Henriette Pelletret was born to Simon Pelletret and Perrine Bourg about 1641 in Port Royal, Acadia, now Annapolis Royal in Nova Scotia.

The first actual record of Henriette is found in the 1671 census, where she is listed in two different ways. Unlike future Acadian censuses, married children are listed with their parents in 1671, and also in their own home with their spouse.

Henriette Pelletret’s mother, Perrine Bourg, married Simon Pelletret about 1640, having two daughters born in 1641 and 1643. Simon died sometime between 1642, when Perrine would have gotten pregnant for her second child, and 1646 when Perrine’s first child with her second husband, René Landry, was born.

In this first census record, Henriette is connected with her mother and stepfather by name and her age, 30. Her full sister, Jeanne, is listed next at age 28, (married to Barnabe Martin), followed by her half siblings, Marie, 25, (married to Laurent Grange or Granger) and Marie, 23, (married to Germain Doucet). After Perrine Bourg and René Landry’s married children were listed, they were followed by a list of their unmarried children: Magdeleine, 15, Pierre, 13, and Claude, 8.

Henriette’s father, Simon, died when she was between the ages of 1 and 5. If he died when she was a toddler, she would never have known him. If he died when she was 4 or 5, she might have had at least a foggy memory of him. It’s worth noting that her mother did not have a third child, at least not one that lived, in 1645, which suggests that Simon probably died before their youngest child, Jeanne, was weaned in about 1644.

Sadly, that suggests that Henriette probably had no memory of her father.

Henriette’s stepfather, Rene Landry, was, in essence, the father who raised her.

What Was Happening in Port Royal In 1643?

Of course, before the age of modern medicine, people died from a variety of illnesses that medications like antibiotics prevent today. Accidents happen, especially living on the water.

We don’t know the occupation or trade of Simon Pelletret, but we do know they lived in a tiny town, with few inhabitants, on the maritime frontier.

Did something happen that might have killed Simon?

Perhaps.

The Acadian Civil War

Beginning in 1640, a rivalry between two governors, Charles de Saint-Etienne de LaTour, who controlled parts of Acadia, and Charles de Menou d’Aulnay, above, who controlled Port Royal and other areas, escalated into what is often called the Acadian Civil War.

If Henriette’s sister, Jeanne Pelletret, was born about 1643, then we know Simon was living in 1642. He was probably gone before Jeanne was weaned in 1644, but could have lived into 1645 IF Perrine had a child in 1645 that died before the 1671 census. That’s somewhat unlikely, though, because her first child with René Landry was born about 1646, so she probably remarried in 1645.

A second marriage for a widow was a matter of survival, and that wedding could have happened very quickly.

We don’t really know how many people lived in Port Royal in the early/mid 1640s, but there were only about 270 residents later, in 1654, and many of those would have been children. If the average family size was 5 or 6 people, then there were maybe 45 homes in 1654 after additional families had arrived and put down roots. There would have been fewer a decade earlier.

We know from later records that Simon Pelletret lived in a house on the main street, beside the fort, in the riverfront merchant portion of Port Royal where trading and business transactions took place.

This map shows the families whose land was expropriated in 1705 when a new, enlarged, fort was built. You can see that the Pelletret land was incorporated into the future fort. This is where Henriette was born and probably grew up.

In the 1640s, this was the merchant center of Port Royal, the capital of Acadia.

For five months in 1642 while La Tour was absent, trading in New England, d’Aulnay blockaded the river at Saint John where LaTour’s Fort Sainte-Marie was located and where he lived. La Tour had obviously heard what was taking place, because in July, he returned from Boston with four ships and 270 men to retake his fort, chasing d’Aulnay back across the bay to Port Royal, but not actually catching him.

In 1643, still miffed about d’Aulnay’s blockade of his fort, LaTour chased d’Aulnay to Penobscot Bay in present-day Maine, where d’Aulnay was forced to run two of his ships aground.

In the resulting skirmish, d’Aulnay lost another smaller ship, and three men from each side died. Satisfied with his damage, La Tour proceeded on to Boston to trade. D’Aulnay was left licking his wounds, burying the dead, and fuming.

Later in 1643, La Tour, on his way back from Boston, attacked Port Royal again, killing three men and injuring 7, while La Tour only lost one man.

This 1686 map, although drawn more than 40 years later, shows the main street in town, along with the water mill and fort.

In 1643, bent on destruction and revenge, La Tour’s men rampaged through Port Royal, burned the mill, stole furs and gunpowder, killed livestock and pillaged homes. For some reason, LaTour did not attack the fort directly, which was only defended by 20 men.

We know from these descriptions that in 1642 and 1643 six Port Royal men were killed and seven more injured. We don’t know if any of those later died from their wounds. We don’t know if those men were French soldiers stationed at the fort, or Acadian settlers, or some of each. We also know that the Pelletret family lived in the exact area that was pillaged – so it’s certainly possible that Simon was one of the men killed.

In 1645, on Easter Sunday, d’Aulnay gathered every man, which would have consisted of all soldiers and every Acadian man who could carry a gun – reportedly about 200 in total.

He proceeded to cross the Bay and attack La Tour’s fort, once again, in his absence.

La Tour’s wife, Francoise-Marie Jacquelin, only 23 or 24 years old, commanded the soldiers and defended the fort for days, but ultimately, had to negotiate surrender terms.

In spite of those terms, D’Aulnay proceeded to hang all of La Tour’s soldiers after promising that they would not be harmed. He forced Francoise-Marie to watch, while standing on the scaffold, with a noose around her neck. She died three weeks later as a hostage.

The death of La Tour’s young wife, and the murder of his soldiers caused the warfare between La Tour and d’Aulnay to cease. For the next few years, La Tour lived in exile in Quebec.

For the next five years, d’Aulnay recruited new settlers from France, Port Royal grew, and Acadians lived in peace.

However, in 1650, that era came to a close when d’Aulnay drowned in an accident. One might say karma was at work.

What happened next is simply jaw-dropping. As astonishing as this is – in 1653 d’Aulnay’s widow, Jean Motin, married Charles LaTour in an effort to end the division and unite Acadia. LaTour returned to Acadia, but change was already in the wind.

1654 was arriving like a run-away freight train!

1654 – Port Royal Under Attack Again

In 1654, Henriette would have been about 13 and probably spent her days helping her mother with household chores and taking care of her younger siblings. Maybe she coyly flirted with some of the Acadian boys and young men at church. In particular, perhaps Pierre Doucet, the handsome nephew of the Fort’s Captain at Arms, Germain Doucet.

Pierre Doucet was an orphan, and his uncle, Germain Doucet and his wife had no known children. So Germain raised Pierre and his siblings as his own – at least until 1654 when the unimaginable happened.

Perhaps Pierre Doucet, then about 33, viewed Henriette at 13 as just a child, even though many Acadian girls began marrying about that age. There weren’t a lot of marriage age people in Port Royal, so the pool was limited. However, six years later, Pierre had assuredly noticed Henriette. They married about 1660 and brought forth at least 9, and probably around 14 children.

But 1654 was a horrible year, and Pierre probably suffered more than many, if not most. He was already an orphan, and he lost his uncle and aunt who had stepped in to raise him.

Yes, yes, Pierre was an adult – but perhaps cast adrift. No matter how old you are when your parents, followed by your parental figures, pass out of your life – it’s unmooring.

So, what happened?

Frenemies No More

The Acadians in Port Royal had suffered from prolonged neglect by France for many years. Consequently, they had established a trading relationship with the English in Boston to fulfill their needs. Frenemies. An economic alliance made of necessity.

Everything seemed to be going well. According to some Acadians, perhaps too well.

But then…

On July 14, 1654, the English unexpectedly attacked Port Royal. English Colonel Robert Sedgewick was prepared to attack New Netherlands when, on June 20^th, he was informed that peace had unexpectedly been reached. Drat it all! What was a Colonel to do? “All dressed up with no place to go,” Sedgewick decided to attack Acadia instead.

Apparently, there was just too much adrenaline flowing.

Sedgewick and his men boarded their ships and made a beeline North.

One hundred thirty soldiers in Port Royal attempted, valiantly, to defend the fort from Colonel Sedgewick’s 533 New England militia members, plus the 200 professional soldiers under his command, sent by Oliver Cromwell.

Not only were the soldiers in the garrison unsuccessful, Port Royal fell. The Englishmen ransacked Port Royal, stealing what they could and destroying the rest.

St. Johns fell before Port Royal and Fort Pentagouet, in today’s Maine, fell after, defended by 18 men under the command of Germain Doucet, Pierre’s uncle.

Henriette was probably too young to remember the 1645 attack, but in 1654, she assuredly watched as the flames destroyed the church where she worshipped and the savagery that took place.

Given their proximity to the fort, their home could not have escaped the carnage. The only question was “how bad”? The good news, if there was any, is that the English did not torch the entire town.

When Port Royal fell, 113 Acadians were being held by the English. We have no idea who they were, but I’d wager they were some combination of men, women, and children.

When the terror was over, most of the livestock had been killed, but the Acadians were allowed to retain whatever of their personal possessions were left. According to the surrender agreement, personal property and posessions were supposed to have remained untouched – but that agreement didn’t hold.

The French soldiers and administrative officials were shipped back to France – which included Pierre Doucet’s uncle, Germain Doucet, who had raised him.

Perhaps Henriette Pelletret and Pierre Doucet were friends in 1654. Perhaps they prayed together in a makeshift church. Maybe they grieved together as they buried their common friends, and family at the cemetery. Every person in the small congregation would have attended every funeral.

Soon, Henriette and Pierre would be more that friends.

After the 1654 military actions, many Port Royal residents moved upriver, to the BelleIsle area, further out of harm’s way. Based on the neighbors in later censuses, it appears that Henriette’s mother and stepfather had not moved, so Henriette would continue to see Pierre often while passing on the waterside street in Port Royal.

Wedding Bells

Approximately six years later, around 1660, when Henriette was 19 or so, and Pierre was 38 or 39, they married and lived in Port Royal, along the waterfront. Their marriage year is calculated based on the birth of their first child in about 1661, so if their first child died before the 1671 census, they would have married a year or two earlier.

After Acadia fell in 1654, a council of Acadian men would govern under the tutelage and eye of the English for the next 16 years – until Port Royal was returned to France by treaty in 1670.

After that return, a census was taken the following year, in 1671, which is when we find Henriette married to Pierre Doucet. By then, they had been married for more than a decade.

Henriette as a Wife

A second entry in the 1671 census shows Henriette as the wife of Pierre Doucet in Port Royal.

Pierre Doucet is a mason, age 50, and Henriette is 31, placing her birth in about 1640. It’s interesting that her age is given as 30 with her parents, and 31 with Pierre. Either she had a birthday, or there was uncertainty, or it didn’t really matter. Her surname is spelled Peltret, but we know that surname spelling and accurate ages were somewhat arbitrary.

Pierre and Henriette have five children: Anne, 10, Toussaint, 8, Jehan, 6, Pierre, 4, and an unnamed daughter who was three months old. That’s unusual, because Catholic babies were named at baptism which generally occurred within hours or at least days of their birth. They lived just a short walk from the church, or the priest’s home, so perhaps the priest was visiting elsewhere.

The list of children also suggests that they had a child that died who would have been about 5, and another baby should have been about 2, had they lived.

At least one, but probably at least three of Henriette’s children had died before the 1671 census.

They would have been buried, here, in the cemetery beside the Catholic Church, probably someplace near Henriette’s father.

The 1671 Census  Details and Messages

In 1671, Pierre and Henriette owned seven cattle, six sheep and had four arpents of land under cultivation.

Port Royal had been under the control of the English since 1654, so there were no censuses taken until 1671. Unfortunately, there are also no remaining parish records, so we have to infer that Henriette and Pierre married about 1660.

By 1671, some families had moved upriver where there was more land, but many of the core families, especially those engaged in either commerce or government, remained in Port Royal.

There were a total of just under 400 residents, who lived in 68 households.

The Pelletret family is found in two clusters.

Group 1:

• Laurent Grange, seaman, 34, Marie Landry, 24, children ages 3 and 9 months, 5 cattle, 6 sheep, 4 arpents of land
• Perrine Landry, 60, widow of Jacques Joffriau
• Pierre Doucet, mason, 50, Henriette Pelletret, 31, Anne, 10, Toussaint, 8, Jehan, 6, Pierre, 4, and an unnamed daughter who was three months old
• Francois Bourg, 28, wife Marguerite Boudrot, plus their children
• Marie Salé , 61, widow of Jehan Claude and also the second wife of Martin Aucoin prior to her marriage with Jehan Claude
• Germain Doucet, farmer, 30, Marie Landry, 24, 3 children, ages 6, 4 and 3, 11 cattle, 7 sheep on 3 arpents of land

The two Marie Landrys are sisters, both daughters of Rene Landry and Perrine Bourg, so half-sisters to Henriette.

This Germain Doucet in the census is the apparent adopted son of Germain Doucet, Pierre’s uncle who was sent back to France in 1654. Y-DNA testing tells us that this Germain had a Native American father, while the other Doucet men had European forefathers.

Pierre Doucet’s mother is believed to be a Bourg.

Clearly, these people are interrelated.

Group 2 begins 15 houses away:

• 15 houses
• Barnabe Martin, 35, farmer, Jeanne Pelletret, 27, 2 children, 4 and 8 months, 3 cattle, 2 sheep and 2.5 arpents of land
• Clement Bertrand and family
• Antoine Belliveau and family
• René Landry, farmer, 52, Perrine Bourg, 45, with family

Of course, Perrine Bourg is Henriette Pelletret’s mother and René Landry is her stepfather. Jeanne Pelletret is her sister.

1678

The next census taken in 1678 shows Pierre Doucet and Henriette Pelletret with five boys, two girls and 10 cattle on 1.5 arpents of land, which is equivalent to about 1.2 acres. Additionally, they own a gun.

We know they have seven living children at this point, although children’s names are not recorded in this census.

They are listed in Port Royal beside three families who we know lived where the present-day Fort Anne stands today.

• Bonaventure Terriot and Jeanne Boudrot
• Michel Boudrot and Michelle Aucoin
• Abraham Dugast and Marguerite Doucet
• Pierre Doucet and Henriett Pelletret
• Antoine Bourg and Thoinette Landry
• Laurans Granger and Marie Landry

Unfortunately, no ages were given.

Rene Dies

Sometime between the 1678 census, and the 1686 census, Henriette’s step-father, Rene Landry, died.

In 1686, Perine Bourg, age 74, was living with her son, Claude Landry, his wife, and child – 7 houses from Pierre Doucet and Henriette Pelletret.

1686

The 1686 census provides significantly more detail about the family.

Pierre Doucet, 55 (who is actually 65), Henriette Pelletret, 40, children: Toussaint, 23, Jean, 20, Pierre, 18, Marguerite, 6, and Mathieu, 1. They have 8 cattle, 12 sheep, and 6 hogs on 5 arpents of land, plus they own two guns.

Five or six arpents of land seemed to be standard issue, given that it’s a very common amount. Abraham Dugas is listed as having ‘2 parcels” and in another census, he is shown with 12 arpents, so that tallies.

Disastrous 1690

If 1654 was bad, it was only a trial run for 1690, which was pure Hell.

In 1654, the English “accidentally” captured Acadia. There was no pre-planning – just opportunity, which they seized with much gusto – then, like the dog that caught the car, wondered quite what to do.

1690 was another story altogether.

In 1689, New France and their Native American allies launched select raids on towns on the frontier in New England. One raid in Schenectady, NY, and one in Salmon Falls, NH were reported to the Massachusetts Bay Colony authorities, which prompted their decision to launch a retaliatory expedition against Acadia.

This decision was more than a little awkward due to the ongoing trade relations between the two entities. In fact, John Nelson was rejected as the leader due to his extensive dealings with the Acadians. John Nelson and Jacques Bourgeois, by far the most prosperous Acadian, had a long-standing friendship that reached beyond Port Royal, although Nelson schemed and plotted against Acadia. There seemed to be more than a little subterfuge involved with Nelson, and I’m not sure which way that river ran.

Instead, Sir William Phips was selected to lead the charge, a man with no military experience other than finding a lost treasure ship. He had, however, survived an attack that destroyed his hometown in Maine during the First Abenake War in 1676, so he welcomed the opportunity for revenge and was thereby commissioned on March 24, 1690.

Just a month later, on April 28, 1690, Phips sailed out of Boston harbor with a fleet of seven ships, 446 men, and a total of 72 mounted cannons. Two more ships joined up along the way.

On May 9^th, Phips slipped inside the mouth of the Dauphin River and visited Pierre Melanson dit Laverdure, a French Huguenot known to be friendly with the English. Melanson was the first homestead to be encountered on the north side of the river. Phips inquired about the state of Port Royal and the fort, so he knew well in advance what to expect.

Phips probably didn’t even really need to stop, given that the fort had been in disrepair for years, bordering on completely useless. Beginning in October of 1689, a French military engineer had been razing the fort to build a new one, so the fort, and the town it was supposed to protect, were at their most vulnerable.

Worse yet, the garrison only possessed 19 muskets, which was only one gun for every 3.7 soldiers. How is that supposed to work? The French were VERY negligent about supplying and supporting Acadia – inviting attacks. They might as well have advertised their weakness and slapped a target on Port Royal! Essentially, that’s what they did.

The 1686 census, four years earlier, showed 71 guns scattered between 103 homesteads. Not only is there not a gun for every male that is old enough to handle one, there’s only one gun for every house and a half, or two guns for every three houses.

That means roughly one third of the homes were completely undefended. If 42 of the men were gone, hunting perhaps, that suggests that more than half of the guns, if not more, were absent too, leaving even more homesteads without protection.

Fort Anne, and by extension, Port Royal, were sitting ducks.

The following day, May 10^th, Phips and his flotilla sailed on up the river to Port Royal.

This 1686 map from the Barrieau thesis shows the layout of the town, plus the ruined fort.

Acadia fell without a shot being fired. Phips sent an emissary to the fort to demand surrender. Louis-Alexandre Meneval, the Acadian Governor, knew that any resistance was futile, although he was later criticized for giving up without a fight. Not only was the fort unable to be used, the enceinte was open, and the fort’s 18 cannons weren’t mounted. Fighting would have been a death sentence for all men involved – and potentially the rest of the residents too.

Furthermore, Phips assuredly could see both the condition of the fort and the lack of cannone clearly from his position in the river.

What Phips may or may not have known, depending on what Melanson knew and told him, was that there were only a total of 70 soldiers in the fort, and 42 Acadians were absent.

Still, Governor Meneval was determined to obtain the best possible surrender terms, so he sent the local priest, Father Louis Petit to Phips ship, the Six Friends, anchored in the river, to negotiate surrender terms.

The agreed-upon terms included that:

• The French King’s property and the fort be surrendered to the English
• The goods belonging to the Acadian settlers would remain untouched
• The people would be unharmed
• Equally, or maybe even more important to the Acadians, they would retain the right to worship as they saw fit – meaning as Catholics

Unfortunately for the Acadians, Phips refused to sign the agreement when Meneval went to the ship the following day, although several witnesses on both sides confirmed the agreed-upon terms.

Disaster Unleashed

What happened next was disastrous.

One thing is unquestionable. The terms were breached and the English destroyed the town, church, homes, including private property, and killed livestock. They even uprooted and destroyed the gardens. This behavior continued for days and went far beyond plundering for valuables. This was outright malicious destruction.

According to Robert Rumilly’s 1981 article, 28 homes were burned as well. If that’s true, that includes every home along the water in Port Royal, and probably equally as many either along the Cape or along the river approaching Port Royal.

Phips claimed the English behavior was justified because some of the French were removing stores from the fort which would belong to the English. Not only did Phips claim that voided the entire agreement, he authorized the plunder.

The French story is a bit different. Meneval didn’t leave detailed orders when he went to Phipps’ ship to sign the agreement, and some of the soldiers began imbibing – although I have to wonder why one would do anything to dull one’s responses with the enemy anchored within sight. In any case, some of those drunken soldiers broke into the stores of one of Meneval’s political opponents and removed his goods from the community storehouse.

It’s unclear whether the goods removed belonged to the French King, which would rightfully belong to the English, or whether they were personal property. Not that it mattered, because the act itself was all the English needed to achieve their actual goal.

Regardless, the over-the-top reaction was far too severe for the infraction, even assuming the worst – and was clearly just an excuse.

When Meneval and Father Petit reported the ensuing events, they said that Phips was unhappy with the condition of the fort he was to receive as spoils, and the size of the garrison, and he used that as an justification to terminate the agreement.

If Phips did as he was accused, he would have been looking for any excuse to terminate the agreement, since he clearly knew about the condition of the fort in advance – both from Melanson and by virtue of being unable to see any mounted guns on the nonexistent fort walls. This act seems to be calculated, and his story doesn’t wash.

Later biographers suggested that Phips expected the plunder to pay for his expedition, so he refused to sign the agreement with that in mind. He got what he wanted – surrender – and then he simply took the rest.

In other words, the entire negotiation and terms of surrender agreement was a calculated, premeditated charade by the English.

The Oath

Phips then required a loyalty oath to the King of England. He rounded up all of the Acadian men in the church, clearly before it was burned, and forced them to sign. A total of 61 men signed, including Henriette’s husband, Pierre Doucet.

If 42 men were missing, they must have returned fairly quickly, because almost every household, except for a few elderly men, are accounted for on the signature document.

These 1690 events destroyed the sometimes tenuous and fragile trust between the Boston merchants and the Acadians in Port Royal, which makes what happened next all the more baffling.

Governance

England clearly planned to take Acadia, but apparently, they did not plan to govern Acadia.

Upon their departure, the English did not leave a garrison of English soldiers at the fort as one would expect, and Phips appointed a council of Acadian leaders to govern in their absence. Meneval was captured and taken to Boston.

Former Governor Joseph Villebon was reappointed and returned from France in June. He moved the seat of Acadia to Fort Nashweaak on the Saint John River for a better defensive position, and to coordinate New England ambush raids with the Abenaki.

Port Royal, under English control, was on her own.

The 1690s would be haunted by questions of who was actually in control of Acadia until 1697 when Acadia was returned to France in the Treaty of Ryswick.

The Church and the Land

The Acadians, especially in times of trouble and turmoil turned to their religion, to their church, their Catholic rituals and familiar practices.

Watching their beloved, sacred church burn must have been devastating to the Acadians. The church was their respite, where they retreated for comfort – and now it had been wantonly destroyed.

The church that was burned in 1690 was never rebuilt, and eventually, the nearby cemetery was probably at least partly covered by the glacis of the expanded fort.

MapAnnapolis shows the original church location and the original cemetery site, here. You can read more about the cemetery project, here.

That fort expansion is also how we know that Henriette Pelletret’s parental home was in the literal shadow of the fort. Simon Pelletret’s descendants were compensated when the land was later expropriated in 1704 or 1705

After the church was burned in 1690, services were held at the priest’s home until a new church was built many years after Henriette’s death.

Then Pirates

As if 1690 wasn’t already bad enough, Port Royal was subjected to a pirate raid a few weeks later.

Nicole Barrieau, in her 1994 thesis, quotes a letter from Villebon saying that the pirates burned all of the houses situated between the mouth of the Dauphin River and the fort.

Charles Clarence Webster, in a 1934 paper, reports that “they burned 12 of the houses closest to the sea, 15 or 16 of those at “Le Cap,” and the church… The Mills were apparently left standing.”

This 1686 map shows all of the homesteads. Based on the various descriptions, it’s possible that between the dozen or so homes in Port Royal, the 17 homes in “Le Cap,” just inland from the waterfront street in Port Royal, and the 14 houses shown on this map, that every home in Port Royal and west were burned. That would only have left the homes upstream from Port Royal where ocean-going ships couldn’t sail.

Not only did the pirates capture the ship that delivered Villebon, the new Governor, they destroyed homes and cattle, and allegedly killed some of the inhabitants.

The residents reported that little was left, and the pirates not only took what little there was, killed their remaining livestock and torched everything for spite or entertainment.

Families were been horribly uprooted, with many hostages taken. Sixty prisoners were still being held a year later when Villebon tried unsuccessfully to negotiate their freedom.

Their identities, where they were being held, by whom, and their eventual fate is unknown.

Where Was Henriette?

It’s very likely, given that Pierre was a mason, and combined with their census location, that they lived in Port Royal proper, probably right on the main street, possibly in her childhood home, meaning that Henriette was caught in the thick of things. The 1654 and 1690 surrenders, the duplicitous agreements, the horrific plundering and destruction of the town, followed in 1690 by burning and then cruel pirate attacks.

If Henriette and Pierre’s home miraculously escaped the English 1690 devastation the first time, it assuredly did not escape the pirate raids and fires.

Port Royal was left a smoldering pile of rubble.

Then, three year later, it happened all over again.

Rinse and Repeat in 1693

In 1693, once again English frigates sailed into the Dauphin River to launch a retaliatory raid on Port Royal. This time, it was to exact revenge for the notorious pirate, Pierre Maisonnat dit Baptiste, who lived in and operated out of Port Royal. Baptiste fought with the Acadians in 1690, recruited young Acadian men for his ships, armed the Acadians, and preyed on English vessels. Needless to say, the Acadians loved this man. The English did not.

In some ways, while not a full military attack, the June 1693 raid was more brutal. Some accounts say that two citizens were hanged and that their families were locked inside their houses and burned alive.

I pray Henriette did not suffer that horrific, terrifying fate. The reports indicated that a woman and her children were among those burned. That doesn’t sound like Henriette because while some of her children are missing in 1693, not all of her children are missing. However, nothing is confirmed about the report, so we really don’t know – other than the 1690 attack and 1693 raids were both terrifying and horrific.

I shudder to think…

Henriette Dies

Henriette was alive in the 1678 census, gave birth to her youngest child in 1685, and is shown with a one-year-old in the 1686 census.

Henriette died sometime between the 1686 census, where she was reported to be 40, with a one-year old child, and seven years later in the 1693 census.

We don’t know when the 1693 census was taken, meaning before or after the English attack, nor do we know who died.

Seven years elapsed between the 1686 census and the 1693 census, plus the two attacks of 1690, and the one in 1693, so a lot of people in Port Royal could be expected to pass over during that timeframe, even without any exceptional circumstances.

There may be clues though.

In the 1671 census, Henriette is listed as age 30 and 31 putting her birth about 1640 or 1641. Her oldest child is 10, which means Henriette got married and pregnant about 1660. In the 1686 census, she is listed as 40, which puts her birth in 1646, which means that she would have been 16 when her first child was born. That’s not impossible and is fairly typical for Acadian brides.

If Mathieu was age one in 1686, and his mother was actually born in 1640, so was age 46, Henriette had her last child at age 45 and would not have been expected to have any additional children. That’s also a little late for a final child, but again, not unheard of.

If Henriette was actually born in 1646, so 40 in 1686 as the census indicates, she could probably have been expected to have at least one more child the following year, in 1687, if not two more children.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a third tie-breaker census with ages to more closely resolve Henriette’s age. Either age is well within the normal age range for Acadian young women to marry.

What we can say is that Henriette died leaving relatively young children.

If Henriette died closer to 1686, she was not subjected to the 1690 and 1693 depredations. She passed over between the approximate ages of 40 and 46 and left at least two children under the age of 10, one just a baby, for Pierre to raise. At least one of her children seem to be missing from this census.

I tend to think Henriette died later, rather than earlier, because had she died with a baby in the house, I suspect that either another Acadian woman, maybe her sister, would have taken the baby to raise, or Pierre would have remarried.

If Henriette died close to 1693, she suffered through at least some of the 1690 and 1693 events, if she didn’t perish during one of them.

We can say with almost certainty that their home burned, either in 1690 or 1693, or maybe both. In the 1693 census, Pierre Doucet was still living in Port Royal, based on his neighbors. Five years later, in 1698, he was living across the river, again based on the neighbors. He is listed there on the 1707/1708 maps.

In 1693, Henrietta was between the ages of 47 and 53 and left only Mathieu below the age of 10. Three children still lived at home and were probably a help to Pierre. With no young children to raise, Pierre would have bad less motivation to remarry.

In the 1693 census, Pierre was listed as a widower with three children remaining at home, ages 19, 13, and 8,

If Henriette was born around 1640 or 1641, she was between the ages of 45 or 46 and 52 when she said her final goodbye.

If she was born in 1646, she was between 40 and 47 and could have died giving birth to a final child.

Regardless of when Henriette died, I certainly hope it wasn’t violently. Her death, too early, was tragic enough.

Henriette’s mother, Perrine Bourg, then in her 60s, wept at her daughter’s funeral Mass, the location now veiled in the mists of time where the serene church once stood. She laid her daughter to rest someplace in the now unmarked Acadian cemetery, alongside Henriette’s father and stepfather, surrounded by the children who passed before her.

Children

Henriette brought about 15 children into this world, assuming her first child or children did not die.

1. Anne Doucet, born about 1661, was with her parents in 1671, but by the 1686 census, is shown with her husband. Anne married Jean Hebert about 1676, when she was about 15, and by 1686, had blessed Henriette with 5 grandchildren – 4 boys and a girl. By 1693, she had eight children, and eventually had 14, but four died young.
2. Touissant Doucet was born about 1663, left for Beaubassin sometime after the 1686 census and married Marie Cassie there around 1690. They had 11 known children, with the first one arriving the following year. Henriette probably never met either Marie or her one or two grandchildren that may have arrived before her death. Touissant had 11 children in total, but only 6 reached adulthood.
3. Jean Doucet was born about 1665, married Francoise Blanchard around 1692 in Cobequid, and had 7 children. Three are known to have lived to adulthood.
4. Pierre Doucet, his father’s namesake, was born about 1667 and is living with his parents in 1686 at age 19. Sadly, he is not found thereafter. If alive, he would have been expected to marry in the 1690s, but he is not found anyplace in 1693. His mother has also died.
5. Unknown child born about 1669, but deceased by 1671.
6. Madeleine Doucet was born about 1671 and married Rene Bernard about 1689. They had eight children, with the first one being born about 1690. By 1693, they were living in Beaubassin, so she would not have been present in Port Royal when her mother died. Rene died and Madeleine remarried in 1709 in Beaubassin to Pierre Doiron, having two more children. Eight of her 10 children lived to adulthood.
7. Possible unknown child born about 1673 and deceased by the 1678 census.
8. Louis was born about 1674 and married Marguerite Girouard about 1702 in Beaubassin. They had seven known children, six of whom lived to adulthood.
9. Louise (also known as Jeanne) Doucet was born about 1676. About 1691, she married Pierre Chenet, a Parisian in the employ of the King, about 30 years her elder with whom she had three children. After his death, she then married Jean Chrysostome Loppinot in 1702 in Port Royal. They had at least five children. Loppinot had been appointed Court Clerk in 1699, so he was also a government official. However, in yet another attack by the English, their home was burned to the ground in 1707 or 1708, which, according to Loppinot in a note written on Christmas Day 1708, “reduced his family to beggary.” In June of 1710, their home burned again, but this time, by accident. Notes housed in the Canadian Archives reveal that, “The wife and children of the said Mr. Loppinot, along with Mademoiselle Morpain, were in front of the house with a few belongings that had been brought to them, having escaped in their nightclothes. Upon investigating the cause and how the fire had started, those who had arrived first told us that it began in the room facing the tide, where there was a large amount of cotton…” I hope all of Louise’s children were able to escape. We only know the fate of one child born in 1703, and that another child had died in January of 1710. Marie Joseph Morpain had been his godmother at his baptism. I wonder if she was their servant. In 1712, Loppinot obtained the position of court clerk in Plaisance, Newfoundland. By 1733, when their oldest child was married in Louisbourg, both parents were reported as deceased.
10. Rene Doucet was born about 1678 and married Marie Broussard in 1702 in Port Royal. They had either 10 or 11 known children, with 8 reaching adulthood.
11. Marguerite Doucet was born about 1680 and married Alexandre Comeau about 1700 in Port Royal, having six known children. Five of her children are known to have reached adulthood.
12. Unknown child born about 1682 but deceased by 1686.
13. Unknown child born about 1684 but deceased by 1686.
14. Mathieu Doucet was born about 1685 and married Anne Lord in 1712 in Port Royal, having seven children, all of whom survived.

Epilogue

By 1685, only Henriette’s eldest daughter, Anne, had married and already had 5 children that Henriette would have been able to enjoy. In fact, Henriette and her daughter were probably pregnant at the same time.

If Henriette lived until 1693, she would have witnessed Madeleine’s marriage in 1689 and Louise’s in 1691. The first baby usually arrived the year following the wedding – and Henriette might have gotten to hold and rock some of those babies!

Of Henriette’s children:

• Two and possibly three moved away before 1693, so she would have lost contact, if not entirely, then mostly. She probably never saw them again.
• Henriette buried at least five children. Her son, Pierre, a young adult, died in the same window of time as Henriette.
• Three children were still living at home in 1693, after Henriette had passed.
• Four children married and lived in Port Royal permanently, and one until at least 1712. Henriette would have known the first few children born to her eldest daughter, but the rest are doubtful.
• Four children moved to either Beaubassin or Cobequid, the next Acadian frontiers.

I’m left wondering if the horrific events of 1690, or 1693 might have had something to do with Henriette’s death. I hope not, but it’s certainly possible, especially given that one of Henriette’s older children disappears from the records in the same timeframe.

FIRE!

Henriette’s daughter, Louise, would have been about 15 in 1690 and 18 in 1693 when the English and/or pirates torched their home. Louise’s own home burned twice more in her adult life, in either 1707 or 1708 and 1710, when she was 33 and 35. Four times in 20 years – that’s astounding. Louise must have developed a terrible fear of fire.

Pierre Doucet, Henriette’s husband, didn’t die until 1713. He would have witnessed all of those disastrous events.

I can see him awakened suddenly in the dark to terror – the crackling of flames.

OMG!

FIRE!

Saints, protect us!

Rushing – rushing – rushing in the dark to find, gather, and hold his family and assure their safety in 1690 and 1693.

Then, in 1708 and 1710, he clutched his daughter, Louise, and her children, holding them close as they stood in the chill by the river in their nightclothes, enveloping them in love, sheltering them as their home was reduced to smoking embers. Not once, but twice he saved her from fire as a child. Then, twice more as an adult – not three times, but four.

Thank God!

Thank God they are alive.

Maybe Henriette was there too, embracing and protecting Louise from the other side.

Perhaps it was Henriette who awakened her in the night!

Nothing – not time, distance or death – can crush a mother’s love.

The mist still drifting where the church once stood, their dust mingling with the earth of their homeland – a silent reminder that love outlives everything and warms the souls of all of Henriette’s descendants.

_____________________________________________________________

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