Abraham Fiset

Biography

Abraham Fiset’s Canadian career began with an agreement to learn a trade. Baptized at Dieppe, a port in Normandy in northern France, in August 1635, he was in Québec by the spring of 1654. On April 25, a contract recorded by Guillaume Audouart bound him to the carpenter Paul Chalifour for three years, with Jean Bourdon also participating in the arrangement.

The agreement concerned more than the use of a young worker’s labor. In Karen Inkster Vance’s account of the document, Chalifour undertook to teach him his craft without withholding its knowledge. The contract included clothing and payment. It offered Abraham a defined period of training in work that the colony needed for houses, farm buildings and other timber structures. He could not sign the agreement; the record nonetheless fixes the beginning of a skilled occupation that would still identify him decades later.

Abraham and Denise Savard made their marriage contract in November 1663 and married at Château-Richer, on the north bank of the St. Lawrence downstream from Québec city, in February 1664. Denise had arrived from France with her parents. Their children’s parish entries follow the family from Château-Richer to nearby L’Ange-Gardien, where they established a large household.

In 1681 the census still called Abraham a carpenter. It listed eight children with him and Denise, four cattle, and twenty-five arpents under cultivation. The apprenticeship had led to a life combining a trade with farming. More children followed during the 1680s. Abraham died before January 26, 1701. His occupation is the clear thread running from the young apprentice’s contract to the mature household recorded on the Côte de Beaupré.

The burial listing places Abraham Fiset at Cimetière Saints-Anges-Gardiens, L'Ange-Gardien, Capitale-Nationale Region, Québec, Canada.