Penetanguishene’s Vasseur Family
- Ontario Métis Facts
- Jun 12
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 18
The Vasseurs were among Penetanguishene’s founding Métis families who relocated from Drummond Island after the War of 1812, taking up a land grant “across the bay” from the small British naval outpost in Penetanguishene harbour alongside other members of their Métis community.
Born in Quebec, Charles Vasseur went west with the Hudson’s Bay Company, serving in the British military, including in the capture of Mackinaw in 1812. While at Mackinaw, Charles “married a young half-breed woman, named Marguerite Langlade, a near relative of the famous Captain (Charles) Langlade.”
Charles and Marguerite soon moved to Drummond Island, a strategic outpost and home to many of Marguerite’s Métis relatives. There, the Vasseurs welcomed the first of their more than ten children into the community’s already-rich Métis kinship network.
Soon after, however, the Vasseurs relocated to Penetanguishene alongside other members of their community when Drummond Island was formally ceded by the British to the United States.
There, near Pinery Point—across the bay from the small naval outpost—the Vasseur family took up a 20-acre land grant offered in recognition of the community’s allyship with the British during the War of 1812 and as compensation for their losses during the relocation. The Vasseurs’ land grant, listed in Charles’ name, is depicted alongside those of other Métis families in an 1830 map of Penetanguishene Harbour.
Many of Charles and Marguerite Vasseur’s Métis children and their descendants would continue marrying and raising their Métis families within their close-knit Métis community at Pinery Point and its surrounding area over the coming generations.
Nearly a century later, for example, Charles and Marguerite’s then 92-year-old son, Paul Vasseur—playfully referred to as the “he-man” and former “terror of Penetanguishene”—was highlighted in a 1921 Toronto Star article describing the visibly distinct Métis community that endured at Pinery Point, near Penetanguishene, with a still-recognizable identity and Métis way of life.
Despite his “terror of Penetanguishene” nickname, Paul and his family were deeply embedded within the Georgian Bay Métis Community’s extensive kinship network. In the early 1860s, for instance, Paul married Marie Legris Prisque, the Métis daughter of Julie Cadieux. Like Paul’s older brother, Charles Jr., Julie was born on Drummond Island before their Métis community relocated to Penetanguishene in the fall of 1828. Marie’s brother, Jean Baptiste, married Philomene Dusome, sister of Elizabeth Longlade (nee Dusome).
Like many of their Métis relatives living “across the bay”, the Vasseurs have continued contributing to their Métis community over the span of generations, including to Penetanguishene’s eventual development and to preserving the Georgian Bay Métis Community’s extensive kinship structures that have enabled it to retain its cohesiveness, resiliency, and distinct Métis identity to this day.
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