Author: Janice H.

New Book Tells the History of Mile End

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Hundreds of special events are taking place in 2017 to mark the City of Montreal’s 375thbirthday, but the one that means the most to me is the publication last month of a history of the Mile End district of Montreal. Some 200 years ago, that was where my three- and four-times great-grandparents lived.

There, at the intersection of the only two roads for miles around, Stanley Bagg and his father Phineas ran an establishment called the Mile End Tavern. Their landlord and future in-law, an English-born butcher named John Clark, probably came up with the name Mile End. The tavern was at the corner of what is now Saint-Laurent Boulevard and Mont-Royal Avenue, and the whole area eventually acquired the same name. 

A Mile End landmark restaurant. jh photo

Mile End has no formal boundaries, but it is essentially just to the northeast of Mount Royal, as far as the railroad tracks. Some of the area’s streets are known far beyond Montreal: Saint-Urbain, for example, was made famous by author Mordecai Richler, and both Saint-Viateur and Fairmount streets have bagels named after them. Other well-known streets include Laurier, Parc, Saint-Joseph and Jeanne-Mance.

It is a vibrant neighbourhood, home to musicians, teachers and software developers, trendy restaurants, second-hand shops and rows of triplex and duplex dwellings, often featuring Montreal’s iconic outdoor staircases.

Histoire du Mile End, the first book to focus on the area’s history, was written by former journalist Yves Desjardins. His journalism background shows: he has researched his subject thoroughly in newspaper accounts, archival sources and academic articles, and pulled it all together in clear, concise language. I can attest to how readable it is because, although the book is in French, I have had no trouble reading it. It helps that the book is generously illustrated with historic photos and maps.

Over the decades, Mile End has been home to waves of immigrants, starting with French Canadian job-seekers who moved to the city from the Laurentians, and including Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, Italians, Portuguese and Greeks. Many of the area’s residents worked in the nearby Peck Building, labouring in low-paying jobs in the garment industry; today, the Peck Building is home to Ubisoft, a major player in the video game industry.

Just as it takes a village to raise a child, sometimes it takes a community to write a book. Yves had help from friends and neighbours — many of them members of the local history group Mile End Memories — who gave him access to their own research and expertise. I provided him with information about my ancestors the Baggs and the Clarks, and the collaboration paid off for both of us: I was able to fill in family information he didn’t have, and he helped me understand the historical context of my ancestors’ lives.

I learned that Saint-Laurent Boulevard, the traditional dividing line between the western part of the city, where the majority of English-speaking Montrealers live, and the eastern part, which is overwhelmingly French-speaking, was the only road leading north out of the city in the early 1800s. The Baggs owned much of the land on the western side of Saint-Laurent, and it remained primarily rural until the 1890s. Much of the land on the east side was owned by the Beaubien family, and early residents worked in local tanneries and quarries. 

Ubisoft, in the Peck Building, employs thousands of people today. jh photo.

 At the end of the 19th century, a group of real estate promoters from Toronto tried to develop a “strictly high class suburb” in Mile End called the Montreal Annex. While they did manage to attract a few professionals and their families, the scheme eventually failed. For decades, most of Mile End’s residents were strictly working class, or worked at skilled trades such as shoe-making and carriage-making.

Meanwhile the area experienced many growing pains as politicians argued over taxes and infrastructure, and promoters battled to provide the public transportation (by electric tram and rail) that was key to the area’s growth.

Today, as the city of Montreal rebuilds its infrastructure and controversy surrounds plans for future residential projects and transportation corridors, it seems that some things haven’t changed much.

Yves Desjardins. Histoire du Mile End, Québec: Éditions du Septentrion, 2017.

See also:

Janice Hamilton, “The Mile End Tavern”, Writing Up the Ancestors, Oct. 21, 2013, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2013/10/the-mile-end-tavern.html

Mile End Memories, http://memoire.mile-end.qc.ca/en/ This site includes articles in English and in French, photos, an interactive map that indicates the location of many historic buildings, including the Auberge du Mile End (Mile End Tavern), and a link to summer walking tours of the area.

This article is simultaneously posted on https://genealogyensemble.com

Martha J. Rixon’s Short and Difficult Life

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As a parent, I cannot imagine leaving my children behind and moving away forever, but that is what my great-great grandmother did. Martha Rixon left her two children with their grandparents in Ontario and went to live in Michigan. She must have had a good reason to do such a thing.1  

Martha (1834-1875) grew up in a large family in Sophiasburgh Township, Prince Edward County, Canada West. When she was a teenager, the family moved to Cramahe Township, near Brighton. Her father was a farmer and carpenter who had been born in England, and her mother’s family had come to Canada around 1800 from New York State. Martha had an older brother, two older sisters and five younger sisters. 

Martha J. Rixon, the 18-year-old daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Rixon of Cramahe, Northumberland, Canada West, was listed in the 1851 census of Canada.2 Martha was also counted in the 1861 census, single and living with Thomas and Elizabeth Rickson.3 Two small children, Samantha, age six, and Willes (Phineas), age two, were also in the household. Martha was not listed in the 1871 census of Canada, but Samantha and Phineas, listed as S., 16, and P., 12, were still living with their grandparents, Thomas and Elizabeth Rixon.4

After extensive research, it became clear that Arthur Wellington Rixon, the man who, according to a family story, was Martha’s husband and died of typhoid in 1859, probably never existed.5 Martha’s children, Samantha Rixon (1852-1928) and Phineas Rixon (c. 1859-1938) were born out of wedlock. The story about Arthur Wellington Rixon must have been concocted to hide the fact that Samantha and Phineas were illegitimate.

The identity of the children’s father (or fathers) remains a mystery. Both Samantha and Phineas indicated in their marriage records that their mother was Martha and their father’s name was Thomas.6 Phineas identified him as Thomas Rixon. Thomas might have been a first cousin from the Halton area, west of Toronto, however, there is no documentation to prove that he was ever in Cramahe. This Thomas Rixon (1834-1882) was the son of James and Mary Rixon. He married Margaret Hannah Wright in 1868 and they had five children. He became a minister in the Church of England in Arthur, Wellington County, Ontario.7  Could Thomas’ address in Arthur, Wellington County be a clue linking him to the fictional Arthur Wellington Rixon?

Martha and husband Moses Smith Perkins and three of his children.

Martha’s brother, William John Rixon (1826-1918), was a farmer and a Methodist minister. He and his wife and children moved to Michigan in the late 1860s. Martha accompanied them, leaving the children with their grandparents in Cramahe, and she eventually married in Michigan.8

In those days, children conceived out of wedlock were not uncommon, but that did not make it socially acceptable. It is easy to imagine that Martha’s parents were upset with her for getting pregnant, not once, but twice, and that going to the U.S. with her brother must have seemed like a good option. She probably could not afford to raise her children, and perhaps they were happy living with their grandparents with aunts, uncles, cousins and friends nearby. 

Martha married Moses Smith Perkins in Muskegon, Michigan on August 18, 1870 at a “camp meeting,”according to Moses’ great-granddaughter Roberta Heoring.9 Moses was a fruit farmer and Methodist Episcopal minister.10 His first wife, Sarah, had died, leaving him with eight small children to raise. The 1870 U.S. census showed Martha, keeping house, age 36, born in Canada, right below the entry for M.S. Perkins, in Oceana, Muskegon, Michigan.11

Roberta, who has been working on the genealogy of her family since 1991, has Moses’ diary. In it, Moses noted Martha Jane Rixon’s date of birth – December 29, 1834 in Prince Edward County, Ontario – and the date of her death from a fever at age 39, October 1, 1875. She was buried in Michigan.

Roberta says, “The cemetery is now known as Sammis/Harmon/Eilers Cemetery … located on the corner of the Perkins farm…. I have been unable to find any death records for the early members of the family.… Moses remarried shortly after the death of Martha as he had young children. He later moved his children and wife to Junction City, Kansas.”12

So it seems that, after a relatively short and probably difficult life, Martha was buried in a rural cemetery with members of her husband’s extended family. As far as I know, none of her descendants knows anything about her.

Photo courtesy Roberta Heoring.

Sources and comments

  1. It took me a long time to figure out who Samantha’s and Phineas’ mother was. I couldn’t figure out whether the Martha in the 1861 census was children’s mother or their aunt, but things became more clear after I hired professional genealogist Gabrielle Blaschuk to help. I have written a more complicated version of this story which explains how I reached these conclusions. If you would like to see that version of Martha’ story, contact me at janhamilton66@gmail.com.
  2. “1851 Census of Canada East, Canada West, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia,” database, Ancestry.ca(http://www.ancestry.ca, accessed Dec. 24 2009), entry for Thomas Rixon, Cramahe, citing Year: 1851, Census&nbspPlace: Cramahe, Northumberland County, Canada West (Ontario), Schedule: B, Roll: C_11739, page 129, Line:
  3. “1861 Census of Canada,” database, Ancestry.ca (http://ancestry.ca, accessed May 8, 2017), entry for Thomas Rickson, Cramahe Township, Northumberland, Canada West, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, citing Library and Archives Canada; Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; Census Returns For 1861; Roll: C-1055-1056. In 1861 census, Martha was listed as age 21, which was undoubtedly an error. The 1851 census listed Thomas’ and Elizabeth’s nine children: William, 26 ; Catherine, 22; Rhoda, 20; Martha, 18, Ormacinda, 16; Kezia, 15; Phebe, 11; Mary, 9; Sarah, 5.  For Martha to be 21 in 1861, she would have to have been 11 at the time of the earlier census. Names are another complication: Samantha was usually known by her nickname, Mattie, and her grandmother, Elizabeth Rixon (nee Thompson), was usually called Betsey.
  4. “1871 Census of Canada,” database, Ancestry.ca (http://ancestry.ca, accessed May 8, 2017), entry for Thomas Rixon, Cramahe, Ontario, citing Library and Archives Canada, Census of Canada, 1871, Cramahe, Northumberland East, Ontario; Roll:C-9984; Page:34.
  5. Janice Hamilton, “The Ancestor Who Did Not Exist”, Writinguptheancestors.blogspot.ca, April 11, 2017, https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2017/04/the-ancestor-who-did-not-exist.html.
  6. “Ontario, Canada Marriages, 1857-1924,” database, Ancestry.ca, (http://www.ancestry,ca, accessed Nov. 24, 2008), entry for Samantha Rixon, 1879, Shannonville, citing “Registrations of Marriages, 1869-1922, MS932, Archives of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.” “Ontario, Canada, Marriages, 1801-1928, 1933-1934,” database, Ancestry.ca (http://ancestry.ca, accessed May 10, 2017), entry for Phenas Rixon, 1883, Northumberland, Ontario, citing Select Marriages. Archives of Ontario, Toronto; Registrations of Marriages, 1869-1928; Series: MS932; Reel:47.
  7. Find a Grave, entry for Thomas Rixon, https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=175238549&ref=acom, accessed May 11, 2017.
  8. William Rixon, labourer, his wife Mary Cardinell and three children were listed in Oceana, Muskegon, Michigan in the 1870 U.S. census. William later moved to California, and that is where he died.
  9. Roberta Heorman, “Re: Martha Rixon/Moses Smith Perkins,” email message to Gabrielle Blaschuk, Jan. 2, 2017, forwarded to the author, May 4, 2017. 
  10. Roberta Heorman, “Michigan Biographical Sketches,” http://perkinsresearch.com/1870MIMen31.html, accessed May 11, 2017.
  11. Martha’s name is not indexed on Ancestry, but it is visible in the image of the census page. 1870 United States Federal Census, Oceana, Muskegon, Michigan; Roll: M593_692; Page: 349A; Image: 417246; Family History Library Film: 552191, M.S. Perkins; digital image,  Ancestry.ca (www.ancestry.ca, accessed May 9, 2017), citing National Archives and Records Administration, 1870 U.S. census, population schedules. NARA microfilm publication M593.
  12. Roberta Heorman, “Re: Martha Rixon wife of Moses Smith Perkins”, email to the author, May 11, 2017.