The Montie Family

Pioneers Of the Downriver Area

by Frank Rathbun, Thursday July 12, 1952

Courtesy of The News Herald (originally published in The Mellus Newspapers)

In the mid-1830's a severe economic depression swept through the United States and Canada, throwing hundreds of thousands out of work, dropping prices and wages to undreamed-of depths and bringing immense hardship to large numbers of families.

Francis Xavier Montie, a resident of Montreal, Canada, of French descent, with his wife and six children, joined thousands of other courageous persons who packed their belongings and struck out to find a new life in the beckoning west.

TRAVEL BY WATER

Probably traveling by water, Montie and his family made their way along the St. Lawrence River to Lake Erie and up into the Detroit River.

At the frontier village of Ecorse, they turned off into Ecorse creek and pushed their way through uncleared wilderness to a spot near the present site of Austin and Montie in Lincoln Park.

Taking advantage of the liberal homestead laws in effect at that time, Montie staked his claim to a 60-acre tract of land in the newly-created Ecorse Township, now Lincoln Park, in the vicinity of the street which today bears his name.

FOREST OF MAPLES

Clearing their property of the dense forest of maples which covered it, Montie and his family built their home and settled down to a frontier way of life virtually unaffected by man-made depressions.

As his four sons grew up and married daughters of other pioneer settlers of the Downriver section, Montie settled them on nearby farms where they in turn began to rear families.

A devout French-Catholic family, the Monties attended mass regularly at St. Francis Church in Ecorse, where old burial records show that Francis Montie died in 1877, aged 83, his wife, Mary Goyette, having preceded him in death by seven years.

MANY DESCENDANTS

Their descendants today number many hundreds, with more than three dozen Montie families in the Detroit-Downriver area tracing their ancestry back to this pioneer couple.

The eldest son, Louis, born in 1821, married Frances Pilon and left no children. The second son, John, born about 1822, married Amelia Goodell and had 10 children.

The still-legible marriage certificate of John and Amelia, or Emile, is in the possession of one of their descendants. It bears the signature of Francis Xavier Montie as a witness and is dated January 9, 1847.

Montie's third son, Abram, was born in 1825 and married first Elizabeth Drouillard, then Virginia LaCroix. By his second wife he had 11 children.

YOUNGEST SON

The youngest of Francis Montie's sons was Antoine, born in 1828, who married Catherine Bondie and had eight children. There were also three daughters; Mary, who married Peter Pilon; Angeline, who married Antoine Pilon, and Celeste, born soon after the family arrived in Michigan, who died in infancy.

Among the many descendants of Francis Montie who have distinguished themselves in the Downriver area is his namesake Francis Xavier Montie, Ecorse resident, who served as village clerk from 1910 to 1921, Ecorse Township clerk from 1929 to 1931 and township supervisor from 1935 to 1938.

He is a grandson of John and Amelia and a son of Francis J. Montie, a member of the legendary Montie rowing quartet which made international shell-racing history almost 70 years ago.

WORKED ON RIVER

The four brothers, Francis, Elijah, John and William, were raftsmen on the Detroit river, where they helped handle the huge floods of logs which each year poured down the river from northern lumber camps to sawmills in Ecorse.

Urged by their friends to enter the boat racing field, the quartet, under the auspices of the Ecorse Boat Club, swept from local championships to world-wide fame. Untrained in the science of rowing, their immense strength and endurance enabled them to defeat all comers.

In 1885 they amazed the sporting world by defeating the world champion Hillsdale team by more than four lengths in a long-remembered race on the Detroit river.

BURST INTO SONG

Old-timers recall that John Montie, to show that he was still in the pink of condition, burst into song as his speeding boat raced across the finish line.

After the astonishing victory over the world champions, in which they set an unequaled record of 60 beats to the minute, the brother quartet toured the country for several years, taking top honors in 31 consecutive races.

They were finally defeated in a contest on the Hudson River when choppy waters snapped their shell in half. The loss of their boat ended their racing career.

GRANDSONS ALSO ROWERS

One of William's daughters, Genevieve, who married Charles Tank, helped revive the defunct Ecorse Boat Club in 1938, with several of her sons rated among the club's top oarsmen for many years.

Francis Montie and other descendants of the famous rowers still have a number of medals, trophies, cups and flags awarded their world-famed forebearers.

Another well-known grandson of John and Amelia (Goodell) Montie was the late Judge Albert J. Montie, junior, who was elected township treasurer in 1920 and served as justice of the peace from 1928 until his death in 1936, three days after re-election to his third term in office.

MUNICIPAL ATTORNEY

Earl E. Montie, Albert's brother, has served as village and city attorney of Ecorse under every president and mayor of the municipality for 25 years, off and on.

George Montie, a son of Noah and grandson of Abram Montie, studied for the ministry and became a Catholic priest in Detroit. Father Montie completed a history of the family shortly before he was killed, in 1947, in an automobile accident.

Joseph Montie, son of Richard and grandson of John, founded the Ecorse Ice and Coal Company, in 1921, together with his cousin, the late Judge Albert Montie.

STILL IN BUSINESS

He is still operating the firm today with the aid of his son, Raymond.

Joseph's brother, the late Benjamin Montie, was an Ecorse patrolman who was killed in 1924 when, with several fellow officers, he accidentally discovered the hideout of a band of Detroit bank robbers in the infamous "Hogan's Alley," on the Ecorse waterfront. Other members of the family have played varying parts in the development of the Downriver area from a scattered cluster of frontier settlements to the bustling, prosperous district it is today.