Pierre Gagné (elder)

Biography

Pierre Gagné crossed to New France in middle age, bringing a wife and three sons rather than arriving alone. Baptized at Saint-Martin in Igé, in the Perche region west of Paris in France, on January 2, 1610, he was a son of Louis Gagné and Marie Launay. His surname also appears as Gasnier.

Around 1639 he married Marguerite Rosée. The family lived in the area of Saint-Cosme-de-Vair, with a later baptism at Courcival. Two sons, Jean and Jacques, died in France. Louis, Pierre and Nicolas accompanied their parents across the Atlantic around 1653. A daughter, Marguerite, was baptized in Québec that September.

Pierre's brother Louis was already in the colony, having migrated about a decade earlier. Pierre and Marguerite settled on the Côte-de-Beaupré, the St. Lawrence’s north bank downstream from Québec city in present-day Canada, where a holding associated with the family appears in later reconstructions of the early concessions. A modern commemorative plaque lists an early holding under the name of ‘Widow Pierre Gagné,’ preserving the family's association with the settlement. It recalls a farm whose early development was interrupted by his death.

Pierre died on April 30, 1656, less than three years after the family's arrival. Later accounts describe his illness as “slow fevers”; its cause is uncertain. He was buried the next day.

Afterward Marguerite moved to Montréal with the younger children, while Louis remained in the Beaupré area. Pierre's short Canadian life thus ended before his family's next major move, leaving its members to establish themselves in two different settlements.

The burial listing places Pierre Gagné (elder) at Cimetière historique de la Cote-de-la-Montagne, Québec, Capitale-Nationale Region, Québec, Canada.