Gabriel

Gabriel-Robert Dufour's history and his children

1. The history of the ancestor Gabriel-Robert Dufour and his children born of his two marriages, has been written more complete way in books that Jean-Paul Dufour published in 1989 and 1993 and May 2000. These 3 publishing are sold out. A new publishing with 620 pages will be in May 2004, but printed at member's request.

2. His native place : Gabriel-Robert Dufour was from Lisieux in Normandy. He arrived in New-France toward 1690, he was a "mareschalle" or blacksmith and tailor of stones. The ancestor had two names: Gabriel-Robert, but he always used solely ''Robert'' in the documents we consulted to reconstitute his history. It is his last son that will be named Gabriel.

3. In New-France, on the autumn 1693, with 3 other inhabitants, he explores the land at the border of the Ste-Anne River, St-Féréol des Neiges. Then in 1694, he works to the construction of church Ste-Anne du Petit-Cap, today Ste-Anne de Beaupré.

4. The children of Gabriel-Robert Dufour:

A.- May 1^st , 1694, he married Anne Magneron from which were born 3 daughter:

Angélique: eldest of the Dufour family, she married Ignace Gasnier toward 1715; she will have 5 children. After Ignace's death in 1759, she is "Seigneuresse" of the half of the Lordship of Gouffre; she manages it. Angelique died at Baie-St-Paul, August 20, 1768.
Marie-Josephte: Gabriel-Robert's second girl married Pierre Gagné toward 1718 at St-Joachim. We have few precise elements on her life. Died toward 1723, she did not have any children.

Agnès: the youngest of the 3 girls of Anne Magneron was born March 17, 1701 and died in 1727 at childbirth of a small girl, christened as Agnès. Then it is almost the silence and we know very little of the descendants of this lineage.

B.- After the Anne's sudden death in 1702, Gabriel-Robert married, August 23, 1703, the girl of Ignace Gasnier-Gagné, Louise, of which he will have 8 children: Joseph, Bonaventure, Marie-Reine, Jean, Barbe, Ignace, Louise, Gabriel: 3 daughters and five (5) sons. Of these sons, three only let a progeny.

Joseph,: eldest of this second family, he will play an important role, as much because of his personality as his functions of Royal Bailiff on the Lordship of Beaupré. He first lived at La Petite-Rivière St-Francois where he married in 1732 Marie-Anne Tremblay, Pierre Tremblay's daughter, Lord of Éboulements. Of this 1^st marriage, Joseph had 7 children of which only one son Joseph II, which will be the ancestor of the Dufour of New-Brunswick and New England United-States during the 19^th and the 20^th centuries. Joseph's second marriage will give him 6 children. When he marries Félicité Simard in 1750, he is a farmer on the Lordship of La Malbaie. He was named as ''Master of the farm of Malbaye'' . Joseph Dufour died at la Malbaie, Sept. 2, 1774.
Bonaventure: was born toward 1706, he married Élisabeth Tremblay, Louis' daughter, in 1734. He will live at l'Ile-Aux-Coudres until 1742, he will come back to Petite-Rivière- St-François, and will live there until his death in 1783.
Marie-Reine: she seems to have been born toward 1707. Gotten married to François-Xavier Tremblay she will have 10 children, all were born at Petite-Rivière. She died there in 1790.
Jean: was born toward 1709 and deceased before 1726. Probably handicapped, few details on this Robert Dufour and Louise Gagné's 4^th child.
Barbe: was born toward 1711, she married the widowed Etienne Simard at Petite-Rivière in 1733. She gives birth to 15 children of which 3 twin couples. One of her daughters, probably seduced out-marriage, will be buried near the church "with an unknown father child". Barbe Dufour died in 1799 , at 70 years old.
Ignace: was born toward 1712, he marries Marie-Reine Tremblay, Pierre's daughter . He has only one son who gets married and settles on the L'Ile Jésus (Laval). His lineage gets lost around the middle of the 19th century and could not be identified.
Louise: this 3^rd daughter was born toward 1713 at St-Joachim. She was mentally retarded, "innocent" according to the language of the time. She dies September 9, 1759, at 46 years old, ''lost in the forest...during the when English were at l'Ile-aux-Coudes and at Quebec''.
Gabriel: was born toward 1715, they named gave him his father's fist name ''Gabriel''. Small farmer on the West Point of the Ile-aux-Coudres, Gabriel was ship pilot on the River. He will die probably by drowning himself at fall 1781. Gotten married two times, he will let a big family of 18 children and his descendants is as big as the lineages of Joseph and Bonaventure together.

5. His lands' purchases:January 15, 1700 and in the subsequent months, Gabriel-Robert Dufour acquired the totality of the concession from his father-in-law Laurent Magneron and he became a farmer, also a blacksmith. Established at St-Joachim, on the Lordship of Beaupré, he works hardly on his farm. He constructs a new house there in 1703 and 1704.
As he has a big family, he thought about the future of his children and he acquired two lands, to La Petite-Rivière-St-François in 1717 and to the Ile-aux-Coudres approximately on the same date.

6. Gabriel-Robert Dufour's death: It is during a trip on his bark boat, to his land of Ile-aux-Coudres, probably during the Autumn of 1719 or in the Spring 1720, that he lost his life by drowning in the St-Laurent River.