Individual Details

Marguerite Couillard

(10 Aug 1626 - 20 Apr 1705)

Events

Birth	10 Aug 1626	Québec, Québec, Canada
Christen	10 Aug 1626	Notre-Dame-de-Québec, Québec, Québec, Canada, Nouvelle-France
Marriage	7 Oct 1637	Québec, Québec, Canada - Jean Nicolet
Marriage	16 Nov 1646	Québec, Québec, Canada - Nicolas Champagne Macard
Death	20 Apr 1705	Québec, Québec, Canada
Burial	20 Apr 1705	Notre-Dame-de-Québec, Québec, Québec, Canada, Nouvelle-France
Life sketch		Marguerite Couillard, also recorded as Marguerite Couillart, was born about 10 August 1626 in Québec, the principal settlement of New France. She was the daughter of Guillaume Couillard (1588–1663) and Marie Guillemette Hébert (1608–1684), members of one of the earliest French families established in Canada. The Couillard and Hébert families were directly connected to Louis Hébert, recognized as the first permanent settler and farmer of Québec, situating Marguerite within the founding generation of colonial society. She was baptized on 10 August 1626 at the parish of Notre-Dame de Québec, the first Catholic parish established north of Mexico. In the 1620s, Québec was a small, fortified community under the governance of the Company of One Hundred Associates. Religious institutions, particularly the Catholic Church, played a central role in both civil record keeping and community life. A marriage record dated 7 October 1637 places Marguerite at the parish of Notre-Dame de Québec. If correctly attributed to her, this event would have occurred when she was about eleven years old, an age notably young even by early colonial standards. The existence of this entry suggests either a contracted marriage, a clerical anomaly in the records, or potential misattribution. Early parish registers in New France occasionally contain such inconsistencies, and the precise nature of this 1637 union remains uncertain. On 12 November 1646, Marguerite married Nicolas Macart (1621–1659) at Notre-Dame de Québec Parish. Macart was originally from Reims in Champagne, France, and his migration reflected the broader pattern of French settlers who reinforced the colony’s fragile demographic structure during the mid-seventeenth century. Their union produced at least one known child, Jean Machard (1646–1707), who survived into adulthood and carried the family line into subsequent generations of Canadian society. Marguerite was also connected by marriage to Jean Nicollet (1598–1642), an explorer and interpreter well known in the history of New France for his travels in the Great Lakes region and his role in diplomatic and trade relations with Indigenous peoples. The association with Nicollet places Marguerite’s life within the wider networks of colonial settlement and intercultural contact during this formative period. Her life spanned years of both instability and consolidation for New France. The colony experienced repeated threats from the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy, as well as difficulties in maintaining supply lines and population growth. Despite these challenges, the colony endured, sustained by the efforts of settlers, missionaries, and the development of agricultural communities along the St. Lawrence River. Marguerite lived to witness the growth of Québec from a small frontier post into a fortified town of greater permanence and influence. During her lifetime, Québec also saw the establishment of key religious and educational institutions, including the Ursuline convent and the Hôtel-Dieu hospital, both founded in 1639, which contributed to the shaping of colonial society. Marguerite Couillard died about 20 April 1705 in Québec, District of Québec, Canada, New France, at approximately seventy-nine years of age. She was buried the same day at Notre-Dame de Québec Parish, where the major milestones of her life—baptism, marriages, and burial—had all been recorded. Her life thus began and ended within the same spiritual and social center that defined much of early New France. Her nearly eight decades in the colony linked the first generation of settlers with the subsequent generations who would shape New France in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Through her parentage, marriages, and offspring, Marguerite Couillard was firmly tied to the foundational families of Québec, contributing to the demographic and social development of the colony during its formative years.
Find A Grave		Memorial #138853700

Families

Spouse

Jean Nicolet (1598 - 1642)

Spouse

Nicolas Champagne Macard (1620 - 1659)

Father	Guillaume Couillard (1588 - 1663)
Mother	Guillemette Hébert (1606 - 1684)
Sibling	Marie-Louise Couillard (1625 - 1641)
Sibling	Louis Couillard (1629 - 1678)
Sibling	Elisabeth Couillard (1631 - 1704)
Sibling	Marie Couillard (1633 - 1703)
Sibling	Grégoire Guillaume Couillard (1635 - 1662)
Sibling	Madeleine Couillard (1639 - 1666)
Sibling	Nicolas Couillard (1641 - 1661)
Sibling	Charles Thomas Couillard (1647 - 1715)

Endnotes