Igé
If ever you go to France in the Alençon region, be sure to visit the small church of Igé at 7 km South of Bellême.
Inside, you can read the name of our ancestor Jean LeDuc on a plaque. It commemorates his departure for New-France. It's in this church that he was baptised in 1624. His father was Jean LeDuc and his mother Cécile Le Chaperon.
In the beginning of 1664, Jean left hid village with Mathurin Boudefeu. We don't know why he left. Although, in those years, times were hard in France; big famines brang desolation and many uprinsings, confusion. It is possible that he heard of the New Word from people of hid village that already had kin over there (Godé and Gadois). We can also suppose that he met Jérôme Le Royer of Dauversière, who recruted in those days workers for Montreal and that he was convinced to participate in the project.
Engagement Contrat
The original of the engagement contract of Jean LeDuc is concerved at the charente Maritime's Archives in La Rochelle. However, we can find references to it in an article of "La Revue d'Histoire de l'Amérique Française" that permits us to do a nearly exact reconstitution of it:
"The 20th of April 1644, Jean LeDuc, spaduworkman of Igé, region of Perche, engaging to Hiérosome Le Royer, Master of la Dauversière, prosecutor for "M.M. les Associés de la conversion des Sauvages de la Nouvelle-France en Ile de Montréal "Company, usualy living in La Fleshe, presently residing in this city, at Master Jacques Mousnier's house, merchand for five years at 60 pounds a years". (1)
In 1644, twenty one people engaged themselves for Montreal five of them for a duration of five years and the other 16 for 3 years only. During the recrutes of 1653 and 1659 most of the engagements were for 5 years. It is said that Jean Leduc was a spadeworkman in fact, this expression means that he doesn't have a trade. So he will make 60 pounds a year because he is in the cateory of those without a trade or experience. He will be at the service of society and work under Mr de Maisonneuve's commands.
Between the moment the engagement contract was signed and the boarding, many weeks passed. During this period, Mr de la Dauversière probably settled his men in an Inn while taking care of their well bring.
Contrary to those engaged for the West Indies, they did not receive the traditionnal "Pot of wine" given for the Isles as an encouragement and it is probably from this custom that the french expression " recevoir un pot de vin" (a bribe) was born and still used today.
The crossing
Jean LeDuc left La Rochelle in May 1644 (the last contract for Montreal, being signed on the 5th of May) and arrived at the end of the summer. In those days the crossing took 3 to 5 mounts according to the Rochelaises Archives (2). At least 2 boats made the La Rochelle-Québec trip in 1644. These were the "Saint-Clément" and "La Vierge de la Rochelle". They possibly carried 60 soldiers sent by Anne of Austria that year.
The "Notre-Dame de Montréal", a boat that belonged to the Associated of Montreal, could have made the crossing also. If it is the case, Jean crossed the Atlantic on this boat The "Notre-Dame de Montréal" was a 250 barrel boat.(3)
With the 21 engaged for Montreal, It carried provisions and munitions for the city and furnitures sent by Mrs de Bullion, to Jeanne-Mance for her hospital(4).
The Crossing of the Atlantic in the XVII century reserved many surprises. If the weather is good, the day of the immigrant is simple. He gets up at dawn and takes his brekfast usually at 7 o'clock. At the end of the sailors shift, the boat priest rings a bell and passengers as well as crew get on their knees to pray. Sometimes they celebrated mass. The cook mostly prepares fish: when the weather is calm, he cooks whatever bit the hook. If not he serves dried hareng, peas and biscuit with cidre. Three or four times a week, they ate lard and drank wine with "eau-de-vie". Between frayers and meals, the passengers evere free to do as they wished (5).
At night the passengers slept, grouped in the steerage on thin matresses.
When the weather was nice the windows stayed open to permit air circulation. But when it was cold or that the sea was bad, they stayed closed and the atmosphere became unbrethable.(6)
During the crossing, most of the boats have to go trough stroms and fog or even a couples of days stops when the weather was too calm. When approching a continent, ice was another danger.
After weeks and weeks of roching on sea, the yell "Land! Land!" became a song of deliverance. The first Land in sight is Newfoundlang. They sometimes stoped to fish. They the trip continued up to Québec.
From there, after many days stay, those engaged for Montreal, resumed their trip of nearly a week that finally took them to destination.
I retraced only one particular incident during the crossing of Jean Leduc and this is have Gustave Lanctot tells it.
"At the end of the summer Ville-Marie is happy to welcome the company of nearly 60 soldiers sent to Canada by Anne of Austria, and engaged by the Associates of Montreal. They were brought one and all by a perfect hypocrite, Master De la Barre, wearing at his belt a big rosary with a crucifix, that we had to the next year, because of his chase away teaming ups with a sympatic savage."(7)
The first years
At the end of the summer 1664, Montreal is only a small wooden Fort, accomodating about fifty people under the supervision of Jeanne-Mance and Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve. The arrival of some twenty new enlisted men counting our ancestor, was strongly welcomed in Montreal.
Already, a few colonists were leaving the island that year, their contract ending.
Jean Leduc was working for la Société de Notre Dame de Montréal. We know very little of the details regarding his jobs but we know that he practised the occupation of pit sawyer.
This occupation is a part of construction work. When the tree is cut down, the pit sawyer saws it up and squares it off, then it belongs to the carpenter and finally to the house-carpenter to complete the work. As such, Jean Leduc has probably worked for Gilbert Barbier called "le Minime" because of his small stature, and who was supervising most of the construction work in Montreal at that time.
Jean probably helped in the construction of l'Hôtel-Dieu. This building was the first one constructed outside the fort. Madame de Bullion, Jeanne Mance's benefactress, sent furniture and money via the ships in 1644 to that effect. To satisfy the founder, De Maisonneuve employed immediately his workmen who worked on it with such diligence that on october 8th, the buildings were ready to welcome Miss Mance.
"This wood house mesured twenty-four feet wide per sixty feet long and was located on the same grounds that l'Hôtel-Dieu now occupies." (8)
Concerning the matter of the city's defense, it is very likely that Jean Leduc collaborated actively.
Therefore, for the little information known today regarding the battles engaged at that time, don't permit us to identify a precise feat of arms which our ancestor would have participated in. Between his arrival in Montreal and autumn 1653, there was only one truce with the "Iroquois", in 1645 and it only lasted a year. Except for this breef period, the Iroquois threat existed constantly in the small Montreal community. Noboby could go out of the fort without a gun. The French of Ville-Marie had to go to work in groups because the "Iroquois were everywhere". Patrols had to make their rounds outside the fort every morning with the dogs. In 1647, Jérôme Lalemant wrote about Pilote:
"during the first war of the "Iroquois", in Montreal there was a female dog that made the rounds with her pups and if one of them was stubborn she would bite it to keep going; further more, if one turned back in their hunt she would punish the puppy at their return. If she found any "Iroquois", she ran directly home barking and letting people from the Fort know that the enemy was not far. She specially enjoyed squirrel hunting, and her steady efforts to patrol, starting either from one side to the other, her perseverance to lead her puppies and also punish them when they were too stubborn, her fidelity at the scent of the enemy to warn her friends amazed everyone." (9)
The first concession.
In 1648, Maisonneuve granted the first land concessions to Montreal. With these concessions, he freed the enlisted men from the contract which tied them to the "Société de Notre Dame", on the condition that they would settle with their families on the island and work to develop their own concessions. In 1648, six colonists received parcels of land. The next concessions were granted in 1650 and at this time Jean is promised a piece of land however, that concession will be officially granted to him on August 20th, 1655.
This promise can be found in a written document signed by de Maisonneuve's hand on November 18th, 1650. There is a contract between our ancestor Jean Leduc and Jean Descaris for the exploitation of the concession granted to Descaris. Edouard Massicotte wrote these words about this contract:
"As we know, two hundred years ago, the farming of lands presented real dangers not only because of the treachery of the Iroquois and of their renewed attacks, but also because of the serious difficulties engendered without many hands to help. At this time the population of Montreal counted less than two hundred souls. It was not easy for one man to clear the ground and build a house such as requested in the concessions contracts. How to overcome these inconveniences? There was but one good way: to create fraternal associations such as the one demonstrated in the contract passed between Jean Descaris and Jean Leduc."(10)
Concerning this contract, Faillon the historian noted:
"Descaris and Leduc indebted each other to build and share together the cost of a house and to clear ten acres of land together, starting with the concession granted to the first man and then, to do the same on the second man's land. It was stipulated between them that if one got sick before the ending of the work, the other had to continue the job without any compensation despite the sickness of his associate. After the work on Descaris land was completed the war having occured at the same time did not allow the work on Jean Leduc's land to be started. Jean however received the sum of 580 pounds from his friend Decaris for his good services."(11)
Interesting fact to note, the Descaris land on which both associates worked, was one of the most dangerous places in the city. Located near the actual "de la Montagne" street between William St. and Osborne St., this land was the next to last one conceded by Maisonneuve in the western part of the city. Jean Leduc's first concession counted for two locations. The first was a land of thirty acres which would today be situated between Lusignant St., Guy St., William St. and Dorchester St. The second one-acre location was situated in the heart of the city and would today be on Saint-Paul St. as far as Sainte-Thérèse St. between de Vaudreuil and Saint-Vincent Sts.
We can think that Jean started the clearing of his land before the date of his official concession. In August 1655, when Jean received his own concession he is already married to Marie who is 8 months pregnant and both are parents of a young two-year-old child named Jean. In December 1655, he transferred the location situated in the city and the house built on it to Marin Janat. That house on Saint-Paul St. was the twelfth one built in the city. We can believe that the land in the Saint-Joseph region was already developed because in accordance with the contract of concession a house was already built on it. Furthermore, it is probably certain than during a few years Jean Leduc's house was the last French home built before the "Iroquois" country took place.
(1) Debien G. Engagés pour le Canada au 17ième siècle dans R.H.A.F. juin 1952, p.376
(2) R.H.A.F. La Rochelle et le Canada au XVII siècle, mars 1951, p.469
(3) Rumilly, Robert, Histoire de Montréal, tome 1, p.52
(4) Mémoires particulières pour servir à l'histoire de l'église de l'Amérique du Nord, tome 3, p.39
(5) Nos Racines, histoire vivante des Québécois, chapître 2
(6) Douville, R., Casanova J.D., La vie quotidienne en Nouvelle-France, p.208
(7) Lanctot G., Montréal sous Maisonneuve 1642-1665, p.48
(8) Vie de mademoiselle Mance et histoire de l'Hôtel-Dieu Ville-Marie en Canada.
(9) Relation des Jésuites 1647, p.74
(10) Massicotte E. Z. Les familles Descaris
(11) Faillon, Histoire de la colonie Française en Canada.