HERTEL DE LA FRESNIÈRE, JACQUES, soldier, interpreter, and settler, father of the famous François Hertel*; b. at Fécamp (Normandy), son of Nicolas Hertel and Jeanne Miriot; d. 10 Aug. 1651 at Trois-Rivières.

It is probable, although there is no written proof of it, that he arrived in the country about 1626, as a soldier. He spent among the Algonkins the years during which Quebec was occupied by the Kirke brothers. No doubt as a reward for the good relations that he had maintained with the Indians, the Compagnie des Cent-Associés granted him, by a title-deed dated 16 Dec. 1633 at Paris, a 200-acre tract of land at Trois-Rivières; with Jean Godefroy de Lintot he was the first settler there, before the official founding of that post. Hertel served as an interpreter for the Jesuits among the Indians, and was the settlers’ syndic in 1647. He died 10 Aug. 1651 in the prime of life, it is believed accidentally. On 23 Aug. 1641 he had married Marie Marguerie, a sister of the interpreter, by whom he had had three children: François, nicknamed the “hero of Trois-Rivières,” who was baptized by Father Brébeuf 3 July 1642, whose godfather was François Marguerie, and whose godmother was Marguerite Couillard, the wife of Jean Nicollet; Madeleine, b. 2 Sept. 1645, who on 29 Aug. 1658 married Louis Pinard, the surgeon of the fort at Trois-Rivières; and Marguerite, b. 26 Aug. 1649, who became the wife of Jean Crevier, the seigneur of Saint François, in 1663. In 1652 Marie Marguerie remarried; her second husband was Quentin Moral de Saint-Quentin.

Raymond Douville

Archives de la paroisse de l’Immaculée-Conception, Trois-Rivières, Registres. JR (Thwaites). P.-G. Roy, Inv. concessions, II, 4–5. Godbout, Les pionniers de la région trifluvienne.