Today, much to my excitement, I noticed two different references to this website on both rootsweb and ancestry.com regarding the Leavoy family. This made me realize that I don’t yet have many postings on the other descendants of Achan Lavoy. I am determined to gather up and tell their stories, but will need the help of other descendants…this is where YOU, yes YOU reading this, decide to drop me a message!

I make note on my page about Achan and Mary Ann that they had six daughters and three sons: Nancy Cone/McGoon, Harriet Kerr, Hanna Taylor, Peter Levoy, Charlotte Parker, Mary Jane Hogg, William Leavoy, Etta Walker, James Edward Lavoy, and Amey Emma Brown. There are so many other Leavoy lines here that have yet to have been described. In this post I have decided to begin the long-winded story of the extended Leavoy family with the first of the children. Below is the beginning of a series of posts on the stories of all those other Leavoys.

The first child in the family was a daughter, Nancy Lavoy. According to census records, she was born on May 1, 1842, likely in McNab township (Arnprior, ON) where her parents were living and where her father farmed. At the time of Nancy’s birth, Arnprior was small and largely deserted. This is because the Scotsman who founded the town, Archibald McNab, lost his settlement rights in 1840. It wasn’t for another 10 years that development really progressed, and this is when large scale lumber operations on the Madawaska fueled the local economy. This means that while the Lavoy family was living hand-to-mouth early on, it was partly a matter of circumstance, based on where they lived. Nancy’s childhood would have been simple at best, and bleak at its worst.

Nancy appears to have been married twice. With the confirmation of Deb Lavoy (see comment below) through email correspondence, I’ve been assured that originally Nancy married to a John McGoon. This first marriage needs documents to fully confirm it, however there are several clues as to when she might have first married. As Deb has pointed out, in the 1871 census (the first that I’ve been able to Locate Nancy and her family in) there is a 5 year difference between the last two children, Hannah (9) and William (4). The eldest child would have been born in 1858, which means that Nancy’s first marriage would have been sometime around that year.  This means that Nancy would have married and had her first child at the tender age of 16.  She would have also been widowed as a 21-year-old. More research is needed on this short lived relationship to verify dates and parentage of Nancy’s first 3 children.

At age 23, Nancy married another American man named William Henry Cone. He was about 10 years her senior, born July 3 1832, and had moved up to Canada in 1839. It wasn’t until 1850 that he became a naturalized citizen of Canada, however, and he had been living and working with his younger brother David in Dalton, Michigan as a lumberman.

It was likely the development of the lumber industry in Arnprior that brought William Henry into town and into the life of Nancy Lavoy. While I have not found their official marriage record, I have traced the couple and their family throughout the 1871, 1881, 1891, 1901 Canadian censuses, observing their story over four decades.

In 1871, William Henry (who went by the name “Henry” at the time), a mature man of 39, worked as a carpenter in McNab township. He and Nancy, lived next door to her parents Achan and Mary Ann and six of her younger siblings. Eventhough Nancy was only 29, the couple already had a family of four children: Annie (13), John Alfred (11), Hannah Olive (9) and William Henry Jr. (4). The ages of these children reveal Nancy’s previous marriage left her with 3 children. Some of Nancy’s siblings who lived next door would have been around the same age as Annie, Alfred, and Hannah Olive Cone, and they likely played together.

By 1881, all but one of Nancy‘s siblings (the exception is the youngest, Amey) had moved out of her parent’s home two doors down, and her own family had burgeoned to 10 people. Four more children were added to the mix: David Saunders (8), Charlotte “Lottie” Grace (5), Harriet Louisa (2) and baby Frederick (10 months). Annie Cone, who would be 23 years old, no longer lived at home. The eldest, Alfred (20), helped out with the cost of living by working as a labourer, possibly alongside his grandfather Achan.

Elgin St., Arnprior 1900.

In the census of 1891, the family is now aged: William Henry is 58 and Nancy is 48. They are living with David Saunders (17) who works as an electrician, Lottie (Charlotte) who is now 15, Louisa (12) and Frederick C., who is 10 years old. The other older children have moved on, as have their grandparents: Alfred married a woman called Emilie Coram, and they and their family settled in Renfrew where he continued to work as an electrician. William Henry Jr. had married a woman called Mabel Louise Thompson from St. Catherines, they had already had 3 sons and were now living in Toronto. Sadly, this year William and Nancy’s daughter Hannah Olive Young died on August 11 of some form of illness. Her husband Alex Young, a blacksmith, reported and signed off on her death.

CPR Locomotive, North bay 1900

The last census where I find the Cone family in is that of 1901, where they have moved to Nipissing, North Bay as many other Lavoy family members did. The mining industry overtook the boom of forestry, and the Cone family had a second wind with the introduction of their grandchildren, the Young family, into the home. William Henry, by this time was a senior (68), but still worked as a pumper for Cor W Works (an Iron Works company), earning $640 per year. He and Nancy lived with their son Frederick who was now 20 years old and a machinist by trade. He brought home an additional $600 per year, which would have been helpful in feeding, clothing and schooling grandchildren Frederick (14) , Garnet A. (12) and Lottie Young (9). Also living in Nipissing were two daughters who followed with their new families whom they’d both married 5 years prior:  Charlotte “Lottie”, and Louisa.  Charlotte’s husband George Campbell, worked as a machinist, like his brother-in-law Frederick, to support his wife and three year old daughter. Louisa’s husband, Walter Evans, was a conductor for CN Railways and they lived with their son Milton.

William Henry Cone died at age 77 on March 27, 1908 of dementia. Nancy would have helped to care for him during his 3 month illness. I have found evidence that she lived with her daughter Charlotte and her family in Winnipeg where they moved with George Campbell’s work. Incidentally, Louisa and Walter Evans also lived in Manitoba at the time, so it appears that the family tried where they could to stick together. Frederick Cone stayed in Nipissing and his mother Nancy finally rejoined him sometime before her death in 1918. He married a woman called Norah James 8 years later.