​JEAN-CHARLES CÔTÉ
(1767-1842)

            When Jean Charles Côté was born, October 29, 1767, his father Jacques was fifty-nine years old, Marie-Josephte  “Josette” was forty-five. They had been married for 11 years.

            By the time Jean Charles Côté was marriageable, Québec was officially under the control of the British Commonwealth, but in reality, not much had changed from the prior generation. In 1788, the church at Ste-Antoine de Tilly burned down, and the parishioners built a new one. In 1791.

            The Constitutional Act separated Québec into Upper (Ontario) and Lower (Québec). It was during that year Jean Charles married Pelagie Croteau, daughter of Louis Francois Croteau and Felicite Chaine. There were twelve children from their union; Jean-Charles, Jean-Baptiste, François-Xavier, M-Angèle Cécile, Flavie, François-Joseph, Julienne, Augustin, Alexia, Hubert, Michel, and M-Adelaide.

            When widowed in 1811, Jean Charles was left with nine children, the youngest only four years of age if he was indeed alive. I have had poor luck finding some of his children other than their birth. Charles remarried in 1813, to Marion Marotte (dit Labonté). This marriage produced two girls, Julienne and Adelaide.

             In 1803, France made a land deal called the Louisiana Purchase and sold all lands west of the Mississippi to the Rockies and south of Québec to the Gulf of Mexico.

            Again, war intervened before the next generation could develop; specifically, the War of 1812. The US declared war on Canada, hoping to liberate it from the British. Britain sent many soldiers to help the colonies fight the Americans. In the end, neither side lost nor gained much, with the exception that Toronto was temporarily under American control and a British military unit got close enough to the US president’s residence in Washington to set fire to it. It was at this point they painted the residence white, and the White House remained so ever since. I should note these were turbulent times for Québec.

            Jean-Charles’ date of death is10th of September 1842, at St-Antoine-de-Tilly, Lotbinière, Quebec, Canada. Many researchers refer to his second wife as Marie Marotte dit Labonté. The reference I have found lists Jean-Charles deceased as the husband of Marie Labonté. The age and location would show this is the correct Jean-Charles. Jean-Charles Côté fathered at least fourteen documented children.