Jean Baptiste Bourdon (sometimes called M. de Saint-Jean or Sieur de Saint-François) was born c. 1601 at Saint-André-le-Vieil in Rouen, Normandy, France.

He was a seigneur, the first engineer-in-chief and land-surveyor in the colony of New France, cartographer, businessman, procurator-syndic of the village of Quebec, head clerk of the Communauté des Habitants, explorer, and the first attorney-general of the Conseil Superieur. He arrived in the colony in 1634 and settled on the outskirts of Quebec, on the Sainte-Geneviève hill. In 1639, governor Huault made him a commoner’s land grant of 50 acres that he had named “terre Saint-Jean.” He built a mill and a chapel where his friend Jean Le Sueur was to officiate. Bourdon received several other seigneuries in return for his services, e.g., the Rivière au Griffon seigneury, the seigneury of Autray, the seigneury of Dombourg (an anagram of Bourdon), which was situated at the spot now called Pointe-aux-Trembles, and the seigneury of La Malbaie. He lived on the Saint-Jean fief and carried on his profession as an engineer and surveyor. In 1641-42, he drew up a detailed map of the region between Quebec and Cap Tourmente, including the Île d’Orléans. In 1645, he was appointed acting governor of Trois-Rivières. In 1647, he was elected procurator-syndic of the town of Quebec, and then the governor appointed him head clerk of the Communauté des Habitants. In 1663, he became attorney-general and occupied this office until 1668.

In 1635, he married Jacqueline Potel (1620-1645), and in 1655, he remarried Anne Gasnier (1611-1698). He died on January 12, 1668, in Quebec City.

Sir John George Bourinot was born on October 24, 1837, in Sydney, Nova Scotia.

He was a writer, political scientist, and historian. He graduated from Toronto's Trinity University in 1857 and then settled in Halifax, where he founded the Herald and became its editor. Following Confederation, he joined the Hansard staff in Ottawa in 1868, and in 1873, he was appointed assistant clerk to the House of Commons, becoming a chief clerk in 1880. He became a leading expert on Canadian Constitution, government, and history, writing several books, including “Parliamentary Procedure and Practice”(1884), "Local Government in Canada" (1887), "Manual of The Constitutional History of Canada" (1888), and “How Canada is Governed” (1895). He was one of the founders of the Royal Society of Canada and became its president in 1892.

In 1889, he married Isabelle Cameron. He died on October 13, 1902, in Ottawa, Ontario.

Marshall Bourinot was born on May 11, 1838, in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. He was a mining entrepreneur and wealthy merchant in Cape Breton Island. In 1858, he acquired the lease for the Block House Mines. Robert Belloni, a New York coal dealer, entered into a business partnership with Bourinot under the name Bourinot & Co. to operate the Block House Mines, which in 1861 shipped 6000 tons of coal to New York in American vessels. After selling his share of Block House Mines to Belloni, Bourinot speculated in prospective coal properties. In 1862, he married Laura Harrington Fixott. He died in Port Hastings, Inverness, Nova Scotia, Canada.