CHAUVIN DE LA PIERRE, PIERRE, also called Chavin, Huguenot merchant and sea captain, temporary commandant at Quebec in 1609–10.

Champlain normally calls him “Capt. Pierre,” and only once names him “Pierre Chavin.” But the latter’s frequent dealings with Pierre de Chauvin de Tonnetuit and his sister about an inheritance lead us to suppose that his family name was indeed Chauvin, a very common name in Normandy, and that he was a relative of his namesake, the Sieur de Tonnetuit, with whom he must not be confused.

He was a bourgeois of Dieppe and subsequently lived at Honfleur. The notarial register of that town contains several documents relating to him. In 1603 he sailed for Canada on the Bonne Renommée, with François Gravé Du Pont and Champlain. In 1607, as “king’s captain in the navy” and in association with another captain named Tuvache, he bought a small vessel, the Levrette, on which he came again to Canada the following year. When Champlain went back to France in the autumn of 1609, he left the “worthy man . . . Pierre Chavin” in command of Quebec during his absence, and subsequently mentioned him several times in the first edition of his Voyages (1613).

Chauvin returned to France in the autumn of 1610, and came back to Canada in 1611 on Isaac Martel’s ship, to trade in furs. The following winter, at the same time as François de Razilly, he undertook a journey to Brazil on the ship Perle, after which time we lose trace of him.

René Baudry

Champlain, Œuvres (Laverdière). Bréard, Documents relatifs à la marine normande. Biographical note in Dionne, Champlain, I, 378–81.