THE ORIGIN OF MAURICE ARRIVÉ

The surname ARRIVÉ may have been relatively common in France during the 17th century, particularly in the Poitou region. At least four individuals with that surname immigrated from France to Canada between the late 1640s and the early 1660s. These are Maurice, my ancestor, probably in 1648 (or in 1652 according to some sources), Jean who left the most descendants, Pierre who settled in the Montreal area and who also had many descendants, and Jacques dit DELISLE, whose descendants were called ARRIVÉ, LARRIVÉ and DELISLE. All four originated from the Poitou region, in west-central France, but no relationship has ever been positively established between any of them, although certain facts suggest that Maurice and Jean were closely related.

The parents of Maurice ARRIVÉ were Lucas and Marguerite MARGAUT. Based on information obtained from documents related to Maurice's first marriage, the family lived in Savigny (or Saligny) parish in Poitou. However, according to information pertaining to his second marriage, they originated from St-Denis-de-la-Chevasse. The two parishes are situated only 5 km apart, in the present department of Vendée, about 15 km north of La Roche-sur-Yon.

The birth date of my ancestor Maurice has not been well established: according to the 1666 and 1681 census, he was born in 1601, but the 1667 census states that he was only 55 years old at the time, which would put his birth year at 1612. This latter date is more likely because his last child was born about 1681 when Maurice would have been 69 years old rather than 80. In either case he is believed to have arrived in New France as a single man, between 35 and 50 years old, practicing masonry as a trade.

Maurice ARRIVÉ was living in Québec in August 1654 when he married Jacquette TOURAUDE. She was the 43 year old daughter of François and Marthe Noël d'ANGOULÈME. It was her third marriage. In France, she had been married to Pierre JAROUSSEAU with whom she had at least one daughter, in 1641, by the name of Suzanne. After Pierre's death, mother and daughter came to New France to join Françoise, Jacquette's eldest sister, who had emigrated in 1646 with her husband Jacques ARCHAMBAULT and their six children.

Shortly after her arrival in 1652, Jacquette TOURAUDE signed a marriage contract with Jacques PRÉVIRAU, a lad from her own region of Angoumois. The ceremony was celebrated at Robert Giffard's Manor in Beauport. But only a few months after the wedding, Jacques died, and Jacquette became a widow for the second time. She must have been quite attractive despite her 43 years because Maurice ARRIVÉ, a confirmed bachelor, was unable to resist her charms. So, on the 25th of August 1654, the master mason married Jacquette TOURAUDE.

Maurice ARRIVÉ and Jacquette TOURAUDE did not sign a formal marriage contract; instead, they signed a mutual donation agreement before notary Auber on the 25th of February 1663, and again before notary Paul Vachon on the 27th of January 1666. There were no children from this union. Jacquette died at age 59 on or about the 21st of April 1670; she was buried at Ste. Famille, Ile d'Orléans. The inventory of the communal goods was carried out by notary Paul Vachon on July 26 of the same year.

In the meantime, my ancestor Maurice, who was not getting any younger, was determined to find a new bride, quickly. He met and married Françoise PÉDENELLE, a 23 year old King's Daughter. Her father was Pierre PÉDENEAU and her mother, Marie BOESTE; they were from the town of Loix, on Isle of Ré, situated in front of the city of La Rochelle in west-central France. The marriage contract was passed before notary Duquet, on the 26th of May 1670, and the very simple religious ceremony took place June 2nd at Ste. Famille church on Ile d'Orléans.

Six children were born from this union: Maurice in 1671, Simon in 1673, François in 1674, Marguerite in 1677, Joseph in 1679 and Antoine around 1681. The last two died at a young age, although Antoine did reach the age of 12. At the 1681 census, three sons and one daughter were recorded. At that time, Maurice ARRIVÉ owned one ox and seven acres of land at Ile d'Orléans. He was a neighbor of Jean ARRIVÉ, who also originated from the Poitou region of France. But were they related? In his marriage contract written by notary P. Vachon, on the 5th of February 1671, Jean stated that he was a cousin of Suzanne JAROUSSEL, the daughter of Jacquette TOURAUDE, the first wife of Maurice ARRIVÉ.

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MAURICE ARRIVÉ

The archives show that my ancestor Maurice negotiated several business agreements in the Quebec region. Most involved the sale or concession of land, construction contracts, the acknowledgment or receipt for debts, etc. These activities began soon after his arrival in New France. In November 1649, he negotiated an agreement with Pierre TOURMENTE and Jean BOURBON, and in 1650 with Antoine MARTIN dit MONTPELLIER. In both cases, they were for masonry work.

Several legal documents show that my ancestor Maurice negotiated other contracts for the purchase and the concession of land in Québec and Sillery before settling permanently at Ste. Famille on Ile d'Orléans in 1656. On the 2nd of April of that year, Charles de LAUZON gave him a parcel of land measuring about three acres in the Lirec seigniory, which covers today's Ste. Famille and St. Pierre parishes. At the 1666 census, he was well established at Ile d'Orléans with his wife Jacquette TOURAUDE; he had two employees: Jean ROGER, a mason like him, and a lad by the name of Julien. At the 1667 census, he declared himself to be the farmer of madame d'AILLEBOUST; he owned some twelve acres of land and five heads of cattle.

Maurice ARRIVÉ seems to have owned two parcels of land on Ile d'Orléans: the first, which he obtained from Charles de LAUZON, is located about one mile east of Ste. Famille church, on lots 73 and 74, and parts of lots 75, 78, 79 and 81 of the present land cadastre. In the Archivist's Report for 1949-50-51, it is recorded as land parcel no. 23. The second is located two miles further east on present day lots 19 to 24; it is land parcel no. 6. He sold part of parcel no. 23 to David ASSELIN on the 13th of March 1666 before notary Paul Vachon and another portion of the same land parcel to Simon LEREAU, on the 24th of June 1667, before notary Duquet.

On November 30, 1668, he bought a parcel of land from Jean CHARPENTIER, probably parcel no. 6 (notary P. Vachon), and on the 22nd of October 1671, he sold part of this land to Symphorien ROUSSEAU and gave the rest to the children of Jacquette TOURAUDE (Paul Vachon). On the 18th of August 1679, before the same notary, he forgave Symphorien ROUSSEAU for his debt on the land that he had sold him in 1671.

Before his death, Maurice ARRIVÉ negotiated a few more agreements with Joseph BONNEAU dit LA BÉCASSE, Louis ROUER, sieur de Villeray, Abraham MÉTHOT, Ange GRIGNON et Jean LEROUGE. These legal documents bear the signatures of notary Gilles Rageot (October 18, 1682, and October 2, and 20, 1684) and notary Genaple (October 24, 1683).

It is quite clear that Maurice ARRIVÉ was very active until the end of his life, which was rather long for that period: he was at least 74 years old when he died at St. François, Ile d'Orléans, on the 27th of August 1687. His wife, Françoise PÉDENELLE, survived him 19 years; she died on the 8th of July 1706, and was buried at St. François, Ile d'Orléans.
 

THE DESCENDANTS OF MAURICE ARRIVÉ

The oldest son of Maurice ARRIVÉ was given the same first name as his father. He was baptized at Ste. Famille parish, on Ile d'Orléans, on the 14th of March 1671 and was married in 1709 at age 38, to Anne LAISNÉ dit LALIBERTÉ, daughter of Bernard and Anne DIONNE. They had six children: two boys who died young, and four daughters, three of whom married. He died in 1733, at the age of 62 and was buried in the St. François (Ile d'Orléans) parish cemetery. So, Maurice did not leave any descendants with the surname ARRIVÉ.

The second son of my ancestor Maurice, Simon, was born on the 23rd of December 1672; he was baptized at St. François, Ile d'Orléans, on the 3rd of February 1673. He was married in 1709, the same year as his older brother. His wife, Catherine GARANT, was a young widow aged 25. Notary Chamballon wrote their marriage contract on the 17th of July, or 12 days before the religious ceremony. We know of two children from this marriage: Geneviève, who was the first ARRIVÉ/LARRIVÉ to marry outside the Québec area, at La Visitation de Champlain, in 1730, and Jean-Louis, born on the 20th of June 1715, three months after the death of his father. Jean-Louis married Marguerite DENIS/DANY in 1751, far from home, at Fort St. Frederic, south of Lake Champlain. He has no known descendants.

The task of ensuring the continuity of the ARRIVÉ/LARRIVÉ lineage became the responsibility of François, the third son of Maurice ARRIVÉ, born on Christmas day 1674 and baptized on the 29th of December at Ste. Famille, Ile d'Orléans. With Marie-Madeleine LAISNÉ dit LALIBERTÉ (Anne's sister), whom he married on Christmas eve 1703, he had eight children, among them one boy, Louis-François, who remained single all his life and died at age 82, and three others, François, Jean-Baptiste and Joseph, all of whom had children bearing the LARRIVÉ surname. However, only François, son of François and grandson of Maurice, had boys, Jean and Joseph-Louis, to carry the surname LARRIVÉ dit MAURICE. (This is the way that the descendants of my ancestor Maurice ARRIVÉ came to be called, probably to distinguish them from the descendants of Jean ARRIVÉ when the two families began to disperse along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, first in front of Ile d'Orléans and, eventually, much further.)

Many of Maurice ARRIVÉ's descendants settled in county Bellechasse, mostly at St. Gervais and St. Magloire. At the fifth generation, Joseph LARRIVÉ dit MAURICE went to Batiscan, where he married a woman from that area, Marguerite MASSICOT. Our family descends from this line.

One of the two sons of Joseph who reached adulthood, Siffroy, after marrying Marie SAUVAGEAU, at La Visitation de Champlain, in 1837, went to work at Ste. Flore in the Three-Rivers region, as a lumberman. Later, he and his family settled permanently at Les Piles (St. Jacques), along the shores of the St. Maurice River, where Joseph, Abraham, Alfred Siffroy, Basile and Napoléon were born. Most of the LARIVÉ/LARRIVÉE families that inhabited the Mauricie region during the first half of the 20th century descend from them.

Joseph's other son, Abraham, participated with other citizens of Batiscan in the great migration of the 1840's and 1850's towards the shores of Georgian Bay. This wave resulted from years of bad harvests in the Quebec and Three-Rivers region. We believe that Abraham, himself a farmer, would have moved his family in 1852 or 1853. Transportation was by train to Barrie (Ontario) and from there, on foot for about 50 kilometers to Penetanguishene and Lafontaine where land could be bought at a good price.

Abraham's wife, Flavie MARCHILDON, who came to Lafontaine with three of her brothers and two sisters, died in 1855 after giving birth to six children, among them my great-grandfather Joseph. In 1856, Abraham remarried with Marie-Apolline TROTTIER from whom he had two sons and one daughter. It was at Lafontaine that Abraham and his descendants permanently adopted the surname MAURICE.

The descendants of Abraham MAURICE have propagated in Huronia and elsewhere in northern Ontario and Abitibi. One of the daughters of Abraham and Flavie, Marie, married a LAFRENIÈRE and went to settle in Manitoba, at St. Léon. Another daughter, Olive, also married a LAFRENIÈRE and they went to Minnesota.

The MAURICE surname in Canada is not restricted to the descendants of Maurice ARRIVÉ. There was also a Claude MAURICE dit LAFANTAISIE, a soldier in the LaGrois Company, who married Madeleine DUMOUCHEL in 1699 in Montréal. They left many descendants that have spread throughout the Montreal region and along the Ottawa Valley.

NOTE ABOUT ONE SOURCE OF INFORMATION

The historical account that you have just read is basically a translation of an article originally written in French by my father, Ovide D. MAURICE, and published in the December 1979 issue of the Bulletin of the Quebec Genealogical Society, L'Ancêtre. It also includes some elements derived from a revised and enhanced version of that article that forms the opening of one of the chapters of Alfred LARIVÉ's book entitled Descendances de 4 Larrivé en Amérique (1994, 390 pages).

That article and a fair portion of the genealogical data presented at this site are the product of a lifetime of meticulous research carried out by my father. With an insatiable thirst for new information, he spent most of his spare time in libraries where he diligently consulted nearly all the archives available for the provinces of Quebec and Ontario. He passed away on July 27 1989 in Quebec City. He would have loved to see his work on the Web.