Paul Vachon, born about 1630, son of Vincent Vachon and Sapience Rabeau, was a native of La Copechagnière, a town in the Department of the Vendee, Arrondissement of La Roche-sur-Yon, Canton of Saint-Fulgent, Diocese of Lucon, in the ancient French Province of Poitou. Paul made the crossing to Canada in 1650 at the age of about 20 years. On 22 October 1653 he married Marguerite Langlois at Quebec. This young country girl, a native of Beauport, was baptized at the Chapel of Quebec, the only one in the region at that time, by the Reverend Father Nicolas Adam, S.J., on 3 September 1639. Marguerite Aubert, the wife of Martin Grouvel, was her godmother. This 14-year-old fiancee, from a dignified family of New France, that of Noel Langlois and of Francoise Garnier, had lived in the region of Quebec since the spring of 1634.

Paul Vachon certainly had an extraordinary education, as we shall come to see later. However, his handwriting, even after three centuries, always gives his readers cause for suffering!

Paul Vachon had many different trades it would seem, one of which was masonry. In 1654, in company with Mathurin Roy, he built the chapel and some sick wards of the Hotel-Dieu of Quebec, whose first stone was laid by the Governor-General Jean-de-Lauzon.

On 14 June 1665, the Seigneur Giffard gave Vachon a concession in the town of Fargy in the Seigneury of Beauport. The area of this first concession was doubled 9 years later on 29 December 1664. Paul Vachon always gave special attention to his farm. In 1666, Michel Aubin, 22 years old, was his indentured servant. At the census of the following year, Paul owned 7 head of cattle and 20 arpents of cleared land. Fourteen years later, another census noted 35 arpents in use, 13 cattle, 1 pistol, 2 guns and a 61 year old domestic named Pierre in his service. Moreover, Vachon had obtained from Charles de LauzonCharney, the 12th of August 1660, a bit of land with 4 arpents of frontage, in the parish of Saint-Pierre, I.O. Thomas Le Seuer was his trusted farmer on the spot; Maurice Crepeau and Charles Courtois his good neighbors. Paul sold this farm on 14 September 1678 to Denis Roberge who gave it up on 21 November 1679.

If Paul Vachon needed the help of hired hands on his farms, it was because his other work required it. The principal profession of Vachon was that of Seigneurial Notary. One of his descendants, Andre Vachon, historian, found an act of 23 October 1655 in the Archives of the Sovereign Council, making reference to the title of Notary of Notre-Dame-des-Anges. The second piece known to have been by Vachon, carried a date of 24 March 1658, entitled as follows: "Concession of Jesuits to Francois Truffe dit Rotot." About that time Paul was "Procurer-Fiscal" of the Seigneuries of Lirec and the Ile of Orleans, Secretary to Charles de Lauzon and Recordkeeper for the Seigneuries of Beauport and Notre-Dame-des-Anges, nearby Quebec. Then on 10 November 1667, Monseigneur de Laval named him "Procurer-Fiscal" and Notary in the Seigneuries of Beauport and Isle of Orleans; functions that he concientiously carried out until he retired in 1693. His last contract, signed on 2 November was simply titled: "Transaction of Michel Giroux and of Jean-Paschal Prevost."

Paul and Marguerite had 12 children: 5 boys and 7 girls. The first 8 had their baptisms registered at Notre-Dame of Quebec, 3 of whom had been baptized at the little chapel in Beauport: Louise, born 25 May 1662 and baptized the 28th of the same month by M. Charles de Lauzon, Sieur de Charney; Charlotte, born 12 September 1666 and baptized the 18th by the Abbot Louis Angro; Pierre, baptized in the chapel of Beauport by Guillaume Mathieu, S.J., on 31 May 1671. The baptismal records of the last 4 children are at Beauport.

Marguerite, Louise, Madeleine and Françoise married respectively to J.-R. Duprac, Leonard Paillard, Raphael Giroux, Jean de Espinay. As for Charlotte, we know only that she was still living in 1681. Vincent, Noel and Pierre married into the families Cadieux, Giroux and Soulard. All these marriages were celebrated at Beauport.

The eldest of the family, Paul junior, was one of the first priests born on Canadian soil. Native of Beauport, and conditionally baptized at the house by Jean Creste, then officially baptized at Quebec on 9 November 1656 by Joseph Poncet, S.J., Paul pursued his studies at the Seminary of Quebec. He was raised to the dignity of a priest by Mgr de Laval on 21 December 1680. Father Vachon served the South Coast as far as Cap-Saint-Ignace in 1683, and the North Coast from the Grondines to Batascan. He was named Canon of the Quebec Chapter in 1684. In 1692 he served as Cure of Cap-de-la-Madeleine. The church of this three rivers parish, today a center for pilgrimages, was constructed under his direction in 1717. Canon Vachon died on 7 March 1729 and was buried in the sanctuary of the Church of the Cape. They exhumed his body in 1895, only to find him perfectly conserved.

Most of the descendants of Our Ancestor Paul Vachon are evidently known under the name of de Vachon. We find them most numerous today in the Beauce. The family branches stemming from the son Noel often have adopted the surname Pomerleau; those of the line from son Vincent sign themselves dit Laminee. A few even use the name Desfourechettes.

As for eminent descendants, it is enough for us to mention the prestigious name of Alexander Vachon, born at Saint-Raymond-de-Portneuf on 16 August 1886, from the marriage of J. Alexander Vachon and of Marie Davidson. He was a Laureate of Harvard University, a renowned chemist, the Rector of Laval University, Archbishop of Ottawa, and organizer of the famous Marian Congress of 1948.

In the year 1981 the Diocese of Quebec received a new Archbishop, His Excellency Monseigneur Louis-Albert Vachon, born at Saint-Frederic de Beauce on 4 February 1912. Son of Napoleon Vachon and of Alexandrine Gilbert, he is of the 9th generation. Professor of Philosophy and Theology at Laval University, Superior of the Grand Seminary, Rector of the University of Laval, Auxiliary to His Eminence Maurice Roy in 1977: such are the important qualifications that he brings to Quebec, the oldest Episcopal See in North America, except for that of Mexico.

If the "Spanish grippe" left a sad souvenir among our ancestors, one could say that the medicine of 1700 was even more useless in the face of those epidemics, the worst of all sorts.

Between 1699 and 1703, the Vachon family was hit full force with the mortality of man. Noel Vachon, the husband of Monique Giroux, father of a fruitful son, died at the hospital of Quebec in the midst of the beautiful summer of 1699. The 28th of February 1702, Guillaume Vachon, a 20 year old bachelor was buried at Beauport. Then, in 1703 there were four burials: Pierre on 17 January; M. Madeleine on 18 February; Marguerite, the eldest of the girls, on 24 June. We have to add with sadness that on the next day 25 June, Our Ancestor Paul Vachon, widower of Marguerite Langlois since 25 September 1697, died in his turn after having seen three of his children put in their graves. One might well ask, "What was this terrible sickness that in the single year of 1703. in the space of 6 months, decimated this family?"

The chronicles of the Ursulines provide us with the opportunity to do the precise research necessary to understand the history of these plagues. "In the winter of 1700-1701, there was an illness among the people of Quebec which had some strange symptoms. The sickness came on with a bad cold, soon augmented by a high fever followed by pains in the sides, after which it carried the people away in a few days . . ." M. de Bernieres, doyen of the Cathederal Choir died on 4 December 1700. "By the end of November (1702-03), the sickness began in the city. It had been brought here by a savage from the frontier. It was a kind of measles, accompanied by facial marks, and in less than two months, more than 1500 were ill and between 300 and 400 died." It seems that this epidemic struck down a fourth of the population of Quebec.

There is not any doubt that the last four victims of the Vachon family, including Our Ancestor himself, were laid low by this species of measles. They say that the following year the same pestilence happened in Louisiana.

Such is, in brief, the beautiful story of Ancestor Paul Vachon and his wife Marguerite Langlois who well might deserve a little monument, or at least a commemorative plaque, somewhere in Beauport.