Hugues Picard dit LaFortune
and Anne-Antoinette de Liercourt.

Marriages in the New World.

Hailing from Picardie, Anne de Liercourt, was the daughter of Philippe de Liercourt and Jeanne Patin. She was about 18 when she made her way from France to Trois-Rivières among les Filles à marier. There she married Blaise Juillet dit Avignon, a bêcheur {digger} on 2 February 1651. He had been in the land since at least 1644. The couple would have four children in Montréal where they built their home.

The Jesuits, who recorded many events of note in the colony made this entry on 19 April 1660 in regard to Blaise Juillet dit Avignon and Mathurin Soulard, both companions of Dollard Desormeaux: "noyé près de l'Île-Saint-Paul, en fuyant les Iroquois" {drowned near Île-St-Paul (in Montréal), fleeing the Iroquois}. Another of their party, Nicolas Duval, met the same fate and was buried the next day.

The frontier was dangerous, with four children in tow Anne de Liercourt remarried in June.

Picard and de Liercourt.

Hugues Picard, 33, married the widow Anne de Liercourt, 27, on 30 June 1660 in Montréal. Arrangements were made for her four minor children and the disposition of her first husband's goods were made before the notary in the days preceding the marriage.

By the 1666 census, her oldest daughter had married. But she and Hugues had added two daughters, our ancestor Michelle, age 4, and Anne, age 2. The following year we learn from the 1667 census that the family had 9 head of cattle and a good 30 arpens of land under cultivation. They had added yet another daughter, Marguerite, just 18 months. They had one employee, Jean, to help. Our ancestors Jacques Beauvais and Jeanne Soldé were close neighbors.

Our ancestor Michelle Picard married a soldier in 1676. In the 1681 census counting the Habitants de la Ville de Montréal we find Hugues Picard 50 ans, Antoinette Deliercour sa femme 48 ans, Marguerite 15 ans, Jean 12 ans, Jacques 10 ans, Louis Juillet, designated a domestique, or laborer, was her 22 year old son. They had 1 fusil {flintlock}, 9 head of cattle and 30 arpents cultivated land.

The Picard boys soon trekked west with the fur trade. Jean-Gabriel went in 1691 and 1703. He built a home in Lachine in 1720 at what was later 5430 boulevard Saint-Joseph and it long remained one of the town's oldest houses. Brother Jacques went out in 1693. On one of his return trips from Michillimakinac, in 1697, he brought by a 10 year old native child and had him baptized in Montréal on 17 May 1698.

Both Anne and Hugues died in 1707. She passed on 30 September at age 74. He was 80 when he died on 22 December.