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Updated: May 24, 2025
A few rods from the gate of the Château de Ramezay is a tall warehouse which bears on its peaked gable the date 1793. It was in this old building that the early business years of John Jacob Astor, the New York millionaire, were spent. It was the property of the North-West Fur Company, which was the centre of so much that was romantic and captivating.
The museum of the Château is daily receiving donations of interesting relics, and has already a fine collection of coins, medals, old swords and historical mementoes some of the autograph letters of Arnold, Champlain, Roberval, Vaudreuil, Amherst, Carleton, the de Ramezay family and many others, being of great interest. These early days have passed away forever.
About ten years after the British occupation, the Château de Ramezay fell again into government hands, being selected as the official residence. One of those who frequently crossed its threshold at this period was General Thomas Gage, second in command under Sir Jeffrey Amherst.
Wyatt Johnston, Pathologist to the Provincial Board of Health, the three skeletons have been preserved and are now in the Chateau de Ramezay Historical Museum where they will doubtless be regarded with interest by scholars. The skulls have been fully identified as of the Indian type, and found to be those of two powerful males in the prime of life and one young woman.
The next year there was another assault under De Ramezay, which was unsuccessful; and after the dispersion of the Acadians , the much-fought-over place was allowed to remain in quiet until 1781, when two American ships-of-war sailed up the river at night. Their forces, taking the fort by surprise, robbed the houses, after imprisoning the people in the old block-house.
They are as purely French in their religion, language and customs, as those whose sires sailed from Breton and Norman ports. The Commandant of Quebec at the time of its fall was the son of Claude de Ramezay, the builder of the Château of that name.
De Ramezay came over as a captain in the army with the Viceroy de Tracy, and was remarkable for his highly refined education, having been a pupil of the celebrated Fénélon, who was said to have been the pattern of virtue in the midst of a corrupt court, and who was entrusted by Louis the Fourteenth with the education of his grandsons, the Dukes of Burgundy, Anjou and Berri.
It was decided to present the address to him, not at the suburban seat of 'Monklands, but publicly at Government House, the Château de Ramezay in the heart of the city. Such a decision showed no little courage on both sides, but the end was almost a tragedy. Lord Elgin came very near being murdered in the streets of Montreal.
The Château de Ramezay has suffered many changes and modifications in the various hands through which it has passed since its foundation stones were laid, but the citizens of Montreal, revering its age and associations, are restoring it as much as possible to its original state and appearance; and the thousands who yearly pass through it testify to the romance surrounding the walls of the old Château, Ville Marie's grandest relic of an illustrious past a past which belongs equally to both French and British subjects, and which has developed a patriotism well expressed in the words of the eloquent churchman, Bruchesi, Archbishop of Montreal, who says: "I know the countries so much boasted of where the myrtles bloom, where the birds are lighter on the wing, and where gentler breezes blow.
"You may destroy the town," said De Ramezay to Wolfe, "but you will never get inside it." "I will take Quebec," replied the fiery stripling, "if I stay here till November." Through the whole weary month of August little occurred that the exigencies of our space would justify recording. Montcalm considered himself safe, and he even allowed two thousand Canadians to leave for the harvest.
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