A Canadian Family

The Levesques of Riviere-Ouelle (La-Pocatiere)

This is another memorial headstone that I photographed while in Riviere-Ouelle a few years ago. It’s dedicated to one of the very earliest pioneer couples to settle the area – Robert Levesque and Jeanne Lechevalier.  Father Casgrain (author of “Une Paroisse Canadienne”) includes them in his list of the first 11 families of  Riviere-Ouelle. Here is a loose translation of what Father Casgrain had to say about Levesque and Le Chevalier.

Robert Levesque was a carpenter and he accompanied M. De La Bouteillerie when he established his seigneury (La Pocatiere). Like his seigneur, Robert Levesque was from Rouen, France and his parents were Pierre Levesque and Marie Caumont of St-Sulpice parish. He married another Norman – Jeanne Le Chevalier at Ange-Gardien on April 22^nd, 1679 in Ange Gardien and the couple were granted land at one end of the seignury.

Jeanne was the daughter of Jean Le Chevalier and Marguerite Romian of St-Nicolas parish in the diocese of Coutances. She was a widowed mother of two children (Nicolas and Charles) when she married Robert. Her first husband’s name was Guillaume Lecanteur dit Latour.  Robert and Jeanne also had many children and Casgrain states that the Levesques were one of the most prolific families of the area and that one of their descendants (Charles Levesque) still owned the original ancestral land grant in the 1890s.

Father Casgrain also extracted information from a census of  Nouvelle France. From that census we learn that in 1681 Robert Levesque & Jeanne LeChevalier were living in Riviere-Ouelle with three children: their firstborn son – 2 year old son Francois, and  Jeanne’s two sons by her first husband (7 yr. old Charles and 9 yr. old Nicolas). The census also confirms that Robert was a carpenter and  that he owned 15 arpents of land, 12 head of cattle and 3 guns. Read more »

March 1, 2009 Posted by Evelyn Yvonne Theriault | . | French Canadian, Genealogy, headstone, La Pocatiere, Quebec, Riviere-Ouelle | 3 Comments