ourselves, and set off for Concord, to secure the stores, etc., there.
We were overtaken by a young Dr. Prescott, whom we found to be a high
Son of Liberty. I told them of the ten officers that Mr. Devens met,
and that it was probable we might be stopped before we got to Concord;
for I supposed that after that night, they divided themselves, and that
two of them had fixed themselves in such passages as were most likely
to stop any intelligence going to Concord. I likewise mentioned that
we had better alarm all the inhabitants till we got to Concord; the
young Doctor much approved of it, and said he would stop with either of
us, for the people between that and Concord knew him, and would give
the more credit to what we said. We had got nearly half-way; Mr. Dawes
and the Doctor stopped to alarm the people of a house; I was about one
hundred yards ahead, when I saw two men, in nearly the same situation
as those officers were near Charlestown. I called for the Doctor and
Mr. Dawes to come up; in an instant I was surrounded by four; they had
placed themselves in a straight road, that inclined each way; they
had taken down a pair of bars on the north side of the road, and two
of them were under a tree in the pasture. The Doctor being foremost,
he came up; and we tried to get past them; but they being armed with
pistols and swords, they forced us into the pasture; the Doctor jumped
his horse over a low stone-wall, and got to Concord.
“I observed a wood at a small distance, and made for that. When I
got there, out started six officers on horseback and ordered me to
dismount. One of them, who appeared to have the command, examined me,
where I came from and what my name was. I told him. He asked me if I
was an express? I answered in the affirmative. He demanded what time
I left Boston? I told him; and added that their troops had catched
aground in passing the river and that there would be five hundred
Americans there in a short time, for I had alarmed the country all the
way up.”
Revere was ordered to mount his horse, and was led by the soldiers
back to Lexington; but when they arrived near the meeting-house, “the
militia fired a volley of guns, which appeared to alarm them very
much.” The officers rode off with Revere’s horse and he hurried back
to Mr. Clarke’s house, where he related his adventures. It was then
decided that Hancock and Adams had better leave Lexington, and so they,
with Dorothy Quincy, accompanied by Hancock’s secretary, Lowell, and
Paul Revere, went to Woburn. Revere and Lowell returned to Lexington,
to “find what was going on.” The former tells us that on reaching the
town:
“Mr. Lowell asked me to go to the tavern with him to get a trunk of
papers belonging to Mr. Hancock. We went up chamber, and while we were
getting the trunk, we saw the British very near, upon a full march.
We hurried towards Mr. Clarke’s house. In our way, we passed through
the militia. They were about fifty. When we had got about one hundred
yards from the meeting-house, the British troops appeared on both sides
of the meeting-house. They made a short halt; when I saw and heard a
gun fired, which appeared to be a pistol. Then I could distinguish two
guns, and then a continued roar of musketry; when we made off with the
trunk.”
A concise and interesting version of this story is thus told by Thomas
Wentworth Higginson:
“When on the night of the 18th April, 1775, Paul Revere rode beneath
the bright moonlight through Lexington to Concord with Dawes and
Prescott for comrades, he was carrying the signal for the independence
of a nation. He had seen across the Charles River the two lights from
the church steeple in Boston which were to show that a British force
was going out to seize the patriotic supplies at Concord: he had warned
Hancock and Adams at Rev. Jonas Clarke’s parsonage in Lexington, and
had rejected Sergeant Monroe’s caution against unnecessary noise,
with the rejoinder: ‘You’ll have noise enough here before long--the
regulars are coming out.’ As he galloped on his way the regulars were
advancing with steady step behind him, soon warned of their own danger
by alarm-bells and signal guns. By the time Revere was captured by some
British officers who happened to be near Concord, Colonel Smith, the
commander of the expedition, halted, ordered Pitcairn forward, and sent
back prudently for re-enforcements. It was a night of terror to all the
neighbouring Middlesex towns, for no one knew what excesses the angry
British troops might commit on their return march....
“Before 5 A. M., on April 19, 1775, the British troops had
reached Lexington Green, where thirty-eight men, under Captain Parker,
stood up before 600 or 800 to be shot at, their captain saying:
‘Don’t fire unless you are fired on; but if they want a war, let it
begin here.’ It began there; they were fired upon; they fired rather
ineffectually in return, while seven were killed and nine wounded.
The rest, after retreating, re-formed and pursued the British towards
Concord, capturing seven stragglers--the first prisoners taken in the
war. Then followed the fight at Concord, where 450 Americans instead of
38, were rallied to meet the British. The fighting took place between
two detachments at the North Bridge, where
“‘Once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.’”
The old house, which witnessed such exciting scenes, stands not far
from the village green of Lexington. It is known as the Clarke-Hancock
House, and was built by Thomas Hancock, the rich Boston merchant, in
1740, presumably for his father “Bishop” Hancock, who dwelt there. The
following description is by Samuel Adams Drake:
“The house belongs certainly to two, and perhaps to three, periods.
It is composed of a main building in the plain, substantial style of
the last (Eighteenth) Century, and of a more antiquated structure
standing at right angles to it. The first confronts you, if you have
come down the road from the Common; the last faces the street from
which the whole structure stands back a little distance, with a space
of green turf between. A large willow is growing in front of the main
house, and on the verge of the grass-plot stands an elm, its branches
interlacing those of a fellow-tree on the other side the way, so as to
form a triumphal arch under which no patriot should fail to pass. We
have christened the twain Hancock and Adams. The one is sturdy, far
reaching and comprehensive; the other, graceful, supple, but of lesser
breadth. About the house flourish lilacs, syringas and the common
floral adjuncts of a New England home....
“The room occupied by ‘King’ Hancock and ‘Citizen’ Adams is the one on
the lower floor on the left of the entrance. Care has been taken to
preserve its original appearance.
“The woodwork of Southern pine has remained unpainted, acquiring with
age a beautiful colour. One side of the room is wainscoted up to the
ceiling, the remaining walls bearing the original paper in large
figures. The staircase in the front hall has also remained innocent of
paint and is handsome enough for a church. Age has given to the carved
balusters and panelled casings a richness and depth of hue that scorns
the application of any unnatural pigment. The room we have just left is
in the south-west corner of the house. Passing to the opposite side of
the hall we enter the best room, which corresponds in finish with that
just described, except that the painter’s brush has been applied to the
wainscot and newer paper to the walls....
“The best room communicates with the ancient or original house, which
is seen fronting the street with its single story and picturesque
dormer windows and roof. This part was doubtless built by the bishop’s
parishioners soon after his settlement. It formerly stood nearer the
high-road until the new building was completed, when it was moved back
and joined upon it. The house is a veritable curiosity and would not
make a bad depository for the household furniture and utensils of the
period to which it belongs, being of itself so unique a specimen of
early New England architecture. The floors and wainscot are of hard
wood, upon which time has left not the least evidence of decay. The
farmers clearly meant their minister to inhabit a house of a better
sort than their own, as is apparent in the curious panelling of the
outer door, which still retains its original fastenings, and in the
folding shutters of the little study at the back. A cramped and narrow
staircase conducts to the chambers above, from the room in which we are
standing. The same old dresser is attached to the wall, garnished of
yore by the wooden trenchers and scanty blue china of the good bishop’s
housekeeping. Some old three-legged tables are the only relics of the
former inhabitants. This one room according to the custom of the times,
served as kitchen, dining-room and for the usual avocations of the
family. The little study has the narrow windows which first admitted
light upon the ponderous folios of the minister, or the half-written
sheets of many a weighty sermon.”
CASTLE ST. LOUIS, QUEBEC
J. M. LE MOINE, F. R. S. C.
“Such dusky grandeur clothed the height
Where the huge castle holds its state,
And all the steep slope, down
Whose ridgy back heaves to the sky,
Piled deep and massy, close and high,
Mine own romantic town.”
--_Marmion._
In describing the antique castle, several writers have mixed up dates
and incidents referring to the Fort St. Louis begun in 1620, with
those relating to the Château St. Louis, which, after several changes
and transformations, assumed that name only in 1647, under Governor
de Montmagny. Hawkins is quite correct in saying that: “The Castle of
St. Louis was in early times rather a stronghold of defence than an
embellished ornament of royalty. Seated on a tremendous precipice:
“On a rock whose haughty brow
Frown’d o’er St. Lawrence’s foaming tide,”
and looking defiance to the utmost boldness of the assailant, nature
lent her aid to the security of the position. The cliff on which
it stood rises nearly two hundred feet in perpendicular height
above the river. The castle thus commanded on every side a most
extensive prospect, and until the occupation of the higher ground to
the south-west, afterwards called Cape Diamond, must have been the
principal object among the buildings of the city.
[Illustration:
Copyright, 1901, by Detroit Photographic Co.
CASTLE ST. LOUIS, QUEBEC]
“When Champlain first laid the foundation of the Fort, in 1620, to
which he gave the name of St. Louis, it is evident he was actuated by
views of a political, not of a commercial character. His mind was in
better keeping with warlike enterprises than the acquirement of wealth.
He was perfectly disinterested in all his proceedings. Foreseeing
that Quebec would become the seat of dominion and invite a struggle
for its future possession, he knew the necessity of a stronghold, and
determined to erect one in opposition to the wishes of the Company of
Merchants.” The building was commenced in July, 1620.
Champlain, at first, styled his fort “_demeure, corps-de-logis_”--that
is, a dwelling-place. In 1621, he put in charge of it, one M. Du Mai,
with a few men. In 1622, he pushed on the work, “insisting on the
importance of completing it, having it equipped with an armament,
stores and a suitable garrison.” On the 29th November, 1623, the
ruggedness of the ascent from the _Abitation_ to the fort, induced him
to establish a road or path (since known as Mountain Hill) to Fort St.
Louis. The walls of the fort later on covered about four acres. On the
18th April, 1624, his artificers were busy putting in their place the
timber conveyed there by his Indian allies on sledges over the snow on
the 10th December, 1623. Two years later, a violent wind storm carried
away over the cliff the roof of the building.
On his departure for France in August, 1624, though Champlain had left
orders to continue the work on his fort, he found on his return that
no progress worth mentioning had been made. In anticipation of the
time not far distant when he expected the French King would be sending
colonists to Quebec, as well as soldiers for their protection, the
founder of Quebec decided on razing the small fort begun in 1620. With
the materials, he set to work to lay the foundations of the larger one,
which he may have occupied as a residence previous to the surrender
of the fort to the Kertks in 1629, but where he certainly made his
home when he returned from France in 1633, until his death there on
Christmas Day, 1635.
Louis Kertk held it from 1629 to 1632, Emery de Caen and Duplessis
Bochart took possession of it in 1632, until Champlain’s return, 23d
May, 1633.
The first Château, a one-story building commenced in 1647 by Governor
de Montmagny, and which is styled “Corps de Logis au Fort,” after
some repairs was finally demolished by Count de Frontenac in 1694
and rebuilt by him. The second Château, begun in 1694–5, to which a
wing was added was completed in 1700. It is described by La Potherie,
and later on, in 1749 by the Swedish botanist and traveller, Herr
Peter Kalm, the friend of Linnæus. Capt. John Knox of the 43d, a
companion-in-arms of Wolfe, also alludes to it in his voluminous diary
of the great siege of 1759, when the bombardment inflicted on Quebec by
Admiral Saunders, left it in ruins. It so remained until Gov. Murray
had it repaired in 1764, and occupied it in 1765.
On the 5th May, 1784, General Haldimand set to work to construct an
addition to St. Louis Castle for public balls and official dinners,
whilst the state levees continued to take place in the old Château. A
portion of the walls of Fort St. Louis were used in constructing the
first story of the building, which took the name of Château Haldimand.
It was inaugurated with _éclat_ more than two years after the
Governor’s departure, on the 18th January, 1787, by a splendid ball on
Queen Charlotte’s birthday when Lady Dorchester-Maria, the accomplished
daughter of the Earl of Iffingham--presided. On August 15th, 1787,
Prince William, a middy on board the frigate _Pegasus_, then in
port, afterwards Duke of Clarence, and later on, William IV., King of
England, paid his respects to the Governor-General at Government House,
the old Château and inspected the new building.
On the 21st September of the same year, and on the 4th of October,
1787, the overseer of Military Works, Sergeant James Thompson records
in his diary the extensive preparations made to welcome to Quebec the
King’s son, without forgetting the platform erected for the occasion
on the roof of the old powder magazine (razed in 1892), in the rear of
Château Haldimand, in order to witness the fireworks set off in his
honour. In December of that year, the Governor removed his household
goods to the new building, leaving the old Château to be used as public
offices, and about this time the castle was allowed to get out of
repair. The Governor for the time being inhabited the new building,
the Château Haldimand, it being more modern and roomy, in its internal
arrangements.
In 1808, at the request of His Excellency, General Sir James Henry
Craig, the provincial legislature voted and spent £10,000 in rebuilding
two stories higher the antique castle; and a short time before his
departure, in 1811, he removed to it from his summer retreat, Spencer
Wood, and his winter quarters at Château Haldimand. On the 23d January,
1834, it was entirely consumed by fire; but its dependency, Haldimand
Castle escaped. Lord and Lady Aylmer, the previous occupants of Château
St. Louis, instead of inhabiting General Haldimand’s structure, took
their abode on the Cape with Col. Craig, until they could rent a house.
Four years later, in 1838, the pompous but able Governor and Grand
Commissioner, the Earl of Durham, having declined to accept from the
authorities any remuneration for his short time of office, it is said,
directed this fund to be donated to the razing of the ruins of the old
Château, and to the erection on their foundations, of a terrace (Durham
Terrace until 1879), 160 feet in length. This the Minister of Public
Works, in 1854, the Hon. P. Chabot, M. P. P. for Quebec, increased to
270 feet. Under Lord Dufferin’s Plans of City Embellishments, it was
extended, at Government and Municipal cost, to 1,420 feet in length.
The corner-stone to this incomparable promenade was laid on the 18th
October, 1878, by the Earl of Dufferin, and was named and inaugurated
by their Excellencies, the Marquis of Lorne and H. R. H. the Princess
Louise, as Dufferin Terrace on the 19th June, 1879, at the request of
the Mayor, City Council and Citizens of Quebec.
On the 12th June, 1846, an awful fire, attended by the loss of forty
lives, obliterated the remaining walls of the old Château and its
stables, transformed first into a riding-school and next into a theatre.
From 1852 to 1855, and from 1860 to 1865, the remaining modern
building, Château Haldimand, was used by the Provincial Board of Works,
the Crown Lands, King’s Domain and Registrar. In 1857, it became the
seat of the Normal School, and again until 1860 and later on.
With the old French powder-magazine in rear, it was razed in 1892
to the ground to make room for the stately pile, the Hotel Château
Frontenac, planned by an eminent New York architect, Mr. Bruce Price,
for the Château Frontenac Co., of which Thos. G. Shaughnessy is the
president. It was built at a cost of $500,000 on a site purchased from
the Provincial Government of Quebec, covering 57,000 feet.
Montmagny, Chevalier de Malte, had pushed forward colonization, among
other measures drawing on Normandy, Brittany, Perche, Poitou, Aunis,
and set to work to inspire respect to the Indians hutted around his
fort. The latter styled Montmagny _Ononthio_, which means “Great
Mountain”--playing on his name (Mons Magnus). The surname was borne by
the succeeding French Governors.
His next care was to lay out streets, widen and straighten the
footpaths which intersected Stadacona. But a _chevalier sans
cheval_, as Mr. E. Gagnon well observes, could not be the correct
thing. So a horse as a mount--the first seen in the colony--was
imported from France by the inhabitants on the 20th June, 1647, a very
suitable present to the worthy Knight. What became of it history does
not say. Matters were evidently looking up at the Fort and Château
when M. d’Ailleboust, the new Governor took possession of Government
House at Quebec in 1648. He was replaced by M. de Lauzon, 1651–56.
Lauzon reoccupied it as administrator in 1657, and his successors under
Viscount d’Argenson in 1658; Baron d’Avougour, in 1661, and Chevalier
Saffrey de Mesy in 1663.
Governor de Courcelles arrived at Quebec in 1665, with the magnificent
Marquis de Tracy, the King’s Lieutenant-General in America. Tracy was
accompanied by several companies of the dashing Carignan-Salières
regiment, and made his _début_ with extraordinary pomp. His advent
was quite a social event in Quebec, which had just been granted a Royal
Government, and for the first time was styled a town. De Courcelles’s
administration lasted until 1672, when Count de Frontenac was named
Governor. His first administration lasted until 1682. He was followed
by Labarre, 1682–85, and by the Marquis De Nonville, 1685–89, when
the stern old warrior was recalled to his former position, which he
occupied until the year of his death, in 1698. Callières followed,
1699–1703, when Philippe de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil, was named and
governed the country until 1725.
Charles Le Moine, Baron de Longueuil, administered the colony,
1625–26; he was succeeded by the Marquis de Beauharnois. Count de la
Galissonnière was next sent out to govern, from 1746 to 1749, during
the captivity of the Marquis de la Jonquière, who, on his way to
Quebec, had been taken prisoner by an English fleet. The Marquis,
however, at his release ruled here, in 1752, when Charles Le Moine,
the second Baron de Longueuil, administered the Government from May to
July, 1752. That year the Marquis Duquesne de Menneville replaced him,
and the last Governor under French rule was Pierre Rigaud, Marquis de
Vaudreuil Cavagnal until 1760.
History tells of one distinguished guest Herr Peter Kalm, the Swedish
_savant_ and botanist, who was dined and wined there for forty
days by another _savant_ Count de la Galissonnière, Governor of
Quebec, in the summer of 1749. Hark to his description of the Château:
“The Palace (Château Saint Louis), is situated on the west or steepest
side of the mountain, just above the lower city. It is not properly
a palace, but a large building of stone, two stories high, extending
north and south. On the west side of it is a courtyard, surrounded
partly with a wall and partly with houses. On the east side, or towards
the river, is a gallery as long as the whole building, and about two
fathoms broad paved with smooth flags and included on the outside by
iron rails, from whence the city and river exhibit a charming prospect.
This _gallery_ serves as a very agreeable walk after dinner, and
those who come to speak with the Governor-General wait here till he
is at leisure. The place is the lodging of the Governor-General of
Canada, and a number of soldiers mount the guard before it, both at the
gate and in the courtyard; and when the Governor, or the Bishop comes
in or goes out, they must all appear in arms and beat the drum. The
Governor-General has his own chapel where he hears prayers; however, he
often goes to Mass at the church of the Recollets, which is very near
the palace.”
The Castle and Fort St. Louis under England’s domination has had its
sunshine and its shadows; its dark as well as its bright, radiant
memories; its anxious hours of siege and alarm--nay, even of blockade,
followed by the welcome roar of artillery, proclaiming British
victories; more than once social pageants and many festive displays.
Facing the site of the fort, long since vanished, a few yards to the
west, lies the well-known area, _La Grande Place du Fort_ (since
1862, the Ring), mantled in foliage and trees, planted when Mayor
Thomas Pope held out at the City Hall. Our warlike ancestors knew it as
the _Place d’Armes_. In days gone by, have met, not for military
drill, but for annual roll-call, on St. Peter and St. Paul’s Day, June
the 29th, the city militia--an important though a very pacific body. It
was continued for years until dropped about 1850.
Hark! to the rousing cheer of the British soldiery, as they plant
on the Grande Parade, facing the historic Château, on the 18th of
September, 1759, on the day of the capitulation of Quebec, the solitary
gun, drawn from the Heights of Abraham through St. Louis gate. Captain
John Knox, of the 43d Regiment, tells us how his brave commander
hoisted the English flag, after taking possession of the keys of Quebec
from de Ramsay, its late Governor.
But the lordly castle of other days, riddled by the shot and shell
of the English fleet, tenantless, uninhabitable, was not thoroughly
repaired until 1764–5, when General James Murray, first Governor of
Quebec, had his Royal Commission read on the adjoining square, prior to
his taking possession of the Castle as his official residence. A decade
later, and the occupant (Sir) Guy Carleton, so appropriately named
the “saviour of Quebec,” might notice, from the Château windows, the
arrival on the Levis shore, on the 5th of November, 1775, of Benedict
Arnold’s hungry and worn-out continentals, eager to cross the St.
Lawrence, and land at Wolfe’s cove above. But a wise precaution had
induced Lt.-Governor Cramahe to remove to the Quebec side the Levis
canoes and water conveyances before the arrival of the invading host.
The wave of invasion, triumphant at Montreal, Sorel, Chambly, Three
Rivers, St. John and elsewhere, was hurled back by the granite rock of
Quebec. On the 31st December, 1775, at 9 A. M., the intrepid
chieftain, Guy Carleton, could from his parlour windows look down
triumphantly, but not scornfully, on the New England soldiery, escorted
to the Grande Parade--426 rank and file--marched up prisoners of war,
from the Sault-au-Matelot assault, to await crestfallen, the orders of
His Excellency before being detailed to their respective prisons.