_ 176 — 



This Aubert de la Chenaye had received, in 1693, a 

 patent of nobility — lettres de noblesse — from his sove- 

 reign, King Louis XIV, for important services rendered 

 by him to Canadian commerce, as well as for his mili- 

 tary record and that of his sons one of whom had met 

 his death in fighting the Mohawks. 



M. de la Chenaye, who had come to Canada with 

 means, had, through some lucky speculations in trade, 

 increased his wealth, and subsequently acquired several 

 valuable land-grants ; among others, the seigniory of 

 Saint Jean Port-Joly, a part of Eiviere-du-Loup and 

 Cacouna, in 1673, of Madawaska and Lake Temis- 

 couata in 1683, of Blanc-Sablon, Labrador and New- 

 foundland in 1693. He closed his career, at Quebec, 

 in 1702, a member of the Superior Council. 



His son Pierre was the first to assume the name of 

 Gaspe. He had a son, Ignace Philippe, a knight of 

 St. Louis, who married Mile Catherine de Villiers, a 

 sister of the famous Villiers de Jumonville, whose 

 tragic death at Fort Necessity, in 1753, while acting as 

 an interpreter, cast a shade on the fair fame of Col. 

 George Washington. The worthy old Canadian grandee 

 died on 26th January, 1787, at Saint Jean Port-Joly, 

 at his manor restored from its ruins, it having with his 

 grist-mill, like crowds of dwelling houses, shared in the 

 rural conflagrations lit by the invading host under 

 General Wolfe in the war of the conquest. He was 

 succeeded by his son, the Honble. Pierre Ignace Aubert 

 de Gaspe\ a member of the Legislative Council, the 

 father of the writer, who had married, at Quebec, 

 Mile Catherine Tarieu de Lanaudiere, and who expired 

 in 1823, respected for his loyalty in helping as a 

 juvenile volunteer, in 1775, to hurl back the invaders 

 of Canadian homes ; and loved by his feudal retainers 

 for his paternal rule over them. 



On the 30th October, 1786, we are told by M. de 

 Gaspe, that a sickly baby, whose fretfulness much dis- 

 turbed the rest of his aged grandmother, Widow de 



