Gabriel Cote'

http://www.biographi.ca/fr/bio/cotte_gabriel_4F.html

FICHE D'UNE MAISONNÉE Maisonnée Cotté - Blondeau (en 1785)

Le 19 avril 1785, Gabriel Cotté passe chez le notaire Pierre Mézière afin de déposer un contrat de société qu'il a signé avec William Grant et Alexander Shaw à Michillimakinac l'année précédente. Cotté et Grant sont associés dans le commerce des fourrures depuis 1782 et la nouvelle entente permet à Shaw, leur commis, d'adhérer à la société et d'y être traité d'égal à égal. Un mois plus tard, Cotté expédie dix canots aux pays d'en haut : quatre sont envoyés par la société à la rivière du Pic et sont chargés de 2 000 £ de marchandises. Les six autres transportent des marchandises valant 3 000 £ et sont destinés à Michillimakinac. Ces six canots ne voyagent pas au nom de la compagnie, mais au nom personnel de Cotté. En 1778, Cotté avait acheté une grande maison de pierre avec une cave voûtée et un magasin sur la rue Saint-François-Xavier. En 1785, il y réside avec Angélique Blondeau, son épouse depuis 1783, et son fils issu d'un premier mariage.

Né à Kamouraska, Cotté s'intéressa au commerce des pelleteries dès le début des années 1760. Avant son second mariage, c'est au poste de traite de Michillimakinac qu'il veille surtout à la bonne marche de ses activités commerciales. Après son mariage en 1783, Cotté partage son temps entre Michillimakinac et Montréal. Il est membre fondateur du Beaver Club en 1785. Quant à sa femme, elle est issue d'une illustre famille de marchands qui participaient aussi au commerce des fourrures (son frère Maurice avait été associé avec Cotté pendant quelques années). Pendant les douze ans que durera leur union, Angélique Blondeau se sera sûrement habituée aux longues absences de Cotté. Devenue unique responsable de ses trois filles après le décès de Cotté en 1795, elle leur assurera un bon avenir : deux de ses filles se marieront avec des grands marchands, Jules-Maurice Quesnel et François-Antoine Larocque. Vers la fin de sa vie, Angélique Blondeau s'occupera d'oeuvres charitables, créant la Société des Dames de la charité en 1827 et l'Orphelinat catholique de Montréal en 1832.

COTTÉ (Côté), GABRIEL, merchant and furtrader; baptized 12 June 1742 at Saint-Louis-de-Kamouraska (Kamouraska, Que.), son of Nicolas Cotté and Marie-Claude Levasseur; d. 5 Feb. 1795 at Montreal.

Gabriel Cotté first went to the pays d’en haut in 1760 and for the next 35 years, in varied capacities, he was to remain there. On 17 Aug. 1765 at Michilimackinac (Mackinaw City, Mich.), he married Agathe Roy-Desjardins by mutual consent before a number of witnesses, as was the custom in the absence of a priest. Their first child, Marianne, was born in 1767 and baptized on 25 July 1768 by Vicar-General Pierre Gibault*, who on this same date blessed the parents’ marriage.

By 1772 Cotté had begun his activities as a merchant-trader, engaging voyageurs to transport merchandise from Montreal to Michilimackinac. A few years later he was granted a licence “for Michilimackinac and beyond to Neppigon [Nipigon, near the mouth of the Nipigon River] . . . for trading between 13 April and 4 June 1778.” On 23 July 1778 Cotté signed a petition of ten Michilimackinac merchants to Governor Sir Guy Carleton* requesting a resident missionary, and two days later he subscribed to the fund for the maintenance of such a person. In 1779 he became associated with two merchant-traders, Maurice-Régis Blondeau*, whose sister Angélique* he was to marry on 29 Dec. 1783, and John Grant. This partnership, established to trade in the Lake Superior region, continued until 1785. In 1783 Cotté led an expedition into that country, where he found the Indians dying of hunger and where he lost four of his own men. Cotté was a founding member of the Beaver Club of Montreal in 1785.

During the years 1786 and 1787 he signed documents at Michilimackinac (which had been relocated on Mackinac Island) relating to protection for the Indian trade and the maintenance of the church of which he was a warden. Letters from Pierre Grignon, a business connection in La Baye (Green Bay, Wis.), reveal that Cotté intended to leave the west permanently in the fall of 1792 and return to Montreal for reasons of health. His signature as justice of the peace at Michilimackinac, a position he had held since about 1780, demonstrates his presence at the post again on 24 Aug. 1794. Several years earlier Cotté had apparently become a captain of militia in Montreal. His name with that title appears on several documents, but it could have been that of another Gabriel Cotté.

Cotté’s son Pierre-Gabriel, who had been born in 1775, probably at Michilimackinac, continued in business there after his father’s retirement and death and held office as justice of the peace. He moved to St Joseph’s Island (Ont.) in 1800 when the status of Michilimackinac was in doubt, but there is no further record of him. Cotté’s second wife bore three daughters, Lucie-Angélique, who became the mother of Judge Maurice Laframboise*, Marie-Josephte, who married Jules-Maurice Quesnel*, and Marie-Catherine-Émilie, who married François-Antoine Larocque*. After Cotté’s death his widow founded the Orphelinat Catholique de Montréal and thus carried on the religious and public service which had long been a part of her husband’s life.

Ruth R. Jarvis

ANQ-M, État civil, Catholiques, Notre-Dame de Montréal, 10 nov. 1777; Greffe de P.-F. Mézière, 29 déc. 1783. PAC, MG 19, B3, p.4. Ste Ann’s Parish (Mackinac Island, Mich.), Registre des baptêmes, mariages et sépultures de Sainte-Anne-de-Michillimakinak, 25 juill. 1768, 22, 23 juill. 1787, 24 août 1794, 20 avril 1800, 16 juin 1804 (mfm. at Dept. of State, Lansing, Mich.). [This document, which covers the years 1695–1821, was published with notes as “The Mackinac register” in Wis., State Hist. Soc., Coll., XVIII (1908), 469–513; XIX (1910), 1–162; certain errors are found in this version. r.r.j.] Docs. relating to NWC (Wallace), 451, 460. “Fur-trade on the Upper Lakes, 1778–1815,” ed. R. G. Thwaites, Wis., State Hist. Soc., Coll., XIX (1910), 270–71. Michigan Pioneer Coll., IX (1886), 650; X (1886), 286–87, 290; XI (1887), 485, 488; XX (1892), 671–72. Quebec Gazette, 16 June, 3 Nov. 1785, 11 Oct. 1787, 22 Jan. 1789. Massicotte, “Répertoire des engagements pour l’Ouest,” ANQ Rapport, 1932–33, 299–300; 1942–43, 265–392. Morice, Dict. historique des Canadiens et Métis, 71. Tanguay, Dictionnaire, III, 145, 149. Benoît Brouillette, La pénétration du continent américain par les Canadiens français, 1763–1846; traitants, explorateurs, missionnaires (Montréal, 1939), 85, 161. M.-C. Daveluy, L’Orphelinat catholique de Montréal (1832–1932) (Montréal, 1933), 294ff. Morton, History of Canadian west, 260. É.-Z. Massicotte, “Quelques rues et faubourgs du vieux Montréal,” Cahiers des Dix, 1 (1936), 127–28.

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April 19, 1785 Gabriel Cotté happening at the Pierre Meziere notary to file a partnership agreement it signed with William Grant and Alexander Shaw at Michilimackinac the previous year. Cotte and Grant are partners in the fur trade since 1782 and the new agreement allows Shaw, they committed to join the company and to be treated as equals. A month later, Cotté sends ten canoes countries to the top four are sent by the company to the Pic River and are loaded with £ 2,000 of goods. The other six carrying goods worth £ 3,000 and are intended to Michilimackinac. The six boats are not traveling on behalf of the company, but the personal name of Cotté. In 1778 Cotté had bought a large stone house with a vaulted cellar and a store on Saint-François-Xavier. In 1785 he resides there with Angélique Blondeau, his wife since 1783, and his son from a first marriage.

Born in Kamouraska, Cotte was interested in the fur trade in the early 1760s before his second marriage, it was the trading post of Michilimackinac he watches especially for the smooth running of its business. After his marriage in 1783 Cotté divides his time between Montreal and Michilimackinac. He is a founding member of the Beaver Club in 1785. As for his wife, she comes from a famous family of merchants who were also involved in the fur trade (her brother Maurice had been associated with Cotté for a few years). During the twelve-year life of their union, Angélique Blondeau will surely accustomed to the long absences of Cotté. Become solely responsible for her three daughters after the death of Cotté in 1795, it will ensure them a good future: two of his daughters marry with great merchants, Jules-Maurice Quesnel and François-Antoine Larocque. Towards the end of his life, Angélique Blondeau will care for charities, creating the Society of Ladies of Charity in 1827 and Montreal Catholic Orphanage in 1832.