MONTREAL: PRINTED BY JOHN LOVELL & SON 1899 Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine, by Mary Wilson Alloway , in the office of the Minister of Agriculture and Statistics at Ottawa. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD STRATHCONA AND MOUNT ROYAL, G.C.M.G., LL.D., &c., CHANCELLOR OF McGILL UNIVERSITY, MONTREAL, AND HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR CANADA IN LONDON, THIS VOLUME IS BY SPECIAL PERMISSION Respectfully Dedicated BY THE AUTHO

In offering this little volume to the kind consideration of Canadian and American readers, it is the earnest wish of the Author that it may commend itself to the interest of both, as the early histories of Canada and the United States are so closely connected that they may be considered identical. We have tried to recall the days when, by these firesides, we re rocked the cradles of those who helped to make Canadian history, and to render more familiar the names and deeds of the great men, Frenc

About twelve years after the first Spanish caravel had touched the shores of North America, we find the French putting forth efforts to share in some of the results of the discovery. In the year 1504 some Basque, Breton and Norman fisher-folk had already commenced fishing along the bleak shores of Newfoundland and the contiguous banks for the cod in which this region is still so prolific. The Spanish claim to the discovery of America is disputed by several aspirants to that honour. Among these a

A few yards from the busy municipal centre of the city of Montreal, behind an antique iron railing, is a quaint, old building known as the Château de Ramezay. Its history is contemporary with that of the city for the last two centuries, and so identified with past stirring events that it has been saved from the vandalism of modern improvement, and is to be preserved as a relic of the old Régime in New France. It is a long one-storied structure, originally red-tiled, with graceful, sloping roof,

On the river bank below the Château, tradition says, was the spot trodden by Jacques Cartier, who gave the river its name. Born at the time when all Europe was still excited over the tales of Columbus' adventures, he left the white cliffs and grey docks of St. Malo, where he had learned the sailor's craft, to search for the western route to the Indies. A little higher up, less than a century later, Champlain, to push on actively his operations in the fur-trade, built his fort, the name which he

A few rods to the west of the Château, through a vaulted archway leading from the street, in the shadow of the peaceful convent buildings is a little chapel called Notre-Dame-de-la-Victoire . The swallows twittering under its broken eaves are now the only sign of life; and its rotting timbers and threshold, forgotten by the world, give no suggestion of the martial incident to which it owes its existence. While the American Colonies were still English, the British Ensign floated over Boston town,

Still more ancient is a venerable postern in the blackened wall of the Seminary of St. Sulpice, near by, which is now the oldest building in the city, being erected some fifty years before the Château. It leads by a narrow lane to the gardens of the Monastery, which bloom quiet and still here in the heart of the throbbing life of a city of to-day. Generations of saintly men, under vows, have trodden in the shade of its walks, trying with the rigours of monastic life to crush out the memories of

The Order of the Gentlemen of St. Sulpice is supposed to be very rich, the amount of the immense revenues never being made public. They were the feudal lords of the Island of Montreal in the earlier chapters of its history. Through their zealous efforts and the generosity of their parishioners was opened in the year eighteen hundred and twenty-nine the grand church adjoining, that of Notre Dame , built on the site of the original parish church. Viewing it from the extensive plaza in front, its i

The conquest and settlement of all new regions are necessarily more or less written in blood, and the natural characteristics of the North American Indian have caused much of the early history of Canada to be traced in deeds of horror and agony lighted by the torture fire, with sufferings the most exquisite of which the human mind can conceive. When these were inflicted on individuals, it was sufficiently heartrending, but when a whole community fell a victim to their ferocity, as was the case i

A short distance to the south-west is the spot on which stood the Château and famous gardens of the Marquis de Vaudreuil, the last French Governor of Canada. Imagination can forget the miles of docks and warehouses, the electricity and commerce with which we are entering the twentieth century, and fancy it sees again the old vice-regal palace, a miniature in Canadian forests of the gay court at the Tuilleries, with its bewitchment of lace, silk and velvet, powdered wigs and the exaggerated polit

It was the evening of the 12th of Sept., 1759. The French troops were on the alert,—the British ready. The evening was calm and fine and the occasion full of solemnity as Wolfe embarked in a boat to visit some of his posts. As the oars dipped softly in the stream, and the quiet dusk of the autumn twilight hid the grim signs of war and brought out the peaceful beauty of the scene, he thought of the morrow—that where would be rent by the roar of cannon, the flash of bloody steel and the cries of t

General James Murray, the son of Lord Elibank, was appointed the first British Governor of Canada. Previous to the fall of Montreal, de Lévis, refusing to consider the cause of France lost on the St. Lawrence, valiantly resolved on an attack on General Murray at Quebec. The news of his advance was conveyed to Murray by a "half-frozen cannonier , whom the British troops carried up Mountain Hill in a sailor's hammock."—April 26th, 1760. Hearing of this unfortunate circumstance, which gave up to th

In the year 1775, when the thirteen American Colonies had risen in arms against the Motherland, it was to be expected that they would desire to have the assistance of those north of the forty-ninth parallel. Being so recently laid under British allegiance, it was supposed there would be much sympathy for the young cause in the Canadian Colonies. But, whether the treaty which had been made had been considered gracious in its terms, or that the horrible memories of war had not had time to die away

On the Sunday following Sir Guy Carleton's departure from Montreal, as the people were proceeding to church, they were thrown into a state of great alarm by the tidings of the landing of Montgomery's force on the Island of Montreal itself, at the spot where now the great Victoria Bridge springs from the shore, this densely-packed manufacturing district being then swamps and meadows. There was no hope of attempting defence under the circumstances, so both French and English, represented by an imp

It was to the French explorers whose names stand "conspicuous on the pages of half-savage romance," and to their successors the Scotch fur-kings, that we owe much of the geographical knowledge of the northern part of the Continent. There is some uncertainty as to who was the discoverer of the Mackenzie River, which carries its waters to the ice-fields of Polar seas, but it bears the name of one claimant to the distinction, Sir Alexander Mackenzie. Of the other waterways of the region much valuab

Few visitors to the city, as the Palace cars of the Canadian Pacific Railway carry them into the mammoth station on Dalhousie Square, realize the historic associations which cling around this spot. In the magnificently equipped dining-room of the Company's Hotel, as delicacies from the most distant parts of the earth are laid before the traveller, he should call to remembrance the lives of deprivation and uncomplaining endurance which have made the ground now crowned by the beautiful edifice ful

Conspicuous among the portraits of soldiers, heroes and navigators which adorn the walls of the different rooms of the Château, is one, a full size painting of an old Highland Chief, a veritable Rhoderick Dhu, in Scotch bonnet and dirk, who, with the call of his clan, and the pipes playing the airs of his native glen, led the charge of Bunker Hill. He was Sir John Small, who came to Canada with his regiment, the famous "Black Watch," and served under Abercrombie in the battle of Carillon. One of

Near a modern window in the gallery leans an old spinning-wheel, which was found in the vaults. By its hum in winter twilights, a hundred years ago, soft lullabies were crooned, and fine linen spun for dainty brides, over whose forgotten graves the blossoms of a century of summers have fallen. In hoop and farthingale they tripped over the threshold of the old church of Notre Dame de Bonsecours . They plighted their troth as happily before the altar of the little chapel, as do their descendants i