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LA ROCQUE (Larocque, Larrocque), FRANÇOIS-ANTOINE (he signed LaRocque), fur trader and businessman; b. 19 Aug. 1784 at L’Assomption, Que., son of François-Antoine Larocque, first representative for the county of Leinster (L’Assomption), and Marie-Angélique Leroux Desneval, daughter of Germain Leroux, merchant of L’Assomption; d. 1 May 1869 at Saint-Hyacinthe, Que, and was buried there on 5 May.

Shortly after his father’s death on 31 Oct. 1792, young François-Antoine La Rocque, who had studied at the Collège de Montréal, was sent to the United States to learn English. He would prefer expressing himself in that language for the rest of his life. In 1801, through his uncle Laurent Leroux*, who had established Fort Resolution (N.W.T.) in 1784, he joined the XY Company as a clerk, working in the region of the Assiniboine River from 1802 to 1804. When this company was absorbed by the North West Company in 1804, he continued to work as a clerk in the Upper Red River department. In the autumn of 1804 he left Fort Assiniboine, with Charles McKenzie*, Jean-Baptiste Lafrance, and four other voyageurs, to go to the Mandan villages on the banks of the Missouri. There, on 25 November, he met the American captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who were under orders to explore the upper Missouri and the northwest as far as the Pacific Ocean. La Rocque suggested that he accompany them, but when they refused, he continued alone on his own expedition. The Journal of Larocque from the Assiniboine to the Yellowstone, 1805 contains the account of the first explorer to visit the territory of the Crow people since the expedition of Louis-Joseph Gaultier* de La Vérendrye in 1742, and throws a new light on the Hidatsa (known to the French as Gros Ventres) and Mandan peoples.

In 1807 La Rocque left the northwest for Montreal, where he founded an unsuccessful business firm. During the War of 1812 he was an ensign in the 3rd militia division of Lower Canada and then a captain in the 5th battalion of Chasseurs Canadiens. He was taken prisoner in October 1813, held at Cincinnati, and set free six months later when prisoners were exchanged. On his return to Montreal after the war, he was decorated with the Châteauguay medal. In Montreal, on 26 Jan. 1818, he married Marie-Catherine-Émilie Cotté, daughter of the merchant Gabriel Cotté*.

In 1817 La Rocque was one of the founders of the Bank of Montreal, and remained a member of its board of directors until 1826. When the bank was founded, he was one of the principal French Canadian shareholders, along with his uncle Laurent Leroux and Augustin Cuvillier*. La Rocque was also actively engaged in trade. He was a partner of Joseph Masson* and subsequently organized his own business in 1832 under the name of La Rocque, Bernard, et Compagnie. During the rebellion of 1837, La Rocque was affiliated with the Fils de la Liberté but did not take up arms. Nevertheless, he was imprisoned in Montreal in April 1838 “for having an article on Canada printed and sold at Montreal.”

In September 1841, after the marriage of his only son, Alfred, to Amélia Berthelet, daughter of Olivier Berthelet*, he retired from business, and led a quiet life until June 1853. At that time he undertook a long trip to the principal cities in the United States, including Cincinnati, where he had been a war prisoner. La Rocque was by then concerned only with his eternal salvation, and this journey of nearly a year was in effect a long pilgrimage. In 1855 he entered the Hôtel-Dieu of Saint-Hyacinthe run by the Grey Nuns, and here he spent the last years of his life in retreat and study.

Just as for many of La Rocque’s contemporaries, the fur trade had been the initial source of his success. In addition, to him fell “the honour of having opened up the upper Missouri basin to penetration by Canada.” A founding member, and one of the rare French Canadians to be a director, of the Bank of Montreal, a partner in the firm of Masson, La Rocque, Strang and Company, and a founder of La Rocque, Bernard et Compagnie, he was a highly respected businessman, in both English and French circles, in the first half of the 19th century.

André L. J. Lamalice