| Notes |
- A possible "gateway ancestor" of Teresa, depending on whether his grandmother Marthe de Saint-Paul (~1609-1664) was a daughter of Abel de Saint-Paul and Claire de Crespon.
Acte d'Abjuration, 20 Jan 1686.
Arrived in Quebec 1 Aug 1685 aboard La Diligente, as a "sergent dans la compagnie de Renaud d'Avesnes des Meloïzes." [De Carufel]
From Our French-Canadian Ancestors, volume 5, by Gerard Lebel, translated by Thomas LaForest, translation cleaned up by me:
Jean-Baptiste SICARD de Carufel, son of Pierre and Marie de FORGUES (FARGUES), descended from a noble family originating in Haut Languedoc.
By October 1685, Louis XIV, who had been hounding the Huguenots for five years, revoked the Edict of Nantes and huge waves of Huguenot refugees fled France. Many of the Protestants who remained in France converted to Catholicism. Although we know Jean was not Catholic--he renounced the 'religion pretendue reformee' in 1686--we have not yet determined whether the young man and his family were Protestant, Huguenots or Albigeois Cathares.
At the age of 19, Jean-Baptiste joined the marine troops under the command of Capitan [Écuyer] Francois-Marie-Renaud d'Avesne des Meloizes. The Company, recruited by the new governor, Jacques-René Brisay de Denonville, was integrated into a 500-man detachment that left the port of La Rochelle in 1685 aboard La Diligente. During the Atlantic crossing scurvy and typhoid claimed 60 victims. Eighty more soldiers were hospitalised at the Hotel-Dieu--already overcrowed with 300 fever patients--upon their arrival in Quebec on August 1, 1685. [In 1685 the population of New France was 10,725 French and 1,538 settled natives.] After only a few weeks' rest, Denonville and his men left for Fort Frontenac (Kingston). The Governor found the colony in terrible disarray--hundreds of colonists had abandoned their land to become coureurs de bois. In addition to the challenge of social reform, the English surrounding the French possessions, and [the] Iroquois, were ever-present dangers.
The first mention of Jean's presence in New France is the act in the Notre-Dame de Quebec church register dated 20 January 1686 in which the young nobleman renounced his faith. According to the "Acte d'Abjuration", Jean SICARD, native of the parish of St. Jacques in the city of Castres-d'Albigeois in Haut-Languedoc, a sergent in the regiment of Renaud d'Avesnes des Meloizes, recanted from the pretended reformed religion [a fait abjuration de la religion pretendue reformee] before Jean Baptiste De LaCroix de St-Vallier, Bishop of Quebec. Witnesses were Jacques deBRISAY de Denonville, Governor, Lieutenant General of the Army, Quebec and his wife Catherine Courtin.
On June 13, 1687, at the head of 832 marine troops, more than 900 militiamen and 400 indigenious allies, Denonville headed up-river, resolved to crush the Tsonnontouans who, with arms furnished by the New York English, were harassing the colony in the southern Lake Ontario/Niagara region. (Fort Denonville was built 'on the same side as Fort Conti, which is today the site of Fort Niagara, USA, opposite Niagara-on-the-Lake.') Before returning to Montreal, Governor Denonville left about 100 men under the command of Raymond Blaise des Bergeres de Rigauville. Scurvy and the Iroquois wiped out all but Blaise and twelve men. [Although not documented, it is probable that the young Sicard de Carufel took part in the manoeuvres, as Capitan Raymond Blaise was his commanding officer and among the twelve who survived the winter of 1687-88.] From 1690 to 1720 the fort was abandoned.
Towards the end of 1688, shortly after returning to Montreal, Raymond Blaise des Bergeres replaced Captain Francois Lefebvre-Duplessis-Faber as the head of the troops stationed at Fort Louis in Chambly. A duel between the two men on July 15, 1689 landed both in prison. They were tried the next day in Montreal. On November 16, the Souvereign Council absolved them and ordered Lefebvre to pay Blaise 600 pounds in damages. According to the transcript, Jean SICARD de Carufel, first sergeant in the Company, was called to care for Blaise des Bergeres' wound. On August 4 of that year, August 4, one thousand five hundred Iroquois attacked Lachine down river from the mission of Mont Royal [Montreal] killing 400.
A marriage contract prepared by the notary Etienne Jacob, and signed 25 November 1694, states that, at the time, Jean was a sergeant in the Company of Michel Leneuf de la Valliere. Two days later, Sergeant Jean SICARD de Carufel married Genevieve, daughter of Jacques RATTE and Anne MARTIN (grand-daughter of Abraham Martin dit l'Ecossais, a royal pilot--the property of Martin, called the Plains of Abraham, adjoined the famous plateau where Wolfe and Montcalm battled). The ceremony in the parish of Saint Pierre de l'Ile d'Orleans was officiated by the Abby Dauric and witnessed by the widow of Genevieve Ratte & groom's father Pierre Sicard; Jacques Ratte and his wife, Anne Martin (the bride's parents), Jacques Gosselin (Jacques Ratte's brother-in-law or step-brother), and Pierre Roberge. In addition to the dispensation of two bans, due to Sicard's military career he had to seek permission from the Governor-general to wed.
Jean returned to France in 1696 and, on May 22, in a ceremony held before a notary in Castres, the noble Jean SICARD, lord of Farguettes, officer in the Marine Troops in Canada, declared his loyalty and respect for his father, Pierre Sicard, and, in addition to words of affection and courtesy by Pierre, was emancipated and declared free to make his own decisions.
Jean returned to Nouvelle France and, on March 18 1704 after living ten years in Saint-Pierre d'Orleans, had the sale of property to his brother-in-law, Pierre Ratte, notarised by Etienne Jacob. At the time of the birth of their fifth child, Louis, in March 1705, Jean and Genevieve were living in Maskinonge in the seigneurie des Legardeur de Repentigny. The Governor, Marquess Philippe de Rigaud de Vaudreuil (1703-1726), and the intendant Francois de Beauharno, officially granted Jean Sicard the fief de Carufel on April 21, 1705 in an 'acte de concesson.'
The domain, two leagues [a 'lieue' is an old unit of measure about 4 km] across by the same depth, was in the area now known as Saint Justin. 'De l'espace de terre qui reste dans la riviere Maskinonge, dans le lac St. Pierre, depuis celle qui a este cy-devant concedee au sieur Le Gardeur jusqu'au premier sault de la dite riviere, ce qui contient deux lieues ou en iron de front sur pareille profondeur En titre de Fief et seigneurie, haute, moyenne et bass e justice.' In return, that same day (21 April 1705) Jean, an officer in the troops of the marine detachment, made an act of faith and hommage for the fief and seigneurie to Marquess de Vaudreuil and Francois de Beauharnois.
Under the French seigneurial regime, seigneurs were duty-bound to promote colonization by providing 'immigrants with favourable conditions for the settlement and agricultural development ...' [Translated] 'From the time he took possession of his fief,' wrote l'abbe Hermann Plante, 'the lord of Carufel attempted to establish himself; but the timing was not good. In 1705, it was difficult to move away from the Saint Lawrence River. The clearing of the seigneurie in Maskinonge wasn't advanced enough to provide for colonisation... fear of the Iroquois still existed. The peace treaty signed four years earlier in Montreal between the French and the savages buried the hatchet but the Indians' hypocritical temperment made attracting settlers difficult. The 1701 treaty, still unproven and providing no guarantees, did little to aid the lord of Carufel in attracting settlers to move far from the river... But the lord was aging,' adds l'abbe Plante, 'he didn't want to die before realising the profits from his land.' After vain attempts to attract his companions to follow him, around 1720 Jean (who would have been about 54 years old) travelled up the Maskinonge River, the only route at the time, and, with his sons, began working on the south-west side about a quarter of a league from the Maskinonge fief. In a statement/ennumeration of 19 February 1723, Jean declared a sixteen foot square house enclosed by a pallisade and three acres of workable land. Few seigneurs could afford to live off their annual rents and, unless a seigneurie has 25-50 settled families, maintenance costs generally surpassed revenues. That same year, Jean, who continued his military career while clearing the land, was promoted to the rank of Ensign of the Troops of the colony. It is believed that he continued to work his land for another nine years--at least until 1732. There are also several transactions recorded in the minutes of Pierre Petit including an agreement August 16, 1728 with the Ursulines of Trois-Rivieres ending a land boundary dispute.
[On] 27 January 1737, the land-clearing septuagenarian made his testament in favour of his children. Four years later, in 1741, Jean SICARD de Carufel witnessed the sale of portions of his land as his children sold their share to their brother-in-law, Jean-Francois Baril-Duchesny, spouse of Genevieve. The old officer-colonist-lord descended from the French aristocracy did not survive long afterwards. He died in August 1743 at the age of 77.
It is interesting to note that although Jean-Baptiste and Genevieve would not have benefited from Louis XIV's King's gift for males who married before age twenty and females before sixteen, they would have likely received the three hundred livres to those with ten children. [Fathers of twelve children received four hundred livres.]
Eight of Jean's ten children married before their father's death; the others married in 1745 and 1751.
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Nielsen Hayden genealogy
1666 - 1743 (77 years)
[1, 2, 3]