Page:New Brunswick Magazine Issue 1.djvu/40

claim to it now they would be multi-millionaires. Four days after the issue of this grant, Joibert obtained a second concession granting him the house or fort of Gemisick, with a league on each side of the fort, making two leagues front on the river and two leagues in depth inland. This second grant was just one half the size of the first, yet it formed a noble domain and included a fort which might easily have been made a formidable place of strength.

When Joibert died in 1678 it does not appear that he had done anything to improve or settle the valuable territory which had been granted to him by the French king. His widow and her children returned to Canada, and we hear nothing more of her in connexion with the affairs of Acadia until 1691, when she received a grant of land on the River St. John of four leagues in front on the river and two leagues in depth, and opposite the grant of M. de Chauffours (called Jemseck) the centre of the grant being opposite the house at Jemseck. This document shows that the grants to Joibert had been escheated or lapsed, and that the territory they embraced had been regranted to other persons. The new grant to the widow was probably intended to compensate her in some measure for the loss of the land granted to her husband, but it does not appear that she ever occupied it or that she was able to sell it to a good purchaser. Land was then too easily obtained from the government to be of much value as a saleable commodity when in private hands.

The Sieur de Chauffours who was in the occupation of the Jemseg territory in 1691 was one of four brothers who had come to Acadia from Quebec in 1684, or perhaps a year or two earlier. They were sons of Mathieu d'Amours, a native of Brittany who emigrated to Quebec and became a member of the Governor's Council in 1663. He was created a member of the Canadian