Zacharie Cloutier
1590 – 1677
Zacharie Cloutier was born about 1590 in Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Mortagne in Perche, France. He was the son of Denis Cloutier and his first wife Renée Brière. Renée died in 1608 when Zacharie was about 18.
When Zacharie was 26 he married Xainte (Sainte) Dupont on July 13, 1616 in the same parish where he was born. Xainte was the widow of Michel Lermusier.
Church Notre-Dame Mortagne-Au-Perche
source Alonso de Mendoza - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50434529
Zacharie and Xainte had six children, all born in France. Their little girl Xainte died when she was 10 years old. The rest of the children lived to adulthood to be married and have children.
Robert Giffard came to Perche in 1634 to recruit emigrants to New France. A contract of servitude was created between Cloutier, a master carpenter, and Giffard. It stated that Giffard would pay the passage to New France plus food and lodging for Cloutier and Jean Guyon, a master mason. It also included one family member for each person. The contract was for three years. After two years the two men could send for the rest of their family. Giffard’s obligations to the men were the following:
- Pay all food and maintenance costs during the crossing and the three years thereafter until 1637.
- Have women and children go to New France in 1636 at their own expense and maintain them for three years.
- Sell to Guyon and Cloutier and their two children Jean Guyon son and Zacharie Cloutier son the share and portion of the cleared land, with the other men of Giffard, the latter reserving half of the land.
- Build and give a home to each of them.
- Give each of them a thousand arpents of land in the seigneury of Beauport.
- Allow to trade with the Indians.
- Give two cows if there are more than four.
Zacharie and Jean planned to bring their oldest sons with them to New France. Some historians believe their entire family went with them to New France.
Each man was given some livestock and land with rights to build on it. The year was 1634. Both men arrived in Beauport to build their homes as well as a manor for Robert Giffard, a parish church and Fort Louis.
Robert Giffard's manor
L'opinion publique journal illustré : [Vol. 12, no 21 (26 mai 1881)] page 243
Saint-Louis
L'opinion publique journal illustré : [Vol. 12, no 9 (3 mars 1881)] page 103
By 1637 Zacharie Cloutier and Jean Guyon took possession of their land that was promised to them by Robert Giffard.
Land divisions in Beauport 1663
Zacharie Cloutier is listed as Arrière-Fief La Clousterie and Jean Guyon as Arrière-Fief du
Buisson
In 1636 Zacharie arranged for his 10 ½ year old daughter Anne to marry Robert Drouin. This was the fist marriage contract signed in New France. The contract stated that Anne would live with her parents until she was 13 at which time she would go and live with Robert.
Anne Cloutier and Robert Drouin had six children. Four children died in infancy. Anne died in 1648 leaving two daughters aged 2 and 5. Robert remarried. The Cloutiers did not accept the new wife so they raised their two granddaughters as their own.
The land where the Cloutiers and Guyons lived was a seigneury. This was a large tract of land given to a seigneur who in turn divided the land into smaller lots for the settlers under his domain. Robert Giffard named his land Beauport.
Under the seigneurial system, the seigneur received various forms of rent from his tenets. This could include a tax to use the mill which was used to grind grain, fees for licenses for hunting, fishing, and woodcutting. The tenet may have to do additional work for the seigneur and they may have to share their harvest with the seigneur.
On December 18, 1636, Robert Giffard obtained a judgement against Cloutier and Guyon concerning work that was due him. The Governor did not rule right away. This dispute went on for a few years. Finally, on 2 July 1646, Giffard sued Guyon and Cloutier for refusing to render him "faith and homage" as was stated in the original contract. On the 19th of the same month the Governor ordered Cloutier and Guyon to comply.
Cloutier sold his land in Beauport in 1670 and moved to Château-Richer. He had received a grand of land there from Governor Jean de Lauson in 1652. Many of his children lived there.
Both Zacharie Cloutier and Xainte Dupont died at Château-Richer.
Zacharie Cloutier death record
Château-Richer, le 17 septembre 1677
L'an de Notre-Seigneur mil six cent soixante dix-sept, le dix-septième jour de septembre,
mourut Zacharie
Cloutier, âgé de 87 ans, après avoir reçu le Saint-Sacrement d'Eucharistie et
l'Extrême-Onction. Fut
enterré au cimetière de l'église de Notre-Dame de la Visitation, le dix huitième du même
mois.
F. Fillion, prestre missionnaire
Translantion
Château-Richer, September 17, 1677
The year of Our Lord one thousand six hundred and seventy-seven, on the seventeenth day of
September, died
Zacharie Cloutier, aged 87, after having received the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist and the
Extreme
Unction. Was buried in the cemetery of the Church of Our Lady of the Visitation, the eighteenth
of the
same month.
F. Fillion, missionary provider
Xainte Dupont death record
Château-Richer, le 14 juillet 1680
Le quatorzième jour de juillet mil six cent quatre-vingt a été inhumée dans le cimetière de
la
paroisse de Château-Richer, Saincte Dupont, veuve de deffunct Zacharie Cloutier, dé cédée le
jour
précédent, âgée de quatre-vingt-quatre ans, après avoir reçu les sacrements de pénitence,
d'eucharistie et d'extrême-onction et ce par messire Guillaume Gaultier faisant pour lors les
fonctions
curiales en cette paroisse
Charles A. Marin, prestre
Translantion
Château-Richer, July 14, 1680
On the fourteenth day of July one thousand six hundred and eighty was buried in the cemetery of
the parish
of Château-Richer, Saincte Dupont, widow of defunct Zacharie Cloutier, deceased the previous
day, aged
eighty-four, after having received the sacraments of penance, eucharist and extreme unction and
this by
Messire Guillaume Gaultier doing for the time the curial functions in this parish .
Charles A. Marin, provider
Doctors have determined the ancestral couple where ocular myopathy started in the Americas. The first instance of it is in the family of Zacharie and Xainte’s son Zacharie. He married Madeleine-Barbe Aymard, daughter of Marie Bureau, from Niort, Perche, France. The disease was known in France as Bureau. Ocular myopathy make it difficult to move the eye ball caused by extraocular muscles.
Sources
Archange Godbout, "The Parents of Zacharie Cloutier," French Candaian and Acadian Genealogical Review, Volume III (No. 4 Winter 1971): page 225.
Clouthier, Raoul, The CLOUTIERS of Mortagne-au-Perche in France and their descendants in Canada, 3222 Kent avenue, in Montreal, 1973, http://kyber.ca/downloads/clouHist.pdf
Cloutier, Zacharie death record, Institut généalogique Drouin, "Le LAFRANCE," database with images, Généalogie Québec, Drouin/C/Château-Richer/1670/1678/, image d1p_16510521.jpg, https://www.genealogiequebec.com/Membership/LAFRANCE/img/acte/30534
Dupont, Xainte death record, Institut généalogique Drouin, "Le LAFRANCE," database with images, Généalogie Québec, Québec/Fonds Drouin/C/Château-Richer/1680/1680/, image d1p_30791496.jpg, https://www.genealogiequebec.com/Membership/LAFRANCE/img/acte/30545
Coombs, Jan Gregoire, Our Tangled French Canadian Roots: A History of the People who Were Part of Our Gregoire, Adam, Martel and Beaudry Lines, Middleton, Wisconsin 2009, https://books.google.com/books/about/Our_Tangled_French_Canadian_Roots.html?id=S-s2maBGnh0t
The genealogical mutual aid: official organ of the Genealogical Society of the Eastern Townships inc.Quebec heritage, Flight. 34, no 2 | 2011, Sherbrooke: Genealogical Society of the Eastern Townships, 1978-, Sherbrooke, PQ: Eastern Townships Genealogy Society inc., https://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/4018819?docref=FXF2y5LMeB6Fuc9wVEitW
Gerad Lebel and Thomas J. Laforest, Our French-Canadian Ancestors Vol. 4 (Palm Harbor, FL: LISI PRess, 1986), page 54.
Hétu, Jean and Jacques Forget, By Fault of Zacharie and Xainte, La Presse, December 28, 1974, PerspectivesQuebec heritage Montreal, 1884-, https://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/2603473?docsearchtext=Zacharie%20Cloutie
Honorius Provost, “CLOUTIER, ZACHARIE,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 1, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed October 25, 2020, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/cloutier_zacharie_1E.html
L'opinion publique journal illustré : [Vol. 12, no 9 (3 mars 1881)] page 103 https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.8_06274_581/8?r=0&s=1
L'opinion publique journal illustré : [Vol. 12, no 21 (26 mai 1881)] page 243 https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.8_06274_593/4?r=0&s=1
Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH, Research Programme in Historical Demography) at the Université de Montréal, couple #87760.
Request by Robert Giffard, Lord of Beauport, to Charles Huault de Montmagny, Governor of New France, asking permission to seize the lands of Jean Guyon (Guion) and Zacharie Cloutier for lack of faith and homage, and permission granted by the said governorQuebec heritage, Giffard, Robert, sieur de Moncel. July 2, 1646, https://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/3333329