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Updated: July 20, 2025
As I travelled back to Whitesboro I reflected upon the strange events that had shaped Anthony's career. When I turned on the Steuben hills and looked once more upon Castorland, it seemed to me a region of mystery; and the useless tears fell from my eyes as I remembered how one of its secrets had darkened the life of the dearest friend of my youth.
She had, among other curiosities, some coins or tokens which had been stamped in Paris on behalf of the company, and on which the word "Castorland," accompanied by suitable devices, was plainly seen. The one that interested me most seemed to have as its device the representation of a small dog trying to climb a tree.
Skenedonk came and went, and I made journeys to my people with him. But there was never any letter waiting at De Chaumont's for me. After some years indeed, the count having returned to Castorland, to occupy his new manor at Le Rayville, the mansion I had known was torn down and the stone converted to other uses.
I gave him a wise smile and held my tongue; knowing well that if I had remained in Ste. Pélagie and the fact ever came to De Chaumont's ears, like other human beings he would have reprehended my plunging into the world. "We are getting on tremendously, Lazarre! When your inheritance falls in, come back with me to Castorland. We will found a wilderness empire!"
When De Chaumont determined to remove to his seat at Le Rayville, in what was then called Castorland, he had his first hold pulled down. Miss Chantry was a blunt woman. Her consideration for me rested on my being her brother's pupil. She spoke more readily than he did. From our cove we looked over the railing at an active world. "Madame Eagle is a picture," remarked Miss Chantry. " Eagle!
They did not go back to Mont-Louis. They left their hotel in Paris. I wrote imploring him to hold the estates. My messages were returned. I don't know how he got money enough to emigrate. But emigrate they did; avoiding Castorland, where the Saint-Michels, who brought her up, lived in comfort, and might have comforted her, and where I could have made her life easy.
"But the pride of emigrés," Doctor Chantry said, "was an old story in the De Chaumont household. There were some Saint-Michels who lived in a cabin, strictly on their own means, refusing the count's help, yet they had followed him to Le Rayville in Castorland.
We had always walked into the lodges without knocking, and I dwelt on this as one of my new accomplishments. "I am not studying night and day," she answered. "Sophie Saint-Michel and her mother were my teachers, and they are gone now, one to heaven and the other to Castorland." Remembering what Annabel de Chaumont said about holy Sophie I inquired if she had been religious.
De Chaumont spent nearly all that autumn and winter in Castorland, where he was building his new manor and founding his settlement called Le Rayville. As soon as I became a member of his household his patriarchal kindness was extended to me, though he regarded me simply as an ambitious half-breed.
She used French phrases in a peculiar way, and was full of the history of Le Ray and Bonaparte and various members of the company that had undertaken to make of this section, in years gone by, a rich and fertile country like the Mohawk valley. It appeared that the name which the company had given to this region was Castorland, which she interpreted to mean the land of the beaver.
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