A French-Canadian Pioneer of the Oregon Country

The French North Americans played an enormous, unheralded role in the European exploration of the continent. By 1700, these pioneers had traced the great water highway from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, via the St. Lawrence, the Ottawa, the Great Lakes Region, and the Mississippi. By the first half of the 18th c. the land they knew as le Pays des Illinois in the present day American Midwest had farms supplying food to the French colonists of the lower Mississippi.

The explorations of La Vérendrye and son in the 1730s-1750s pushed westward to the modern day Dakotas and Wyoming, to Manitoba, and the Saskatchewan River. All but the latest of these adventures occurred before the Anglo-Americans had discovered the Cumberland Gap. 

French-Canadians of Québec were also pioneers of the West Coast. Among them was my third great-grandfather’s brother, Hyacinthe Delage a.k.a. Lavigueur.  Hyacinthe Lavigueur, as he was known in the West, was a pioneer of the area the Americans called the Oregon Country, but known as Columbia to the competing British claimants.

Hyacinthe Delage-dit-Lavigueur was born on July 26, 1796 at Saint-Eustache in the county of Deux-Montagnes not far from Montréal. Hyacinthe and several of his brothers, including my ancestor Joseph Delage-dit-Lavigueur, relocated from St-Eustache to the parish of Sainte-Geneviève-de-Pierrefonds not long before 1820.

At Sainte-Geneviève, one of the Lavigueur brothers had a next-door neighbor named François-Benjamin Pillet. Pillet was from a family of fur traders and was born and raised at Oka, a village in Deux-Montagnes then mainly occupied by Algonquins and Haudenosaunee (“Iroquois”). Pillet was one of the famed Astorians, a clerk and free trader hired by John Jacob Astor for his Pacific Fur Company. In 1810, the Astorians were given the task of establishing a trading post on the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest.

Pillet’s tale is a fascinating one I will save for a future post but for now know that Pillet returned from his Pacific voyages in 1814 having traveled over land to his home at Oka. Around the same time that the Lavigueurs arrived at Sainte-Geneviève, Pillet also moved there.

There were several connections between the Pillet and Lavigueur families. My third great-grandmother was a Cécile Pillet, the wife of Joseph Delage-dit-Lavigueur. It is certain that Cécile bears some relationship to the family of François-Benjamin but that relationship is, as of yet, unclear. The ties of family and proximity between the Lavigueurs and the Pillets suggest that it was through François-Benjamin's Astorian adventures that Hyacinthe learned of the Oregon Country and it was Pillet’s tales that probably inspired Hyacinthe to settle in this far away land. 

Among the documents of the notary Joseph Payment of Sainte-Geneviève is found a procuration of “Hyacinthe Deloge” to “F. Pillet,” dated May 2, 1820. The term procuration refers to a granting of proxy or power of attorney and the existence of this document establishes a direct relationship between these two men. 

Most of the French-Canadians who traveled to the Far West in this era were, like Pillet, associated with the great fur trading companies and Lavigueur was no exception. [EDIT 9/30/2021] Lavigueur signed on with the Northwest Company. You will find him in the Northwest Company contracts dated 1820, which probably accounts for his proxy agreement with Pillet. [END OF EDIT] 

In the Oregon Country, Hyacinthe formed a relationship with a young, Native American woman he knew as Marguerite Colville. Colville was the name given by those of European descent to one of the nations of Northwest Native peoples. It was common to use the tribal designation as the surname of a Native American individual. Marguerite, who was born around 1814, is also referred to as Marguerite Spokan, indicating the region from which she hailed.

Hyacinthe and Marguerite settled at what became St. Paul in Marion County in what is now the State of Oregon where a group of French-Canadian settlers and a few others formed a small community. In the 1830s, the residents of the settlement began to petition the Catholic Church authorities to send them a priest to help them form a proper French-Canadian parish on the West Coast. In 1836, the settlers built a log church in anticipation.

On November 28, 1838, Fr. François Norbert Blanchet and Fr. Modeste Demers arrived at Fort Vancouver. Father Blanchet served the very first Roman Catholic Mass known to have been celebrated in Oregon at the log church on January 6, 1839 and dedicated the church to St. Paul.

A couple of weeks later (January 21), Fr. Blanchet served what became known as “the big wedding” blessing the unions between the settlers and their common law, Native American wives. Over time, the children born from these unions prior to the big wedding would be baptized. His marriage record indicates that Hyacinthe Lavigueur was “of the parish of Sainte-Geneviève,” Montréal leaving no doubt that this Hyacinthe was indeed my ancestor’s brother.

Marguerite bore Hyacinthe at least seven children. He worked as a farmer as well as a maker of pottery, ironwork tools, and housewares. The traditional occupation of the Lavigueurs was menuisier, a joiner, a maker of home furnishings generally of wood but sometimes of other materials. 

He died on November 10, 1846 while performing heavy labor in a brick kiln in an effort to build a new church at St. Paul. His was the first burial of one of the French-Canadian settlers from this new church. His wife Marguerite died two years later on April 1, 1848 and was also buried at St. Paul.

Memorials at Saint Paul Including the Names of
Hyacinthe Lavigueur and his Wife Marguerite
(Courtesy of Deborah Guinther)

In the year of Hyacinthe’s death, the 49th parallel was established as the northwestern border between the United States and the British North American possessions. By this treaty, the St. Paul settlers had become residents of the United States. As an American Territory, the area became the home of peoples of many nationalities. At St. Paul, a small band of French-Canadians still find a place among the memories of the frontier.