François Séguin dit Ladéroute: Carignan Soldier, Weaver, and Settler of Boucherville
François Séguin dit Ladéroute
Quick Facts
⚠ Death Date Correction
For over 320 years, genealogical databases have recorded François's death as 9 May 1704. However, documentary analysis of his daughters' marriage contracts proves he died between 20 November 1700 (when he was noted as "absent due to illness") and 9 October 1701 (when his wife Jeanne Petit is identified as his widow).
Several immigrants bearing the name Séguin came to New France. The most humble, but perhaps the best known due to his numerous descendants, was named François Séguin dit Ladéroute. He came from the region of Bray, west of Beauvais, almost within the boundaries of the present department of the Oise, canton of Le Coudray-Saint-Germer, in the former province of Picardy. His story begins with a marriage in a small village church and ends roughly fifty-six years later—a journey that would establish one of the most prolific families in French-Canadian history, with descendants numbering between 1.89 and 2.31 million today.
Le Pays de Bray—the rolling countryside of Picardy where François was born.
On Tuesday, 14 July 1643, in the small church of Cuigy-en-Bray, Laurent Séguin and Marie Massieu celebrated their marriage. Laurent, the father of our Canadian ancestor, bore the title of clerc—at that time meaning a layman with an education. At Saint-Aubin-en-Bray, on 4 July 1644, Laurent and Marie had their first child, François, baptized. François Boudin and Jeanne Dufour, his godparents, held the little one at the baptismal font; he would become our Canadian Ancestor Séguin.
A Childhood of Loss
Commemorative plaque at Saint-Aubin-en-Bray: "Hommage à François Séguin... Ancêtre des Séguin d'Amérique." Placed September 1993 by the Association des Séguin d'Amérique.
Three more children came to complete this Séguin family: Renée, Pierre, and Laurent. Marie Massieu died leaving her husband and her children at the age of 28. She was buried at Cuigy-en-Bray on Tuesday, 25 October 1650. What would life be like for François Séguin, motherless at the age of six?
The Soldier Years: Carignan-Salières Regiment (1665–1668)
At a very young age, François Séguin left his family home and went to earn his living by whatever means at hand. Perhaps he did an apprenticeship in a trade. As soon as he could, he enlisted as a soldier—joining the elite Carignan-Salières Regiment, the first professional military force King Louis XIV sent to defend New France.
Officer and Men of the Carignan-Salières Regiment, 1665. Full-dress uniform at center; for winter service they dressed as the figure at right—"A Canadian going to war on snowshoes." From La Potherie's Histoire, 1722.
François was assigned to the Company of St-Ours, commanded by Captain Pierre de Saint-Ours, a minor French noble who would later become one of the most prominent seigneurs in New France. The regiment departed La Rochelle on 24 May 1665 aboard Le Justice, arriving at Quebec on 12 September 1665—356 years ago, carrying 1,200 soldiers and officers in 24 companies.
The regiment's mission was critical: defend the colony and suppress the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) raids that had brought New France to its knees. This was a professional military force—well trained, disciplined, and organized—something the colony had never had before.
The Meaning of "Ladéroute"
Why did François bear the surname dit Ladéroute—literally "along the road" or "on the march"? This military nickname is telling. Dit-names like this were common among career soldiers and often associated with men accustomed to long marches, patrol duty, and escorting supplies or messengers. It fits a man used to movement and frontier service, not a sedentary garrison role.
Such nicknames often originated before arrival in Canada, hinting that François may already have had military experience in France before joining the regiment. As Thomas J. Laforest noted, the exact origin remains "a military mystery"—but the name itself speaks to a life defined by the road.
Fort Duty on the Richelieu River
Plan des forts faicts par le Regiment Carignan Salières—the chain of forts along the Richelieu River, New France's most vulnerable invasion corridor.
The Richelieu River was the invasion corridor used by Iroquois war parties coming north from present-day New York. The regiment, company by company, built a chain of forts to guard this vulnerable approach: Fort Richelieu at Sorel, Fort Chambly, Fort Sainte-Thérèse, and Fort Saint-Jean.
As part of the St-Ours Company, François spent the winter of 1665-1666 at the newly built fort at Sorel. His duties would have included clearing land, building palisades, digging ditches, standing watch along river corridors, and conducting patrols between forts. This was grueling physical labor mixed with constant military readiness.
Unlike European warfare, these soldiers had to adapt quickly: enduring harsh Canadian winters in cramped forts, learning to move on snowshoes, and adapting to woodland warfare against an enemy who knew the terrain intimately. Conditions that defeated many European soldiers.
The 1666 Campaign Against the Mohawk
In 1666, companies of the regiment—including St-Ours'—took part in punitive expeditions south into Mohawk territory under the command of Alexandre de Prouville de Tracy. Villages were burned. Crops were destroyed. The campaign, though brutal, forced a lasting peace treaty that would hold for nearly two decades.
This peace is one reason New France survived long enough to grow. François Séguin was there—part of the first successful military defense of the colony, present at one of the most decisive moments in Canadian history.
Captain Pierre de Saint-Ours himself went with Tracy's expedition. He would later receive the seigneury of Saint-Ours on the Richelieu River, and when he drew up his will in 1704, he bequeathed 400 livres to the soldiers whom he had previously commanded. The name of François Séguin was mentioned on the list of beneficiaries—proof that the bond between officer and men endured across four decades.
From Soldier to Settler
Commemorative plaque at Boucherville listing the 22 soldiers of the Carignan-Salières Regiment who settled there between 1669 and 1695. François Séguin dit Ladéroute appears in the final line. Société d'histoire des Îles-Percées.
When the Carignan-Salières Regiment was officially disbanded in 1667-1668, about 800 soldiers returned to France. The remaining 400 stayed. Officers were encouraged to remain with promises of seigneuries; their troops were promised concessions of land within those same fiefs. Many married the newly arrived Filles du Roi and began new lives as habitants.
François Séguin was among those who stayed. A commemorative plaque erected by the Société d'histoire des Îles-Percées lists the 22 soldiers of the regiment who settled at Boucherville between 1669 and 1695. There, in the final line, appears his name: François Séguin dit Ladéroute.
This is the moment when men like him stopped being "troops" and became founders of families. About 1668, the governor asked Saint-Ours to raise troops for the garrison of Ville-Marie. François Séguin, still a bachelor, left the fief of Saint-Ours to go to the defense of Montréal. By 1671, he had leased his first piece of land at Boucherville. By 1672, he would marry a King's Daughter named Jeanne Petit.
The soldier had become a settler. The road that began in Picardy, wound through the forts of the Richelieu, and led at last to a concession on the St. Lawrence—Ladéroute had found his destination.
Jeanne Petit: A King's Daughter
Jeanne Petit was part of the contingent of 125 Filles du Roi who came to New France in 1671. On Wednesday, 21 September 1672, there was a marriage contract between Jeanne—born at Sainte-Marguerite de La Rochelle—and François Séguin. At age 16, she was already an orphan. Pierre Boucher himself witnessed the ceremony. Pierre De Caumont joined François and Jeanne in bonds of matrimony on Monday, 31 October 1672.
Building at Boucherville
François Séguin's lot (#36) is fourth from the bottom, between Jacques Bourdon and Pierre Martin. From "François Séguin ou L'impossible défi" (1992).
On 22 September 1672, François Séguin bought a homestead from Pierre Chaperon consisting of 2 arpents by 25 deep. On 4 April 1673, with 37 other concessionaires, he obtained his plot of land from seigneur Pierre Boucher. In the census of 1681, we learn that François stated his profession: WEAVER! In the early days of New France weaving was a man's trade.
The Séguin Family
Eleven children were born to François and Jeanne: Françoise, Marie-Madeleine, François, Jeanne, Pierre, Simon, Catherine, Jean-Baptiste, Geneviève, Joseph and Joseph. Catherine, Geneviève, and Joseph (born 10 August 1692) died in infancy.
The Séguin family counted 76 members in the third generation and seems to have enjoyed the gift of longevity.
Jean-Baptiste, my own ancestor through the Guilbault Line, married Geneviève Barbeau dit Boisdore on 7 June 1710 at Boucherville and brought ten children into the world. Jean-Baptiste died at the Hôtel-Dieu of Montréal on 17 May 1728.
Twenty-Fourth Hour
On 24 November 1698, François sold his concession to Jean-Baptiste Lamoureux for 850 livres. For his 50 arpents of land "with a poor building built upon it", he received 400 livres in playing card money, 200 in merchandise, and 60 in wheat. Did he feel his strength declining? Was his final hour approaching?
The Îles-de-Boucherville today. François and Jeanne spent their final years together on Île Grosbois, visible across the water from their former concession.
On 15 April 1700, François Séguin and Jeanne Petit were granted permission by Madame Marie-Anne de La Valtrie, widow of Pierre Boucher's son Ignace Boucher, Sieur de Grosbois, to live on 16 square arpents of land on the Île Grosbois. The grant was for their lifetime only. François, in addition to giving two work days each autumn, was committed to taking care of the widow's two cows.
Unfortunately, François's health declined rapidly. He died sometime between 20 November 1700—when he was physically unable to attend the marriage contract signing of daughter Marie-Madeleine and was noted as "absent pour son indisposition"—and 9 October 1701, when his wife Jeanne is identified as "veufue de deffunct françois Seguin" (widow of the late François Séguin) at the marriage contract signing of daughter Marie-Jeanne. He would have been 56-57 years old.
There is no church recording at Sainte-Famille in Boucherville of his death and burial. He likely died at home on Île Grosbois and was buried there without being transported across the river to Boucherville for burial—a quiet end for the soldier who had traveled so far "along the road."
On 19 March 1713, after living on the island for thirteen years—twelve of them as a widow—Jeanne returned the land to Madame de La Valtrie and went to live with her eldest son François's family in Lachenaie. This brave ancestress continued her pilgrimage until her death on 29 March 1733, at about age 77. She was buried the next day from Saint-Antoine-de-Padoue Church in Longueuil.
François and Jeanne, that which you have desired, you saw; that which you hoped for, you held; you are now together in Paradise with all those whom you loved in France and in New-France, with all your descendants who carry today in their veins your pure and generous blood.
Additional research on Île Grosbois and François's final years contributed by Kenneth Seguin via the Association des Séguin d'Amérique.
Key Dates
Connection to The Guilbault Line
Primary Source Documents
Maps & Places
Military Service
Census Record
Origin & Marriage Documents
Children's Baptism Records
Children Who Died in Infancy
Death Date Evidence (Case Study)
Database Records
Sources & Citations
Primary Sources
- Baptism (1644): Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Aubin Parish, Saint-Aubin-en-Bray, Oise, France. FichierOrigine.
- Marriage Contract (1672): Notary Thomas Frérot, 21 September 1672. BAnQ.
- Marriage Record (1672): Boucherville (Ste-Famille) Parish, 31 October 1672.
- Census (1681): Recensement de la Nouvelle-France, Seigneurie de Boucherville. LAC.
- Marriage Contract, Marie Madeleine (1700): Notary Pierre Raimbault, Act 402. BAnQ.
- Marriage Contract, Marie Jeanne (1701): Notary Pierre Raimbault, Act 527. BAnQ.
- Children's Baptisms (1678-1694): Boucherville & Pointe-aux-Trembles Parishes.
Secondary Sources
- Laforest, Thomas J. Our French Canadian Ancestors, Volume 18. LISI Press, 1990.
- Séguin-Pharand, Yolande. François Séguin ou L'impossible défi. Association des Séguin d'Amérique, 1992.
- Beauregard, Denis. "Genealogy of French in North America." Family Sheet [1732]. © 2005–2026.
- PRDH-IGD. Individual #68331, Couple #3764, Family #4015. Université de Montréal.
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