Origins of the name “Dorval”

Claude Bouchard was born in 1612 in Orval, one of eleven villages comprising Montigny-Lengrain, Soissons, Picardy (France). After completing his medical studies in France in his thirties, he became a surgeon. In June 1643, Claude Bouchard immigrated to New France and settled in Sillery, Quebec (now the district of Sainte-Foy–Sillery–Cap-Rouge). On September 19, 1647, for unknown reasons, he returned to France on the ship L’Ange-Gardien, and remained there until 1648, when he returned to New France. He purchased a land grant in Château-Richer³, a small town east of Quebec City, where the first rural parish in New France was established in 1678 and where many of Quebec’s first pioneer families settled. Over the next eleven years, he cleared 40 acres of land in Château-Richer. In addition to being a surgeon and farmer, he became a bailiff, clerk, and notary for the Seigneurie Beaupré.

On November 20, 1651, Claude Bouchard d’Orval married Marguerite Bénard at Notre-Dame, Quebec (marriage contract dated November 5, 1651, notarized by Guillaume Audouart). Marguerite Bénard was born in 1626 in Arpajon, a French commune southwest of Paris in the Essonne department (France).

Seven children were born from this marriage, all of whom lived to adulthood. The eldest, Jean-Baptiste d’Orval, was born on November 21, 1652, in Sillery, Quebec. He moved to Montreal, a region that was flourishing at the time due to the development of agriculture and the fur trade. In 1691, Jean-Baptiste d’Orval purchased the Domaine de La Présentation from Pierre Le Gardeur de Repentigny. (Note: Pierre Le Gardeur was the husband of Agathe de Saint-Père⁴, an entrepreneur and inventor.)

On December 19, 1695, Jean-Baptiste married Marie-Antoinette Chouart Desgroseillers, the daughter of Médard Chouart des Groseilliers⁵, a French explorer who arrived in Canada in 1641 to become a fur trader and, in 1670, co-founder of the Hudson’s Bay Company. They had four children: Geneviève Bouchard dit Dorval; Joseph Bouchard dit Dorval; Jean-Baptiste Bouchard dit Dorval dit Desgroseilliers; and Antoine Bouchard.

Jean-Baptiste passed away on November 19, 1703, in St. Pierre, Quebec, and is buried in Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, near Quebec City.

Dorval was incorporated as a village in 1892, as a town in 1903, and as a city in 1956.

On January 1, 2002, due to the 2002–2006 municipal reorganization of Montreal, Dorval was merged into the city of Montreal. It became a borough of Montreal, but after a change of government and a referendum in 2004, Dorval was reestablished as an independent city on January 1, 2006.