Marie Le Ber

Biography

Marie Le Ber’s long life included three marriages and an extraordinary interval when she believed herself widowed, only for her husband to return. A daughter of François Le Ber and Jeanne Testard, she was baptized at Montréal on December 6, 1666, in New France, France’s North American colony. Montréal is now in the province of Québec, Canada. Her first marriage, to Charles Robert dit Deslauriers, was recorded at Contrecœur, downstream from Montréal on the St. Lawrence River, on January 9, 1681. The marriage record describes Charles as a farmer living at Fort Saint-Louis and Marie’s parents as residents of La Prairie. Witnesses came from both communities.

By July 1684 Charles had died. Marie married François Bourassa on July 4 at Fort Saint-Louis in Chambly, a wooden fort on the river now called the Richelieu; the entry was recorded at Contrecœur. She already had a son from her first marriage.

François’s work in the fur trade brought a prolonged separation. In her study of the Bourassa family, genealogist Sylvie Tremblay describes his departure under a 1690 contract for Michilimackinac, the Great Lakes trading region around the straits connecting Lakes Michigan and Huron in present-day northern Michigan, and his failure to return the following autumn. In September 1693 Marie declared herself a widow. François returned in 1694. Tremblay reports that he then remained with his family and farmed at La Prairie until his death in 1708.

Their children included René, Marie-Élisabeth and Antoine. Marie married Pierre Hervé at La Prairie on April 22, 1714. More than four decades later, her burial entry identified her as Hervé’s widow. She died on December 23, 1756 and was buried the next day. Her surviving records trace a life extending from the settlement around Fort Saint-Louis to the established families of La Prairie.