Jean Cusson de Rouen, Normandy, France
Jean, agriculturalist (farmer), fiscal magistrate, registrar, royal notary, provisional magistrate of the King, born in Clair, near Rouen (Normandy) in 1632 or about 1635 or 1636, son of Jean Cusson and of Jaqueline Pepin, deceased at Saint Sulpice, Quebec the 8th of April 1718.
One could say with reason enough that the early colonists of New France, artisans or military people more than agriculturists, drawn (to the new world) moreover by the fur treaty, were interested only moderately in agriculture. For many of them, the cultivation of their lands remained a marginal activity and constituted in short only a supplement, necessary but submitted to with impatience, which one got out of at the first opportunity.
There were certainly, real "habitants" and Jean Cusson was among those. Having married in Trois Rivieres, the 16th of September 1656, to Marie Foubert, a girl 15 years old, originally from Rouen, Cusson established himself at Cap-de-la-Madeleine. As early as 1667, the couple possessed seven horned animals and twenty-eight producing acres, which was really extraordinary. ( A french arpent-acre is about 1 1/2 English acre.) Cusson, certainly, had sufficient resources to hire farm hands such as Francois Vannasse (already there in 1666) and Jean Pilon, 25 and 40 respectively, censused (listed as residents) at his home in 1667. However, in spite of the functions which he was going to fill in the justice (judicial) area, Cusson did not neglect the cultivation of his lands. In 1681 he declared six horned animals and forty acres.
When, in 1669, the Jesuits, seigneurs of Cap-de-la-Madeleine, gave Cusson a commission as Notary, fiscal amgistrate and registrar, the intendant, Boutrose d'Aubigny, struggled justly in Quebec to remove from the West Indies Company the right of nomination of the notaries, and to restrain the powers of the seigneurs. Cusson in his commission as fiscal magistrate and registrar, the Intendant authorized him however to execute that of notary only temporarily, and on the express condition that he took the title of royal notary. The seigneurs would soon have no more than the right of presentation of the notaries the nomination being in the province of the Intendant. Cusson performed the functions of natary at Cap-de-la-Madeleine until 1687, then, from 1687-1700, in the Seignoury of Champlain. In 1700, he went to Montreal where he performed his duties for four years. He resided at Pointe-aux-Trembles. In 1704, at the age of about 70, Cusson went into retirement, from which he came out momentarily in 1707-1708, when he was provisional magistrate of the King at Montreal.
Cusson had twelve children by his wife. A fact rather rare at the time, they all reached adult age.
