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A 200th Anniversary Gathering of Frampton Irish descendants is planned for July 3 through July 5, 2015 Over two hundred years ago, The Miles Murphy family left County Wexford, Ireland for the new world. They landed at Quebec City in 1806. Very Few Irish, other than some soldiers at the citadel, were in Lower Canada at that time. In that same year, the survey of Frampton Township was completed and 1,200 acres of land were granted to Pierre Edouard Desbarats for the purpose of inviting settlement of the township. Other proprietors would be granted lands as well. In September 1815, Pierre Edouard Desbarats and George Pyke built a road into Frampton Township and opened the lands to settlement. Desbarats made land concessions to Andrew Murphy (son of Miles Murphy) and Robert Wright (Andrew’s brother-in-law) on January 24, 1816 and in that document Murphy and Wright were identified as residents of Frampton Township, and were therefore the first Irish settlers. This would be the start of a huge settlement movement of Irish families to Frampton Township that would continue through the 1830s. By the 1831 census of Lower Canada, about 200 Irish families were living in Frampton Township and surrounding lands. The Irish community would continue to grow in the decades to follow and would also result in the settlement of East Frampton (St. Malachie), Ste. Marguerite, Standon Township, and Cranbourne Township. The settlement involved both Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants. Today the descendants of this Irish community are most likely measured in the tens of thousands of people now living throughout Canada and the United States. This diaspora would involve significant colonies in New England, the San Francisco Bay Area, Upper Michigan, Northern Wisconsin, Central Wisconsin, Central Minnesota, and parts of Western Canada. The people of Frampton are inviting all of these descendants to "come home" to Frampton for a "Great Gathering" celebration of the 200th Anniversary of Irish settlement. This will be a great opportunity to meet with the descendants of the Irish families who once lived near to one another in the Frampton Irish settlement. Frampton resident Kathy Magher has volunteered to coordinate this wonderful gathering. But she needs your help by letting her know if you might tentatively be planning to attend this event. The Great Gathering 2015
2015 marks the 200th anniversary of the arrival of the first Irish people in Frampton. At that time Frampton encompassed many of the neighbouring parishes St. Malachie, etc. We thought that it would be nice to organize a celebration of this event. Right now we are flying blind. We have set a date. The celebration starts on Friday evening July 3rd, 2015 and ends Sunday July the 5th, 2015. What we don’t know is how many people would be interested in this celebration. Planning for 100 is different from planning for 500. So we are asking anyone who thinks that they might be interested in coming to send an email to frampton.irish@gmail.com giving us the approximate number of people interested. We would really appreciate hearing from all of you so that we can plan a weekend that will be memorable. Please feel free to pass on the information to your families. Kathy Magher |
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