The Bulmer Family in "Peopling the North American City: Montreal 1840-1900"

I'm used to finding references to family members in so-old-they're-out-of-copyright local history volumes.  It's a treat to find something up to date that's relevant to my research.  This recent (2011) and comprehensive social history of Montreal by Sherry Olson and Patricia Thornton, put out by McGill-Queen's University Press,  contains several references to the Bulmer family in Montreal.  Here are a few quotes.

"Thomas Bulmer, soon after his arrival in 1842, moved into the manufacturing of brick;  his plumber son-in-law Charles Garth began manufacturing stopcocks, bathtubs, and steam radiators."
 (p. 188).

That's news to me.  I knew that some of Thomas's sons were well-to-do contractors, but the only information I've ever been able to find about Thomas himself is that he was a "bricklayer".  Doesn't sound too entrepreneurial.  But it turns out he was a business owner and the head of a very upwardly-mobile family:

"The Bulmers were an Anglican extended  family that...worked together and lived as neighbours.  Thomas Bulmer had learned his trade in Hatfield, Yorkshire, arrived by way of Trois-Rivieres, and was laying brick in Montreal from 1843 to 1881.  (He died age 87 from a fall while inspecting a construction site.)  He taught his trade to four of his eight children, and from 1843 to the end of the century three of them maintained a partnership in brick laying, contracting, and brick making.  They extended the family network into the supply of building materials:  one married the daughter of a lumber merchant,  another married a brick maker's daughter, a third the daughter of a manufacturing plumber with 150 employees, and a granddaughter married an architect who owned a sash-and-door factory."  (p. 49)

"What the  Bulmer brothers built in successive construction booms...reflects the expansion of the city as a place of wealth and enterprise.  Although we have found only a portion of their contracts, the notarial documents reveal the progressive uptown extension of development and the reconstruction of centre-city sites with taller and more massive buildings.  In the 1840s Thomas Bulmer and his sons, just arrived, were building brick houses for a 'middling' range.  The most modest was 20 x 28 feet...with three rooms in the upper storey, built-in cupboards, and a trapdoor 'large enough to take up the double windows to the garret.'...On the Dorchester Street terrace...they built a classic double-decker house with four apartments of five rooms each, with double-decker galleries leading 6 metres from the house to the double-decker privies. The most elaborate mansion, on Sherbrooke Street... displayed a skylight, wine cellar, butler's pantry, an indoor water closet, chimney pieces painted to look like marble, and 'an English park gate.'
In the 1850s Montreal experienced its steam revolution...and the Bulmer's work was immensely varied. They built a fireproof office for notary Gibb, an elegant chapter house for the Anglican synod (contracted by Canon Bethune), and a river-front wall and tun room for expansion of Molson's distillery.  Many of the Bulmer contracts were situated in the new uptown neighbourhood of wealth, where they built handsome new models for city living. The best known was Mount Royal Terrace, with twelve units on McGill College Avenue.  Top of the line in this era was an Italianate dwelling on Sherbrooke Street, with the latest and most elegant in plumbing:  black walnut fixtures with marble taps, galvanized iron bath with an 'American shower', iron gas pipes in all rooms, and laundry tubs fitted with hot water.
In the late 1860s...the Bulmers were now concentrating on large brick-laying contracts for a new generation of six-storey commercial buildings in the core of this financial district. As the next boom reached a peak (1886), suburban housing was in demand among the middle class, and Bulmer grandsons began developing tracts in Outremont, Cote-des-Neiges, and the western edge of what is now Westmount."  (p. 49-50).


I also hadn't realized that the Bulmers had business interests outside of Montreal.  It seems like not all the Bulmers were successful.  Unfortunately this book is more interested in family patterns and does not always name individuals: 

 "...two Bulmer sons occupied themselves with a family-owned lumber mill in Manitoba;  another, to escape creditors in Montreal, went to the Yukon..."
(p. 57)

John Bulmer is, of course, our immediate ancestor: 

"...John Bulmer's handsome terraced houses rented for $25 a month.  Bulmer's tenants were among the most comfortable tenth of Montreal families..." (p. 77)

William Bulmer is the son of Henry Bulmer and Jane Maxwell.  He would be John Bulmer's nephew. This section of the book is interested in women's experiences with childrearing: 

"Harriet Richardson, age 24, married William Bulmer, 32, from that Yorkshire Anglican family of builders.  Their twelve children all survived infancy;  eight of them married and raised children in Montreal, three others never married but lived into their nineties...The three women had much in common.  Each bore her last child at age 44 or 45, and for twenty to twenty-five years must have been fully preoccupied with child raising.  From the birth intervals and the likelihood that they breast-fed most of their babies, it is possible that from the month after marriage, menstruation was a rare event in their lives.  In other ways their experiences differed.  William Bulmer worked at two jobs and did not share his brother's lifestyle of banquets at the Hunt Club and costume balls at the skating rink, but Harriet could usually put a roast or a hen on the Sunday dinner table, and they lived on a wide and well-maintained street...."  (p. 130-131)

"...one of Jane Bulmer's sons was briefly an object of gossip: 'A few years ago a young English girl received a place as a servant, met Bulmer who seduced her under promise of marriage.  He refused to marry her and went to Pullman, Illinois.  She followed him, they went to Chicago, where she became a mother.  He deserted her, she attempted suicide.'  Back in Montreal, after a lawyer confronted his father, there was a midnight wedding, and the son left town again."  (p. 151) The section in quotes is taken from the Montreal Star, October 27, 1886, last edition.  Jane Bulmer must be Jane Maxwell, wife of Henry Bulmer (John Bulmer's brother). 

"Thomas Bulmer's will provides an example of the usual share-alike among eight sons and daughters (Act of Isaacson, 27 July 1846).  (p. 413).

Intrigued by the knowledge that the Bulmer family were industrialists, I did a quick internet search and came up with a patent for an automatic brick-making machine developed by Henry Bulmer and his partner Charles Sheppard in 1871.  I have found patent references to this machine in  Canada, the U.S. and Australia.   The next time I'm at the Canada Science and Technology Museum I'll check it out!

More About The Bulmers From Various Sources

We descend from the Bulmer family through Ida Bulmer, who married William Rutherford Junior. She was the daughter of John Bulmer, who was born in Quebec (Trois Rivieres) in 1836.  John was the son of Thomas Bulmer, who immigrated from England to Quebec with his family in 1832.  The original connection between the Bulmers and the Rutherfords was probably through business, as John Bulmer was a building contractor in Montreal, where the Rutherfords owned a lumber factory.  It is also possible that there was a connection between William Rutherford Jr. and John Rutherford's older brother Henry, who were both involved in Montreal politics. Here are a few miscellaneous bits of information about the Bulmer family. 

Marjorie Bulmer's recently published (2000) book Bulmer Genealogy agrees with other sources in stating that  Thomas Bulmer and Mary Bowling were originally from Hatfield, England.  


"Hatfield, York Co., England, Montreal, Canada.
Thomas Bulmer b. ca. 1793 m. 2 July 1816 Mary Bowling b. 1792 in St. Lawrence Church, Hatfield, Yorkshire.  They came to Canada in 1832 with four children born and baptised in Hatfield.  [They would be Thomas Jr., William, Henry, and the first John, who died young.] They settled first in Quebec P.Q. where 4th son John died and a daughter Mary was born.  The next move was to Three Rivers, P.Q. where a son John was born, Thomas was listed as a bricklayer in the parish records. Later they moved to Montreal P.Q. where they finally settled..."


Thomas Bulmer would have been about 39 years old when he brought his family to Canada.  He  appears to have worked as a bricklayer throughout his life, which was a long one.  His daughter Mary's Quebec birth record refers to him as a "bricklayer and plasterer".  His death record from the St. George Anglican Church of Montreal register reads:  "Thomas Bulmer died on the twenty-fifth day of April One Thousand Eight Hundred and Eighty-one and was buried on the twenty-seventh day of the same month and year.  Aged eighty-seven years and seven months."  

I also found a death notice for Thomas Bulmer in, surprisingly, the True Witness and Catholic Chronicle newspaper of April 27, 1881.  On page it reads "Yesterday morning Mr. Thomas Bulmer, while ascending a ladder, lost his balance and fell to the ground a distance of some twenty feet.  He was at once conveyed to his home and Dr. McCallum summoned.  Despite the exertions of the doctor, Mr. Bulmer never recovered, dying yesterday afternoon from the effects of the injuries." 

I'm curious about what a man of roughly 87 years was doing twenty feet up a ladder away from home.  Was he still involved in construction?  He must have had remarkable stamina.

Here is the death record for Mary Bowling, age 90, 1882.  Thomas Bulmer predeceased her by just under a year.  This is from St. George Anglican Church, Montreal.

Her death notice in the Montreal Gazette on June 12, 1882, reads:

"Bulmer.  At the residence of her daughter, No. 40 Catheart street, on the 10th instant, Mary Bowling, relict of Thomas Bulmer, aged 90 years.  The funeral will take place from No. 40 Catheart street, this (Monday) afternoon, the 12th inst., at 2:30 o'clock.  Friends will please accept this intimation."

Thomas Campbell Bulmer, their grandson (he was the son of Thomas Bulmer Jr. and Emma Phoebe Fearon), was a successful businessman in Montreal before he ended his own life (see previous post). Here is a brief biography of Thomas from the book  Montreal 1535-1914 Vol. 3 by William H. Atherton,  p. 398-99.

"THOMAS CAMPBELL BULMER.  The attractive suburb of Westmount is largely the monument to the business enterprise and progressive methods of Thomas Campbell Bulmer, now deceased, who was almost a lifelong resident of Montreal, and for a long period an active factor in its business circles.  He was born at Three Rivers, Quebec, in 1846, and was educated in the public schools there and in Montreal, being brought to the latter city when a youth of ten years by his father, Thomas Bulmer, who was a native of Yorkshire, England, and on coming to Canada settled at Three Rivers, but in 1856 removed to Montreal, where for many years he was active as a contractor and builder. He married Anna Phoebe Fearon, [sic--her name was Emma Pheobe Fearon and she was  actually T.C. Bulmer's  mother] also a native of England.

When his school days were over, Thomas Campbell Bulmer served an apprenticeship to the book binding trade, became proficient as a workman and in 1868 joined Henry Morton and Charles Phillips in a partnership under the style of Morton, Phillips and Bulmer.  The business developed and grew until until the firm occupied a prominent position among stationers, blank book makers and printers.  A few years prior to this death Mr. Bulmer withdrew from that connection, in which he had realized a handsome profit, to engage in the real-estate business at Westmount.  He was recognized as the father of that beautiful suburb, having been one of the first men to foresee the value of that section as a residential district.  He was actively engaged to the time of his death in its improvement, development and upbringing and made it one of the most beautiful suburban districts of Montreal.

Mr. Bulmer passed away on April 7th, 1902.  For many years he had been an exemplary representative of the Masonic fraternity and had been equally faithful as a member of the Anglican church.  Sterling motives and high principals guided him in all of his relations and made him an upright man, so that he left behind him not only the substantial rewards of earnest, persistent labor, but also that good name which is to be chosen in preference to great riches."  

An advertising calendar from the firm Norton Phillips & Bulmer, 1883.

Thomas and Mary's son John Bulmer (our ancestor) married Elizabeth Ladd,  the daughter of Calvin Palmer Ladd and Polly Harmon, and grand-daughter of the explorer Daniel Williams Harmon and his half-native wife Lisette.  Here is a copy of John and Elizabeth's marriage record:

I love this record, because it has so many family signatures on it:  not just John and Elizabeth, the newlyweds, but also Calvin Palmer (C.P.) Ladd, Henry Bulmer, a member of the Maxwell family (Henry Bulmer's wife was Jane Maxwell), and lastly, a Harmon signature.  Too bad it's only initials--I wonder if it could be the signature of Abby Maria Harmon, who would be Elizabeth Ladd's aunt?

The Bulmer Family File at the National Archives

I recently obtained a 40-odd page file from the National Archives of Canada, called The Bulmer Family from Hatfield, Yorkshire to Montreal, Quebec.  The information it contained was compiled by Jean H. McClellan, with assistance from Lucy Fry Webster, and it was published in 1973.  It contains a complete family tree beginning with the immigrants Thomas Bulmer and Mary Bowling, as well as some anecdotes and memories, copies of church records and newspaper articles, etc., as they pertain to the Bulmer family.  Here are some of the fascinating details it contains.

The parents of Thomas Bulmer are unknown.  Mary Bowling, his wife, was the daughter of William Bowling and Susanna Wilburn, who were married in St. Lawrence Church, Hatfield, on March 25, 1790.  Susanna, in turn, was the daughter of John Rawood of Hatfield.  This was her second marriage;  her first was to Richard Wilburn, who died in 1789.  William Bowling was the son of John Bowling of Braithwaite.

Mary Bowling was the second of eight children born to William and Susanna Bowling.  In order, they are:

William Bowling b. 28 Jan. 1791
Mary Bowling b. 28 Mar. 1792
John Bowling b. 19 Mar. 1794
Susannah Bowling b. 25 July 1797
Thomas Bowling b. 20 June 1800
Elizabeth Bowling b. 27 Feb. 1803
Isaac Bowling b. 10 Apr. 1806
Charles Bowling b. 17 April 1808

They lived in Kirk Bramwith, "a charming hamlet about five miles from Hatfield. All of their children were baptized at St. Mary's church in Kirk Bramwith.

St. Mary's Church, Kirk Bramwith, England.

Thomas Bulmer's birthdate is recorded in a family bible as being 10 September 1793.  However, no birth record has been found for him despite "exhaustive research...in the surrounding parishes."

Jean McClellan includes details of the lives of  all of the children of Thomas Bulmer and Mary Bowling.  The eldest, Thomas Bulmer Jr., was at various times a blacksmith, bricklayer, grocer, contractor and bailiff.  He married Emma Phoebe Fearon  on 3 Nov. 1839 in St. James Church, Three Rivers, Quebec.  They had eight children.  Thomas Jr. died under mysterious circumstances:

"We have just learned that Mr. Thomas Bulmer jr. disappeared from his residence, no. 49 Jacques Cartier St. on Sunday evening last (24 March) since which nothing has been heard of him.  During the previous night he had appeared to be labouring under great depression of spirits and on Sunday shewed symptoms of a somewhat deranged mind.  About nine o'clock in the evening, he went out the back door in his loose coat and slippers.  Not returning in a few minutes, a member of the family went out but he could not be seen, and the yard gate was open.  Search was made for him in all directions but without avail.  His family fear that...he may, during the heavy rain storm that raged soon after his disappearance, have wandered to the river and fallen into some of the holes which have been cut in the ice and left unguarded, directly opposite Jacques Cartier St. Mr. B. was about fifty years of age, of strictly regular habits, was in comfortable and comparatively easy circumstances and his family, who are in a a state of great anxiety and suspense, know of nothing that could have caused the temporary mental derangement."
(The Montreal Gazette, 27 March 1867, p.2)

Thomas Jr.'s body was never recovered, and it seems probable that he drowned in the St. Lawrence, One of his sons, Thomas Campbell Bulmer, did commit suicide by shooting himself after having "for some time ...given signs of mental depression which gradually developed into melancholia of a pronounced type." (Montreal Daily Herald, 7 April 1902).   Thomas Campbell's symptoms sound very similar to those of his father. 


William Bulmer, Thomas and Mary's second son, fought on the side of the Loyalists in the Rebellion of 1837.   His first marriage, to Rosalie Selima Robillard,  took place on 16 September 1850.  Rosalie came from a prominent French-Canadian Catholic family (her brother was the well-known Dr. Edmund Robillard) and her parents disowned her for marrying outside of their religion.  Rosalie died of cholera on 29 July 1854, and their youngest daughter, Eliza, died of cholera the day before her mother at the age of 14 months.  Their eldest daughter, Marie Matilda Bulmer, would have been three years old when her mother and sister died.

William's second marriage, which took place on 15 January 1857 to Harriet Richardson, produced twelve children, but for some unexplained reason  his eldest daughter Marie Matilda did not stay with the family during her adolescence.  McClellan has this to say:

"Marie Matilda Bulmer...according to her daughter Elsie, was given the chance of living with her wealthy French grandparents when about 12 or 14 after her father's second marriage but because their way of life was so different, she chose the Bulmers and was brought up by her Uncle John and Aunt Elizabeth (Libby) Bulmer with their family.  When their twins were born she was given the privilege of naming them Eva Florence and Gertrude Maude.  She was married from their home..."

Marie Matilda would have lived with her father and stepmother for around six years before moving out to live with her aunt and uncle.  

Henry Bulmer was Thomas and Mary's third son.  He married Jane Maxwell on 7 August 1848 and they had five sons. He had a distinguished career, beginning as a builder ("he...built among others the Wellington Block on St. Catherine St."), was politically involved, was "Chairman of the Mechanics Institute, President of the St. George's Society, Governor of House of Industry and Refuge in 1867, Chairman of the Board of Arts and Manufacturers, Director of the Old Exchange Bank, Trustee of Mount Royal Cemetery and a Mason.  He was a Captain in the Montreal Foot Artillery during the boundary difficulty...".   Henry met the Prince of Wales when he arrived in Montreal for the opening of the Victoria Bridge, and "attended a Ball in 27 August 1860 in his honour in the Prince of Wales Ballroom which had been especially built for the occasion...On a visit to England in later years Henry had an audience with King Edward, who recalled meeting him in Montreal and chatted to him informally about his visit.  'That was a pleasant incident of my life but to quote it at length would appear egotistical' Mr. Bulmer said."  

On a more personal note:

"Elsie Moore, their niece, in a letter from Winnipeg recalled that her Mother told of being taken to Uncle Henry and Aunt Jane's after Sunday School and the fun they had boiling maple syrup and dribbling it in a pan of snow, then pulling the taffy--'La Tire' they called it."  I love hearing little details like that.  Apparently Henry and Jane also made a "Grand Tour" of Europe at one point, and brought back:  a statue of Pauline Bonaparte, a "Dresden picture of Ruth", and hand-painted Minton china comport and plates.

"Jane Maxwell Bulmer was an accomplished needlewoman.  She won First prize in the Agricultural and Industrial Exhibition held in Montreal in 1882 for Chenille embroidery.  A beautiful rare type sampler which she made in 1837 at the age of nine is still in possession of the family."  I'd love to see a picture of that--does anyone know where it is now?

Thomas and Mary Bulmer's first daughter, Ann Bulmer, gets only a brief mention in these pages.  She married a Mr. Tiplin and died in New Jersey in 1918. They had no children.  Their next son, the first John, died young in Quebec city.  Elizabeth Bulmer, their next daughter, never married and lived with Henry and Jane Bulmer, her brother and sister-in-law.  Mary Bulmer, the 7th child and 3rd daughter of Thomas and Mary, married the widower John Bussell Bond in St. George's Church, Montreal, on 24 May 1877, but they were also childless.  After his death she went to live with her brother Henry.

From the McCord Museum.  John B. Bond, 1865.

Finally, we get to the youngest child and my husband's great-great grandfather, also named John Bulmer.  He was born in Three Rivers/Trois Rivieres, Quebec, on 16 August 1836, and married Elizabeth Ladd (daughter of Calvin Palmer Ladd and Polly Harmon) 28 April 1862 in the American Presbyterian Church, Montreal.  They had eight children.  I'm happy to see that the authors have found out quite a bit about him:

"John Bulmer...became a contractor of note and according to the late Mrs. Lucy Potter Jewett of San Marino, Cal., 'he and his brother William were outstanding lumber people'.  John built many of the beautiful homes in Montreal and at least four of his daughters were born in their home on Latour St., Ella, the twins who died at three months and Kate.  He built a large home for himself at 53 Mansfield St. on the  site of the present Queen Elizabeth Hotel. Mrs. Jewett wrote that 'The Bulmer home was set away back from the corner of Dorchester Street and Mansfield and in front their was a lovely garden full of flowers and fruit trees, surrounded by a high wooden wall and handsome tall gates.  The coach entrance was on Dorchester Street' and the coachman, according to John's daughter Ella must have been a Cockney as he used to talk about the 'ay and straw for the 'orses dinner.  There was a smaller walk gate on the Mansfield St. side on which Ella and some of the other children used to swing.  The Hersleys lived next door in one of the houses in the row John built which were according to Mrs. Jewett, fine grey stone with English-type basements and huge drawing rooms up on the second floor.

The Bulmer home was a happy one.  When the children were young John used to take one or two down to his office on a Saturday morning to help make up the pay envelopes for his workmen. When the girls and their brother grew up there were whist parties, musical evenings and sing-songs in the elegant upstairs drawing room.  John and his wife always welcomed the young people who 'came to call'....    

John Bulmer was a kind, affectionate and understanding father, who spoiled his only son and proudly referred to his daughters as 'my girls'.  They all loved and respected him.  John and Elizabeth, whom he called 'Libby' adored each other and when she died suddenly of a heart attack one Saturday evening on the way to open the front door, it broke John's heart and four years later he died, on the same day but one, 18 December 1896 at the age of 60.  He was a lifelong member of St. George's Church and was widely respected in the community."

John Bulmer and Elizabeth Ladd's eight children were:

1) Mary Elizabeth Bulmer b. 9 March 1863 m. Thomas Fraser (they had eight children) d. 1955.
2) John Edwin Bulmer b. 25 October 1864 m. Albertine Droucet de Musset of Paris, France, later divorced.  Childless.  He worked in advertising and "depressed by business difficulties," d. 28 Feb. 1932 "from a self-inflicted gunshot wound."  
3) Ida Bulmer (our ancestor) b. 26 June 1867 m. 16 May 1894 William Rutherford Jr. and they had five children.  D. 3 March 1962.
4) Jane Bulmer b. 21 Jan 1870, unmarried, d. 5 April 1934.  "She was matron for years at Compton School and was for five years house superintendent for the Y.W.C.A. in Sherbrooke, P.Q."
5) Ella Bulmer b. 3 Feb. 1872 m. 8 June 1901 Ernest John Fry and they had two children.  D. 2 March 1959.
6) and 7) Twins Eva Florence and Gertrude Maud b. 7 April 1874 d. 14 July (Gertrude) and 16 July (Eva) 1874 of dysentery.
8) Kate b. 27 July 1881 m. Edward Fitzgerald 10 June 1903 St. George's Church and they had two children.  D. 24 March 1971.   

The Bulmer Family file contains a complete genealogy for all branches of the family down to my husband's generation, which I'm not going to reproduce here.  It's a tremendous source of information for anyone interested in this large and productive family.