Francoise Bourgeois was born about 1659 in Port Royal, Acadia, to Jacques Bourgeois and Jeanne Trahan.

Francoise is first found on the Acadian census of 1671, 12 years old, with her family, the 7^th of 10 living children. Port Royal was small, with only 391 people in 68 households recorded in the census, which included the farms both up and downriver.

Given that Francoise was 12, that means she was born about 1659, during the English occupation of Port Royal. Acadia was returned to French control in 1667, and functionally in 1670 when the new French Governor arrived.

To a child of 8 or even 10, that probably didn’t matter. She would never have known the difference. The rhythm of daily living and life along the river was probably much more relevant.

Francoise’s father, Jacques Bourgeois, was a well-to-do military surgeon. As Acadians go, their family was wealthy with 33 cattle, 24 sheep, and about 20 arpents of land in two locations. They were the most prosperous family in Port Royal.

One of the locations they owned was Hogg Island, separated from Port Royal only by a small stream. It was here that the family lived.

In the 1671 census, Francoise’s brother, Charles Bourgeois was married to Anne Dugast.

Not long after, Francois married Anne’s brother, Claude Dugas, the son of Abraham Dugas, a near neighbor in Port Royal, and the fort’s armorer.

Francoise married very young, about 14, in 1673. In Acadia where life was sometimes short, females often married early and started their family right away. Plus, it was a “good” marriage for both families in that Claude’s father was the armorer for the fort – so another well-respected, prosperous Acadian family.

The Catholic Church in Port Royal had been destroyed in 1654 when Port Royal fell to the English, and the church hadn’t yet been rebuilt. In fact, in June of 1672, Francoise’s father-in-law, or soon-to-be father-in-law, Abraham Dugas, the church trustee of the St. Jean Baptiste Parish, organized a committee to raise funding to construct a new church. Mass was being held in a “borrowed room,” probably in the home of the parish priest.

We don’t know exactly where the priest lived in 1673 when Francoise married, but the 1686 map gives us a good idea of what Port Royal looked like.

By 1686, the church and probably the rectory beside the church had been rebuilt, but in 1671, the priest was probably living in one of the buildings along the main street in town.

Maps from a few years later suggest that the rectory was near this Promenade Walk along the river, today.

Regardless, it was in this borrowed room, probably located in the priest’s home that overlooked the river, that young Francoise became the blushing bride of Claude Dugas, 10 years her elder. While 14 was young for her to marry, 24 was on the young side for an Acadian man to marry too – although he probably had no problem illustrating that he could support a family.

A wild sunflower marked the spot when I visited, begging to be noticed.

Or maybe she wed in her parents’ home on Hogg Island.

Francoise and Claude settled into the typical Acadian life, guided by the seasons, farming, food production, and their Catholic faith and rituals.

They may have been a young couple with big dreams! And those dreams may have been at least part of why they married so young.

Opportunity was calling!

Beaubassin is Established

In 1672, Francoise’s father, Jacques Bourgeois traveled to the northern portion of the Bay of Fundy and established a settlement there called Mesagoueche, later named Beaubassin.

Jacques apparently intended to establish a new Acadian village where all of his family could settle with more land and less interference. He probably felt they were less susceptible to English incursions. All of his children, except the youngest daughter, followed him, settling there, but three, Francoise, Germain and Guillaume Bourgeois returned to Port Royal.

The tidal salt marshes were the same, so the drainage and dyking skills from Port Royal applied in Beaubassin, too.

Jacques kept his land in Port Royal, however, and apparently traveled back and forth. In the 1678 census, Jacques is living in Port Royal, but Claude Dugas and Francoise Bourgeois are missing. There is no census from Beaubassin, but it’s easy to surmise where they were living.

Now this is where things get really interesting.

High Drama in Beaubassin!

in 1679, in Beaubassin, Claude Dugas was a witness to his sister, Anne’s second marriage to Jean-Aubin Mignolt (Mignoix, Migneaux) on April 26^th. Anne’s first husband was Francoise’s brother, Charles Bourgeois, the son of Jacques Bourgeois.

So, Dugas siblings had married Bourgeois siblings. The Dugas and Bourgeois families were heavily allied.

On March 19, 1681, Claude Dugas and Françoise Bourgeois’s daughter, Marguerite, was baptized at Beaubassin. The date of her birth was not mentioned in the register, but she was likely born that day or the day before. Her godparents were “sieur Alexandre LeNeuf sr du Beaubasssin and Marguerite Bourgeois, who named her Marguerite.”

This tells us that Francoise’s sister, Marguerite Bourgeois, who had married Jean Boudrot, was living in Beaubassin as well.

In March 1682, the recently appointed seigneur of Beaubassin Michel Le Neuf de La Vallière sent a summons to eleven inhabitants to appear before the Sovereign Council of Quebec for having refused to accept concession contracts. These inhabitants are presumed to be heads of household, but we know they weren’t the only settlers there, because two of Jacques children who were settled there are missing from the list.

• Pierre Morin (wife Francoise Chiasson, daughter of Guyon)
• Guyon Chiasson (wife Jeanne Bernard)
• Michel Poirier (wife Marie Chiasson, daughter of Guyon)
• Roger Kessy (wife Marie Francoise Poirier)
• Claude Dugas (wife Francoise Bourgeois, daughter of Jacques)
• Germain Bourgeois (son of Jacques, wife Madeleine Belliveau)
• Guillaume Bourgeois (son of Jacques, wife Marie Anne d’Aprendestiguy)
• Germain Girouard (wife Marie Bourgeois)
• Jean-Aubin Migneaux (wife Anne Dugas)
• Jacques Belou (wife Marie Girouard, sister of Germain)
• Thomas Cormier (wife Marie Madeleine Girouard, sister of Germain)

Le Neuf was attempting to impose typical seigneurial dues such as the corvée (obligatory labor), activities like building mills or bake ovens, but was contested by the settlers, who eventually won their case in court.

This fledgling settlement, comprised of three groups: Frenchmen, Acadians who had arrived from Port Royal with Jacques Bourgeois, and a few people imported by Le Neuf, might have been small, but there was still plenty of drama, stoked by…just let me tell you the story.

One man, Acadian Francois Pellerin, experienced a long and miserable death in 1678. Jean Campagnard was his farmhand, both in Port Royal and Beaubassin. On his deathbed, Pellerin accused Campagnard of being a witch, blowing some mysterious substance into his eyes while they were working in the field as part of a diabolical plot to usurp his place as head of the household. Translated – Pellerin meant that Campagnard wanted to marry his widow. That didn’t work. She married Pierre Mercier in 1679.

That accusation spurred more accusations, though, launching a “witchcraft hysteria” of sorts. Campagnard was eventually brought to trial in 1684, in which it was revealed that there was a plague in Beaubassin in 1678 that took the lives of several settlers. I can’t help but wonder if our Francoise lost a two-year-old child during the plague, but I digress.

Coincidentally, 1678 is when accusations towards Campagnard peaked.

Jean-Aubin Mignaux, Claude Dugas’s brother-in-law, accused Campagnard of casting an incantation on his crops to cause a poor harvest. Campagnard said that if his crops failed, it was Mignaux’s fault for having farmed poorly.

The Port Royal Bourgeois group apparently tried to avoid this drama. Of the entire Acadian settlement from Port Royal, Germain Bourgeois was the only one to give a deposition in which he said, as a witness to Pellerin’s death, “The man was obviously delirious with fever. I did not take the accusation seriously.”

Somehow, the Pellerins and Bourgeois were connected, too. Eventually, Jacques Bourgeois sold Hogg Island to Etienne Pellerin, who seemed to be a contemporary of Francois Pellerin – although their relationship, if any, is unknown. Suffice it to say there is probably far more going on here than meets the eye.

The trial in Quebec, which took place after Campagnard had been held in jail for 9 months, revealed a dark secret. Many, if not most of the men who had accused Campagnard of sorcery owed him money and/or viewed him as a competitor, in the case of several suitors.

Campagnard was eventually cleared of the accusations and found not guilty, but he was also forbidden from returning to Beaubassin – a “punishment” he probably welcomed and was more than glad to honor.

I told you this was juicy.

Back to Port Royal

We know for sure that Claude Dugas and Françoise Bourgeois were in Beaubassin in 1679, 1681 and 1682.

By 1686, Claude and Francoise had returned to Port Royal with their children. Maybe there was just too much drama in Beaubassin, especially the Campagnard affair. I’d love to have been a fly on that wall. I’m guessing some “thing” happened to tip the scales, but of course, we’ll never know.

Claude’s parents were aging. His father was 70 and his mother was about 60, so they could probably use help with the farm.

In the 1686 census in Port Royal, Claude Dugas is 38 and Francoise Bourgeois is 25. Their eight children range in age from one to 12, and they have 1 gun, 25 cattle, 9 sheep, 11 hogs and are farming 8 arpents of land.

That gun might turn out to be very important.

It’s unclear, though, whether Claude and Francoise planned to stay in Port Royal permanently, because Claude Dugas is one of three people who live at Port Royal but also own land at Beaubassin. Claude has 30 arpents of land and 8 cattle there, so someone is probably looking after it and farming it for him. Beaubassin is still quite small, with only 17 families and 127 people.

This map shows the layout of Port Royal in 1686.

Based on other maps, we know that four of the five homes to the left of Port Royal along the river are probably those of Abraham Dugas, Michel Boudrot, Bonaventure Theriot, and Claude Dugas. We don’t know who the fifth was.

Based on a 1707 map, Claude and Francoise probably lived in the home to the furthest west, or left.

Port Royal would have changed little, if at all, between 1686 and 1690.

1690 – Terror at Port Royal

Acadia had been returned to French governance in 1667, followed by a rocky transition, with the new governor arriving in 1670. Things were fairly quiet in Port Royal for several years, with intermittent and sometimes clandestine trading in the New England colonies. Unfortunately, the fort had been allowed to deteriorate.

Port Royal was the capital of Acadia during King William’s War, which began in 1688, and served as a safe harbour for French ships. Acadia wasn’t restricted only to what is today Nova Scotia – it extended into Maine. Raids on the English in New England were coordinated from Maine and other locations.

France was negligent in supplying and supporting Acadia. Governor Meneval had begged for resources and soldiers, but was left instead with an unfinished, dilapidated fort whose 18 cannons were not mounted into position. He had only 70 soldiers, and in 1690, 42 Acadian men were absent. This situation was essentially an open invitation to England. They might just as well have hung out a sign.

1690 was a terrible fork in the road for the Acadians in Port Royal.

In 1690, Françoise was 30 or 31 years old, and her husband was 42. She had 10 living children and had probably borne more. She had already set up housekeeping twice – that we know of.

Francoise and Claude lived along the Riviere Dauphin, now the Annapolis River, just west of Port Royal. Any ships approaching Port Royal would have had to sail right past the Dugas land.

Their farm is clearly marked on this English 1710 map too.

A view beautiful of the Dugas land from across the river, which is what one would see sailing into Port Royal from the mouth of the bay. This is also the view that Francoise and Claude would have seen as they moved their family back from Beaubassin.

I wonder if it’s a decision they lived to regret.

The Battle of Port Royal

The Battle of Port Royal occurred on May 19, 1690. The British attacked, and Port Royal was entirely unprepared.

The night before, one soldier and two inhabitants were standing guard at the entrance of the river and saw the English ships enter and sail for Port Royal. They immediately fired off a small mortar, which was the appointed signal to apprise the Governor of danger, and they then embarked in a canoe. They arrived at the fort about eleven o’clock that night, and upon hearing their report Governor De Meneval at once ordered a cannon to be discharged to notify the inhabitants that they were to come in to the fort to his aid. Unfortunately, he later reported that only three Acadian men had come to assist at his signal. He must have been furious.

Frankly, I find that simply incredulous, because the Acadian men very clearly knew the state of the fort and what could and would happen if the fort, and Port Royal, were left undefended.

Sir William Phipps, the English commander, sailed into the harbor with 736 men on seven English warships. There was absolutely no question about the eventual outcome, although Governor Meneval fought for two days before capitulating.

Francoise and her children would have seen it all from their perch above the river.

Seeing 7 English warships must have struck terror in her heart.

She would have heard the sentry’s mortar warning too, plus the cannon fire from the fort. She very clearly knew exactly what that meant. You can see the Dugas land behind this cannon at the fort.

Their fields were next to the river, but they lived above the marsh.

They were close enough to the Fort to hear the warfare – and Francoise had a houseful of children and her two elderly in-laws to worry about. Claude was assuredly at the fort, trying to prevent a total catastrophe, unless he was one of the 42 missing men. I doubt that was the case, because he signed a loyalty oath a few days later – so he was clearly in the region.

The Dugas home was on a hill above the marsh, and they may have taken shelter in the low mountains behind their home. We will never know, but I bet the Acadian women were crack shots. The guns may have been in service at the fort, but if the Acadian men didn’t show up, their guns were with them in their homes.

The former Governor, who had remained in Acadia as a trader, tells us more. He narrowly escaped being captured, as he was absent, trading along the southern coast and returned while the English were still in Port Royal

Noting the absence of the sentinel usually posted at the entrance of the strait he “felt doubts if all were right”. He abandoned his boat and climbed into a canoe with a Canadian and Indian companion to see what was afoot. After going three leagues upriver, he saw an English ship anchored “in the river on which the town is built, and heard the firing of a cannon and musketry. Presuming fighting going on, he concealed the canoe in the woods and went by land to the nearest house, and found it abandoned.” He clearly knew something was very wrong. Withdrawing promptly, he retreated, returned to his ship, escaped the basin, set his sails for Minas, and reached it safely.

The most interesting part to me is that this is before the capitulation, because he heard gunfire, and the Acadian homes were abandoned, signaling that they had taken shelter someplace safe. The closest home to him on the south side would have been Claude Dugas. On the other side, it would have been Melanson, but he was a Huguenot so he may not have been entirely trusted.

The best place for him to abandon his ship would have been either near Digby, or the Bear River – both of which would have offered some concealment for his ship. Proceeding by canoe along the shore would have been soundless, and he wouldn’t have to risk crossing open water and being spotted by the English.

This map shows the region. The entrance to the river from the Atlantic is relatively small and would have been easy to guard. The sentry would have been positioned someplace there.

The original habitation is shown as Port Royal on this map. It was the original fortified settlement before Fort Anne was built at what is now Annapolis Royal, but was at one time Port Royal after the habitation was abandoned.

The Melanson settlement was right above it along the river.

Francoise and Claude’s home was the closest to the Bay on the south side, and his father’s original land was just across Allain River from the Fort, on the same side as Claude’s.

My guess is that it was Claude and Francoise’s home that he found abandoned. Francoise had probably gathered everybody up and taken shelter when the first inkling of the problem occurred.

Negotiations for surrender began after the short battle ceased.

After the priest negotiated the best terms he could, under the circumstances, Meneval surrendered to the English even though Phipps refused to sign an agreement. Phipps was reportedly unhappy with how little he had gotten in the deal after seeing the condition of the fort. Contravening his agreement, the soldiers at Port Royal were imprisoned in the church and the Governor was confined to his house.

Homes and Acadian property were supposed to be preserved and unharmed, but that’s not what happened either.

The soldiers leveled the fort and burned 28 homes in and around Port Royal, along with pillaging the church. They reportedly spared the “upriver farms” and mills. It’s unclear what exactly was meant by upriver at that time. The 1686 census of Port Royal enumerated 95 families that we know were spread from “beneath” Port Royal to today’s Bridgewater. This means that 30% of the homes were burned during the next 12 days as the English ransacked and destroyed Port Royal.

Looking at the 1686 map, 28 homes could have included all the homes on both sides of the river between the Bay and Port Royal, and all the homes in the town part of Port Royal. Or, conversely, it could have included all of the homes in the town part of Port Royal, plus the homes going south into the hills.

My bet is that the homes they could easily see were their targets, so all the homes in the town part of Port Royal on the waterfront, and probably all the homes along the river within view – which would have included Francoise’s.

Even if the upriver homes were spared, Claude and Francoise’s home was clearly not upriver.

While the Acadians had been somewhat used to episodic skirmishes and incursions by the English, this was an exceedingly cruel act of warfare bent on devastation and destruction, not on “taking” Acadia so that life as normal could continue, just under English rule. Instead, the English soldiers tore the dikes down, ruined the fields and farms, killed livestock, and torched everything in sight.

As if this devastation wasn’t enough, English pirates followed shortly thereafter, burning, pillaging, and looting even more – including torching the Catholic church. They reportedly hung two people and burned a woman and her children to death in their home. That gives me the creeps and sends shivers up my spine. While we know it’s not Francoise, it was assuredly someone she knew, and may well have been related to. I wonder who is present in the 1686 census, but the wife and children are absent in 1693.

Phipps didn’t want to simply control and occupy Port Royal. He wanted to conquer and destroy it, taking anything of value. He succeeded. He kidnapped and loaded the local priests, the Governor, 38 soldiers, and three others onboard his ship and returned with them to Boston as captives.

Adding insult to injury, before leaving, Phipps rounded up the Acadian men, forced them into the church and required the men to sign a loyalty oath. The priest took the petition with its signatures with him, and it eventually wound up in the Massachusetts Archives, where I found it in 2008. I transcribed it, here.

Along with his fellow countrymen, “Claude Dugats” signed with his mark. Most Acadians could neither read nor write. Abraham Dugas, Francoise’s father-in-law’s signature is absent, but he was still living. Jacques Bourgeois, Francoise’s father’s signature is absent too, and also remains unexplained. Maybe they were deemed too old and infirm to be rounded up and taken to the church, or Jacques may have been in Beaubassin at the time.

A total of 61 men signed. Of those, 45%, or nearly half, had their homes burned and their farms destroyed by pulling down the dikes that kept the seawater out.

I can only imagine the rage and animosity that permeated Acadia as they penned their names or made their marks through gritted teeth. Clearly, they only signed under duress and threat of great harm. I was going to say under threat of death, but I’m fully convinced there are fates worse than death – and that’s what they were facing.

They must have truly hated the English.

Claude surely was thinking about his terrified wife and children and wondring if they were safe. The English clearly knew that and took advantage of it. To make matters worse, Francoise may have been pregnant in 1690, as the next census shows a child born about 1689 and 1691. If not pregnant, then she had a nursing child.

Claude and Francoise, and their elderly parents, all living within sight of the fort, were assuredly burned out. They may have escaped into the hills behind their homes. Surely every Acadian family had a contingency plan – just in case.

1693

After Acadia was lost again to the English in 1690, many of the Acadians in Port Royal teamed up with a French pirate, or privateer, Pierre Maissonnat dit Baptiste. He fought with the men at Port Royal in 1690, “married” an Acadian woman, which is a whole other story, employed Acadian men as his crew, and exacted revenge upon the English by plaguing their ships and shipping lanes.

He took many English prizes, as ships were known, and scattered the rest of their fleet.

The English were furious and attacked Port Royal again in 1693, burning a dozen homes and three barns full of grain.

Francoise surely wondered if this was 1690 all over again. By this time, she had another baby, born around 1692, and may have again been pregnant. Of course, the state of most Acadian women of childbearing age was either nursing or pregnant.

By the 1693 census, Claude and Francoise had combined households with his parents, another indication that their homes had burned, and the household is listed under his father’s name. Abraham Dugas is recorded as 74, and Marguerite Doucet, his wife, is 66. If both homes were burned, there was no point in rebuilding two, given that Abraham and Marguerite had no children at home anymore. Many families lived in nuclear families for both convenience and safety.

We also don’t know whether the 1693 census was taken before or after the English raid. Their home could have been burned twice – once in 1690 and a second time in 1693.

In the census, Claude Dugas is 44 and Francoise Bourgeois is now 34. A lot had changed in 1690, and I can’t help but wonder if Claude is now farming all the land, and Francoise is caring for his parents in addition to her own family. She now has 11 children, and they are farming 26 arpents of land, have 4 guns, 20 cattle, 30 sheep, and 15 hogs.

In 1671 and 1678, Abraham Dugas had 12 arpents of land. In 1686, Claude Dugas and Francoise had 8 arpents. In 1693, combined, they have 26 arpents, so perhaps they had cleared more, and Claude was farming his father’s plus his own.

Claude is no longer listed under the inhabitants of Beaubassin, although it’s difficult to know if he would have been listed if he owned land in absentee.

Francoise’s parents, Jacques Bourgeois, listed as Jacob, now 74, and her mother, Jeanne, 64 are living at Port Royal with a three-year-old granddaughter on their 40 arpents of land on Hogg Island.

Francoise’s Death

We don’t know exactly when Francoise died, but we can bracket a range.

Francoise’s last child, Cecile or Marie Dugas, depending on which census you view, was born about 1692 when Francoise would have been about 33 and appeared in the 1693 census. In the 1693 census, Marie is missing, but she is later shown to have been born about 1691, between Magdeleine and Cecile.

The 1693 census shows Francoise’s children as:

• Marie 17
• Claude 16
• Francoise 14 (missing in 1698)
• Joseph 13
• Marguerite 11
• Anne 10
• Jeanne 9
• Agnes 7
• Francois 5
• Magdeleine 4
• Cecile 1

In the 1698 census, after Claude remarried, Cecile is 8 and another child, a younger Marie (not the one who is 17 above), is listed at 7 years old, which suggests she was born after Cecile, maybe in 1693 or 1694. This Marie is gone by 1700 but reappears later.

Based on this evidence, Francoise probably died between the census in 1693 and 1697, the latest date that Claude would have remarried. Francoise could have died when Marie was born, after the 1693 census, or 1694/1695 when the next child would have been expected. It’s possible, of course, that Francoise had another child, or maybe even two, and Francoise and that child or children both perished before the 1698 census.

Regardless, we know Francoise was gone by 1697 when Claude Dugas remarried, and his first child with his second wife, Marguerite Bourg, arrived and was listed as 3 months old in 1698, the first of their 10 children.

Marguerite would be the stepmother to Francoise’s children, raising a total of 22 children spanning 41 years. Marguerite and Francoise would have known each other, would have attended mass together, although Marguerite was only three years older than Francoise’s oldest child. Still, her younger children, in particular, needed care and a mother figure. Obviously, Francoise’s older children would have had clear memories of their mother, but her babies probably had no memories of her, save stories they would have been told.

Ironically, several children by both of Claude’s wives had the same name. Add to that same-name grandchildren – and family gatherings must have been interesting!

As a mother, if Francoise knew she was dying, she would have been painfully aware that another woman would raise her children. Perhaps she would have been very discreetly “preselecting” her husband, Claude’s next wife – and in doing so, of course, her children’s second mother.

I would have been doing exactly that!

Who’s available? Are they kind? Do my children like them? Marguerite was about 20ish when Francoise left this earth, so she would certainly have been eligible. And it’s not like there was a vast candidate pool to select from.

I’m sure Francoise just wanted her children to be loved.

Of course, depending on what took Francoise, she may have had no warning. I hope she went quickly and didn’t suffer.

Francoise would have been buried, here, in the Acadian cemetery at Port Royal, beside the garrison and the fort that her family had defended. Nearby, the shadow of the burned-out hulk of the Catholic church stood silent sentry to the devastation she had witnessed.

Still, it was consecrated ground, where a faithful Catholic mother would have been buried.

Graves would have been marked by simple wooden crosses, probably assembled by the same family member who lovingly made the coffin.

The crosses marking each grave would have deteriorated with time, but the Acadians might have refreshed them from time to time. However, in 1755, when the English deported the Acadians, anything left in the cemetery was destroyed. By then, Francoise would have been gone for at least 60 years.

The English settlers that followed began using the same cemetery, respectfully avoiding the Acadian graves. Today, the Acadian graves are marked only by grass, memories, and areshrouded in the mists of time.

Francoise’s Children

While Francoise did not get to raise her own children, the good news is that their father, Claude Dugas lived to be 86 years old. In October of 1732, he died at Port Royal. Their stepmother, Marguerite, knew and loved Francoise’s children longer than Francoise was able. After all, they were her “children” too, for 50 years. Marguerite died at about 73 in May 1747, at Port Royal and would be buried in the Garrison Cemetery too.

Francoise’s children were:

• Marie Dugas was born about 1674 in either Port Royal or Beaubassin, married Philippe Melanson about 1695, and settled in Grand Pre. She had 11 children and died in 1733 in Grand Pre.
• Unknown child born about 1676 based on the spacing between known children, and died before the 1686 census.
• Claude Dugas was born about 1677 in either Port Royal or Beaubassin, married Jeanne Bourg about 1702 in Grand Pre, was in Cobequid by 1703. He had five known children, and died between 1708 when his last child would have been conceived, and before November of 1723 when his daughter was married and he and his wife are both noted as deceased.
• Francoise Dugas was born about 1679 in Beaubassin, married Rene Forest about 1695 in Port Royal, had 14 children, and died sometime after 1751 when her husband died in Port Royal.
• Joseph Dugas was born about 1680 in Beaubassin, married Claire Bourg about 1699, had 12 children, and died in July 1765 in St. Martinville, Louisiana. He lived in Cobequid and appears to have been incarcerated at Halifax during the expulsion. At the end of the war, in 1763, when all Acadians were released, he apparently traveled with the Beausoleil party from Halifax in 1764 to Haiti and then on to Louisiana.
• Marguerite Dugas was born in 1681 in Beaubassin, married Jean Melanson in 1701 in Port Royal, was in Les Mines by 1708, and had 12 children. She died in Grand Pre after 1724 when her son was born and before 1729 when another son was married.
• Anne Dugas was born about 1683 in either Beaubassin or Port Royal, married Abraham Bourg about 1704 in Cobequid, and had three children. She died after 1709 when her last child was born and before her husband remarried in 1711.
• Jeanne Dugas was born about 1684 in either Beaubassin or Port Royal, married Pierre Part in 1707 in Port Royal, had six children, and was in Louisbourg by 1713. She died after 1726 where she last appeared in the census. In 1761 in Cherbourg, her son’s marriage dispensation confirms this death date, along with her husband’s a year later.
• Agnes Dugas was born about 1686, probably in Port Royal, married Michel Thibodeau in 1704 in Port Royal, had 15 children, and died sometime after 1734 when she was a witness in Michel’s death record in Port Royal.
• Francois Dugas was born about 1688 in Port Royal, married Claire Bourg in 1713 in Port Royal, had 11 children, and died sometime after February 1751 when his daughter married in Port Royal.
• Madeleine Dugas was born about 1689 in Port Royal, married Jean Hebert in 1704 in Port Royal, and had 14 children. She was in the northern settlements by 1722, and died in 1766 in Bécancour, Quebec.
• Cecile Dugas was born about 1692 in Port Royal, married Claude Brun in 1709 in Port Royal where they had 13 children. She probably died before Claude, who died in 1760 in Riviere-Ouelle, Quebec, where she is not mentioned.
• Marie Dugas was probably born about 1694, but between 1691 and 1695 in Port Royal where she married Abraham Bourg in 1709 and had 11 children. She was deported during the expulsion, and was found in 1763 in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. She died before 1772 when she is noted as deceased on her son, Pierre’s, marriage record in St-Antoine-sur-Richelieu, Quebec. Pierre was exiled to Connecticut, so we don’t know how he knew his mother was deceased, or if they both wound up in Quebec.

Based on what we know about when Francoise was living in Beaubassin, three of her children would have been born there, and another 5 might have been. We don’t know exactly when they moved to Beaubassin, other than it was between their marriage and the 1678 census, where they are missing in Port Royal. We don’t know when they moved back to Port Royal either, other than it was before the 1686 census. I do wonder why they returned.

Francoise’s child, born in 1686, could have been born in either location, but her youngest four children would have been born in Port Royal. Most of her children settled in the northern Acadian settlements along the Bay of Fundy.

Five of Francoise’s children married and lived in Port Royal – although we don’t know what happened to four of them. They could have died in Port Royal or during or after the deportation.

Three of Francoise’s children were caught up in the 1755 expulsion. One was held in Halifax and eventually made his way, via Haiti, to Louisiana. Another was eventually found in Becancoeur in Quebec, and a third in Maryland.

Three migrated to Grand Pre, where they lived their lives and died.

One child died in Louisbourg and another in Cobequid.

Francoise never knew any of her 127 grandchildren. It’s possible that her first grandchild, Joseph Melanson, born to daughter Marie, about 1696, could have been born before Francoise’s death – but given that it appears that he was born in Saint Charles des Mines, it’s very unlikely that Francoise would have met him, if she even knew he had been born.

Francoise died quite young, spending only 33 or 34 short years on this earth. Illness, injury, childbirth – something took her before her time.

Her family would have stood, hand in hand, youngest to oldest with Claude or perhaps Francoise’s mother holding the baby. Both of her parents, as well as his would have been standing there too, assuming her parents weren’t in Beaubassin at the time.

Maybe her children stood silently, perhaps crying, beside her open grave as the priest said his final words and prayers over her mortal body.

The hardest part is walking away. You tell yourself that the “person” isn’t really there, but the part of them that you desperately want to hug once again is in that box in the ground.

The church was gone from the graveyard, but the spirit remained. In time, trees grew to shelter the graves. Decades later, Claude would join her in the cemetery at Fort Anne.

The church was eventually rebuilt, only to burn again, but before and after services, her children, even into adulthood, probably picked Nova Scotia’s beautiful natural flowers on their way to visit their mother.

Maybe they found a few wild roses and placed a bouquet on her grave from time to time. Maybe on the way to church, after other funerals, or on special occasions like baptisms. Perhaps especially on the two days that her namesake grandchildren were baptized.

Jeanne Francoise Part was born on December 13, 1707 and baptized the same day, and Marie Francoise Dugas was born in 1714. Francoise, I’m sure that your daughter and son brought those grandbabies to see you!

The descendants of those Acadian roses remain in the Annapolis Royal Historic Gardens today, just as Francoise remains in her descendants.

Perhaps her children sat by her grave and talked with her about their journeys and decisions, who to marry, how to handle the death of a child, and whether to stay or go to the new settlements.

And maybe, just maybe, they somehow stopped by one last time as they shepherded their children onto the waiting English ships that fateful day in December of 1755. The cemetery was within sight, beside the garrison.

If nothing else, they turned around from here, on the wharf, as they were forced to leave the few things they had brought with them, and waved a silent, final goodbye. To Francoise, and to Acadia.

As the sun set for the final time, and Francoise’s children and grandchildren stood on the decks of deportation ships before being forced below, they would have looked upon the Dugas land one last time. Longing for that home they had just left along the shore, just past the island in the distance.

I hope they felt Francoise’s spirit with them, bringing them some modicum of comfort, wrapping them in her love, even as her heart was broken.

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