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Pierre Menard (7 October 1766 – 13 June 1844) was a Canadian-American fur trader and politician who was elected the first lieutenant Governor of Illinois in 1818.
After a short period of formal schooling in Montreal, Pierre, at about age fifteen, signed on with a trading expedition to the vast Illinois Country. By the early 1790s Menard had established a solid trading business of his own; his Kaskaskia business ledgers first recorded transactions, beginning in the spring of 1791. He was granted a St. Clair County commercial license in 1793 at the age of thirty, while already a respected entrepreneur.
The Illinois Territory was a frontier region of the United States, formerly part of the Illinois Country, a portion of New France administered originally from Quebec and later transferred to Louisiana. Upon the admission of Illinois as a state in 1818, the population of the new state was divided between French-speaking and English-speaking citizens. To balance the ticket, Menard became the state's first Lieutenant Governor, serving from 1818 to 1822 with the first governor, Shadrach Bond.
Economic forces, however, were already leading people inland from the French language areas along the Mississippi River, and largely to promote real estate interests, Past Illinois Capitols the first Illinois General Assembly decided in 1820 to move the state capital from Kaskaskia, Menard's home town, to Vandalia.
Menard left office in 1822 and returned to private life.
He died in 1844 and was buried at Fort Kaskaskia, near his house.
Bayou Manard, a branch of the Arkansas River, was named for Pierre Menard.
Menard was, until 2020, commemorated by a statue on the Illinois Statehouse grounds. His statue was the first installed, and is one of only three honoring previous state executives (along with Governors Yates and Palmer). On 19 August 2020, the Office of the Architect of the Capitol announced plans to remove the statues of both Menard and Stephen Douglas, as both had been slave owners. The statues were removed on 26 September 2020.
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