Biography - Association des Ouellet-te d'Amérique

While René Hoûallet’s marriage certificate was being prepared he declared that he was born in Paris on Isle-de-France, more precisely in Saint-Jacque du Haut-Pas, near the Jardins de Luxembourg, in the fifth district of Paris. Recent new discoveries have revealed that René’s baptism was celebrated on 26 January 1644 in the church of Notre-Dame-de-Vierzon, city situated in the district du Cher in the New France but known as le Berry or Haut Berry under the old regime. Vierzon is about 215 kilometers south of Paris.

In 1639, his parents, François Hoûallet and Élizabeth (Isabelle) Barré, lived on Rue des Ursulines street, in Saint-Landry parish on Isle de la Cité in Paris. François Hoûallet was then receiver for the five (5) large districts of France. Later he became responsible for foreign trading in Vierzon and then general receiver for the province of Poitou and finally receiver for the King in Anjou.

René arrives in Nouvelle-France around 1660.  On March 8th 1666 he marries Anne Rivet de Saint-Gervais de Séez, Basse-Normandie, in the Notre-Dame de Québec church.  Widowed from Grégoire Hisse, Anne Rivet "fille du roi" had arrived here in 1665. Three boys were born and baptized at Saint-Famille, Ile d’Orléans, Abraham-Joseph, in 1667, Mathurin-René in 1669, and Grégoire in 1672.

On February 6th 1673 René Hoûallet receives the concession of the second land east of Sainte-Famille parish land that he is already cultivating and that he sells to René Couttard sixteen days later. He then rents the land of Thimothée Roussel and Pierre Soutane on Côte de Beaupré. In 1989, a commemorative stone was placed on the land that René prepared for cultivation in Sainte-Famille.

In 1676, 1 year after Anne Rivet's death in Château-Richer, René Hoûallet and Marie Bouet/Boette are suspects in the murder of Marie Bouet's spouse Martin Guérard dit le Grap (Gras). In January 1676 Guérard sells his Château-Richer property and buys lot number 1 in Sainte Famille, Isle of Orléans, which is next to the lot that René Hoûallet sold 3 years earlier. Not long after the purchase the Guérard's house is lost due to a fire and the family takes refuge in Louis Lepage's house, their neighbor. On March 17th Guérard crosses the seaway on his way to the mill in Château-Richer. On April 13 his body is found on the beach. Sebastienne Loignon, wife of Louis Lepage, declares that René Hoûallet and Marie Bouette intend to marry. Le Sieur de Villedaigre and Guillaume Landry reveal to have seen a man crossing the seaway and almost immediately the man disappeared under the floating ice. Due to a lack of sufficient proofs the affair is closed. On December 7 Marie Bouette weds Nicholas Métivier Gronier.

In 1678 René confides his sons to friendly families and goes to Sainte Anne de la Grande -Anse(La Pocatière) where he cultivates a lot owed by feu Jean Mignault dit Châtillon and Louise Cloutier. Jean Mignault dit Châtillon was born in Chantillon-les-Bagneux, near Paris; he arrived in New-France in 1643 and practiced the trades of soldier, farmer and suit tailor. Louise Cloutier was born in Saint-Jean de Mortagne, in Perche. She arrived here in 1634 around the age of 4 with her parents, brothers and sisters.

In 1679, René Hoûallet marries their daughter, Thérèse, his neighbour, the young widow of Nicolas Lebel, farmer, mother of four children, Jean, Angélique, Nicolas et Joseph Lebel, and is heiress of a lot of four arpents wide at Saint-Anne de la Grande-Anse (La Pocatière). Eight children are born from this new marriage: Marie-Thérèse in 1679, Joseph in 1680, Marie-Françoise in 1682, Sébastien in 1685, Marie-Anne in 1687, Angélique-Marguerite in 1690, François in 1693, and Marie in 1696.

In March 1680, the Seigneur of Rivière-Ouellet concedes to René a lot of 8 arpents frontage by 42 deep close to the river by the same name.

In 1690, René and his four older sons join the inhabitants of the area to prevent Phips and his Bostonians to disembark in Rivière-Ouelle. Following this historic event people considered them heroes together with thirty four (34) other inhabitants of the area. In 1947, a commemorative plaque honouring this event was affixed to the bridge crossing the Rivière-Ouelle.

Heavily in debt the ancestor Hoûallet must sell part of his Rivière-Ouelle land. In 1721, living in Saint-Roch des Aulnaies, with his eldest son Abraham-Joseph, he prepares his will in which he cedes to Saint-Anne parish, one arpent of land where a future church could be built. In 1966, his Ouellet-te descendants erect a monument in his memory and that of his wives and children. The 10 August 1997 a commemorative plaque is affixed to a stone at the entrance of the Rivière-Ouelle Cemetary as part of the 325th anniversary.