CUILLERIER, RENÉ​, indentured employee of the Hôtel-Dieu of Montreal, settler; baptized 30 Dec. 1637 at Mareil-sur-Loir, France; son of Julien Cuillerier and Julienne Piau; m. 13 April 1665 Marie Lucault at Montreal; d. there c. 1712.

René Cuillerier arrived in New France on 7 Sept. 1659. In La Rochelle on 8 June 1659, he had appeared before the notary A. Demontreau to sign an undertaking with Sister Judith Moreau* de Brésoles, the superior of the Hôtel-Dieu of Montreal. This contract made him a servant at the hospital in Ville-Marie for an annual salary of 75 livres, and by the autumn he was at Montreal. On 25 Oct. 1661, led by Abbé Guillaume Vignal*, Cuillerier and some settlers, assisted by members of the garrison, went to the Île à la Pierre in the St Lawrence to quarry materials with which to complete the building of Montreal’s first seminary. He had cause to rue it, for the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) attacked the workers, killed some, wounded others, and captured Vignal, Claude de Brigeac*, Cuillerier, and Jacques Dufresne.

Cuillerier and Brigeac were carried off into captivity among the Oneida. They were beaten and Cuillerier’s nails were torn out. The Oneida then decided to burn the two Frenchmen. Death was first meted out to Brigeac, but Cuillerier was saved by a woman who asked to adopt him “in order that he might take the place of her brother.”

During his 19-month captivity Cuillerier met two fellow-sufferers: Michel Messier, dit Saint-Michel, and Urbain Tessier, dit Lavigne. In the spring of 1663 Cuillerier took advantage of a hunting trip with the Oneida, who had been joined by some Mohawk and captive Frenchmen, to flee in the direction of New Holland. He went to Fort Orange (Albany, N.Y.), whence he made his way to Boston, and finally reached Quebec.

At the end of the summer Cuillerier was back in Montreal and resumed his service with the Religious Hospitallers of the Hôtel-Dieu. On 20 May 1665 he settled on Montreal Island, having obtained from the Sulpicians a land grant of 45 acres. This land was to form part of the Verdun fief, which was granted to him in 1671. He took part in the founding of the parish of Lachine and in 1675 became its first churchwarden. The following year his fortified house received the name Fort Cuillerier. At the time of the 1681 census he had 32 acres under cultivation and owned 6 muskets, one pistol, and 6 head of cattle.

On 22 March 1712 Cuillerier, who had been ill for some time, made his will in the presence of Louis-Michel de Vilermaula*, parish priest of Lachine. His last will and testament was deposited in Jean-Baptiste Adhémar*’s registry on 26 Jan. 1716. Although the date of his death is unknown, a notarial act of 27 Jan. 1718, signed before the notary Adhémar and deposited in Michel Lepallieur’s registry, indicates that Madame Lucault had “been the widow of her said husband for more than five years.”

On 13 April 1665 in the chapel of the Hôtel-Dieu of Montreal, and in the presence of the town’s governor, Paul de Chomedey* de Maisonneuve, René Cuillerier had married Marie Lucault, daughter of Léonard Barbeau, dit Lucault, and of Barbe Poisson. Sixteen children were born of this marriage; seven were baptized at Montreal and the others at Lachine. Cuillerier may have written a valuable document describing Iroquois culture, an anonymous text probably written in the 1660s.

Claude Perrault