From The Manor House You Notice The Little Cape To The
South-West Mentioned In Abbe Ferland's Notes, Though Growing Smaller And
Smaller Every Year From The Quantities Of Soil And Stone Taken From It,
Also To Repair The Road.
The large elm pointed out by the Abbe as having
grown over the spot where the hospital stood is there yet, a majestic
tree.
The selection of a site for the little cemetery is most judicious,
several little streams from the heights in the rear filter through the
ground, producing a moisture calculated to prevent decomposition and
explanatory of the singular appearance of the bodies disinterred there in
1855. Every visitor will be struck with the beauty, healthiness and
shelter which this sequestered nook at Sillery presents for a settlement,
and with its adaptability for the purposes for which it was chosen, being
quite protected against our two prevailing winds, the north-east and
south-west, with a warm southern exposure.
Many years after the opening of the Algonquin and Montagnais school at
Sillery, the Huron Indians, after being relentlessly tracked by their
inveterate foes, the Five Nations, divided into five detachments; one of
these hid on the Great Manitoulin Island, others elsewhere; a portion came
down to Quebec on the 26th July, 1650, [194] under the direction of Father
Ragueneau, and, on the 28th July, 1650, settled first on the Jesuits land
at Beauport; in March, 1651, they went to Ance du Fort, on the lands of
Mademoiselle de Grandmaison, on the Island of Orleans. But the Iroquois
having scented their prey in their new abode, made a raid on the island,
butchered seventy-one of them, and carried away some prisoners. The
unfortunate redskins soon left the Island in dismay, and for protection,
encamped in the city of Quebec itself, under the cannon of the fort,
constructed by Governor d'Aillebout to receive them, near the Jesuits
College (at Cote de St. Michel); in 1667, they settled on the northerly
frontier of Sillery, [195] in Notre Dame de Foy [now St. Foye]; restless
and scared, they again shifted they quarters on the 29th December, 1693,
and pitched their erratic tents at Ancienne Lorette, which place they also
abandoned many years afterwards to go and settle at Jeune or Indian
Lorette, where the remnants of this once warlike race [196] (the nobles
amongst Indian tribes) exist, now crossed with their Caucasian brethren,
and vegetate in obscurity - exotic trees transplanted far from their native
wilds.
Shall we venture to assert that Sillery equals in size some of the German
principalities, and that, important though it be, like European dynasties,
it has had its periods of splendor succeeded by eras of medieval
obscurity. From 1700 down to the time of the conquest, we appeal in vain
to the records of the past for any historical event connected with it;
everywhere reigns supreme a Cimmerian darkness. But if the page of history
is silent, the chronicles of the ton furnish some tit-bits of drawing-
room chit-chat.
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