Joseph Boivin

Who was Joseph Boivin?

Attorney Joseph Boivin was a co-founder and first president of the first credit union established in the United States, St. Marie's Cooperative Credit Association. The son of Stanislas and Marie Boivin, Joseph Auguste Boivin was born September 21, 1866 in Coaticook, Quebec, Canada. Mr. Boivin contracted polio as a child and lost one leg to complications of the illness. He studied at Saint Hyacinthe College, Coaticook, and lived for several years in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec. Boivin immigrated to Manchester, New Hampshire, on October 1, 1883. He studied law in the offices of Burnham, Brown, Jones and Warren, and later with Judge George W. Prescott. He was admitted to the New Hampshire Bar in December 1899 and, subsequently, to the Hillsborough County Bar Association. He studied at St. Anselm College in neighboring Goffstown, where he also taught French. He married Miss Emma Gilbert of Lewiston, Maine, in September 1901; she bore him four children between 1902–1907: Dominique, Therese, Gilberte and Gertrude.

In 1902, Boivin represented Manchester's Ward 9 at the constitutional convention. He served as treasurer for L'Association Canado-American. His law office was located in the Kennard Building, 314–315 Elm Street, Manchester, where he also served as a justice of the peace, insurance agent and real estate broker. He started the credit union on November 24, 1908, through a collaboration with Monsignor Pierre Hevey of Ste. Marie Church and guidance from Alphonse Desjardins, the Canadian credit union pioneer. Boivin volunteered his time in the evenings and, assisted by his wife Emma, an able and experienced bookkeeper, ran it out of his home at 420 Notre Dame Avenue in Manchester. America's Credit Union Museum now occupies the location of his home, where the credit union, now known as St. Mary's Bank, first operated.