HomeMarie Jeanne Moral 1653 - 1714Tree

Seigneurs of New France

Sex: Female.
Birth: 1653 in Trois Rivieres, Canada
Death: 20 Jan 1714 in St-Francois-du-Lac, Quebec, Canada

Family: Husband: Jacques Maugras 1639 - 1690.
Children: Marie-Jeanne Maugras 1668 - 1755. Marguerite Maugras 1674 - 1746. Madeliene Maugras 1685 - 1740. Marie-Francoise Maugras 1688 - 1688.
Marriage: ABT 1667 Trois Rivieres, Canada.

Family: Husband: Gilles Couturier 1642 - 1726.
Marriage: 9 Dec 1691

Parents: Husband: Quentin Moral 1622 - 1686. Wife: Marie Marguerie 1620* - 1700.

Marie-Jeanne was the first of four daughters of Quentin Moral and Marie Marguerie. Her father adopted the style 'Sieur de St-Quentin' and kept the family income up by selling Marie's inheritance from her first husband to newcomers to the New World. Marie saw to it that her children received good educations. Her daughters by Quentin were educated at the Ursuline convent established just across the street from the Hertel house. Marie-Jeanne's step-brother's letters mention his fluency in French, English, and Latin.

In 1666 the first census was made of New France. The Moral household at that point in time consisted of: "Quentin Moral sieur de Saint-Quentin, 44, habitant ; Marie Marguerie, 40, sa femme; Jeanne, 13 ; Marie, 10 ; Gertrude, 8 ; Marthe, 5 ; Robert Henry, 20, et Nicolas Dupuis, 24, domestiques". Marie's daughters by Jacques Hertel had already married and left the house. Trois-Rivieres and adjacent districts had grown in 20 years from a handful of settlers to a village of 69 families and 455 souls. However the town itself still consisted of only about two dozen households and less than a hundred Europeans.

A year later, the census showed that one servant had left but that otherwise the household was much the same: "Quentin Moral, 49 ; Marie Margris, 40 ; Marie-Jeanne, 14 ; Marie, 12 ; Gertrude, 10 ; Marthe, 6 ; Robert Henry, domestique, 23 ; 6 bestiaux, 64 arpents en valeur. (6 cattle, 64 arpents in value.) "

Quentin also saw that his daughters would marry well and that their husbands were provided with adequate dowries in terms of land and titles. In late 1667 Marie-Jeanne was married to Jacques Maugras at the age of 15. Their first of four daughters was born the following year. Little is known of Maugras and their record of marriage has not been located. Maugras and Marie's sisters' husbands would eventually move to St-Francois-du-Lac, the settlement founded by Marthe's step-brother-in-law, Jean Crevier.

In 1676, at age 18, Marie-Jeanne's sister, Gertrude Moral was married to Jacques Joyelle, a master gunsmith. With the assistance of the legal machinations of his father-in-law, Joyelle would obtain a seigneury, then later move to St-Francois-du-Lac near his brother-in-law Jean Crevier.

Her second sister, Marie Marthe Moral, was married in 1682 at the age of 21 to Antoine Dubois, who was in his thirties. Quentin Moral had already engineered a complex land swap when Joyelle moved to St-Francois whereby Dubois obtained a property, despite his evident inability to pay.

In 1686 Quentin Moral passed away and was buried in Trois-Rivieres.

In 1690 the governor of New France decided to retaliate against a perceived British-sponsored atrocity at Lachine. Three columns would be sent to lay waste to British settlements. Francois Hertel, Marie-Jeanne's step-brother, was sent against Fort Rollinsford at Salmon Falls, New Hampshire. He assembled a party consisting of 25 French, many of them his relatives, including his three eldest sons, his nephew Louis Crevier, Nicolas Gastineau Duplessis and Jacques Maugras. Twenty Sokoki and five Algonquin Indians were also in the party.

A two-month march in the depth of winter took the party to Salmon Falls on the night of 27 March. Three columns of eight men made a simultaneous night attack on the fort and town. Surprise was total. Within two hours the place was gone. Between 30 and 43 Englishmen were killed, 54 taken prisoner, 27 houses burned down, and the cattle of the settlement set loose. The French lost two, one of them Jacques Maugras. Marie Jeanne found herself widowed, with four daughters to raise, the youngest of them just two years old.

A man or woman with children who had lost a spouse could not remain long unmarried on the frontier. Just over a year later Marie Jeanne married her second husband, the widower Gilles Couturier, who had two teenaged sons. They had no children together, but raised their joint family. She passed away in St-Francois-du-Lac in 1714, at the age of 60. Gilles would survive her by twelve years.

mtdna Haplogroup W
HVR1: 16209C 16223T 16255A 16292T 16519C
HVR2: 73G 119C 189G 195C 204C 207A 263G 309.1C 315.1C

Change: 1 Jan 2007 Time: 11:37:13.