COULON DE VILLIERS, NICOLAS-ANTOINE, captain; baptized 20 March 1683 at Mantes-la-Ville, France, son of Raoul-Guillaume Coulon, seigneur de Villiers-en-Arthies, and of Louise, daughter of Antoine de La Fosse, seigneur de Valpendant; d. 16 Sept. 1733 in battle at Baie des Puants (Green Bay, Wis.).

The family of Nicolas-Antoine Coulon de Villiers formed part of the rich provincial nobility. Nothing is known of his youth, but on 26 April 1700 he received from the king the expectancy of an ensignship in Canada, and he apparently arrived in Quebec City that summer.

A few months after he arrived, in October 1700, Governor Louis-Hector de Callière named him an ensign. In 1703 Coulon de Villiers was garrisoned in Montreal, where his name appears in several notarial acts. He seems to have married in 1705, for on 7 December of that year, before the notary Abel Michon, he signed a marriage contract with Angélique Jarret de Verchères, Madeleine*’s sister. On 1 July 1715 he was promoted lieutenant on the active list.

He was appointed in 1725 commandant at the post on the St Joseph River (Michigan). There we find his name mentioned in the register of baptisms under the date 26 Aug. 1725. On 25 Nov. 1730, in the same register, he is called “seigneur of Verchères” (although there is no mention of his name in the list of land grants, it may be that he inherited a part of the Verchères seigneury through his wife). His role at the post was above all a military one, but he also proved to be a skilled diplomat in his interactions with Indigenous people, and the fur trade gave him opportunities to supplement his income. Furthermore, in 1727, he had an 11-year-old Iowa boy, whom he had forced into slavery, baptized in Verchères with the name Pierre.

In 1730, along with Nicolas-Joseph de Noyelles* de Fleurimont and Robert Groston de Saint-Ange, he took part in an expedition against the Fox (Meskwaki) people, whose members had taken refuge in a fort located on the banks of the St Joseph River. In his account of the expedition he recorded that “the siege of their fort lasted 23 days; they were reduced to eating leather, and we were little better off.” Taking advantage of a stormy night, the besieged tried to flee, but the French and their Indigenous allies killed a large number of them. Coulon de Villiers then sent one of his sons to Quebec City to notify the governor of this important military success. On 18 June 1731 he personally took to Montreal the Fox chief, who begged for mercy for those of his people who had survived.

It was probably on this occasion that Governor Charles de Beauharnois* de La Boische appointed him commandant of the post at Baie des Puants. He was also promoted captain on 1 April 1733. Coulon de Villiers did not enjoy his new position for long. On 16 September he once more had to fight against the Fox, who had taken refuge among the Sauk at the bottom of Baie des Puants. He tried to force his way into their small fort, but was met with gunfire. One of his sons, whose name we do not know, was killed. Coulon de Villiers met the same fate, as did his son-in-law François Regnard Duplessis (who had married Marie-Madeleine), the officer Jean-Baptiste-René Legardeur de Repentigny, and other French soldiers.

Coulon de Villiers had been a dedicated officer, but the minister of Marine, in a letter addressed to Beauharnois on 12 April 1735, said that his “rash and foolhardy conduct” might have been the cause of his death.

He had seven boys and six girls; two of his sons, Joseph*, Sieur de Jumonville, and Louis*, made their mark in history. On 13 April 1734 Madame de Villiers was granted a pension of 300 livres. She died the same year and was buried on 30 December.

Jean-Guy Pelletier