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Surnames: Champagne, Mousseau, Reno, King, Lenaway, Beaugrand
Classification: Query
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/lQI.2ACEB/381.1
Message Board Post:
Wanted to post this history which is provided by a cousin Irma Reno. I don't know how
accurate it is. Perhaps it is 100%, or maybe her version of her grandfather is a
composite of stories told about Alberts father's family. But in hopes that it
provides someone with a memory, I will post this portion of her history.
"My grandfather was Albert Champagne and was born in 1842 in Paris, France. His
father was a jeweler and as a young boy Albert worked in his store as a clean-up janitor.
He was indentured to a physician and his wife in 1864, who moved to Milton Massachusetts.
Indentured is a contract that binds one person to work for another for a given period of
time. This doctor is known as the person who made the government put license plates on
automobiles. His own lifetime license plate was the number “1”. The governor of
Massachusetts wanted that designation for his own automobile but he settled for “A-1”.
He worked as a scullery boy for one year and cleaned the physician office the next year.
He leaned to speak English from the other servants. He paid off his indenturedship ($50
US) and spent another year with the Physician, with pay, and learned to write English. At
that time he was given a Certificate of Education equal to a third-grade education. He
moved to Lynn, Mass and apprentices to be a spindle maker for a textile company. He moved
to New Hampshire and worked at a water powered textile company on the Mirriman River.
After that he move to Brockton, Mass and worked to make wooden shoe forms to manufacture
shoes. He moved to Barre, Vermont and became a stonecutter at the stone quarries. He heard
about a homesteading opportunity in Michigan and move there to a French-speaking colony in
Huron County, Michigan, where he was given 80 acres. He had to clear the land and build a
house. He met Emily Leneway, they married and had 11 children: John, Joe, Pete, William,
Anna, Eli!
zabeth, and Josephine, the rest died during a diphtheria epidemic in one year."