I'm back from a 2 week break for the holidays. The blogs will start back with the first of possibly three on the incredible story of not one..but two Medals of Honor.
There's an old saying that..."when the student is ready, the teacher will appear." There's another that says that ... 'if you want different results, don't keep doing the same thing over and over." And yet another that says that when searching the net... try using different filters or enquiries... do your search... from another angle... if you will.
Well, I have been trying off and on for some time to get some information on one of the heroes I am researching... in fact two of them... but not getting some of the info I really wanted. But then I thought... why search for a Robert when its the third most popular name in the US, or Smith, the most popular surname again in the US, with some 2.7 million across the nation. Maybe I should be searching for one of their kin, and within that, might get what I really want... stuff on a relative!
Using that line of thinking, I tried yet another search just a few days ago... and walla... the medal detector (my computer) gave me a most interesting link.
It led me to the father of the two boys. Boys who would grow up to be international heroes. Boys who would earn the Medal of Honor and become one set of at least seven, if not more sets of brothers that would earn the medal at some point in its history dating back to Civil War days. (The net likes to oft repeat the erroneous statement that there were only 5 sets of brothers who would ultimatley be awarded the MOH. Clearly there were at least two sets from that war so awarded, but later had their medals cancelled by illegal means. (The subject has been covered by many blogs on this site in the past.) The two removed from the lists in question were from Canada, as where more than a dozen others.
But today's blog is not about them. It will be about my recent discovery, and will be followed up by blogs on the two sons, Anthony August (Tony) Gaujot, and his older brother Julien Edmund Gaujot.
Routine internet searches tell of an American birth, but early migration to Canada and then a return to the US and later military service and the earning of their medals. My interest on these heroes begins with their connection to Canada. Most search results simply said they lived for a few years in Ontario. No dates or lengths of time or location in Ontario seemed to be available. Ontario is Canada's largest province to day with just over a million square miles. Back in the 1880's when the family lived there the population was at about 2 million. Searching for the boys was like looking for a needle in the haystack.
How do you find two guys in a population of 2 million? I got no internet hits telling of the boys lives in Canada. But then I decided to search for their father... Ernest and that's when details starting revealing themselves.
In April of 1884 the Select Committee of Geological Surveys, for the Dominion of Canada's House of Commons, issued a report and contains an entry regarding Ernest R Gaujot. It notes that at the time Ernest was a resident of Belleville Ontario, some 190 km east of Toronto and about 80 west of Kingston along Lake Ontario. It reveals that he was not only a mining engineer but the manager of the Philadelphia and Canada Phosphate Company and involved in the gold mines near Marmora in the same county of Hastings where he lived. It claimed he was doing this from 1880 till 1882. Two of the mines of interest were the Gattling and Tuttle mines. Gattling being rumoured to be possibly connected with a brother of the same named Gattling, and inventor of the early machine gun. (Two of these killing machines saw their first use in Canada during the Riel Rebellion of March 1885.)
By the early 1880's Ernest had accumulated many years in the mining business all over the world. He would describe one of Ontario mines in which he was involved in the Mamora area of Ontario, some 60 kms north of Belleville as being ..."one of the largest veins I have ever seen." In the above noted report he would note that about 200 miners worked the mines and some had shafts dug 200 feet deep, some even with lines running out a similar length, far below the surface. One gold mine was said to have a vein of from 8 to 24 feet and running over 10 miles in length. Others with iron deposits ran northward some 80 miles.
An 1881 national census had Ernest living in some form of a rooming house in the Marmora area and living with the owner, wife and 2 children, 2 servants and over a dozen mining employees. At the same time and through the 1880's various directories like Kimball's, City of Belleville, and Hastings all have Ernest identified as being a mining engineer and living in Belleville with one even noting he lived on N Alexander and another listing an address at the corners of Bridge and Pinnacle.
Further searches of the father's name led me to a link to a bio of the husband of a woman named Clotheline Gaudjot, who it identified as being born in Belleville in 1883, and that her father was indeed Ernest. Clothline and her bothers Antoine and Julien were all of public school, if not high school age during the decade it is believed their father was in Ontario mining and all may well have attended one of the 5 public schools, the central school, the lone high school, the girl's school in the case of Clothline or any of the handful of private schools in Belleville during the decade.
Probably in 1889 Ernest and wife moved their two American born boys and their Canadian born daughter to West Virginia.
The facinating story of the boys will be started in this space next Sunday.
On another note, please check the dates of blogs listed at the top right of this screen. Note the beginning..back in December of 2012. This month marks the beginning on the third year of these blogs.
I hope you are finding them not only informative, but enjoyable and a good read!
Bart
There's an old saying that..."when the student is ready, the teacher will appear." There's another that says that ... 'if you want different results, don't keep doing the same thing over and over." And yet another that says that when searching the net... try using different filters or enquiries... do your search... from another angle... if you will.
Well, I have been trying off and on for some time to get some information on one of the heroes I am researching... in fact two of them... but not getting some of the info I really wanted. But then I thought... why search for a Robert when its the third most popular name in the US, or Smith, the most popular surname again in the US, with some 2.7 million across the nation. Maybe I should be searching for one of their kin, and within that, might get what I really want... stuff on a relative!
Using that line of thinking, I tried yet another search just a few days ago... and walla... the medal detector (my computer) gave me a most interesting link.
It led me to the father of the two boys. Boys who would grow up to be international heroes. Boys who would earn the Medal of Honor and become one set of at least seven, if not more sets of brothers that would earn the medal at some point in its history dating back to Civil War days. (The net likes to oft repeat the erroneous statement that there were only 5 sets of brothers who would ultimatley be awarded the MOH. Clearly there were at least two sets from that war so awarded, but later had their medals cancelled by illegal means. (The subject has been covered by many blogs on this site in the past.) The two removed from the lists in question were from Canada, as where more than a dozen others.
But today's blog is not about them. It will be about my recent discovery, and will be followed up by blogs on the two sons, Anthony August (Tony) Gaujot, and his older brother Julien Edmund Gaujot.
Routine internet searches tell of an American birth, but early migration to Canada and then a return to the US and later military service and the earning of their medals. My interest on these heroes begins with their connection to Canada. Most search results simply said they lived for a few years in Ontario. No dates or lengths of time or location in Ontario seemed to be available. Ontario is Canada's largest province to day with just over a million square miles. Back in the 1880's when the family lived there the population was at about 2 million. Searching for the boys was like looking for a needle in the haystack.
How do you find two guys in a population of 2 million? I got no internet hits telling of the boys lives in Canada. But then I decided to search for their father... Ernest and that's when details starting revealing themselves.
In April of 1884 the Select Committee of Geological Surveys, for the Dominion of Canada's House of Commons, issued a report and contains an entry regarding Ernest R Gaujot. It notes that at the time Ernest was a resident of Belleville Ontario, some 190 km east of Toronto and about 80 west of Kingston along Lake Ontario. It reveals that he was not only a mining engineer but the manager of the Philadelphia and Canada Phosphate Company and involved in the gold mines near Marmora in the same county of Hastings where he lived. It claimed he was doing this from 1880 till 1882. Two of the mines of interest were the Gattling and Tuttle mines. Gattling being rumoured to be possibly connected with a brother of the same named Gattling, and inventor of the early machine gun. (Two of these killing machines saw their first use in Canada during the Riel Rebellion of March 1885.)
By the early 1880's Ernest had accumulated many years in the mining business all over the world. He would describe one of Ontario mines in which he was involved in the Mamora area of Ontario, some 60 kms north of Belleville as being ..."one of the largest veins I have ever seen." In the above noted report he would note that about 200 miners worked the mines and some had shafts dug 200 feet deep, some even with lines running out a similar length, far below the surface. One gold mine was said to have a vein of from 8 to 24 feet and running over 10 miles in length. Others with iron deposits ran northward some 80 miles.
An 1881 national census had Ernest living in some form of a rooming house in the Marmora area and living with the owner, wife and 2 children, 2 servants and over a dozen mining employees. At the same time and through the 1880's various directories like Kimball's, City of Belleville, and Hastings all have Ernest identified as being a mining engineer and living in Belleville with one even noting he lived on N Alexander and another listing an address at the corners of Bridge and Pinnacle.
Further searches of the father's name led me to a link to a bio of the husband of a woman named Clotheline Gaudjot, who it identified as being born in Belleville in 1883, and that her father was indeed Ernest. Clothline and her bothers Antoine and Julien were all of public school, if not high school age during the decade it is believed their father was in Ontario mining and all may well have attended one of the 5 public schools, the central school, the lone high school, the girl's school in the case of Clothline or any of the handful of private schools in Belleville during the decade.
Probably in 1889 Ernest and wife moved their two American born boys and their Canadian born daughter to West Virginia.
The facinating story of the boys will be started in this space next Sunday.
On another note, please check the dates of blogs listed at the top right of this screen. Note the beginning..back in December of 2012. This month marks the beginning on the third year of these blogs.
I hope you are finding them not only informative, but enjoyable and a good read!
Bart
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