Early Life
Born in St. Benoit de Mirabel (Deux-Montagnes) in a farmer family. His parents were Julien Choquette and Magdeleine Rastoul. His father was a farmer and also a lieutenant in the loyal militia of St. Eustache who took part in the Battle of St. Eustache against the Patriotes (December 1837). His two cousins, Damien Masson and Luc-Hyacinthe Masson, where well known Patriotes. His uncle Basile Choquette was also a captain in the loyal militia of St. Eustache, directed by Maximilien Globensky.
Choquette left home on foot in 1849 at the age of 19 and set out first for work in Montreal, then travelled via Duluth, Minnesota to Independence, Missouri, where he joined one of the many wagon trains bound for the California Gold Rush. Arriving too late to stake a claim, Choquette found work as a mucker or panner. He worked his way north through the Shasta diggings, and then the Trinity, Scott and Klamath Rivers, reaching the Oregon Territory and making it to the Fraser goldfields in 1858. Failing to find his own strike there, in 1859 and 1860 he prospected a while on the remote Nass River and other rivers northwards of that without much success.
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