Glimpses of the Past Part 6

"I sent you, my Lord, the census of their domain, which has been made by Father Simon, the Recollet, who is missionary on the same river, in which you may have every confidence, he being a very honest man. It is very unfortunate, my lord, that any one should have informed you that they lead a licentious life with the savages for I have reliable testimony that their conduct is very good. It seems as if all who live in that locality are in a state of discord; the inhabitants make great complaints against the Sieurs de Villebon and des Goutins. Some who have come to Quebec say they are constantly so harra.s.sed and oppressed that if things are not put upon a better footing they will be compelled to abandon the country."

That the inhabitants living on the river were turning their attention to agriculture is shown by a communication to Frontenac or Champigny in 1696, in which the writer, probably Villieu, says: "I informed you last year, Monsieur, by the memo that I did myself the honor to send you, that the inhabitants of this river begin to cultivate their lands. I have since learned that they have raised some grain. M. de Chouffours, who had sown so considerably last year, has not received anything in return, the worms having eaten the seed in the ground; M.

de Freneuse, his brother, has harvested about 15 hogsheads of wheat and M. de Clignancourt very little; M. Bellefontaine, about 5 hogsheads; the Sieur Martel very little, as he has only begun to cultivate his land during the last two years; the other inhabitants nothing at all, unless it is a little Indian corn. The Sieurs d'Amours, except the Sieur Clignancourt, have sown this year pretty considerably of wheat and the Sieur Bellefontaine also, the Sieur Martel some rye and wheat and much peas. The other inhabitants have sown some Indian corn, which would have turned out well only they have sown too late on account of their land being inundated."

Baron la Hontan visited Fort Nashouac about 1694. He describes the St.

John as "a very pleasant river, adorned with fields that are very fertile in grain." He says that two gentlemen of the name of d'Amours have a settlement there for beaver hunting.

The census made in 1695 by Simon, the French missionary, shows that there were then ten families, numbering forty-nine persons, on the St.

John river, besides the garrison at Fort Nachouac. Their live stock included 38 cattle and 116 swine; there were 166 acres of land under cultivation and 73 in pasture; the crop of that year included 130 bushels of wheat, 370 of corn, 30 of oats, 170 of peas.

The testimony of John Gyles, who spent three years in the family of Louis d'Amours at the Jemseg, conclusively disproves Villebon's a.s.sertion that the d'Amours tilled no land and kept no cattle. He speaks of a fine wheat field owned by his master, in which the blackbirds created great havoc and describes a curious attempt made by a friar to exorcise the birds. A procession was formed, headed by the friar, in his white robe with a young lad as his attendant and some thirty people following. Gyles asked some of the prisoners, who had lately been taken by privateers and brought to the Jemseg, whether they would go back with him to witness the ceremony, but they emphatically refused to witness it and when Gyles expressed his determination to go, one of them, named Woodbury, said he was "as bad as a papist and a d--d fool." The procession pa.s.sed and re-pa.s.sed from end to end of the field with solemn words of exorcism accompanied by the tinkling of a little bell, the blackbirds constantly rising before them only to light behind them. "At their return," says Gyles, "I told a French lad that the friar had done no service and recommended them to shoot the birds. The lad left me, as I thought, to see what the friar would say to my observation, which turned out to be the case, for he told the lad that the sins of the people were so great that he could not prevail against those birds."

A story a.n.a.logous to this is related in Dr. Samuel Peters' history of Connecticut, of the celebrated George Whitefield, the New England Independent minister and revivalist: "Time not having destroyed the wall of the fort at Saybrooke, Whitefield, in 1740, attempted to bring down the wall as Joshua did those of Jericho, hoping thereby to convince the mult.i.tude of his divine mission. He walked seven times around the fort with prayer and ram's horn blowing, he called on the angel of Joshua to do as he had done at the walls of Jericho; but the angel was deaf to his call and the wall remained. Thereupon George cried aloud: 'This town is accursed and the wall shall stand as a monument of a sinful people!'"

Mathieu d'Amours, Sieur de Freneuse, seems to have thought seriously of leaving the St. John river on account of the difficulties and discouragements of his situation, for on the 6th August, 1696, he made out to one Michel Chartier, of Schoodic, in Acadia, a lease of his seignioral manor of Freneuse, consisting of 30 arpents (acres) of arable land under the plough, meadow, forest and undergrowth, with houses, barns and stables thereon, a cart and plough rigged ready for work; also all the oxen, cows, bullocks, goats, pigs, poultry, furniture and household utensils that might remain from the sale which he proposed to make. Chartier was to enjoy the right of trade with the Indians through the whole extent of the manor except where lands had been granted by the Sieur de Freneuse to private individuals. The lease was to be for a term of five years beginning with the first day of May following, and the lessee was to pay the Sieur de Freneuse 600 livres annually, half in money and half in small furs, such as beaver, otter and martins.

It is not likely that this transaction was ever consummated, for less than three months after the lease was arranged and six months before Chartier was to take possession, all the buildings of the Sieur de Freneuse were burned, his cattle destroyed and his fields laid waste by Hawthorne's expedition returning from their unsuccessful seige of Fort Nachouac. The original lease, a very interesting doc.u.ment, is now in possession of Dr. W. F. Ganong and a fac-simile of the signature of the Sieur de Freneuse is here given.[11]

[11] A copy of the original lease of the Seigniory of Freneuse, with translation, and remarks by Dr. Ganong, will be found in Vol.

I., p. 121, of Acadiensis, printed at St. John by D. R. Jack, to whose kindness and that of Dr. Ganong I am indebted for the signature given above.--W. O. R.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Signature of Sieur de Freneuse]

The seigniory included both sides of the St. John river in Sunbury county, and the most fertile portions of the parishes of Maugerville, Sheffield, Burton and Lincoln. The name Freneuse is found in most of the maps of that region down to the time of the American Revolution.

The residence of the Sieur de Freneuse stood on the east bank of the St. John opposite the mouth of the Oromocto river.

Mathieu d'Amours, as already stated, died in consequence of exposure at the siege of Fort Nachouac. Sixty years later the lands he had cleared and tilled and the site of his residence were transferred to the hands of the first English settlers on the river, the Maugerville colony of 1763. His widow, Madame Louise Guyon, went to Port Royal, where her indiscretion created a sensation that resulted in voluminous correspondence on the part of the authorities and finally led to her removal to Quebec.

Rene d'Amours, during his sojourn on the River St. John, was much engrossed in trade with the natives. He made periodical visits to their villages and was well known at Medoctec, where Gyles lived as a captive, and it is not unlikely the Frenchmen living at that village were his retainers. He seems to have made little or no attempt to fulfil the conditions necessary to retain possession of his seignioral manor, for to his mind the charms of hunting and trading surpa.s.sed those of farming. His visits to Medoctec to purchase furs and skins when the Indians had returned from their winter hunts were of doubtful advantage to the poor savages, for Gyles tells us that "when they came in from hunting they would be drunk and fight for several days and nights together, till they had spent most of their skins in wine and brandy, which was brought to the village by a Frenchman called Monsieur Sigenioncor" (Clignancourt).

The latter portion of the narrative of John Gyles throws light on the course of events on the St. John during Villebon's regime, and supplies us with a particularly interesting glimpse of domestic life in the home of Louis d'Amours on the banks of the Jemseg, where Gyles spent the happiest years of his captivity. The wife of the Sieur de Chauffours, Marguerite Guyon[12], appears in an especially amiable light. Her lonely situation and rude surroundings, the perils of the wilderness and of savage war, amidst which her little children were born, evoke our sympathy. Her goodness of heart is seen in her motherly kindness to Gyles, the young stranger of an alien race--the "little English," as she calls him. But with all her amiability and gentleness she possessed other and stronger qualities, and it was her woman's wit and readiness of resource that saved her husband's fortunes in a grave emergency. The story shall be told in Gyles' own words.

[12] Louis d'Amours married Marguerite Guyon in 1686, about the time he settled on the St. John river. They had three children.

"When about six years of my doleful captivity had pa.s.sed, my second Indian master died, whose squaw and my first Indian disputed whose slave I should be. Some malicious persons advised them to end the quarrel by putting a period to my life; but honest father Simon, the priest of the river, told them that it would be a heinous crime and advised them to sell me to the French."

The suggestion of father Simon was adopted and Gyles, now in his sixteenth year, went with the missionary and the Indians to the mouth of the river, the occasion of their journey being the arrival of a French man-of-war at Menagoueche with supplies for the garrison and presents for the Indians.

"My master asked me," continues Gyles, "whether I chose to be sold aboard the man-of-war or to the inhabitants? I replied with tears, I should be glad if you would sell me to the English from whom you took me, but if I must be sold to the French, I chose to be sold to the lowest on the river, or nearest inhabitant to the sea, about 25 leagues from the mouth of the river; for I thought that if I were sold to the gentlemen aboard the man-of-war I should never return to the English. * * My master presently went on sh.o.r.e and a few days after all the Indians went up the river. When we came to a house which I had spoken to my master about, he went on sh.o.r.e with me and tarried all night. The master of the house (Louis d'Amours) spoke kindly to me in Indian, for I could not then speak one word of French. Madam also looked pleasant on me and gave me some bread. The next day I was sent six leagues further up the river to another French house. My master and the friar tarried with Monsieur De Chauffours, the gentleman who had entertained us the night before. Not long after father Simon came and said, 'Now you are one of us, for you are sold to that gentleman by whom you were entertained the other night.'

"I replied, 'Sold!--to a Frenchman!' I could say no more, but went into the woods alone and wept till I could scarce see or stand. The word 'sold,' and that to a people of that persuasion which my dear mother so much detested and in her last words manifested so great fears of my falling into; the thought almost broke my heart.

"When I had thus given vent to my grief I wiped my eyes, endeavoring to conceal its effects, but father Simon perceiving my eyes swollen, rolled me aside bidding me not to grieve, for the gentleman he said to whom I was sold was of a good humor; that he had formerly bought two captives of the Indians who both went home to Boston. This in some measure revived me; but he added he did not suppose that I would ever incline to go to the English for the French way of wors.h.i.+p was much to be preferred. He said also he would pa.s.s that way in about ten days, and if I did not like to live with the French better than the Indians he would buy me again.

"On the day following, father Simon and my Indian master went up the river six and thirty leagues to their chief village and I went down the river six leagues with two Frenchmen to my new master. He kindly received me, and in a few days Madam made me an osnaburg s.h.i.+rt and French cap and a coat out of one of my master's old coats. Then I threw away my greasy blanket and Indian flap; and I never more saw the old friar, the Indian village or my Indian master till about fourteen years after when I saw my old Indian master at Port Royal, and again about twenty-four years since he came from St. John to Fort George to see me where I made him very welcome.

"My French master had a great trade with the Indians, which suited me very well, I being thorough in the language of the tribes at Cape Sable[13] and St. John. I had not lived long with this gentleman before he committed to me the keys of his store, etc., and my whole employment was trading and hunting, in which I acted faithfully for my master and never knowingly wronged him to the value of one farthing. They spoke to me so much in Indian that it was some time before I was perfect in the French tongue."

[13] The Micmacs, as distinguished from the St. John river Indians or Maliseets.

It was in the summer of the year 1695 that John Gyles was purchased of the Indians by Louis d'Amours, having been nearly six years in captivity at the Medoctec village. The strong prejudice against the French instilled into his mind by his mother, who was a devout puritan, was soon overcome by the kindness of Marguerite d'Amours.

The goods needed by the Sieur de Chauffours for his trade with the Indians were obtained from the man-of-war which came out annually from France, and Gyles was sometimes sent with the Frenchmen in his master's employ to the mouth of the river for supplies. On one of these trips, in the early spring time, the party in their frail canoes were caught in a violent storm as they were coming down the Kennebeccasis--having crossed over thither from Long Reach by way of Kingston Creek, the usual route of travel. They were driven on Long Island opposite Rothesay and remained there seven days without food, unable to return by reason of the northeast gale and unable to advance on account of the ice. At the expiration of that time the ice broke up and they were able to proceed, but in so exhausted a state that they could "scarce hear each other speak." After their arrival at St. John, two of the party very nearly died in consequence of eating too heartily, but Gyles had had such ample experience of fasting in his Indian life that he had learned wisdom, and by careful dieting suffered no evil consequences.

In the month of October, 1696, the quietude of the household at the Jemseg was disturbed by the appearance of the Ma.s.sachusetts military expedition under Hawthorne and Church.

"We heard of them," says Gyles, "some time before they came up the river by the guard that Governor Villebon had ordered at the river's mouth. Monsieur the gentleman whom I lived with was gone to France, and Madam advised with me; she then desired me to nail a paper on the door of our house containing as follows:--

'I intreat the General of the English not to burn my House or Barn, nor destroy my Cattle. I don't suppose that such an army comes up this River to destroy a few Inhabitants but for the Fort above us. I have shewn kindness to the English captives as we were capacitated and have bought two Captives of the Indians and sent them to Boston, and have one now with us and he shall go also when a convenient opportunity presents and he desires it.'

"This done, Madam said to me, 'Little English; we have shewn you kindness and now it lies in your power to serve or disserve us, as you know where our goods are hid in the woods and that Monsieur is not at home. I could have sent you to the Fort and put you under confinement, but my respect for you and a.s.surance of your love to us have disposed me to confide in you, persuaded that you will not hurt us nor our affairs. And now if you will not run away to the English, who are coming up the river, but serve our interest I will acquaint Monsieur of it at his return from France which will be very pleasing to him; and I now give my word that you shall have liberty to go to Boston on the first opportunity, if you desire it, or that any other favor in my power shall not be deny'd you.'

"I replied:--'Madam, it is contrary to the nature of the English to requite evil for good. I shall endeavor to serve you and your interest. I shall not run to the English; but if I am taken by them shall willingly go with them and yet endeavor not to disserve you either in your persons or goods.'

"This said we embarked and went in a large boat and canoe two or three miles up an eastern branch of the river that comes from a large pond [Grand Lake] and in the evening sent down four hands to make discovery; and while they were sitting in the house the English surrounded it and took one of the four; the other three made their escape in the dark through the English soldiers and came to us and gave a surprising account of affairs.

"Again Madam said to me, 'Little English, now you can go from us, but I hope you will remember your word!' I said, 'Madam, be not concerned, for I will not leave you in this strait.' She said 'I know not what to do with my two poor little Babes.' I said 'Madam, the sooner we embark and go over the great Pond the better.' Accordingly we embarked and went over the Pond.

"The next day we spake with Indians, who were in a canoe and gave us an account that Chignecto-town was taken and burnt. Soon after we heard the great guns at Governor Villebon's fort, which the English engaged several days, killed one man, and drew off and went down the river; for it was so late in the fall that had they tarried a few days longer in the river, they would have been frozen in for the winter.

"Hearing no report of the great guns for several days, I, with two others, went down to our house to make discovery, where we found our young lad who was taken by the English when they went up the river; for the general was so honorable that, on reading the note on our door, he ordered that the house and barn should not be burnt nor their cattle or other creatures killed, except one or two, and the poultry for their use, and at their return ordered the young lad to be put ash.o.r.e.

"Finding things in this posture, we returned and gave Madam an account. She acknowledged the many favors which the English had shown, with grat.i.tude, and treated me with great civility. The next spring Monsieur arrived from France in the man-of-war, who thanked me for my care of his affairs, and said that he would endeavor to fulfil what Madam had promised me."

At the expiration of another year, peace having been proclaimed, a sloop came to Menagoueche with ransom for one Michael Coombs, and Gyles at once reminded the Sieur de Chauffours of his promise. That gentleman advised him to remain, offering to do for him as if he were his own child, but Gyles' heart was set upon going to Boston, hoping to find some of his relations yet alive. His master then advised him to go up to the fort and take leave of the Governor, which he did, and says the Sieur de Villebon spoke very kindly to him. Some days after he took an affecting leave of Madame d'Amours and his master went down to the mouth of the river with him to see him on board. A few days afterwards he arrived safely in Boston and was welcomed by his relatives as one risen from the dead.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Signature of John Gyles]

After Villebon's death his successor, de Brouillan, dismantled Fort Nachouac and the fort at the mouth of the St. John river and transferred the garrisons to Port Royal. The French families living on the river soon followed, as they found themselves without protection and did not care to remain in a situation so exposed. The houses abandoned by these settlers had been built upon the interval lands on the east side of the river between the Nashwaak and the Jemseg. The soil was very fertile, entirely free from rock or stone and little inc.u.mbered by forest. But the situation had its disadvantages--as it has still. In the spring of the year 1701 the settlers had a most unhappy experience in consequence of an extraordinarily high freshet.

This event increased Brouillan's aversion to the St. John, and he writes:

"The river is altogether impracticable for habitations, the little the people had there being destroyed this year by the freshets (inondations) which have carried off houses, cattle and grain.

There is no probability that any families will desire to expose themselves hereafter to a thing so vexatious and so common on that river. Monsieur De Chauffours, who used to be the mainstay of the inhabitants and the savages, has been forced to abandon it and to withdraw to Port Royal, but he has no way to make a living there for his family, and he will unhappily be forced to seek some other retreat if the Court pays no consideration to the services which he represents in his pet.i.tion, and does not grant him some position in order to retain him in this colony."

The next year France and England were again at war and in the course of the conflict the fortunes of the d'Amours in Acadia were involved in utter ruin. The gentle spirit of Marguerite Guyon d'Amours did not survive the struggle, and with the close of the century she pa.s.sed from the scene of her trials. Louis d'Amours, while serving his country in arms, was taken by the English, and for more than two years remained a prisoner in Boston. His brother, the Sieur de Clignancourt, served in various expeditions against the New Englanders and for several years is heard of in connection with military affairs.

Eventually most of the surviving members of the d'Amours family removed from Acadia leaving behind them no abiding record of their sojourn on the St. John river.

Two of the daughters of Louis d'Amours were married at Port Royal while very young. Perhaps they possessed their mother's winsome manners, perhaps, also the scarcity of marriageable girls in Acadia may have had something to do with the matter; at any rate Charlotte d'Amours was but seventeen years of age when she married the young baron, Anselm de St. Castin. Their wedding took place at Port Royal in October, 1707, just two months after young St. Castin had greatly distinguished himself in the heroic and successful defense of Port Royal against an expedition from New England.[14] The event no doubt caused a flutter of excitement in the then limited society of Port Royal. The officiating priest was Father Antoine Gaulin, of the Seminary of Quebec, at which inst.i.tution the young baron had finished his studies only three years before. Among the witnesses of the marriage were the Chevalier de Subercase, governor of Acadia; Bonaventure, who had for some years rendered signal service as commander of the "Envieux" and other wars.h.i.+ps; Mon. de la Boularderie, a French officer who had been wounded in the recent siege, and the bride's farther, Louis d'Amours--who, signs his name D'Amour D'Echofour.

[14] The mortification of the Bostonians at the failure of this expedition was extreme. So confident of success were they that preparations were made for a public rejoicing on the antic.i.p.ated capture of Port Royal. The young baron St. Castin was wounded in the defence of Port Royal. His conduct in leading the defenders on several critical occasions was characterized by such dash and intrepidity that Governor Subercase in describing the siege wrote to the French minister at Versailles that if it had not been for the presence of the Baron St. Castin he knew not what would have been the result.

See Murdoch's Hist. Nova Scotia, vol. I., p. 289.

A few years later the Marquis de Vaudreuil entrusted to St. Castin the command of Acadia. After the treaty of Utrecht he retired to his ancestral residence on the banks of the Pen.o.bscot, where he lived on amicable terms with the English and kept the Pen.o.bscot Indians from making encroachments on their neighbors. His sister, Ursule de St.

Castin, married his wife's brother, a son of Louis d'Amours, a circ.u.mstance of interest not only as being a double marriage between the families of St. Castin and d'Amours, but also from the fact that the familiar t.i.tles of the d'Amours family seem to have been retained in this, the oldest branch of their family. In proof of this fact, the distinguished Acadian genealogist, Placid P. Gaudet, has shown that among the Acadians residing at the Islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon in 1767 (according to the census of that year), were Ursule de St.

Castin, widow of the only son of Louis d'Amours, then 71 year of age, who resided with her son Joseph d'Amours, deChauffour, and his family.

Joseph d'Amours was at that time 49 years of age, and his wife, Genevieve Roy, 44 years of age. They had seven children and the oldest sons were Joseph d'Amours, aged 19 years; Paul d'Amours de Freneuse, aged 16 years, and Louis d'Amours de Clignancourt, aged 13 years. As the father himself retained the t.i.tle of de Chauffours it is evident that on his decease it would fall to his oldest son, Joseph.

Marie d'Amours, sister of the young Baroness de St. Castin, married Pierre de Morpain, the commander of a privateer of St. Domingo. It chanced that he had just brought a s.h.i.+p load of provisions to Port Royal when it was attacked in 1707, and he was able to render good service in its defence. Two years afterwards he was again at Port Royal and in the course of a ten days' cruise took nine prizes and destroyed four more vessels. Being attacked by a coast-guard s.h.i.+p of Boston a furious engagement ensued in which the English captain was killed with one hundred of his men and his vessel made a prize and taken to Port Royal. The commander, Subercase, highly commended Morpain's bravery and persuaded him to remain at Port Royal where, on August 13, 1709, he married Marie d'Amours de Chauffours.