Brothers Aurèle and Gaspard Pacaud were born in Saint-Norbert, a town in the Arthabaska region of Quebec. They came to Windsor in 1881 to found a weekly newspaper in this long-established French-Canadian community. In spite of their owning a newspaper and being very public figures, facts about the Pacaud brothers are not easy to come by in Windsor’s historical record. In order to better paint their picture and to fully understand their mission in coming to South-Western Ontario, it is quite instructive to turn the spotlight on other members of their family.

Aurèle and Gaspard were members of an illustrious and influential family in their home province. Their father, Philippe-Napoléon Pacaud, was a famous Patriote in the 1837 Rebellion. Notary public and bank director, he founded and led the Fils de la Liberté in Sainte-Hyacinthe and became commissioner general of the patriot army when the Rebellion broke out. Two of his brothers were also heroes of the Rebellion. Philippe-Napoléon was jailed for a few months in 1839 and, upon his release, established himself in the town of Saint-Norbert in an area newly-opened to colonization. There held a number of prestigious positions, among which justice of the peace, postmaster and militia captain. Among his circle of friends were to be found famous writers like Louis-Honoré Fréchette and important politicians like Wilfrid Laurier

Another one of Philippe-Napoléon’s sons, Ernest, is much better known than his brothers, and what we know of him can help us reconstruct the careers of Aurèle and Gaspard. Even his early life throws light on Gaspard and Aurèle’s background : Ernest attended an English school in Trois-Rivières before pursuing classical studies at the Séminaire de Québec. He became a lawyer and assumed his place in Saint-Norbert’s high society. The Pacaud residence was a centre of “red” ideas. Ernest was a close personal friend of Wilfrid Laurier; in fact, it was at his prompting that the future prime minister first entered provincial politics in 1871. In 1877, Laurier convinced Ernest to establish a newspaper in Arthabaska, La Concorde. The paper was Liberal, but sought to unite moderates from all political parties. In 1880, Laurier and his backers founded a new paper in Quebec City, L’Électeur, and named Ernest editor-in chief. The paper’s mission was to create a coalition of moderate Liberals and Conservatives by undermining the right-wing Conservatives associated with the Ultramontaiste and Cercle Catholique clique in Quebec. It hardly seems coincidental that, one year later, two other members of the Pacaud family show up in Windsor to found a paper with exactly the same methods and purpose as L’Électeur.

Despite accusations of fraud and disputes with the clergy, Ernest maintained his position as one of the main Liberal party organisors and as Laurier’s chief counsellor even after the latter moved onto the federal stage.
The Liberal party needed a base in Ontario and it was in a bilingual area like Windsor that it would have the best chance of success. Thus were Aurèle and Gaspard sent to Windsor. (A fourth brother, Horace, founded yet another French newspaper in Bay City, Michigan, where there was another large concentration of French-Canadians.) We can glean more details of the Pacaud family and its extensive networks by reading the obituary for Aurèle and Gaspard’s mother, published in 1898 .

Aurèle Pacaud
 

We know very little about the man who was owner and publisher of Le Progrès. Gaspard’s older brother, he married Charlotte-Emma Drumoulin in Arthabaskaville in 1870. He owned some sort of business there before coming to Windsor in 1881. He seems to have been a lawyer, like many others in his family. We know he had a son, Benjamin, who survived a murder attempt in Windsor in 1891 ; Ben was also a store-owner in Windsor . If we can believe some of Aurèle’s enemies, he was not always scrupulously honest in his business dealings . But what cannot be denied is that under his sure hand, Le Progrès managed to stay ahead of the competition in Windsor for over thirty years. We have only two pictures of Aurèle Pacaud : he appears in a print of a local political committee in 1902 ; a later photo accompanied the obituray which appeared in The Border Cities Star in 1922

Aurèle Pacaud

Gaspard Pacaud
 

Gaspard Pacaud had a higher visibility in Windsor than did his brother; in fact, he could be considered the public face of Le Progrès. Born in 1859, he arrived in Windsor at the age of 22. He started out as editor-in-chief of Le Progrès but would soon add many other titles to his resumé: politician, orator, businessman, public servant. Over the years, Gaspard seems to have gotten involved in all walks of Windsor life, leaving his mark on the city’s politics, business and cultural communities. He joined the political fray almost immediately. In 1886, he was chosen to run as the Liberal party candidate for the riding of Essex North . Politics was a blood sport in those days, and local meetings and rallies could be quite rowdy . A page taken from Le Progrès a week before the election gives us a good idea of the political climate of the day; it also shows the advantages of owning one’s one newspaper when running for public office . Gaspard was elected December 29 1886 . At 27, he was the youngest MP ever elected in Ontario. But in 1890, the Essex North riding association nominated Francis Cleary to run for provincial parliament; Gaspard, claiming that the Irishman Cleary could never represent French-Canadian interests, decided to run as the only “true” Liberal candidate .The result was a split vote for the Liberals and a victory for Sol White, the Conservative candidate .

Gaspard Pacaud

Gaspard never ran for public office after that, but he remained very active on the local scene. Highlights of his remarkable political career can be gathered in a number of newspaper articles , .

A few months after his defeat, Gaspard became a notary public, like his father before him , . In 1892, he left his position as editor-in-chief for Le Progrès and became licence inspector for hotels in the Essex North district , . He no doubt kept a financial interest in the newspaper, which also ran a flourishing print shop , . He also worked as an insurance agent with an office in the Davis building on Sandwich Street East (modern-day Riverside Drive). Gaspard was obviously a prominent member of Windsor’s business establishment, as he had the means in 1895 to build himself an imposing residence in the city’s fashionable high-class neighbourhood on Victoria Street. In 1902, he was able to advertise his services as a money-lender .

In spite of a full slate of business activities, Gaspard did not neglect his political and cultural commitments. He continued to contribute regularly to Le Progrès, and and maintained a busy schedule as guest speaker for various events . He was president of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society for Saint-Alphonsus parish and also head of Windsor’s separate school board. As befits the founder of a newspaper named Le Progrès, he held many progressive ideas, such as universal suffrage for women . In 1890, he married Annie McKewan, an English-speaking Protestant from Bay City Michigan ; no doubt this is what led him to write a rebuttal to a sermon given in his home parish condemning mixed marriages . He died in Windsor on August 28, 1928.

According to Aurèle Pacaud’s obituary in The Border City Star, Le Progrès stopped publishing around 1919, although other writers have suggested both earlier and later dates. Our own collection ends in 1902 and very few later issues have survived elsewhere. It is therefore difficult to evaluate the later years of Le Progrès. But it is apparent from Gaspard’s obituary (Border Cities Star), that the Pacaud brothers were a major force in the development of the local French-Canadian community. It is also clear that their influence did not limit itself to their own linguistic community but indeed had an effect on all areas of public life in Windsor in a period stretching from the post-Confederation era to the First World War.