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Origin and establishment in New France
Origin and establishment in New France
Pierre Picher was born on August 18, 1632, in Faye-la-Vineuse
(France), the son of Pierre Picher and Anne Piant (Piaut). He married a
local girl, Marie Lefebvre. He decided to come and settle in New
France. He came alone with the idea of taking his bearings first and
having his wife, Marie, follow him at a later date.
In 1662, although a hat-maker by trade, he began working as a farm-hand for Gervais Buisson in Sillery. He learned in a letter from his brother Louis, attached to a nobleman's house in Avignon, that his wife, Marie, had died in France. He met Catherine Durant who had recently arrived in New France as a "fille du roi"; he married her in Quebec city on November 25, 1665.
With his new wife Pierre settled in Notre-Dame-des-Anges on some land that he purchased from a settler named Jean Charpentier. In December 1666, he leased for three years some farm-land from Adrien Sédillot on côte (hill) St-Michel in Sillery where, after selling his land in Charlesbourg, he settled with his wife, Catherine, and a first child, Jean-Baptiste, born in 1666. A second son, Adrien, was born in 1668.
He soon discovered that he would be better off working a land of his own than that of someone else; so when his lease expired, he purchased a piece of land from Laurent Lormier in Neuville where his other children were born: Marie Madeleine in November 1670, Pierre in July 1674, Catherine in December 1677, François in October 1681, Ignace-Joseph in October 1685 and Louis in September 1691.
During 1671, Pierre had the surprise of his life: he learned from an acquaintance who had recently come from France, that his first wife, Marie Lefebvre, was far from dead; she was well and alive. What a problem for Pierre and Catherine! We can imagine how stunned they must have been. Fortunately, Bishop Laval was leaving for France and, at the couple's request, accepted to look into the matter in the mother-country.
On his return, Bishop Laval informed Pierre that Marie was in fact still living, and advised him to go and get her in France. So he did but, fortunately in a sense, Marie died, this time for real, before setting foot ashore in Quebec City.
With this problem finally solved, Pierre and Catherine raised their children and continued working their land until the year 1700 when they sold it to a Joseph Riverin. One might think that Pierre, then 68, would go and live in a well-deserved retirement with one of his four children living in the area. Well, that is not what he did for, on November 24, 1701, Pierre and Catherine bought before a notary named Adhémar the farm-land and house of Joseph Charbonneau in Boucherville, near Montréal. The three younger children moved with their parents but, unfortunately, François drowned in the St.Lawrence in July 1706.
Finally
in 1708, in spite of their wish to the contrary, Pierre and Catherine
could not deny they were no longer able, because of their age, to
continue attending to their daily choses and providing for their own
needs. They had to start relying on their children for their
subsistence. So they moved with Ignace-Joseph and Louis who had just
purchased some land in the St-Sulpice domain..
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