This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

LAND CLEARING ON THE ILE SAINT-CHRISTOPHE
On 1 June 1647, the Governor-General of New France, Charles Huault de Montmagny, granted permission to Guillaume Pepin, Guillaume Isabel, Pierre Lefebvre and Sebastien Dodier, to clear the Isle du Milieu across from their homes in Trois-Rivieres. This island, about 80 arpents in size, was known for a time as the lie a Pepin, for the leader of the land clearers. Today it is called the lie Saint-Christophe. On 6 June 1652, this jewel in the Mauricien estuary was granted as fief and seigneury to Guillaume Guillemot Duplessis-Kerbodot; a few weeks later, he was killed in that insane assault which he himself organized against the Iroquois. The island finally reverted to the Jesuits on 20 October 1654, then on the following 9 March, they divided it into eight parcels of ten arpents each in order to distribute it to as many people.
AN IMPORTANT PROPRIETOR
At that time, several colonists possessed land on the right bank of the Saint-Mauricie river, a stream then called simply by the name of "river of Trois-Rivieres." Guillaume Pepin obtained his piece on 23 July 1647.(9) It was a lot with three arpents of frontage by nine in depth, with a road of fifteen toises running along the river, between the holdings of Jean Godefroy de Lintot and Guillaume Isabel. In the town itself, the Pepin property was bordered on the north-east by the Chenaux road, on the south-east by the rue Jean-Amyot, on the south-west by the rue Saint-Paul and on the north-west by a line which passed from beyond the rue Whitehead to the level of the church of Saint-Patrice.
184
Our ancestor also owned a plot in town, seventeen toises in frontage, between those of Alexandre Raoul (the ancestor of the Rheaults) and the widow of Baptiste Bourgery. Pepin received this grant on 6 June 1650 from Governor-General Louis d?Ailleboust, acting in the name of the Company of New France. In 1668, he had a house, a barn and a stable there.(10) On this same 6 June 1650, our pioneer also accepted, from the same beneficiary, another building lot of twenty square toises, situated below the Fort of Trois-Rivieres.(ll)
On 22 May 1652, Guillaume Pepin, Sieur de la Fond, in the company of Pierre Boucher and of the notary Roland Godet from Quebec, verified the official record of possession by the Jesuit Father Rene"' Menard, of the concession granted by Jacques de la Ferte, the Abbot of Sainte~Marie-Madeleine.(12) On 20 March 1651, this celebrated Abbot, who gave his name to Cap-de-la-Madeleine, received from the Company of New France, without ever setting foot in Canada, a stretch of land with two leagues of frontage by twenty deep, from the cape to T rois-Rivieres.( 13)
Pepin received several other domains. On 15 June 1656, he obtained one with an area of forty arpents square, situated then to the north-west of the town, between the holdings of Me'dard Chouart des Groseillers and Quentin Moral.(14) On 14 July of the same year, Pierre Boucher made him a gift of sixty arpents, but Guillaume ceded them back to him on 21 July 1684.(15) Not to be deterred by this suggestion, on 12 September 1657, Pierre gave him another concession, on the hill.(16) About the same time, Pepin ceded to the associates Michel Lemay and Elie Bourbaut, a piece of land for 600 livres. Our ancestor gave a quit claim to it on 11 February 1662.(17) Guillaume owned another piece of land with five arpents in frontage in the commune of Lac Saint-Pierre, but it is not likely that he ever developed it because it was a favorite stalking ground of the Iroquois enemy.
185