M. 18 Jun 1736 in St-Nicholas, Lévis, New France
Wife: Françoise-Claude Boucher
D. 15 Mar 1781 in Pointe-de-Lévy, Lauzon, Quebec
When English war ships came up the St. Lawrence River in 1759, the entire south shore was a soft target, and anyone who lived there faced serious hardships. Such was the case for Jean-Joseph Dussault and his family.
Joseph was born on October 27, 1711 to Jean-François Dussault and Madeleine Bourassa, the tenth of their 12 children. The family lived in Lauzon, which was directly across the water from Quebec City. Joseph was the great-grandson of explorer Jean Nicolet and a Native American woman of the Nippissing tribe.
On June 18, 1736, Joseph married a young woman also from Lauzon, Françoise-Claude Boucher. The couple set up their household not far up the river, in the farming community of St-Antoine-de-Tilly. Their first child was born in October 1737, and over the next 17 years, they had seven more. Joseph-Marie’s oldest daughter died at the age of 15 in 1755. After that date, the family disappeared from the parish records of St-Antoine-de-Tilly, and this seems timed with the turmoil that followed.
In 1756, England and France declared war on each other, marking the start of the French and Indian War. During the next few years, action took place in other parts of America, but the people along the St. Lawrence were affected by ship blockades limiting deliveries of food and supplies to New France. This undoubtedly caused suffering for Joseph and his family.
Things got much worse after the French were defeated at Louisbourg and Lake Ontario in 1758, allowing the English free access to the St. Lawrence. A multitude of English warships came up the river during the spring and summer of 1759. On August 10th, a thousand British soldiers landed at St-Antoine-de-Tilly and set up a camp, bringing in cannons which they installed on hills facing the river. The local militia tried to put up a defense against them, but on the 13th, the British retaliated by burning some homes, threatening the French people to obey them or they would destroy the entire town.
At the time of the invasion, Joseph was 47-years-old, trying to support a family of seven children, mostly daughters. The family likely retreated to a safe area, but it isn’t clear where. The church where the children had been baptized was now occupied by English soldiers, and they were said to have severely damaged it. It's possible that Joseph left a year or two before the siege, but there's no evidence of him living anywhere else.
On September 13th, the Battle of Quebec took place a few miles down the river, dramatically affecting the lives of all of the French people along the St. Lawrence River. Cyprien Tanguay claimed that Joseph lost his 10-year-old son Joseph on October 8th, but his death doesn’t appear in the St-Antoine-de-Tilly records, or in the records of any parish nearby.
Where did Joseph go after the siege? He may have taken his family to Sault-au-Recollet in the Montreal area, where one source says his daughter Marie-Therese died at age 18 in 1762. But there is also a record of the death of his son, Jean-François, in June 1760 at Les Ecureuils, which was on the north shore a little upriver from St-Antoine-de-Tilly. Jean-François was age 22, and may have been apart from his family; no other family members were mentioned on his burial record.
By July 28, 1766, Joseph seems to have returned to Lauzon, where his daughter Marie-Charlotte was married. Other events followed in the coming years, suggesting they all had moved there. Joseph died on March 15, 1781 at Pointe-de-Lévy, Lauzon. His wife Françoise-Claude outlived him, passing away a few years later in 1787. They were ancestors of Leo Durocher.
Children:
1. Jean-François Dussault — B. 28 Oct 1737, St-Antoine-de-Tilly, Lotbinière, New France; D. 18 Jun 1760, Les Ecureuils, New France
2. Marie-Françoise Dussault — B. 9 Apr 1740, St-Antoine-de-Tilly, Lotbinière, New France; D. 5 Nov 1755, St-Antoine-de-Tilly, Lotbinière, New France
3. Marie-Charlotte Dussault — B. 21 Jan 1742, St-Antoine-de-Tilly, Lotbinière, New France; D. 22 Dec 1831, St-Jean-Chrysostome, Quebec; M. Jacques Dubois (1746-1827), 28 Jul 1766, Lauzon, Lévis, Quebec
4. Marie-Therese Dussault — B. 19 Apr 1744, St-Antoine-de-Tilly, Lotbinière, New France; D. 30 Jun 1762, Sault-au-Recollet, New France
5. Marie-Genevieve Dussault — B. 22 Mar 1746, St-Antoine-de-Tilly, Lotbinière, New France; M. Joseph Flamand (1745-1785), 28 Feb 1767, Lévis, Quebec
6. Joseph-Marie Dussault — B. 17 Feb 1749, St-Antoine-de-Tilly, Lotbinière, New France; D. 8 Oct 1759, New France
7. Marie-Marguerite Dussault — B. 28 Feb 1751, St-Antoine-de-Tilly, Lotbinière, New France; D. 20 Apr 1795, St-Joseph-de-la-Pointe Lévis, Quebec; M. Ignace Tremblay (1738-1808), 15 Feb 1773, Lauzon, Lévis, Quebec
8. Marie-Anne Dussault — B. 26 Apr 1754, St-Antoine-de-Tilly, Lotbinière, New France; D. 12 May 1775, Lauzon, Lévis, Quebec
Sources:
Généalogie du Quebec et d’Amérique française (website)
WikiTree
Dictionnaire généalogique des familles canadiennes depuis la fondation de la colonie jusqu'à nos jours, Volume 3, Cyprien Tanguay, 1887
“Les églises ont-elles souffert de la conquête?” (Did the churches suffer from conquest?), Marcel Trudel, 1954
Siege of Québec (website)
