Note that many of the settlers in St. Columban had a connection to the districts of Point St. Charles and/or Griffintown.

THE POINT HISTORY SOCIETY HAS A NEW UPDATED WEB SITE

The Soci?t? d'histoire de Pointe-Saint-Charles (Point St. Charles History Society) has announced that they now have a completely new & updated web site, along with a brand new logo.

You can find the new site at [size=10pt][size=10pt]www.shpsc.org[/size][/size]

This improved site is the result of more than a year of work by a variety of volunteers from the Point, and elsewhere, to update information concerning the very interesting and varied history of the neighbourhood of Point St. Charles

(And our own web master Jeff Legault really helped the Soceity to develope this new site)

A major effort has also been made to translate as many pages as possible from French to English; or in some cases, from English to French - with the hope of making the site as bilingual as possible. However, it is, and will continue to be, a real work in progress.

So please do take a moment to visit the new Point history web site and of course, consider becoming a member of the society.

It would also much appreciated, if you could contribute copies of any photos, or other historical documentation, concerning The Point that you might have.

The Soci?t? d?histoire de Pointe-Saint-Charles is a non-profit organization who?s membership presently totals about 150 members. A historical committee had been started on April 26 1993, with aim of promoting the area?s history and heritage.
Five years later, the Soci?t? historique de Pointe-Saint-Charles came into existence when it was granted a provincial charter, on June 18 1998. In 2000, the Society adopted its present name, the Soci?t? d?histoire de Pointe-Saint-Charles. Since 1998, the Society is governed by an Executive Board whose members are elected by the Society?s members at the annual assembly. The Society still adheres to its original mission of promoting and protecting the local heritage.
For more than fifteen years now, several committees, made up of members, have been assisting the Society in fulfilling its mission. The Society can be justly proud of its accomplishments to date : exhibitions, publications, and community events, among others. Most recently, the Society has launched its series of Cahiers which give its members the opportunity to publish their research.

Once you review the new site please feel free to forward any suggestions or comments that you might have to the Society or post them here on our St. Columban site

Thanks.

[size=10pt]For the members in the Montreal area, this event may be of interest....[/size]

[size=10pt]Centaur Theatre Upcoming Event[/size]

The Centaur has asked us to let you know about a special upcoming mini fundraiser event called ?An Irish Dinner with Friends? in honour of the Irish play called

[size=10pt]?Stones in his Pockets? by Marie Jones. [/size] 

This event is scheduled for Wednesday, February 9th 2011 at 6pm.
This event includes a nice dinner at the Bonaparte Restaurant, next door to the Centaur; the play itself; and
dessert and coffee after the play.

The cost is $ 175. per person; and please note that if you already have season tickets to the Centaur, you can deduct the price of the ticket from this cost, and a tax receipt is also issued for a portion of the cost.

Space for this event is limited, so to reserve, or for other information, please call Jana van Geest, at the Centaur, at: 514-288-1229 extension 240.

Attached Files

  Centaur Stones Pocket.pdf (Size: 592.43 KB / Downloads: 80)

[size=10pt]First, please allow us to wish everyone a very healthy; happy and prosperous 2011[/size]



Cemetery Project Update

More than a year ago, we applied to the Irish Government in Dublin for a financial grant to help with our cemetery restoration project. And, we are pleased to say that the Irish Embassy in Canada recently contacted us to inform us that they will likely provide us with a $ 2,000 donation under one of their programs.

We have completed all the required paperwork and believe that the Irish Embassy will be forwarding this amount, in the near future, to the St. Patrick?s Society of Montreal for our benefit.

Our descendant group plans to meet sometime in January and our initial idea is to use these funds to design and manufacture a nice weatherproof plaque dedicated to all the individuals that records indicate were buried in the cemetery - but where we have never been able to find their tombstone.

These tombstones might be missing for any number of reasons ? that were removed and placed somewhere else; these individuals may never have had the funds for a tombstone etc., etc.; 

We will certainly keep everyone up-to-date as we move to the next phase of the project.

Some of you may have already noticed a new home page I launched this weekend. We haven't had a new look for quite some time so were long overdue for an update.

http://www.stcolumban-irish.com/

This is the start of an overall web site conversion to a new look and more modern content management system. Over the next few weeks I'll be converting the underlying pages to this new system. This brings us into the new era of web site management where we can have a lot more interesting features and capabilities. Please let me know if you experience any difficulty loading and viewing the home page or want to learn more about the technical details.

The page is best viewed with Internet Explorer used by the vast majority of our visitors.

I hope you enjoy the new look and welcome any feedback to improve the site or to add features that would contribute to the goals of the group.

Jeff Legault

This event might be of some interest to members of our group in the Montreal area....


Our Joe Beef Market takes place this Saturday,
September 11 th 2010, at the Joe Beef Park, located on Centre Street,
at the corner of Richmond in Point St. Charles - from 10am until 4pm

This event is a joint effort between the PSC Community Theatre and the
Point History Society with the objective of bringing local History
alive and having some fun doing it !

It is a real family event !

Some of the activities planned for this year include:-

- Historical skits by the PSC Community Theatre, with actors dressed
in period costumes, and highlighting both Joe Beef and Thomas C.
Keefer. Each year we honour an individual that has a street named
after him/her in the Point and this year it is Thomas Keefer. (A small
part of Atwater St. in the Point was recently changed to Thomas Keefer
Street)

- A number of Artisan Booths selling very interesting & unique goods

- Joe Beef will be serving Free Soup from noon until 1pm

- Some Irish music by Belfast-Andi

- Information booths from Parks Canada & the Montreal Fire Museum

- And much more.....

And this year, for the first time, we will also have an afternoon of
free entertainment with a variety of singers; dancers, and other
talent acts from both the Point - and other parts of the city.

There be lots of stuff to see and do - so if you have an opportunity -
do drop by the Joe Beef Market this Saturday.

Thanks

I added a few updated enhancements to our interactive Google map of St. Columban located on this page:

http://www.stcolumban-irish.com/Maps/navmap.html

We now have street view capability. Simply click and drag the little yellow man that appears over the zoom control over to one of the local roads to see the street level view of that location. (Note: You will need the latest version of Adobe Flash installed to view the images correctly however, the map will prompt you to download it if you don't have this installed.)

Click the box with the X at the top right corner of the image to exit street view and go back to the map. When viewing the map you can switch between normal map view, satellite hybrid (street names and local features appear superimposed in satellite view) or topographical.

Other enhancements are the ability to zoom the map by simply using your mouse wheel and an updated zoom slider control.

Enjoy!

The above census includes the following family members:
William Cohoon 25 (abt. 1846)
Margaret Cohoon 25 (abt. 1846)
Andrew Cohoon 5
Bertha Cohoon 3
Timothy (who was an infant) no age


1871 Census:  William Cohoon, Banlieue South, Quebec West, Quebec (Irish/Cath) includes the following
family members:

William Cohoon 25 (abt. 1846)
Margueret Cohoon 25 (abt. 1846)
Leandra Cohoon (male) 5
Rutha Cohoon (female) 3 (might be transcription error)
Thimothee Cohoon 1

I have US naturalization papers that state William Cohoon was born in "Parrish St. Colombe, Dominion of Canada" in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland on or about December 26, 1850.

This was done in Lewiston, Maine in 1890.

The obituary for William Cohoon in Niantic, CT in 1929 states his age as 80 or 86, which means he could have been born as early as 1843 or 1849.  (The age is illegible). Later US censuses state abt. 1846.

Finally, I remembered my french long enough to graduate from College and then moved to Japan.  I don't remember my french and/or confuse it with my spanish.

Going out on a limb here and exercising my God given right to be stupid, is it possible that the above censuses are for the same family?  Would one be an English translation of the French version?  Is Leandra french for Andrew?

Was there a stigma to being called Irish in 1871? The "french" census say irish/cath.  The "english" version says french/cath. 

William's wife was a Mahoney and her family is in the 1861 census for "Parish St. Colomba" with birth place of Ireland, so their origin can't have been french in 1871. 

Are the variants St. Colombe, St. Colomban and St. Colomba in fact different locales?

I am throwing it all out there with the hope that something might be recognized and worthy of comment.

Thanks for your time reading the post.

My husband, Michael Taylor, is a descendant of the Brophy, Phelan, Elliot, Blanchfield and O'Brien families of the St. Columban area. We are planning to be in the area in the near future to visit the village, church, cemetery, etc.

I received a family group photo of members of the Phelan family from Steven Vollick. The family is posed on the front veranda of the frame home. At the bottom of the porch steps is a huge flat rock. I was wondering if anyone in the forum knows the whereabouts of this particular house or if it is even still in existence.

Thank you for any assistance with this.

[size=10pt][size=10pt]On Saturday, July 3rd as mentioned in my last post, we were able to officially unveil ?the walls? as a monument to the early Irish settlers in St. Columban.

And now Jeff Legault has posted some great videos and pictures of the event for everyone that was not able to attend.

To see the videos, simply go to our main page at www.stcolumban-irish.com and click on the updated note about the unveiling. 

To see photos of the ceremony, you can click on the following link:

http://www.stcolumban-irish.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=2691 

Once again thank you to everyone that contributed to making this a reality after almost five years.[/size][/size]

[size=10pt]The Montreal Gazette Newspaper today wrote a nice article about Chris Phelan and his family and how they are all teachers.

Chirs is a descendant of one branch of the Phelan familiy of St. Columban

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/family+Teaching+their+hearts/3214371/story.html [/size]