Ste-Famille, Ile d'Orléans, Québec
Where Simon Lereau
and his descendants lived

Ile d'Orléans

"Fifteen minutes from the heart of Quebec, one of North America's most historic cities, lies the equally historic and scenic Ile d'Orléans, itself a repository of French, British, and American cultures since the early 1600's. The Ile d'Orléans, 75 kilometers/40 miles in circumference, was classified as a national historic district in 1970." So reads a travel article by Kitty Morse. Take a picture tour of the island

A large number pioneers in Quebec started their life farming on l'Ile d'Orléans. This is how Simon Lereau and Suzanne Jaroussel settled on a piece of land (#22) next to the one owned by his father in law, Maurice Arrivé (#23). Unlike other plots which were 3 arpents in width, the one of Simon was 4 arpents (755 ft). Like all others, it went from the shore to the center of the island in a North-South direction. The island was divided in about 200 parcels. They were grouped into larger sections named St-Pierre, St-Laurent, la Ste-Famille, St-Jean, Argentenay and St-François. The best way to see this is to view the following maps circa 1709 produced by Sieur de Catalogne

Nowadays, there are five villages on l'Ile d'Orléans as seen on this stylized map.

Where did Simon live?

Our cousin Robert L'Heureux has done some research on this and produced the following chronology:

Land #22 - (Green parcel on expanded map)

April 2 1656 - Simon received a concession on the island. It is the land #22. The actual cadastre is #67 to #72 and 2/3 of #73. It is 4 arpents wide and the length goes to the middle of the island (one arpent is approximately 192 feet).
June 22 1667 - Simon bought from Maurice Arrivé a portion of land #23; it is 1.6 arpents. The actual cadastre is the other third of cadastre #73, plus cadastre #74 and #75. Now is total land is 5.6 arpents wide.
November 12 1670 - Simon died.
March 5 1672 - His wife Suzanne, then remarried to Robert Coustard, split the land in 2 equal parts i.e. #22a and #22b. She (read her husband) will keep the first one and the children will have the second one. Each piece was 2.8 arpents wide.
Land #22a - On October 8 1674 the land is sold to Pierre Loignon (he is the godfather of Simon's, Pierre). On August 30 1677 the land is sold to Nicolas Drouin. On the 1709 map, this land is shown to be owned by Ni Grouen. In fact it is a misspelled name for Nicolas Drouin.
Land #22b - The land was occupied by Anne Lereau and Francois Frichet as shown on the 1681 census and on the Villeneuve map drawn in 1689. The 1709 Catalogne map shows Nicolas Leblond owning it.

Land #10 - (Yellow parcel on expanded map)

Around 1669, Simon bought land #10 (actual cadastre #28 to #31) for his youngest son, Sixte. Since land #22 would be passed to the oldest son after his death, he wanted to make sure that Sixte would have a land. Sixte was 2 years old at that time.
After Simon's death the story is not clear but these are the facts:

The 1681 Census showed Jean Leclerc living there. He was working for the Lereau family and living with them in the 1667 census. On the 1689 Villeneuve map, our Robert Coustard is the owner. On the 1709 Catalogne map, Sixte is the owner. If you look at the map you will see somebody named L Chevreux listed there on the land #10. In fact it was supposed to be written C(isque) Lheureux. In the 1725 kind of census, Simon Lheureux (son of Sixte ) is living there.

Other Facts

By 1709, Suzanne and Robert Coustard had left Ile d'Orléans (the 1681 census showed them living with their own children in Côte de Lauzon). Pierre was living in Charlesbourg. Sixte was living on Ile d'Orléans on the land #10.
For details of the various transactions that took place for these land parcels, see the following (in french)

Land #22

Land #10

Other details of these early settlers can be found in an article by René L'Heureux (to be put online at a later date).

Where is Simon's Land Now

The original 4 arpents of Simon (#22) cover the actual cadastre 67 to 72 and 2/3 of 73. The lot numbers are 67-1, 67-2, 67-P, 68-P, 71-P, 72-P, 72-1, 73-P, 73-1, 73-2-P, 73-3-P and 73.4. On the original land are the following residences

Lot #	Address	Owner	Comments
67-1	4194 Chemin Royal	Guy Garant	House built in 1977
67-2	4191 Chemin Royal	Jeannette Fortin	House built in 1877
67-P	No address	Dary Morency
67-P	4189 Chemin Royal	Lucien Morency	House built in 1973
67-P, 68-P, 71-P and 72-P	4189 Chemin Royal	Farm Lucien and S. Morency	House built in 1973
72-1	4179 Chemin Royal	Francois Carrier	House built in 1755
73-P, 73-1, 73-2-P, 73-3-P and 73-4	4173 Chemin Royal	Roger Pouliot	House built in 1971

What does it look like now

As you can see from the above table, there are at least six houses on the original land owned by Simon. Daniel L'Heureux was recently at L'Ile d'Orléans and has taken pictures of the two oldest houses on the original land of Simon as well as the view from the back of one of them.

References