History, Wonder Tales, Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends The Flemish | Page 248

some Belgian artisans to stimulate building, manufacturing, and mining in the colony.
The trickle of artisans from Belgium continued in the eighteenth century; among them
was Joseph de l’Estre de Vallon, who designed the presbytery at Quebec in 1725. A
Flemish contractor was hired in 1750 for the rebuilding of Louisbourg, along with some
quarrymen, bricklayers, brick makers, and lime burners.
After New France was ceded to Britain in 1763, few Belgians, apart from missionaries,
settled in British North America. There was some spillover from communities in
Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin into Upper Canada (Ontario). Others migrated to
the mines of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and to towns in Lower Canada
(Quebec). As a result, the Belgian government opened consulates in Montreal,
Quebec, and Halifax. A Canadian select committee appointed in 1859 to examine
immigration to Upper and Lower Canada recommended that assisted passages and
grants of free land be extended to Belgians. In response to this new policy, a group of
ninety-nine families arrived at Quebec in 1862 under the direction of an independent
agent named A.H. Verret. He had been mandated to recruit immigrants in Belgium by
offering them the same benefits as were already given to British immigrants.
The creation in 1867 of the Dominion of Canada, with overlapping provincial and
fed W&