Jacques Lor (also L’Or, Laure, Lore, and Lord) was born just a few kilometers from Port-Royal, Acadia, the second oldest of 10 children born to Julien Lor and Anne Charlotte Girouard.

In case you’re wondering about the spelling of his surname, today, it’s often spelled Lord, and sometimes Lore, but the original church records in Port Royal spell it L’Or, Lor, Laure, and Lore, but never, not one time is it spelled Lord until in later generations after the 1755 deportation.

Jacques is listed as eight years old on the 1686 Acadian census and 14 in 1693. In 1698, he is listed as age 20, 21 in 1700, and 23 in 1701, so he was probably born in 1679.

In 1703, he is listed with his parents who have four girls and four boys, of whom there are four arms-bearers in the family.

By 53zodiac – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=130120364

Jacques would have been one of those arms-bearers with a gun that probably looked something like this French Telle smooth flintlock musket or Fusil de chasse, “gun of the hunt,” commonly in use at that time.   

This Iroquois hunter is carrying this same French trade gun.

French soldiers were issued this gun, so it’s likely the armament the French Acadian men would have been carrying as well.

Jacques, his parents, and siblings would have hunted and fished for their meals and probably dressed more like the Iroquois than the European French, wearing homespun woolen clothing, probably in addition to leather made from the skins of the animals they harvested for food. The bounty of the forest and waterways would have sustained them, along with any fruits and vegetables they could have raised.

Jacques grew up on the banks of the tidal Rivière du Dauphin, now renamed the Annapolis River. He probably fished for mackerel, bass, trout, and smelt then as the fishermen do now.

Beyond the estuary, above, looking towards the Lor family’s land, which is out of sight behind the bend on the left, the river empties into the Bay of Fundy near the Melanson settlement.

By Whpq – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3331503

The Annapolis River Valley beneath the surrounding mountains is some of the most productive agricultural land in the province and enjoys a mild micro-climate produced by the mountains.

Perhaps Jacques’s father, Julien, had planted apple trees that grow in abundance in this region.

Jacques married Angélique Comeau, literally the girl from across the river. Her father, Pierre Comeau, lived about a mile and a half, by water, of course, from Jacques’s father, Julien Lor. Jacques would have rowed his birch-bark canoe to court the lovely Angélique.

They married on Monday, November 19, 1708, in Port-Royal

Well, we don’t actually know where they married, but it was recorded in the church books in Port Royal.

They may have been basking in honeymoon bliss, but around them, Queen Anne’s War began with hostilities between the English and French ramping up.

Jacques and Angélique had two children:

• Jacques Laure, named after his father, was born October 12 and baptized October 13, 1709, in Port-Royal, Acadia. Godparents were Maurice Vignot and Catherine Comeau. He died on Saturday, October 28, 1786, in Nicolet, Quebec.
• Angelique Laure was born on September 22, 1711, and baptized by Sieur de Pobomkou Lejeune. Godparents were Claude Tibaudeau and Magdelaine Laure, Jacques’s sister. The baptism wasn’t recorded until February 11, 1712. She died sometime after 1730.

Something went wrong, though, and Angelique died sometime after her daughter’s birth in September and before the end of the year.

There may be more to the story of Angelique’s death.

All Hell Broke Loose

Never a peaceful place, the local priest, Justinien Durant, had been kidnapped and taken to Boston in January of 1711 and wasn’t returned until year-end. The baby’s baptism was delayed, as was the recording of Angelique Comeau’s burial.

Angelique’s death would have left Jacques with a two-year-old and a newborn. It would make sense for him to remarry quickly, but that may not be what happened, given what else was transpiring. The Acadians had been preparing for war for the past three years.

In 1708, the store at Fort Anne was built. Additionally, the Acadians were shoring up their defenses. A new powder magazine and bombproof barracks were built, and the riverbanks were cleared to remove cover for attackers. This would have included the land where Jacques and Julien Lor lived along the Dauphin River. Each man was responsible for protecting his homestead and family. Those arms-bearers were for more than just procuring food now.

An additional ship was built, and relationships were established with privateers who welcomed the opportunity to take English ships.

Prisoners taken from English corsairs reported that the English were planning attacks in 1708 and 1709. Everyone in the Acadian settlements was on high alert.

Port Royal was a market area. Soldiers paid a set price that was below market price. The church was miles away.

The Fort was established in 1630 near the River Alain, with the lower town along the main river by the fort. The upper town ran along Riviere Alain.

Farms ran along the basin and river from Goat Island 5 leagues above the fort as early as 1720. Settlements were in groups of 5-10 families. The largest group of 30 families (150-200 people) was around Belle Isle Marsh, 6-8 miles above the fort.

This map shows the region, along with the settlement areas, one of which is labeled Montagne Ville, upstream from the fort, on the north side of the River.

This original map from the Nova Scotia Archives shows this entire region. I’d wager that the reason that both Julien and Jacques Lor obtained the dit name of La Montagne can be found on this map.

This 1722 map of the entire River Basin, plus the fort and the nearby farms includes both the Lor, labeled La Montagne, and Comeau homesteads, labeled L’Esturgeon.

The LaMontagne homestead is designated at #12 and Comeau across the river at #43.

Here’s another view showing the mountains between the river and the bay. This mountain range would, in time, become known as “North Mountain.”

One Capt. Morris writes of how the channel south of Goat Island was shallow and rocky.  Where the Lor family lived, east of Goat Island, it was wide and deep, but there was a strong ebb and flow of the tides. It was hard to control ships without a good wind.

The five miles from Goat Island to the Fort had water, even in low tides. Small vessels could travel as far as 18 miles above the fort, near present-day Bridgetown. Large boats could go 9 miles further to “the falls” on the tide if they could stand being beached at low tide. But the bottom was “intolerably rocky and foul.”

On September 24, 1710, Port Royal was attacked again by the English, who sent five ships and 3400 troops. This time, the English were well prepared. In addition to 400 marines from England, Massachusetts provided 900 soldiers, Connecticut 300, and New Hampshire 100. Iroquois were recruited as scouts.

It was ugly.

Par Charny — Travail personnel, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17854799

In preparation for conflict, the Governor of Acadia had begun construction of a stone and earthen fort in 1701 which was largely completed by 1704, six years before they desperately needed it.

The Acadians, with their 300 soldiers, stood absolutely no chance, although they did manage to hold the fort for 19 days that October of 1710. The episode became known as the Siege of Port Royal, or the Conquest of Acadia. Jacques, age 31, his father, Julien, age 57, and two of his brothers, Alexander, age 35, and Pierre, about 29, would have been involved. Every male old enough to handle a gun and not endanger themselves or someone else would have been holding that fort.

Here is what we know about the battle:

As the fleet sails north, it is joined by a dispatch ship sent by Thomas Matthews, captain of the Chester; it was carrying deserters from the French garrison, who reported that the morale of the French troops was extremely low . Nicholson sends the ship ahead with one of the transports; as they entered Digby Gully , they received fire from groups of Micmacs on the coast. The ships retaliate with their guns, with neither side taking any casualties. On October 5, the main British fleet arrived at Goat Island, about 10 kilometers (6.2 mi) south of Port-Royal 23 . That afternoon, the Caesar transport runs aground while attempting to enter Annapolis and is eventually swept away by the rocks. Her captain, part of her crew and 23 soldiers died, while a company commander and some 25 other people fought ashore.

The following day, October 6, British marines began landing north and south of the fortress and town. The northern force was joined by four New England regiments under the command of Colonel Vetch, while Nicholson led the remaining New England troops as part of the southern force. The landings were uneventful, with fire from the fort being countered by one of Fleet’s long-range bombers 24. Although later accounts of the siege state that Vetch’s detachment was part of a strategic plan to encircle the fort, contemporary accounts report that Vetch wanted to have command somewhat independent of Nicholson. These same accounts state that Vetch never came within range of the fort’s guns before the end of the siege; his attempts to erect a battery of mortars in a muddy area opposite the fort, across Allain Creek were repulsed by the fire of 25 , 24 cannon. The southern force encountered guerrilla-type resistance outside the fort, with Acadian and native defenders firing small arms from houses and wooded areas, in addition to taking fire from the fort. This fire caused three deaths among the British, but the defenders could not prevent the British on the south side from establishing a camp about 400 meters from the fort.

Over the next four days the British landed their guns and brought them to camp. Fire from the fort and its supporters outside continued, and British bombers wreaked havoc inside the fort with their fire each night. With the imminent opening of new British batteries, Subercase sent an officer with a flag of parliament on 10 October. The negotiations started badly, because the officer was not announced correctly by a beater. Each side ended up taking an officer from the other, mainly for reasons of military etiquette, and the British continued their siege work.

On October 12, the forward siege trenches and guns within 91 m (300 ft) of the fort opened fire. Nicholson sends Subercase a demand for surrender, and negotiations resume. At the end of the day, the parties reach an agreement on the terms of surrender, which is formally signed the next day 29 . The garrison is permitted to leave the fort with all the honors of war, “their arms and baggage, drums beating and flags flying” 27. The British must transport the garrison to France, and the capitulation carries specific protections to protect the inhabitants. These conditions provide that “inhabitants of the cannon firing range of the fort” may remain on their properties for up to two years if they wish, provided they are prepared to take the oath to the British Crown.

Ironically, one of the terms of surrender stated that inhabitants within cannon-shot, three English miles, could stay for two years, meaning they had two years to transport their “moveable items” to a French territory which was any of the rest of Acadia, at least until the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Of course, that meant abandoning their farms and decades of invested work. This edict would have applied to the Lor family including Jacques, his parents, and oldest sibling, Alexander who had married in 1703.

481 Acadians are reported to have pledged allegiance to the Queen of England, but I have been unable to find a list of the signatories. Then the French troops left Port Royal, now renamed by the English to Annapolis Royal. 

450 English soldiers remained, but they clearly didn’t want to be there. By June of 1711, only 100 were left – the rest having either deserted or died. Acadians Guillaume Bourgeois, Jean Comeau, and Pierre LeBlanc of Annapolis; and Germain Bourgeois of Beaubassin and Francois Brassard of Chipody (who were passing through Annapolis) were arrested, but we don’t know the outcome.

Native Americans were involved on both sides and the “peace” was tense, at best.

Grand Pre

In Grand Pre, the English arrived under the premise of peace but were there to take the property of the Acadians. Peter Melanson, Alexander Bourg, Anthony LeBlanc, John & Peter Landry were chosen to be deputies to bring the word to the Acadians who hadn’t heard that their property was now the government’s.

The Grand Pre Acadians were asked to pay 6000 livres ($1200) in money or in poultry, plus 20 pistoles ($80) every month to maintain the governor’s table. This, in addition to a tax to pay the troops that would allow them to travel to and trade with Port Royal.

A document was composed on November 16th saying that the deputies were granted the power to collect the money. Samuel Vetch, the Governor who took command immediately after the 1710 capture, wanted to extract as much money from the Acadians as possible. Six months of sickness and under-supply had reduced his forces to 100 men, and he couldn’t reasonably expect to impose the tax forcibly.

The Acadians weren’t used to being taxed and found every excuse possible not to pay or to pay as little as possible. When the Acadians were asked to help by working on fortifications, any number of excuses were offered up…horses were too thin, the Indians might attack, there was ice on the river, etc. This uncooperative attitude became a signature of the Acadians toward the British through the years. The Grand Pre residents flat refused to take that oath, stating that France and England were still arguing over boundaries, so they weren’t taking any oath until that was settled.

Uneasy Times

In 1711, a detachment of British soldiers from Fort Anne went upriver and was ambushed by a band of Indians. Thirty soldiers, a major, and the fort engineer were killed at Bloody Creek, 12 miles east of Annapolis Royal.

On April 13, 1713, Acadia officially passed to England, with France ceding all of Nova Scotia or Acadia with its 2000 residents. One author reported that in the past century, France had sent less than 200 colonists to Acadia and, at this point, focused on Louisiana. Port Royal was renamed Annapolis Royal and the Rivière du Dauphin was renamed the Annapolis River. I’d bet that the Acadians continued to refer to both with their original French names for the duration of their lives.

The British wanted to deport the Acadians at that time, but they realized that they needed the Acadians to feed them. The Acadians knew the land and how to make it produce.

Vetch wrote to his superiors in London on November 24, 1714:

“One hundred of the Acadians (who) were born upon this continent and are perfectly at home in the woods, (and) can march upon snowshoes and understand the use of birch canoes, are of more value and service than five times their number of raw men newly arrived from Europe. So their skill in the fishery, as well as the cultivating of the soil must make at once Cape Breton the most powerful colony the French have in America, and to the greatest danger and damage to all the British colonies as well as the universal trade of Great Britain.”

He also wrote to the Board of Trade in London:

“The removal of (the Acadians) and their cattle to Cape Breton would be a great addition to that new colony, so it would wholly ruin Nova Scotia unless supplied by a British colony, which could not be done in several years, so that the Acadians with their stocks of cattle remaining here is very much for the advantage of the Crown.”

In other words, if the Acadians removed to another French area, it would simultaneously strengthen that colony while devastating Nova Scotia.

Reportedly, another 36 Acadians signed a provisional oath on January 13, 1716, to “be faithful and maintain true allegiance to His Majesty King George, as long as I shall be in Acadia or Nova Scotia and that I shall be permitted to withdraw where so ever I shall think fit with all my moveable goods and effects when I shall think fit without any one…to hinder me.”

We will see.

The 1714 Census

Jacque was married for the first time in 1708, so the first and only census where he would be found as a head of household is in 1714, where he is listed as “Jacques La Montagne and wife, one son and one daughter,” who was living near the fort at Port Royal. This census was taken by the British.

This is confusing since Jacques’s wife died in 1711, and he didn’t remarry, at least not that we know of, until 1721. It would be very unusual for Jacques to remain unmarried for a decade, especially with two very young children, so it’s entirely possible that he had a second wife between Angelique and Marie Charlotte that we know nothing about.

Did Jacques remarry during the time in 1711 while the priest was gone? Did something transpire during the war years? Or is the census incorrect? He only has two children, presumably those born to Angelique, in the census.

I checked every church record by any similar name from 1712 through 1720 to see if Jacques is listed as either a groom or a father in a baptismal record, and he is not.

If Jacques remarried, there would surely have been children and either the marriage or his wife’s death would have been recorded. Apparently, the census was wrong about his wife, or the presumed wife was a female caring for those two children. Someone had to help as he could not take care of young children and work the fields, on the dykes, and hunt simultaneously – not to mention the ongoing warfare in the region. My original guess was that one of either his or Angelique’s siblings took those children during this time, perhaps their godparents. If that was the case, then they would not have been listed with Jacques in the census, along with a wife.

The only other possibility that I can think of, and it’s remote, is that either Jacques married or employed a Native non-Catholic woman during this decade. We know Native people were living near Port Royal because they are shown with the Acadians in the 1708 census. The Native people were heavily intermarried with the Acadians. Records of Native families, unless they were converted Catholics, would not be found in the church records. However, given the Lor family’s commitment to Catholicism, I think this scenario unlikely, so please do not put this in any trees. I’m dying to know who that 1714 mystery woman is though. It’s possible she may be one of Jacques’s older nieces who stepped up to help out. The British census-taker probably presumed wife. Language would have been a barrier.

A Lose-Lose Situation

The area was still in upheaval. By now, the Acadians were willing to leave and settle elsewhere in French Canada, but in a twist of jaw-dropping irony, the British wouldn’t let them. In Vetch’s 1714 letter to London, he said that except for two families from New England, everyone else wanted to move to Isle Royal. He states that it would empty the area of inhabitants. Even the Indians (with whom the French intermarried and shared their religion) would take their trade to Isle Royale to follow the Acadians. This would make Isle Royale a much larger colony and put Nova Scotia in danger.

He also mentioned that some families, those with few belongings, had already moved, but the rest planned on doing so the next summer after the harvest is in, taking their 5000 cattle, sheep, and hogs with them. This tells us that each of the approximately 500 families each had about ten head of cattle. Vetch said that their removal would revert the colony to a primitive state, requiring a long time and lots of money to obtain that much livestock to import from New England.

Suddenly, the Acadians were valuable.

Some Acadians tried to leave in homemade boats but were caught and returned. Many didn’t plant their fields because they thought they were leaving. Now, they were essentially being held hostage in their own lands that they thought they were being forced to lose, but now can’t depart, and there are no crops to harvest.

What a mess.

In 1715, the Fort gates were shut, and the Acadians were prevented from trading with the Fort and also with the Indians. The Acadians were ready to leave, but they couldn’t.

The situation dragged on.

In 1717, Captain Doucette became the Lieutenant Governor. By this time, some Acadians had decided to stay, on peaceful terms. When the Indians learned about this, they threatened the Acadians. Though they had always been friends and many were relatives, the Indians didn’t want the Acadians to defect to the English side. Doucette demanded that all Acadians take the oath, but they thought that by doing so, it would tie them down … and they still wanted to move. The Acadians said if they were to stay, they wanted protection from the Indians, and the oath would have to be stated in a manner such that they would not have to fight their own countrymen. However, Doucette wanted an unconditional oath, and nothing happened due to the impasse.

1720

On May 9, 1720, those who had become British subjects were offered free exercise of their religion, a guarantee to their property and their civil rights. Official notices were translated into French to be distributed, a policy that continued from 1720 to 1755.  An offer was made that they could leave but not take any of their possessions with them.

They answered that they feared the Indians if they took the oath and promised to be faithful and peaceful. They explained that they couldn’t leave in the year (allotted by the treaty) because no one would buy their land. The French government wanted them to move, but the land they had to offer in exchange was poor, and the English government was underhandedly making them stay. The English didn’t want to lose their source of supplies. The British complained that the Acadians were hard to control…the Minas Acadians even more so than the Port Royal Acadians.

I suspect that “hard to control” is an understatement! The Acadians were furious and, furthermore, understood that the English needed them, and hated that they did.

Those poor Acadians. This is the drama that never ends.

Plot Twist, Or Two

General Phillips arrived later in 1720 and issued a proclamation that they must take the oath unconditionally or leave the country in three months. He also said they couldn’t sell or take any of their property with them, thinking that would surely force the Acadians to take the oath. They still refused, saying that the Indians were threatening them. When the Acadians proposed, “let us harvest our crops and use vehicles to carry it,” Philipps figured that they were planning on taking their possessions with them and denied their request.

The Acadians felt that their only route of “escape” was by land, so they began to make a road from Minas to Port Royal, about 70 miles.

The governor issued an order that no one should move without his permission and sent an order to Minas to stop work on the road.

The English stated that the Acadians desired to take the Port Royal cattle to Beaubassin, about 300 miles today by road but not nearly as far by water. Beaubassin was a fortified French possession.

Removing a food source was the last thing the English wanted.

Philipps pronounced the Acadians ungovernable, stubborn, and that they were directed by bigoted priests. He went on to say that the Acadians couldn’t be allowed to go because it would strengthen the population of their French neighbors. The Acadians were also needed to build fortifications and to produce supplies for the forts. He stated that they couldn’t leave until there were enough British subjects to be settled in their place. He hoped that plans were being made to bring in British subjects. He expected problems from the Indians, who didn’t want the Acadians to move.

Instead, France began sending people to Ile Royal. The fort at Louisbourg was begun in 1720. Other settlements in the region included St. Pierre near the Straight of Canso, which had slate mines, and Niganiche, further north on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, a fishing port.

Life Went On

Among this drama that had continued for more than a decade, family life went on, despite everything. People got married, babies were born and baptized, people died and were buried. The Priests did their jobs, and the Acadian families supported each other. Their religious ceremonies and services, along with the seasonal activities, gave their lives some semblance of rythym and normalcy.

I can only imagine the heated discussions surrounding those requested and then required oaths though. Gatherings must have been interesting.

I’m sure that everyone was anxious and afraid, constantly under threat of losing everything up to and including their loved ones and their lives.

A Wedding

It was under this cloud that Jacques married secondly to Charlotte Bonnevie on Monday August 18, 1721, in Port-Royal, err, I mean Annapolis Royal. Perhaps, at least for a few days, the newlyweds didn’t notice anything else.

Jacques is recorded as Angelique’s widower, not as the widower of anyone else. Of course, if the church didn’t recognize a marriage, they wouldn’t have recognized him as a widower either.

Jacques and Charlotte Bonnevie had eight children.

• Charles L’or was born on November 23 and baptized on November 24, 1722, in Port-Royal, Acadia. Godparents were Charles Thibaudaut and Francoise Bonnevie. He married Marguerite Garceau, daughter of Daniel Garceau and Anne Doucet, on Monday January 20, 1755, in Port-Royal, Acadia. Witnesses were Claude Landry, Jean-Baptiste Poirier, Charles Melancon, Jean Granger.
• Joseph L’Or or Lor was born and baptized on February 19, 1725, in Port-Royal, Acadia. Godparents were Joseph Amiraut and Jean Doucet, wife of Pierre L’Or. He married Marie-Josephe Garceau, daughter of Pierre Garceaux and Agnes Doucet, on Tuesday February 3, 1750, in Port-Royal. Witnesses were Pierre Lore, Charles Lore, Pierre Garceaux, and Laurent Doucet.

French Neutrals

In 1725, it seemed that a solution might have been reached regarding that oath of allegiance after ill-tempered Governor Armstrong arrived. Despite his disposition and violent temper, he realized he needed the Acadians and convinced the Port Royal Acadians, representing about one-fourth of the Acadian population, to take the oath by reminding them that England would not allow Catholics to serve in the Army. Their concern was having to fight against their countrymen and family members. Encouraged by his success, he tried the same thing in Minas, but it failed.

Then he offered to allow them to take the following oath: “I do sincerely promise and swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King George the Second, so help me God.”  This meant that they wouldn’t have to “take up arms” against the French or Indians, they could leave whenever they wanted, and they had the freedom to have priests and to practice the Catholic religion.

At this point, they began to be known as the “Neutral French” or French Neutrals. This seems like a much better environment in which to build a family. Jacques’s next child arrived in 1728.

• Pierre Benjamin Lor was born on January 25, 1728, and baptized the next day in Port-Royal, Acadia. Godparents were Pierre Olivier, resident of Beaubassin, and Marie Doucet, wife of Charles Lor. He married Marie Blanchard in May 1762 in exile and had his marriage validated in Kamouraska, Quebec, on August 10, 1764.

That Oath – AGAIN

In 1729, that 1725 oath was considered too lenient and declared null and void. Everyone was unhappy, but the Acadians were unwavering in their insistence on a conditional oath, which they took in 1730.

This is where it gets interesting.

Phillips, the old commander that was sent to replace Armstrong, reported that the Acadians took this oath:

“I sincerely promise and swear, as a Christian, that I will be utterly faithful and will truly obey His Majesty King George the Second, whom I acknowledge as the sovereign Lord of Nova Scotia and Acadia. So help me God.”

That’s what Phillips reported back to London, but the actual oath continued, as follows:

“… that the inhabitants, when they have sworn hereto, will not be obliged to take up arms against France or against the Savages, and the said Inhabitants have further promised that they will not take up arms against the King of England or against its government.”

The priest and a notary signed as witnesses, but Phillips only sent the first part back to England, in essence buying peace with this move.

For the next 15 or 20 years, the Acadians were left alone, and their population grew rapidly. However, those additional people strained the seams of the Acadian settlements and the Acadians were not free to colonize additional areas. England banned Acadian development of new land, but they did expand gradually into areas adjacent to their settlements. The Acadians were hard-working, skilled at their tasks, traded well, and had high moral standards. They built dykes so that all of the land was available for farming. Farms were divided within families since new land was reserved for Protestants. Catholicism was prohibited, but the English turned an intentional blind eye, and the Acadians worshiped without interference.

Ironically, the British continued to try to tax the Acadians, who continued to refuse and evade their efforts. The Acadians had come masters of excuses.

Based on all of this, we know that the Jacques Lore family was living near the fort, along the Annapolis River on family land, as had his father, Julien, who died in 1724.

The Family Grows

Jacques and Charlotte added five more children to their family.

• Jean Lor was born August 9^th and baptized August 13, 1730, in Port Royal. Godparents were Rene Petito and Angelique Lor, daughter of Jacques Lor. He married Marie Garceau, daughter of Daniel Garceau and Anne Doucet, around 1765, probably in New York. The marriage was revalidated in Bécancour on September 28, 1767.
• Paul Lore was born and baptized on December 21, 1733. Godparents were Jacques Bonnevie and Marie Lore, Jacques’s sister.
• Claude Poncy Lore was born on September 21, 1736, and the baptism was registered on August 12, 1737. Godparents were Pierre Lanoue and Marguerite Beliveau.
• François Lore was born on August 10, 1739, and was baptized the same day. Godparents were Joseph Lore and Francoise Lore.
• Honoré Laure was born on June 17, 1742, and baptized by Abraham Bourg. The baptism was registered on June 24, 1742. Godparents were Francois Miraut and Marie Joseph Laure. He married Appoline Garceau, daughter of Daniel Garceau and Anne Doucet, around 1765, probably in New York. The marriage was rehabilitated in Bécancour on September 28, 1767.

Charlotte Bonnevie is widely reported to have died in 1758 when a ship sank, but I question this narrative. I’ll discuss this further in her article.

Something Happened in 1742

One thing that makes me suspicious is that their last baptized child was Honoré, born in 1742 when Charlotte was only 36 years old. It would be very unusual for her not to have given birth to at least two if not three or four additional children.

Jacques’ mother lived until January of 1742. He probably helped her on the home place, if he didn’t live there with her. It’s also possible that the reason there were no more children after 1742 was that Jacques died too.

A 1745 report from Port Royal said the Acadian homes were “wretched wooden boxes, without conveniences, and without ornaments, and scarcely containing the most necessary furniture …” A visitor in the 1750s stated that “the houses of the village (Annapolis Royal) … are mean, and in general built of wood.”

The situation deteriorated significantly under Governor Charles Lawrence, who wanted to get rid of the Acadians. He used acts of individuals to make charges against the whole population. He revoked the former governor’s orders not to use military force if the Acadians refused to comply. One example was that if an Acadian was ordered to get firewood, and he didn’t do it promptly … his house would be used for fuel.

Brutal.

The Expulsion Begins

In 1742, Abraham Bourg who baptized Honoré also lived near the Fort, so it makes sense that Jacques’s family was still living in that vicinity in 1755 when the Expulsion began. They hadn’t been free to go anyplace else.

On July 28, 1755, Governor Lawrence and the Nova Scotia Council decided to deport the Acadians. The horrific campaign began on August 11^th. Many Acadians, especially outside of the Annapolis Royal area took to the woods and, in essence, disappeared into the Micmac population.

The Acadians and their Native allies and family members provided much more resistance than the British expected. They spent years clearing and chasing the Acadians, never completely eradicating them.

Stephen White estimated that there were a total of about 14,100 Acadians, with about 11,500 being deported and at least 5,000 of those perishing of disease, starvation, and shipwrecks. Another estimate suggests that half of the Acadians “disappeared” into remote areas, or maybe disappeared altogether. We’ll never know or account for everybody. We do know that some Acadian families escaped to Camp d”Esperance.

The British had difficulty rounding up the Acadians in the Port Royal area, which took them from August until December 1755. The Acadians were not going to relent and “go quietly into the night” without resistance.

According to Acadian.org:

“The Acadians at Annapolis Royal were then shipped off from Goat Island at 5:00 o’clock in the morning on Monday, December 8, 1755. Lawrence specifically instructed that the sloop Dove be sent to Annapolis to take the inhabitants to Connecticut “to which the vessel belongs.” Many died upon this ship as it was blown off course for months. It left with 278 exiles and arrived in Connecticut almost six months later with only 180.

Another ship departed from Port Royal on December 15^th for Connecticut with 114 unwilling passengers, and at least one more vessel left with 280 in January 1756.

The Brigge Experiment also departed for New York on December 8^th with 250 aboard One report states that it too was also blown off course, arriving in May, but another states that it arrived on January 30, 1756.

A second ship left for New York as well from Cape Sable which is on the far southwest tip of Nova Scotia, so unlikely to have carried Jacques’s family.

Other ships were also destined for Pennsylvania and Maryland, but it does not appear that Jacques’s family was on board those, assuming, which is always a bad idea, that they had all managed to board the same ship.

Jacques’ family would have been herded into some ship that set sail with its unwilling hostages, landing a few weeks or months later with nothing except each other and the clothes they were wearing. The lucky ones hadn’t lost family members in the process.

What Happened to Jacques?

Here’s the challenge. We don’t know if Jacques or his wife, either one, was alive in 1755.

One researcher reported that after the exile, Jacques returned to Canada with his son Pierre-Benjamin and they settled in Kamouraska where Jacques died. That’s accurate for Pierre, but I have found no evidence that Jacque either arrived or died there. He should have a burial record. They also reported that Jacque and Angelique’s three children produced no heirs. I’m not sure quite how they arrived at this conclusion, but Jacques and Angelique only had two children. The third child attributed to them by this researcher actually belonged to Jacques’s brother.

I checked PRDH and found no indication in the church records that Jacques ever made it to Quebec. The earliest Quebec records for a Jacques Lord/Laure or any other spelling are in Kamouraska in 1764 when the first Acadians began arriving from afar. In 1764, Jacques would have been 86 years old. It’s not impossible, but it’s unlikely that he lived that long.

The Jacques that witnessed this marriage might be one source of the confusion. This Jacques is probably Jacques’s son who died in Quebec in 1786.

It’s possible that both Jacques and his wife were both deceased prior 1755, meaning that his children boarded those ships as orphans. It’s almost certain that one of them had died by 1743 when Charlotte would have become pregnant with the next child.

In 1742, Jacques would have been 53 years old.

He would have been 66 in 1755 with children ranging in age from 13 to 46, beginning with his eldest surviving child, Jacques. We know the bolded individuals survived until at least shortly before the exile began.

• Jacques – age 46 – apparently never married. Died in Quebec in 1786 after the exile.

This Jacques has been confused with his father who was born in 1679 and would have been 97 years old in 1786, not 79.

• Angelique – age 43 if she survived. We have no marriage or death record for her although we know she was alive in 1730 when she witnessed a baptism.
• Charles – age 33 – married in 1755 just a few months before the deportation began.
• Joseph – age 30 – married in 1750.
• Pierre Benjamin – age 27 – married Marie Joseph Blanchard in 1763 in Exile and died in Quebec.
• Jean – age 25 – married in exile and later died in Quebec
• Paul – age 22 if he survived. Nothing after his baptism.
• Claude Poncy – age 19 if he survived. Nothing after his baptism.
• Francois – age 16 if he survived. Nothing after his baptism
• Honore – age 13 – married in exile and settled in Quebec at the end of the exile.

We know of ten children who might have been living, and that six were living in 1755. We only know of four that survived the exile, although it’s possible that there were more. Not everyone may have moved to Quebec.

The Garceau Alliance

What we do know, positively, is that three of Jacques’s children, Charles, Jean and Honore, all married daughters of Daniel Garceau; Charles in January 1755 just before the exile began, and Jean and Honore during exile. A fourth son, Joseph, married Daniel Garceau’s brother’s daughter in 1750. Those families were located in close proximity before the deportation when Charles and Joseph married, as well as later, someplace in exile, when Honore and Jean married Garceau sisters.

Daniel Garceau is found in New York which tells me that Jacques Lore’s family and Daniel’s were both on the Brigge Experiment.

On the 1763 list of Acadians in New York, we find Daniel Garceau with his wife and children, plus Charles Lord (seigneur), his wife and a child. Charles Laure married Marguerite, Daniel Garceau’s daughter. We also find Pierre Lort (probably Lore/Lord) with a wife and four children.

Additionally, we find two of Alexander Lore’s daughters and their husbands on this list. Alexander was Jacques’s brother.

This strongly suggests that Jacques’s family was upon the Brigge Experiment, along with Daniel Garceau, especially given that Jacques’s sons, Honore and Jean both married Daniel’s daughter in exile.

Not all of Jacques’s children may have wound up in the same location. It’s well known that the British were ruthless in terms of separating families, even children, from their parents. Clearly, some of Jacques’s nieces and nephews and perhaps his siblings could and did end up in other locations.

In Connecticut, we find Charles, Jean, Louis, and Pierre Lord, along with several married females. None appear to be Jacques’s children. Identification is difficult due to same-name practices.

Jacques’s sister, Anne, who married Mathieu Doucet was shipped to Massachusetts where they are found in Newbury in 1760, then in Connecticut in the 1763 census.

Jacques’s Legacy

Almost all of our information about Jacques is inferred from his marriages and his children’s baptisms. We interweave those events with the known and documented history of the Acadians, particularly in Nova Scotia.

We know where Jacques lived, almost exactly, and we can infer that he defended his homeland in 1711.

We know that his surname wasn’t Lord at all and was pronounced Lor, L’Or or Lore based on how the various priests entered his family surname into Port Royal church records.

We probably found the answer to how he obtained his “dit” name of LaMontagne, the mountain, in Frence.

He may well have died in 1742, given that we have absolutely no record of him after his son Honore’s birth. We don’t know if he lived to see his family forced into exile in 1755. The only reason we know where at least some of his children were during that time is their association with the Daniel Garceau family. You can’t marry who you don’t see.

Jacques was the first generation Lor ancestor who was born in Acadia and may have died and been buried in that soil too. If so, he was the only Lor ancestor to live his entire life in beautiful but perilous Nova Scotia. Either way, his entire life would have been spent with some non-trivial level of anxiety. It’s horrible when unsafe is simply normal.

Given the history unfolding around him, it’s not surprising that it appears that Jacques could neither read nor write. Neither could his children. No time for education when simply surviving takes every waking minute.

Perhaps his legacy can be summed up in one word – survival.

What he survived, assuming he did, was genocide.

The first burning that Jacques would have remembered was the 1690 torching of the church and 28 homes by the English out of Boston. Apparently, the upriver farms were spared, which, hopefully, included his home. He was only 11, and even if their home was not burned, they would have had no assurance that it wouldn’t be. The terror would have been palpable as the family watched the orange, smoke-filled sky and waited. I’d wager his parents took the children into hiding in some location, probably up in the mountains. Or maybe his mother gathered the children to safety, and his father stayed to fight.

Jacques had to wonder if he’d ever see his father, or home, again. Maybe he begged to stay and fight with his father and probably his older brother. Perhaps they let him.

The next burning by the English occurred six years later, in 1696, and included slaughtering livestock and ruining the Acadian’s dykes for spite. I’d wager that Jacques grew up both fearing and despising the English. Attacks like this were a repeated occurrence throughout Jacques’s life along the Rivière du Dauphin.

England and France were engaged in perpetual conflict, culminating, of course, with the 1755 Grande Derangement, as the Deportation and exile became known to the Acadians.

If Jacques survived that long, the last scene he would have seen of his homeland as they sailed away was…you guessed it…burning. What a horrific memory. Adding insult to injury, they were being sent to live in the British colonies where no one wanted them as paupers – and they assuredly didn’t want to be. Either paupers, living among the British in the colonies, or refugees.

The fact that Jacques managed to survive at all and protect his family is nothing short of a miracle. The Acadians were incredibly resourceful, resilient, and tenacious people. They may have been defeated at that point in time, but they were not destroyed.

Their lifeblood runs in an estimated three million descendants worldwide today. Whether he knew them or not, Jacque had at least 27 grandchildren through his five children known to have married and produced offspring. There were probably at least five more, born during the exile, who may or may not have survived.

Jacque lives on.

_____________________________________________________________

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Honoré Lor was born on June 17, 1742, in Port Royal, Acadia, to Jacques Lord and Marie Charlotte Bonnevie near what is today Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia.

Fellow Acadian Abraham Bourg baptized Honoré, and his baptism was then registered by the priest, Father Desenclaves, a week later, on June 24th. Researcher Mark indicated that the priest had not yet arrived at his post on the 17th, which explains why Bourg performed the baptism a week earlier.

Honoré’s last name is spelled Laure in this record. The godparents were Francois Miraut and Marie Joseph Laure, according to FamilySearch and the Nova Scotia Archives.

Three very kind and generous people, Karen, Elizabeth, and Mark translated his baptism entry for me. I’ve combined them. Thank you so very much!

“The twenty-fourth of June, one thousand seven hundred and forty two, I have supplied the ceremony of baptism to Honoré, baptized in the home of his father by Abraham Bourg, born the seventeenth of the same month, legitimate son of Jacques Laure and Marie de Bonnevie, his wife. The godfather has been Francois Miraut and the godmother Marie Joseph Laure, who have not signed. [Signed] Desenclaves priest.”

His baptism was unusual, both in that a non-priest performed the original baptism and that it was registered a week later without rebaptism. It’s possible that Honoré was unhealthy, and his parents were concerned that he might not live – hence the emergency baptism.

After I wrote the above paragraph, Karen Theriot Reader provided additional information about Catholic baptisms of infants, as follows:

In the Catholic Church, baptisms are never performed twice. The word for a private (usually emergency) baptism is “ondoyé” and is sufficient for a proper baptism. Ceremonies are sometimes performed later, but just for show, really. Unlike marriages, which had a need to be “rehabilitated,” even a private baptism was considered valid.

In this record the translated words “supplied the ceremonies of baptism” indicates NOT a repeat of the rites, but a mere ceremony performed for the sake of the family. So to be more accurate, omit the word “rite,” and substitute “ceremony.”

Of course, this could be reflective of the fact that the family lived across the Annapolis River, just above where it connects with the Bay of Fundy, a few miles upstream from Port Royal, so they would have needed to get the baby to the church for baptism.

Today Google Maps shows roads, but then, the river was the road. It’s a good thing Honoré was born in June, or his baptism might not have been recorded for months if he had been born in the forbidding winter.

Honoré Lord was born just 13 years before the Acadian Expulsion which began in August of 1755. The Acadian people were rounded up, stripped of their belongings, their farms burned, loaded into ships like cattle, and forcibly removed from the homesteads they had carved out of the Nova Scotia coastline for over a century.

The Acadian history in Nova Scotia began in the early 1600s and continued until it didn’t any longer. The English finally “won” the conflict in which the Acadians had intentionally remained neutral. Winning meant expelling the Acadians with no warning and without mercy. Many died. We will never know for sure who left, where they went, what happened to them, and who among them perished, either immediately or consequentially.

All of Honoré’s source records are listed under the name of Honoré Laure or Lor in Port Royal, and Lore, Laure, Lor and Lord in Quebec. He is Honoré Laure in his Baptismal record, his first marriage record, and his burial record. He is Honoré Lord in his second marriage record and Honoré Lor [Lord] in his third marriage record. He is listed in a number of his children’s records as Honoré Lord, which is the last name many also were known by. Essentially, there was no standardized spelling.

He is not listed as Honoré Lord dit Lamontagne on any record. The dit name seems to have ended in his father’s generation.

The Family

Honoré was the youngest of 10 children born to his father Jacques Lord, of which eight were born to his mother, Marie Charlotte Bonnevie.

• One of his siblings and one of his half-siblings died shortly after birth.
• His oldest sibling, half-brother Jacques, born in 1709, was already 33 years old when Honoré was born in 1742. We have no marriage or death record for Jacques, so we have to assume that he was alive in 1755 when the deportation occurred.

Since we also have no death information elsewhere, we will also have to presume that he either had gone to live, or hide, in the backcountry, died during the removal, or in the subsequent years, someplace. It’s anyone’s guess.

• Honoré’s brother Charles was born in November of 1722. Charles Thiboneau and Francoise Bonnevie, his mother’s sister, were his sponsors. Charles was a newlywed during the deportation, having married Marguerite Garceau on January 20, 1755. His wife was very probably pregnant in August. If they were lucky, they somehow managed to make it onto the same ship with both his parents and her parents, Daniel Garceau and Anne Doucet.

In 1763, Charles was found in New York, New York, in the census, with a wife and one child. One child meant that at least three children had died. If the families were deported together, then it’s likely that Jacques and the rest of the family were also in New York. In 1797, Charles died in Trois Rivieres, St Maurice, Quebec.

• Honoré’s next younger brother, Joseph, was born in February of 1725 with Joseph Amireau and Jeanne Doucet as sponsors. Joseph married on February 3, 1750, to Marie Joseph Garceau. We know they had two children by 1755, but we know nothing more about anyone in this family.

Lots of Acadian families literally disappear without a trace. I wonder if Honoré knew what happened to his brother.

• Honoré’s next younger brother, Pierre Benjamin, was born in January 1728. Sponsors were Pierre Olivier, a resident of Beaubassin, and Marie Doucet, spouse of his brother, Charles Lord. He was found in the 1763 census in Riviere St. Jean in what is now New Brunswick, then Acadia, so he was not deported in 1755. He married in May of 1763 to Marie Josephe Blanchard and had his marriage rehabilitated in 1764 in Kamouraska, Quebec. This tells us that he made his way down the St. Lawrence. Pierre died in 1813 in Nicolet, Quebec, another 180 miles upriver and halfway between Quebec City and Montreal. I hope Honoré found him and was able to reconnect.
• Honoré’s next youngest sibling, Jean, was born in August 1730 in Port Royal and was baptized four days later with sponsors Denis Petitot and Angelique Lord. We know he married Marie Josephe Garceau about 1765, someplace in New England, the daughter of Daniel Garceau and Anne Doucet. Their marriage was rehabilitated at Becancour, Quebec in September 1767. He died in 1809 in St-Ours, Quebec.

This confirms that indeed, the Daniel Garceau and Jacques Lord families were in exile, someplace, together.

• Honoré’s next younger brother, Paul, was born four days before Christmas in 1733 in Port Royal, and was baptized the same day. His sponsors were Jacques Bonnevie, probably his uncle, and Marie Lord.

There is no death record in Port Royal, so he likely was deported with his family, but probably died either on the way or in New England. We find no further records.

• Honoré’s next youngest brother, Claude Poncy, was born in September 1736 and was baptized in August 1737. Sponsors were Pierre Lanoue and Marguerite Belliveau. Nothing more is known about Claude, but it’s likely that he, too, was deported and died in exile.
• Honoré’s closest sibling in age was Francois, born in August 1739 in Port Royal and was baptized the same day with Joseph Lord and Francoise Lord, his uncles, as sponsors. There’s no death record for Francois, so he was likely boarded onto that ship with hundreds of terrified people in 1755, never to be heard from again. He was 16 years old, and his brother Honoré was probably staying very close to him and to their parents. Assuming that was possible. We know that the deportation process often separated families indiscriminately.

Exile

Honoré’s father, Jacques, was reportedly in exile in New York, then returned to Canada with his son Pierre-Benjamin and settled in Kamouraska. Jacques reportedly had no heir through his children with his first wife, although I have no confirmation of that.

I have never found a death entry for Jacques.

Given that Honoré Lore (by whatever spelling) and two of his siblings married children of Daniel Garceau, those families were clearly located together both before and after the deportation. Honoré’s older brother Charles married Marguerite Garceau in January 1755, just months before the deportation, and his younger brother Jean married Marie Josephe Garceau someplace in exile around 1765. This was roughly the same time that Honoré married Appoline Garceau. We know that Daniel Garceau is found among the Acadians deported to New York because he is found on a 1763 list there.

Two ships carried deported Acadians to New York. On December 8, 1755, the Brigantine Experiment departed from Annapolis Royal and arrived someplace in New York on January 30^, 1756, in the dead of winter, with 250 Acadians on board. Another schooner left Cape Sable and arrived in New York on April 28, 1756, with 94 Acadians. Given that the Lord/Lore family lived very near Annapolis Royal and Cape Sable is on the southwest corner of Nova Scotia, it’s most likely that Honoré, his family, and the Garceau family were on the Experiment.

Based on those marriages, we know that Honoré, his parents, and the Daniel Garceau family were exiled to the same location in New York.

However, because nothing is ever easy with this family, there’s also a smidgen of conflicting evidence. According to their marriage rehabilitation in Canada in 1767, Honorius Lord and Apolline Garceau were married in exile in New England around 1765 by Francois Landry. I found one Francois Landry in Massachusetts, but it’s possible that this is the wrong person. Both the names Francois and Landry, individually, were common among the Acadians.

Unfortunately, we know almost nothing about Honoré during the period of exile between late 1755 and his re-emergence as an adult in Quebec in 1767 – except for one thing.

He got married.

Exile Ends

The Massachusetts Legislature sent a delegation to Quebec in March 1766. The delegation obtained a permit from the English Governor Murray for the displaced Acadians to immigrate to Quebec Province.

Honoré Lord and Apolline Garceau were married in exile in New England, probably around 1765 or 1766. The marriage was validated in Canada on September 29, 1767, because the couple had not been properly married by a priest during their exile in the colonies.

Many Acadians, along with this couple, settled south of Montreal around LaPraire and L’Acadie. Honoré’s family was in Yamachiche, below, in 1767 and 1768, in St-Denis and St-Ours in Quebec in 1775.

The family gradually moved westward along the St. Lawrence and then up the Richelieu River.

We don’t find Honoré and family again until 1787 in L’Acadie,

This raises the question of where some of Honoré’s children were born. Suggesting New England is the fact that Brother Bernard found conditional baptismal records at l’Acadie, Quebec for two children in July of 1787. Their actual birth dates were given in the baptismal record, but not the locations.

Some baptismal records, marriage and burial records were found and transcribed by Brother Bernard for Honoré’s children by Susanne Lafaille and Marguerite Babin. PRDH provided more, as do the genealogical records of Karen Theriot Reader combined with my own research.

Brother Bernard translated an extract from a letter by Rev Elisee Choquet, Pastor of Delson, Laprairie, Quebec.

“In reference to the marriage Lafay-Foret, before a Justice of the Peace, in the colonies, for lack of priests, there is evidently question of an Acadian marriage, and there are many such examples at Chambly, Nicolet, Sorel, and especially at LaPrairie. This is understandable. The unfortunate Acadians, dispersed in 1755, received an amnesty from Governor Murray, in the spring of 1766, and as the news reached them, they undertook to return to Canada. Between 1765 to 1780 the road to Montreal was filled with them.”

They could travel from the Hudson River all the way to the St Lawrence by way of Lake Champlain.

By Champlainmap.png: Kmusser / derivative work: Pierre cb – Champlainmap.png, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17800787

Then from Lake Champlain, following the waterway right up the Richelieu River.

Back to Rev. Choquet’s letter:

“But from 1755 to their return, they had to live, and their children marry. A few of the older ones (we know of three) received from the Grand Vicar of Acadia the power to receive the consent of marriage while in exile. But they were dispersed and many of them died. The young folks’ only recourse then was to marry before a Justice of the Peace, as they refused to be married by Protestant ministers. On their return to Canada, Bishop Briand ordered such marriages to be renewed or validated, but without reflecting the correctness of the original.”

That’s exactly what they did.

Marriage

On September 29, 1767, Honoré and his wife, Appoline Garceau, had their marriage validated. We don’t know exactly when they were originally married, but their first known child was baptized in February 1768. There has been a debate about whether or not that child was born while in exile, but if so, why wasn’t he baptized at the same time that their marriage was validated?

The original church at Becancour, where Honoré’s marriage was validated, was built in 1722 and burned in December of 2000.

Brother Bernard’s translation.

“In the year 1767, on the 29th of September, we, undersigned missionary priest of the Parish of the Nativity of Becancour, validated the marriage between Honoré Lor and Apolline Garsau, both Acadians, who had been married by Francois Landry in England (New England was meant), no impediment having been discovered to said marriage, we gave them the nuptial benediction according to the form prescribed by our Mother the Holy Church, and this in presence of Fracous Lagrave and of Antoine Sabourin, who declared they know not how to sign this register,  (Signed)  F Louis Demers, Recollet Priest”

One Francois Landry was found in Massachusetts, specifically in Ipswich, in 1760 when he petitioned, asking for maintenance for himself and his wife. He claims they are both old and their children have been “put out to service,” and it pains him greatly and “occasions grief to them.”

Francois’s location, assuming it’s the same man, may be an important clue as to where Honoré Lore and Appoline Garceau were as well. Unfortunately, it does not mesh with Daniel Garceau, Appoline’s father being in New York in 1763, which would be stronger evidence.

After their marriage was validated, Honoré and Appoline slowly migrated on up the St. Lawrence River.

Upriver

We know they were still in Yamachiche in February of 1768, at St-Denis-sur-Richelieu in December of 1769, and in St-Ours in 1771, 1773, and in 1775 when their child, Joseph, was baptized.

Then we lose the trail of our family for a dozen years. No baptisms, nothing.

Their children born in 1777 and 1779 were not baptized until 1787 in L’Acadie.

Why not?

Where were they?

Sit down and buckle up for this one!

The Revolutionary War

There’s something VERY interesting and unique about Honoré Lore. He served in the Revolutionary War – in the Colonies, and more specifically, in a New York battalion.

What? Acadians didn’t do that!

This was the very last thing I would have expected to find, but here we are.

According to this muster Roll, he was at the garrison at Albany from April 1 through May 12^th of 1777.

Artificers in Col. Moses Hazen’s 2^nd Canadian Regiment list include Nathaniel Lord and Charles Lord. Charles may have been Honoré’s brother, but there’s no way of knowing without additional information.

Honoré’s card number.

What? How is this possible? He’s Canadian and just LEFT the colonies. Why would he EVER go back?

By 1777 Honor Lord, was listed on the muster roll of George Chardin Nicholson’s detachment of French Cadets in the service of the United States of America in Garrison at Albany on May 12, 1777. The muster list is dated April 1-May 12, 1777.

Was he only enlisted for six weeks? That would be very unusual.

Does this mean that Honoré Lord, and perhaps his family, might have been living in or near the garrison at Albany, New York during the Revolutionary War? Is that why we can’t find them during that time?

The Colonies reached out to the Canadians for assistance with unharnessing themselves from the English. It made sense to them that the Canadians would fully understand and be sympathetic, given that England had also captured Canada. Perhaps both nations could free themselves from the clutches of the British by assisting each other.

Honoré Lord might have been part of the “first canadian regiment” a.k.a. Congress Own Regiment. He may have joined with 200 men in 1775 when Colonel James Livingston who lived in Chambly, Quebec recruited nearby men to help guard the southern shore of the Saint Lawrence River.

That December, Livingston and his men led the charge for the Battle of Quebec from the fort at Crown Point, New York, on the western shore of Lake Champlain, sustaining heavy loses.

By Mwanner – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7627736

The ruins of the barracks at Crown Point still stand today.

We’ve confirmed that Honoré’s name is on the 1777 muster roll, but it appears that there’s much more to this story. He probably served for at least two years.

I asked a friend who was going to NARA recently to see if Honoré Lore, aka Honor Lord has a military folder or file. She was told there was nothing and was asked to wait for an expert, but by the end of the second day, no subject expert had appeared and her time was up. She will try again soon unless one of you with far more Acadian experience than me has something to offer. I have already tried the SAR and DAR indexes with no results.

I don’t know if Honoré would have been eligible for anything, pension or bounty land, given that he was not a US citizen and lived in Quebec beginning in 1787. Come to think of it, I’m not sure exactly what country he was a citizen of, given that he was born when Nova Scotia was under French control, exiled to the colonies, back to Quebec under British rule, fought for US sovereignty, apparently lived back in (probably) New York again, then lived back in Quebec when it was under British control. I think this means he was a refugee at least four times.

We know for sure that the family was absent from Quebec for several years and also that Lake Champlain, into the Richelieu River, was the direct access route from the US to the St. Lawrence.

Honoré’s Unit

The First Canadian Regiment was raised in September 1775 by James Livingston to support the Colonies’ independence efforts in the war and saw service primarily in New York and Quebec. You can read more about troop movements and battles that Honoré’s unit, and therefore Honoré, was likely involved with here, here, and here.

Honoré’s regiment saw action in Montreal, Trois Rivieres, New York, the Saratoga campaign, including the relief of the siege of Fort Stanwix in August 1777, both Battles of Saratoga, and the Battle of Rhode Island. The unit was disbanded on January 1, 1781 at King’s Ferry, New York. I’d love to know if he served for the entire time.

Honoré’s service makes perfect sense, looking at where these battles were fought.

On this map detailing the movements and battles of Canadian regiments, we see New York, where his family was likely in exile, Albany, where we know he was garrisoned, and St.-Jean-sur-Richelieu and the exact area where he was living in 1775, along the Richelieu River. The Canadians, especially in this area, had a vested interest in the outcome of the war. In fact. Canada was referred to as the 14^th Colony.

The war came to Honoré, just as another war had come to him once before.

More particularly, the path to Montreal and sites along the St. Lawrence where battles were fought took the soldiers right through St.-Jean-sur-Richelieu, just a stone’s throw from L’Acadie where the Lore family lived, or would come to live by 1787. Sorel and Trois Rivieres were northwest of Montreal.

It appears that Honoré didn’t so much decide to go to war, but war arrived on his doorstep, and his only viable option was to step up and defend the region where he lived. It’s possible that his family evacuated, all things considered.

I’m sure, given the family’s history with the British that Honoré and the rest of the Acadians despised them and would have welcomed the opportunity to break their stranglehold.

What we do know, for sure, is that Honoré was with Appoline, someplace, in July of 1776 and in May of 1778 in order for their children born in 1777 and 1779 to be conceived, so he wasn’t “gone” the entire time.

By StefKiro – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=121498754

Honoré may well have served or even joined here at Fort St. Jean, located within walking distance of L’Acadie, in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu. This fort played a crucial role in the defense of Quebec.

Honoré was almost assuredly involved in the 1775 Siege of Fort St. Jean. Montgomery’s troops were pushing for Montreal, then Quebec City, to liberate Quebec, which had been captured.

They laid siege to the Fort on September 17^th, and on November 3^rd, the British capitulated. Montgomery’s men did take Montreal on November 13^th, with no battle, but the British General Carlton had escaped upriver to Quebec City to prepare to defend Quebec there.

A plaque erected at Fort Saint Johns reads:

“Constructed in 1743 by M. de Léry under orders from Governor la Galissonnière. This post was for all the military expeditions towards Lake Champlain. In August 31, 1760, Commandant de Roquemaure had it blown up in accordance with orders from the Governor de Vaudreuil in order to prevent its falling into the hands of the English. Rebuilt by Governor Carleton, in 1773. During the same year, under the command of Major Charles Preston of the 26th Regiment, it succumbed to a 45-day siege by the American troops commanded by General Montgomery.”

Fort St. Jean today.

Fort Frederick in Albany

The garrison at Albany is the one location we know positively that Honoré was during April and May of 1777.

From 1775 through 1781, Albany was a Patriot stronghold. Fort Frederick was built atop State Street Hill in 1676. You can see it all the way to the rear on the map above from 1758.

The city was fortified with a stockade in 1695, with Fort Frederick located at the highest point, overlooking the fledgling city and guarding the approach to the west.

By the early 1700s, Fort Frederick had 21 guns, and its stockade surrounded the entire village of Albany.

Today, you can see Pearl Street, and I’ve marked the church that sits in the location of the former fort.

This drawing of Fort Frederick, depicting it in the 1700s after it had been updated, shows the gate where Honoré would have entered and exited. He would have stood guard on those rampart walls.

After the French and Indian War ended, the fort fell into disrepair and disuse. In the 1760s, the residents began to salvage stone and wood from the fort for their own use. In 1765, the barracks, hospital, and fort were purchased by the city from the provincial government.

During the Revolutionary War, the fort, or what remained of it, was used to jail those loyal to the British. Many Tory refugees made their way to Canada, or tried to. Was Honoré guarding British sympathizers in Albany?

In 1789, the fort, by then in the way of progress, was finally dismantled with the land deeded to St. Peter’s Episcopal Church.

The church as it appeared in 1803, on the site where the fort stood when Honoré was stationed there.

The bell tower is built on the northeastern bastion of the fort.

At one time, the Fort dominated the landscape, but today, you can barely see the church tucked behind the Hilton Albany.

You can see the church a little better looking east.

Of course, today, Albany is a thriving metropolis, the Capital of the State of New York, stretching for miles. Old Fort Frederick is someplace near the tail of the Y in Albany. Honoré would never recognize anything, here or in New York City, and he would probably be utterly terrified at the specter of even one automobile, let alone traffic.

Service Confirmed

These documents clearly confirm that Honoré was a United States Revolutionary War veteran, even though he wasn’t a citizen and maybe not even a resident. He certainly was not a resident from 1767 to 1775 nor a willing resident from 1755 through 1766.

In fact, Honoré had been exiled in 1755 to the Colonies and simply wanted to return to Canada where he could resume his French/Catholic Acadian cultural life. Unfortunately, the British captured Quebec in 1759, so Honoré literally could not get away from the British. I’m sure, given what that family had been through, Honoré never felt safe. Not one minute of his life.

It’s ironic that from their earliest settlement in Nova Scotia into the 1800s, the peaceful Acadians, who even called themselves the French Neutrals, simply wanted to be left alone but instead were embroiled in one conflict after another. For two hundred years, they tried to stay out of conflicts that they were dragged, kicking and screaming, into.

All things considered, Revolutionary War military service was not something I had ever remotely considered for my Acadian ancestors. Not only did Honoré serve, he volunteered.

A few of Honoré’s grandchildren, including Antoine born in 1805 would move to Vermont, New York and Pennsylvania. Some of his descendants would become US citizens. His service was certainly not in vain.

The Catholic Church

I don’t know why Honoré and family didn’t return immediately after the war, but I have a guess. Canada was in British hands, and Honoré had fought against the British. However, he wanted to practice the Catholic faith, have his children baptized by a priest, and God-forbid, be buried in sacred ground. His desire to be reunited with his fellow Acadians and family members was stronger than anything else.

Upon his return to Quebec from wherever the family sought refuge, they settled in L’Acadie, a settlement of other Acadian families. Honoré had his children baptized at Ste. Marguerite de Blairfindie until St. Luc opened in July of 1801. He began attending St. Luc, even though his son, Honoré, continued to attend Ste. Marguerite. This suggests to me that Honoré Sr. probably lived closer to St. Luc. The church was served by missionaries during Honoré’s lifetime.

There might have been another reason why Honoré moved his family back.

Apoline Dies

The second record we have of this family back in Quebec is Apoline’s death and burial. The first record is the baptism in July of 1787 of two of their children who were born earlier, elsewhere. Less than a year later, Apoline herself passed away.

Apoline Garceau died on May 3, 1788, and was probably the first family member to be buried in the cemetery at Ste. Marguerite de Blairfindie. At least she could be afforded a proper Catholic burial.

Honoré and Appoline’s Children

Honoré Lore/Lord and Appoline had at least seven children and probably more like eleven:

• Honoré Lord was born on February 28, 1768, and baptized in Yamachiche, Quebec. He died on April 5, 1834, in L’Acadie, Quebec, and married Marie LaFaille in August 1789 at Ste. Marguerite de Blairfindie. This means that he spent many of his formative years, between 1775 and 1787, someplace in the States, probably in New York.
• Marie Anne Lord was born on December 30, 1769, and baptized in Saint-Denis, Quebec. She married Antoine Brousseau in 1788 in L’Acadie and died on February 17, 1852.
• Francois Lord was born on September 19, 1771, and baptized at St-Ours in Quebec the next day. He married Marie Anne Lafaille, the sister of his brother, Honoré’s wife, who was also the sister of his father’s second wife (but not his mother), on June 9, 1806. He died on December 13, 1824, in L’Acadie.
• Claire Lord was born in September of 1773 in St-Ours, Quebec, and died 16 months later on January 15, 1775.
• Joseph Honoré Lore was born on March 5, 1775, and was baptized at St-Ours. Since we have no further information, and the family was missing from the area beginning about this time, he likely died wherever the family was located between March 1775 and October 1777 through mid-1787.
• Charlotte Marguerite (also called Marie Charlotte) Lord was born October 14, 1777, and baptized on July 1, 1787, in L’Acadie, Quebec. She married Pierre-Victor Dussault on February 20, 1797, at St-Ours and died on March 18, 1833, in Henryville, Quebec.
• Jean-Baptiste Lore was born on February 1, 1779, and was baptized on July 1, 1787, in L’Acadie. He married Marie Madeleine Ligny on August 18, 1806, died on March 25, 1828, in L’Acadie, and is noted as a farmer.

This record reflects the dual baptisms of both Marie Charlotte and Jean-Baptiste at Ste.-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie in 1787.

It would be critically important to discover where these two children were born to unseal the secret of where Honoré lived from 1775-1787. I suspect it was in New York since that’s where his regiment was located. Had the family been in Canada, there would have been Catholic baptismal records someplace. Even if the baptism occurred, but the records are missing today, their children would not have needed to be baptized in 1787. This tells us they weren’t baptized, which also tells us they weren’t in Canada when they were born.

I cannot read this document to translate it, but I wonder if there is any clue – even the names of witnesses might be helpful. I also wonder if there were other Acadian families with Honoré’s family during the time of their absence. Canadian census records don’t appear to give places of birth until after these two children are already deceased.

We have no records for the family from 1775 through their children’s baptisms in July of 1787, but they likely had additional children in 1781, 1783, 1785, and probably 1787. That would be the natural birth order if every child lived. If children died as infants, the births would have been closer together, and more children could have been born.

This strongly suggests that Appoline and Honoré lost at least four children, if not more, during this timeframe. If the children had lived, they would have been baptized with their siblings in July of 1787.

In August of 1789, Honoré’s oldest child, Honoré (Jr.), married Marie Lafaille/Lafay. Hold that thought for a minute.

Remarriage to Suzanne Lafaille.

Following Apoline’s death in May of 1788, 20 months later, Honoré (Sr.) remarried in January 1790 to Suzanne Lafaille, the younger sister of his son, Honoré Jr.’s wife, Marie Lafaille.

Yes, I know this is confusing.

Honoré Sr. married his son’s sister-in-law, who was five years younger than Honoré Jr.’s wife, Marie LaFaille.

Then, in 1806, Honoré Sr.’s son, Francois (born in 1771) from Honoré Sr.’s first marriage, married Marie Anne Lafaille, the sister of the other two Lafaille sisters who were married to Honoré Lore Sr. and Jr., respectively. So yes, three Lafaille sisters married the father and two Lore sons.

My head was spinning with all this, just in case you were wondering.

Ok, now for Honoré Sr.’s marriage record.

I’m not quite sure why there was a notarial record in addition to the church record, but the notarial record is much easier to read.

Brother Bernard’s translation of the second marriage for Honoré Lord with Suzanne Lafaille.

“The eleventh of January 1790, after the publication of 3 banns of matrimony at our parochial Masses on two Sundays and one intervening holyday between Honoré Lord, widower of Apolline Garseaut, of this parish, of the first part; and Suzanne Lafay, daughter of Francois Lafay and of Marguerite Foret, her parents also of this parish, of the second part; no impediment having been discovered to said marriage, we undersigned priest received their mutual consent and gave them the nuptial benediction according to the form prescribed by our Mother the Holy Roman Church, and this in the presence of Joseph Michell, Victor Girouard, Joseph Commeaux cousin, Honoré and Francois Lord sons, Andre Lancieau, Antoine Grousseau, Francois Brousseau friends of the groom, and of Francois Lafay, Pierre Trahan, Kean Dupuy, Marie Hebert friends, Marguerite and Julienne Lafaye sisters of the bride, several of whom signed with us after this was read.  (Signed)  Marie Lore  Honoré Lore  Marguerite Lafay  francois Lafay Jean Dup  Drosseau  Lancto priest”

This signature appears to be Honoré the son, not Honoré the father.

Suzanne and Honoré had seven children.

• Henri Lord was born March 23, 1791, in L’Acadie and was baptized at Ste-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie.

Henri’s baptism was witnessed by both Francois Lafay and Marguerite Lafaye. Francois is almost assuredly Suzanne’s father, but it’s unclear whether Marguerite is her mother or her sibling by the same name. I suspect her sibling since women were normally listed by their birth surname.

Henri married Louise Lebert on January 13, 1812, Suzanne Comeau on June 14, 1819, and Marie Babin on November 23, 1841. He died after the 1861 census. He is noted as a carpenter and farmer.

• Louise Lord was born on February 27, 1793, in L’Acadie and married Pierre Babin at St-Luc on May 4, 1812.
• Julien Lord, named after Honoré’s grandfather, was born on March 29, 1795, married Marie-Louise Brosseau at St-Luc on February 14, 1820, died on December 8, 1872, and was buried in the St. Luc cemetery.
• Suzanne Lord was born on March 24, 1797, in L’Acadie, and married Charles Ficiault at St-Luc on November 21, 1814.
• Jacques Lord, named after Honoré’s father, was born on July 16, 1799, in L’Acadie and married Marie Desnoyer on August 7, 1820, in Ste-Marie de Monnoir.

The baptisms above were all at Ste-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie. From this point on, baptisms took place at St-Luc after it opened in 1801.

• Marie Phebee Lord was born on March 13, 1802, and baptized on the 14^th at St-Luc. She died on June 9^th of the same year and was buried two days later.
• Hippolyte Lord was born June 17, 1803, and baptized the next day at St. Luc. The baby died a month later, on July 17th, and was buried the following day.

Even though Suzanne was thirty years younger than Honoré Lord Sr., he outlived her.. The first five of their seven children lived to marry, but the daughter born in 1802 died three months later, and the child born on June 17^th, 1803, died on July 17th. Suzanne died on August 9^th, less than a month later. I can’t help but wonder if those deaths were connected.

Suzanne died on August 7, 1803, in L’Acadie and was buried at St-Luc, probably beside her two children. She was only 32 years old.

Honoré remarries to Marguerite Babin

Honoré, now 61 years old, had small children to raise. Three of his older children had married, but the rest were still at home. He wasted no time in marrying 18-year-old Marguerite Babin, 43 years his junior, on February 13, 1804. Honoré was two years younger than Marguerite’s father and 16 years older than her mother.

Brother Bernard’s translation of the third marriage of Honorius Lord with Marguerite Babin.

“February 13th, 1804, after publication of 3 banns of matrimony at our parochial Masses on 3 consecutive Sundays between Honoré Lord, farmer and widower of Susanne Lafay, his second wife, and living at St Luc, of the first part; and Marguerite Babin call LaCroix, minor daughter of Louis Babin called LaCroix and of Marie Jeanne Laporte, her parents consenting to said marriage and living with their said daughter in this parish, of the second part; no impediment having been discovered to said marriage, we undersigned received their mutual consent and gave them the nuptial benediction according to the form prescribed by our Mother the Holy Roman Church, and this in the presence of Antoine Brosseau son in law, Victor Girouard friend of the groom and Pierre Babin paternal uncle, and Charles Fisesset friend of the bride, who all declared that they could not sign.  (Signed)  R P Lancto”

Oh, how I wish Honoré had signed.

I can’t help but wonder if Marguerite got to vote or if this was an arranged marriage. All of Honoré’s children from his first marriage were older than Marguerite, and many from his second marriage were just a few years younger than she was.

Honoré and Marguerite had eight children.

• Marie Rose Lord was born November 22, 1804, and was baptized the following day at St-Luc. She married Andre Comeau on November 6, 1820. She died on September 10, 1887, and was buried two days later.
• Augustin Lord was born on February 26, 1806, and was baptized the next day at St-Luc, but nothing more is known.
• Clare Lord was born on January 8, 1808, and was baptized at St. Luc. She married Paul Dupuis at St-Philippe on February 3, 1834, and Edouard Peladeau on November 29, 1855. She died on February 24^th, 1899, and was buried on the 27^th.
• Edouard Lord was born on June 9, 1809, baptized the next day at St-Luc, and died just two months before his fourth birthday on April 26^th, 1813. He was buried the following day.
• Moise Lord was born on October 27, 1810, and was baptized at St-Luc. He married Marie-Anne Sanders in St-Paul on October 3, 1842. Marie-Anne was the granddaughter of Tse-Tse, an Iroquois, and his wife, Marie.
• Catherine Lord was born on June 5, 1812, and was baptized the following day. She was buried on August 21, 1831, in LaPrairie.
• Pierre-Noel Lord was born and baptized on Christmas Day in 1814 at St-Luc, died a few days before his nine months birthday, on September 19, 1815, and was buried two days later.
• Modeste Lore was born on May 1, 1816, and was baptized the following day at St-Luc. He died on November 25, 1820, and was buried on the 28^th. In his baptism record, Honoré is still listed as a “laboureur” which translates to plowman, or farmer.

Catherine, born in 1812, probably had vague memories of her father, but Modeste would have had no memory of him at all.

When Honoré welcomed his last child, he was a month shy of 74 years old and apparently still farming. Marguerite was 31.

When Marguerite married Honoré, she had to have known that one day she would be raising their children without him. She could have born children for another decade. Had he lived, he would have been 84 at that time, and had he lived to raise those children to age 20, he would have been 104.

I can’t help but wonder how a farmer in his 60s and 70s provided for an ever-growing family.

Of course, his older children were grown and married with children older than his younger children, so perhaps everyone helped. If Honoré had an estate, it would be interesting to see what it held. His widow, Marguerite, remarried in 1820 to Francois Giroux. I don’t know how spousal inheritance worked in Quebec, nor inheritance involving underage children, nor children from earlier marriages.

Honoré’s oldest son, Honoré, married in 1789 and had his first child in 1790. Father Honoré and son Honoré were having simultaneous children from 1790 through 1810 when son Honoré Jr.’s wife, Marie Lafaille, was 43 years old. However, Honoré Sr. continued having children with his third wife. Honoré Sr.’s childbearing years were greatly extended by having three wives, with the second two being significantly younger than him.

It’s rather remarkable that Honoré had children from 1768 (some accounts claim 1766) through 1816, nearly half a century.

When Honoré died, he had 16 or 17 living children, seven of whom were under the age of 20.

His eldest living child was age 50 and had adult children, yet his second to the youngest child died in 1815, and his youngest would perish in 1820, not even five years old.

Altogether, Honoré had 23 known children, plus probably at least four children born between 1777 and 1787, totaling at least 27 children.

It’s also interesting to note that Honoré had one set of twins, his son Honoré had two sets of twins, and four more of his children had a set of twins.

Christmas 1815

If Honoré’s family was like most Catholic families, they attended a beautiful midnight Mass celebrating the birth of Christ and the beginning of Christmastide.

However, this Christmas was probably different.

Honoré’s daughter Marie Anne, had a daughter, Marie Anne Brosseau, who was born in April of 1792. However, the child died on Christmas Day in 1815, just 23 years old. She was obviously very ill in the days leading up to Christmas.

To make matters worse, Honoré’s son, Pierre Noel, who had been born on Christmas Day in 1814, had died in September of 1815.

I’m sure the families were used to some amount of death, often in babies, but to happen on Christmas and to an older child must have taken the wind out of everyone’s sails, turning a day of celebration into a time of deep mourning. They had loved Marie Anne for 23 years, and now she was gone. The following day, they buried her. I’m sure the family never celebrated Christmas again without the tinge of grief.

Honoré’s Death

Honoré Lord, Lor, Lore, or Laure died in 1818 at the age of 76 years. He had quite some life. Chocked full of adventures he didn’t sign up for.

Brother Bernard translated the burial record of Honorius Lord.

“On May 22nd 1818, by us undersigned Priest, was buried in the cemetery of this place, after a funeral High Mass, the body of Honoré Laure, farmer, who died yesterday in said locality at the age of 76 years, fortified by the Sacraments of the Church, the husband of Marguerite Babin of this parish. At the burial were present Etienne Martin and Alexis Cartier, who said that they could not sign, (Signed) C Martin Priest”

Honoré’s two younger children with Suzanne Lafaille and all of his children with Mauguerite Babin were baptized at St. Luc. His four and possibly five children who died after St. Luc opened in 1801 and before his death in 1818, along with his second wife, were buried at St. Luc.

The long cemetery behind the church is where Honoré is buried, along with several of his children and wives, Suzanne and Marguerite.

The Saint-Jean-L’Evangeliste St-Luc church is not large, but probably larger than the original. This is the third church to be built in this location, the first burning in 1875. Honoré’s funeral was held in the church before he was buried in the churchyard, probably close to the rear door where there are many early, unmarked graves.

It’s possible that when the church was expanded and rebuilt, Honoré wound up under the rear portion of the church.

I realized that my mother’s great-grandfather, Antoine Lore, who would have been 13 in 1818, sat in a pew in this church as the Priest spoke in Latin during his grandfather’s service. Antoine would have walked with Honoré’s casket out the back of the church into the graveyard, listened as the Priest performed the Rite of Committal, recited the Catholic version of the Lord’s Prayer, then heard the clods of dirt hollowly hitting the casket lid.

This family probably knew the words to everything in this service by heart, even the Latin words they didn’t understand.

I would love to have heard Honoré’s funeral Mass, even though I can’t understand Latin. You can observe a contemporary High Mass funeral in Latin here. Regardless of the language, the ritual would have comforted his family, and the service would have been well attended. Extremely well attended. His immediate family may have filled the entire church. Given that he died in May, I hope his grandchildren gathered beautiful wildflowers and decorated the church and his casket.

By J.A.Bergeijk at Dutch Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3256309

High Mass would have been an honor and performed by either a Bishop or other prelate allowed to wear Pontifical liturgical vestments. You can learn about Catholic funerals here.

This beautiful stained-glass window in the Canterbury Cathedral shows a funeral procession. I can imagine that Honoré’s looked something like this. His sons probably were pallbearers, carrying Honoré on his final journey.

Honoré and his family certainly paid a high price to remain Catholic, so a beautiful funeral was well-deserved.

Honoré’s Legacy

Honoré has the distinction of having the most children of any of my known ancestors.

He had 23 known children and probably at least 27, based on the “holes” that are unaccounted for during the time he was (probably) in New York in the 1770s and 1780s. One of his known children disappeared during that time too, and likely died and was buried wherever they were living. For a Catholic, burying children without the benefit of a Catholic baptism and in unconsecrated ground would have been painful indeed. Maybe that’s part of what sparked their decision to return to Quebec, even though it was still officially held by the British. At least they could practice the Catholic faith freely in Quebec.

Honoré never knew that several of his grandchildren would be the first converts in Quebec to the Methodist faith less than two decades later, in the 1830s. He might just have turned over in his grave a few times since the entire Acadian experience had been one long battle to retain their ability to be “French” and, in that spirit, devoutly Catholic.

Not all of Honoré’s children survived to adulthood, of course, but 13, about half, did. I find nothing more for Joseph, born in 1775, so he likely died in New York, and I found the birth and baptism for Augustin in 1806, but nothing more. Honoré’s children from his third marriage tended to be more scattered than the older children who settled in L’Acadie.

I don’t know if Honoré left an estate and, if so, how it was divided, but that too could have made a difference in terms of who stayed and who left. His third wife remarried, and many of those children either didn’t know him well or at all. They would have established relationships and roots elsewhere.

Honoré might have spent more time in church than any other ancestor, too, by virtue of all of those baptisms, marriages, and, sadly, burials. I literally had to make a spreadsheet to figure out where he was, and when. You can see that as he aged and his children married and blessed him with more grandchildren, he attended church outside of regular services more and more frequently. Lots of baptizing going on.

I do not have the actual church records for all of the baptisms, but it appears that Honoré may not have been able to write. I never find his signature anyplace. Sometimes witnesses signed, so there is still hope.

Honoré died in 1818, long before his younger children married.

His children from his second and third marriages grew up playing with his grandchildren from his first marriage. Honoré had three great-grandchildren who would have attended his funeral, the eldest being three years old. Honoré’s last child, born in 1816, was younger than his two eldest great-grandchildren, and two more followed in 1818, shortly after his death.

So that means his great-grandchildren were playmates with his youngest children. No wonder my tree looks like an insane vine!

There were probably over 100 people wedged into the pews at Honoré’s funeral, and that’s without counting his siblings and their families or his wives’ families. Several babies would have been crying, but they would have been among good company as the rest of his family would all have been shedding tears at his departure. One thing is for sure, Honoré lived a long and full life.

I began to lose track of Honoré’s descendants quickly, but in the next three generations, I found eight different children named Honoré, clearly honoring him. That tells you something about him. No one names a child after someone they don’t like.

• Honoré’s son born in 1768
• Grandson Honore was born in 1802 through son Honoré
• Grandson Honoré born in 1821, died in 1821 through son Henry
• Grandson Honoré Fissiau/Ficialut born in 1826, died in 1829 through daughter Suzanne
• Grandson Honoré born and died in 1825 through son Jacques
• Grandson Honoré DuPuis was born in 1834 through daughter Claire
• Great-grandson Pierre Honoré Boudreau was born in 1833 through son Francois and his daughter, Marie Olive
• Great-grandson Honore was born in 1826 through son Joseph, then his son Joseph

There may well have been more.

I used various sources to assemble Honoré’s family, including PRDH as well as family records. Unfortunately, PRDH does not include the Grande Ligne Protestant baptismal records. I don’t have copies of everything, and I’m unsure where to look for his estate records.

Honoré’s grandchildren began venturing to newer frontiers. One to Vermont, then on to New York and Pennsylvania, one to New York, and another to Oregon. There were probably many more that left, spreading our Acadian seeds near and far. Every time I see the surname Lore, Lord, or even Laure, I wonder if that is one of the descendants of Honoré.

Honoré began life in the Acadian homelands, then spent many years in forced exile. We know the family lost everything, and we don’t know how they survived or where. Given those beleaguered beginnings, with warfare constantly haunting the family like a predator, no one would have dared to predict that Honoré’s life would end as a humble farmer in the pastoral green countryside of L’Acadie in Quebec, rebuilding his life and that of his family among other Acadian families.

This landscape evokes peace and tranquility, which is what I’m sure Honoré desired perhaps more than anything else.

Honoré was truly a devout Catholic. He made his way to church on the day of each new baby’s arrival for an immediate baptism, no matter the weather, just in case. The mother wouldn’t have been able to travel right after giving birth, but the child needed to be baptized.

We don’t know exactly where Honoré lived, but it had to be someplace between the Ste-Marguerite and St-Luc churches.

Maybe someplace halfway in between.

Regardless, Honoré spent an inordinate amount of time in both Ste-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie and St-Luc.

Honoré had wives, children and grandchildren buried in both locations, all in unmarked graves. At the time, they were probably marked with wooden crosses.

After the Acadian families were incredibly scattered to the wind and endured such horrific circumstances in his early life, the fact that Honoré managed to settle and keep his family intact in one place is rather remarkable. I’d love to know how he did it and the location of his exact land. How did he purchase it? What happened to it after his death? Can it be located today?

His sixteen or seventeen living children, ages two to 50, assembled one last time to honor the patriarch of the family, Honoré. I hope it was a joyful celebration and recollection of his amazing life, with grieving, yes, but also laughter and storytelling.

Rest in Peace, Honoré.

_____________________________________________________________

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