Montréal Newspaper Nuggets: Charles Tourville (1840-1916)

Charles Tourville is my great-great-grandfather. He was born in Lachenaie in 1840. He moved to Montréal with his parents and siblings in 1862, and married three years later my great-great-grandmother Marie-Louise Lascelle.

I found this short article where he was featured in the June 19, 1900 edition of La Presse. That’s a good thing I knew his occupation—carpenter—as there were many men named Charles Tourville at the time in Montréal.

“Charles Tourville, a carpenter, fell from a scaffold while working on the field of the “Mascottes”. He suffered from head and left-side injuries. Same hospital. [Notre-Dame Hospital].”

Just a few words, but still, I was curious as I would later learn that the field of the “Mascottes”, bordered by De Lorimier, Ontario, Parthenais and Larivière Streets, was home to this Montréal baseball club. And in 1928, on this very field, was built the Stade De Lorimier, where Jackie Robinson—the first Black to play in Major League Baseball—played with the Montréal Royals in 1946. Pulled down in 1965, it is since 1971 the site of the Polyvalente Pierre-Dupuy (a high school).

As for Charles, he passed away in 1916, at age 76, in Montréal.