Pierre Belleque

He was born in the parish of L'Assomption-de-la-Sainte-Vierge in Charlevoix county in the province of Québec. He was born 5 January 1797, and baptized the following day by the parish priest, Father Dominique (born Jean-Baptiste Prémoulx) at the parish church, Saint-Pierre-du-Portage. His baptism can be seen on any genealogy site which carries the parish records of Québec. His father, a farmer, was Louis Bélêc and his mother, Marguerite Baudouin (Beaudoin). He was the tenth of eleven children, and the youngest of the four siblings known to have survived beyond two years of age. ==Fur trade==

In 1818, Belleque signed up with the British North West Company, and became an employee of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) in 1821 when the two companies were forced to merge. Around 1830, he claimed some land on the French Prairie in the Willamette Valley. ==Oregon==

Around 1833, Belleque settled his farm, which lay next to Étienne Lucier, a fellow former French Canadian fur trapper for the HBC. There Belleque and his wife, Genevieve St. Martin, lived at the Willamette Fur Post near Champoeg. That post had been owned by the HBC, and the Belleque family was able to live there after receiving permission due to Genevieve's relation to one of the HBC officers. The couple would have seven children). At that time of this petition, Belleque had three children. In 1843, at Champoeg, Belleque participated in the debates over whether the settlers in the region should establish their own government, or wait until the Oregon boundary dispute was settled. At the final vote on May 2, 1843, Some of the French Canadian pioneers voted against forming a government. Pierre Belleque would remain at his farm for 15 years, and then left for the California Gold Rush in 1848. Returning home by steamship in 1849 from San Francisco, he became quite ill from a fever contracted in the Gold Fields. He died before reaching home and was buried at sea near the mouth of the Columbia River in October 1849. ==References==