Last updated: 2026-11-02

David Wayne Hurd's Genealogy - French-Canadian Ancestors

Catudal Family Lineage

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David Messier
 Pierre Lemoyne
Marguerite Bar
 Judith Duchène

m. 25 Feb 1658, Montréal, Province de Québec
Michel Messier Anne Lemoyne
b. 1640
d. aft 1681
bur.
occ.
edu.
rel. 		b. 1644
d. aft 1681
bur.
occ.
edu.
rel.

Children
> Marie-Anne Messier <
> Anne Messier <
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Historical Context in the Early Years on Montreal for Michel Messier and Anne Le Moyne

This webpage last updated on 2026-11-02

Historical Context: Michel Messier and Anne Le Moyne in the Early Years of Montréal

Michel Messier dit Saint-Michel was born about 1640 at Saint-Denis-le-Thiboult, near Rouen in Normandy, to David Messier and Marguerite Bar. He was in the small French settlement of Ville-Marie (Montréal) by December 1653, when he witnessed the marriage promise between his cousin Catherine Thierry and Charles Le Moyne. Historians associate his arrival with the important recruitment of settlers in 1653, although his name does not appear on the surviving muster roll. The newcomers helped a vulnerable settlement remain established on the island of Montréal.

The colony was shaped by its alliances, trade and conflicts with Indigenous nations. Messier was captured in 1654 and released in 1655; he was captured a second time in 1661 and had returned by the end of 1663. These documented episodes show that his life was directly affected by the insecurity experienced by Ville-Marie and the wider conflicts in the St. Lawrence valley. In November 1657 he purchased farmland from Charles Le Moyne. His marriage contract with Charles’s sister Anne Le Moyne was signed on 18 February 1658, and the marriage was celebrated in Montréal on 25 February. Their family eventually included twelve children, eight daughters and four sons.

Messier’s later career extended beyond farming. In 1668 he and his brother-in-law Jacques Le Moyne received the fief of Cap-de-la-Trinité, later divided into separate holdings; Messier’s portion was called Cap-Saint-Michel. He served as a militia lieutenant, commanded a vessel during the 1684 campaign associated with Fort Frontenac, and held licences to trade furs in the Ottawa country. The record of his landholding, military duties and trade shows how intertwined these activities were in seventeenth-century New France. Anne died in July 1725; Michel was buried at Sainte-Anne de Varennes on 3 November of that year.

Historical and Genealogical References