Claremont
The Seat of Thomas Beckett, Esquire
“A house amid the quiet country’s shades,
With length’ning vistas, ever sunny glades,
Beauty and fragrance clustering o’er the wall.
A porch inviting, and an ample hall.”
Claremont was founded by Lieut.-Governor R. E. Caron, and was his family mansion—ever since he left Spencer Grange which he had temporally leased,—until he was named Lt.-Governor of the Province of Quebec. We find in it, combined the taste and comfort which presides in Canadian homes; and in the fortunes of its founder, an illustration of the fact, that under the sway of Britain, the road to the highest honours has ever been open to colonists, irrespective of creed or nationality.
Claremont stands about one acre from the main road, three miles from Quebec, a handsome, comfortable and substantial villa. The umbrageous grove of trees which encloses it from view, is a plantation laid down by the late occupant about twenty-five years ago; its growth has been truly wonderful. The view from the veranda and rear of the house is magnificent in the extreme. To the west of the dwelling, environed in forest trees well protected against our northern “blizzards,” lies the fruit, flower and vegetable garden, laid out originally by Madame Caron; watered by an unfailing spring, its dark rich soil produces most luxuriant vegetables, and Mr. Beckett’s phlox, lilies, pansies, roses, generally stand well represented on the prize list of the Quebec Horticultural Society, of which Mr. Beckett is a most active member.
Claremont [242] is indicated by one of the most reliable of our historians, the Abbé Ferland, as the spot where one of the first Sillery missionaries, Frère Liégeois met with his end at the hands of some hostile Indians. This occurred in the spring of 1655. The missionary at the time was helping the colonists to build a small redoubt to protect their maize and wheat fields from the inroads of their enemies. On viewing, at Sillery, in 1881, Claremont the luxurious country seat of a successful merchant, memory reverts to the same locality two centuries back, when every tree of the locality might have concealed a ferocious Iroquois bent on his errand of death.
From the cupola of Claremont, a wondrous vista is revealed. The eye gazing northward, rests on the nodding pinnacles of the spruce, hemlock and surrounding pine. Towards the south-east and west you have before you nearly every object calculated to add effect to the landscape. Far below at your feet, rushes on the mighty St. Lawrence, with its fleet of merchantmen and rafts of timber; the church of St. Romuald, half way up the hill; facing you, the Etchemin stream, its mills, its piers, crowded with deals; to the west, the roaring Chaudière, “La Rivière Bruyante” of early times, in the remote distance, on a bright morning, are also plainly visible, the hills of the White Mountains of Maine.