Charles Alavoine

Biography

An unpaid account brings Charles Alavoine’s business in Montréal, in present-day Québec, Canada, into unusually clear view. In 1701 he took the engineer Gédéon de Catalogne to court over a debt. His wife, Marie-Thérèse Machard, produced the invoice she had prepared. Its entries included thirty livres associated with a private lottery and a separate two-livre ticket.

Charles came from Amiens, in northern France, and was born about 1655. His father, Jean Alavoyne, was a merchant in upholstery or tapestry goods; his mother was Jeanne Heu. Charles married Marie-Thérèse at Saint-Barthélémy in La Rochelle, on France’s Atlantic coast, on October 3, 1689. Two daughters were born there before the family established itself in Canada. Charles is first mentioned in the colony in 1694 as a merchant.

Charles’s daughter Marie-Françoise later married Jean-Baptiste Chevalier and lived at Michilimackinac, extending the family’s connections toward the Great Lakes. Charles’s own life ended in Montréal in May 1749.

The burial listing places Charles Alavoine at Cimetière Saint-Enfant-Jésus, Pointe-aux-Trembles, Montréal Region, Québec, Canada.