10 Facts About George-Paschal Desbarats

George-Paschal Desbarats was a French-Canadian printer, publisher, businessman, and landowner.

George-Paschal Desbarats was born in Quebec City in Lower Canada on 11 August 1808, the third son of Marie-Josephte and Pierre-Edouard Desbarats, a printer and Deputy Registrar of the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada.

George-Paschal Desbarats managed the family business from 1826 when his father fell ill and took it over when his father died two years later.

George-Paschal Desbarats continued the business's relations with its co-owner Thomas Cary, and they may have co-owned Cary's Quebec Mercury newspaper from 1828 to 1848.

George-Paschal Desbarats thus moved as the capital did throughout the period to Kingston, Montreal, Toronto, and Quebec City, where in 1860 he and Derbershire established a business with the help of his son George-Edouard Desbarats and were responsible for the publication of works by such French-Canadian writers as Philippe-Joseph Aubert de Gaspe and Ernest Gagnon as well as the literary journal Le Foyer canadien.

George-Paschal Desbarats invested in railways and mining, and with Derbershire he acquired the Ottawa Glass Works near Vaudreuil, one of the province's first glassworks.

George-Paschal Desbarats invested in the St Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad, which he promoted with a pamphlet in 1849 titled The St Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad: its position as a private undertaking, and advantages as a national work.

In 1847 George-Paschal Desbarats bought many properties and tracts of land, including one in the Chaudiere valley where gold was being prospected, and a mining tract north of Lake Huron called the George-Paschal Desbarats Location.

George-Paschal Desbarats was secretary of the Montreal Mining Company in 1847 and became president of the St Lawrence Mining Company in 1854.

George-Paschal Desbarats married three times, first to Henriette Dionne, daughter of Amable Dionne.