Iron mines

Iron mines in the seigneury

Around 1870 the country entered an economic crisis that would last several years. It was not the first, nor indeed the last!

At that time Sir John Alexander Macdonald (1815-1891), then Prime Minister of Canada, announced his intention to finance the construction of a transcontinental railway. Thousands of kilometres of rail, wagon wheels and other iron products would have to be supplied.

Already under the French regime, the Saint-Maurice ironworks produced a certain quantity of cast iron and wrought iron, thanks to the nearby iron mines, to forests for charcoal, and to calcite; the early years of the Saint-Maurice ironworks, however, from 1729 to 1741, were difficult. In 1760 they became British property: the English then took the Forges seriously, and the works enjoyed some years of intense production; the Forges began to decline around 1872. Their furnaces went out for good in 1883.

So where was the precious ore to be found for building this railway?

In 1874 Georges Benson Hall, esquire, a bourgeois of the city of Québec, represented by Joseph-Valérie Genest, esquire, of the parish of Saint-Maurice, signed before the notary Napoléon Desrosiers d’Argy, a public notary residing at Gentilly, an agreement with several owners of land situated at Gentilly, Bécancour, Sainte-Marie-de-Blandford and a few at Saint-Pierre-les-Becquets.

In these notarial contracts one reads that the owner « a volontairement vendu, cédé, quitté et transporté dès maintenant et pour toujours à Georges Benson Hall à savoir : Toute la mine de fer (orre) et tous les droits de mines de fer qu’il a et peut avoir ou prétendre en et sur une terre sise (…) Cette vente est faite pour et en considération du prix et somme de quatre centins pour chaque barrique de la dite mine de fer nette qui sera prise, exploitée et enlevée par l’acquéreur.(…) Sur et à compter de la présente vente, le vendeur reconnait avoir eu et reçu de l‘acquéreur la somme de deux piastres et quant au résidu, l’acquéreur promet et s’oblige à payer et bailler au vendeur ou à son ordre au fur et à mesure que la mine sera prise et enlevée. (…) Se réserve le vendeur le droit de lever, laver et charroyer la mine au prix et conditions que l’acquéreur pourra faire faire l’ouvrage par des employés. » [the owner sells outright all iron ore and all iron-mining rights on the land, at four cents per barrel of clean ore removed, two piastres paid down and the rest as the ore is taken out, the seller reserving the right to raise, wash and cart the ore at the buyer’s rates]

Until his death in 1876 Georges Benson Hall was known above all for the commercial exploitation of timber; he is recognised as one of the most active and wealthiest timber merchants in Canada. On 9 January 1830, for example, Numédique and Élizé Mailhot of Saint-Pierre sold 300 logs to Hall, on behalf of Peter Patterson, logs to be delivered on the shore at Sault Montmorency, in the port of Québec.

In 1843 Hall had married Patterson’s only daughter, inheriting the timber-trading business. Other timber merchants of Saint-Pierre-les-Becquets would do business with Hall-Paterson.

At Saint-Pierre-les-Becquets, lot 161 belonging to Prisque Tellier, lot 163 to one Rocheleau of Gentilly, and lot 393 held by Pierre Blais drew the interest of G.B. Hall, and their owners signed the notarial contract in the years 1874-1875. These lands lay very close to Gentilly.

In 1889 a consortium of men active in iron ore was formed: the Canada Iron Furnace Company. In the Mauricie, in the village of Fermont, the Radnor forges, the property of the estate of Georges Benson Hall, were acquired by Canada Iron in settlement of the estate’s debts.

On the south shore, iron-ore activity does not appear to have met with success: no charcoal blast furnace is known to have been built there as in the Mauricie. The lands were sold without added clauses concerning the working of iron ore.

From the 1890s onward, the iron-mining rights over the various lots of land were struck off and extinguished by prescription.