I visited Pubnico, Nova Scotia, home of Philippe Mius d’Entremont, in the summer of 2024.

Pubnico is much more than simply Philippe’s home. He founded the first European settlement which was called by its Mi’kmaq name, Pobomcoup, which meant something like “the place where holes are made in the ice for fishing.” In 1653 Charles St. Etienne de La Tour granted Philippe this land, officially making him Philippe Mius d’Entremont, Baron of Pobomcoup.

Pobomcoup is spelled variously in records – likely phonetically.

The Native people hunted and fished here, and the French traded, but no Europeans settled permanently in this remote part of Acadia until Philippe arrived.

Philippe chose this beautiful stretch of coastline, where land and sea are interwoven, in which to settle his family and establish his seigneury. Not many people get to make that selection.

His was the first European family to sink roots here, and they grew into an entire dynasty.

It’s the very remoteness – and the challenges of living beside the sometimes angry Atlantic – that has preserved Acadian culture here, largely untouched by the bustle of larger cities or even towns. You can travel for miles along the coast, and while you’ll see lots of boats, fishermen, and marine gear, you’ll only occasionally pass by a grocery, gas station, or restaurant – and by that, I mean literally one or two.

Today, the surnames of both Mius and d’Entremont, the name used by Philippe’s son, Jacques, along with Duon, are the most prominent names among the 3000 or so residents in Pubnico.

The French accent here is unique, as are the mannerisms, food and customs.

The Pubnico Acadians escaped the expulsions of 1755 and 1756, but were brutally removed by the English in 1758. The village was pillaged by English soldiers, the church and rectory ransacked, along with the d’Entremont manor house. Then, on September 23, 1758, the entire village, including the d’Entremont home, was burned so that those who had fled into the woods could not return and support themselves.

Nine years later, in 1767, after the war between England and France ended, some families who had been living in exile were granted permission to return and rebuild, although the location of the original settlement, or settlements, remains uncertain today.

Philippe’s descendants resettled in the same area, even though the English had already been given the Acadian farms – and began life in Pubnico, around the harbour, anew.

Today, almost 260 years later, every single person that I met in or even near Pubnico is descended one way or another – often in several ways – from Philippe Mius d’Entremont.

One binding attribute is their fierce pride in Acadian heritage, roots and Philippe himself. History is not lost here. It’s lived, and every schoolchild learns their story and about their ancestors.

Philippe is the grandfather, someplace around 10 generations back in time for everyone in Pubnico. His blood, and his DNA, runs in all of our veins. Today, on WikiTree, Philippe has more than 110,000 documented descendants, so he probably has many more who aren’t reflected there.

Returning Home

I spent several absolutely joyous days in the land of my ancestors. Not only is the land sacred, it’s breathtakingly beautiful and utterly glorious, even without the ancestral connection.

I truly felt as if I had come home after a forever absence, basking in warm sunlight and watching sunbeams dance on the waves as earthly cares melted away.

I spent the first few days outside of Halifax.

Well, truth be told, I had to leave the states a couple of days early to avoid Hurricane Debby, but as it turned out, I needed every single minute in Nova Scotia – so I’m viewing that as ancestral intervention!

“Come home NOW!”

After a long day traveling, including two layovers, I finally arrived, picked up my rental car and headed off, serenaded by the thwap, thwap, thwap of the windshield wipers.

Fate

You know, fate’s funny sometimes. This wasn’t my first trip to Nova Scotia. Years ago, I spent a wonderful week on the waterfront in tiny Chester, Nova Scotia, at an educational retreat for a group of fiber artists. Chester is about 40 miles west of Halifax, on Mahone Bay.

We studied in a different location with a different instructor each year, and trust me, if you can’t be inspired here, you can’t be inspired anyplace.

The light on the evening waters seemed to stretch endlessly – a shimmering path across time, connecting me to something, someplace…maybe everything, everyplace.

I loved being there. It felt eerily familiar. I walked for hours along the waterfront, sketching with watercolor pencils, taking pictures, then returning to the art group in our little house-turned-classroom along the bay to try my best to translate those deep-seated emotions into something…else. Something that spoke for me, and to me.

I never realized, until this visit, why that visit had been so emotionally charged.

The wall-hanging inspired during that week in Chester is titled “I Am a River,” and spoke to unknown frontiers, fear, looking forward and back as the powerful river cannot be stopped. That must have been how my Acadian ancestors felt over and over again as they made the decision to leave France, then faced what seemed like – and sometimes were – insurmountable challenges in Acadia.

Fast forward more than 300 years, and there I was, in Chester, facing my own crossroads.

Like them, I chose the fork in the road. That uncharted, difficult, path, with unknown dangers lurking around every turn, in every shadow.

And yes, I’ve since looked back from time to time, trying to peer past the rocks and curves in the river to see what might have been, but there was no turning back.

I think those ancestors must have been speaking to me, or trying to, that week in Chester back in the 1990s. I had no way of knowing I was hearing their voices in my heart – that they were calling me. I didn’t yet know who they were, that I was standing on ancestral land, why I was so emotional, or what the future held.

During that trip, I was facing a life-changing crossroad – and a decision I was terrified to make.

After I returned home, I mustered every ounce of courage in my soul, walked away from everything familiar, and chose a different path. I was terrified. It would not be the only time.

I didn’t understand the significance then. Only later, in 2024, on that same land, did everything come rushing back.

I could never have dreamed where my life would be three decades hence – or that I would ever return to Nova Scotia. Let alone discover that I was part of Nova Scotia, and that Nova Scotia, and her people, were part of me – woven into the very strands of my soul.

The tears flowed hot and heavy.

Now, I understand.

Bridgewater

For the first few days, I stayed at a lovely VRBO at Bridgewater. Fortunately, they were able to accommodate my arrival two days early – thanks to the hurricane. It’s a charming little place, decorated in a nautical theme, located on the river, not far from La Heve.

La Heve was first established as an outpost by the Acadians in 1633, before families arrived in 1636, and Governor d’Aulnay moved the seat of Acadia to Port Royal soon after.

I knew that while my Acadian ancestors might not have walked where I slept, along the river’s edge, my Mi’kmaq ancestors assuredly did.

My mother’s grandfather was Acadian, and I wore her ring on our journey of discovery together. I talked with her a lot over the next three weeks and took photos of “us” where our ancestors lived. In return, the ancestors spoke with both of us.

At night, I could hear the nearly-silent paddles of their canoes slicing through the water, across time.

Merliguech, aka Lunenburg

The third day found me in Lunenburg where the Mi’kmaq town of Merliguech was located. This is where Philippe Mius’s son by the same name lived, at least part of the time. He married two Native women.

At Merliguech, I mean Lunenburg, I toured the harbour by boat to see what they would have seen – from the perspective of arriving by sea.

The history and fate of the Acadians and Native people have been tied together since the earliest days of French settlement. The harbour looks somewhat different today, but the entrance is the same, and those who sailed or canoed into the harbour still pass the same hills, then inhabited by the Mi’kmaq people. Philippe Mius’s son, also named Philippe, married two Mi’kmaq women, had a trading post here, and frequented these waters.

I eventually found and walked the oldest French Cemetery, along the waterfront.

The oldest stone is marked with a cross, a date of 1754, and the name Paul. It probably belongs to Paul, called “Old Labrador” by the English when they arrived. He was also known as LaVerdure, but his surname was probably Guidry. His wife was Madeleine Mieuss, the daughter of Philippe Jr., so the granddaughter of Philippe Mius d’Entremont, our founding Acadian father. Some of her children are probably buried here near Paul in unmarked graves.

We don’t know exactly when her father, Philippe Jr. died, only that he lived here in 1726 when his two sons, son-in-law, and grandson were kidnapped in the harbour by English traders, taken to Boston and hanged for piracy. He died sometime later and may well be buried here, or near here, as well.

In 1726, he would have been about 66 years old and had just borne witness to an unspeakable attrocity. Part of me hopes he died before the hangings actually occurred, but that’s very unlikely. This may have killed him. May he rest in peace.

The old cemetery behind the trees as viewed from the water, which, according to the earliest English maps, is located beside Old Labrador’s farm.

My heart ached here.

In addition to a trading post at Lunenburg, Philippe Jr. had a trading post along Second Peninsula.

I found the Second Peninsula location, which remains quite remote today.

Stunningly beautiful moss and fern-covered rocks and woodland floor.

Looking through the woods and down the hill, the beach below would be where traders landed and lashed their canoes or anchored their ships when they came to trade.

Molly Muise, a Mi’kmaq elder was the wife of the Chief of the Bear River clan, located near Digby, Nova Scotia. She may be the first Native person shown photographically as seen in this tintype. She was probably born about 1810, or so, but since we don’t know when the photo was taken, other than after 1860, we have no way to estimate her birth year. Given what we know about Philippe Jr. and his sons, she could well have been his great-granddaughter. If so, that means she’s probably the earliest known Mius in any photo.

Mius DNA still runs in the Mi’kmaq people too.

La Hève, now La Have

I spent the fourth day at the original location of Fort Sainte Marie de Grace at La Hève, now La Have. It’s here that the original Acadian families arrived in 1636. Today, a museum that stands near where the fort once stood tells their story and that of early Acadia.

These old apple trees descend from the originals planted by the earliest Acadian settlers. Planting seeds speaks to hope!

Philippe Mius d’Entremont did not live here, but it was still being used as a trading post in 1651, and there was a small village within sight of the fort, on the point. They may have stopped on their way to Fort La Tour. If so, this scene would have welcomed Philippe to Acadia.

I love learning about the Acadian culture and their lives. This oven and hundreds like it baked goods such as soldiers bread make of flour, water, salt and a leavening agent. On a good day, other grains were added too, but the best, or whitest, flour was reserved for the higher-class citizens.

Everyone, young, old, rich or poor, loves ginger biscuits which are still baked in traditional ovens and served as treats today.

I’m not so sure about Chocolate Sauerkraut Cake, though. Someone make this recipe and let me know!

I fell in love with the little local bakery on the La Have River, located on a curve on the way back to civilization.

Not only was their coffee and food absolutely delicious, but locals and the few tourists traveling that road sat together at community tables, chatting about everything and nothing. I could live here!

I hated to leave, but I needed to head back to the VRBO on the river. I was hoping for an evening river cruise by boat. Unfortunately, it had begun to rain, so that adventure was doubtful, and in fact, did not happen.

However, Lobster Poutine, a quintessential Acadian delicacy, did!

I love eating in the little local places!

It hurt me to pack up and depart on the morning of the fifth day, but I needed to head for Pubnico. Mom and I said goodbye to our ancestors whose spirits still reside here.

I felt like I had been driving backward in history, but today, I was going to drive from 1636 to about 1653.

However, I found another remnant of the past. I bought gas at a little roadside station, IN THE RAIN, where the attendant came out, pumped the gas, washed the windows and…are you ready for this…checked the air in my tires.

I literally had no idea what to do. Am I supposed to tip? How much?

Canadian hospitality is amazing!

Hello Pubnico!!!

By mid-afternoon, I had arrived in the Pubnico area.

There is actually more than one Pubnico. There’s Lower East Pubnico, Centre East Pubnico, Middle East Pubnico, East Pubnico, Pubnico, Upper West Pubnico, West Pubnico, Middle West Pubnico, Lower West Pubnico and maybe some other Pubnicos too that I missed. No, I’m not kidding.

It’s all one long continuous community that forms a horseshow around the harbour. Each “side” of the horseshoe is about 8 or nine miles long, with the west side being a peninsula, and the right side being the mainland.

The locals all know exactly where they are and what location they are talking about, and you have absolutely no idea!

All of the Pubnicos are button-busting proud of their Acadian heritage and culture, and it shows. Everyplace!

Beautiful Acadian flags, banners and painted chairs – celebrating our shared history!

Even the lighthouse is painted in Acadian colors with the traditional Acadian yellow star. The Stella Maris, or “star of the sea,” is an Acadian rallying symbol representing Acadian identity.

In Pubnico, I stayed in a spacious VRBO known as “the Old Post Office,” because, well, it’s the old post office.

Upon checking in, I discovered a lovely gift from the owner waiting for me. A beautiful little painting that graces my bookcase and reminds me of exactly how Pubnico feels every time I look at it.

I can smell the sea air.

The property was owned by a d’Entrement family. I was very excited about this, while they were very matter of fact. I’m sure they had absolutely no idea WHY I was so excited. I had never met a d’Entremont before. Over the next few days, I quickly learned that half the population of Pubnico are d’Entremonts. I only felt a little ridiculous.

The VRBO was delightful, and just look at what’s out back. That’s the harbour, and the location of the old Post Office in West Pubnico is almost directly across from Hipson’s Bridge.

So, IF Hipson’s Bridge was the location of the Mius manor house, then I’ve lucked into looking straight across the harbour at it!

Did I actually get that lucky?

Would I have been looking over at Philippe’s manor house if I were standing here 360 or 370 years ago? Or, his mill? It’s about 1.3 miles across the water to the opposite shore, so, barring fog, one could always see who was coming or going. High ground would have been a good defensive position.

Regardless of exactly where, Philippe lived along the harbour here, which was also a part of his seigneury, beginning in 1653 and throughout most of the rest of his life.

I still can’t believe I’M HERE, and I’m going to be sleeping on Philippe’s land for the next few nights.

Pinch me!

The Acadian Museum

I was so excited that I couldn’t wait for the next day to visit the Acadian Museum, less than a mile down the road.

An adjacent building holds a gift shop packed with lovely handcrafts, made by the local descendants of the original Acadian settlers.

Perhaps quilting is a skill handed down through my mother’s Acadian ancestors.

I returned to the museum daily for the next several days. The staff and volunteers were ever so friendly and answered a myriad of never-ending questions. Additionally, in celebration of the Acadian family reunions taking place in 2024, they sponsored numerous educational programs.

Museum displays include a nearly intact aboiteau, one of the sluices used by the Acadian farmers to drain saltwater from their lands to make them arable.

This aboiteau was found in 1990 on Ile-de-Grave, easily visible from the old Post Office where I was staying.

Dykes were created to prevent salt water from overwashing the fields, and water was drained from the fields through the wooden aboiteau.

Preparing the fields was one of the first things the original settlers did, so this aboiteau would probably date from the mid-1600s. Notice the wooden dowels driven into bored holes to fasten the timbers. Dowels predated metal nails and were often stronger and more durable. They still hold fast today.

A swinging wooden clapper, fit inside the box part of the sluice, clapped shut to prevent saltwater from reentering the dyked area, while allowing rainwater to wash the marsh free of salt over a period of about three years.

A marker stands outside the museum, explaining “Le Grand Derangement”, the horrific expulsion that took place beginning in 1755 in Acadia.

The marker says:

The original Cape Sable region stretched from Chegoggin to Le Passage (Barrington Passage.) As early as 1583, a French merchant was trading with the Mi’kmaq in the region, and around 1620, Charles Saint-Etienne de la Tour build a permanent trading post. In 1653, Philippe Mius d’Entremont founded Pobomcoup (Pubnico), a stable settlement devoted primarily to fishing.

The marker goes on to say that in 1756, most of the residents were deported to Boston, but in 1758, nine families in Cheggogin who had escaped the British soldiers were captured, taken to Halifax and deported to Le Havre in France. Other escapees from Abuptic, Pobomcoup and Tousquet were captured in 1759, transported to Halifax, then on to Cherbourg in France.

This information and these dates will be important later on.

In 1767, some residents petitioned and were allowed to return but discovered that their lands were occupied by British settlers, so they were unable to build their homes in the same places they had originally lived. They still settled on both sides of Pubnico Harbour. It’s interesting that what is today termed the “English side” is the East side, which is where Philippe Mius’s manor house was said to be located.

The English would have settled on the best and most prosperous farms and lands first.

I needed to find the grocery to stock the VRBO fridge since restaurants were scarce, especially for breakfast. The grocery in Pubnico is the De La Tour Co-op. If you’re traveling and want to understand a people, go to their grocery and markets.

Thank goodness for the grocery, because there are two, count ’em, two restaurants. I quickly became a regular at the Red Cap Motel Restaurant, just down the road.

Tonight’s treat was Lobster Alfredo.

You might be getting the idea that lobster is a “thing” here, and you’d be right. What is a delicacy and treat elsewhere, is a staple in all of Nova Scotia, but particularly in the fishing world of Pubnico. Every dish here has a unique flavor not found elsewhere.

That night, I stood outside, along the shoreline, as the waves lapped at my feet and moonlight glistened across the harbour, wondering what Philippe thought as he did the same thing.

The Historical Acadian Village

The next day dawned beautifully, and I was on my way three miles further south to the Historical Acadian Village where many historic buildings have been relocated over the years. It’s here, on a peninsula of land overlooking the harbour, that cultural traditions are preserved by period interpreters using time-honored tools and knowledge, reenacting Acadian farming and fishing practices used in Philippe’s time, and up until around 1900.

Welcome to Philippe’s Acadia.

In the 1671 census, Philippe had 26 cattle, 29 sheep, 12 goats, and 20 pigs, with six arpents of land under cultivation. That’s a LOT of livestock by Acadian standards.

Animals were pastured on the high ground, while the salt marshes were drained in the low ground.

Each home would have a garden.

Gardens and homes were built well above the water level.

Roses beautified the surroundings and smelled wonderful, but they served a secondary purpose, too.

The resulting rose hips ripen into a nutritious fruit that looks something like a small tomato but tastes quite tart. They are considered medicinal, often brewed into tea, but taste better after the first frost, which breaks down their starch into sugar.

Warning – don’t eat those bitter and pokey seeds!

Roses literally grow everyplace in Acadia.

Mom always loved roses.

Ok, Mom, let’s go for a walk!

Yes, I’m dressed for the day. Acadian leggings and an Acadian shirt! Jim’s matching shirt says “Acadian by Marriage.”

Acadian villages grew up around family units – in this case Philippe Mius’s family. Everyone contributed, and everyone had a unique skill.

Some trades are indispensable, and all villages need a blacksmith and forge.

Wandering through the village, I spotted what may have been a community root cellar. Root vegetables such as turnips, potatoes, radishes, parsnips, onions, and beets, as well as cabbage, squash, pumpkins and apples would have been kept in a root cellar built into a hill that kept them cool but not frozen during winter months.

In some cases, vegetables as well as apples were covered with sawdust or dirt.

Stones functioned as steps. How I’d love to have a stone from Philippe’s manor house – even his step! Just think how much history passed here.

Pubnico is a fishing village, so of course there’s a boathouse near the water. There were probably several, sprinkled among clusters of houses up and down both coasts.

Crab and lobster traps are scattered outside.

Bones, anchors and other sea and fishing-related items are found beside the community dock.

Boats of local fishermen are anchored beside the boathouse, or pulled ashore near the dock.

Looking out over the harbour. We don’t know where Philippe lived, but it was someplace near here, and his boats traversed these waters.

Not everything was work, though. Children, and perhaps even adults, skated during winter months.

Walking the path along the harbour shoreline. The fields are dyked, and you can see the salt marsh hay being harvested and stacked.

The haystacks themselves are shaped something like a hershey kiss. The wooden supports raise the hay above the water.

I can’t even begin to describe the incredible beauty of this landscape. Aside from the natural abundance, it’s evident why Philippe selected this location to build his home.

Walking along the shoreline among the trees.

These hardscrabble wild white roses somehow survive among the rocks along the path, are beautiful, and serve as a testiment to fortitude, too.

Acadians are well known for planting apple trees wherever they settled. This old apple tree remains today.

You’re invited to sit beneath the shade of this historic tree, transport yourself back in time and ponder the Acadians whose lives revolved around the sea and the seasons.

I could lose myself here.

In fact, I did, right up until hunger reminded me that it was time to eat. I hated to leave, but a rare treat awaited me.

The Acadian Village includes a cafeteria and a gift shop, of course.

Rappie Pie is a quintessential Acadian dish that you won’t find anyplace except where Acadians are cooking. Rappie Pie is a type of baked casserole that is made from grated potatoes that are then squeezed through cheesecloth to remove the water and solids. Next, broth is added along with meat, poultry or seafood of some type, along with root vegetables. Making Rappie Pie is an all-day process, culminating with this luscious golden-brown meal.

No two Rappie Pies are the same, because there are as many recipes as their are cooks – handed down over generations.

The cup of Chicken Fricot, overflowing the rim with goodness, is ABSOLUTELY TO DIE FOR, but this recipe is a long-held family secret. This alone is worth a trip back!

If you decide to give this hearty chicken root-vegetable stew a try, recipes are available online, but don’t forget the summer savory and perhaps dumplings. My mother made something similar, and I had no idea it might have had Acadian origins.

The Cemetery

After lunch, I walked across Old Church Road to visit the Old Acadian Cemetery.

While we don’t know where the original Acadian settlers were buried at Pubnico. It’s entirely possible there was more than one cemetery – perhaps one on either side of the harbour.

We do know, however, that some of the earliest settlers, great-grandchildren of Philippe Mius, born in the early 1700s, who returned in 1767, are believed to be buried here, in unmarked graves.

Not only does this cemetery hold the remains of Philippe’s descendants, it’s simply beautiful.

There are clearly many unmarked graves.

This cross was on the steeple of the second church which was demolished in 1903.

An inscription on the side of the monument reads:

Erected in 1981 to the sweet memory of our ancestors.

This plaque beneath the cemetery cross says:

This parcel of land, measuring 35 by 25 by 40 by 35 yards, was donated to the parish of Saint-Pierre of Pubnico-Ouest on June 7, 1830, by Joseph-Josué and Philippe d’Entremont, sons of Benoni.

In 1840, the parish’s second church was built on this site, later demolished in 1903.

On June 14, 1853, Archbishop William Walsh of Halifax blessed the land so it could also serve as a cemetery. The gravestones that remain date from 1854 to 1892, although the final burial here took place in 1901.

Another plaque says:

The first church had been erected on the other side of the road. On June 1, 1803, Bishop Pierre Denaut of Quebec authorized its construction. However, it was not until the summer of 1810 that Father Sigogne laid the first stone there and blessed the land to be used as a cemetery, and on October 17, 1815, it was blessed and put into use.

It [the church] could accommodate 200 people. An adjoining room served as lodging for the missionary. It was beside this structure that the present parish rectory was built a little later.

A simple white cross stands behind the one from the church steeple, anchored in the concrete base.

While this cemetery is no longer active today, it’s the oldest known cemetery in the region and well-maintained.

One of the original, now unmarked, graves.

Clearly, a hand-forged iron cross.

Was this perhaps the original Mius cemetery? We don’t know, but the Acadians who returned in 1767 clearly did.

I so wish we could ask them questions.

Visits to cemeteries are always solemn.

I always say a silent prayer as I leave.

Before I had traveled far, I spied this lovely Acadian flag tree, its flags waving in the gusty sea breeze.

And dinner? I’ll let you guess.

Back at the Red Cap, I ordered a lobster roll for dinner, but was surprised when it arrived hot instead of cold. Regional differences. Hot or cold didn’t matter, it was wonderful.

I headed back to the VRBO, because I needed to prepare.

Mom and I were setting forth on a great adventure the next day.

During my preparations for this visit, and after arriving, I was increasingly haunted by this question.

Where Did Philippe Live?

Where did Philippe Mius d’Entremont live?

Where was his manor house?

What was buried at Hipson’s Bridge?

Which of several theories is right?

Does anyone really know?

Is there any way to tell?

Are there hints?

Can we find them?

Put on your hiking boots, because we’re going to try.

I need to get a good night’s sleep, because tomorrow, early, we head out – assuming hurricane Debby hasn’t arrived yet.

What would the morning bring?

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Perhaps there are so many rumors and so much speculation surrounding Philippe Mius, also known as Philippe Mius d’Entremont, because aside from being an early trader and establishing an entire dynasty, he held unique and important positions in early Acadia. A great deal of mystique surrounds both the man, Philippe, and his manor house.

For someone so public, functioning first as the Lieutenant to the Acadian governor, then as the King’s Attorney, he’s also quite mysterious, at least to those of us living today.

Philippe Mius (and other spellings), the first Baron of Pobomcoup, a location now called Pubnico, Nova Scotia, was born around 1609 in France. Normandy to be more specific. For a long time, Normandy was considered speculation, but now we have two contemporaneous sources that confirm that he was “from Normandy.” I wish we knew something more granular about the location than Normandy, but hope springs eternal.

D’Entremont is considered a surname de terre, or “of the earth,” meaning from a place, possibly indicating land ownership in France, but we don’t know where he acquired the name or why he used it.

Philippe married Madeleine Helie by about 1649, given that they had their first child, Marguerite, around 1650, according to later censuses.

Like most ships sailing for Acadia, they departed from the harbour at La Rochelle. Philippe arrived about 1651 with Governor Charles de Saint-Etienne de La Tour.

Philippe Mius served as lieutenant-major to La Tour, a Huguenot, and reportedly a childhood friend, although La Tour was about 16 years older. Mius governed Acadia in La Tour’s absence.

Philippe became the Baron of Pobomcoup in 1653 when La Tour returned after a trip and awarded him land to develop and settle, constituting a Barony. The above document extract is found in the French archives.

It says, in part:

Concessions granted at Port Royal on July 17, 1653, by the high and powerful lord Messire Charles de Saint-Étienne, Seigneur de La Tour, Knight of the Order of the King, Governor and Lieutenant General, to nobleman Philippe Mius, esquire, Sieur d’Entremont, and to Demoiselle Madelaine Helie his wife…

The Nova Scotia Archives provides excepts from Philippe’s now-missing grant:

There was present and personally certified the high and powerful seigneur Charles de La Tour, Lieutenant General in all of Acadia. He voluntarily acknowledged the receipt and avowed that he had, by these presents, given and relinquished in perpetuity the title of baron and noble fief having the administration of justice, high, mean and low as paramount fief to the nobleman Philippe Mius, Esquire, sieur d’Entremont and Madame Magdeleine Hélie, his wife, who were present and accepted it for themselves and their heirs. In consideration of the particular merit of said Sieur d’Entremont and of the good and faithful services which he has personally rendered to us, we have given and granted and do give and grant by these presents to the said sieur d’Entremont the extent of one league in width and four in depth in the place called Pobomcoup to be enjoyed by the said grantees and successors with the title of baron, in consideration of an on condition of homage and a quichipoly (an Indian word meaning “a small bag” or “purse” made out of an animal skin) of beaver with two bouquets on the days and feasts of St. John Baptist for each year, and on condition that he occupies and establishes the said places. The said seigneur LaTour has today granted and placed in possession of the said seigneur d’Entremont the said land, fief and barony of Pobomcoup, promising and binding himself accordingly. — These renunciations were made and passed at the fort of Port Royal on July 17, 1653.

July 17th, 1653 was a red letter day in Philippe and Magdeleine’s lives.

The fact that Philippe was referred to as “sieur d’Entremont” in this document tells us that he did not adopt the title after he became a landowner and Baron in Acadia. Given that he is referred to as a nobleman as well must mean that he descended from at least a minor noble family in France.

The archives states that prior to the grant, but after La Tour’s return from being gone, at which time Mius governing Acadia in LaTour’s absence, Mius was allowed to select the land that he wanted.

The Land Grant

Philippe reportedly chose land on the east side of the harbour, measuring one league in width along the shore and four in depth, or about 2.5 by 9 or 10 miles. The archives goes on to say that they believe that Hipson’s Brook was in the center of the barony. We will visit that location later, but not everyone is convinced that this is the location of Mius’s manor house. Elsewhere it is stated that the stone manor house was located near the mouth of the harbour.

And of course, as with any good mystery, there’s evidence that suggests someplace else too.

The Acadian Museum in Pubnico states that Philippe Mius d’Entremont’s manor house was located on the east side of Pubnico Harbour, a short distance from the head, and that it incorporates all of today’s English section, from the limits of Pubnico Head to the limits of the Acadian village of East Pubnico, stretching in the woods beyond Great Pubnico Lake, even up to the Barrington River.

The “headquarters” of the barony was located just north of Hipson’s Brook, known also locally as Larkin’s Brook, Trout Brook or Caleb’s Brook, near the shore at about 200 meters south of the road commonly called the Nine Mile Road, which leads to Barrington.

There, on what the Rev. John Roy Campbell, in his History of the County of Yarmouth calls “a beautiful knoll”, was built just a few years before the Expulsion a Chapel, to which was given the name of “Notre-Dame”. But long before that time, a manor house was built by Philippe Mius d’Entremont, at a short distance from the hill, opposite to the shore, which measured 35 meters and one third in length and close to 13 meters and a half in width. Not too many years ago, one could feel under his feet what remained of its foundation. Over the main entrance was suspended the Coat of Arms of the Mius d’Entremont family, the only Acadian family to ever have given itself such an emblem, a copy of which has been handed down to us up to this day.

Closer to the foot of the hill was the burying ground. When the railroad which passed through this section was built in 1896-97, a certain number of skeletons were unearthed. With regard to the tombstones, which surely consisted merely of field stones with some inscriptions on them, they had already been taken to build what was called “Jones Wharf”, about 300 meters south.

Campbell’s History of the County of Yarmouth was written in 1876 and is available here.

The Manuscript Report Number 8, titled Acadian Settlement in the Atlantic Provinces by Margaret Coleman published in 1967, available through Parks Canada states:

After d’Aulnay’s death in 1650 la Tour went to France where he succeeded in re-establishing himself in royal favour and in having his commission as governor restored. In 1651 he returned to Acadia with a group of colonists including his friend Philippe Mius d’Entremont. In 1655 (sic) he granted to d’Entremont the territory between Cap Nègre (Cape Negro) and Cap Fourchu (Yarmouth) as the “Baronnie de Pombcoup”. According to Clement Cormier, d’Entremont’s biographer in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, a “feudal castle was built near the entry to the natural harbour of Pubnico, on the east side.” H. L. d’Entremont, one of this d’Entremont’s descendents, suggests that this was the site of the original Fort Lomeron and that Fort St. Louis (Fort La Tour) was not in fact an enlargement of Fort Lomeron but an entirely new fort on a new site.

In 1654 the British took Acadia and Charles de la Tour was taken to England. According to most accounts he and his wife returned to Cape Sable where he lived quietly until his death in 1666.

The name Cape Sable which is used in the censuses of Acadia seems to include the whole area of the “Baronnie de Pombcoup” so it is difficult to place settlement exactly. It is probable, however, that it centered around the “castle” at Pubnico. The settlement seems to have been a small and quiet one with little contact with the rest of Acadia. D’Entremont himself in his later years went to Port Royal where he died, bequeathing his title to his son Jacques. At the time of the 1671 census there were three families comprising 14 people. (PAG Acadian censuses, G22, vol. 466 pt. 1, p. 1). A description of the coast in 1686 says that at “poubonicoeur”, 6 leagues from Cape Sable, there were five families composed of 18 people. (PAC MG1 C^D, 1 part 2, p. 13).

These are important clues. The bolding is mine.

The English league is about 3 statute miles (4.83 km) and the French “lieue” was about 3.4 miles.

Philippe’s grant was one league in width and four in depth, which translates to about 3.5 by 12ish miles, although we don’t actually know which way was meant by width and depth.

This is about 3.5 miles long, north to south, beginning at the northernmost point of the harbour, and about 13 miles in width, east to west, beginning on the west side of the Pubnico peninsula.

This is the reverse, about 13 miles long, and about 3.5 in width, which includes all of Pubnico Harbour, a much greater expanse of shoreline which translates into settlers and produce. As a Baron who wants to encourage settlement, this second selection makes much more sense.

Regardless of where the actual grant began and ended, this was the shape and extent of Philippe’s land.

Cape Sable to Pubnico

Maybe the description of how far Pobomcoup (by many varied spellings over the years) was from Cape Sable will help us.

The distance to “Poubonicoeur” from Cape Sable was reportedly 6 leages, which would be measured in nautical leages.

The nautical league was about 3 nautical miles (5.56 km), so 6 leagues would be about 18 nautical miles or about 20.7 statute miles.

Given that transportation between Cape Sable and Pobomcoup, today’s Pubnico area, was by water, we’ll use the 20.7 statute miles to map the closest path using the Google Maps measure feature.

From the end of Cape Sable to the roughly the mouth of Pubnico Harbour is about 22.5 miles using what is known as the West Passage, above Cape Sable Island. It’s almost the exact same distance taking the East Passage, around Cape Sable Island. This route only overlaps the second scenario, where Philippe’s grant extends much further south.

From Port LaTour to Hipson’s Bridge is 34 miles.

If you measure from the end of Cape Sable to Hipson’s Bridge, it’s 30.5 miles.

If you measure the furthest possible distance, Port LaTour to the head of Pubnico Harbour at Pubnico, it’s 36 miles.

If Mius was establishing a trading post and settlement, he would want some shelter from the open sea, but he would also want a relatively deep harbour so trading vessels from New England could anchor. He needed easy access to both the shore and the sea, so just inside the harbour, with his home, castle, or manor as it was variously described being located on ground high enough to afford some protection.

So, let’s approach this a bit differently. We know where Fort LaTour was located, so beginning there, where does 21 or 22 miles take us?

Measuring from Port LaTour exactly 22 miles doesn’t even get us close to Pubnico or Pubnico Harbour, so the most likely scenario, based on the 6 leagues measurement is no further than the end of Cape Sable to just around the end of the peninsula below Wood’s Harbour.

If we are measuring from the southern-most tip of Cape Sable, we would be another five miles north, either into Wood’s Harbour, or at the mouth of Pubnico Harbour, as was described.

It’s difficult because we don’t know the starting point at Cape Sable, then the 6 leagues to Pobomcoup. I would presume, which I know is dangerous, that the “to” location was actually Philippe’s home.

Coleman continues:

By 1687-88 there were 22 Europeans and 24 Indians in the Cape Sable area. (Gargas’ Census, quoted in Morse, Acadiensa Nova vol. 1, p. 144-55). These inhabitants must have chiefly traded in fish and furs, there being only 4 1/2 arpents under cultivation. When Governor Villebon visited there in 1699, however, he found the settlers growing wheat and peas and raising horned cattle, sheep, and pigs. There was also a water mill. (Webster, J. C. Acadia at the End of the Seventeenth Century p. 134 ).

Regardless of the exact location, this land grant made Philippe Mius official nobility, the fiefdom making him a Baron, and the village grew up along the Pubnico Harbour, at least initially, around his manor house.

Unlike Port Royal, present day Annapolis Royal, which was located on the north side of Nova Scotia on the Riviere Dauphin, both LaTour and Mius established holdings in the much more isolated southwest coastal region.

Even though there was a significant distance between their homes, which were also trading posts and places of business, they considered themselves neighbors. They were the only Europeans living there, other than those they had recruited and settled alongside their manor homes and at Fort LaTour. There was never a fort at Pobomcoup, at least not that we know of.

While Fort LaTour and Pobomcoup (by various spellings) were about 15 miles as the crow flies, water was the road in early Acadia, and that route was much further. The shoreline was both rocky and sandy, and clearly, no one wanted to make that journey in the winter or bad weather. Not to mention high and low tides.

With no other Europeans, other than the occasional New England trader, the women, in particular were probably thrilled to arrange seasonal visits back and forth that may have lasted weeks.

Coleman reported that in the 1700s, residents gathered at Pubnico in the winter, but scattered along the shores to fish and hunt during the warmer months. They had little contact with other French families, aside from occasional missionaries, but lived among and traded with Native people and New Englanders who arrived by ship.

The Port Royal parish registers begin in 1702 and hold some baptisms from families who lived in the Cap Sable area. But that was half a century later. 

The Mius and La Tour families were close enough to commune regularly though. Or maybe people overstayed the winter in one place or the other.

Philippe Mius’s eldest son, Jacques, born around 1654, who would one day inherit his father’s seigneury, married Anne Saint-Etienne de La Tour, Charles La Tour’s daughter, about 1678.

Both locations were distant from Port Royal, the seat of Acadia beginning about 1636. However, Philippe Mius’s eldest child, Marguerite Mius, born about 1650 married Huguenot, Pierre Melanson around 1665 – so clearly communication and visits occurred.

The Melanson family lived on the North side of the river, near the original Scottish fort, across the river from Port Royal.

Philippe Mius’s third child and second son, Abraham Mius, whose dit name was Pleinmarais or Plemarais, married Marguerite Saint-Etienne de La Tour around 1680.

They lived at Port Royal in 1678, quite close to his sister and her husband, Pierre Melanson, but are living at Cap de Sable in 1686 and 1693. By 1703, Abraham’s father was deceased, his brother had inherited the seigneury, and Abraham was living back at Port Royal, where his widow is recorded in 1707.

In case you’re counting, that’s three for three Mius marriages to non-Catholics. The Acadians were overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, Catholic.

Philippe Mius d’Entremont’s fourth child and youngest son, also named Philippe but who sometimes went by the dit name of d’Azy married first to a Native woman, but she apparently died after bearing five children. Philippe (the son) was then found at age 24 in 1686 in Port Royal living with his widowed father and younger sister. By 1687 the younger Philippe had married a second Mi’kmaq woman and in the 1708 census, was living in the Native community at La Heve with his second wife and children, although three of the children from his first wife had settled at Cap Sable.

Philippe Mius d’Entremont’s fifth child, Madeleine died, apparently unmarried and without children, sometime after the 1686 census.

If you’re thinking to yourself, “This is complicated,” that’s because it is.

Nicolas Denys’ 1672 Map and Fort LaTour

The land holdings of Philippe Mius d’Entremont reportedly reached from Cap Nègre to Cap Fourchu (Yarmouth). That said, I have always questioned this interpretation.

First, based on the actual size given in the grant and mapped as I showed in the drawings above. Philippe’s grant is just not large enough to stretch that far.

Second, I wondered about the fact that, based on that description, beginning at Cap Nègre, Fort LaTour was within those boundaries, and I can’t imagine Charles LaTour granting Philippe the very land where his own fort was located.

This 1672 map drawn by Nicolas Denys shows the landmarks of Merliguech which is today’s Lunenburg, one of the locations where Philippe Mius d’Azy (the son) lived, Le Cap Naigre, Cape Sable where La Tour’s fort was located, and Le Cap Fourchu which is Yarmouth, above Pubnico today.

This map was drawn one year after the 1671 Acadian census where Philippe Mius is shown living at Pobomcoup with his family, and 18 years after he received his land grant.

Notably, there is only one flag marking a habitation. Unfortunately, we don’t know exactly what it was marking, and Denys’s map doesn’t correlate terribly well to the coastline today. Whatever it is, it’s very clearly on the western shoreline, and Philippe Mius’s establishment was just about the only thing left in that region after LaTour died about 6 years earlier. If any other location would be marked with a flag, then certainly Pobomcoup, a seigneury with a manor house, would be marked too. But no other location is marked – only one – and judging from the 1671 census, no one was living at Cape Sable.

What else could this location be other than Philippe’s home?

Philippe built his feudal castle somewhere in this beautiful, idyllic country near the entrance to the harbour of Pubnico, while La Tour lived at Cape Sable.

Visiting Cape Sable

We know where La Tour lived, at Fort La Tour, also called Fort St. Louis, which you can see from Fort Creek Park, behind the pine tree on the point in the distance. Nothing of the fort remains today.

The sea here is achingly beautiful, made even moreso knowing how much of the Mius family history evolved here and in the surrounding countryside.

If you want to visit, you’re going to have to look very carefully not to miss the sign. Ask me how I know!

You’ll probably be alone in the parking lot, where, if you look straight ahead, you’ll see an unmarked but well-groomed path. There are no signs here.

I had done my homework, so I more or less knew that this was the way, the only way, other than by water, to Fort La Tour.

While the area seemed entirely deserted, it hadn’t always been that way.

This grouping of chairs surrounds a single headstone. I came to learn that in Nova Scotia, these red Adirondack-style chairs mark a site of historical significance where you are invited to sit awhile and ponder.

Even though no homes grace this historic land today, clearly, one did, apparently not so long ago.

I said a silent thank you for their stewardship and moved on into the past.

Knowing this is where Philippe Mius, and his son by the same name, walked, I followed in their footsteps towards the point.

Given that LaTour lived here when Philippe Mius arrived in 1651, Philippe assuredly spent time with the man he worked for, given that he ran the colony in LeTour’s absence. There wasn’t anyplace else to live, other than far-away Port Royal, so he probably lived here during that time.

Philippe too would have kept a watchful eye over these waters, peering into the distance.

Stepping closer to the water, one can see the islands dotting the bay. It was here that traders would have come ashore.

It would have been here that Philippe, with his wife and baby, stepped ashore for the first time, into their new life in Acadia.

What did they think?

What did they expect?

Were they excited? Frightened? Pensive?

On a slight rise, we find a commemorative marker in the style that marks historical Acadian locations in Nova Scotia.

Even though this was not where Philippe Mius lived for long, it would be the nexus where much of the early history of the Acadians, especially in Southwest Nova Scotia, and of the Mius family in particular, was shaped.

When I turned back towards the parking lot, having descended the knoll where the fort stood, I noticed the telltale marshes – always found where Acadians settled.

When I see these signature tidal marshes, I recognize them right away and they bring me comfort, like an old, welcoming, friend.

As I looked over this salt marsh, with a few scattered rocks, I couldn’t help but think back in time.

These were truly brave people. Heading into an unknown frontier they had only heard about.

While Charles La Tour had been to Acadia many times, Philippe Mius had not. He married and trusted his very life, and that of his wife and child, to Charles.

Philippe saw opportunity, I’m sure, but it was a grave decision that changed the trajectory of his, his wife’s, and his childrens’ lives forever.

It was here, along the streams that wind like ribbons through the marshes, bordering sheltering pines, that Philippe began that life and established his family in Acadia. He would have stayed here, with LaTour, before he scouted out and chose his land at Pobomcoup.

Imagine Madelaine’s surprise when he showed her the land he had selected!

“Where are the houses?” she might ask.

Or maybe more crucially important, “Who will deliver the babies?”

Generations at Point La Tour

Philippe Mius d’Entremont’s son, Philippe Mius d’Azy, along with his children lived at Cap/Cape Sable, although the term “Cape Sable” seems to have been used very broadly during this timeframe.

His son, Joseph Mius d’Azy was born about 1673 and received land in 1715. He is described in the 1708 census as living at “Cape Sable” and is also described as “part Indian who dwelt at Port Le Tour.” Joseph’s mother was Philippe’s first Mi’kmaq wife.

La Tour’s Later Years

It’s uncertain, but LaTour may have abandoned this site before he moved to Fort Saint Marie at the mouth of Riviere Saint-Jean, across the Baie Francais (now Bay of Fundy) from Port Royal, around 1631. LaTour lost Fort Sainte Marie in 1645 when his second wife, Jeanne Motin, was killed by his adversary, Charles d’Aulnay’s men, while defending the fort in LaTour’s absence. After Jeanne’s death, LaTour sought refuge in Quebec, but returned to Acadia in 1651 after his nemesis, d’Aulnay, drowned in 1650.

Charles LaTour remarried d’Aulnay’s widow in February 1653 (no, I’m not kidding) and lived in Port Royal for some time, but retired to Cape Sable around 1656 where he died a few years later. That tells us that while LaTour may not have been living at his Fort, it clearly still existed and had probably remained an active trade location.

Regardless, the two families maintained a close relationship, given that their children married about 1678 and 1680, probably in Port Royal where we know that Philippe Mius d’Entremont was living in 1678.

While this ended LaTour’s personal story, the saga surrounding their families and their land extended for more than another century – a drama I’ll share soon.

For now, let’s return to Philippe Mius.

The Missing Years: 1654-1670

In 1654, the year after Philippe received his land grant and barony, Acadia was attacked and conquered by Robert Sedgwick with three ships and 170 men.

Sedgewick found La Tour at his fort at the Saint John’s River, where he was taken captive, then proceeded on to Port Royal, which Sedgewick took as well, then Pentagouet in Maine.

Nothing is said about Pobomcoup. Some historians think that Philippe Mius was taken captive too, given that he was La Tour’s right-hand man.

Others think that Mius was safely out of harm’s way at Pubnico. I agree, in part based upon the births of his children – Jacques about 1654, Abraham about 1658, Philippe about 1660, and Madeleine about 1669. It goes without saying that several other children would have been born between those children who survived to be recorded in the 1671 census. Additionally, Philippe’s eldest daughter married Pierre Melanson around 1665, which means that the family was likely living in Port Royal at that time, or going back and forth regularly.

If Philippe escaped capture, which it certainly looks like he did, he was probably living quietly, out of the spotlight at Pubnico.

Even La Tour, who was a much larger fish than Mius, was allowed to return to Acadia in 1656 after swearing allegiance to the English crown and agreeing to pay his debts to English merchants.

From 1654 to 1670, Acadia was under the control of the English, and we have no information about Philippe during that time, other than he was having children. He was probably at his beloved Pobomcoup, simply going about the rhythm of daily life.

Acadia is Returned to French Control

In 1670, when Acadia was restored from England to France, Philippe was named the King’s Attorney, a position he held for the next 18 years.

On the 1671 Acadian census, there is only one family, Philippe’s, listed in the settlement of Pobomcou near the Island of Tourquet.

Philippe Mius, squire, Sieur de Landremont, 62, his wife Madelein Helie, their daughter is Marguerite married to Piere Melanson, their son is 17, other children: Abraham 13, the younger Philippe, 11, the younger daughter Madeleine is 2. They have 26 cattle, 29 sheep, 12 goats and 20 hogs.

Clearly, the Mius family got to Port Royal from time to time, or Pierre Melanson visited Pobomcoup, because somehow Pierre had to meet Marguerite.

The only other nearby European settlers listed outside of Port Royal in 1671 are found living alone. At Cape Neigre, Amand Lalloue, squire, sieur de Derivdeu, 58 and his wife Ellisabet Nicollas live, along with their children and livestock on 2 arpents of land, which isn’t much. Additionally, Guillaume Poulet, his unnamed wife and one child are living at Riviere aux Rochelois which is the Mersey River, today.

It’s reported by George S. Brown in his 1888 book, Yarmouth, Nova Scotia: A Sequel to Campbell’s History, that when the Dutch attacked portions of Nova Scotia along the coast in 1674, that Pubnico was among the settlements that were burned, along with Fort Pentajouet and Fort Jemsey, about 30 miles upriver from St. John, NB.

That Pobomcoup was attacked and/or burned may or may not be accurate. Others have suggested that act prompted Philippe’s relocation, at least for a time, to Port Royal. However, his duties as the King’s Attorney would have been much easier to perform there. It’s hard to believe that he could live remotely and take care of business.

At some point after 1671, Philippe’s wife died, and after LaTour’s death around 1666, his children may well have been living in Port Royal as well.

1678

In the 1678 census, Philippe Myus was living in Port Royal with no wife mentioned. Living with him are 1 girl, age 10, Jacques Myus, Abraham Myus, Anne Marguerite and one girl, aged 1 year. The family is living on 9 arpents of land with 12 head of cattle.

This census listing is unusual because children were not listed by name in 1678, although three of Philippe’s apparently were. While the two boys listed by name are clearly his children, the identity of the Anne Marguerite, with no surname listed, is uncertain.

Philippe’s oldest daughter, Marguerite, had been married to Pierre Melanson since 1665 and would clearly be listed with her husband and family – except they are missing. In 1671, Pierre Melanson refused to answer the census taker’s questions, and the census taker wrote, “Pierre Melanson, tailor, would not give his age nor the number of animals but his wife’s answers concerning their possessions was just as crazy.”.

Philippe Mius’s youngest and only other known daughter is Magdeleine who was born about 1669, according to the 1671 and 1686 censuses, would have been the 10-year-old in 1678. She is 16 in 1686, and then she’s gone.

The one-year-old remains a mystery, as is the identity of Anne Marguerite.

Perhaps there is yet more about Philippe Mius that we don’t know. Did he have a second wife that died in the months before the 1678 census, leaving him with a 1-year-old daughter? No parish records from this time remain, so we’ll never know.

Philippe’s Signature

About this same time, we find the one and only known signature of Philippe Mius d’Entremont. Father Clarence d’Entremont said this is from a 1684 note.

On the original document, which I have seen and appears to be a receipt, M [Michel} Boudrot signed above Philippe, who signed only as “Dentremount”, with no first name, no Mius, no apostrophe between the elaborate d and the e, and with a “u” in the name between the o and n. I will request a copy of the original note from the Museum in Pubnico where I believe it resides in Father d’Entremont’s research files. I’ll translate and add that information upon receipt.

It’s clear that Philippe was an educated man, which, in France, meant that he had attended a religious school where he was taught to read and write. Unless, of course, he was of noble birth in which case he would have had a private tutor. Education is probably one of the qualifications that LaTour required of his second-in-command, along with the ability to govern effectively.

Where did Philippe learn that skill? Typically governors learned essential skills either as nobles, military officers or courtiers who managed large estates. Some learned management skills “on the job” after appointment to colonial territories, although this important, high-level position would have been too risky to leave to an inexperienced man.

1686

In the 1686 Port Royal census, Le Sr. Dantrexmon [d’Entremont] Philipe Mius, royal prosecutor, 77, is living with children Philippe, 24, and Magdelaine, 16, on 40 arpents of land. Based on the neighbors, he is living in Port Royal proper, which would make sense since that’s the administrative center of Acadia.

It’s also worth noting that in Port Royal, Philippe is living beside Michel Boudrot, Lieutenant Governor for the jurisdiction of Port Royal, who signed that 1684 note with him. Michel is listed beside Le Sr. Alexandre Le Borgne, seigneur due lieu [Governor], who was also married to Marie de St. Estienne (LaTour).

These men are the three movers and shakers who are governing Acadia, and the administrators lived on the main street of Port Royal.

This 1686 map shows the locations of the administrators, according to the legend in the corner (not displayed here). Michel Boudrot’s land was later shown to be beside the fort, so we can surmise that Philippe was living along this main street as well, with a whopping 40 arpents of land. That’s twice as much as anyone else in Port Royal. Hogg Island is only 20 arpents of land under cultivation. Philippe’s 40 arpents must have been located outside of Port Royal itself, perhaps along the Cape Road where 17 houses are noted. It certainly wasn’t downtown along the main street.

Philippe probably enjoyed an unobstructed view of the river.

Or perhaps a dock stood waterside, then, as it does today.

In the 1686 census, while Philippe lived in Port Royal with his 16-year-old daughter and son who, too, was a widower, his daughter who had married Pierre Melanson/Melancon had settled at Baye des Mines.

Philippe’s two sons had moved back south and were living at Cap Sable; Jacques Sr. de Poboncouc, 27, with his wife Anne de St. Estienne, and his brother, Abraham Mius, 24, married to Marguerite de St. Estienne, along with their respective children. Jacques de La Tour Sr. de St. Estienne is living there too, married to Marie Melancon, as is Charles LaTour. I wonder if they are actually living at Cap Sable, or Pobomcoup, or some of each. 

Jacques’ designation as “Sr. [sieur] de Poboncouc” indicates that Philippe had already signed over the seigneury to him, possibly when he married.

The decision to settle back at what would become Pubnico may have been rooted in the fact that seigneuries were supposed to remain inhabited to maintain the right to the land.

The 1687 d’Aulnay Document

On October 15, 1687, Philippe signed as “d’Entremont,” the King’s prosecutor, on the following document:

We, Michel Boudrot, Lieutenant-General in Acadie, with the older settlers of the land, certify that the deceased mister d’Aunay Charnisay, formerly the King’s Governor of the coast of Acadie, constructed three forts along this coast; the first one at Pentagouêt, the second at the Saint-Jean River (in 1645 only), and the third at Port-Royal; these forts were well supplied with all the canons and munitions required! There are three hundred regular men to defend these forts.

We certify also that the late d’Aulnay Charnisay ordered the construction of two mills; one was powered by water, the other by wind power and he ordered that they build at Port-Royal five pinasses, several dories, and two small ships of seventy tons each. As well as two farms or manors and associated buildings; houses as well as barns and stables(…)

We certify that the above is true as we have seen this; we have signed this in good faith at Port-Royal on October 15, 1687, in the presence of Mr. de Menneval, King’s Governor of all of Acadie, and Mr. Petit, Grand Vicar for the Grand Bishop of Québec, and the vicar of this place Port-Royal.

Also having signed; Mr. Boudrot, Lieutenant-Governor; François Gaunizzot (Gautherot) Bourgeois; Pierre Martin; Mathieu Martin; Claude Tériot; d’Entremont, King’s prosecutor.

Also marked by: Antoine Bourg, Pierre Bouet (Doucet), Denis (Daniel) LeBlanc ; Abraham Dugast.

This document is slightly unusual because it appears that Philippe signed as a witness to something he did not actually see, given that d’Aulnay died in 1650, which is what prompted LaTour’s return. Granted, Philippe would have known about these events from literally everyone. However, with other early settlers, their signature on this document has been interpreted to mean that they arrived before d’aulnay’s demise and actually witnessed these events.

I have been unable to locate the original document, which appears no longer exists, but I was able to find a sealed copy.

By this time in his life, Philippe was an old man. Someplace either side of 80, depending on exactly when he was born.

Retirement

The following year, in 1688, Philippe was replaced as the King’s Attorney by Pierre Chenet Dubreuil. I’d wager Philippe was glad to retire. As it turned out, it was none too soon.

In 1690, Port Royal was brutally attacked by the English. The men were rounded up and taken to the church where they were held and forced to sign a loyalty oath to the English King. If he were in Port Royal, Philippe Mius, a Baron and former King’s Attorney would have been a very “high value” prisoner, so it’s unlikely he would not have been forced to sign.

His name is conspicuously absent from the list of signatures. Wherever he is, he’s not in Port Royal.

In 1693, Philippe is missing from the census, but is reported to be living in Grand Pre in 1699. Steve Cormier, in Acadians in Gray, states that Philippe “lived for a time at Minas with his older daughter and died in about 1700 at age 99, “with all his teeth,” either at Minas or Port-Royal.”

I love that part – “with all his teeth.” How did Steve find that nugget?

If Philippe died in Port Royal, the only family member he could have been living with is Abraham Mius, if in fact Abraham and his wife were living in Port Royal at that time. In 1693 Abraham was living in Cap de Sable. In 1700 his daughter married a Bourgeois, so he would have been in Port Royal, and in 1703, he is living in Port Royal.

If Philippe died in Port Royal, which I doubt, given that he seems to be absent in both 1690 and 1693, he would have been buried in the cemetery beside the fort.

His wife and daughter, both named Madeleine, might well be buried here in unmarked graves, beneath this sheltering tree, beside the Catholic church that once existed.

Philippe’s wife died after 1671 when they are living in Pobomcou and before 1678 when Philippe is living in Port Royal. His daughter died sometime after the 1686 census when they are recorded in Port Royal.

If Philippe lived in Minas with his daughter, Marguerite, who was married to Pierre Melancon/Melanson, he would have died there as well. On the map above, you can see the church in the middle of Minas, which is also known as Grand Pre.

Unfortunately, the St. Charles des Mines parish records in Minas don’t begin until 1707, but in 1714, Pierre Melanson is listed in Minas, which is Grand Pre, and not in the more distant villages.

As Philippe Mius’s only living daughter, Marguerite Mius, married to Pierre Melanson would be the most likely candidate to be his caregiver in the last few years of his life.

Philippe has signed the seigneury and Barony over to his eldest son, Jacques, who used the surname d’Entremont and lived at Pobomcoup. Philippe’s son Abraham moved between Port Royal and Pobomcoup, and his son, Philippe lived among the Native people.

If Philippe Mius (the father) resided with his daughter, Marguerite Mius Melanson, he would have lived along the rivers at Minas where Acadians could farm as they had become accustomed in Port Royal, and probably in France before that.

There’s a Melanson Cemetery, here, along the beautiful Gaspereau River, which is likely where Pierre Melanson settled and established his family. So this is probably where Philippe Mius lived with his daughter and son-in-law in his sunset years.

The expansive tidal salt marshes at Grand Pre became known as the breadbasket of Acadia, and were similar to the Melanson settlement back at Port Royal, along with the salt marshes of Pobomcoup. Philippe would have felt quite at home.

Given that the Melanson settlement at Grand Pre is only about four miles away from the church, it’s probable that Philippe is buried in the cemetery beside the church at Grand Pre, assuming that he was in fact Catholic at his death. Given that he was the very Catholic French King‘s Attorney, if Philippe was not Catholic initially, it’s very likely that he had converted by 1670.

Depending on whether Philippe was born in 1609, as indicated in the census, or more like 1600, as indicated in the letter regarding his death, he would have been between 79 and 88 when he retired. It would make sense that he woult have gone to live with his daughter at that time.

Perhaps on Sundays after attending church with his daughter and her family at Grand Pre, Philippe stood outside the church, his aching bones soaking up the warmth from the stone walls. Looking across the field, his gaze might have wandering back to France, where he grew up and where he left his family for the new world.

Were any of those family members still alive?

What had happened to them?

Maybe his memories drifted to Pobomcoup where he had probably buried his beloved wife, Madeleine, who, as a bride, had left the old world based solely on faith in him alone. She had been gone for years now, but he could still feel her beside him.

During their marriage, they buried more children than survived, most of them at Pomobcoup. They may also have buried one in France, one at sea, and another at Port LaTour before they settled alone along the Pobomcoup shoreline. One of their children would have been the first to be buried there, maybe in 1652 or 1656, unless a visiting sailor or trader died first.

Then another four or five tiny caskets would be buried in the cemetery, wherever it was, at Pobomcoup. Maybe those graves were the ones disturbed more than two centuries later by the railroad construction.

Later, Philippe would bury their youngest daughter who died after 1686 too, perhaps alongside her mother, maybe in Port Royal if she died there – or maybe even after they left for Minas.

The graves in the cemetery beside each church would have been marked with white wooden crosses. By the time the English removed the Acadians in 1755, all of them, including Philippe’s cross at Grand Pre would long ago have returned to the earth.

No marked graves survived, but we know where the cemetery at Grand Pre is located due to burials being accidentally unearthed, then reburied, decades ago.

Today, the location is marked by this stone cross, honoring and remembering all Acadians buried here.

If Philippe is not buried at Grand Pre, then he is likely at Pubnico.

A Final Note

On December 3, 1707, the King’s Secretary, Sieur Mathieu de Goutin, wrote to the ministers that, “Sieur Philippe d’Entremont, a native of Normandy, died seven years ago at the age of 99 years and some months. For 18 years, and until old age rendered him incapable, he was ‘Procureur du Roi’”.

Mathieu’s short letter provides us with four key pieces of information:

1. That Philippe was the King’s Attorney until 1688 and had been appointed in 1670.
2. That Philippe died in 1700, age 99 and some months. This seems strangely specific in terms of his age to be incorrect. On the other hand, we all know of cases where “old people” are remembered as being significantly older than they are.
3. That Philippe was replaced as the King’s Attorney because “old age rendered him incapable,” which, of course makes me sad. We’ll never know if incapable means a physical issue, or another way of saying dementia. Either way, he lived for another dozen years, so I hope he wasn’t miserable.
4. That Philippe was stated as being from Normandy. That was probably mentioned because it’s unusual among the Acadians who were mostly from the Loudunais in La Vienne where similar marshlands are found.

But, was Philippe Mius from Normandy?

The late Acadian historian and genealogist, Father Clarence d’Entremont, wrote:

• In the introduction to his book “History of Cape Sable”, volume 1, pages xviii and xix: “There is however the question of the origin of Baron Philippe Mius d’Entremont, that we have not been able to resolve adequately.
• In volume 3, chapter 17, page 813, he reiterates “…after having explored all possible avenues, we know absolutely nothing certain on the subject of Philippe Mius d’Entremont before his arrival in Acadia”.
• In addition, on page 790 of his book, replying to those who state that Philippe was from Cherbourg, Normandy, d’Entremont writes: “there is no document on which to base this latter allegation”.

We actually do have confirming information from a second source now, but not specifically about where in Normandy. I’ll share that find in a separate article, soon.

Chapter 1 – The Overview

This was just Chapter 1, the summary overview of Philippe’s life. There are three or four more chapters to come.

Oh, did you think we were done? We’re not! Philippe was a complex man who lived in an unsettled and complex time, and he has a lot to say! He’s important, the history informed by his life and times is important, and it’s important to get this right.

Join me soon for, “Returning Home to Pubnico,” where I’ll take you along on my personal journey to visit Philippe, the founding father of Pubnico.

_____________________________________________________________

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Marguerite Hebert was born around 1652 to Etienne Hebert and Marie Gaudet in or near Port Royal, Acadia.

Marguerite’s life is at least partially documented, but at the same time uncertain, in part because we have conflicting information that has proven impossible to sort through and resolve.

Marguerite Hebert is first found in the 1671 census as the last entry on this page with her recently widowed mother.

Marie Gaudet, widow of Etienne Hebert, 38. She has 10 children, two married children: Marie 20, Marguerite 19; Emmanuel 18, not yet married, Etienne 17, Jean 13, Francoise 10, Catherine 9, Martine 6, Michel 5, Antoine 1, 4 cattle, 5 sheep and 3 arpents of cultivated land

The 1671 census is unique in that married children are listed with their parents, plus in their own households. This is the BEST IDEA EVER, because females are listed by their birth surname, and this census clearly ties them to their parents AND spouse, even without parish records.

Except, that is, for Marguerite.

Of course.

Marie Gaudet’s entry on the census page clearly states that two of her children are married and lists them. Marie Hebert, Marguerite’s older sister by a year is shown in the census entry above Marie Gaudet’s entry, married to Michel de Forest, living in her own household.

Marguerite Hebert’s husband, whoever he might have been, is no place to be found, and neither is Marguerite found in another household.

What gives?

Great question. I wish I knew the answer.

Marguerite’s mother’s household had to be in quite the state of upheaval. Marguerite’s father had recently died, leaving his wife with ten stair-step children, including a one-year-old.

By the 1678 census, Marguerite Hebert was married to Jacques LePrince and was shown with 1 child, a girl, but no age is given. Ages are provided for children in other families in that census.

It’s possible, based on how far upriver Marguerite and Jacques are living, that the census taker simply didn’t venture out that far and asked the closest neighbor that they did visit, or maybe someone at the church in Port Royal.

So, if Marguerite is married to Jacques and has a child in 1678, and IF that child is the first child born after their wedding, then they would have been married by 1676 or 1677.

If this was not their firstborn child, they could have been married prior to 1671 – except that begs the question of where Jacques LePrince was in the 1671 census, and why Marguerite is shown as married, but not in another household with her spouse. Not to mention, where are the children born between 1671 and 1678, aside from that one girl?

If Jacques is living with Marguerite in her mother’s home, which would seem like a reasonable scenario given that her mother was recently widowed and would desperately need help, why isn’t he listed there?

So many unanswered questions!

Who is Jacques LePrince?

Jacques LePrince is a conundrum, too.  I wrote about Jacques, here, including the uncertainty about his early years.

To summarize, there is a soldier with the Carignan Company who served in Trois Rivieres, near Quebec City, between 1665 and 1667. Additionally, a man by that same name is found as a valet to a notary in the 1666 Quebec census in Trois Rivieres.

Are those two different men, or one?

Additionally, the Jacques LePrince who is a soldier witnesses a marriage in 1667, and he is probably the same man who witnessed another marriage on April 15, 1671. He is never found in Quebec records again.

Given that the 1671 Acadian census was taken in the spring of 1671, how would it be possible for him to be married in Port Royal, and in Quebec, hundreds of miles away from his wife? That journey takes from 1-3 months by ship.

Furthermore, the transfer of control of Acadia from the English to the French had only taken place in September of 1670, which is when the census was ordered, so it would be very unlikely for Jacques to have been in Acadia before that occurred.

More questions!

Who Is Marguerite Married To in 1671?

It would be outside any norm, but somehow, it might have been possible for Marguerite Hebert to be married to Jacques LePrince in 1671.

It’s also possible that Marguerite could have married, then become widowed prior to the census and was actually living with her mother. If Marguerite was widnowed, would she have been listed as such if she was living with her mother? We don’t know.

Acadian females tended to marry quite young, so she could well have given birth to a child or two by this time. Those children could have died too.

I realize there are a lot of speculative words of uncertainty here – but it’s a perplexing situation, and we can only work with the information we have. The only things we know for sure are her age, that she was or had been married, and that there’s no sign of a husband or household elsewhere. This is not a “normal” situation.

It’s also possible that the Jacques LePrince(s) in Quebec in 1666 and in April of 1671, and the Jacques LePrince who arrived in Acadia at some point and married Marguerite Hebert are entirely different people. The ship L’Oranger sailed from La Rochelle in the spring of 1671 with 50 new settlers to resupply the colony. Jacques could have arrived on that (or another) ship.

Marguerite Hebert’s Children

I’m going to create a table to track Marguerite Hebert’s children, because they aren’t straightforward either.

Nothing about Marguerite is straightforward.

In the 1678 census, based on the neighbors, Jacques La Prence and Marguerite are living far upriver, across from present-day Bridgetown, on four arpents of land, with five cattle, and one female child. Oliver Daigle lives next door, and Marguerite’s brother, Jean Hebert is an unmarried neighbor as well.

The 1686 census shows that Jacques and Marguerite have four children, but does NOT give names and ages, although the census taker does provide that information for other families. They have five sheep and 3 hogs, but no land is listed, nor a gun. Both are quite unusual, especially given that they are literally living the furthest distance from Port Royal of any family in the river valley.

	1678 census	1686 census	1693 census	1715 census
Jacques LePrince	No age	40 (1646)	Deceased 1691-1693
Marguerite Hebert	No age	35 (1651)	40 (1653)
1678	Girl born in 1678 or before	Child	Marguerite, 15 (1678)
1680		Child	Francois, twin, 13 (1680)	Francois (no age)
1680		Child	Jacques (actually Antoine), twin, 13 (1680)	Antoine (no age)
1682		Child	Missing
1684
1686
1687			Estienne, 5 (1687)
1689
1691
1692			Francoise, 1 (1692)

By the 1693 census, Marguerite and Jacques have moved from Port Royal to Minas, where, finally, names and ages of children are given. However, Jacques has died, and no land or livestock was listed.

Unfortunately, problems exist with this census accounting too. According to multiple later records, the twin recorded as Jacques is actually named Antoine. Also, we know that son Jean LePrince, who is unlisted here, was born around 1692, so either the child listed as Francoise is actually Jean, or Jean was born to Marguerite in 1693 after the census was taken.

Or, some other even more unusual perturbation has occurred.

Unfortunately, Marguerite now finds herself in the same position as her mother in 1671 – a widow with young children. Except it looks like Marguerite had absolutely no resources – no son-in-law living next door, no land and not even a cow. What was she to do? How was she supposed to feed her family?

How did she feed her family?

In 1671, there were a total of 68 households and about 378 residents in Port Royal and living along the Riviere Dauphin, now the Annapolis River Valley.

In 1693, just 22 years later, in the entire Minas Basin, a much more dispersed area, there were 55 households with 307 residents. Minas was not settled until about 1682, so, in just a decade, it had grown to be about 80% as large as the Port Royal area had been in 1671. By 1693, Port Royal and the surrounding area had about 81 homes and around 500 people.

Marguerite is missing entirely from the 1701, 1703, and 1707 census, and she shouldn’t be. We know she was alive and she had to be living someplace. Unfortunately, widows weren’t enumerated in Minas in 1701 and 1703, but they were in 1707, so where was she living?

What happened in 1704 may provides clues.

The 1714 census is simply a list of male heads of household, so Marguerite is not listed. Her twin sons who married in 1712 are present on the Pisiquid list, as is her son-in-law.

What Do We Actually Know About Marguerite Hebert?

Marguerite’s parents, Etienne Hebert and Marie Gaudet, lived on the upper reaches of the Riviere Dauphin, now the Annapolis River, near today’s Bridgetown. At that time, Bridgetown was called Gaudet Village.

Based on later maps and information, it appears that Marguerite may have grown up in or near the area of Chapman Avenue above the cemeteries. The Old Pioneer Cemetery is shown at far left, above.

Various homes in the Gaudet Village may have been located near the arrows.

Today, we can’t see much from the road at the location of the upper arrow, and I couldn’t get to the land at the lower arrow at all.

The land cross the road from the entrance to the main Riverside Cemetery.

Regardless of exactly where Marguerite’s parents lived, it wasn’t far between the Hebert and Gaudet family clusters along the river. Jean Prince (LePrince) eventually farmed his father’s land across from the Gaudet Village.

Marguerite grew up in a mostly peaceful time, that is, until 1690 when the English brutally attacked Port Royal. Thankfully for Marguerite, she and her family were living upriver, and while they would have heard about the attack, and the subsequent pirate attack, they were beyond the immediate brutality. They may have gone into hiding for safety. Marguerite’s husband, Jacques LePrince, was not on the list of men that were sequestered against their will in the church in Port Royal and forced to sign a loyalty oath to the English monarchy.

However, Marguerite and Jacques may have already left for Minas, or Pisiquid, wherever they originally settled – or these 1690 events at Port Royal may have pushed them over the edge.

Family Migration

Several of Marguerite’s siblings had migrated, or would, to Minas. The family was already used to living remotely from Port Royal, so living even more distantly didn’t much matter. It would have been safer, away from English interference, and provided the advantage of opening new lands that may have been more plentiful and fertile.

Minas soon became the breadbasket of Acadia.

Marguerite’s siblings were:

• Marie Hebert, who was born about 1651, married Michel Le Forest and died about 1677 in Port Royal. Her son, Michel Forest was in Minas by 1693, as was his brother, Pierre. Their sister, Gabrielle Forest married Pierre Brassard and they made their way to Minas too.
• Emmanuel Hebert, born about 1653, married Andree Brun. They lived most of their lives in Port Royal, but after her death in 1727, Emmanuel made his way to Grand Pre where most of his children were already living. He died there in 1744.
• Etienne Hebert, born about 1654, married Jeanne Comeau and was settled in Les Mines by April of 1682 when his second child was baptized. He was one of the founding families and died there in 1713.
• Jean Hebert, born about 1659, married Jeanne Doiron around 1692 in Minas. They settled in Pisiquid. He died around 1744.
• Francoise Hebert, born about 1661, married Jean Comeau. In 1705, the family was still in Port Royal, but by 1707, they were recorded in Les Mines. However, she died in Port Royal in 1713 and was buried in the Saint-Laurent Chapel at BelleIsle.
• Catherine Hebert, born about 1662 married Philippe Pinet. In 1682, they were in Beaubassin, but in 1683, they baptized a child in Grand Pre where they settled. Philippe died about 1710, and by 1714 she had moved to Ile Royale (Cape Breton) with her children where she worked as a gardener. She died in Louisbourg in 1727.
• Martine Hebert, born about 1665, married Nicolas Barrieau. In 1686, the couple was still in Port Royal, but by 1693, they had made the move to Les Mines where she died sometime after 1726, probably in Pisiquid where she was living in 1714.
• Michel Hebert was born about 1666 and married Isabelle Pellerin around 1692. The young couple went to Minas where they were living in 1693. They moved around a bit, were at Riviere des Gaspereau in 1701, back to Les Mines in 1703 and 1707, Port Royal in 1714, then back to Grand Pre/Les Mines in 1715. He died in Les Mines in 1735 or 1736 (date transcription discrepancy) and was buried in the cemetery at Les Minas.
• Antoine Hebert, born about 1670, married twice and lived his life in Port Royal, dying before July of 1753.

Here’s the Shocker!

• Marguerite’s half-sister, Marie Gareau, born about 1677, married twice, but had no children with her first husband. She married the second time to Jerome Darois in 1698. By 1701, they were in Les Mines. In 1706, their son was born as the couple was held hostage in Boston. After their release, they returned to the Minas Basin where Jerome died in 1750. In 1755, Marie was exiled to Virginia where she died.

Wait! What? Held Hostage?

What is going on?

Take a deep breath, pull up a chair and sit down! Maybe get a beverage too.

As it turned out, during Queen Anne’s War, the English, with 17 ships and 550 men, attacked Grand Pre in June of 1704.

Their goal was retaliation and to capture Acadian prisoners to exchange for hostages being held by the French in Montreal resulting from the February raid on Deerfield, Massachusetts. Colonel Benjamin Church’s orders were specifically to:

Use all possible methods for the burning and destroying of the enemies houses and breaking the dams of their corn grounds, and make what other spoil you can upon them.

After arriving in the waters at Grand Pre, Col. Church sent one of his lieutenants ahead, under the white flag of truce, with this proclamation, giving the Acadians and Mi’kmaq one hour to surrender.

We do also declare, that we have already made some beginnings of killing and scalping some Canada men, which we have not been wont to do or allow, and are now come with a great number of English and Indians, all volunteers, with resolutions to subdue you, and make you sensible of your cruelties to us, by treating you after the same manner.

Church expected that his men would have reached the village from behind by the time the hour had passed, but that’s not what happened.

Church’s raid on Grand Pre began something like the Keystone Cops, as his soldiers didn’t understand the extremely high tides in the basin, over 20 feet in some places, with high tide sometimes reaching 52 feet.

Their ignorance combined with the strong tidal rivers caused them to get themselves stuck. At the time they were attempting to come ashore, the tide was receding, which means it was rushing out at more than 33 feet a minute at a rate of about 10 miles an hour, eventually miring his struggling soldiers in mud flats.

I’d laugh if this hadn’t evolved so tragically.

The Acadians were clearly not surrendering, and the delay provided them with the opportunity to evacuate, taking at least some of their cattle and “best goods,” according to Church.

After becoming hopelessly stuck and very muddy, the soldiers extracted themselves and returned to their boats.

The English waited overnight for high tide, but that tide was so high that it elevated their whale boats enough that it exposed them to gunfire from the local militia, Acadian men and their Mi’kmaq allies who had taken cover in the woods along the banks. While the Acadians clearly understood the gravity of the situation, and how vulnerable they were in the face of warships, they must have been at least a little amused. Right up until Church fired his cannon at them, killing one and injuring others, forcing their retreat.

Grand Pre had no fort or defensive structures, so the Acadians were entirely exposed.

Overnight, the English successfully regrouped and tricked the Acadians into believing they were retreating, but they weren’t.

On the morning of the third day, the English attacked the village where, that evening, they proceeded to burn at least 60 homes and even more barns, six mills, and the church. Benjamin Church stated that, “the whole town seemed to be on fire all at once,” and all but one home was burned.

Church’s soldiers tore down the dykes to flood their fields with saltwater, and burned the crops, destroying the harvest.

On the fourth day, Church’s men proceeded on upriver to raid Pisiquid where they took 45 prisoners, then began the trip back to Port Royal to rejoin the fleet blockading the port there.

For comparison purposes, the 1703 Acadian census at Les Mines, which included Pisiquid, shows a total of 61 homes, so Church may have been exactly right – only one house was left standing. That means that Marguerite’s home, along with those of her siblings and children, were all burned.

Another source says that 100 hostages were taken, that the English took as many as they wanted, and that only 5 homes were left standing in Grand Pre. That statement is believed to apply to the larger area surrounding Grand Pre, which would include Pisiquid.

That may have been an slight exaggeration or a bit of braggadocio, given that it was Church’s later telling, but who knows what actually happened. Exaggeration or not, one home or five left standing, the attack was shocking and brutal, and no one in the Minas area was unscathed.

Hostages 

The hostages were loaded up and shipped to Boston.

After arriving in Boston, initially the captives were given free rein of the town, but when citizens complained later in 1704, they were confined to Castle William in the harbour and Fort Hill in Boston proper. They were ultimately exchanged in two groups in 1705 and 1706.

Eighteen months later, in December of 1705, the first group of 57 Acadian hostages was released. In September 1706, after being held for 27 months, the second group of 51 was released and arrived back in Port Royal on September 16^th.

Thankfully, the parish records at Port Royal reveal a little more of their story. The captives returned to Port Royal before continuing on their way back to Minas. We know this because two baptisms took place for children who were born while their parents were held hostage in Boston. In one case, the parents of the Doiron baby were officially married in the Catholic faith three days later by the priest, although they had been civilly married in Boston during their captivity.

Father Justimen Durand officially baptized the two babies born in Boston just five days after they arrived in Port Royal.

On September 21, 1706 he baptized Louis Mathieu Douairon who was born on February 1, 1706 in Boston to Marie Henry and Noel Douairon (Doiron), and was baptized there by Jean Douiron. Jean had to be either the father or brother of Noel, because there were no other candidates by that name. Noel’s father also lived in Pisiquid, as did his brother.

Of course, this tidbit also tells us that Jean Doiron was being held in Boston at that time as well. It also raises another question. I suspect that there were more than two babies born and baptized in Boston. Why are there only two baptisms in Port Royal? Noel’s father, Jean Doiron, was having children in 1705 and 1706, so I would have expected at least one baptism back in Port Royal – but there are none other than these two, both for children purportedly born on the same day.

On the same page, we find the baptism of Paul Davonois, born February 1, 1706 to Marie Gavoche and Jerome Davonais. Godparent, Pierre Prince.

The names were mistranslated on the archives website and are actually Jerome Darois and Marie Gareau

On the twenty-sixth of September 1706, I the undersigned, performing the curial functions, supplied the ceremonies of baptism for Paul Darois, son of Jérôme Darois and Marie Gareau, his lawful wife.

He was born in Boston on the first of February of the present year, and was baptized conditionally.

The godfather Jean Prince was not able to be present, and the godmother…

Signed:
Fr. Justimen Durand, Recollect missionary

Marie Gareau was Marguerite Hebert’s half-sister. Jean Prince (LePrince) was Marguerite Hebert’s son, which means Jean was Marie Gareau’s half-nephew. Jean was not at the baptism, which is somewhat remarkable because he married at Port Royal in 1715, which suggested the possibility that he grew up there.

If Jean was not in Port Royal in 1706, when he was 13 or 14, that hints that he may have been living with his mother in Pisiquid, and that his mother, Marguerite, if she was a hostage, was not in the group released in 1706 either. Of course, that doesn’t mean she wasn’t kidnapped. She, along with her family, could have been released in 1705.

It’s unusual that the only two babies baptized were born on the same day. Perhaps that date was an estimate.

The Acadians in Grand Pre had clearly not been prepared to defend themselves. Needless to say, they never again trusted the English – and with good reason. Fifty years later, the English did even worse to the Acadians.

If 108 hostages were taken, I wonder how many residents were not taken.

In 1707, the year after the last of the hostages had been returned, there were 88 households in all of Minas with about 575 residents. That means that about one in five people across the entire region were taken hostage.

In 1714, the only census that lists Pisiquid separately, there were 57 households, with 372 people. Realizing that 1714 is a decade later, it looks like about one third of the population of Pisiquid was taken hostage.

In 1714, there were an additional 47 households listed separately at Minas, so the region-wide population probably hadn’t changed much.

My initial reaction was that the English probably didn’t want children, so most of the hostages would have been couples or at least not young children. However, further research revealed that exactly the opposite was true. According to Church’s own memoirs, the majority of the hostages were wives and children of Acadian farmers. He stated that this was a tactical decision, and said he took between 45 and 100 prisoners at Grand Pre, a large portion of whom were families.

I can’t help but wonder if the Pisiquid families weren’t warned in enough time to disappear into the woods or seek safety elsewhere. Surely, they didn’t just sit there, waiting.

Maybe they thought that one of the safest places they could be was far down the Riviere Hebere, where the English wouldn’t have dared to go. The English had never attacked there before, so maybe they were well-enough hidden? That’s initially what I thought too, but that clearly wasn’t true.

Where was our Marguerite? Was she taken hostage? Her children? She would have been 52 or 53 at the time.

In 1704 when the English arrived, her youngest child would have been Jean LePrince who was about 11 if he was born after the 1693 census. Francoise, if she actually existed and was still living was 12. Estienne would have been about 15. The twin boys, Francois and Antoine, 22.

There’s a lot of confusion about Marguerite’s oldest daughter or two oldest daughters, so I’ll leave that for the next section.

At least Marguerite and her siblings had each other. Someone cared for her sister, Marie Gareau’s children during her two-year absence, assuming they weren’t all taken hostage too.

Pisiquid

Only one of Marguerite’s siblings remained permanently in Port Royal, aside from her older sister, Marie who died there in 1677, although Marie’s husband and children made their way to Minas as well.

Virtually all of Marguerite’s family left Port Royal, so it’s little wonder that she and Jacques LePrince departed too. This is presuming that Jacques didn’t die in Port Royal first.

Marguerite couldn’t have been in a better place to receive the support she needed while raising her family alone. Still, I wonder what happened to her, how she lived, where and with whom? I also wonder if she remarried and we simply don’t have the records, meaning we don’t know to whom. It was quite unusual for widows, especially with young children, to remain single. That would also explain why she doesn’t appear in later censuses where she would be expected to be found.

I did have one other fleeting thought. I hope that Jacques LePrince didn’t just disappear, either willingly or against his will – leaving Marguerite with no closure or resolution, and also unable to remarry.

Sometimes the frontier was unforgivingly harsh.

Marguerite’s Children

We have yet another mystery.

The census tells us only so much.

We already know the census was “odd,” with no information provided when other families had information, and then in another census listing erroneous names of children.

I don’t want to read anything more into this than there is, but there are a lot of “strange” things, both with Jacques LePrince and his family, and then with their son, Jean LePrince and his.

Some of the circumstances leave me uneasy.

That said, let’s see what we have.

Some of the children are relatively straightforward, but the most challenging ones are the oldest.

I’m going to discuss Marguerite’s children in birth order.

Referring back to the chart I made for her children, you’ll recall that Marguerite was noted as age 19 and married in the 1671 census. However, no husband or family is recorded, aside from her deceased father, mother and siblings.

An Acadian female would be expected to have married by age 19, so it would be somewhat unusual if Marguerite had NOT married.

If we are to take the census-taker at his word, this would mean one of three things:

1. Marguerite’s husband and household were missed in the census
2. Marguerite was married, but had been widowed, and was living with her mother who had recently been widowed and had young children.
3. Marguerite was married or widowed, and had given birth to children or was pregnant. In either case, there are no signs of multiple children in the next census, so we are left to presume Marguerite buried three or four children between 1671 and 1677, or so.

Given that Marguerite and family were living in the proximity of Port Royal, those babies might have been buried beside the church in Port Royal, which isn’t terribly likely since they lived far upriver.

They could have been buried at Saint Laurent “Mass House” at BelleIsle, which is closer to where they lived and where one of Marguerite’s siblings is buried.

Or, perhaps they were laid to rest in the old pioneer cemetery in what was the Gaudet Village, found in present-day Bridgetown. Marguerite’s mother was Marie Gaudet, so the unmarked portion of the Old Pioneer Cemetery would be my best guess, but we’ll never know for sure.

Or, maybe the original cemetery was located in the oldest part of the Riverview Cemetery, off of Chapman Avenue, in the unmarked portion near the river.

We don’t know which Bridgetown cemetery is older and was established first, and no records exist in any of the churches for that timeframe.

One thing is certain. It would have been virtually impossible to travel all the way back to Port Royal for burials, and burials couldn’t exactly wait. Out of pure necessity, there was certainly a cemetery someplace here and it was likely continued when the New England settlers took over the Acadian farms after 1755.

Marguerite LePrince

By the 1678 census, Marguerite is shown living with her husband and one female child, with no age given. In 1686, four children are reported, but no names or ages are included. It’s not until 1693 that we have names for Marguerite’s children.

Therein lies the rub. We know the 1693 census wrongly recorded at least one of Marguerite’s children, and possibly two or three. That’s not very good odds and reduces our confidence in the remainder of the information.

In 1693, Marguerite Hebert, the widow of Jacques LePrince, is living in Mines.

The 1693 census shows that Marguerite’s oldest daughter, also named Marguerite, is age 15, which maps exactly to the one female child in 1678. Is Marguerite that child?

However, there’s one Marguerite LaPrincesse, age 12, living with Daniel LeBlanc in Port Royal at BelleIsle, as a servant. Daniel LeBlanc is 66, living with Francoise Godet, his wife, 76, Pierre 28, Pierre the son of Pierre, 7, and two servants, Jean LaForet and Marguerite LaPrincess. Daniel has a large farm with 20 cattle, 35 sheep, 9 pigs, on 18 arpents of land, and owns 3 guns. He is clearly not a poor farmer.

Given that Daniel’s son, Joseph LeBlanc, seems to be widowed and raising a child, they may have taken servants to help with both household and farm chores.

We don’t know when Jacques LePrince died, or when Marguerite Hebert moved to Mines. Regardless, her daughter, Marguerite LePrince, can’t be living in two places at the same time.

There are also no other Prince males in Acadia, so if the Marguerite LaPrincess living with Daniel is a Prince or LePrince, she has to be Jacques’ child.

I have to ask this out loud. Why on earth would a mother leave her 12-year-old daughter as a servant in someone’s home and move to the next frontier?

The only reason I can imagine is that Marguerite Hebert was just dirt poor and had no other choice. That’s certainly possible following Jacques’ death. Yet, she had several siblings in Minas who would have helped feed her, so I’m baffled.

Marguerite LePrince married Francois Tillard around 1701 in Port Royal. My first thought was that this was very unlikely to be Marguerite Hebert’s daughter, but a deeper dive shows that it almost certainly was.

Marguerite LePrince and Francois Tillard had four children:

• Marie Louise Tillard born around 1701 and died in 1751. Marie married Claude Trahan of Pisiquit about 1724.
• Francois Tillard born 1712 in Annapolis Royal, married Marie Denis in 1732 in Minas. His father is Francois Pillard, decd, and Marguerite Prince of Pigiguit of the parish of l’Assomption de la tres Ste. Vierge. Antoine LePrince (Marguerite Hebert’s son) is a witness. In 1742, Rene LePrince is Godfather to their child. L’Assomption is the Pisiquid parish, and the one closest to Riviere Hebere.
• Marguerite Tillard was born in 1714 in Port Royal, and married in Minas in 1734 to Joseph Dueron from Cobequid. Her mother is Marguerite LePrince.
• Magdelaine Tillard was born about about 1717 and married in 1738 in Minas to Francois Doiron. Mother is listed as Marguerite LePrince.

Marguerite LePrince apparently moved to Minas after Francois Tillard died, sometime after 1717 and before 1724 when her daughter, Marie married Claude Trahan from Pisiquid.

In 1734, Marguerite LePrince, daughter of Jacques LePrince and Marguerite Hebert, both deceased, received dispensation for a third degree of consanguinity and married in Minas to Jean Hebert, who lived at Cobequid. Their common 3^rd degree ancestor would have been the unknown parent of Marguerite Hebert’s father, Etienne, and his brother, Antoine Hebert. This confirms that Marguerite LePrince who married Jean Hebert is Marguerite Hebert’s daughter.

All of this, taken together, strongly suggests that indeed, the Marguerite LePrince who was a servant to Daniel LeBlanc in 1693, and who was also listed with her mother in Minas, is the same person who remained in Port Royal when her mother moved.

What we don’t know is whether Marguerite was born in 1678, as the census with her mother states, or was born in 1681 as her age listed with Daniel LeBlanc states.

We don’t know when Marguerite LePrince died, other than it was after her daughter Magdelaine Tillard married in 1738.

This brings us to the second challenge. An unrecorded daughter.

Anne LePrince

In the 1678 census, only one child is shown for Marguerite Hebert, a daughter. In 1686, four children are shown, so one born around 1678ish, the twins in 1680, and a child in the 1682 slot that’s missing later.

Or, maybe, just maybe, the oldest child is actually Anne LePrince, followed by the twin boys, then Marguerite, born in 1681.

If that is the case, then where is Anne in 1693?

We already know that the 1693 census is flawed. Maybe Marguerite actually was living with Daniel LeBlanc and never moved to Minas with her mother.

Perhaps the “slot” for Anne is taken by Marguerite’s name. We know that the census-taker got one of the twins’ names wrong too, and possibly misreported Francoise in place of Jean.

So, the next question is, how do we know Anne existed, at all?

• On July 18, 1709, Rose Rivet was born and baptized that September in Minas to Etienne Rivet and Anne Prince.
• Two years later, in the same months, Michel Rivet was born and baptized in Minas to the same parents. Antoine Prince, Marguerite’s son, stood as Godfather.

This suggests that Anne LePrince was married to Etienne Rivet by at least 1708. The Minas parish records only exist from 1707. If Anne was born in 1678, she would have been 30 by this time, a spinster by Acadian norms. Of course, she could easily have been married several years earlier.

There’s more.

After the Expulsion of 1755, some of Anne’s descendants wound up on Belle-Ile-en-Mer where they were initially housed in a warehouse adjacent the Palais inside one of the city gates where they gave depositions about their French origins.

While that sounds brutal, it wasn’t, because for the first time in more than a decade since the 1755 Expulsion, they were safe and free and awaiting assignment to land, homes and livestock in various locations around the island.

When I first tried to sort through this quagmire of testimony, I initially thought that this Anne was not the daughter of our Marguerite Hebert, but putting everything together, it certainly appears that she was.

In 1755, the Acadians who eventually wound up on Belle-Ile-en-Mer were rounded up, held in Fort Edward at Pisiquid where they were informed of their fate, then shipped to Virginia, where their ship was ultimately refused. The ship was sent on to England, where the Acadian passengers suffered, essentially as prisoners of war, living in cramped conditions in warehouses along the docks until after the Treaty of 1763 ended the conflict. 242 Acadians arrived in Liverpool, but many died of disease, especially smallpox during the seven years they were held there. Many of the English complimented the work ethic of the “Neutrals.”

In 1763, with the end of the war, they were repatriated to various locations in France, where the French government and citizens helped them establish new homes.

One of those locations was Belle-Ile-en-Mer.

Part of the process was to explain how they were French, so depositions were taken where we learn the following:

• Rose Rivet, born in 1760, was the child of Jean Rivet and Rosalie Bonniere. Jean Rivet was the son of Estienne Rivet and Anne LePrince who lived at Pisiquid and were members of the Sainte Famille Parish in 1727.
• Anne’s first child, Marie Rose Rivet swore that she was born at Pisiguit, in the parish of La Sainte Famille, on July 18, 1707 to Anne LePrince and Estienne Rivet, and that Anne (her mother) died in Maryland after she was deported in 1755.

The deposition then continues to say that all of Anne LePrince’s children were born at Pisiquit, when they were born, and what happened to them.

• Michel Rivet born in 1709 died in 1740.
• Etienne Rivet born in 1717 was transported to Maryland with his family.
• Anne Rivet born in 1719 died in Pisiguit in 1750.
• Claire Rivet born in 1723 was transported with her family to Maryland

If Claire was Anne’s youngest child, Anne would have been 43 years old when Claire was born, which is just about right.

Anne LePrince survived the deportation itself, and died, hopefully surrounded by her family, in Maryland. She would have been 77 in 1755 when forcibly herded onto those ships, with no possessions, to endure the freezing winter crossing.

Francois LePrince

Francois is the only one of Marguerite Hebert’s children whose documentation is consistent.

Twins were rare in Acadia. He and his twin brother, Antoine, were born about 1680 in Port Royal, according to the census.

By 1693, he was age 13, living with his widowed mother in Minas.

Francois and his twin brother had a double wedding in 1712 in Minas. Actually, it was a triple wedding, but I haven’t figured out a blood relationship to the third couple, if they were related. Fortunately, the Minas parish registers were taken to Louisiana and still exist.

• Francois Prince (<father’s name omitted> and Marguerite Hebert) married May 23, 1712 Catherine Benois (Martin Benois and Marie Chosegros of Pigiguit), witnesses Jacques Terriot, signed, Pierre Forets, signed, Guillaume Trahan, mark, Francois Rimbauld, mark, Pierre Benois, mark, Francois Michel, mark, Francois Prince, mark, Catherine Benois, mark. Triple wedding with Louis Sire/Marie Joseph Michel and Francois Prince/Catherine Benois (SGA-1,11)

Based on this and other information, while they were probably married in the church in Minas, they would have been living in Pisiquid, which is a significant distance from where the church was located in Grand Pre, the hub of the settlement.

Francois and Catherine had seven known children, and probably another five or six who did not survive.

We don’t know when Francois died, other than it was after his youngest child was born in 1731, and before the 1750 census on which he does not appear.

Many of his children sought refuge at Port LaJoye on Ile-St-Jean, today’s Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island, which was initially supposed to be a safe-haven. From there, about 3500 Acadian refugees were imprisoned and shipped on to France. Three overcrowded ships, the Duke William, the Violet and the Ruby tragically sank, killing hundreds. 

Francois’s youngest son, Claude, perished on December 13, 1758 along with his wife and three children when the Duke William sank after being separated from the rest of the fleet during a severe storm. Her mast broke, and her hull failed, causing the ship to be overwhelmed with water and sink near Falmouth, England.

More than 360 passengers, if you can call them that, drowned, but the captain, crew, priest and a few others managed to survive in small boats.

Noel Doiron, whose son, Louis Mathieu, was born in Boston as a hostage in 1706, was aboard that ship, along with Louis, Noel’s wife and four of their other children – 50 years after they survived being kidnapped, held as hostages, and released.

I can only imagine the indescribable terror.

Antoine LePrince

Antoine LePrince celebrated his wedding with his twin brother, Francois. Perhaps the wild roses that still grace the Acadian homelands were in full bloom.

• Antoine Prince, (Jacques Prince, decd, and Marguerite Hebert, of the parish of des Mines), married May 23, 1712 Anne Trahan (Guillaume Trahan and <mother omitted>, habitants of Piguguit), witnesses Jacques Terriot, signed, Pierre Forets, signed, Guillaume Trahan, mark, Francois Michel, mark, Antoine Prince, mark, Anne Trahan, mark. Triple wedding with Louis Sire/Marie Joseph Michel and Francois Prince/Catherine Benois (SGA-1,11)

I can’t help but think about that joyful gathering. They probably planned carefully, coordinating a trip to Minas so a priest would be present. Everyone from the neighborhood, even though it was miles away, probably made the journey because they wanted to attend all three ceremonies.

Had they married in the local parish, Sainte Famille, at Pisiquid, we would have no record today because those parish records no longer exist.

Antoine LePrince and Anne had nine known children, and probably another four or five who didn’t live to adulthood.

In 1730, Antoine’s name appeared on the list of Pisiquid inhabitants who agreed to swear an oath of allegiance to the English crown. He may have had little choice in the matter.

The Belle-Ile-en-Mer depositions state that his great-great-great-granddaughter died at Liverpool in June of 1763. It further states that Antoine LePrince and his wife both died as Pisiguit.

Antoine’s Daughter, Anne LePrince – Marguerite’s Granddaughter

Additionally, the depositions tell us that Anne LePrince, daughter of Antoine, married Sylvain LeBlanc who died in Liverpool in 1756, but “Anne LePrince is living in Morlaix with her family.”

Anne was born about 1724, and was listed on the ship manifest for “The Sturgeon,” bound for France from Liverpool, with her children:

• Anastasie LeBlanc
• Joseph LeBlanc
• Marguerite LeBlanc
• Modeste LeBlanc became a Carmelite nun at Morlaix, taking the name of Sister Augustin de Saint-Francois de Sales, according to Karen Theriot Reader, here

Anne LePrince lived in the port city of Morlaix for the last 20 years of her life, until 1794. She is listed on the census there in 1772, 1786 and 1792 and was among the city’s poor. She and her daughter reportedly sold knitting to help support themselves.

According to the historian Clarence J. d’Entremont, Anne was executed by guillotine along with one of her daughters Anastasie (others say it was Angelique, but there’s no evidence of a daughter by that name), and Abbé Clech, a priest, on July1, 1794 in Brest, France.

Anne lived here, at 97 Rue des Vignes, in Morlaix, with her daughter or daughters.

It was here that she and her daughter sheltered the priest who arrived at their door asking for a place to stay during the French Revolution – for which they were taken to Brest, tried, and subsequently beheaded.

They were arrested on June 21st, 1794 in Morlaix and taken to Brest on the 23rd.

They were all three imprisoned at the castle, with Anne and her daughter accused of having harbored the priest in their home, thus defying the laws of the Revolution.

They would have been led down these stairs into the castle dungeon.

On July 1st, their trial began at 8 in the morning, here, in the Revolutionary Tribunal Chapel, the site of the former Jesuit seminary, at today’s intersection of Rue de Lyon and Rue Duquesne in Brest. These buildings no longer exist. If not torn down before, Brest was heavily bombed during WWII.

The verdict was pronounced nearly immediately, which said:

The Tribunal ordains that the said August Clec’h shall be delivered to the executor of the criminal cases to be put to death according to articles ten (etc.). Sentences Anne LePrince, Anastasie LeBlanc, her daughter, to die according to articles 2 and 3 (etc.)

Executions were public spectacles, designed to take place where the maximum number of people could gather and bear witness. They took place nearly daily during this period in history, referred to as the Reign of Terror, at Place du Chateau, in front of the castle.

Anne, her daughter and the priest, all three condemned, would have been marched through the streets immediately thereafter, if not carried by cart, as part of the exploitive “entertainment”.

The locations shown on this early map no longer exist as they did at that time. The Place du Chateau functioned as both a military esplanade and site of public executions.

The crowd would have gathered. Who was going to be guillotined today? What would they do? Beg? Cry? Confess?

At noon, first the priest, then Anne LePrince, by then an elderly woman of at least 70, followed by her daughter, Anastasie, about 38 or 39, climbed onto the scaffold platform to provide the day’s amusement for the gathered crowds by having their lifeblood spilled.

I can’t even begin to imagine watching this horrible fate happen to YOUR MOTHER!

I can’t even look at a guillotine without becoming nauseous, so you’ll have to google that one for yourselves.

After the Revolution ended, public executions slowed and ended at this location in 1839. In the 1840s, France began “civilizing” former sites with such a brutal history into promenades and public squares.

In many cases, what was originally the “central figure”, meaning the scaffold and execution site, was replaced with a fountain, also located in the center of the same expansive location.

So it was probably right here that Anne and her daughter were murdered. Not for violence, or a crime – but for refusing to surrender their faith and giving a man of the cloth shelter in their home.

Blood was replaced by water. Gardens and fountains softened the space, their gentle sounds drowning out the echoes of terror that once filled the square. Gone were the sounds of the crowd as they watched. Did they cheer? Gasp? Did they turn away? This was sport.

People forgot – or chose not to remember – what happened here. Over time, the cheerful voices of the next generations wafted in the air where screams once echoed, replacing the intentionally-erased and deliberately-buried trauma of the place where bloodthirsty crowds watched hundreds die beneath the executioner’s blade – one terrified human being at a time.

Among them stood Marguerite’s granddaughter and her child, condemned not just for what they had done, following the example taught in the Bible, but for what they refused to deny.

I can’t even begin to comprehend Anne’s bravery. She assuredly knew the risks.

For that, she was martyred.

By 1902, just 108 years later, La Place du Chateau had become a gardens for families as pictured in this post card. No one knew what had systematically occurred here.

By 1944, this entire area had been bombed into oblivion during the siege of Brest.

In a different location, but for the same underlying reason, 32 Carmelite nuns were executed. They refused to take the required oath and revoke their vows, so they were loaded onto carts and went to their death singing hymns before being publicly executed and buried in a mass grave.

This sends shivers up my spine. I hope that Anne’s other daughter, Modeste, didn’t suffer this fate. Given that she was a nun in Morlaix, she assuredly knew what happened to her mother and sister.

While Anne and her daughter, Anastasia, must have been utterly terrified, I picture them defiantly singing as well. They were already convicted and sentenced to death. What else was left to do?

After their execution, their bodies and heads would have been thrown into the cart, which would have been drawn through the city to some obscure trench on the outskirts, leaving a trail of blood behind. Clearly, there was no family to claim them, and no one would risk claiming a priest.

There is some great irony knowing that because of the unique circumstances, Anne and her daughter unquestionably received last rites.

You can read the rest of Anne’s story, here and here.

I hope Anne’s grandmother, Marguerite, was watching over her and waiting on the other side to embrace and greet Anne and Anastasia. Maybe one day we will have two official martyrs in the family.

Anne wasn’t alone in Morlaix, at least not initially. Her sister, Marguerite was with Anne in Virginia, then in Liverpool, then Morlaix, but died in 1778.

Two of Anne’s siblings made it to Pennsylvania, one landed in Maryland, one eventually made their way to Quebec, another died in Liverpool, and one, Tranquille, died in Louisiana in 1798.

Antoine LePrince’s children were truly scattered to the winds.

Marguerite’s Missing Children

After Francois and Antoine LePrince’s births about 1780, and probably Marguerite LePrince’s birth around 1781, there are at least two missing children, in 1783 and 1785.

They died before the 1786 census, and like the others, they are probably buried at either St. Laurent, above, where nothing remains today, or one of the two cemeteries in Bridgetown.

Estienne LePrince

Estienne is shown in 1693 as five years old, which means he would have been born about 1687.

Unfortunately, Estienne apparently died before marrying, because we have no further records. He would have married in the 17-teens, meaning he or his children would have probably appeared in some record.

Estienne is probably buried either in the cemetery at Grand Pre, marked today by this cross beside the church, at Sainte-Famille, or maybe in a family chapel cemetery along the Riviere Hebere.

More Missing Children

Following Estienne in the census are spaces for children who would have been born in 1689 and 1691.

Two more small graves for Marguerite. Two more babies for her to prepare for burial.

This was also the time period in which Marguerite’s husband, Jacques LePrince, died as well.

They were all three gone by the 1693 census.

Poor Marguerite. Her aching heart!

Francoise LePrince

We really have no idea if Francoise actually existed, or if the census-taker was falling down on the job again.

In the 1693 census, in Minas, Francoise is shown as one year old. If she existed, she perished.

We do know, however, that a male child, Jean LePrince was born about that time.

Jean LePrince

Jean LePrince was either:

1. Actually Francoise in the census, and the name was a mistake
2. Or he wasn’t living with his mother in 1693
3. Or he was born after the 1693 census, and after his father had died

We know beyond any doubt that Jean was the child of Jacques LePrince and Marguerite Hebert.

He married in 1715 in Port Royal, where his parents are listed as Jacques Prince, deceased, and Marguerite Hebert, habitant of Mines.

Jean lived at Port Royal. Now, based on the fact that Marguerite Hebert’s daughter, Marguerite LePrince, who married Francois Tillard around 1704 in Port Royal and seems to have lived a nontrivial portion of her life in Port Royal too, I can’t help but wonder if Jean LePrince never left Port Royal.

Why is this family so split between those two locations? Port Royal and Minas. Two children living and marrying in the Port Royal area after their father died and their mother is found with the rest of their siblings in Minas in 1693. In 1693, both Jean LePrince and Marguerite LePrince would have been young teens.

Maybe someone else took them in to raise, but why?

Maybe Jean LePrince hadn’t yet been born when the census was taken in 1693.

Nothing else gives his age or even a hint at his birth year.

Maybe his mother, Marguerite, couldn’t handle any more than she was already handling.

It has always been presumed that Jean was the child born in 1693, not Francoise. However, in 1715, at what would be age 22 if he was born in 1693, the married a 33-year-old widow. Acadian males typically did not marry that young, and not to someone 11 years older. Now I wonder if Jean was actually one of those older missing children.

If so, then where was he at the time?

Why isn’t he listed in the census?

But then again, why isn’t Anne LePrince listed in the census?

Why aren’t Jacques LePrince and Marguerite Hebert’s children listed with names and ages in 1686 when everyone else’s children have names and ages?

And why was Marguerite “LePrincess” listed in Port Royal as a servant to Daniel LeBlanc in 1693, age 12, and also in Minas with her mother at age 15?

Why was this family so scattered?

Not to mention, even harkening back to 1671, where was Marguerite’s husband, Jacques LePrince?

Something has always been a bit unsettling about this family.

I know there’s a backstory that we will never know.

There are just too many anomalies to be coincidence.

I hope, whatever the circumstances, Marguerite was able to find peace during her earthly existence and joy in her 34 grandchildren.

Marguerite’s Death and Burial

Thanks to marriages recorded by the priest in the St. Charles aux Mines Parish, which is the church at Grand Pre, we know that Marguerite’s twin sons were married in a triple ceremony in 1712, and she was living then. Marguerite is listed as “of the parish of Minas” but both of her sons married women from Pisiquid (Fort Edward on this map), which is highly suggestive of where they actually lived, regardless of where they married. It’s also possible that the priest was visiting locally and they were actually married at Pisiquid, not in Grand Pre.

In 1714, both twin sons are living in Pisiquid as is Marguerite’s daughter, Anne Prince, with her husband, Estienne Rivet. Additionally, several of Margaret’s siblings have settled there too, including her brother Jean Hebert, sister Martine Hebert, with husband Nicolas Barrieau (Barillot), her half-sister, Marie Gareau, who had been held as a hostage with husband Jerome Darois, Marguerite’s deceased sister Marie’s children, plus several nieces and nephews. Not to mention many Forest, Trahan and LeJeune neighbors – all people from the old Port Royal upriver neighborhood, most of whom Marguerite was probably related to one way or another – or maybe even multiple ways.

Pisiquid was very clearly a close-knit family community.

Fifty-six households would assuredly be enough people to warrant a convenient cemetery, perhaps at the “Ville Trahan” family chapel.

In 1715, Marguerite’s son, Jean LePrince, who is entirely omitted from the census, married in Port Royal, and she is listed as living in Minas.

By 1734, when her daughter, Marguerite LePrince, married in Minas, Marguerite was noted as deceased, but there was no death record for her in the parish register between 1712 and 1734. Of course, parish records may not have been complete, or, more likely, she wasn’t buried by the priest in the cemetery beside the church in Grand Pre. Only two Pisiquid burials are recorded in the Minas parish records, which stretch from 1707-1748.

So Marguerite died sometime in the span of 19 years, between 1715 and 1734, probably at Pisiquid, which puts her age between 63 and 82.

While we don’t know when Marguerite departed this life, the one thing we can surmise is that her funeral sermon would have been given either by the visiting priest, later, or a neighbor or family member when she died.

The closest consecrated ground before 1722 was at the Sainte Famille Cemetery on Gabriel Road in Falmouth, established in 1698.

After 1722, the closest cemetery associated with a parish church was at l’Assumption, where Fort Edward stands today. The cemetery there is considered a “lost cemetery,” but archaeologist Jonathan Fowler suggests that the cemetery is located within sight of the remaining blockhouse. You can read his article, here.

Only the block house remains today, but in the above satellite image of the Fort Edward National Historic Site, you can clearly see the outline of the original fort. According to Dr. Fowler’s research, compiled from earlier photos and descriptions of surrounding willows, he believes that the original parish cemetery was located about 200 feet from the original fort, which was built where the church was torn down, in the approximate location of the red circle.

Neither parish location was close or convenient to people living along the Riviere Hebere, another nine miles east of the church at l’Assumption, and both required crossing tidal rivers.

We know that, in addition to the known parishes, there were two family chapels, one of which, Trahan, was between l’Assumption and the Riviere Hebere, where Marguerite and her children assuredly lived.

The Trahan Village is located someplace near Three Mile Plains, according to the Avon River Heritage site.

Maybe Marguerite is buried there, or maybe the priest consecrated family plots at remote Acadian homesteads, and Marguerite is buried in a long-forgotten Hebert family cemetery. Of course, all Acadian cemeteries were abruptly abandoned in 1755, by no choice of the Acadian families. Perhaps Marguerite was buried in a cemetery later adopted by the English planters who were given the Acadian farms after the 1755 Expulsion.

It’s unlikely that the new inhabitants, New England settlers who took over farming the Acadian homesteads, would have destroyed existing graves. They may have simply begun burying their own family members in an already established graveyard. That’s exactly what happened in Port Royal.

Two cemeteries, the Old Riverview Haven Cemetery and the Old St. James Anglican Cemetery, both with many unmarked graves, are located on Chambers Road.

Chambers, a remote dirt road, inaccessible even on Google maps, runs along the Rivière Héberè, now the Herbert River, just beyond where the tidal bore settles and becomes nothing more than a ripple, whispering secrets from the past. It traces the edge of the marshlands where Marguerite lived for the second half of her life, since at least 1693.

It’s probably along this tranquil stretch, close to her home, that Marguerite spent her final days.

Wherever you are, Marguerite, rest easy.

_____________________________________________________________

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Despite my attempts at clarity, the early life of Jacques Le Prince remains a mystery, as does his death.

We can’t prove anything about Jacques’ early years at this point, but there are possibilities that need to be considered and evaluated.

It’s likely that Jacques was born in France, around 1646, according to a later census.

The Carignan Regiment?

A man named Jacques Prince, or LePrince, was a member of the 1300-man Carignan Regiment, which was dispatched to New France from 1665 to 1667 to fight the Haudenosaunee, an Iroquoian confederacy. Their numbers were impressive, but the French soldiers were ill-prepared for the type of fighting they would encounter on the frontier.

After peace was declared in 1667, most of the soldiers returned to France, but not all. France offered attractive incentives for those who wished to stay and settle, including land, a year’s worth of provisions, and a sum of money dependent upon the soldier’s rank.

About 400 stayed, and 283 are known to have married near Quebec where many Acadians would one day take refuge after the 1755 Expulsion, including Jacques’ grandchildren.

However, that leaves about 120 Carignan soldiers unaccounted for.

One Jacques LePrince is on the regimental list of soldiers in the Laubia company.

A WikiTree contributor provides the following summary. I have fixed the broken links in this version.

According to an article by Chantal Gaillardetz Bourque, “Les Prince,” ^[7] and to various compiled genealogies, a soldier named Jacques Leprince (or Prince) appears in lists associated with the Carignan-Salières Regiment. There was a Jacques Leprince or Prince in the regiment’s list of soldiers.

It is claimed that he embarked from La Rochelle aboard “Le Saint-Sébastien” on 24 May 1665 and arrived at Québec on 12 September 1665. Two days later, members of the Laubias Company reportedly traveled to Trois-Rivières aboard La Justice, where they remained until about 1668.

A Jacques Leprince, aged 25, is said to appear in the 1666 census of Trois-Rivières as a servant in the household of the notary Sévérin Ameau. Stephen White questions whether this individual can be identified with the Jacques Leprince who later married Marguerite Hébert in Acadie. ^[1] It is also believed that after being discharged from the Regiment, Jacques went to Acadia, around 1667.

The website migrations.fr, citing Roy and Malchelosse, notes that the surname Leprince does not appear in the official roster of the Laubias Company, but is mentioned elsewhere in the same source.

(My note.) Page 111 in the same volume for soldiers not included on the roll who returned to France or remained in Canada. The soldiers are listed by their nicknames. This means that if this is our Jacques, his actual surname may not have been Prince or LePrince. We need a LePrince man proven to descend from Jacques through all males who is willing to take a Big Y-700 test. I’m offering a  DNA testing scholarship, so please reach out.

From this, some authors infer that the soldier and the Acadian settler were the same person; however, no direct documentary link has been demonstrated. ^[9]

Other writers further hypothesize that Jacques Leprince was born about 1641 in Normandy, the son of Nicolas Leprince, seigneur de la Bretonnière, and Judith Hurault. This lineage is based on interpretive readings of heraldic material rather than on contemporary civil or parish records.

Another person also states, with no evidence, that Jacques was actually named Jacques Nicolas LePrince and was born in St. Malo.

Cousin Mark did a deep dive into the French records at Filae and reports:

There is absolutely no evidence that Jacques Le Prince was born in Normandy or the son of anyone from there.

The soldier Jacques Le Prince recorded in the 1666 census for Trois-Rivières as domestique for the notary Sévérin Ameau shows an age of 25, so born about 1641, not 1646.

On 3 Nov 1667 he appears as witness to the marriage of Noël Laurence dit l’Orange, a soldier in the Lafouille Company, at Trois-Rivières; he is identified as “soldat nommé LePrince de la compagnie de Loubias”. Likely the same Jacques Le Prince appears as a witness on 15 Apr 1671, to the marriage of Paul Daze, an immigrant from Loudun and an older widow Françoise Goubillo, which raises an interesting thought. This Jacques Le Prince no longer appears in the records of Québec.

While PRDH and others have linked the soldier Jacques Le Prince with Acadian Jacques Le Prince, there is no additional evidence to do so. Stephen White had reason to wonder if the two are the same.

It is even possible that Le Prince was a “dit” name given to the soldier, just as Julien Lore/Lord dit La Montagne was usually referred to by his “dit” name in Acadia. There are several family trees on Filae.com with a Jacques Prince/Le Prince scattered throughout Southwest France, the recruitment area for the Carignan-Salières Regiment and the Loubias/Laubia company. It was not Normandy.

This information makes me wonder if there were actually two men named Jacques LePrince in the Quebec area at the same time. One, a soldier, while the other, is, at the same time, a valet for the notary. It seems impossible that one person is serving in both positions at the same time, but I don’t know.

Is this the same Jacques Le Prince or Prince that married Marguerite Hebert in Acadia sometime between 1671 and 1678? We don’t know.

Keep two things in mind:

• The English had captured Port Royal in Acadia in 1654, but it was returned to France by treaty in 1667. However, it wasn’t until September of 1670 that the new French governor was established, marking the effective return of Acadia to French control. It’s unlikely that Jacques LePrince, the soldier, would have made his way to Port Royal until after it was firmly under French rule.
• Jacques LePrince, who may or may not be our Jacques LePrince, witnessed a marriage in April of 1671, in Trois-Rivieres.

What We Do Know

The first actual record that we have that positively includes “our” Jacques LePrince in Port Royal, or anyplace, is the 1678 Acadian census.

Jacques “La Prence” and Marguerite Hebert are listed with one child, a female, 2 arpents of land, and 8 cattle. Their household is located far upriver, between Olliver Daigre and his wife, Marie Godet, and neighbor, Jean Hebert, northeast of Bridgetown today.

Essentially, Jacques LePrince and his family inhabit one of the furthest homesteads from Port Royal, some 18 miles upstream as the crow flies, but Jacques would have been paddling a canoe through all of the twists and turns in the river – so probably more like 25 miles to get to town, or church.

This census suggests that Jacques and Marguerite Hebert were married by at least 1677 if they had an infant daughter. The child’s age is not recorded.

However, there’s evidence to suggest that they might have been married by 1671. In the 1671 census, Marguerite Hebert, age 19, is listed with her widowed mother, and the census indicates that she is one of two married daughters. In the 1671 census, typically the married children are listed with their parents, PLUS in their own household – but there is no hint of Marguerite in any other household, nor is Jacques LePrince listed. The other married daughter, Marie Hebert, age 20 with three children, is living next door with her husband Michel de Forest.

Relative to Jacques LePrince, there are two flies in this ointment.

The first Acadian census was taken in the spring of 1671 following the new governor’s arrival in September of 1670. We know the census was taken sometime in the spring of 1671, because the passengers on the ship, L’Oranger, which left La Rochelle in the spring, so probably arrived May-ish, were not recorded in the census. This includes Pierre Arsenault, Martin Benoit and wife Marie Chaussegros, and possibly Francois Broussard which means they arrived after the census had already been taken.

Therefore, if Jacques LePrince was witnessing a marriage in Trois Rivieres in mid-April 1671, he probably didn’t have a wife in Port Royal. Not to mention that those locations are hundreds of miles apart, and transportation was challenging. While an overland walking route is shown above, it would have been very dangerous and quite long. The typical journey was on a ship, traveling down the Saint Lawrence River, crossing the open sea, then circumnavigating Nova Scotia to Port Royal. The trip took between one and three months, depending on the weather.

I’m not saying that the Jacques in Quebec isn’t the Jacques in Port Royal, I’m saying we need to consider this possibility carefully, all things considered.

The second potential fly is that the 1671 census says that Marguerite Hebert, age 19, was married – but it doesn’t say to whom. It’s possible that she had married but was  widowed by 1671, but had remarried by the 1678 census when she is found with Jacques LePrince.

It’s also possible that Jacques LePrince was on the ship, L’Oranger that arrived in Port Royal from France later in 1671 with 50 new colonists.

If Jacques and Marguerite had children before their daughter, Marguerite, was born around the time the 1678 census was taken, those earlier children had all died prior to the 1678 census.

In 1678, Jacques La Prence and Marguerite Hebert are living between Oliver Daigre and his wife, Marie Godet, and Jean Hebert. In 1715, Jacques’ son, Jean LePrince would marry the widow of Oliver Daigre’s son, Oliver. Jean Hebert is Marguerite’s brother.

In 2024, I located the Daigle homestead near Button Brook, east of Bridgetown.

The Daigle homestead is shown here on the MapAnnapolis map.

In the 1686 Port Royal census, Jacques LePrince is age 40, so born about 1646, and shown with his wife, Marguerite Hebert, 35, with 4 children, 5 sheep, and 3 hogs. Children’s ages and names are listed for other Acadian couples, but frustratingly, not for Jacques and Marguerite’s children. No land is listed either, nor does Jacques own a gun, which is very difficult to believe. We really can’t tell where he’s living based on his neighbors, although it’s likely that they are living in the same location as 1678. I suspect they are living very remotely – and the census taker simply didn’t visit. Hence, the omission of data.

Jacques’ name is also absent from the 1690 mandatory loyalty oath to the English crown, forcibly signed under duress in Port Royal by all the Acadian men. The English clearly weren’t coming to find him in the hinterlands.

The Move to Minas

It’s difficult to know whether to interpret the lack of his 1690 signature as evidence of the fact that he lived so far away, meaning upriver beyond Bridgetown, or evidence that he had already taken his family and settled at Minas, which is also possible. If he hadn’t already left, the unprovoked 1690 attack on Port Royal by the English, followed a few months later by a second pirate attack, may have been what prompted that move.

In the 1686 census, 10 families had already settled at “Baye des Mines,” including Marguerite’s brother, Etienne (Estienne in the census) Hebert, who married Jeanne Comeau, and Marguerite’s sister, Catherine Hebert, who married Philippe Pinet.

By the 1693 census, Jacques Le Prince and his family had moved to Minas, and Jacques had died, probably either in Minas or Pisiquid, but we will never know for sure. Both are possibilities. It’s also possible, but extremely unlikely, that Jacques died in Port Royal and Marguerite joined her family in in the Minas Basin.

Marguerite Hebert, Jacques’ widow, is listed in the census as age 40, with:

• Daughter Marguerite, 15 (so born about 1678)
• Twins Francois and Jacques, 13 (born about 1680)
• Estienne, 5 (born about 1685)
• Francoise, 1 (born about 1692)

Francoise may be incorrect. Francoise may have been their youngest son, Jean LrPrince, unless Francoise died young and Jean was actually born in 1693 after the census had already been recorded.

Another child;s name was misrecorded too. Based on later marriage records, the twin named Jacques here was actually named Antoine.

Were their children mis-recorded because they were newcomers to the area, or perhaps because they were living very remotely again?

This tells us that Jacques LePrince died between 1691 when Marguerite would have become pregnant for the child who was listed as “1” in 1693, and when the census was taken that year. Unfortunately, there are no parish registers prior to 1707, so Jacques’ death is not recorded.

If daughter Marguerite was 15 in 1693, then she would have been born about 1678, which correlates with the 1678 census when one female child was listed.

This means that Marguerite and Jacques were probably married by 1676 or 1677, or if they married earlier, prior to the 1671 census, their children born between their wedding and Marguerite’s birth about 1678 had all died.

Life at Grand Pre and Minas

Pierre Melanson and his family led the way to Minas between 1682 and 1684, followed by others. The first families to settle in Grand Pre in the Minas Basin would have selected land close to each other. One of the first group activities was probably to dig a well and build a small church, home of the St. Charles aux Mines Parish, founded in 1686. Of course, that church was probably improved and expanded in later years before being destroyed by the English in 1755.

The church at Grand Pre has been rebuilt and preserved, welcoming visitors today.

Inside the church, mirrors are beautifully engraved with the names of the early families as recorded in the parish register. Our Le Prince family is honored here, shown to the right of my black bag.

I don’t know if this was the intention or not, but as I looked at their name, and me, in the mirror, I’m looking at a little bit of them.

Jacques LePrince would have worshipped here. At least his youngest child, and perhaps more of his children, would have been baptized here if they actually lived at Minas when the family first moved to the Basin from the Riviere Dauphin, as the Annapolis River was called then.

Ten households consisting of 57 people were recorded in the 1686 census.

Probably encouraged by Marguerite’s siblings who had already made the move, Jacques and his family arrived sometime during the next seven years, likely with a group of Port Royal families who made the journey together. When the next census was taken in 1693, there were 307 people living in 55 homes. The population had increased more than fivefold.

The labor, as well as the fruits of that labor, were shared.

Jacques probably helped plant this orchard, but he never lived long enough to reap those benefits. His wife and children may have.

If he didn’t plant this orchard, he surely planted one similar.

A community well was dug which tells us that the inhabitants lived in close proximity.

This particular well is believed to have been used to water livestock.

How many times did Jacques dip the wooden bucket in the well for fresh water?

Standing beside the church, as Jacques surely did, we see the Bay of Fundy in the distance, across the salt marsh fields.

The millstone lying beside the church today speaks of grinding crops – wheat, oats, barley, rye and sometimes buckwheat. Grains essential to their survival and particularly suitable for production in the rich reclaimed marshlands.

Flowers line the walkway between the church, the well, and the cemetery.

If Jacques died in close proximity to the church, and a priest was available, his funeral mass would have been celebrated in this sacred place.

A stone cross marks the location of the cemetery and honors the Acadians who are buried here. This cemetery location was confirmed when coffins were found in the late 1800s.

Incomplete parish records show about 170 burials, but historians believe there are probably around 400 located between the church and the road.

Graves would have been marked with white crosses when they were fresh, but anything left was destroyed by the English during and after the Expulsion.

This French Willow tree was probably standing when Jacques and the Acadian men were fetching water from the well and planting the orchard.

This tree probably was too. They may have been planted by the Acadians.

Initially, Jacques may have lived within walking distance of the church.

We don’t know when settlers migrated away from the Minas area to Pisiquid and the Riviere Hebere.

We don’t know where or how Jacques died. He was still a relatively young man, between 45 years old in 1691, and 47 in 1693, his bracketed death dates.

Jacques could have perished in the sea, the river, or in the back country. If so, there would have been no funeral or graveyard burial.

He could have died at home, perhaps from a farming accident, an infection or illness that we have medicines to effectively treat today.

If the family actually did live at Minas, at least initially, and not distantly, he would have been buried in the cemetery beside the church in Grand Pre, in consecrated ground.

Today, we can sit quietly and reflect, knowing that their graves surround us.

Perhaps Jacques’ spirit came to visit in the form of this raptor. Was he carrying a message?

Do they know we’ve come to visit them?

Given the early date of Jacques LePrince’s death, it’s possible that the original settlement group was still clustered together and the next wave of settlers had not yet begun reaching out further to establish homesteads.

That said, we really don’t know exactly when the new frontier summoned several families to move on. We do know that Jacques certainly wasn’t concerned about living some distance away from the main village.

We also know, from priests’ records, that Father Jean Buisson de Saint-Cosme served Minas from 1692-1698. There were significant periods when the area, especially the villages established further east, at or near Pisiquid, were without priests or churches.

Riviere Hebere

Based on this 1755 map of Minas, it’s possible that the Jacques LePrince and Marguerite Hebert family lived a significant distance away from Minas and Grand-Pré itself, near the arrow indicating the Riviere Hebere.

When did the early families settle at Pisiquid, relatively distant from Minas? Did family groups settle into small villages there directly, and not establish themselves at Minas first?

Today, the Riviere Hebere, now the Herbert River, is beyond the St. Croix River that branches into the Meander River, then branches again into the Herbert River to the east of Mantua.

Tidal bore rivers provided fertile salt marshes that were dyked and drained using sluices.

The Grand-Pré National Historic Site provides a wonderful museum that, among other things, illustrates the Acadian farming practices.

Sluices let the rainwater escape as the wooden flap opens, then closes to prevent seawater from flooding the fields.

Remnants of the old aboiteau drainage systems are regularly unearthed, more than 300 years later.

This area would have felt quite familiar to Jacques LePrince and the Acadians, as it is located on a tidal bore river that required dyking and draining through a complex series of aboiteau and sluices – just like Port Royal.

You can read more about the Herbert River, here. Be sure to download the pdf file for wonderful maps.

Tidal rivers always look brown thanks to the constant churn of the mud from the bottom of the river as the tide rushes in and out twice each day.

The Herbert River stretches many miles inland but loses the tidal bore effect at the point where the brown coloration changes on the map. Acadians were experts at reclaiming and farming tidal marshland. In fact, the more marsh, the better, so they would have settled and farmed the area near the Meander River split.

If, in fact, Jacques LePrince did live among the Hebert family in the remote area near Mantua, it’s no wonder the census taker listed his children incorrectly. The census taker may have been the priest, and you can bet the only time those in the remotest regions saw the priest was when he passed through from time to time, baptizing babies and hoping for a friendly place to stay. Maybe he asked someone who came to town, “Who else lives out there?”, and recorded what they said.

The overarching theme, to this point in Jacques’ life, is that he lived in the most remote part of Port Royal at Paradis Terrestre, possibly followed by the most remote part of the Minas Basin at Pisiquid.

The curves of the Meander River as seen from Avondale Road near the Mantua Bridge, although we don’t know if this was considered part of the Riviere Hebere at the time. It’s still quite remote, and there are few roads.

As I look at this tidal river, I can’t help but wonder if Jacques got too close when the tide was rushing in or out. It’s quite dangerous, and nothing like the tidal river at Bridgetown which is barely visible and quite tame by comparison. This YouTube video is taken at nearby Moncton, but you can see the huge wave and the person riding the surf in front of it. This video shows the smaller tidal bore on the St. Croix River further inland.

Crossing the Mantua Bridge. You can see progressive photos of the tidal bore, here. This is probably very close to, or where the Hebert family village was located, and where Jacques would have lived if they had established homes here before he died.

By the time you’ve driven just a mile or so further east of the bridge, the terrain has changed and is no longer primarily salt marsh, although it’s still tidal to some extent. I see marshlands to the right, but not on the left-hand side.

This part of the Herbert River shoreline would probably not have been cultivated by the Acadians.

The Herbert River is heavily forested here and would have been the abode of the friendly Mi’kmaq people. Today, there are hiking trails.

Remote Parishes and Parishioners

The original parish at Pisiquid, Sainte Famille, was established in 1698. Priests traveled throughout the region and served several parishes. If Jacques lived here when he died, his Acadian neighbors would simply have taken care of business and buried him someplace dry.

When no priest was available in a remote location, a community elder or family member would have lead prayers, prayed the rosary, and said funeral liturgies, similar to a memorial service or less formal celebration of life, today.

The family may have held a veillée, similar to a wake, where the family surrounds the deceased all night, lighting candles, praying the rosary and singing hymns. This served as a form of protection and support for the family, especially in the absence of clergy.

The following day, the family or a neighbor would perform a “dry” funeral, sprinkling holy water if it was available on the casket and grave, before a reading and the burial. When a priest did visit, often months later, he would officially bless the deceased person, maybe perform a funeral mass, and record the burial in the parish register that he carried with him.

In 1996, a work crew accidentally unearthed bones on Gabriel Road in the Mountain View Subdivision near Falmouth. More than two dozen graves were identified along with artifacts dating to the 1700s. Additional analysis of the site showed roughly 300 burials and the lot next door was identified as the original location of the Sainte Famille church.

The church would have been located in the center of the Acadian community. While the original families may have initially used a house or barn as a church, they would have established a graveyard with the first community death, and the ground would have been consecrated as soon as possible. The subsequent church was probably built adjacent to the cemetery.

A memorial park was established at 419 Gabriel Road between the homes.

While closer than Minas, this location was still far from what would eventually be marked on the map as the Riviere Hebere. It was also difficult to get there from the east side of the river, which is why another parish. L’Assumption, was established in 1722 in the location where Fort Pisiquid, then eventually Fort Edward, would one day be located. This church was torn down in 1750 when the English erected Fort Edward, but there are assuredly burials there as well.

That’s still not convenient to the families living at Riviere Hebere – at least six miles distant.

Interestingly enough, there were also two known family chapels, one at Ville Foret and one in the Trahan Village. We don’t know when they came into use, but it’s very likely that no one transported their deceased family members across heavily tidal rivers to Sainte Famille once they had established their homesteads in the furthest eastern area of Pisiquid. It’s most likely that the LePrince family worshipped in the Trahan Chapel, or perhaps in their own home in a personal chapel that has evaded recorded history.

Did the early Acadian group settle at Saint Famille and then spread further east? Where was Jacques Le Prince living when he died, leaving his wife, Marguerite Hebert, with a 15-year-old daughter, 13-year-old twin boys, a 5-year-old, a daughter shown as one, plus Jean, his youngest son who was either mis-recorded as Francoise, or was born in 1693 after the census, to a mother who was already widowed?

Jean was the son Jacques would never know.

Fortunately for Marguerite, in 1693, after Jacques had died, of the 55 households in Minas, 7 held her closest relatives, including:

• Her brother, Estienne Hebert (already there in 1686)
• Her sister, Catherine Hebert, who married Philippe Pinet (already there by 1686)
• Her brother, Michel Hebert, 24, married to Isabelle Pelerin
• Her sister, Martine Hebert, 27, married to Nicolas Barillet or Barrieu
• Her brother, Jean Hebert, 33, married to Jeanne Doiron
• Her nephew, Jean Hebert, 40, who married Anne Doucet
• Her niece, Catherine Hebert, 32, married to Jacques LeBlanc

Marguerite would have needed all the support she could get without Jacques. To the best of our knowledge, she never remarried.

It appears that when they moved to Minas, Jacques did not sell his land upriver from Port Royal. Truthfully, few would have wanted to be that distant from other settlers, market and trade opportunities, the mill, or the church. Maybe the famly wasn’t sure they wanted to stay in Minas and decided to try it out, retaining the option to return.

Two Decades Later, Jean LePrince Returns to Paradis Terrestre 

Jacques’ youngest son, Jean LePrince, born either just before or just after his death, returned to Port Royal in 1715 to marry and farmed what appears to be his father’s land near present-day Bridgetown. Then, Bridgetown was known as the Gaudet Village. An important tidbit is found in an article written by Vincent Prince in 1968 where he states of his extensive research:

First, tradition holds, according to Monsignor Louis Richard and Lucien Serre, that Jean Prince inherited the land that his father had kept at Port-Royal when he moved to Pisiguit after 1686. Moreover, thanks to a member of the Genealogical Society Canadian-French, Mr. Marcel Dubois, married to a Doucet, I was able, recently, to become acquainted with old papers preserved in the archives of this Doucet family concerning certain transactions carried out by Jean Prince.

These contracts identify the exact location of Jean’s land, northeast of Port Royal.

Given the landmark of “Paradis Terrestre”, which still exists today, and a description of the waterways, I was able to locate the land that probably belonged to Jacques LePrince.

Looking south.

Looking north, across the Riviere Dauphin (Annapolis River) in the distance, viewing North Mountain on the horizon. If this is not Jacques’ exact land, then his land was nearby.

It was this mountain range over which Jacques’ grandchildren would escape in the bitter winter of 1755, first to Morden beach, then on to Quebec.

Jacques’ son, Jean, along with about 200 other refugees who escaped the brutal English didn’t survive the winter on Morden Beach, where this cross stands today, but some of Jean’s children did.

Had Jacques disposed of this land when he took his family to Minas, then Jean’s family would not have been living in the best possible escape point in all of the Annapolis River Valley. So, two generations and half a century later, Jacques saved them! But I digress…

As we continue to sift through the clues, it’s also worth noting that Vincent Prince’s narrative mentioned Jacques LePrince moving to Pisiquid, not Minas. Of course, we don’t know if Vincent had informatoin that we do not.

The road from Minas, past where Fort Edward (originally called Pisiquid Post and Pisiquid Fort) would be constructed in 1750, and passing the Riviere Hebere, is labeled as “Road to Pizaquid.”

You can see the same family groupings that we find at Port Royal.

Foret is Forest, who owned land near Jacques LePrince and the Heberts, all neighbors living upriver from Port Royal on this 1733 map.

Piziquid, spelled multiple ways, reflected the Mi’kmaq place name of Pesikitk which means “to flow splitwise” or “junction of waters,” and refers to the Avon River basin and fork area, including the St. Croix River.

This 1744 map shows the broader region, including Les Mines, the basin, “le Grand Praye ou les Mines”, which is Grand Pre, the Pigiquit river, the “Pigiguit Village Sauvage” which is the Mi’kmaq village standing where Assumption Parish was established in 1722, and Fort Edward would be built in 1750, then the Riviere St. Crois to the right. The settlement at Cobeguit (Cobequid) is shown to the right of the Minas Basin.

You can read more about the early settlement of Pisiquid in an article by archaeologist Jonathan Fowler, here.

One Final Hint – Maybe

Although beginning a decade after Jacques’ death, we have records the marriages of four of Jacques’ children.

Records exist in the St. Charles aux Mines Parish in Grand Pre beginning in 1707.

In the “Mines” parish registers, we find three LePrince marriages:

• Antoine Prince, (Jacques Prince, decd, and Marguerite Hebert, of the parish of des Mines), married May 23, 1712 Anne Trahan (Guillaume Trahan and <omitted>, habitants of Piguguit) witnesses Jacques Terriot, signed, Pierre Forets, signed, Guillaume Trahan, mark, Francois Michel, mark, Antoine Prince, mark, Anne Trahan, mark. Triple wedding with Louis Sire/Marie Joseph Michel and Francois Prince/Catherine Benois (SGA-1,11)
• Francois Prince (<omitted> and Marguerite Hebert) married May 23, 1712 Catherine Benois (Martin Benois and Marie Chosegros of Pigiguit) witnesses Jacques Terriot, signed, Pierre Forets, signed, Guillaume Trahan, mark, Francois Rimbauld, mark, Pierre Benois, mark, Francois Michel, mark, Francois Prince, mark, Catherine Benois, mark. Triple wedding with Louis Sire/Marie Joseph Michel and Francois Prince/Catherine Benois (SGA-1,11)

Interestingly, Jacques and Marguerite are listed as members of the “des Mines” parish, not Saint Famille at Pisiquid. This strongly suggests they were originally members there, so may have initially lived in Minas.

This triple wedding was performed by the priest of St. Charles aux Mines, and must have sufficed as a joyful regional reunion. Both brides, Anne Trahan, and Marie Chosegros lived at Pisiguit. The Trahan family is one of the neighbors of the Hebert family at Pisiquid, as is the Foret family.

Jacques’ daughter, Marguerite, married in 1734.

• Marguerite LePrince (Jacques LePrince and Marguerite Hebert, both decd) married 27 April 1734 (dispensation for third degree consanguinity) Jean Hebert, habitant of Cobedic (Jean Hebert and Anne Doucet, both decd) witnesses A. Bourg, priest writes for Alexandre Bourg, Jacques LeBlanc, signed, Pierre LeBlanc, mark, Bellile, signed, Jean Hebert, mark, Marguerite LePrince, mark (SGA-2, 201-202)

Cobedic is also referred to as Cobequid

In the 1751 Acadian census for this area, there are four Jean Heberts, and all four are living among the 20 families at “Riviere des Mines ou Riviere des Hebert.”

It’s also worth noting that there are no LePrince burials in the St. Charles aux Mines parish register, which suggests that they were not living at Minas. Furthermore, you can’t court and marry people you don’t see – so that’s probably why there was a double wedding of the LePrince boys to brides from Pisiquid. It was a long way to travel for a wedding, so three couples took advantage of the opportunity when the stars aligned, the weather was good, and the priest was present.

The parish registers for both Pisiquid and Cobequid are lost, and only two burials at Pisiquid are recorded in the St. Charles aux Mines register.

In 1715, Jacques’ youngest child, Jean LePrince, married in Port Royal. Jacques was listed as deceased, but Jean’s mother, Marguerite was listed as a resident at Minas.

We know that Jacques’s wife, Marguerite, died sometime between 1715 and 1734, and there is no burial record in the existing Minas register, so it stands to reason that she was living at, and eventually buried someplace else – probably at Pisiquid.

At least one child died after the family moved to the Minas region. In the 1693 census, Estienne was 5 years old, but we find no further record. No marriage and no burial. If the family lived at Minas, and Estienne died, he would have been buried in the St. Charles aux Mines cemetery. If Estienne died at Pisiquid, no record remains.

If Francoise LePrince was recorded correctly in 1693, and wasn’t mistakenly entered in place of Jean, she died too. Again, there’s no record in the Minas parish register.

Last, there are no baptisms for Jean LePrince, nor any of the children of either Francois LePrince or Antoine LePrince who married in 1712, yet we know conclusively that they had children.

While we don’t know where the family was living in 1692 or 1693 when Jacques died, they were assuredly living in Pisiquid after 1707 when other records should have been showing up in Minas parish registers if they lived there.

In 1714, both Antoine LePrince and Francois LePrince are recorded in the census “de la Riviere Pisiguit.”

I wish we had a more definitive answer for Jacques’ early life, as well as the end of his life – an event that, tragically, occurred far too soon, leaving a young family.

We will just have to settle for a rosary that would have assuredly graced Jacques’ life and probably his home altar, left by an Acadian descendant on the base of the cross honoring all Acadians at Horton’s Landing, overlooking the Minas basin at Grand Pre.

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