People are identified by their documented role; a seigneur is not automatically a hereditary noble or monarch.
Claude de Ramezay
1659–1724 · Colonial governor and seigneur.
Ramezay served as governor of Trois-Rivières (1690–1699), governor of Montréal (1704–1724) and acting governor of New France (1714–1716). These were offices within the French colonial administration, not a Canadian royal title.
He commissioned his Montréal residence in 1705; the family occupied it from spring 1706 until his death in 1724. The house therefore connects a governor’s official position with his domestic life. His widow subsequently rented it to Intendant Gilles Hocquart.
Dating note: the Québec heritage register gives 15 June 1659 as his birth date; the museum’s history page gives 1657. This catalogue follows the heritage register.
Born in Tours, Mauvide settled on Île d’Orléans around 1720 as a surgeon. He married Marie-Anne Genest in 1733 and built his house in 1734. His later business interests included shipping and the wheat trade.
In 1752 he acquired the southwestern half of the Île d’Orléans seigneury. The residence predates that purchase: it was not originally built for an established seigneur. In 1779 financial difficulties led him to transfer the domain to his son-in-law René-Amable Durocher. Mauvide remained in the manor until his death.
Fraser acquired the seigneury from Henry Caldwell on 2 August 1802. The family archive identifies him as a son of Malcolm Fraser and Marie Allaire, born at Beaumont in Québec. His acquisition of the seigneury and his acquisition of the present manor were separate events.
He bought the house in 1834 and lived there until his death on 14 June 1837. The building’s subsequent enlargement in 1888 belongs to William Fraser’s period, not Alexandre’s. The surviving family archive includes correspondence, notarial deeds and financial papers: useful evidence for studying estate management beyond the architecture.