By MICHAEL F. DWYER
Returning to previous strolls through St. Mary’s Cemetery in Brandon brings me to three photos of gravestones whose stories needed to be retrieved. In all three instances, the subjects’ first and last names had changed from records of their baptisms or marriages in Québec.
We begin with Zeb Liberty. His solitary grave lies at the edge of the cemetery and, unusual among cemetery markers, inscribes his place of birth as St. Hyacinthe, Canada. In Brandon’s 1860s census, the household he shared with his wife, Mary, was located between Oliver Disorda and Levi Bashaw—another indicator of close family networks. Mary Liberty was born as Philomène Bachand, sister of Levi Bashaw. She and Zeb had two children, both of whom died in infancy. Mary’s funeral in 1898 was held from their home on Maple Street. Her pallbearers included Charles Bashaw and four members of the Shambo family. I assumed that Zeb’s original name was Eusèbe Laliberté, and knowing his birthplace, I expected an easy retrieval of his baptism record, but no matching Lalibertés were born in St. Hyacinthe in that timeframe. The informant on Zeb’s death certificate in 1913 did not know his parents; fortunately, when Zeb married a second time to widow Elizabeth Selman in 1905, he disclosed the names of his parents as Josant Liberty and Charlotte Side.
The new clue presented here was that Zeb’s mother must have been Charlotte Coté, her name often literally translated as Side in Vermont. Finding her marriage at St. Hyacinthe on February 4, 1822 opened a new pathway to variations of Laliberté. Charlotte married Hyacinthe Roireau dit Laliberté. With that, I discovered Zeb Liberty’s baptism as Eusèbe Roireau on August 15, 1830. His remote ancestor from France was Gaspard Roireau dit Laliberté, who married Marguerite Hébert before 1695 in Québec.
Zeb’s second marriage to Elizabeth Selman was short-lived because he lived alone at the time of the 1910 census, and his newspaper death notice stated, “His wife died many years ago.” So, who erected a gravestone to a man who had no surviving children? I suspect that Zeb’s Bachand/Bashaw brothers-in-law respected him enough to let posterity know that yet another man from St.-Hyacinthe would not be forgotten.
Alexander and Phebe Lamorder’s gravestones bear the cross of Calvary, a popular Catholic motif of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The 1850 census finds this couple and ten children in Shoreham. Lamorder was a variation of a dit name of Normandin. Alexis Normandin married Phebe Benoit at St. Cesaire, Rouville, Québec, on October 12, 1830. Their first four children were baptized there before the family’s move to Vermont around 1837. Thirteen children in all would be born to the couple over a span of thirty-three years! Most of them did not maintain an allegiance to the Catholic Church.
The Civil War impacted the family in significant ways. Their son Jeremiah, age 18, enlisted in Company C, Seventh Vermont Regiment on December 5, 1861. He died of disease on October 19, 1862, in New Orleans. His parents applied for a pension, citing that they relied on the income that Jeremiah contributed to their support. While the documentation makes for fascinating reading, they were not awarded a pension. Alexander and Phebe also appear in another Civil War pension file. Their eldest daughter Elizabeth married Nelson Page in 1852. They had three children. Laura, George, and Nettie Page. Like his brother-in-law, Jeremiah Lamorder, Union soldier Nelson Page died of typhoid in Louisiana on November 13, 1862. Widow Ellen was soon awarded a pension for her children. In 1869, however, when Elizabeth married Lorenzo Ingraham, her parents petitioned successfully for the guardianship of their Page grandchildren. Alexander and Phebe received eight dollars a month until the children were 16.
Alexander and Phebe’s youngest daughter, Ellen, first married Civil War veteran Louis Sird in 1866. Upon Louis’s death in 1903, Ellen married as her second husband Louis’s younger brother, Joseph Sird. The last survivor of the Lamorder children, she died in 1924.
Another Calvary cross marks the gravestone of Eli Forsha. He was baptized as Hilaire Israel Fortier in St. Rosalie Bagot, Québec on February 10, 1846, son of Emmanuel and Euphrosine Paillée. The entire family moved to Brandon, where they were counted in the 1860 census, their names almost unrecognizable. Eli married Delia Simmons in 1865. They would have thirteen children. Eli moved to Westminster, Massachusetts, where he died from gangrene of his foot. His name on the death certificate, Eli Fortier, with his date of birth eight years off. Delia outlived her husband by 17 years, her name carved on the stone in a different style. Delia’s obituary attests to their many descendants—Forsha, Fortier, Forcier, and Faucher all in the same family.
Whoever wrote the obituary of Eli Forsha, Jr. in 1934 remembered his mother’s maiden name as Odelia Cinnamon!
