Marie Hebert is first found at age 20 as the spouse of Michel de Forest in the 1671 Acadian census in what is today Nova Scotia.

Michel de Forest, age 33, wife Marie Hebert, 20, with children Michel 4, Pierre 2, René 1, 12 cattle, two sheep, and two arpents of cultivated land

Brides were a very limited commodity in Acadia, and women tended to be swooped up and married as soon as they became eligible.

Given that, I’d wager that Marie probably had many suitors, and her father, Étienne Hebert, and mother, Marie Gaudet, selected the man they felt was best suited for their daughter.

Michel de Forest may have had somewhat of an unfair advantage, though, because he was farming the land next door to the Hebert family, as shown on this 1733 map. Or maybe he began farming the land next door as a result of marrying Marie. It’s fun to speculate, but we’ll probably never know for sure.

What we do know is that Marie married quite young.

In the 1671 census, she was 20 and already had three children, the oldest of which had been born four years earlier, so she probably married in the Catholic church at age 15, in 1666. Unfortunately, no records survived until the early 1700s.

The census entry beside Michel De Forest and Marie Hebert is Marie Gaudet, Marie’s mother, as follows:

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

This census is unique because it listed the married children by name, even if they weren’t living in the household. Marie was the eldest child, born about 1651. The census also listed the married child in the household where they lived. In Marie’s case, with her husband, Michel de Forest.

Marie’s mother, also named Marie, married by age 17, if not earlier and became a grandmother at 34. I know the math works, but just the thought makes me reel. Four years later, Marie’s mother was a widow.

Marie Hebert’s father had already died, in either 1670 or 1671, given that her mother, Marie Gaudet, had a 1-year-old son.

Marie and Michael de Forest, with their two eldest children, would have accompanied her mother to the church for her father’s funeral, and then to the cemetery for his burial. Marie’s nine siblings would have been there too, as would her own two young children – too young to remember their grandfather. Either Marie and her mother were both pregnant for another child, or they both had babes in arms according to the census. What a heartwrenching day that would have been.

Marie, wife of Michel de Forest married young, and she also died young.

Marie’s Death

In the next census, taken seven years later in 1678, Michel is shown as a widower with 4 acres, 3 cows, 2 calves, 1 gun, four boys, ages 12, 10, 8, 3, and two girls, ages 6 and 4. His age is not given, but he was 40 or 41 and very clearly had his hands full.

Based on the children listed in both censuses, we know that Marie had six children in the nine years or so that she was married, before her death. She had such a short life. Given that her youngest was 3 in 1678, I wonder if she died from complications of her child’s birth in 1677 or perhaps in childbirth in 1678. How I wish we had those church records.

She was only 26 if she died in 1677.

Marie’s still youthful body would have been carefully washed, probably by her mother and sisters, dressed in her best clothes, and placed lovingly in a hand-hewn coffin, then taken by wagon or perhaps by batteau to the Catholic Church one last time for her funeral.

Her funeral hymns would rise in the church where she had been baptized, married, and her children baptized.

After her service, Marie would have been buried in consecrated ground in the graveyard beside the church in Port Royal, probably someplace near her father and maybe her babies. Eternal sentries, their graves overlooked the marshlands of the Rivière du Dauphin, today the Annapolis River. Just upriver a dozen or so miles was the farm where Marie had been born, grew up, courted, and come home as a bride – on the banks of that tidal river.

Her entire life had been lived in just twenty-some years.

I can close my eyes and see her children, beginning with the eldest, Michel, just 10 years old, holding hands as they filed out of the church into the cemetery to bury their mother. The youngest was just a baby.

If the season was right, her children could have picked some Queen Anne’s Lace or maybe some Yarrow along the way and placed their flowers gently on their mother’s casket before it was lowered into her final resting place, perhaps along with a newborn baby.

That would be their last loving act for their mother. Oh, how they must have cried, hot, sorrowful tears sliding down their faces.

The local men would have dug Marie’s grave the day before while the family was preparing her body. What a grief-filled day that surely was – not only for Michel, and Marie’s children, but for her poor mother who outlived her daughter and was herself only 45 years old in 1678, and a recent widow.

Life, or more specifically, death was cruel and oh-so-indiscriminate in who it randomly claimed.

Marie’s Children

Despite losing their mother, Marie’s known children all grew to adulthood.

Child	1671 Census	1678 Census	1686 Census	Birth Year	Death Year	Spouse
Michel	4	12 male	19	1666-1667	By 1731 – Pisiguit, parish of Saint-Famile.	Abt 1689 to Marie Petitpas, then in 1708/1709 to Marie Celestin dit Bellemere
Pierre	2	10 male	18	1668	By Nov. 1730	Abt 1693 to Cecile Richard
René	1	8 male	16	1670	1751	Abt 1695 to Francoise Dugas
Gabrielle		6 female	13	1672-1673	Nov. 9, 1710	Abt 1691 to Pierre Brassaud
Marie		4 female	11	1674-1675	1704-1706	Abt 1695 to Pierre L’Aine Benoit
Jean-Baptiste		3 male	9	1675-1678	1776	Abt 1698 to Marie Elisabeth Labarre

I suspect that Marie had another child, born between René and Gabrielle, who was born and died, probably about 1672. There is space for another child between Marie and Jean-Baptiste, or perhaps after Jean-Baptiste, a final child was born and died with Marie.

In 1678, Marie’s husband, Michel, was shown as a widower whose youngest child was 3.

Children’s names were not listed in 1678, although it’s possible to connect the dots with the children’s names from the 1686 census, eight years later.

No mother wants to die before her children, but mothers of younger children will fight every minute they can and with their very last breath to live. Leaving young children is every mother’s worst nightmare.

Baptismal records don’t remain for that time period, but it’s clear that Michel couldn’t farm and raise a passel of young children. Whoever their godmothers were may have been called upon after Marie’s death. After all, that was at least part of the purpose of godparents.

Life went on. It had to. There was no choice.

The Next Chapter

The older boys would have been old enough to help their father, but there’s nothing less helpful than a helpful 2 or 3-year-old. They needed more supervision than Michel would have been able to give.

Part of that problem was solved when Michel married Jacqueline Benoit sometime after the census in 1686, although she was quite young at 15 – younger than Michael and Marie’s oldest three sons.

The next year, in 1687, Jacqueline would present the de Forest children with a half-sibling, Marguerite. Their blended family must have been doing well, but then, disaster struck once again.

Sometime after Jacqueline became pregnant with Marguerite, and before May of 1690 when Michel’s name is absent from the loyalty oath, he died. He and Marie’s youngest child would have been about 13, and Jacqueline’s child was just a baby.

This family had suffered so much. Thankfully, the Acadian community was small and close-knit.

Marie’s de Forest children were now without both of their parents.

Jacqueline remarried in 1691. In the 1693 census, Marie’s children are not living with Jacqueline, their stepmother, and her new husband, although it appears that the oldest two children had relocated to Grand Pre where they lived, and two more would leave Port Royal a couple of years later.

The Children Fledge

With both parents gone, there was nothing to keep Michel and Marie’s children in the Port Royal area, so they began to move to the Grand Pre region – the next frontier. Fortunately for us, the Grand Pre church records (1707-1748) were taken along into exile in 1755 when the Acadians were expelled and today reside in Iberville, LA, providing researchers with valuable early information.

• Marie’s oldest son, also named Michel Forest, married in Port Royal about 1689. In the 1693 census, Michel de Forest was living in Les Mines at age 27. Michel Forets, resident of Pisiguit, widow of Marie Petitpas, married on October 29, 1709 to Marie Bellemere, living at Grand Pree. Michel and his wives had 12 children.
• About 1692, Pierre Forest married Cecile Richard. In the 1693 census, he is shown, age 25 in the home of Pierre Brassuad, his sister’s husband, also in Les Mines. He and Cecile had nine children.
• René de Forest is unaccounted for in the 1693 census, but he signed the loyalty oath in 1690 as an adult. He married about 1695 to Francoise Dugas and farmed his father’s land, remaining in the Port Royal region. They had at least 13 children.
• Gabrielle Forest married about 1691 to Pierre Brassaud. In the 1693 census, she is noted as Gabrielle Michel. Her burial is recorded in the register of St. Charles aux Mines in Grand Pre, so they had clearly joined her brothers in that area. They had nine children.
• Daughter Marie Forest married about 1695 in Port Royal to Pierre L’Aine Benoit, her stepmother’s brother, but died after the birth of their son in 1704. They had five children.
• Marie’s youngest child, Jean Baptiste, would not have remembered his mother. In 1693, he was listed as Jean Laforest, age 15 (so born in 1678), a domestic in the home of Daniel LeBlanc. He married about 1698 to Marie Elisabeth Labarre with whom he had 12 children. By 1714, they were living in Beaubassin.

Marie may have died quite young, but her six children produced at least 59 grandchildren to carry on her legacy.

Even though four of their six children moved on, and another died by 1704, the farm that Marie Gaudet and Michel Forest had carved out of the swamps and wilderness along the Rivière du Dauphin would not leave the family – at least not before the wholesale expulsion of the Acadians in 1755. Their third son, René, stayed to farm his parent’s homestead, establishing the René Forest Village on the banks of the Annapolis River.

In 1755, a century after her birth and nearly 80 years after Marie’s death, those grandchildren and their children’s children were scattered to the winds, but like seeds, planted themselves around the globe in fertile soil, peppering the Acadian diaspora with thousands of her descendants.

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René de Forest was born in 1670 near Port Royal, Acadia, to Michel de Forest and Marie Hebert. Acadia had been at the heart of a dispute between the French and English for control of the region, and René was born into the middle of that conflict.

The 1671 census shows his father, Michel de Forest, age 33, wife Marie Hebert, age 20, and children Michel, age 4, Pierre, age 2, and René, age 1. They also had 12 cattle, 2 sheep, and 2 arpents of cultivated land.

An arpent of land was equal to either about 192 linear feet if measured along a riverbank, for example, or about .84 acres. A typical French practice, in Louisiana, arpents are long, narrow parcels of land along streams and waterways.

The entire 1671 census consisted of 67 Acadian families at Port Royal, which included the area up and down the rivière Dauphin, now the Annapolis River, from the confluence with the Bay of Fundy up to about Bridgetown today.

Forty-eight families had land listed, meaning 19 families had no cultivated land, even though they were listed as farmers. The most wealthy man had 30 arpents. Several had between 1 and 6 arpents. This means that René was by no means wealthy, but was in the normal range. He also had more cattle than most, so perhaps that made up for less cultivated land. I’d bet his cattle were grazing on uncultivated land.

Early Life

René’s actual birthday is reported as January 11, 1670, on WikiTree, with two sources provided that I cannot verify by original records. His birth was not listed at the Nova Scotia Archives in the church records because the remaining records did not begin until 1702. It would be interesting to know where earlier researchers obtained the date of January 11^th. Regardless, based on the 1671 census, we know the year of his birth.

His father was listed as a widower in the 1678 census with 4 sons and 2 daughters. The youngest child listed was age 3, which tells us that Marie died sometime between 1675 and 1678. If they had another child in 1677, that child died too.

René’s mother died when he was young. He was between age 5 and age 8. That must have been devastating for a young child. I hope he had at least some memory of her.

Probably with help from his siblings and relatives, Michel raised those children and farmed for the next few years. Somehow, someplace in the midst of all this, René learned to read and write – well – at least he was able to write his own name.

In 1684, a new governor was appointed to serve in Acadia who complained that the Acadians never put anything away for a bad year and their dowries were small – a few francs and a cow in calf, a ewe, and a sow. This made me smile.

In 1686, another new governor reported that the Acadian people had scattered and lived far from each other, their homes being built behind the marshes along the river. Several families left the region a few years earlier to establish villages elsewhere, but René’s father was not one of them.

René’s father, Michel, remarried a decade or so later, about 1686, to Jacqueline Benoist.

In the 1686 census, listed along with other census years on the Acadian-home site, Michel, 47, is listed with Jacqueline, who is noted as age 13, along with his children by Marie. René is listed as age 16. I question both his age and his stepmother’s as well. Her parents were shown in the 1678 census as having two girls, one born in 1671 and one in 1677. If Jacqueline was born in 1671, she would have been age 17 in 1678. Much more reasonable than a 13-year-old married to a 47-year-old man. If she was born in 1677, she would have been 11 in 1678, clearly not old enough to marry. I’m betting that she was 17, not 13. Still, her stepsons were older than she was.

Michel seems to be doing fairly well, or at least reasonably, given that he has a gun, which was an absolute necessity both for hunting and defense, 5 arpents of land, 8 sheep and 4 hogs.

Michel and Jacqueline had their only child, a daughter, Marguerite, in about 1687.

Then, along came 1690, a red-letter year.

1690 Attack

In 1690, Acadia was again plundered and burned by the English out of Boston. The church and 28 homes were burned, but not the mills and upriver farms. This suggests that the Forest farm may have escaped being burned, although we certainly don’t know for sure.

The English were clearly in charge now. René would have been about 20. The Acadians had been preparing for this eventuality, amid lesser attacks, for years.

Michel died about 1690, or more specifically, between the 1686 census and May of 1690, and his widow remarried very shortly thereafter.

We don’t know exactly when or how Michel died, but he was 50ish – so he probably didn’t die of old age. His death certainly could have been related to the 1690 attack. His widow’s quick remarriage would have provided safety and security for herself and her children – and maybe Michel’s children from his first marriage, too.

Michel’s death made René an orphan by the age of 20. I wonder if the family stayed on the land Michel was farming. What happened to his younger siblings when his stepmother remarried? Who raised them? Where did they live?

At this point, René was an adult – whether he was ready to be or not.

1690 – The Loyalty Oath

The political situation in Acadia was extremely inflamed and very tense. In an attempt to diffuse the situation, the Acadians agreed to sign a limited loyalty oath. Essentially, they simply wanted to remain neutral in the warfare between France and England, not fighting “for” either side. Hence, their nickname of French Neutrals.

The Massachusetts State Archive holds the original oath with signatures because the priest, in possession of the oath document, was kidnapped in May of 1690 and taken to Massachusetts. I wrote about this oath, including a transcription with signatures, here. The title of the article is “1695 Loyalty Oath,” because that’s the year in the Massachusetts Archives. The oath document was physically in Massachusetts at that time, having been transported by the priest, but that’s not when or where it was signed.

Wee do swear and sincerely promise that wee will be faithfull and bear true allegiance to his Majesty King William King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland.

So helpe us God.

René signed his own signature on the May 1690 Oath of Allegiance in Port Royal. It’s worth noting that his father did NOT sign, so Michel was deceased by this time. And he may have been very recently deceased.

Mark Deutsch provided additional important information in a comment on the original article, as follows:

This oath was actually forced upon the residents of Port-Royal by William Phips, commander of a force from Massachusetts that captured Port-Royal in May 1690 without a fight. Phips had seven ships, 64 cannon and 736 men, more than the entire population of Acadia. This was during King William’s War, mostly fought in Europe, as usual, but with North American involvement. In his own words, Phips reported, “We cut down the cross, rifled the Church, pulled down the High-Altar, breaking their images”; and on 23 May, “kept gathering Plunder both by land and water, and also under ground in their Gardens”. see Dictionary of Canadian Biography. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/phips_william_1E.html

“An employee of the Compaignie d’Acadie had buried the cashbox, and Phips had him tortured until he revealed its location…The New Englanders also confiscated the 4,000 livres from the colonial treasury.” p. 89, “A Great and Noble Scheme” by John Mack Faragher.

“As the looting continued, Phips summoned the inhabitants hiding in the woods ‘forthwith to come in, and subject yourselves to the Crown of England…swearing allegiance to their Majesties, William and Mary of England, Scotland, France (sic) and Ireland, King and Queen’. Otherwise he declared, ‘you must expect no other Quarter, than what the Law of Arms will allow you. Fearing slaughter, the frightened residents cautiously returned to their homes. On 24 May, Phips administered the oath of allegiance to the adult males” p. 90, supra.

After giving orders to his men to impose this oath to everyone, both French and Native they could locate in Acadia, “and upon refusal hereof to burn, kill, and destroy them.”, he sailed back to Massachusetts. Later in 1690 Phips made an attempt to take Quebec with 34 ships and 2,300 men, but Governor Frontenac, familiar with Phips’ reputation of course refused surrender, and Quebec could not be captured. King William’s War ended in 1697 with the Treaty of Ryswick and Acadia was reaffirmed to be French, although the capture and pillaging of Prot-Royal had not resulted in any British government of the town and there was no attempt to exert control over the outlying villages or obtain oaths. The oath from the men of Port-Royal was promptly retracted as made under duress and fear for their lives.

Marriage

Around 1695, René married Françoise Dugas. The couple welcomed their first child, Marie, in 1696, the same year that the British attacked Acadian again. Once again, burning homes and slaughtering animals.

By the time the next census rolled around in 1698, René Forest was listed as 28 years of age, his wife, Françoise Dugas, age 20, Marie, age 2, Marguerite, age 1, with 18 cattle, 22 sheep, 2 hogs, 16 arpents of land, 40 fruit trees and 2 guns. The location is given as Port Royal. I wonder if René had a spare gun, or if the second one was his father’s. Comparatively speaking, 16 arpents of land is a lot. The fruit trees would have been very important and would have taken a few years to produce, so Rene was clearly invested here, and investing in the future as well.

In 1701, the census showed René Forest, 31, Françoise Dugas (wife), 22, Joseph, 3, Francois, 1, Marie, 5, Marguerite, 4; 1 gun, 12 cattle, 18 sheep, 3 hogs, 6 arpents of land. (Port Royal)

Now I wonder if the 16 arpents of land in 1698 was supposed to be 6, or the 6 in 1701 was supposed to be 16.

The next census is in 1703, where René Forest is listed with his wife, 4 boys, 4 girls, and 1 arms-bearer, which would have been him.

In 1707, we find René Forest and wife, 4 boys less than 14, 2 girls less than 12, 8 arpents of land, 14 cattle, 24 sheep, 15 hogs, and 1 gun.

We know where René lived, based on the 1707 census.

Fortunately, the location has been reconstructed by MapAnnapolis, here.

The red star marks this satellite view from Google Maps.

By 1708, the tension was reaching fever pitch again, and it was becoming evident that attacks would follow, probably sooner than later.

1710

This time, the English unquestionably meant business.

One Capt. Morris wrote that the channel south of Goat Island was shallow and rocky; north of the island, it was wide and deep, but there was a strong ebb and flow of the tides. The 5 miles from Goat Island to the fort had water, even in low tides. Small vessels could travel as far as 18 miles above the fort, near present-day Bridgetown. René lived about 12 miles upriver, but below Bridgeton. Large boats could go 9 miles further to “the falls” on the tide if they could stand being beached at low tide. But the bottom was “intolerably rocky and foul.”

On September 24, 1710, Port Royal was attacked again by the English who sent five ships and 3400 troops. That’s 3400 soldiers against about 1700 total Acadians, including women and children.

The 300 Acadian soldiers gathered in Fort Royal and made a valiant attempt to hold the fort, and with it, Acadia.

The Acadians, with their 300 soldiers, which would have included all able-bodied men, stood absolutely no chance, although they did manage to hold the fort for 19 days under siege. The episode became known as the Siege of Port Royal, or the Conquest of Acadia.

Here is what we know about the battle:

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

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

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

On October 12, the forward siege trenches and guns within 91 m (300 ft) of the fort opened fire. Nicholson sends Subercase a demand for surrender, and negotiations resume. At the end of the day, the parties reach an agreement on the terms of surrender, which is formally signed the next day. The garrison is permitted to leave the fort with all the honors of war, “their arms and baggage, drums beating and flags flying.”

René Forest, now 30 years old, would have marched out, head held high, one of those proud but defeated men.

This hurts my heart.

Conditions of Surrender

The requirement to leave must have pained the Acadians greatly, but they had no say in the matter.

The British were required to transport the garrison to France, and the capitulation carried specific protections to protect the inhabitants. The conditions provided that “inhabitants of the cannon firing range of the fort,” meaning 3 English miles, may remain on their properties for up to two years if they wish, provided they are prepared to take the oath to the British Crown.

There’s that oath issue again.

If they took the oath, they had two years to move their “moveable items” to a French territory which was any of the rest of Acadia, at least until the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.

481 Acadians pledged allegiance to the Queen of England, and the French troops left Port Royal, now renamed by the English to Annapolis Royal. I bet the Acadians refused to call it that.

450 English soldiers remained, but they clearly didn’t want to be there. By June of 1711, only 100 were left – the rest having either deserted or died.

Then, there was Bloody Creek.

Bloody Creek

One of the reasons I suspect that René’s father, Michel, was killed in or as a result of the British attack of 1690 is René’s continued resistance. Not just resistance either, because all of the Acadians were resisting in one way or another. The attack at Bloody Creek probably illustrates the depths of René’s conviction and his hatred of the British.

In 1711, a detachment from Fort Anne went upriver and was ambushed by a band of Indians. Thirty soldiers, a major, and the fort engineer were killed at “Bloody Creek, 12 miles east of Annapolis Royal.” The Native people were closely allied and often intermarried with the Acadians.

Note the location of Bloody Creek, and the René Forest “village.” Who lived in that village anyway? I doubt that an ambush happened on the river in front of René’s home, and he knew nothing about it and did not participate.

Nope, I’m not buying that for a minute.

While there were 11 fewer soldiers, in the end, it made no difference in the outcome.

1713

On April 13, 1713, Acadia passed to England, with France ceding all of Nova Scotia or Acadia with its 2000 residents. One author reported that in the past century, France had sent less than 200 colonists to Acadia and, at that point, had focused on Louisiana.

This 1713 map shows eastern New England and southern Nova Scotia, Port Royal is at point A, Boston at point B, and Casco Bay at point C.

The English pressured the Acadians from 1713-1730 to take an oath of allegiance and become British subjects. The Acadians refused, expressing three points of concern:

• That they be able to continue their Catholic faith unimpeded
• That the Indians (allies of the French) might attack an Acadian who fought against the French
• That the English take the Acadians’ history into account

While in 1710, none of the Acadians wanted to leave, by 1713, they had accepted their fate and actually wanted to move to a French-controlled territory and away from the British.

In 1714, the last census was taken, and René is listed with his wife, 5 sons, and 5 daughters.

From the Acadians in Grey website, we discover that René received permission from the French in August 1714 to settle on Île Royal, but, like most of his brothers, he remained in British-controlled Acadia. However, records show that his brother Jean-Baptiste was in Beaubassin by 1726.

This is actually surprising, given a 1714 letter from the English Governor of Acadia.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Oh, the irony.

By sometime in 1714, the Acadians were ready and wanted to leave and join the other French families. However, Vetch, the English governor, reversed his position when he realized how strong that French settlement would be, and that he would have no farmers to govern.

• Vetch noted that except for 2 families from New England, the Allens and Gourdays, all of the rest of the Acadians wanted to move to French-controlled areas. This would clearly have included René.
• He notes that there are about 500 families in Acadia, which he calls “L’Accady and Nova Scotia” but that there are also 500 families in Louisbourg, plus 7 companies of soldiers. The French king had given them 18 months of provisions and helped them with ships and salt for the fishery to encourage Acadian settlement there.
• He states that if the Acadians move from Nova Scotia to Isle Royale, it will empty the area of inhabitants. He’s concerned that the Indians who have intermarried with the Acadians and share their religion would follow, along with their trade, making Isle Royale the largest and most powerful French colony in the New World.
• He says that 100 Acadians who know the woods, can use snowshoes and birch canoes, plus knowledge of the fishery, are more valuable than five times as many soldiers fresh from Europe.
• He noted that some Acadians, mostly without many belongings, had already moved, and the rest planned on doing so in the summer of 1715 when the harvest was over and the grain was in.
• The Acadians would take their 5000 cattle with them, plus many sheep and hogs. So, if the Acadians move, the colony would be reverted to a primitive state devoid of cattle. It would require a long time and 40,000 pounds to obtain that much livestock from New England.
• Last, he noted that the treaty didn’t give the Acadians the right to sell the land.
• He stated that the Acadians wouldn’t have wanted to go if the French officers (speaking for the French king) hadn’t threatened that they’d be treated as rebels if they didn’t move.

Based on the 1710 edict and the 1713 ceding of Acadia to the British, combined with the constant pestering to sign an oath, I somewhat doubt his last assertion. However, the fact that half the Acadians were in Louisbourg which was being subsidized by the French king, and was ruled by the French, must have made the unwelcome mandatory move edict of 1710 look pretty attractive by 1714.

I have to wonder why René declined to go before the governor changed his mind. Perhaps René maintained hope that things might still right themselves, right up until he didn’t anymore. Maybe he didn’t want to depart without his brothers, who were likely the other residents in the René Forest Village.

The Acadians truly believed they were leaving, though, because they didn’t plant crops. Now, what were they to do?

The Acadians tried any number of avenues to leave, including making their own boats, but they were seized, and the Acadians were essentially held hostage on their own lands with no crops or resources.

Still, they refused to take that bloody oath.

The next few years were a mess.

In 1715, the English shut the gates to the fort, and the Acadians were prevented from trading with either the English soldiers or the Native people.

By 1717, when some of the Acadians had planted their fields again and decided to remain on peaceful terms, the Indians were upset and threatened the Acadians, fearing they were defecting to the English side.

Everyone was upset with everyone else, and the situation was untenable. However, in the background, the Acadian families continued to marry, have, and baptize children. Life didn’t stop because life as they knew it might end. It also might not.

There is no remaining baptism record for René’s child born in 1710, the year of the siege, but children were born to René and Françoise in May of both 1713 and 1715. Then, in July of both 1717 and 1719.

For René, every child that was added to the family probably ratcheted up his anxiety level. He needed to protect and provide for his wife and children. He all-too-clearly would have remembered what happened to his parents, especially his father.

1720 – Another Ultimatum

The English didn’t want to lose their source of supplies, so they wanted the Acadians to stay, but on English terms. The Acadians were difficult, if not impossible, to control. It had been a decade since the English had taken control of the fort, told the Acadians they had to leave, and then reversed their position four years later. Everyone was weary, and the Acadian families had to be incredibly tired of the constant upheaval and uncertainty.

As for René and Françoise, 13 of their 14 children had been born, and their oldest was 24.

Late in 1720, General Philipps issued a proclamation that the Acadians must take the dreaded oath unconditionally or leave the country in 3 months. He also said they couldn’t sell or take any of their property with them, thinking that would pressure the Acadians into taking the oath. However, they still refused, saying that the Indians were threatening them.

When the Acadians requested, “let us harvest our crops and use vehicles to carry it,” Philipps figured that they were planning on taking their possessions with them and denied their request. He may have been right.

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

In response, the governor issued an order that no one should move without his permission. He also sent an order to Minas to stop work on the road.

The English stated that the Acadians desired to take the Port Royal cattle to Beaubassin, about 215 miles today by road but not nearly as far by water. Beaubassin was a fortified French possession.

Exasperated, Philipps pronounced the Acadians ungovernable, stubborn, and added that bigoted priests directed them. The Acadians probably wore those badges with pride.

Philipps went on to say that the Acadians couldn’t be allowed to go because it would strengthen the population of their French neighbors. They were also needed to build fortifications and to produce supplies for the English forts.

He stated that the Acadians couldn’t leave until there were enough British subjects to be settled in their place, and he hoped that plans were being made to import British subjects. Furthermore, he expected problems from the Indians, who didn’t want the Acadians to leave, and rightfully blamed the British.

France started sending people to Ile Royal. The fort at Louisburg, destroyed in 1758, was begun in 1720. Other settlements in the region included St. Pierre near the Straight of Canso, which had slate mines, and Niganiche, further north on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, a fishing port. The French were strengthening their hold on the region.

No wonder those areas looked so attractive to the Acadian families. They would finally find peace among other French families – if they could just get there.

During this time, René’s last child was born and baptized in the fall of 1723, but there’s a suspicious lack of a child in 1721, which suggests that there might have been a child who was born and died, and the records went missing, if they existed at all.

A Wedding

The Port Royal church records are not indexed by witness name, so the only way to discover if your ancestor stood as a witness to a marriage or burial, or a godparent at a baptism, is to happen across the record.

On February 11, 1726, Jacques Forest, 26 years old and lived at Beaubassin, son of Jean Forest, habitant of Beaubassin, and mother Elizabeth La Barre married Marguerite Giroard, 21 years old, daughter of Jacques Giroard and Anne Petitpas, deceased. The witnesses were René Forest, uncle of the groom, and Francois Forest, son of René Forest, along with Jacques Giroard and Pierre Le Blanc, son of the late Pierre Le Blanc.

This Annapolis Royal church record tells us that René’s brother Jean did, in fact, move to Beaubassin. Jacques married a local girl, though, so he may not have been in Beaubassin for too many years. Clearly, there was some back and forth between the locations, even though it was a long way.

That Oath – AGAIN

In 1725, former Governor Armstrong, already familiar with the Acadians, returned. He was reported to be a violent man with a bad temper,

However, Armstrong realized he needed the Acadians and convinced the Port Royal Acadians, representing about one-fourth of the Acadian population, to take the oath by reminding them that England would not allow Catholics to serve in the Army. As they had stated many times, the Acadian concern was having to fight against their countrymen and family members, including the Native Americans.

Happy just to convince them to sign something, anything at all, Armstrong offered to allow them to take the following oath:

“I do sincerely promise and swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King George the Second, so help me God.”

This meant that they wouldn’t have to “take up arms” against the French or Indians, they could leave whenever they wanted, and they had the freedom to have priests and to practice the Catholic religion.

In 1729, that oath was considered too lenient and declared null and void. Everyone was unhappy, very unhappy.

That’s when a bit of trickery served everyone’s interest by buying peace for two decades.

Subterfuge

Philipps, who had replaced Armstrong again, reported that the Acadians took this oath:

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

That’s what Philipps reported, but the actual oath continued on a second page, as follows:

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

The priest and a notary signed as witnesses, but Phillips only sent the first part back to England, securing peace. No one on either side of the Atlantic was any the wiser. Only Philipps knew.

Everyone in Acadia must have heaved a sigh of relief. For the first time in memorable history, in more than three decades, everyone was relatively happy.

Acadian families continued to worship at the Catholic church in Annapolis Royal. Babies were born and baptized. Betrothals and weddings were celebrated. Another generation of Acadians would be buried in the cemetery adjacent the Catholic church, which was also adjacent the fort – the center of the Acadian community.

Family Life

We know from a combination of birth records that began in 1702, combined with later marriage records, that René and Françoise had at least 13 children, with four additional suspicious gaps of three or four years between children, which often signals a baby that died prior to existing church records, or a stillbirth, which would not be recorded in the church records. Of course, with all the upheaval, some events probably just never made it into the official register, or some portions of the register were missing.

Six girls and seven boys graced their lives.

Their last child arrived in October 1723 when René was 53 years old, and Françoise was 47.

René witnessed all of his children’s marriages except for Charles, the youngest, who reportedly married in 1745 in Beaubassin. In 1745, René would have been 75 years old, probably just too old to travel the distance from his home to Beaubassin, assuming he even knew his son was getting married. More than 100 miles by water for an old man, even under the best of circumstances, was just too much.

Several of René’s children’s marriage records include his signature which confirms that the 1690 signature is his. It does cause me to wonder where he learned to read and write. As I view the later parish records from Port Royal, fewer and fewer people can write their names, so literacy in Acadia wasn’t a priority. They were just too busy surviving, and the priests would read them whatever they needed to know.

René was the godfather of one of his grandchildren, the first child born to his son Francois in 1729. He may have been the godfather to some of his daughters’ children as well, but I did not view each of those records – only the Forest records.

René’s children married in the following order, with his signatures where available. Not all priests recorded any or all signatures. Others just had a big old signing party, and everyone signed!

Marie – 1718

Joseph – 1720

Marguerite – 1724

Francois – 1727 – the record exists, but no signature.

Mathieu – 1728 – the record exists, but no signature.

On January 10, 1730, son Joseph died and was buried the following day – in the deepest winter. I wonder how they managed to dig the grave, or maybe they pre-dug a few graves in the fall.

Joseph was only 32 years old and left behind three small children and a pregnant wife. His fourth child was born the following August and named for him. I hope that Joseph and his family lived in the René Forest Village so that René and the others could help them. Large, nearby families meant survival. Based on Joseph’s age, his death was assuredly some sort of accident or sudden illness.

It’s apparent, given the 3 and 4 year gaps in the census and other records that René and Françoise had lost babies or young children, but Joseph was his first older or adult child to perish. Without modern medicine, early deaths were more common than today, but the saying that parents aren’t supposed to bury their children still holds. 

A year and a few days later, daughter Marie would marry. I wonder if René quietly stopped by Joseph’s grave to say hello.

Marie – 1731

Jacques – 1734

Catherine – 1737

Elizabeth (Isabelle) – 1738

Anne – 1740

Jean – 1743 – the record exists, but no signature.

Pierre – 1744 – the record exists, but no signature.

Charles – probably married around 1745, but is missing in the Port Royal/Annapolis Royal marriage records.

Sadly, daughter Marguerite died on May 27, 1747, about 53 years of age, leaving behind six children and her husband. This would have been a sad day for René and Françoise, who were actually fortunate that “only” two of their adult children died – but I’m positive that “fortunate” is not how they felt.

I’ll include additional information about the children in their mother, Françoise Dugas’s article.

René’s Death and Burial

In 1750 and 1752, there is a René Forest shown in Menoudy, now Minudie, near Beaubassin, but we know this is not our René because our René died at Port-Royal on April 20, 1751.

Father Defenetaud dutifully recorded René’s death and burial. He states that René Forest was about 80 years old, died on April 20^th, and was buried the following day, April 21, 1751.

The witnesses were Claude Godet, Mathieu Forest, and Francois Forest. Both of the Forest men who witnessed the burial were his sons.

René’s funeral would have been held in the Catholic church in the town he had known as Port Royal. I’d wager he forever refused to call it Annapolis Royal – the British name assigned to Port Royal after the humiliating 1710 defeat.

René’s life had been full of adventure – most of it unwanted. Born in Acadia, he had never known anything else, so maybe the never-ending drama just became normal at some point.

If the reports are accurate, in late 1714 or early 1715, René, along with the other Acadian families, had wanted to remove. Yet in August 1714, when he received permission to go to Ile (Isle) Royal, present-day Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, where Louisbourg is located, he did not.

René spent the rest of his life right there on the Annapolis River, or as he called it, the rivière Dauphin, beside Bloody Creek, which he may well have named when those British soldiers had the bad judgement to travel upriver and were ambushed there in 1711. Perhaps that name served as a warning to others and as a small victory for the Acadians. I’d bet money René was all in on that, especially if his father died as a result of the 1790 British attack. The Acadians, it seems, were beaten, but their spirit was never defeated.

René spent his entire life trying to hang on to his life, culture, and his farm in Acadia – sometimes by nothing more than a thread. Often by sheer tenacity – refusal to surrender.

After the Priest said the final prayers, René’s family and neighbors would have lowered his casket and filled the hole with Nova Scotia’s dirt, each member dropping a handful at a time.

René’s grave was probably marked with a white wooden cross, perhaps made by his sons, plus maybe a small stone of some kind, but that didn’t last long. When the Expulsion began in 1755, the English burned everything, and as the final insult meant to erase the Acadians, the cemetery was destroyed.

Today, the Garrison Graveyard is being mapped and studied, hoping to identify the grave locations of the more than 500 Acadians buried here. The same location is also the site of English graves and post-Expulsion burials, with perhaps 2,000 graves in total.

Perhaps it was for the best that René died before the Acadian Expulsion began. He would have been about 85 years old in 1755, herded onto a ship with other suffering Acadians, only to see his beloved Acadia burn. It would have probably killed him, horribly, and his family would have had to endure watching, assuming they hadn’t been separated.

I’d much rather think of a stubborn, elderly, grey-haired French-speaking man living on his farm in the René Forest Village that he had protected with every ounce of his being for his entire life, surrounded by his loving wife and family who lived nearby, maybe singing songs of comfort to him as he peacefully slipped away to the land of his ancestors.

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Jacques Foret, aka Forest, de Foret, de Forest, and similar spellings, was born on July 10, 1707, in Port Royal, Acadia, to  René Foret (Forest) and Françoise Dugas. He was officially baptized on July 19^th in the St. John-Baptiste Catholic Church.

This baptismal record is interesting because normally, children are baptized by the Catholic priest within a day or so of birth. Apparently, this wasn’t possible because Jacques was baptized the day after his birth “ondoye” by Emanuel Hebert. This is a provisional baptism given at home, “just in case.” Sometimes, it suggests that the child was weak or not expected to live, and sometimes, it just means that the priest wasn’t available, the parents didn’t live close to the church, or maybe bad weather interfered.

Snow wasn’t the culprit in July, so it had to be something else.

The priest who baptized Jacques officially on July 19^th was “F. Justinien Durand missionnaire Recollet,” so perhaps he was traveling when the baby was born.

According to Stephen White, Jacques’ batismal sponsors are translated as “sieur de Teinville lieutenant de compagnie and Jeanne Dugas wife of La Forest.” The lieutenant is clearly associated with the fort, located beside the church, but I don’t know who Jeanne Dugas is or how she fits into the picture. She is clearly married to a La Forest man, but which one?

On this Early Acadian Settlements map based on the 1707 census, you can see that René Forest was located just around the bend in the Annapolis River from Emmanuel Hebert, probably his nearest neighbor – about half a mile away.

René probably jumped in his canoe and paddled to Emmanuel’s home, shouting, “Grab the Bible Emmanuel, we’ve got a baby to baptize!!!” Or maybe the message was more like, “Emmanuel, the baby isn’t doing so well. Can you please come and baptize him, just in case, of course?” Port Royal, where the church and priest were located, was downriver a good dozen miles, and that’s as the crow flies. The River was anything but straight, and roads were probably doubtful.

No need to risk that journey. Emmanual’s baptism would get baby Jacques into Heaven, should something bad happen. The priest would officially baptize him as soon as the child could make the trip eight days later.

The next actual record we have of Jacques is when he married in 1733 or 1734, but the intervening quarter century was anything but serene.

Acadia

The Acadians were chronically and constantly embroiled in warfare with the British. Sometimes France held what is present-day Nova Scotia, and sometimes, the British did. The Acadians tried to remain neutral. All they really wanted was to be left alone to raise their families, tend their farms, and practice their Catholic religion. That doesn’t seem like a lot to ask.

Jacques had never known anything else. His grandfather, Michel DeForest, was in Acadia by 1766 when he married Marie Hebert. These families had been closely allied for at least four decades by the time Jacques came along.

The Acadian families had been attempting to keep the peace with the British without capitulating to their every whim, which included provisions they found fundamentally unacceptable. In 1695, the Acadian men signed an oath to remain neutral, hoping to staunch the incessant requests to swear allegiance to the British monarch.

That didn’t work.

In 1696, the British attacked Acadia, again, burning homes and slaughtering animals. This had become a regular occurrence.

Acadia, essentially the peninsula of Nova Scotia, had about 2000 residents in 1700 and about 1700 residents in 1710.

Fortunately, a census was taken by the French periodically.

Skirmishes with the British occurred regularly, but by 1704, Acadia was under serious attack again. Families had clustered into settlements, and many settlements were burned. Churches were looted, and the dams holding back the sea so the salt wouldn’t poison the Acadian’s fields were “dug down” out of revenge, supposedly for Indian attacks in New England.

In 1706, a new French governor in Acadia encouraged Native Americans to raid English targets in New England. Furthermore, he befriended pirates, more gently known as “privateers,” and encouraged them to target English ships. They were all too glad to oblige and quickly reduced the English fishing fleet on the Grand Banks by 80%. The New England colonies were outraged!

In 1707, the year Jacques was born, a new French governor arrived with 160 soldiers, three-fourths of whom were reported to be directly “from the quays of Paris.” An attack by Massachusetts followed, unsuccessfully.

In 1708, Queen Anne’s War began, and the Acadians were preparing for conflict. Once again, the English and French were pitted against one another – not just in Acadia, but more broadly.

This map of the fort in Port Royal was drawn by a military engineer in 1702. In 1708, the fort’s store was added, and a new powder magazine and bombproof barracks were built. The riverbanks were cleared to remove cover for attackers.

All homes were close to the river, so each family would have been preparing.

Prisoners taken from English ships revealed that the English planned to attack in 1708 and 1709.

The residents must have constantly been on pins and needles. Jacque would have celebrated his first birthday under this shadow, then his second birthday, and finally, his third birthday, blissfully unaware.

That wouldn’t last.

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

Yes, you read that right, 3400 troops. In the census, there were less than Acadian 2000 residents, in total, scattered across the peninsula, and most of them were women and children. The Acadians, with their 300 soldiers, which would have included all able-bodied men that could lift a gun, stood absolutely no chance, although they did manage to hold the fort for 19 days. The episode became known as the Siege of Port Royal or the Conquest of Acadia.

At least they were allowed to surrender in dignity and march out of the fort instead of being killed.

After 1710, the English soldiers were in charge of Port Royal and the fort.

Ambush

A critical historical event occurred on the river right in front of the Forest home in 1711.

Thirty soldiers, a major, and the fort engineer were ambushed and killed at “Bloody Creek, 12 miles east of Annapolis Royal.”

Where was Bloody Creek? So glad you asked.

The Nova Scotia archives show this historical map based on a 1733 survey.

You can see that Bloody Creek abutted René Forest’s land. The ambush occurred right in front of his house or village, literally. You know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was involved. I suspect I know how Bloody Creek got its name.

René successfully defended his wife and their nine children, including 4-year-old Jacques, against the soldiers who freely burned homesteads. I wonder if this might have been Jacques’ earliest memory.

Furthermore, the note at C on the map, at the mouth of Bloody Creek, states, “Captain and 16 men of the 43^rd Regiment of Foot were killed in forcing the French from this pass on December 8, 1757. The Acadians were not going down without a fight, AND, they were willing to fight against all odds.

Depending on your perspective, these people were either extremely resilient and brave or incredibly stubborn. More than one governor said they were ungovernable.

Lastly, look who René Forest’s neighbor is. Jean Prince – Jacque’s future father-in-law. Jacques literally grew up and married the girl next door.

Despite the 1711 ambush, the Acadians were unquestionably outnumbered and outgunned, and on April 13, 1713, Acadia passed to England, with France ceding all of Acadia, the fort, the land, and her 1700 Acadian residents.

After this, many of the Acadians decided they would, in fact, leave, as the English had desired at one point, and relocate to friendlier regions of French-held Canada. But now, the English did not want them to remove because they became acutely aware of who was raising crops and feeding them. The English soldiers needed the Acadians, but they certainly didn’t want to need them.

I can imagine the heated discussions taking place at church and any other Acadian gathering about whether one should stay or go and under what circumstances.

By 1717, when Jacques was ten years old, the Acadians had tentatively decided to stay, except for several young couples who did not have land and struck out to begin their families.

By 1720, Port Royal had been renamed Annapolis Royal. The English had established an uneasy peace with the Acadians, offering them the ability to exercise their religion freely, along with other concessions. The Acadians could leave if they wanted, but they couldn’t take any possessions with them.

Jacques would have been 13 and was probably quite capable of using a firearm.

Then, a new ultimatum arrived with another new governor, Governor Phillips. The Acadians were required to take the dreaded oath of allegiance, or they HAD to leave with no possessions.

The situation escalated over the years, with new requirements and repeated refusals to comply.

The Oath

In 1725, when Jacques was 18, yet another new governor, Armstrong, arrived and offered to allow the Acadians to take the following oath: “I do sincerely promise and swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King George the Second, so help me God.”  This meant that the Acadians wouldn’t have to “take up arms” against the French or Indians, which had been one of their primary concerns, because the English refused to allow Catholics to serve in the military. With this new oath, they could leave whenever they wanted, and they had the freedom to have priests and to practice the Catholic religion.

Jacques, at 18, may have been required to sign this oath along with his father and older brothers.

But wait…there’s more.

The Neutral French

At this point, the Acadians began to be called the Neutral French. Everything was hunky-dory for a few years, until 1729 when the English decided that oath was too lenient and declared it null and void.

Jacques was now 22, and I’m sure he was fully capable of forming his own opinions. However, until he married, he would have lived with his father and helped with the farm. His future bride, living on the next farm, was seven years younger, so she would have been about 14.

Perhaps they had begun courting, or maybe he hadn’t really “noticed” her yet. Maybe they were still just giving a friendly wave across the field.

Governor Phillips was sent back to replace the new governor, and he reached a clandestine compromise in 1730.

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

That’s what Phillips reported, but the actual oath continued, as follows: “… that the inhabitants, when they have sworn hereto, will not be obliged to take up arms against France or against the Savages, and the said Inhabitants have further promised that they will not take up arms against the King of England or against its government.”

The priest and a notary signed as witnesses, but Phillips only sent the first part back to England, securing peace. No one on either side of the Atlantic knew.

Everyone in Acadia must have heaved a sigh of relief. For the first time in memorable history, in more than three decades, everyone was relatively happy.

For the next 15 or 20 years, the Acadians were left alone, and life seemed peaceful as they tended their land and animals.

Marriage

Since Jacques Forest no longer had to focus on warfare and whether his family was going to be evicted, burned out, decide to leave with nothing, or stay and fight – his mind turned to something else – romance.

By 1730, Jacques was 23, and Marie Joseph Le Prince was about 15 years old. He would have known her well and probably helped her father with farm chores. Her brothers were probably his best friends. She might have woven, sewn, and quilted alongside his mother and sisters.

They assuredly saw each other regularly at church. They had always known each other.

At some point, Jacques woke up and realized that she was no longer a little girl but had blossomed into a lovely young woman. Perhaps another suitor took interest, and Jacques realized he had better get in line, or another beau would marry lovely Marie-Josephe – and soon. Whatever he did worked.

On January 25, 1734, at age 25, in the same church where he had been baptized, in the town that had been renamed Annapolis Royal, he married 18-year-old Marie-Josephe LePrince, the daughter of Jean LePrince and Jeanne Blanchard.

The priest wrote “dispense 3-3 consanguinity” and noted the signatures of Claude Granger, Pierre Lanoue, and René Forest. Additionally, both Antoine Belivenu and Pierre Granger signed with their marks.

Clearly, several people were present at their wedding. Probably most of the community, or at least the people who lived nearest to their farms. Given the size of their families, they were probably related in one way or another to almost everyone.

Their signatures are shown on the second page, including that of Jacques’ father, René de Forest.

Note that FamilySearch lists their marriage date as January 31, 1733, instead of 1734. I noticed that 1734 is penciled in on the page later, like someone was trying to figure out which year pertained to the entry. Their first child was born in April of 1735.

I suspect 1733 is the correct year. Jacques was born in July of 1707, and he would turn 26 in July of 1734, so in January, when they were married, he was 25, the age recorded by the priest. Conversely, she would have turned 18 a few months later in November, so the year is uncertain.

The dispensation for third-degree consanguinity is quite interesting, telling us that they share great-grandparents as common ancestors.

That’s accurate because they share Etienne Hebert and Marie Gaudet as great-grandparents. Those families had been allied for generations by this point.

We don’t know exactly where they settled after their marriage, but rest assured, it was probably between their parents on the Annapolis River. Acadian families remained close in order to share the burden of work and support each other.

It was there, along the river at the mouth of Bloody Creek that their first nine children were born.

Their life would have been happy and mundane – raising crops and children, interacting with generations of family, attending church, sharing meals. This painting of Acadians depicted their life in 1751.

Jacques would have worked alongside his brothers and father, farming, hunting and fishing to provide for the members of the Forest village.

Jacques’ father, René, was becoming quite elderly, so the boys, who weren’t really boys anymore, probably handled the majority of the work.

René passed away on April 20th of 1751, at roughly 80 years of age. The following day, his sons, daughters, and grandchildren would have made their way to the Catholic church in Annapolis Royal, where his funeral mass was held before he was laid to rest in the churchyard, his grave marked by a white wooden cross.

Jacques’ last child, or at least the last one we know about, arrived on June 5^th, 1753.

Marie was 38 years old. If she became pregnant again, which was certainly possible, that child would likely have been born either during or after the horrific removal in 1755.

The 1755 Removal, Known as The Great Upheaval

The twenty-year peaceful reprieve that the Acadians enjoyed ended in about 1750.

Once again, as the situation escalated, another oath was requested, then demanded, and was just as quickly declined.

One demand followed another, and the situation spiraled out of control.

By mid-July of 1755, the British wanted the Acadians gone and sent troops to accomplish their goal, imprisoning the men as hostages to ensure the good behavior and compliance of the women and children.

The Acadians were still reported as being optimistic. After all, they had weathered these storms so many times before. Plus, they felt that God was on their side.

The English ordered transport ships. This time was not the same.

The Acadians in various locations would fight and did win a few battles, but they would lose the war.

In August, Lt. Colonel John Winslow arrived in Grand Pre with 315 troops, taking up residence in the church – and the imprisonments began.

By October, the transports were ready for their human cargo.

The capture of Acadians and burning of their farms and belongings commenced in the more distant villages. The English knew that without communications between the settlements, time was on their side, and they could clear out Annapolis Royal after they removed the residents from the remote settlements.

It was fall. The Acadians were busy harvesting crops from the fields when the soldiers arrived, summoned them into the church in Grand Pre, and read the deportation order in English, a language they did not understand.

418 men attended, and 418 men were trapped.

September 5, 1755

After the men entered, Winslow stood by a table set up in the middle of the church. Flanked by soldiers, he read the following:

Gentlemen, I have received from his Excellency, Governor Lawrence, the King’s Commission which I have in my hand, and by whose orders you are conveyed together, to Manifest to you His Majesty’s final resolution to the French inhabitants of this his Province of Nova Scotia, who for almost half a century have had more Indulgence Granted them than any of his Subjects in any part of his Dominions. What use you have made of them you yourself Best Know.

The Part of Duty I am now upon is what thoh Necessary is Very Disagreeable to my natural make and temper, as I Know it Must be Grievous to you who are of the Same Speciea.

But it is not my business to annimadvert, but to obey Such orders as I receive, and therefore without Hesitation Shall Deliver you his Majesty’s orders and Instructions, Vist:

That your Land & Tennements, Cattle of all Kinds and Livestocks of all Sorts are forfeited to the Crown with all other your effects Savings your money and Household Goods, and you yourselves to be removed form this Province.

Thus it is Preremtorily his Majesty’s orders That the whole French Inhabitants of these Districts be removed, and I am Throh his Majesty’s Goodness Directed to allow you Liberty to Carry of your money and Household Goods as Many as you Can without Discommoding the Vessels you Go in. I shall do Every thing in my Power that all those Goods be Secured to you and that you are Not Molested in Carrying of them of, and also that whole Family Shall go in the Same Vessel, and make this remove, which I am Sensable must give you a great Deal of Trouble, as Easey as his Majesty’s Service will admit, and hope that in what Ever part of the world you may Fall you may be Faithful Subjects, a Peasable & Happy People.

I Must also Inform you That it is his Majesty’s Pleasure that you remain in Security under the Inspection and Direction of the Troops that I have the Honr. to Command.

This edict essentially said, “you are prisoners, you are being removed, and your belongings are now ours.”

Winslow then went to the priest’s house. Some of the older Acadians followed and begged him to consider their families who had no idea what was happening.

Winslow allowed 20 men, ten on each side of the Cornwallis, to go back and inform the women and children that they wouldn’t be harmed. They were also to bring back any men who hadn’t shown up, with the men still in captivity held responsible for the others. In other words, there was an implied threat – or maybe it wasn’t just implied.

The families of those imprisoned had to provide their food. The prisoners could move about the enclosure, but couldn’t go beyond the officers’ quarters.

The deportation began five days later and progressed very quickly. It must have been mind-numbing, surreal, and head-spinning for the Acadians.

An Acadian woman who survived the ordeal told her story of the deportation. You can read a portion here on Lucie LeBlanc Consentino’s website. The full version is much more gut-wrenching, for lack of a better description, and I can’t even read it again. It gave me nightmares, and I’m not doing that to you. Just trust me that this unquestionably falls into the war crimes category.

As the Acadians were herded onto the ships and departed, their homes and barns were burned, and much of their livestock was killed after great suffering.

The last thing they saw on the horizon, the last of their homes and homeland, was smoke. How they must have despised the British.

Annapolis Royal

The scene was essentially repeated in Annapolis Royal, although the Acadians from this region proved exceedingly difficult to subdue and were apparently not trapped in the church.

On August 31^st, a transport ship arrived in Annapolis Royal, and the following day, Winslow was informed that the Acadians had fled into the forest with their belongings. An order was previously given to burn any means of subsistence for any Acadian escaping. The ship was sent elsewhere, and the destruction of their property began.

On September 4^th, the Acadians returned from the forest, stating that they would listen to the order of the King.

The expulsion had begun.

On October 27^th, the first ship full of destitute, heartbroken Acadians left Annapolis Royal for Massachusetts. I can only imagine the grief, knowing they would probably never see those left behind again. Those left behind would be loaded up and shipped out in the following days – destination uncertain.

Finally, beginning at 5 in the morning on December 8^th, the transport ships set sail from Goat Island, carrying most of the Port Royal area Acadians. A total of 8 ships were destined for Connecticut, North Carolina, New York, and South Carolina.

About 300 people living upstream escaped by fleeing into the woods and then to the St. John River across the Bay of Fundy, then into the mainland near the border of New Brunswick and Maine.

In a small victory, the passengers on the ship bound for North Carolina somehow wrested control of the ship away from the British and sailed it to the St. John River. Yay Acadians!!! They were reported to have decided to go or attempt to go to Quebec.

The British did their level best to round up every last one of the Acadians like so many cattle being sent off to slaughter. Some escaped to the mainland, some joined their Native families and disappeared, and a few secretly remained near Annapolis Royal. Exactly two years later, to the very day, December 8, 1757, Acadians killed 19 British soldiers in an ambush, once again at Bloody Creek. I wonder if they realized the significance of the date.

Jacques Forest, Marie-Josephe LePrince, and their children, including my ancestor, Marguerite de Forest, were among the families deported from Annapolis Royal, apparently to Connecticut where they were found a decade later.

Deportation

On Tim Hebert’s site, the history of the ships involved provides us with some hints.

The ship Mermaid left Annapolis Royal on October 13^th, destined for Connecticut, but arrived in Massachusetts on November 17^th.

The ship Elizabeth left on December 8^th with 280 precious people on board. Three died en route, but the ship arrived in New London, Connecticut, on January 21, 1756.

The sloop Dove left Boudrot Point in Minas on December 18^th but was also sent to Annapolis to take additional inhabitants on board. A total of 111 arrived on January 30^th.

Let’s hope our family was on one of those ships, instead of the Edward, which left Annapolis Royal on December 8^th with 278 Acadians on board. That ship encountered a severe storm that blew them off course, and they docked in Antiqua in the Caribbean. Several died there of smallpox, but it’s unclear whether they were infected on the ship or in Antigua. Finally, On May 22, 1756, the ship arrived in Connecticut with only 180 people. Another source says that almost 100 had died of Malaria.

Regardless of what they had, the death toll and suffering were brutal. Whatever possessions the passengers had left when they arrived were burned to prevent the spread of whatever disease they carried. Those poor people.

I rather doubt that Jacques and family were on this ship, because given the number of children listed for him in 1763, unless he had remarried to a younger wife, his children were accounted for. Surely, had they been unlucky enough to be forced upon this vessel, his family would have been smaller. Roughly one-third of the people on board died, which would equate to at least three family members.

The trip, though only a few hundred miles for some, was horrific. The Acadians were packed in like sardines and were required to remain below deck. Only six at a time were allowed to go up on deck for about 90 minutes each. The weather at the time of the deportation was reported to have been especially severe and even included an earthquake.

Arrival

The ships that arrived in Connecticut docked in New London, which looked like this 55 years later. It probably hadn’t changed much, and regardless of which ship Jacques Forest was forced onto, his future came into view from this bay.

Fortunately, Connecticut had been preparing to welcome and help the Acadians.

1763 to 1766

The New England Historical Society tells us that:

Under the Treaty of Paris of 1763, the Acadian exiles had 19 months to leave the British North American colonies for any French colony. They began petitioning to go home to Nova Scotia, to Quebec, to France, or to the French West Indies, specifically Saint-Domingue (Haiti).

However, they had to pay for their own transport.

In 1766, 900 Acadian exiles in Massachusetts gathered in Boston and decided to return to their native land. They marched 400 miles through the wilderness. Many died along the way. Then in Acadia they found the English had taken over their farms. They found new homes in the counties of Digby and Yarmouth.

Of course, our Jacques Forest family was in Connecticut, and we have proof based on the petition they signed.

On Lucie’s website, the Connecticut list of people desiring to go to France that was gathered between 1763 and 1766 (I cannot find an actual petition date) shows the family of Jacque Fourest consisting of ten persons. Beneath Jacque is Mathieu Forest with six persons.

Cousin Sylvie Lord posted this list of petitioners from a 1911 book in her Ancestry tree.

The surname is also spelled Fouret, Forest, Fourest, and occasionally Forais. Sometimes, it also has a preceding “le,” meaning “the,” or “de,” or “du,” meaning “of.”.

Listed on the petition, we also find a Victor Forest with five persons, and he is listed beside a Benoist (Benoit) Forest, also with five persons. Victor is the name of Jacques’ eldest child, born in 1735, so certainly old enough to have a wife and three children by 1763.

Benoit is unknown to us.

Jacques’ brother, Jean-Pierre Forest, who married Anne Richard is on this list as well. They had several children baptized in Annapolis Royal before deportation.

Mathieu Forest may also be Mathieu- René Foret, Jacques’ other brother who married Marie-Madeleine Guilbault and had several children prior to deportation.

All of these people were denied transport to France, and we know little of what happened to Jacques’ children, except for my ancestor, Marguerite Forest (DeForest), who married Francois Lafay (Lafay, Lafaille) someplace in New England on November 10, 1767. Around 1787, Marguerite and Francois migrated to Quebec and settled in L’Acadie near other Acadian refugees. Actually, I should say twice refugees.

It’s possible that Jacques’ younger child, Charles Tranquille DeForest, who was born on February 15, 1750, in Annapolis Royal, died in St. Genevieve, near Montreal, on August 7, 1770. It’s noted that this person was about 20, but his parents are not listed. Witnesses were Joseph Lefebre and Joseph Hetier.

Tim Hebert notes that some of the 666 Acadians who were denied passage to France wound up in Santa Domingo, facing hard labor on coffee and sugar plantations along with brutally hot tropical weather. Some of those families and others made their way to Louisiana to become Cajuns.

The following year, in 1767, other Acadians chartered a boat and sailed north to the St. John River Valley.

And of course, we know that some Acadians remained in Connecticut because Jacques’ daughter, Marguerite de Forest, then 18 years old, married in New England in November of 1767 to Francois Lafay (Lafaille.) They did not migrate to Quebec for two more decades. Their daughter, Mary (Marie) Lafay, reported that one of the reasons they settled in L’Acadie, in Quebec, was that her grandmother, back wherever they lived in New England, was concerned that her grandchildren were losing their Catholic religion.

What Happened to Jacques Forest?

How I wish I knew what happened to either Jacques or his family.

The colonies weren’t peaceful either. The Revolutionary War was fought from 1776 to about 1780, although the Acadians certainly would have understood about wanting to extract oneself from the clutches of the British.

The first census in the US wasn’t taken until 1790, and with the surname variations, someone from this family could have been listed by various name spellings.

It’s also possible that Jacques and most of his male children had died. If his female children survived, and it certainly appears that they did until 1763-1766, they would have married unidentified men.

Furthermore, by the first census, it had been a quarter century since that removal petition in Connecticut. It seems likely that Jacques was deceased by 1790, especially given that his granddaughter when asked about why they moved to Quebec, referred only to her elderly grandmother. If Marie-Josephe was still alive, she would have been 75 and probably living with a family member. I didn’t find a census candidate for her.

In 1766, when he signed the petition requesting to go to France, Jacques would have been 59 years old, and that’s 59 extremely hard years. The Acadians in the colonies were mostly poor laborers, working on farms for others, although they fared better in Connecticut than most other locations.

By 1786, Jacques would have been 79 and likely deceased. His wife apparently was not, but perhaps she encouraged Marguerite and her family to relocate to Canada because she knew her time was limited. It’s also possible that she left with them or another child.

We do find people with the Foret or Forest or similar surnames in other locations, but of course, the family had lived in Acadia for three generations, and each of those ancestral families had many children. We may be scattered to the wind, but many descendants exist today.

Perhaps, eventually, enough Forest men will purchase or upgrade to the Big Y DNA test that we will be able to piece the Forest, Foret, de Forest family line back together again. If we are really, REALLY lucky, we’ll match a Forest man, by whatever spelling, from France, leading us back to our French origins.

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