Dans un Petit Village

Carrying on from the last post about Francois Voyer and Delphine Faucher, I would like to start off with Joseph Claude Cresse de Courval. Courval was the parish priest who married Francois and Delphine. Joseph Claude Cresse de Courval (1762 - 1846) was much more than a parish priest. Joseph Claude Cresse de Courval was the son of Joseph Claude Paulin ( 1731 - 1785) and Genevieve Dumont. Joseph Claude Cresse de Courval was born on August 12, 1762. Joseph Claude Poulin, the seigneur of Nicolet, was the son of Claude Poulin (1700 - 1785) and Marie - Ann Lefebvre (1707 - 1785). Claude Poulin was, the seigneur of Nicolet and the son of Jean - Baptiste Poulin (1657 - 1727) and Louise Cresse (1675 - 1706). Jean - Baptiste was the prosecutor for the king and seigneur of Nicolet. Jean - Baptiste Poulin was the son of Maurice (Mauritius) Poulin de la Fontaine (1620 - 1727) and Jeanne Jallot (1622 - 1708). Maurice Poulin was the attorney general for the king in Trois Rivière. Maurice Poulin was...

After spending more or less two months writing about the historical Parent family houses in Beauport, Quebec I think it is only fair that I write a post about François Voyer. This where I  left off before I went to Beauport, Quebec back in June of 2019.  The story about François Voyer will take a few posts because there seems to be much more that I can say about him. In one post. This post I will go from François' birth to his marriage. François Xavier Voyer was born on February 18, 1801 to François Voyer (1774 - 1851) and Madeleine Vandal ( 1779 - 1815). As was the custom, François was baptised the next day, February 19, 1801, in L'Ancienne Lorette at Notre - Dame - de - l'Annonciation. François' godfather was Joseph Voyer, his father's brother and his uncle. I had difficulty trying to make out the godmother's name. her first name was Marie but the second name was not clear. It looks like 'Gottin' or 'Godin'. I found references to both of th...

La maison Étienne Parent is the last of the historical Parent family homes that we visited on our walk around historical Beauport. There were other houses that we could have visited but there was no more time. Besides, it is a reason to visit Beauport again some time in the future. It is a bit misleading to call this house, 'la maison Étienne Parent'. Yes, it is true that Étienne Parent was born in this house but he was such a remarkable student and his intelligence was readily apparent to his family that he was sent to the college of Nicolet for his secondary education. Nicolet college was one of the schools in Quebec at that time. Other than returning to his parents home during summer vacations to work on the family farm , Étienne never lived in this house again. Étienne Parent was without a doubt the most remarkable member of our family, if not one of the most remarkable men during 19th Century Quebec. He was a lawyer, a journalist, a philosopher, a politician but...

La maison Felix Parent is different from all of the other houses that I have written about so far. We did not have time to get to la maison Felix Parent on Saturday. We had spent much longer at the cemeteries than we thought, there were many more "Parent" tombstones to document that we realized! We had stopped at the IGA in Beauport to picked up some items on Saturday evening when I realized that la maison Felix Parent was very close to the IGA. We decided that we would visit the last two houses on our list on Sunday morning before heading back to Montreal, that would give me time for a good look at the house and time to take pictures. It seemed like a good plan. Sunday morning was the opposite of the bright and sunny day that we enjoyed the day before on Saturday. When we got up on Sunday morning it was overcast. When I went out for coffee it was raining. For the rest of the day it never stopped raining. Still, I wanted to see the last two houses. It was early on Sun...

La maison Edouard T. Parent house is unique in that is was built on the original land that was ceded to Pierre Parent (1628 - 1698) by the Jesuits in 1654, two years after Pierre had arrived in Nouvelle France in 1652. Pierre is the original ancestor of our Parent family. La maison Edouard T. Parent was one of the first homes to be built on the seigneury of Notre Dame des Anges which was owned by the Jesuits. From the mid 18th century until 1953 the house had remained in the Parent family. I built that this house should be called la maison Parent because it is so fundamental to the history, location and residence of the Parent family. There were two distinct stages of construction for la maison Edouard T. Parent. The first stage was built on a stone foundation (provided by the Parent stone quarry) before 1750. The first stage would now be the eastern portion of the house. It had two chimneys and gabled walls. The second half of the house, the western section, was added in 1804. Arc...

I  saw the Maison Laurent dit Lortie as we were driving int Beauport on the Friday evening that we drove from Montreal. I recognised the house immediately from the pictures that I had seen on the internet. It was late afternoon and the late afternoon shadows gave the house an dramatic look that impressed on me just old the house is. Unfortunately, we could not stop to look. we had been on the road for over three hours and we were anxious to get to our destination, the Ambassador Hotel and get something to eat. The Maison Laurent dit Lortie would have to wait for the next day. The maison Laurent dit Lortie would be the last house that we would look at on chemin Royal that day, it was located at 3200 chemin Royal. There was one more house and two cemeteries to visit before lunch! We had been impressed by our passing impression of the maison Laurent Lortie when we had driven past the evening before. Now in the mid-morning light the house had the appearance of being filled with light...

We arrive at the ' école de la côte des Pères' , the old schoolhouse at 3425 chemin Royal, a short walk just west of the Maison Alexis - Parent at 3525 - 3527 chemin Royal. The 'école de la côte des Pères' is a private residence now but it was once a schoolhouse. In 1844, Queen Victoria awarded a commision to George Louis Lemoine, a priest, and Captain Alexis Georgeville in Beauport. The location bordered on the lands that belonged to the Jesuits at that time, Domaine Notre-Dame-des Anges . Within the year George Louis Lemoine and Captain Alexis Georgeville began construction on the first school in Giffard (Beauport), the school that was to be known as 'école de la côte des Pères'. I should clarify that up to the middle of the twentieth century the Catholic Church controlled and was deeply involved in education, especially at the primary school level. It makes perfect sense that the Jesuits would provide the land for the school commissioned by Queen Vi...