The Seigneurs of Old Canada : A Chronicle of New World FeudalismMunro, William Bennett
History
The Seigneurs of Old Canada : A Chronicle of New World Feudalism
Munro, William Bennett
Feudalism -- History; Land tenure -- Canada -- History
Among those who came to Montreal in 1641, when the
foundations of the city were being laid, was the son of
a Dieppe innkeeper, Charles Le Moyne by name. Born in
1624, he was only seventeen when he set out to seek his
fortune in the New World. The lure of the fur trade
promptly overcame him, as it did so many others, and the
first few years of his life in Canada were spent among
the Hurons in the regions round Georgian Bay. On becoming
of age, however, he obtained a grant of lands on the
south shore of the St Lawrence, opposite Montreal, and
at once began the work of clearing it. This area, of
fifty lineal arpents in frontage by one hundred in depth,
was granted to Le Moyne by M. de Lauzon [Footnote: Jean
de Lauzon, at this time president of the Company of One
Hundred Associates, which, as we have seen, had the feudal
suzerainty of Canada. Lauzon was afterwards governor of
New France, 1651-56.] as a seigneury on September 24,
1647.
Despite the fact that his holding was directly in the
path of Indian attacks, Le Moyne made steady progress in
clearing it; he built himself a house, and in 1654, at
the age of twenty-eight, married Mademoiselle Catherine
Primot, formerly of Rouen. The governor of Montreal, M.
de Maisonneuve, showed his good will by a wedding gift
of ninety additional arpents. But Le Moyne's ambition to
provide for a rapidly growing family led him to petition
the intendant for an enlargement of his holdings, and in
1672 the intendant Talon gave him the land which lay
between the seigneuries of Varennes and La Prairie de la
Magdelaine. This with his other tract was united to form
the seigneury of Longueuil. Already the king had recognized
Le Moyne's progressive spirit by giving him rank in the
noblesse, the letters-patent having been issued in 1668.
On this seigneury the first of the Le Moynes de Longueuil
lived and worked until his death in 1685.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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