Our 8th great grandfather Pierre Gauthier dit Saguingoira (b.1627 d.1703), and our 8th grandmother Marie Boucher of Bourg Deschillet (Echillais) in Saintonge, France (b. 1615 d. 1689-1698) were taken during the night of the 5th of August 1689 by the Mohawks. The Lachine massacre, part of the Beaver Wars, occurred when 1,500 Mohawk warriors attacked by surprise the small, 375-inhabitant, settlement of Lachine, New France at the upper end of Montreal Island. The Mohawks burned the village of Lachine near Montreal and took many prisoners. Pierre was one of them and he was taken with his wife to the Mohawk encampment. Alas Grandma Boucher doesn’t survive the ordeal. During his absence, Jean Baptiste Pottier is charged to manage the estate for his four children. It is learned by a concession act dated January 22, 1698, that he is back from his captivity with the Mohawks. Pierre was only gone 9 years! On October 30, 1700, He is among the residents who authorized the Sulpicien of Montreal to dig a ship canal (Lachine canal) up to Saint-Pierre River after having dictated his will on September 6, 1703, he passed away in Lachine, on December 5 of the same year, where he was buried the next day.
In his History of Canada, the superior of the Sulpicians of Montreal, François Vachon de Belmont, described the horror: “After this total victory, the unhappy band of prisoners was subjected to all the rage which the cruelest vengeance could inspire in these savages. They were taken to the far side of Lake St. Louis by the victorious army, which shouted ninety times while crossing to indicate the number of prisoners or scalps they had taken, saying, we have been tricked, Ononthio, we will trick you as well. Once they had landed, they lit fires, planted stakes in the ground, burned five Frenchmen, roasted six children, and grilled some others on the coals and ate them.” Yummy.
The attack was precipitated by growing Mohawk dissatisfaction with the increased French incursions into their territory, and was encouraged by the settlers of New England as a way to leverage power against New France during King William’s War. During the attack, the Mohawk destroyed a substantial portion of the Lachine settlement by fire and killed or captured numerous inhabitants, although historic sources have varied widely in estimates of the number killed, from 24 killed and 70 taken prisoner. Later, a few prisoners managed to escape, and some were released in prisoner exchanges. Others were adopted by the Mohawk. In all, forty-two inhabitants of Lachine were never heard from again.
In Lachine, in the new municipal park, Mr. Mayor Anatole Carignan set up a small house in 1937 and 1938: “La Maison du Colon” (the settlers’ house).
A bronze plaque offered by the municipality, and bearing the names of the first colonists, is affixed close to the entrance door. The citizens of Lachine honored the memory of the first settlers of their territory, the colonists who were established from 1666 to 1669. The first name that we read entered on the list is that of Pierre Gautier dit Saguingoira, our 8th great grandfather.