Marie-Marguerite Moral

Notes

• Location info: Normandie, France (birth), Trois-Rivières (marriage,death)
• Pionnière de la Nouvelle-France. Arrive au Québec en 1641. Était une fille à marier.
• Contrat de mariage entre Jacques Hertel et Marie Marguerie le 23 août 1641 par notaire Piraube.

DNA Research

All those with the W3a2 "French W"; motif in North America seem to trace their ancestry back to Marie Marguerie, who migrated to Quebec in 1641.

W3a2 with the distinctive 16209 and 16255 HVR1 mutations emerged between the Caspian and Aral Seas around 7,500 years ago. One branch is found today in Turkmenistan. The lineage migrated north of the Caspian and Black Seas. One branch moved into the Ukraine and later into the Tatras Mountains of Poland / Slovakia as part of the Lemo ethnic group. Another branch moved south into Romania, and then probably along the Danube, eventually reaching the area of Rouen, France. From here what seems to be a single emigrant ancestor, Marie Marguerie, arrived in Quebec in 1641.

Following copied from *http://www.thecid.com/frenchw/i91.htm

Marie Marguerie was baptized at St Vincent Cathedral in Rouen, France on 12 September 1620. Her godparents were Nicolas Duchemin and Marie Marguerie. Rouen was a major city of 35,000 people, a key port on the Seine River since Roman times. St Vincent's had been completed only a few years before, and featured the finest stained glass windows in the city (the cathedral was destroyed by bombing in World War II but the windows were stored in 1939 and can now be seen in the modernistic Church of Joan of Arc in Rouen).

Marie has been identified as one of 262 Filles a Marier or "marriageable girls" that emigrated to New France between 1634 and 1663. They were recruited by religious groups or reputable persons who had to guarantee their good conduct. Most were from rural peasant families. Unlike the later Filles du Roi who emigrated after 1663, the Filles a Marier were not recruited by the state; did not receive a dowry from the King; and were promised nothing but the possibility of a better life.

However Marie's story was not that of a typical Filles a Marier, and aside from the date of her migration to Canada, she probably does not fit into this category. Her father was a man of substance, a bourgeoisie, an oar maker and maritime merchant in Rouen. Given the fates of his children, it is likely her father was a member of the Compagnie des Marchands de Rouen et de Saint-Malo, formed by Samuel Champlain in 1614 to colonize Quebec and corner the American fur trade. Her brother Francois had already gone to Canada and his exploits were legendary. He was regarded by the First Nations as the European who had most thoroughly learned their language and customs - they called him the 'double man' - he could pass as European or Indigenous.

There is no record of Francois Marguerie in Quebec before 1636, but some believe he was present as early as 1626, and was one of the seven that took refuge among the Algonquin after the destruction of Champlain's first colony by the English privateers Kirke. In any case Francois emerges firmly into history on 28 March 1636 when he was encountered by Jesuit missionaries among the Hurons as part of a party of four Algonquins led by the legendary chief Tessouat. He was able to ease the tensions that had built up between the straight-backed Jesuits and the Hurons, and guided them in establishing further missions among the Indians. Francois Marguerie

In 1637 Francois settled at Jacques Hertel's trading post at Trois-Rivieres. He must have interested Hertel in marrying his sister Marie, for he arranged for her to sail - at the age of 18 - from Rouen to New France in the summer of 1639. The passage, made in the late spring, was difficult - one tenth of all passengers en route to New France died on the Atlantic.

Perhaps, like the other Filles a Marier, her marriage to Hertel was not prearranged. She had her choice of husbands. But in 1640 Trois-Rivieres was still a raw place, with only a handful of inhabitants, less than half of them European, including rude French trappers, many living with indigenous wives with mixed children, and a handful of government officials and military officers.

The place had been a winter camp for French fur traders since before 1615, when the first Christian mission was established there. After the French recovery of New France from the British, Champlain's strategic plan was to centralize the fur trade at Quebec, but establish a second fortified place 40 miles upriver at Trois-Rivieres to prevent traders from selling their furs to the British rather than Richelieu's company. Jacques Hertel in 1634, followed a year later by the Godefroy brothers, became the first permanent settlers and farmers at Trois-Rivieres. There was competition and animosity between the traders at Quebec and Trois-Rivieres - the traders of the latter wearing white scarves to differentiate themselves from the red-scarfed traders of Quebec. Over the next two years Jesuit missionaries, soldiers, and an official governor arrived to bring order.

At the top of the social hierarchy were the "lords", those who had received lands from Cardinal Richelieu's Company of the Hundred Associates. The oldest was Jacques Hertel, followed by the Godefroy brothers (Jean-Paul, Jean and Thomas), who established themselves not far from him. Then there were the ambitious Le Neuf brothers, Jacques and Michel, voracious and well provided Normands who had arrived ready to purchase a domain in the New World. They had landed in 1636 and had not yet received their government appointments and lands, but were working very hard on it. Francois de Chamflour was commandant of the most primitive of forts, representing the king. There was a Jesuit church, run by Father Jacques Buteux since 1634, and including a Father Ragueneau, supporting the missionaries in the interior.

Then came the interpreters and their families who were vital to the fur trade: Francois Marguerie and Jean Nicolet; and Christophe Crevier, the baker from Rouen who arrived from Rouen in 1639, perhaps on the same ship as Marie.

It would seem that shortly after her arrival, Marie's situation became complicated. In February 1641 her brother Francois Marguerie and Thomas Godefroy were captured by Iroquois while hunting near Trois-Rivieres. The Iroquois planned a great assault the following summer against the Algonquins and Hurons, enemies of the Iroquois and allies of the French. Francois and Thomas were to serve as pawns in negotiations with the French. The objective was to obtain additional guns from the French and make a separate peace with them so the Iroquois would be free to attack their enemies.

In May over five hundred warriors headed toward Trois-Rivieres. They split into sections in order to surround the Algonquins and Hurons that were concentrated around the trading post. On 5 June the section holding the two captives arrived across the Saint Lawrence River from Trois-Rivieres. Francois was sent across the river to parlay with the commandant of the fort. The inhabitants of the town were flabbergasted to see him; they had given him up for dead. Francois had to return to captivity until the Governor of New France could come down river from Quebec to negotiate the peace treaty desired by the Iroquois. After his arrival, preliminary negotiations resulted in Francois and Thomas being freed as a goodwill gesture.

After the governor arrived and talks began, it became clear that the French were unwilling to either remain neutral in a war between the Iroquois and the Huron or provide the Iroquois with guns. In response the Iroquois attacked the governor's boat with a well-aimed fusillade from their guns. An answering broadside from the heavy cannon on the governor's boat put the Iroquois to flight, and the immediate threat to Trois-Rivieres receded.

The danger averted for the present, on 23 August 1641 Marie Marguerie signed a contract to marry Jacques Hertel. Marie's husband, Jacques Hertel, was another legendary figure in early Canadian history. The 'Bible' of early Canadian genealogy, Dictionnnaire Geneaologique des Familles Canadiennes (Abbe Cyprien Tanguay, 1871) gives his birth date as 1630. But other accounts say he arrived in New France as early as 1615, making a birth in 1590-1595 more likely. He became a trapper and woodsman, familiar with the customs and languages of the First Nations.

An article published in 1836 in the newspaper Schenectady Reflector in New York states that he lived among the Hurons near Schenectady in the early 1620's and fathered two daughters there:

block quote The last aboriginal proprietor of Van Slyck's island, was Shononsise, an Oron chief who had taken to wife the daughter of a French trader by the name of Jacques Hertel. This Hertel had take up his abode in Schenectady as early as 1623, or '4. Shononsise had by his French wife two beautiful daughters, "Otstock" and 'Kanudesha'. The first named and oldest, was of an imperious temper, the last of a mild and sweet temper; yet both were worthy women. Shononsise and his family resided during the summer seasons on the island; and there his remains lie buried. block quote end The authenticity of this account, published over 200 years after the fact, has been questioned. However it is very likely that Jacques fathered these or other children among the First Nations during the many years he spent among them.

His name is first mentioned in Canadian records in 1626, when he accompanies Champlain to Quebec, already identified as an interpreter - indeed implying years of earlier experience in the area. In 1629 he and seven other diehards, including the Godefrys, Nicolet, and perhaps Marie's brother, went to live among the Algonquins for four years after the temporary British conquest of New France. They managed to dissuade the Indians from trading furs with the new English lords of Quebec.

The colony was restored to France by treaty in May 1632. Samuel Champlain returned with an expedition of soldiers, tradesman, and Jesuit missionaries to resettle Quebec under the effective control of Jesuits reporting to Cardinal Richelieu in May 1633. Hertel's fortitude in undermining British rule was rewarded on 16 December 1833. Richelieu's Company of the Hundred Associates in Paris deeded him 200 acres at Trois-Rivieres.

So Marie married a man that was a legend in his own time. Within a year she gave him a son, who was named Francois after Marie's brother. It seems that Jacques raised Francois in the languages and ways of the Indians, for Francois' fame in this regard would surpass even that of his father, being known to history as the 'Hero of Trois-Rivieres'. Meanwhile Francois Marguerie replaced Jacques Hertel as the official translator for the trading post in 1642. A daughter, Madeleine, was born to Marie and Jacques on 2 September 1645. Jacques was named the agent for the Hundred Associates in Trois-Rivieres in 1647.

Things seemed to be going well for Marie and her family. Then Francois Marguerie drowned when his canoe overturned in the Saint Lawrence River off Trois-Rivieres on 23 May 1648. Marie and Jacques had another daughter, Marguerite, on 26 August 1649. Marie endured another tragedy when Jacques died in an accident of an unknown nature on 10 August 1651.

Marie was left alone with a son of nine years and two infant daughters, in a primitive wilderness, in a remote settlement with just a handful of huts. It was perhaps no accident that an awful war would break out with the Iroquois in the spring after Jacques' death, leading to the near-destruction of the settlement.

The Iroquois had been struggling with the Huron for the territory the French had chosen to inhabit even before the arrival of the colonists. Father Buteux and his fellow Jesuits had compounded tensions by attempting to enforce their form of strict Catholicism on the Indians. The trappers and missionaries had spread European diseases among even the most remote tribes, leading to the death of over half of their people and the collapse of their social systems. Tensions had built to the breaking point. Francois Marguerie had averted the attack on Trois-Rivieres nine years earlier, but now he, and Jacques, and Nicolet, were all gone.

The Iroquois attacked the town on 6 March 1652 but were repulsed by the French's Huron allies. On 10 March the Iroquois killed Buteux north of the town, and two Huron on 8 June. On 19 August they attacked again, this time killing the governor Guillaume Guillemot and 22 other settlers. The hostilities lead to the collapse of the beaver pelt trade. The defense of Trois-Rivieres now was in the hands of a few friendly Indians employed to fend off any final Iroquois raid.

Sometime in this tumultuous year Marie married Quentin Moral, a King's lieutenant. Quentin could only have suffered in comparison to Marie's first husband. But he was young, he was ambitious, he was available - he must have been the best choice in the traumatized settlement. Quentin would go on to become a quarrelsome lawyer, and finally a civil and criminal judge.

After what must have been a very hard winter, 16 French indentured servants, sailors, and others deserted Trois-Rivieres, heading for anywhere outside of New France on 21 April 1653. At other places in New France masters were being murdered by their servants. The Iroquois attacked Trois-Rivieres again on 21 August, but were repulsed after an eight-day siege. An exchange of prisoners was agreed.

In October the Huron reported that the remnants of the April deserters had shown up in Gaspe after a six-month trek. Several had died, and they had resorted to cannibalism. In November a vessel laden with the year's take of beaver pelts left for France, only to be taken by English privateers in the Saint Lawrence River. But that same month, with the colony facing extinction, a boat arrived at Montreal with 95 new settlers - the "Grand Recrue de 1653". The statistics of this group show the dangers of life in the colony. Of the 153 men who signed contracts to go to Canada, 50 did not show up for boarding; eight died on the transatlantic voyage; 24 were killed by Iroquois; and five in accidents. Nine left no offspring. But the 49 that left offspring were the basis for the survival of New France. The population would increase substantially each year from then on.

The Iroquois War was over and more stable times were ahead. Quentin turned to the matter at hand. Marie had inherited from her first husband 200 acres of land at Trois-Rivieres. Quentin's objective seemed primarily to be to obtain title to this land and become a seigneur. In French law a seigneur was a kind of lord who was a vassal of the King. The soil of the seigneur belonged to him, but the King held final title, mineral rights, and ownership of all oak trees on the property. In contrast the peasant settlers could only rent the land and were tenant farmers of the seigneurs.

However there seems to be an issue with the rights to Jacque Hertel's land and the security it was supposed to provide from the very beginning. On 21 January 1654, less than two years after the marriage, Marie's son Jacques, at age 12, is reported to be "clearing trees of an island, inherited from his father, which he wanted to seed in order to support his mother and his young sisters". This small place, just off Trois-Rivieres in the Saint Lawrence River, was then known as Lile aux Cochons (Isle of the Pigs)

Quentin made the transition from an officer of the king to that of a civil and criminal lawyer - perhaps not difficult, since lawyers were not allowed to emigrate to New France. And the inhabitants of Trois-Rivieres, when not fighting off Indian attacks, were a quarrelsome bunch. Between 1655 and 1662 at the "Prévôté de Trois-Rivieres" there were 907 cases tried for a population of about 700 for the whole area! The "Prévoté" was not only used to dispense criminal justice and adjudicate disputes, it also served as a collection agency under the settlement's barter economy.

Two thirds of the cases were for debt settlement and one sixth were to settle inheritance. Only 20 were for verbal or physical violence. Quentin Moral was involved in 29 cases, reflecting not only his role as an attorney but also his disputatious nature and perhaps his duties as an officer of the King. In one case, Moral was being sued for having shot and killed other citizens' wandering pigs, probably part of his duties. A few cases later, Moral sued Jacques Aubuchon, master carpenter and the most disputatious man in the colony (44 cases), because the Aubuchon intentionally shot Moral's pig, (perhaps as payback?). One wonders if all of these pig lawsuits were in any way related to the family's ownership of the L'île aux Cochons...

Childhood was brief in the 17th Century. On 26 August 1657, at age 15, Francois enlisted in the local militia for the defense of Trois-Rivieres. Marie was meanwhile ensuring that her daughters married well, as befitted what she saw as their station in life. Marie Madeleine Hertel was betrothed to master surgeon Louis Pinard in 1658 when she was 15.

In July 1661, Francois was captured by the Iroquois and severely tortured. He smuggled letters out to the Jesuit missionaries in the area, pleading with them to free him and two other prisoners that with them. Remarkably, the Jesuits quoted from these letters of Francois - we have his account of his sufferings in his own words.

In the first letter he informs the Jesuits "...My Father, I pray you, bless the hand that writes to you, which has had one finger burnt in a Calumet as reparation to the Majesty of God, whom I have offended. The other hand has a thumb cut off, but do not tell my poor Mother..." A second letter is addressed to his mother directly: "...I well know my capture must have greatly afflicted you. I ask your forgiveness for having disobeyed you.... Your prayers, and Monsieur de St. Quentin's and my sisters', have restored me to life. I hope to see you again before Winter...." He signs the letter "Your poor FANCHON".

One wonders in what way Marie's "Fanchon" disobeyed her. Did he go hunting at a dangerous time or in place? Had she warned or prohibited him from doing it? This anguish from a son sorry for having disobeyed his mother is the closest we can feel to Marie in the historical documents. The entire account

from the Relations of the Jesuits describes the terrible tortures Francois suffered and witnessed. Eventually, a Christian Huron Chief managed to buy 20 French prisoners from the Iroquois and began their repatriation in Montreal in October 1661. 

The Removal of the Finger Francois' presence back in Trois-Rivieres is not documented again until 3 October 1663. In that same year his sister Marguerite Hertel was betrothed, at age 14, to Jean Crevier, son of the baker that probably accompanied Marie Marguerie from Rouen. Jean would obtain a siegneury at St-Francois-du-Lac, founding a new settlement that would survive Indian attacks and endure for centuries.

In 1664 Francois Hertel married and seemed to be settling down, being named the Iroquois translator for the trading post. But his life was not to be a quiet one. He would become the "Hero of New France", exceeding his father and uncle in the breadth and fame of his exploits. Francois and his sons would become renowned for their bloodthirsty raids against the First Nations and the British. Can there be any doubt that the torture at the hands of the Iroquois filled Francois with hatred for the Iroquois? Or that the refusal of the Dutch and English to save him inspired him to show no mercy to their kind? He would instill the same thirst for blood in his children in turn.

Marie would bear Quentin Moral four daughters but no sons. The fame of his stepson may have been unbearable at this time and place to this man who now adopted the style 'Sieur de St-Quentin' and lorded over the island his step-son had cleared, which was known forever after as L'île Saint-Quentin. Presumably her son's status protected her from the hostility Quentin may have felt toward her.

Quentin Moral was keeping the family income up by selling Marie's inheritance to newcomers. The price of land was skyrocketing, and Quentin could make money selling land away from Trois-Rivieres, such as a plot of Hertel's at Cap-de-la-Madeleine that he sold around 1664. He saw that his daughters and step-daughters would marry well and that their husbands were provided with adequate dowries in terms of

In 1666 the first census was made of New France. The Moral household at that point in time consisted of: "Quentin Moral sieur de Saint-Quentin, 44, habitant ; Marie Marguerie, 40, sa femme; Jeanne, 13 ; Marie, 10 ; Gertrude, 8 ; Marthe, 5 ; Robert Henry, 20, et Nicolas Dupuis, 24, domestiques". Marie's daughters by Jacques Hertel had already married and left the house. Trois-Rivieres and adjacent districts had grown in 20 years from a handful of settlers to a village of 69 families and 455 souls. However the town itself still consisted of only about two dozen households and less than a hundred Europeans.

A year later, the census showed that one servant had left but that otherwise the household was much the same: "Quentin Moral, 49 ; Marie Margris, 40 ; Marie-Jeanne, 14 ; Marie, 12 ; Gertrude, 10 ; Marthe, 6 ; Robert Henry, domestique, 23 ; 6 bestiaux, 64 arpents en valeur. (6 cattle, 64 arpents in value.) "

Marie saw to it that her children received good educations. Her daughters by Quentin were educated at the Ursuline convent established just across the street from the Hertel house. Francois' three letters of his Iroquois captivity mention his fluency in French, English, and Latin.

In 1668 Marie saw the first her daughters by Quentin Moral married. Marie Jeanne Moral was betrothed to Jacques Maugras at the age of 15. Maugras would eventually settle in St-Francois-du-Lac at the settlement founded by his brother-in-law Jean Crevier. In 1677, at age 26, their second daughter, Marie-Therese Moral, married to Veron de Grandmesnil, a fur trader of some means.

Meanwhile Francois Hertel found himself enjoying the forays and raids made against the Iroquois in 1666, and became a professional soldier. He was on the 1673 Buade expedition to Lake Ontario which built Fort Frontenac. In 1678, on a mission to Hudson Bay, he tried his hand at the fur trade and ran foul of the authorities. His cargo was confiscated on his return to Quebec. He evaded a fine and prison sentence and returned, chastised, to Trois-Rivieres.

Francois sought to have his children well educated, hiring the teacher Pierre Bertrand, a graduate of the University of Paris, in 1681. But he was also training his sons in the art of war.

In 1676, at age 18, Marie's third daughter by Quentin, Gertrude Moral, was married to Jacques Joyelle, a master gunsmith. Some believe that Marie saw this marriage as beneath her station, but Joyelle had amassed a good fortune in the fur trade. With the assistance of the legal machinations of his father-in-law, Joyelle would obtain a seigneury, then later move to St-Francois-du-Lac near his brother-in-law Jean Crevier.

In 1680 Governor of New France gave Francois Hertel command of all the tribes who were allies of the French. To counter continuing the hit-and-run raids the settlers were constantly subject to, Francois developed surprise attack tactics using the Indians' own methods of silent approach. The brutal "Hertel's Raids" were said to have brought a measure of relief to the constant Indian attacks on the French settlements.

In the census of 1681 all the daughters but one have married and moved out: "Quentin Moral 60 ; Marie Marguerite, sa femme, 58 ; Marie, leur fille, 20 ; 3 bêtes à cornes ; 22 arpents en valeur. " By then the population of Trois-Rivieres was 154, distributed between 33 households.

The fourth daughter of Marie and Quentin, Marie Marthe Moral. was married in 1682 at the age of 21 to Antoine Dubois, who was in his thirties. Quentin had already engineered a complex land swap when Joyelle moved to St-Francois whereby Dubois obtained a property, despite his evident inability to pay.

In 1686 Quentin Moral passed away and was buried in Trois-Rivieres. Marie, age 66, was now widowed a second time.

In 1690 the governor of New France decided to retaliate against a perceived British-sponsored atrocity at Lachine. Three columns would be sent to lay waste to British settlements. Francois was sent against Fort Rollinsford at Salmon Falls, New Hampshire. He assembled a party consisting of 25 French, many of them his relatives, including his three eldest sons, his nephew Louis Crevier (Marie's godson), Nicolas Gastineau Duplessis and Jacques Maugras (Marie's son-in-law). Twenty Sokoki and five Algonquin Indians were also in the party.

A two-month march in the depth of winter took the party to Salmon Falls on the night of 27 March. Three columns of eight men made a simultaneous night attack on the fort and town. Surprise was total. Within two hours the place was gone. Between 30 and 43 Englishmen were killed, 54 taken prisoner, 27 houses burned down, and the cattle of the settlement set loose. The French lost two, one of them Jacques Maugras.

A British retaliatory troop of between 100 and 250 men headed to intercept Hertel. He detected their approach, and laid an ambush at a bridge over the Little Wooster River. Twenty more British were killed before they retreated in confusion, thinking themselves to be under attack by hordes of Indians. However again Marie's family received casualties - Louis Crevier was killed and her grandson Zacharie Hertel received a wound that would cripple him for life.

After these successes Francois Hertel and his sons became ferocious raiders. Like his father and great-uncle, Zacharie Hertel was taken prisoner by the Iroquois in a battle in 1691. Like his father, he did not return for three years. His skills in Indian languages and ways made him a fourth-generation Indian fighter and negotiator for the colony.

The Governor of New France tried from 1689 to have Francois Hertel elevated to nobility for his service to the colony. The best he could manage to get was a promotion within the military.

Marie continued on in Trois-Rivieres. She had seen so much in her long life. She had survived numerous attacks of the town by the Iroquois. She had seen her brother, her son, and her grandson all taken captive by the Indians, only to have them return alive months or years later. She had left a bustling French city for a rude settlement of wooden huts between the forest and the river, where every year, even the good ones, found another member of the community kidnapped or killed by marauding Iroquois.

Perhaps she found sustenance and solace in the rigid religion of the colony - it is recorded that she was for fifty years the sacristan of the parish. Did she also need solace from an unhappy second marriage to Quentin Moral? Whatever may be the case, she outlived Quentin by 14 years. Upon her death at age 80, Marie Marguerie was buried beside Jacques Hertel, her first husband. Could there be any greater evidence of her estrangement from Quentin? The cure of the parish of Trois-Rivieres, Luc Filiastre, officiated.

Marie's Legacy

Marie and her first husband Jacques Hertel are considered one of the founders of Quebec. Jacques Hertel founded the town of Trois-Rivieres, and her son-in-law Jean Crevier founded St-Francois-du-Lac. There is a Jacques Hertel house in Trois-Rivieres, but it is of stone, built on the site of the original in 1820 by one of Hertel's descendants. L'île Saint-Quentin remained cropland until 1930, when it was converted to recreational use. Today it is a popular park.

Sources

• mtDNA Haplogroup W

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GEDCOM Source

@R-1195646461@ Quebec, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967 Ancestry.com Ancestry.com Operations Inc 1,1091::0

GEDCOM Source

1,1091::14684293

GEDCOM Source

@R-1195646461@ Quebec, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967 Ancestry.com Ancestry.com Operations Inc 1,1091::0

GEDCOM Source

1,1091::14684293

GEDCOM Source

@R-1195646461@ Quebec, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1967 Ancestry.com Ancestry.com Operations Inc 1,1091::0

GEDCOM Source

1,1091::14684293