Among those who came to Montreal in 1641, when the foundations of the city were being laid, was the son of a Dieppe innkeeper, Charles Le Moyne by name.  Born in 1624, he was only seventeen when he set out to seek his fortune in the New World.  The lure of the fur trade promptly overcame him, as it did so many others, and the first few years of his life in Canada were spent among the Hurons in the regions round Georgian Bay.  On becoming of age, however, he obtained a grant of lands on the south shore of the St Lawrence, opposite Montreal, and at once began the work of clearing it.  This area, of fifty lineal arpents in frontage by one hundred in depth, was granted to Le Moyne by M. de Lauzon [Footnote:  Jean de Lauzon, at this time president of the Company of One Hundred Associates, which, as we have seen, had the feudal suzerainty of Canada.  Lauzon was afterwards governor of New France, 1651-56.] as a seigneury on September 24, 1647.

Despite the fact that his holding was directly in the path of Indian attacks, Le Moyne made steady progress in clearing it; he built himself a house, and in 1654, at the age of twenty-eight, married Mademoiselle Catherine Primot, formerly of Rouen.  The governor of Montreal, M. de Maisonneuve, showed his good will by a wedding gift of ninety additional arpents.  But Le Moyne’s ambition to provide for a rapidly growing family led him to petition the intendant for an enlargement of his holdings, and in 1672 the intendant Talon gave him the land which lay between the seigneuries of Varennes and La Prairie de la Magdelaine.  This with his other tract was united to form the seigneury of Longueuil.  Already the king had recognized Le Moyne’s progressive spirit by giving him rank in the noblesse, the letters-patent having been issued in 1668.  On this seigneury the first of the Le Moynes de Longueuil lived and worked until his death in 1685.

Charles Le Moyne had a family of eleven sons, of whom ten grew to manhood and became figures of prominence in the later history of New France.  From Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico their exploits covered every field of activity on land and sea. [Footnote:  These sons were:  (1) Charles Le Moyne de Longueuil, born 1656, who succeeded his father as seigneur and became the first Baron de Longueuil, later served as lieutenant-governor of Montreal, and was killed in action at Saratoga on June 8, 1729; (2) Jacques Le Moyne de Ste Helene, born 1659, who fell at the siege of Quebec in 1690; (3) Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville, born in 1661, voyageur to Hudson Bay and the Spanish Main, died at Havana in 1706; (4) Paul Le Moyne de Maricourt, born 1663, captain in the marine, died in 1704 from hardships during an expedition against the Iroquois; (5) Francois Le Moyne de Bienville, born 1666, intrepid young border-warrior, killed by the Iroquois in 1691; (6) Joseph Le Moyne de Serigny, born 1668, served as a youth in the expeditions of his brother to Hudson Bay, died in 1687; (7) Louis