Timothe Lemoine

I came across Timothe Lemoine, a 2^nd great-granduncle, while pursuing the death date for his mother, my 3rd great-grandmother, Marie Felicite Gautron dite Larochelle.  Sadly, after looking through several thousand church records I have yet to find her information, but I did find all of her children’s birth records (her husband was George Hus Lemoine) which then led me to some interesting information about her youngest son Timothe.  It’s very easy to be distracted when doing genealogical research. 

A little background might be useful before I dive into what I learned about Timothe.  I previously wrote about his older sister Tharsile Hus Lemoine, who was married to Francois Vadnais (my 2^nd great-grandparents).  My great-grandfather, William (Perry) Vadnais was their only surviving son.  Tharsile and Francois had immigrated to the Centerville area in the late 1850s.  Tharsile was the 5^th of 11 children born to Marie Felicite and George.

The 11^th child Timothe was born May 4, 1849 and was baptized the same day at Saint-Pierre-De Saurel, Quebec, Canada.

Translation:

B110 (the 110^th baptism in 1849 at Saint-Pierre-de-Sorel Church)

of Timothe Lemoine

This fourth of May, eighteen hundred and forty-nine, we, the undersigned parish priest, baptized Timothy, born on this day of the legitimate marriage of George Lemoine, farmer, and Marie Gaudron, known as Larochelle, of this parish. Godfather Felix Lemoine, godmother Basilice Cournoyer who failed to sign. The father absent.

                                                                                                                        H. Beaudry priest

End of translation.

His sister Tharsile was 16 years old and had already been married a year when Timothe was born.  Timothe would have been quite young (maybe 7 to 9 years old) when Tharsile and Francois immigrated to Minnesota.

After adding Timothe to my tree I found quite a bit of information automatically attached to his record.  That doesn’t happen for everyone so I thought I would take a closer look at him. 

The first document I opened was a picture of a marriage record.  It was for Timothy Lemoine and Mary Fleury.  The record was odd in that the license was issued on May 23, 1873 by the District Court, Anoka County, Minnesota and the marriage took place at Dayton (between the towns of Anoka and Rogers) in Hennepin County on May 25, 1873.²  (I’ve not seen other official Minnesota records with 2 different counties listed on the record.) Timothe would have been 24 years old and he had also immigrated to Minnesota.

I next came across an 1875 Minnesota census record for Timothe.  It enumerated his household in Anoka, Anoka County, Minnesota, as of May 1, 1875.  Those listed were: Tem [Tim] (24 years old), Mary (20 years old), Tim Jr. (1 years old) and George (0 years old).³

The next record shows the family being enumerated in the 1880 U. S. census living in LaPorte, Larimer County, Colorado.  I wondered if it was the same family and upon further inspection it is easy to see that it is them.  It lists Timothy (32 years old), Mary (24 years old), Timothy Jr. (8 years old) and George (6 years old).  Additionally there are two more children listed: Frank (3 years old) and Mary L. (1 year old).⁴  The last 2 children were born in Colorado so the family probably left Minnesota sometime around 1877.

The LaPorte [now Laporte] area of Larimer County was settled around 1828 by French-Canadian fur trappers and mountain men.  Originally called Colona, the name was changed to LaPorte in 1862 and became the headquarters of the Mountain Division of the Overland Trail Stage Route.  I wonder if Timothe made the move to Colorado because there were French-Canadians in LaPorte that he knew or if it was just on a whim; after all, he had family in Minnesota.

The family is next enumerated in the 1885 Colorado state census for Larimer County.    Tim is listed, then Mary, followed by Tim Jr., George, Frank and Mary C. (not L.).  Additionally, it shows 3 more children added to the family since 1880: Peter (4 years old), Joseph L. (2 years old) and Matilda (7 months old).⁵ 

I’m sure there would be valuable information about the family in the 1890 U. S. census records, but the majority of those were destroyed long ago in a fire. 

What surprised me the most about Timothe was where he ended up living.  A homestead certificate dated May 19, 1892 shows that Timothe applied for 160 acres of land in Larimer County.  The area and the land he homesteaded would have come with a multitude of problems: it is at a high elevation in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains where winter can last well into May, the land is rocky, the weather is dry and it is almost always very windy.  Our cabin where we currently summer, which is the area where I have lived for 40 years, is about 50-60 miles to the northwest of Timothe’s land, so I’m quite familiar with the region and the climate.

As you can see on the map, more than half of his land consisted of sharp vertical ridges leaving very little land to raise crops or graze stock.  Additionally the ridges are oriented in such a way that the prevailing westerly winds would be much stronger than normal.

I don’t know how long Timothe stayed on his homestead in Colorado.  I don’t see another record for him until the 1910 U. S. census where he was enumerated in Snake River (Baggs), Wyoming.  The record shows him as 93 years old, divorced, he works for the city as a laborer, owns his house at 14 Mager Street debt free and he can read, but cannot write.⁹  The only thing I would dispute would be his age.  He would have been only 60 or 61 years old at the time of the census.  Maybe the enumerator made a mistake.

Timothe is not without family in Baggs, the 1910 U. S. census also shows his daughter Matilda Mary, her husband Peter Jons and their 4 children living in the area.¹⁰

Finding him living in Wyoming was a surprise.  I never imagined a relative of mine lived in Wyoming in the early 1900s.  Maybe it was just me being narrow-minded thinking that I was the first relative to live in Wyoming.  I guess I need to get over that notion.

Baggs, the ranch town Timothe ended up in, and specifically the Gaddis/Matthews cabin, was a hang-out for Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch in the late 1800s.  Mountain man and fur trapper Jim Baker had also called Baggs his home and was buried there in 1898.  Today the town has a population of about 350 people and most of the roads are still dirt.

Timothe was in Baggs when the 1920 U. S. census was taken.  It shows him as widowed (his wife had died in 1913 in Tracy, Lyon County, Minnesota), 73 years old, and a dealer of hay and grain.¹¹

Timothe died in Baggs on May 30, 1923.  The Wyoming death record lists him as 77 years old at the time of death.  He actually was 74 years and 26 days old when he died.  The cause of death was chronic parenchymatous nephritis, which is chronic inflammation of the kidney and upper urinary tract.¹²

I assume he is buried at the Baggs Cemetery; I know that his daughter is buried there.  We’re planning a trip to Baggs in the near future to see if we can find his grave.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Thanks for visiting, come back soon,
Cindy

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Footnotes for Timothe Lemoine post