Marguerite Forest, Foret, Deforest, Deforet, de Foret/Forest or La Foret/Forest was born on January 16, 1748 in Port Royal, Acadia, the 7^th of 9 children, to Jacques Forest and Marie Josephe LePrince.

She was baptized the same day at St. John Baptiste Catholic Church in Port Royal which is now Annapolis Royal in Nova Scotia. Sponsors were Gregoire, with no surname listed, and Marguerite Forest, neither of whom were able to sign their names. I’m presuming here that Gregoire’s surname was also Forest, and they were somehow related to her father, Jacques.

Marguerite was probably born someplace in or near the Rene Forest village, off of present-day Brickyard Road in Nova Scotia. Rene Forest was her grandfather.

We know nothing about Marguerite’s family between the time of her birth and the beginning of the 1755 deportation except that two siblings were added to the family. Marguerite became a “big sister” on February 14, 1750 and again on June 9, 1753.

Le Grand Dérangement

For decades, tensions flared between the Acadians, who had clearly established their neutrality and were known as the French Neutrals, and the British. The Acadians did not want to become involved in the war between two superpowers. Accordingly, they repeatedly declined the request to sign an oath of allegiance to the British crown who held Acadia. The British required such, and when the Acadians continued to refuse, the British took sweeping action.

On August 11, 1755, the British Lieutenant Governor signed the order to remove more than 6000 Acadians, descendants of the original French settlers, taking possession of their land and other property. Some managed to hide with the Mi’kmaq or made their way to other parts of Canada, but most did not. The Acadians had thwarted attempts to displace them before, so if they were even aware of the order, they may have felt that once again, they would survive this attempt. Unfortunately, they were wrong.

Le Grand Dérangement, known in English as the Great Upheaval, Great Expulsion, Great Deportation, or Acadian Removal are all terms for the same horrific event.

In the fall and early winter of 1755, Marguerite was 7, almost 8 years old. She was probably looking forward to Christmas, with its joyful hymns and pageantry. Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve was a big event for Acadian families. Various foods were, and still are, associated with Christmas. Naulet was a large cookie, shaped like a gingerbread man, given to children by their godparents and may have been their only gift. Christmas was a much simpler time. You can see an example here and read a description written by an Acadian historian.

That isn’t at all what happened in December of 1755. Instead, British soldiers arrived and herded the men together while the women and children were told to gather their things and prepare to leave their homes.

Marguerite’s oldest brother, Victor, was 20, and Joseph was 18, so they were probably held with the men. They were certainly old enough to know how to handle a gun and had assuredly been hunting for years.

Marguerite’s four other older siblings probably helped their mother and packed essentials as best they could, not really understanding what was about to happen. We don’t really know what instructions they were given, if any.

Marguerite’s younger siblings, Charles, who would have been five, and Michel, just two, would probably have been under the watchful eye of the older children while their mother, Marie Josephe, frantically scurried around.

No one had many clothes back then – maybe a change if they were lucky, but they probably tried to pack some kitchen items into a trunk. Maybe a Bible, too, and certainly their rosaries.

It’s certainly possible that Marguerite’s mother, just 40 years old, was pregnant again, and due for the next baby. If indeed she was, we have no idea what happened to that child.

Having said that, we don’t actually know what happened to any of Marguerite’s siblings, although we know at least “some” survived for at least a few years.

We know that Marguerite, along with her family, were deported –  because all Acadians who didn’t escape into the woods on the mainland were forcibly loaded onto ships and sent someplace else. The British wanted their land and farms, and simply took them.

Families were rounded up, livestock killed, and farms burned. A brutal message to the Acadians as they sailed away that there was nothing to return to, so don’t try.

The “lucky” families were deported together on the same ship – not separated. Some people never found their family members again. Ships sailed to various British colonies, as well as to the West Indies, England, and France. Some ships sank, some were turned away from their destination ports, and many passengers, living in squalid conditions below deck, died of disease onboard.

The Forest family wound up in Connecticut. As horrible as their fate was, Connecticut was as good as it got.

Researcher Tim Hebert wrote that a total of 731 Acadians were supposed to have been deported to Connecticut, but it’s unclear that all of them made it.

• One ship with 280 people wound up in Massachusetts.
• On December 8^th, the ship Elizabeth sailed for New London and arrived on January 21, 1756 with 277 people aboard. Three had died on the way.
• The next day, another 173 people arrived on another ship from Pisiquid, Grand Pre, and Mines. There’s no reason to believe the Forest family was on this ship, given that we know due to baptismal records that they were living in close proximity to Port Royal.
• The Connecticut Gazette mentioned another ship that left Minas on November 30 and arrived in January with another 173 people.
• On December 18, 1755, the Dove set sail with 114 Acadians who arrived on January 30, 1756.
• Yet another group of 278 from Port Royal arrived in May. This group fared horribly, having encountered a violent storm that blew the ship off course, to Antiqua. Many died of smallpox, but the ship Edward eventually arrived in Connecticut on May 22^nd with only 180 Acadians. After arrival, their meager belongings were burned so that smallpox wouldn’t spread. It’s doubtful that the Forest family was on this schooner, because in 1763, in the census of families in Connecticut wishing transportation to France, the Jacques Forest family is listed with ten people, which would mean Jacques Forest and Marie Joseph LePrince, plus eight children. We know that at least one of Marguerite’s older siblings is listed separately. If roughly half the people on that ill-fated ship died, and they had been on that ship, it’s unlikely that Marguerite’s family would still have that many members.

Connecticut was at least slightly prepared for the beleaguered refugees and treated the Acadians with respect, not the revulsion that greeted others elsewhere. Connecticut notified their citizens of the impending arrival of the “French People from Nova Scotia” and the legislature provided that the Acadians were “to be taken care of and supported” as though they were residing citizens.

Connecticut towns were designated to receive about 14 people per town and a reception committee was created. A list of towns receiving refugees can be seen here. One of these was assuredly the home of our Forest family.

Unfortunately, we don’t know where Marguerite’s family spent those years, but they were probably as comfortable as unexpectedly destitute refugees could be, given the circumstances.

The End of the War

In August 1763, after the Treaty of Paris was signed granting Great Britain possession of North America, 666 Connecticut Acadians petitioned to be sent to France. Their petition was denied, but some either migrated willingly or otherwise to Saint Domingue, where they were subjected to hard labor. Many died, but some of those settlers eventually made it to Louisiana, founding the Cajun families there. Several Foret/Forest family members are recorded in Acadians in Grey, here, although none appear to be Jacques’ children or descendants.

Marguerite’s Forest family also was not among the 240 people who chartered a boat in 1767 and sailed to the St. John River, nor did Marguerite remain permanently in Connecticut. Other family members may have.

I would wager a guess that the families who settled inland were less likely to have sailed for either St. Johns or Dominique.

Many kind-hearted Connecticut families financed the return journey of the Acadians to Quebec when that became an option after 1766. For example, the Hebert family who lived in Guilford, CT departed for Laprairie in 1771, funded by Guilford residents. The Acadian-Home website has a postcard showing the Acadian home in Guilford.

However, Marguerite and her family didn’t leave then. They remained wherever they were for another 15+ years.

Where did they go?

Quebec, Eventually

We know that on November 10, 1767, Marguerite married French sailor Francois Lafay in the colonies before a justice of the peace due to the lack of a priest. Francois was reported to have left his ship in Boston, but we actually don’t know where they were married, other than in the colonies. I strongly suspect they were in Connecticut based on the 1763 list of families requesting transport to France.

You can see that the route from Connecticut to L’Acadie was almost due north. From Albany, one could follow the rivers through Lake Champlain and then on up the Richelieu River.

The family arrived in L’Acadie, Quebec between 1786 when their last child was born in the colonies and July 1788 when their first children were baptized in L’Acadie.

They rented a farm that September.

Their marriage was rehabilitated in the same church, Ste-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie on June 23, 1792.

Translation from Father John:

Marriage of François Lafay and Marguerite Foret , Ste Marguerite de Blairfindie, L’Acadie, St-Jean, Quebec

On the twenty-third of June, Seventeen Hundred Ninety Two, I, undersigned, received the mutual consent of François Lafay and of Marguerite Foret, who pledged their troth (promis ensemble) before a justice of the peace in the Colonies, for lack of a priest, on the year Seventeen Hundred Sixty Seven*, this in the presence and in the form prescribed by Our Holy Mother the Church of Rome.  The groom signed along with me; the bride declared that she was unable to sign.  /s/ N. J. Lancto, priest   /s/ François Lafay

*On the tenth of November of the said year.

Marguerite and Francois had most of their children in the colonies. Not only that, but they survived the Revolutionary War wherever they lived. Did they support the war in one way or another, harboring deep resentment towards the British and what they did to their family?

Is that why they stayed after 1775?

Why did they leave, probably in early 1788?

One hint was reported by Marguerite’s daughter, Marie Lafay or Lafaille.

Marie told Baptist Missionaries that her elderly grandmother, Marie Josèphe Le Prince, became upset in 1787 that her children were losing their Catholic religion and culture and made the decision to send the family back to Canada. This makes sense, given that her daughter, Marie, had been educated in Protestant schools and clearly was leaning towards the Protestant religion.

Catholicism could not be practiced in the colonies.

Assuming this information is accurate, this tells us that Marie Josèphe Le Prince was still alive in 1787. She would have been 77 years old. Why didn’t she accompany her daughter to Quebec? Did she die before she could?

The 1790 census might hold a few clues.

There are no Foret nor Forest, but there are some de Forest families in Connecticut, specifically in Huntington.

However, none of these names are represented in the Jacques Forest family, and the Dutch De Forest family of New England is well known. These De Forest men don’t appear to be remnants of the Acadian family, but part of the Dutch De Forest branch. Having said that, both lines originated with the same French Huguenot refugee family in the Netherlands. I have to wonder if they knew about each other. They would have been roughly second cousins. Would the Connecticut branch have helped their Acadian cousins?

What happened to Marguerite’s family, and where were they?

I wish we knew.

Life in Quebec

When Marguerite arrived in Quebec, she and Francois had been married for 21 years and she had birthed at least 10 children. Her last child would be born on January 11^th, 1789 and baptized in L’Acadie.

Her oldest daughter, Marie Lafay, married Honore Lore on August 10, 1789. Marguerite attended that wedding carrying her youngest child, a babe in arms who was just 7 months old. Her first grandchild was born in March of 1790, just 14 months younger than her youngest child. Those two children, aunt and nephew, probably grew up close – closer than siblings perhaps.

When Francois rented the farm in 1788, he claimed that he was a farmer, so it’s likely they had been farming someplace in New England.

Marguerite’s entire life had consisted of going from one crisis to another. First the Expulsion when she was 7. Living in exile for the next decade. Her father petitioned for transport to France in 1763 when she was 15, which was denied. She married in 1767 when she was 19, then the Revolutionary War erupted when she was about 27 years old. Following the war, the economy collapsed in New England. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

By the time the family made their way to Quebec a decade later, they were probably hoping for a peaceful life among their Acadian kin, in a culturally French community, along with the ability to practice their Catholic religion.

After all, Catholicism had been a big part of what they had fought for, why they resisted the British so steadfastly, and their faith had sustained them during the darkest hours. Even after three decades in exile, they were still unquestionably Catholic.

Unfortunately, a few years later, the War of 1812 would intrude into that hoped-for peaceful existence. In fact, the troops marched right up the Richelieu River, through L’Acadie, on their way from Lake Champlain to Montreal.

Marguerite’s son, Francois Lafay, born in 1776 in the midst of the Revolutionary War, served as a Lieutenant in the War of 1812.

Conflict seemed never far away, and this family had seen far more than their fair share.

Children

Marguerite and Francois had at least 11 children and possibly more. The only children we know about are those who were either baptized in L’Acadie some years after their birth, whose marriage or death records we have or, in one case, who witnessed a marriage for their sibling. If children were born and died in Connecticut or wherever the family lived for 30+ years, we have no record other than a hint represented by a suspiciously long stretch between the births of known children. It would be very unusual for a couple not to lose a few children in that time and place.

• Marie (Mary) Lafay was born in 1767 in New England, married Honore Lore (born 1768) on August 10, 1789, died August 9, 1836, and had 15 children, three of whom died before their grandmother, Marguerite.
• Marguerite Lafay was born in 1769 in New England, married Joseph Duphaut, died May 10, 1824, and had 12 children, at least one of whom died before her grandmother.
• Suzanne Lafay was born March 6, 1772 in New England, married Honore Lore (born 1742), died August 7, 1803, and had 7 children, two of whom died before their grandmother. The youngest child died a month after her birth and just a couple weeks before her mother, Suzanne.
• Julie Lafay was born in 1774 in New England, married Ignace LaPorte Denis on February 9, 1801, died after 1813, and had 8 children, including twins on August 26, 1813, both of whom died before their grandmother. We don’t have Julie’s death record, but I’d wager that she died not long after the birth of her twins.
• Francois Lafay was born on September 5, 1776 in New England, married Marie Mercier on February 10, 1800, died on September 5, 1849, and had 11 children, at least one of whom died before her grandmother.
• Bridget Lafay was born in 1778 in New England, married Pierre Gamache on February 5, 1798, died after 1861, and had 12 children.
• Angelique Lafay was born about 1780 in New England and signed her sister’s marriage record in 1798. We lose track of her after that.
• Marie Anne Lafay was born about 1782 in New England, married Francois Lore on June 9, 1806, died on June 4, 1849, and had 7 children, two of whom died before their grandmother.
• Antoine Hylaire Lafay was born about 1784 in New England, married on February 18, 1811 to Francoise Archange Moleur, and had 4 children, one of whom died before his grandmother.
• Pierre Clement Lafay was born in 1786 in New England, was married on November 19, 1810 to Archange Tremblai, and had 13 children.
• Francoise Lafay was born on January 11, 1789, married on October 25, 1813 to Pierre Granger, died December 15, 1829, and had 10 children, two of whom died before their grandmother.

Marguerite had a total of 99 grandchildren, 78 of whom were born before she passed away. I can’t help but wonder how she kept them all straight.

Marguerite stood at the side of small graves with their tiny wooden caskets and buried at least 13 grandbabies. I don’t have death dates for 23 grandchildren who were born before 1819, so I suspect that some of those also died before Marguerite.

Additionally, Marguerite lived to know 18 of her great-grandchildren as well, although I don’t have death dates for those children either.

If you total the births and deaths beginning with the first grandchild’s birth, Marguerite was in church for a baptism or a funeral of her adult child, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren about once every 7 weeks. That doesn’t include regular church services, marriages or similar events for friends or other family members. It would be safe to say that Marguerite probably attended church for one reason or another every day or two.

Marguerite’s Death

Marguerite died at 71 years of age on February 16, 1819 in L’Acadie and was buried two days later.

Translation by Father John:

Burial of Marguerite Laforet

On the eighteenth of February Eighteen Hundred Nineteen, I, priest undersigned, buried in the cemetery of this parish the body of Marguerite Laforet, who died two days ago (avant hier) at the age of seventy one years, having received the sacraments of the Church. Spouse of François Lafaille, Present were Eliz Caisse and Michel Tremblay, who declared they were unable to sign, upon inquiry.  /s/ B. Paquin, priest

Marguerite was interred in the cemetery beside the church she attended for 31 years. The church where she would have oh-so-gratefully fallen to her knees in 1788, thankful to be able to worship freely and receive the sacraments once again. She saw her children and grandchildren baptized and married there, and wept at many funerals.

Eventually, the funerals of her children and grandchildren were held inside the familiar sanctuary, and they would be buried in the churchyard, someplace near Marguerite.

_____________________________________________________________

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François Lafay, Lafaye or Lafaille is a mystery man.

Let’s start out with what we absolutely, positively know about his history, which isn’t much.

He was the father of my ancestor, Marie Lafay or Lafaille. Marie’s mother was Acadian, but from everything we find, including records we don’t find, François was not. He nor anyone by that surname, or even a similar surname, was listed on any of the Acadian census rolls or other resources from the time the Acadians spent in either Nova Scotia (Acadia) or in exile.

He did, however, meet Marie’s mother, Marie DeForest (Foret, Forest, LaForet, LaForest), in New England, someplace in the colonies, after the Acadians were abruptly expelled in 1755 from their maritime homes in Nova Scotia.

The Acadians spent about a decade in forced exile, but some remained longer in their new homeland. Of course, the problem is that we don’t know, except in generalities, where that homeland was. Nor did they consider it a homeland. They were a displaced people, forced into poverty and sometimes servitude, deported against their will by the English who forcibly took their lands. They were French, spoke French, and were Catholic. The English who rounded them up and herded them onto ships after burning their farms often irrecoverably split families. The Acadians did not settle in a single group. Different ships carrying heartbroken refugees arrived in different locations along the eastern seaboard and elsewhere. None of those places were welcoming, although some tried their best to accommodate the now-destitute families.

If François was French, and with a name like François, he most certainly was – it would have been natural for him to be drawn to other French-speaking people.

Is there anything else we can discern from his name?

Lafay

Per FamilySearch, LaFay is a French metonymic occupational name for someone who caught and sold quails, a variant of Caille with a fused feminine definite article la. So, in essence, his patronymic ancestor may have been a man involved with quails.

It can also be a topographic name for a person living on a patch of pebbly or stony soil,; or a habitational name from La Caille, the name of several places in various parts of France.

In the book, Les Canadiens-Français: origine des familles émigrées de France, d’Espagne, de Suisse, etc., pour venir se fixer au Canada, a book about the origins of French-Canadian families by specific names, La Faye is shown as a commune of Charente, arr. by Ruffec. It also states, translated, “Fay, bundled hoops or circles and faye, forest place, forest, ewe.”

Ruffec, Charente is a stopover town on the road from Paris to Spain (Route National 10) between Poitiers and Angouleme.

This was an interesting exercise but not much help.

Who He’s Not

Before going any further, I’d like to eliminate one erroneous identity.

There is one François Faille, born in November 1741, in LaPrairie, Quebec to François Faille and Marie Anne Brosseau. He married Marie Joillet in 1783, in LaPrairie, Quebec. This man and our François Lafay are two different people with similar names.

We know this because the marriage rehabilitation of our François states that he and Marie LeForest married in New England in 1767, and he had children contiguously with Marie before and after his arrival in L’Acadie, in Southern Quebec. He was married to her until her death in 1819, and we know that their children born prior to 1788 were born in the colonies. Therefore, this man born in 1741 in Quebec and who lived and married in 1783 there cannot be our François LaFay/LaFaye.

Another record sometimes confused with our François LaFay or Lafaille is this 1766 notarial record in Quebec.

This is possibly the François Faille who was married to Marie Anne Brosseau, or his son, François Faille who was born in November of 1741.

We know our François was in New England a year later, and he always signed his name LaFaye, never Lafaille, although later records in Quebec sometimes spelled it phonetically. It’s clear though, that this list was not made by the people involved, because the handwriting is all the same. So surnames could have been spelled any which way.

The Notarial Seigneur, Antoine Crispin Sr. served in Chateau-Richer, north of Quebec City.

French Sailor

One piece of information about our François is revealed through his daughter, Marie Lafay who, amid much conflict, converted to Protestantism late in life. Henrietta Feller was one of the missionaries who befriended Marie, also known as Mary.

In Henrietta Feller’s diary, quoted in A Lower Canada Baptist Beginning, she wrote about Marie/Mary Lafay/Lafaille Lord’s conversion to Protestantism saying that Marie’s father, François was a French sailor who settled in Boston.

Mary was reportedly born Marie Lafay to an Acadian mother and French father, although we don’t actually know if she was born in Boston or elsewhere. Her 1767 birth occurred at a time when many Massachusetts Acadians traveled to Boston to petition for transport to return to Canada.

Some Acadians, however, were considering staying in the colonies, taking into account:

…the dangers of sea travel, which included storms, sinking, contagions and even piracy, recently illustrated by the fate of 80 young Acadians taken and pressed into the service of privateers. They knew that they retained no place or residual rights in Nova Scotia. Moreover, old age, the very ache of their 50-year-old bones, reminded them how difficult it would be to scratch out a new place on leftover and, thus difficult, lands. Just perhaps, they still resisted taking an oath to the throne…Just possibly they and their children began to envision rural Massachusetts as home…children had no doubt learned English and accustomed themselves to the ways of these strangers. Time had not resulted in their isolation, and familiarity with Protestants and colonial law had not bred contempt.

Marie Lafay, according to various reports, had in fact, been exposed to Protestant teaching while in exile.

Perhaps Mary’s mother’s family had settled in and became somewhat established over the 11 years since the expulsion from Nova Scotia began. After their 1767 marriage, maybe there was no driving motivation for Mary’s parents to leave. By the time they did, nearly 20 years later, many children had been born, and others were nearly raised. Mary was educated in a Protestant school and learned to read the Bible there.

Was François Lafay Protestant, at least initially, and not Catholic?

According to what François’s daughter, Mary Lafay Lore, told the Baptist missionaries, her elderly maternal grandmother, Marie Josèphe Le Prince, became upset in 1787 that her children were losing their Catholic religion and culture and made the decision to send the family back to Canada.

Mary also revealed that she had encouraged her father, François Lafay, to make the 1788 trip to Canada after something she recalled as “a fearful disappointment.” Clearly, they were close.

I wonder if Mary’s disappointment was personal in nature, perhaps a suitor, or was it something more widespread? It is interesting to note that Pliny Moore, Mary’s close friend, was married in January of 1787 in Vermont. It may or may not be relevant, but it is a possibility.

We don’t know what Mary’s disappointment was, but according to historian Joseph Amato’s research into one Acadian family, Marie’s family’s experience may have been similar.

The Revolutionary War magnified federal and state debts, leaving the majority with useless currency and no means to repay debts, turning newly ordained national citizens into ordinary migrants and squatters. The battle raged between creditors and debtors. Between the financial and mercantile coast against the farmers of the inland countryside. Shay’s Rebellion, an intense revolt of the indebted in Massachusetts, resulted in a terrible shock to the new nation. It ended in 1787, having accomplished little. Many migrated back to the larger coastal cities where there was a chance to find work and make money or initiated the great trek inward toward the frontiers.

Regardless of what event or combination of events caused the Lafay/Lafaille family to join other Acadian families in Quebec, they made that journey by the summer of 1788.

Where Did François Come From?

What can we discover about François’s early years, if anything?

I found an undated paper written by Bernard H. Doray from Montreal, Canada, who, unfortunately, appears to be deceased. His paper titled “History of François Lafaye and Marguerite Foret” provides sourced information I have not found elsewhere, for which I’m extremely grateful.

Based on Henrietta Feller’s recollection of what Mary Lafay told her about François in Boston, Bernard questioned how a French man would be able to settle in Boston, given that England and France were at war until the Treaty of Paris in 1763, which ended the conflict between France and Great Britain over control of North America. I had wondered the same thing.

Bernard then states that his nephew discovered a muster roll of a warship, the Grand St-Jean-Baptiste, in the French Naval Archives.

The ship sailed on February 2, 1757, from Bordeaux with an apprentice sailor, “mousse” in French, François Lafaye, age 13, from Puy-Paulin, which is the name of both a Castle and Parish in Bordeaux, France.

François is listed at the bottom of the first column, with a reference number which is found on the following pages.

An age of 13 places this François’s birth in 1743 or 1744 which correlates with our François’s birth year based on his death entry in 1824 where he was stated to be 80 years old.

Click to enlarge images

François was paid 10 somethings, probably livres – the currency of the time. He and three other apprentices were the lowest paid on the ship. There is only one younger boy, age 12. All five of the mousses, apprentice sailors, were between the ages of 12 and 15 and paid either 10 or 12 of whatever.

I can’t help but wonder if these youngest boys were orphans. Most parents would be very reluctant to allow a boy of that age to go to sea, possibly never to return.

It’s worth noting that there is another Guillaume La Faye, a 35-year-old cooper, but he is not from the same location, or even close.

Guillaume was older, from Saint-Remy, finished the campaign, and was discharged at Port-Louis on April 29, 1758.

Saint Remy to Puy-Paulin is quite distant. The commonality is that they are both located very near to major coastal cities. Many men on the ship’s roster were from Bordeaux.

Puy-Paulin

Today, it’s difficult to find the Puy-Paulin castle, at least by that name.

Par Jefunky — Travail personnel, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=112192024

That’s because today, the castle has been converted into the Hotel de l’Intendance.

Here’s the fortified Chateau Puy-Paulin in the city of Bordeaux in 1550.

The view across the rooftops of one of three Roman castle towers in 1638.

In 1743, the castle consisted of several buildings from different periods, joined together in 1744 by a large carriage entrance flanked by two pavilions.

This 1755 map shows the concert hall at the top, which burned, the grove, and the French garden in the center, with the inner courtyard and porte-cochere, where coaches deposited their passengers, at the bottom.

In 1755 or 1756, a fire started from the rooftops. Much was destroyed, but the castle was eventually rebuilt.

I’m unclear whether there was one fire or two, with a second following in 1756. In 1755, François would have been 11, and 12 in 1756. A devastating fire would have affected many people, and François would have been a wide-eyed, possibly terrified, witness.

This 1705 map of Bordeaux shows the plan of the castles and suburbs with surrounding areas.

Assuming that this François Lafaye on the ship’s roster is our guy, this would have been his stomping ground, and he would have witnessed that fire. He may also have been orphaned by it.

This might have been why he signed on, or was signed on, to the ship as an apprentice sailor in 1757. Bordeaux’s bustling Port of The Moon was right there, and assuredly ships were always looking for crew.

In the 1700s, Bordeaux’s Port of the Moon was France’s busiest port, importing coffee, cocoa, sugar, cotton, and indigo, and the second busiest port in the world.

The Port of the Moon on the River Garonne in 1899 shows the “Old Town,” at right, along the river.

The Port of the Moon as seen from the top of the spire of the Saint-Michel church.

Escape!

But that’s not all. Back to Bernard’s article with images I’ve added.

On the same muster roll we read that François escapes from his ship on April 10, 1757, at Cap Français, St-Domingue which is now Cap-Haitien, Haiti.

Cap Francais, at that time a French trading stronghold for both agriculture and slaves, is nestled between the bay and the mountains.

By Andrew Wiseman – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27240803

Remnants of the French colonial architecture can still be seen today. Perhaps François passed by this very building.

The location in Haiti, today.

Bernard continues:

Why does François escape?

He was not alone. About a third of the crew escaped. The role of a young sailor was a dangerous one: they had to run down to the hold of the ship, carry bags of powder up to the cannons and fill them for the gunners to fire them, and to cool the cannons between the firings by the gunners. That was related by the historians at the Museum of Restigouche (a museum to show an excavated war ship sunk in 1760; officially called “Battle of the Restigouche National Historic Site of Canada” at Pointe-à-la-Croix QC). So, they employed young sailors instead of gunners for that dangerous work.

Possibly they sought young sailors with no families to miss them if they didn’t return from that dangerous mission. What happened to those other four young boys on the ship?

According to the roster:

• The youngest, François Tourete, age 12, “passed on le Greenwich July 12, 1757,” which I presume means he died. He apparently chose not to escape in April. Maybe he should have. If he died on the Greenwich Meridian, it would have been on the return trip because the Greenwich Meridian is nowhere near the Caribbean or the Americas.
• Jean Paillat, age 15, finished the campaign and was released on April 27, 1758, at Port-Louis.
• Joseph Lierte, age 15, deserted on April 10, 1757, at Cap-Francais, the same day as François Lafaille and much of the rest of the crew.
• The record for Andre Micouleau, age 15, says that he embarked at Bordeaux, but then that he never embarked.

Maybe that crossing where one of their young mates died, combined with the reality of warfare, made this less of an adventure and very real. Of the five apprentices, apparently one backed out before leaving, and only one completed the voyage.

Back to Bernard:

An unsettled problem: what happened to François after April 1757? Did he stay in Haiti or did he sail to Boston? How did he live? How did he move from Haiti to Boston?

Note that some Acadians, deported in 1755 from Acadia (Nova Scotia) to the British colonies as the Carolinas, were allowed to leave in 1763 and removed to Haiti.

Those Acadians settled at Mole St-Nicolas which is about 178 km by road from Cap-Haitien, or perhaps an easier journey by boat. Did François somehow meet them? Or, did he catch a ride back on the same ship headed back north?

Unfortunately, the Acadian settlement on Mole Saint-Nicholas was highly unsuccessful, and many of those who survived left with Joseph Broussard in January of 1765 when his ship stopped by on the way to Louisiana. IF, and it’s a big IF, François Lafaye who jumped ship in 1757 managed to make his way to Mole Saint-Nicolas, this might explain his arrival in Louisiana, but that’s not where he surfaced. This does nothing to explain his arrival in Boston or any location on the eastern seaboard.

There might be another explanation, however.

In 1763, Acadians began petitioning the Massachusetts General Court for permission to leave the province with the intention of either returning to Nova Scotia, going to France, St. Domingue (now Haiti,) or Quebec, areas with people who shared their language and culture. On November 28, 1764, the governor declined their petition, but it does show us that the people in Massachusetts were keenly aware of French-speaking Haiti.

With Cap-Francais being the center of Caribbean French maritime trade, it’s certainly within the realm of possibility that François signed on again as a crew member from Haiti to Boston, and remained in Boston, perhaps jumping ship again. Sailing was a dangerous profession, and every ship would have been seeking to replace crew who had died or failed to return to the ship during their most recent voyage.

In 1763, Françoise’s soon-to-be-wife’s family was in Connecticut, not Massachusetts.

Of course, just because Françoise arrived in Boston, assuming that is accurate, which it may not be, doesn’t mean he stayed in Boston. Connecticut has a long shoreline too, and by land, is only about 50 miles or so.

By 1763, François would have been 19 and clearly able to fend for himself. By this time, he had been on his own for six long years and was probably very street savvy.

Back to Bordeaux

Bernard was a persistent researcher and continued his story.

With information on the approximate year and place of birth and the wonderful help of Cercle de Genéalogie du Sud-Ouest (Bordeaux, France), I obtained François’ birth and baptism registration.

On this map, you can see the location of the castle, with the red pin, then the Sainte-Eulalie Catholic church, followed by the Pariosse Saint-Nicholas Catholic church at the bottom. Clearly all within walking distance.

François was born on January 7, 1744, and baptized the next day at St-Nicolas church in Bordeaux. It is not far from Puy-Paulin that he gives as his residence when he joined the navy in 1757. His father is Joseph Lafay, coachman .and his mother is Françoise Germon from Ste-Eulalie parish (next parish).

Sylvie Lord translates his baptism as:

On the 7th of June 1744, was born between 9 and 10 AM, a child of Joseph Lafaye, coachman and Françoise Germon, from Ste-Eulalie parish, was baptised on the 8th of the said month, given the name of François…

Note that St. Nicolas is a Catholic church, which tells us that François was indeed Catholic.

Joseph Lafay(e) and Françoise Germon were married at St. Nicolas on February 11, 1738, in Bordeaux, Gironde, France. The two churches are slightly over half a mile (900 meters) apart, but of course the families may have lived closer.

It’s difficult to get a good picture of this church today because the medieval street is quite narrow and the area densely built. This building, constructed between 1821-1823 is apparently not the original church at this location. I wonder if part of the original church remains within the current one.

The church is beautiful, although I wonder where the cemetery was located. It’s clearly gone today.

The cemetery assuredly existed adjacent to the church at some time. Perhaps beneath the school to the right, or within the walls of the Ministere des Armees to the left, above.

The lettering above the entry gate translates to ancient or old hospital of St. Nicolas which was or is a military hospital.

Is this the street where François lived? Education at that time was under the auspices of the church, so this must have been where he learned to read and write, at least well enough to sign his name, assuming he is our François.

La Rue St. Nicolas is quite narrow, testifying to its antiquity.

The François Lafaye onboard the ship was assuredly this boy who would have been baptized and worshipped in an earlier church in this location.

Did he say his last prayer here before climbing aboard the Grand St-Jean-Baptiste to sail away – a boy in a man’s war?

Was this church damaged or destroyed in the fires? Could he even have worshipped here then, if he had wanted? Or did he attend his maternal grandparent’s church, at least from time to time. Were any of his parents or grandparents still living in 1757?

Did he attend his parents’ funerals here before boarding the ship and embarking on the journey of a lifetime?

Is he “our” François Lafaye?

If so, his mother was probably baptized in the Saint-Eulalie Church just a few blocks away.

You can view several photos of St. Eulalie, one of the oldest churches in Bordeaux, both interior and exterior, here.

This church appears to have had several additions, but the original church was here when Francois’s mother lived.

Today, a tree blooms in the beautiful French springtime.

At some point, the cemetery would have been located beside or to the rear of this church, or perhaps both. Today, it’s gone, but perhaps a few graves remain, tucked into the cloistered arches visible from the side streets.

François’s mother’s ancestors are likely buried someplace here in unmarked graves.

Both churches are mapped in Bordeaux with the Puy-Paulin castle slightly to the north – all easily a 20-25 minute walk end to end. Young boys tend to run. One way or another, that young man’s childhood ended in the late winter or early spring of 1757 when he walked up the ramp to that ship with probably nothing more than a change of clothes – if that.

By Jefunky – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=84352874

Today, this entire area is protected as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Where Do We First Find Our Proven François Lafay?

François Lafay witnessed the marriage of Jean Dupuis and Marie Hébert in 1773 in New England and signed the registration, as stated in the validation of that marriage at St-Jacques – L’Achigan Quebec in 1775. This tells us that François lived in New England, probably in Connecticut, at least until 1773. I surely wish the priest had said where in New England.

Who were the parents of Jean Dupuis and Marie Hebert, and where were they living in 1773? I have been unable to find specific location information, so if anyone knows, please let me know. That would tell us where François was in 1773 too.

Jean-Marie Dupuis died on April 30, 1796, in L’Acadie and was buried at Ste-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie. His parents were Germain Dupuis and Marie Angelique Leblanc. Marie Hebert died on March 12, 1798, and was buried two days later in the same place. Her parents were Joseph Hebert and Madeleine Dupuis.

Interestingly, François Lafay must have been close to this couple because they signed in 1788 as godparents for his son Antoine Hilarie Lafay, and in 1790 as witnesses at the marriage of his daughter, Suzanne Lafay and Honore Lord (the elder) in L’Acadie.

Jean-Marie’s father was Germain Dupuis, and the family was deported to Massachusetts. His father, also Germain, was present in the 1758 census in Nantucket, an island off the shore of Massachusetts. By 1776, they were in Quebec, but François Lafay and his family wouldn’t follow for another dozen years.

Marie Hebert’s father, Joseph Hebert, was found in the Connecticut census on August 14, 1763. This family was in Laprairie, Quebec by 1780.

Somehow, the children of these two families, Jean-Marie Dupuis and Marie Hebert were in the same location in order to court and marry by 1773.

Why did the François Lafay family wait another decade or two after many of the other Acadian families returned to Quebec, beginning in 1766 or so? Why did they return when they did? Marie told the missionary, Henrietta Feller, that her grandparents were upset that they were falling away from the Catholic faith.

Clearly, based on this 1773 marriage record, there was a cluster of Acadians living in close proximity someplace in New England, and François Lafay, with his family, was among them.

If we can find one of them, we find all of them.

Arrival in Quebec

François Lafay and Marguerite Forest’s first nine children were born “in the colonies,” as stated in their baptism records when they were baptized many years later at Sainte-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie.

Françoise, the youngest, was the only child born in the Province of Québec in 1789, and she was baptized the same day. This suggests that François and Marguerite emigrated to the province of Québec between 1786, the last birth in the colonies, and July 9, 1788, the first baptism in Quebec. I’d say it was probably in early 1788, simply because another child should have been born in early 1788, and there is no record of a baptism. Sadly, this suggests the child was born and died before they arrived in Quebec, with their next child, Françoise, being born on January 11, 1789.

They settled at Sainte-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie, where many Acadians found refuge upon return from exile.

The first actual record of François LaFay in Quebec is the baptism of three of his children on the same day, July 9, 1788 at the Ste-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie church in L’Acadie.

His youngest child was Pierre Clement Lafay, age 2, so born before July 9^th in 1786 or after that date in 1785.

He signed all three of his children’s baptisms as François Lafay.

Bernard reveals that the next record of François Lafay is on September 29, 1788 in the presence of Notaire Jean-Baptiste Grisé. François rented a farm in L’Acadie from James Waite and is described as a resident of L’Acadie, Quebec. Clearly they were setting up housekeeping.

I sure wish I knew where that farm was.

In 1789, three more of François’s older children were baptized. I wonder why those three weren’t baptized with the others in 1788. Was there a cost to the family or donation required for these baptisms?

On January sixth Seventeen Hundred Eighty Nine, I, priest undersigned, baptized conditionally Marie, age twenty-one, Marguerite, age nineteen, and Suzanne, age sixteen and ten months, daughters of François La Faye and of Marguerite Foret. The godfather and godmother of Marie were Laurent Roy and Isabelle Bro, his wife, undersigned. The godfather and godmother of Marguerite were Pierre Lavoie and Marie Anne Melanson, his wife. The godfather and godmother of Suzanne were Pierre Trahant and Euphrosine Leroux. [These last] godfathers and godmothers declared that they were unable to sign. The baptized girls signed with us.

/s Lamité, priest, Laurent Roy, Isabelle bro, Marie Lafay, Margit Lafay, Suzanne Lafay, Françoise Lafay.

Again, he signs as François Lafay. Based on their signatures, his daughters had been educated too.

On August 10^th, 1789, Marie Lafay married Honore Lore, of the Acadian Lore/Lord family. Again, he signed as François Lafay. His son, also named Francois, then 13, signed with them and can be distinguished from his father because the F in François is fancy, and the signature is different. All of his children signed as Lafay.

The next record we have of François Lafay is his own marriage rehabilitation that occurred in Ste.-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie in Quebec in 1792. It’s like the family was catching up on all the loose ends from exile.

This record states that they were married on November 10, 1767 in New England before a justice of the peace because of the lack of availability of a priest.

We know that Marie’s parents were in Connecticut in 1763, and there’s no evidence to suggest they were elsewhere four years later. There’s very little evidence from this time period for the Acadians.

Translation from Father John:

Marriage of François Lafay and Marguerite Foret , Ste Marguerite de Blairfindie, L’Acadie, St-Jean, Quebec

On the twenty-third of June, Seventeen Hundred Ninety Two, I, undersigned, received the mutual consent of François Lafay and of Marguerite Foret, who pledged their troth (promis ensemble) before a justice of the peace in the Colonies, for lack of a priest, on the year Seventeen Hundred Sixty Seven*, this in the presence and in the form prescribed by Our Holy Mother the Church of Rome.  The groom signed along with me; the bride declared that she was unable to sign.  /s/ N. J. Lancto, priest   /s/ François Lafay

*On the tenth of November of the said year.

We know that François was educated because he could sign his name and so could at least some of his children. They always signed Lafay. The name Lafaille appears in his 2nd marriage record in 1819, which he did not sign, and in subsequent notarial records, but not earlier records.

I take this as evidence, combined with the French records, assuming they are for him, that his surname really was Lafay, with Lafaille evolving later. I originally presumed that Lafay was anglicized, but I obviously assumed wrong.

Farmer

François was a farmer, as noted in several records, and a laborer, as noted in his daughter Julie’s 1801 marriage record.

However in his daughter Marie-Anne’s 1806 marriage record he was listed as a “huissier” which Bernard, a native French speaker, translated as a Captain and wonders if he was a Captain in the militia.

We know Françoise lived in L’Acadie along the Richelieu River for three+ decades beginning in 1788, based on what happened in 1819.

But first, he would witness and possibly participate in the War of 1812, at 68 years of age. If he was a captain, the only other option would have been the Revolutionary War, but he was not living in Canada then, and I find no records of any similar name at Fold3 for either war.

War of 1812

Bernard first reported that François Lafay or Lafaille might have been a Captain in the Militia based on his daughter’s 1806 marriage record. He states that conditions were deteriorating between Canada and USA, and the war would start in 1812. At Pierre-Clément’s wedding in 1810, the same priest officiating does not give that title to François. Another translator who was not a native French-speaker questioned whether huissier was actually “bailiff.” Google translate as well as DeepL says the same thing.

I’m not quite sure what a bailiff did in Quebec at that time.

At the outset of the War of 1812, Quebec City was fortified with 2,300 regulars. Engagements occurred elsewhere, much closer to home. In 1812, the war raged along the Niagara frontier, but by 1813, 5,000 men had gathered between Lake Champlain and Montreal, right in the L’Acadie region along the Richelieu River. This would certainly give François ample reason to be concerned and potentially involved.

At this time, remember that Great Britain held Canada and the US was fighting against the British.

A letter from a US Infantry Officer dated November 16, 1813, explains their battle plans:

This is perhaps the last time you will hear from me at this place, if ever. We are preparing for a march, which will take place in a few days. It is intended to make an attack on Lower Canada [Quebec] immediately. We march without baggage or tents, and everything we carry will be on our backs, and the Heavens and a blanket our only covering, till we take winter quarters by force of arms. Our force is very respectable, say 6 or 7 thousand, and all in high spirits. The fatigues we expect to undergo will be equal to those experienced by our revolutionary heroes, till we arrive at Montreal.

Several years ago, cousin Paul posted on RootsWeb about Bernard, as follows:

I was directed by Bernard Doray to the marriage record for Marie Anne Lafay who married François Lord, June 6, 1806, St. Marguerite de Blairfindie. In this record François Lafay is listed as an officer. I then found through a google book search a book that listed François Lafay as being an officer who served in the Canadian militia (at L’Acadie) for Britain in the war of 1812 (he would have been in his early 70’s). So two differnet sources refer to him being an officer.

This likely confirmed for me what Prof. Stephen White had written to me that François Lafay was most likely educated as François signed his name “François Lafay” as someone educated in English would have signed. If François was an officer, he most likely would have then been educated.

I’m still searching for more background on François Lafay. Quebec records indicate a Boston connection (area of Boston could mean the whole of New England). Prof. White suspects a Connecticut connection, as that was the location Marguerite and her family had been exiled in the deportation. I have tried searching various records here in Massachusetts and in Connecticut but have had no success.

If I have missed anything, please let me know,

Paul Drainville

I found the book, Officers of the British Forces in Canada During the War of 1812-1815 where François Lafay is in fact mentioned as a Lieutenant, not a Captain, in the L’Acadie Battalion.

While this certainly could be our François, it’s more likely to be his son, François, born in 1776. The younger man would be 36 years old, not 68, which would make much more sense, but is still inconclusive.

I was unable to find additional information about François Lafay and the War of 1812, but you can read more about what transpired in that area here and here.

Whether he fought or was a militia member, that warfare near his home and potentially on his land would have clearly affected him.

CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1622980

The American forces mustered in Lake Champlain and prepared for the Battle of Chateauguay, shown above. That battle was followed a few days later by the Battle of Crysler’s farm.

The American troops marched up the Richelieu River beginning on September 19^th, 1813, right through L’Acadie at St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, headed for Montreal.

Soldiers marched by day and passed in boats by night, fully intending to take what they needed from any source they could find – striking terror into the hearts of the residents. François was 69 years old and had spent much of his life surrounded by one conflict or another.

We don’t know what happened to the family during this time, other than they survived. He dodged this bullet, but another one wasn’t too far in the future.

François Loses His Wife

Sadly, François’s wife, Marguerite passed away on February 16, 1819, at 71 years of age. They had been married more than 51 years and brought at least 11 and probably 13 children into the world together.

All of their children who survived to adulthood had married, except one. We don’t know what happened to Angelique who was born about 1789 after she signed as a witness to her sister Brigitte’s marriage in 1798. The other possibility is that Angelique was a middle name of a different child.

Marriage Times Two

Nine months later, on November 22^nd, François married Madeleine Lépine, daughter of Adrien Legris Lépine and Marie Thibodeau and widow of Antoine Jacques Paquet. If this was like most farming communities, everyone involved had known each other “forever,” so there wasn’t much getting to know each other that needed to happen.

But this wasn’t destined to be just any plain vanilla wedding – but a very special one.

François’s granddaughter, Marie Elizabeth Lore, through daughter Marie Lafay who married Honore Lore, was married on the same day, in the same church, to Jean-Baptiste Leveque at the Ste-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie church in L’Acadie.

This just couldn’t be any sweeter.

François was 75, and his bride, Madeleine, was 30 years younger.

His granddaughter, Marie Elizabeth Lore was 26 years old – almost half a century difference, yet marrying under the adoring eye of her grandfather, perhaps at the same altar.

Did grandfather and granddaughter have one ceremony, a double wedding, together, or did they have two separate weddings, one after the other?

I can close my eyes and see François walking his beaming granddaughter down the aisle towards the front of the church where they both stood beside their betrothed who would soon become their spouses.

The priest would then begin the Celebration of Matrimony.

Just look at this beautiful church where this family baptized their children, married, worshipped and yes, buried their dearly departed.

Generations of François’s extended family would probably have filled the entire sanctuary that glorious Monday.

November 22 of 1819 was certainly a day of celebration for four generations of the Lafaille family. If everyone was in attendance, François would have had more than 118 descendants wishing him well. Many of his grandchildren would have attended with babes in arms. Just four days later, his next great-grandchild would join the flock. I haven’t been able to trace all of his descendants, especially families who moved, so there could certainly have been even more, and that number of descendants swells significantly in the years to come, and in future generations.

Not bad for a man who arrived on these shores as a functional, if not an actual, orphan sometime in the late 1750s or early 1760s.

François Passes Over

François continued farming until his death on June 16, 1824

Father John’s translation:

Burial #44 François Lafaille

On the sixteenth of June, Eighteen Hundred Twenty Four, I, priest undersigned, buried in the cemetery of this parish the body of François Lafaille, farmer, who died the day before yesterday (avant hier) having received the sacraments of the Church. He was eighty years of age, the husband of Magdeleine Lépine. Present Jean Baptiste Dubé, and three others who declared that they were unable to sign, upon inquiry.

A. Brais, priest

Was Jean-Baptiste Dube perhaps the son of Jean-Baptiste Dupuis, François’s very long-time friend from back in the colonies?

Of course, the priests didn’t give the cause of death then, although how I wish they had. However, I wonder if something was going on in the Acadian community. François’ adult daughter Marguerite had died just a month earlier, on May 10th. Maybe cholera or dysentery, both of which are more pronounced in hot weather. Or perhaps his daughter’s untimely death just pushed him over the edge.

Inventory

François’s belongings were inventoried the following year, probably after the crops were in. I wonder why that process took so long – 14 months. His last crops would have been harvested in the fall of 1824.

Madeleine didn’t pass away until April 14, 1833. If she had an inventory, would it reflect his things?

This notarial record dated August 3, 1825, in Iberville, Quebec corresponds with the actual inventory, here.

I cannot translate this document, so if anyone else has a translated version, I’d be very grateful if you would post it in the comments or reach out, even if it’s in French. My issue is the script combined with a language I’m unfamiliar with. I can do a typed French to English translation.

Someone on WikiTree posted a brief summary:

On 3 August 1825, an inventory of the deceased’s property was drawn up by notary Laurent Archambault. His modest possessions included tools, books, a cow, and 28 sheep.

I can’t help but wonder which books François owned. Would I possibly be lucky to find an actual list? The fact that he owned books further confirms that he didn’t just learn to write his name, but was literate and read. What we read says so much about us.

The bottom of the third page of the inventory includes signatures.

These were difficult for me to decipher. I find it strange that all of his children and his wife signed with a mark. We know that at least some of them signed their names to earlier documents.

You can tell that the names are spelled phonetically too. Lafaille vs Lafay.

Column 1

• François Lafaille
• Antoine Hilaire Lafaille
• Marie Anne Lafaille (who was married to François Lore who died on December 13, 1824)
• Dufaula who is probably Joseph Duphaut who married daughter Marguerite Lafay who died May 11, 1824.

Column 2

• Magdeleine LePine – his widow
• Honore Lord – married to daughter Marie/Mary Lafay
• Marie Lafaille – who is married to Honore Lord – but why did they both sign?

This begs the question of the rest of the children.

I’m not familiar with the legal requirements in Quebec at this time, but several questions come to mind.

• Were all the heirs required to sign?
• Were only the people inheriting something required to sign?
• Why did Honore Lore/Lord and his wife, Marie Lafaille both sign when both people of other married couples didn’t sign? Does that tell us something important?
• What does it tell us about the children or their spouses that didn’t sign?

What About the Others?

Three living children are missing from this document.

• Bridget married Pierre Gamache, and by mid-1825, the family’s baptisms and marriages were being carried out at St-Cyprien-de-Lery in Napierville, Quebec. They moved sometime after 1822, but why didn’t they come back to sign this document? Is there something in this document, written in French, that addresses this question? Both Bridget and Pierre were both living in 1825.
• We only find one record of Angelique as a witness on her sister Bridget’s 1798 marriage, so it’s possible that she had passed away or Angelique was actually someone else who used a middle or other name.
• However, we know that the youngest child, Françoise Lafay married Pierre Granger and died in 1866. Both people were alive in 1825 and their children were being baptized at Ste-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie, so they were clearly still in the area. Why didn’t they sign?

Two other children were missing. One had died, but it’s unknown if the second child was living. But both had living descendants. Would their descendants be entitled to anything and therefore need to sign?

Were the signers simply attesting to the accuracy of the inventory – or are they attesting to an inherited share of those assets?

• Daughter Suzanne Lafay died in 1803, and her husband died in 1818. Were any of her five living children entitled to or received anything?
• We don’t know if daughter Julie Lafay who married Ignace Laporte Denis was living or not, nor if he was. We do know that at least two of her daughters were living in 1825, because they married later, and one son was possibly living as well. What about those children?

In Summary

We do have some direct evidence of François’s life.

It appears certain, based on his own signature many times that his surname was originally Lafay or Lafaye, not Lafaille as it was later spelled in Quebec. I had assumed it was Lafaille, but I now believe it was Lafay based on François’s signatures.

He spelled his surname consistently throughout his life. It was only others, meaning various priests and the notarial record that spelled it Lafaille, although some descendants in later generations adopted that spelling.

We know that François married in the colonies in 1767, probably in Connecticut, where his wife’s family lived, and that he died in Quebec in 1824. Thanks to that record that says he was 80 years old, we know he was born in or at least about 1744. Given that he died in the middle of June, he would have been born either after June 14, 1743 or before June 14, 1744. That meshes perfectly with the January 7, 1744 birth in Bordeaux, France, of the child sailor François Lafaye.

We know that our François had arrived in Quebec by the summer of 1788, but probably not much earlier.

Most of his children were born in “New England,” and frustratingly, not one single record anyplace says WHERE in New England.

We have the information from missionary Henrietta Feller, who tells us François was a French sailor who somehow wound up in Boston. That’s a rather unusual story, so I’d tend to believe at least the sailor portion is accurate, and perhaps Boston as well. If he was a sailor, it’s likely he lived in relatively close proximity to the sea in France.

Thanks to Bernard’s work, we know there’s one François Lafay, spelled exactly the way François repeatedly signed his own name, who was born in Bordeaux on January 7, 1744. That young man’s father’s name was Joseph and his mother was Françoise. Our  François did have a daughter named François, but no son named Joseph, although that would have been one of the children that died in New England.

The François in Bordeaux signed onto a French ship as a young apprentice sailor in 1757, apparently only to discover that sailing life wasn’t for him. Of course, being the youngest with the least experience, he had the worst possible job combined with the lowest pay.

He deserted, or probably more aptly, ran away, in a French port in what is now Haiti as soon as the ship reached shore, along with about one-third of the rest of the crew. He very probably saved his own life.

If that young man is our François Lafay and somehow reached Boston, or someplace else along the eastern seaboard to find kinship with the Acadians is still a matter of conjecture.

We simply don’t know.

What we do know is the few facts we have do fit the profile for the young French sailor, but don’t constitute proof. Would there be church or notarial records in France that would shine light on that François Lafay? How would we go about finding those records?

There are other Lafaille or Lafay men in France, but none born in 1743 or 1744, and none in close proximity to a port. Of course, not all records are available online, and many were destroyed due to fires or war.

Clearly, there are blanks in our François’s life begging to be filled in, but we have nothing with which to patch those holes today.

Our best bet would be to have a Y-DNA match to a Lafay man, or even a man of any surname in Bordeaux.

Need Lafay or Lafaille Man for Y-DNA Test

For that to happen, I need a Lafay or Lafaille man who descends from François to take a Y-DNA test. François had three sons, two of whom had male descendants.

If that’s you, or one of your male relatives descends from François through an unbroken line of all males, I have a fully paid Y-DNA testing scholarship for you at FamilyTreeDNA. Please reach out, and maybe we can resolve another piece of François’s ancestry.

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

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

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

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

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

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

This Iroquois hunter is carrying this same French trade gun.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jacques and Angélique had two children:

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

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

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

All Hell Broke Loose

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was ugly.

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

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

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

Here is what we know about the battle:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grand Pre

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

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

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

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

Uneasy Times

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

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

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

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

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

He also wrote to the Board of Trade in London:

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

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

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

We will see.

The 1714 Census

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Lose-Lose Situation

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

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

Suddenly, the Acadians were valuable.

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

What a mess.

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

The situation dragged on.

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

1720

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

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

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

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

Plot Twist, Or Two

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Life Went On

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

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

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

A Wedding

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

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

Jacques and Charlotte Bonnevie had eight children.

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

French Neutrals

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

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

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

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

That Oath – AGAIN

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

This is where it gets interesting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Family Grows

Jacques and Charlotte added five more children to their family.

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

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

Something Happened in 1742

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

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

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

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

Brutal.

The Expulsion Begins

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

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

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

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

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

According to Acadian.org:

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Happened to Jacques?

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

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

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

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

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

In 1742, Jacques would have been 53 years old.

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

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

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

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

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

The Garceau Alliance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jacques’s Legacy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What he survived, assuming he did, was genocide.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jacque lives on.

_____________________________________________________________

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Family

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Exile

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

I have never found a death entry for Jacques.

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

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

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

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

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

He got married.

Exile Ends

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back to Rev. Choquet’s letter:

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

That’s exactly what they did.

Marriage

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

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

Brother Bernard’s translation.

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

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

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

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

Upriver

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

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

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

Why not?

Where were they?

Sit down and buckle up for this one!

The Revolutionary War

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

What? Acadians didn’t do that!

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

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

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

Honoré’s card number.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Honoré’s Unit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A plaque erected at Fort Saint Johns reads:

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

Fort St. Jean today.

Fort Frederick in Albany

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can see the church a little better looking east.

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

Service Confirmed

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

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

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

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

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

The Catholic Church

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

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

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

Apoline Dies

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

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

Honoré and Appoline’s Children

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Remarriage to Suzanne Lafaille.

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

Yes, I know this is confusing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Suzanne and Honoré had seven children.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Honoré remarries to Marguerite Babin

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

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

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

Oh, how I wish Honoré had signed.

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

Honoré and Marguerite had eight children.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christmas 1815

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

However, this Christmas was probably different.

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

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

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

Honoré’s Death

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

Brother Bernard translated the burial record of Honorius Lord.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Honoré’s Legacy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There may well have been more.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe someplace halfway in between.

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

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

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

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

Rest in Peace, Honoré.

_____________________________________________________________

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