Jeanne DeVoisy / de Vouzy

Biography

Jeanne de Voisy came to New France, France’s North American colony, in 1636 with Nicolas Peltier, a master carpenter, and their sons Jean and François. Six more children were born in the colony. Her French origins remain uncertain: a baptism sometimes attached to her belongs to a differently named woman and cannot safely establish Jeanne’s birthplace or parents.

An unusually detailed record from September 1647 brings Jeanne into view through a troubling incident. Nicolas Marsolet reported testimony from injured Indigenous men concerning brandy supplied by “the wife of Nicolas Peltier” and a young man. The account described two bottles exchanged for four hundred beads. On September 14, 1647, the following day, a judgment imposed a fine of one hundred livres and required the return of the beads, with imprisonment ordered until payment. Whether Jeanne was imprisoned, and for how long, is unknown.

Later documents place her in a different setting: the management and eventual disposal of the family farm. In 1669 the property was leased to their son Jean and his wife, Marie-Geneviève Manovelly. The notarial account names Denis-Joseph Ruette d’Auteuil as the lessee in 1671. It names Jeanne in the sale of the Sillery property on October 27, 1673 for one thousand livres.

She was buried at Sorel, at the meeting of the Richelieu and St. Lawrence rivers in present-day Québec, Canada, on December 12, 1689.

The burial listing places Jeanne DeVoisy / de Vouzy at Cimetière Saint-Pierre (ancien), Sorel-Tracy, Monteregie Region, Québec, Canada.