The land was bought and the plans for its development started to take shape at once. Before the autumn rains, 1894, the dams would be completed, as well as the under structure of the mill. The rains would fill Long Tusket and Little Tusket lakes, while some logs would be cut alongside the river and near the mill to begin the production of lumber.”

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“By November, a little cabin had been built by the mill site to house Jean and the carpenters who would finish the mill. during the winter. As soon as the snow came, a logging crew settled in very rough cabins along Tusket lake and began cutting logs and hauling them onto the ice.”

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“Jean Jacques was finally on his own and he was very happy and confident. It was not too soon for him to leave the monastic life of Sainte Anne. The yoke was beginning to chafe, as his father gathered from his letters of late, in which he complained that the good sisters in charge of the kitchen were lacing the food with salt-petre.”

“It was not long afterwards, that my grandfather received the shattering news from Jean that he had decided to marry an Acadian girl. The whole family was shocked, all the more so because Jean did not ask permission of his father, as was the custom for young men to do in those days.”

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“Although very upset and perhaps discouraged, my grandfather did not disown Jean or cut of his income and the capital for the new venture, now well underway.”

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“This turn of events precipitated the next decision which was in the background of my grandfather’s thoughts for some time in the future. In the summer of 1894, he decided to send Emile Jean, his eldest son, to Canada to look over the situation. Perhaps in the deep recesses of his mind was germinating the idea that some day he would himself cross the Atlantic.”