Goose Village Timeline

The Matticks family was the best-known of the 350 families that lived in Goose Village, a area also known as Victroriatown at the foot of the Victoria Bridge. The n'hood was split between Irish and Italians, who increasingly predominated. It was expropriated and demolished around 1966 on orders from Mayor Drapeau and contained streets such as Menai, Brittania, Forfar and Conway.

Brittania St. 1962

  The best stories from the area involve the Matticks family, Irish Catholics with a father who was described in Lovells as a helper. Thomas Matticks had 14 kids living in an 8 room house in the area and at least three of those kids became well-known criminals in the West End Gang.
  Thomas Matticks was no wimp.
   One day in the spring of 1945 Matticks, 46, went down to the local tobacconist place owned by Pasquale Balena and started playing dice at the front door. The two didn't like each other and Balena ordered him to shove off. Matticks refused and Balena attacked Matticks with a knife. Matticks survived. Balena was charged with attempted murder and Matticks with grievous assault. Balena also had many family members in the area but he moved his shop to Little Italy at 25 Shamrock.

Thomas Matticks Sr. with  son Jackie 

Among Thomas Matticks's 11 kids was a Thomas Jr. born c. 1923. Thomas became a big-time jailbird and by 22 was sentenced to seven years in prison. He returned for other charges and in 1961, a few days after his release he broke into a restaurant on Youville Square, he broke into the cash register and cigarette machine and was found sitting on the floor eating potato chips.

  Three other Matticks sons turned to crime, John (Jackie) Gerry and Richard.
  Gerald who was famous for bringing drugs in through the port for the Hells to distribute.
   Gerry Matticks was also an impressive breeder, having fathered four children by the age of 21.
   His smuggling was going well until cops noticed Mom Boucher visiting the Matticks butcher shop. Cops started trailing his assistant Lekkas. Eventually when it started getting hot Matticks incorrectly guessed that his assistant-and- friend Lekkas was an informant. Whatever Matticks did to Lekkas so shook the poor guy up that Lekkas actually tried to kill himself and then became an informant. Ergo Matticks' famous paranoia led him to a nice prison sentence and a $10 million tax fine from the federal authorities.

Montreal Star feature from 1  Oct 1962 on the  Victoriatown Boys Club run by Catholic Boys Services' Jim Berlettano (1929-2020) Workers salaries ranged from $2,400 to $5,000 per year. The club had almost 600 members. It cost families $1 per family per year and 50 cents for employed teens. 

Phyllis Matticks and Gail Harris

Ricky Hall, Bruce Holmes and Joey Andreoli, of 1305 Conway

George Harris, Robert Rochon.

  (George Harris, above, went on to become a drug-addict convicted of murder.) 

Goose Village timeline

1-1878. The shooting murder of John Colligan resulted in a complicated investigation and trial.

2- 1893 The Home of the Little Sisters of the Poor fills 40 sleighs and moves out to Dorchester Street from Goose Village.

3-1900- Drunken Frederick Miller of Britannia pleads guilty to various forms of drunken debauchery centered around his assault of a streetcar conductor.

4--1903 Francois Renaud, 73, of Forfar Street found dead near Black's Bridge.

5-1906 Albert Daniels, 10 dies drowning.

6-1908 Joseph Madden, a horseman residing on Britannia, was nabbed for beating on his horse, but rather than accept his arrest Madden, along with two friends beat arresting officer Loye.

7-1913 - Fleeing trespasser stabs guard Robert Rolston to death.

8-1919 Playgrounds get installed in the area.

9 -1931 Lucy Thompson, 38, of Forfar and Riorto Ciprianni, 33, of Brittania were among six passenger injured when their bus was hit by a train near Bridge and Mill.

10-1932 Bulls escape stockyards and run around neighbourhood, wreaking havoc.

11- 1932 - Menai Street resident William Treppell, 41, loses his legs after a streetcar runs him over. He dies.

12-1945 A six year old girl was attacked by a maniac.

13- 1945-Marcel Bellefeuille, 42, shoots his neighbour Alfonso Disimoni, 47, through his door, hitting him in the shoulder for refusing to give him another beer after his own supply ran out.

14- 1945 Portable wading pool brought to the area.

Blaze at stockyards 1954

15-1946 - Restaurant owner Frank Ravenda gets sued for falsifying inventory upon selling his restaurant to veterans Joseph Richards and William Armstrong.

16-1948 city officials get heat for allowing guides to describe Victoriatown as Hobo Town and Don Elvidge leaps to the neighbourhood's defense.

17-1950 -Adelard Riendeau, 21, of Forfar on a crime spree, gets sentenced.

18-1954 - The stockyards burn down and cause at least $1 million worth of damage, also killing countless pigs and cows.

19-1962 - first steps to demolition come as city council asks for money to demolish.