Such
Was The Magnificence Of The Structure That It Was Reckoned "The Gem Of
Canada' - "Une Maison Regardee Dans Le Temps Comme Le Bijou Du Canada,"
Says The Old Chronicler.
Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve having arrived,
in 1641, with colonists for Montreal, the laird of Ste.
Foye [176]
generously tendered him the use of his manor. Under the hospitable roof of
this venerable old gentleman, M. de Maisonneuve, Mlle. Mance, the founder
of the Hotel Dieu Hospital at Montreal, and Mdme. de la Peltrie spent the
winter of 1641-2, whilst the intended colonists [177] for Ville-Marie were
located close by in the Sillery settlement. During the winter, dissensions
took place between the future Governor of Montreal, M. de Maisonneuve, and
the then present Governor of Quebec, Chevalier de Montmagny. It appears
that on a certain festival a small cannon and also fifteen musket shots
had been fired without authority; His Excellency Governor Montmagny, in
high dudgeon at such a breach of military discipline, ordered Jean Gorry,
the person who had fired the shots, to be put in irons; Mlle. Mance had
furnished the powder for this military display The future Governor of
Montreal, Monsieur de Maisonneuve, is said to have, on this occasion,
publicly exclaimed: "Jehan Gorry, you have been put in irons for my sake
and I affronted! I raise your wages of ten half crowns (dix ecus), let us
only reach Montreal; no one there will prevent us from firing." [178]
Bravo! M. de Maisonneuve! Peace, however, was restored, and His Excellency
Governor Montmagny headed in person the expedition which, on the 8th May
following, sailed from St Michael's Cove, Sillery, to found at Montreal
the new colony. Monsieur Puiseaux accompanied M. de Maisonneuve, to take
part also in the auspicious event, but his age and infirmities compelled
Him soon after to return to France, where he died a few years
subsequently, and by his last will, executed at LaRochelle on the 21st
June, 1647, he bequeathed his Ste. Foye property to the support of the
future bishops of Quebec. "The walls of the Sillery Chapel," says the
historian of Canada previously quoted, "were still standing about thirty
years ago, and the foundations of this edifice, of the hospital and of the
missionary residency are still perceptible to the eye on the spot now
occupied by the offices and stores of Hy. LeMesurier, Esq., at the foot of
the hill, and opposite the residence of the Honourable Mr. Justice Caron."
"Amongst the French gentlemen of note who then owned lands at Sillery may
be mentioned. Francois de Chavigny, sieur de Berchereau qui," adds
Abbe Ferland, "occupait un rang eleve dans le colonie. En quelques
occasions, il fut charge de remplacer le Gouverneur, lors que celui-ci
s'absentait de Quebec." Now, dear reader, let it be known to you that
you are to look with every species of respect on this worthy old denizen
of Sillery, he being, as the Abbe has elsewhere established beyond the
shadow of a doubt, not only the ancestor of several old families, such as
the Lagorgendieres, the Rigaud de Vaudreuils and Tachereaus, but also one
of the ancestors of your humble servant the writer of these lines.
"The Sillery settlement contained during the winter of 1646-7, of Indians
only, about two hundred souls. Two roads led from Quebec to the
settlement, one the Grande Allee or St. Louis Road, the other the Cove
Road, skirting the beach. Two grist mills stood in the neighbourhood: one
on the St. Denis streamlet which crosses the Grande Allee road (from
Thornhill to Spencer Wood) - the dam seems to have been on the Spencer Wood
property. 'This mill, and the fief on which it was built, belonged
to M. Juchereau,' one of the ancestors of the Duchesnays. 'Another mill
existed on the Bell Borne brook,' which crosses the main road, the
boundary between Spencer Grange and Woodfield. Any one visiting these two
streamlets during the August droughts will be struck with their
diminutiveness, compared to the time when they turned the two grist mills
two hundred years back: the clearing of the adjoining forests, whence they
take their source, may account for the metamorphosis."
The perusal of the Rev. Mr. Ferland's work brings us to another
occurrence, which, although foreign to the object of this sketch, deserves
notice: -
"The first horse [179] seen in Canada was landed from a French vessel
about the 20th June, 1647, and presented as a gift to His Excellency
Governor Montmagny." Another incident deserving of mention occurs under
date of 20th August, 1653. The Iroquois [180] surprised at Cap Rouge Rev.
Father J. Antoine Poncet and a peasant named Mathurin Tranchelot, and
carried them off to their country. For three days the rev. missionary was
subjected to every kind of indignity from the Indian children and every
one else. A child cut off one of the captive's fingers. He was afterwards,
with his companion, tied up during two nights, half suspended in the air;
this made both suffer horribly; burning coals were applied to their flesh.
Finally, the missionary was handed over to an old squaw; he shortly after
became free, and returned to Quebec on the 5th of November, 1653, to the
joy of everybody.
His comrade, Tranchelot, after having had his fingers burnt, was finally
consumed by fire on the 8th September, 1653. Such were some of the
thrilling incidents of daily occurrence at Sillery two centuries ago.
What with breaches of military etiquette by M. de Maisonneuve's colonists,
the ferocity of skulking Iroquois, and the scrapes their own neophytes
occasionally got into, the reverend fathers in charge of the Sillery
mission must now and again have had lively times, and needed, we would
imagine, the patience of Job, with the devotion of martyrs, to carry out
their benevolent views.
We read in history [181] how, on one Sunday morning in 1652, the Sillery
Indians being all at mass, a beaver skin was stolen from one of the wig-
wams, on which a council of the chiefs being called, it was decided that
the robbery had been committed by a Frenchman, [182] enough to justify the
young men to rush out and seize two Frenchmen then accidentally passing
by, and in no wise connected - as the Indians even admitted - with the
theft.
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