By MICHAEL F. DWYER
Continuing to search for Kings born in Canada as Roi/Roy brought me to this household in New Haven’s 1850 census. At first glance, it seemed easy to locate a Denis Roy, born circa 1825 in Québec. In the Genéalogie Québec database, however, there was not a single person of that name for the entire decade of the 1820s. The next step was to evaluate all mentions of Dennis King in Vermont records. He was married in New Haven on May 5, 1848, to Julianne Lafond, their marriage officiated by a Congregational minister. Had they been married by a French priest, the record would likely have named his parents. In Vermont, Lafond was anglicized to Bottom, its literal translation from French. Thus, in the census, John and Mary Bottom were likely Julianne’s parents. Her first name was variously recorded as Lucia Anne in 1850, Lucy in 1860, and then Julia on her death record when she died from consumption, age 42, on December 11, 1869. Her birthplace was listed as Napierville, Canada, and her parents named as John and Mary Bottom. As with Dennis King/Denis Roy, I could not find a match in Québec records with her various first names and last name of Lafond.
Within a year of Julia’s death, Dennis remarried widow Phoebe (Phelps) Trudo. The record of his second marriage stated his parents were Joseph and Margaret King, but that didn’t bring me any closer to a child named Denis. In early November 1897, Dennis was badly burned in a fire. He died in Middlebury on November 13, 1897, from “disease caused by burnt feet.” With no more clues forthcoming about Dennis, I turned to another King family living in New Haven at the time of the 1850 census.
Gilbert King, age 25, laborer, born in Canada, with wife Mary, had two young children also born in Canada. He remained in Addison County throughout his life. In 1868, he became a naturalized United States citizen. Most of these records only list Canada as the applicant’s birthplace, but in this instance, it disclosed the name of the village, L’Acadie. [Now merged with St.-Jean-sur Richelieu] With this information, I discovered the church record of Gilbert Roy’s marriage to Marcelline [Mary] Lajoie at St. Valentin on April 29, 1845, with the name of his parents, Joseph Roy and Marguerite Poutre. True to his statement on his naturalization record, Gilbert Roy was born at L’Acadie on January 27, 1827. If Dennis were Gilbert’s brother, I would have expected to find him among the baptisms of his other siblings. The closest male in age to Dennis was Telesphore Roy, born on December 29, 1829. In one of those Aha! moments, I remembered George Valley’s uncle Telesphore, born in Canada. Some of his brothers called him “Teles.” With the sound of T and D made in the same way where the tongue is placed behind the teeth, Dennis was much easier for Vermont natives to pronounce than Teles. Mystery solved with all these pieces fitting together. The immigrant ancestor of these two Roy/King brothers was Nicolas Roy from Dieppe in Normandy, France, who married Marie Madeleine Leblond at the church of Ste. Famille, Ile d’Orléans just outside Québec City on November 18, 1686.
Back to Bottom. John and Mary or Margaret Bottom was last recorded in the 1860 census, still living with Dennis King’s family. In Québec records, I hoped to find evidence of them living in Napierville where Julia was said to have been born. Most of the death records of Dennis and Julia’s children stated that Julia’s maiden name was Bottom or Lafond, except one. Daughter Matilda (King) Conant of Salisbury, Vermont, died in 1931. Nelson Conant, her son and informant on Matilda’s death certificate, stated Matilda’s mother’s maiden name was Julia Supernos. While that was clearly wrong, it suggested some remembered association with that name.
Remembering that I had noted Henry Bottom, age 15, born Canada in the household of “Franklin Superman” in New Haven’s 1850 census, I was beckoned me to examine that family. “Superman” and “Supernos” were garbled versions of the name Surprenant. Perhaps Matilda, age 28, wife of Franklin, was a Lafond/Bottom which would explain the presence of Henry in their household. Following through with that conjecture led me to find the marriage of François Surprenant and Domitilde Lafond at St. Jacques-le-Mineur on October 4, 1841. Domitilde was born at L’Acadie, daughter of Jean Baptiste Lafond and Marguerite Bonneau—a match to John and Margaret Bottom of New Haven, Vermont. Her youngest child John Baptist Supernor, born in Salisbury on March 18, 1859 lived until 1944.
Jean Baptiste Lafond’s immigrant ancestor from France was Etienne Lafond, from Saintonge, in Québec by 1642, where he married Marie Boucher on January 20, 1645. The Lafonds moved from L’Acadie to Napierville by the mid-1820s, which fit with information on Julia King’s death record that she had been born in Napierville. As with the case of Dennis King/Telesphore Roy, I suspected a different first name for Julia at baptism: among the Lafond children recorded at Napierville was Felicité Lafond, baptized there on May 20, 1826. Looking at the full context of the Lafond/Bottom family, she presents herself as Julianne/Julia/Lucie King! As a footnote to Catholic history, mothers did not attend the baptisms of their children until after Vatican II in the 1960s. It may be simple enough that the Lafond family never called her Felicité.
Unsurprisingly, evidence points to the Roy and Lafond families all knowing one other in the vicinity of L’Acadie and Napierville prior to their moving to Vermont. As described in previous episodes, Napierville was a hotbed in the Canada rebellions of 1837 and 1838. The subsequent social upheaval spurred the migration of many families to Vermont. In Salisbury’s 1840 census, John Bottom, headed a household of nine. Clearly more of this family has yet to be discovered.
