Leclerc

dit LeBouteleux

This Leclerc family is not the same as the Leclercs of Joseph Arthur Martin's ancestry (natives of Anjou). Jean Leclerc, whose parentage is unknown, lived in the Norman seaport of Dieppe, where he worked as a weaver. Pissarro painted the weekly fair at Dieppe (above). We do not know if he was born there, but according to the 1666 census in Québec, he must have been born in 1639. There was another, unrelated Jean Leclerc (born 1646 in Ternay) who is also sometimes called "dit LeBouteleux" - they cannot be the same man, so there is some probable confusion in the records.

Our Jean Leclerc married Marie Blanquet (her father's name was Adrien) in 1657 in Dieppe, and their first child was born there in 1658; but the second was born in Québec city in late 1660, so they must have emigrated in 1659 or 1660. Jean also worked as a weaver there, but they were soon in Château-Richer, where more of their children were born. By 1666 they were in the nearby parish of Ste-Famille. The children: Pierre (1658, married 1690 to Élisabeth Rondeau, 14 children); Marguérite (1660, married Clément Ruel, 14 children); Jean (1663, dead before 1666); Anne (1664-1699, married Jacques Bouffard, 10 children); Marie-Nicole (1666-1668); Jean-Charles (1668, married Marguérite Baucher, 10 children); Adrien (1670, married Geneviève Paradis); Marie-Madeleine (see below); and Martin (1674-1703).

Marie-Madeleine Leclerc was born on July 9, 1672 and baptized two days later in the church of Ste-Famille. She married René Pelletier on November 5, 1691 at the church of St-Pierre (a neighboring parish; both are on the Île d'Orléans). They had six children (see Pelletier); Marie-Madeleine died a few days after giving birth to the last child, who died the same day (October 24, 1702). Their daughter Thérèse was a great-great-great-great-grandmother of Marie Eva Jean Martin.