The Story of Winifred Coss

The final French and Indian War was not a footnote — it was the hinge. Sixty thousand French subjects against two million British colonists, yet Canada held the interior until the ships and muskets tipped. When the smoke cleared in 1763, New France was British, thirteen colonies were angry, and two branches of one family stood on opposite sides of a border that would not hold peace for twenty years. Between 1751 and 1815 the English line learned revolution; the French line learned to live under a Protestant king and keep their language; and a Cree métis girl on the Red River would one day meet a Vermont soldier's grandson in a way no parish register in Perche could have predicted.

28 May 1754: twenty-two-year-old Lt. Colonel George Washington ambushed a French patrol at Jumonville Glen — the Forks of the Ohio, Fort Duquesne, Pittsburgh not yet invented. The fourth French and Indian War exploded across the continent and the Atlantic; Britain blockaded Canada while Acadians who refused the oath were scattered — some toward Louisiana, seed of the Cajun name. Seven Years' War followed in Europe 1756. Montcalm took Fort William Henry 1757; Native allies massacred surrendered British troops and carried smallpox back to the Ohio valley. Louisbourg fell 1758. September 1759 on the Plains of Abraham — ground Abraham Martin had farmed since Champlain's company — Wolfe and Montcalm both died; Lévis won a second battle on the plain but the fleet forced retreat; Montréal surrendered 8 September 1760. Great Britain switched to the Gregorian calendar 1752. Charles-Joseph Carrier married Marie Anne Pichet on Île d'Orléans 1752; Joseph Carrier born Lévis 1755. Marguerite St Sauveur born Longueuil 1757 to Nicholas Louis St Sauveur and Marie Angélique Chrétien. Zebadiah Johnson served Andover church assessor 1759.

1754 — the French and Indian War redrew North America from the Ohio forks to the St. Lawrence.

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Treaty of Paris 1763 gave Britain all of New France; Spain took Louisiana west of the Mississippi. King George III's Royal Proclamation 7 October drew a line along the Appalachians — Ohio country reserved for Native nations, infuriating colonial speculators who would not stay east. Governor James Murray kept French civil law, Catholic worship, and seigneurial custom in the new Province of Québec; birth rates soared to sixty-five per thousand. Grenville's government needed revenue for ten thousand garrison troops: Stamp Act 1765, Boston Massacre 1770, Tea Party 1773, Massachusetts Government Act 1774 revoking the 1691 charter. Capt. Josiah Powers Sr. chartered Neshoba 20 October 1761 — twenty-three thousand acres in New Hampshire named for his boyhood Nashoba; renamed Brandon 1784 in Vermont where he would own three thousand acres. Jacques Robert Jr. married Marie Anne Lareau at Chambly 1761 with war rumbling around them. Louis Charles Lebeau wed Marie-Anne Neveu at Chambly July 1763; Jacques Robert III born same month. New Hampshire Grants collided with New York claims — Ethan Allen's Green Mountain Boys formed 1770.