In my last blog post I wrote about Francois Hogue and Angelique Coiteux. Now I will follow the Hogue line from Quebec to our first appearance in western Canada.
Francois and Angelique had a son Joseph Amable, born February 5, 1734 in Rivière des Prairies, Quebec. He married Marie Josephe Belanger and they had seven children. Marie Josephe died at the age of 35 and Joseph married again, this time to Marie Josephe Paquet, and they had 14 children. Yes, you read that correctly. Joseph Amable was the father of 21 children! At least 5 of them died in infancy. I have not found a burial record for Joseph, but he was dead by the time his second wife died in 1806.
Our direct ancestor from the first marriage is Louis Amable Hogue born April 28, 1769 and baptized at St-Vincent-de-Paul-de-l`Ile-Jésus, Laval, Quebec and married to Marie Anne Labelle May 18, 1795. They had at least two children, our ancestor Louis Amable Hogue and another son, Joseph. Again, I have not been able to locate burial records for either Louis or Marie Anne.
Their son, Louis Amable Hogue, usually referred to as just Amable Hogue, was the first Hogue to come west. He was born July 14, 1796 in the same parish as his father, just north of the island of Montreal. You can see it as number 5 on the map.
Baptism of Louis Amable Hogue 14 Jul 1796 at St-Vincent-de-Paul-de I’lle-Jesus, Laval; Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), accessed on ancestry.ca
Amable served in the military during the War of 1812. I was very excited when I discovered a document which, at the time, was available for free on the Canadiana website. Unfortunately that is now a subscription website. The document is from The Journals of the House of Assembly of Lower-Canada, from the 21st January, to the 25th March, 1815.
In this document, we find Amable listed as being 18 years old, of fair complexion with a long face, grey eyes, light brown hair and was 5’5” tall. I have never seen a picture of Amable, but it was exciting to find these details of his appearance! Amable was a member of the Canadian Chasseurs, under the command of Gerald De Courcy. I found a little bit of background on this unit at the website called 1812: Archive Secrets, which is produced by the Stewart Museum in Montreal
“In September 1812, another battalion of Select Embodied Militia was created for the Montreal area. This Fifth Battalion was soon known as the Devil’s Own because it included a number of lawyers, among them, Louis Lévesque and Louis-Joseph Papineau. Command was given to Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Murray of the 60th Regiment. In March 1814, the battalion was inspected by Major General Francis de Rottenburg. On his recommendation, George Prevost decided to convert the battalion into a light infantry corps. Some of the officers were replaced. The new commander was the Hon. Gérald de Courcy and the battalion was renamed the Chasseurs Canadiens. ”
I don’t know what battles Amable fought in, but the document tells us that he was “wounded in the left arm and rendered unfit for service” at Plattsburgh on September 11th, 1814. Unfortunately this was the battle the Americans won.
I’ve found no records indicating what Amable did after the war, although their is evidence he was skilled as a mason. In 1821 he joined the Hudson’s Bay Company in whose service he came west. Here is a link to his record from HBC Archives.
Amable was one of Sir George Simpson’s handpicked elite crew of voyageurs that paddled the canoes. Hmmm…guess that arm injury wasn’t too much of a disability!
Amable travelled to the Columbia district with Simpson twice; once in 1824/25 and once in 1828/29. The 1824 trip from York Factory to the mouth of the Columbia River is described by author James Raffan in Emperor of the North: Sir George Simpson and the Remarkable Story of the Hudson’s Bay Company as “the most incredible canoe journey in Canadian history”. It was completed in 84 days, setting a record for the fastest and longest canoe voyage in one season. Interestingly, another ancestor, James McMillan accompanied Simpson on this journey, as did Amable’s future brother-in-law, Tom Taylor.
In 1831 Amable married Margaret Taylor, the ancestor I found in a history book (see my post here).
I’ll continue their story in another post.
As Canadian as can be 
