Pierre St. Jean
Encyclopedia
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
doctor and politician.
He was born in Bytown
Bytown
Bytown is the former name of Ottawa, Canada's capital city. It was founded on on September 26, 1826, incorporated as a town on January 1, 1850, and superseded by the incorporation of the City of Ottawa on January 1, 1855. The founding was marked by a sod turning, and a letter from Governor General...
in 1833. During the 1840s, he established a French language
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
literary society there with J.B. Turgeon. He studied medicine at McGill College
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
and received his license to practice medicine in 1855. He worked for a while with another doctor in Ottawa and then practiced in Saint-Denis, Quebec. He married there but his wife died in childbirth in 1857 and he returned to Ottawa in 1858. He was one of only three Franco-Ontarian
Franco-Ontarian
Franco-Ontarians are French Canadian or francophone residents of the Canadian province of Ontario. They are sometimes known as "Ontarois"....
doctors in Ottawa at the time. He became part of the staff at the hospital operated by Élisabeth Bruyère
Élisabeth Bruyère
Élisabeth Bruyère or Bruguier was the founder of the Sisters of Charity of Bytown and opened the first hospital there and the first bilingual school in Ontario....
`s Sisters of Charity, later the Ottawa General Hospital. He served four terms as president of the L'Institut canadien-français d'Ottawa.
In 1874, he became the first French-speaking member from Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
in the Canadian House of Commons
Canadian House of Commons
The House of Commons of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the Sovereign and the Senate. The House of Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 308 members known as Members of Parliament...
, representing Ottawa City
Ottawa (City of)
Ottawa was a federal electoral district in the province of Ontario, Canada, that was represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1867 to 1935.It was created by the British North America Act of 1867. It consisted of the city of Ottawa...
. He was mayor of Ottawa from 1882 to 1883 being the first to have been born in it. During his term as mayor, the Canada Atlantic Railway
Canada Atlantic Railway
The Canada Atlantic Railway Company , the creation of lumber baron John Rudolphus Booth, was for a short period an important participant in the development of trans-Canada railway systems at the end of the 19th century...
link to Ottawa was completed.
Following his term as mayor, he remained on staff at the Ottawa General Hospital until 1898 and also worked at the Department of Public Works
Public Works and Government Services Canada
Public Works and Government Services Canada is the department of the government of Canada with responsibility for the government's internal servicing and administration....
.
He died in Ottawa in 1900.