By Gérard Lebel, C.Ss.R.
Our Ancestors, vol 2
René Lepage belonged to a very close-knit family: Germain and Reine Larry, his father and mother; Louis, his uncle; Constance, his aunt. Germain and Louis emigrated to Canada before 1664; the others, after 1667, since they are not mentioned in the census of that year.
Constance married François Garinet on February 5, 1674, was the mother of 5 girls and a boy, Pierre, who died at the age of 18. As for Louis, his brother, he took Sébastienne Lavoine as his wife, fathered 7 daughters and as many boys, lived in St-Francois, Île d'Orléans, where his ashes have rested since November 27, 1710. His crown: numerous descendants.
Today, let's limit our research to the family of Germain, husband of Queen Larry, father of René, lord of Rimouski.
In Lower Burgundy
Germain came from Lower Burgundy where the conquering Romans once passed. One of the twelve communes of Courson-les-Carrières, capital of the canton of Yonne, is called Ouanne. This is where the members of the Lepage family, already presented, were born. The XNUMXth century church dedicated to Notre-Dame offers religious services to more than a thousand residents. The archbishopric of Auxerre is about twenty kilometers away. This country of hills and valleys still presents fields of cereals and market gardens to visitors.
Germain Lepage, according to our Canadian documents, was born around 1638. He was the son of Etienne Lepage and Nicole Berthelot. In his twenties he married Reine Larry, 10 years his senior, by whom he had a son, René, around 1659.
On Île d'Orléans
It was on July 9, 1664, that the name of Germain Lepage appeared for the first time in our National Archives. This is a land grant of 3 acres of frontage by Madame d'Aillebout to Germain and Louis. This land was given and granted “as cens and seigneurial rent….to be taken in the fiefdom and lordship of Argentenay in the Dorléans list of the northern coast". Duquet, royal notary, signed the document by adding a capital letter.
From this contract we can deduce that the two brothers arrived together. In addition, new settlers had to have completed a 36-month commitment in the service of an individual, an institution or the government, before being accepted as property-owning citizens. We know that Louis worked as a servant for the sieur de Tilly, Charles Le Gardeur, in January 1664. As for Germain, we have not yet found anything on this subject. The normal conclusion is obvious: Germain and Louis landed in Quebec 36 months before becoming concessionaires, in 1661.
During 32 years
Germain and Louis, like two little brothers, joined forces to make a gap in the forest, build a house and a shelter for the livestock. Germain was preparing the arrival of his wife Reine Larry and his son René. One day, which we would like to specify, was the big meeting. René, the only hope of the home, had grown up. He discovered America!
On October 24, 1672, the brothers decided to share their farm. Louis took the 2 acres on the Widow Chartier's side with the house at the bottom of the hill, near the shore, the one they had built together on the 2 acres belonging to Germain. This is why Louis kept half an acre more. Germain had Pierre Maillou dit Desmoulins as a neighbor.
Surprisingly, on August 14, 1673, the Lepages sold their land to the Hospitalières de Québec through Nicolas Huot dit St-Laurent, attorney. The surveyor Jean Guyon measured the 4 acres of frontage “ at the northern passage of the said island on which there are six and a half acres... of clean land, an acre and a half of felled wood... with a body of house. .Price of this transfer sale: 415 tournament books. Germain continued to operate the same farm, it seems. On August 1, 1677, the Hospitallers granted him land of 3 acres of land in St-François, in the south of the island. In 1689, Germain owned a barn at this location.
The 1681 census gives Louis Martineau as Germain's neighbor. He owns 1 rifle, 12 horned animals, 50 acres under cultivation. A success! Our ancestor remained on the island until around 1696, 32 years old.
Solemn contract.
On June 10, 1686, at “Ste-Anne of Little Cape», exceptional meeting at the house of Pierre Gagnon, husband of Barbe Fortin. A group of influential people surrounded the table where the notary Jacob was reading the marriage contract of René Lepage with M.-Magdeleine Gagnon. On one side, the entire Lepage clan: Germain, René, Louis, Constance, etc.; on the other, the grandparents Pierre Gagnon and his wife, Julien Fortin and Geneviève Gamache, the Gagnon brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, cousins, Jean Le Picard, bourgeois merchant from Quebec. Even Robert Gagnon, a distant cousin living on Île d'Orléans, came to attend the ceremony. Add " Philipes clément said from above» squire; de Varenne, captain of infantry; Claude de Ramsay, squire, sieur du Just, lieutenant captain of “Monsieur de Troyes, Jacques François Chevalier ”, lieutenant in this company, and Joseph de Cabanac, squire. How to explain the presence of this military elite? Perhaps she had come to recommend the country's military situation to Saint Anne.
To impress, everyone brought their gifts. The future 15-year-old saw 200 tournament books placed in her wedding basket in addition to 2 year-old bulls offered by her parents! grandfather Julien Fortin added a beautiful 2-year-old cow. Germain Lepage and Reine Larry offered René their land of 4 acres wide with house, barn, stable and 50 acres of cleared land. After a year, René will build a house for his parents.
On this occasion, Germain and René signed. Louis adds a initial to his signature. The religious ceremony took place the same day at Ste-Anne church. Mr. Joseph de Cabanac, “lieutenant in His Majesty's troops in this countryAlso entered his name in the register before that of the parish priest. Then it was the big wedding banquet in Ste-Anne.
Lord of Rimouski
One day, the son René wanted to leave the island and live on dry land. on March 17, 1693, Frantenac granted him in common a league of land in front with two depths behind the stronghold of Lespinay, at the Rivière du Sud. This concession was ratified in April 1694.
René abandoned this colonization project. Because, on July 10, 1694, the Sieur de la Cordonnière proposed to René to exchange the land he owned on the island of Orléans, for the lordship of Rimouski, including the island of St-Barnabé, with all the rights, privileges and obligations mentioned in the deed of the first concession. The aceeigneurie de Remousquy in other words Saint Barnabé size on the Saint Laurent river on the south coast containing two frontiers on the river on two deep ones » was considerable, but perhaps not yet satisfactory for the appetite of this collection of lands.
René paid time and homage for his fiefdom from 1695. In July of the following year, he arrived with his wife and 5 children in his new domain. In 1703, he expanded it from the stronghold of Pachot to the Rivière Métis, through a deal made with Charlotte-Françoise Juchereau, for the sum of 300 pounds. The buyer paid cash in fish oil: 60 pounds. The remaining 240 pounds were paid through Pierre Raymond, a merchant from Quebec, the following year. René's close neighbor was Lord Jean Riou of Trois-Pistoles. Apart from Pierre St-Laurent, Pierre Gosselin, and relatives, few people came to join him. He built a half-timbered house measuring 50 by 20 feet for his family, near the Rimouski River, in Brulé; a barn for his livestock. Later, he built a small sawmill. In 1712, a chapel appeared in Rimouski, the first, thanks to the generosity of the Lepages.
The Lord had 16 children. He had Louis educated, who became parish priest and Lord of Terrebonne, Geneviève was on the list of students of the Ursulines of Quebec, Joseph died as a young student at the seminary of Quebec. Four girls will become nuns: 2 Hospitallers, 1 Ursuline and 1 from the Congrégation Notre-Dame de Montréal.
René was buried in Rimouski, at the age of approximately 69, on August 4, 1718. The lordship, M.-Magdeleine Gagnon survived him by 26 years. Pierre, the eldest, husband of Marie Trépagnier, became the second lord of Rimouski.
The patriarch
Alas! the death certificate of Germain's wife was not recorded in our registers like those of the ancestors Julien Fortin, Jean Riou, Pierre Rondeau, the Bolduc couple and many others. We think that it occurred between 1687 and 1696. René left to settle in his lordship, with his family and his old father only.
In Rimouski, for more than a quarter of a century, Germain Lepage left in his entourage a reputation as a saintly patriarch.
Mgr Guay, author of the history of Rimouski, reports that Germain Lepage “ spent the rest of his days meditating on eternal truths, uplifting everyone with his examples of sturdy virtue and steadfast piety.
On Sundays, he assembled the people of the place, prayed together, explained the catechism to the little children and thus made up for the poor missionary who could only visit this place once every two years.
He waved newborn infants, assisted the sick at their last moment, exhorted them to courageously sacrifice their lives, reminded them of the infinite mercies of God.
He died in great veneration, in the year 1723, on February 26. aged approximately 85 years.
The Récollet Gelase de Lestage, on his return from Miramichy, had a service celebrated and wrote:
“…. died Joseph-Germain Lepage, of an exemplary life, in a mortification of all the senses, of an angelic devotion, died in the odor of sweetness, speaking until his last hour... He died kissing his crucifix. You have to search a long time in the archives of the Canadian Church to find such an eloquent testimony.