Ringfield Takes Its
Name From Its Circular Meadow (Montcalm's Hornwork).
In rear it is bounded
to the west by the little stream called Lairet, with the ruisseau St.
Michel in view; to the south, its natural boundary is the meandering
Cahire-Coubat.
[283]
Ringfield has even more to recommend it than the rural beauty common to
the majority of our country seats; here were enacted scenes calculated to
awaken the deepest interest in every student of Canadian history. On the
banks of the River St. Charles, 1535-36, during his second voyage of
discovery, Jacques Cartier, the intrepid navigator of St. Malo, more than
three centuries back, it is now generally supposed, wintered. We have
Champlain's [284] authority for this historical fact, though, Charlevoix
erroneously asserts that the great discoverer wintered on the banks of the
River Jacques Cartier, twenty-seven miles higher up than Quebec. A careful
examination of Lescarbot's Journal of Cartier's Second Voyage, and
the investigations of subsequent historians leave little room to doubt
Champlain's statement. [285] Jacques Cartier in his journal, written in
the quaint old style of that day, furnishes us curious descriptions of the
locality where he wintered, and of the adjoining Indian town,
Stadacone, the residence of the Chief Donacona. The Abbe Ferland
and other contemporary writers have assigned as the probable site of
Stadacona that part of Quebec which is now covered by a portion of the
suburbs of St. John, and by that part of St. Roch looking towards the St.
Charles.
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