Norman Kittson - Early Years

Early Years

Norman Wolfred Kittson was the eighth of nine children born to George Kittson (1779-1832), merchant and King's auctioneer at Sorel, a military refugee base in Lower Canada. His mother, 'Nancy' Ann Tucker also of Sorel, was the daughter of Sergeant John Tucker (d.1782), of the 53rd Regiment who had been granted some 450 acres of land on which the Kittsons lived. Norman was born the 6th of March 1814 at Chambly, and baptized on the 23 of March 1814 in Sorel, his hometown. His middle name 'Wolfred' was given to Norman to honour a family friend, Wolfred Nelson, though it was said the Kittsons did not share his later political views.

The Kittsons were an Anglo-Irish family. Norman's grandfather, John George Kittson (d.1779), was a junior officer in the British Army (his officer's sword still exists) who was said to have seen considerable action during the American Revolution. After the death of his first wife, an Irish lady named Alice St. John, Norman's grandfather married Julia Calcutt (1756-1835), of Newtown Limavady, County Londonderry, "a woman of considerable personal fortitude". According to tradition, Norman's grandmother sailed to Montreal in 1779 to meet her husband, but by the time she got there he was already dead. She remained in Montreal with her two infants (Norman's father was not yet one year's old) and around 1780 met Alexander Henry the elder, to whom she was married in 1785.