Quebec past and present. A history of Quebec, 1608-1876

Front matter

QUEBEC PAST AND PRESENT A HISTORY OF QUEBEC 1608-1876 IN TWO PARTS By J. M. Le Moine AUTHOK OP " L' ALBUM DU TOURISTE, " " THE MAPLE LEAVES, " &C. QUEBEC PRINTED BY AUGUSTIN COTfi & C Registered in the office of the Minister of Agriculture, in the year 1876, by J. M. LeMoine, in conformity with the law passed by the Parliament of Canada. TO THE CITIZENS OF QUEBEC : THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR. Spencer Grange, May, 1876.

Preface

. The history of Quebec for close on two centuries, may be said to be that of Canada. Her annals would furnish ample materials for three volumes. I have attempted to condense them in one. The work now offered to the public is divided into two parts : the first, comprises the annals of the city from 1608 to 31st December, 1875. It is composed of ten chapters, representing as many epochs in our history, each chapter bearing as a heading the leading event of such epoch. The second part, relating more pro perly to Quebec Present, is descriptive of public Institutions, — Educational — Religious and Benevo lent ; City fortifications ; Municipal matters ; Trade ; Shipping ; Markets ; Cemeteries, &c. Supplemented by the historical sketches which form the subject of

PREFACE.

. IV the Maple Leaves for 1865, and the new series for 1873, the work ought to afford a tolerably full retrospect of Quebec events. To the plans of city embellishments, suggested by Lord Dufferin, adopted by the Municipal Council and so eminently calcula ted to enhance the attractions of the city to strangers, and its healthiness to the inhabitants, ample space has been alloted in the volume ; nay, its publication would have been deferred to another year, had its appearance at the present juncture not been con sidered a means of urging these much needed im provements on public attention. Some years have now elapsed since I had to ex press for the first time, my grateful acknowledgment for the generous support meeted out to my first efforts, to perpetuate in print, the attractions of this, my native, city.

This agreable duty again devolves on me to-day, in this my largest work. I have now to return thanks to those who have materially helped me in the arduous task I have se lected. To the clergy of all denominations, this history of Quebec, owes a debt of gratitude, for the readiness with which Church Records, Reports, Registers. &c, have been made available. To James Stevenson, Esquire, President of the Literary and Historical Society, I am indebted for papers relating to our Pioneer Atlantic Steamer the

PREFACE.

. V 14 Royal William " ; to J. J. Foote, Esq., for the use of the Plates of the city embellishments ; to Messrs, L. E. Dorion, Chs. Baillairge and L. A. Cannon, for statistics, &c, on municipal matters ; to Col. T. B. Strange, for information touching the new Levis Forts ; to Cyrille Tessier, Esq., well known for his antiquarian tastes, for data on several points of his tory ; to Messrs. E. W. Sewell and Hy. F. Bellew, for interesting notes and papers on the Levis Winter Ferry ; to J. W. Dunscomb, Esq., for tables respecting ships and commerce ; to Drs. W. Marsden, H. Larue, and G-. T. Cary, Esq., for statistics on cholera, &c ; to Mr. J. C. Langelier, for particulars and cost of several public edifices, &c. In the graphic sketches of some religious or benevolent institutions, my readers will have recognized the elegant pen of several members of the press, Messrs. Stuart Hughes, Leslie Thorn, J. Jordan, &c. The Author.

Spencer Grange, 1st May, 1876. (From the Morning Chronicle, 10th May, 1876.) Quebec Past and Present: A History of Quebec, 1608- 1876, in two parts. By J. M. LeMoine, author of "L'Album du Touriste," "Maple Leaves," &c. 470 pages. The first history of Quebec ever attempted is now in the hands of subscribers. The author of " Maple Leaves " is again before the public in a work which, on account of the copious information in regard to the history of the old rock city, its interesting and instructive reading matter, its scope, and minute attention to details and accuracy evinced in its preparation, should be in the libraries of all our citizens, and should obtain a wide circulation amongst travellers and residents in all parts of the Dominion.

The history of Quebec, for quite a long period, is practically the history of Canada ; and what student of that history does not become deeply interested in tracing the various steps by which this young Dominion has advanced in the path of progress and improvement, from the time of Jacques Cartier to the memorable 13th September, 1759, when upon the Plains of Abraham, the colony was valiantly contended for, and won to Great Britain, at the cost of the life-blood of many of her bravest and most gifted children; and from that date down to the present time, when cultured and protected by the same mother-land, the once insignificant colony bids fair, if our people are only true to the principles which have guided that mother-land and made it what it is, to expand ere long into a mighty and self-reliant power, no insignificant portion of that glorious British empire whose morning drum beat girdles the earth, whose power is felt in the councils of the nations, and whose language is destined in the progress of time, to become the uni versal tongae.

Such is the interesting history and progress of our fair Do minion, and in the volume of Mr. LeMoine, covering as it does the period between 1608 and 1876, the student or reader will find mueh which is, as we have said before, not only the history of Quebec but virtually the history of Canada. The first part of the work comprises the annals of the city from 1608, to 31st December 1875; the second, relates more particularly to Quebec Present, and describes our public institutions, Eduoational, Reli gious and Benevolent, the city fortifications, municipal matters, trade, shipping, markets, cemeteries, the Dufferin improvements, Jkc, &c, *fc. The book is also embellished by n number of views, relating to persons, places and events, among which are the ruins of the Intendant's Palace, the entrance to the Seminary, Church of Notre Dame in the Lower Town, Jacques- Cartier, Bishop Laval, Montcalm, Bishop St Valier, the old city gates, the proposed substitutes according to the Dufferin plans,' and many others.

The first chapter is devoted to the Foundation of Quebec fey Champlain in 1608, and his proceedings towards the construction of dwellings, store-houses, and barracks; his investigation of the country <fcc, Indian wars, arrival of the Recollet Fathers in 1615, of Madame de Champlain in 1620, of the Jesuits in 1625 ; the capture of Quebec by the English 1629, its return to France, 1632, and the death of Champlain, 1635. The story is then carried on, relating in a graphic manner the various incidents and occurrences of which the infant settlement was the scene; the gradual building up of French power, and french institutions, the great earthquake in 1663, the repulse of Phips, in 1690, the burning ofthe Seminary in 1701, the corrupt rule of the Intendant Bigot in 1758, and the final defeat of the French on Abraham Plains, the victory and death of Wolfe, the death of Montcalm, and the subsequent capitulation to the English.

The events between 1759 and 1775 are then minutely described, including an interesting account of the unsuccessful assault upon the city by Arnold and Montgomery, in 1775, the centenary of which our citizens have been so recently celebrating. A full and succinct account of the festivities and other proceedings attendant upon this celebration is also included in the volume. From 1775, the thread of events relating to our city is gradually carried down; the outbreak of cholera, the tires of 1845, and the burning of the theatre in 1846 are treated of; also the details of the burning of the steamer " Montreal, " Confederation, and the various, events which have transpired in these latter days. From the above, it will be readily seen, what a valuable amount of information is contained in the first part of this work, information which must have cost the author much time, research, and trouble in its preparation, without forgetting quaint bits of antiquarian lore.

The secon i part is not less interesting than the first, comprising as it does an iiumense amount of reliable information in regard to local institutions, thus rendering the book n'>t only useful as a means of en tertainment, but also an accurate compendium of faots with which Canadians generally ought to be acquainted. The work as a whole does credit to the energy and ability of the author, and seeing that he has thus under taken and carried to completion the task of placing within the reach of the public this extensive compilation of historical facts, we are glad to hear that he has been liberallv supported. We may remark in conclusion that the volume is well printed and fully illustrated — a few typographical errors may be here and there remarked in the letter-press, but these would be readily excused under the pressure of ;i fir.-t publication.

" Qukbec Past and Prksent " is dedicated " To the Citizens of Quebec." To no one could it have bt*on more appropriately, more modestly and more truthfully inscribed.

Introduction

. Jacques-Cartier's three Voyages. — The Grande Hermine. — The Petite Hermine. — The Emerillon. — First winter on the St. Charles, 1535-6. — "Winter Quarters at Gap Rouge, 1540-1. Jacques-Cartier is generally supposed to be the first European who pe netrated into the interior of Canada. Pope Alexander VI, by a Bull, had granted all America to the Spa niards and Portuguese. Francis I, King of the French, a practical as well as a religious Sovereign, as abbe* Faillon observes, having his doubts as to the legality of that grant, asked to see the clause of Adam's Will bequeathing this legacy. King Francis withal, was the " Eldest son of the Church ; " as such it was, he opined, incumbent on him to spread the true faith, whilst making discoveries in this wondrous New World, the existence of which Columbus had recently proclaimed to Europe.

King Francis, therefore, resolved to try his hand as well as his royal brothers of Spain and Portugal, at discovering and colonising. In 1523, the Florentine, Verrazano, was sent out by him with four ships from Dieppe ; storms and other causes reduced to one his equipment — the Dolphin, — with which Verrazano explored that portion of the American continent which now constitutes the coast of North Carotina — Virginia — the Bay of New York — the coast of Maine; his account forwarded on the 8th July, 1524. to his royal master, is the earliest description known of the shores of the United States. Alas for earthly hopes I just when the venturesome Florentine was counting on his reward and on further discoveries, the gallant French Sovereign was detained a captive at Madrid, by the Emperor Charles V, after the battle of Pavia, on 25th February, 1525. We then loose trace of the brave Florentine ; some pretend that he entered the service of Henry,

INTRODUCTION.

. X VIII, of England; some, that in one of his sea voyages, he was eaten by savages, whilst others affirm he was hung at Puerto del Pico, as a pirate. Ten years later, Francis I, bent on following up Verrazano's original ideas, confides his plans to a high spirited young noble— Philippe de Brion-Chabot, a friend of his youth and then Admiral of France. The French Admiral found in a hardy St. Malo mariner, Jacques-Cartier, a fit agent for his design, " if indeed its suggestion is not due to the Breton Navigator. Cartier, then forty years of age, left France for Newfoundland, on the 20th April, 1534. After planting a cross at Gaspe", and ascending the St. Lawrence, up to Anticosti, he was compelled by the gathering autumnal storms, to return to France, carrying with him as a sample of the natural products of the New World, two Gaspe* Indians, Taiguragny and Domagaya, whom by treachery he had brought in his vessels.

The voyage, as Parkman observes, was but a reconnaissance. In 1535, King Francis commissioned Jacques-Cartier a second time, and placed under his orders three vessels : the Grande Hermine, of not more than 120 tons — the Petite Hermine, of 60 tons, commanded by Marc Jalobert, and the Emerillon, of 40 tons, commanded by Guillaume Le Breton. " The ship, says Parkman, left St. Malo on the 19th May. Charles de la Pommeraye, Claude de Pontbriand and other gentlemen of note, enrolled themselves for the voyage." On the sixteenth of May, 1535, officers and sailors assembled in the Cathedral of St. Malo, where, after confession and hearing mass, they received the parting blessing of the bishop. Three days later, they set sail. The dingy walls of the rude old sea port and the white rocks that line the neighbouring shores of Brittany, faded from their sight and soon they were tossing in a furious tempest.

But the scattered ships escaped the danger, and, reuniting at the straits of Bell© Isle, steered westward along the coast of Labrador, till they reached a small bay opposite the Island of Anticosti, " which he named Isle of Assomption, on account of the site day in the calendar; the three vessels then ascended the St. Lawrence, passed in safety the gloomy gorge of the Saguenay, with its towering cliffs and sullen depth of waters," and anchored near an island which from the wood growing on it — coudriers, — they called Isle aux Coudrei, where the first mass said in Canada was celebrated* Passing the Isle aux Coudres and the lofty promontory of Cape Tourmente, they came to anchor in a quiet channel between the northern shore and the margin of a richly wooded island, where the trees were so thickly hung with grapes that Cartier named it, the Island of Bacchus. 1 " Indians came swarming from the shores, paddled their birch canoes about the ships and clambered to the deck to gaze in bewilderment at the novel scene, and listen to the story of these travelled countrymen, marvellous in their ears, as a visit to another planet. Cartier received them kindly, listened to the long harangue of the great chief Donnacona, regaled him with bread J Now the Island of Orleans.

INTRODUCTION.

. XI and wine, and when relieved at length of his guests, set forth in a boat to explore the river above." Let us follow the gifted word painter, Frs. Parkman describing the panorama which greeted Cartier on his first appearance at the foot of Cape Dia mond. " A mighty promontory, rugged and bare, thrust its scarped front into the surging current. Here, clothed in the majesty of solitude, breathing the stern poetry of the wilderness, rose the cliffs now rich with heroic me mories, where the fiery Count Frontenac cast defiance at his foes, where Wolfe, Montcalm and Montgomery fell. As yet, all was a nameless bar barism, and a cluster of wigwams held the site of the rock-built city of Quebec. Its name was Stadacone\ and it owned the sway of the royal Don nacona. 1 " Cartier set forth to visit this greasy potentate, ascended the river St. Charles, by him called the St. Croix, 2 landed, crossed the meadows, climbed the rocks, threaded the forest and emerged upon a squalid hamlet of bark cabins.

When, their curiosity satisfied, he and his party were rowing for the ships, a friendly interruption met them at the mouth of the St. Charles. An old chief harangued them from the bank; men, boys and children screeched welcome from the meadow, and a troop of hilarious squaws danced knee-deep in the water. The gift of a few strings of beads completed their delight and redoubled their agility ; and from the distance of a mile, their shrill songs of jubilation still reached the ears of the reeeeding Frenchmen. " Tho hamlet of Stadacone\ with its king, Donnacona, and its naked lords and princes, was not the Metropolis of this forest State, since a town far greater — so the Indians averred — stood by the brink of the river many days' journey above." We shall not follow Cartier on his expedition to Hochelaga, with the Emerillon, having placed the Grande and the Petite Hermine within the mouth of the St. Charles, with the rest of his followers.

" On the bank of the St. Charles, their companions had built in their ab sence a fort of palissades, and the ships, hauled up by the little stream, lay moored before it. Here the self-exiled company were soon besieged by the rigor of the Canadian winter. The rocks, the shores, the pine-trees, the solid floor of the frozen river, all alike were blanketed in snow, beneath the keen cold rays of the dazzling sun. The drifts rose above the sides of their ships ; masts, spars, cordage, were thick with glittering incrustations and sparkling rows of icicles ; a frosty armour, soar inches thick, encased the bulwarks. Yet in the bitterest weather, the neighboring Indians, "hardy," says the journal ** as so many beasts," came daily to the fort wading, half naked, waist-deep through the snow. At length, their friendship began to abate ; their visits 1 On ground now covered by the suburbs of St. Roch and St. John. 2 Charlevoix denies that the St. Croix and the St. Charles are the same Cham plain, than whom no one was better qualified to form an opinion., distinctly affirms the identity of the two rivers. There seems no doubt on this point amongst modern writers.

INTRODUCTION.

. XII grew less frequent, and during December, had wholly ceased, when an ap palling calamity fell upon the French. A malignant scurvy broke out among them. Man after man, went down before the hideous disease, till twenty-five were dead, aud only three or four were left in health. The sound were too few to attend the sick, and the wretched sufferers lay in helpless despair, dreaming of the sun and the vines of France. The ground hard as flint, defied their feeble efforts, and unable to bury their dead, they hid them in the snow-drifts. Cartier appealed to the Saints ; Then, he nailed against a tree an image of the Virgin, and on a Sunday summoned forth his woe-begone fol lowers, who, haggard, reeling, bloated with their maladies, moved in procession to the spot, and kneeling in the snow, sang litanies and psalms of David.

That day died Philippe Rougemont, of Amboise, aged twenty-two years.... There was fear that the Indians, learning their misery, might finish the work the scurvy had begun. None of them, therefore, was allowed to approach the fort ; and when perhance a party of savages lingered within hearing, Cartier forced his invalid garrison to beat with sticks and stones against the walls, that their dangerous neighbors deluded by the clatter, might think them vigorously engaged in hard labor. These objects of their fear proved, however, the instruments of their salvation. " Cartier, walking one day near the river, met an Indian, who, not long before, had been prostrate like many of his fellows with the scurvy, but who now, to all appearance, was in high health and spirits. What agency had wrought that marvellous recovery ?

According to the Indian, it was a certain evergreen, called by him avteda (a spruce,) of which a decoction of the leaves was sovereign against the disease. The experiment was tried. The sick men drank copiously of the healing draught — so copiously indeed that in six days they drank a tree as large as a French oak. Thus vigorously assailed, the distemper relaxed its hold, and health and hope began to re visit the hopeless company. " When this winter of misery had worn away, when spring appeared, and the ships were thawed from their icy fetters, Cartier prepared to return. He had made notable discoveries, but these were as nothing to the tales of wonder that had reached his ear, of a land of gold and rubis, of a nation white like the French, of men who lived without food, and of others to whom Nature had granted but one leg.

Should he stake his credit on these marvels ? Far better that they who had recounted them to him should, with their own lips, recount them also to the king. To this end, he resolved that Donnacona and his chiefs should go with him to court. He lured them therefore to the fort and led them into an embuscade of sailors, who, seizing the astonished guests hurried them on board the ships. This treachery accomplished, the voyageurs proceeded to plant the emblem of Christianity. The cross was raised, the fleur-de-lis feeing upon it, and spreading their sails, they steered for home. It was the sixteenth of July, 1536, when Cartier again qast anchor under the walls of St. Malo.

INTRODUCTION.

. XIII " A rigorous climate, a savage people, a fatal disease, a soil barren of gold, these were the allurements of New France. Nor were the times auspicious for a renewal of the enterprise. Charles the Fifth flushed with his African triumphs, challenged the most ohristian king to single combat. The war flamed forth with new fury, and ten years elapsed before a. hollow truce var nished the hate of the royal rivals with a thin pretence of courtesy. " Peace returned; but Francis, under the scourge of his favorite goddess was sinking to his ignominous grave, and Chabot, patron of the former voyages was in disgrace. Meanwhile, the ominous adventure of New France had found a champion in the person of Jean Francois de la Roque, Sieur de Roberval, a nobleman of Pioardy. Though a man of high account in his own province, his past honors paled before the splendor of the titles said to have been now conferred on him, — Lord of Norembega, Viceroy and Lieut enant-General in Canada, Hochelaga, Saguenay, New Foundland, Belle Isle Carpunt, Labrador, the Great Bay, and Baccalaos.

To this windy gift of ink and parchment was added a solid grant from the royal treasury, with which five vessels were procured and equipped, and to Cartier was given the p06t of Captain General. " With respect to Donnacona and his tribesmen, basely kidnapped at Sta dacone\ excellent care had been taken of their souls. In duo time they had been baptized, and soon reaped the benefit of the rite, since they all died within a year or two, to the great detriment, as it proved, of the expedition. " On the twenty-third of May, 1541, Cartier again spread his canvas for New France. The Atlantic was safely passed, the fog-banks of Newfoundland, the island rocks clouded with screaming sea-fowl, the forests breathing piny odors from the shore. Again he passed in review the grand scenery of the St. Lawrence, and again cast anchor beneath the cliffs of Quebec.

Canoes came out from shore filled with feathered savages inquiring for their kid napped chiefs. " Donnacona," replied Cartier, "is dead; " but he added the politic falsehood that the others had married in France and lived in State, like great lords. The Indians pretended to be satisfied; but it was soon apparent that they looked askance on the perfidious strangers. " Cartier pursued his course, sailed three leagues and a half up the St. Lawrence, and anchored again off the mouth of the liver of Cap Rouge. It was late in August, and the leafy landscape sweltered in the sun. They landed, pulled up quartz crystals on the shore and thought thorn diamonds, climbed the steep promontory, drank at the spring near the top, looked abroad on the wooded slopes beyond the little river ; waded through the tall grass of the meadow, found a quarry of slate, and gathered scales of a yellow mineral which glistened like gold, then took to their boats, crossed to the south shore of the St. Lawrenoe, and, languid with the heat, rested in the shade of forests laced with an entanglement of grape vines.

" Now th,eir task began, and while some cleared off the woods and sowed turnip-seed, others cut a zigzag road up the height, and others built two forts, one at the summit, one at the shore below. The forts finished, the

INTRODUCTION.

. XIV Vicomte de Beaupre* took command, while Cartier went with two boats to explore the rapids above Hochelaga. When at length, he returned, the autumn was far advanced; and with the gloom of a Canadian November, came distrust, foreboding, and home sickness. Roberval had not appeared; the Indians kept jealously aloof; the motley colony was sullen as the dull, raw air around it. There was disgust and ire at Charlesbourg-Royal, for so the place was called. " Meanwhile, unexpected delays had detained the impatient Roberval ; nor was it until the sixteenth of April, 1542, that, with three ships and two hun dred colonists, he set sail from Rochelle. When on the eighth of June, he entered the harbor of St. John, he found seventeen fishing vessels lying there at anchor. Soon after, he descried three other sail rounding the entrance of the haven, and, with wrath and amazement, recognized the ships of Jacques- Cartier.

That voyager had broken up his colony and abandoned New France. What motives had prompted a desertion little consonant with the resolute spirit ofthe man, it is impossible to say. — whether sickness within, or Indian enemies without, disgust with an enterprise whose unripened fruits had proved so hard and bitter, or discontent at finding himself reduced to a post of subordination in a country which he had discovered and where he had commanded. The Viceroy ordered him to return ; but Cartier escaped with his vessels under cover of night, and made sail for France, carrying with him as trophies a few quartz diamonds from Cap Rouge, and grains of gleaming gold from the neighboring slate ledges. Thus, pitifully closed the active career of this notable explorer. His discoveries had gained for him a patent of nobility.

He owned the seigniorial mansion of Limoilou, a rude structure of stone, still standing. Here, and in the neighboring town of St. Malo, where also he had a house, he seems to have lived for many years. a Roberval h eld his course up the St. Lawrence, and dropped anchor before the heights of Cap Rouge. His company landed ; there were bivouacs along the strand, a hubbub of pick and spade, axe, saw and hammer; and soon in the wilderness up rose a goodly structure, half barrack, half castle, with two towers, two spacious halls, a kitchen, chambers, store-rooms, workshops, cellars, garrets, a well, an oven and two water-mills. It stood on that bold acclivity where Cartier had before entrenched himself, the St. Lawrence in front, and on the right, the river of Cap Rouge. Here all the oolony housed under the same roof, like one of the experimental communities of reoent days,— officers, soldiers, nobles, artisans, laborers, and convicts, with the women and children, in whom lay the future of New France."

The site on which Cartier and Roberval located their ephemeral colony, at Cap Rouge, in 1541-2, close on three centuries later, viz., in 1820, was selected by Henry Atkinson, Esq., of Quebeo, for the erection of his pic turesque villa. At present, it is the property ofthe Cap Rouge Pier and Wharf Company, and bears the appropriate name of Redcliffe, (Cap Rouge.) A full description of it appears at page 97 of Maple Leaves for 1865. " Experience and forecast had alike been wanting. There were store-

INTRODUCTION.

. XV houses, but no stores ; mills, but no grist ; an ample oven, and a woeful dearth of bread. It was only when two of the ships had sailed for France that they took aocount of their provision and discovered its lamentable short coming. Winter and famine followed. They bought fish from the Indians, dug roots and boiled them in whale oil. Disease broke out, and, before spring, killed one third of the colony. The rest would soon have quarrelled, mutinied, and otherwise aggravated their inevitable woes, but disorder was dangerous under the iron rule of the inexorable Roberval. Michel Gaillon was detected in a petty theft, and forthwith hanged. Jean de Nantes, for a more venial offence was kept in irons. The quarrels of men, the scolding of women, were alike requited at the whipping post, " by which means," quaintly says the narrative, " they lived in peace."

Thevet, while calling himself the intimate friend of the Viceroy, gives to his story a darker coloring. Forced to unceasing labor, and chafed by arbitrary rules, some of the soldiers fell under his displeasure, and six of them, formerly his favorites, were hanged in one day. Others were banished to an island, and there held in fetters ; while for various light offences, several, both men and women, were shot. Even the Indians were moved to pity, and wept at the sight of their woes. " And here, midway, our guide deserts us; the ancient narrative is broken, and the latter part is lost, leaving us to divine as best we may, the future of the ill-starved colony. That it did not long survive is certain. It is said that the King, in great need of Roberval, sent Cartier to bring him home. 1 It is said, too, that in after years, the Viceroy essayed to repossess himself of his transatlantic domain and lost his life in his attempt.