Penetanguishene’s Laramee Family
- Ontario Métis Facts
- Jun 13
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 18
The Laramees were among Penetanguishene’s founding Métis families who relocated from Drummond Island alongside other members of their Métis community after the Island was formally handed over to the United States following the War of 1812. They took up a land grant across the bay from the small British naval outpost in Penetanguishene harbour.
The family’s Métis matriarch, Rosette (Josette) Cloutier, grew up in the vibrant Métis community at Mackinaw Island in the Upper Great Lakes. There, she met her future husband, Jacques Adam dit. Laramee, a North West Company employee and War of 1812 Veteran. The couple married à la façon du pays on Mackinaw before moving with the British forces and other members of Rosette’s community to Drummond Island.
There, Rosette and Jacques Adams dit. Laramee welcomed their four Métis children into the Upper Great Lakes Métis community’s rich kinship networks and raised their family within the Métis community’s traditional way of life, including participating in the annual spring sugar camps common among Métis families throughout the Upper Great Lakes.
In 1828, however, the young Laramee family made the treacherous voyage to Penetanguishene alongside other members of their Métis community, after being displaced from Drummond Island following the British ceding the island to the Americans after the War of 1812. The Laramee’s daughter, Rosette Boucher (nee Laramee), later shared memories of her family’s relocation with journalist A.C. Osborne:
“We came in a large bateau with two other families and a span of horses. Our family consisted of father, mother, four children—Julien, Zoa, James, and myself. James was only two years old. I was about thirteen.“
Like other members of their community, the Laramees took up a small land grant near Pinery Point, “across the bay” from Penetanguishene’s small naval outpost, that were provided in recognition of the community’s allyship during the War of 1812 and in recognition of their losses during the relocation. The family’s land grant, listed in Jacques Adams’ name, is depicted alongside those of other Métis families in an 1830 map of Penetanguishene harbour.
There, the Laramees continued to contribute and marry extensively within the Métis community for generations to come.
Rosette Boucher’s (nee Laramee) siblings Zoe and James Jacques Adam dit. Laramaee, for example, each married members of the Métis Gendron family. Their children, in turn, married extensively into other Métis families—including the Brissette, Giroux, Longlade, and Vasseur families–contributing to the deep and sustained endogamy that has enabled the Georgian Bay Métis Community to remain a cohesive and resilient Métis collective, with a proud and distinct identity to this day.
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