Archambault Houses No 5 – December 2022

In this issue you will discover houses in the Lanaudiere region, referring to descendants of
Jacques Archambault. It’s up to you to follow in their footsteps with the help of this map.

Archambault Houses in Saint-Paul-l’Ermite
and Saint-Roch-de-l’Achigan

The Archambault family, pioneers
of the Petit-Village (Saint-Paul-l’Ermite)

The Archambault family, who came from Pointe-aux-Trembles, was one of the first, at the beginning of the 18th Century, to settle north of the L’Assomption River on lands that Pierre Le Gardeur, Seigneur of Repentigny and Seigneur of Lachenaie, had just subdivided. Over the years, the Archambault family acquired, developed and sold many lands east of the Petit-Village. It counted several craftsmen, doctors and lawyers, some of whom occupied sites in the heart of the Petit-Village. Several Archambault were mayors of Saint-Paul-L’Ermite. In addition, a branch of the family founded a dynasty of merchants in L’Assomption.

The Archambault name has left its mark on the world of music, thanks to Edmond Archambault, who founded the Archambault-Musique company.

Edmond-Archambault Municipal and School Library of Repentigny
213, boul. J.A. Paré, Repentigny.
Photo: City of Repentigny Website

A tree for the Archambault

On September 20, 2008, the Corporation Fête au Petit Village (Ville Le Gardeur) honored two of the founding families of Quebec: the Deschamps and the Archambault. A certificate of recognition was then presented to the Association des Archambault d’Amérique represented by Jocelyne, secretary.

For the occasion, a serviceberry tree was transplanted in front of the house which belonged in 1888 to Trefflé Archambault and located at 354 rue du Village. Currently, it is Adrien Archambault, dean of the citizens of Saint-Paul-L’Ermite, who lives there with his wife Aline Turgeon.

On the photo, appear from left to right, Guy Archambault, brother of Jocelyne, Solange Archambault who still lives in Saint-Paul-L’Ermite, Jocelyne, Danielle Paquette married to Dr. Jacques Archambault, cousin of Jocelyne and Guy, and Marie-Rose Archambault, sister of Solange.

Research and writing

Pierre Archambault,  Granby

Revision

Richard Archambault, Pointe-Claire
Diane Chabot, Pointe-Claire

Translation of the articles

Thanks to all our volunteer translators

Page-Setting and translation

Monique Archambault, Saint-Étienne-de-Bolton

Collaborator

Raynald Archambault, Québec


Summary

The Michel-Chaput House

in Saint-Paul-l’Ermite (Lanaudière)

Photo: Richard Archambault 2006

This house built between 1772 and 1780 by Michel Chaput is one of the oldest in the village. It shows the main characteristics of the French rural architecture of the 18th century.

The wide stacks of the chimneys decorated with a molded rim surmount the gable walls. The original six-paned windows still have some old panes made by craftsmen.

For more than a century, from 1826 to 1939, the house remained in the Archambault family. It was occupied, among others, by the first Mayor of the Municipality of Saint-Paul-l’Ermite in 1857, François Jannot Archambault. On July 26, 1908, Georgiana Archambault, daughter of Léon and Appoline Locas, widow of Cyrille Lachapelle, bought the house and sold it on May 16, 1922 to Luce Lachapelle. On October 28, 1939, the house was sold to Mrs. Fernand Morissette, who sold it to the Canadian government on March 20, 1941, to give access to the L’Assomption River in order to supply water for the warfare ammunition industrial plant called “Cherrier Plan”. The house is situated at 326, du Village Street.

The house then became a secondary residence, and for 25 years, the Royal Bank rented it to house its local branch and the manager.

In 1997, the Samson-Saulnier-Lachapelle couple bought the house to live there and undertook to restore it with due regard for its history.

Inspired from a document: Sur le parcours patrimonial, Fête au Petit-Village, September 23 and 24, 2006.
Sources: Christian Roy and Onil Therrien, Histoire de Saint-Paul-l’Ermite (Le Gardeur), 1985.
Written by: Claude St-Jean. Researches originating from: Centre régional d’archives de Lanaudière.

 

Saint-Paul-l’Ermite Church
Built in 1858 by François Archambault of L’Assomption,
based on plans by Joseph Michaud
Photo : Monique Bellemare – leseglisesdemonquartier.com

The Archambault Castle at 400 du Village Street

The largest house in the village – Saint-Paul-L’Ermite (Lanaudière)

Photo credit: bonjourresidences.com

Edmond Archambault inherited the site of the Château from his father Zephirin. It was Anna, Edmond’s sister, who inherited it after his death in 1947. Anna gave it to the “Communauté des Sœurs de l’Espérance” who sold it in 1960 to the Sisters of the Holy Family of Bordeaux in Canada. The Château then passed into the hands of the “Petites Missionnaires de Saint-Joseph”. The Château is now a residential building for retirees.

The plans for this large forty-room house, built for Edmond Archambault who was successful in the music business, around 1915, are attributed to the Montréal architect Joseph-Raoul Gariépy. The proud and impressed local population nicknamed it “Le Château Archambault”.

The red brick square is punctuated by concrete bands that highlight the various floors of the house. A solid square tower with truncated corners, embedded in the façade, rises to the right and accentuates the height of the building. On the two sides of the tower that emerge from the façade, paired windows mark each floor. Its steep roof, decorated with a straight finial, points upwards and gives the building a certain lightness.

The imposing main entrance is dominated on the roof by a dormer window with twin windows. Above the cornice, where the consoles of pomp and circumstance are scattered, a dormer window displays in its pediment a circular and decorative brickwork, unique in the village. In the past, with its balusters, it dominated the right side of the house on two floors and joined the back of the house.

Inspired from a document: Sur le parcours patrimonial, Fête au Petit-Village, September 23 and 24, 2006.
Sources: Christian Roy and Onil Therrien, Histoire de Saint-Paul-l’Ermite (Le Gardeur), 1985.
Written by: Claude St-Jean. Researches originating from: Centre régional d’archives de Lanaudière.

The old forge of Trefflé

in Saint-Paul-l’Ermite

Photo: Archives Lanaudière S0004 – Herménégilde Léveillé’s Collection

Married in Saint-Roch-de-L’Achigan on October 24, 1882 to Délia Saint-André, Trefflé Archambault, carrier and blacksmith, was Mayor of Saint-Paul-l’Ermite in 1911 and 1912.

On November 6, 1913, he gave his house and his shop to his son Donat who transformed the shop into a garage. Subsequently, the old shop was used as premises for the Post Office and the Credit Union. The house is located at 356 du Village Street.

Inspired from a document: Sur le parcours patrimonial, Fête au Petit-Village, September 23 and 24, 2006.
Sources: Christian Roy and Onil Therrien, Histoire de Saint-Paul-l’Ermite (Le Gardeur), 1985.
Written by: Claude St-Jean. Researches originating from: Centre régional d’archives de Lanaudière.

The house of Hector

Son of Trefflé and Délia Saint-André
in Saint-Paul-l’Ermite

Location distracted from land 107 by Jean-Baptiste Archambault, husband of Josephte Thouin, with  house bequeathed to his son Zéphirin on the occasion of his marriage to Dolorès Thouin on October 30, 1871.

This site at 349, du Village Street was sold by Zéphirin’s heirs in 1898 to Delphis Pauzé, carpenter, who sold it in 1908 to Hector Archambault, tinsmith, husband of Régina Saint-Germain, married in 1908; Hector remarried in 1944 to Marie-Louise Demers.

On May 14, 1920, Hector sold the site to Narcisse Archambault, a local bourgeois, who donated it on May 13, 1923 to his son-in-law, Léopold Rivest, who married his daughter Ida in 1902.

Widowed, Ida Archambault sold the property to Wilbrey Bélanger in 1946, and his wife is still living there .

Inspired from a document: Sur le parcours patrimonial, Fête au Petit Village, September 23 and 24, 2006.
Sources: Christian Roy and Onil Therrien, Histoire de Saint-Paul-l’Ermite (Le Gardeur), 1985.
Written by: Claude St-Jean. Searches originating from: Centre régional d’archives de Lanaudière .

The house of Donat

Son of Trefflé and Délia Saint-André
in Saint-Paul-l’Ermite

This house located at 356 du Village Street was built for the blacksmith Donat Archambault, son of Trefflé and Delia Saint-André, and married to Marie Brouillette in L’Assomption, in 1911.

Firmly seated on a stone masonry foundation, this house stands out along the public road. Its pinched sheet roof has two beautiful dormer windows on the pediment decorated with sculptures in the brisis.

On the first floor, two sash windows frame the main entrance with a small gable roof projecting from the facade. This roof supports two imposing consoles decorated in the same spirit as the pediments of the dormer windows. This detail, borrowed from the Victorian style still popular at the beginning of the 20th Century, illustrates the taste of our ancestors for the pageantry and decoration of their homes. The aisle, set back from the main square and transformed into housing, also has a roof in the style of the house.

Trefflé Archambault, Donat’s father, acquired the property in May 1888. The house dating from 1892 is converted into two dwellings. For a long time, it was the property of Marie Brouillette, widow of the blacksmith Donat. His son Maurice, Postmaster, married in Saint-Sulpice in 1943 to Cécile Duchesne, occupied one of the apartments.

Inspired from a document: Sur le parcours patrimonial, Fête au Petit-Village, September 23 and 24, 2006.
Sources: Christian Roy and Onil Therrien, Histoire de Saint-Paul-l’Ermite (Le Gardeur), 1985.
Written by: Claude St-Jean. Researches originating from: Centre régional d’archives de Lanaudière.

The house at 1520, rang Rivière Nord

Saint-Roch-de-l’Achigan (Lanaudière)

Photo: Lise Gauthier’s Collection

Louis Archambault, husband of Charlotte Chaput and brother of Jacques spent part of his life in this house and where lived his brother, the patriarch Jacques, married to Véronique Debussat-Saint-Germain on October 6, 1783. He ended his life on December 31, 1851, at he age of 86.

Born in Repentigny in 1765, Jacques left that city in 1800 to settle in Saint-Roch-de-L’Achigan, where he was a farmer.

Jacques is the brother of the grandfather of Auguste and Wilfrid Siméon (Alfred) Archambault, owners of trading posts in Wyoming. Auguste lived in a listed house of Florissant, Missouri.

The house of Urbain

in Saint-Roch-de-l’Achigan (Lanaudière)

Entering an ancestral house dating back nearly 200 years, one sees stone walls, two feet thick, five good beams of 14 inches side and 30 feet long, at the ceiling, which serve as the floor of the second story. A fairly steep staircase gives access to four bedrooms with sloping ceilings because the roof is at 60 degrees.

On the first floor, two stone fireplaces have been used for years for cooking and heating; they are still in place but extinguished and reduced to adornment.

The walls speak: “Our master builder, a man named Roy, brought us together under this roof around 1806, and despite his avaricious nature, he did not spare the materials, but gave orders to hold on as long as possible… 180 years later, we are still standing!

“In 1866, they sold the house and land to a young couple, Urbain Archambault and Philomène Larose. They raised a family of six children and the house served as their refuge throughout this life which ended in 1896 for her and for him 20 years later, in 1916.

“The weather threatened one of our walls on the west side, drawing it out; squared trees were placed to prop it up and stop the damage. Urbain Archambault in buying the house retained the services of the best masons to repair the “evil”. Since this effort we are still standing at our work, at 530, rang Rivière Sud.

“Passed into the hands of Anastase (Nestor), son of Urbain, born in this house on December 23, 1866, we have continued the task of holding this protective roof over our heads. Anastase (Nestor) married in Saint-Esprit to Emma Lachapelle, and the couple also raised their family of four children under our roof.”

Source: Roger Lemay Saint-Roch-de-L’Achigan 200 ans de Souvenirs 1787-1987, p. 252-253

Urbain Archambault and Philomène Larose
Photo: William V. Archambault from Brewster (Massachusetts), their great-grandson
Reproduction of the photo : L. Bourassa, 1138, Ontario St., Montréal
Rosario Gauthier’s Collection, August 1989

The house at 565, rang Rivière Nord

in Saint-Roch-de-l’Achigan

This lot from Saint-Roch-de-l’Achigan
remains in the Archambault line for several generations.

The Archambault family occupies a special place in the public portrait of Saint-Roch and Jacques, married in Repentigny on October 6, 1783, to Véronique Debussat dit Saint-Germain, is at the forefront.

In 1831, Jacques settled on the lot now attached to 565 Rivière Nord Range. The land then passed to his son Pierre, husband of Louise Bourque, then to Auguste, Jacques’ grandson, husband of Éléonore Tellier dit Lafortune.

The land then passed to Auguste’s son, Roch, husband of Flore Beaudry, who gave it to his son Raoul, husband of Georgine Desormiers.

The house and farm of Pierre

in Saint-Roch-de-l’Achigan

Photo 1958

Pierre Archambault and Magdeleine Lebeau are the parents of Pierre, husband of Josephe Foucher, and grandparents of Auguste born in Saint-Roch-de-l’Achigan and of Wilfrid Siméon (Alfred) born in Saint-Esprit-de-Montcalm.

Auguste and Wilfrid, aged 10 and 15 respectively, left Canada to go trapping and hunting in Wyoming and in the mountains of the American West. They transported their furs from Wyoming to St. Louis, Missouri, to sell them. They probably made several trips, and it has been reported that the round trip took almost a year. (More information in Bulletin no.70, December 2005).