Julien Bloys

Biography

Julien Bloys’s Canadian life began with a five-year employment agreement. At La Rochelle, on France’s Atlantic coast, on June 8, 1659, he contracted to work for the priest Gabriel Souart at Montréal, on the St. Lawrence River in present-day Québec, Canada, for seventy livres a year, with seventy livres advanced before departure. The agreement gives a concrete starting point for a man who would eventually hold substantial farmland on Montréal Island.

He had been baptized at Saint-Lambert in Clermont-Créans, in the Sarthe area of western France, on November 3, 1637, the son of Julien Bloys and Radegonde Marchand. In 1659 he crossed to New France aboard the Saint-André. Four years later, his name appeared in the eleventh squad of Montréal’s Sainte-Famille militia.

Julien married Marguerite Leclerc at Montréal on November 26, 1665. Their children included Jeanne-Marguerite, Julien and Charlotte. His surname appears in the records as Bloys, Blois, Beloy and Belloy; Servigny was another name by which he was known.

The 1681 census places Julien and Marguerite with their son Julien and daughter Charlotte. Their holding supported seven cattle and twenty-five arpents under cultivation, and the household possessed a firearm. Those figures describe an established agricultural household, considerably different from the young worker’s position when he signed his contract.

Marguerite was buried in May 1704. Julien married Françoise Goupil that August and lived for another twenty-six years. He died at Montréal on October 1, 1730 and was buried the following day.