also Dalons, Dalonse, Dallon, D'Allons (or perhaps D'Halond)
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By Willis Dallons I often wonder why those who came to America and left behind the familiarity of their homeland to go to an unknown country with different customs and language. What were the conditions that made them decide to move thousands of miles from home? We can only guess. European history is filled with wars so some may have left to escape military service but more likely the reason was economic - a chance for a better life. Who were these people and what did they do? Let's start with the Dallons family of whom we know the most about. We have searched many reels of microfilms available from the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and found the civil records from Belgium between the years of 1790 to 1880 to be excellent. Before 1790 the records were kept by the Church and were written mostly in Latin and are not as easy to read for the priest or scribe took liberty with the spelling so we found the surname Dallons spelled a number of different ways, Dalons, Dalonse, etc. Given names were also latinized causing great difficulty in keeping the individuals straight. After 1790 all vital records were kept by the civil authorities, were written in French and followed a format that made them more readable. One early document we have found was not in Belgium but in London, England recording the marriage of Alexander Dallons and Elizabeth Charon on March 2nd, 1702. Unfortunately it only lists their names and in which parish they were living in at the time so this leaves a number of questions as to why they were in England, where they came from, where they went and why they chose an Anglican Church for their marriage as they must have come from Belgium or France which are predominantly Roman Catholic. They may have been Huguenots, the name given to members of the Protestant movement in France and Belgium in the 17th and 18th centuries. Religious persecution drove many of these Huguenots to England and America so it is possible they were among those who fled the continent for that reason. It also may have been for economic reasons as England at that time was rapidly expanding their textile production and many weavers emigrated from Belgium to the mills in the British Isles. These persons remain another mystery to be solved. The spelling of the name Dallons is very clear on the document from Saint Mary Magdalene Church on Old Fish Street in London so we can only assume that the name was always spelled that way, at least in the 17th century. A book found in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City titled "Belgian Surnames" gives the original spelling as D'halond. I was unable to find out how the author came by this information so another visit to that library may shed light on this. The Dallons name is also found in Provance-Alpes-Cote d'Azur in southeastern France. The earliest records, in 1668, are found in Grasse, near Cannes, France. Additional records are found in the close by village of Auribeau sur Siagne and other villages in the years between 1721 and 1802. The name Dalon and Dalons is also found in that area.
The HISTORICAL SETTING . . .Where the Dallons family in Belgium came from is another unknown. Belgium is a small country and has been an important trade center since it was conquered by Julius Caesar in 57-50 B.C. It has been overrun by a succession of armies from France, Austria, Spain, Holland and was an invasion route twice in this century by the Germans. With traveling merchants, traders, artisans and military conquests it difficult to know from where in Europe the family had its origins. Some oral history handed down through the family claims ancestors from Bohemia, Spain and even some gypsies, but I have my doubts about the later. If the Dallons immigrated to Belgium from somewhere in Europe it probably would have been in the 12th to the 16th century and certainly no records exist from that time. It well may be that they descended from the tribes called Belgae that inhabited the area when it was conquered by the Romans who gave the province the name Belgica. The major divisions of Belgium today can be traced back to the northward expansion of the Roman Empire which reached it's limits along a frontier that runs across the middle of the country. Latin culture and language were established in the south and Germanic in the north where the indigenous tribes were closely related to that culture. Today the country is divided by the Flemings in the north who speak Flemish, (a Germanic language closer to Dutch) while in the south the Walloons speak French. Strife and distrust between the two exists to this day. One marvels that it has held together as a country from the days in 1830 when the Belgian people revolted from the Dutch who were the rulers at that time. The earliest record of the DALLONS name in Charleroi is 1725, the birth of Ludovici DALONSE. Charleroi was a new town at that time, having been founded by the Spanish occupation of Belgium in 1666. [History of Charleroi] We have not located earlier records that would indicate if our early DALLONS ancestors came from one of the 15 former towns which after merging make up the city of Charleroi today or imigrated from some other part of Europe. When the industrial revolution started in England about 1760 it slowly spread to Europe but more rapidly through Belgium. Coal deposits for steam power and a ready work-force made industrialization proceed rapidly while the rest of continental Europe advanced more slowly. By 1830 Belgium held a leading position in the manufacturing of steel, glass and machinery. Most of this industry was located in the southern part of the country around Charleroi where our ancestors lived and records of that time show that many of them worked in the glass factories. Before industrialization our ancestors were probably craftsmen or day laborers but as records before 1800 did not list occupations it is not possible to know. Great, (3 times) grandfather, Stanislas Joseph Dallons (1758-1823), as well as his son Nicolas Joseph (1799 - ? ) were schoolteachers. As it was common practice in those days for an occupation to be handed down from father to son, it is possible that their ancestors were also teachers or scribes. Nicolas Joseph and Marie Therese Desiree (Canva) Dallons had four daughters and seven sons. Three of the daughters married glass blowers and all of the sons except my great grandfather, Jean Baptiste, followed that occupation. Jean Baptiste was a blacksmith, probably not the horse shoer kind but more like a metal worker employed in a glass factory keeping the blow pipes and machinery in working order. Today he would probably be called a machinist. As mentioned, a trade was passed from father to son so my grandfather, François Cesar also became a blacksmith. How many of the children of the other six brothers became glass workers I do not know but in the family of Louis Leopold Dallons the craft was handed down from Louis to Oscar, to John F. to Jon N .to Jon A. who has Western Quartz Products in Paso Robles, California. So as the industrial revolution swept through Europe the Dallons as well as many other families became a part of it . |
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Glass factory workers in Charleroi, Belgium
Middle row: Third from left is John Dallons Middle row: Fith from left is Oscar Dallons Middle row: Sixth from left is Paul Dallons |
| Glass production changed little from the middle ages to about 1920 when mechanization did away with much of the dirty, heavy handwork - and skill, of the glassblower. Sand was heated until it became molten, then a blob of liquid glass was gathered on the end of a blow pipe and a bubble was produced by blowing through the pipe. The bubble was blown to the desired size and thickness, was flattened, cooled and then the glass pane was cut to the desired shape. Workers with these skills were in great demand so it was not unusual for them to travel to other countries. Oscar Dallons (Sr.) worked in England, Russia and was in Milan, Italy in 1914 when the First World War started. We have heard that he produced a glass bubble so perfect that it was displayed in a museum in Paris. His brothers Arthur and Leopold were in Japan and China from 1909 to 1911. From messages on postcards we have learned that they must have gone to Japan to teach glass blowing or to help start a glass factory as Arthur writes of spending two years there. Arthur also spent some time working in Russia before the 1917 revolution. Another brother, Alfred went to Canada about 1930 but it is not known if he remained there or returned to Belgium. |
more to come on DALLONS Family