The first glimpse we have of Jeanne Trahan that provides any hint about her age is the 1671 census, where she is listed as 40 years old, living with her husband, Jacob (Jacques) Bourgeois, a surgeon, age 50, in Port Royal with their 12 children, two of whom have married.

This provides her birth year about 1631.

The 1678 census doesn’t state ages, but the 1686 census gives her age as 57, suggesting her birth about 1629. The 1693 census shows her as 64 which tallies to 1629. The 1698 census shows her as 72, which subtracts to 1626.

Censuses give us one 1626, two 1629s, and one 1631.

Jeanne’s first child was born about 1644, so any of the two earlier dates could work. If Jeanne was born in 1631, she would have married at 12, and that’s too young even for Acadian brides.

Her last child was born about 1667, which means that if Jeanne was 42 when this child was born, she would have been born in 1625. If Jeanne was younger than 42, say, 40, she would have been born about 1627, so that works. We know this is the youngest child that lived, but we don’t know if Jeanne had a later child or children that perished.

Further research revealed that Jeanne’s parents had married in July of 1627 in Chinon, France, so it’s very unlikely that she was born before 1628.

Based on this information, I would think that Jeanne was probably born right around 1629, as two of those dates indicate.

Jeanne’s Parents

We know who Jeanne’s parents were through a very unusual resource, at least for that time in Port Royal.

Prior to 1650, Charles Menou d’Aulnay, a very influential figure in Jeanne’s life, was the Governor of Acadia.

In an article by Geneviève Massignon, published in 1963, she reports the baptism of d’Aulnay’s daughter, thus:

Stating that Marie, daughter of Sir Charles de Menou, squire, Sieur d’Aulnay, Lieutenant General for the King on the coast of Acadia, land of New France, was baptized around 4 o’clock in the evening on the same day she was born—at about 1 o’clock in the afternoon, Wednesday, September 21—and that she was consecrated to the Holy Virgin by Claude Petitpas and Mr. Boudrot, first syndics of Port Royal. Her godfather was Pierre, son of Pierre Cachet, and her godmother was Jeanne Trahan, daughter of Guillaume Trahan, a blacksmith, and Françoise Charbonneau.

Marie d’Aulnay was born in 1639, in Port Royal.

Not only does this provide us with the name of Jeanne’s parents, it also confirms that they were both living in 1639, or they would have been noted as deceased.

So far, we know positively that Jeanne’s parents were very early arrivals to Acadia.

As it turns out, we are very fortunate that the arrival of Jeanne Trahan, with her parents, is documented on the passenger list of the Saint Jehan, d’Aulnay’s ship.

The Saint Jehan left La Rochelle on April 1, 1636, with 78 passengers and 18 crew aboard, although few stayed in Acadia. On board were Guillaume Trahan, “officer of the cavalry”, his wife, two children, and a servant, from Bourgueil. Many of the laborers, with whom he is listed, are from Bourgeueil or Chinon. A translated list can be found, here and here.

I wonder about the identity of the servant. Who were they, and why were they were chosen for this journey?

Jeanne’s Birth

In a feudal society, people married where they lived, and they didn’t have children far from that area.

Chinon is located about two miles from the Loire River, as the crow flies, on the banks of the Vienne River, just upstream, 5 or 6 miles from where it joins the Loire. The old town was much smaller than it is today, with the medieval village below the castle on the north side of the river.

A strategic location, given that rivers were trade routes, Chinon was fortified by the 5^th century. Fortresses and castles servicing both English and French Kings were added and expanded in later centuries.

The castle, once home to King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, passed to Richard the Lionheart in 1189, who was childless, and then to their youngest son, who would become King John of England, He lost the castle in 1205 to the French King Philip II Augustus.

In 1307, French King Philip “The Fair” ordered the Knights Templar arrested. Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master, along with others were held in the castle tower above the keep, as a prison, before they were tried and executed.

In 1429, Joan of Arc, then just 17, climbed the path up the hill and met with the future King Charles VII of France and, as an emissary of God, acknowledged him the rightful heir to the throne.

Louis XII, waited in the castle at Chinon for the papal legate to deliver his annulment papers that would allow him to marry Anne of Brittany in 1498.

Although steeped in history, Chinon fell out of favor as the royal residence, and in 1631, Chinon became part of the estate of the Duke of Richelieu. Cardinal Richelieu not only neglected both the city and the fortress – he partially dismantled the castle, using the stone to construct the nearby town of Richelieu.

Cardinal Richelieu, along with his cousin, Isaac de Razilly before his 1635 death, and Razilly’s cousin, Charles d’Aulnay recruited Acadians from within their family territories, which very probably explains the connection between Jeanne Trahan’s parents, d’Aulnay, and their decision to leave Chinon for Acadia.

The Medieval City

Given that Jeanne’s parents were married at Saint Etienne in Chinon, I’d wager she too was born in Chinon, although she may have been baptized in a different church.

We know that Jeanne was born approximately two years later, so her birth could have taken place anytime in 1628 or 1629, and anyplace in Chinon.

Chinon was not a small town, even then. Located on the river Vienne, not far from the Loire, Chinon borders the Poitou and was an important Medieval transportation gateway. By the time Jeanne’s family lived there, Chinon had been in existence for more than a thousand years.

The stately Chateau Chinon and her fortress stand on the hill in the perfect defensive position. The Riviere Vienne in front, with white limestone bluffs rising behind the city.

As a child, would Jeanne have been allowed to climb the hill to overlook the old city from the castle gate, following the path that Joan of Arc walked in 1479?

Jeanne’s home probably still stands in one of Chinon’s ancient, medieval streets, yet today. Many of these buildings date from the 14^th, 15^th, and 16^th centuries.

The front of Saint Etienne church which is much deeper than it is wide. This church was reconstructed in the 1400s, except for the bell tower. By the time Joanne’s parents were married here, the remodeled church was already 200 years old.

Little Jeanne would have held her parents’ hands as they walked to church, stepped inside, and took their seats to pray.

You can view an absolute treasure trove of photos, both interior and exterior, here. Turn the lights down, listen to some Gregorian chants which would have been the music echoing in the church in the 1600s, and slowly transport yourself into the pictures.

Become Jeanne. Become her parents. Worship with them in their church.

The medieval streets with their half-timbered homes were wagon cart width then, and there’s no way to widen them without tearing out entire streets of historical homes. Thankfully, that hasn’t happened. Small cars can thread their way through, carefully.

The old city is woven into the new, and medieval homes aren’t torn down, but incorporated into life in Chinon today. The bricks of the church show wear, but this is the same stone that little Jeanne passed, and probably touched, tracing outlines of centuries past, on her way to worship.

Jeanne’s family would have lived within a few blocks of the church which was located in the eastern part of Chinon. The entire town wasn’t very large, and each of the four historic churches would have had its designated parish surrounding the church itself.

By the time Jeanne and her parents sailed to Acadia, they had a second child, which tells us that Jeanne had lost at least one, if not two, siblings.

The cemetery in Chinon would probably have been someplace close to the church, initially in the churchyard, but there’s no trace today. Maybe it was in what was undeveloped, open space between these two closely located churches.

At some point Jeanne’s parents had a difficult decision to make. Were they going to take their two children and set out for New France?

Given that they lived in a city, Jeanne’s father would have been a craftsman or tradesman of some type, and not a farmer, so he would have found that the new world offered opportunities not present in France. The roster of the Saint Jehan listed him as a military officer, so perhaps he was doubly useful on the voyage.

La Rochelle was the gateway to the New World then, at least from France. First, they had to travel from Chinon to La Rochelle.

La Rochelle

In 1636, Jeanne would have been 6 or 7 years old, certainly old enough to remember a grand adventure. Chinon must have been buzzing about this new opportunity, because six other men on the Saint Jehan were from Chinon. Six families are listed as being from Bourgueil, including Jeanne’s parents, along with another five men.

I can’t help but wonder if they were related.

It’s only about 100 miles to La Rochelle, today, but then, the path was much less straightforward. The group that was preparing to depart may have taken the Vienne or Loire River partway, then switched to an overland route – or perhaps it was overland all the way.

There was really no good way to get there from Chinon. Perhaps they took the old Roman road network. They main street through the oldest part of Chinon had originally been a Roman road.

Jeanne must have been wide-eyed. An entire world opened up for the little girl who had probably never ventured more than a few blocks away from home.

Was she excited, or frightened, or maybe a little bit of both?

Once in La Rochelle, the Acadia-bound group would have gathered near the wharf before departure.

Would-be passengers camped on the grass together, sometimes for several days, before boarding the ships bound for New France

Jeanne’s mother probably didn’t let her play along the waterfront, both for fear of losing her in the busy port, and for fear of her falling into the ocean. Jeanne might have been excited about their adventure, but her mother was probably much more reserved in her enthusiasm.

It would still have been chilly on April 1^st when they boarded the Saint Jehan, someplace between 45 and 55 degrees, not to mention the strong, biting Atlantic winds that chilled their bones. Maybe it wasn’t just the wind sending a shiver up their spines.

Jeanne’s parents probably went to church one last time.

Once on board, there really was no going back. At least not easily.

Getting settled below deck, where it was more comfortable, was probably a relief, although they would have heard the unfamiliar creaking of the ship and it rocked to and fro as they sailed between the twin towers, past the church’s steeple, into forever. .

The trip would normally have taken someplace between 6 weeks and 3 months, depending on the weather, the design of the ship, and the experience of the crew. For comparison, the Mayflower took 66 days in 1620.

La Hève

However, the Saint Jehan was speedy. Nicolas Denys, agent for the Saint Jehan, was responsible for the passenger list and recorded that they arrived in La Hève on May 6^th, just 35 days after their departure.

Compared to either Chinon or La Rochelle, La Hève must have seemed like an incredibly foreign world. Maybe another world altogether.

There were no streets, castles, or churches. There might have been one small chapel, perhaps in the fort, but we aren’t sure.

They were one of only seven families at La Hève, a harsh, windswept peninsula protruding into the Atlantic. There were no other Europeans, and the Native Mi’kmaq must have seemed very strange to Jeanne.

Instead of stone castles and ancient buildings lining medieval streets, they had a small fort where the museum now stands, on the end of the cape.

The families lived down the beach, on the next point, in the distance, where they would have built their own homes.

Jeanne probably was allowed to play along the beach here, collecting shells and rocks. Perhaps. At least eventually.

What child doesn’t love pretty rocks?

The sea must have seemed endless to a little girl. If she remembered much about France, it was fading into the distance.

They didn’t stay long at La Hève, as d’Aulnay was in the process of moving the families and workers from La Hève to Port Royal, where they would be settled by the end of the year.

Port Royal

Port Royal was yet different again.

The next glimpse we have of Jeanne was in 1639 when she was allowed to stand as godmother for Charles d’Aulnay’s daughter.

This is somewhat unusual, because normally a godparent would need to be 16, because their role is to support the child’s spiritual development, which a child as young as 10 would not be prepared to do. An exception would have to be made by the local priest, which might have been done if there was an urgent need – but with at least a few Acadian women available, why would the exception have been made to allow a 10 or even 11-year-old child to act in that capacity? The oldest she could have been, if she were born the same year (1627) that her parents married, was 12.

The identity of the other godparent, Pierre, son of Pierre Cachet, is a mystery. Perhaps Pierre Choiseau from the Saint Jehan roster, who arrived with a wife and two children from Bourgueil?

And why were two children selected? Did the fact that the baby was baptized at 3 hours of age, at 4 in the afternoon, have something to do with the selection of the godparents? Was it because that’s who was available? Was the baby distressed?

Probably so, because there was no priest present, and the baptism was performed by two Acadian men.

Marriage

We know that Jeanne Trahan married Jacques Bourgeois about 1643 in Port Royal, so she was considered an adult by then, or at least adult enough to marry. Her first child in the 1671 census is shown as having been born in 1644.

Catholic church law allowed girls as young as 12 to marry. That and the fact that she had a baby the following year suggests that she was at least 13 or perhaps even 14 when she married, and 15 when the first baby arrived. This correlates with the 1629 birth year.

In 1643, there probably weren’t many marriage candidates in Acadia, so the pool was limited. Perhaps the family focused on finding a good match and not so much on the couple “falling in love.”

Or maybe you fell in love with whomever opportunity placed in front of you – maybe in the literal pew in front of you in church. Or the neighbor next door.

Jacques Bourgeois, the surgeon and also d’Aulnay’s right-hand man would have been considered not only a good marriage candidate, but the best possible candidate in all of Acadia for young Jeanne.

It’s probably not a coincidence that Jeanne married early. No one was really secure on the frontier. Life was short – sometimes much shorter than expected. Live it while you can!

Needles and Pins

In 1643, 1644, and 1645, there’s no question that Jeanne’s father, as a military officer, was involved in both the raids on LaTour’s forts, and the defense of Port Royal. Both of the men Jeanne loved were at risk.

The most harrowing episode was in July of 1643 when Port Royal was attacked, three of d’Aulnay’s men were killed, and seven injured. La Tour rampaged through Port Royal, burning the mill and pillaging homes.

In the midst of all of this, Jeanne had her first baby, a little girl. Daughter Jeanne Bourgeois was born sometime in 1644. She never married, at least not that we know of, and died in her late 20s or early 30s sometime after the 1671 census, but before the 1678 census.

In 1646, Jeanne’s second child, Charles Bourgeois, arrived. He married Anne Dugas around 1668 and would eventually settle in Beaubassin, where he died sometime around the birth of his last child in 1678. His widow remarried the following year.

Given the four-year gap between Charles’ birth and Jeanne’s next child, she assuredly brought a baby into this world in 1648 who died before the 1671 census.

Jeanne’s children who passed from this world too soon in Port Royal are buried someplace in the Garrison Cemetery, in what are today unmarked graves

Hogg Island

We don’t know exactly where Jeanne’s parents lived in Port Royal, but the early settlers were given land near the fort.

When the fort was extended in 1705, Guillaume Trahan’s descendants were expropriated. Jeanne was living on what is today Annapolis Royal’s main street.

Sometime in this timeframe, and before 1650, d’Aulnay awarded Hogg Island to Jacques Bourgeois and Jeanne Trahan, a prime piece of real estate adjacent the fledgling outpost, fort, and village of Port Royal.

This 1686 map shows two structures on Hogg Island. Jeanne’s parents would have lived in one of the houses along Main Street, very close to the fort, before she married Jacques and set up housekeeping on Hogg Island.

This 1753 map shows Hogg Island more clearly.

Not only was Hogg Island large and well-positioned along the river, it was much larger, 20 arpents, than the typical land grant of around 6 arpents – and was surrounded by the river on three sides. Perfect for a merchant trader like Jacques.

Jeanne would live on Hogg Island most of the rest of her life – probably at least 50 years. In the above photo, I’m standing on a part of Hogg Island on the causeway crossing the river, photographing the river towards the ocean, which shows another portion of Hogg Island, along with Port Royal, to the left.

Mom’s ring that descended from her Acadian line traveled with me to find her ancestors.

Today, Hogg Island looks very different and is the home of Canada’s first tidal power generation station. Ironic that the Bourgeois land here, and in Beaubassin, would eventually both be involved in different types of natural alternative energy production.

As a businessman, Jacques would have loved that idea! Making money from the tide!

Hogg Island would be unrecognizable to Jacques and Jeanne, today, but it’s still the land where she lived and loved and grieved.

I didn’t realize when I was having this little picnic on the pulloff on the bridge that I was actually on the end of Hogg Island. Jeanne was welcoming me home with a seagull chorus, and I didn’t even realize it.

Community

We know that Charles d’Aulnay had confidence in Jeanne, because she became his daughter’s godmother at a very early age, so when d’Aulnay unexpectedly died in 1650, it may have affected Jeanne deeply.

Port Royal parish registers from this timeframe don’t exist, but I’d wager that Charles d’Aulnay was the godparent for Jeanne’s second child and first son, Charles Bourgeois, born in 1646.

By 1650, Jeanne and Jacques had a daughter, a son, and either a baby born in 1648, or a baby born in 1648 who had died. Because there was never a male child named after her husband, Jacques, I’d bet this baby that died before 1671 was named Jacques.

Jeanne’s fourth child, Germain Bourgeois, joined the family in 1650. Again, without parish registers, we’ll never know, but I’d wager that the Germain Doucet de la Verdure, who was married to Jeanne’s unidentified Trahan sister, stood as Godfather to Germain Bourgeois.

Germain would marry twice, first to Madeleine Belliveau in 1673 and then to Madeleine Dugas in 1682, both in Port Royal. Germain was involved in the founding of Beaubassin with his father, but died in 1711 in Port Royal

In 1652, the family expanded again, and Marie Bourgeois joined her siblings. She married Pierre Cyr in 1670. The couple founded Baubassin, along with her father. She married a second time in 1680 and died in in Beaubassin in 1741.

The Unexpected Wedding

Charles d’Aulnay and his rival, Charles LaTour had been engaged in skirmishes and outright battles for years in Acadia, attacking each other’s ships and holdings, laying seige to each other’s forts and villages, and attempting to run the other out of Acadia.

D’Aulnay’s unexpected death in 1650 opened a power vacuum in Acadia and set the stage for Charles La Tour to return. In 1653, to everyone’s surprise, he married d’Aulnay’s widow, which assuredly had to be quite the scandal since the two men were mortal enemies, and d’Aulnay certainly had a hand in the death of La Tour’s wife in 1645.

Acadia needed to heal its internal wounds, and that’s what their marriage served to do. It’s a good thing, because just a year later, Acadia would be attacked from the outside.

The 1654 English Attack

The attacks just kept coming, except this time, the English were the aggressors, not a rival French faction. And, Jeanne was either heavily pregnant, or had a newborn baby. Either way, both Jeanne and the child were extremely vulnerable.

The Acadians had been trading with the English out of Boston, so the last thing they expected was an attack.

Yet, that’s exactly what happened.

Robert Sedgewick had been ordered to attack New Holland (New York), but after a peace agreement was unexpectedly signed, he decided to attack someone else. The Acadians – yea – what about the Acadians? Let’s go there and attack them!! Tally ho!!!

Because it was peacetime, the Acadians were not expecting the English ships sailing up the Riviere Dauphin to be “enemies,” bent on doing them harm.

Sedgewick, with 300 armed men, sailed up the river to Port Royal in July 1654, facing about 130 Acadian men and soldiers who were caught entirely by surprise and valiantly attempted to defend the fort. Not only were the brave Acadians outnumbered, more than two to one, but the 200 English soldiers were professionals.

Once again, Jeanne’s father and her husband would both have been involved in defending Port Royal, as much as was possible.

The Acadians did their best and holed up in the fort, but the English held them and Port Royal under siege.

This is where things get really ugly.

On August 16^th, Germain Doucet de La Verdure, Jeanne’s brother-in-law, surrendered to the English, having negotiated what the Acadians felt were reasonable surrender terms under the circumstances. Acadians were provided at least some protection. The settlers were to keep their land and belongings, the French soldiers in the fort were to be paid in pelts and transported back to France, not killed, and the Acadians could worship as they saw fit – meaning as Catholics – without interference.

The French officials would also be sent back to France, and an Acadian council was put in place to function on behalf of the English during their absence. “French officials,” in this case, probably included Germain Doucet and his Trahan wife and children, if they had any.

Those terms could have been much worse since both the English and the French knew very well that the Acadians stood no prayer of winning a battle against the English who outnumbered them, were far more experienced, and who had not been caught by surprise.

The Articles of Capitulation:

It was concluded on board the Admiral’s ship, the Augustia, anchored in the river and before the fort of Port Royal, “and for the greater security of the contents of the above articles the said Sieur de la Verdure has left for hostage Jacques Bourgeois, his brother-in-law and lieutenant of the place, bearer of his procuration for the present treaty, and the Sieur Emanuel le Borgne, the son, until the completion of the present agreement which was begun at the first sitting held yesterday and concluded today, August 16^th, 1654.

The reference to Jacques as Doucet’s brother-in-law means he was married to either Jacques’ sister, or Jeanne’s sister. Jacques was not known to have any siblings in Acadia and immigrated alone. On the other hand, we know that Jeanne Trahan had a sister who was listed on the ship’s roster. Germain Doucet and his wife were not known to have had any children themselves, and we never hear from them again – so it’s presumed that they returned to France.

While this capitulation agreement spared the Acadians’ lives, it would have pained Jeanne greatly to watch her sister climb aboard that ship destined for France, knowing she would never see her again. Her sister would have probably been between 20 and 25.

During this time, it must have been a bit touch-and-go, an emotional roller-coaster. Jeanne’s father, Guillaume Trahan, was a syndic at Port Royal, meaning an official of some sort, and signed the capitulation agreement on behalf of the Acadians. Would Jeanne’s parents be forced to leave too?

Apparently not.

Following the signing of the agreement, the English soldiers immediately broke the agreement, burned and pillaged Port Royal and the surrounding homes. They torched the church and the priest’s home, ransacking the area for days. There’s no way that Hogg Island, nor Jeanne’s parents’ home near the fort, were spared. In fact, being some of the more well-to-do families of Port Royal, they were probably targets.

The settlers were offered passage back to France, if they wished. It’s unknown how many, if any, went.

In addition to all of this, Jeanne had either four or five young children at home between the ages of 2 and 10. Given that her youngest child would have been about 2, Jeanne would have been expecting in 1654 – or newly delivered.

Jeanne and Jacque have another “blank space” in the 1671 census, where a child’s name should have been.

This baby probably died at or shortly after birth in 1654, because their next child was born a year later in 1655.

Was the death of their child in 1654 connected in any way to the August attack?

While Hogg Island was prime real estate, an island separated from Port Royal only by a small stream, it could also have been a death trap. Where were they to go? How could they stay safe? There was river on three sides.

What did Jeanne do?

Guillaume Bourgeois was born the following year, probably named after Jeanne’s father, who was most likely his godfather. The church had burned, so this child would have been baptized wherever the priest happened to be that day, with whomever could stand as godparents. Jeanne’s father was a good choice.

Guillaume Bourgeois eventually left Port Royal for Beaubassin where he married in 1686, having only one child before his death between 1690 and the 1693 census.

Another child would have been born to Jeanne about 1657, with that child passing as an infant, because Jeanne’s next child was born the following year.

Daughter Marguerite Bourgeois was born in 1658, first married in 1676, and settled in Beaubassin where she remarried in 1679. She remarried again in Port Royal in 1707, but returned to Beaubassin where her final child was born. She lived until 1732, passing away in Beaubassin.

Francoise Bourgeois was born about 1659, married Claude Dugas in 1673 in Port Royal, died after the 1693 census but before 1697 when Claude remarried. She probably lived near her mother in Port Royal, and they would have enjoyed one another’s company, especially since so many of Jeanne’s children departed for Beaubassin. Francoise’s husband was in Beaubassin in 1682, but they are listed in Port Royal in the census, so it’s unlikely that Francoise and Claude ever actually settled in Beaubassin.

Anne Bourgeois was born about 1661, married Rene LeBlanc in Port Royal about 1678, and had settled in Grand Pre by 1688. Their children were born there and also in Les Mines (Minas). Anne died in Grand Pre in 1747.

Jeanne would have given birth to another nameless child about 1663 who probably didn’t die immediately, because there’s a full four years between Anne and Marie, born in 1665, suggesting that the unnamed child born in 1663 lived at least long enough to be weaned before Jeanne became pregnant again.

Marie Bourgeois, Jeanne’s second daughter to be named Marie, was born about 1665 and married Antoine LeBlanc about 1680. They lived in Port Royal in 1686, but had made their way to Les Mines by 1693 where she died sometime after 1703 and probably after 1714.

1665 was a year of incredibly mixed emotions for Jeanne. She welcomed a new daughter, but bid farewell to her mother, Francoise Corbineau who was about 56 – certainly not old by today’s standards.

We know that Jeanne’s mother died about 1665 because her father remarried about 1666, at age 65. Of course since Jeanne’s mother’s death date is calculated based on the approximate year that Guillaume remarried, we really don’t know how long between the death and the nuptials.

Perhaps a Scandal

Jeanne’s father was about 65 years old when her mother died.

Jeanne must have been shocked by what transpired soon thereafter.

Around 1666, Guillaume Trahan married Madeleine Brun.

That’s not so unusual, but what is rather surprising is that Madeleine was born on January 25, 1645, in La Chaussee, France. We have an exact birth date from the parish registers, documented by the church in LaChaussee, and yes, Madeleine was 21 years old in 1666.

Since Acadian parish registers don’t exist from that time, the best we can do is to calculate the year of their marriage based upon the year of the birth of their first child as recorded in the 1671 and later censuses.

While many grooms were substantially older than their brides, a gap of 44 years is quite remarkable. It may or may not have been considered a bit scandalous at the time. One reason why I suspect it might have been is because in the 1671 census, Guillaume has reduced his age to 60, from 70, so perhaps the situation was a bit “sensitive”.

This turn of events may have been difficult for Jeanne to wrap her head around. Jeanne’s new step-mother was dead-center in age between Jeanne’s two oldest children.

Madeleine Brun may well have come over to play with Jeanne’s daughter, Jeanne when they were both little. Then not so many years later, Madeleine married Jeanne’s widowed father.

Madeleine would give Guillaume seven more children, beginning in 1667 – Jeanne’s half-siblings.

Both Jeanne’s last child, a second daughter named Marie, and Madeleine’s first child, a boy named Guillaume, were born about 1667.

Jeanne’s daughter, Marie Bourgeois (the younger) married Pierre Comeau about 1689, spent her life in Port Royal, and died in June 1716 there.

Jeanne went from having only one known living sibling who married Germain Doucet and either died or traveled back to France, to having seven half-siblings who were all a generation or more younger than her. Jeanne’s last half-sibling was born about 1678, when her father was about 77 and Jeanne was about 50, so she was half a century older than her youngest sibling. I might have a difficult time wrapping my head around this one, too.

In 1668, the year after Jeanne’s youngest child was born, her children began marrying, which meant that in short order, grandchildren began arriving. She must have been overjoyed. Who doesn’t love babies?

However, many of Jeanne’s children founded the distant colony of Beaubassin, so while Jeanne welcomed her first grandchild in 1670 thanks to son Charles, a little girl named Marie, she wouldn’t know most of her grandchildren, and certainly did not see them on a regular basis, if at all.

It’s possible that Jeanne had one or two additional children who perished before the 1671 census. If Jeanne was born in 1629, she would only have been 38 in 1667 when her last known child was born, and clearly had more time to bring additional children into the world, at least in 1669 and 1671. Many women bore children into their early or even mid-40s, so Jeanne could have buried two or even three more children.

Port Royal Becomes French Again

In 1667, Port Royal was returned to France by treaty between France and England. Functionally, the transfer didn’t happen until 1670 when a new French governor arrived. He immediately ordered a census be taken in the spring of 1671.

THANK GOODNESS!

The 1671 census is incredibly important to genealogists, because it’s the first glimpse of families, complete with ages, occupations, wives surnames, and other critical information.

The 16 years spent under English rule had been good to the Bourgeois family. Jacques and Jeanne were listed first in the census and were the wealthiest, most prosperous family in all of Acadia.

• Jacques Bourgeois, surgeon, 50 and his wife Jeanne Trahan, 40. One son and one daughter are married. Then the list of children:
  • Jeanne, 27
  • Charles, 25 (also listed as a farmer under his own household with his wife and a daughter who is one and a half)
  • Germain, 21
  • Marie 19 (also listed as gunsmith Pierre Sire’s wife, age 18, with a 3-month-old son)
  • Guillaume, 16
  • Marguerite, 13
  • Francoise, 12
  • Anne, 10
  • Jeanne, 4
• They have 33 cattle, 24 sheep, and 20 arpents of land in two different locations.

It’s hard enough to lose a baby or young child, but I can only imagine how soul-crushing it must have been for Jeanne to lose her oldest child, a daughter by the same name, sometime after the 1671 census, where she was 27, and before the 1678 census, where she is absent.

I’ve often wondered why daughter Jeanne never married. In a land of scarce marriage partners, it has occurred to me that she may have been disabled in some way. Her birth could have been difficult, or a myriad of other reasons. Regardless, unless she married after 1671 and left no trace, she died as an adult between 27 and 34. She was the first adult child that Jeanne had to bury. I hope Jeanne was able to bury her daughter beside her mother in the cemetery just up the hill.

If daughter Jeanne had married and died in childbirth, then Jeanne would have buried her daughter and grandchild both someplace in the garrison graveyard..

Beaubassin

In 1672, the year after the first census, Jeanne’s husband, Jacques, and some of her adult children founded Beaubassin, the first Acadian colony extension beyond Port Royal.

In addition to being the local doctor-of-all-things, Jacques had been actively trading for decades. Under English rule, trading furs obtained in Acadia with New Englanders, especially out of Boston, was quite profitable. In exchange, the Native people would barter for manufactured items, such as axes, kettles, and guns.

Jacques, a savvy man, had long ago learned the importance of strategic locations.

The Missaguash River connected the Baie Francoise, today’s Bay of Fundy, with the greater Atlantic, 15 miles across the isthmus of Chignecto to the Baye Verte. Jacques recognized that as a strategic location, and that’s where he established the village of Mésagouèche, later Missaguash, eventually renamed Beaubassin in 1676.

Beaubassin was described as “the first swarming of the Acadians to establish their hive,” by one historian, but I’m not so sure that Jeanne was the queen bee of that hive. In fact, I don’t think she was there at all for more than 20 years.

Beaubassin was between 9 and 12 days away by boat, one way, and someone had to maintain the home fires. Raise the rest of the children in Port Royal and keep an eye on Jacques’ business ventures there.

It seems that Jeanne wasn’t only Jacques’ wife, but was also his business partner.

However, that doesn’t mean Jeanne wasn’t heavily invested and involved in Beaubassin. Not only was it an increasingly important aspect of her husband’s life and  trade, her children had set out to become the first settlers in Beaubassin.

More land, less supervision, the ability to trade freely with the English – lots of benefits.

But for Jeanne’s mother’s heart, Beaubassin must have been incredibly bittersweet.

Of Jeanne’s children:

1. Eldest child Jeanne died at some point between 1671 and 1678, presumably in Port Royal.
2. Charles married about 1668 and probably helped his father establish the initial colony of Beaubassin.
3. Germain married in about 1673 in Port Royal and had three children before his wife died. He married a second time in 1682, and the newlyweds made their way to Beaubassin.
4. Marie married about 1670, and the newlyweds left for Beaubassin.
5. Guillaume married in Beaubassin in 1686, but seems to have been going back and forth, as there are records of him in Beaubassin and Port Royal, both before and after his marriage. In 1686, he was living in Port Royal, owned land in Beaubassin, and had died before the 1693 census when his only child is found living with Jeanne in Port Royal. This has tragedy written all over it.
6. Marguerite married about 1686 and made her way to Beaubassin with her new husband. He died there, and she remarried in 1680.
7. Francoise married Claude Dugas about 1673, and by 1679, they were living in Beaubassin. However, after some intense drama in Beaubassin between 1682 and 1684, Françoise and Claude returned to Port Royal, where they lived the rest of their lives. In the 1686 census, they still owned land in Beaubassin.
8. Anne married about 1678 and was living in Port Royal in 1686. By 1693, they were living in the Minas Basin, and in Grand Pre by 1701. She had a set of twins among her children, born in 1688, but Jeanne probably never was able to meet them and may never have known.
9. Marie married about 1680, lived in Port Royal in 1686, but by 1693, they were in Les Mines.
10. Jeanne’s youngest daughter, Jeanne, married about 1689 and is Jeanne’s only child to spend her entire life in Port Royal.

Yes indeed, Jeanne’s offspring were the life-well of Beaubassin. She essentially lost her first adult child to death, second through fourth children and her sixth to Beaubassin. Her fifth and seventh children went back and forth, apparently, between Beaubassin and Port Royal, but by 1686 were living back at Port Royal.

Jeanne’s eighth and ninth children left Port Royal by 1693, possibly as a result of the horrific 1690 attack, and landed in the Minas Basin someplace, then Grand Pre. Neither place was close to Beaubassin, each other, nor Port Royal.

Only Jeanne’s 10^th child stayed in Port Royal, living her entire life there. Francoise died in Port Royal about 1697 after returning from Beaubassin and may have died before her mothre.

Germain returned before his death in 1711, although to the best of our knowledge, he never lived in Port Royal as an adult.

Jeanne’s children not only founded and settled Beaubassin, some died early deaths on that frontier. While Port Royal was somewhat sheltered from the open Atlantic by the surrounding hills and river valley, Beaubassin was not.

Beaubassin’s settlers endured the direct westward Atlantic winds that ushered in brutal storms powerful enough to uproot trees, and horrific Arctic winter blizzard conditions.

For Jeanne, even though she may never have visited Beaubassin until her later years, her heart was clearly split between the two locations. She assuredly thought and wondered about her children and grandchildren living there every single day. Thankfully, she eventually had some grandchildren in Port Royal.

Jeanne’s second child, Charles, died not long after Beaubassin was established. Documents tell us that some sort of plague occurred in Beaubassin in 1678, and perhaps Port Royal as well – possibly accounting for Charles’s death at only about 33.

Jeanne’s father, Guillaume Trahan, died sometime between the 1678 census and 1684 when his widow remarried. His last child was born in 1678 when he was about 77.

The 1678 census is less specific, but shows Jacques and Jeanne living in Port Royal with two girls at home, 15 cattle, and 20 arpents of land. Son Guillaume isn’t shown, but, to the best of our knowledge, he also hasn’t married. I’d wager he was on his way back and forth between Beaubassin and Port Royal when the census was taken.

In the 1686 census, Jacques (called Jacob) Bourgeois and Jeanne Trahan are living in Port Royal. Their son, Guillaume Bourgeois, 31, is living with them on 20 arpents of land. However, at the bottom of the census document, Guillaume is listed as a resident of Port Royal, but owning land in Beaubassin. He has 2 guns, 30 arpents of land, 8 cattle, and 3 sheep. He clearly left shortly after the census and married in Beaubassin.

Guillaume Bourgeois, died about 1690 in Beaubassin, about the time his only child, Jeanne, was born. Something happened to his wife at about the same time, because they only had one child, his wife did not remarry, and their daughter, age 3, is living with her grandparents, Jacques Bourgeois and Jeanne Trahan in 1693 in Port Royal. Let’s hope that Jeanne’s granddaughter brought her comfort and was a ray of exuberant sunshine in the Bourgeois home.

Guillaume would have been the third of the first five of Jeanne’s children who grew to adulthood to pass over to the other side – and those deaths around 1678 and 1690 occurred in Beaubassin, so Jeanne would not have been able to attend their funeral. No closure. No comforting rituals. Just a cold message on the next ship or boat to arrive between the two locations. By the time Jeanne received word, her child had been gone from this realm for at least two weeks, probably more. Maybe somehow she “knew.”

On one of those ships, the return letter would have said that Jeanne’s daughter, Jeanne had died, then her father, Guillaume, the grandfather of many Beaubassin founders, had passed over too.

By 1690, Jeanne would have been about 60 or 61, and Jacques about 70 or 71. Their last child had married in 1689, and their granddaughter, Jeanne Bourgeois, who eventually lived with them, would have been born about this time. She may or may not have already come to live with them in Port Royal. We don’t know exactly when her parents died, but no second child was born in 1692 that lived, so one if not both of granddaughter Jeanne’s parents would have been gone by then. Young Jeanne, her grandmother’s namesake, knew her grandparents for a few years, but she never knew her parents.

I do wonder if Jeanne stood as her granddaughter’s godmother, which is why, or at least part of why, Jeanne was living with her grandparents in 1693.

By now, Jacques and Jeanne should have been enjoying something akin to retirement – looking out over the beautiful tidal river coursing past Hogg Island. Watching sunsets and enjoying the fruits of their labors. Letting someone else do the heavy lifting, as it were.

Perhaps they were. I hope so, for even just a short time. A blink and a minute.

Their life was about to change. Maybe change is too weak a word.

The 1690 attack

In 1690, the English brutally attacked Port Royal. Again.

Even though Jacques founded Beaubassin, he and Jeanne were recorded in Port Royal in every census through 1693. Even if Jacques happened to be on his way back and forth that fateful May day in 1690, Jeanne would assuredly have been at home in Port Royal

The British fleet, consisting of seven ships, with 78 cannons, manned by 736 men, sailed up the river and anchored in front of the Fort Royal. The night before, alerted by a sentry, Governor Meneval had discharged the cannons at the fort, not just to warn the residents, but to call them to assist.

Only three men responded. 42 were reported absent, although we are left to wonder if absent means literally gone from the immediate area, or absent means that they did not respond to the summons.

Would it have made a difference in the end? Probably not.

Meneval attempted to defend the fort and the town of Port Royal, but he only had 90 soldiers, and only 70 were available. Worse yet, between them, they only had 19 muskets.

How did this even happen?

These numbers are a bit baffling in numerous ways, because the 1686 census shows a total of 103 households with a total of 71 guns. A few households, 9, were widows or listed without a spouse, but do not underestimate these women. About half of them had guns, and I’d bet every single one of them knew exactly how to use them.

Nevertheless, Port Royal was outnumbered, outgunned, and overwhelmed. They weren’t just outgunned, their fort was in a complete state of disrepair, and their cannons weren’t even mounted. They couldn’t defend themselves – at all. 19 guns against 78 cannons.

Meneval had been begging for resources from France, but to no avail.

And now the chickens had come home to roost. Well, actually, the English had come to take over – but same thing!

Meneval sent the priest to negotiate surrender terms on the English warships anchored in the river in front of Port Royal. I’m guessing that Jeanne, then about 60 or 61, had already vacated Hogg Island upon seeing the arrival of the fleet, followed by the warning cannon shot.

Mutually acceptable surrender terms were reached, including that:

• The Acadians could retain their property and continue to worship unmolested
• The French garrison and officers would be sent back to France unharmed
• The fort and “King’s property” would become England’s

However, the English commander, Phipps, refused to sign the agreement the next day, although there were multiple witnesses for both sides.

This is a dark, foreboding foreshadowing of what was coming next.

Phipps claimed that he had no idea about the poor condition of the fort, which seems incredulous, given that he had met with Charles Melanson, an Acadian on the north side of the river who was widely regarded as being “too friendly” with the English, to inquire about conditions at the fort. Additionally, Phipps had sent an emissary to the fort to request surrender BEFORE negotiations began AND he could clearly see the fort from the river.

Nope, Phipps was full of hooey!

Phipps found a convenient excuse to unleash his soldiers to do whatever they wanted – and they did – plundering the town, church, and nearby farms, and burning 28 homes.

Where was Jeanne?

We have no idea.

Was the Bourgeois home burned? Most probably, unless for some reason it managed to be spared due to Jacques’ favored trading status with the English.

The Acadian men were rounded up in the church near the fort and forced to sign a loyalty oath to the English crown.

Jacques’ name is absent. Was Jacques even in Port Royal at that time? Some speculate that he actually penned the oath, which is why he didn’t sign. That’s certainly possible, but a comparison of the only signature we have of his to the loyalty oath doesn’t seem to match. I wish we had an additional sample of his handwriting.

One thing is for sure. Port Royal was a mess. Her residents were homeless and distraught – their town having been turned into an inferno.

A few weeks later, English pirates came and finished stealing and burning whatever was left.

Beaubassin, however, was untouched – this time.

1693 – Rinse and Repeat

Two things of note happened in 1693. The census, and another English attack – and we don’t know which occurred first.

In 1693, Port Royal is under the control of the English, and Jacques is listed as “Jacob.” He’s 74 and Jeanne is 64. Their granddaughter, the orphan of their son, Guillaume, is 3 and lives with them. They are more prosperous than ever, with 15 cattle, 20 sheep, 15 hogs, and one gun, living on 40 arpents of land. It’s certainly possible that Jacques’ 40 arpents is his 20 and his son, Guillaume’s 20, or that some is in Beaubassin and some is located in Port Royal.

Jeanne’s daughters, Francoise and Jeanne still live in Port Royal, and one of Jeanne’s grandchildren, Charles Bourgeois, eldest son of her son Charles, had returned to Port Royal and married, although they would return to Beaubassin shortly.

Perhaps Charles took his grandparents with them.

The English, never tiring of attacking Port Royal, apparently, struck again in retaliation for the French assisting and giving quarter to French Privateer Pierre Maisonnat dit Baptiste, a man who fought side-to-side with the Acadians in 1690, was taken prisoner and escaped, and had become a living legend and folk-hero to the Acadians. In the 1693 census, he’s living in Port Royal.

Among other things, Baptiste, as he was called, traded for guns. While the Acadians were very poorly armed in 1690, that wouldn’t happen again. In 1693, almost every Acadian had at least one gun, but Baptiste had 15, far more than anyone else. He was arming Acadia and training the young men right under the noses of the absentee English landlords.

In retaliation, the English sailed up the river, burned a dozen homes, including one with women and children inside, and three barns full of grain.

There’s an odd twist to all of this, because Baptiste remained in Port Royal for some time. He’s there through 1703, but in January of 1706, he was named Port Captain of Beaubassin, and in the middle of January of 1707, he became the third husband of Jeanne’s daughter, Marguerite Bourgeois. She, on the other hand, was at least his third, if not fourth, or more, wives. I’m not sure how to count the bigamy annulment, or how many French wives he had. After all, he was a pirate, and there were rumors…

1793 seemed to be a turning point for Port Royal. Many younger people had had enough. They left and settled in Les Mines, Beaubassin, and Grand Pre. Port Royal had been attacked and burned twice in three years – and was living under the thumb of the despised English.

Apparently, the 1693 attack was the last straw for Jacques and Jeanne too. Perhaps their home was burned, perhaps for the second time in three years, and they were just too old and tired to rebuild again.

1696 – The English “Visit” Beaubassin

Jeanne and Jacques may have thought they were escaping to safer quarters in Beaubassin – away from the English attacks. Apparently the Bourgeois family felt safe in Beaubassin, even without a fort – because they never built one there.

Beaubassin was the only early Acadian settlement without a fortification.

They were wrong.

In 1696, Benjamin Church decided to “visit” Beaubassin to exact revenge for an attack by the French and Indians in New England, and he was seeking scalps for scalp bounty.

Arriving on September 20th, Church had to wait for the tide to rise in order to land at Beaubassin, which provided the Acadians and their Mi’kmaq allies with enough warning and time to hide in the woods.

After disembarking and climbing the path to the homes in the village at Beaubassin, Church met Germain Bourgeois on the path, reportedly carrying a gun and an ammunition box. Church’s account of this encounter, penned a few years later and published by his son, informs us that Jeanne and Jacques are living with Germain, or at least at his house, at that time.

Church’s account says that Germain, after being told to stop or he’d be shot, laid his gun down and expressed “his desire that Church would make haste with him to his house, lest the savages would kill his father and mother, who were upward of fourscore years of age and could not go,” meaning go into the woods to escape.

The next events are very reminiscent of Port Royal in 1690. The village was ransacked and plundered by the English for 9 days, most homes were burned, and the men were rounded up and forced to sign a loyalty oath.

More unbridled terror.

Jeanne had survived the English attacks of 1643, 1654, 1690, 1693, and now 1696 in Beaubassin. Good Lord, was there no end?

How many homes were burned?

Did Jeanne lose family members in those fires?

Had her son and his wife been killed in 1690? Is that why she was raising her granddaughter?

Back in Port Royal, Jeanne’s daughter, Francoise, died sometime between 1692 and 1697, inferred from the fact that her last known child was born in 1692 and her husband, Claude Dugas, remarried about 1697. Based on the number of missing children between those dates, Jeanne was probably burying Francoise’s children before she buried Francoise herself. Given Francoise’s age, I wonder if her death was related to childbirth.

Or worse…

I can’t stop thinking about the report of a woman and her children who were burned to death in a home in 1693.

I hope Jeanne was at least able to say goodbye to Francoise and bury her. So many of Jeanne’s children died where she wasn’t, so she would have experienced no soothing Catholic rituals and had no closure.

1698

In 1698, Jacques and Jeanne are unquestionably living in Beaubassin where he is listed first in the census. Jacques, 82, and Jeanne, 72, are living with their son, Germain, his wife, Madeleine Dugas, 34, and only one child, Agnes, age 12. What had happened to Germain’s other children? Is this related to the 1696 attack?

If their home was burned, they have recovered, at least somewhat, because they have 22 cattle, 15 hogs, 21 arpents of land, 3 guns, and 1 servant.

The Final Frontier

Two years later, in the 1700 census, neither Jacques nor Jeanne are found in the census in Beaubassin or Port Royal.

After more than 72 years, Jeanne has slipped the bonds of Earth, not long before or after Jacques.

They spent their last few years in the incredibly beautiful village that Jacques funded, if not actively founded by moving there himself.

Jeanne may have visited earlier, but with children and livestock to tend at home, that’s unlikely. It’s not that she wasn’t invested, however, because her children and grandchildren’s lives were spent here, and their DNA is mingled with Beaubassin’s soil.

When Jeanne arrived, sometime after the 1693 census and before September of 1696, a beautiful expansive horizon would have greeted her – along with grandchildren and great-grandchildren she had never met or known.

She had a lot of catching up to do.

I’m so glad Jeanne was able to spend her final years among her expansive family – part of the tapestry she had woven but never been able to participate in.

The little church was probably located on the hill where the English built the fort in 1750, with the cemetery just outside. This handdrawn map depicts the foundations of Acadian homes from archaeological research in 1948, 1958 and 1968.

Beaubassin was destroyed in 1750, so we have no records of where homes or the church, or the cemetery were located. However, in 1891, when tracks for the new railroad were being laid, they accidentally disturbed the old Beaubassin cemetery.

Years later, in the mid and late 1900s, additional work was done to locate the foundations of the Acadian homes.

Combining that information together, we know that Jeanne and Jacques would have been buried here, in what is today a beautiful field, with the bay in the distance, just across the bridge from the fort that was built in 1750 by those cursed English, and then abandoned five years later.

Few visit where the Bourgeois village and Acadian homes once stood, now reclaimed by nature.

Beaubassin is remote, her salt-marsh dyked fields today the domain of cows, horses, and a wind-turbine farm.

It’s this very harshness, ruggedness and remoteness that were the hallmarks of the frontier trading post and village that Jacques Bourgeois sought, and where Jeanne spent her sunset days on that final shoreline.

How Jeanne’s world changed in four score years, across two continents and three frontiers.

_____________________________________________________________

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