Louis Pinard was a doctor (master surgeon) of Trois Rivières who came from a family of merchants and surgeons in LaRochelle, France... clearly members of the bourgeoisie.
He arrived in Canada from LaRochelle in 1647, at the age of 13, with Jesuit Fathers Jean de Brébeuf, Gabriel Lalemant and Charles Garnier, and his uncle Guillaume Feniou. For two years, the young Louis Pinard worked as a surgeon (medical practitioner) and a Jesuit donné at one of the Huron missions. A donné was a lay person who worked receiving no pay, but living the life of a Jesuit. In August, 1650 he returned to France with the surgeon François Gendron to complete his surgical studies. A master surgeon upon his return in 1656, he established himself at Trois-Rivières where he immediately set to work at the garrison.
In 1657, Louis Pinard had signed a marriage contract before the notary Séverin Ameau with Marie-Madeleine Hertel, daughter of Jacques Hertel and Marie Marguerie. The couple married in October 1658 when she was 13. However, their first child was not born until Marie-Madeleine Hertel was 19 years old, so she might have remained with her family until she was older. This was a common practice among the early settlers at a time when there was a shortage of marriageable women.
In August of 1665 Louis Pinard returned to LaRochelle, France on business and stayed there until the following spring.
The 1666 census taken in the summer, lists the family as living in the Trois-Rivières area. Pinard, at that time was considered an habitant and (by historian Marcel Trudel) a master surgeon (maitre chirugien).
A snapshot of the census record
Louis Pinard - 30 habitant
Marie Magdelaine hertel - 20 sa femme
françoise Pinard - 2 fille
& Jean barreau dit xaintonge - 20 domestique
Source: Alberta Family Histories Society online
In 1666, Jacques Dubois was employed by him as a surgeon's aid.
Louis Pinard was present at the marriage of Mathias Campagnas in April of 1667.
In 1670, he settled down on his fief known as "La Pinardière" in the seigneury of L'Arbre-à-la-Croix at Champlain. There he engaged in agriculture and the fur trade. His son Claude was also to become a surgeon and undoubtedly began his studies under his father’s direction; he did his apprenticeship, however, under Jean Demosny at Quebec. In 1692 Pinard was the agent of Claude Deshaies-Gendron, and distributed in the region around Trois-Rivières “the remedies which M. Gendron sent to Canada for charity.”
In 1679, Marie-Madeleine Hertel died at the age of 34, probably of the complications of childbirth. She had a daughter born that year... her sixth child. In November of 1680, Louis Pinard took as his second wife Marie-Ursule Pépin. With Marie-Ursule he had another six children.
Pinard does not seem to have had a very peaceful career; we find him engaged in legal disputes over money matters with a great number of citizens of Trois-Rivières and Cap-de-la-Madeleine. In particular he had quarrels with ancestor Michel Leneuf du Hérisson, but then, Leneuf was a quarrelsome sort, himself. However it seems, Louis Pinard was in rivalry with the surgeon Michel Gamelain, whose competition he feared and who later became father-in-law to his son, the surgeon Claude Pinard.
Pinard is said to have taken part in the expedition to Hudson Bay in 1685 along with the surgeon Jacques Meneux dit Châteauneuf (grand-father-in-law of ancestor, Noël Lizotte) Around 1690, he became surgeon-major of the town of Trois-Rivières. (Source: website Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online -- www.biographi.ca).
For a long time, Pinard was one of the settlers' syndics (representative), a churchwarden, and procurator of the church.
In 1692 Louis Pinard was the agent of Claude Deshaies-Gendron, and distributed in the region around Trois-Rivières “the remedies which M. Gendron sent to Canada for charity.”
Louis Pinard died in Bastican in January of 1695 at the age of 60.
The genealogy of it:
Louis PINARD and Marie-Madeleine HERTEL, m. 10-29-1658 at Trois-Rivières, PQ
Marie-Françoise PINARD and Martin GIGUERRE, m. 5-7-1682 in PQ
Antoine GIGUERRE and Françoise JUTRAS, m. 7-22-1726 at St. François-du-Lac, PQ
Jeanne GIGUERRE and André ALLARD, m. 10-20-1749 at St. François-du-Lac, PQ
Joseph ALLARD and Marie-Ursule JANELLE, m. 7-8-1776 at Baie-du-Febvre, PQ
Genevieve ALLARD and Gabriel LAFOND, m. 10-21-1816 at Baie-du-Febvre, PQ
Hélène LaFOND and Antoine DARGIE m. 9-1-1844 in Granby, PQ
Napoléon DARGIE and Léonise TURCOTTE m. 10-15-1883 in Lewiston, ME
Delia DARGIE and Wilfred CAMERON m. 10-11-1910 in Attleboro, MA
Rhea CAMERON and Edward LIZOTTE m. 6-20-1936 in Attleboro, MA
