On the Beauport road, four miles from the city and about forty feet from
the late Colonel B. C. A. Gugy's habitation, stood until 1879 an
antiquated high-gabled French stone dwelling, very substantially put
together. About thirty years back there was still existing close to and
connected with it, a pavilion or tower, used in early days as a fort to
protect the inmates against Indian raids. It contained the boudoir and
sleeping apartments of some of the fair seignieuresses [296] of Beauport
in the house which Robert Giffard, the first seignor built there more than
two centuries ago; it is the oldest seignorial manor in Canada. Robert
Giffard's house - or, more properly, his shooting box - is thought to have
stood closer to the little stream to the west. The first seignior of
Beauport had two daughters who married two brothers, Juchereau, the
ancestors of the Duchesnays; and the manor has been in the possession of,
and occupied by, the Duchesnays for more than two hundred years.
Robert Giffard had visited Canada, for the first time, in 1627, in the
capacity of a surgeon; and being a great sportsman, he built himself a
small house on the banks of the Beauport stream, to enjoy to perfection,
his favorite amusements - shooting and fishing. No authentic data exist of
the capacity of Beauport for game in former days; we merely read in the
Relations des Jesuites that in the year 1648.
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