7. Cornwallis Lummis
was born on 18 May 1851 in Plantaganet, Ont. He died on 17 May 1926 in Boscobel,
PQ. He was christened. He was buried in Boscobel, PQ. Cornwallis Lummis--
Born May 18, 1851 in Plantaganet, Ontario, to John Lummis and Elizabeth Howard.
He married Louise Patinaude on the 19th of July, 1877, the same year as he
graduated from the Montreal Diocesian Theological College. Following graduation,
he served in a number of parishes including Mille Isles, Glen Sutton, Greermont,
Aylwin, Montreal, and Boscobel.
In the late 1890s he served in parishes in the Gatineau Hills where he travelled
among the lumber camps. He loved the country and the out of doors and meeting
and talking with the workers in the shanties of the wood camps. It wasn't unusual
for him to travel 30 miles in a day with his team of horses visiting in the various
camps. Smoking his clay pipe, he would sit talking with the workers with whom
he got along very well. He used to ride horseback from Morin Heights to Mille
Isles with a rifle across his saddle as protection in case he encountered any
wild animals.
The family moved to Boscobel in 1908 when he became minister of the small Anglican
church. He was the first Tory to move to the area. He and Marie Louise continued
in the church until he retired in 1920. After retirement he and his wife Marie
Louise moved down the road to live with their daughter Louise who was married
to Allan Hackwell and had a farm. They both lived there until they died.
Cornwallis was a solid man, about 180 lbs., and about 5 ft. 7 in. tall. His
hobby was fishing and he loved to talk fishing stories. He died at the age of
75, in 1926, after suffering from hardening of the arteries.
Louise, his wife, was the manager of the family. She was a French Protestant
and spoke beautiful French. When they lived in the Gatineau Hills,she was often
contacted in the middle of the night to help with the birth of a child as there
was no doctor. She died at the age of 66 in 1921.
The family always considered home to be "Boscobel",( near Valcourt,
PQ) perhaps because Cornwallis was a minister there for 12 years prior to his
retirement and two of his daughters, Louise and Belle lived there. The family,
when they grew up, always returned in the summers to visit and the homestead
always seemed to be at Allan and Louise Hackwell`s farm.
The family was very musical. Cornwallis played the organ and the fiddle. Almost
all the family played the organ in church. Howard Hackwell remembers when Leslie
came to Boscobel he used to go to the parlor and play the organ beautifully.
The Children; Most of the family appeared to be close. *Belle, perhaps because
she was 16 years older, was like a mother to Oswald and he lived with her for
several years. Her husband was a lumberman and farmer. She was a great mother
and a great cook. They lived in a big farmhouse beside the covered bridge by
the mill pound. They had two children, Stanley and Clarance (Bud). She died at
age 86 in Cowansville PQ. *Bess moved away and married David Silverson and
lived in Morin Heights. They had 4 children-Walter, Frances, Louise, and Betty.
She died at 78. *Jim became a clergyman and had a large family with 10 children.
He was a warm friendly person and a bombastic preacher who died at the age of
52 of Bright`s Disease. *Howard worked as manager of a lumber mill in Ottawa.
He was a hard working man who always returned for a month every Summer to stay
in Boscobel for his vacation. He died at 78. *Louise married Allan Hackwell
and they had 3 children-Lloyd and Howard and Gwendolyn. She was a great mother
and wife. She was a very hard working individual. I remember her going out to
the barn early each morning to milk the cows and help Uncle Allan with the work
around the farm. Because of her hospitality the family always gathered at their
house. Their farm was a mile from Belle`s and was adjacient to the church and
cemetary. She died at 81. *Charles owned and operated a farm in Lachute Quebec.
He married Olive Young and they had four children. He loved to sing and had a
beautiful tenor voice. He died at the age of 80. 80. * Oswald became a school
teacher and married Margaret Coffin. They had 3 children He died at 67 following
a stroke. *Leslie, who was the youngest in the family, became a machinist
and lived in Verdun in Montreal. He is described as warm-hearted, kind, and good
natured. His first wife, Bertha died at age 29 of cancer, leaving him to raise
their only child, Rita. His second wife, Josaphine, an English woman, also died
before him, and he married his third wife Bessie only about 2 months before
he ddeath in 1960 at the age of 62.
PS The last time I was in Boscobel was in 1990. I drove up to Uncle Allan`s
house and found a high brick wall around the house. As we approached, an alarm
went off--but nobody came out so we left. Apparantly it is now owned by a member
of the Bombardier family who live nearby in Valcourt and use it as a summer home.
The graveyard is well cared for and contains several family graves including
those of Cornwallis Lummis and Louise Patinaude.
He was married to Marie Louise
Patinaude (daughter of Guillaume Patenaude and
Anne Coxhead) on 19 Jul 1877 in Sorel, PQ. Marie Louise
Patinaude was born on 14 May 1855 in Sorel, PQ. She died on 16 Mar 1921
in Boscobel, PQ. She was christened. She was buried in Boscobel, PQ. Born
May 14 ,1855, in Sorel Quebec.
Her father Guillanne Patenaude ran away from his home in France and came to Canada.
He was a French Hugenot. Her mother, Anne Coxhead, was from Lowell, Massachasettes.
She had entered a Roman Catholic convent intending on becoming a nun. Her father
was a farmer. It is said he gave Anne shelter when she fled the convent and she
swore that the story of Maria Monk was true. (Banned in Quebec, the story of
Maria Monk was later proved in many excavations and documents.) They had two
children; Marie Louise and a son, Charles. who married a Rose ---- and moved
to Mass in the United States. According to Howard Hackwell they had 5 daughters
most of whom moved to the USA.
Louise Lummis (Hackwell) tells the story that Marie Louise was baptised as a
child in the Catholic Church. Her mother disapproved, and when Guillanne died
she had her baptised again as a Protestant. She brought the children up as Protestants
apparantly . After her father died, Anne Coxhead apparantly remarried a Mr Clemont.
Marie Louise appears to have married Cornwallis in the late 1880s.
Uncle Allan (hackwell) told me she was known among the local people for the beautiful
French she spoke. Whenever she went to the nearby village Valcourt,the local
people loved to speak to her to hear her beautiful French. The only one of her
children who could speak French was Isabella.
She was known as a sharp business woman and a very assertive and active woman.
She was the manager of the family. When they lived in the Gatineau Hills among
the lumber camps she often took the place of the doctor in helping people and
in giving birth to children when no doctor was available.
During her latter years she had heart trouble and bronchitis and died in Boscobel
at the age of 65 on March 16, 1921. Cornwallis Lummis and Marie Louise Patinaude
had the following children:
+30 i.
Isabella Gordon Lummis.
+31 ii.
Eliza Howard Lummis.
+32 iii.
Wallace James Hamilton Lummis.
+33 iv.
William Howard Lummis.
+34 v.
Mary Louisa Lummis.
+35 vi.
Charles Cornwallis Lummis.
+36 vii.
Oswald John Lummis.
+37 viii.
Leslie Thorne Lummis.