| Notes |
- Synopsis of the seven years research from 2000-2007 regarding this family, by Carolyn Johnson Petersen Rock, Historical Geographer and a tenth Great-grandchild of Jacques Hertel and his Iroquois Agnier "Mohawk" wife.
The Story up to This Point, from Volume 1, Jacques Hertel, His Life, Wives and Children
Underlined names are our ancestors. Jacques Hertel is pronounced Jhak Air-TAY.
The first volume of this family history traces the earliest historic and some prehistoric beginnings of the St. Lawrence and Mohawk Valley peoples, the beginnings of the French in Canada, and the early years of a dear young French boy, Jacques Hertel, (arrived at Quebec in 1613, at about age 10-13) who found himself alone in a world he could never have imagined. This was a wild world, one with people and animals never before seen by this youngster, and he had to learn to live among them without his parents or other relatives, survive, and make his way. He was captured by the Iroquois. We are told of his love for an Iroquois-Agnier-Mohawk native girl, and the two daughters born to them.
The British briefly owned French-Canada. Jacques was in Canada just prior to that time, qualifying for and plying his profession of Interpreter so he could trade for furs, make a living, get ahead, and see to the safety of his Agnier family. Jacques got out of Canada upon hearing the first rumblings of the trouble to come from the British, and went back to his Agnierrhonon friends and the life of the woods rather than submit to English captivity and rule.
Jacques Hertel returned to Canada in 1633, when his employer Samuel de Champlain had been reinstated to some degree as a leader representing the French king. However, the Blackrobe Jesuit priests were from then on to take precedence over Champlain in not only religious but also all secular matters. The British had totally backed away from involvement in the St. Lawrence River areas of Canada at that time, giving the French a clear field there.
Jacques had spent the seven more years of living among his friends the Agnierrhonon, then stayed in Canada from 1633 until his death.
Beaver for the fur trading, which was one of Jacques main jobs, in the Mohawk Valley were becoming fewer, and the native men were becoming more dangerous since they had to compete more over what furs they could attain. Smallpox, respiratory illnesses, and wars among the natives had reduced the strength of the numbers of Mohawk males, who would have been hunting friends, and allies to Jacques Hertel in business and fighting, to only 1/5 of what they once were.
The Belgian-Dutch and Holland-Dutch were becoming more involved in the trade close by to the east of Canagera along the Mohawk River in central NY state, and were looking more toward the Mohawk Valley in the interior, which would combine opportunity with increased danger for Jacques, a lone Frenchman among the natives and encroaching Dutch businessmen. The defeated Mohicans were no longer a threat to Jacques and his Agnier wife, daughters, and their Agnierrhonon relatives in that area, so that fight would no longer hold him to the Indian village.
Jacques was middle-age for those days, at age 30 or possibly even 33. He had been a fur trader and Interpreter and warrior for many years, a careers worth of time. The British were no longer a threat in New France. A man might see an opportunity to make a peaceful life in the beautiful lands along the St. Lawrence River, and get out of the very dangerous business of Interpreter and fur trader.
But what of his Agnier wife and daughters? The teenage girls Osistock and Canada (Kenutje) of course knew no place other than the village in Mohawk Country, and neither did the wife. Other White men, from the Netherlands, were beginning to come near, and make more efforts to settle and trade for the furs, items that could bring creature comforts to the Agniers.
Jacques Hertels Agnier wifes parents had escaped slavery and probable death at the hands of the Algonquins near the Canadian area where Jacques ultimately settled. Close along the Mohawk River, she with her own family and relatives had found a free if not entirely safe existence.
Not at Kebec (Quebec), too French for a French boy raised among natives, and his native family and friends; not at Montreal, the dark and bloody ground, where the native people split apart, but about halfway between where the three rivers meet, Troisfleuves, or Trois-Rivières, or Three-Rivers where no White man lived is where Jacques returned to Canada, with the strong support of his Indian friends. Jacques could make a safe place there for him and his Mohawk family, and continue to make a living in the fur trading and interpreting.
Jacques began right away acquiring large tracts of land, as he was able. Trois-Rivières is where the first piece of ground was granted to Jacques Hertel, and he became the first settler there. He owned the land according to French law, and could count on French help to defend it somewhat. Samuel de Champlain built a small fort at Trois-Rivières for that purpose, in 1635, shortly before his own death on Christmas Day 25 Dec 1635.
Time and distance now separated Jacques and his Agnier-Mohawk family. The Dutch arrived in the Mohawk Country in larger numbers, with more purpose. Jacques and the Agniers older daughter, Osistock, married a Netherlander, Broer Cornelis Antonisse Van Breukelen Van Slyck, and soon there was a grandson born to them. In two or three short years, both the girls had married White men from the Dutch trading settlements on the eastern part of the Mohawk River, one to the Dutchmens interpreter, the French-speaking Belgian Walloon Netherlander, Broer Cornelis Antonisse Van Slyck, the other to a Dutch-speaking Norwegian, Arent Andriesse Bradt.
With the birth of a second grandson, the Agnier lady was surrounded by her home, her daughters, her relatives, and those two baby grandsons!
It is probable also that the younger daughter, Canada (Kenutje) died during this period, and was buried in the Mohawk Country.
Being an Agnier-Mohawk woman, with her French-Canadian husband now far away in Canada, her daughters married to local White men, and one possibly died and buried, grand-babies arriving at the village with the Dutch fathers living apart at the White settlements, etc., this lady took a native husband, Shononsise the Huron, who upon marrying her acquired the whole kit and kaboodle. He now had a long house, hence the name given him, Shononsise.
Jacques, living alone and acquiring land along the St. Lawrence in Canada, surely must have received word of his familys events, and must have known that they could never re-unite now. With the breaking of the marriage between Jacques and the Agnier lady, according to Agnier marriage custom, not only was the marriage gone but the family alliances that would afford protection to Jacques Hertel as a family member, even though a Frenchman from Canada, were also broken, probably with regret on both sides. It would no longer be safe for Jacques to even go back to Mohawk Country in what would become in time, New York.
Jacques continued what he had begun, to acquire land, and to make a peaceful life along the St. Lawrence. Yet he, too, after seven years took another wife, one about the same age as his Agnier wife was when he met her, but this time, a French girl, Marie Marguèrie, sister of his neighbor and younger fellow-interpreter. He married her in 1641. She turned out to be a fine wife to him, with whom he had three more children. Apparently, he was also a loving husband to her.
Jacques earned the titles at various times of: Interpreter, Lieutenant, Captain, First Settler of Trois-Rivières, Mayor of Trois-Rivières, and Sieur de La Fresniere, indicating conferred nobility.
After Jacques died, his and Maries only son was captured by Iroquois as a boy or teen and taken to Canajoharie where he suffered much, but was courageous and tender, and he obtained release, and was called by both sides The Hero even in his own lifetime. He was made a Noble by the French King.
Jacques Agnier family stayed in the Mohawk Country, and grew and struggled and enjoyed and lived through much, but flourished. They were becoming tied more through marriage and business to the Dutch settlements which became towns and farms, as well as fur trading places. Marriages of their grandchildren continued to be to both Mohawk and White people. Great-grandchildren began to spring up.
How long the Agnier-Mohawk wife lived beyond Jacquess leaving Canagera is not known. Her island in the Mohawk River was given to their daughter Osistock and Broer Cornelis as a wedding gift about two years after Jacques left, and it became known then as Van Slycks Island. This was also about the same two or three years after the Agnier woman married Shononsise, making him the proprieter of the island. It was also at the time the fort at Trois Rivières was built and Champlain died.
The Indian [lady]. . . was buried on the great island known as Van Slyck Island, under an old willow tree at the eastern point of the island at the foot of Washington Avenue. The date of her death is not known . . . [Ruby M. F. Hall, _Cole History_, self-publ., p. 73]
Shononsise the Huron, 2nd husband to the Agnier lady, and stepfather to her daughters, is also buried on the island.
Marie Marguèrie, having also married again after Jacques died, and having borne more daughters to her husband St.Quentin, and having outlived both husbands, requested burial beside her first husband, Jacques Hertel, at Trois-Rivières. It was done according to her wishes.
It appears from records that this is the way it was, but only God and those who lived it really know.
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1600 - 1651 (~ 51 years)