History of D'Amours
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House of D’Amours
History, Genealogy of the D'Amours Family
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The American ancestor of most D'Amours (including D'Amour) was MATHIEU D'AMOURS,
seigneur des Chauffours et de La Morandiere, who was born in France in 1618, legitimate son of Louis D'Amours and Elizabeth Tessier. At 33, Mathieu Damour married Marie Marsolet
first daughter of
NICHOLAS MARSOLET and
Marie LeBarbier
Many of Mathieu and Marie's descendants played key roles in America, like their Grand-daughters Marie-Joseph D'Amours de Chauffours, dame Pierre de Morpain, wife to the famous San Domingo buccaneer, and her sister Charlotte D'Amours Dechoffours, baronnesse Anselme d'Abbadie de St.Castin ; Charlotte (Guyon) D'Amours was the wife of the renowned Abenaki Leader who came to the rescue of Port-Royal in 1711 and who was also a privateer, though we are not dealing with these and other descendants at this time. Mathieu's Father, Louis D'Amours, first Counselor to the King of France (usually seated at the Chatelet), was married to Anne de Gravelle. Though Louis was married to Anne, he had two children by Elisabeth Tessier, Mathieu and Elisabeth D'Amours, (dame Louis-Théandre Chartier de Lotbinière), who were legitimized and came together to New France in 1651. An early D'Amours had saved Saint Louis' a.k.a Louis IX's life c.1246 during the "Noble's Revolt" and the King rewarded him and also Jean de Catalorgne who had just saved his life in one of his Holy Crusades, in Egypt. Both were held in high esteem by the Court of France, in succeeding generations since those early times. The D'Amours and Catalorgne would inter-marry several times. The DAMOURS were furthermore rewarded by LOUIS XII by having a seat on the "Conseil Royal" (Royal Council): Sieur François Damours du Serrin was appointed on July 5th 1489, both as Councillor and as Maitre d' of King Louis XII's household.
The American
ancestor of the D'Amours was MATHIEU D'AMOURS, Signeir des Chaufffours et
de la Morandiere, who was
born in France in 1618, the legitimate son of Louis D'Amours and Elizabeth
Tessier.
Francois D'Amours married seven years later Gillemette Hennequin, daughter of Sieur Pierre Hennequin de Mathau, Scavières, Blines et Saint-Utin and of Marguerite de Marle. François and Gillette signed their marriage contract at Me Perrault, Notary, on August 10 1496. All his descendants were kept as advisors by the subsequent Kings of France, until the French Revolution of 1789. The D'Amours people were reliable, trusthworthy and did not usually get mixed up in Court intrigue. That is why even LOUIS XIV had Gabriel D'Amours, half-brother to Mathieu Damours, as his Confessor: the King who had created "le Chateau de Versailles" believed that the Damours were good counsellors. |
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1450 - First D'Amours coat-of-arms granted to The 15th century French ancestors were: MATHURIN D'AMOURS (1399-1459), Seigneur du Serrin, born in 1399, who married Marguerite de Bridée and received the first Damours Family Crest in 1450 |
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Now, attention, not all researchers agree on the next-in-line: most say François
D'Amours, born in 1455, but I believe they skipped one generation, and that
Pierre D'Amours, born in 1425 in Durtal, Anjou, was father to Francois.
Built in the 1400's in Durtal, France (located on the Loir River in the Loire Valley - approx. 190 miles west of Paris) FRANCOIS D'AMOURS (1455-1510), seigneur du Serrin,
maitre d'hotel de Sa Majeste, who on August 10th 1496, married GILLETTE
HENNEQUIN in Paris. Gabriel and Madeleine had several children:
Mathieu D'Amours Family coat-of-arms where the porcupine was changed for a 'Sanglier', a boar, as was approved on October 8 1725 by the Conseil Souverain for Mathieu's son, Philippe DAMOURS. When Mathieu was 33 yrs old, he came to New France to marry MARIE MARSOLET, who was 15 yrs old and was the eldest child of Nicholas Marsolet & Marie LeBarbier. Mathieu arrived in Quebec in 1651 with the Governor Lauzon. His sister Elisabeth was on the same ship, married to Louis-Théandre Chartier de Lotbinière, whose Mother was the First Chambermaid of the Queen. Mathieu D'Amours was "Major des Troupes" and was member of the Conseil Souverain from 1663 to his death in 1695, succeeded by his son Mathieu. |
| Mathieu D'Amours and Marie Marsolet,
daughter of NICOLAS MARSOLET de St-Aignan
and
Marie Le Barbier (or de La Barbide du Bocage)
were married in 1652, a year which the Archbishop of Rouen declared as Jubilee.
Mathieu and Marie, with their large family, had a house in Quebec city and
another home in New Brunswick (l'Acadie) and earlier on they led a quiet life
between the two homes, registering themselves in Quebec, but spending most of
their time at their Riviere St-Jean establishment. Mathieu and Marie had sixteen children but only 11 survived. All their sons were titled. Their children were: Nicolas, Joseph, Commander of "La Renommee", Louis(1655) Mathieu(1657), Elisabeth(1658), Rene(1660), Charles(1662), Claude(1666), Bernard(1667), Genevieve(1673), Marie-Jacquette(1675), Marguerite(1677), Philippe(1680). Mathieu Damours (the Father) remained in New France for the rest of his life, serving his Sovereigns. He became member of the Conseil Souverain, when it was first created. His seat on the Conseil Souverain was then given to his son Mathieu, who from then on, to meet their requirements had to live in Quebec city, as opposed to being at his Riviere Saint-Jean, New Brunswick property with Louise, where his young family of three sons and also the two daughters of his eldest brother Louis which were in their care, Charlotte and Marie-Josephe, had spent most of their time. |
| In 1681, four years after the death
of Mathieu D'Amours's Father-in-Law, Nicholas Marsolais, the
Count of FRONTENAC, then
Governor of New France,
imprisoned Mathieu without just cause and it was one of the events which led to
FRONTENAC's recall to France in 1682. It was due to Mathieu's wife Marie and his
in-laws (brothers-in-law) that he was released (read the story under
FRONTENAC) Again, Mathieu D'Amours came from a powerful family which had served faithfully the Kings of France since Louis IX when one D'Amours saved his life in the 1248 Holy Crusade, but it had been a powerful family even before then. In 1664, his half-brother Gabriel was the Confessor to the King (Louis XIV) and another half-brother, Pierre, was "Grand Marechal de France". His full sister, Elizabeth D'Amours, married Louis Chartier de Lotbinière. Mathieu D'Amours' Father was Louis Damours, First Counselor to the French King Henri IV, then LOUIS XIII his Paris Castle, which would be better known as "le Chateau de Versailles" under Louis XIV. Mathieu was raised in Paris. All his sons, received titles from the King. |
| THE CHILDREN OF MATHIEU DAMOURS & MARIE MARSOLET: Seven boys & Four girls reached Adulthood (11/16): 7 Sons: LOUIS (1655) Sieur des Chaufours, Seigneur de Jemseg, Acadie; MATHIEU (14 mars 1657) Seigneur des Chaufours da La Fresneuse et de La Morandiere; RENE (9 avril 1660) Sieur de Clignancourt; CHARLES (5 mars 1662) Sieur de Louvieres et Seigneur du Lac Matapedia; CLAUDE-LOUIS (1666), sieur des Chauffours, married on January 17 1708 in Port-Royal, Anne Commeau, daughter of Jean Comeau and Francoise Hebert, but he died 5 months later, on May 9, 1708, and she re-married, in 1710, Francois Richard. BERNARD (1667) Sieur des Plaines et Seigneur de La Fresneuse; PHILIPPE (1679) Sieur de La Morandiere; 4 Daughters: ELIZABETH/ISABEAU (1658), dame Claude Charron de la Barre (he Husband was Gouvernor of New France in 1682.) GENEVIEVE (1673), dame Jean-Baptiste Celoron de Blainville; MARIE-JACQUETTE (1675), dame Etienne de Villedonne; MARGUERITE (1677), dame Jacques Festard-Montmigny. |
| 1686 - TWO DAMOURS BROTHERS MARRY TWO GUYON SISTERS: The first two sons of Marie Marsolet and Mathieu D'Amours, Louis and Mathieu D'AMOURS lived lives which were so intertwined, even after Mathieu, the youngest of the two brothers, died in 1696, that their story has to be told together. LOUIS D'AMOURS, son of Marie Marsolet and Mathieu Damours was named after his paternal Grand-Father. He married Marguerite Guyon the same day as his brother Mathieu married her sister Louise (who was already a young widow), on October 1, 1686. It is a fact that Villebon, when Governor of Acadia, accused the boys (7 of them) of the Damours household to be unproductive and interested only in pleasure, (and Villebon must have dearly regretted the comments, for Mathieu's death happened because Mathieu courageously went to Villebon's rescue) but the barb was definitely aimed at Mathieu who was a slightly un-ruly young man: charming, fun, listening to the person in front of him, never at a loss for a word, loved by everyone around him, but it was unfair to call him unproductive, as his farm on the St-John River was THE model per excellence... and he was very dependable, hard working and was grateful for both his parents and children, which were not fickle qualities. ... Naturally, all the boys had been raised by their Mother, Marie Marsolet de Saint-Aignan. She had yet to learn austerity and rigidity. Her greatest quality was to be a loving, giving and versatile person. Marie was tall for a woman and quite striking, and she was an effervescent, changeable, inventive, impulsive, headstrong, empathic lady who liked to gossip, enjoyed traveling and defended her children like an ogre. It was not conducive to her boys having a calm or boring demeanor. You had to be fast on your toes with this Mom, as she might change her mind in a blink... It is a certainty that Mathieu's Father would have been heartbroken by his early death, he had been the "chosen one" to follow him on the Conseil Souverain in 1689, but he was spared this since he died before his son. Still, Mathieu's death in 1696 was a blow to the whole family, especially for his brother Louis who carried a grudge against the English who had killed him and had also been responsible indirectly for his own wife Marguerite's death the same year and he devoted the rest of his life to getting some revenge. When Mathieu married Louise Guyon, she had been a widow, but he swayed her off her feet and she settled with ease with her life with him, giving him several children in their ten years of marriage, but only three boys survived. After Mathieu's death, though keeping an eye on both her own children and her sister Marguerite's two daughters, Louise GUYON simply resumed an active, pleasurable social life. Because of her caring disposition and beauty, she had always been welcomed everywhere and it continued to be so. Though she had many affairs, she never re-married, and the offers for her hand must have been many, for not only was she eminently presentable, but she was a woman of means. For several reasons, she was one of the most "talked about" lady in New France. Whatever she did, wore, said, was reported again and again, gaining something in the saying. At the 1686 joint wedding ceremony of LOUIS and MATHIEU (Marsolet) D'AMOURS was their cousin, Suzanne Guyon Despres, daughter of Madeleine Marsolet and Francois Guyon des Pres, who in the year 1701 fell in love with Philippe-Olivier Morel de La Durantaye, Sieur Du Houssay, and bore him a child out-of-wedlock, Marie-Henriette, who died two weeks after birth. Suzanne and Philippe would be counted in the 103 people who died in January 1703 in the city of Quebec during the smallpox epidemic. You can read this story as told by Dan Cote in his French website at ww3.sympatico.ca/jokanaan/archives/guyonmorel.html |
| LOUISE GUYON D'AMOURS, where love, scandal, courage and fame meet: Louise (Racine) Guyon lived many events, moreso after marrying Mathieu (Marsolet) D'Amours. Let us go back when her sister Marguerite was married to Louis, the brother of Louise's husband, in the year 1696: Louis Damours, Sieur des Chaufours, seigneur de Jemsee, Acadie, lost his beloved wife Marguerite Guyon, in 1696, 10 years after their wedding and never remarried. They had had several children but only his two daughters survived to adulthood. He bought a ketch captured by the famous d'Iberville and his vessel took part in the attack on Fort Pemquid in 1696 with LEMOYNE d'Iberville, his cousin-in-law, and his friend Vincent de St-Castin and he was later captured by the English and made prisoner at Boston for over 2 years. Eventually, LOUIS D'AMOURS de CHAUFFOUR's daughter Marie-Josephe (b.1694) D'Amours married Pierre Mospain (Morpain) and his daughter Charlotte (b.1690) married in 1707 in Annapolis (Acadie) Anselme d'ABBADIE de St.Castin, son of Vincent. As it was, LOUIS continued sailing his ship and being a privateer for the French. In 1696, the care of his two daughters, Charlotte and Josephe, was left to his large family, including to Louise Guyon, Marguerite's sister and widow of his brother Mathieu, who was widowed the same year as he was, in 1696. His brother, Mathieu, died following wounds received during an English assault by Colonel John Hathorne on Fort St-Joseph, NAXOUAT (Nashwaak) on the St.John River, which was the Headquarters of General Joseph Robinau de VILLEBON. Mathieu D'Amours, the youngest, contributed to the it's defense and victory, but his own farmhouse was burnt with it's 150 fowls, 50 hogs and 22 cattle heads stolen or destroyed by the British. Despite Villebon's unfair accusations of fickleness, Mathieu did not hesitate in going to his help when the British attacked him. Until 1696 Mathieu's farm was a great example of the possibilities in farming in the New world. His brother Louis had helped him build also a sawmill there. As it was, his two girls, Charlotte and Josie (Marie-Josephe), and his brother's three sons, Joseph, Louis and little Mathieu-Francois, both lost a parent that year, one a mom, the other a dad. These children, double-cousin, were all of the same age, and were raised together in their wide extended families. Louise Guyon was a very beautiful woman and she eventually went to live in Port-Royal, becoming the mistress of its governor, Jacques-Francois de BROUILLAN (1655-1705) who became Governor of Plaisance. (Brouillan was the son of Jacques de Monbeton-Bourouillan, seigneur de Bourrouillan, dioçèse of AUCH, France, and of Demoiselle George Dupouy. He "abjured" his Protestant faith in 1687, the year of his arrival to Canada, and was made "Chevalier St-Louis" in 1698. He had a nephew, Joseph de Brouillan de St-Ovide, who was a lieutenant in Plaisance in 1705, and became Governor of Ile Royale (Louisbourg) for 22 years, succeeding Pastour de Costebelle in 1717. Louise, as time went on, also became interested in the second-in-command, Sieur Simon Pierre DENYS de BONAVENTURE, and she extended her favors to both, then only to Denys (he was married but his wife was in Quebec)... When Denys offered Louise the better accommodation of his house, she accepted. It was a hushed scandal, tongues wagging, especially when it was found that she was expecting his child... Antoine was born in Port Royal on September 7, 1703 and he was baptized 2 months later... Now the tongues reached Denys' wife in Quebec and she came to Port Royal, unwilling to relinquish her rights, but the two lovers were still seeing one another. Finally, in 1707, the Governor told him he would be forced to leave his job if he did not put a stop to the scandal. Denys decided to severe his relationship with Louise and left for another post. He died without seeing her again, in 1711. This is how, Louise, widow of Mathieu D'Amours, became the most "talked about" woman in New France... Yet, she was still taking an active interest in all her children's welfare, including Charlotte and Marie-Josephe as their subrogate Mother. Years later, in 1708, in Quebec, Louise GUYON D'AMOURS de la FRESNEUSE was still received in the most closed circles of the capital. Louise Guyon had great courage and in 1711, she was also part of the daring plan (which failed) in retaking Port Royal from the British which was designed by her son-in-law, Anselme de St-Castin, risking her life acting as a spy, arriving alone with her second son and one Abenaki, in the middle of winter, in a canoe, crossing the Bay of Fundy and asking shelter to the British Commander of the town, which was granted... and soon after the English fell in a trap at the Bloody Bridge Battle and she escaped with the French. |
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The third son of Marie Marsolet, Rene, Sieur de Clignancourt baptized in Quebec
August 9 1660, lived in Port-Royal (Acadie); he married, in Quebec, October 13
1689, Charlotte Francoise de Gardeur (LeGardeur) du Tilly, daughter of Charles
de Tilly, member of the Conseil Souverain. |
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Each son of the Marsolet-Damours received the same letter: this one is for René
DAMOURS, their third child: Their children were: |
| Following is an Excerpt about the DAMOURS Family as it stood in the 1693 CENSUS
to be found at:http://gennb.tripod.com/histry2.htm 1693 Lands .... at the St.John River in New-Brunswick owned by the sons of Mathieu D'Amour de Chaufours: ........ the area from the mouth of the St John River to Grand Falls NB, was granted to the four sons of Mathieu D'Amour in 1693 who were: Louis D'Amour de Chauffour, Mathieu D'Amour de Freneuse, Rene D'Amour de Clignancourt, Bernard D'Amour de Pleine The 1686 census gave Sieur Louis D'Amour de Chauffours ...... had 65 acres of land, in 1694 he had cultivated wheat, peas, Indian corn and oats, he owned 228 bushels , 22 cattle, 50 hogs, and 150 fowls. .......... Mrs. De Chauffours saved her home and stock from destruction by the English who advanced on Fort Nashwaak. Her husband being at sea, she wrote an appeal to the English commanding officer and fastened it on her door, then she was hidden with her children by a boy named John Gyles. She died shortly after 1696 and her sister Mrs. Freneuse took her children. ... (LOUIS D'AMOURS) took part in the attack on Fort Pemquid in 1696 and he was later captured by the English and made prisoner at Boston for over 2 years. Two sons of the Chauffours married at Port Royal a daughter Marie Charlotte married the second Baron St Castin, and Marie-Josephe married the notorious buccaneer of St.Domingo(Haiti) Pierre Morpaine... |
THIS SITE'S INFORMATION WAS
TAKEN MOSTLY FROM:
"The Columbia University Encyclopedia" - Edition 1942
"Historical Geography of the British Dominions - Vol.5 : CANADA" by Sir
Charles Lucas, Oxford University Press, 1923
"Histoire des Acadiens"
by Bona Arsenault - Lemeac 1978
"Extraits des Délibérations Du Conseil Souverains : 1663-1700"
"Maine, Resources, Attractions and it's People, a History"
Compiled by Harrie B. Coe, The Lewis Historical Publishing Company (1928)
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Genealogie: Jean BLAIS fils d'Anne PERROT,
Francois MERCURE
GENEALOGIE BLAIS PERRAULT MERCURE
www.blaisdata.com/wc01/wc01_377.htm
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References de Genealogie: Enfant de Jean
PERREAULT / PERROT
Leflot Perreault Villedaigre
sbeauregard.iquebec.com/pafg10.htm
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Liens sur le Patrimoine
par "Culture et Communications Québec"
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TANGUAY Reference book
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HISTORICA Canada
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D'Amours Genealogy and Poems from Baudelaire - by Danielle Duval LeMyre
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTFxrFUBHxM
A diaporama on D'Amours genealogy (they are descendants of William the Conqueror, Louis VI, Robert the Strong) with Charles Beaudelaire's great poems "Le serpent qui danse" "A celle qui est trop gaie" "Invitation au voyage" as told by Danielle Duval LeMyre
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Copyrights 1998-2010 by Danielle Duval LeMyre
Printing permission is given for
Personal or Educational purposes. DDLM
For further information contact: Glynneth Lee Barren at glynnethb@aol.com
