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Descendants of Jacques Guyon

Generation No. 2


2. JEAN2 GUYON,I. (JACQUES1) was born September 18, 1592 in Saint-Aubin de Tourouvre, France, and died May 30, 1663 in Beauport, Quebec, Canada. He married MATHURIN ROBIN June 12, 1615 in Saint-Jean-de Mortagne, Sees, Perche, France. She was born 1599 in Saint-Jean de Mortagne, Perche, France, and died April 16, 1662 in Beauport, Quebec, Canada.

Notes for JEAN GUYON,I.:
DERBANNE
(D'Herbanne, Darbonne, Derbonne, Guyon, Dion)

The background of this important pioneer Canadian and Louisiana family is among the most interesting among those chronicled in this volume. After the settlement of Natchitoches, the Derbanne descendants were prominent in affairs there for a century, until the more aggressive Americans attainded supremacy in that region. A branch also settled in Opelousas, as will be seen. Because of the prolific nature of this family, and the lack of access to important records, this researcher has taken the family as far as his research will allow and so far it is FAR.

Since Jean Guyon (1592-1663) was one of the earliest settlers of Canada, there has been a substantial amount of research into his roots as well as his own activities, in various Canadian journals. Quating from the most extensive sketch of his early life, by Madame Pierre Montagne, in the French-Canadian and Acadian Genelogical Review (undated, LDS Library , Salt Lake City), entitled "Jean Guyon before his departure for Canada":
"Jean Guyon, who with a small and elegant handwriting signs "Guion" is the ancestor not only of a multiude of Guyons, but also of Dions, Dionnes, and in general of many citizens of North America.....
The interest that his descendants have in him, manifested in a few letters which she recieved after the publication of Tourouvre et les Juchereau, encouraged her to pursue her researches of Tourouvre in Mortagne where through the kindness of Mr. Frarce she had access to the old minute of his study, as she had at Tourouvre, thanks to the obliging assistance of Mr. Pierre Debray; to both she wants to express her deepest gratitude.
The family of Jean Guyon

We find his father, Jacque Guyon, for the first time at Tourouvre, Monday, January 6, 1578; he is a witness at the sale of lands in autheuil; it is said that he was not able to sign his name.

His patronymic name is new in the region; although, the year before, January 29, 1577, Mathurin Guyon, merchant, residing at Mamers, in the ancient province of Maine, lent the sum of 90 pounds to Mr. Jean de Bleuves, pastor of Bivilliers. The registers of Mamers do not go that far. Mr. Chevalier, notary in this town, deposited in the department archives of the Sarthe, minutes dating after 1642; the others have disappeared.
So we do not know if Mathurin Guyon is the grandfather of our hero.

Jacques Guyon, for his part, lives at Touroure; he acts again as a witness, Sunday, August 13, 1581. And Friday, April 15, 1583, he and his wife Marie Huet arrange a donation for the one who will survive the other. This document, discreetly concealed among all the others, is the only one which gives us the family name of Jean Guyon's mother.

Let us come back to Jean Guyon, of much more reown, who has been much more spoken of. He is baptized September 18, 1592; his godfathers are Jean Collin and Pierre Dolivet, his godmother Catherine Goddin.

He spent his childhood at Tourouvre where, Sunday, November 21, 1604, Jacques Guyon his father, is mentioned in due place among the notables who elect a procurator as their representative in the affairs which they hold in common.

May 18, 1614, Jean Guyon, whose small and gay signature, like small flags waving in the wind, is recognized at first sight among so many illegible and discouraging handwritings, lends to Pantaleon Bigot, farmer of Autheuil, a sum which consisted of "small god pistol, pieces of fifty-two sous, quarters of crowns and others silver pieces", for a value of 84 pounds. He is already a mason and is successful in his affairs, being only twenty-two years old. In fact he is thinking of founding a family and to go out on his own; leaving Jacques Guyon and Marie Huet alone in their house at Tourouvre, having as neighbors Marin Lousche, son of Francois, the children of Robert Mullard and the seigneur (lord) of Tourouvre.

Like his sister, and maybe as a consequence of her marriage, it is at Mortagne that he finds his life companion. The pastor of Saint-Jean of Mortagne records that "June 12, 1615, Jehan Guyon, of the parish of Tourouvre, and Mathurine Robin of this parish were married".

But Tourouvre has not forgotten its child Jean Guyon from whom is ordered, November 30, 1615, a pile of stones for the steeple of Saint-Aubin's church. The older mason with whom he is working is Jean Froger whose house is near his, in Saint-Jean's parish, in Mortagne.......


Jehan Guyon and the steeple tower
of the chruch at Tourouvre

The memory of an early Canadian greets us immediately at the threshold of the church:; the vistor will be moved with emotion, more than by his tour of inspection, in touching at the left, under the steeple tower, the door frame of Pierre Blanche and in ascending the thirty-one steps which lead to the second floor of the tower, as far as the arches of the lower side.

On November 30, 1615, at Mace Pichon's home, under the sign of the White Horse, the parishioners of Tourouvre, represented by four of thier number, ordered "Jehan Froger and Jehan Guyon, mason by trade, living in the parish of Saint-Jean de Mortagne" to replace a wooden flight of stairs which was still there.

These old worn step were provided with an iron edging and covered with cement, but it is only necessary to raise one's head to view their underside, to see them just as they came from the hands of the workman, with the tool mark everywhere visible....

The career of Jean Guyon

Mortagne has recognized also the talents of Jean Guyon, where his reputation is well known. He was hired to fortify its walls, many sections of which are still standing, for the enjoyment of the tourist who strolls among the old hotels of this charming town.

This order was given July 21, 1625, by Mr. Jehan Ailleboust (illegible) procurator of the people of the town of Mortagne, romising to advance 150 pounds and to deliver scaffolding, water, lime and sand........

This is when our master stone cutter learned at his own expense that honors sometimes are costly and that timely payments are rarely in the habits of towns. Thus, August 22, accompanied by Mr. Mathurin Roussel, he rushes to the Auditoire to urge the syndical procurator to see that the money and material will be delievered so that he may "work and make the other work" at the said walls, that which is promised for the following Wednesday. Thus we see Jean Guyon at the head of an enterprise of a certain importance. But he is not at the end of his troubles for having accepted to work for "the public".

And we find him again involved with men of the law and the syndical procurator, October 13, having completed a section, when he summons that the work which has been done be measured, that he be paid and that new advances be made, otherwise he will demand damages and will leave this enterprise without ever coming back to work on it. This time he was promised that the measurements would be taken the next day by the men of the office and that he would be paid by the receiver general.

But....if Jean Guyon kept on working at the fortification of the walls, he must have persevered in his demands through legal channels for further settlements... The reciever general, whose name is Rene Gentil, after an ordinance of the selectmen of Mortagne dated June 12, 1627, with regard to the two hundred and fifty pounds which are due him, gave him a hundred and one...and his successor, Mr. Jean Pousset, a hundred more, and that in 1633.

He must have been engaged in other works for which he was paid more promptly as we will see later on, after we will have looked at another phase of his professional life.

Master mason, Jean Guyon trained apprentices. We know two of them.

Teh first contract of apprenticeship, which was passed before Mr. Sebastien Rousel, April 22, 1626, was with regard to Pierre Hayes, son of Ambroise, living in the same parish of Saint-Jean. During three years, starting from Pentecost, the master will teach him well and properly the trade of mason, providing also food, guidance, heat and shelter, and in exchange the apprentice will serve his master with loyalty and will give him for his pension thirty pounds for three years; it is understood tht if young Pierre is not satisfied with the said Guyon, he will be free to leave after six months, by paying his expenses, with the title of expert. Zacharie Maheust signs the contract.


The 6 of July that follows, "Pierre Hayes, mason, living at the present time in the house of Jean Guyon" receives the sum of 28 pounds and 10 sous, which most likely was the pay for his apprenticeship.

The contract, which is of 1632, six years later, concerns Jacques Patard, mason of Tourouvre, who came to Mortagen to learn his trade from Jean Guyon; it is but fro a year, starting the first day of Lent. The master has increased his price and it is 24 pounds for a year that Jacques Patard father of the apprentice, gives September 18, on the anniversary of the birth of Jean Guyon

The dwelling place of Jean Guyon

September 29, 1623, Jean Guyon comes back to Tourouvre...; he came back certainly many other times, but without going to the notary...he visited his relatives, has buried his aged father and took his mother with him. So he comes to sell the family house to his neighbor and friend Marin Lousche, son of the godfather of his oldest sister, who gave him March 23, 1624, 55 pounds, the price which was agreed upon for the house.

Jean Guyon lives in the parish of his wife, Saint-Jean of Mortagne, with their children, Barbe, Jean, Simon and Marie, and his aged mother Marie Huet who followed her husband Jacques Guyon not quite three years after; in February of 1626, the pastor of Sanit-Jean writes in the chapter of interments, "the 26th day of the said month and year, the mother of Jean Guyon".

His house, which was near the one belonging to Jean Froger, his associate of 1615, and the road going to Mortagne to Paris, was acquired from a mason, Marin Boucher; it consists of two rooms on the first floor, an upstairs, a garden...and a pigsty. It is evaluated April 17, 1632, for two hundred and forty pounds.

But at the time he had left it a numbe of years before. Already, the 10th of March, 1626, he had acquired from Mr. Rodolph de la Mare, priest, a house located in the parish of Notre-Dame, comprising two lower chambers, with a high chamber and small study-room over the lower chambers and an upstairs over the high chamber, with a cellar, a wood-house and courtyard in front of the house...This house, which seems to be more spacious needed to be repaired. June 15, 1626, Jean Guyon comes to take possession of it, to light the fire and to stroll around, when, to his great displeasure, he finds tht the upper chamber an the upstairs had been locked by Marguerite de la Mare, who took on herself t place here Andre Lasnier, Jacques and Rene Leger, roofers, to make the repairs which Jean Guyon refuses to pay. Jacques Chevalier, merchant, and Gaspard Boucher, carpenter, are with Mr. Roussel witnesses of his protest.

This house, adjacent on the one hand to the heirs of the late Mr. Guillaume Catinat and on the other to the Religious of Saint-Eloi, was near Barberye Street (la rue de la Barberye) which extends from the Saint Denis portal to the Collegiate of Toussaint.

It became the house of the Guyon family.........

It is in this house, in the presence of Mr. Mathurin Roussel, that February 11, 1632, was enacted the marriage contract between their oldest daughter Barbe and "Pierre Paradis, gunsmith, son of the late Jacque Paradis and of his wife Michelle Pesle, his father and mother, assisted by the said Pesle, his mother, by Jacques and Guillaume Paradis, his brothers, Francois Lespinay, carpenter, his brother-in-law, and Jean Dupont, his cousin."

After they had promised to each other that they would celebrate this marriage according to the rites of our Holy Mother the Church, "as soon as it will be decided among themselves and their parents, if God consents and wills it", the parents made known their liberalities. This also shows the good standing of Jean Guyon and proves of his paternal love....which is of great interest to us, French Canadian parents, as one of our major concerns being that life may not be too hard for the children.

As trousseau, Barbe had half a dozen sheets, half a dozen talbe clothes, twelve napkins, a feather bed comprised of a canopy, curtains, bed-clothes and bedstead, an expandable talbe with two forms, four stools, two chairs, one small bed, all made of wood; half a dozen porringers and half a dozen plates with a pot and a pint container, all made of pewter, two dishes and two cups also of pewter, a boiler with its spoon and cover and a small caldron and a frying-pan, all made of iron.

Her parents are giving her 30 pounds the day of her wedding and 90 pounds a year after, which is a wise precaution. With regard to Pierre Paradis, his mothe, his brothers and his brother-in-law let him have the usage for 6 years of all the tools and instruments needed for his trade, and the young couple will dwell during the lifetime of his mother in the house where she lives, if they think it proper.

The contract was signed by Barbe Guyon and her father, also by Guillame Paradis. Pierre Paradis is said to unable to sign."

The tiny province of Perch, from which Guyon emigrated, has managed to keep its identity intact despite its small size, perhaps because of its natural geographical setting of rolling hills and valleys. It lies just to the north of th eprovine of the Maine, and south of Normandy. Mortagne is its captial, and Tourouvre a small town to its northeast. In 1634 Robert Gifford, an entrepreneur and merchant of th region, recieved a large grant of land in Canada from the King, to bring settlers to the St. Lawrence. Among the large group of those who emigrated were the Guyon family, as well as progenitors of the Boucher, Cloutier, and Juchereau families. The last-named is particularly interesting in light of the close relationship in Louisiana nearly a century later between Louis Juchereau de St. Denis and Francois Guyon Despres Derbanne,

To entice Guyon to come to Canada, Gifford, as the newlycreated Seigneur of Beauport, granted to Jean Guyon in March, 1634, a tract of land within that seigneurie, called DuBuisson. It was an arriere-fief, in feudeal terms, indicating that he was to be the vallal of Giffard. In later years Guyon assumed the title "Sieur DuBussion", which then passed to his eldest son Jean, the first Royal Surveyor of Canada. The land later came into the hands of other of Guyon's children. Finally becoming the property of his youngest child Francois Guyon Despres, father of Derbanne the Louisiana pioneer.

Beauport, still a recognizable community, lies just to the north of the city of Quebec and is fast becoming a suburb of that city. The Guyon tract is easy to locate, for it lay immediately to the north of the parish church of Norte Dame. It was a large tract, and if the Canadian Census of 1667 can be accepted, contained a frontage of forty-four arpents on the St. Lawrence (a distance of about 1.6 miles).

It was on this land that Guyon and his wife reared their large family of eleven children, nine of whom lived to adulthood. Only one of these nine, Francois, was born in Canada. The later years of Jean Guyon's life were spent in developing his property, rearing his family, and also in the practice of his profession of free mason, which preceded today's occupation of "builder". Though there are doubtless many references to Guyon in early records of the city of Quebed, this researcher has not been able to be that extensive. One interesting reference appears in the periodical Heraldry in Canada (v. XI), in which Jean Guyon is credited with having introduced corporated heraldry to Canada in 1646, during the course of a guilds' parade in the city on the Feast of Corpus Christi.

Finally, an article in LeBulletin des Recherches Historiques (V. 54, p114) states (translated):

"During the nine generations of decendants of Jean Guyon and his worthy spouse Mathurine Robin, do you know the count of archbishops, bishops, priest, monks and nuns? A priest, descendant of Guyon, undertook the patriotic task of assembling a dossier on each ecclesiastical figure born in the nine generation of the Guyon family. He made the following list: seventeen bishops and archbishops, including a cardinal; more than 85 priests and several hundred religious. And he noted that this was as of 1927. Since then, several dozen of priest and religious have doubtless been added to the original list. One judges a tree by its fruit. How must more, then, ought we to appreciate an ancestor by the generations he inspires!"

The issues of Jean Guyon and his wife Mathurine Robin (c1600-1662) were the following:


More About JEAN GUYON,I.:
Baptism: September 18, 1592, Sponsors: Godfathers Jean Collin & Pierre Dolivet, Godmother Catherine Goddin
     
Children of JEAN GUYON and MATHURIN ROBIN are:
3. i.   BARBE3 GUYON, b. April 18, 1617; d. November 27, 1700.
  ii.   JEAN GUYON,II., b. August 01, 1619; d. January 13, 1693/94; m. ELIZABETH COUILLARD, 1645; d. 1704.
  Notes for JEAN GUYON,II.:
He was a Royal Surveyor and assumed the title Dubuisson, as had his father. He appears to have resided for a time in Chateau-Richer, and also in Quebed. Their twelve children married into the Doyon, Cloutier, Testu, Hayot, Clestus, Toupin, and Belleperche families.

  iii.   SIMON GUYON, b. August 02, 1621; d. February 08, 1681/82; m. LOUISE RACINE, 1653; b. 1640; d. 1675.
  Notes for SIMON GUYON:
They lived near Chateau-Richer. Of their children, one was a priest, ordained in 1683, no doubt one of the first native-born Canadian priests. The remainder married into the Cloutier, Tibaut, Damours and Marette families.

  iv.   MARIE GUYON, b. 1624; d. 1625, died young.
  v.   MARIE GUYON, b. January 29, 1626/27; d. Unknown; m. FRANCOIS BELANGER, 1637; d. Unknown.
  vi.   CLAUDE GUYON, b. April 22, 1629; d. 1694; m. (1) CATHERINE COLLIN, 1655; b. 1638; d. 1688; m. (2) MARGUERITE BINAUDIERE, 1688; d. Unknown.
  Notes for CLAUDE GUYON:
His land and residence was on the L'Ile d'Orleans. Claude Guyon m 2nd in 1688 to Marguerite Binaudiere , widow of Synphorien Rousseau. He had children by both wives, who married into the Pepin, Rocheron, Racine, LeHoux, Blouin, and Gravelle families. Two of daughters became nuns.

4. vii.   DENIS GUYON, b. June 30, 1631; d. 1685.
  viii.   MICHEL GUYON, b. March 03, 1633/34; d. Unknown; m. GENEVIEVE MARSOLET, 1662; b. 1644; d. 1702.
  Notes for MICHEL GUYON:
Michel, a Quebec shipbuilder, added "DeRouvray" to his name. It is not known when he died, which leads one to surmise that it was not in Canada, but perhaps at sea. He and his wife had many children, who married into the Amiot, LeMoyne, Renaud, Constantin, Chauvin, Delavoge, and Coutron families.

  ix.   NOEL GUYON, b. August 27, 1638; d. September 11, 1638, died young.
5. x.   FRANCOIS-DESPRES GUYON, b. December 07, 1639, Quebec, Canada; d. March 05, 1716/17, Beauport, Quebec, Canada.

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