Joseph Theroux (1830-1891)

The Man Who Fell through a floor trap in a store, dying from those injuries, and the 43 Carriages That Followed His Body to the Cemetery!

Some people leave behind diaries or famous inventions. Joseph Theroux left something quieter: a paper trail of baptisms, marriages, census pages, and one very large funeral. Put together, it tells the story of a Quebec farm boy who became a Rhode Island mill-town citizen and raised sons who, by the time he died, were military officers.

A Quebec beginning

Joseph was born on November 26, 1830, in Yamaska, Quebec, and baptized the same day. His father, Theophile, was 33 and his mother, Julie Bernier, was 29. He grew up in the French-Canadian countryside along the Yamaska River, in the years around the Rebellions of 1837-38. He would have been a small boy when they broke out.

On January 25, 1853, he married Alida Labbé (some records say Elida) at St. Michel, Yamaska. She was 20, a neighbor born just two years after him, and the daughter of François Michel L'Abbe and Dorothée Schmid. The name confusion follows her through the records. Her baptism says Alida, her death entry says Elida, and the family still hasn't settled it.

A Family Built in Sixteen Years

Ten months after the wedding, their first son, Joseph, was born. Six more children followed:

•         Michel Alberic in 1855

•         Louis George in 1858

•         Charles Edward Henry in 1861

•         Marie Adeline in 1864

•         Clara in 1868

•         Rosanna in 1870

That makes seven children in about 16 years. Joseph's father, Theophile, died in March 1861, the same year Charles was born.

The Move South

Marie Adeline was born in Quebec in 1864, but Clara, four years later, was born in Rhode Island. So somewhere in those four years the family crossed the border. Records show the children's immigration as 1866, which fits. Like thousands of French Canadians in those years, they were likely heading for the textile mills of New England. That is my inference from the history, not something the documents say. The 1870 census finds the household in River Point, Warwick, a mill village, though the census taker, in the family's words, badly misspelled their names.

There's a small puzzle here. Joseph's Ancestry timeline lists an "arrival" in St. Albans, Vermont, in November 1876, ten years after the children came. Maybe he went back to Quebec for a visit and returned. The documents don't say.

Becoming an American

The most striking stretch of Joseph's life came in December 1888. His wife Alida died on December 2 and was buried in Pawtucket on the 4th. Four days later, on December 8, Joseph filed his petition for U.S. citizenship. Three days after that, sons Charles and Alberic were naturalized too, with Joseph and George serving as witnesses for one another.

We can't know what was in his heart. But after 35 years of marriage, in the same week he buried his wife, he made his commitment to his new country official.

A Sudden End

On October 7, 1891, at age 60, Joseph died after a falling through a trap door to the basement in Central Falls, Rhode Island. His death was covered in the Providence Evening Bulletin the next day.

His funeral is where the story gets remarkable. The Pawtucket Gazette and Chronicle reported that his four sons carried him and that he had belonged to the Lafayette Guards, a French-Canadian society. The service at St. John's Church drew hundreds of people, and many couldn't get in. The paper called it the largest funeral ever held among the city's French people, with 43 carriages in the procession. He was buried at Mount Saint Mary's Cemetery in Pawtucket.

A man who arrived as an immigrant laborer was mourned, by that account, by a good part of his community.

What became of his children

His sons carried the same civic energy forward:

•  Joseph Theroux was millright for Crocker-McElwain Paper Company for     many years. He married twice and has two children and was settled in     Holyoke, Massachusetts.

•     Michel Alberic was a loom fixer at the Lorraine Mills for 23 years, and a skilled yachtsman. His granddaughter recalled that early in his marriage the couple lived aboard a friend's yacht, which he captained on Lake Champlain. He belonged to several French societies. He died in 1902 at 46, leaving a wife and eight children, and roughly 1,000 people attended his funeral. Newspapers and family accounts say he died of a stroke or paralysis, while another record says he was hit by a trolley.

•     Charles Edward Henry became a major in the Battalion of Jacques Cartier and later worked as a chauffeur, a very modern job for 1910.

•     Louis George was a major in the Guard of Honor of the Union St. Jean Baptiste, and lived to 1944.

•     Marie Adeline Theroux married in and settled in Smithfield Twp, Rhode Island and lived till 1926.

•     Clara worked as a spooler tender and weaver, and died in 1913.

•     Rosanna lived in Pawtucket into her 90th year, until 1960.

Why He Matters...

Joseph's story has no battles or fortunes. Its power is in what it adds up to: a move across a border, seven children raised in a new language, citizenship claimed in a week of grief, and sons who grew into community leaders. If you're a descendant, that's a lot to be proud of.

Another 2nd Grandfather!