François Jarret de Verchères

Biography

François Jarret de Verchères crossed the Atlantic as a soldier and became the founder of the settlement where his daughter Madeleine would make her name. His baptism was recorded on September 26, 1632 in the Saint-Ferréol register at Salagnon, in what is now the department of Isère in southeastern France. Salagnon and nearby Vignieu belong to the countryside east of Lyon; Saint-Ferréol is the parish name attached to the register. He was the son of Jean Jarret and Claude de Pécaudy. His younger half-brother André belonged to Jean’s second household, with Pernette Selmet. Fichier Origine.

In 1665 François arrived in New France, France’s North American colonial territory. His new home was in its Saint Lawrence settlements, in what is now the Canadian province of Québec. He served as an ensign, a junior officer, in the Contrecœur company of the Carignan-Salières regiment. His commander, Antoine Pécaudy de Contrecœur, was also his uncle. Military service and family connections thus accompanied him into his new country. After the war, he settled in the colony and married Marie Perrot on September 17, 1669 in the parish of Sainte-Famille on Île d’Orléans, an island in the Saint Lawrence just downstream from Québec City. The parish’s historic centre lies on the island’s northern side, in today’s municipality of Sainte-Famille-de-l’Île-d’Orléans. Sainte-Famille location; Québec biographical notice.

François and Marie had twelve children, including Madeleine. In 1672 François received the seigneury of Verchères, an estate granted under the colony’s landholding system, along the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River. He built a fort that sheltered his own family and offered the surrounding settlers refuge during attacks. His responsibilities as a landholder continued alongside his military career; he became a lieutenant in 1694. Québec biographical notice.

The settlement developed at present-day Verchères, on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence northeast and downstream of Montréal, in Québec’s Montérégie region. Its name recalled a French hamlet near Vignieu and Saint-Chef, in the family’s home district of Isère. The Canadian fort was a small defended enclosure within the seigneury; the seigneury was the surrounding landed estate. Today’s municipality occupies only part of that former estate. Commission de toponymie.

François died at Verchères on February 26, 1700. His widow and children would continue the family’s life on the estate he had established. Fichier Origine.