Though MacNider died three years before its completion, he played a crucial role in persuading Governor Sir James Kempt to build the road that would connect Métis by land to the outside world.

As a young man, John came to Quebec and after working under his uncle he later took over as the head of the family business, in partnership with his younger brother, Mathew (1762-1820), of Glendishrock, Ayrshire.

The MacNiders ran a large import and export business with five stone-built warehouses on Rue de la Fabrique in Quebec City.

Their firm sold Canadian timber and supplies to the Royal Navy and traded in wine and spices from Europe and the British West Indies to sell both at Quebec and Britain.

Near there, off the Chemin de St. Louis, John built a country estate in 1802, naming his new home Kilmarnock Manor, which apart from a few obvious extensions still stands today.

In 2007, Gilbert Bosse gave a talk on the history of Metis and he is quoted as saying, Between unsound business dealings gone sour, and unanticipated attacks by con artists, Mathew MacNider found all his lands seized by a Sheriff's writ of execution, in mid-May, 1805.

From 1818, John MacNider started to develop the seigneury by settling families from the North of Scotland and those of soldiers from Highland regiments disbanded after the War of 1812.

Taking into consideration the severities of winter and the inevitable struggles and misfortunes incident to a new and untried life, on their arrival MacNider gave the settlers rent-free accommodation and provided them with food, clothing and farm implements for their first two years.

Angelica's opinion of Little Metis was much the same, as recorded on her first viewing of the community in her diary, June 22, 1822: In the course of the day a great many of our tenants came to pay their respects to us; Little Métis is one of the prettiest places that I ever saw; it is like an island.

He built fishing stages at L'Anse-aux-Morts; a shipyard at Little Metis and several lighthouses for the benefit of the ships entering the mouth of the St. Lawrence River.

All the construction underway at the time meant Mrs Angelica MacNider was "being very well entertained to see so many men at work... (there were) millwrights, carpenters, masons, carters for the stones etc., (and she found them) very happy to see their Seigneuresse".

On assessing the Seigneury in 1828, Lord Dalhousie recognised that the "soil appears excellent (and therefore) tempting to settlers," but he commented that its distance from the markets at Quebec City and its poor roads were limiting its economic development.

By 1832, Joseph Bouchette, the Surveyor Generalof Lower Canada, found Metis to have all the trappings of a well-settled community: The river frontage was fully cleared and there were "some tolerably good farms, mills and stores (together with) dwelling houses intended for the reception of travellers".

In 1824, when George Mountain, the Anglican Bishop of Quebec, came to Metis, he too could not have been "more thankfully received... the public prayers, the psalm singing, the preaching of the word had all the zest for these people of a rare and unexpected occurrence".

He in turn left the domain to his niece, Mrs Elsie Reford, the pioneer horticulturalist who built Estevan Lodge and created Les Jardins de Metis.