Pierre Lefebvre
By Thomas J. Laforest
Versatile and omnipresent are the words which best describe Pierre Lefebvre. Founder of the oldest Lefebvre family in America, this ancestor left his heritage with the families of the Denoncourt, Descoteaux, Lemerise, Lassisseraye, and with many of the Beaulac, Belisle and Senneville families. He came from France during the early 1640's, and soon was counted among the notables of Trois-Rivieres: Hew was a land clearer, builder, mayor, surveyor, church warden and arbiter. The citizens of Cap-de-la-Madeleine may also claim him among the pioneers of their town since Pierre and his family lived there for several years. He probably died there about 1668.
A PARISIAN TRANSPLANTED TO TROIS-RIVIERES
Endowed with an uncommonly sharp intellect, this remarkable builder came from the Paris region. The son of Pierre Lefebvre and of Jeanne Cutiloup, Pierre had come from Sceaux by 1642. His presence was first noted at Trois-Rivieres on 11 April 1643, in a case opposing the brothers Michel and Jacques Leneuf against Guillaume Isabel. The former were accused of kicking and beating the latter. The fact of his having been a witness to the charge must not have left the Leneufs with any rancor, because Jacques and Marie-Marguerite Leneuf were godparents to Pierre Lefebvre's eldest son, Jacques, on 12 January 1647,
Certain genealogists assert that ancestor Lefebvre arrived in New France already married to Jeanne Aunois, but it is more likely that their marriage was celebrated at Trois-Rivieres about 1646. Neither the civil nor marriage record have been recovered. However, a contract recorded by Severin Ameau, dated 2 September 1663, indicates that our ancestor was a native of Sceaux and that his father was also named Pierre.
Pierre acquired his first land grant from Governor Charles Hualt de Montmagny on 15 August 1644. According to historian Marcel Trudel, this plot had an area of thirty arpents and was bordered by land belonging to the heirs of Etienne Vien, to Jacques Aubuchon dit le Loyal and a third piece to the savages.
A LARGE LAND OWNER
On 16 April 1647, the Company of New France ceded to Pierre Lefebvre, at the same time as to Nicolas Marsolet, a grant of a quarter league in frontage by a league in depth, whose southwest boundary extended to the mouth of the Gentilly River. The Marsolet domain, situated upstream of Lefebvre's was allotted to him en fief et seigneurie with the right to dispense justice; for Pierre however, it was a matter of une simple censive, as confirmed by le papier terrier de 1667-1668. These two pieces of land were joined into a single fief in 1676.
On 1 June 1674, Governor Montmagny bestowed another favor on the tireless Pierre. Along with Guillaume Pepin, Guillaume Isabel and Sebastien Dodier, he allowed him to clear the Ile de Mileau, across from their homes.
CAPTURED BY THE IROQUOIS
The Journal of the Jesuits reported that on 4 July 1648, our ancestor was captured by the Iroquois. In his report of that year, Father Jerome Lallemant described this incident as follows:
"The next day, the fourteenth of the same month of July, an Algonquin having discovered the trail of enemy, advised Monsieur de la Poterie of it, who warned the inhabitants by the alarm bell and by a volley of cannon, the ordinary signal to be on one's guard; five Hurons nearest to the place where the enemy were already grappling with two of our Frenchmen who were guarding the cattle, ran to the voices and the clamor of the combatants,
they joined them, resisting the effort of more than eighty men. Due to this noise, two armed boats were sent by water, but before they arrived at the place of combat, the Hiroquois had already killed a Frenchman and a Huron, and took two French and two Huron prisoners; they were nevertheless frightened, having seen several of their men killed and wounded by the Frenchmen, so that they fled, even though they were at least ten against one. One of the French prisoners was the nephew of Monsieur de la Poterie, who was out hunting a little way off and found himself taken without knowing how it happened: the Huron was a good Christian, he had made his confession on the preceding Sunday, as did the Frenchman; the two captive Hurons were not baptized; as for the French prisoners, we may render testimony to their goo life, even if they were at fault to be so exposed with the knowledge that they had of the enemy.
Pierre Lefebvre spent three long months as a captive among the Iroquois and returned in October in the company of one of the latter, who had managed to escape his guards at Trois-Rivieres some time earlier.
On 14 June 1650, Pierre acquired a pied-a-terre in Trois-Rivieres. It measured twenty toises in frontage by the same in depth, near the palisade, between rue Saint-Francois-Xavier and the place of Bertrand Fafard dit Laframboise. On this land stood a house shared by him and Fafard. Thirteen years later in a lawsuit brought by our ancestor against Jacques and Rene Besnard, it was inferred that this house, which today would be on Turcotte terrace, had had no roof for the past two years and was in a state of decay. A bit later Pierre became the proprietor of a small island named l'Islet, situated at the mouth of the Saint-Maurice River between the mainland and the Ile de la Trinite (Saint-Quentin).
AT CAP-DE-LA-MADELEINE
The Lefebvre family could have begun to travel back and forth between Trois-Rivieres and the Cap in 1656. On 11 May, Martin Boutet, then clerk of the church at Quebec, professor of mathematics and administrator for the estate of Antoine Denys dit Saint-Denys, sold our ancestor a piece of land with two arpents in frontage by twenty in depth, I the seigneurey of Cap-de-la Madeleine. This land had been ceded to the Denys family in 1651 and it bordered on a concession of Claude David and the Jesuit domain.
MAYOR, CHURCH WARDEN, ARBITER AND BUILDER
Pierre Lefebvre was the tririverine mayor in 1658 and 1660, then churchwarden in 1663. On 26 November 1664, we see him with Pierre Boucher and Jean Cussan, two other sagacious men of the era, arbitrating a dispute between Father Jacques Fremin and Pierre Couc dit Lafleur. A little earlier we note his participation in the construction of the first church of Trois-Rivieres. Wrote Benjamin Sulte:
"Pierre Lefebvre held an honorable place in Trois-Rivieres and was one of the principal citizens who contributed to the erection of the first parish church of this town in 1664. His numerous descendants today would form a regiment."
The Lefebvres were mentioned in the census of 1666 and 1667 at Trois-Rivieres. In those years they had three employees: Noel Carpentier, Jean Leduc and Jean Vintonneau; seven head of cattle and eighty arpents of land.
On 30 January 1666, Father Jacques Fremin, administrator for the Jesuits, gave a two arpent homestead to our ancestor it was across the river in the seigneury of Cap-de-la-Madeleine. There the Lefebvre family lived and it was probably there that the head of the family passed away two years later.
THE END OF AN HONORABLE COUPLE
As best we can determine, during the summer of 1668, Pierre, probably feeling that the end was near, put his affairs in order. On 11 July, he gave the fief at Gentilly to his son-in-law, surgeon Felix Thunaye dit Dufresne. The latter sold it to Michel Peltier who began to work it and later gave it to his brother-in-law Francois Poisson. On the preceding 20 January, Pierre divided his property among his seven children; Jacques, Michel, Ignace, Ange, Pierre, Catherine and Elisabeth.
Concludes Father Archange Godbout on the subject of Pierre Lefebvre:
"This worthy citizen made his last testament at his home on 16 July 1668. The loss of the registries of Cap-de-la-Madeleine prevent us from fixing the date of his death, but we do know that Jeanne Auneau (Aunois) was a widow on 12 October 1670."
This date is known through the marriage contract between eldest son Jacques and Marie Baudry. As for Jeanne Aunois, the census of 1681 tells us that she was 54 years old with sons Michel, Ignace and Pierre living at home, probably to help her raise her cattle and work her forty arpents of cleared land. According to Jette, she died and was buried at Trois-Rivieres on 12 February 1697.
FOUNDER AND "FATHER" OF BAIE-SAINT-ANTOINE
It has now been 300 years since the Lefebvre family settled at Baie-Saint-Antoine, commonly called Baie-de-Febvre. Its founder and "father", according to the abbot Joseph-Elzear Bellemare, was the seigneur Jacques Lefebvre, son of Pierre and of Jeanne Aunois. He was "the type of good Canadian seigneur, who place himself among his censitaires and lived their life, sharing their work, helping them with the best of his resources, and treating them with much humanity.
Sources 1.[SGM] Betty King.
Dallas, TX, kingbetty4@gmail.com, patchworkheritage.us. If you use or copy my information, please list me as the source.
2.[S33] Le Programme de recherche en démographie historique. (The Research of Historical Demography at University of Montreal), Hubert Charbonneau, Jacques Legare et al., from P.R.D.H. at Universite de Montreal, (University of Montréal - Online).