The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1910-08-20
MONTREAL.


If we except Quebec and Mexico City. Mon.
treal is, beyond contradiction, the most r5nar-;,
fascinating and Catholic city of the North Amer,
lean continent. Its population today mus. be we'll
on to 100000 souls. 1t is a rockbuilr city, Tie COM
mercial and shipping hub of the Dominion tue foo,
and head of navigation, where all the f-a.ghter,
the sailing ships and Atlantic greyhound, doc,
discharge and load. and to which the enormous bar
vests of grain, and cattle on the hoof from the
Canadian northwest are freightcd for -a.rmeu. +,
Liverpool, Manchester and London
Montreal is great city, made great by the
energy, the push and the enterprise of It's citizens,
a wonderful meange and blend Of Noruau-Frencb
Anglo-Saxon Engishmen, and Irish and Scotch
CeIts, now fused into single and very superior
race-the Canadian
When on the 18th Of September, 1886, the
French mariner and discoverer Jacques Cartier.
left the Indian village of Stadacona-now Quebec
City-and in his pinnace, the HermerIon sailed
up the StLawrence river, ne the first of his color
that.saw the site now covered by the metropolitan
city of the great Dominion. 1t was then partially
occupied by the Algonquin town of Hochelaga
Cartier landed few miles below the town on the
Sd day of October, 1886, and, having obtained the
services of three native guides set out, in full nil
itary uniform, to visit Hochelaga 1t was sit
uated in the midst of large fields of Indian corn,
was surrounded by securely built rows Of palisades
which protected fifty houses, each fifty feet in
length by fourteen in breadth. built of wood and
covered with bark well and cunningly Joined to.
gether"
That afternoon the intrepid mariner ascended
the mountain rising three miles behind the Indian
town He gave to this mountain the name Mont
Royal, which, long after Carriers death ez-
tended to the little French village that nestled near
its foothills and to the whole of the rich and pop
ulous island now Montreal
For more than one hundred years the mountain
and the island reposed in barbaric isolation Them
in 1910, the island was purchased from NJ. de
Lauson, who got a grant of it from the king, by
a religious society," having its headquarters in Paris
and known as the Society of Notre Dame (of Our
Lady, of Montreal" This association resolved to
cOlonize the island, and commissioned Paul de
Chomodey, Lord of Maisonneuve a man Of undi5-
puted courage, of untainted probity and honor, to
assume command of the enterprise His expedi-
ton sailed away and, after stormy time Of it.
reached Quebec, August "a, 1641.
While Maisonneuve and his colonsts were on
the Atlantic, the members of the society who gave
him authority to settle the island met to the num-
Der of forty-fye in the Church of Notre Dame
Paris, and with solemn ceremony consecrated the
island of Montreal to the Holy Family. They also
named the city, yet in embryo "Ville Marie de
Mont Real-Marys City of Mount Royal
Maisonneuve and his party wintered at Quebec,
O. /
and, landing near where now stands the Church Of
Bonsecours, broke ground for the great city Of
Montreal.
Montreal must, of necessity, hold conspicuous
place in the early annals of the United States and
Canada Here ministered for time-before
"The Fathers of the Foreign Missions-the Sui
picians" came-the great Jesuit martyrs and mis-
sionaries Poncet, Du Peron, Druillette, lie Jeune'
Pijart and lie Moyne From here also in 1862
sailed La Sale, the explorer, the Sulpcian priests
Galinee and Dolliver de Casson, on their futile
expedition to discover the Mississippi. From here
the dauntless Dulac and his band of heroes went
out to certain death. and Nicolet and Joliet came
after their explorations on the upper lakes Here
the sanity virgin Marguerite Bourgeois lived her
life of perpetual prayer and founded the wonder
full "Congregation de Notre-Dame de Montreal
soon after the city fought back the Iroquols the
war-hawks of the wilderness, after years Of re-
peated attacks by the Mohawks and Senecas SO
persistent and fierce that the heroic jesuit
Raguneau marvelled that "the French were not
exterminated by the frequent ambushes and as
sauts of the Iroquois warriors"
In this historic city ON September the Euehar,
istic Congress will assemble. Its proceedings will
make munifc and memorable chapter in the his
tory of the Dominion of Canada.
The fact that the Indians in Oklahoma havs