Association des descendants de Jean Deslandes dit Champigny
JEAN DESLANDES DIT CHAMPIGNY: HIS STORY
It is not easy to talk about, let alone imagine
a person who has not left a mark, nor a portrait, to "History". Yet
even so, from the study of historical documents, from church records, notarial
minutes or even criminal records, we can learn a lot about the life
and times of the ancestor common to the Deslandes Champigny and Deland
families. Nowadays, descendants of Jean Deslandes dit Champigny can be found
all across Canada, as well as in the USA, mostly in the New England
states, as a consequence of the migration of French Canadian families from the
Richelieu and Yamaska valleys, in their native Quebec province, to the north
eastern States of the US, around the middle of the nineteenth century.
Little is known about the early life
of Jean Deslandes dit Champigny in France because church records from the
parish of St-Saturnin in Champigny sur Marne, (which is located about
30km east of Paris) where Jean was born, were lost for the period
of 1647 to 1667. We can then only guess at Jean's date of birth. Since he is
said to have been about 25 years of age on the day of his wedding,
in New France in 1688, Jean would have been born around 1663.
Oddly, the St Saturnin parish records can tell us more about three
generations of Jean's forebears, going back to Saturnin de la Lande. (You will
find that information from the Deslandes Champigny family tree.) When Jean
sailed for the new world in 1685, his mother, Anne Delost had already died in
1676 and Philippe Deslandes, his father, passed away four years later.
Let us attempt to picture the arrival of our
ancestor in New France in August of 1685. Those were difficult times for
the colony, in part because of the political situation and ill-will between the
French, the English and the Iroquois nations. In 1683, the then governor of New
France, Joseph Antoine Lefebvre de La Barre had signed "the shameful
peace" with the Iroquois. His army, weakened by disease and famine, had
not been able to establish a durable peace between the Iroquois and Illinois
nations. The failure to do so had very much annoyed Louis the XIV, the then
King of France. So, the king dispatched a new governor,
Jacques Brisay de Denonville, to the colony under orders to settle this
situation once and for all.
Jean Deslandes became a soldier in
Denonville's army, because he enrolled in a "Compagnie Franche de la
Marine" under the command of "Capitaine" Jacques Daneau de Muy.
In those days, one joined the army through the simple process of answering the
call of the town crier in the village square. Army
officers would canvass French villages looking for recruits. An agreement would
be reached on the soldier's pay, and military training would be provided
on an island off the French coast, making it difficult for the new recruit to
desert the army.
Because the marine convoy which brought
Jean to the New World also carried VIP personalities such as the new governor
Denonville and "Monseigneur" de St Vallier, (the new bishop of New
France who had been appointed to succeed the incumbent Mgr François
de Montmorency Laval,) Jean's voyage to New France was well documented.Two
merchant ships were armed, rigged and outfitted in the port of Rochefort.
Canons were installed and the supplies required for the ocean crossing
provided. The merchant ships named the "Fourgon" and the
"Mulet" then sailed to the port of "La Rochelle" for the
embarkation of their passengers.
The passengers for this oversea voyage were
many: 6 companies of 50 soldiers each, 150 "engagés" ie day
laborers for the colony's agricultural manpower, and of course the
governor , the bishop and their retinue of about 50 people. Too many
people for the capacity of the merchant ships. A frigate, the
"Diligente" would have provided more space and better living
quarters, but the governor commandeered this ship. The "common
people" then were left to put up with the unhealthy overcrowding
of the two merchant ships: 339 passengers and crew boarded the
"Fourgon" while the "Mulet loaded the other 240 voyagers.
In 1685, sailors had to depend on favorable
winds instead of a pre-ordained schedule of departure.. Our convoy was able to
set sail on June 7th 1685. The citadel of La Rochelle fired its canon in answer
to the canon shots from the three departing ships. The boats
rapidly lost sight of the other ships and sailed on their own for the
rest of the ocean crossing. As was the custom in those days, it was during the
ocean voyage that the soldiers gave one another a "nom de
guerre" which would become more often than not the actual surname of their
descendants in the New World. Thus Jean Deslandes became Jean Deslandes
dit Champigny because of his place of birth. Other surnames were
customarily chosen with reference to physical or character traits, names of
flowers or any number of other whimsical reasons.
The VIP passengers of the "Diligente"
enjoyed a comfortable and smooth sea voyage and sighted Québec, which was to
become the oldest city in North America, on August 1st. Adversely, the
other two ships were disease ridden soon after sailing from France. The
Fourgon is said to have lost 90 of its soldiers, crew and "engagés"
while the Mulet had to throw 60 men overboard. Our ancestor's ship
arrived in Québec on August 15th and the last ship to make it, the
Mulet, entered the port on August 30th, more than ten weeks after its departure
from France.
The sick were immediately taken to the
Hotel-Dieu hospital, but the Hospital's resources could not cope with this many
ill people. As a result, patients were bedded in the attic, the stable, even
the chicken coop, and tents had to be set up in the area surrounding
the Hospital building to accommodate more of the sick. (the situation in 2001
is slightly better) Volunteer ladies from the city came to help out the
overburdened nuns. Which is why and how the epidemic spread to the city
dwellers and caused a hundred deaths. To offset the loss of military manpower
caused by this epidemic, the governor decided that the "engagés"
would themselves become soldiers.
Once they became well again, the soldiers were
transferred to Ville-Marie. Since there were no lodgings available for them in
the Ville-Marie settlement, the soldiers were billeted, one or two at a time,
with the "habitants" in the surrounding countryside. The soldiers
brought their pay, clothing and rations with them and lived as did the farmer
and his family. A soldier would quickly find out that he could increase
his income tenfold by getting paid to work the farmer's land. As a
consequence, the soldiers became less available to attend the mandatory
military exercises and reviews. The companies "Capitaines"
found this state of affairs profitable for them as well: The
soldier who worked the fields was not entitled to receive his soldier's pay, so
the Capitaine could keep it for himself. This way, some of the
"Capitaines" could afford to maintain a lifestyle equivalent to that
of the gentility.
It is likely that Jean Deslandes was
billeted with the family of Jean Ronceray in Longueuil. Jean
Ronceray was a widower, his wife had died in childbirth. He was also a
career officer, he had served as a lieutenant in the regiment
of Carignan. His military service over, he had married
Jeanne Servignan who was a "Fille du Roy".Contrary to popular belief,
a Fille du Roy was not a prostitute. These young women came from an orphanage
in Paris, had been brought up by the nuns, endowed by the King and sent
to the colony to wed the settlers of New France.
The long planned punitive expedition of the
French Army into Iroquois territory finally took place in 1687. Two years in
the planning, the French intended this invasion to be a show of strength and
determination against their longtime enemies, the Iroquois. Denonville
assembled 1000 soldiers, 800 militia men and some 200 allied Indians; these
Amerindians were Iroquois, Abenakis or Algonquins from the Jesuit and Sulpician
missions. This contingent traveled on some 200 flat boats, (flatboats were
large rafts loaded with the army personnel and all the gear, including
the arms and ammunitions, necessary to the expedition) they left from
Lachine, sailed the St-Lawrence to the Niagara River and reached the Falls.
To preserve the secrecy of the expedition, the
"intendant" Champigny, second in command to the governor, had gone
ahead of the troops on a scouting mission and had captured the
Indian enemies he had encountered along the waterways. The Indian chiefs among
the prisoners taken, were the ones later sent to Versailles, to the court of
the Sun King, on galley ships. Please note that Jean Bochart
Champigny, Sieur de Noroy et de Verneuil, was not related to Jean
Deslandes., but owned land in Champigny sur Marne, our ancestor's birth place.
The Indian warriors had known that the French
troops were coming and had fled their villages. They ambushed the French
contingent but were defeated in the skirmish. It was then easy for the
Europeans to destroy the Indian houses, fields and harvests. The French
soldiers and their allies then built the Fort of Niagara and took
leave to visit the spectacular and already internationally renowned Falls of
the Niagara river.
Jean Deslandes was discharged from his company
in 1688, as were many other soldiers in the French army at that time.
With a year's pay in his pocket, he felt the time had come to
marry. His chosen bride, Elisabeth Ronceray was 15. He knew her
well since she was the daughter of his farmer-employer. The wedding took place
in a modest wooden Chapel in Boucherville on November 24th 1688. Although, Jean
and Elisabeth were residents of Longueuil, they were not allowed, because of
their lesser social status, to marry at the "manoir" of
the "seigneur" de Longueuil, Charles Lemoyne.
Jean Ronceray gave his daughter a piece
of his land, measuring two acres by forty and fronted by the St-Lawrence
river as a dowry. Elisabeth also received from her father a cow, a pig, six
hens and a rooster.
A baby soon arrived. Jean Baptiste
Deslandes dit Champigny was born on November 10th 1689. It is to Jean Baptiste
that we owe the surname our father gave us.!!! Although
our ancestor was starting on his married and family life more
comfortably than most settlers did in those days, Jean did not seem to
want to live a farmer's life. Even though his father in law gave him an
additional acre of land, Jean and his family left
Longueuil for Ville-Marie, where he became a mason. In Longueuil, two of
Jean's neighbors had been masons, so one can assume, without being totally
certain, that Jean had learned his new trade from them.
In the late sixteen hundredth, several streams
and brooks flowed trough the Island of Montreal. (they are now all built
over) Ville-Marie was an insect infested marsh and its streets not
easily passable. Wood frame houses did not settle firmly in the ground and
rotted easily. Stone houses were in great demand, and houses made
of hewed stones even more so. But, Jean's ability as a mason did not extend to
the hewing of stones. Professional stone masons would usually
hew the stones during the winter months and build houses in the other
seasons. Jean's occupations in the clement weather months would have been
to build walls, dig wells or build stables using fieldstones as his raw
material. It is possible that Jean spent the winter months trading fur pelts
as did most soldiers then.
From the notarized documents of that period, we
learn that Jean's customers for his building services were often
the Sulpician Fathers of Ville-Marie or the nursing nuns from the order
of the "Hospitalières de St Joseph".
Jean's residence was inside the fortified walls
of Ville-Marie but he managed to acquire grants of a few pieces of
land located on the hills surrounding Ville-Marie. These plots would have
allowed him to grow some wheat and to cut firewood, an
absolute necessity to survive the dire winters of North America. We
can logically assume that Jean remained in the militia after his
discharge from the army. The civilian militia men took part in all the army's
operations and would fight alongside the regular troops. In 1696, Frontenac,
the famed governor of Québec, replayed Denonville's expedition into Iroquois
territory. It is very possible that our ancestor joined Frontenac's
troops then and made another foray into enemy country.
At any rate, the date at which Jean started
work for the Sulpician fathers coincides with the time Frontenac's troops
returned to the colony. The Sulpician Fathers, the religious order who owned
most, if not all the real estate in Ville-Marie, as well as being
responsible to run the parish and church of Notre-Dame de Ville-Marie,
(the lovely church on Montreal's Place d'Armes built to resemble
Notre-Dame de Paris is on that same location but was built in 1830)
contracted with Jean Deslandes for him to work on the restoration
of the church. The Notre-Dame church was in a sad state. Inside the
church, the ceiling and walls ravaged by dampness and cold, were in disrepair.
Jean did the job for 600 pounds (livres) actually 9 times as much as his yearly
rent.
Jean and Elisabeth, now parents of 4 children,
moved again in 1698, (we know that they moved 8 times between 1690 and
1710,) to live on Notre-Dame street in the house of the widow Langlois. At that
time, Jean Deslandes went into a business partnership with Pierre Couturier dit
le Bourguignon (Burgundian) and Gilbert Maillet. Couturier is known
to have been the first Canadian architect, he built the Château Ramesay, still
standing in old Montreal. This business arrangement gave Jean the opportunity
to work building two noblemen's houses. But his associates reneged
on the deal and refused to pay him, claiming that he had not actually
hewed the stones used on the houses. To recover the money owed him, Jean went
before the Ville-Marie civil court four times to no avail. The matter was
finally settled in Quebec city before the Sovereign Counsel. (The
people who sat on the Conseil Souverain were the Bishop, the Governor, the
intendant and 6 prominent residents of Quebec.) Jean won his case at
last.
There was very little metal or paper currency
circulating in the colony in those days. Commerce, or the exchange of
goods for money, was limited mostly to a general merchant supplying all
the consumer needs of his clients for credit. We know that Jean's
financial circumstances were worrisome because in the fall of 1700,
Jean signed a note of hand ie an I.O.U. to his creditor/supplier.
In the spring of 1700, Elisabeth died from the birth of her 5th child. This
unfortunate situation was then a frequent occurrence. A legal procedure ensued
because a guardian had to be named to the heirs of Elisabeth and
Jean's community of property. The inventory showed that the total assets of the
family: 8 chairs, a folding table, 8 plates, utensils, some pails, farming and
mason tools. (beds, clothes, the husband's rifle, jewelry were not part
of such an inventory) Jean then sold a piece of land but still owed
70 pounds (livres) to Pierre Perthuis, the merchant general.
The following, year, Jean wedded
Madeleine Galarneau, a young widow from Quebec city. Madeleine
brought to the union a dowry of 500 pounds. The wedding ceremony
took place in Notre Dame church, on October 24th. It appears that
Jean's personal circumstances changed completely following his union to
Madeleine. For instance, when the couple's first child was christened,
the baby's godparents were Josué de Beaucours, "Capitaine of a
compagnie de la Marine", and Jeanne-Charlotte, the daughter of
Jacques-Alexis Fleury d'Eschambault, who was chief magistrate of the civil and
criminal jurisdictions in Montreal, and a representative of the King.
Around the year 1704, Jean was no longer
active as a mason, and occupied himself mostly at farming his plots of land.
His purchases were charged to the account of his friend Gilbert Maillet
because the local merchants would no longer sell to him on credit.
In 1706, Pierre Perthuis, the merchant general, decided to seek payment
for money owed him by Jean. The bailiff showed up at the home of Jean and
Madeleine, who claimed that the debt had long ago been reimbursed to the merchant's
brother in law. As the bailiff attempted to seize a trunk, Madeleine sat on it
and called him a rogue, thief and scoundrel. When the bailiff
tried to get hold of the carcass of a pig hanging from the door frame,
there was Jean armed with an ax, ready to defend his property.
No contract involving Jean Deslandes dit
Champigny is to be found for the period of 1706 to 1710. Jean died
in the Hotel-Dieu hospital on September 15th 1710. Because the hospital
building burned down several times, no records exist that
would tell us about his illness or cause of death. Upon his death, Jean's
assets were so few that it was deemed unnecessary to take inventory. The
sale of an ax, a trunk, an old horse would not have satisfied the
numerous creditors' claims. As she was entitled to do by law, Madeleine asked
the civil court to be free from the community of property. Her demand was
granted. Madeleine remarried a few years later. Her third husband was
Jean-Baptiste Joly. She died in childbirth at age 39.
Three children of Jean Deslandes dit Champigny
and Elisabeth Ronceray survived: Claude became an adventurer and a
"coureur des bois", Pierre, a mason and a hewer of stone, and
prospered. He had no male heirs and left his estate to his 4 daughters.
Jean-Baptiste, the first born, was also a mason and a hewer of stone. To him,
we owe the survival of the family surnames. We learn from legal acts,
from civil and criminal courts, that he had an eventful life. He
left Ville-Marie after his house was sold at auction and went to live in the
islands of Verchères. Anne was the only child from the marriage of Jean and
Madeleine Galarneau to survive. She married a soldier, Jacques Beneteau dit
Sanspeur (Fearless)and lived an unhappy life, in Montreal.
Jean's descendants dispersed along the
Richelieu valley, some migrated to the USA at the time of the French-Canadian
exodus, in the mid-nineteenth century, particularly to Rhode-Island,
Massachusetts, Connecticut and Vermont. But the family surnames live on in
Illinois Nebraska and Texas as well.
