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Explore :
A Historical Glimpse of
Nicolas Peltier and His Family in New France:
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Signature abstracted from the registry of Antoine Adhémar, 10
October 1673 |
The first Pelletier family to settle in
New France was that of Nicolas Peltier (1596-c.1679), who arrived in
Québec City accompanied by his wife Jeanne de Voisy (c.1612-1689) and
their two sons Jean and François (c.1633-1692 and c.1635-c.1688,
respectively).
The first time we encounter Nicolas Peltier in New France is at the
baptism of his daughter in the spring of 1637, and we can deduce from this
that he was aboard one of the three or four vessels that arrived in Québec
on 11 June 1636. Under the command of Charles du Plessis-Bochart, this
fleet included one carrier transporting forty-five people, commanded by
Savinien Courpon Delatour, and two or three other ships, including the
Saint Joseph. Among the one hundred or so people who arrived that day,
historian Marcel Trudel has been able to identify ninety-one colonists,
including Nicolas Peltier, Jeanne de Voisy, and their two young sons Jean
et François (Catalogue des immigrants, 1632-1662, page 62).
Photos : ©2005
Pascal Pelletier private collection. |
Nicolas Peltier was originally from the parish of Gallardon, found in
the Beauce region of France southeast of Paris at the confluence of
the Voise and Ocre rivers. The parish church, like many Catholic
edifices, is dedicated to saints Peter and Paul. Founded in the
eleventh century by Herbert de Gallardon under the auspices of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, the church was consecrated again definitively in
the thirteenth century. Furthermore its construction evinces three
architectural movements, Roman, Gothic and Renaissance. It was in this
church that Nicolas Peltier was baptized 4 June 1596.
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Master-carpenter Nicolas Peltier and his wife Jeanne de Voisy lived in
Québec City from 1636 to 1645. In 1639 Nicolas and fellow carpenter Pierre
Pelletier appraised the timber frames of the house of the late Guillaume
Hébert [Editor’s note: The identity of this Pierre Pelletier is unknown;
he might be a brother of Nicolas Peltier; it is certain that he is not the
ancestor from Saint-Martin-de-Fraigneau, who was still in France at this
time]. Later, in 1647, he constructed the steeple of Notre-Dame de Québec
Church, and the next year he installed the roof of Château Saint-Louis,
the governor’s residence. Finally, over the next decade, Nicolas continued
to hire himself out to construct and maintain various houses and barns in
the area. On 12 September 1645, Governor Charles Huault de Montmagny
granted Nicolas a fifty-acre concession of land in the seigneury of
Sillery, where the Peltier family settled soon after.
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Gallardon’s town
hall, circa 1900
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Gallardon’s town
hall, july
2005
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Nicolas
Peltier and Jeanne de Voisy arrived with two sons, Jean (c.1633-1692) and
François (c.1635-c.1688), and over the years, their family grew to include
eight children: Marie (1637-aft. 1711); Louise (1640-1713); Françoise
(1642-1707); Jeanne (1644-1715); Geneviève (1646-1717) and finally Nicolas
(1649-1729). As is true for many other pioneers, the children and
grandchildren of these early colonists went on to settle in different
regions New France, and several ventured west to explore the American
continent. Two sons in particular, François and Nicolas, were pursued a
life of adventure. The first is known to have been a fur-trader in the
company of Noël Jérémie de La Montagne, who wed François’ sister Jeanne in
1659.
Many years later, on October 22, 1675, François Pelletier dit Antaya and
his wife, Marguerite Morisseau purchased the Seigneurie d’Orvilliers from
Philippe Gauthier de Comporté; found on the north shore of the Saint
Lawrence River, this fief ran one half-league along the river and extended
inland one league. François and Marguerite went on to bequeath one-half of
their estate to son Jean-Baptiste dit Pierre Pelletier dit Antaya
(1676-1757), while dividing the remaining half among their other surviving
children: Michel (c.1674-c.1744), Marguerite (1666-????), Marie-Angélique
(1662-1741), Geneviève (1668-aft. 1716), and Catherine (c.1672-aft. 1716).
Nicolas Peltier dit Marolles, the youngest of the Peltier family, lived at
the trading post at Tadoussac, at the mouth of the Saguenay River, and was
the first white pioneer to settle permanently in the Saguenay – Lac
Saint-Jean region. Inspired by Victor Tremblay’s Histoire du Saguenay,
Claire Domey’s novel Ilinishu recounts the lives of Nicolas Peltier dit
Marolles and his son, Charles, called “Ilinishu” in the book, as pioneers
of Lac Saint-Jean. Elsewhere, author Arthur Buis imagined a fantastical
character and wondered if this Peltier was a “coureur des bois,” a
philosopher, or a hermit.
Here is an extract taken from “l’Almanach historique du Saguenay,” which
appeared in Chicoutimi’s Le Quotidien newspaper in June 1988: “One of a
kind, Nicolas Peltier lived on the shores of the Saguenay, at a place that
today still bears his name. In fact, on the map of the Domaine du Roy that
shows the part of the region visited by land surveyor Joseph-Laurent
Normandin in 1732, we can see the location of the home of a particular
‘Monsieur Peltier,’ 183 miles from Lac Saint-Jean.” All the same, not
everyone has spoken admirably about Nicolas Peltier dit Marolles.
Monsignor Amédée Gosslin, for instance, made this harsh remark: “He was
neither a philosopher nor a hermit, but a ‘coureur des bois,’ a mere
errand-boy, and, worst of all, a French-Canadian with the morals of a
Savage.”
We end here by citing some thoughts shared by Mona Gauthier at the second
annual Pelletier Family Association Reunion in Laval in 1988. Reminiscing
about a time when she snow-shoed along the Saguenay in Saint-Fulgence, she
said, “I wanted to know the man who had admired, as I was doing, the
magnificence of the Saguenay, at this place where it is lost among the
mountains, having formed in its flow the famous Baie-des-Ha.” Indeed, with
her words, Ms. Gauthier reveals her search for this individual who, surely
never dreaming of it during his lifetime, left his name to as poetic a
spot along the Saguenay as “Anse-à-Peltier.”
Claude E Pelletier,
m.g.a. and Laure Gauthier, m.g.a.
Text revised and translated by Benoit Pelletier Shoja, october 2005. |
