Source: Courtesy of Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec / 52327/2069970

VALOIS, NARCISSE, tanner and city councillor; b. 12 Aug. 1811 at Vaudreuil, L.C., eldest son of Captain Narcisse Valois, a Patriote of 1837, and Agathe Lalonde; d. 28 Aug. 1880 at Montreal, Que.

When he was still an adolescent, Narcisse Valois found employment at Montreal. At the time of his marriage with Ursule Ritchot, in November 1837 at Montreal, he was described as a tanner. After 1850 his establishment was situated in the west of the town, in the Saint-Antoine district, where in 1874 the parish of Saint-Joseph was set up, and where later the Canadian Pacific Railway station was built.

He was a city councillor of Montreal by 1846, and from 1853 on represented Saint-Antoine ward as councillor or alderman. He sat on the city council for more than 20 years, and during the last two (1867–69) he became once more alderman for East ward, which he had first represented in 1846. He was vice-president of the temperance society of the diocese of Montreal in 1863, and was also a member of the Roman Catholic School Commission during the year 1869–70.

Narcisse Valois was 69 when on 28 Aug. 1880 he passed away at Montreal, intestate according to the inventory of his possessions drawn up on 28 December by the notary Évariste-Odilon Labadie. He was buried in the crypt of the chapel of the sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, which had been built through the good offices of his uncle, Simon Valois, likewise a tanner. Narcisse Valois left few assets, apart from a two-storey stone building in Rue Saint-Vincent, adjoining that of his uncle Simon.

His wife, Ursule Ritchot, survived him by five years. He is known to have had one son, Jude, a commercial agent, and four daughters.

Jean-Jacques Lefebvre

AJM, Registre d’état civil. AVM, Biographies de conseillers. Le Courrier de Montréal, 1^er sept. 1880. Fauteux, Patriotes, 390–91.