My Genealogy Hound

JOSEPH HEBERT, contractor and builder, manufacturer of lumber, and dealer in all kinds of builders’ materials in Northampton, is a Canadian by birth and breeding, Montreal being the city of his nativity, and 1854 the year of his birth. He comes of French ancestry, his grandfather, Francis Hebert, having been a native of France, coming to Montreal as a government official, and being High Sheriff of the city of Quebec at the time of his death. He married Josephine Palmer, native of Boston, who lived more than a century, dying in Montreal at the remarkable age of one hundred and one years and two months, and retaining full possession of her faculties to the last. She bore her husband sixteen children, of whom her son Nelson was the father of Joseph Hebert.

Nelson Hebert was born in Montreal, Canada, in 1826, and lived there during the earlier years of his life. He was a carpenter and builder by trade, and was engaged in these occupations in Northampton for some years, after which he went to Jamestown, N. Dak., where he established a successful business, building some of its finest residences and business blocks. Subsequently he returned to this city, where he died March 16, 1895, at the home of his son Joseph, leaving a handsome property to his heirs. He married Christiana Derwent, a native of Montreal, born in 1827, who now makes her home with her son Joseph. She is the mother of ten children, one of whom died when a little lad of two years. The others are all married, and one son is a prominent resident of Dakota.

Joseph Hebert is the second son and the fourth child of Nelson Hebert, and attended the common schools of his native city until he was eleven years old, when his parents removed to Northampton, where he has since resided. When thirteen years old, he began working at his present business with his father and a Mr. Stetson, and has since continued in the same occupation. Beginning to make contracts when a youth of sixteen years, his business faculties, which are naturally of a high order, have been well developed. By a strict attention to his business and honorable methods in his dealings he has won an extensive trade, and accumulated a large property. He established his well-equipped lumber yard in the winter of 1883, building the three sheds, one of them three stories in height and two hundred and twelve feet long. In 1887 Mr. Hebert built his fine brick office, and put in his steam-mill, with which he manufactures lumber, laths, and shingles. He keeps on hand a complete assortment of lumber and building material, and employs from one hundred to one hundred and seventy-five men. Mr. Hebert has also other valuable property. He owns seventeen tenement-houses, besides two blocks in the business part of the city — one occupied by Lee’s Hotel and the other by the Bay State House. Besides his own residence at 42 Cherry Street he has also two residences in Ware.

Mr. Hebert was united in marriage in 1874 to Delphine Beauregard, who, with her only child, died within a few years. He subsequently married Mary Beauregard, a sister of his first wife; and of the seven children born to them but two are now living. These are: Rudolph, in college in Canada; and Paul, a little lad of seven years. In his politics Mr. Hebert is independent of party. He is a member of the Knights of Pythias and of the St. John the Baptist’s Society. Religiously, he is a French Catholic, being one of the founders and strong supporters of that church in Northampton.