In its early years, New France was not well populated. Samuel de Champlain established the colony in 1608 with just 28 men, but only eight survived the harsh winter. By 1620, only 60 people lived in New France. Two decades later, there were 240 people living in the settlement. Some of these early arrivals played crucial roles in the colony’s survival and growth, and they are known as Quebec’s founding families. Let’s explore the pioneers who helped shape New France:
Nicolas Marsolet de Saint-Aignan
Nicolas Marsolet de Saint-Aignan was recruited by Samuel de Champlain to come to New France in either 1608, 1613 or 1618. He was sent to work in the Saguenay Valley as an interpreter. While he learned several Indigenous languages, he mostly worked in Tadoussac as a trader.
When the Kirke brothers began occupying New France in 1629, Marsolet and Étienne Brûlé betrayed their country and began working with the English. While Marsolet worked as an interpreter for the English during their occupation of New France, when New France was given back to the French in 1632, Masolet switched his allegiance again. However, he did not make things easy for the French. He refused to share any of his knowledge of Indigenous languages with anyone except Father Charles Lalemand.
In 1637, Marsolet began settling down in New France. He married Marie Barbier and had ten children. In 1642, he began working as a clerk with the Company of One Hundred Associates; however, he also continued to work as an interpreter. In 1660, Marsolet was operating his shop in Quebec. Over the years, he acquired several land concessions, but the only one he developed was the Sainte-Geneviève coteau near Québec.
Marsolet died on May 15, 1677, at the age of 70.
Louis Hébert and Marie Rollet
Louis Hébert is considered one of the first people to settle permanently in New France. Hébert moved to Quebec in 1617 with his wife, Marie Rollet, and their three children, Anne, Marie Guillemette and Jean-Guillaume. As an apothecary, he practiced medicine in the small colony. In addition to taking care of sick colonists, Hébert was also a farmer. He planted corn, winter wheat, beans, peas, an apple orchard and a vineyard. According to Samuel de Champlain, Hébert was the first head of a family in New France to subsist off what he grew.
Hébert’s contributions to the colony were recognized by 1620 when he was appointed Procurator to the King. This role allowed him to personally intervene in matters in the name of the King. Hébert was also the first Seigneur in New France. He was granted the title and the fief of “Sault-au-Matelot” in 1623, as well as land on Saint-Charles River. During the winter of 1627, he died unexpectedly after a fall on some ice.
Hébert’s wife Marie Rollet survived him. She also played a vital role in the colony. Rollet routinely provided Indigenous people with medical treatment and education in reading, writing and the Christian faith. Records show that she was the godmother to many Indigenous people who converted to Christianity. Following Hébert’s death, she married Guillaume Hubou on May 16, 1629. That same year, British privateers invaded New France and took control of the colony. While all of the other families evacuated, Rollet stayed in New France with her husband and children. They were the only family to do so. Rollet died on
Guillaume Couillard
Guillaume Couillard permanently settled in New France in 1613, just five years after the colony was established. He worked as a carpenter, sailor and caulker for the Company of One Hundred Associates, which at the time was called the Compagnie de Montmorency.
In 1621, Couillard married Louis Hébert’s daughter Marie-Guillemette. Following Hébert’s death, Couillard took over farming his land. Champlain also granted him a hundred acres of land to clear and seed along the St. Charles River. During the British occupation of the French colony from 1629 to 1632, Couillard, his wife Guillemette and their children stayed in New France. They were the only family to do so. Together, they had 10 children — Louise, Marguerite, Louis, Élisabeth, Marie, Guillaume, Madeleine, Nicolas, Charles and Catherine Gertrude — who had numerous descendants.
During his life, Guillaume Cuillard played an essential role in New France. He helped defend the nascent colony from attacks from the Haudenosaunee (the Iroquois) and frequently piloted boats between Quebec and Tadoussac. In 1654, Governor Jean de Lauson’s administration knighted Couillard for the services he had rendered to the colony.
As a result, Couillard appears in the genealogy of almost all the old French-Canadian families. Guillaume Cuillard died on March 4, 1663.
Olivier Letardif
Olivier Letardif is the forefather of all the Letardifs or Tardifs of North America. He was first recorded as living in Quebec in 1621; however, he may have arrived earlier than that. Letardif had many roles in the young colony. Like others in New France, he worked for the Company of One Hundred Associates. Initially, he was an assistant clerk; however, he also learned the languages of the Montagnais, Algonquin and Wendat and worked as an interpreter. When New France was handed over to the Kirke brothers in 1629, Letardif gave Lewis Krike the keys to the Habitation.
In 1633, Letarfif was promoted to head clerk at the Company of One Hundred Associates. During this time, he worked with the Jesuits and acted as a godfather to the Indigenous converts. Letardif would also administer baptisms and, like Samuel de Champlain, adopted three Indigenous children.
In May 1637, he and Jean Nicolet jointly received 160 arpents of land in what is now Sillery, Quebec, and, in April 1646, he acquired one-eighth of the seigneury of Beaupré. That same year, he married Louise Couillard, daughter of Guillaume Couillard and Marie Guillemette Hébert; however, Letardif was left a widower in 1641. In May 1648, he married Barbe Esmard, who was a widow of Gilles Michel and the sister-in-law of Zacharie Cloutier Jr.
Over the years, Letardif made several trips back to France to recruit more settlers. Between March 1650 and October 1651, he granted about twenty concessions in the Beaupré Seigneury. In 1653, Letardif moved to Château-Richer. From 1653 to 1659, he held the role of seigneurial judge of Beaupré. Letardif died in 1665.
Pierre Desportes and Françoise Langlois
There is no exact date for Pierre Desportes‘ arrival in New France. Some sources say he emigrated alone in 1614; others say he and his wife Françoise Langlois moved to Quebec between 1617 and 1620. Either way, they are considered to be some of the earliest French Canadians. They arrived with Françoise’s sister Marguerite and her husband Abraham Martin. By 1625, only seven families were living in the settlement, including Pierre and Françoise.
Pierre was an important part of the colony. He was the town’s baker and managed a warehouse that was part of the fur trade. As well, Pierre and Françoise’s only child, Marie Hélène Desportes, is considered the first European child born in Canada. The family left New France in 1629 when the Kirke brothers took over the young colony. Pierre died on May 18, 1629, in France and Françoise died at some point before April 20, 1632.
Although Pierre Desportes and Françoise Langlois never returned to New France, their daughter, Hélène Desportes, did. Hélène Desportes married Guillaume Hébert on October 1, 1634. After he died, she married Noël Morin on January 9, 1640. She had 15 children — three with Hébert and 12 with Morin.
Abraham Martin dit l’Écossais
Abraham Martin dit l’Écossais and his wife Marguerite Langlois arrived in New France around 1620. Marguerite was the sister of Françoise Langlois, who was married to Pierre Desportes. Some suspect that Martin may have been of Scottish descent; however, there is no evidence to support this. In New France, he was an expert sailor and a boatman.
Martin married Marguerite Langlois in 1615 in Dieppe, Normandie, France. Together, they had 11 children: Jean, Eustache, Marguerite, Hélènem, Pierre, Marie, Adrien, Magdelaine, Barbe, Anne and Charles Amador. When the Kirke brothers began occupying Quebec in 1629, Martin and his wife went back to France with their children. They all returned to New France in 1633; however, it was not smooth sailing. Martin suffered a severe stroke in October of 1635. That same year, he received 12 arpents of land from the Compagnie de la Nouvelle-France and in 1647 he was given another 20 arpents of land from Adrien Duchesne. The land was sold in 1667 to the Ursuline nuns. It extends from Côte-Sainte-Geneviève (present-day Grande-Allée) downwards to Côte-d’Abraham, and westward to Clairefontaine Street.
In 1649, Abraham Martin was accused of raping a 15-year-old girl. She had been executed a month before for theft. Martin was sent to prison to await trial, but it never happened. In 1664, he had to pay fines because of something his domestic servant Saint-Martin did to Pierre Hudon. He died in 1665 and was buried at Notre Dame in Québec.
Jean Nicolet
Jean Nicolet immigrated to Quebec in 1618. He was a clerk and trained as an interpreter for the Company of One Hundred Associates. Nicolet was also a friend of Samuel de Champlain and Étienne Brule. He lived with the Algonquins on Allumette Island to learn their language and customs. After returning to Quebec in 1620, he went to live among the Odawa and Algonquin people in the Lake Nipissing region where he stayed for nine years. During that time, Nicolet had a relationship with a Nipissing woman and they had a daughter, Euphrosine-Madeleine Nicolet. When the Kirke brothers took control of Quebec in 1629, he fled to Huronia. He lived with the Wendat until New France was returned to the French in 1632.
In 1634, Jean Nicolet became the first European to explore what would become Wisconsin in search of a passage to Asia. While he thought he had discovered a passage to the South Sea, he had missed an opportunity to find the upper Mississippi River. In 1635, he returned to Quebec and settled in Trois-Rivières. Two years later, he married Guillaume Cuillard and Guillemette Hébert’s daughter, Marguerite Couillard. Together, they had two children, Ignace and Marguerite. Sadly, in October 1642, Nicolet drowned after his boat capsized near Sillery, Quebec.
Jean-Paul Godefroy
The exact date of Jean-Paul Godefroy‘s arrival in New France remains a subject of debate among historians. Some suggest it could have been as early as 1623, but the prevailing belief holds that he settled in the colony in 1626. Godefroy was one of Samuel de Champlain’s interpreters. While it is widely believed that he returned to France with Champlain in 1629, when the Kirke brothers began their occupation of the French settlement, some accounts suggest that he may have chosen to remain in Canada with an Indigenous tribe.
Following the Kirke brothers’ occupation in 1632, Godefroy is recorded as working in Trois-Rivières in 1636, where he served as a trading clerk. He earned a favourable reputation among the Indigenous groups that the French had established relationships with because of his mastery of their languages and his athletic abilities.
In addition to his role as an interpreter, Jean-Paul Godefroy played various key roles in the development of Quebec. He served as a delegate to France in 1644 and 1650, held the position of comptroller-general of the Communauté, and was a member of the colony’s first council in 1648. Godefroy also held the title of admiral of the fleet in 1649 and played a crucial part in meetings with representatives of the New England colonies in 1651.
In 1646, Godefroy married Marie Magdeleine Legardeur, daughter of Pierre Legardeur de Repentigny and Marie Favery. The two had two daughters, Barbe and Catherine Charlotte. Sometime in 1668, Godefroy died in France.
Robert Drouin
The exact date of Robert Drouin‘s arrival in New France is not known. What is known is that he was first mentioned in Quebec in 1633 and that the Jesuits hired him as a bricklayer. On July 12, 1637, he married Anne Cloutier, the daughter of Zacharie Cloutier and Xainte Dupont. He was 29 while she was only 11 years old. Together, they had seven children. Sadly, Anne died in 1648 at the age of 22. Less than two years later, Drouin married Marie Chapelier and had eight more children with her.
It is almost impossible to trace any French-Canadian genealogy without finding Robert Drouin among the earliest ancestors. Also, his marriage to Anne Cloutier is the oldest marriage contract preserved in the original in Canada.
Robert Giffard de Moncel
Robert Giffard de Moncel was a Perche-based surgeon and apothecary who made several trips to Quebec between 1621 and 1627. During a return trip to the colony in 1628, British privateer Sir David Kirke captured him. While Giffard was able to return to France, he was returned to New France in 1634 and became one of the colony’s first seigners. For the next three decades, he spearheaded the Percheron immigration movement. He recruited more than 300 tradesmen and workers, including Jean Guyon du Boisson, Zacharie Cloutier, Henri Pinguet, Noël Langlois, Noël Juchereau and Marin Boucher.
By 1640, Robert Giffard was the first doctor of the Hôtel-Dieu de Québec, which was the first hospital in Canada and North America north of Mexico. In 1645, he helped found the newly established trading company, the Communauté des Habitants. By 1658, Giffard was recognized for his service in New France by being granted two more seigneuries and was named to the king’s new council of Quebec, thus becoming one of Canada’s few citizens to be ennobled. He died in Beauport, Quebec on 14 June 1668.
Zacharie Cloutier and Xainte Dupont
Robert Giffard de Moncel recruited Zacharie Cloutier in 1634 to settle in Beauport, an area near Quebec City. His wife, Xainte Dupont, and five children — Zacharie, Jean, Anne, Charles and Marie-Louise — arrived with him or followed soon after. His contract promised him livestock and one thousand arpents of land, as well as the right to hunt, fish and trade with the tribes. Only 100 people lived in the colony when he settled there in 1634.
As a master carpenter, Zacharie Cloutier was involved in various projects including building Giffard’s manor house, a parish church and Fort Saint-Louis. It wasn’t all smooth sailing, though. Cloutier and his friend Jean Guyon Du Boisson resisted paying fealty and homage to Giffard for several years. This was owed to Giffard under the Seigneurial system of New France. Finally, the Governor of New France ordered him and Guyon to do so.
In 1652, Cloutier received a grant for land in Château-Richer, Quebec. He sold his land in Beauport, known as La Clouterie, to Nicholas Dupont de Neuville. Cloutier died on September 17, 1677. He was about 87 years old. He has more descendants than any Quebec colonist, with at least three out of four Quebecois descending from him.
Jean Guyon du Buisson and Mathurine Robin
Jean Guyon du Buisson was one of New France’s first seigneuries in Beauport. He was a master mason who was recruited by Robert Giffard de Moncel in 1634 along with Zacharie Cloutier. Guyon signed a three-year contract with Giffard and was granted 1,000 arpents of land located near rivière du Buisson.
Guyon reportedly arrived without his wife Mathurine Robin in 1634. It is also speculated that he came with his eldest son, Jean; however, others claim that he arrived in New France with his wife and ten children. As a master mason, Guyon helped to build a small mill, the parish church in Quebec and Giffard’s seigniorial manor along with his friend Zacharie Cloutier.
Out of Jean Guyon’s ten children, eight were married. His eldest son Jean married Élisabeth Couillard, daughter of Guillaume Couillard and Marie-Guillemette Hébert, two of New France’s earliest colonists. Because many of his children went on to have their own children, Guyon is recognized as an ancestor of many French Canadians. About three out of four Québécois reportedly descend from him. Guyon’s descendants are associated with different surnames, including Dion, Despres, Dumontier, Lemoine, Derbanne (in Louisiana), and Berban (in Texas).
Henri Pinguet
Henri Pinguet arrived in New France in 1634 with his wife Louise Lousche and their three children. Like Zacharie Cloutier and Jean Guyon, Pinguet was recruited by Robert Giffard; however, despite speculation that Giffard and Pinguet left Dieppe, France, together, historical records suggest that Pinguet left for Quebec at a later date than Giffard.
In New France, Pinguet continued his career as a merchant. In 1638, he was granted land, which became known as Du Fief de Pinguet, and in 1649, the Company of One Hundred Associates granted him 40 acres on the Sainte-Geneviève hillside. This is located in the suburbs of Quebec between Murray and des Braves avenues. Unfortunately, in 1657, Pinguet was reportedly robbed by the Mohawk when he was fishing for eel above Cap-Rouge.
Henri Pinguet died on January 1, 1671, in New France and left his land to his eldest son Noël Pinguet.
Jean Bourdon
Jean Bourdon was the first engineer–in–chief and land surveyor in New France. He arrived in the colony in 1634 with a priest, Jean Le Sueur, also known as Abbé Saint-Sauveur. Bourdon became a prominent figure in New France. He played a central role in various infrastructure and development projects, mapping out territories and designing layouts for settlements, including the first streets in Quebec. Bourdon also supervised the construction of Saint–Louis, the first chateau in New France.
In 1645, Bourdon was appointed acting governor of Trois-Rivières and the following year he and Father Jogues met with Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) chiefs to consolidate a peace treaty that had been made the summer before. Although the peace treaty was renewed, an epidemic of smallpox had broken out among the Haudenosaunee. Some chieftains blamed Jogues, accused him of witchcraft, and broke the peace treaty.
Jean Bourdon reached the highest level of New France society with the creation of the Communauté des Habitants. In 1647, he was elected procurator-syndic of Quebec and the governor appointed him head clerk of the Communauté. Boudon was appointed fiscal attorney by Compagnie de La Nouvelle-France in 1650.
While Jean Bourdon arrived in New France as a bachelor, he married twice — in 1635 to Jacqueline Potel and in 1655 to Anne Gasnier. He and Potel had eight children in total. On January 12, 1668, he died and was buried the next day in the church of Notre-Dame de Québec.
Noël Juchereau and Jean Juchereau
Noël Juchereau was an early pioneer in New France and an employee of the Company of One Hundred Associates. He arrived in Quebec in 1634 (or 1632). His brother Jean Juchereau was a seigneur and fur trading merchant who arrived in the colony in 1643 with his wife Marie-Catherine Langlois and their children.
The Juchereau brothers took an active role in New France and worked closely with Robert Giffard, recruiting new settlers for the French colony. They were reportedly responsible for the contracts of forty-one French people who immigrated to Canada between 1646 and 1651.
Because Noël Juchereau had studied humanities and law in France, he was an asset to the governor of Québec when dealing with delicate legal matters in the French colony. Noël Juchereau also created the Communauté des Habitants with Pierre Legardeur de Repentigny. He was appointed head clerk at the company in 1645.
In 1647, Noël Juchereau and Jean Juchereau were granted the de Maur seigneurie, which was west of Québec City. While Noël Juchereau died in 1648 during a trip back to France. Jean Juchereau died in Beauport on February 7, 1672.
Philippe Amiot
Philippe Amiot, Sieur de Villeneuve, is considered a pioneer in New France and the ancestor of all the Amiot and Amyot in America. Those with the last name Villeneuve, who settled in the Charlevoix region in Quebec, Canada, are also his descendants on the male side of the family.
Amiot arrived in New France in 1636 with his wife Anne Couvent and their two sons, Jean and Mathieu. Their third son, Charles, was born in Quebec. Unlike other families in New France, Anne Couvent possessed royal lineage. She descends from Charlemagne, Louis the Pious, King Charles II of France, William the Conqueror, King Henry II, King John, Henry III and King Louis VIII of France.
It is not quite clear what Philippe Amiot was doing in New France for employment; however, there is some evidence to suggest that he was a Coureur-de-Bois. Three years after Amiot arrived, he died in 1639.
Following her husband’s death, Anne Couvent remarried Jacques Maheu. Together, they had two children: Marie Madeleine and Jean. After Jacques died in 1663, Couvent married for a third time. In 1663, she married Étienne Blanchon. Anne Couvent died in the lower city of Québec in 1675.
Marin Boucher
Marin Boucher is reportedly the ancestor of almost all of the Bouchers in North America. Estimates of the number of families in Canada and the United States who descend from Boucher run as high as 350,000.
Boucher emigrated to New France in 1634 with his second wife, Perrine Mallet, and his children — one from his first marriage and two from his second. He and Mallet went on to have five more children in New France. The family settled in Beauport.
Marin Boucher was a mason who reportedly befriended Samuel de Champlain before he died in 1635. In Champlain’s will, he left Boucher a suit of his when he died.
Boucher and his family ultimately settled in Rivière-Ouelle where they were some of the first French inhabitants. The town was attacked during King William’s War in 1690 by a party led by Sir William Phips. Boucher’s son, Jean-Galleran, helped defend Rivière-Ouelle and its inhabitants. Phips and his troops had been on their way to attack Quebec City but were deterred by the French Canadian defenders.
Marin Boucher died on March 29, 1671, and was buried in the Château-Richer cemetery.
Pierre Legardeur de Repentigny
Pierre Legardeur de Repentigny was a military officer and siegneur in New France. He arrived in Quebec in 1636 with his wife, Marie Favery, and their children. Also accompanying them were his sister Marguerite, wife of Jacques Leneuf de La Poterie, and his brother Charles Legardeur de Tilly, and their respective families. Charles Huault de Montmagny, the first official governor of the colony, was also part of the entourage.
According to the Ursuline nun Marie de l’Incarnation, Legardeur served as Governor Huault de Montmagny’s lieutenant. In 1645, he helped found the Communauté des Habitants, which took over the fur trade monopoly from the Company of One Hundred Associates. Two years later, Legardeur obtained the seigneuries of Repentigny and Bécancour.
Pierre Legardeur died suddenly in 1648. He was on a trip back to France when a smallpox epidemic broke out on the ship. His wife inherited his seigneuries and went on to establish the Confrérie du Saint-Rosaire.
Be First to Comment