Ever since the flight to Montreal of the French from Onondaga under Dupuis on April 3, 1658, there had been constant fear of a concerted attempt by the Five Nations to exterminate, by fire and slaughter, the whole French population. In 1659 a Huron refugee to Quebec brought the news of the preparation of a great allied army for this fell purpose. This was confirmed at Quebec in the spring of 1660 by an Iroquois captive ally; that 800 Iroquois had assembled at Roche Fondue, near Montreal, to be joined by 400 more who were even then pouring down upon Quebec by way of Montreal and Three Rivers. Believing that Montreal and Three Rivers were besieged, Quebec was in the throes of alarm. The outlying houses were abandoned. Most of the settlers were either concentrated in the fort or in the Jesuit house, while the Ursulines and Hospitalières and others were in Upper Town; the rest barricaded themselves with many guards in the Lower Town. The monasteries, denuded of their occupants, were also guarded, and the cries of "qui vive?" of the patrol, each night warned the Iroquois lurking around that all were on the alert, and restrained any attempt to set fire to the houses.
That the enemy never came, is due to the heroic venturesomeness of a band of young Montrealers who had meanwhile bearded the lion in his den, and diverted the attack from the French, thus saving New France.
The garrison of Montreal had thought long of how to meet the threatened invasion, till at last the daring plan of a young officer of twenty-five years of age, Adam Dollard, was accepted. In the spring of 1660 the officers were now, besides the governor, Major Raphael Lambert Closse, M. Zacharie Dupuis, Pierre Picoté de Bélestre and the young Adam Dollard, Sieur des Ormeaux. Major Lambert Closse had been married on July 24, 1657, and he was now no longer living in the fort, for he had been given by the Associates, in recognition of his bravery and his merits, his own lands, the first fief granted in Montreal, a hundred arpents, "à simple hommage et sans justice." He had now received letters of nobility, for whereas before he has simply been styled sergeant major of the garrison, in his marriage contract he is named "écuyer" (esquire), on December 9th after the arrival of Maisonneuve and that of the Sulpicians, he is called "noble homme, écuyer." We have already mentioned that he was the commandant of the Island of Montreal. On leaving the fort Lambert Closse still retained his office of major, but he was replaced at the fort by M. Zacharie du Puis, the same who had been received coldly at Quebec after the retreat under him from Onondaga, but whose services were welcomed and esteemed at Montreal by the governor, de Maisonneuve, who named him assistant major; and he is also spoken of as "commandant of the Island of Montreal," a title found ascribed also to Lambert Closse. Then we may class Charles Le Moyne, the official interpreter and storekeeper, as in some way an officer. Among the late arrivals two others had been at least adjoined to the military staff. One of these was Picoté de Bélestre, a doctor as well as a fighting man, and he proved of valuable assistance to the settlement. Dollier de Casson says of him that "he adorned this place, as well in war as in peace, on account of the advantageous qualities he possessed for one and the other." He is spoken of sometimes as a "commandant," sometimes as an officer of the garrison.
The other is Adam Dollard, Sieur des Ormeaux, a young man of twenty-five years of age. There is little known of his antecedents. The actual date of his arrival is not certain but, according to the latest researches made by Mr. E. Z. Massicotte, city archivist of Montreal (April, 1912), the first document, in which his name appears as witnessing a land transfer, is dated September 10, 1658.
As he figures frequently in acts after this, it is not likely that he came much before that date, for he was not present on December 29, 1657, at the marriage of Jeanne Le Moyne with Jacques Leber, a young man of his own age, nor at that of Michel Messier and of Anne Le Moyne, February 18, 1658; while after the above date, on September 15, 1658, he was present at that of Jacques Mousseaux and of Marguerite Soviot, and on October 3, 1658, he was godfather to Elizabeth Moyen, daughter of Lambert Closse and Elizabeth Moyen, married the year previously, and thenceforward he appeared frequently at public ceremonies.
In this act, Dollard is styled "volontaire," a volunteer, which may signify that he was only as yet attached to the garrison or that he had taken service freely and not on wages. The Notary Basset gives him, sometimes, the title of "commandant"; at others that of "officer of the garrison."
Mr. Massicotte proves, from the inventory of Dollard's effects after his death, that he had intended to settle, having formed a building society, explained before as then customary, with Picoté de Bélestre, to break land and to cultivate it in view of a future homestead. We have the record of de Bélestre's concession and of a debt to be paid to the succession of "the late Adam Dollard" the sum of 79 livres, 10 sols, for fifty-three days' work, by men employed by the deceased to work on the same concession.
It is therefore probable that Dullard was contemplating his own homestead and that, in his turn, de Bélestre would assist, according to the contracts before noticed.
Dollard was by no means wealthy; indeed the number of his personal effects at his death was less than those shown in the inventories of the greater part of the settlers dying before him, even of the bachelors. The sum total of these possessions has been estimated at eighty-five livres, or 1,700 sous! But we must remember that a sou would at that time buy five to ten times more than now.