South Hero’s Neighbours: Tourvilles/Trovilles and Cardinals

Posted on by

I was validating some dates for Jean-Baptiste Tourville and Marguerite Dome—they were married on August 2, 1836, in Saint-Luc, Saint-Jean County, in Québec just before they left for South Hero, Grand Isle County, Vermont—when I came across the next marriage record which was about Toussaint Cardinal and Catherine Audette dit Lapointe.

These names rang a bell for sure! Actually, I had already found their marriage record, but neither did I realize it took place on the very day than Jean-Baptiste and Marguerite’s, nor that their first-born Celina was baptized barely one month after their marriage.

Jean-Baptiste Tourville (John Jr) and Marguerite Dome did no doubt say goodbye to their homeland, but not to his family as they emigrated to South Hero along with his parents and siblings, namely Jean-Baptiste (John Sr) and Rosalie Bleau; Rosalie (married to John Bean); Francis (married to Adeline Durand); and Perpétue (married to Isaac Robillard or Rabyor) around 1838 as they were all listed in the 1840 US Census in South Hero.

Toussaint Cardinal and Catherine Audette will move to Grand Isle County a little later, around 1843-1844.

The Cardinals (who were also known as Toson or Tusant—a derivative of Toussaint’s first name) and the Tourvilles (or Trovilles) were linked in more than a way:

  • Their daughter Cornelia, born in 1838, married John Troville, son of John Troville Jr and Marguerite Dome, around 1857, most likely in South Hero (Cornelia died in South Hero in 1875, at age 36).
  • Their son Toussaint (also known as John), born in 1840, married Laura, daughter of Francis Troville and Adeline Adéline Durand, in Plattsburgh, New York, in 1865. The couple will later set up home to Somerville, Massachusetts, where Toussaint will die in 1883.
  • Their daughter Sophrona, born in 1842, married George Bean, son of John and Rosalie Tourville, in Burlington, VT, in 1865. The new family settled in South Hero. Sophrona died in New York State in 1887, at age 45.

Having visited South Hero several times, I positively understand how this must have been a tight-knit community. I often tell that the first time I went there, as I looked up the white pages in a phone booth—and this is proof enough—the book, much to my surprise, contained almost more Tourvilles than the Montréal Directory!