Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

at Montreal (1641); he brought with him his wife (née Françoise Gadois), and four children. Lands were granted him in 1650. His youngest daughter, Mathurine, at the age of fourteen married (1651) Jean St. Père (St. Pair), a notary, who came to Montreal two years after Godet. Grants of land were made to him in 1650, 1651, and 1654. At his death, he left two young children; a year later, his widow married Jacques Lemoine. Dollier de Casson, in his Histoire du Montréal (Quebec ed., 1871), p. 68, praises St. Père as a man of excellent character, intelligence, and judgment.

13 (p. 69).— Jean de Lauson, governor of Canada, resigned that post before his term of office expired, and, in the autumn of 1656, returned to France. He left the charge of affairs to his son Charles (vol. xxxvii., note 6); but the latter grew weary of such responsibility, and, in September, 1657, sailed for France, leaving the government of the country to Louis d'Ailleboust (vol. xxiii., note 16), Jean de Lauson's predecessor. In place of the last named, the Viscount d'Argenson was appointed by the king (January, 1657); but he did not arrive at Quebec until July, 1658, until which time D'Ailleboust was acting governor.

It may be added here, that the contention of P. G. Roy in regard to D'Ailleboust's daughter, mentioned in vol. xxxii., note 18, is sustained by M. Ernest Myrand, in Bull. Rech. Hist., February, 1899, pp. 43-51. He cites documents which show that D'Ailleboust had no children; Tanguay consequently errs in saying that his daughter married De Lauson.

14 (p. 73).— Jean Levasseur (also named Lavigne), born in 1622, came from Rouen to Canada. In 1648, he married Marguerite Richard, by whom he had twelve children. He is mentioned in the text as a sergeant; by Tanguay, as a bailiff. In January, 1664, he and two other Montreal habitants obtained from De Lauson the island of St. Paul, near Montreal. Soon afterward, this concession was equally divided between the three; but, in 1669, Lavigne gave his fief to Marie Le Ber. He died in August, 1686.

15 (p. 73).- François d'Allet, who probably acted as the secretary of De Queylus, was one of the four Sulpitians who arrived in Canada in 1657. He remained there until 1671, when he returned with De Queylus to France.

Louis Théandre Chartier de Lotbinière was born in 1612, of a noble family in Paris. Tanguay traces this family line to the early part of the fourteenth century; there is, he says, no other Canadian stock which can be traced back so far as this one. Louis married (1641) Marie Elizabeth, sister of Mathieu d'Amours (vol. xxx., note 14), by whom he had two children. He was one of the Tadoussac

trading company in 1663; and, in the following year, was appointed procuror-general by De Mézy. He is also mentioned in the census of 1667 as lieutenant-general, civil and criminal, for the seneschal of Quebec. Chartier was granted lands in 1662, 1672, and 1685. The first of these concessions was a part of the lands donated to the Récollet missionaries in 1620, located on the St. Charles River (vol. iv., note 22). Upon the return of that order to Canada (1670), Chartier restored to them his share of their lands. It was at his house that "the first ball in Canada" was given, as noted by the Journal (February, 1667). He died in September, 1690.

16 (p. 73).—“The Jesuits, having been given the choice, in 1645, of accepting 6,000 livres, for building a clergy-house upon the church lands [see vol. xlii. of this series, note 28], or of building with their own funds and handing over that amount to the Community of Habitants, preferred the latter alternative; and they did, in fact, pay the 6,000 livres (1655) to the treasurer of the Community. On his arrival, Monsieur the abbé de Queylus, now curé of Quebec, finding himself without a clergy-house, brought suit against the Jesuit Fathers, to compel them to give up to the parish the new dwelling which they had just built, or to pay it the 6,000 livres. They were notified of the interlocutory mandate of the seneschal, as the Journal here indicates, Nov. 22, 1657; and four months later, March 23, 1658, the governor, M. d'Ailleboust, rendered a definite judgment. By it he declared that the Community of Habitants was duly made responsible for paying, in release and acquittal of the said Jesuit Fathers, the said sum of six thousand livres; and the agent of the said Community, M. Jean Gloria, was sentenced to pay, in preference to other debts of the said Community, the said sum of six thousand livres, to be employed in the erection of the said clergy-house.'"-Quebec ed. of Journal, p. 226, note.

17 (p. 143).-Zacharie Dupuis, the leader of this expedition, was a native (1608) of Rieux, France. It is not known when he came to Canada. Previous to his departure for Onondaga, he was commandant of the fort at Quebec; in 1670, he was major of the Montreal garrison; and, in 1672, he obtained from the Sulpitians a grant of land below Lachine. He died at Montreal, in June, 1676. In 1668, he had married Jeanne Groisat; there is no record of her death, or of children born to them.

18 (p. 147).- Atoka (atoca, ataca; cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon, French Canadians by its Indian name. by Charlevoix (Plantes Amer., p. 39). "cherries without stones," on page 257

toca, Sagard): the common Gray), still known to the It is figured and described Cf. the cerises sans noyau, of this volume.

19 (p. 257).

The nuts here mentioned are doubtless those of the hickory (Carya, Nutt.).—the "shell-bark" variety (C. alba), or the "pig-nut" (C. glabra), which are sweet; and the "bitternut" or swamp hickory (C. amara), the nuts of which, although intensely bitter, yield excellent oil. See Charlevoix's description of these (Journ. Hist., p. 162). The Indians pounded the kernels to a paste, which they boiled in water; the oil, rising to the top, was skimmed off, and preserved in gourds or in vessels of bark; it was used to enrich and flavor the sagamité and other foods. The sunflower (Helianthus) was prized by the natives for the oil obtained from its seeds, "though among the Northern tribes the oil made from it was not eaten, but was used on the hair."- Carr's "Food of Amer. Indians," Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc., vol. x., part 1. pp. 171, 172.

20 (p. 259).—The "cherries without stones" refer to the cranberry (note 18, ante). The fruit resembling an apricot is probably the May-apple (Podophyllum peltatum); cf. vol. xiii., note 3. The "apples shaped like a goose's egg" are the fruits of the papaw (Asimina triloba).

The "universal plant" mentioned in our text has not yet been, so far as known, identified; and it seems to have escaped the notice of most botanical writers. The description given in this Relation would indicate, however, the common sassafras (Laurus Sassafras, Linn.; Sassafras officinale, Nees.; Sassafras Sassafras, Karsten, and in U. S. Pharmacopeia). It is indigenous in America from Canada to Brazil; in southern latitudes it becomes a tree 30 to 50 feet high, but north of 40° N. lat. it is found as a low shrub, three to five feet high. This consideration will account for the Father's mention of it as "a plant." The sassafras has always been prized for its medicinal virtues: it had been long used by the natives of Florida before the Spanish conquest; upon its discovery by white men, it speedily became a valued drug in Europe, and an important article of commerce from America; and it is still employed to a considerable extent, especially in domestic medicine in the United States. Every part of the tree is used medicinally; for list of these uses, see Rafinesque's Medical Flora (Phila., 1830), vol. ii., p. 235. The bark affords a dye for a handsome and permanent orange color. See the admirable monograph, historical, bibliograpical, and practical, on "Sassafras," by Prof. John U. Lloyd, in Pharmaceutical Review, Dec., 1898, pp. 450-459. The sassafras is figured and described by Charlevoix, in Plantes Amer., pp. 9, 10. Thanks are due Prof. L. S. Cheney and Dr. Rodney True, of the University of Wisconsin, for information and suggestions regarding this subject.

21 (p. 261).—In regard to the mineral springs mentioned in the text, the first one has never been exactly identified. By land, it

retourné accompagné de cinq ou fix François, & du plus confiderable du Bourg, qui l'estoit venu prier de retourner chez eux, il y fut receu auec tout l'accueil imaginable. Ayant trouué la Chapelle en mefme eftat qu'il l'auoit laiffée, il y fit commencer les prieres le iour de fon arriuée, & les nouueaux Chreftiens & les Catechumenes firent bien-toft paroiftre tant de zele, que le Pere efcrit que cette Eglife n'eft pas moindre dans fa naiffance que celle d'Onnontaghé.

« AnteriorContinuar »