By: Rénald Fortier
Ingenium – Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation
A brief portrait of a dynamic duo of dentists from Québec, Québec, Henri Edmond Casgrain and Marie Wilhelmine Emma Casgrain, born Gaudreau, during the Belle Époque – and a little something on their first horseless carriage, a Bollée Voiturette, part 1
Feb 25, 2024
Media
Henri Edmond Casgrain and Marie Wilhelmine Emma Casgrain, née Gaudreau, enjoying a winter ride in their modified Bollée Voiturette horseless carriage. Anon., “Blätter und Blüten – Ein motorschlitten.” Die Gartenlaube, 14 February 1899, 98.
Guten Morgen, mein Lesefreund. Wie geht’s? Would you like to join me on a quick jaunt down the yellow brick road of memory lane to a beer garden near you? […] Wunderbar! We will have to postpone that for another day, however. It was in fact towards a Québec counterpart of a Parisian bistro from the Belle Époque that we will have a bite today.
Besides, a beer garden in February, are you nuts?
However, it was not every day that an engraving showing a Québec couple from said Belle Époque, a period which was not really beautiful for the ginormous majority of people living, surviving actually, on Earth at the time, people like my eight great grandparents for example, and… Where was I? Oh yes. However, it was not every day that an engraving showing a Québec couple from said Belle Époque was found in a German illustrated family weekly with a large circulation who happened to be a precursor of all modern magazines.
Better yet, Die Gartenlaube seemingly took its engraving from an equally prestigious American weekly, the popular science magazine Scientific American, which published the original image in a June 1898 issue.
Incidentally, blätter und blüten – ein motorschlitten means leaves and flowers – a motorised sled. After all, gartenlaube means gazebo.
Interestingly, the French weekly magazine La Locomotion automobile published the Scientific American image in one of its August 1898 issues. Another French weekly magazine, La Vie scientifique, published a copy of the La Locomotion automobile image soon after, in September perhaps. A third French weekly, Cosmos, published a copy of the La Locomotion automobile image at the very end of December.
In late 1899 or early 1900, a 4th French weekly magazine, La Science illustrée, published the very same illustration of Casgrain and his spouse. Would you believe that the American weekly The Literary Digest published that illustration in a March 1900 issue? In turn, an American monthly, The Automobile Magazine, published it in its August 1900 issue.
But who were Henri Edmond Casgrain and Marie Wilhelmine Emma Casgrain, née Gaudreau, you ask, my reading friend who likes beer gardens and bistros? An excellent question.
Casgrain was born in August 1846 in L’Islet, province of Canada, in today’s Québec. His daddy was a notary and lord of part of the lordships of L’Islet–Saint-Jean and L’Islet de Bonsecours.
Yes, yes, the province of Canada. Let us not forget, the province of Québec did not appear until July 1867, but back to our story.
Like a great many members of good society in the province of Canada, Casgrain completed his classical studies. He completed those at the Collège de Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière, in… Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière, province of Canada, in today’s Québec.
What were those classical studies, you ask? Another good question. The curriculum of said course, strictly controlled by the roman catholic church, was oriented towards theology, rhetoric, philosophy, grammar, etc. Very focused, not to say too focused on Greco-Roman civilisation, that training neglected mathematics and science, in other words the present and future.
In fact, do you know when the Congregatio pro sancta inquisitione / Congregatio sanct inquisitionis hæreticæ pravitatis of said church deemed it appropriate to withdraw from the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the work containing the titles of pernicious books that a roman catholic should not read, the work entitled De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, the fundamental 1543 work in which the Polish-born astronomer / doctor / mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus presented a version of the universe in which the Earth and other planets revolved around the Sun? No? Would you believe that this withdrawal took place in 1822? The mind boggles, but I digress.
In 1866, about 2 years after completing his classical course, Casgrain went to Québec, province of Canada, in today’s Québec, to study medicine at the Université Laval. Having chosen the profession of dentist, he completed his training at the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Casgrain opened a practice in Québec, Québec, in May 1869. It did not take long for him to establish an excellent reputation. His patients undoubtedly greatly appreciated the fact that Casgrain had mastered three different approaches to control pain: nitrous oxide, electricity and ice.
To that end, yours truly wonders if Casgrain was aware of the more or less conclusive electrical experiments carried out no later than 1858-59 by several American, British and French dentists, including one who was then working in… Philadelphia.
By the way, nitrous oxide made its entry into Canada, yes, the province, not the country, no later than April 1867, through the Franco-Canadian dentist Michel Pourtier, who then lived in Québec, yes, the city.
In October 1879, Casgrain married the aforementioned Marie Wilhelmine Emma Gaudreau from Montmagny, province of Canada, in today’s Québec. He was then 33 years old. His spouse, a farmer’s daughter, was 18. She was born in June 1861, in Montmagny.
Casgrain was an imaginative man who had more than one string to his bow. In August 1875, he obtained a Canadian patent for a lighting system using a new fuel, Moonlight Gas, or gaz Clair-de-lune, a mixture of air saturated with gasoline.
In July 1876, Casgrain supervised the installation of one of his lighting systems at the brand-new Belle-Vue convent of the Congregatio a Domina Nostra Marianopolitana, or Congrégation de Notre-Dame de Montréal, a congregation of nuns of the roman catholic church, in the parish of Saint-Foye, not far from Québec.
In July 1883, the aforementioned Scientific American published a brief illustrated article on a portable machine for rolling cigarettes, a very ingenious invention that Casgrain patented in a few countries (United States, United Kingdom, Spain, German Empire, France and Canada). Said cigarette roller was produced in the United States, in the workshops of Thomas Francis Gaynor and William J. Fitzgerald.
In July 1886, Casgrain supervised the construction of a very ingenious “vélocipède nautique” or nautical velocipede, in all likelihood a contraption somewhat similar to a pedal boat.
Before I forget it, Casgrain was a big guy who loved sports, including cycling.
Henri Edmond Casgrain. Anon., “L’art dentaire au Canada.” La Presse, 11 October 1895, 1. (Illustration digitally reformatted)
In March 1895, Scientific American reported that Casgrain had just developed a portable vulcaniser intended for the treatment of small objects. The same issue of the magazine mentioned that the Québec dentist had just patented a casting device for light metals, aluminium for example. Casgrain had in fact used such a device in his practice since 1892.
And yes, my discerning reading friend, the portable vulcaniser was linked to the manufacture of dental prostheses. Indeed, it was to the American firm Buffalo Dental Manufacturing Company that Casgrain sold the production rights to his invention.
It went without saying that Casgrain’s practice was full of modern instruments, some / many of which made by the Québec dentist himself.
In March 1896, at the luxurious St. Lawrence Hall hotel in Montréal, Casgrain demonstrated a portable acetylene lamp that he had just developed for the use of families. He might have sold the production rights (Canada and United States) and the sales rights of that invention to the Robert Mitchell Company Limited foundry of Montréal in January 1897.
In September 1899, Casgrain obtained an American patent for a carburetor for an internal combustion engine.
While Casgrain continued to provide care to the good people of Québec, to those who could afford them probably, his spouse gradually became interested in what he did, starting around 1884. One might wonder if she did not assist him from a certain point onward.
Noting that the young woman had certain skills, not to say (typing?) definite skills, Casgrain transmitted to her increasingly detailed theoretical and practical knowledge. That work ended up giving excellent results.
Marie Wilhelmine Emma Casgrain, née Gaudreau, Québec, Québec. Anon., “La première [sic] Canadienne admise à une profession libérale.” Le Soleil, 16 June 1898, 2.
The Association des dentistes de la province de Québec indeed awarded a diploma and a license to practice to Emma Casgrain around June 1898. She had just passed her exam, with great success actually, at Bishop’s College in Lennoxville, Québec, not far away from Sherbrooke, the homecity of yours truly. That institution of high learning was in fact affiliated with the association for the purpose of graduation.
Incidentally, Casgrain was an active member of the Association des dentistes de la province de Québec, founded in 1869, and of the organization which succeeded it, in 1904, the Collège des chirurgiens-dentistes de la province de Québec.
I assume that Emma Casgrain was also a member of said association and collège.
It should be noted that the names of Edmond and Emma Casgrain seemed to appear in advertisements published in at least one Québec daily newspaper only in March 1899. The latter specialised in the treatment of children and women.
Personally, I prefer female dentists and dental hygienists. Smaller hands, but I digress.
Emma Casgrain was the third female dentist in Canada, the second female dentist in Québec and the first French-speaking female dentist in Canada and Québec. Yes, yes, the third, not the first.
The real first, Annie Grant Hill of Kingston, Ontario, received her diploma and license to practice no later than May 1893. She soon after joined the practice of a well-known dentist in Montréal, Québec, Samuel J. Andres. For some reason or other, Hill opened her own practice in November 1893.
The second, Caroline Louisa Josephine Wells, née Irwin, of Toronto, Ontario, received her diploma and license no later than October 1893. She treated patients in the practice founded by her spouse, John Wells, whose health decline no longer allowed him to support his family, but back to the Casgrain couple.
Said couple worked in its office until October 1914, the date of the death of Henri Edmond Casgrain, at the age of 68. Emma Casgrain would continue alone until 1920, when she began her retirement.
Yours truly would be remiss if I did not mention that the business located right next to the office of the dentist Casgrain belonged at one point to a brilliant Québec watchmaker / politician / jeweler / inventor / flutist. Cyrille Duquet designed a telephone, superior to that of the famous Alexander Graham Bell, said he, because of the power of the sound which came out of it. Indeed, Duquet installed telephones in his jewelry store and in a store he owned with a certain Louis Dallaire, around November 1877.
Incidentally, Bell did not invent the telephone. An all too often forgotten Italian American by the name of Antonio Santi Giuseppe Meucci began to work on such a device in 1849. Meucci filed a patent caveat announcing his invention in December 1871. For some reason or other, he did not renew that document. The rest, as the proverbial they say, is history.
I would be equally remiss not to mention that Paquet was mentioned in a January 2022 issue of our exceptional blog / bulletin / thingee, or that Bell was in several issues of that same publication, and this since October 2018.
Finally, I would be remiss if I did not point out that Casgrain became an alderman in February 1900. In fact, he was elected by acclamation, just like 24 other aldermen of the city of Québec. For your information, there were then 30 aldermen in that city.
Casgrain did not make waves in the municipal council, a lack of activity which did not go unnoticed. It had to be said (typed), however, that the mayor of Québec, lawyer Simon-Napoléon Parent, also held the influential positions of president of the Quebec Bridge and Railway Company of Québec and commissioner of Lands, Forests and Fisheries in the government of Québec. Indeed, Parent became premier of that province in October 1900, following the death of writer / notary / journalist / editor Félix-Gabriel Marchand. Irritating Parent would not have been a good idea.
Would you believe that Casgrain seemed to be the first Quebecer and Canadian to import a horseless carriage, in other words an automobile? A snippet mentioning the purchase of a “petroleum motor cycle” appeared in a Québec daily newspaper, Quebec Morning Chronicle, in February 1897. The vehicle in question, a Bollée Voiturette made in France by Diligeon & Compagnie or the Société anonyme des voiturettes automobiles, appeared in Québec at the beginning of June.
Casgrain seemed to succumb to automobile fever during a trip on American soil in 1896.
And yes, Emma Casgrain might, I repeat might, have driven her spouse’s Voiturette on a few occasions – a Québec, if not Canadian first.
Casgrain’s vehicle seemed to be the 2nd gasoline-powered automobile in Québec and Canada, just after the vehicle designed and completed, in the spring of 1897, by George Foote Foss, a blacksmith / mechanic / bicycle repairperson whose workshop was in Sherbrooke.
The inventor that Casgrain was wasted no time in modifying said Voiturette passably, if not considerably.
One is entitled to wonder whether those modifications stemmed from the fact that Casgrain might, I repeat might, have had some difficulty negotiating the steep streets of the good city of Québec. At least once in fact, he only reached the top of one of those streets with the help of the muscles of half a dozen good samaritans.
Now, do you remember the engraving with which yours truly introduced this article, my reading friend? Good. During the winter of 1897-98, Casgrain replaced the two front wheels of his automobile with skis. He also replaced the rear wheel tire with a piece of wood covered with conical metal spikes.
The Voiturette of Casgrain was one of the very first motor vehicles designed expressly for winter use, in snow and on ice. It was almost certainly the first such vehicle in Canada.
The good doctor used his modified vehicle to visit patients in their homes, in and around Québec, in wintertime. Yes, the city.
And you have a question, do you not, my inquisitive reading friend? Given the absence of gas stations in 1897-98, where the heck did Casgrain find his gasoline? At lamp oil sellers, by golly!
Please note that the following was quite sad.
The first automobile accident to cause injuries in Québec, if not Canada, took place on 10 June 1900, in the early evening, in Québec. Casgrain was then returning home with his spouse. Edward Wenceslas Méthot, president of the Caisse d’économie de Notre-Dame of Québec, might had been following them in another vehicle.
Arriving at a street corner, Casgrain’s Voiturette hit a tram going down a slope at quite a high speed. Casgrain was ejected from the back seat, from where he was driving the vehicle, but only suffered a nervous shock and minor bruises and scratches to one leg. Sitting in the front seat, without a seat belt or any other protection, Emma Casgrain saw herself thrown against one of the tram’s steps. The Voiturette was virtually destroyed.
The tram driver, passengers and passers-by immediately came to the aid of Emma Casgrain, unconscious, or perhaps even dying, while her spouse tried to hail a vehicle.
Almost mad with worry, Casgrain brought his spouse back to the family home and called a doctor. Emma Casgrain, said Dr. Arthur Ahearn, suffered from a fracture in her left leg and multiple contusions and injuries to her shoulder and neck. That doctor from the Hôtel-Dieu de Québec reduced the fracture. Emma Casgrain, he said, should be fine. His opinion turned out to be correct.
If that accident found itself in the pages of the 11 June editions of five daily newspapers in Québec, yes, the province, including four from Québec, yes, the city, including the main English-speaking daily there, The Quebec Chronicle, the fact was that it failed to dislodge from the first page topics deemed more important. Indeed, only L’Événement of Québec put the accident on its front page.
The daily Le Soleil, an important local newspaper of a certain political persuasion, for example, a persuasion opposite to that of L’Événement by the way, Le Soleil, say I, preferred to highlight, with a drawn portrait in support, the appointment to the position of batonnier general of the Barreau du Québec of the lawyer / professor François Xavier Horace Archambault, a legislative councillor and speaker of the Conseil législatif du Québec who was also the attorney general of Québec within the government of the political persuasion favoured by Le Soleil, a government led by the aforementioned Marchand.
And yes, that was a very long sentence. Oh where, oh where is an em dash when you need it? (Hello, EP!)
Still on the front page on 11 June of Le Soleil were drawn portraits of two men who still held the same persuasion, the lieutenant governor of Québec, Louis-Amable Jetté, and the speaker of the Assemblée législative du Québec, Jules Tessier, who were then welcoming French-speaking journalists who had come from western Canada, but I digress.
And yes, Le Soleil, Jetté and Tessier all had the same political persuasion. Did you doubt that?
Emma Casgrain’s injury did not seem to diminish her interest in motoring, any more than that of her spouse for that matter. In fact, the couple took delivery of a second automobile, also from Europe, in October 1901. The term Europe being used by The Quebec Chronicle, yours truly is of the opinion that the vehicle in question was not British, because the United Kingdom was not part of Europe, of course. One can assume that it was in fact French.
In August 1902, the Casgrain couple used its automobile to go to Fraserville, Québec, an altogether daring trek given the distance, more than 200 kilometres (more than 125 miles), which separated those agglomerations. It went without saying that there were no asphalt roads between Québec and Fraserville.
To answer the question which is condensing in your little noggin, my reading friend, Fraserville officially became Rivière-du-Loup in February or March 1919, which completed a change of name desired by many people, and that for many years.
And yes, you are absolutely right. Casgrain and his spouse were great travelers before the lord. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, they visited the United States and Europe several times, in addition to traveling within Québec itself.
Emma Casgrain continued to travel, if at a slower pace, after the death of her spouse.
She died in October 1934, at the age of 73, in Québec.
A brief digression if I may. While a tutor at the international distance learning school Quality of Course Incorporated of Ottawa, Ontario, Québec author Sylvie Gobeil published, in 2016, a historical novel, her fifth, De tendres aspirations, which recounts the life of the Casgrain couple.
In 2021, Québec author / historian / speaker Catherine Ferland published a work aimed at young people, 15 femmes qui ont fait l’histoire du Québec. One of the women in question was obviously Emma Gaudreau Casgrain.
As desirable as it would be to let you go about your business, yours truly cannot resist your desire to know more about the Bollée Voiturette. I am right. I know it. Your little pout betrayed you. I piqued your… curiosity.
This being said (typed?), I will now go about my business. See ya later.
Rénald Fortier
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