The Guilbault Brothers in the North West Company
Every image examined, in the order the documents were made, with what each one says and what it will and will not carry. Compiled 5 August 2026.
Four findings govern everything below.
One — Paul is settled. Two men named Paul Guilbault served the Company, and the 1821 settlement register distinguishes them by department and figures: Gibeau Paul, Athabasca, 500 wages, 617.14 credit; Guilbau Paul, Athabasca, 350 wages, 96 debit. Each matches an independent account. Argue it from the figures, never from the spellings.
Two — and they were kin. The 1727 baptism at the head of this file proves the link node Gauthier could only assert. The two Pauls were first cousins once removed, a fifty-nine-year-old and a twenty-two-year-old from branches that had lived side by side at L'Assomption for two generations. Family recruitment, not coincidence — which is also why the company's clerks had two men of one name to keep apart.
Three — Gabriel's absence from the settlement registers is explained. F.4/46 announces itself as a list of men whose engagements were transferred to the Hudson's Bay Company. Gabriel is not in it because his engagement was not transferred: he was paid off in cash at Lachine on 31 August 1821, which also resolves the 610 against the 336.
Four — but which Gabriel is now a three-way question. The General Ledger shows five consecutive annual wages, 1817 to 1821. That excludes Gabriel père (b. 1762), who was demonstrably in Lower Canada across those years with children conceived about September 1818 and about May 1820 and no gap anywhere in his parish record. It leaves two men untested against each other:
— Gabriel fils (b. c. June 1790), who vanishes from
the Quebec registers between his legitimation in January 1801 and his marriage in November 1823, and who was
recorded in the 1851 census, at sixty, as voyageur.
— Gabriel, son of Charles Thomas (b. 4 March 1764), first cousin to the père, of the
same parish, aged fifty-three to fifty-seven in the relevant years and living until 1826. Untested.
The next step is to plot his Quebec appearances — principally his children's baptisms — across
1817–1821.
Five — the Joseph Claude material does not hold as published. The NWC ledger account at F.4/32 p.403 opens in 1811 with a four-figure balance carried from an earlier ledger and cannot belong to a boy of fourteen; and the 1820 HBC contract names a parish of origin that is none of the family's, on a page whose argument is that the man had no parish. Both entries below.
Note also that these records survive in duplicate pairs: F.4/43 with F.4/45, F.4/46 with F.4/47. Agreement between a volume and its own copy is not independent confirmation.
The baptism of Charles Thomas Guillebaut
What the document says
“Le huitième juin mil sept cent vingt sept par nous soussigné curé de Québec a été baptisé Charles Thomas né le dit jour du légitime mariage de Charles Guillebaut et de Catherine De Guise dudit Québec. Le parrain a été Thomas Alard, la marraine Charlotte De Guise, laquelle a dit ne savoir signer aussi que ledit Guillebaut, de ce enquis suivant l'ordonnance.” Signed by the godfather alone: Thomas Alard.
Born and baptized the same day — eighty-one days after his parents' Lenten wedding of 19 March 1727.
The compiled records carry him forward: married Marie Catherine Jourdain Bellerose at Notre-Dame-de-Québec on 8 June 1750, and buried at L'Assomption on 3 December 1764. Their nine children include François, baptized 4 September 1760 at L'Assomption, who married Marie Archange Larivière there on 7 February 1786 — and Gabriel, baptized 4 March 1764 at L'Assomption, who married Marie Suzanne Laporte St-Georges in 1789 and died in 1826.
The PRDH card images are not reproduced here; the data is restated instead, with the reference numbers given above.
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
This is the joint that could previously only be asserted, and it now holds from the registers. Gauthier's pedigree for Paul “the Canadian” runs back through a Charles × Jourdain Bellerose, married 8 June 1750, to the 1727 marriage — without evidence that the 1750 groom was a child of that couple. He was: born and baptized on 8 June 1727, the eldest child of the marriage.
He married on his twenty-third birthday. Born 8 June 1727, wed 8 June 1750. A free consistency check between two records, and the kind of detail that makes an identification stick.
The relationship follows, and it is closer than has been stated. Charles Thomas and Charles Gabriel were brothers. Their sons François (b. 1760) and Gabriel père (b. 1762) were first cousins, born two years apart in the same parish. Paul “the Canadian” is therefore first cousin once removed to Gabriel père and to Paul père — not second cousin once removed. Both brothers were buried at L'Assomption, twenty years apart. The two branches were neighbours, not distant kin who happened to share a surname.
And the same card produces a new conflation risk. The youngest of these nine children is a Gabriel Guilbault, baptized at L'Assomption on 4 March 1764 — twenty-one months after our Gabriel, first cousin to him, in the same parish, living until 1826. He was fifty-three to fifty-seven during the North West Company years: exactly the age that made the attribution to Gabriel père look plausible before the père was excluded. Nobody has yet asked whether he has a gap. See the note at the head of this file.
The naming habit is now documented across four generations, with no rule about which element survives: Charles François (1702) went by Charles; Charles Thomas (1727) by Charles; Charles Gabriel (1731) by Gabriel; Joseph Claude (1797) by Joseph. Two brothers baptized Charles-something by one father, one of whom used the second element for life — which is the root of the père-and-fils difficulty. Note too that the index smooths it away: PRDH's individual record is headed simply Charles Guilbault, the Thomas surviving only in the baptism event.
Paul Guilbault's marriage at Varennes
What the document says
Three banns published, no impediment discovered. Paul Guilbeau, son of Gabriel Guilbeau and Charlotte Morin, his father and mother, of the parish of L'Assomption, and Marie Mulot, daughter of Olivier Mulot and Geneviève Le May, his father and mother, of this parish. Celebrated in the presence of Louis, Jacques[?] and Gabriel Guilbeau, all three — together with Charles Labonneau, Olivier Mulot and others. Signed Olivier Mulot; officiating Fs Dubuson, priest.
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
The document that anchors the whole family to the fur trade material: Paul is here named as the son of Gabriel Guilbeau and Charlotte Morin, which is the filiation everything else hangs on.
Two cautions, and the first is important.
The claim that this entry “places both brothers in the same place at the same time” is not secure. The witness Gabriel Guilbeau is at least as likely to be the groom's father — who is named as Gabriel two lines above, who was living (he died in August 1784), and who would ordinarily attend his son's wedding — as his brother Gabriel, then twenty. The entry does not distinguish them. Read at full resolution, the phrase appears to name three Guilbeau men, which raises a further question about who they are.
Second: the bride is Marie Mulot, daughter of Olivier Mulot. The form “Marie Geneviève Olivier Milot” used in compiled sources looks like an index artefact that has absorbed her father's forename and her mother's. Worth settling before it propagates further.
F.5.1 — NWC Servants' Contracts, volume cover
What the document says
Section F, Class 5, Piece 1. The volume is dated 1798.
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
An earlier working note dated Paul's first contract to c. 1800–1801, which put him at Great Slave Lake in the same years his children were being baptized and buried at St-Paul-de-Lavaltrie — a conflict serious enough to threaten the whole career.
The volume is 1798, and the conflict largely dissolves. A man who left Lachine in May 1798 and returned in the summer of 1799 fits between a March 1798 burial and his next Quebec entries in 1800 and February 1801.
One check remains: his twins were buried in November 1798. Does that entry record him as present, or only name him as the father?
F.5.1 folio 81 — the blank form bearing Paul's name
What the document says
A pre-printed engagement form. The only manuscript entry is the name: Fut présent Paul Gibeau. Every other field is empty — no agent, no term, no capacity, no wages, no date, no mark, no witnesses.
The printed text of this form specifies “avec double Equipement”.
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
It has been read as evidence that Paul was known to the company before terms were settled — that the clerk who wrote his name knew who he was. That is circular: a clerk writes the name he is handed, and the form proves only that somebody expected to engage a Paul Gibeau.
But the printed wording suggests a concrete and un-speculative explanation. This blank form stipulates a double equipment. The contract Paul actually signed at folio 115 provides un équipement — a single one. If the clerk began on this sheet and then found he had the wrong form for the terms agreed, abandoning it and starting again on the correct one accounts for everything visible here, including its survival thirty-four folios earlier in the same volume.
Worth including as a human detail about how these volumes were made. Not worth an inference about the company's intentions.
F.5.1 folio 115 — Paul Gibeau's engagement
What the document says
Engaged voluntarily to the Société du Nord Ouest and its agents, Mr Rod. McKenzie here present and accepting for the Company, for one year, in the capacity of milieu, to travel between Lac la Pluie and the Postes d'Athabasca and to winter au Grand Lac — Great Slave Lake. Wages quatre cent cinquante livres courant du Grand Portage, with one equipment. Not free until his return to Montreal. Passed at Lac la Pluie the nineteenth of July. Having declared he could not write, he made his ordinary mark: Paul × Gibeau — marque.
The second image carries the archivist's slip: fol 114 missing.
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
The earliest direct evidence of a Guilbault in the trade, and a signed instrument rather than an account entry. Age thirty-seven. Roderick McKenzie was in the Athabasca department through the 1790s.
Caution on the surname. The contract renders him Gibeau, and Episode 4 of the documentary series establishes that the Gibeau family of Lachine and La Prairie is unrelated to the Guilbaults. The identification rests on the given name, the date and the department, not on anything internal to the document. A good identification; not a certain one.
F.4/32 page 403 — the account of a Joseph Gibeau
What the document says
Headed Dr Joseph Gibeau Cr. The account opens:
1811 By Balance of Led[ger] [D, fo. 418] — 1622.19
Wages follow annually: 400 in 1812, then 600 in 1813, 1814 and 1815, with sundries from the E.R. books debited each year and a balance struck. It closes in August 1815 — To Sundries Gr E.R. Eqt 50.10, then To Cash Gr Pay List 2025.9, footing 2075.19.
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
This account has been published as Joseph Claude Guilbault's, and it cannot be his.
It opens in 1811 with more than sixteen hundred livres already standing to his credit, carried forward from an earlier ledger — ledger D, folio 418. Joseph Claude was born in June 1797. He was fourteen in 1811. A fourteen-year-old does not carry a four-figure balance forward from a previous ledger, and a fifteen-year-old does not earn 600 livres a year, which is a senior rate.
This is an established man with years of prior service behind him. The claim that Joseph Claude "entered the NWC at approximately age fifteen" does not survive the first line of the account.
Note also that the HBCA index gives no date for this entry, unlike every other Guilbault result in the same search — consistent with an account whose span the indexer could not fix.
And the same search surfaced something better. It returns Gibeau, Paul — F.4/32, p.389, distinct from Guilbeau, Paul — p.396. Two Pauls in the general ledger, matching the two in F.4/46. Since p.396 carries the 350 wages and 96 debit belonging to Paul "the Canadian", p.389 is very probably Paul père's ledger account — and nobody has read it. It should hold his 500 and his 617.14.
F.4/32 folio 414 — Gabriel Guilbeau, NWC General Ledger
What the document says
A running account headed Dr Gabriel Guilbeau Cr, below Louis Giroux. Wages credited in five consecutive years, each followed by a balance struck and carried forward:
| Year | By Wages |
|---|---|
| 1817 | 551 |
| 1818 | 330 |
| 1819 | 687.10 |
| 1820 | 500 |
| 1821 | 650 |
The account closes To Balance 336. In the 1819 credits there appears to be an entry “By Mr Paul Guilbeau — 50”.
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
It links hard to the Athabasca blotter. The 1821 wage of 650 and the closing balance of 336 both reappear in F.4/37 — same wage, same balance, two volumes. An identity link as strong as the 188 figure between Lac La Pluie and Athabasca.
And it breaks the attribution to Gabriel père. Five consecutive annual wages, varying as real engagements vary, is continuous service. Gabriel Guilbault père was demonstrably in Lower Canada in the middle of it — Joseph baptized at Rigaud in June 1819, conceived about September 1818; Charles at St-Eustache in February 1821, conceived about May 1820 — and his Quebec registers show no gap anywhere between 1798 and 1833.
The “By Mr Paul Guilbeau 50” entry, if it holds, is worth more than any argument from ledger proximity. Two accounts transacting with each other is a documented connection between two men; two accounts eighteen pages apart in an alphabetised ledger is the alphabet.
Action: verify that credit, and establish whether folio 414 opens with a balance brought forward from an earlier folio. If Gabriel's ledger account predates 1817, follow it back — a first engagement in the 1780s or 90s points to the father, a first appearance around 1816 to the son.
F.4/32 page 396 — Paul Guilbeau, NWC General Ledger
What the document says
Dr Paul Guilbeau Cr. Debits: 1820, to amount of Merchandise Book 180.2; Cloth Kitchen last 15; Sundries of R. Books 248.11 — 446. Credits: 1821 By Wages 350, By Balance 96 — 446. Then 1821 To Balance 96.
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
Read the direction: the 96 is brought down on the debit side. He drew 446 livres of goods against 350 of wages and entered 1821 owing the company ninety-six livres — normal practice, and how the trade kept men engaged, but the opposite of money in hand.
This is not Gabriel's brother. The 350/96 pairing belongs to Paul Guilbault “the Canadian.” The 446 in merchandise has no place in the Guilbault père narrative.
F.4/29 — Index to the Lac La Pluie blotter
What the document says
In the G run: Gbault Paul — 33 and Guilbault Gabriel — 35.
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
Two entries apart in a post blotter index — a working record of who held accounts at Lac La Pluie in 1820, not an alphabetical list of a company-wide workforce.
This is the evidence that actually places two Guilbault men at one post in one season, and it is what the ledger-proximity argument was reaching for. Lead with this; drop the other.
F.4/29 — Gabriel Guilbault's account, ref 35
What the document says
Purchases in the ordinary voyageur pattern — a capot, soap, needles, thread, a pocket comb, a handkerchief, cords, rum. Balance 188. Transfer notation “To Atha—”.
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
188 is not a round number, not a wage and not a standard charge. Its reappearance in the Athabasca blotter as To Sundries at Lac la Pluie — 188 is a specific figure carried between two separate posts.
The strongest single identity link in the file, and unaffected by everything contested elsewhere: it establishes that one man moved from Lac La Pluie to Athabasca in 1820–21. It says nothing about which Gabriel he was.
Franklin, Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, ch. IV
What the document says
p.142. Chapter IV opens 26 March 1820, the day after the party reached Fort Chipewyan. They call on Mr MacDonald at Fort Wedderburne, deliver the Governor's circular requiring that every assistance be given, and take information from a North West Company interpreter named Beaulieu.
p.143. Franklin writes to Mr Smith of the North West Company and Mr McVicar of the Hudson's Bay Company at Great Slave Lake, soliciting guides and hunters. “Two Canadians were sent by Mr. Keith with these letters.”
pp.144–145. April and early May — weather, geese, a beaver lodge, and a long conversation with Mr Dease of the North West Company.
p.148. May. Franklin waits on Colin Robertson of the Hudson's Bay Company and lays the same requisitions before both concerns. Finding that neither would give cordial aid while the other stood by, he has a tent pitched at a distance from both establishments and invites the gentlemen of each to meet him there. On 25 May he is joined by Mr Stuart and Mr Grant of the North West Company and Mr Robertson of the Hudson's Bay.
p.149. “A requisition was made on the Companies for eight men each.” The supply is limited and the men backward in offering themselves. Then June 3: Mr Smith arrives from Great Slave Lake with word that the Copper Indian chief and a party of his men, at the instance of Mr Wentzel, have engaged to accompany the Expedition as guides and hunters, and will await the party at Fort Providence. The news heartens the Canadians — “on the same evening, two men from the North-West Company offered themselves and were accepted.”
p.165. The canoes arrive with one day's provisions; ten bags of North West Company pemmican prove mouldy and are left at the Methye portage. A final arrangement is made respecting the voyageurs who are to accompany the party.
p.166. Franklin keeps the zealous men “by discharging those men who were less willing to undertake the journey; of these three were Englishmen, one American, and three Canadians.” The final party numbers sixteen Canadian voyageurs, John Hepburn, two interpreters to be received at Great Slave Lake, and a Chipewyan woman. “An equipment of goods was given to each of the men who had been engaged at this place.”
pp.146–147. A Chipewyan tradition concerning the Esquimaux and the discovery of the Copper Mine, related through Mr Dease.
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
With pp.165–166 in hand the chain is complete, and it does two things.
It supplies the mechanism. Franklin requisitioned eight men from each company, engaged Canadians at Fort Chipewyan, and paid them in goods — “an equipment of goods was given to each of the men who had been engaged at this place.” Men hired through a company and outfitted on its account produce exactly the entry seen in Paul Gibeault's ledger: a credit reading By Lieut Franklin — 100, the Lieutenant discharging to the Company what he owed for the man.
And it supplies a reason no Guilbault reached the Arctic. Two North West Company men volunteered on the evening of 3 June 1820. Before departure Franklin discharged seven, of whom three were Canadians. A man engaged in June, outfitted, then discharged before the party went north would leave precisely one trace: a hundred livres credited to his account and no name on the roster. That is what the ledger shows.
It is a fit, not a proof. Franklin names none of the Canadians he engaged or discharged. Direct evidence would be a named payment in the Admiralty financial records, ADM 1/2414 — and if this reading is right, the name to look for belongs to a discharged man rather than an expedition member, which is a different search.
One complication, from the accounts rather than the book. Fort Providence is where the Copper Indian guides were to meet the party — and it is the post named in the other Paul's ledger. See below.
A.32/31 folio 323 — Joseph Guilbeau's HBC engagement
What the document says
Headed in a later hand Guilbeau, Jos. — 1820 — 323.
“Par devant les témoins soussignés, [a] présenté Joseph Guilbeau de la paroisse Larivière… lequel s'est volontairement engagé … à l'honorable Compagnie et Société de la Baye d'Hudson, connue sous le nom de Hudson Bay Company, par Monsr Ls Deny De La Ronde leur représentant à ce présent et acceptant, de sortir en qualité de devant de canots et d'hiverner à Colville House pour l'espace d'une année…”
The closing clauses: “Cette engagement est ainsi fait pour la même somme de l'année dernière et le même Équipement. Fait et passé à Colville, [sur] Rivière à la Paix … l'an mil huit cent vingt, le dix-sept de mai.” The engagé could not write and made his mark: Joseph × Guilbeau, sa marque. Witnesses Chas Thomas and Batiste Brunelle, the latter also by mark. Countersigned Ls Deny De La Ronde.
And a final line, below the signatures: “Exempt de voyager au fort Ste Marie.”
The docket reads Engagement de Joseph Guilbeau — 1820 — pour un année, on a leaf otherwise covered in pencil sketches: a bird, and something smaller beside it.
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
The renewal clause is solid and valuable. "The same sum as last year and the same equipment" establishes a 1819 engagement that has not been retrieved. That is a real document known to exist and not yet ordered.
The exemption clause has been missed. Exempt de voyager au fort Ste Marie is a personal accommodation written into the engagement — directly parallel to the portage-carrying exemption in Paul Gebeault's 1821 contract. Two Guilbault engagements, two men excused from something by name. Neither published page mentions it.
But the opening clause is the problem, and it decides the case. The contract states the engagé's parish of origin, and in the HBCA contracts index that field gives country plus home parish — so the index's "Can La Rivi[è]re" is a parish reading, not "Canada, a river." Whatever it says, it begins Larivi-: not St-Paul, not Lavaltrie, not L'Assomption, not Joliette.
And the deeper difficulty is that it states a parish at all. The published case for Joseph Claude rests on his being the one Guilbault with no Quebec parish identity. A man declaring himself de la paroisse X has one.
The competing candidate is also excluded. The March 2026 voyageur log assigned this contract to Gabriel's nephew Joseph, b. December 1798, and cited his first child's birth on 2 December 1820 as support. That child was conceived about March 1820. This contract was passed on the upper Peace River on 17 May 1820 — a journey of most of a season, and the brigades had not yet left Lachine. He cannot be the man.
So neither candidate is established. Read the parish clause at full resolution; nothing else in the file will settle it.
F.4/37 — Index to the Athabasca General Blotter
What the document says
In the G run, with x-marks against settled accounts: Gibeault Paul 93; Goulart Jean 94; Gineraux Joseph 95; Gregoire Ignace 96; Grandbois Michel 97; Gineraux Louis 98; Guyazeau Jean 99; Gilbian Gabriel 100; Gaillour Jos. 101; Gagnon Joseph 102; Gilbert Francis 103; Guilbian Paul 104; Gudin Pierre 105; Gean John 106; Gagnon Jean Bte 107.
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
Two Pauls and exactly one Gabriel in the Athabasca department. No second Gabriel is hiding here under another spelling.
It also shows the clerk rendering one family three ways on a single page — Gibeault, Gilbian, Guilbian. Spelling is noise in these volumes and must never be used as a discriminator.
F.4/37 — Gabriel Guilbeau's Athabasca account, ref 100
What the document says
1820: By Balance 42.10. To Sundries at Lac la Pluie — 188. Charges for a blanket, leggings and capots 21.10; a pint of rum 90 with cotton and other goods 44; a shirt and corded cotton 40; Lewis Mongan 40; 3 pints rum 90 — 215.10. Credits by purchase of rum 34 and 48 for three fathoms of tobacco given up. Two quarts of salt at 4. 1821: By Wages 650, now legible in the credit column, To Balance 336, the account footing 692.10 / 692.10. Then 1821 By Balance 336. Settled.
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
The wage is 650, not 450. The page only balances one way: credits of 42.10 opening plus wages must reach the 692.10 struck on it, which forces 650. Debits of 188 plus 168.10 net sundries plus 336 give the same total. Any summary showing 450 needs correcting — and the correction helps, because 650 is what folio 414 shows for 1821.
Two links converge here: the 188 ties back to Lac La Pluie, the 650/336 ties forward to the General Ledger. One man, three volumes.
F.4/37 — Paul Gibeault's account, and Lieutenant Franklin
What the document says
1820: By Balance 69.14. To Sundries at Lac La Pluie 16. Small charges — two quarts salt 8, a pound of butter 5, two pairs 4, five needles 2 — 36. Then:
By Lieut Franklin — 100
1821 By Wages 500. To Balance 617.14. Footing 669.14 / 669.14. Then 1821 By Balance 617.14. Settled.
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
The arithmetic corrects a labelling error running through the whole Paul narrative. Credits: 69.14 + 100 + 500 = 669.14. Debits: 16 + 36 = 52, plus 617.14 carried down = 669.14. If 617.14 were the wage the page would not foot.
So he contracted at 500 and settled at 617.14 — the better sentence anyway, because the Franklin credit is visibly what lifted him above his wage. It matches the F.5.3 contract at cinq cents livres and the F.4/46 and F.4/47 balance lines exactly. Four documents agree.
F.4/37 — Paul Guilbeau's account (the other Paul)
What the document says
1820: To account from Fort William 179.10. A share of a canoe lot 2.8. Six yards of molton 13.10, a pound of tobacco 16, a camwood knife 9 — 40.18. Leggings, blanket, boots and two pairs of trousers 62. Under S.L. — Slave Lake — leggings, a blanket, a yard and two pairs of trousers, 62; then “Tobct Sunds: Fort Providence — 140”, 148, total 250.18. The Chipewyan purchases sit under F. Chip. 1821: By Wages 350, By Balance 80.8, footing 430.8. Then 1821 To Balance 80.8.
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
The 350 wage marks this as the Paul carried in F.4/46 as “Guilbau Paul.”
Fort Providence is confirmed — and so is the rest of the route. At better resolution the account reads as an itinerary: transferred in from Fort William, purchases at Fort Chipewyan, purchases at Slave Lake, tobacco and sundries at Fort Providence.
That is the Franklin corridor, in order, in the season Franklin travelled it — and Fort Providence is the exact place where, on p.149, the Copper Indian guides were to await the Expedition.
Which complicates the Franklin argument rather than settling it. The man carrying the By Lieut Franklin credit is the other Paul, at 500 livres. The man whose charges trace the route north is this one, at 350. Two readings are open and the documents do not choose:
Either the elder Paul was engaged by Franklin at Chipewyan and discharged before departure — fitting the hundred-livre credit, the three discharged Canadians of p.166, and the absence of any Guilbault from the Arctic roster — while the younger man went north on ordinary Company business to posts the Company had long held.
Or Fort Providence here is simply Fort Providence: an established North West post on Great Slave Lake where any northern servant might be charged for tobacco, with no connection to the Expedition at all.
The second is the duller reading and the safer one. Nothing yet forces the first.
F.5.3 — NWC Servants' Contracts, volume cover
What the document says
Section F, Class 5, Piece 3, covering 1815–1822.
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
The volume spans the Company's last years and the months after the March 1821 merger, which is why a contract dated May 1821 can appear on North West Company paper at all.
F.5.3 page 32 — Paul Gebeault's last contract
What the document says
Engaged to the merchants trading under the name of the Compagnie du Nord Ouest, S. Black Esqr accepting, for one year, as milieu et de piêcheur, to travel between Lac de la Pluye and the Postes d'Athabasca and to winter au Lac d'Athabasca, for cinq cents livres courant du Grand Portage with the ordinary equipment, free at Montreal. Passed the twenty-second of May 1821. Not knowing how to write he made his mark: Paul × Gebeault. Countersigned Sam Black; witnesses William McGillivray Jr and James Hill. A closing clause exempts him from carrying at the portages.
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
The exemption clause. A man of nearly sixty, engaged as a middleman, written out of portage carrying by name — a specific accommodation for age or condition, in the company's own contract.
The contract was probably never worked. It engages him to winter at Lake Athabasca, yet in October 1821 he is in the register at St-Paul-de-Lavaltrie for his daughter Rose's marriage, as laboureur. The merger agreement had been signed on 26 March 1821, two months before he put his mark to this; the reorganised Hudson's Bay Company then cut the Canadian workforce hard and paid its surplus servants off. His F.4/37 account is marked settled. Then he goes home.
A man of sixty signing on for one more year and being sent back down because the company that hired him had been absorbed is a better ending than “the career ends with the final contract,” which implies the contract took effect.
To confirm: any cancellation or discharge notation; whether the F.4/37 settlement postdates 22 May; and whether the October 1821 marriage entry records Paul as present or merely names him.
F.5.3 page 33 — the index summary
What the document says
Paul Gibeault — 1 Year — Mid Man & Pickeurs — 1 Year — 500# — 1 pass paper — for 1822.
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
The for 1822 notation is what makes this a forward engagement rather than a record of the season past — and therefore what makes the October 1821 appearance in Quebec a genuine conflict.
A counting note: pages 32 and 33 are one contract and its index summary. With F.5.1 that gives two signed engagements, not three.
F.4/43 — NWC Pays 1821, the Lachine payout
What the document says
North West Company Pays 1821 Contd, a cash disbursement account with daily subtotals. The 25 August run pays François Trempe 618, Alexis Bertrand 596, Pierre Bruneau 1480, Henri Beaulieu Honoré 2988, Nicolas Bruneau 2249.10, Louis Blette 6, Augustin LaBonté 660, Pierre Blanchard 470.2 and nine pensions at 54, footing 8821.12. Payments to Saulteaux men and cart loads from Lachine appear through the week.
On 31 August, among Mandeville, Pichette, Peloquin, Dumas, Benoit, Cusson dit Toubert, the two Sollies, Quesnel, Lambert and Beaudoin:
Gabriel Guilbeau — 610
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
This places a Gabriel Guilbeau at Lachine on 31 August 1821, paid out in cash as the brigades came down — the right time and place for a man returning from Athabasca.
The figure does not reconcile with the Athabasca settlement. That account closed at 336 owed to him; this is a payment of 610. The explanation offered earlier (610 gross less Lachine deductions equals 336 net) runs the wrong way, since the Athabasca settlement precedes the payout and the payout is larger.
See F.4/46 below, which changes how this should be read.
F.4/45 — the same cash account, copied
What the document says
Page 75 carries the 25 August run — Louis Blette 6, Augustin LaBonté 660, Pierre Blanchard 470.2, nine pensions at 54, footing 8821.12. Page 76 carries 31 August: Joseph Pichette 474, Baptiste Peloquin 276, André Dumas 282, Paul Benoit 276, Jean Bte Cusson dit Toubert 334, François Sollie 1833.10, Bazil Sollie 1716, Jean Bte Quesnelle 334, Laurent Lambert 474, Baptiste Beaudoin 276, Gabriel Guilbeau 610, Joseph Souaisse 7759.8…
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
These are the same entries as F.4/43, in the same order, for the same amounts, with the same daily subtotals. F.4/43 and F.4/45 are one cash account and its copy — a draft and a fair copy, or the same book filmed under two references.
“Independently confirmed” and “rules out transcription error” both have to come out. A copy agreeing with its original tells you the copyist was careful and nothing else.
Both pages read Guilbeau. The claimed third variant Guiltheau should be withdrawn; and even if a closer look supported it, a difference between an original and its own fair copy is a copyist's slip, not evidence of how the name circulated.
F.4/46 — NWC Balances 1821: the two Pauls, and no Gabriel
What the document says
The volume's own title leaf states what it is: a “List of Persons engaged in the Service of the North West Company… from Lake Huron to New Caledonia, both inclusive, and whose Engagements for Service have been transferred to the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay — showing the Departments or Posts at which the said Persons are stationed, the rate of Salary or Wages payable to each of them, the Balances due to or from them respectively, and the Amount, not exceeding one year's Wages, to be allowed as forming a part of the Capital Stock of the New Concern.”
That explains the columns: a year's wages of the Dr is the debit balance allowed against the new concern's capital stock, capped at a year's wages — which is why only men in debit carry a figure there.
The G section runs across pages 8 and 9. On page 8: Genereux Pierre Louis 450 / Cr 429.17; Grandbois Michel 700 / Dr 571.5; Gregoire Ignace 500 / Cr 1270.7; Gerome Martin 300 F.d.P; Gendron François 500 / Dr 308.10; Gibeau Paul — 500 — Atha — Cr 617.14; Genereux Joseph 600; Green John Jamie 400; Gadora François 350 L. Huron; Gadora Jn Bapt 500 F.d.P; Gingras Antoine 800 Red Ris; Gagnier Joseph 600 Atha; Goulet Pierre 400.
On page 9, at the head: Guilbau Paul — 350 — Atha — Dr 96. The section then continues Goulet Jacques, Guedon Pierre, Grant Richard, Gendrin Louis, Gagnon J. Bapt, Gibeault Belonie, Grenier Antoine, Gerome Pierre, Gaudrie Joseph, Gamache René, Gagnon Joseph, Guillet Fs dit Girous, Glande Bazil, Gaudpin Louis, Gilbert Etienne Compton, Granville Augustin, Grant Francis, Gagnon François, Girard Michel, Gibeault René, Gill Guillaume, Germaine Antoine, Gnare Charles, Gennet Joseph, Goulaut Charles — and then passes into the H and A names.
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
This is the volume that answers the question — and the title leaf changes what the answer means.
Both Pauls are here, departments given as Athabasca, figures matching every other record: Gibeau at 500 and 617.14 credit, Guilbau at 350 and 96 debit. They were first cousins once removed — see the 1727 baptism at the head of this file — which is why two men of one name were in one department in one season, and why the clerks needed to keep them apart. The disambiguation now rests on the company's own register with a department column, which is far better than any argument from spelling.
And the G section runs complete from Genereux to Goulaut across two pages and into the next letter with no Gabriel Guilbault, Guilbeau, Gilbian or Guiltheau anywhere in it.
But this is not a list of everyone settled. It is a list of everyone carried over. The men named are those whose engagements were transferred to the Hudson's Bay Company — the workforce the new concern was taking on, with their posts, wages and balances brought across.
So Gabriel's absence is not a puzzle. It is a fact about him: his engagement was not transferred. He was paid off and went home — which is exactly what the Lachine cash book records on 31 August 1821, and which resolves the 610 against the 336 in the right direction. The 336 was his Athabasca balance struck in the interior; the 610 is what he was handed at Lachine when the connection ended.
And it cuts the other way for Paul. Both Pauls were transferred. That removes the difficulty raised over the 22 May 1821 contract: it was not a dead letter cancelled by the merger but an engagement carried into the reorganised company — which is exactly what the index summary's “for 1822” says. The October 1821 appearance at St-Paul-de-Lavaltrie now needs reconciling more urgently, not less, and the presence-versus-named test is the way to do it.
F.4/47 — North West Balances 1821, the copy
What the document says
Page 16 carries the tail of the preceding section — Roland Louis, Felix François, Finlay John. Page 17 carries the G run entire, in the same order as F.4/46: Genereux Pierre Louis, Grandbois Michel, Gregoire Ignace, Gerome Martin, Gendron François, Gibeau Paul 500 / 617.14, Genereux Joseph, Gean John Jamie, Gadara François, Gadara J. Bapt, Gingras Antoine, Gagnier Joseph, Gaulet Pierre, Guilbeau Paul 350 / 96, Gaulet Jacque, Gauton Pierre, Grant Richard, Granden Louis, Gagnon Jean Bapt, Gebrault Belonie, Germain Antoine, Gerome Pierre, Gauthier Joseph, Gamache Pierre, Gagnon Joseph, Gilbert Charles — struck through, “gone to Montreal”, Gauss Antoine, Guillette François dit Grimau, Blande Bazil, Gulipas Louis, Gilbert Etienne, Granville Augustin, Grant Francis, Gagnon François. Page 18 carries the remainder: Girard Michel, Gibeault René, Gill Guillaume, Germain Antoine, Gnare Charles, Gennet Joseph, Graham William — struck through, Goulaut Charles.
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
F.4/47 is F.4/46 copied. Same names, same order, same figures — the pagination differs slightly, which is why the two Pauls fall on separate pages in one and the same page in the other. The HBCA holds these 1821 settlement records in duplicate pairs: F.4/43 with F.4/45 for the cash payments, F.4/46 with F.4/47 for the balances.
So “both Pauls on the same page in two volumes” is one document seen twice. The disambiguation is no weaker for it — it rests on each man's figures matching independent accounts — but it must not be described as two witnesses.
Pages 16 and 18 confirm the negative: the G section is complete across the three leaves and contains no Gabriel.
The struck-through Gilbert Charles — gone to Montreal and Graham William show the volume being annotated as the workforce dispersed, which establishes what kind of document it is.
Red River Census — Guilbeault, Joseph, White Horse Plain
What the document says
A card abstract, not the census page: Guilbeault, Joseph — age 35, White Horse Plain — Canada. RRC/1832-33 1001.
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
Age 35 is consistent with a birth in June 1797, and White Horse Plain was a Métis community west of the Red River Settlement — exactly where a man of that background who had spent his career in the interior would be found.
But the enumeration date is load-bearing and has not been established. Joseph Claude died at Oka on 29 January 1833. If this census was taken in the winter of 1832–33, as the published pages state, he cannot be both places — White Horse Plain to Oka is some two thousand kilometres in deep winter. If it was taken in the spring or early summer of 1832, then travel east with that season's brigades and arrival at Oka late in the year fits perfectly, and explains the burial register's depuis peu domicilié en cette mission.
The same date governs the age. "Arithmetically precise" overstates it: a man born in June 1797 was 34 until that month and 35 after.
Establish the enumeration date. It either breaks the chain or completes it.
How the records were found
What the document says
The HBCA name index, filtered on guilb, returns seven entries from 3,791: Guilbault Gabriel 1820 F.4/29; Guilbeau Gabriel 1821 F.4/37; Guilbeau Gabriel 1816 F.4/32 fo. 414; Guilbeau Paul 1821 F.4/37; Guilbeau Paul 1820 F.4/32 p.396; and two for Guilbert Charles. The Ancestry search returns 868 results on the given name alone, among which Gabriel Guilbeau and Gabriel Gulbiau appear.
What it establishes, and what it doesn't
A methodological finding worth publishing in its own right: F.4/43 and F.4/45 are not returned by the HBCA name index under any variant searched. They surfaced only through Ancestry's indexing of the same archive. Two indexes of one collection, different coverage.
Note also what the index dates mean. Its “1816” against F.4/32 fo. 414 is an index date for the account or the volume, not a service date — an earlier draft read it as a start of employment and built a five-year career on it. The folio itself shows wages beginning in 1817.