DESJORDY DE CABANAC, JOSEPH (sometimes written Cabanas), captain in the colonial regular troops, town major of Trois-Rivières; b. 1657 at Carcassonne, France; youngest son of Pierre de Jordy and Louise de Rathery; brother of Melchior and Pierre-François, who was the father of François Desjordy Moreau; m. 22 Nov. 1691 Madeleine Pézard de La Tousche at Champlain; d. there 25 April 1713 and was buried the next day.

In 1676 Joseph entered military service as a subaltern in the king’s regiment. In 1680 he transferred to the Régiment de Picardie and five years later he became a lieutenant in the colonial regular troops at Rochefort. That year, 1685, he accompanied his nephew, François, to Canada on the Diligente to serve under the command of New France’s new governor general, Jacques-René de Brisay de Denonville. In 1687 he went with Denonville’s troops to Cataracoui (Fort Frontenac), but the expedition against the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) ended in a humiliating compromise for the French and Joseph returned to Montreal with his company. Though he gained no honours in this expedition, he served with some distinction during William Phips*’s attack in 1690. Along with Claude-Sébastien de Villieu and Duclos de Beaumanoir, he was given special mention in dispatches for attacking the enemy’s camp east of the St Charles River.

Owing to the colony’s weakness, the practice was adopted of billeting soldiers and their officers throughout the rural areas to provide protection against Iroquois incursions. Officers were usually billeted with the seigneurs, and it was hardly surprising that many officers formed marital alliances with Canadian seigneurial families. This was true of Joseph, who in November 1691 married Madeleine, daughter of Étienne Pézard* de La Tousche, seigneur of Champlain. Joseph’s nephew, François, was present and signed the marriage contract and marriage certificate. To her husband, Madeleine brought the fief and house called “Le Moteux.”

In 1695 Joseph received from Governor Louis de Buade* de Frontenac and the intendant, Jean Bochart de Champigny, the fief of Cabanac on the Richelieu River. Some confusion exists with respect to this seigneury. The act of ratification gives the name of François Desjordy as the grantee of the seigneury on the Richelieu; since there is no record of François ever having made any grants from a seigneury on the Richelieu and proof exists that Joseph did make such grants, clearly there was an error on the part of the copyist. In 1695 or 1696, on the death of his father-in-law, Joseph Desjordy became co-seigneur of Champlain with his brother-in-law, Étienne de La Tousche.

In 1696 Joseph was promoted to the rank of captain and given a company of colonial troops. Louis-Hector de Callière, then the governor of Montreal, considered him a good officer. In 1709 he received the temporary post of commander of Trois-Rivières on the death of the Marquis Antoine de Crisafy. Finally, in June 1712, after Governor Philippe de Rigaud de Vaudreuil intervened, the king appointed Joseph Desjordy de Cabanac major of Trois-Rivières in succession to Raymond Blaise Des Bergères. Less than a year later, on 25 April 1713, Joseph Desjordy died at Champlain. His claim and that of his brother Melchior to nobility had been confirmed by Louis XIV on 23 Jan. 1703.

George F. G. Stanley