The Manoir Site

The Manoir was built on a parcel of land granted on 27 October 1722 by Louis Lévrard to Joseph Charais, then living at Ste-Anne-de-la-Pérade [1]. The land measured 4 arpents (an arpent being roughly 192 feet) in width by 40 in depth, at the place named « le Cap Saint-Claude ».

That same day, Joseph Charais, for reasons unknown, resold his concession to Jean Prime dit Lavanture, an inhabitant of Batiscan [2]. Jean Prime made his home there and, over the following two years, built a bark cabin [3].

On 23 January 1725, he sold his land to the minor son of François Rivard, sieur Lacoursière, named Joseph, living at Batiscan. A clause bound Joseph Rivard Lacoursière to feed, house and maintain Jean Prime [4]. Did he take up residence at St-Pierre? He still owned this land in 1745 [5].

After 1745, Joseph Rivard gave or sold his land, and we know that between 1745 and 1760 François Mailhot was its owner. The latter's widow, Marie-Charlotte Gouin, made over the land to her son Joseph. Between 1730 and 1762, Joseph and his wife Geneviève Brisson were living at Saint-Pierre-les-Becquets [6].

Early in 1764, the Mailhot couple sold the land to Pierre Roberge and his wife Brigitte Auger [7]. We know from this that in 1764 there stood a house, a barn, a stable and other buildings of unspecified kind.

Pierre Roberge's wife, Brigitte Auger, died in 1791. The inventory of her goods contains no description of a manor house such as we know it today [8]. A building as imposing as the Manoir would certainly have warranted a description in the notarial contract. Pierre Roberge, a figure of some standing at Saint-Pierre-les-Becquets, had held among other offices the title of captain of militia.

After his wife's death, Pierre Roberge the elder made a donation entre vifs (a gift between living persons) to his son Pierre Roberge, who undertook to care for him and house him until his death [9]. He reserved for himself the large bedchamber of the house. Pierre the younger and his wife Marie Herbec occupied the rest of the house. We have no other information.

Pierre Roberge the younger sold his land to François Baby [10]; no house formed part of the transaction. The stone house of Pierre Roberge the younger was instead sold, together with a lot, to Jacques-Raymond Baby. Pierre Roberge reserved the south-western half of the house until July [11]. On 7 April 1817, Charles-François-Xavier Baby, son of the Honourable François Baby and Marie Tarieu de la Naudière, did indeed acquire:
« …une terre de 3 arpents de front ou environ sur 40 arpents de profondeur ou environ et située en la dite paroisse de Saint-Pierre-les-Becquets, prenant en front par devant au fleuve St-Laurent et par derrière se terminant aux traits quarrés qui terminent la profondeur des terres au premier rang (…) joignant d’un côté au Sud-ouest à la terre de l’église ou fabrique de Saint-Pierre-les-Becquets et l’autre côté au Nord-est à Joseph Dionne. Ensemble la grange et l’étable dessus construits, circonstances et dépendances »[12].

It may be deduced that the present three-storey stone house is later than 1817, since no house stood on the land acquired by François Baby.

François Baby, about 20 years old, was living at Québec. In December 1815, he and his brother Jacques-Raymond signed some forty firewood-cutting contracts with the farmers of Saint-Pierre-les-Becquets [13]. Besides the Saint-Pierre-les-Becquets land, he bought the fief Bruyère at Bécancourt and two-thirds of the seigneury of Nicolet. Following financial difficulties, his property was seized in 1822. For the first time, a notice published in the Gazette de Québec [14] mentions a three-storey stone house. On the same land there were also a barn, a stable, a shed and other outbuildings [15]. We may conclude that the present Manoir Baby-Méthot was built between 1817 and 1822 by François Baby the younger.

Following the seizure, the land and the house passed to a Québec pastry cook, Baptiste Martinuccio [16]. Marie-Anna Tarieu de la Naudière, mother of Charles-François-Xavier Baby and co-seigneur, intervened a few days after the sale of her son's land; Madame Baby took steps to have the sale annulled through a retrait seigneurial (a seigneur's right of repurchase). This seigneurial right allowed a lot that had been sold to be recovered on repayment of the sale price. Since the seigneury was shared among several owners, Madame Baby requested a power of attorney from each of them. (…)

On 3 May 1822, Martinuccio, defeated by a judgment of the Court of King's Bench at Trois-Rivières authorising the repurchase, made the land over to Madame Baby in return for compensation [17].

That same day, Marie-Anne Tarieu de la Naudière, widow of the Honourable François Baby, granted by lease the Saint-Pierre-les-Becquets land, together with the three-storey stone house, to her son François. The principal co-seigneur was Antoine-Ovide de la Naudière [18]. Although the Manoir was occupied by Charles-François-Xavier Baby, it remained the property of his mother. In her will of 1829 one reads: « …la dite Dame testaire donne et lègue à son fils François Baby, écuier de la paroisse de Saint-Pierre-les-Becquets, à titre d’alimens, la jouissance sa vie durant de sa grande terre située en la dite paroisse de Saint-Pierre-les-Becquets, au premier rang des concessions de la paroisse, consistant en une terre sise et située en la dite paroisse et seigneurie de Saint-Pierre-les-Becquets, contenant 3 arpents ou environ de front sur 40 arpents de profondeur, bornée par devant au fleuve St-Laurent, et par derrière, au bout de la dite profondeur, joignant du côté Nord-est partie à Joseph Dionne et partie à Jacques Baby, écuier et encore en partie aux représentants de feu Augustin Dubuc et du côté Sud-est, une terre appartenant à la fabrique de la paroisse de Saint-Pierre-les-Becquets, avec maison en pierre de 3 étages, grange, étable, hangar et autres circonstances et dépendances, (…) de laquelle terre est à distraire un certain lopin de terre appartenant et en la possession de Joseph Chaillé ou ses représentants, lequel est enclavé dans la dite terre et contient 85 pieds de front sur 80 pieds dans la ligne Nord-est et 60 pieds dans la ligne Sud-est de profondeur avec le bâtiment [19].

Did Charles-François-Xavier Baby live in the Manoir? In 1825 he appears in the census of Saint-Pierre-les-Becquets. And in 1830, when he performed the act of fealty and homage in the names of the seigneurs of the seigneury, he was captain of militia of Saint-Pierre-les-Becquets.

In the spring of 1830, Charles-François-Xavier Baby left St-Pierre to settle in the township of Sherrington, where his mother put him in charge of administering her lands [20]. Until 1837 his activities led him to live mainly in the Montréal region. From 1837 to 1844 he was in exile at Albany, in the U.S.A., with his wife Marie-Clothilde Pinsonneault and their two children, Michel-Guillaume and Marie-Clothilde Alice.

Madame Baby is said to have set up a farm on the Saint-Pierre-les-Becquets land during her son's years of exile [21]. On his return from exile, Charles-François-Xavier Baby took up the timber trade again, became a property developer, and moved into shipping. He lived at St-Pierre only intermittently. His official residence was in the parish of Notre-Dame de Québec, on rue St-Louis.

As for the Manoir farm, it was worked by a tenant farmer, Charles Martel, under a lease [22]. In 1851 it produced 400 bushels of wheat, 800 of oats and 3,000 bales of hay, not counting 9 horses, 22 sheep and 17 cows yielding 2,000 pounds of butter [23].

In 1844, on the Manoir land, besides the three-storey stone house, there were a workshop, a coach house, a dairy, a piggery and a farmhouse, and on the other side of the public road a small house, a barn-stable 100 ft. by 30 and a stable 30 by 40 ft.

Ten years later, Charles-François-Xavier Baby took out an insurance policy on his property at St-Pierre: Equitable of London policy no. 6397, 28 December 1853 [24].

Charles-François-Xavier Baby died on 6 August 1864. On 28 November 1864, Michel-Guillaume (William) Baby and Marie-Clothilde-Alice Baby, heirs of their grandmother, made over the land, the Manoir and the other buildings to François-Xavier-Alfred-Ovide Méthot, a farmer at Saint-Pierre [25]; he married Marie-Clara Méthot, daughter of the notary Antoine-Prosper Méthot, a Saint-Pierre-les-Becquets politician. Between 1844 and 1847 the latter sat as a member of the House of Assembly. François-Xavier for his part was mayor of the parish municipality from 1868 to 1872. He was then elected to the Legislative Assembly of Québec in 1871. From 1877 to 1884 he was the member for Nicolet county in the federal parliament. For the following 24 years, until his death in 1908, he was a legislative councillor.

In 1883 his wife Marie-Clara Méthot died. In 1884 he married, as his second wife, Marie-Clara-Louise-Ernestine Paradis. He left no descendants. On his death in 1908, Marie-Clara Paradis was his universal legatee.

François-Xavier was the brother of Vital Méthot, who in 1865 acquired the seigneurial house of St-Anne-de-la-Pérade. To distinguish the two manors, François-Xavier changed the name of the Manoir de la Pérade, which François Baby the younger had given it, to Manoir les Becquets. The Honourable F.X.O. Méthot granted, under leases subject to ground rent payable annually, building sites on the portion of land called « Domaine les Becquets ».

Between 1902 and 1906, joiners, butchers, shoemakers and farmers bought lots in the heart of the village. A large area of land was also made over to the Soeurs de l'Assomption of Nicolet, who built a convent on it.

Marie-Clara-Louise-Ernestine Paradis kept ownership of the Manoir for 28 years after her husband's death and lived there for the rest of her life.

On 26 November 1936, Madame Paradis-Méthot made over the building and its furniture by donation entre vifs to Joseph-Olivier Archambault, a farmer living in the village, on condition that the recipient undertake to keep the donor in his home [26]. J.-Olivier Archambault took Madame Paradis into his house and disposed of the Manoir, which is said to have served for two or three seasons as an inn under the name « Manoir sous les érables ». The venture meeting with little success, Mr. Archambault sold the Manoir and the land on 19 October 1939 to James Stuart Douglas of Montréal, who made it a summer residence [27].

In 1949 Sylvio Pepin, a contractor, bought the Manoir [28]. The family lived there year-round and fitted out a post office in the south-west addition.

On 2 February 1960, Robert Poitras of Laval-des-Rapides acquired it [29]. After her husband's death, it was his wife Agathe who inherited the Manoir; at present (2019) Gilles Marchand and Denyse Gouin are its happy owners, and they have undertaken a restoration carried out to the highest standards, which is giving new life to this jewel of our heritage

Ref.: Manoir Baby Méthot — Report of studies
Le groupe référence Inc. July 1987

[1] Notary Trottain, 27 October 1722
[2] Notary Trottain, October 1722
[3] Aveu et dénombrement (seigneurial declaration and enumeration of tenants) 1724
[4] Notary Daniel Normandin, 23 January 1725
[5] Registre des Grands Voyers (register of the road surveyors): 10-14 October 1745
[6] Census of the government of Trois-Rivières, A. Roy, 1747:33
[7] Notary Nicolas Duclos, 8 January 1764
[8] Notary C. Lévrard, 30 May 1791
[9] Notary Joseph Cadet, 9 August 1798
[10] Notary Augustin Trudel, 7 April 1817
[11] Notary Augustin Trudel, 8 April 1817
[12] Notary Augustin Trudel, 7 April 1817.
[13] Crochetière 1986:70
[14] 7 April 1822
[15] Gazette de Québec, 7 April 1822
[16] Notary Jean Bélanger, 26 April 1822
[17] Crochetière 1985:75
[18] Crochetière 1986:75
[19] Notary Louis Panet, 11 May 1829
[20] Crochetière 1986:78
[21] Crochetière 1986:89
[22] Crochetière 1986:89
[23] Crochetière 1986:90
[24] Baby family fonds P0336-4 /3 A 00-140 3 A, Archives Nationales du Québec
[25] Notary Joseph Petitclerc, 28 November 1864
[26] Notary Charles Edouard Villeneuve, Bécancour registry office, deed no. 60478.
[27] Bécancour deed: 62226
[28] Bécancour deed: 68692
[29] Bécancour deed: 75945