OUR ANCESTOR FRANCOIS NAU
A STOP AT AUX ECUREUILS
On 17 March 1678, the Seigneur Jean Toupin, Sieur Du Sault, cedes, before Notary Gilles Rageot, a farm of 3 arpents (175 meters) by 40 (2338 meters), in the seigneurie recently created under the name of Bélair dite la Pointe-aux-Ecureuils, to François Nau. His two friends, Pierre Groleau and Pierre Grenon, each obtained a concession.
François's concession is adjacent and west of the seigniorial domain. The domain measured 7.8 arpents from the river by 40 arpents. It was located across the church of Les Ecureuils and the road of the manor that leads to the river. The manor was situated close to the cliff across from the church. François's farm was to the west of the current rue du Couvent.
François erected a first house with narrow windows and logs squared by ax. Then, in 1679, he settled his wife, Marguerite Jobidon, and his son François, in their new home. The oldest son, Jean, had died soon after birth in 1677. All his children, up to 1687, the year his wife Marguerite died of typhus, were born in this house. His last child, Michel, had died shortly before her own death. Marguerite was 26 when she died. The children that survived their mother include François (8 years), Geneviève (5 years), Marguerite-Ursule (3 years) and Jean-François (22 months). Marguerite, the mother, was buried on 27 November 1687 in Neuville Cemetery.
It is here in Neuville, 8 months later on 1 July 1688, that François, then 42 years, married his second wife Marie-Thérèse Chaillé, 21 years and a native of Beauport. They had nine children.