THE SECOND GENERATION
In the first chapter we met Jacques Eriché dit Louteteau
and his wife Marie Joffrion, the founders of the Richer dit Louveteau
family in North America. They had seventeen
children but only six reached adulthood, three girls and three boys. Two of the
sons were married, had children and carried the name through the second
generation. They were Jean-Baptiste and François. In
this chapter we will follow my ancestors' line and meet François.
*
FRANÇOIS HERICHE (1702-1763)
MARIE ANNE BRUNET (1700-1744)
FRANÇOIS,
- born on October 22nd, 1702 in Montreal, died
on December 26th 1763 at the « age of 63 » and buried the day after in the cemetary of the Poors in
Montreal;
- son of Jacques
Heriche dit Louveteau and
Marie Joffrion;
- married the first time on October 18th, 1723
at Saint-Laurent (Montreal),
with:
MARIE ANNE BRUNET (first wife),
- born in 1700, died
on October 23rd, 1744 at the « age of about 43 » and buried the following day
at Sainte-Geneviève (Montreal);
- daughter of Jacques
and Jeanne Verre.
- married the second time on October 11th 1745
at Sault-au-Récollet (Montreal) with:
MARIE JOSEPH NORMANT (second wife),
- born in 1719, died
on Marche 1787 at
the « age of about 82 » and buried the day after in Pointe-Claire (Montreal);
- daughter of Pierre
and Catherine Lahaye.
*
Children of the first
marriage: (all born
on the Island of Montreal)
1 - Anonymous, born, died on August
30th, 1724 and buried the day after at Saint-Laurent;
2 - Marie Joseph, born May 8th, 1726
at Saint-Laurent, died and buried on April 1st, 1733 at Pointe-Claire;
3 - François, born April 27th, 1728 at
Rivière-des-Prairies, died before 1747;
4 - Marie Elizabeth, born May 9th,
1731 at Saint-Laurent, married on October 25th, 1751 at Sainte-Geneviève with Charles Emery Coderre
dit Beauvais;
5 - Jean-Baptiste,
born on November 10th, 1732 at Rivière-des-Prairies,
married the first time on March 1756 at Saint-Laurent with Marie Louise
Emery Coderre dit Beauvais; the second time on January 8th, 1771 at
Saint-Laurent with Marie Françoise Duchêne Lesourd;
6 - Pierre Amable,
born on April 8th, 1734 at Pointe-Claire, died on July 16th 1734 and buried the
same day.
7 - Paul, born on August 14th, 1735 at
Pointe-Claire, married on May 22nd, 1758 at Saint-Laurent with Cécile Brizebois,
(more about him in the next chapter);
8 - Marie-Marguerite, born on May 22,
1737 at Pointe-Claire, (mentally handicapped);
9 - Pierre Amable,
born on October 10th, 1740 at Pointe-Claire, (mentally handicapped);
10 - Anonymous, born and died on
October 23rd, 1744, buried in Sainte-Geneviève the
day after with his mother who died in childbirth.
One child of the second
marriage:
1 - François, born on September 27th,
1747 at Sainte-Geneviève, married on February 11th
1765 at Saint-Vincent-de-Paul (Laval)
with Théodore Marie Bazinet.
*
François' two marriages
François will marry twice. The
first time with Marie-Anne Brunet on October 18th, 1723 in Saint-Laurent and
the second time with Marie-Joseph Normand, on October
11th 1745 at Sault-au-Récollet (Montreal).
On the eve of his first marriage, he and
Marie-Anne will pass their marriage contract with the Notary David from Montreal. His father, his
brother Jean-Baptiste and his brother-in-law Jean-Baptiste Joly are present with
six other people.
Here are some of the highlights of the marriage
contract.
1 - they agree to
marry as soon as possible according to the Roman Catholic Church;
2 - they accept no
responsibility for one another`s debts contracted
prior to the marriage;
3 - all property
received by either during the marriage will become community property;
4 - François dowers his wife with a certain
sum, should he predecease her, such sum to be a first charge on the community
property;
5 - A further sum is guaranteed by the spouses
mutually, such sum to be a first charge on the community property;
6 - Marie-Anne reserves the right to renounce
the community that is to get out of the marriage contract `because of debts`
and to take back her contribution whatever she brought into the marriage;
7 - Finally, if there are no children of the
marriage the survivor of the spouses inherits all. This clause was put in to
prevent the property of the couple being split up among the relatives of the
deceased.
Between 1724 and 1744, the Richer had ten
children. Only five lived to reach adulthood: Jean-Baptiste,
Paul, Elisabeth (Isabelle), Marguerite and Pierre. The last two are mentally
handicapped. Marie-Anne died on October 23rd 1744, while giving birth to a
stillborn baby.
Less than a year after the death of his first
wife François married again. There was no social disapproval of this, there
being small children at home and needing a mother. Thier
marriage contract was passed in front of the local priest. As mentioned above,
one child only was born of the second marriage.
François an itinerant labourer
During the first ten years of his marriage
François would have been an itinerant agricultural labourer helping new comers
to settle on newly granted lands.
It is possible, too, that he bought standing
timber to cut and sell it. In 1724 he, with his brother-in-law Pierre Plouffe, contracted to furnish Pierre Léger, dît Parisien of the Lac des Deux Montagnes - with the lumber
necessary to construct a barn 40 feet by 22.
François tries to settle in
Saint-Laurent
From 1726 François tried to establish himself
on his own farm. He acquired from Pierre Janson dit Lapalme a tract of some 60 acres of which five acres
were in cultivation and upon which there was an old shabby shed. Four years
later François and his wife admitted that they couldn`t
manage the payments required under the contract. They never lived on the land.
The purchase price was payable by an annual and
time life rental payable to one Madame d'Argenteuil
to whom Lapalme owed money. François was bound also to haul lime and sand to
rough-cast two chimneys, the property of Madame d'Argenteuil.
Besides, he undertook to pay upon her behalf a debt owed by her to a carpenter
with whom she had agreed for the purchase of a house. In addition, François was
to pay to the seigneurs of the Island of Montreal back dues (which sums
corresponded in those days to taxes) from 1702.
On the 15th of August, 1730,
François and his spouse handed back the land to its original proprietor. But
they weren`t at the end of their troubles! Meanwhile
the Intendant of New France,
Gilles Hoquart, responsible for Justice in the
colony, condemned François to pay the annual sums due to Madame d'Argenteuil .
François and his spouse had no land but retained the debt.
A few years later, in 1735, François couldn`t pay a debt he owed to Jean-Baptiste
Neveu, a merchant from Sainte-Geneviève.
His co-signer, Nicolas Gagnon, was forced to make good on his guarantee.
François settles on Bizard Island
In any case François' situation seems
thereafter to have improved. We find him in 1738 in possession of some land on Bizard
Island. In fact, looking
at the various documents concerning the family - it`s
possible that the family had established itself on Bizard
Island as early as 1733.
In that year one of the daughters of François
was buried in the cemetery of Pointe-Claire parish of which Bizard Island forms a part. After 1740 the
inhabitants of Bizard Island
will be integrated into the new parish of Sainte-Geneviève.
Conceded to Jacques Bizard
in 1678 there was no colonization on the Island
until 1730. The first colonists came from the Island of Montreal,
mostly from the parish of Saint-Laurent. In 1763 at the time of the Conquest,
there were 28 homes on Bizard Island.
François' land measured 4 'arpents'
by 20. (approximately 80
acres.) The land in question is on the South side of the Island facing the mainland, in the part first settled.
François lived on this land until his death in 1763.
Marie-Anne Brunet, first wife of François, died
in 1744. Her five surviving children inherited their mother's share in the
Community as required at that time by the Civil Code. Therefore they had a
right to half of their parents' estate that is the land, the goods and chattels
situated on Bizard
Island.
In 1760 and 1763 one of the children, Jean-Baptiste, bought the shares of his sister Elizabeth and of
his brother Paul in the estate of their deceased mother. Jean-Baptiste paid a sum to Paul and agreed to cut for him a an
acre of wood on his land situate on Bizard Island,
and also to give him a day of work to help him pile the said wood. To
his sister and her spouse Charles Beauvais, Jean-Baptiste paid a larger sum of money.
On July 14th, 1763 Paul, Jean-Baptiste and Elizabeth
all abandoned their rights and those of their brother Pierre and their sister
Marguerite (both the last two being dependent) in the estate of their mother
and of their father, in favour of their half-brother François.
They stipulated that in the event of the
re-marriage of their stepmother Marie-Joseph Normand,
their said stepmother could not remain to occupy, with her new husband, their
father's land.
Donation of the Richer
homestead to François' youngest son
A few days before his death on December 14th,
1763 François and his (second) wife Marie-Josephe,
pursuant to the authorization received by the children of the first marriage,
made a donation in favour of their son François who lived with them.
At this period of time it was common for
children to sell or to cede their individual shares in a parent's estate to one
among them. In such a case, the beneficiary - usually a son - would undertake
to support the parents for the remainder of their days.
Parents and children owed one another mutual
support. Where there were no relatives capable of extending help paupers went
to religious institutions subsidized by the Crown (today we would substitute
'the state').
In the case of François we had a 'donation
between live persons'; the handing over by François senior and his spouse to
their son François of the land situate on Bizard Island with the goods and chattels there
situated. In return, François engaged himself to support his mother and father
during their lifetimes:
- to provide ordinary food, lodging, clothing
and shoes, heat, laundry &c in accordance with their status in life, to
care for them in sickness and in health and during sickness to obtain for them
necessary comforts, to obtain for them the help of priests and medical doctors
and to bury them at death in accordance with their status and condition.
In addition, François agreed to take on the
responsibility for Pierre
and Marguerite (his brother and sister) and to treat them humanely, for they
are demented and poor in spirit.
Death of François and sale of his
farm
François died a few days later, on December
26th, 1763, at the age of 61. Like his mother a few years earlier, he was
buried in the Graveyard of the Poor in Montreal.
His second wife, Marie-Joseph Normand would marry for
the second time in April 1765 with Jacques Périllard,
a neighbour. She will die in 1787 and will be buried on Pointe-Claire.
His father deceased and his mother remarried,
François sold the paternal lands to his half-brother Jean-Baptiste
on February 10th, 1766. The obligation to tend to the needs of Pierre and Marguerite now devolved upon Jean-Baptiste.
On February 18th, 1782, Jean-Baptiste sold part of the home farm to his other brother
Paul who took on the responsibility for Marguerite. The following year Paul
sold this part of the land to a neighbour, Michel Brunet. He took his sister in
to live with him and his family in a new colony but we are already into a new
story.
François and his two wives' descendance
Of the eleven children, issue of François' two
marriages, only six attained adulthood and of these two were mentally
handicapped. Of the four others, there was one girl, Elizabeth, and three sons:
Jean-Baptiste, Paul and their half-brother François.
François will have no children. The other two
will leave Montreal and Bizard Island. They will go and establish
themselves in the North in a new colony - the region of Rivière-du-Chêne,
or Saint-Eustache, where they will produce numerous progeny.
This branch of the family, issue of the second
generation, forms part of the family tree of most of the Richer dit Louveau that we find today in
the Laurentides (area North of Montreal), in the
Ottawa RiverValley, including Gatineau
and Ottawa and in the North of Ontario.