Captain Jock or Captain Jacques

We know Mattie's great-grandfather as Captain Jock. On what do we base this. Reference 1) below is the first written statement concerning the legend that Mattie's great-grandfather had been given a sloop by the King of France. Family tradition refers to him as Captain Jock.

Reference 2) tells of Bishop Feilds 1849 visit to the Bay of Islands. Here he meets a Micmac woman from St. George's Bay who says her father was Captain Jock. She is the wife of an unnamed Brake who is a brother to Edward Brake and has 4 daughters. The 1849 Census of the Bay of Islands which is based on Feild's records shows only a Thomas Brake and an Edward Blake with 4 children. I deduce from this that her husband was Thomas Brake.

Unfortunately Feild in his journal does not indicate the ages of the woman, her husband or her daughters. We can assume the daughters are minors, since they are living at home. However they could be teenagers and there may have been adult children who had left home. We do know that the father of Thomas and Edward was 78 at the time of the visit. [According to data from J.B. Jukes visit in 1839, the father was 68.] So using our 30 years for the generational gap, it means the sons were probably in their mid-40's. Does anyone know any Brake researchers out there who might flesh out these details?

Anyhow lets assume one of the daugters was in her late teens which would make the mother about forty. Now lets update Supposition 3 to Supposition 4 with this new speculation. 

                                     Supposition 4


1. Captain Jock Mitchell  b. abt 1754 m.
  2. daughter Mitchell b. abt 1809 m. Thomas Brake (4 dau. by 1849)
  2. Captain Mitchell b. abt 1784 m. 
    3. Roi Michel Agathe (King John/Jack Mitchell) b. abt 1814 m. abt 1834  (Marie) Louise ?? 
      4. Pierre b. 1835 d. 1848 buried 4 jul 1848 St. Pierre
      4. Marie b. 1840 d. 1855 buried 3 aug 1855 Sandy Point
      4. Mathieu Michel b. 1844 d. 1921 m.1879 Marie Anne Webb b. abt 1860 d. bef 1921
    3. Noel (Michel) Agathe b. abt 1820 m. 
      4. Christopher Michel b. abt 1837 d.?? m. 22 jan 1862 Marie Webb b. 1835-40? d. ??

The above indicates based on her age, that Mattie's grandfather Captain Mitchell is a better candidate for Mrs. Brake's father than his great-grandfather, Captain Jock. Is it possible their were two Captain Jock Mitchells, a father and son. Also who were their wives? The Sandy Point records show two Mrs. Christopher Michel Agathe's, Marie Agathe and Therese Jacques Agathe.
Marie Agathe: in March of 1854 at Sandy Point Marie Agathe age 70 (therefore, 1784 - 1854) late wife of Michel Agathe was buried.
Therese Jacques: In May 1862 Therese Jacques age 57 (1805-1862) wife of Christophe Michel Agathe was buried.

Lets assume Marie was the wife of Mattie's great-grandfather. We also have to find a Christopher Michel Agathe who was the husband of Therese. Let's assume that he was Mattie's grandfather. So based on this lets update Supposition 4 to Supposition 5 with these new speculations. 

                                     Supposition 5


1. Captain Jock Mitchell (Michel Agathe)  b. abt 1754 m. Marie ?? b. 1784 d. 1854
  2. daughter Mitchell b. abt 1809 m. Thomas Brake (4 dau. by 1849)
  2. Captain Mitchell (Christopher Michel Agathe) b. abt 1784 m. m. Therese Jacques b, 1805 d. 1862
    3. Roi Michel Agathe (King John/Jack Mitchell) b. abt 1814 m. abt 1834 (Marie) Louise ??
      4. Pierre b. 1835 d. 1848 buried 4 jul 1848 St. Pierre
      4. Marie b. 1840 d. 1855 buried 3 aug 1855 Sandy Point
      4. Mathieu Michel b. 1844 d. 1921 m.1879 Marie Anne Webb b. abt 1860 d. bef 1921
    3. Noel (Michel) Agathe b. abt 1820 m. 
      4. Christopher Michel b. abt 1837 d.?? m. 22 jan 1862 Marie Webb b. 1835-40? d. ??
This looks better from a time perspective. The name of Therese Jacques appearing in the family tree raises some interesting possibilities. Supposing she was Mattie's grandmother in the Joe Young story, then it could have a different interpretation. Her father of the story was not a Mitchell but a Jacques, and maybe Mattie was referring to his maternal grandparents when he commented on the veracity of the story to Howley. This also raises the possibility that the great-grandparent who was given the sloop was not a paternal one named Captain Jock, but a maternal one named Captain Jacques. It would be easy for the Anglo-Saxon ear to turn Jacques into Jock. It also has Therese in the area where Joe Young heard the story in his younger days.

The Sandy Point records show 3 Joseph Youngs or more precisely 3 Joseph LeJeunes.

Joseph LeJeune & Esther Cormier parents of Marie Susan b. 1857.
Joseph LeJeune b. 1853.
Joseph LeJeune b. 1862.
Of the three the only likely candidate for the Joseph Young of the Howley story is the father of the child born in 1857. This would have made him a young adult about the time the two "old" ladies died. And would have made him about 50 when he related the story to Howley in 1880 say about his "younger days". Are there any Young/Lejeune researchers out there who could clarify this speculation?

To add a little more spice to the Captain Jacques theory, consider this tid-bit I received from Charles Martijn in Nov. 1999. From reference 3) below
"On p.63 of Vol.III, the author reports that on July 31st, 1785, while he was in Quirpont Harbour (tip of the Great Northern Peninsula in Newfoundland), "two families of mountaineer [Innu/Montagnais] Indians (old captain Jack and John Babtista [Baptiste]) came in here from the westward, in two French batteaux, ....".
Is this a coincidence or what. The old woman in Joseph Young's story said her parents were Montagnais from the Labrador, and here Charles finds a Captain Jack,(could it be Jacques) who not only fits the bill but has a batteaux and was in Newfoundland in 1785 and could have ended up in the Bay St. George area.

Even the other Montagnais mentioned, John Babtista [Baptiste], could be the father or uncle of the Jean Baptiste mentioned by Stride in his research of the Sandy Point records.
"Thomas Agathe was at the wake of Indian Jean Baptiste (died age 50) in April of 1851. "
This certainly indicates that the Agathe family knew the Baptiste family who were also Indian.

If the Captain Jock turns out to be a Captain Jacques and he was a Montagnais, it does raise as many questions as it answers. Why did Speck say the Captain who was given the sloop "to facilitate the movements of the Micmac on the water in the interests of France. " and Feilds did report Mrs. Brake the daughter of Captain Jock as saying she was a Micmac. Again I will leave this to my fellow researchers to ponder, and move on to speculate about Captain Jock's sloop.

Literature References
(1) - Indian Notes And Monographs by Frank G. Speck. . Published 1922. p. 121, Library National Museum of Canada 034516
Reference (1) refers to the great-grandfather of Mattie sr. "Indeed, the great-grandfather of Mathew Mitchell, who was a captain, or sub-chief, is said to have received a sloop as a present from the French king in order to facilitate the movements of the Micmac on the water in the interests of France. "

(2) - Bishop Field's Visit to the West Coast of Newfoundland 1849.
Reference (2) states "The man is a Brake, brother to the Brakes mentioned before. The mother is a Micmac Indian From St. George's Bay. .... Her father, she said, was Captain Jock. "

3) CARTWRIGHT, George, 1792: �Journal of Transactions and Events during a Residence of nearly Sixteen years on the Coast of Labrador...�. 3 Vol., Allan and Ridge, Newark, England.
"On p.63 of Vol.III, the author reports that on July 31st, 1785, while he was in Quirpont Harbour (tip of the Great Northern Peninsula in Newfoundland), "two families of mountaineer [Innu/Montagnais] Indians (old captain Jack and John Babtista [Baptiste]) came in here from the westward, in two French batteaux, intending to go to the island of Bell [sic] Isle a deer [caribou]-hunting; there being great numbers upon it".

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