The first Montreal permanent European settler or habitant was Pierre Gadoyes(Gadois) who came from the village of Igé in the county of Perche west of Paris, France and landed in Montreal in 1636 with his wife Louise Mauger and two children.
On the 4th of January 1648 Monsieur Gadoyes was awarded the first concession in the territory of Ville-Marie as Montreal was known at the time. The land comprised 40 arpents or approximately 300,000 square meters.
The signatories to the deed were Paul de Chomedy Escuyer Sieur de Maisonneuve governor of the Island of Montreal, Louis Goudeau and Cezar Leger who acted as witnesses, Jean de Saint-Pere who was the town clerk and Pierre Gadoyes. The town clerk at the time acted in the capacity of a Civil Law Notary or as the French called these gentlemen, Notaire. Unfortunately Monsieur Saint-Père met a very tragic death as the Iroquois scalped him in 1657.
The concession granted to Monsieur Gadoyes was pursuant to the instructions given to de Maisonneuve by "Les Associés pour la Conversion des Sauvages de la Nouvelle France en ladite Isle de Montreal et Seigneurs" also known as Société de Notre Dame de Montréal. They had owned 85, 000 hectares of the Island of Montreal and were not interested in retaining all of the land.
The location of the property coincides with the present rue Saint Pierre in the east, Rue McGill in the west, rue Saint-Paul in the south and rue Ontario in the north. If you refer to the following plan you can see where it was exactly located. You will also notice the names of other landowners who had played a prominent role in the early development of Montréal such as Lambert Closse.
Up until the time of Pierre Gadoyes there were no permanent European settlers in Montreal and the inhabitants of Ville Marie lived a communal life working in the fields during the day and then bedding down within the fortified walls of the village during the evening hours. Many of the inhabitants did not stay very long in Montreal and for the most part they returned to France after 2 to 3 years. It was decided that the only way to create a permanent settlement in Nouvelle France was to grant land to individuals by way of concessions and create a kind of permanency.
When you read the deed of concession you will notice that there is mention that the primary objective was to grant land to individuals who have the desire to establish themselves as permanent settlers.
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