Le Saint-Jean-Baptiste & Fille du Roi Jeanne Chevalier

    
The ship Le Saint-Jean-Baptiste captained by Pierre Guillebaud departed Dieppe at the end of June in 1671 with 120 girls.  Listed among the 104 Filles du roi from the Paris area and northern France was our ancestor:

 Jeanne CHEVALIER , de par. St_Jacques, v. Dieppe, Normandie.   

A normal crossing took two and a half months. The Le Saint-Jean-Baptiste  arrived in Montreal in August 1671.  Upon arrival the Filles du roi were entrusted to a woman, from France or the colony, who protected them and kept them under strict discipline until married where she would attend and sign as witness to the nuptial agreements.

"The St-Jean Baptiste" was a 295-300 barrel vessel. The dimensions of a boat of 300 barrels would have been 76 feet in length, 27.33 feet in width and 10.5 feet in depth if using George Fournier’s method which he described in his book, Hydrographie, published in 1643. This type of boat was called a galleon and could be armed if needed.


On its return to Dieppe on 10 January 1672, the vessel brought back from Nouvelle-France beaver skins, moose, stone, wood, pitch, and other rare items.


Jeanne Marguarite Chevalier is the 2nd of our ancestors to be listed as a passenger on this ship.

Le Saint-Jean-Baptiste

A voyage across the ocean - The ship Le Saint-Jean-Baptiste captained by Pierre Guillebaud departed Dieppe on the end of June in 1671 with 120 girls. Yves Landry has listed 104 of the girls (Filles du roi) from the Paris area and in northern France.
Included in the passengers is our ancestor:
Catherine DUCHARME, de par. St-Benoît, rue des Poiriers, v. Paris, Île-de-France
Born 1637; daughter of Jean Ducharme & Anne LeLievre

On board was "The Passenger Sr Bouteillerie with two carpenters, two bricklayers, four labourers to clear land for up to 100 acres. The ship was also a hundred men, one hundred and twenty girls, fifty sheep and lamb, ten donkeys and their offspring, and draperies, blankets and much more for use of man. "

A normal crossing took two and a half months. They arrived in Montreal in August 1671.
Upon arrival the Filles du roi were entrusted to a woman, from France or the colony, who protected them and kept them under strict discipline until married where she would attend and sign as witness to the nuptial agreements.

Catherine married Pierre Roy on 12 Jan. 1672 in Montreal.

"The St-Jean Baptiste" was a 295-300 barrel vessel. The dimensions of a boat of 300 barrels would have been 76 feet in length, 27.33 feet in width and 10.5 feet in depth if using George Fournier’s method which he described in his book, Hydrographie, published in 1643. This type of boat was called a galleon and could be armed if needed.


On its return to Dieppe on 10 January 1672, the vessel brought back from Nouvelle-France beaver skins, moose, stone, wood, pitch, and other rare items.

King's Daughters - Settler's of New France

One of our ancestors, our lovely Catherine, was a "fille du roi". These young women, the King's Daughters, known in French as the "fille du roi", agreed to travel to the new settlements in North America (Nouvelle-France) and marry a settler there in exchange for a dowry of 50 livres from the French King, Louis XIV. The program was instituted because there was a severe imbalance between single men and women at the new French outpost. Most female immigrants had to pay their own passage, and there were few single women who voluntarily came to settle in the harsh climate and conditions of New France.

The title "King's Daughters" was meant to imply state patronage (not royal or noble birth). Most of these women were commoners of humble birth. In addition to the monetary support from the King they also had the costs of their transportation covered. Many Daughters were poor and were considered "orphans" by virtue of having lost at least one parent, though not necessarily both. Some still had both parents living. In the new settlement the girls were expected to marry and start families in an attempt to further populate New France.

Our ancestor, Catherine Ducharme of Ile-de-France, arrived in New France in 1671 and married Pierre Roy dit St-Lambert, who had arrived in Quebec in 1666 with the Regiment du Carignan.
Married on 12 JAN 1672 in Montreal, Ile-De-Montreal, Quebec, they raised their family at Laprairie on the south shore of Montreal.