Monday, March 12, 2012

Mapping the Route: Québec to Waterford, NY

A Different Route; a Different Livelihood 
While Solyme Beauvais was making his way to the industrial city of Cohoes in the 1860s via the Central Vermont Railroad, the Rutland Railroad, Troy Salem and Rensselaer Rail, the Poissant-Glode Family took a very different route.  This family "eased" across the northern border from Québec into Clinton County, first as farmers and but eventually as Champlain canalers.  For several generations the physical border was as fluid as the waters of the lakes and rivers they navigated.
This was not the typical French Canadian immigrant family who came to work in textile mills of New York or New England.

According to census information, Luc Glode was probably born in Clinton County in 1837.  The earliest census where his father, Jacob-Jacques Glode, appears is in the 1850 census of Champlain.  There, his name is spelled Jocks Glade.  Jacques was the great great grandson of Jacques Poissant dit LaSaline, a Huguenot and Sargent in the Franche Marine company of de Noyan.  John Fisher has detailed the early Poissant family in France and Québec here.

 Descendants of Poissant dit LaSaline's son Claude used "Claude" as a "dit name" eventually dropping the Poissant and keeping the Claude. The Claude name morphed into Glaude, Glade and Glode. 


The 1850 census heading in Champlain, Clinton County, New York:


Jocks and his six children - with very misspelled names!


Jacques Jacob, was a famer and laborer but his son Luc Glode became a canalman and "straddled" the border navigating Lake Champlain and the Richelieu. In the 1860 US census he is living in Champlain, Clinton County, NY. with wife and first child.  HOWEVER,  in the 1901 Canada census he can be found in St. Jean/Iberville, Québec!!  

Luc Glode probably grew up in and around the town of Champlain, NY.

Luc Glode likely spent his years navigating the Chazy River ..


and Lake Champlain.....


 and the Richelieu River....


He knew St Jean sur Richelieu....

 and probably the port of Montréal too.

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