Author's note: these articles are still in progress. For full citations of my sources, see the previous part(s). Copyright is mine. These articles may not be copied except for personal use, with full citation of author and source.
All of Pierre and Marie's seven children lived interesting lives, even fascinating ones. Misreadings and published errors sometimes confuse exactly who these seven children are; so, for the record, here they are, as currently (2002) shown on PRDH. Please note PRDH does not use accents. Additions in brackets are mine.
Chidren born before 1766 : Sex Birth Marriage Death First name of the child Place Place Place Name of the spouse
f 1657-07-14 1679-10-23 JEANNE Trois-Rivières Trois-Rivières
m 1659-11-27 1688-01-07 1709-00-00 LOUIS Trois-Rivières St-François-du-Lac Pays-d'en-Haut [actually Sodus Bay, modern-day New York] Jeanne Quigetigoucoue
f before 1662 1682-08-30 1750-01-07 MARIE ANGELIQUE Lieu indéterminé (au Québec) [Place unknown, in Québec, probably Cap-de-la Madeleine, according to her marriage contract] Sorel Pointe-du-Lac Francois Delpe St Cerny
f 1664-06-01 before 1686-12-311 MARGUERITE Trois-Rivières Jean Fafard [remarried to Michel Massé before 1705-12-31 Pays-d'en-haut, also according to PRDH]
f before 1667 [early 1667, by March] 1684-04-30 1752-00-00 ISABELLE ELISABETH MARIE Lieu indéterminé (au Québec) [possibly Cap-de-la-Madeleine] Sorel Colonies anglaises (États-Unis) Joachim Germanau [remarried to Pierre Tichenet by 1704? And to the Iroquois Carandowana2 about 1709?]
f before 1669 before 1684-12-313 MARIE MADELEINE Lieu indéterminé (au Québec) Maurice Menard Fontaine [I have seen no evidence Maurice ever used the dit name Fontaine.]
m before 1673 before 1706-11-24 JEAN Lieu indéterminé (au Québec) Anne
I cite the current PRDH list because even the composition of the family has been misinterpreted in the past. Tanguay lists eight children in the family (in his first volume and adds two more in his third volume). Some web sites, as well as some recent books and articles, also contain errors about who they are. Charles A. Hanna, in 1911, knew the work of Benjamin Sulte,4 and cited Sulte's identification of the link between the Couc family of New France with the Montours of the English colonies. Hanna says all the children were born at Three Rivers [sic], either Sulte's error or Hanna's guess. Hanna then lists the eight children found in Tanguay, massacring Marguerite's first husband's last name as "Lafart dit Laframboise" for what should be Fafard dit Maconce, and recording Angélique's husband's name as "M. St. Corney", whom Hanna says she married "August 4, 1692" [sic], ten years off the mark. From Sulte's notes identifying the Montours of New York as the Coucs of New France, Hanna then assumes that Louis Couc, "the half-breed son of Pierre Couc,"5 was the father of Madame Montour, and that she must have been named Margaret [sic]6 after her mother, a Sokoki.
Both of Hanna's assumptions are false, as Montour is not the name of Isabelle's / Madame Montour's father. United States writers, in Hanna's time and even more recently, knew little or nothing about the "dit" and "dite" naming systems of New France, not to mention the Native naming customs. Nor did they know it was not a strong tradition in New France to name a child after a parent or grandparent. More likely, a child was named after one of the godparents, as was true for Jeanne (godmother Jeanne Crevier, wife of Pierre Boucher; she is identified as de la Mesle, her father's dit name, and Des Groseliers was godfather, most probably Médard Chouart sieur DesGroseilliers (soon to defect to the English with Radisson in 1665); and for Louis, godparents were Louis Godefroy, sieur de Normanville, and his wife Marguerite Seigneuret. Marguerite Couc was not named for her godmother, once again Jeanne Crevier, which would have repeated the name Jeanne, although this repetition of names did occur in some families.7 Marguerite's godfather was Jean Péré, an important friend of the family. I have enjoyed myself speculating which of the women named Élisabeth / Isabelle might have been a godmother for Élisabeth / Isabelle in the Cap-de-la-Madeleine of 1667.8 When "Pierre Kouc Lafleur" himself was godfather for an Amérindienne 27 August 1651 at Trois-Rivières, she was named Perrine, a feminine form of Pierre.
Other assumptions have been made about the family, for example, that the children without baptisms must have been born in the pays-d'en-haut, the country upriver. What those who suggest this do not know is that records are lost for Cap-de-la-Madeleine and Saint-François-du-Lac for the crucial period of the births of the children with missing baptisms.9 Angélique and Isabelle were obviously known to have been baptized or they would not have been allowed to receive the sacrament of matrimony. A guess that Pierre and perhaps all of his family were off trading out in the wilds with the Indians when the unrecorded births occurred is not easily supported, as all legal trading during the early years of the family's existence was limited to the colony, with Natives coming down to trade for European merchandise and carrying their furs down with them. I've seen no evidence Pierre did any legal or illegal trading; instead the documents I've seen associate him with tending to his various properties and his involvement in legal disputes (including the court case in Québec City in 1680-1681 in connection with his daughter Jeanne's death), although he might have traded with the Natives when they came to the colony.10
Besides, the threat from marauding Iroquois was simply too great for most men to go off to trade in the pays-d'en-haut from the mid-1640s until after the Carignan Regiment soldiers suppressed the Iroquois by 1668. Pierre Couc's neighbor at Trois-Rivières, Pierre Boucher, declared in his Histoire Veritable et Naturelle, written in 1663, that it was almost impossible for men to go into their fields to tend their crops and animals in these years without being killed or wounded by the Iroquois. Even the Western Nations (mainly Odawas and Huron-Petuns) did not come down the Ottawa River to the mother colony to trade in any numbers.11 Only after 1669 did legal trade excursions into the pays-d'en-haut begin to take place to any extent. The last Couc child, Jean-Baptiste, was born about 1673, when Pierre was at least in his late forties. A misunderstanding of basic history can easily lead to inaccurate leaps of interpretation. It may be romantic to imagine Pierre with his Indian wife and their children living as quasi-legal fur traders or trappers, but the evidence I have seen to this date just does not support such an image, although he was definitely an interpreter of Indian languages, possibly both Algonquin and Iroquois.12
His eldest son, Louis Couc Montour, did, however, engage in the legal fur trade in the pays-d'en-haut, despite the fact he is often presented solely as a renegade and fugitive. Although not yet seventeen, he received a concession of land from the seigneur, Crevier, at Saint-François-du-Lac on 26 January 167740 and may have worked it, "Louis Couc de Montour" was hired as early as 8 August 1688 by François de Boisguillet, represented by Jean Boudor, to go to Baye des Puants (Green Bay, Wisconsin).13 By 19 August 1692, Louis Montour, thirty-three years old, was doing the hiring himself, engaging Pierre Mouflet, voyageur, to go to the 8ta8ais (Ottawas / Odawas, means traders) and neighboring nations, leaving the ensuing year in the spring, 1693, and planning to return the spring of 1694.14 Two days later, 21 August 1692, the notary Maugue wrote a contract for Louis Couc Sieur de Montour in the presence of Joachim Germano, brother and assistant of Montour, "frere et assistant du sr de Montour". (Note the use of the term "brother" instead of brother-in-law. In-laws are sometimes identified as brothers or sisters in the extant documents.) This contract concluded an agreement with Claude Fezeret, sieur de Guilbot, son of René Fezeret, bourgeois of Ville Marie, to form a société for common profit from a voyage they will make to the 8ta8ais (Ottawa country) to trade; at this time 8ta8ais generally referred to Michilimackinac at modern-day Saint Ignace, Michigan, and points beyond.15 The contract also speaks of working "la forge", a furnace or hearth where metals are heated or wrought (possibly from a mine or ore deposits?16 ) a task that might take up to three years.17
This contract is yet another example of a document which contains details within it that are not summarized in an index. If I had not ordered a copy, I would never have known that "Germano" and Montour were associated for this venture because the name Germano does not appear in any index that lists the document.18 I have other extant records of Montour's legal involvement in the pays-d'en-haut, including one listing the names of sixteen men, Montour among them, allowed to go up to Michilimackinac at the beginning of September 1697, after all trade was forbidden in 1696, with Sieur de Tonty capitaine Reformé, signed 28 October 1697 by Champigny.19
As I stated earlier, Tanguay lists eight children, not seven, in the Couc family, including an Elizabeth, b 1667 (with no mention of her use of the variant name Isabelle, causing some commentators to maintain they were two different individuals)20. When she married in 1684, she used the first name Isabelle. She herself appears never to have signed her name, although she did mark a cross on at least two documents,21 and it is under the name Isabelle that she is said to be unable to sign the registers of Fort Pontchartrain in 1704 and 1706. The eighth child Tanguay adds is a "Marie", b 1663. Absence of a precise date and place in Tanguay is a red flag signaling caution. Then he tags Angélique, b 1661, onto the end of the list of children.
This simple entry has led researchers to make other errors, even though this "Marie" is easy to account for. The 1667 Census taken at Petit Cap-de-la-Madeleine reports: Pierre "Couque" age 40; wife Marie, 35; Jeanne, 10 (1657, baptized 14 July 1657); Louis, 7 (1660-59, actually baptized 27 Nov 1659, so he would be 8 later in the year 1667); Angélique, 5 (1662 or 1661, if her birthday was after the census was taken);22 Marguerite, 3 (1664-63); Élisabeth ("Eslizabeth"), 3 mois (months), thus born 1667, probably before April).23
The 1681 census for Saint-François-du-Lac records: Pierre "Couque", habitant (inhabitant or resident), age 57; wife Marie, 50; Louis, 20 (1661-60, actually November 1659); Marie, 18 (1663-62) thus easily Marie-Angélique, probably born 1662); Marguerite, 16 (1663-64, actually baptized 1 June 1664, this census likely taken before June);24 Élisabeth, 14 (1667); Madeleine, 12 (1669-70); Jean, 8 (1674-73), all children recorded as unmarried.25 First-born Jeanne had died in 1679.26
As can be seen above in the list from PRDH, birth / baptism records are extant only for Jeanne, Louis, and Marguerite. No record I have ever seen exists for a girl child baptized and named only Marie, although each of the girls used Marie as part of her name at one time or another.27 Tanguay evidently had to fit in that name "Marie" of the 1681 census, almost leaving out the continued existence of Marie-Angélique, who definitely married in 1682, the year after the census. The census does not record Angélique elsewhere in 1681, although her future husband is also recorded at Saint-François, age 34, with one fusil and 12 arpents of developed land.
This listing of a "Marie" has encouraged at least one researcher, Barbara J. Sivertsen, to fabricate a Marie-Anne Couc and fit her into the family.28 Using the book version of PRDH, which does not attempt to link individuals to families, this writer found an isolated confirmation record for a girl she identifies as a daughter of Pierre Couc. While it is true PRDH records that a "MARIE ANNE LAFLEUR Residence: EVECHE [diocese] DE QUEBEC 012 [years old, thus born 1669-8, not 1663-62]", was confirmed at Batiscan in 1681,29 it must be stressed that "Lafleur" is one of the more common "dit" names, Jetté citing 55 families before 1730 who used it and two more individuals for whom it was a last name. It is, of course, also true that the Couc children sometimes used their father's "dit" names, both Lafleur and Cognac, Jeanne and Louis being baptized with the name Lafleur in 1657 and 1659, and "Elizabeth Couc dit Lafleur de Coignac [sic]" recorded with all of these names for her 1678 confirmation at Sorel.30 Nevertheless, a case cannot be built on one reference to a Marie-Anne "Lafleur", however suggestive.
Sorel, the site of Isabelle Couc's confirmation and marriage, is far closer to the Couc residence at Saint-François-du-Lac than Batiscan is to Saint-François-du-Lac, and Batiscan is on the other side of the Saint-Laurent. (Map work is another component of research.) Furthermore, only a bishop can confer the sacrament of confirmation. Bishop also visited Sorel in 1681, on 8 June, to confirm nine individuals, six days after he conferred the sacrament to twenty-three at Batiscan on 2 June.31 Surely a daughter of Pierre would have been confirmed at Sorel, as Isabelle was. I do not know with certainty who this Marie-Anne is, but as no Marie-Anne appears with the Couc family in the census of 1681, she is almost certainly not a Couc.
I decided to go as close to the source as I could. From the microfilm of what may be a transcription of all confirmation records for 1681, including Batiscan, I read "Marie Annelafleur".32 This name follows the names of "Marie Mad. Trotier", age 11, and "Caterine Trotier", age 7. According to the census of the same year, these girls appear to be daughters of Jean Trottier & Geneviève "de Lafon".33 This same census of 1681 at Batiscan lists only one "Anne", age 12: "Anne Trottier [sic], daughter of François "Trottier" and his wife, Jeanne Hardy.34 Jetté spells the name Trottain. He was a veteran of the Carignan regiment who eventually became a notary. On 25 July 1682, he was "among the habitants of Batiscan united to demand a permanent parish priest."35 How likely is it that Anne's father neglected to see to it that his twelve-year-old daughter was confirmed when the bishop came to Batiscan in 1681, if, one year later, he petitioned for a priest to be stationed in Batiscan? I believe this hand-written "Marie Annelafleur", cleaned up as Marie Anne Lafleur for various publications, is an error. Could the copyist have recorded the wrong name, given that this seems to be the third entry of "Trotier" in a row? I have seen more outrageous examples of a priest or clerk changing a name through a lapse of concentration.
Not having considered any of this, though, Sivertsen continues to develop the existence of this Marie-Anne (Lafleur) Couc by "marrying" her to an Englishman, Joseph Greenhill, and even extrapolating this "fact" into one of the reasons Louis and Isabelle defected to the English. Then she writes:
Virtually nothing is known of this couple except that they had a son, also named Joseph (Grinhill), born about 1683 in British America [sic]. Joseph was a shoemaker who married twenty-one-year-old Marie-Louise Paille in Montreal in 1711.36
Since Sivertsen cites a marriage contract, I decided to send for it, and it became obvious she did not do the same, as there is no mention of any Pierre Couc anywhere on the record.37 In fact, the mother of Joseph Greenhill, the son, on both the marriage record of 15 July 1711 at Montréal and the contract (14 June 1711 Lepailleur), is given as Marie Anne Cook (British spelling), residence Wooster [sic], Angleterre, deceased at the time of the 1711 marriage; and the father, a merchant, residence Wooster, Angleterre, is also declared deceased.38 That's Angleterre, England, not Nouvelle Angleterre, New England.
Marcel Fournier's entry for "Greenhill, Joseph born in 1679 (marriage) or 1686 (abjuration)" says he is originally from Worcester, county of the same name, in England (Angleterre), and that he emigrated to New England (Nouvelle Angleterre) at an unknown date. Evidently his parents remained in England if that is given as their residence, or former residence, as they were deceased. For this Marie Anne Cook to have been Marie Anne Lafleur and mother of Joseph Greenhill the younger, she would have had to travel to England by 1679 (before age ten, two years before her confirmation) or prior to 1686 (before the age of 17). Fournier continues: "About 1708, Joseph Greenhill was taken prisoner by the French and the Abénaquis during an attack on the posts in New England. Brought to Montréal, he abjured the Anglican religion 20 October 1709." 39 That a daughter of Pierre Couc, decidely Catholic, could have gone to England (or even New England) to give birth to Joseph Greenhill, Anglican, just does not seem possible. As I said before, similar names do not guarantee same person.
Sivertsen may have been influenced by the fact that Isabelle's grandson, Nicholas Montour, was baptized in the protestant faith, but there is no evidence Isabelle herself ever abandoned her faith. In fact there is evidence she carried other grandchildren to Philadelphia to have them baptized in the Catholic church there. I will return to this writer for her totally false identification of the husband of a member of the next generation of the Couc / Montour family.
Pierre Couc and his wife, Marie, had seven children, six of whom had descendants that can be documented. Their documented lives are fascinating in and of themselves without having to fabricate anything.
(1) No indication is given that Marguerite was married when she witnessed Isabelle's marriage contract on 26 April 1684, Antoine Adhémar, notary at Trois-Rivières, ANQ, photocopy. This document names Isabelle's parents, and Louis Couc Sr de Montour, Angélique (wife of François Delpé sr "St. Cernen"), Marguerite, Marie Magdelayne, and Jean Couc, freres et soeurs de la ditte [sic] Isabelle Couc, all living at St.-François. Angélique's marriage contract also identifies the presence of the same members of the family. 27 July 1682, Ameau, photocopy. Jeanne had died in 1679.
(2) This is another name that is spelled in a variety of ways. I will standardize it in the above form. He was also known as Robert Hunter in honor of the governor of New York.
(3) Nevertheless, 7 Jan 1688, Marie-Madeleine is still called daughter of her father and not wife of anyone at the baptism of a son of her brother, Louis Couc Montour, and Jeanne Qui . . . [sic] at Saint-François-du-Lac in the seigneur's house. Godparents: Jean Péré & Marie-Madeleine Couc, daughter of Pierre Couc. No first name for the child survives on the damaged document, but Jetté and PRDH say this is Joseph Couc Lafleur Montour, son of Jeanne Quigetigoucoue. Madeleine, daughter of Pierre Couc, was still celibate 19 October 1688 when she served as godmother at the baptism of Joseph, Soquoquis, son of Miconanbesq & Manigascouet, at Saint-François-du-Lac. Also present Jean Joseph Gerard de Charlay, ecuyer, enseigne dans une compagnie. And 11 February 1689, the same information about her appears when she was godmother for Thérèse, Soquoquis, age 7, daughter of Mascoromeni & Matecouat, at Saint-François-du-Lac. Godfather was Martin Remi, sergent de la compagnie de M. de Lamotte (Note: this is not Antoine Laumet dit de Lamothe Cadillac, who will not be a captain with a company until 1693). Photocopies. I estimate her marriage as 1690.
(4) Sulte's notes appeared in Egle's Notes and Queries in 1895 (Fourth Series, ii., 327), quoted in Charles Hanna, Wilderness Trail, Vol. 1, originally published 1911, reprint by Wennawoods Publishing, 1995, p. 199.
(5) Hanna, p. 200. Only Tanguay gives a first name of Marguerite for Louis's Sokoki woman; his source is not extant. American writers before the modern period use the phrase "half-breed" to indicate children of marriages between an Indian and a European. "Métis" is the phrase used in Canada.
(6) Actually her name is Marguerite, another example of a writer "correcting" the spelling of a name.
(7)See the two Pierre Roy sons of Pierre Roy and Catherine Ducharme. The Pierre baptized 1677-01-03 at Laprairie (PRDH #17688) had Fiacre Ducharme as godfather. This Pierre married Marguerite OuabanKiKoué (here spelled as consistently written on Detroit records. PRDH has only a very few references to her from the registers of the mother colony and thus standardizes the name as Marguerite Ouacaiskikoue). Pierre Poupard served as godfather for the second Pierre Roy born to Pierre and Catherine, Montréal 1679-06-17(PRDH # 40540). He married Marie-Angelique Faille (FAYE in Jetté).
(8) My best "guess" is that the godmother was Élisabeth Radisson, who is recorded as "Isabelle redison" wife of "La vallee" (Claude Jutras dit Lavallée in Jetté) on the 1667 census for Cap-de-la-Madeleine, which also records the Couc family present there in 1667. MG 1 - Série G1, NAC F-765, photocopy. She is sister of Pierre-Esprit Radisson,the famous explorer, and aunt of Étienne Volant Radisson, the commis for the Company of the Colony at Fort Pontchartrain in the first years, 1701-1704. Her son Pierre, b. 1664, was a voyageur in a convoy of more than 45 men who traveled to the fort, those hired on 10 July 1703, the same day as Étienne Véniard sieur de Bourgmont, who would figure in Isabelle's life. Adhémar, photocopies.
(9) See Jetté, xiv-xv.
(10) A Louis Lafleur, son of Pierre Lafleur, served as honorary godfather in the absence of François Lemaistre on 11 August 1677 at Montréal for the baptism of François Gerbaux, son of Christophe & Marguerite Lemaistre of Rivière-du-Loup. Mother of the child is said to be in Montréal because of the fur trade. Also present Judith "Rogaut" (Rigaud), then wife of Jean de Laplanche and grandmother of the child. This family and Joachim Germaneau had property at Rivière-du-Loup. If this is truly Louis Couc Lafleur, about to be 18, then this record is the only known example of his signing under this name. Photocopy.
(11) I've read these details in several sources too numerous to mention, including Boucher. Boucher's visit to France was instrumental in convincing the monarch to send the Carignan regiment.
(12) Journal of the Jesuit Fathers, in the year 1652: "On the 21st [of May], two men in a canoe,-one a Frenchman, named La fleur de Cognac, a soldier; the other, a young Algonquin,-having gone to raise their fish-line on the other side of the River, opposite the fort of Three Rivers, were attacked by a volley of 7 or 8 gunshots. The savage died two days later; the Frenchman was wounded, but not seriously. The enemy promptly retreated, being pursued by a number of canoes and shallops." Also in Desrosiers 2: 3. Léo-Paul Desrosier, Iroquoisie, 1652-1665, Tome 2, Septentrion, 1998: On 19 November 1653, "Lafleur" and Des Mares leave New France with Teharegonen (Tekarihoken, Teharihogen), Mohawk sachem, for the country of the Mohawks / Agniers. "On the same 19th, Teharihogen embarks at 3 Rivers [sic] with sieurs des Mares and la fleur, for Annien¸e. The other Annien¸e´ronnons having embarked, put back and remained at 3 Rivers. " (Jesuit Relations 1653 and Desrosiers 2: 37) Entry for May 1654: sometime this month, letters received from Des Mares & Lafleur among the Onontagués / Onondagas (Desrosiers 2: 48). 1 July 1654, Des Mares & Lafleur return with Batard Flamand and an embassy of Agniers / Mohawks, having passed the winter in Iroquoisie [modern-day New York State]. (Desrosiers 2:53 ) On his return Pierre Couc serves as interpreter at Trois-Rivières. and lives there in the fort, according to Simone Vincens, Madame Montour et son temps, Québec / Amérique, 1979. Hereafter Vincens. In 1660, Pierre Couc is, "habitant et Interprete pour les sauvages aux trois rivieres", (note: he is not identified as a fur trader) when he purchased land, two arpents by 25 arpents, in the Jesuit seigneurie of Cap-de-la-Magdelaine, from Pierre Cailleau. The sale included a house in the village near the mill, two pigs, at least eight chickens, and a "Cocq", all for 750 livres. Notary Severin Ameau, 7 January 1660, ANQ photocopy. The family had land at Trois-Rivières and Batiscan as well, and Jean Crevier granted land "quatre arpents de front" in Saint-François-du-Lac to Pierre Couc 14 October 1673, Adhémar, ANQ, photocopy.
(13) 8 August 1688, Adhémar, ANQ, photocopy.
(14) 19 August 1692, Adhémar, ANQ, photocopy..
(15) 21 August 1692, Maugue, ANQ, photocopy.
(16) In a later document, "Montour" is cited as one of the witnesses attesting to the discovery of a mine in the region.
(17) It is interesting to note that by 1701 Michel Massé, perhaps already Louis's brother-in-law, was a blacksmith, forgeron, who requested his father, Martin Massé, a master tool maker, taillandier, to protest for him that a soufflet or bellows brought from France by a Mr. Duperé, merchant, does not serve to heat the fire because its tube is too small and too weak "tuyeau trop menu et trop faible". 28 September 1701, Adémar, ANQ, photocopy. The complaint was certified by other blacksmiths, among them a Prudhomme. The bellows was to be repaired for 40 livres du pais, money of New France. Was Michel also involved in this enterprise with Montour? He had been in a society with François (Daupin) de Laforest to work as a taillhandier, edge toolmaker, on the Illinois, beginning in 1696 and to continue for three years. Adhémar #3520, ANQ photocopy. Both Captains Antoine Tonty and François Laforest served as second-in-command at Fort Pontchartrain, where Michel Massé had property, and both were eventually named commandant there.
(18) It does not appear in the Antoine Roy book index nor on Parchemin.
(19) MG1, Vol. 15, NAC F-15, ff. 143-143v.
(20) The name is spelled both Elisabeth and Elizabeth in the French records, as is Isabelle as Izabelle. See William A. Hunter, "Couc, Elizabeth? [sic] (La Chenette, Techenet [sic]; Montour," DCB III (1974), pp. 147-48, for his list of English language primary sources. He cites no French language sources, except Tanguay, and uses only the incomplete MPHC "Cadillac Papers" English translation of French documents from the colonial archives.
(21) 26 April 1684, Notary A. Adhémar, ANQ, photocopy of marriage contract. On her sister Angélique's marriage contract 27 July 1682, Ameau, she is Isabelle. Her cross appears on both of these documents. She was recorded as Elisabeth three days after Angélique's contract when she served as godmother for her brother Louis's son François, 30 August at Sorel, the same day as Angélique's marriage at Sorel. The child, whose Indian mother's name is not given, was born more than a year earlier, 6 April 1681, said to be from Saint-François-du-Lac, and had his future uncle-by-marriage, François Delpé, as godfather, who apparently gave him his first name. PRDH, taken from Tanguay. You really need to hear the French pronunciation of Isabelle and Élisabeth to understand how these two names were commonly interchanged. Isabelle is just another version, just as Susan is another spelling for my name, Suzanne. I have received notes addressed to me as Susan and I have been called Susan even by those who know the spelling and English pronunciation of my baptismal name. (Not many know the French pronunciation!) I'm also called or addressed as Sue, Suzie, even Suzi.
(22) It was sent to France with Talon's letter of 27 October 1667. MG 1 - Série G1, NAC F-765. It would have had to be taken well before this date, in May or June for the Cap area. Simone Vincens mistakenly gives August as Isabelle's birth month.
(23) PRDH calls the location Comté de Champlain, but the microfilm of the record for the Couc family places them in Cap-de-la-Madeleine. MG 1 Série G1, NAC F-765. Angélique's marriage contract states she is native to (originally from) the Cap. Photocopies.
(24) It was sent to France in November of 1681. MG 1 - Série G1, NAC F-765.
(25) I count 51 people recorded at Saint-François. Pierre owned three fusils and declared 15 (not 14, as sometimes reported) arpents of land that he had developed. He had other land, according to notarial records, and property in Trois-Rivières, some of which he and his wife gave to Isabelle at her marriage in 1684, described in the marriage contract.
(26) She died as a result of an attack that also injured her father. There is no extant evidence that she was raped in this attack, although it is possible. Documents for the original inquiry have not survived. See surviving documents concerning the legal appeal Pierre Couc filed: Jugements et déliberations du Conseil souverain: 30 December 1680, II, p. 459; 24 March 1681, II, pp. 523-24.
(27) On 9 July 1673, Angélique, about eleven years old, is recorded as "Marie-Angélique" for the baptism at Ville Marie (Montréal) of Pierre, son of Alexis Tegargné, Iroquois, and Anne 8tach8aba [ink blot] 8K8e, Algonkine, with Pierre Picoté de Belestre as godfather (father of Marie-Anne, who married Antoine Tonty), photocopy. Perhaps this is a time her father visited Ville Marie for the trade fair. She is simply "Marie" at the baptism of daughter Véronique, PRDH #88308 1700-01-01, and of son Maurice, #88395 1703-06-19, both at Trois-Rivières.
(28) Barbara J. Sivertsen, Turtles, Wolves, and Bears, A Mohawk Family History, Heritage Books, 1996.
(29) PRDH #403523 Batiscan 1681-06-02.
(30) PRDH says the exact date was omitted, the event taking place between the dates indicated: "B [a baptism on] 1678-06-05 ET and M [a marriage on] 1678-05-02"; and photocopy of Sorel record, FHL #1294705. This film says the following years are missing for Sorel: 1679-1685 (a crucial period for the Couc family), 1690-1707 (also crucial, especially for marriage records for Marguerite and Madeleine), 1721, 1722, 1760. Tanguay, in the nineteenth century, knew a source for some precise records for Sorel, including Angélique's and Isabelle's marriages there. Abbé A. Couillard Després, in his Histoire de Sorel, Montréal: Imprimerie des Sourds-Muets, 1926, may also have had a now-missing source for Isabelle's church wedding, as he says the marriage was blessed by Father Pierre Volant de St-Claude, whose own father acted as witness at the marriage. Couillard Després, though, also uses a variation of Tanguay's error by calling Pierre Couc a soldier of "Frémont [sic]". (p. 82) The father of Pierre Volant is Claude Volant, sieur de Saint-Claude, who married, about 1653 at Trois-Rivières, Françoise Radisson, the sister of Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Élisabeth Radisson, wife of Claude Jutras, a fact which reinforces my "guess" that Élisabeth / Isabelle Radisson was Élisabeth / Isabelle Couc's godmother, but does not prove it. Two of his sons were priests, twins Pierre and Claude. Another son was Étienne Volant, sieur de Radisson (Jetté). Radisson went to Detroit with the first convoy in 1701 and served there until 1704 as commis of the Company of the Colony / Compagnie de la Colonie. This same company, on 10 July 1703, hired yet another Volant son, Jean-François Volant, sieur de Fosseneuve, to go to Fort Pontchartrain as a hunter, on the same contract that hired Étienne Véniard, sieur de Bourgmont, in the same capacity. Both men signed: "Jean Francois Volant dit Fosse Neuve" and "de bourg / mont", written on two lines. Thanks to Gail Moreau-DesHarnais for noticing Bourgmont's signature, as the index to this act mistranscribes the name. It is definitely Bourgmont, even in the text of the contract. "Radisson" was also present and signed. On title page: "Engagement par Messiers de la Compagnie pour Bourgmon [sic] et vollant de fosseneuve", my reading. Notary Chambalon, ANQ, photocopy.
(31) PRDH list of confirmations. After leaving Batiscan, the bishop went to Champlain on the 3rd, Cap-de-la-Madeleine on the 4th, Trois-Rivières the 5th; then he crossed the Saint-Laurent to Sorel for the ceremonies there on the 8th. Geneviève Letendre, age 12, who would go to Fort Pontchartrain by 1703, when she was wife of Étienne Volant, sieur de Radisson, was among the nine confirmed at Sorel.
(32) FHL #1311432. Lists also appear within parish registers, but I have not found the Batiscan one on the microfilm of its registers. The year 1681 appears to be lost. Among those confirmed that day at Batiscan: "Marie Mad. Trotier", 11; "Caterine Trotier", 7; "Marie Mad. du fresne" (Thunay dite Dufresne, who would go to Fort Pontchartrain in 1706), 8; "Marie Jeanne Colet", 8; "Marie lafond", 9, all of whose parents were residents of Batiscan. Jeanne Couc received confirmation at L'Immaculée-Conception-des-Trois-Rivières 12 May 1664; Angélique Couc in 1676, listed in the Saint-François-du-Lac register(PRDH shows her incorrectly as Angelique COUE; it is truly Couc.), and "Elizabeth Couc dit [sic] Lafleur de Coignac" in 1678 at Sorel. Photocopies) The family did have property in Batiscan in 1674 (photocopy of notarial record), but resided at Saint-François-du-Lac and used the parish at Sorel for religious acts in 1678, 1682 and 1684.
(33) NAC microfilm F-765.
(34) Ibid. Anne married Antoine Choquet 29 January 1691 at Batiscan. Jetté.
(35) 25 July 1682, Adhémar, cited in Langlois, Tome 4, p. 418, my translation.
(36) Sivertsen, p. 99. Parentheses as in original.
(37) She cites "Archives nationales de Quebec (Montreal), ACTES: Pierre [sic] Couc 1711-6-14: Contrat de mariage entre Joseph Grinhil . . . et Marie-Louise Paillé", p. 294. This is the contract written by the notary Lepailleur that does not include any mention of Pierre Couc. ANQ, photocopy.
(38) PRDH #48036 1711-06-15, and photocopy. The parents of the bride, Leonard Paillet and Louise Vachon, are also said to reside in Wooster [sic], Angleterre, on the PRDH certificate, but this is a copying or reading error, as they were very definitely recorded as residents of Montréal, where Louise was born in 1690. To be fair, I must admit the word Angleterre is occasionally used to refer to Nouvelle Angleterre on some correspondence I have seen, but this is very rare.
(39) Marcel Fournier, De la Nouvelle-Angleterre à la Nouvelle-France, Montréal: Société Généalogique Canadienne-Française, 1992, p. 138
(40) 26 January 1676, concession of Île St-Joseph at St-François by Crevier to Louis Couc, files de Pierre, Notary Adhémar, #164, photocopy. Louis had, apparently, not yet chosen the dit name Montour in 1676.
