M. in France
Wife: Françoise Langlois
D. before 1634 in (probably) Dieppe, France
When the Mayflower arrived in America, a handful of people were already living in a cold, remote outpost on the St. Lawrence River. It was the seed of a country planted by the visionary, Samuel de Champlain, and Pierre Desportes was one of its earliest settlers.
How Pierre became connected to this venture would be an interesting story, but it’s unfortunately lost to history. Nothing is known of his origins other than he was born in about 1594 somewhere in France. He seems to have been educated because was literate. There was a man named Pierre Desportes a generation older who was a prominent investor in the Canadian colonies, but no records exist linking him to the Pierre Desportes of this biography.
It's believed that Pierre married Françoise Langlois in France sometime between 1617 and 1620. Then the couple migrated to Champlain's settlement — known as Habitation de Quebec — along with Françoise's sister Marguerite and husband Abraham Martin. Pierre's wife gave birth to the first European child in what is now Canada, a girl named Hélène, born in 1620. Oddly, it doesn't seem as if they had any other children.
Habitation de Quebec during the early 1600s.
During the entire time Pierre lived in Canada, the outpost struggled to grow, and by 1625, there were only seven families living there. Most who were there were employed in the fishing industry, or like Pierre, in the fur trade. He didn’t engage in the buying of furs itself, but managed a warehouse to store pelts collected for export every year. Pierre also served as the town baker, meaning he probably tended a public oven to make bread. In a community that small, the people had to work together in this way to survive.
Establishing a colony had many challenges, and one of them came from rival countries. France and England were both trying to get a foothold in Canada, and this played out in 1629 with an Englishman, David Kirke, invading and taking over Champlain’s outpost. Most of the French colonists were forcibly taken back to France by way of England, and Pierre and his family were among them.
It's believed that Pierre died in Dieppe, France sometime between 1629 and 1634; his wife Françoise was known to have passed away in 1632. When the English gave the French back the Canadian outpost, their daughter Hèléne returned there, probably with her aunt and uncle, Marguerite Langlois and Abraham Martin. Through Hèléne’s two marriages, Pierre was the ancestor of many people in America, including some notable names: Madonna, Céline Dion, Jack Kerouac, Jim Carrey, Bridget Fonda, Pierre Trudeau and Justin Trudeau.
Children:
1. Hélène Desportes — B. 1620, Quebec, New France; D. 24 Jun 1675, Quebec City, New France; M. (1) Guillaume Hébert (~1614-1639), 1 Oct 1634, Quebec City, New France; M. (2) Noël Morin (~1609-1680 ), 9 Jan 1640, Quebec City, New France
Sources:
A point in history (website), Marjorie Lizotte, 2009
One-hundred French-Canadian Family Histories, Philip J. Moore, 1994
Hélène’s World: Hélène Desportes of Seventeenth Century Quebec, Susan McNelley, 2014
GeneaStar: Famous Family Tree and Genealogy (website)
