Tracing Tozers
A chronicle of the Tozer family tells of their families all over North America, but especially in New Brunswick
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| The Rev. James Tozer (1796-1880), son of Jared and Eunice (Ives) Tozer, the first Baptist Minister of the Miramichi, and his wife Artimacy Foster. |
After-school chores were a part of our daily schedule. The wood box had to be filled and the eggs gathered from the hen house. During the winter months another job was added. Mum would pour boiling water from the teakettle into pails of bran. Cliff and I would use kindling sticks to stir the mixture. Next we covered the buckets with feed bags and put them behind the stove to wait until we saw Dad driving the team into the yard. When the horses were in their stalls and unharnessed, they would turn their heads, waiting for us to deliver the pails of warm bran. Having spent a long cold day of working in the woods they deserved something special.
I wonder if back in the early eighteen hundreds the Tozer children, prepared a warm meal for the teams of horses their father used in his lumbering business.
An interesting fact about their father, Jared Tozer is that he was not a Loyalist but a Patriot who fought in the Connecticut line of troops under George Washington. He and his family lived in York, Sunbury, and Queens counties before settling on the Miramichi around 1812. By 1832, there were forty or more Tozers living on the Miramichi and the school at South Esk was overflowing with Tozer descendants.
Eunice Ives, the wife of Jared Tozer and a number of her children played a key role in the founding of the First Miramichi Baptist Church in1819. Succeeding generations (bearing the Tozer, Somers, Silliker, Matthews, Mutch and other surnames) have continued to nurture and sustain the church and have been sending forth preachers and missionaries ever since 1826, when Jared and Eunice's son James Tozer was ordained to the Baptist ministry.
The family's military history has also been a long term
significance to many of its members, as a source of symbolism and
pride. In the tradition of their Revolutionary predecessor, a dozen or
more grandsons and great-grandsons enlisted in the northern army in the
U. S. Civil War in the 1860s, and young men of the next generation
fought in the Spanish-American War in 1898. In all the great conflicts
of the twentieth century, large numbers of descendants have served with
honour under the flags of the United States, Great Britain, and Canada.
"Jared Tozer and his Descendants" by W.
D. Hamilton is a biographical and genealogical chronicle of the first
three
generations of the Tozer family who made their homes in Quebec, Maine,
Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, Colorado, California,
Washington, and elsewhere - but most of all right here in New
Brunswick, where they are to be found in every county and in every walk
of life.
Lavigne - Cormier - Doucette: Marie Marceline Lavigne was born in Gaspe, New Brunswick on Dec. 24,1910. Her parents were Edouard Lavigne and Elisabeth Cormier. She was baptized at St Albert de Gaspe On Janvier,mil neuf cent trent-neur. The baptismal certificate was signed by Father Bancourt ptr cure. She was sent to live withe her "Aunt Annie" and "Uncle Henry" Doucette in Bathurst, New Brunswick. She went to live in Boston Massachusetts USA around the age of sixteen with Marie Doucette and her husband Leo DeGrace. She Was married to Anthony LaRocca around 1929 and lived in New York City for a time before returning to Boston in 1934.We believe she was never reunited with her family and would like information on siblings and other relatives. Her God parents were Jean Lavigne and Agnes Thivierge. She had two daughters Dolores Larocca Farrell and Antoinette (Nan) LaRocca LaSalle. Any information would be truly appreciated such as location of cemeteries or dates and location of deaths.
-Antoinette LaSalle, P.O. Box 744, Bridgewater, Massachusetts 02324, USA. E-mail to fnlasalle@aol.com.