On The 6th June, 1865, We Determined To Afford Ourselves A Long-Promised Treat, And Go And Survey, With Abbe Ferland's Notes On Sillery Open Before Us, And Also The Help Of That Eminently Respected Authority In Every Parish, The "Oldest Inhabitant," The Traces Of The Sillery Settlement Of 1637.

Nor had we long to wait before obtaining ocular demonstration of the minute exactitude with which our old friend, the Abbe, had investigated and measured every stone, every crumbling remain of brick and mortar.

The first and most noticeable relic pointed out was the veritable house of the missionaries, facing the St. Lawrence, on the north side of the road, on Sillery Cove; it was the property of the late Henry Le Mesurier, Esquire, of Beauvoir. Were it in the range of possible events that the good fathers could revisit the scene of their past apostolical labours and view their former earthly tenement, hard would be the task to identify it. The heavy three-feet-thick wall is there yet, as perfect, as massive, as defiant as ever; the pointed gable and steep roof, in spite of alterations, still stands - the true index of an old French structure in Canada. Our forefathers seemed as if they never could make the roof of a dwelling steep enough, doubtless to prevent the accumulation of snow. But here ends all analogy with the past; so jaunty, so cosy, so modern does the front and interior of Sillery "Manor House" look - thus styled for many years past. Paint, paper and furniture have made it quite a snug abode. Nor was it without a certain peculiar feeling of reverence we, for the first time, crossed that threshold, and entered beneath those fortress- like walls, where for years had resounded the orisons of the Jesuit Fathers, the men from whose ranks were largely recruited our heroic band of early martyrs - some of whose dust, unburied, but not unhonoured, has mingled for two centuries with its parent earth on the green banks of Lake Simcoe, on the borders of the Ohio, in the environs of Kingston, Montreal, Three Rivers, Quebec - a fruitful seed of christianity scattered bountifully through the length and breadth of our land; others, whose lifeless clay still rests in yon sunny hillock in the rear, to the west of the "Manor House" - the little cemetery described by Abbe Ferland. Between the "Manor House" and the river, about forty feet from the house, inclining towards the south, are the remains of the foundation walls of the Jesuit's church or chapel, dating back to 1640. On the 13th June, 1657, fire made dreadful havoc in the residence of the Jesuits (Relations, for 1657, p. 26); they stand north-east and south-west, and are at present flush with the greensward; a large portion of them were still visible about thirty-five years ago, as, attested by many living witnesses; they were converted into ballast for ships built at this spot, and into materials for repairing the main road by some Vandal who will remain nameless.

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