[ganong] additions TO MONOGRAPHS 127 



Historic Sites. 



boundaries, in general features at least, are beyond dispute (compare 

 the accompanying map, Map No. 29, and the original wording later 

 under Seigniories). Beginning at liuisscau corneille (in English Crow 

 Brook), which the context seems to show can be only the present 

 French Fort Cove, where a north and south line is established 

 (apparently magnetic and not true north, as shown on the map), • 

 to run three leagues up the river called muminagan [the Micmac 

 name of the Northwest Miramichi] which empties into the river 

 St. Croix [viz. the Miramichi below the Forks], and equally along 

 the south shore of the river, to a distance back of a league and a 

 half on both coasts, limited by east and west lines, to include the 

 tongue of land between the muminagan and the ristigouche [a variant 

 of Micmac name of the Main Southwest Miramichi]. 



Thus the establishment of Denys de Fronsac prior to 1686 must 

 have been in the near vicinity of the Forks of the Miramichi at 

 Beaubears Island, and it must have been here, and not at Burnt 

 Church that Father, LeClercq found the fort in 1677 (Hay's Canadian 

 History Readings, 271). But exactly where was it? Now the Jumeau 

 map of 16S5 (given reduced in Map No. 29) places a flag on the point 

 just on the north side of the entrance to the Northwest. On the 

 other hand the Franquelin-de Meulles map of the next year (Map No. 

 29) marks the small stream on the south side of the river in Nelson 

 as R. de Mission. If the mission was established on the very site of 

 Denys' settlement as would be likely because of the buildings and 

 considerable amount of cleared land mentioned in the Document, then 

 his settlement was beside this brook on the present site of Nelson. 

 But it is at the same time possible that it stood on the north side 

 where Jumeau places the flag, the presence of which is otherwise 

 difficult to explain. At all events in one place or the other stood this 

 long-sought establishment of Richard Denys de Fronsac. 



But the matter does not end here. In the above-cited document, 

 Richard Denys states that he is to remove elsewhere for the conven- 

 ience of his business. That he did not remove from the Miramichi 

 is shown by two facts. First, he received a large seigniory on the 

 north side of the river and bay in 1687, and second a Memorial dated 

 1689 is extant in which he states that he is building a fort of four 

 bastions, that he had built for himself a house of freestone, that he 

 has 24 men employed at Miramichi, and that he has settled near his 

 habitation there an Indian village of 80 cabins and 500 souls. Where 

 now was this second establishment? In his work of 1688 St. Valier 

 speaks of it as being at a very pleasing place called Miramichi, on 

 the river of Manne at a league from that of St. Croix, and that near 

 it is a place called in the native language Skinoubondiche. Now Skin- 

 oubondiche can hardly be other than the Eskiiïowobuditch, the Indian 

 name for Burnt Church. Hence it is very likely the River of Manne 

 was Burnt Church river, which is not much over a league from the 

 mouth of the St. Croix in Miramichi Bay. The presence of the Indian 

 village mentioned by Fronsac would also conflrm this since Burnt 

 Church has been from very early times an important Indian settle- 

 ment. Against this view I know only one fact. St. Valier (p. 32 of 



