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Le cordonnier | The Shoemaker 

The cordonnier, or shoemaker (known as a cordwainer in England), was a skilled craftsman who made leather footwear, including shoes, boots, and slippers. He could produce an entire shoe by hand, from cutting and shaping the leather to assembling, stitching, and finishing the various components.

In the time of New France, shoemakers either worked on their own account and in their own workshop (often in their home), or they were employed by shops or tanneries, many of which had their own workshop. Between 1660 and 1760, 132 men were enumerated as shoemakers or saddlers in the colony.

In records, you may find your ancestor described as a cordonnier, a maître cordonnier (master shoemaker), a compagnon or garçon cordonnier (journeyman), an apprenti cordonnier (apprentice), or a savetier (cobbler; see below). A bottier specialized in boots.

How Shoes Were Made

The shoemaker sat on a low bench, wearing a leather apron, his sleeves rolled to the elbows and his hands wrapped in strips of leather to protect them as he pulled the thread tight. Attached to his bench was a compartmentalized wooden box holding his tools: awls for piercing the leather, hammers for driving small nails, pliers, knives, sharpening stones, and wooden and metal pegs. His supplies included linen thread, pitch for waxing it, pig’s bristles, pieces of glass and sandpaper for smoothing, pots of glue and varnish, and wooden polishing implements. Nearby stood a bucket of water for soaking and softening the leather, along with wooden or iron supports for holding the shoe. A leather strap passing beneath his foot secured the shoe against his knee.

He began by cutting the leather for the soles, heels, and reinforcements, then cut the pieces of the upper (the part covering the foot) and stitched them together. Using special pliers, he stretched the upper over a last, a wooden form that gave the shoe its shape, and held it in place with small pegs or nails while fitting it around the insole.

Next he attached the outer sole, piercing the leather with an awl and stitching it to the upper with strong waxed linen thread. Pig’s bristles fixed to each end of the thread served as flexible needles. Depending on the construction method, soles could also be fastened with wooden pegs.

Finally, he trimmed the edges of the soles and heels with a sharp knife, smoothed them with glass or other abrasives, and darkened and polished them with varnish and a heated iron or wooden tool.

What Did a Shoemaker Actually Make?

In New France, shoemakers produced everything from ordinary leather shoes and slippers to more elaborate boots. Footwear had to be robust to cope with the climate, and shoemakers also made Indigenous-style footwear suited to harsh winters. For comparison, the eighteenth-century Encyclopédie of Diderot and d’Alembert illustrates the range of European styles a skilled craftsman might produce, including tall boots with straps and buckles.

An account prepared around 1750 by a shoemaker named Bluteau dit Larabel for Madame Lambert shows the everyday reality of the trade. Alongside new shoes and slippers for the household, including two pairs for les jumeaux (the twins), it lists resolings and other repairs, each priced at a few livres. A shoemaker’s living depended as much on mending old footwear as on making new. Strictly speaking, however, repairs belonged to another trade.

The Shoemaker and the Cobbler: What Was the Difference?

Historically, the cordonnier (shoemaker), who made new footwear, was distinguished from the savetier (cobbler), who repaired worn shoes and boots. The word savetier comes from savate, an old, worn-out shoe, and it could carry a derogatory sense, sometimes describing a craftsman who did poor-quality work. An ancestor described as a savetier was therefore probably a repairer rather than a maker.

Over time, the two trades increasingly overlapped, particularly in rural communities where a single craftsman did both. By the twentieth century, cordonnier was commonly used for someone who repaired shoes, and savetier had largely fallen out of everyday use.

The Shoemaker’s Apprentice

Mastering these techniques took years, and most shoemakers learned them as apprentices, working alongside a master who was obliged to teach them the trade. The terms were usually set out in a notarized apprenticeship contract, which typically named the apprentice and his parent or guardian, the length of training, and what the master would provide, such as food, lodging, and clothing.

Masters and apprentices had obligations to each other, and the authorities enforced both. On 11 April 1739, Intendant Gilles Hocquart ordered Gabriel Briasse dit Latreille, a 17-year-old Montréal apprentice who had left his master, shoemaker Joseph Guérin, to return, complete his three-year term, and make up the time he had lost. Other masters were forbidden to employ or harbour him. Guérin, in turn, was ordered to treat the young man humanely and to conceal nothing from him concerning the trade.

More than a century later, similar disputes continued to arise. In June 1846, Joseph Barbeau, a master shoemaker in Québec City, placed a newspaper advertisement announcing that his apprentice, David Paquet dit Lavallée, had deserted his master’s workshop on 16 March. Barbeau warned that he would prosecute anyone who harboured or employed the young man. The notice even included a physical description of Paquet, noting his height, brown hair, crossed eyes, and smallpox scars.

Shoemakers and Tanners

However skilled he was, a shoemaker depended on a steady supply of leather, which he generally obtained from tanneries. These were established in Québec and Montréal during the seventeenth century. Initially, leather artisans imported skins from France, but as local butchers established themselves, colonial tanners increasingly processed domestically sourced hides. Shoemakers often lived near tanneries for convenience; in Québec City, several shoemakers lived on rue du Sault-au-Matelot.  

Intendant Jean Talon financially supported domestic tanneries, with the objective of colonial self-sufficiency in leather goods, especially shoes and boots. By the early 1670s, he noted that “nearly a third of the shoes [in Canada] are made from native leathers.”

Regulating the Trade

As both trades grew, the authorities stepped in. On 20 July 1706, Intendant Raudot issued an ordinance regulating Montréal’s tanners, shoemakers, and butchers. Pending the king’s decision on whether to establish trade guilds, he sought to confine each worker “to the functions appropriate to their profession.” Among other things, he ordered:

• There shall be only two tanners in this town, namely Delaunay and Barsalot, between whom [...] the five butchers currently established here shall share equally all the hides from their establishments [...].

• We forbid butchers from using any hides to make French shoes, on penalty of a three-livre fine for each hide they use, allowing them nevertheless to use a few of lesser quality to make “savage” [Indigenous-style] shoes.

• [...] we grant the aforementioned Delaunay, in consideration of the establishment he has created, permission to employ only three young shoemakers and one apprentice, whom he may employ in their trade. We forbid him from having more than this number, or from having them work for him in any establishments other than his own, on penalty of a fifty-livre fine, applicable as those above ordered for the maintenance of the city.

The ordinance also required inspections of tanned hides and obliged habitants to sell their hides only to tanners at the town market.

Six years later, in April 1712, Gérard Barsalou (the “Barsalot” of the ordinance) sued shoemaker Joseph Greenhill to recover 177 livres owed for leather. The proceedings included the seizure of property, a receipt for 100 livres, and a payment promise.

In August 1729, approximately fifteen Montréal shoemakers joined forces to bring legal proceedings against Joseph Guyon dit Després, a butcher and tanner, and his wife, Madeleine Petit, who were also practising shoemaking. The shoemakers demanded that the couple cease making footwear and restrict themselves to their established trades, citing the 1706 ordinance. The case illustrates how craftsmen sought to protect their livelihood against competition from other trades.

Selling Shoes

While some shoemakers sold their work to merchants, most sold directly to customers, either from their workshops or door to door. They attracted customers through signs, advertising, or word of mouth.  

In Québec City, on 15 April 1692, André Spénard received permission to hang a sign reading bien chaussé (“well-shod”) outside his house, on the condition that it remain securely attached. This small detail offers a glimpse of how a seventeenth-century shoemaker advertised his services to passersby.

A century later, shoemakers were also advertising their services in newspapers. In April 1797, Thompson and Fraser announced the opening of their shoemaking business at No. 2, rue Sous-le-Fort, in Québec City's Lower Town. They promised to use quality leather to produce fashionable footwear for ladies and gentlemen. Describing themselves as young beginners, they hoped to earn the public's approval through hard work and attentive service.

The Travelling Shoemaker

Not all shoemakers worked in permanent workshops. In seventeenth-century New France, some travelled between households, making footwear from leather supplied by their customers. During the early years of Intendant Jean Talon's administration, an habitant who employed a shoemaker could even hire him out to neighbours by the day. By the late seventeenth century, itinerant shoemakers were also making shoes to sell door to door, while others gradually established workshops in the growing towns of Québec, Trois-Rivières, and Montréal. 

Travelling shoemakers remained a familiar sight in rural Québec well into the nineteenth century. They sometimes stayed with families for several days, receiving meals, lodging, and a small payment in exchange for their work. They were often welcome visitors, not only for their practical skills but also for their lively conversation and storytelling.

Over time, the travelling shoemaker’s work increasingly involved repairs. Itinerant shoe repairers could still be found in parts of Québec well into the twentieth century; as late as 1925, a shoemaker from Lévis travelled through neighbouring parishes collecting worn footwear to repair.

The Evolution of the Shoemaking Industry

For centuries, the trade changed little. That began to shift in the early nineteenth century. Between about 1810 and 1860, traditional shoemakers who made entire shoes to order worked alongside merchant shoemakers, who employed journeymen specializing in different stages of production and sold both locally made and imported footwear to retail and wholesale markets.

Machinery accelerated the change. The sewing machine, perfected in 1845, mechanized the stitching of uppers, work often done by women at home. When the Montréal firm Brown & Childs introduced labour-saving machines in 1849, Montréal journeymen shoemakers organized a sixteen-week strike against the company, protesting mechanization, the division of labour, and the hiring of less-skilled workers. They won a subsequent legal battle but could not halt the transformation. Steam power arrived around 1860, and the McKay sole-sewing machine soon after could stitch 90 pairs of soles in the time needed to sew one by hand. Québec City’s shoe factories grew from 9 in 1861 to 73 in 1871, and that year Montréal’s industry employed some 5,175 footwear workers. By 1910, making a single pair of shoes involved as many as 150 separate operations.

Factory work replaced the old relationship between masters, journeymen, and apprentices with owners, foremen, and wage earners who faced long hours, unsanitary conditions, low wages, and piecework. As traditional skills lost value, women and children were hired for specialized tasks, and unions emerged to demand better pay, recognition, and protection against mechanization. Independent shoemakers survived, however, making custom footwear or, increasingly, repairing it.

For genealogists, this shift matters. An ancestor listed as a shoemaker in a late nineteenth-century census of Québec City or Montréal may well have been a factory worker performing a single task rather than a craftsman making entire shoes. Wives, daughters, and teenage sons may also appear with shoe-industry occupations.

Here’s a fun take on a modern-day shoemaker: Jeff Churchill and his team at Jitterbug Boy in Toronto craft footwear for films and theatre.

Individuals identified as master shoemakers: William Aird, Joseph Barbeau, Joseph Baril, Michel Barré, Jean Blachière, Jean-Baptiste Bourque dit Lachapelle, John Bowles, Charles Brassard, Benjamin Chassé, Pierre Chobard (Chober, Chaubert, Chabert), Paul Christin dit Saint-Amour, Michel Coton, Jean Darsae/Darsac, Charles Davenne, Gabriel Davenne, Jean de Lasague, Joachim Demolier, Pierre Depois dit Parisien, Joseph Dugas, Blaise Dumareil dit Lafranchise, Bernard Dumouchel, Paul Dumouchel, Jean Dupuyau, François Durand, Pierre Gagnon, Jacques Gauthier, Joachim Girard, Joseph Greenhill, Jean Guèvremont, Jean Houlet, Jean-Baptiste Jouanis de Poca, Antoine Joyal dit Perrau, Charles Langellier (Langelier), Jacques Larrivé(e), Jean Laurent dit Lortie, Gabriel Leber dit Yvon, Pierre Ledoux, Pierre Léger dit Lajeunesse, François Levitre, Pierre L’Enclu dit Lapierre, Louis Lapierre, Jean Manuby dit Clermont, Hilaire Martin, Louis Ménard, Sieur Micheau (La Rochelle), Nicolas Mongeon, Jean Morand, François Morard, Edme Moreau, Pierre Paris, Jacques Payant dit St-Onge, François Pélisson (Pénisson), Joseph Pépin, Pierre Petit, Joseph Plamondon, Joseph Poitevin, Charles Pouliot, Pierre Prudhomme dit Saint-Pierre, Jean Riday dit Beauceron, Gabriel Robidas dit Manseau, André Spénard, Jean Spénard, François Thomas, François Toussaint, Jean-Baptiste Vallée dit Sansoucy, Alexandre Wallace.

Individuals identified as shoemakers: William Aird, Casimir Arcouette, Pierre Barbereau dit Sanssousy, Jacques Barbier, Joseph Baril, François Bariteau dit Lamarche, Michel Barré, Vincent Beaumont, Joseph Bériau, Jean Blachière, François Bleau dit Prêtaboire, Louis Bluteau dit Larabel, Jean Baptiste Bonnet, Pierre Bonnet, Jean Bossu, Jean Bours dit Lachapelle, John Bowles, Étienne Boyer, Jean Brassard dit Bordet, Joseph Brassard, Mathurin Brochu, Julien Cadet, Pierre Cardinal, Louis Chamberland, François de Chambre, Louis Charland, Édouard Charon, Jean-Baptiste Chaussé, Pierre Chobard (Chober, Chaubert, Chabert), Isaac Christin dit Saint-Amour, Jean Christin dit Saint-Amour, John Clarke, Jean Cliche, Barthélemi Collet, Pierre Cornellier, Michel Coton, Joachim Demolier, Nicolas Déry, Joseph Descarreaux, Martin Descelles, Denis Desèvre, Jean-Baptiste Desèvre, Joseph Desèvre, Pierre Desèvre, Élie Desmoulins, Simon Didier, Jean Dorbé dit Lepicard, Charles Douillard, René Douillard, Toussaint Dubeau, Alexis Dubois, Pierre Dubois, Jean-Baptiste Dubord, Jean-Étienne Dubreuil, Pierre Duclos, Jacques Dugas, Joseph Dugas, Blaise Dumareil dit Lafranchise, Bernard Dumouchel, Paul Dumouchel, Charles Dupéré, Pierre Depois dit Parisien, Jean Dupuyau dit Le Marquis, François Durand, Jean Ferron dit Sancerre, Jacques Fortier, Jean Fourneau dit Brindamour, Pierre Gagnon, Jean Gallina, Jacques Gauthier, Pierre Gavarret, Philippe Gervais, François Giguère, Jean-Baptiste Girard, Joachim Girard, Charles Giroux, Étienne Godère, Joseph Greenhill, Charles Gruet dit Lafleur, Joseph Guérin, Isaac Hall, Nicolas Hébert, Jean Houlet, Louis Hunault, Jean Journet, Louis Judic dit Rencontre, Daniel Kelly, Jean Lachambre (Chambre), Jean-Baptiste Lachapelle, Jean Lacoste, Pierre Laforest, Charles Laigu dit LaNoüe, Jean Lalande, Antoine Lamarche, Charles Langellier (Langelier), Louis Lapierre, René Larivière, Jacques Larrivé(e), Jean Laurent dit Lortie, Joseph Le Maine, Joseph Lecomte, Pierre Lecomte, Jean Lecoq dit Saintonge, Pierre Ledoux, Pierre Léger dit Lajeunesse, Pierre Legrand, Claude Leheu, Jean-Baptiste Lemoine, Pierre L'Enclu dit Lapierre, Noël Lesage dit Saint-Jean, Charles Lévesque, François Levitre, Thomas Loire, Pierre Lucier, Étienne Louis Mailloc, Jean-Baptiste Mallet, James Malony, Pierre Marchand, Hilaire Martin, Charles Maurice dit Lafantaisie, Claude Maurice, Joseph Maurice dit Lafantaisie, Louis Ménard, Paul Ménard, Adrien Michelon, Jacques Michelon, Jean Morand, François Morard, Edme Moreau, Pierre Morin, Maximilien Outrage, Louis Ouvrard dit Laperrière, Dominique Pampalon dit Labranche, Raymond Paré, François Paris, Gilles Paris dit Lamadeleine, Louis Paris, Pierre Paris, Jacques Payant dit St-Onge, François Pélisson (Pénisson), Joseph Pépin, Pierre Petit, François Peumeja/Pemeja, James Phelan, Pierre Picard, Joseph Piquet, Joanis de Poc(c)a, Pierre Prudhomme dit Saint-Pierre, Charles Rancour(t), Jean-Baptiste Rapin, George Reynar, Louis Richard, William Richardson, Jacques Robidas dit Manseau, Charles Robidou(x), Louis Rousseau, Guillaume Roussel dit Sansoucy, Jacques Roussel dit Sansoucy, Laurent Roy, Pierre Roy, François Saint-Pierre, Jean-Baptiste Senéchal dit Pontoise, André Spénard, Jean Spénard, Paul Thibodeau, François Thomas, André Touché/Touchet dit Laroche, Gabriel Tougas, François Tranquille, Louis Turcot, Jacques Turet, Jean-Baptiste Vallée dit Sansoucy, Pierre Vallière(s), François Vaucel, Jean Viau, Jacques Viger, Jean Willis, Alexandre Wilscam dit Lallemand.

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