The city where my wife Liz and I spent our honeymoon 32 years ago is celebrating its birthday today. Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve founded Ville-Marie, now known as Montréal, on this date in 1642.
It was an inauspicious start.
Wikipedia notes that within a few years of settlement, frequent Iroquois attacks became so violent that it looked like the end was near for the tiny settlement of 50 people, whose ranks included my ninth generation maternal grandparents, Jacques and Françoise Archambault. In 1651, Jacques Archambault and another pioneer barely escaped an Iroquois massacre there.
More settlers arrived over time, starting with another 100 people in the fall of 1653. Fast forward to 2018. With almost 2 million residents, Montréal is now the largest city in Québec, the second-largest city in Canada (after Toronto) and one of the largest French-speaking cities in the world.
Not bad for a hamlet of 50 hardy souls who thought, for a time, that they’d have to abandon the place or continue risking their lives, day after day.
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| LeBer-LeMoyne House (1669-1671), the oldest complete structure in Montréal. |
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