LE COMTE DUPRÉ, JEAN-BAPTISTE, merchant and trader, militia captain; baptized 4 Aug. 1689 in Montreal, son of Louis Le Conte* Dupré, a merchant, and Marie-Catherine de Saint-Georges; d. 24 May 1765 in Montreal.

Upon his father’s death in 1715, and under his mother’s direction, Jean-Baptiste Le Comte Dupré took over the family business, which was based upon the fur trade. On several occasions he went to the pays d’en haut; in the 1720s he apparently gave up being a “voyageur” to devote himself entirely to the role of “merchant-outfitter.” He signed several contracts of partnership, among them one in 1726 with Jean-Baptiste Jarret de Verchères and another in 1730 and 1731 with Charles Legardeur de Croisille. In addition to promising “boatmen” for the trip to the pays d’en haut, Le Comte Dupré supplied funds and merchandise to the traders.

In 1733 Le Comte Dupré was elected churchwarden for the parish of Notre-Dame de Montréal, and in 1749 he was entrusted with the post of militia captain for the côte of La Visitation (government of Montreal), a post he held until 1760. After the signing of the treaty of Paris, Le Comte Dupré was one of the prominent Canadians who sent a petition to George III on 12 Feb. 1763, requesting him to recognize Canadian paper money and to authorize the importation of French goods bought a long time before. In an ordinance of 22 May 1763 Governor Thomas Gage* requested that the Canadians present their bills of exchange, card money, and certificates to the notary Pierre Panet* so that two detailed statements could be drawn up from them. Subsequently these claims were to be sent to England and from there to the French government for compensation. Le Comte Dupré entered the sum of 74,857 livres 10 sols.

Jean-Baptiste Le Comte Dupré died on 24 May 1765 in Montreal, where on 30 Jan. 1727 he had married Marie-Anne Hervieux, sister of the merchant Louis-François Hervieux. Two of their sons, Jean-Baptiste* and Georges-Hippolyte, were also merchants.

Yves Quesnel