April 13, 2006:

Good morning
 
I have been consulting your website frequently and have found it enlightening. 
However, I believe there is an error regarding the first francophone mayor in Ottawa. 
Your site identified Eugene Martineau as being Ottawa's first 
francophone mayor. However, according to the website Les monuments de la francophponie 
d'Ottawa, Joseph-Balsura Turgeon was Ottawa's (and Ontario's) first mayor. He 
served from 1853 to 1854. Here is the blurb that can  be found on the website :
 
Le 1er janvier 1810 naît le premier maire francophone de l’Ontario, 
Joseph-Balsura Turgeon.   Probablement né à Lachenaye (Québec), J.B. Turgeon 
arrive à Bytown (Ottawa) vers 1840 pour y exercer le métier de forgeron.  

Devenu conseiller municipal quatre ans plus tard, il est impliqué dans un affrontement 
violent entre les Tories et les Reformers, connu sous le nom de Stony Monday (1849).  
Président-fondateur de l’Institut canadien-français, Turgeon est successivement 
échevin, puis maire d’Ottawa de 1853 à 1854. 

Turgeon promeut une série de réformes et propose que la désignation de Bytown 
soit remplacée par Ottawa.  


Nommé syndic des écoles en 1855, il obtient, six ans plus tard, un système d’écoles 
séparées.  Figure dominante de la communauté canadiennne-française d’Ottawa, 
Joseph-Balsura Turgeon représente bien les secteurs stratégiques privilégies 
par les élites au milieu du XIXe siècle. 


Il meurt à Hull (Québec) le 17 septembre 1897.
 
Regards,
Monique Brûlé
Bibliothécaire en chef
Conseil des écoles catholiques de langue française du Centre-est
________________________

Good morning Monique,
 
Thanks for your note. I know that it may seem a small technicality but Martineau 
was the first francophone to be mayor after Bytown became Ottawa. Turgeon was mayor 
of Bytown at the time you mention. So both have a claim to being first.  I am sure 
both families are equally proud of their ancestor's contributions and while I would 
not wish to diminish in any way M. Turgeon's it seems to me that to cede the first 
to him would be the equivalent of ceding  H.J. Friel's claim to being the first mayor 
of Ottawa to John Scott who was the first mayor of Bytown.
 
Regards 
Allen Craig 
________________________

Yes it would be an interesting addition to your website. Here is the link to the 
Monuments de la francophonie website : http://mondrapeaufranco.ca/fr/
 
You might also want to add a link to the Centre de recherche en civilisation canadienne-française : 
http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/crccf/index.html. They hold an abundance of research 
material on French Canada, namely the archives for the Institut canadien-français d'Ottawa, 
a literary organisation founded by Joseph-Balzura Turgeon in 1852.

Monique
July 24, 2006:
Joseph Balzora Turgeon was my great grandfather. 
I believe I have the correct spelling of his middle name as it also was the 
first name of my uncle "Bal" who was named after his grandfather who was living 
at the time of Bal's birth. Balzora was Joseph's mother's name. She was a Basque. 

My mother was born in the early 1890's and in her memoirs of that time recounted 
many personal memories of her grandfather who, I was told, was mayor of Bytown when 
it was renamed Ottawa and who was the first mayor of Ottawa. Joseph and his older 
brother, Jerome, emigrated from France to New Orleans, USA, as orphans, young boys 
only, in the 1820's under the auspices and under the care of the Jesuits. Joseph 
thereafter moved to Ottawa where he had some relatives. Jerome remained in New Orleans 
but visited Ottawa several times. All contact was lost with him during the time of the 
American Civil War. 

One interesting story which my mother recounted was that Joseph as a young man 
took part in a failed rebellion against the English and was banned from Canada. He 
returned under a false name and entered politics and was elected mayor of Byetown 
under his false name. Of course everyone knew who he was! Queen Victoria then granted 
a general amnesty and Joseph took back his family name.I have not been able to 
verify this story. I have a written memoire of my mother's describing her early 
days in Ottawa. If you are interested in more I can be reached at 
eanewton@aol.com.   
... E. Anthony Newton
 August 23, 2007:
Hello Al 
 
I have been corresponding with Mr. E.Anthony Newton, a descendant of J.B. Turgeon, 
who wrote in a comment in Bytown or Bust on July 24, 2006 concerning his mother's 

memoirs on our pioneer statesman. 
Consequently, I wrote up an historical summary on J.B. Turgeon based on my personal 
research and whatever I gleaned here and there in my readings. and I sent it to 
Mr. Newton. 

I am providing you with a copy of my summary. Hope that you find it useful. If you 
want to add this to Bytown or Bust site, it's OK. 
 
(the following is Jean-Claude's work ... Al)

Joseph Balzara Turgeon, the second son of Pierre Turgeon and Ursule Robichaud, 
was born in the town of L'Assomption, north-east of Montreal, in the Lanaudiere 
region of Quebec, on April 22, 1816. He was the sixth generation of a lineage 
descended from Charles Turgeon, from Mortagne-au-Perche in Lower-Normandy, 
who came to New France (i.e. Canada) in 1662. 

We do not yet know when Joseph Balzara Turgeon came to Bytown (Ottawa). However, 
he married Mary Ann Donaher in the St.Jacques le Mineur chapel in Bytown on 
Oct. 27, 1841. This chapel later became the Notre Dame Cathedral of Ottawa.

A blacksmith by trade, he quickly became a leader of his catholic francophone 
community and was involved in the many facets of the political, social, business, 
educational and military happenings of the small nascent town of Bytown which was 
later named Ottawa and then became the Capital of Canada some 20 years after 
his arrival. 

He played in the local band Les Musiciens de Bytown. When the local social 
and reading club Mechanic's Institute forbade the elections of francophones on its 
Board, Joseph Balzara walked out with other French-speaking members and founded 
the Institut Canadien-français social club, which still exists in Ottawa. 

As mayor of Bytown in 1853, he supported the Temperance movement by greatly reducing 
the number of taverns that were catering to the lumberjacks and other employees of 
the flourishing lumber industry. He also supported separate catholic schools within 
the provincial public school system. He also helped to approve funds for the 
catholic General Hospital (now the public state-controlled Ottawa Hospital). This 
may be why he was honoured with the title Knight of the Order of Gregory the Great 
by Pope Pius IX in 1853. That year, Turgeon also moved a motion to petition Queen 
Victoria to name Bytown the Capital city of Canada. This happened in 1857, after 
Bytown became Ottawa in 1855. It is said that Turgeon favoured the name Ottawa 
because it was the 200th anniversary of the return of the  Odawa (Ottawa) Indians 
down the trade route of the Grand River of the Algonquins ( now called Ottawa River) 
after having been chased away from their homelands by the Iroquois Indians during 
the French-English skirmishes in the 17th century colonial times. 

Joseph Balzara Turgeon kept his middle name probably because the single name Joseph 
was quite common in his family. His grand-father, Joseph Turgeon, a master-carpenter 
and a member of the Quebec Legislative Assembly, had been a Major in the Elite 
Volunteer Militia (MEI), Terrebonne Division in the war of 1812 against the United 
States. In the town of Bytown, before J.B.Turgeon arrived, there was already a 
lumber mill owner by the name of Joseph Turgeon, spouse of Marguerite Gaboury, which 
some history authors have mistakenly taken to be the same person. His middle name, 
Balzara, is the baptismal inscription in the church records of  L'Assomption-de-la-
Sainte-Vierge. 

However, over the years, the name has been spelled many ways: Balzara, Balzora, 
Balsura, and Balsara. 

Joseph Balzara Turgeon was Commander of the Bytown no.2 Rifle Company to defend 
the City of Ottawa against the United States-based Fenians, an Irish independence 
group who tried to invade Canada in 1866.
After his term as mayor in 1853, Joseph Balzara Turgeon stayed on City Council 
as a councilor. He was also a School Board trustee. He also exchanged his anvil 
and blacksmith shop for a desk and an office to become a license inspector and 
general agent. His business most certainly involved the lumber industry such as 
the buying and selling of rafts of squared timber and the burgeoning sawmill lumber 
industry. 

His first wife, Mary Ann Donaher (Donagher) was very much involved in charitable 
organizations. She may possibly have passed away on Dec.8, 1866. The church record 
of St.Joseph parish in Ottawa has a burial on Dec.9, 1866 for a Mrs. Turgeon, 
without giving her first name nor her maiden name. 

The civil entry for marriages in the town of Pembroke, in the county of Renfrew, 
Ontario has a record of Joseph B. Turgeon, widower, age 70, son of Pierre Turgeon 
and Ursule Turgeon, residing in Pembroke, Ont and employed as a bush ranger, 
marrying Mary Elizabeth Menard, age 21, daughter of Gabriel Menard and Josephine 
Menard, of Petawawa, Ont, on the 10th of July, 1881. The age entry is obviously 
wrong since Joseph Balzara was born in 1816. 

It is not yet known if any children came out of that marriage. One researcher 
stated that Mary Elizabeth Menard was living in a convent in Montreal in 1926 
because her daughter had joined the religious order. I have found a Mrs. J.B. 
Turgeon living in a downtown location in Montreal in the 1926 Montreal City Directory. 

Joseph Balzara Turgeon died of heart failure on July 17, 1897, in his music 
store in Hull, Quebec (across the river from Ottawa, Ont.). He was buried in 
Notre Dame Cemetery in Ottawa, after an impressive service in the chapel of the 
University of Ottawa. 

Charles Edward Turgeon, age 30, son of Joseph Balzara Turgeon, married Maud 
Higginson, age 22, in Ottawa on Sept.7, 1880. She was the daughter of Thomas S. 
and Martha Higginson and of the Church of England faith (Episcopalian). 
Charles Edward passed away at the home of his daughter, Mrs. George L. McCurdy, 
at Neuilly-Sur-Seine, France, on Oct. 27 (year unknown). He was retired from 
the Finance Department of the Government of Canada, in Ottawa. He was a specialist 
in calligraphy and drawing and was an expert examiner in forgery trials in Ottawa 
and later in Chicago. He passed his later years with his daughters in London and 
Paris. 

Mary Ann Turgeon, daughter of Joseph Balzara, married a Mr. Washburn, of Hull, 
Quebec on April 16th, 1877. She was Roman Catholic and he, an Episcopalian. 

Nearly all of this information was found in Fonds François Joseph Audet in the 
Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa and in the Ancestry.ca (Ancestry.com) website.          

... Jean-Claude Dubé                                                      

 
E-mail Monique Brûlé, Allen Craig, E. Anthony Newton, Jean-Claude Dubé and Al Lewis


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