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Louise de Ramezay
Born: July 6, 1705 in Montreal, Quebec
Died: October 22, 1776 in Chambly, Quebec
Religion: Catholicism
Ethnicity: French
Primary residence: Montreal, Quebec
Born into an influential family in New France, Louise de Ramezay spent her childhood among other nobles. Her father, Claude de Ramezay, was the governor of Montreal, and her sister, Mother Saint-Claude de Ramezay, became the Mother Superior of Quebec City’s Hopital General, known as the “warrior nun” for her work during the British attack on Quebec in 1759.[1] Educated by the Ursuline Convent in Quebec, she remained single all her life. Even as a child, she was engaged in the life of the aristocracy, appearing at official functions, and nursing the sick during a smallpox epidemic in 1724.[2] After her father’s death that year, she slowly became involved in managing her family’s prodigious properties. From 1739 to 1765, she consistently administered the sawmill that her father had built on the Riviere des Hurons. The sawmill drew upon the rich timber of the Richelieu river and Lake Champlain area, creating lumber for French ships at Quebec. Louise de Ramezay ran her business largely from afar, supervising and settling debts but hiring a foreman to take charge of the mill’s day-to-day workings.[3]
In the 1740s, de Ramezay entered into several other entrepreneurial ventures. In 1745, she opened a new sawmill and flour-mill on the seigneury of Rouville in partnership with Marie-Anne Legras, the wife of Jean-Baptiste-François Hertel de Rouville, which operated under their partnership for sixteen years. The next year, in 1746, she entered into partnership with Jean Chartier, a habitant with land in the seigneury of La Livaudière, to the west of Lake Champlain along the Chazy River.[4] In 1749, she acquired a tannery in Coteau-Saint-Louis on Montreal Island. Also in 1749, she was granted the seigneury of Ramezay-la-Gesse, of “six leagues front by six leagues depth of Lake Champlain” surrounding the River au Sable on the western side of the lake, directly across the lake from what is now Colchester.[5]
Residing mainly in Montreal, Louise de Ramezay ran her many businesses efficiently and successfully, likely because of her own business acumen, and the many connections and advantages that her social position awarded her.[6] It was not uncommon for European noblewomen to manage family affairs in the absence or death of men, and Louise de Ramezay was one among a group of formidable noblewomen in New France who directed ventures in fur trading, textiles, potteries, fishing and hunting, and iron forging.[7] Indeed, one suggestion of her success, and of her love of life in New France, is that she chose to stay in Canada in 1760 after most nobles, including her brother, fled back to France after the British victory at Quebec.[8]
[1] Noel, Jan. Women in New France, Canadian Historical Association, Historical Booklet No. 59. Ottawa: The Canadian Historical Association, 1998, 9.
[3] Pare, Helene. Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online, “Louise de Ramezay,”http://www.biographi.ca, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2000, 1.
[5] Coolidge, Guy Omeron. The French Occupation of the Champlain Valley from 1609 to 1759. Harrison, New York: Harbor Hill Books, 1979, 107.
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