from 1860 to 1960

Peter Cox came from Ireland in the 1860s to work in the mills of Providence Rhode Island.  He had a son Peter J Cox in 1863 who is proving easy to find information about during the middle part of his life but harder in the beginning and end.  Peter the younger is first found working for the Merrick Thread Company of Holyoke.  He at first was into thread production and inspection but moved from there into thread machine design.  Merrick Thread was bought out by the American Thread Company that had many branches in the northeastern USA.  Peter worked for branches in Holyoke, Willimantic (Connecticut), Worcester, Providence, and Little Falls (New Jersey). Depending upon his assignment, he would either bring his family with him or leave them back.  The length of the assignment varied greatly.  He was a thread engineer who helped design and inspector the current machines.  He met his wife Mary West at the Merrick Thread firm in Holyoke and they got married in 1889.  Their son Joseph Cox worked at odd jobs in the Holyoke area for many years.  Joseph was married in 1918 to Mary McLaughlin who was a new immigrant from Ireland.

The McLaughlin family fell on tough times very quickly when they came to America.  Thomas McLaughlin and Bridget Corduff brought their three young daughters from County Mayo of Ireland in 1905.  They perhaps had great expectations but within the first month their mother Bridget had died of measles.  Thomas remarried in Holyoke to another Irish native named Bridget Kane.  They had three children more.  Thomas was not happy about life in America and went back with his three youngsters to County Mayo.  His three older daughters stayed behind and made the best of it.  They worked in the mills and as domestic laborers.  When Mary McLaughlin married Joseph Cox, they had three children that would live to adulthood.  The last of these William would work in the etching industry for decades.

The Sauvageau clan of Portneuf in Quebec was a migrant farmer family for many decades.  They would work at times in Quebec, then in Leominster Massachusetts, and in Connecticut.  Narcisse Sauvageau, born in 1867 in a tiny village along the Saint Lawrence River to Damase Sauvageau and Marie Laplante, would epitomize that migrant behaviour.  He and his wife Roseanne Charron dit Ducharme would have children in three states plus in Quebec – basically wherever they were farming.  Their son Omer Sauvageau would do the same working many odd jobs plus being a migrant farm worker.  It must have been on one such farming job that he met his future wife Agnes Gifford in Ware Massachusetts.  They would marry in 1923 and briefly take over the family farm.  Economic pressures on farms were severe and they would move to Holyoke within a couple of years.  There their daughter would meet William Cox.

George Gifford was born in Salisbury Plains of Wiltshire, England.  Primarily a farm community, it is famous for Stonehenge.  A bunch of rocks almost never gets you a job so he immigrated to Massachusetts and worked in various jobs in Lowell, Gardner, Ware, and Upton.  He finally was able to buy a farm in Ware in 1900 and farmed it until his death in 1925.

The Family of Alphonse Brault and Eliza Hade

1 – Antoine Brault (14 Jul 1896 to 20 May 1903)
Died of diphtheria in East Angus Quebec at age 6.

2 – Joseph Simeon Adrien Brault (22 Mar 1898 to 08 Feb 1906)
Died in Sherbrooke Quebec at age 7.  Unknown as of now why he died young.

3 – Marie Émélie Rose Brault (24 Jan 1900 to 08 Oct 1980)
Born in East Angus, Quebec and lived to 80.  Married Mina Nicholas Zafarapolous but she used the married name of Rose Nicholas.  Not able to conceive children.

4 – Marie Émélie Dorila Brault (10 May 1901 to 04 May 1935)
Born in East Angus Quebec.  Married Israel Fortier in Clyde Alberta in 1919.  Fled with her father after they had lived just a few years in New Bedford.  Lived in Bromptonville Quebec from 1906 to 1910 and in New Bedford from 1911 to about 1917.  Had seven children: Marina – Josephine – Oliva Gerard – Lucille – Georges – Yvonne – Achille.

5 – Marie Antoinette Louise Brault (17 Jan 1903 to 15 Apr 1903)
Born and died in Sherbrooke Quebec at a few months old.

6 – Marie Elizabeth Josephine Brault (14 Sep 1904 to 1959)
Born in East Angus Quebec. Did not move with the family in 1911 to New Bedford Massachusetts.  Rather she lived with her half aunt Eveline Dion and immigrated in 1914 to New Bedford.  This may be due to a premature birth giving her a frail body and health.  Married Emile Charbonneau and had one child Paul Charbonneau. In the family image, she is in the middle as an insert.

7 – Marie Louise Germaine Brault (13 Mar 1906 to 5 Aug 1906)
Born in Bromptonville and lived only four months.

8 – Marie Antoinette Germaine Brault (23 Sep 1907 to 30 May 2002)
Married Adolphe Bedard and had five children – Leo – Ernest – Beatrice – Edna – Doris.

9 – Marie Sylvia Yvonne Brault (9 Sep 1909 to 23 June 1919)
Died at 9 years old of rheumatoid arthritis that was complicated by a weak heart.

10 – Marie Rose Adrienne Brault (16 May 1912 to 20 Oct 1997)
First Brault child born in the USA.  Married Archie Spoor and had four children – Theresa – Connie – Cecile – Archibald.  This is my grandmother and Cecile is my mother.

11 – Ovila Alphonse Brault (15 Jun 1913 to 16 Oct 1988)
Only Brault son to live to adulthood.  Known as Pete to all.  Was a barber.  Children from a second marriage are Tammie – Tonie – Kenneth. Children from the first marriage are Shirley and Donald.

12 – Antonio Brault (08 Nov 1914 to 18 Feb 1915)
Died at three months in Fairhaven Massachusetts.  Death is suspicious.