PINARD, LOUIS, master surgeon, donné of the Jesuits, surgeon-major at Trois-Rivières; baptized 12 July 1634 in the parish of Sainte-Marguerite in La Rochelle, France, son of Jean Pinard, a merchant, and Marguerite Gaignier; d. 1695.

He came to Canada about 1648 as a surgeon and Jesuit donné, and left for France again on 23 Aug. 1650 with the surgeon François Gendron to complete his surgical studies. A master surgeon upon his return in 1656 and established at Trois-Rivières, he immediately began to exercise his art for the benefit of the garrison. In 1666 Jacques Dubois was employed by him as a surgeon’s aid. Pinard is said to have taken part in the expedition to Hudson Bay in 1685 along with the surgeon Jacques Meneux, dit Châteauneuf. Around 1690 he became surgeon-major of the town of Trois-Rivières. 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.”

On 11 June 1657 Louis Pinard had signed before the notary Séverin Ameau* a contract of marriage with Marie-Madeleine Hertel, daughter of Jacques Hertel and Marie Marguerie. The marriage was celebrated on 29 October the following year at Trois-Rivières. On 30 Nov. 1680 at Champlain he took as his second wife Marie-Ursule Pépin. Each of his wives bore him 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 Michel Leneuf Du Hérisson. Moreover he 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. Nevertheless Louis Pinard seems to have been held in esteem, since he was for a long time one of the settlers’ syndics, a churchwarden, and procurator of the church.

In 1670 he settled down on his seigneury of L’Arbre-à-la-Croix at Champlain (seigneury of La Pinardière). There he engaged in agriculture and the fur trade. Later we find him at Batiscan, where he was buried on 12 Jan. 1695.

Gabriel Nadeau

AJTR, Greffe de Séverin Ameau, 11 juin 1657. JJ (Laverdière et Casgrain), 143. Jug. et délib. Ahern, Notes pour l’histoire de la médecine, 441–44. Raymond Douville, “Chirurgiens, barbiers-chirurgiens et charlatans de la région trifluvienne sous le régime français,” Cahiers des Dix, XV (1950), 118–21.

Revisions based on:
Arch. en ligne, Charente-Maritime (La Rochelle, France), “Reg. paroissiaux, pastoraux et d’état civil,” La Rochelle, Sainte-Marguerite, 12 juill. 1634: archinoe.net/v2/ad17/registre.html (consulted 28 Nov. 2017). Bibliothèque et Arch. Nationales du Québec, Centre d’arch. de la Mauricie et du Centre-du-Québec (Trois-Rivières, Québec), CE401-S2, 12 janv. 1695; CE401-S7, 30 nov. 1680; CE401-S48, 29 oct. 1658.