Guillaume Daoust was born about 1655 in Sissonne in Picardie, France to Nicolas Daoust and Jeanne Aubert. The records are lost from Sissonne, so his birthdate has not been verified. Guillaume had two sisters, (birthdates unknown) - Madeleine who married Jacques de Lancy on Aug 6, 1668 in Sissonne. Marie who married Azor Frussart and had six children.
Guillaume was a Master Tailor by trade. It is not known when he arrived in New France but on January 12th 1675, he signed a document with Benigne Basset, a Montreal notary. On June 12, 1675, Guillaume Daoust was listed as having a concession of land in Montreal. Guillaume spent most of his life living on Lake St. Louis at the western end of the island of Montreal. Several of those years were spent in Lachine. His signature is found on many entries in the register above: as a bridegroom, as a proud father, as a witness to events such as the Lachine massacre and a smallpox epidemic of 1703.
Guillaume became engaged to his neighbour's daughter, Marie Madeleine Lalonde, when she was 12 years of age in 1684 and married her on February 18, 1686 at the parish of Saints-Anges-Gardiens in Lachine, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. If his birthdate is correct he was about 41 years of age when they married. Due to a shortage of marriageable women in the colony, it may have been a few years before he found someone suitable.
Their union would produce nine children: Marie (who died at 8 years of age), Guillaume (m. Marie Elisabeth Isabelle Pilon), Augustin, Marie Anne Jeanne (m. Pierre Pilon), Charles (m. Marie Angelique Sauve Laplante), Marie Madeleine (m. Thomas Pilon), Marie Josephe (m. Mathieu Pilon), Alexis Francois (died at 10 years of age), Louis (m. Marie Renee Marguerite Migue Latrimouille Millet Miquet).
Guillaume died on March 8, 1729 at age 84 (per burial record- which would make his birth year 1645) and was buried on March 9th at St. Anne de Bellevue, Montreal Region, Quebec, Canada . Marie Madeleine died January 1, 1761 at age 87. She is buried in St. Anne de Bellevue also.
Mary Magdalene was aged only fifteen years old at that time; and the baptismal events took place just before the French declaration of war against the Iroquois in May 1687 which caused a hostile activity period with the Iroquois enemy on and around the island of "Mont-Real." Many French colonists, being neighbors, relatives and friends of William and Mary Magdalene were killed during this tumultuous period. The closest probably was the death of Mary Magdalene's father, John La Londe dit Esperance, who was killed during an attack by the Iroquois in September 1687. The name of William appears when he signed the register as a witness with the priest François D'Urfé who bury John, his stepfather, and those killed with him. All the activities of the parish cease after November 1687, and according to early records, it appears that these families have moved and are grouped with the people of Lachine, nearby. The hostile skirmishes continue, and two years later came the horrible massacre of Lachine during the nights of 4 and 5 August 1689. The documents relating to this heinous event show that William and Mary Magdalene lived in this place at that time; as well as his mother Mary Barban, who had remarried. What followed was a massacre of 200 French colonists, 80 soldiers and the horrible fate of another 120 settlers kidnapped and tortured to death. Miraculously, the family survives this terrible event. The signature of William is still found five years later, in 1694, in the records of the late discovery of some skeletons captured during those nights. William and Mary Magdalene had no child at the time of the massacre; but it was, no doubt, a very frightening time. The subsequent documents relating to the history of D'Aoust is two years after the massacre, in 1691. William and his wife, Mary Magdalene, saw the birth of their first child, Marie D'Aoust, born September 12 in Montreal. In testimony to the harshness of the life of our colonists, Marie D'Aoust, the first D'Aoust born in this new world, died at the tender age of eight. A second child, a boy this time, William, is added to the family on October 30, 1694. The family moved to the northeast of the island of Mont-Real for a few years, while their next child, Augustin is born February 12, 1697 in Pointe-Aux-Trembles. In 1698, a peace treaty was signed with the Iroquois and many of the early settlers, including D'Aoust's, moved back around Lachine. Around 1700 and afterwards, William served as a captain in the militia for Lachine and LaPrairie on the other side of the St. Lawrence River. Guillaume is also mentioned as living among the first families who cultivated wheat and shared a community mill on the small island of Ile Perrot. Each family was known to have a large house of boisainsi, a barn for animals. Most of the documents for the families of Ile Perrot are at the Parish of Ste-Anne de Bellevue du-bout-de-l'ile, a new parish with a new church, which included small settler communities in the entire southwestern tip of the island of Mont-Real, Fort Senneville Fort Rémy and several on opposite banks of the St. Lawrence River. The baptismal records for the youngest child in Bellevue indicate that William and Marie Madeleine lived within the territory of the new parish of Ste-Anne de Bellevue. In all, William and Mary Magdalene had eight children and records indicate they all lived in the Ile Perrot sector and at the southwest end of the island of Montreal for most of their lives. This area included Lachine, Ste-Anne de Bellevue at the End of the Island and Pointe Claire. In Collet report parishes in 1722, it enumerates William living in the parish of Ste-Anne de Bellevue Bout de L'Ile de Mont Réal; and William could sign his name on this report. Our Guillaume D'Aoust died on the eighth day of March 1729; and was buried at Ste-Anne de Bellevue Bout de L'Ile. The burial register indicates that he was aged eighty-four years, which gives us a birth year earlier than in 1645. His wife, Mary Magdalene de La Londe, survived more than thirty years before her own death and was buried on the third day of January 1761 at the age of eighty-nine. So this couple lived a long life despite the problems they had to face during their early years of marriage.
: Name: Guillaume Daoust : Arrival Year: 1686 (1674) : Arrival Place: Quebec, Canada
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D > Daoust > Guillaume (Daoust) D'Aoust
Categories: Migrants de Picardie au Canada, Nouvelle-France