Antoine died and was buried January 23, 1703 at Ste-Famille, Île d'Orléans, Québec, Canada.

NOTE: Jeanne Chevalier has been recorded as Jeanne de Rouville or de Bourville.

The actual marriage took place nearly two weeks later on November 24, 1659, in Notre-Dame church of Québec, (It was officially classified as a parish church in 1664 and dedicated as Notre-Dame-de-l'Immaculée-Conception.) Antoine marries Marie Teste, a young (twenty year old girl) from La Rochelle (France). Marie was born about 1632 in Salles-de-Villefagnan. Angoulême, Angoumois, France, the daughter of JEAN TESTE and JEANNE TALONNEAU. She died and was buried September 11, 1701 at Ste-Famille, Île d'Orléans, Québec, Canada. Ste-Famille, is the cradle of our Lachance family.

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No one knew and described the islanders of Orléans in his time better than Msgr David Gosselin (1846-1926). He devoted three large volumes, more than a thousand pages in all, to praise their worthiness and commend the virtues of the ancestors who cleared this island three centuries ago.

David Gosselin wrote about the family Pépin dit Lachance. He said: They were not slow to cross over to Saint-Jean, which we can aptly call the breeding ground of the Lachances. If I had to show the numerous offspring for eight or nine generations who have succeeded there, to chat a little about them, this historical account would be material for a volume."

In 1666, Antoine and Marie were living at Ste-Famille, they had a 24 year old servant, Antoine Drapeau.
In 1667, they owned five head of cattle and had 14 arpents under cultivation.
In 1681, a 50 year old carpenter, Louis Bidet, lived with them.
By 1681, they had nine children, eight heads of cattle, 30 arpents under cultivation and owned a gun.

The Pépins dit Lachance, some of whom left behind the name Pépin in favor of Lachance or vice-versa, left their island in large numbers in order to make their homes at Québec and the surrounding areas. Here they may be counted by the thousands. Some others continued farther away, some as far as what is now the US.

SERVANT OF GOVERNOR LOUIS D'AILLEBOUST

Louis d'Aillebout de Coulonge was appointed administrator of New France on September 13, 1657. He remained Governor from September 13 to July 10, 1658.

Documents indicate that Antoine left for New France at about the age of fifteen, and arrived in Québec between 1651 and 1652. On January 4, 1653 the Seigneur de Lauzon granted him, along with another servant of the Governor, Francois Gaulin, and area of five arpents in frontage by forty deep in his seigneurie. He granted them both a new deed on the following 4th of June.

After working as the servant of the Governor Louis d'Aillebout, on 24 June 1659, with an associate, Jacques Asselin, Antoine purchases, from Denys Guyon, a piece of land in Ste-Famille de l'Île D'Orléans which had been rented in part to his brother François Pepin the year before.

LIFE GOES ON

Antoine dies at the age of 67 on January 23, 1703 at Ste-Famille, two years after the death of Marie Teste who was then 62 years old. Both of them rest in peace in the Ste-Famille cemetery.

While our ancestor Antoine and his wife raised a dozen children, this pales by comparison with their son Jean, who was the father of no less than twenty-two offspring from his two successive marriages, Renee Guyon and Madeleine Fontaine. It is Jean and Madeleine Fontaine from whom Larry Lachance (your host) is descended.