AIGRON, dit Lamothe, PIERRE, baptized 1 Nov. 1630 at Aytré, France, diocese of La Rochelle, son of Pierre Aigron and of Marie Daguin (Daguine); d. some time after 1685 at Quebec.

Aigron came to Quebec as a seaman in 1660, and engaged in the sale of intoxicating liquors to the Indians, at the time when Bishop François de Laval* was leading an active campaign against this traffic. On 6 May 1660 the bishop had decreed excommunication ipso facto against whomever undertook such a trade. Eager for easy profits, Aigron continued to traffic. Laval decided to make a public example of him, and on 18 April 1661 excommunicated him by name, forbidding him to enter any church on pain of being “driven or thrown out.” Faced with religious condemnation and general disapproval, Aigron submitted to public penitence on the following Sunday.

Aigron became a ship’s master, and between 21 and 29 Jan. 1663, in the parish of Notre-Dame de Québec, he married Marie-Madelaine Doucet, whose parents were from the parish of Saint-Sauveur in La Rochelle. In 1680 he went to settle on the coast of Gaspé.

In 1682 he was employed by the Compagnie du Nord, in Hudson Bay. He was brought to London by Radisson* in 1684, and joined the HBC for a four-year term in 1685, at which time he returned to Canada.

Gustave Lanctot

Jug. et délib., passim. Mandements des évêques de Québec (Têtu et Gagnon), I, passim. BRH, XVIII (1912), 113. Godbout, “Nos ancêtres,” APQ Rapport, 1951–53, 467. Gosselin, Vie de Mgr de Laval, passim.

Revisions based on:
Arch. en Ligne, Charente-Maritime (La Rochelle, France), “Reg. paroissiaux, pastoraux et d’état civil,” La Rochelle, Aytré, 1er nov. 1630: charente-maritime.fr/CG17/jcms/cg17_34489/les-archives-en-ligne (consulted 11 March 2011). Bibliothèque et Arch. Nationales du Québec, Centre d’arch. de Québec, CE301-S1, janvier 1663.