Contrecœur, Yarennes, Verchères. Yet let it not be supposed that villages sprang up at once. The military seignior, valiant and poor as Walter the Penniless, was in no condition to work such magic. His personal possessions usually consisted of little but his sword and the money which the king had paid him for marrying a wife. A domain varying from half a league to six leagues in front on the river, and from half a league to two leagues in depth, had been freely given him. When he had distributed a part of it in allotments to the soldiers, a variety of tasks awaited him: to clear and cultivate his land; to build his seigniorial mansion, often a log hut; to build a fort; to build a chapel; and to build a mill. To do all this at once was impossible. Chambly, the chief proprietor on the Richelieu, was better able than the others to meet the exigency. He built himself a good house, where, with cattle and sheep furnished by the king, he lived in reasonable comfort. * The king’s fort, close at hand, spared him and his tenants the necessity of building one for themselves, and furnished, no doubt, a mill, a chapel, and a chaplain. His brother officers, Sorel excepted, were less fortunate. They and their tenants were forced to provide defence as well as shelter. Their houses were all built together, and surrounded by a palisade, so as to form a little fortified village. The ever-active benevolence of the king had aided them in the task, for the soldiers were still maintained by him
* Frontenac au Ministre, 2 Nov., 1672. Marie de
l’Incarnation speaks of these officers on the Richelieu as
très honnêtes gens.
while clearing the lands and building the houses destined to be their own; nor was it till this work was done that the provident government despatched them to Quebec with orders to bring back wives. The settler, thus lodged and wedded, was required on his part to aid in clearing lands for those who should come after him. *
It was chiefly in the more exposed parts of the colony, that the houses were gathered together in palisaded villages, thus forcing the settler to walk or paddle some distance to his farm. He naturally preferred to build when he could on the front of his farm itself, near the river, which supplied the place of a road. As the grants of land were very narrow, his house was not far from that of his next neighbor, and thus a line of dwellings was ranged along the shore, forming what in local language was called a côte, a use of the word peculiar to Canada, where it still prevails.
The impoverished seignior rarely built a chapel. Most of the early Canadian churches were built with funds furnished by the seminaries of Quebec or of Montreal, aided by contributions of material and labor from the parishioners. ** Meanwhile mass was said in some house of the neighborhood by
* “Sa Majesté semble prétendre faire la dépense entière pour
former le commencement des habitations par l’abattis du
bois, la culture et semence de deux arpens de terre,
l’avance de quelques farines aux familles venantes,” etc.,
etc. Projets de Réglemens, 1667. This applied to civil and
military settlers alike. The established settler was allowed
four years to clear two arpents of land for a new-comer. The
soldiers were maintained by the king during a year, while
preparing their farms and houses. Talon asks that two years
more be given them. Talon au Roy. 10 Nov., 1670
** La Tour, Vie de Laval, chap. x.
a missionary priest, paddling his canoe from village to village, or from côte to côte.
The mill was an object of the last importance. It was built of stone and pierced with loopholes, to serve as a blockhouse in case of attack. The great mill at Montreal was one of the chief defences of the place. It was at once the duty and the right of the seignior to supply his tenants, or rather vassals, with this essential requisite, and they on their part were required to grind their grain at his mill, leaving the fourteenth part in payment. But for many years there was not a seigniory in Canada, where this fraction would pay the wages of a miller and, except the ecclesiastical corporations, there were few seigniors who could pay the cost of building. The first settlers were usually forced to grind for themselves after the tedious fashion of the Indians.
Talon, in his capacity of counsellor, friend, and father to all Canada, arranged the new settlements near Quebec in the manner which he judged best, and which he meant to serve as an example to the rest of the colony. It was his aim to concentrate population around this point, so that, should an enemy appear, the sound of a cannon-shot from the Chateau St. Louis might summon a numerous body of defenders to this the common point of rendezvous. * He bought a tract of land near Quebec, laid it out, and settled it as a model seigniory, hoping, as he says, to kindle a spirit of emulation among the new-made seigniors to whom he
* Projets de Réglemens, 1667.