| Notes |
- Guyon and family emigrated to North America as part of the Percheron Immigration, a small group of families and some single men from the region of Perche, in the province of Normandy, brought over to New France in 1634 to colonize new areas.
Jean de Lauzon, the Governor of New France, awarded a concession of land to Robert Giffard de Moncel, physician to the colony. Giffard, now Seigneurie of Beauport, recruited Guyon and other tradesmen to the new colony with the offer of 1,000 arpents of land with hunting and fishing rights in exchange for three years of service.
Guyon traveled aboard a convoy of four ships under the command of Charles Duplessis-Bochart and arrived in New France in 1634. Guyon was awarded land in newly-established Beauport, Quebec, one of the oldest European-founded communities in Canada (and now a borough of Quebec City). Under the Seigneurial system of New France|seigneurial system, he received a rear fief (arrière fief) near rivière du Buisson. He attached its name to his own, Guyon du Buisson.
Guyon lived there until he died in 1663. He built a small mill and helped build the parish church of Québec and the governor's residence.
For nine years, he and Zacharie Cloutier disputed Giffard's seigneural rights to receive foi et hommage (fealty and homage). Refusing to accept him as their superior, they did not stake their lands or pay him annual taxes. On July 19, 1646, the governor of the colony took action to force Cloutier and Guyon to comply with their contractual obligations. Such cases of censitaire refractoriness filled the time of the courts for the duration of the seigneurial system, both during the French regime and under the English.
Emigration March 1634 from Dieppe, France:
ARRIVAL IN NEW FRANCE
On January 15, 1634, just a century after the arrival of Jacques Cartier, the general assembly of the Company of One Hundred Associates met at the town house of President Lauzon and decided to make a concession to Robert Giffard of the land and Seigneurie of Beauport.
The new Seigneur, a native of Autheuil, near Tourouvre, did not waste any time in contacting his friends, intelligent people and men experienced in different trades, to achieve his project: to go and populate a seigneurie with folks wishing to live mainly off farming, as true colonists and not as fur traders. He needed to be persuasive and sometimes make attractive offers to get the most talented candidates.
In particular, Giffard met with Jean Guyon, master mason and Zacharie Cloutier, master carpenter and presented his plans to them. Come with me to New France with each of your children for a period of three years: "you will cut, clear and farm the lands and the woods of my seigneurie of Beauport"... This of Beauport on March 14, 1634. Guyon was promised 1,000 arpents of land with hunting and fishing rights. During the first three years, all of his expenses would be paid by the seigneur. The commitment was signed on Saint-Jean-Baptiste day. Also, in 1636, Giffard will pay the expenses for the family members, who stayed in France to come here. Several other conditions and advantages were signed in the presence of the notary, such as Roussel, Giffard, Damien Chamboy, Jean Pousset and Jean Guyon.
On the same March 14, Jean Guyon, censitaire of the Seigneur, apothecary, Giffard, sold to Denis Gentil, Sieur de Rougemont, a bit of land for a garden, located at the entrance to the city of Mortagne, parish of Loise. The price was 45 livres. However, the head of the Guyon family kept a house that he owned at Mortagne. He would give it as a gift to a charitable religious organization at Saint-Jean, 20 years later, on October 18, 1653.
The Guyon family, at the last minute, decided to go to New France in 1634. Together, they wanted to share the risks, the hardships and the joys of such an adventure. We know that, Mathurine Robin had brought into the world a son, Michel, on the preceding March 3. What courage to undertake an Atlantic crossing with so young a child! The first contingent of immigrants was comprised of 43 people, including the Guyon family of eight. The eldest, Barbe Guyon, married to Pierre Paradis since February 11, 1632, would wait a few years before joining her family in America.
To leave one's country is to die a little. To reach New France was to begin to live a promising future. They took the route to Rouen, then to Dieppe, port of embarkation, where a fleet of four ships under the command of Charles Duplessis-Bochart, admiral of the fleet of the One Hundred Associates awaited them.
ARRIVAL
According to the Relation des Jesuites, on May 31, 1634, a small boat came to Québec with the news that three ships belonging to the Associates had arrived near Tadoussac. A fourth, that of Duplessis-Bochart, was expected at any moment. On June 4, Robert Giffard and his recruits from Perche, including 35 people from Mortagne, joyfully reached Québec on the day of Pentecost. For Giffard, this meant to see again the country that he had loved for a long time. For his companions, this was to discover and to begin to love it.
Giffard, his wife and his two children stayed at Fort Saint-Louis. The personal property and tools of the colonists were placed in the old warehouse of the port. Men, women and children found lodging in the barracks erected near the shore. Then some scouts and finally the entire group left the Lower-Town to meet at the small river of Notre-Dame de Beauport. As quickly as possible, they needed to sow, to build a public house, to get settled. Near the Dubuisson River, Zacharie Cloutier and Jean Guyon laid out their first foundation, that of a community house.
From the first year, wheat grew very quickly, along the roads and in the clearings.
Notes:
JEAN GUYON from "Our French-Canadian Ancestors" by Thomas J. Laforest
One of the earliest French families to settle in the country, one of the most numerous in the beginning, one of the most respected and best known, was that of Jean Guyon and Mathurin Robin. The descendants are often recognized as Dion, sometimes as Despres, Dumontier, Lemoine and in Louisiana as Derbanne.
PERCHE
The Guyon family has its roots in Perche, more precisely at Tourouvre, head town of the Canton, in the Arrondisement of Mortagne-au-Perche, in the Department of the Orne.
Jacques, the father of Our Canadian Ancestor, appears for the first time at Tourouvre, on Monday, January 6, 1578, as a witness to a sale of land. On Friday, April 15, 1578, Jacques and his wife, Marie Huet, made a mutual donation to the survivor. This was their marriage contract. In the parish registries of Tourouvre, we can read the baptismal act of their daughter, Marie, held at the baptismal font on September 21, 1588 by François Lousche and Marie , widow of Jehan (Jean) Charpentier. Thomas Crete, a local bourgeois merchant, became her husband.
Jean Guyon was baptized at Saint-Aubin de Tourouvre on Friday, September 18, 1592, a century after the discovery of America. His godfathers were Jean Collin and Pierre Dolinet and his godmother Catherine Goddin. Jean grew up at Tourouvre, attended school, learned a trade and prepared the foundation for his home. On May 18, 1614, at the age of 22, he lent to Pantaleon Bigot, a laborer at Autheuil, a small village to the southeast of Tourouvre (the small village of Robert Giffard), an amount consisting of "a small pistolet d'or, fifty-two sols in coins, quarts d'ecus and other monnaie blanche", valued at 84 livres. It would seem that this trade as a mason already allowed him to have some savings.
On June 12, 1615, Jean Guyon was married at Mortagne, the parish of Saint-Jean, to Mathurine Robin, probably the daughter of Eustache and Madeleine Avrard. The couple lived at Mortagne. However, a little more than five months after their wedding on November 30, the parishioners of Tourouvre requested from "Jehan (Jean) Froger and Jehan (Jean) Guyon, mason, living in the parish of Saint-Jean at Mortagne, a flight of stones to go up the first floor of the bell tower with a huisserie of white stones from La Louverye, at the bottom and entrance to this flight". A "husserie" is defined as a fixed part in wood, forming the arch and lintel of a door in a section of a wall. The pilgrim descendants visiting the church of Tourouvre can still admire the flight of stones and frame built by his Ancestor.
MASON AT MORTAGNE
Jean Guyon worked at Mortagne for more than 18 years. Eight of his children, whom we will mention later, were also born there.
Mortagne has old walls and it was necessary to maintain them. On July 21,1625, the administrator of the residents of the town, one Jehan/Jean Ailleboust, ordered Guyon to go ahead with some repairs. A promise of 150 livres was made and a delivery of scaffolding, water, lime and sand. By the following August 22, nothing had been done. Jean went to the Court to urge the town administrator to deliver to him the money and the necessary materials to begin the work on the walls.
Jean certainly carried out many other works. He even was an employer of apprentice masons. According to Madame Pierre Mortagne (?), on April 22, 1626, Pierre Hayes, of the parish of Saint-Jean, was hired for three years "to begin on next Pentecost" in the service of Jean. The latter "will instruct him well and duly in his trade as mason, will feed him, direct him, provide him with heat and a place to sleep and in exchange, the pupil will serve his master faithfully and give him thirty livres for board for the three years.".
Zacharie Maheu, future Canadian, signed as a witness, in the presence of the Notary Sebastién Roussel. In 1632, Jacques Patard, a mason at Tourouvre, went to learn the secrets of his trade at Mortagne, at the home of Jean Guyon.
To end this important part in the life of Jean Guyon and Mathurin Robin, let's recall that their eldest daughter, Barbe, on February 11, 1632, agreed to her marriage contract, in the presence of Mathurin Roussel, to Pierre Paradis, a gunsmith and son of the late Jacques and Michelle Pelle. Jean Guyon's mother, Marie Huet, had been dead since February 26, 1626.
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1592 - 1663 (71 years)