François Plante

Biography

François Plante was born at Sorel, where the Richelieu River meets the St. Lawrence in present-day Québec, Canada, on December 29, 1736, a son of Joseph Plante and Thérèse Desorcy. He was fifteen when his mother died. His father lived until April 1770, a year before François's marriage to Louise Laroche.

François and Louise married at Yamachiche on April 8, 1771. Their daughter Marguerite was born around 1774, and their son François on March 21, 1778. The family account thus connects his own beginnings at Sorel with a later household in the area around Yamachiche and present-day Louiseville near the north shore of Lake Saint-Pierre, a broad stretch of the St. Lawrence.

His marriage was brief. François died at Louiseville on May 4, 1779, aged forty-two, leaving Louise with young children. Their son had just passed his first birthday; Marguerite was approximately five.

Louise subsequently remarried. François's name remained attached to the children of their first household, distinct from the Leclerc family formed through her second marriage.