CCHA, Report, 7 (1939-40), 11-26
The Windham or “Oak Ridges” Settlement
of French Royalist Refugees
in York County, Upper Canada, 1798
BY
THE REV. BROTHER ALFRED [DOONER], F.S.C., LL.D.
The
settlement of French Catholic émigrés south of “Oak Ridges,” some fifteen
miles north of the present City of Toronto, in 1798, had its origin in
political events in Europe.
The outbreak
of the French Revolution in 1789 was marked by a most violent persecution of
the French clergy and religious. These faithful servants of God and King were
pursued like beasts of prey, proscribed and outlawed. Priests who remained on
French soil were forced to choose between apostacy and death. Faced by this
dilemma, thousands of them, both young and old, preferring to obey God rather
than man, took, overnight, the road to exile, leaving behind them all that they
possessed in this world. Besides those who sought an asylum in Italy, Germany,
Spain, Switzerland, etc., thousands fled to England and to the Islands of
Jersey and Guernsey. A number, directed by the Sulpician Fathers of Paris, came
to the newly-formed United States of America,1 and forty-five, in their misery, found a refuge in
French Canada.
Besides
these members of the clergy, thousands of Catholic laymen of the best blood of
France were also forced into exile because of their attachment to the Royalist
Cause. A colony of these Royalist refugees, directed and assisted by the
British Government, arrived in York, Upper Canada, in the autumn of 1798. They
formed the Windham2 or “Oak Ridges” settlement.
On the 29th
of May, 1790, the French National Assembly passed the infamous law know as “The
Civil Constitution of the Clergy,” to which every bishop, priest and religious
was ordered to swear obedience. To obey this constitution was to repudiate the
authority of the Pope and to embrace schism and heresy. Those of the clergy who
refused to swear were automatically deposed from their positions, exposed to
every persecution and marked for prison and death.
Of 135
French bishops only four were weak enough to swear obedience to the “Civil
Constitution of the Clergy,” while in all France 50,000 priests refused the
schismatic oath. This constancy enraged the Republicans and a reign of terror
was inaugurated. The massacres began in Paris. Priests and religious were
murdered in cold blood, drowned, or starved in the hulks of broken vessels at
the mouths of the Garonne and Charente.3 No consideration
was given to the aged, the sick or the infirm. It was a general massacre. The
axe and the guillotine were ever busy. Churches were sacked, monasteries and
convents pillaged, and the work of red revolution went on in torrents of blood.
England opened wide her gates, and her
Protestant King and her Protestant Government hastened to welcome the fleeing Catholic
Royalist refugees and to assist them in every possible manner. Committees were
formed and national subscriptions raised. From 1792 to 1799 a continual stream
of émigrés poured in to the island but the charity and generosity of the
English people towards them appeared inexhaustible. Even until the arrival of
the last French exiles in 1799 English support never failed. The refugees were
welcomed everywhere, above all in the homes of the English nobility. The
British Government placed several residences at their disposal and on Nov. 4th,
1792, King George III threw open to them the royal palace at Winchester, in
which 700 priests were cared for. At that time there were over 5,000 exiled
priests or royalist laymen in the British Isles. Edmund Burke, the brilliant
Irish orator, was the chief spokesman in behalf of the exiles, and he himself
founded, in April, 1796, a Catholic school for the French orphans whose fathers
had died on the scaffold or had fallen in the revolutionary wars. To this
school the government made a grant of £ 600 a year.4
After the decree of the 26th of August,
1792, a real “sauve-qui-peut” occurred in France, and before the end of the
year there were 5,000 French priests in England, not to speak of thousands of
French laymen, many of them members of the French nobility. This emergency was
met by a most astounding generosity on the part of the English people, so much
so that, before the close of 1792, the total subscriptions in aid of the French
refugees amounted to more than $2,000,000.00. In the ten years from 1792 to
1802 there was raised in Protestant England for the help of French Catholic
priests and nobles the enormous sum5 of $10,000,000.00.
Chaos reigned in France, blood ran everywhere, so that before the close of 1795
the number of the unfortunate exiles increased to 8,000. The roads from the
southern ports to London were crowded with them. They were penniless, for
before they took shipping to cross the channel whatever money they had was
taken from them under the pretext that neither gold nor silver should be taken
out of the country.
Despite the penal code then in force in
England, French priests were allowed to say Mass and celebrate the divine
offices wherever they wished, whether in London or elsewhere. They were allowed
openly to build Catholic churches and chapels with money sent to them from
France or from the Sulpician Fathers in Canada, and all this, thirty-five years
before O’Connell secured emancipation for the Catholics of the British Isles.
Years wore slowly on and month by month the
difficulty of finding means to clothe, feed and house so many émigrés became
much greater. Many of the French nobles were in real want. Some, like
Chateaubriand, were too proud to accept alms. He tells his own story as
follows: “I was devoured by hunger; sleep had left me. I sucked pieces of linen
steeped in water; I chewed grass and paper. When I passed before bake shops my
torment was terrible. One winter evening, I remained two hours before a stall
where dry fruits and meats were sold swallowing with my eyes everything I saw.
I could have eaten not only the meats but also the boxes and baskets. I had no
sheets and in the cold weather my coat and a chair added to my bed spread kept
me warm.”6
Priests and nobles began to look about for
some means of earning a livelihood. They turned their hands to anything and
everything. Some secured positions as professors of French or Latin, some found
places as instructors in private families; academies and boarding schools
absorbed many others; they taught music, mathematics or the sciences. We find
parish priests, canons and learned theologians and nobles as merchants,
soldiers, tailors, shoemakers, hatters, clerks or workmen in factories or
laborers in the fields. While the priests and noblemen were so employed the
women were equally busy. Ladies of the French nobility turned to needlework,
hemming, stitching and sewing, while others became nurses or professors of
piano or teachers in ladies’ colleges.
This state of affairs lasted in England
from 1792 to 1800 when, in the latter year, there started amongst the exiles a
return movement to France. It was not, however, until after the promulgation of
the Concordat between the Holy See and Napoleon on April 18, 1802, that the
movement became general.
At various times, even as early as 1793,
the question of sending many of these French refugees to Canada was considered
by the British Government. Bishop Hubert of Quebec was in sore need of priests7 for his seminary and his parishes8 and also for the many missions of his immense
diocese which at the time stretched from Gaspé and Prince Edward Island into
the Mississippi Valley and to the unknown boundaries of the great west. For
years the British Government had objected, for political reasons, to the importation
of priests from France.9 Now, however,
that conditions in France had so changed, as red republicanism had run riot and
as all French refugees in England were all ardent royalist sympathizers, the
British government withdrew its opposition to the sending of French priests to
her new dominions in North America. Colonies of French royalist laymen and
their families, at the time resident in England, were to follow the clergy and
thus the burden of the government at home was to be lightened.
The proposition for the removal of
thousands of French exiles to Canada was a serious one and it entailed the
expenditure of large sums of money, but the British government was ready to
help most generously.
In order that everything might be carried
out with order and according to an intelligent pre-arranged plan, the British
government decided to send to Quebec, at its own expense, three French
clergymen at the time domiciled in England. They were men of choice, Fathers
Philippe Jean Louis Desjardins, Jean André Raimbault, and Pierre Gazel. Their
mission was to make all arrangements for the reception and location of the émigrés
in Canada. To these delegates was added a layman, a Canadian by birth,
François Josué de la Corne de St-Luc, Knight of the royal order of St. Louis,
who was in England at the time. The four delegates arrived in New York, Feb. 8,
1793, and on the 2nd of March they were welcomed in Quebec by the Lieut.
Governor, Major General Alured Clarke, and by Bishop Hubert. As hundreds, and
perhaps thousands, of exiled priests were expected, as well as an equal number
of noblemen and gentry with their families and servants, preparations were
begun on a grand scale to receive them. The ecclesiastics were to be
temporarily accommodated at the Jesuit College and houses, at the convents of
the Recollets at Quebec, Three Rivers and Montreal, and at the Sulpician
Seminary, while the bishop could also place permanently a considerable number
at work in his parishes, in missions, and in the religion communities. As for
the laymen, they could be lodged in the barracks at Sorel, Yamichiche, etc.
The Government at Quebec offered two whole townships, amongst the finest in the
province, for the establishment of agricultural colonies where hundreds of
priests, divided into communities of from twenty to thirty under a superior,
might be employed.
On May 11, 1793, the Abbé Desjardins wrote
from Quebec to His Excellency John Graves Simcoe, Lieut. Governor of Upper
Canada, and laid before him the object of his mission, asking him whether he
would be pleased to receive French refugees as colonists in Upper Canada. His
letter was delivered to Gov. Simcoe by Alexander Macdonell,10 sheriff of the Home
district, who was in Quebec at the time. On July 1st, 1793, Governor Simcoe
wrote the Abbé Desjardins a letter of encouragement and sympathy. It said in
part:
“It would be an
extreme pleasure for the government of Upper Canada to prove its devotion and
obedience to His Majesty and its conformity with his kind intentions, by
offering to the nobility and clergy from France an asylum as comfortable and as
suitable as the infant state of the colony will permit. It may be good for you
to know that the province of Upper Canada is inhabited principally by persons
who were chased out of the United States of America because of their attachment
to their King, an attachment which characterizes at this moment, the conduct of
the loyal Frenchmen who suffer the horrors of exile. It will be for the French
who will come to colonize Upper Canada an alleviation of their sufferings to
live side by side with a people who can sympathize with them in their common
misfortunes...
There are many
advantageous locations on Lake Ontario and Lake Erie or on the banks of rivers navigable
by boats. Space is not lacking for the reception of as many colonists as may
arrive.
Allow me to add
that, as far as my example and position can be useful, I am ready to welcome
the group of Ecclesiastics and their companions with all sympathy and with a
profound respect for their sufferings.
I have the honor to be with the most
profound respect.
John
Graves Simcoe”
Passage from
Kingston westward was arranged for the delegates on one of the King’s boats.
This correspondence decided the Abbé Desjardins to visit Governor Simcoe at
Niagara as soon as possible. On Aug. 3rd we find him and the Chevalier de la
Come en route for Navy Hall, the residence of the Governor. Niagara of that day
is described by a traveller as follows:
“The town of
Niagara (“Newark:) contains about 70 houses, a court house, a prison and a
building where the legislative assembly meets. Most of the houses are of wood.
The upper part of the town, inhabited mostly by officials of the government, is
very well built.”11
The two French
delegates were received by Simcoe with every courtesy. They remained for three
weeks at Niagara and every aspect of the reception of the French refugees was
discussed. The spot considered most suitable for a settlement was the shores of
Burlington bay.
On their return voyage to Quebec the
ambassadors halted for a few days at York where Simcoe was already engaged in
laying the foundations of the new capital. We find them there on Aug. 28th and
also on Sept. 1st, 1793. A few days later they arrived in Quebec.12 They returned full of
admiration for Governor Simcoe. “Active, enlightened, good and frank, he had
the confidence of the country and also of the government.”13
We are now only at the year 1793 and many
changes were to take place in Canada before the coming of the émigrés in
1798. Instead of the thousands14 expected, only a
few dozens really arrived. Governor Simcoe himself left Canada in 1796 and the
administration of the government passed into the hands of the Hon. Peter
Russell.15
The idea of establishing a French Royalist
Colony in Upper Canada had been taken up and resolutely followed in England by
a dashing young French noble of talent and initiative by the name of Joseph
Geneviève, Comte de Puisaye. He was possessed of a great fortune and he spent
much money on his proposed colony of émigrés. The British Government had
promised to pay all the expenses of the expedition but it did not do so and
Puisaye, apart from the cost of the ocean voyage, bore most of the expenses
himself. He was prodigal by nature and he generously loaned much money to his
associates.
Puisaye was born at Mortagne in the
Province of Perche in Northern France in 1755, studied in the Sulpician
seminary in Paris, and later took up the profession of arms. He rose rapidly
and in 1791 we find him already a Colonel. He opposed the revolutionists and
was obliged to flee to London in 1794 with a price on his head. From London he
took part in 1795 in a naval expedition to Quiberon on the French coast against
the Jacobins. The expedition was a failure and even the royalists blamed
Puisaye. He thus became exiled for life. In England, he married Suzanna
Smithers, who died before he came to Canada. Puisaye’s Canadian enterprise was
sympathetically received and hundreds of French nobles resident in England,
with their wives and families, were anxious to join16 the expedition. Numbers
gradually faded, however, and of all the applicants only 44 were ready to sail
for Canada on the day appointed. Puisaye was nevertheless still undaunted. They
embarked at Portsmouth on the “Betsey,” a government boat, called for eight
days at Weymouth, and then put out to sea. They reached Quebec on Oct. 7, 1798.
That city of some 12,000 people, so beautifully situated, delighted them.
Almost immediately Puisaye and D’Allègre de St. Tronc proceeded by land to
Montreal. The other colonists went by boat, carrying their own provisions, and
going ashore at night to sleep. They landed at Montreal Oct. 18, 1798. In a few
days they were driven in carts to Lachine where boats for Upper Canada were
waiting them. The weather was favorable and they sailed up the St. Lawrence in
the beautiful sunshine of their first Canadian autumn, charmed with the
splendor of the rich and variegated colors of the autumn forests on the shore
land. “We may picture the fleet of 14 bateaux, two laden with passengers and 12
with furniture, bedding and other necessaries. Curious flat-bottomed
sharp-pointed boats they were, propelled by oars and poles and equipped with
sails.”
On October 29th they arrived in Kingston,
then a town of 100 houses, some of brick and stone but mostly of wood. They
were welcomed by Major H. L. Spencer, the Commanding Officer of the Kingston
detachment of the “Royal Canadian Volunteer Regiment of Foot,” who gave them
accommodation and every care. They remained in Kingston for a time and “the
government stores furnished them with provisions, wood and candles.” There
Puisaye met the Hon. Richard Cartwright17 with whom he was later to
carry on a large trade. In the meantime President Russell had wisely counselled
that, on account of the lateness of the season, it would be better that some of
the colonists should remain in Kingston while others might go on to Niagara, as
York could not afford adequate accommodation to so many distinguished guests.
Puisaye, D’Allègre de St. Tronc and a
soldier, Marchand, again went on ahead to York, which they reached on Nov.
18th, while the Comte de Chalus remained in charge at Kingston. York was yet a
village. The harbor had been surveyed in 1793 by the famous engineer Joseph
Bouchette.18 The town site was fixed upon
the bank of the Don and in 1794 building was begun under Simcoe himself. In
1797 the legislature met there for the first time in a building at the foot of
Parliament and Berkeley Streets, the ground around which was yet full of the
stumps of trees. When the émigrés arrived, there was neither church or
school.
Lots were set apart by President Russell on
Yonge Street, 15 miles north of York, for Puisaye and his colonists, and there
he planned to erect his new town which he named Windham in honor of his friend
and protector, the secretary at war. He remained several weeks in York and with
the indomitable energy so characteristic of him he set out, late in November,
up Yonge Street, with deputy-surveyor Augustus Jones, and in the northern
forest, in the cold December weather, carried out the survey of his land. He
did not like the location, which was characterized by high ridges, narrow swamp
and stretches entirely without water. He worked on, however, and the survey was
completed January 4, 1799. By this time he had decided not to settle there
himself. He, therefore, took out no patents for lots in his own name on Yonge
Street.19 His colonists would have to
do the best they could, but he himself had wealth and he would seek another
location. The following year he bought a farm20 at Niagara, between Fort
George and Queenston, and there he took up residence with his housekeeper, Mrs.
Smithers, his mother-in-law, Wm. Smithers, his brother-in-law, the Comte de
Chalus, and John Thompson21 and Marchand,
his servants. He built a residence22 which he furnished in princely style with
carpets, pictures, mirrors, clocks, a library of 1,500 volumes, rugs and furniture
brought from Europe. On his table were costly silver plate and the choicest
wines. He stocked his farm with horses, cattle, sheep, turkeys, hens and guinea
fowl, built barns and sheds, and he tells us himself that he spent £ 5,400 in
improvements. He bought also a lot in York where he built a house. When Puisaye
left for England, his Toronto property was purchased by H. J. Boulton. He lived
only four years at Niagara. On Feb. 1st, 1805, he made a sale of all his
belongings in preparation for his departure. His Niagara residence passed into
the hands of Quetton St. George and Farcy for a store, and the Comte de Chalus
took charge of the Windham settlement. He made his way to New York by row-boat
via Schenectady, accompanied by Mrs. Smithers, D’Allègre and St. George. He set
sail for Europe on July 8, 1802. St. George returned in Puisaye’s boat to
Niagara. Puisaye spent ten years writing his memoirs. He became a British
subject and died at Hammersmith, England, Dec. 13, 1827.
Of Puisaye’s colonists thirteen reached
York from Kingston on Christmas Day, 1798, with 10 tradesmen to clear the
forest and build the houses at Windham.23 While waiting they were
victualled at York by the government. The work at Windham was now pushed forward
with great vigor. Puisaye was on the ground himself directing everything. The
men, sixteen in all, worked seven days a week, and on Feb. 14th the Comte de
Chalus could report that there were already 18 houses erected with outside
finished, and that a church and presbytery24 and school were also built.
In the spring several more members of the party from Kingston joined the
Windham colony.25 In the meantime
President Peter Russell generously furnished help, farm implements, seed, grain
and other necessaries.
Hopes were still entertained that many more
émigrés would arrive, for at a meeting of the Executive Council of Upper
Canada held on Nov. 27, 1798, it was resolved that the townships of Uxbridge,
Gwillimbury, and another not yet named, situated north of Whitby, should be put
at the disposition of the Comte de Puisaye for his colonists with a reservation
on Lake Ontario for a town and a commons. The council also granted to Puisaye
for himself 5,000 acres of land.26
The idea of supplying the whole colony near
York instead of dividing the colonists into settlements along Lake Ontario and
Lake Erie as first proposed by Simcoe came from Secretary Windham, and it grew
out of the fear of so many French strangers in a province so lately won from
the French authorities. President Russell, writing to the Duke of Portland from
York on Nov. 21, 1798, has this to say: “I have chosen a location for the
colony of French immigrants, a tract of land until now uninhabited and situated
between this town (York) and Lake Simcoe, at an equal distance from the French
settlements in Lower Canada and those on the Detroit River, as on account of
their proximity to the seat of government, it will be easy not only to assist
them, if they need help, but also to keep watch over their movements which will
then be under the control of our administration.”
The lots taken up by the Comte de Puisaye
for his colonists were lots numbers 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59 and 60 on
the east side of Yonge Street, that is, in the first concession of the township
of Markham.27 These lots start at Elgin
Mills on the east side of Yonge Street, beginning with the property of the late
James Fahey and running to the Summit Golf Club of today. He also received, on
the east side of Yonge Street, lot number 61 in the township of Whitchurch. On
the west side of Yonge Street he was granted lots numbers 56, 57, 58, 59 and 60
in the township of Vaughan. On lot 59 Jefferson Post Office now stands. He had
also lot number 61 in the first concession in the township of King.28 It was most likely on the lots near the summit
of the ridge, where his settlers held property on both sides of Yonge Street,
that he built the church, presbytery and school.
Construction was advancing speedily29 but these high-born Frencmen, unused
to such a life of labor and privation, were rapidly becoming discouraged. Who
could blame them?30 Puisaye had
assured them that there was to be formed in Upper Canada a regiment of soldiers
composed of 1,000 French émigrés under the command of Puisaye as
Colonel, with the nobles who accompanied him, who were all trained to military
life, as officers. They held on, however, and worked at Windham for several
years but they endured great privations and some of them were in great misery.
Lieut. Governor Peter Hunter, writing from Quebec on the 11th of Oct., 1799, to
the Duke of Portland, says: “From a list drawn up by Angus Macdonell we find
that of the émigrés at present in Upper Canada, five reside at Niagara
and twenty are on their lands at Windham. These latter have cleared between 40
and 50 acres, and, if I am to believe them, they are entirely without pecuniary
resources. There are also 21 workmen to whom President Russell has granted
rations.”31
On the 3rd of June, 1802, there remained
only thirteen émigrés at Windham. The settlement was now called “Oak
Ridges.” From a letter written by Lieut. Gov. Gore to Lord Windham on Oct. 1st,
1806, we see the state of affairs at the Windham Colony at that date. Gore
says: “They [the émigrés] live quietly but some of them are not well
off; those who have devoted themselves to agriculture have suffered reverse of
fortune because of their lack of skill in clearing the land.”32
Who really were these French noblemen who
sought refuge in Canada? They were all apparently military friends of the Comte
de Puisaye. Of the Comte de Puisaye we have already learned something. Brave to
rashness in behalf of the royal cause, for which he had several times risked
his life, he came to Canada most hightly recommended by Windham. Amongst the
others, the outstanding figure of the company was Jean de Beaupoil, Marquis de
Sainte Aulaire, confidant of Louis XVI, who had seen 37 years of military
service and seven campaigns. He was accompanied by the Marchioness and their
son Hippolite and a cousin, Gui de Beaupoil, who had been a page in the court
of Marie Antoinette. Beaupoil, who had come as far as Kingston and who already
realized the failure of this enterprise, apparently had a misunderstanding with
Puisaye, whom he accused of deceiving them. In July, 1799, he returned to Lower
Canada with Coster de Saint-Victor. He was without funds; he and the
Marchioness suffered great privations; and he had much difficulty getting
shipping back to England.33 He later entered
the service of Russia. In 1817 he returned to France and was made a Field
Marshal.34
Jean Baptiste Coster de Saint-Victor, an
ardent royalist and friend of Sainte Aulaire, was born at Epinal in 1771. He
had fought in the Vendée under Puisaye against the republicans, was arrested,
escaped and fled to England. He had been promised a military post in Canada by
Puisaye. Realizing the failure of Puisaye’s plans he decided to return with
Ste. Aulaire to Europe. He too encountered great difficulties, for he was
penniless. He had been obliged to borrow money from Puisaye. Neither
Saint-Victor nor Ste. Aulaire ever reached York or Windham. Saint-Victor, on
his return to France, joined a conspiracy against Napoleon and, with eleven
others, was executed June 25, 1804.
D’Allègre de St. Tronc held two lots on
Yonge Street, which he improved but for which he never received patents. He was
a very close friend of Puisaye, with whom he lived for a time. Originally from
Provence, he came to Canada from San Domingo. He had been a Major General in
the French army and he suffered much for the royalist cause. He returned to
England and was employed by the British Government under Puisaye.
Lieut. Colonel François de Marseuil was an
elderly gentleman who had seen many campaigns and who bore many scars. He was
Puisaye’s mentor and he depended on Puisaye for funds. He received, in all,
grants of 4,965 acres of land. He was still in Canada, married, but ruined
financially, in 1815.
Colonel Augustin Bolton de Fougères, who had
fought in Brittany for the royalist cause, received in all 3,362 acres. He
married into the Willcocks family in 1802, but his wife died in 1804. He
returned to Europe in 1810.
Captain Ambroise de Farcy du Roseray became
Puisaye’s partner in the fur trade and his other commercial enterprises. He
received the patent for his land at Windham on October 21, 1806. Quetton St.
George, who returned to Europe in 1815, met de Farcy in France, whither be had
gone in 1806, and when writing to a friend in Canada on April 30, 1818, has
this to say: “De Farcy will never change his character. He is ever careless
about his business. He is a poor man.”
René Augustin, Comte de Chalus, and his
brother, Jean Louis, Vicomte de Chalus, both received grants of land on Yonge
Street at Windham, the former 650 acres and the latter 350 acres.35 The Comte’s total grants
amounted to 4,650 acres. He lived for some time with Puisaye at Niagara. He
later sold his grants and returned to France. The Vicomte received grants
totalling 5,000 acres. He and the Comte remained sixteen years in Canada,
living in York or at Windham.
Perhaps the most talented and certainly the
most enterprising and persevering of Puisaye’s colonists was Colonel Laurent
Quetton St. George, Knight of St. Louis, a young man with a business education.
As a soldier, he had fought with Puisaye at Quiberon36 and had won the confidence of his superior
officers. He was much pursued by the republicans, so to hide his identity and
protect his friends remaining in France, he, on the advice of Puisaye,37 changed his name to St. George.38 Coming to Canada with Puisaye, he married in
Canada a French-Canadian wife, the sister of Hon. Judge Valliére de St. Réal,
by whom he had two children, a son, Laurent Aurez and a daughter, Marie.39 Quetton St. George left the
development of his 400 acres of land on Yonge Street to other hands and engaged
in the fur trade. He made considerable wealth, but later met with reverses. He
opened, says Dionne, fur counters at Orillia and Niagara, and had for partner
Captain Ambroise (Antoine) de Farcy until the latter left Canada in 1805. St.
George lived in York40 from 1805 to 1815. When Farcy left he hired
Captain Augustine Boiton, whom he placed in charge of his store in Kingston.
In the fall of 1815 St. George returned to
France.41 There he married a second
time and lived in ease near Montpellier. He died at Orleans on June 8, 1821. By
his second marriage he had one son Henry, born March 15, 1820. Henry came to
Toronto in 1847 to claim his father’s properties, which in 1831 amounted to
26,00042 acres. One of his daughters
died in Toronto, Aug. 22, 1848, and her remains are buried in a vault43 under St. Michael’s Cathedral. A second
daughter became a Sister of Charity in France.44 He lived on a beautiful farm near Aurora, to
which he gave the name “Glen Lonely,”45 a mile and a quarter east of Yonge Street, lot
number 7 in the second concession of Whitchurch township. His hospitality was
well known and he entertained his friends with all the polish and courtesy of a
French gentleman. He died on Jan. 5, 1896, and is buried “to the east of the
chancel wall of St. John’s (Anglican) Church near Jefferson Post Office on
Yonge Street.”46 His burial in a Protestant
cemetery would apparently indicate that in his later years he neglected the
practice of the Catholic religion in which he was raised.
What is most difficult for us to understand
is that the émigrés led by the Comte de Puisaye had no priest in their
party on their ocean voyage. It was well known in England that priests were
wanted in Canada and the British Government had waived all objections. It is
still more inexplicable that the émigrés proceeded onward from Quebec
into the forests of Upper Canada without a clergyman, above all as Father
Philippe J. L. Desjardins and Father Raimbault, whom the British Government had
sent over to look after the French refugees, were still in Quebec.47 In 1798 there was no priest
in Upper Canada between Glengarry and Windsor, a distance of 500 miles, except
the Rev. Edmund Burke,48 who labored as a
missionary in the Upper Country from 1794 to 1801. Puisaye’s colonists and the
other Catholics at York were without spiritual help of any kind. Bishop Denault
had promised Puisaye a priest but he never came. Writing from Longueil to
Puisaye on Nov. 3, 1798, the bishop says: “Ce printemps, soit qu’il me vienne
des prêtres d'Europe, ou qu’il n’en vienne pas, je crois, que je pourrai vous
en envoyer un qui sera uniquement chargé du soin de votre colonie naissante.”
On May 29, 1799, His Lordship wrote again
to Puisaye: “Le premier (prêtre) qui mettra le pied sur cette terre vous est
destiné.”
Puisaye’s hopes were destined to
disappointment. and his colonists struggled on in a spiritual wilderness
depending solely on the occasional visits of the missionary Father Edmund
Burke. Such is the tragic story of Puisaye’s colony of émigrés of 1798.
The enterprise was a dismal failure and not a trace of the settlement remains
today.
APPENDIX
LAND PATENTS
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