Soldiers and the Militia – New France

Original post date: 2 Jun 2014

Military Week - 1

My children’s ancestor, Louis Guimont, came to New France full of youthful exuberance and hope for a bright future. He took a wife with whom he had 4 children, worked off his contract for the Juchereau family, and took up residence on the Cote de Beaupré.

Life was good. Until…

In 1661 the Iroquois launched a massive attack against Île d’Orléans and the towns of Montreal, Trois-Rivières, Tadoussac and Quebec City. Nearly 100 people, both French colonists and Algonquin, were slaughtered. At 8 o’clock on the morning of 18 June 1661, accompanied by spine-chilling war cries, the Iroquois raided the Cote de Beaupré and while many settlers were massacred, some were taken away and tortured.  One of these was Louis Guimont.  During his many days of torture Louis could not stop praying to God.  This so enraged the Iroquois that they did their worst and he died a horrible death.

Finally in 1665 the Carignan-Salières Regiment arrived in New France as reinforcements to help with the threat of the Iroquois. When this was accomplished the soldiers were encouraged to stay and help colonize. This was the beginning of the first permanent Canadian Military. There was a peace of sorts for 20 years.

In May 1689 England and France declared war, unbeknownst to the colonists in New France.  But the British in the US told the Iroquois, who decided it was a good time to get back at their enemies.  At dawn on August 5th, during a terrible storm, the Iroquois attacked the settlement at Lachine and my friend’s ancestor, Pierre Maupetit dit Poitvin, quickly sent his wife and children to the fort for safety while he tried to help his friends and neighbours. Men, women and children were massacred or taken prisoner and killed at leisure, among them Pierre Maupetit. 56 of the 77 houses were burned to the ground. It was not until 1694 that the people went back there to survey the aftermath, take count, and find the dead that had been quickly buried, and give them a proper burial at the cemetery of St-Anges Gardiens.

In Canada before 1850 it was obligatory for a man between 16 and 50 (or 60) to join the Militia. They also had to attend training at least once a year for which they were paid a small amount of money. Militia Captains could read and write, were well respected, and served under the Intendant, who was like the colonial judge and finance minister in one. They also settled disputes within their community, and got the best pew in their church. Search community histories, and the Pistard at the Banq website for your ancestors that were in the Militia.  

Relevant Links:

Historic Tales of Old Quebec (+ Massacre of Guimont and others)

The Carignan-Salières Regiment (on Wayback machine - 9 images)

Le Régiment de Carignan 

The Carignan-Salières Regiment and their ships 

King’s Soldiers - The Carignan  

Le Vieux Lachine et le massacre du 5 août 1689

Lake St Louis New and Old (+ massacre at Lachine and names of Military men)

Les anciennes côtes du lac Saint-Louis 

The Militia in New France 

Pistard Banq – search for your ancestor - enter “milice + surname” 

British Army 1778

Two World Wars of the 1700’s

Original post date: 3 Jun 2014

Military Week - 2

Seven Years’ War (1754–1763)

The Seven Years’ War, also called the French and Indian War, involved all the major powers in Europe, North America, South America, Africa, India, and the Philippine Islands. It was all about who will control the trade and who gets what colonies. After much burning and sacking, bloody battles, and between 900,000 to 1,400,000 deaths, the war ended with 4 treaties – The Treaties of St. Petersburg and Hamburg in 1762 and the Treaties of Paris and Hubertusburg in 1763.  It was the Treaty of Paris that gave all the lands, islands and coasts of New France, including Acadia, to the British.

Revolutionary War (1775–1783)

The American Revolutionary War involved not only the 13 colonies of the United States and England, but also France, Spain, The Netherlands, the India kingdom of Mysore, and Canada. The Americans were tired of paying to the British exorbitant taxes they deemed to be unlawful. After a militia raid on Quebec near the beginning of the war, Congress authorized an invasion, hoping to drive the British military from Quebec and enlisting the help of the French in their cause. A good many Americans were loyal to the British and later were given lands in Canada. These people were called the United Empire Loyalists. As a result of this war the Americans gained their independence from Britain.

Go to archive.com and search your ancestor's regiment name +muster rolls.



Relevant Links

Seven Years' War journal of the proceedings of the 35th Regiment of Foot – 1757

Siege of Quebec 1759-60 (w/names of regiments – use left menu)

Frederick the Great of Prussia and the seven years' war

The Revolutionary War

Muster and pay rolls of the war of the revolution, 1775-1783 (USA and Canada)

Revolutionary Soldiers of Virginia

The muster rolls of three companies enlisted by the colony of RhodeIsland in May, 1746, for an expedition against Canada proposed by Great Britain

Rolls of the soldiers in the Revolutionary War (1 of many at archive.org)

Muster Roll of the 13th Regiment of Foot – Mass – 1779

How to find British muster rolls 1730-1878

Women in the Revolutionary War

United Empire Loyalists

Loyalists – Library Archives Canada

Kingston and the Loyalists of the "Spring Fleet" of 1783 :with reminiscences of early days in Connecticut

History of the Province of Ontario 1872 (Incl names of Loyalists and muster rolls

Compiled service records of soldiers - American army during the Revolutionary War Honor Roll of Massachusetts Patriots Heretofore Unknown: Being a List of Men and Women who lent money to the Federal Government during the years 1777 – 1779

British Military Naval Records from 1777

British Military and Naval Records - INDEX of names sorted by Company

New England Captives carried to Canada during the Old French Indian Wars

A list of those Tories who took part with Great Britain In the Revolutionary War and were attainted of HIGH TREASON:- Commonly called the :BLACK LIST:- Philadelphia

Wars and Rebellions – 1800’s

Original post date: 4 Jun 2014

Fenian Raids



Military Week – 3

My Protestant Irish ancestor settled in Barriefield, across the Cataraqui Bridge from Kingston. He was from a military family all the way back to the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. His six living sons, and James Hamilton, the future husband of his daughter, joined the active militia, most in the 14th Battalion Rifles of Kingston. The Irish-American Fenian Brotherhood thought it could gain independence for Ireland from Britain by holding Canada hostage, and that Ontario would be easy pickings. But the Canadian’s had heard rumors of the raid and were prepared, just not very well trained. My ancestors were called out both in 1866 and in 1870.  Two of the sons liked the military life and stayed in a few years. One retired a Major of the 43rd Battalion of Kingston, and the other had been to the military school and was a 2nd Lieutenant of the 5th Company of Barriefield of the 47th Battalion of Infantry.

My husband’s ancestor was a brother to Charles Nolin, who was advisor to his cousin Louis Riel. After the Manitoba Act of 1870 things did not go that well for the Metis. By 1884 they were frustrated with events – their lands being disregarded by government surveyors, their people getting small pox from white settlers, and the buffalo herds dwindling. They sent for Louis Riel to come out of exile. The Indian and Métis resistance could not survive against the strength of the Canadian militia. (A Serendipity moment – my Seale ancestor relative was part of the militia sent to Saskatchewan during the North-West Rebellion involving my husband’s Nolin ancestor relative). After the battle of Duck Lake on 26 March Charles Nolin was promptly arrested and jailed by the NWMP. His wife and young children sought refuge with the priests at Batoche. In exchange for his freedom at the end of the hostilities Charles Nolin agreed to become one of the crown’s chief witnesses against Riel. Riel surrendered two days after the Battle of Batoche, and he was tried and convicted of treason. 

There were many wars and rebellions in the 1800’s in Europe, Canada and the United States, and some are listed below. You may find the name of your ancestor on some of the muster rolls. 


  

Relevant Links:

Napoleonic Wars – 1803-1815

UK- The new army list including the Royal Marines,  served at Waterloo

The Australian Rum Rebellion - 1808

War of 1812 – 1812-1815

US War of 1812 Pension claims

Canada War of 1812: Board of Claims for Losses, 1813-1848

War of 1812: Lower Canada Nominal Rolls and Paylists

War of 1812: Upper Canada Nominal Rolls and Paylists

War of 1812: Canada - Miscellaneous Records

Compiled military service records Union soldiers Colored Troops

Records of Widows admitted as Militia Pensioners War 1812 (OliveTree)

Officers of the British forces in Canada during theWar of 1812-15

Papers of the late Hon. Gideon Welles - War of 1812

Texas Revolution – 1835-1836

Texas Muster Rolls 1835-36

Upper and Lower Canada Rebellions – 1837-1838

List of Patriotes in Montreal Prison  1837-1839

List of Officers and Men Killed and Wounded in Rebellion 1837-1838

  

Mexican–American War – 1846-1848

The Mexican war and its warriors

The Crimean War – 1853-1856

Letters from the Black Sea during the Crimean war

American Civil War – 1861-1865

Soldiers, Sailors and Prisoners of the Civil War     

Fenian Raids – 1866-1870

History of the Fenian raids of 1866 and 1870 (lists killed and wounded)

Fenian Raid Canadian Casualty List

Volunteer and Service Militia list of Canada, 1st March, 1867

Merchants list & Canadian Militia Odelltown/Lacolle Fenian's Raids 1866

The Red River Rebellion - 1869-1870

The Northwest Rebellion -1885

Souvenir number of the illustrated war news: being a history of Riel's second Rebellion (with honour roll) 1885

The Duke of Cornwall's Own Rifle (Raids and NW Rebellion - incl some photos of soldiers)

South African War - 1899-1902 – (soldier records can be found on ancestry.uk - $)

Soldiers of the Queen in the Second Anglo-Boer War - Australia

Canada - South African War - Service Files, Medals and Land Applications

 
Prince of Wales Regt / Militia in French Canada / British Canadian Militia:  1897

The Army List – UK -  Officers of the Army, Royal Navy, and colonial Militia

Veteran Cemetery registers, Parke County, Indiana

The origin, progress, and conclusion of the Florida war 1835-1842 (w/maps and names)

The Canada Gazette 1870 – Militia Orders and other news (+0ther years)

British Army List - 1897-1901 and 1941

War of 1812 military bounty land warrants - US 1815-1858

The 2nd Regiment Canadian Mounted Rifles and 10th Canadian Field Hospital, A.M.C. : organized in Canada for service in the field in South Africa : roll of officers, non-commissioned officers and men and nursing sisters. (South African War 1899-1902)

Military record of Louisiana; including biographical and historical papers relating to the military organizations of the state; a soldier's story of the late war, muster rolls, lists of casualties in the various regiments (so far as now known), cemeteries where buried, company journals, personal narratives of prominent actors, etc

WW I - The Great War

Original post date: 5 Jun 2014

 Military Week – 4

I grew up listening to my Grampa, Herbert James Mavor, sing songs from WWI with my Mom, while my Granny played the piano. The only thing he ever said about the war was that the scar on his neck was from an enemy bullet. The rough talk he saved for his buddies at the Legion. They understood. His family were Salvation Army and before the war it was unheard of for Herbie to use foul language, drink or smoke.  When returned from the war he did all those things and had not much use for the church. I can’t imagine the horrific things he saw in Europe. Herbert saw action at the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915, the Somme in 1916, Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele in 1917, and the Pursuit to Mons in 1918.

Herbert had had some training with the cadet corps at his school in 1910, and also spent 1 year with the Canadian Army Service Corps, 6th Company, Montreal. At the start of WWI Herbert signed his attestation papers November 15, 1914 with the Black Watch, while his older brother Alexander had enlisted 2 weeks before on October 31, 1914. Herbert was transferred to the 42nd Battalion Royal Highlanders after training and he was shipped to England September 1915. On arrival the men were given 7 days leave.  Old Gramps (or I guess young Gramps at that time) met a girl and was late getting back to his unit, for which he was docked a day’s pay.

After leave they were shipped from Folkestone to Boulogne. On March 20th the Battalion marched to Poperinghe and were billeted in a convent. The next day they were taken by train to a point near Ypres, then marched to the trenches of the front lines. Up to March 25th, last day of their tour, they had 8 casualties. They received heavy shell fire that day, with 7 more casualties, then they marched back to Camp F. On April 4th his battalion marched through Ypres amid heavy shelling and suffered 4 casualties, going to the Zilleheke Dugout. The next day they moved from the Zilleheke Dugout to the front line trenches for 4 days before they were relieved and moved back to the Zilleheke Dugout.
 

Meanwhile, after experiencing heavy artillery fire and blowing snow at the Wulverghem trench, Alexander moved with the 4th Batallion to the Tea Farm, a trench near Ypres. It had been quiet on the balmy March evening of the 20th when, at relief change near 7 pm, the enemy fired 2 undetonated rifle grenades with cloth streamers into their trench.  Attached were post cards that read: “Thanks for your invitation we shall come but never without arms, we the Huns should be very glad to accompany you to Doberitz near Berlin, your cousin on the other side of the channel, Michael.” The next few days saw alternate heavy and light artillery fire and sniping. They then marched to the Reserve Billets at Dranoutre to rest up, and also to get inoculated against typhoid. They marched north, stopping here and there until April 9th when they relieved the 1st Battalion in the trenches at “The Bluff”. On April 10th the commander wrote in his diary: “Enemy very active and aggressive both in in sniping and artillery fire. The Huns are using a new form of trench mortar or serial torpedo which is very effective in blowing down parapets.”  That day Alexander was hit by a bullet that glanced off a periscope and hit him in the stomach.  They took him to the No 17 Casualty Clearing Station at the Remy Siding near Poperinghe, where he died the next day of his wounds, at the age of 24. Herbert was still at the Zilleheke Dugout on April 11th just a few kilometers down the road.

Alexander was buried at the Lijssenthoek Cemetery in Belgium. Herbert was hospitalized 3 times over the next 2 years, for gunshot wounds to the arm, shoulder and neck, and each time patched up and sent back to the trenches. As the war ended he was sent home on the vessel Carmania which docked at Halifax on December 30, 1918. Herbert was formally discharged in Montreal on March 17, 1919. Herbert was awarded a medal for bravery in the field, when he saved the life of a fallen soldier.

You can tell your ancestor’s story with the help of the war diaries, trench maps, and the soldier’s service records. Also go to the website of the Great Canadian War Project and search for your ancestors record.  If you register, you can upload photos and add information and stories.

For additional information about WWI (locations of hospitals, mapping, etc) and tremendous help in deciphering CEF service records I highly recommend the website The Regimental Rogue.

At Internet Archive search using keywords: roll of honour (or honor), roll of service, nominal roll, name of battalion or regiment, etc

Relevant Links:

Soldiers of the First WW – Canada

War Diaries of the First World War

Canada Circumstances of Death Registers, First World War

Canada Veterans Death Cards WWI  (only those deaths reported to Veterans Affairs up to the 1960s. The collection does not include those who died overseas during the war.)

Court Martials of the First WW

CEF 29th Infantry Battalion, Nominal Roll 1915 (search archive.org for your ancestor's battalion)

CEF 244th Infantry Battalion, Nominal Roll 1917

How to read Service and Casualty Records

Canadian War Graves Commission

Lijssenthoek Cemetery – Belgium

How to order WWI service records Canada

British Army medal index cards 1914-1920

British WWI Service Records – most damaged by bombing

Australia Service Records

US WWI Service Records

Songs of the First World War

WW I Trench Maps - McMaster University

Canadian Great War Project

The Great War 1914-1918

Nursing Sisters Nominal Roll – CEF 1914

WWI search widget any soldier of the Commonwealth

A Coups de Baionnette – French wit and humour during WWI - (3 volumes)

The Tar Heel world war record, 1917-18 (North Carolina)

Women Marines In World War I

The Boston University World war record 1920 (index of names in back)

History of Hamden (Connecticut) men in the World War 1927

Hawaii in the world war 1928 (Roll of Honour)

Service Records of Saugus WWI Veterans(Mass.)

Service records : Connecticut men and women in the armed forces of the United States during World War, 1917-1920 (Vol 1-3)

New England aviators 1914-1918; their portraits and their records

The war record of American Jews 1919

Historical records of no. 8 Canadian Field Ambulance: Canada, England,France, Belgium, 1915-1919 (Honour Roll at back)

The first Five Hundred - Royal Newfoundland Regiment – 1914-1918

Hundred Years of Army Nursing (UK) 1876-1952

British war dogs, their training and psychology – WWI

Scout, Red Cross and Army dogs -  US Army 1917

New Zealand WWI Records

A Nation's Chronicle: The Canada Gazette – database (search "military")

Prisoners of the First World War

Soldier of Quebec (Diary) 1916-1919

Veteran's Administration USA pension payment cards 1901-1933

List of officers and men serving in the First Canadian Contingent of the British Expeditionary Force 1914

CEF Railway Construction Corps, 1st Reinforcing Draft - Nominal Roll

Railway Supply Detachment CEF, Nominal Roll 1915

A list of the officers and enlisted men of the United States Marine Corp, who lost their lives while serving overseas during World War I

Royal Burgh of Stirling - Roll of Honour - list of names of men belonging to Stirling who fell in the Great War

University of Toronto roll of service; 1914-1918

Members of American expeditionary forces from Connecticut who were killed in action, died of wounds, and died of disease and other causes - 1920

Aberdeen Roll of Service in the Great War ; 1914-1919

Maryborough War Memorial Souvenir (WWI - AU) - 1922

University of Manchester - Roll of Service 1922

University of London, Officer's Training Corps - Roll of Service 1914-1919

Roll of Honour 1914-1919 for the town and quoad sacra parish of Macduff with active service lists, lists of prisoners of war & of honours awarded - Banffshire 1919

An Honor Roll: containing a pictorial record of the war service of the men and women of Kalamazoo County (w/photos) ; 1917-1919

The Roll of Service 1914-1919 / The War Book of Upper Canada College

Skilled Railway Employees - CEF 1918

The Singer memorial, 1914-18 : roll of honour of employees of the Singer Mfg Co. Ltd

The Nelson Leader Local War Records ; 1914-1915, Lancashire UK

 Circular and list of names for Unclaimed Discharge Certificates - US War Dept  1920

The Regimental Rogue (aid and additional info for CEF service records)

Abbreviations used in CEF service records

Abbreviations used in US military records

WWI Death Cards at LAC 

Souvenir Book of the World War - US 1918

1914 – 18 Chaplain Interview Record cards for Army Chaplin WWI