♂Pierre Favreau

Pierre Favreau (about 1636 – 26 May 1708) was a soldier of the Carignan-Salières regiment^W who settled in New France as a farmer, first around Contrecoeur and Sorel and later on the land of the seigneur Pierre Boucher^W at Boucherville. He was the ninth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Marie Anne Favreau dit Deslauriers (died by 1737).

Soldier and settler

His parents and his place of origin are not known. Yves Landry’s study of the filles du roi, in its entry for his wife, describes him as a soldier of the company of Contrecoeur in the Carignan regiment, and afterwards a habitant and farmer; it names him Favreau dit Deslauriers, the by-name his daughter Marie Anne carried. The company took its name from its captain, Antoine Pécaudy de Contrecœur^W, later seigneur of Contrecoeur. A compiled series of French-Canadian family histories says that Pierre and Antoine Emery dit Coderre, who later married his daughter, served in the same company; Landry’s entry agrees independently on Pierre’s company. The regiment’s roll, as printed in Jack Verney’s history of the regiment, lists “Pierre Favreau (Des Lauriers)” among the men of the Contrecoeur company. Pierre could not sign his name.

Marriage and family

He married Marie Benoit, one of the filles du roi^W, who had arrived in the colony in 1667; Landry gives the marriage as before 1668, at Contrecoeur. Landry credits the couple with thirteen children, and a nineteenth-century genealogical dictionary names twelve. Baptisms of eight of them, born between 1675 and 1693, appear in the index of the colony’s parish registers: at Sorel in 1675 and 1677, at Contrecoeur from 1683 to 1686, and at Boucherville from 1688 to 1693.

By 1688 the family was at Boucherville. On 5 June 1688 the notary Michel Moreau drew up the marriage contract of their daughter Marie Anne with Antoine Emery dit Coderre, a widower, and described Pierre as the farmer of the Saint-Joseph farm belonging to Mr Boucher, on the côte Saint-Joseph at Boucherville. The bride was assisted not only by her parents but by Pierre Boucher, seigneur of Boucherville, and his wife Jeanne Crevier. The seigneur was the family’s landlord; the contract does not say more about the tie.

The family was still on Boucher’s land in January 1700, when the Boucherville register called Pierre and Marie “fermiers de l’Isle de Mr Boucher” at the marriages of two of their sons: Antoine to Anne Meunier on 11 January, and Mathurin to Madeleine Emery the same month, with Mr Boucher among the witnesses at both. Madeleine was a daughter of Antoine Emery dit Coderre by his first wife, so Mathurin’s bride was his own sister’s stepdaughter, and his sister’s husband became his father-in-law.

Pierre died on 26 May 1708, according to Landry’s study; a nineteenth-century genealogical dictionary gives his burial at Contrecoeur. Marie outlived him by seventeen years.

Notes

One family history gives his birth as 1618 and his marriage as 1666; the dates here follow Landry’s study.