How the days of his youth
were spent we do not know except that he received a good education,
presumably in a Jesuit seminary. While still in the early twenties
he came to Montreal where he had an older brother, a priest of the
Seminary of St. Sulpice. This was in 1666. Through, the influence of
his brother, no doubt, he received from the Seminary a grant of the
seigneury at Lachine on the river above the town, and at once began
the work of developing this property.
If La Salle intended to become a yeoman of New France, his choice of a
site was not of the best. The seigneury which he acquired was one of
the most dangerous spots in the whole colony, being right in the path
of Iroquois attack. He was able to gather a few settlers around him,
it is true, but their homes had to be enclosed by palisades, and they
hardly dared venture into the fields unarmed. Though the Iroquois and
the French were just now at peace, the danger of treachery was never
absent. On the other hand no situation could be more favorable for
one desiring to try his hand at the fur trade. It was inevitable,
therefore, that a young man of La Salle's adventurous temperament
and commercial ancestry should soon forsake the irksome drudgery of
clearing land for the more exciting and apparently more profitable
pursuit of forest trade. That was what happened. In the winter
of 1668-1669 he heard from the Indians their story of a great
southwestern river which made its way to the "Vermilion Sea.
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