THE HISTORY OF HOCHELAGA AFTER CARTIER'S VISIT--CHAMPLAIN, THE FIRST CARTOGRAPHER OF THE ISLAND OF MONTREAL--ITS DESCRIPTION IN 1603--CHAMPLAIN EXPLORES THE NEIGHBORHOOD--PLACE ROYALE IN 1611--ST. HELEN'S ISLAND NAMED--THE FIRST TRADING TRANSACTION RECORDED--CHAMPLAIN SHOOTS THE RAPIDS, 1613--THE EXPLORATION OF THE OTTAWA VALLEY--1615 THE FIRST MASS IN CANADA AT RIVIERE DES PRAIRIES--1625 THE DROWNING OF VIEL AND AHUNTSIC AT SAULT-AU-RECOLLET--THE INTENTION OF CHAMPLAIN TO MAKE A PERMANENT SETTLEMENT ON THE ISLAND.
The name of Samuel de Champlain is next to be more closely associated with Montreal. For, although the date connecting him with his first visit to this site is 1603, and that of Cartier's visit in 1535, Montreal had not been visited or dwelt upon by any distinguished European that we can attach a name to, with any certainty.
During all this time, according to tradition, sad things had occurred at Hochelaga.
"The fate of this Indian town," says Mr. Arthur Weir in "Montreal, the Metropolis of Canada," "is shrouded in the mists of antiquity. There is reason to believe that here was enacted a tragedy similar to that which resulted in the destruction of Troy. According to Mr. Peter Dooyentate Clarke, the historian of the Wyandots, himself a descendant of the tribe, the Senecas and Wyandots, or Hurons, lived side by side at Hochelaga, until in an evil moment a stern chief of the Senecas refused to permit his son to marry a Huron maiden. The damsel thereupon rejected all suitors and promised to marry only him who should kill the chief who had thus offended her.
"A youthful Huron, more amorous than wise, fulfilled the terms of the vow and won the girl. But the Senecas adopted the cause of their murdered chief, and made war upon the Hurons, whom they almost exterminated with the assistance of the other tribes of the Iroquois, driving their more peaceful and civilized neighbours to the very lake that now bears their name." However true or false this legend, it is certain that when Champlain visited the island in 1603 the Indian town was gone and desolation prevailed.
Another version of the same tradition is given by Mr. Bourinot, in "The Story of Canada," where he tells the popular tradition handed down by the Indians, "that the Hurons and Iroquois, branches of the same family, speaking dialects of one common language, were living at one time in villages, not far from each other,--the Hurons probably at Hochelaga and the Senecas on the other side of the mountain. It was against the law of the two communities for their men and women to intermarry, but the potent influence of true love, so rare in an Indian's bosom, soon broke this command. A Huron girl entered a cabin of an Iroquois chief as his wife. It was an unhappy marriage, the husband killed the wife in an angry moment. This was a serious matter, requiring a council meeting of the two tribes. Murder must be avenged or liberal compensation given to the friends of the dead. The council decided that the woman deserved death, but the verdict did not please all her relatives, one of whom went off secretly and killed an Iroquois warrior. Then, both tribes took up the hatchet, and went on the warpath against each other, with the result, that the Village of Hochelaga, with all the women and children, was destroyed, and the Hurons, who were probably beaten, left the St. Lawrence and eventually found a new home on Lake Huron."--See Horatio Hale's "Fall of Hochelaga" in Journal of American Folklore, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1894.