Documented History

William Moloney

The first of our Maloney ancestors to settle in Canada was William Moloney (his spelling).

William Moloney was admitted to the Hôpital de l'Hôtel Dieu, in Québec City, on July 25, 1810, and died there, the next day, July 26, 1810.

His burial on July 27, 1810, in the cemetery of the poor, was witnessed by Joseph Gabouri and Stanislaus Nicolas, who signed the burial record.¹

The burial record in the register includes the information that William Moloney, spouse of Johanna Becker, had been a fisherman at Percé in the Bay of Chaleur and that he was about 50 years of age.

Combining his death date and his estimated age suggests that he was born about 1760.

Because parish records of baptisms, marriages, and burials in Ireland do not exist prior to the early 1800s, it has not been possible to trace William's connections to the Maloneys in Ireland.

There are documents to verify the following:

William Moloney had been in the British army.

Appearing before the Gaspé Land Claims Commission, at Percé, August 4, 1819, William, the son of William Moloney, testified that his father had been granted 300 acres at Cloridorme because he had served with the 44th Regiment of Foot.²

[In May, 1775, the 44th regiment embarked for Boston, and arrived there just after the battle of Bunker's Hill. It made the campaigns of 1776-8, and fought at Long Island (1776), Brandywine (September 11, 1777) and in other engagements, after which it was at New York, whence, in 1780, it proceeded to Canada, and was stationed chiefly at Québec and Montréal until 1786.]

William Moloney seems to have left the army at, or just before, the Militia muster in Douglastown. His name appears on Muster Roll No. 20, Douglastown, 1785.³

On August 21, 1787, at Percé, William Moloney, "an Irishman", married Johanna Becker-dit-Blondin in the presence of her brother, Jean Baptiste Becker, and her mother, Marie (David) Becker, and other witnesses. William Moloney signed his own name.

On September 8, 1791, when he petitioned George Lord Dorchester for 400 acres at Anse à Beaufils, he stated that he had resided on the Gaspé coast for seven years, working as a fisherman, and he signed the petition "Will^m Moloney".⁴

On October 9, 1803, as a witness to the baptism of his daughter, Elizabeth, he signed "William Molony".⁵

Including Elizabeth, William and Johanna had ten children.

¹The admission record is in Le registre jounalier des malades de l’Hôtel-Dieu-de-Québec [1689-1876], and the burial act is in Le registre des mortuaires de l’Hôtel-Dieu-de-Québec [1723-1857]. Both registers are in the archives of the Augustines-de-la-miséricorde-de-Jesus du Monastère-de-l’Hôtel-Dieu-de-Québec. Microfilmed copies are also available at the Archives Nationales du Québec (ANQ).
²Claim to the Gaspé Land Claims Commission. However, the author's search of the 1770-1786 Muster Records of the 44th Regiment of Foot, at the Public Records Office (PRO), Kew, England, showed no record of William Maloney having been in the 44th Regiment of Foot.
³National Archives of Canada, RG 1, A-IV, Vol. 80; Archives of Ontario MS 400, Reel 16.
⁴Details of the petition process can be found in the Lower Canada Land Papers, RG 1 L 3^L: Reel C-2493, Vol. 1, pp. 11-26, 263; Reel C-2494, Vol. 5, p.1678; Vol. 7, pp. 2352-59; Reel C-2496, Vol. 12, p. 3802; Reel C-2551, Vol. 151, pp. 74131-74136.
⁵[Registre de Saint-Michel-de] Percé: 1801-1941 (Longueuil, Québec: Diffusion généalogique Pepin [RN-CD45], 2003): Image 30490414 (septième (verso) et huitième feuillets).

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