Magloire and Marguerite Morin: The Great Great Grandparents

I made a connection on Ancestry with a third cousin, who is the great grandson of Eliza Morin. He told me that his mother had these old slate negatives of our great great grandparents and that she had prints made. Here they are.

 Magloire Gilbert Morin was born on May 3, 1824, and baptized at Notre-Dame-du-Rosaire at Saint-Hyacinthe. He was the first child of Joseph Morin and Reine Cormier. His father was a farmer and he was also a farmer but later became a "boulanger". I was told by a French sister in Salt Lake that the name Magloire means "my glory".

Magloire and Marguerite were married in 1850 in Saint Damase, a nearby village. (It was Marguerite's brother Pierre who owned the foundry and later repaired the church bell at Notre-Dame-du-Rosaire.)

Morin-Soly Marriage Record

Great great grandmother Marguerite Soly (here referred to as Marguerite De Soly Morin) was born on April 15, 1819, in Saint-Hyacinthe and was also baptized at Notre-Dame-du-Rosaire. Marguerite had a twin sister Veronique, who married the following year. There were 16 children born of her parents, Pierre Soly and Marie Joseph Crete. Three of those children, including another set of twins, died at tender ages.

Magloire and Marguerite had six children and lived in the area known then as Brittania Mills, but is known today as Saint Damase. In November of 1863, the Morins moved with their children, the youngest being three years old, to Pawtuckett, Rhode Island, a town just outside of Providence.The immigration from Canada to the United States was most likely caused by economic circumstances. Like the Mexicans who have come here in this century to work in our fields, the French-Canadians came to come work in the textile mills. Typically Magloire as the eldest son would have inherited his father's property. I only know that his father Joseph died in 1845 and his mother Reine remarried in 1854. I don't know if they owned the land they farmed. [Nearly 100 years later great grandson George Arthur Morin would migrate from Pennsylvania to Arizona with seven children. I remember it well.]

In Pawtucket, Rhode Island in 1870, Magloire is working as a baker. Sons Napolean and Arthur Noel worked as machinist apprentices. Joseph is a farm hand. The younger children, Zoe, age 12, and John, age 10,  are working in the cotton mill. Magloire became a naturalized citizen in 1876. The Morins lived one block from the Church of St. John the Baptist.

 In 1880 Magloire is listed as Gilbert in the census. He continues to work as a baker in Pawtuckett, Rhode Island. In the same household lived son Napolean, his wife Melinda Hald and their three young daughters. There was also daughter Zoe with her husband Joseph Goddard and their three young children. In addition, daughter Eliza. a dressmaker, and John who is now a machinist apprentice lived there. Magloire and Marguerite had six grandchildren living with them all under age four. But there's more. I found one more family living in the house at 201 Harrison in Pawtucket. Louis Boureassau, who worked in the cotton mill, lived there with his wife and one-year old daughter. The house at 201 Harrison no longer exists but I have since learned that typical houses were three stories with a family on each level.

Their son Arthur, married Azilda Desroches, in 1878, and lived just 32 miles away in Danielson, Connecticut, with our grandfather George, age one. Arthur is also making his living as a baker.

Ancestors:

Pierre Morin dit Boucher and Marie Madeleine Martin

Pierre Morin and Francoise Chiasson

Pierre Noel Morin and Marie Francoise Boulet

Antoine Morin and Anne Marie Pellerin

Jean Baptiste Morin and Marie Madeleine Proulx

Joseph Morin and Reine Cormier

Magloire Gilbert Morin and Marguerite Soly

Arthur Noel Morin and Azilda Desroches