Notes |
- Étienne Denevers emigrated to Québec in 1649, aboard one of the six ships commanded by Jean-Paul Godefroy. He seems to have worked for a short time for Michel LeNeuf du Hérisson, at Trois-Rivières, before settling in Sillery in 1650. His first appearance in any record is an odd one: on January 15, 1650 he stood as godfather at the baptism of an Indian child, Étienne, son of Kaouboukouchich and Kouekassouekoue, at Sillery. This could mean that he was working for the Jesuit mission at the time. As early as 1654, Étienne was involved in business deals with his father-in-law (the first settler of the region, and relatively wealthy) - trading voyages to Acadia, land acquisitions, trade with the Hurons and Iroquois. In the same year, about a month after the birth of his first child, he acquired a small farm which eventually grew to a large estate, making him influential enough to call himself "sieur de Brantigny." Several invoices and other records in his name survive, mentioning fairly large sums of money. In the 1670s he was in business with his son Daniel, buying and selling land. In 1676 he negotiated a contract with the Ursuline convent to fish off lands belonging to them. By 1678 he was living in a large manor house in the seigneurie of Lauzon.
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