This case study looks at the notarial records of Régis Roy (1817–1897), Leo Roy's grandfather, to show how a farm family in Rimouski bought land, paid debts without cash, protected a wife's inheritance and passed the farm to the next generation. It was written with NotebookLM from the records listed below and edited by Patty Roy.
1. The Seigneurial Landscape of Saint-Germain
In 19th-century Lower Canada, rural life was shaped by the seigneurial system, a way of holding land that lasted until its abolition began in 1854. The seigneur held a large tract called a seigneury. He was expected to attract settlers, provide mills and roads and help organize settlement, and he granted long, narrow lots to censitaires, who farmed the land and owed him rents and services in return.
The land was divided into “ribbon farms,” long narrow strips that gave each farm a piece of the river or road frontage and kept neighbors close together. In the parish of Saint-Germain-de-Rimouski a farm might be only a few hundred feet wide but stretch more than a mile into the interior.
A prominent seigneur in Rimouski was Joseph Drapeau. He died in 1810 and left his estate to his wife and six daughters. His wife died in 1829, leaving the Drapeau sisters to run everything.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Measurement | Arpent: about 192 feet wide; a standard 40-arpent lot ran about 1.5 miles deep. Perche: one tenth of an arpent. |
| Seigneurial dues | Cens et rentes: small yearly payments in money or produce, owed to the seigneur for the use of the land. Lods et ventes: a tax paid to the seigneur when land was sold, usually one twelfth of the price. |
| Payment day | Saint Martin's Day, November 11, after the harvest. |
2. Getting Land: The Rise of François Régis Roy
For a young farmer like Régis Roy, owning land was the only road to security. In 1836 he took his first step, buying a lot 2 arpents wide by 40 deep in the second range of Saint-Germain from Joseph Brisebois. The price of two pounds was remarkably low. At that price the deed's “guarantee against all encumbrances” was an important protection: it guarded Régis against unpaid seigneurial dues or hidden mortgages, which often clouded titles in a region where debt was the norm.
Régis improved his holdings through land swaps, which were common. In September 1849 he traded his 2-arpent farm for Isaac Mignier dit Lagacé's 3-arpent farm in the third range. The trade was made but à but, “end to end,” meaning the farms were of equal value, but Régis also promised two days of hauling with his horse and two days of labor squaring timber for Mignier's stable. By paying with his own work and his horse's instead of cash, he got more land and kept his money, which he would soon lend to others.
3. Labor, Barter and Scarce Cash
In rural Quebec hard money was scarce, so farm goods and labor served as money. Debts were written up before a notary as obligations, promissory notes that turned future work or harvests into something that could be bought and sold.
In 1843 Régis bought a mare from Antoine Galthier dit Larouche, a blacksmith, for £11. The contract required that £1 of the price be paid in eight minots of “merchantable barley.” The barley worked as money, tying the debt to what the farm produced.
The 1849 abatis, or land-clearing, contract with Godfroy Tremblay shows labor used as payment. Tremblay bought a horse from Régis for £12 10s and was to pay for it by clearing 13 arpents of forest. The terms were exact. Tremblay had to limb the trees in winter, when the bare branches made the work easier, and clear the “freshly fallen trees from the last south wind,” trees blown down in a recent storm, but not the “old dead bodies,” the rotten logs.
Tremblay did not finish the work, and in 1852 Régis transferred his claim to Augustin Lavoie. He sold Lavoie what amounted to a building kit: cedar and spruce timber, 6,500 shingles, and the right to the unfinished work owed by Tremblay and others. By turning the unfinished clearing contracts and his tools, such as cauldrons and barrels, into something he could sell, Régis got his money out of the land in the third range.
4. A Wife's Rights and a Clear Title
Under the Coutume de Paris, the law of Quebec, marriage created a community of property, and a wife also had a douaire, or dower right, a claim on part of her husband's land. To give a buyer a clear title, a wife had to give up these rights before a notary.
The records of Philomène Dubé, Régis's wife, and Mathilde Lancognard dit Hudon, the wife of Isaac Mignier dit Lagacé, show this. Both women appeared before the notary Garon to approve their husbands' land swaps and give up their dower rights, so that the titles would be clear for the future. Philomène did the same in April 1856 for the land Régis had traded with his brother Louis.
Marie Françoise Lepage was in a very different position. In 1852 she was recorded as séparée de biens, separated as to property, from her husband, Martin Lynch, by a judgment of the Court of Queen's Bench. This gave her a financial independence rare for a married woman at the time, and she lent money in her own name. She held a mortgage against Barthélémi and Germain Lemieux, a debt that Régis took over in January 1853, which made him the Lemieux family's creditor in her place.
5. An Inheritance Settled: The Dubé Estate
Philomène Dubé married Régis Roy in 1844, when she was 16. Her father, Noël Dubé, had died in October 1843, and she was a minor under the guardianship of her uncle Felix Bérubé. Her marriage ended the guardianship, and her husband now managed her affairs.
The death of a father could break up a ribbon farm among his heirs. Families tried to prevent this through guardians (tuteurs) and family councils. Felix Bérubé's guardianship account for Philomène shows how it worked. Noël's widow, Philomène's stepmother Marie Louise Levesque, received half of his estate, and the other half was divided among his eight children. Philomène's one-eighth share of the house came to a strip just 3 feet 9 inches wide, and it carried a duty to help support her stepmother.
In 1845 Philomène's half-brother George Dubé bought out her share, so that he could keep the family land together and own the farm outright.
6. Handing On the Farm: The Donation entre vifs
The donation entre vifs, a gift between living people, was the traditional French-Canadian retirement plan. Parents gave the farm to a chosen heir, who in return supported them for the rest of their lives. In 1882 Régis and Philomène gave their farm to their oldest son, Samuel. Samuel also had to pay his brother Théophile $100 and give his brother Alfred a horse and a cow. By then the sums were written in dollars; Canada had changed from pounds to dollars in 1858.
Samuel's yearly pension viagère, or life rent, for his parents was spelled out in detail:
- Food: 50 pounds of salt pork, 25 pounds of butter, 16 dozen eggs, 50 pounds of sugar, a quarter of beef, one live sheep, a bushel each of wheat, barley and peas, half a bag of salt, half a pound of pepper, a pound of tea and a gallon of rum.
- Clothing: a complete suit of homespun cloth every two years, ordinary shoes as needed, three pairs of stockings a year and a cap (casque) every three years.
- Housing: a heated and lighted room, and the use of a horse.
Alfred, the youngest son, had gone to Minneapolis by 1885. In 1887 he traveled back to Rimouski to sign a deed accepting a gift of land from his father: two arpents and two perches wide by about twenty-six arpents deep, a typical long, narrow ribbon of land. Alfred had to pay the taxes and the seigneurial rents on it. Although the seigneurial system was abolished in 1854, the old rents were still collected for decades afterward as a kind of land tax, until the farmer bought them out.
Alfred stayed in Minneapolis and married Amanda Beaudoin there in 1891. The family later moved to Wisconsin and then settled in Rhode Island. What ever happened to his land in Rimouski is not yet known.