DUGAY (Duguay), JACQUES, surgeon; b. c. 1647 at Semur-en-Auxois (department of Côte-d’Or), France, son of Michel Dugay, sworn master surgeon, and of Catherine Laubret; buried 13 March 1727 at Trois-Rivières.

On 21 Nov. 1672, shortly after his arrival in New France, Dugay married Jeanne Baudry, daughter of one of the original settlers of Trois-Rivières, Urbain Baudry, dit La Marche. In addition to giving the sum of 300 livres Baudry undertook, by way of a dowry to his daughter, to lodge the young couple in his own home and keep them for a year. Jeanne Baudry died 22 Nov. 1700. She had had 11 children.

For more than half a century Jacques Dugay practised the art of medicine at Trois-Rivières. As he was for many years the only surgeon practising there, he must have treated nearly all the local families. It was probably he who attended the Recollet brother Didace Pelletier* during the illness preceding his death. He contributed in good measure to the possible beatification of Brother Pelletier by testifying several times in support of persons who claimed to have been cured through his intercession. Dugay also attended in his last moments the Marquis de Crisafy, governor of Trois-Rivières, who died 6 May 1709. Most of the notarial inventories of the period have entries under his name for fees for medical care, operations, deliveries, and medicine.

On 29 April 1709 Dugay remarried; his second wife was Anne Baillargeon. He died at 80 years of age and was buried in the cemetery of the Ursulines’ hospital. He left behind him a reputation as a modest and conscientious practitioner.

Raymond Douville

AJTR, Greffe de Séverin Ameau. A. Roy, Inv. greffes not., XI, 95, 229. Ahern, Notes pour l’histoire de la médecine, 191. Raymond Douville, Visages du vieux Trois-Rivières (Trois-Rivières, 1955). L.-E. Duguay, Généalogie de la famille de Pierre Duguay (2v., Trois-Rivières, 1923), II. Jouve, Les Franciscains et le Canada: aux Trois-Rivières. Les Ursulines des Trois-Rivières depuis leur établissement jusqu’à nos jours (4v., Trois-Rivières, 1888–1911). Odoric-M. [Jouve], “Étude historique et critique sur les actes du Frère Didace Pelletier, Récollet,” BRH, XVII (1911).