Christophe Pélissier (businessman)
Christophe Pélissier (29 April 1728 – before October 1779) (sometimes spelled Pellissier) was born in the parish of Saint-Pierre et Saint-Saturnin, Lyons, France, the son of François-Christophe Pélissier, a merchant, and Agathe Martaud La Rigaudière. He died, apparently in France, in 1779.
Christophe Pélissier | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 28, 1728 Saint-Pierre et Saint-Saturnin, Lyons, France |
| Died | before October 1779 France |
| Allegiance | .svg.png.webp){kind=small} United States |
| Service/ | Army |
| Years of service | Continental Army: 1776 |
| Rank | Engineer lieutenant colonel |
He was director of the Saint-Maurice ironworks near the city of Trois-Rivières in Quebec in the mid-1770s.
When the Americans invaded Quebec in 1775, Pélissier, whom his business associate Pierre de Sales Laterrière described as a "strong supporter of John Wilkes and his system of freedom", strongly supported the American cause. General Richard Montgomery met with him in December 1775 to discuss the establishment of a provincial convention for the purpose of electing representatives to the Second Continental Congress, a step Pélissier advised against until Quebec City was taken.
His ironworks supplied ammunition, bombs, and cannonballs for the siege of Quebec; he also wrote a letter to the Second Continental Congress on January 8, 1776, to point out the measures they should take for a successful taking of Quebec.[1] As the Americans retreated from Quebec in May and June 1776, Pélissier fled the province with them. On July 29, 1776, he received an engineering lieutenant colonel's commission in the Continental Army, and in October assisted in the improvement of the defenses at Fort Ticonderoga.[2] He eventually returned to his family home in France.[3]
When he fled Quebec, Pélissier left behind his second wife Catherine, who began to have an affair with Laterrière in his absence. (It is likely that Laterrière was also a suitor of hers prior to her marriage.) Pélissier, apparently unaware of the affair, was eventually granted permission to return to Quebec to bring her to France. He finally left Quebec for good and returned to France in 1778 only with the children from his first marriage, and the satisfaction of having Laterrière accused of collaboration with the Americans (for which Laterrière would spend three years in prison).[4]
Laterrière and Catherine married in October 1779, presumably having received word of Pélissier's death.[4]
References
- Fortier, M.-F. (1979). "Pélissier, Christophe". In Halpenny, Francess G (ed.). Dictionary of Canadian Biography. IV (1771–1800) (online ed.). University of Toronto Press.
- Anderson, Mark R. (2013). The Battle for the Fourteenth Colony: America's War of Liberation in Canada, 1774-1776. University Press of New England. ISBN 978-1611684971.
- Gabriel, Michael P. (2002). Major General Richard Montgomery: The Making of an American Hero. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. ISBN 978-0-8386-3931-3.
- Walker, Paul K. (2002). Engineers of Independence: A Documentary History of the Army Engineers in the American Revolution, 1775-1783. The Minerva Group. ISBN 978-1-4102-0173-7.
- Griffin, Martin Ignatius Joseph (1907). Catholics and the American Revolution, Vol 1. The Author. This book contains much of Pélissier's letter to Congress, translated into English, on pp. 223–227.