Smallpox is a highly contagious and often fatal disease which was a real plague in several regions of the world until its eradication in 1979. It has invaded the French Canadian population on numerous occasions since the start of the colony, wreaking havoc in parishes.

It is under the names of petite vérole or picot(t)e that smallpox is most often designated in Quebec registers. This name of picote originates from the blisters which covered the bodies of the victims.

Illumination presenting a disease which seems to be smallpox, Toggenburg Bible (Switzerland), 1411. Wikimedia Commons.

The parish priest of L’Islet, a village in the historic region of Côte-du-Sud on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River southwest of Quebec City, highlighted the usage of these two terms in a rare note in the margin of a burial record. He registered on August 24th, 1792 the death of Marie Louise Bernier, 19th and “last dead of this disease, that is to say of the petite vérole or picote in Canadian or French terms since October 23rd, 1791”.

Source: Image d1p_51740348.jpg, Drouin Collection Records (Québec/Registres paroissiaux 1621-1876/L/L’Islet (Notre-Dame-du-Bon-Secours)/1790/1792/), GenealogyQuebec.com

Smallpox is the disease involved in the voluntary contamination of enemy First Nations with infected blankets during Pontiac’s War, an initiative reportedly approved by British officer Jeffrey Amherst. This event has been on the news in the past few years as the City of Montreal decided to rename Amherst street to “Atateken”. As smallpox was not present in America before the arrival of the Europeans, it was especially deadly among the Natives, who had no prior immunity.

On May 4th, 1709, Louis Miskouabemich, a man of the Nepissing First Nation, was baptized in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue. The record says he was 110 years old, which is unlikely but certainly indicates an advanced age. The elder had previously received the ondoiement, a quick ceremony that takes the place of baptism if death is likely to occur before a proper baptism can be organized.

Indeed, Louis “[was] dangerously sick of small pox”. His age and possibly his social position gave him a very advantageous sponsorship: his godfather was none other than Philippe de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil, who was then Governor of New France. His wife Élisabeth de Joybert held the role of godmother. The couple were absent and represented at the ceremony by a couple of local notables.

Louis Miskouabemich died on June 27th of the same year.

Source: Record 14937, LAFRANCE, GenealogyQuebec.com

Smallpox was known to cause miscarriages and premature deliveries, and increase infant mortality rates. Many of these instances can be found in Quebec registers.

Marie Huguet dit Latour, from L’Ancienne-Lorette, near Quebec City, experienced a tragic end in 1755: “the first picotée who brought it from Quebec City died pregnant her child baptized by the midwife in its mother’s womb”. Her death occurred only 6 months after her marriage. The child, therefore assumed to be highly premature, clearly did not survive as it was ondoyé while still in the womb.

Source: Record 259406, LAFRANCE, GenealogyQuebec.com

Other traces of premature births due to smallpox can be uncovered in the Lachine registers. For example, in 1702, the burial of a child “born last night aged seven months his mother being sick of smallpox and in case of danger he was ondoyé by Jeanne Malteau the midwife”.

Source: Record14627, LAFRANCE, GenealogyQuebec.com

However, the family reconstructions available on PRDH-IGD tell us that the mother, Barbe Brunet, overcame the disease and died in Châteauguay at the respectable age of 74.

A few months after this child’s burial, a woman named Marie Fortin “died last night of smallpox while giving birth to a girl aged six and a half months who was immediately ondoyé by the midwife and then died and was buried in the same grave as her mother”.

Source: Record 14654, LAFRANCE, GenealogyQuebec.com

Smallpox also took an active part in a historic drama, the Expulsion of the Acadians by Great Britain and its American colonies in 1755, during which over 12,000 of them were torn away from their lands. Smallpox developed in certain groups, adding to the scourges of hunger, thirst, cold and other diseases that were already decimating the Acadians.

From the hundreds that reached Quebec, many were severely weakened by smallpox. The numerous burial records marked with “acc” or “acad” in the Quebec City registers, identifying Acadian deaths, are testimonies to this tragedy. The winter of 1757-1758 was particularly deadly.

December 26th to 28th, 1757, Notre-Dame-de-Québec. Note the numerous “Acad” margin notes on these pages of the Québec register.
Source: Image d1p_31431309.jpg, Drouin Collection Records (Québec/Fonds Drouin/QC/Catholique/Québec (Notre-Dame)/1750/1757/), GenealogyQuebec.com

The wandering of Acadians in exile would sometimes last several years, as illustrated by the burial in the cemetery of Saint-Cuthbert of Catherine, “Cadienne [Acadian woman] who died of smallpox after receiving all her sacraments as soon as she arrived in the said parish”, on November 6th, 1769.

Source: Record 440471, LAFRANCE, GenealogyQuebec.com

It appears that smallpox also affected the British army garrisoned in Quebec City. In the registers of Berthierville, formerly called Berthier-en-Haut, we can find this curious record, written in English:

We the undernamed persons do hereby certify that John Mackffee, soldier in the 28^th Regiment and in Captain Darlis (?) Company and Jennet Forah were married and lawfully entered the bond of Matrimony, and that some time after, said Macfee was, by the Providence of God seized with the Small Pox and dyed at Quebec in June 1766
dated at Quebec the 10^th day of September 1766

Source: Record 741600, LAFRANCE, GenealogyQuebec.com

This is followed by a paragraph written in French, which deems this strange act appropriate and authorizes the widow to contract a new marriage if she wishes.

This mortuary record appears to be in a suitable form according to the customs of the troops of this province; even though I do not know the signatures; if the person whose death is attested is the same person with whom the person who presents herself for a new marriage was married, you can regard her as a widow and carry on. Only take care to verify her name as much as you can
in Montreal on May 6th, 1768

Source: Image d1p_1161b0055.jpg, Drouin Collection Records (Québec/Fonds Drouin/B/Berthierville/1760/1766/), GenealogyQuebec.com

10 years later, smallpox played an important role in the failure of the invasion of British Quebec by the American revolutionaries in 1775-1776. An epidemic in the rebel ranks considerably reduced the troops available and forced the abandonment of the project of conquest.

Thus, smallpox periodically affected the inhabitants of Quebec for two centuries with epidemics of varying severity. It struck Quebec for the last time in 1885. Montreal then became the epicenter of a severe epidemic. This crisis and its repercussions, both sanitary and political, will be discussed in the second part of this article.

Marielle Côté-Gendreau
Student and Université de Montréal’s Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH) collaborator.

Contagious diseases have affected Quebec several times since the 17th century. Epidemics certainly bring their share of deaths, but each one of them contributes to the evolution of public health measures and beliefs about immunity. This article tells the story of the cholera epidemic that struck Quebec in 1832, and to a lesser extent in 1834, through contemporary newspapers, available in the Drouin Institute’s Miscellaneous Collections, and parish registers, available in the LAFRANCE tool and on PRDH-IGD.com.

Le cholera à Quebec  – Joseph Legare

Named indifferently Asiatic Cholera, Spasmodic Cholera or Cholera Morbus, the disease, which was originally limited to Asia, spread during the 19th century in the Western world through a series of pandemics. Originating from India around 1826, the second cholera pandemic reached the British Isles in February 1832. Irish immigrants were responsible for the introduction of this infectious disease, which caused the first large-scale epidemic in Quebec.

In February 1832, the Grosse-Île quarantine station was created in anticipation of the arrival of cholera and started hosting immigrants before allowing them access to the port of Quebec City. The island, located fifty kilometers downstream from Quebec City, is now a national historic site.

Quebec City experienced the first outbreak of the epidemic in America. On June 4th, the Quebec Gazette announced the imminent arrival of the Carricks at the Grosse-Île station:

“Capt. Park of the Astrea, arrived yesterday, spoke [communicated with] the Carricks, [capt.] Hudson, from Dublin, at Grosse Ile, on Saturday [June 2^nd, 1832]. The Carricks lost 42 passengers, her carpenter and one boy, on the passage, from some unknown disease. The remainder of the passengers and crew are now in good health.”

Source: The Quebec Gazette, 4th of June 1832. Image QG_13_0020, Drouin Institute’s miscellaneous Collections (23 – Journaux anciens/The Quebec Gazette/1832/06), GenealogyQuebec.com

It was already known in America that this “unknown disease”, cholera, was wreaking havoc in Europe, and newspapers were following the situation very closely. In order not to create panic among the population, two days later, the Quebec Gazette reminded that:

“Rumours are again in circulation, and very generally, that the Cholera Morbus has got to the Quarantine Station, &c [etc.]. It is only necessary to repeat, that until some official statement appears on the subject, they are wholly to be discredited.”

Source: The Quebec Gazette, 6th of June 1832. Image QG_13_0021, Drouin Institute’s miscellaneous Collections (23 – Journaux anciens/The Quebec Gazette/1832/06), GenealogyQuebec.com

The authorities confirmed via the newly created Board of Health that “The rumour of there being persons at the station sick of cholera, is entirely without foundation.”

They indicated that the Carricks was undergoing disinfection procedures and were confident that cholera would not reach Canada. This conviction was based on a favourable opinion of the sanitary situation of the Canadian people:

« It has been found in every part of the world, that the Spasmodic Cholera uniformly seizes and destroys, with the rapidity of lightening, those who indulge in fermented liquors, and in intemperance of any kind, – the dissolute – the idle – the dirty, – all become its victims, while those who are cleanly, temperate and industrious, escape.

            This is a matter for consolation and hope, especially for a people, who like the Canadians, in the rural districts particularly, are distinguished for their sobriety, industry and cleanliness ; and who, moreover, since they are exempt from the evils of extreme poverty, are proportionately secure from the more severe attacks of the disease.

            If the Spasmodic Cholera therefore should appear among such a people, it will probably be very limited in its extent, and very mitigated in its severity. »

Indeed, cholera was the deadliest in disadvantaged neighborhoods as contagion was favoured by high population density and poor hygiene. Contrary to the Board of Health’s projections, the following table, published on July 2^nd, 1832 in the Quebec Gazette, only one month after the arrival of the Carricks, shows a rapid evolution of cases of cholera in Quebec City hospitals. The absence of strict measures to contain the disease allowed cholera to reach Montreal, which would also be hit hard.

Source: The Quebec Gazette, 4th of July 1832. Image QG_13_0036,, Drouin Institute’s miscellaneous Collections (23 – Journaux anciens/The Quebec Gazette/1832/07), GenealogyQuebec.com

Among the environments most at risk, the unsanitary conditions and overcrowding in prisons made them particularly vulnerable to the development of the epidemic. On June 17^th, 1832, just two weeks after the Carricks’ arrival at Grosse-Île, “two men of unknown names who died of Cholera morbus in this city’s prison” were buried in Montreal.

Record 4213784, LAFRANCE, GenealogyQuebec.com

Yet high society was not spared. The following record, from Beauport, near Quebec City, indicates that Marie Louise Fleury De La Gorgendière died of cholera on June 2^nd. She was the widow of the Honourable Louis Antoine Juchereau Duchesnay, Lord of Beauport, politician and military man.

Record 3255441, LAFRANCE, GenealogyQuebec.com

Reports from the time indicate that cholera could strike very quickly: it was not uncommon for a healthy-looking individual to die within a day from rapid dehydration caused by extreme diarrhea. This reality is reflected in parish records, as the following one reveals that Angélique Angers died on August 8^th in Neuville “of cholera after ten hours of illness“.

Record 436060, LAFRANCE, GenealogyQuebec.com

The Saint-Louis Cemetery in Quebec City, located at the corner of Grande Allée and De Salaberry Avenue, opened in 1832 to accommodate cholera victims. It quickly gained the nickname of the Cemetery of the Choleric and was a resting place for the dead of cholera and typhus until 1855.

Deaths piled up at such a rate that priests increasingly resorted to mass burials. Here is the first occurrence of such a burial of cholera victims:

“On June thirteen, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, we Deacon of this Diocese undersigned, by special authorization from the Bishop of Quebec, buried in the Saint Louis Cemetery fifty-four individuals, the names of whom we have not been able to obtain, all deceased of Asiatic Cholera at the Emigrant Hospital, and of professions and ages unknown to us.”

Record 4341082, LAFRANCE, GenealogyQuebec.com

Montreal and Quebec City, the two large cities of Quebec, each experienced a few thousand deaths as population density and movements increased contagion. However, cholera also raged in the countryside. Let us look at the case of this family from La Prairie, in the Montérégie region: Félicité Denault and her newlywed daughter Émilie Chabot both died on June 23, 1832. Three days passed before their husband and father Louis Chabot joined them in the grave. This family had already been hit hard by child mortality, which had struck at least seven of their twelve children.

Family file 82097, PRDH-IGD.com

Individual files 250275 and 237279, PRDH-IGD.com

Registers also show that the epidemic traveled beyond Canadian borders through the frequent comings and goings of French Canadians who had migrated to the northern United States. In February 1833, the parish priest of Marieville, in Montérégie, recorded the death of Edouard Bérard, 11 years old, “who died on August 24th in Franklin, Franklin County, State of Vermont, of the colera“. The records show that his youngest brother, Marcel, was born in Franklin and was baptized in Marieville on June 13th, 1832. Circumstances suggest that it was during this family trip that the contagion could have reached young Édouard.

Record 4522160, LAFRANCE, GenealogyQuebec.com

A second wave of the cholera epidemic hit in 1834 but turned out to be much less deadly than the first. It was then that the registers of St-Luc-de-la-Grosse-Île opened and started recording baptisms, marriages, but especially burials of Irish immigrants in quarantine on the island.

“This register, which contains eighteen sheets, including this one, was by us one of the Judges of the Court of King’s Bench for the district of Quebec, undersigned, stamped and initialed on each sheet to serve for the recording of Baptisms, Marriages and Burials which will occur at the Quarantine Station established at Grosse-Isle, the so-called isle being dependent on the parish of St. Antoine de l’Isle aux Grues.

            Quebec City, May 24^th, 1834.”

Image d1p_10090097, Drouin Collection Records (/Québec/Fonds Drouin/G/Grosse-Île/Grosse-Île (St-Luc)/1830/1834/), GenealogyQuebec.com

Cholera returned to Quebec during the third pandemic in 1849 and 1854. This dark episode contains its share of tragic stories but was the source of various innovations in terms of public health measures, in particular the creation of the quarantine station of Grosse-Île and the Board of Health. The knowledge and skills acquired during this period proved invaluable in managing subsequent epidemics.

Marielle Côté-Gendreau
Student and Université de Montréal’s Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH) collaborator.

The Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) marks a turning point for New France, which changes hands. The first part of this blog article narrated, via the parish registers of the Catholic Church, the events that led to the assault of Quebec City.

We pick up the story in September 1759, at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. After a successful landing at the Anse-au-Foulon (Wolfe’s Cove), west of Quebec City, the British troops reach the heights of Quebec City.

This 1797 engraving is based on a sketch made by Hervey Smyth, General Wolfe’s aide-de-camp during the siege of Quebec. A view of the taking of Quebec, 13th September 1759.

The battle results in a British victory and the death of the enemy generals Montcalm and Wolfe.
The burial of Montcalm is recorded in the register of Notre-Dame-de-Québec in Quebec City, with the honours due to his rank:

“was buried in the Church of the Ursulines of Quebec City high and mighty Lord Louis-Joseph Marquess of Montcalm General Lieutenant of the armies of the King, Commander of the Royal and military order of St. Louis, Chief Commandant of the land troops in North America, who passed away the same day from the wounds suffered at the battle the preceding day, comforted with the sacraments which he received with a lot of piety and Religion”

Source: Record 253561, LAFRANCE, GenealogyQuebec.com

In these registers, the titles of nobility are side by side with the most anonymous descriptions: for example, we can find this burial of an unknown soldier.

“a French soldier of whom I could not know the name nor the regiment, all that someone could tell me is that before his illness he wore the wig, and being wounded at the battle on the thirteenth of this month, we was taken on an English ship where he died in the harbour.”

Source: Record 253571, LAFRANCE, GenealogyQuebec.com

We often tend to forget that it is not on the Plains of Abraham that is played the ultimate round of this conflict between the British and the French. While Quebec City is occupied, the French officers ask the king for reinforcements with the intent of retaking Quebec City in the spring. On April 28th, 1760, the Battle of Sainte-Foy is won by the French against a British Army diminished by the harsh winter, resulting in high casualties on both sides.

Source: Record 256530, LAFRANCE, GenealogyQuebec.com

List of deaths recorded in the General Hospital of Quebec after the battle of Sainte-Foy. Source: LAFRANCE search, GenealogyQuebec.com

However, the French reinforcements never arrive and the first ship to reach Quebec City after the ice melts is British. The French are forced to retreat to Montreal, where the capitulation is signed on September 8th, 1760. The Treaty of Paris of 1763, which terminates the Seven Years’ War, officializes the change of hands of New France.

However, the traces of the French and Indian War in the records are not all as morbid. The cohabitation of the military men of the British Army and the local population also results in new baptisms and marriages. The following record, dated November 21st, 1760, is the baptism of Guillaume, an “English boy whose father and mother are unknown”, a standard formula for illegitimate children.

Source: Record 248004, LAFRANCE, GenealogyQuebec.com

In another record, dated June 12th, 1761, another child is baptized with “unknown parents”.

Source: Record 248097, LAFRANCE, GenealogyQuebec.com

However, we learn at her parents’ marriage in 1765 that little Élisabeth was born from a Swiss father serving in the British troops and a French-Canadian mother.

Source: Record 250388, LAFRANCE, GenealogyQuebec.com

Thus, parish registers reveal the first signs of the transformations and upheavals that shake the French-Canadian population at the dawn of a new era. War certainly took the life of numerous young people, but it also brought new dwellers along the shores of the St. Lawrence River. Can you also discern in your own family history the consequences of the Conquest of New France?

Marielle Côté-Gendreau
Student and Université de Montréal’s Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH) collaborator.