ROMIEUX (Romulus, Rémus), PIERRE (or Peter), surgeon; b. c. 1636; fl. 1675.

A surgeon of Béziers in Languedoc, he signed a three-year contract with Médard Chouart Des Groseilliers in France in 1659 to work for François Renou dit La Chapelle of Trois-Rivières and evidently spent three years there. He was to work for 200 livres per annum, La Chapelle providing the medicines.

For several years he served as surgeon to Radisson* and Des Groseilliers, accompanying them in their journeys, and he was one of the “originals” who went with these two adventurers on the Nonsuch to Hudson Bay in 1668. Presumably he returned to England the following year. In the Company’s records he appears as Peter Romulus, “ye French chirurgion.” He made another voyage to the Bay in 1672 and was to “stay in the countrey.” His medicine chest had evidently been too generously furnished: Mr Pelling, the apothecary, had overrated supplies by at least one-third and was “to bee spoken to.” While Romieux was to “stay in the countrey,” a replacement was appointed for him – surgeon Walter Farr – in 1674. Since no ships returned from Hudson Bay that year it was November 1675 before Romieux severed association with the Company.

Maud M. Hutcheson

HBC Arch. A.14/1, ff.79d–80, 101; A.14/2, 12 and 27 Nov. 1675. HBRS, V (Rich). Gabriel Debien, “Liste des engagés pour le Canada au XVII^e siècle (1634–1715),” RHAF, VI (1952–53), 391. Raymond Douville, “Chirurgiens, barbiers-chirurgiens et charlatans de la région trifluvienne sous le régime français,” Cahiers des Dix, XV (1950), 124–25.