John Jacob Breaugh signature

On this day in 1916 John Jacob Breaugh signed up in Napanee. He was born in Deseronto on March 6th, 1874, the son of Michael Breaugh and Sara (née Nolan). His mother died in 1877 of tuberculosis.

Breaugh joined the 80th Battalion with the regimental number 220500. He was five feet two and a half inches tall, with a fair complexion, blue eyes and light brown hair. He had a tattoo of the letters JB and a small star on his left forearm. His service record reports that he arrived in England via the RMS Baltic on March 29th, 1916 and was transferred to the 51st Battalion in June. He went to France with the 10th Canadian Railway Troops in May 1917 and was transferred to the Canadian Forestry Corps in England in March 1918. While in France, John suffered from myalgia in September and October 1917. When he was in England with the Forestry Corps he was sentenced to 21 days of Field Punishment Number Two for “attempting to force his way into a private house without permission of owner”.

John returned to Canada on the RMS Carmania, leaving England on February 1st, 1919. He was discharged in Kingston as medically unfit for further service on March 8th, 1919. At the time of the 1921 census he was living with his sister, Bridget and her husband in Main Street, Deseronto. Family tree information on Ancestry suggests that he died in 1931.