Paul-Augustin JUCHEREAU
Biography

JUCHEREAU DE MAUR, PAUL-AUGUSTIN, receiving-agent of the Compagnie de la Colonie de la Nouvelle-France; b. 13 June 1658 at Quebec; d. 1714 at sea.

Paul-Augustin Juchereau was the second son of Jean Juchereau* de La Ferté, seigneur of Maur, member of the Conseil Souverain, and of Marie Giffard, daughter of the seigneur of Beauport. He was the brother of Denis-Joseph Juchereau de La Ferté and Jeanne-Françoise de La Ferté, dite de Saint-Ignace, the superior and annalist of the Hôtel-Dieu of Quebec.

He received a remarkable education for the time, and went in for business. His elder brother, Noël, having entered the Jesuit order, in 1685 Paul-Augustin received the seigneury of Maur from his father. This seigneury, of 50 acres, also called Saint-Augustin, was situated near Quebec.

Paul-Augustin went to France in 1700 along with Sieur Pascaud, to try and obtain freedom of trade for Canadians. He was involved in the creation of the Compagnie de la Colonie, for on 13 July 1701 the company delivered to Juchereau a commission as an “agent appointed to receive the beaver pelts and the tenth part of the moose hides”; he held this position until his death.

When Walker’s fleet broke up on Île-aux-Oeufs in 1711, the poets, Mother Saint-Ignace tells us, exhausted their imagination in putting this shipwreck into verse of every kind and shape. Some of the poems and songs have been preserved in the archives of the Hôtel-Dieu of Quebec including one by Paul-Augustin.

In the autumn of 1714 Juchereau sailed for France on board the Saint-Jérôme, which sank near Sable Island. There were only two survivors of this shipwreck; Paul-Augustin perished in it, together with the captain, Lechtier (Lechter) de Chalus, the Marquis d’Aloigny, commander of the troops, and François Dumontier, secretary to the Marquis Philippe de Rigaud de Vaudreuil.

Paul-Augustin, who had remained a bachelor, had bequeathed his possessions to his nephew, François Aubert de La Chesnaye, Sieur de Mille-Vaches, who inherited the seigneury and title of Maur.

Antonio Drolet

Dictionary of Canadian Biography, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003

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