Tranchemontagne Prologue: Nicolas Sulière Tranchemontagne
Nicolas Sulière Tranchemontagne
In November 1740, a priest in Saint-Sulpice recorded the death of a man who had traveled farther than most people of his era could imagine. The burial record preserved not just his name, but his origin: "de la paroisse de Quimper, evêché en Bretagne"—from the parish of Quimper, in the bishopric of Brittany.
That man was Nicolas Sulière, also called Sustier, and also called by a name that would follow his descendants for three hundred years: Tranchemontagne.
From Quimper to New France
Quimper—pronounced "kem-pair"—is a town in northwestern France at the confluence of the Odet and Steir rivers. In Breton, the native Celtic language, kemper means simply "confluence." By the late seventeenth century, it was already famous for its pottery production, its Gothic cathedral dedicated to Saint Corentin, and its distinct Breton character.
It was here, around 1665, that Nicolas Sulière was born to Vincent Sustier and Marie Navence. The spelling variations in his surname—Sulière, Sustier, Soulière—reflect the phonetic recording practices of an era when most people couldn't write their own names. What mattered was not the spelling, but the identity it tracked.
Sometime before 1691, Nicolas crossed the Atlantic to New France. We don't know exactly when or why—whether he came as an engagé (indentured servant), a soldier, or simply a young man seeking better fortune. What we know is that by April 1691, he had arrived on Île d'Orléans, the fertile island in the St. Lawrence River just downstream from Québec City, where so many immigrant stories began.
The Name That Cuts Mountains
Understanding "Dit" Names
In French-Canadian tradition, a dit name (literally "called" or "said") was an alternate surname used alongside the family name. These nicknames could derive from a physical characteristic, a trade, a place of origin, or a notable deed. Once established, dit names passed from father to children, sometimes replacing the original surname entirely.
Tranchemontagne translates literally as "cuts the mountain" or "mountain cutter." It's a bold name—almost boastful—suggesting someone who could accomplish the impossible. Whether Nicolas himself earned this nickname, or inherited it from an ancestor, or acquired it in some other way, we cannot know. But by the time he married on Île d'Orléans in 1691, the name was firmly attached to him.
The surname Soulière (or Soulier) itself derives from the Old French word for "shoe," typically denoting a shoemaker or cobbler. So Nicolas carried both his occupational heritage and his grander dit name—the shoemaker who cuts mountains.
Marriage on Île d'Orléans
On April 30, 1691, at the parish of Saint-Jean on Île d'Orléans, Nicolas Sulière married Marie Marguerite Leblanc, known as Jolicoeur. She was the daughter of Antoine Leblanc Jolicoeur and Elisabeth Roy—another family bearing a dit name that spoke to character rather than trade.
The couple would remain together for nearly fifty years, raising their children through the harsh realities of colonial life in the St. Lawrence Valley—where infant mortality claimed many and survival demanded constant work against the elements.
Nine Children, Four Survivors
Between 1692 and 1711, Marie Marguerite gave birth to nine children. The record of their births and deaths tells a story common to colonial families: of love and loss in roughly equal measure.
| Name | Birth | Death | Age at Death | Marriage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marie Renée | Jun 24, 1692 | Sep 28, 1714 | 22 years | — |
| Joseph | Jan 6, 1694 | Mar 24, 1715 | 21 years | — |
| Jean | c. 1696 | — | — | Marie Louise Lesage (1716) |
| Nicolas (II) | May 11, 1698 | Sep 2, 1764 | 66 years | Marie Marguerite Jean Viens (1729) |
| Bernard | Oct 18, 1700 | Apr 17, 1709 | 8 years | — |
| Pierre | Aug 26, 1703 | Jun 27, 1705 | 22 months | — |
| Marguerite | May 28, 1705 | Sep 29, 1714 | 9 years | — |
| Louis Marie | Sep 6, 1708 | May 22, 1710 | 20 months | — |
| Marie Jeanne Anne | Apr 3, 1711 | Nov 11, 1747 | 36 years | Joseph Laporte St-George (1729) |
Of nine children, five died before reaching adulthood—a devastating but not unusual rate for the era. Pierre and Louis Marie died as toddlers. Bernard lived to eight. Marie Renée and Marguerite, along with Joseph, all died in their early twenties, within months of each other in 1714-1715—possibly victims of an epidemic that swept through the colony.
Four children survived to marry and continue the line: Jean, who would carry the Tranchemontagne name forward; Nicolas (II), named for his father; and Marie Jeanne Anne, the youngest.
The Line of Descent
It is through Jean Sulière Tranchemontagne, who married Marie Louise Lesage in 1716, that our family traces its descent. His son Jean Bernard would carry the name forward, and so it would continue through seven generations to Emma Guilbault Hamall—the woman whose box of photographs started this research.
A Life's End at Saint-Sulpice
By 1740, Nicolas had lived to approximately seventy-six years—an extraordinary age for his time. He had outlived his wife (the date of Marie Marguerite's death is not recorded) and most of his children. He died in the parish of Saint-Sulpice, in the region of L'Assomption, northeast of Montreal.
On November 14, 1740, the missionary priest recorded his burial in careful script, preserving for posterity the one detail that allows us to trace Nicolas back across the Atlantic: his origin in Quimper, Brittany.
Note that the burial record names his parents as "Julien" and "Marguerite Lebleau"—different from the PRDH database which lists Vincent Sustier and Marie Navence. Such discrepancies are common in colonial records, where information was often recorded from the memory of family members decades after the facts. What remains certain is the place: Quimper, in Brittany.
The Legacy
Nicolas Sulière Tranchemontagne: Key Dates
Nicolas Sulière brought more than his labor to New France. He brought a name—Tranchemontagne—that would echo through the centuries. His son Jean would pass it to Jean Bernard. Jean Bernard to Jean Bernard Bernardin. And so on, through Jacques, through Janvier, through Marie Louise, until it reached Emma Guilbault—who kept an old photograph of a boy fishing with his great-great-grandmother in Miami, never knowing the name that connected them all.
That name started here, with a man from Quimper who crossed an ocean and was buried in a parish along the St. Lawrence, his origins carefully noted by a priest who understood that such things matter.
They still do.
The Tranchemontagne Series
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