Marie-Madeleine Hertel de la Fresnière

MTDNA Haplogroup: W3A2 (Descendant of Marie Margurie)

Following is taken from http://www.thecid.com/frenchw/i310.htm

Marie Madeleine was born in Trois-Rivieres and grew up in tumultuous times. Her father died when she was just six. The next year Trois-Rivieres was attacked by the Iroquois and half the settlement was killed. At about this time her mother married Quentin Moral, a king's lieutenant. This horrible year was followed by a hard, hungry winter, and then by the servants of the colony deserting. Marie survived another Iroquois attack and eight-day siege of the town at age eight.

There seems to have been strife within the family over ownership of the land that her mother inherited from Marguerite's father. Marguerite's brother Francois tried to set up an independent livelihood for his mother and sisters, apart from his step-father, who had become a lawyer and plaintant in the myriad lawsuits between the disputatious colonists.

At the age of 13 Marie was married to Louis Pinard, then 22. Louis had first came to New France at the age of 15 as an apprentice surgeon with the Jesuits. After two years he returned to France to complete his medical training. On his return in 1656 he was assigned as the surgeon for the garrison at Trois-Rivieres. Pinard was a disputatious man, in constant legal disputes over money with many of the inhabitants of Trois-Rivieres, notably Michael Leneuf Du Herisson. He also found himself in competition with the other surgeon at the small settlement, Michel Gamelain.

Marie had her first child at age 19. A year later, in 1661, her brother Francois was captured by the Iroquois. He was thought dead, but then letters came into the hands of the Jesuits, where Francois reported that he had been horribly tortured, lost several fingers, but was still alive. He was ransomed and returned to the family the next year.

Pinard became prominent in the small community, being one of the syndics of Trois Rivieres, a churchwarden, and church procurator. Marie performed the wifely duties of the time by giving Louis five more children over the next 15 years.

With increasing casualties due to hostile activities by the Iroquois, Louis took on Jacques Dubois as his aide in 1666. In 1670 Pinard obtained the seigneury of L'Arbre-a-la-Croix at Champlain. Louis and Marie thereby became landed gentry, with tenant farmers to provide income. He moved the family there, taking up farming and the fur trade while continuing as a surgeon. Marie-Madeleine died in 1679, perhaps in the birth of her final daughter, leaving Pinard a widower with six children.

As was customary at the time, Louis remarried quickly, wedding Marie-Ursule Pepin on 30 November 1680 in Champlain. She would give him a further six children.

Pinard was one of two surgeons to accompany Meneux on his expedition to Hudson Bay in 1685. Louis had schooled his son Claude in the surgical arts, then apprenticed him to Jean Demosny in Quebec. Claude would marry a daughter of Louis' old rival, Gamelin. In 1690 Louis was made surgeon-major Trois-Rivieres.

Among his other enterprises, Pinard became a sales agent for the medicines of Claude Deshaies-Gendron for the Trois-Rivieres region in 1692. At the end of his life he moved to Batiscan, where he died on 12 January 1695.

Marie was mtdna Haplogroup W HVR1: 16209C 16223T 16255A 16292T 16519C HVR2: 73G 119C 189G 195C 204C 207A 263G 309.1C 315.1C

Notes: Pinard's family in the 1666 census of Trois-Rivieres:

Louis Pinard ...............30 habitant Marie Magdelaine hertel ....20 sa femme françoise Pinard ............2 fille Jean barreau dit xaintonge .20 domestique

And in the 1681 census, in Champlain:

Louis Pinard, chirurgien, 44 Marie-(Ursule) Pepin, sa femme, (veuve de Nicolas Geoffroy), 20 enfants : Marie-(Françoise) 16, Claude 14, Louis 12, Marguerite 10, Angelique 4, Madelaine 2 1 vache ; 20 arpents en valeur.