Individual Details

Marie Houde

(6 Aug 1669 - Bet 19 Nov 1707 and 23 Jul 1717)

Events

Birth	6 Aug 1669	Ste-Famille, Iles-d'Orléans, Québec, Canada
Marriage	17 Oct 1685	Neuville, Québec, Canada - Isaac-Joseph Garnier
Death	Bet 19 Nov 1707 and 23 Jul 1717	Ste-Croix-de-Lotbinière, Québec, Canada
Life sketch		Marie Houde was born on 6 August 1669 in Sainte-Famille, on Île d’Orléans, within the District of Québec in New France. She was the daughter of Louis Houde, a settler who had arrived in the colony in the mid-seventeenth century, and Marie Madeleine Boucher, herself the child of an established colonial family. She received baptism four days later, on 10 August 1669. The record indicates her baptism in a parish identified as Sainte-Famille at Cap-Santé, District of Québec. However, given that Cap-Santé parish did not yet exist in 1669 and that her family resided at Sainte-Famille on Île d’Orléans, it is more consistent with the historical context that the baptism took place at the Église Sainte-Famille on Île d’Orléans, the first parish of that island established in 1661. This parish served the earliest French families who had settled there, and the Houdes were among its parishioners. On 17 October 1685, at the Église Saint-François-de-Sales in Saint-Laurent, also on Île d’Orléans, she married Isaac-Joseph Garnier. Garnier was the son of François Garnier dit Pellerin and Jacqueline Freslon, who had themselves arrived from France during the early period of colonization. Together, Marie Houde and Isaac-Joseph Garnier became part of the growing settler population in the Québec district. The couple had twelve known children, including Louise-Catherine Grenier. Marie Houde’s lifetime coincided with a period of consolidation in New France. The latter part of the seventeenth century was marked by an expanding colonial presence along the St. Lawrence River valley, centered on Québec, Trois-Rivières, and Montréal. The seigneurial system organized settlement and agricultural activity, with Île d’Orléans being one of the earliest and most productive agricultural zones supplying the colonial capital at Québec. Families such as the Houdes and Garniers contributed to this expansion, through both agricultural labor and demographic growth. By the early eighteenth century, the colony was increasingly defined by large family networks and intermarriages among settler families. The population of New France was relatively small compared to English colonies to the south, but it grew steadily through natural increase. Marie Houde’s role as the mother of twelve children reflects this demographic pattern, which was essential for the colony’s survival and development. She died before 23 November 1728, although the exact date and place of death are not recorded. By this time, she would have seen New France continue to evolve under French administration, with ongoing military and political tensions against Indigenous nations and English colonies, but also with a strengthening of parish structures and family-based agricultural life along the St. Lawrence River. Marie Houde’s life illustrates the experience of second-generation colonists in New France: born into an established settler family, baptized and married within island parishes that anchored colonial society, married into another prominent settler lineage, and raising a large family that ensured the continuation of the colonial population.

Families

Spouse

Isaac-Joseph Garnier (1663 - 1745)

Father	Louis Houde (1617 - 1709)
Mother	Madeleine Boucher (1641 - 1709)
Sibling	Jean Houde (1658 - 1701)
Sibling	Louis-Marie Houde (1662 - 1717)
Sibling	Gervais Houde (1664 - 1716)
Sibling	Jacques Desruisseaux Houde (1667 - 1748)
Sibling	Claude Houde (1671 - 1728)
Sibling	Marie-Louise Houde (1673 - 1713)
Sibling	Louis Desrochers Houde (1675 - 1729)
Sibling	Joseph Bellefeuille Houde (1678 - 1749)
Sibling	Simon Houde (1680 - 1716)
Sibling	Etienne Houde (1682 - 1750)
Sibling	Angélique Houde (1685 - 1727)

Endnotes