Page:History of the Ojibway Nation.djvu/443

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Louis Legardeur, Chevalier de Repentigny, belonged to one of the most distinguished families of Canada. As early as 1632 his great-grandfather came to Canada. His grandfather was the eldest of twenty-three brothers. His father, Paul Legardeur Sieur St. Pierre, after the treaty of Utrecht, in 1718, re-established the post at Chagouamigon, and in 1733 died. Louis was born in 1727, and at the age of fourteen entered the service. In 1746 he was in an expedition toward Albany, and then went to Mackinaw, and in 1748 returned with eighteen canoes of Indians. With these and other Indians he made an attack near Schenectady, and eleven prisoners and twenty-five scalps were taken.

In 1749 he was again at Mackinaw, the second in command. His brother, Jacques Legardeur St. Pierre, was in command, the same who was once in charge at Lake Pepin, and afterwards, in 1753, at a post near Erie, Pa., where Washington visited him, bearing a dispatch from the Governor of Virginia.

The grasping and miserly Governor Jonquiere in 1750 gave to his nephew, Captain De Bonne, and Chevalier de Repentigny, a grant at Sault Ste. Marie of six leagues front upon the portage by six leagues in depth, bordering on the river below the rapids.

Repentigny, brought J.B. Cadot and other hired persons there, to revive a post, which since 1689 had been abandoned.

The letter of Governor La Jonquiere, to the French Colonial Minister, dated at Quebec, October 5, 1751, explains the object of the grant, and is given in full:—