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.
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