POULIN, PIERRE, royal notary, clerk of court; b. 10 March 1684 at Trois-Rivières, son of Michel Poulin, seigneur of the fief of Saint-Maurice, and Marie Jutra; m. on 19 Nov. 1717 Madeleine-Louise Le Boulanger at Cap-de-la-Madeleine; d. sometime after 1744.

Unlike his younger brothers, François Poulin* de Francheville and Abbé Michel Poulin de Courval, Pierre Poulin never added a title to his family name. In 1711 he obtained a commission as royal notary and clerk of court for Trois-Rivières, succeeding Jean-Baptiste Pottier*, whom he also replaced as keeper of the prison on 16 June 1713. He resigned from the last two posts in 1722.

On 4 April 1725 Pierre Poulin rendered fealty and homage for the fief of Saint-Maurice located on the Rivière Saint-Maurice. He thus became principal owner of the land on which the Saint-Maurice ironworks were to be operated from 1730 on. Half of this property belonged to him, while the other half was held by his brothers François and Michel. In the act of fealty and homage Pierre is referred to as royal notary and deputy king’s attorney.

Pierre Poulin was a member of the association formed on 16 April 1733 by Francois Poulin de Francheville with a view to accelerating the working of the iron deposits on the Saint-Maurice. When Francois died in November of that year, his widow, Thérèse de Couagne, carried on his work; a new association was set up and Pierre was again a member of it. The enterprise, however, made little headway, despite subsidies from the court and the arrival from France of trained workmen. In 1735 the partners gave up their operating licence. On 16 Oct. 1736 François-Étienne Cugnet formed a new association; Pierre Poulin then sold his interest in the business.

Subsequently Pierre Poulin went to live in Quebec. The census of 1744 mentions him as a merchant trader, the father of five daughters and a son. We do not know what became of him in later years.

Hervé Biron

AJTR, Greffe de Pierre Poulin, 1711–1720. “Procès verbaux du procureur général Collet” (Caron), APQ Rapport, 1921–22, 281–83. Nish, Les bourgeois-gentilshommes. Sulte, Mélanges historiques (Malchelosse), VI. Albert Tessier, Les forges Saint-Maurice, 1729–1883 (Trois-Rivières, Qué., 1952).