Page:New Brunswick Magazine Issue 1.djvu/39

movement of the wild animals of the wooded wilderness.

The commandant on the St. John river in 1670 was Pierre de Joibert, seigneur de Soulanges and Marson, an officer in the French army who had married a daughter of Chartier de Lotbiniere, who had been attorney general of New France. Joibert, although he lived but eight years in Acadia, for he died in 1678, has substantia] claims to recognition as an historical figure for he was the father of Elizabeth Joibert, who was born in old Fort Latour in 1673, and who became the wife of the Marquis de Vaudreuil, governor general of Canada, and the mother of the second Marquis de Vaudreuil who was the last French governor of Canada. Joibert seems to have wished to become an Acadian seigneur, and he was the first grantee of territory in that part of Acadia now known as New Brunswick, under the terms of the edict made by Louis XIV. on the 20th May 1676. This document authorized Count Frontenac, the governor general, to grant lands in New France, on condition that they should be cleared within six years. Such a condition was impossible of fulfilment, for the grants were too large to be cleared within the time specified unless the grantees had been able to place a host of tenants upon them. On the 12th Oct. 1676, Joibert, who is described in the document as major of Pentagoet (Penobscot) and commandant of the forts of Gemisick (Jemseg) and the river St. John, received a grant of a seignory called Nachouac, to be hereafter called Soulanges, fifteen leagues from Gemisick, two leagues front on each side of the St. John River, and two leagues deep inland. This grant which contained upwards of 46,000 acres of land, embraced not only the territory occupied by Mr. Gibson's town of Marysville, but also the site of Fredericton, St. Mary's and Gibson, so that if Joibert's heirs could lay