Catherine Savoie or Savoye was born about 1661 in Acadia to Francois Savoie (also Savoy and Savoye) and Catherine LeJeune, the fifth of their nine children.

The Savoie family lived at BelleIsle, behind today’s BelleIsle Hall Acadian Cultural Center where Catherine’s older brother, Germain Savoie, later lived.

If you’re a Savoie descendant, Charlie Thibodeau at the Cultural Center can walk you through those swamps, show you the Savoie dykes and where the homestead stood. I’m climbing one of the Savoie homestead dykes, above, on the way to their settlement.

Charlie can and will tell you about the days, 350 years ago, of old Acadia. This is literally a hike back through time.

What would Catherine think of her descendants visiting her childhood home? She would have so many stories to tell us.

The first Acadian census was taken in 1671 when Catherine was living in a home that stood here, literally right here, listed with her parents as 9 years old, which puts her birth in 1662.

The family has four cows and is living on six arpents of cultivated land.

In the next census, taken in 1678, Catherine’s parents are not listed, so it appears that they have both died, or the entire family was missed in the census. However, they are not listed in any future census either. Two of Catherine’s older siblings have married, but it’s unclear where Catherine’s other siblings are living. Two of her siblings, like her parents, simply disappear after the 1671 census. Perhaps the same malady swept them all away. That’s a lot of grief to bear for a young woman between the ages of 9 and 16.

Catherine is shown in the 1678 census having married Francois Levron about 1676. The couple has been blessed with their first child, a boy, age 1. The parents’ ages are not given in this census. Francois and Catherine are living with the Widow Pesselet, who has one cow and five sheep, but no land under cultivation.

The age of their child suggests that Catherine married Francois Levron when she was between 14 and 16 years old. That sounds very young to us today, but Acadian girls tended to marry early. Plus, if Catherine’s parents died, an expedited marriage would have been a good solution.

Andre Carl Vachon has suggested that Francois Levron, born about 1651, was a soldier who was transferred from Fort Pentagouet in Maine to Port Royal during the winter of 1672.

By 1686, the next census, Catherine and Francois have four children. Catherine is listed as age 20, with her oldest child as age 9. That is clearly incorrect, as Catherine would have been born in 1666 and had her first child at age 11. Catherine would have been about 25.

In 1693, Catherine is listed as age 34, which puts her birth year at 1659.

In 1698, Catharine was 38, which suggests her birth in 1660.

In 1700, she is 41, which correlates with her birth in 1659.

Based on the various census dates, minus 1686 which is clearly in error, Catherine was probably born between 1660 and 1662. If she was born in 1661 and married in 1676, she would have been about 15 or maybe 16 – which is about right for an Acadian bride. She would have been very excited to marry and start her own family.

The Sieur de Diereville, a surgeon from France who spent a year in Port Royal beginning in 1699, wrote:

A Father and a Mother do not keep
A nubile daughter long at home, although
She causes them no care, and to their will
Submits in registering her vows. If when
Some tender Suitor comes, to urge his love
His Sweetheart favours him, wedlock
Unites them both and they are free
To populate the World; which is,
Moreover, that which they do best,
And, as their tenderness is never shared,
Between the first transports of ardent Youth
And old age, many a Child’s begot.

He also commented that class differences didn’t seem to matter when marrying, as opposed to back in France.

Motherhood

Motherhood began early for Catherine, around16 or so, which was younger than the average of about 20 for Acadian girls. Still, 15 or 16 was not uncommon.

Catherine had 10 known children, and probably at least 14, based on those empty spaces which whisper about the children who were born and died between censuses. She also had more than 66 grandchildren, but we really don’t know how many more – and she didn’t know them all. Some died at birth. Some were born after Catherine’s death. Some of her children moved away.

This chart shows Catherine’s known children, plus those we can infer based on those loudly silent gaps in the census.

The four “gap” children would have been buried either in the cemetery at Port Royal, now known as the Garrison Cemetery, or in the little cemetery behind the St. Laurent Church or Chapel, referred to as the Mass House, just east of BelleIsle, very near where Catherine’s parents lived. Depending where Catherine and Francois lived and what was going on when those children died, some may have been, and probably were, buried in both cemeteries.

St. Laurents, and its cemetery, is lost to us today.

We know the church existed, as it is listed as the “Mass House” on two early maps. This 1757 map shows two “things” at the Mass House. One would have been the church, of course, and the other is probably the adjacent cemetery.

This 1733/1753 map version is less specific.

We know that the parish church at Port Royal was destroyed in 1690 and probably in 1708 as well, given that the rest of the town was burned. After Port Royal fell to the English in 1710, the Garrison Cemetery, as it was renamed, began to be used for English burials. It wasn’t entirely abandoned by Acadians, but based on some parish records before 1710, we know the Mass House at BelleIsle was in use by 1707. I’d wager that it had been in use since at least 1690, if not much earlier.

Unfortunately, parish records are incomplete, and none exist before 1702. Those after 1702 are spotty, and few record the location of burials, even though we know at least three early cemeteries existed. FindaGrave lists 17 known burials at St. Laurent, including Catherine’s close family members. I know of one more not listed in the cemetery – Catherine’s own son who died in 1725. This tells us that this cemetery was in use for at least two decades and probably significantly longer.

Even though the cemetery no longer exists today, it’s unlikely that the English settlers who arrived beginning around 1759, four years after the Acadians were deported in 1755, would have summarily destroyed a known cemetery. The church would have either deteriorated, been used for something else, or eventually been removed, but the graves likely simply remained undisturbed until, with the passage of time, the cemetery became overgrown, then forgotten, and now lost.

Based on the two earlier maps, and today’s Google Maps, I’ve noted the two approximate locations of the cemetery.

This is the approximate location of the 1757 map Mass House.

This is the approximate location of the Mass House on the map drawn based on the 1707 census, another map in 1733, and refined by 1753 information.

It’s someplace in this area. Maybe Charlie can find it one day!

We may not know exactly where, but it’s certain that the upriver residents worshipped here and buried their family members in the consecrated land adjacent the church. It was a lot closer than Port Royal, which often didn’t have a functioning church, and after 1710, it was a lot safer upriver than in Port Royal, given the shifting sands of the English and Acadian political status.

Catherine’s four children who were born and died between censuses may have been buried here, especially the child born after 1690 when we know the church in Port Royal was destroyed. This child born about 1698, died between the 1698 and the 1700 censuses, where Catherine’s daughter Madeleine was recorded.

The only thing remaining of these children is simply an empty gap on the census page, the ache in Catherine’s heart, and perhaps an unmarked grave here – their original small wooden cross long gone.

I surely wish we could locate the church and cemetery site today.

Unusual Circumstances

Do you ever get a funny gut feeling that something just isn’t right, or that there’s another piece to a story that you don’t, and probably never will, know?

That’s how I feel about Catherine’s family. Of course, many, if not most Acadian records no longer exist, so we’re working with only a sliver of information.

Here’s the very short list of available records that we are able to reference, combined with historical episodes that affected the Acadians in Port Royal dramatically:

• Sporadic Acadian census records
• Some birth, marriage, and death records after 1702
• English attacks and surrounding historical events

What was happening in Catherine’s life following her 1676 marriage, which would probably have taken place in the Catholic church in Port Royal?

In the 1678 census, Catherine is a newlywed, with a one-year-old baby. The family is living with the Widow Pesselet. I’d like to know the rest of that story!

Between Catherine’s marriage and the 1686 census a decade later, she gave birth to six children, two of whom had died, and four who were living.

In the 1686 census, Francois Levron and Catherine Savoie are listed between the Melanson and Brun families, which strongly suggests that they are living across the river from Port Royal, where they are later found.

In 1690, the English attacked and burned all of the homes in Port Royal and probably the homes across the river as well, which would have included the Levron home.

They literally lived directly across the river from Fort Anne in Port Royal. In this photo, taken within the fort, the Levron home would have been to the right of the church.

The upriver homesteads were spared, but it’s very unlikely that these homes within clear sight would have been.

Between the 1686 and the 1693 censuses, four children were born to Catherine, but only the last three were living in 1693.

In the 1693 census, they are found in the same location as 1686, beside Laurens Grange and Pierre Doucet, who lived across from Port Royal and Fort Anne. So they apparently rebuilt after being burned out, as did the other Acadians at and near Port Royal.

In 1693, the English attacked and burned a dozen or so homes, plus three barns full of grain.

Between the 1693 and 1698 censuses, two more children joined the family, and their eldest daughter had married.

But in 1698, there was an unexpected census change. Francois and Catherine appear to be living in a different area.

In 1698, Francois Levron and Catherine Savoie are listed as neighbors of Emanuel Hebert on one side, and Rene Forest on the other. Their daughter, Madelaine, and her new husband, Clement Vincent are living next door.

Shown on this Mapannapolis map, this places Francois and Catherine fairly far upriver, about 12 miles East of Port Royal at Bloody Creek, which at one time was called Forest Creek. Rene Forest lives on one side, and the Hebert family on the other.

Another child or two were born in 1698 or 1699, both of whom perished.

In the 1700 census, the family has roughly the same neighbors as they did in 1686 and 1693, across the river from Fort Anne at Port Royal. So either they moved back downriver, or the 1698 census was out of order.

Their last child was born about that time as well. Catherine is now about 40 years old, so this makes sense, although it’s possible that she had another child or even two.

In 1701, the entire family is missing from the census, but their married daughter, Madelaine, and Clement Vincent are living upriver.

Something is going on, but what?

Know what else is strange in 1701? Daughter, Marie Levron, age 15, was working as a servant in the home of Emanuel Hebert. Why is that? Servants are exceedingly rare in Acadia, and are generally confined to the governors and upper-class, wealthy residents of Port Royal. Not Acadian farmers farming reclaimed marshlands upriver. Furthermore, Marie’s not there to help with young children, as she is three years younger than their youngest child.

Francois and Catherine are listed again in the 1703 census. I can’t tell for sure where the family is living, but they are two doors from their daughter and Clement Vincent – and it looks like they may still be upriver. The census may not have been recorded in house-to-house order, and the census taker also may have canoed back and forth across the river. Francois and Catherine have two boys and four girls, which means that daughter Marie is living at home again. Marie would marry Jean Garceau later that year, a soldier, on November 20, 1703. Several Acadian young women married the French garrison soldiers.

Looking at witnesses at various church events, it’s clear that Catherine and her family are interwoven in the tapestry of the upriver families as well as those living directly across from Port Royal.

The English struck again in 1704, burning homes, destroying crops, killing cattle and tearing down dykes.

Daughter Elizabeth Levron, also recorded in some records as Isabelle, married Michel (Etienne) Picot, also a soldier, on Nov. 3, 1705.

The English returned in 1707, burning nearly everything in the town – probably including the Levron homestead and that of their two married daughters, who were likely living on the same land.

We know for a fact that in both 1707 and 1710, the Levron family was living right across the river from Hogg Island at Port Royal, because we have two different maps that confirm the location.

On both the 1708 and 1710 maps, Francois Levron is noted by his dit name, Nantois, and he’s listed as “Le bonhomme Nantois” on the 1707 census.

The 1707 census also confirms that location. Clement Vincent is living next door, with Rene Doucet and the Grange/Granger family as neighbors.

Catherine’s eldest son, Jacques Levron, married Marie Doucet on January 8, 1710.

1710 was the year that Acadia was permanently lost to England following a wicked battle in which Catherine may well have had to shelter in the subterranian black hole in Fort Anne with her children and grandchildren.

It was safe there, but it would have been brutal if they had to stay for the entire 19 days.

In addition to the capitulation of the fort, one of the terms of surrender was that residents within three nautical miles, “within cannon shot,” were to be protected and allowed to stay, and those beyond the three-mile perimeter would be allowed to stay on sufferance.

The Priest attempted to gather and unite the Acadians beyond the three-mile marker, at Pre Ronde, or Round Hill, across from BelleIsle where Catherine’s family lived. This act of rebellion got him kidnapped by the English and shipped off to Boston. He was gone from mid-January through mid-December of 1711. There was a lot of death in Acadia that year.

After the surrender, the Acadians were told by the English that they would have to leave for other French colonies, meaning places like Beaubassin, for example. While the Acadians didn’t want to leave at first, by 1720, they had all planned to leave, but the English, realizing that they could not support themselves, now prohibited it. This back and forth tug-of-war lasted for years.

It was a very rough decade, with a great deal of uncertainty, acrimony and turmoil. What should they do, and who was going to do what – and when? Many of the young people left as soon as they married, while they could, and before they accumulated any belongings to lose.

In June of 1711, the Battle of Bloody Creek, took place on the Annapolis River above the mouth of Bloody Creek – formerly Forest Creek. If, indeed, Catherine and her family had relocated upriver in this area, they would have had front and center seats for the battle with the British. Someplace between 50 and 150 Acadians and their Native allies ambushed around 70 English troops in the river. They ultimately hoped to retake the fort, but without artillery, were unsuccessful. It’s possible that some Acadian men either died in the ambush, or were wounded and died later.

Daughter Marie’s husband, Jean Garceau, a French soldier, died sometime in 1711, leaving her with young children, including a year-old baby. Marie remarried to Alexander Richard the day after Christmas – just a week or so after the priest returned from Boston.

Daughter Elizabeth’s husband, Michel Picot, also a soldier, died sometime in 1711, leaving her with two infants, the youngest born in November, 1711. Elizabeth remarried to Yves Maucaer on Feb. 9, 1712, three weeks before baby Michel was officially baptized. Marriage was a matter of survival. Everyone already knew everyone in the close-knit community – so it wasn’t like you had to meet and get acquainted.

Catherine would have been doing her best to comfort and help her two newly-widowed daughters.

Catherine’s sister, Francoise Savoie, who was married to Jean Corporon died around Christmas in 1711, and was buried on the 27th.

Good Heavens, how much more can this family take?

Catherine’s sister, Marie Savoie, had married Gabriel Chiasson, and they had moved to Beaubassin where she died sometime after her youngest child was born in 1711, and the 1714 census. There seemed to be regular travel between the Acadian colonies, so I’m sure Catherine eventually heard the sad news and grieved her sister’s passing.

Daughter Anne Levron married Pierre Benoit about 1713.

Daughter Jeanne Levron married Augustin Comeau on Feb. 12, 1714.

Then, the unthinkable happened. Catherine’s husband, Francois Levron, died at midsummer, on June 23, 1714. I wonder if his death was sudden or if he had been ill. He was about 53, so not elderly by any means.

In the 1714 census, obviously taken after his death, Catherine is found living in the middle of six Girouard family members who live in the Girouard Village, just down the road from both Emmanuel Hebert and Rene Forest. This is the upriver location where they are found in the 1698 census, where Marie is living in 1701, and where her son was living in 1725. Why is this family found here or near here repeatedly.

However, Catherine’s son-in-law, Clement Vincent is still living “near the fort” on the census, near Rene Doucet and the Grange families again. Probably on Francois Levron’s land. Why is Catherine Savoie not living with them, or with her other married children?

Why is Catherine living in the midst of the Girouard family, near but not in the midst of the Hebert and Forest families, with her three unmarried children consisting of two sons and a daughter? In 1714, those three children would have been 22, 18, and 14. Catherine is about 53 years old and has no livestock and no land. How is she living? What is she eating? Who is feeding her children? Her two sons are old enough to work on the neighbors’ farms. Is that why they are living there? Why are they not living on and farming their own land?

So many questions!

In January of 1716, Catherine’s son, Jean-Baptiste Levron married Francoise La Bauve. Whose family lives almost directly across the river. Francois Levron is listed as deceased, of course, but Catherine is not.

On the thirteenth day of January, in the year 1716, we, the undersigned, declare to whom it may concern that we, Jean Baptiste Levron and Françoise Labaume
of this parish, and François Labauve, father of the said Labauve, and her mother, Marie Rimbaud, raise no objection to the proposed future marriage of our aforementioned children, Jean Baptiste Levron, son of the late François Levron and Catherine Savoye, residents of this parish, and Françoise La Bauve, daughter of Noël La Bauve and Marie Rimbaut, currently also residing in this parish.

On August 11, 1722, in the marriage entry of Magdelaine Levron and Jean de La Bauve, Francois Levron and Catherine Savoye are both described in exactly the same way. Francois is noted as deceased, and Catherine is simply listed as the mother. This leads me to believe that Catherine is probably still living, given that Francois is described as deceased. Little is known about the newlywed couple other than one child was born on December 11, 1723 in Grand Pre, which means they probably settled there immediately after they married. Catherine would not have known this grandchild, although she may have received word that the baby was born.

At some point, Joseph Levron left home and married Rose Denise Veronneau on Sept. 13, 1722 in Boucherville, Quebec. Catherine may never have known of this marriage, or whatever happened to her son. I’m guessing that Joseph was gone by the 1714 census, because he’s not accounted for. Was he one of the crew members of Pierre Baptiste, the friendly local privateer who recruited Acadian boys?

I was hoping to be able to narrow the dates of Catherine’s death based on her serving as Godmother to some of her grandchildren, but she is not listed for any grandchild. She might be listed for other children in the community, but Godparents and witnesses to events are not indexed in the Nova Scotia archive records. Perhaps having siblings or younger people as Godparents was the tradition, since they were more likely to be able to step in and raise a child should something happen to the parents.

Catherine’s Death

What we know about Catherine’s death is held in her son’s death record.

His death record continues on the next page.

Catherine’s youngest son, Pierre Levron never married and died in the home of Pierre Gaudet (Godet) on January 21, 1725, where he was listed as a domestic. Witnesses were his uncle Germain Savoye and Pierre Godet. His father is listed as Francois Levron, deceased, and Catherine Savoye, who is not listed as deceased by the archives translation.

However, based on an independent translation, both of Pierre’s parents are listed as deceased, and there’s more.

On the twenty-first of the month of January, 1725, was buried in the cemetery of Haut-de-Rivière, in my absence, the body of Pierre Levron, about thirty years old, son of Sieur François Levron, resident of Port Royal in Acadia, and of Catherine Savoye, his father and mother (both) deceased, (he died) the previous day after having confessed, in the house of Pierre Godet also…

(page 2)

…resident of Port Royal, in whose service he had been a servant. In witness of which I have signed, René Charles de Breslay, missionary priest, curate of the parish of St. Jean Baptiste and grand vicar of Monseigneur the Bishop of Québec, after having held a service for the repose of his soul and performed the burial ceremonies of his body at Port Royal on the 26th of the said month, in the presence of the said Pierre Godet and Germain Savoye, also residents of Port Royal and his uncle, who declared they did not know how to sign when requested to do so according to ordinance. R. C. De Breslay, missionary.

Note that the cemetery of Haut-de-Rivière would translate to “upper river cemetery,” meaning he was buried at St. Laurent. I feel good about that, becuase I know he had family nearby, maybe even his parents – or at least Catherine.

There were two Pierre Godets (Gaudet), two years apart, both named the same and born to the same parents. They also married Blanchard sisters, whose parents lived at BelleIsle. Pierre Godet the older, known as Pierre the elder, lived in Beaubassin in 1714 and signed a document there in August of 1722, so the Pierre in the 1725 record would have been Pierre the younger.

His father, Denis Godet, had established the Village des Gaudet in what is now the town of Bridgetown, even further upriver, amassing significant land across the river from Rene Forest and the Heberts.

In 1693, Denis Godet still owned his 20 arpents of land, but by 1698, Denis is still living, but the land was listed in Pierre’s name.

This 1733 map, drawn just a few years after Pierre Levron died, shows Gaudet Village where he would have lived. The houses were scattered aong the ridge of what is today Bridgetown.

Given his holdings, at age 71, Pierre Godet could probably have used a domestic servant, and as a respected community member, he would also have stood in for the priest, hearing Pierre Levron’s death-bed confession.

It’s possible that Pierre Godet was Pierre Levron’s godfather, although we will never know because the early parish records were destroyed by the English. However, that could be one reason why Pierre Levron was living with Pierre Godet. Pierre probably went to live in the Godet home when his mother died.

Please note that the designation of “Sieur” for Francois Levron, which translates to “Sir,” doesn’t necessarily mean royalty or nobility, but is an indication of respect equivalent to the English “Sir,” indicating someone that is well-respected within the community, and perhaps of social standing with a particularly respected trade such as a merchant or professional of some type.

As a final confirmation that Catherine was deceased, her daughter Elizabeth Levron remarried to Etienne Comeau in 1730, and both of Elizabeth’s parents are referenced as deceased.

Lack of Records

Why is Catherine’s death and burial record missing from the parish records? Wouldn’t I love to know that answer!!

For some reason, many deaths and burials were not recorded, or were recorded and are lost today. Was there a second register someplace – may be a book traditionally used for the St. Laurent Chapel?.

In a chart from page 73 in a pdf file from La Society historique acadienne, published in French, we find a tally of the total burials recorded in the existing parish registers.

It’s apparent that many deaths are omitted. For example, the years between 1706 and 1712, inclusive, have 16, 11, 14, 24, 16, 3, and 10, respectively. The priest had been kidnapped and taken to Boston in 1711, which shows 3 burials. The priest’s absence explains that drop. He did attempt to catch up when he returned.

Relative to Catherine, 1722 has 5 burials, 1723 has 1, 1724 has 5, and 1725 has 9. The numbers spike in 1727, with 23.

Based on this information, combined with the other records telling us that Catherine was alive in mid-August 1722, but deceased in January 1725 when her son died, I’d say Catherine probably died in 1723. It looks like the “least normal” year in terms of burials.

What we can say with certainty is that Catherine’s death occurred sometime between August 11, 1722 and January 20, 1725 when she was about 60 years old, or maybe a few years older. For all we know, Catherine may have also gone to live with the Godet family as a domestic after Francois’s death in 1714, and before her own death.

Catherine’s Children’s Lives

I was hoping to further narrow Catherine’s death by her grandchildren’s baptisms. Sometimes grandparents serve as a Godmother. Catherine was never found as Godmother for any of her grandchildren. Several were born prior to her death, between 1722 and 1725, so she would have been present at the baptisms in Port Royal.

How many grandchildren did Catherine know? Surely, as she aged and her own children established their adult lives, she would have taken solace and found joy in her grandchildren. She probably enjoyed watching them as their parents worked on the farms and in the fields.

Perhaps Catherine prepared food and baked bread in the Acadian ovens that were located outside every home as her grandchildren played nearby while their parents shored up dykes, planted and harvested grains, and worked with the livestock.

Where were Catherine’s children, and what was going on in their lives?

• Catherine’s oldest son, Jacques Levron, was born about 1677 and married Marie Doucet in January of 1710.

In total, they had about 12 children, 8 of whom are known, meaning 2 died young, within Catherine’s lifetime.

In 1714, Jacques traveled on the vessel La Marie Joseph to Île Royale, today’s Cape Breton Island, to look at land. The land is very different there – not sandy or tidal marsh, but rocky. Farming techniques from Port Royal and the Annapolis River Valley wouldn’t work on Cape Breton Island. Jacques chose not to settle there and returned to Annapolis Royal, where he died before 1746. His daughter, born in March of 1716 died three months later, which would have brought Catherine immense grief. It appears that they lost a child in 1728 and 1735, but Catherine was gone by then, embracing them on the other side of the veil.

• Daughter Madeleine or Magdelaine Levron, born about 1682, married Clement Vincent about 1698.

In total, they had 14 children, of which 7 died young, within Catherine’s lifetime.

Madeleine lost at least her first three children, Catherine’s first three grandchildren. Both women would have been devastated. Given that they lived next door, Catherine would assuredly have been present and probably assisting at their births. There are no parish records before 1702. Madeleine’s first child who lived was born in 1704.

Catherine and Madeleine must both have heaved a huge sigh of relief, assuming the earlier babies died near birth. Of course, without modern medicine and treatments, death was never far away, always skulking for a soul to capture.

Madeleine lost other babies in about 1711 and 1717. Given that there is no baptism or burial record, they may have been stillborn. Another died in 1719, just days old, and in 1722, 13 months old. Children baptized in both 1709 and 1719 listed Abraham Bourg as having provisionally baptized the babies in lieu of the priest, so that confirms that they lived across from Port Royal. It may also suggest that the babies were weak or sick, and they couldn’t wait for the priest.

Madeleine died in 1752 in Pisiquid, today’s Truro, where they apparently settled between 1726 and 1727, probably after Catherine died.

• Daughter Anne Levron was born about 1684 and married Pierre Benoit, a soldier, about 1713. He became an officer, merchant and innkeeper in Louisbourg, where they lived. It may have been Anne and Pierre that her brother, Jacque Levron, visited in 1714.

We only have records of two children, although Anne almost assuredly had more.

Given that Anne’s first known child, Anne, was born in 1718, she must have lost either two or three earlier children. Anne, the child, died at age 15 in 1733 in Louisbourg, just two weeks after her mother. The second living child, Marie Anne, was born in May of 1725, which infers that either several children are unknown, or died between 1718 and 1725.

Anne and Pierre would have left Port Royal not long after their marriage, given that the fort at Louisbourg was founded in 1713, which probably broke Catherine’s heart. Catherine would not have been able to share in her daughter’s joys or grief. She would have been unable to comfort Anne, even if word did eventually trickle back to Port Royal about the residents of Louisbourg.

Catherine’s daughter, Anne, died on January 5, 1733, in the midst of a smallpox outbreak that took the lives of 200 people in Louisbourg, including Anne and her namesake daughter.

They would have been laid to rest in the cemetery which is unmarked today, but located in this field by the bay.

• Daughter Marie Levron was born about 1686 and married Jean Garceau in 1703, a soldier at the garrison who may well have fought with her father.

Marie’s life was shaped by tragedy. In total, she had about 15 children, of which 6 died young, and 7 died within Catherine’s lifetime.

Based on a gap in the records, Marie lost a child in about 1705 or 1706, and another in 1709. Her husband, Jean, died in 1711, and Marie remarried to Alexandre Richard at Christmas that year. Unfortunately, Marie lost more children in 1714, 1716, 1722, and 1725. Additionally, we have nothing after their births for Claude born in 1715 and Isabelle, born in 1723, who may have passed about the same time their grandmother, Catherine.

Less than half, only 7 of Marie’s children grew to adulthood.

Catherine never stood as Godmother, but would have attended their baptisms, praying for a good future for them, then stood beside the graves to bury all but one or two of those grandchildren.

• Daughter Elizabeth (Isabelle) Levron was born about 1690, the same year that all of the homes in Port Royal were burned by the English. We don’t know if her birth was before, during, or after the terrifying incursion. She married Michel Picot in 1705, then Yves Yvon Maucaire in 1712, followed by Etienne Comeau in 1730.

Elizabeth survived the Acadian’s worst nightmare – the expulsion in 1755 where they were forced to walk down the snow-cover wharf, leaving everythign behind, and board  overcrowded ships for God-knows-where.

The same wharf within view of her childhood home across the river.

Many did not survive, but Elizabeth wound up in Massachusetts where she was last found in the census on August 14, 1763. She would have been 73 years old and died sometime thereafter. 

In total, Elizabeth had only 5 known children, but she clearly would have given birth to more. Based on what we do know, she probably brought about 14 babies into the world.

Her first child’s birth wasn’t recorded until two years after her wedding, so I’d wager that her first child died in 1704, a year after she married. It wasn’t uncommon to lose the first baby, especially with a difficult birth.

Elizabeth probably lost her third baby in 1706, and another in 1709. We know that Port Royal experienced a “pestilence” in 1709, following a severe winter and the burned homes the year before, but it was reportedly confined mostly to the fort and surrounding area.

Elizabeth’s husband, Michel, died between February and November of 1711, when Elizabeth’s son, Michael was born on November 13^th, 1711. At his baptism in February of 1712, his mother had remarried three weeks earlier, and of course, his father was listed as deceased. I suspect his father was already deceased when Michel was born.

Some kind of Hell was going on in Acadia in 1711.

This makes me wonder if both Elizabeth’s and Marie’s husbands met the same fate – possibly as a result of the 1710 battle when the French lost Acadia to the English. An even more likely possibility is that they perished in June, 1711, in or as a result of the Battle of Bloody Creek.

Catherine would have comforted Elizabeth after the deaths of her babies and first husband, Michel.

Elizabeth had three known children by Yves, but she probably lost one, if not two children before her next child was baptized in 1715. Elizabeth apparently lost another child in 1717, and three more before her next child’s birth in 1726.

Sadly, there is nothing more known about the child born in 1715 or 1726, so it’s likely that they died as well, meaning that Elizabeth only had three children who lived. Of those, one was deported with Elizabeth to Massachusetts, one died before the deportation, and the death of her son was after 1735 but when is uncertain.

Yves died on June 16, 1727, and she remarried again in November of 1730 to Etienne Comeau, but no children were born to that marriage.

Of Elizabeth’s children who perished, Catherine would have been right there, standing with her sobbing daughter, burying 10 children and Elisabeth’s first husband.

The 17-teens were so filled with tragedy and grief for this family.

• Son Joseph “dit Letayer” Levron was born about 1691 and married Rose Denise Veronneau in September 1722 in Quebec, so Catherine, would not have known his wife or children. We know Catherine was still alive in August of 1722, but gone by January 1725, and she may or may not have been aware of Joseph’s marriage.

In total, Joseph had three known children, two of whom may have been born before Catherine died, but there were assuredly more.

• Son Jean-Baptiste Levron was born about 1692, married Francoise LaBauve in 1716, and died before March 2, 1756. He would have been one of the three children living with Catherine in the 1714 census after Francois died.

In total, Jean-Baptiste had about 14 children, of which 6 died young, and one or two probably died within Catherine’s lifetime.

Jean-Baptiste and his wife lost a child in both 1721 and 1723. There is nothing more known about the child baptized in 1721, so she may have died before Catherine.

Jean-Baptiste and his family relocated to the settlement at Grand Pre between 1730 and 1737.

At least two children would have been born between those years, and another in 1741 – but we don’t know if the records are complete.

• Daughter Jeanne Levron dit Nantais was born about 1694 and married Augustin Comeau in February 1714. She died on January 19, 1751.

In total, Jeanne had about 15 children, of whom 5 died young.

Jeanne’s first child, Marie Josephe, was born three days after Christmas the same year that her parents married, but sadly, died when she was just 6, in July 1721.

Catherine would have known this child well and stood by her small grave, weeping, that hot July day. It’s gut-wrenching to lose any child, but the longer you know them, the more there is to grieve. Not just their future, but your shared memories and bonding moments as well.

Four more children were born to Jeanne before Catherine died, so she would have celebrated their baptisms and enjoyed watching them blossom in the Acadian sun.

Jeanne probably lost two more children between 1733 and 1734, and at least two more between 1735 and 1741. Three of her 11 children born in the 1720s and 1730s have no information beyond their birth, which could be because they were scooped up in the 1755 expulsion and survived elsewhere. Let’s hope.

• Son Pierre Levron was born about 1696 and died on January 20, 1725, in the middle of the winter, which is how we bracketed Catherine’s death. He would have been one of the three children living with Catherine in the 1714 census.
• Catherine’s youngest child, Madeleine or Magdelaine Levron was born in 1700 and married Jeane La Bauve on August 11^th, 1722, which is the last date we know for certain that Catherine was living. Madeleine was the daughter living with Catherine in the 1714 census, and the La Bauve family lived across the river, just above BelleIsle. Madeleine and Jeane La Bauve left shortly after their marriage for Grand Pre where their first child, a son, was born on December 11, 1723.

If Catherine was still living, she wouldn’t have known about Madeleine’s first baby until word filtered down to Port Royal.

We know this child was baptized in this church and survived to marry, but we don’t know anything more about Madeleine, her husband, or any additional children.

Did they die in Grand Pre, and rest in unmarked graves in the cemetery there?

Or were they deported from these shores, now marked with this iconic cross?

Part of me wonders if Catherine packed up and went with them to Grand Pre, and that’s why we don’t have a death record for her. Having considered that possibility, I doubt it because it seems unlikely that she would have left her unmarried son, Pierre, along with the rest of her family, behind.

I wonder if Pierre was disabled in some way, which is why, after Catherine’s death, he was living with neighbors as a domestic when he died.

Actual Timeline

There are two lenses with which to view these events. One way is through their individual stories, and another is via an actual timeline.

Stories are a lot more personal, and the timeline is starkly black-and-white. We need both perspectives.

The stories relate to individual people, but the timeline shows Catherine’s life, in order – or sometimes, disorder. It’s much easier to see, by year, what was actually happening.

We can’t do this well for our Acadian ancestors who lived before the census and parish records existed, but Catherine’s life spanned those years. Her early life was before parish records, but her children’s lives and grandchildren’s births are often found in the church books.

I know I’m just a glutton for punishment, but I had to create a spreadsheet timeline for Catherine.

This helps me “visit” with her during her life as she lived it. It also helps illuminate possible cause and effect. Without parish records, we don’t have a lot of information before 1702, although we can infer a lot by the various censuses and associated history.

Even so, we have a total of about 290 known “events” – most of which Catherine would have made a trip to church, or to the cemetery, or both.

Of course, that was in addition to “normal” church services, whatever that would have meant in an Acadia that was often either unstable or engaged in warfare. Not to mention that few people lived IN Port Royal. Catherine grew up on the North side of the river at or near BelleIsle, moved downriver across from the fort when she married, lived there through being burned out at least four times, if not five, then spent (at least) her sunset years back upriver, but on the south side.

The Girouard marsh and dykes overlook the Savoie lands and those of other BelleIsle families. Depending on which way you look, you could probably also see the St. Laurent Mass House. It’s no wonder Catherine’s family was buried here.

There’s still a lot that we don’t know, but viewing this timeline helps us piece together and understand more about what was happening in Catherine’s life day-to-day, month-to-month and year-to-year.

Our timeline begins with Catherine’s birth and ends around the time of her death.

I’ve color coded groups of people and events:

• Catherine’s parents, aunts, uncles and siblings are in bold black
• Catherine’s children are in bold blue
• Catherine’s grandchildren are purple
• Births are green
• Mrriages are magenta
• Deaths are teal

Although the births of nieces and nephews involve Catherine’s siblings, I have not color coded those.

Some events are told directly. For example, females birth surnames are given in the census, with ages in many cases. Later, we can match the names of children with marriages and the births of their own children. Families can be reliably reconstructed in this manner. Other events are revealed indirectly, like the gaps in the census that reveals that a child, or maybe two, were born and died. This could have been one event, with a stillbirth or even multiple miscarriages, or it could have been separate events, with a birth, joyful baptism, and later, a death – all happening with no evidence other than that telltale gap.

This exercise revealed, among other things, that Catherine’s older sister, Marie’s husband, Jacques Triel, died fairly young. Marie, never remarried, lived to age 84, and outlived all but one of her children. Only one child grew to adulthood.

Catherine’s niece, Marguerite Corporon, is extremely interesting. Every family has a wild child – in some way or other. In fact, we may have been that person in our family. But we need to be careful about rushing to judgement about Marguerite who had at least two and possibly three illegitimate children, meaning children born outside of a marriage between the parents. Illegitimate births were extremely rare in Acadia – let alone three times with the same female.

According to Gisa Hynes, writing Some Aspects of the Demography of Port Royal, 1650-1755  for the University of New Brunswick Journal, after analyzing the parish registers, 0.6 percent, or about one in 200 births, was illegitimate between 1702 and 1755, and almost no babies were born in the 9 months after the parents married. The influence of the Catholic church is reflected in the extremely low pre-marital conception rate.

Even more unusual in Marguerite’s case, the father of one of those children was a man who was married to a different woman whose also had a baby a month later.

I can only imagine the drama.

I feel incredibly badly for both women, truthfully. The wife clearly had no choice in the situation, and divorce simply didn’t exist. She went on to have more children with her husband.

We don’t know any of the circumstances surrounding Marguerite and how she became pregnant either the first, or succeeding, times. The event(s) may not have been consentual. And once a woman’s reputation is “ruined,” it’s extremely difficult for a female to dig herself out of that hole – one she may not have willingly put herself in.

Regardless, the situation was unfortunate – and was assuredly grapevile and gossip fodder for years, if not generations. Marguerite did marry an Englishman when she was about 40, a decade after her third child was born. I hope she lived her best life in whatever way possible. It’s not like she had the option of moving away or visiting an “Auntie” someplace else, and starting over.

Marguerite’s challenges were interwoven with the larger issues taking place in Acadia at the same time.

Acadia Changed

Life changed dramatically in Acadia in 1710, meaning the English seizure of Port Royal, protection of Acadians only within three miles, the Battle of Bloody Creek in 1711, combined with the edict that Acadians had to leave. I’d wager that two of Catherine’s sons-in-law, both former soldiers, were involved in the resistance that followed.

Now, considering this additional information, finding the family upriver, beyond that 3-mile line, in 1714 and later makes a LOT of sense.

Catherine may have lived long enough to welcome her first great-grandchild in July of 1724, Yves Thibault. The next generation, all of whom were deported if they didn’t join Catherine in the graveyard first, had begun.

We don’t know where Catherine rests for eternity, but it could well be here in an undocumented cemetery on her family’s land.

_____________________________________________________________

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Marie Levron was born about 1686 in or near Port Royal, Nova Scotia, to Francois “dit Nantois” Levron and Catherine Savoie. Levron is sometimes spelled Leveron, Leuron and other ways as well.

In 1686, we first find Marie Levron listed as age 1 in the census, along with her parents and three older siblings: Jacques age 9, Magdelaine, age 5, and Anne, age 2.

This probably means that Marie was actually born in 1686, given that her sibling is age 2, and children were generally born 18 months to two years apart. Later censuses also suggest that her birth was in 1686 as well.

In 1690, New England militia brutally attacked Port Royal, overtook the fort, plundered and burned the town, desecrated the church, and killed their livestock. Marie would have been too young to fully realize what was going on, but might have been terrorized by the attack itself. Assuredly, she would have been affected by the magnitude of the destruction. Given the level of trauma involved, this attack might have formed Marie’s earliest memories. Their home was probably burned, given their proximity to the fort.

Not only would her family have been immediately and directly affected, but this event was a turning point in English and Acadian relations. Any trust and goodwill between the two had been permanently destroyed.

In the 1693 census, Marie Levron was age 7 and was living at home with the same family members plus three new siblings: Elizabeth, age 3, Joseph, age 2, and Jean Baptiste, age 1. The gap between Marie and Elizabeth suggests she had an additional sibling born about 1688 who died between birth and the 1693 census.

This sibling may have died at birth when Marie was too young to realize what was taking place. Or, the child may have died just before the census when Marie was 7 and she had known them for years. It’s certainly possible that the child perished in the 1690 depredations when the English burned so many homes.

In 1698, Marie Leveron was age 12, living with her family, who had grown with the addition of two siblings – Jeanne, age 4, and Pierre, age 2. Her sister, Magdeleine, age 16, had recently married Clement Vincent and was living next door.

In 1700, Marie Leuron (Levron) was 14 and living with her family, but two of her siblings are missing. Jeanne and Pierre are not listed. Normally, this would mean that they had died, but that’s not true in this case.

Jeanne would have been 6 in 1700. She married in 1714, so she clearly had not died.

Pierre would have been 4. He is not found again until his death in 1725, when he died in the home of Pierre Godet as a domestic.

Where were these two children in 1700, and why was Pierre later working as a domestic?

Additionally, Marie’s sister, Magdeleine, also recorded as Madelaine, who was married in the 1698 census, is recorded as once again living with her parents. Her husband is not found. This leads me to question the accuracy of the census, because her husband, Clement Vincent, didn’t die, and they went on to have a dozen children. The eldest was born about 1701. Perhaps Magdeleine was visiting her parents when the census-taker recorded the family members.

In 1701, Marie Levrin, age 15, was listed as a servant in the home of Emanuel Hebert and his wife Andree Brun. Marie was younger than four of their five children at home, and one year older than their son, Alexandre, so she wasn’t living there to help with young children.

In 1698, Emanual Hebert was listed as the neighbor of Francois Levron, Clement Vincent and Rene Forest.

Servants were very unusual in Acadia, with only five listed individually. The total shows 17 servants in Port Royal, but we are left in the dark about the identity of the rest of those servants.

Marie’s parents and family are missing from the census.

It’s possible that they had departed for either Les Mines or Beaubassin and been missed in the census, or they were literally in transit. The family would have known the Emanual Hebert family well, so perhaps, for some unknown reason, Marie stayed behind, living with the Hebert’s as a servant.

If they went someplace, they were back by 1703.

In 1703, Marie was probably counted with her family in the census in Port Royal, although her parents had six daughters and four sons at the time, and the census only reflects four girls and two boys.

On November 20, 1703, Marie married Jean Garceau, a soldier at Fort Anne, and he was not listed in the census, so the census was likely taken before the wedding.

On the 20th of November in the year one thousand seven hundred and three, I, a parish priest performing the curial functions in this parish, after the publication of the three banns on three consecutive Sundays, without any impediment having been found, united in matrimony, by words in the presence of our Holy Mother Church, Jean Garsseault, called Tranchemontagne, soldier of this garrison in the company of Duvernay, son of Pierre Garsseaux and Jaquette Soulard of the parish of St. René in the diocese of Poitiers, and Marie Levron, daughter of François Levron and Catherine Savoye, of this parish. And they declared that they could not sign, but made their mark, along with those witnesses whose names I have signed below on the same day and year as above.

Marie was married by the Priest, Felix Pain, with the commander of Fort Anne serving as a witness.

The nuptials would have been performed either in the chapel at the Fort if it had been rebuilt by that time, in the rectory, or the commander’s residence in either the fort or on Hogg Island. The fort layout a few years later, in 1710, above, is from the Fort Anne Museum, at Fort Anne in Annapolis Royal.

As newlyweds, Jean and Marie would have wanted to establish a homestead, a place to live and raise their children for the rest of their lives. A little farm they could cultivate. They might well have built a small home on her father’s land.

Marie’s first baby, Pierre Garceau, was born on October 22, 1704, 11 months after they were married. His parents are listed as Jean Garssau dit Tranche Montagne and Marie Levron. Pierre Consolin, bombardier, and Anne Levron (mistranscribed as Curone), Marie’s older sister, were Godparents.

Since the 1690 attack, Fort Anne had fallen into disrepair to the point of being unable to defend itself, or anything else, for that matter. In 1702, a new, highly qualified engineer, Pierre-Paul de Labat had arrived, and by 1704, the dilapidated fort was under construction.

Concurrently, the English were chronically breathing down the neck of Acadia, so they desperately needed the protection of the new fort.

Financial and political issues with France delayed the rehabilitation of the fort which meant that Port Royal and the homesteads along the Riviere Dauphin, including where Marie and her small family lived, were exposed.

Both the soldiers and townspeople were struggling to complete the fort – but the soil and stone for the new earthworks and many ramparts all had to be hand-carried.

France, however, had essentially disappeared from the equation. No supplies arrived, and neither did money nor reinforcements.

(c) National Maritime Museum; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Needing protection, Port Royal had little choice but to partner with privateers, a nicer name for pirates – well, at least the pirates that were on your side. Not only did they protect Port Royal, they sought and took English ships as prizes, and deposited captured English sailors at Port Royal where they could be used in future negotiations.

1707 – A Baby and a War

It’s puzzling that Marie Levron and Jean Garceau are not found in the 1707 census, but then again, neither are Marie’s parents. Jean was still a soldier, so they would have had to live near the fort.

Marie welcomed her second child, Daniel Garceau, on April 8, 1707. Interestingly, Monsieur de Subercase, Governor of the Province, and Dame Marie Mius, wife of Monsieur Duvivier, a French officer under Subercase, were Godparents. Jean Garceau was a soldier under Subercases’s command.

The two and a half year gap between Pierre and Daniel suggests that a child died in 1706, but there is no church record of such. Of course, the records may not be complete, or the child may have been born prematurely and never baptized.

A month after Daniel’s birth, the English launched an attack on Port Royal. Marie must have been utterly terrified.

To the best of our knowledge, Marie and Jean were living directly across the river from Port Royal.

All men were on a hair-trigger notice. Based on the reports provided by the English hostages, Port Royal was anticipating an attack. It was only a matter of when. Sure enough, in May of 1707, it arrived.

Messengers were sent to notify and gather the male residents living nearby in order to oppose the advance of the enemy on both sides of the river.

The British had landed near Goat Island, and more than 320 men were advancing through the woods on both banks. Port Royal was under attack.

The battle was brutal. Thankfully, Governor Subercase, who was quite competent, was in charge and led both the soldiers and Acadian men in battle.

The Acadian forces met the English face to face and engaged in hand-to-hand combat.

The English could not take the fort as they had anticipated, so they resorted to guerrilla warfare in the woods and along the river. They burned buildings and homes, laying waste to all of Port Royal.

Placard photos taken in the Museum at Fort Anne.

The English retreated, then returned again in August, but were once again repelled 11 days later.

However, the worst was yet to come – and everyone was on pins and needles.

The English Return

Subercase knew that time was limited, so he scrounged for as many additional hands as could be found to assist with the fort completion.

The privateers captured 35 more English ships and brought 470 additional English captives to Port Royal. The fort was not prepared for this many captives, and Spotted Fever, now called typhus, ravaged the hostages and the community. Typhus is caused by poor sanitation in extremely crowded conditions and is spread by fleas and body lice. More than 50 died.

Word came that a “great force” was being gathered at Boston. In preparation, Subercase added 150 Indians and 75 militia from Grand Pre. They expected an attack in 1708, and when that didn’t happen, in 1709.

The only thing that saved Port Royal in 1709 was that the English fleet had been redirected for service in the Spanish War. However, Port Royal didn’t know that.

Marie must have been a nervous wreck. She had two very small children. I think she lost a child in the spring of 1709, but we’ll never know.

1710 – Another Baby and the English Arrive

Around June 1709, Marie became pregnant for their third child.

Joseph Garceau, was born on March 20, 1710 and baptized three days later. Joseph Levron, his uncle, and Marie de Breuil stood as Godparents.

Fortunately, the fort had been mostly completed, and while Port Royal certainly could have used reinforcements from France, at least they weren’t entirely helpless now. The fort was ready – or at least as ready as it could be.

There were new barracks and a new powder magazine.

Additionally, trees and brush had been cleared from the waterfront so that the English couldn’t use it for cover.

When Marie’s baby was just six months old, and a month before her oldest child’s 6^th birthday, the first few ships of the English fleet sailed up the river and into view. Not a few English ships like had happened in 1707, but the entire English fleet consisting of more than 35 ships and 3400 soldiers would arrive within a few days – almost three times the entire population of all of Acadia. Port Royal only had about 450 residents and of that, only 100 or so were men.

The English came prepared this time, with a full siege battle plan.

Complete with a labeled map.

To make matters worse for the Acadians, the abandonment of Port Royal and the rest of Acadia by France had created morale issues among the soldiers, which, in turn, led to a high desertion rate. Many of the deserters had joined the English forces and provided them with valuable intelligence.

No pay and reduced rations will do that to you. A few soldiers, like Jean, had married local women, but most had not and wanted nothing more than to escape – one way or another.

Marie’s husband, Jean, had to leave his wife and their children, wherever they lived, or wherever he secreted them to keep them safe. He donned his uniform as a soldier, facing incredible and unwinnable odds as the English attacked.

He had to know he was facing death. Marie knew that too, no matter what he said. I can only imagine their tearful goodbye as he departed their home to defend Port Royal from within Fort Anne in the face of legions of English soldiers. He must have felt like a sitting duck!

What is it like to stare death in the face?

What is it like to leave your wife and small children to their fate at the hands of enemy soldiers?

We don’t know exactly what happened. If Jean wasn’t in the fort as the English warships sailed up the river, he would have hurriedly taken his assigned defensive station within the fort before the gates were closed.

Maybe he hurried his wife and children into the fort with him.

Fortunately, the fort’s master engineer,  Pierre-Paul DeLabat drew a 1710 map.

He labeled the Nantois, or Levron, homestead, on the river across from Hogg Island.

This location of the Levron home might explain why Marie fell in love with a soldier who was stationed right across the river.

On the 1707/1708 map drawn by Delabat, the Nantois home is shown directly across the river from Hogg Island, just slightly upriver from the fort.

If Jean was in the fort, he didn’t have the opportunity to tell his wife goodbye. I don’t know exactly where Marie’s family was, although Labat was quite specific. The Levron family may have already moved elsewhere, anticipating the onslaught. That home had assuredly been burned out in 1707 and had to rebuild.

I hope Marie was able to make her way home to her parents who lived on the north side of the River, and perhaps to her mother’s parents several miles further east.

On September 24^th, at about 2:15 in the afternoon, the first ships were sighted by sentries near Goat Island.

As more and more ships arrived from the west, a warning would have rapidly traveled along the river valley to alert the residents.

At least 35 ships anchored in front of the fort, blocking the harbour. A sea of sails swayed back and forth, striking terror in the Acadian residents and the few French soldiers, alike.

How could 300 men, which included a few visitors, possibly fend off 3400 English soldiers?

More and more ships sailed into the harbour – none of them French.

Acadia would not surrender without a fight.

By October 5^th, all of the English fleet had arrived, but the Acadians had no way to know there weren’t more.

If Marie was at her parent’s home, the river in front of their homestead would have been full of English ships. Marie and others probably continued to anxiously watch the horizon to the west for yet more English warships to appear.

I’m sure they appeared endless.

Acadian women and children had been gathered in the fort and secreted in the dank, dark, subterranean “black hole” for safety.

We don’t know if Marie was among them.

Once the only door to the Black Hole is shut, there is no light and no circulation. I’d truly have to fear imminently for my life to willingly be locked in here.

Marie may have sheltered in the black hole.

Or perhaps she had made her way upstream and was hiding there with family members, or in the mountains that line the river valley on the north side of the River, behind the Levron homestead.

On October 6^th, the English came ashore, landing troops both north and south of the Fort, and Port Royal.

The Acadians tried to fire upon the English ships, but their cannons couldn’t reach that distance across the river. The Acadians were both outnumbered and outgunned.

Aside from her own safety, Marie would have been worried sick about her husband. Was he safe? Was he injured? Was he dead? Where was he?

Could she see anything?

Fort Anne and Port Royal, including the area across the river, were completely surrounded. The Acadians resorted to guerrilla-style warfare, dressing not in military uniforms, but in skins and clothing like the Mi’kmaq, shooting at the English red-coats from the woods and what few structures remained.

The English burned everything they could. Homes, farms, fields, barn. Burned it all! Again!

After four days of resistance, Governor Subercase knew they were all about to be slaughtered. If you live, you can fight another day. From within the fort, which may have been where Marie was sheltering, Subercase sent a French officer with a white parley flag to the English camp.

Negotiations ensued for two days as the English continued to advance upon the fort. When they reached a distance of 300 feet, people within the fort could hear the voices of the English soldiers. Now within very close range, the English opened fire upon the fort and lobbed grenades inside the walls.

A hellish firestorm of a battle ensued. History speaks to the thunderous discharge of cannons and artillery raining down on the brave men holding the fort against insurmountable odds.

The women and families secreted in the pitch black Black Hole would have huddled together and prayed without cease. They would have felt every single explosion – not knowing if it was the literal end.

The English prisoners, also held in the fort, were probably equally as terrified, given that they might well be killed by either side – either intentionally or accidentally. They were probably praying too.

Then, silence.

Deafening silence.

The English fire ceased. The Acadians stood in the eerie silence, confused and wondering what was happening.

Had their prayers been answered?

Had, by some miracle, the French fleet arrived in the harbour?

Had they, by the Grace of God, been saved?

Time stood still as the Acadians waited. Anticipation had never seemed so long.

What were the people in the black hole thinking?

Were they anticipating the best, or the worst?

Maybe both?

Were they whispering, or silent?

What was happening?

And why?

By the end of the day on October 12^th, negotiations were complete.

The Acadians would not be massacred. Their families would not be harmed.

The English prisoners would be released, and British boats were sent upriver to retrieve Acadian women and children who were hidden there – and to spread the word.

The entire episode lasted for 19 excruciatingly long days. On October 16^th, the key to the fort was handed from the French officers to the English, and the French soldiers and Acadian men marched out of the fort through the gate with their dignity and little else.

Surrender terms included provisions to protect the Acadians. “Inhabitants within the gun range of the fort,” which was three miles, could remain in undisturbed possession of their land for up to two years if they wished, provided they were willing to swear an oath to the British Crown. Then they were required to leave.

Those at a greater distance than three miles were tolerated or allowed to remain on sufferance.

French soldiers were returned to France on British warships.

The local priest only recorded one death during the battle, a child who died on October 14^th during the siege. I have a hard time believing only one person died. Two soldier-age men died not long thereafter, so they could have been injured during the battle.

Jean Garceau was a soldier. He had married an Acadian woman. Where was he?

Where Was Marie’s Husband?

When the fort fell, the priest, Father Durand, tried to reunite the Acadian settlers upriver, beyond the three-mile demarcation line. He attempted to protect the residents from the terms of capitulation that required that despised oath of allegiance to the English crown, an agreement that clearly would only have been made under duress.

The English were quite unhappy with Father Durand and considered him seditious. They took him prisoner in January of 1711 and sent him, as a captive, to Boston, with a few other unnamed Acadians.

Father Durand was ultimately released and returned to Acadia later in the year.

The last date before his capture that Father Durand performed any of his clerical duties was January 17, 1711. Father Durand once again appears in the parish registers on December 20^th where he begins catching up on baptisms and other official duties that had been neglected in his absence, given that he was the only priest in Port Royal.

After recording more pressing items, Father Durand made a blanket entry for several people who had died while he was in Boston – including Jean Garceau, although he is erroneously recorded as Joseph. There was no Joseph Garceau, except for Jean and Marie’s young son, who we know did not die, and there was also no date on the group entry. What it does say is that these people died during Father Durand’s absence while he was in Boston.

Now, Marie, at age 24, was a widow with three small children. How was she going to survive?

Marie Remarries

The day after Christmas, December 26^th, Father Durand married Marie Levron, widow of Jean Garceau, with Alexander Richard.

On the twenty-sixth day of December in the year 1711, I, the undersigned, acting in the role of parish priest, after three banns were published during parish masses, did join in marriage by mutual consent Alexandre Richard, son of the late Michel Richard and Jeanne Babin, and Marie Levron, daughter of François Levron and Catherine Savoye, widow of Jean Garceau, all of this parish. They declared that they did not know how to sign. In witness of which, I have signed on the above-mentioned day and year.

While that may not be her name and signature, it is Marie’s X, so she made that actual mark. The second mark is Alexandre’s.

The witnesses are Rene de Forest, and Rene Babinaut (sp?) along with Father Justinian Durand, officiating priest.

Rene may be an important clue, because he is a neighbor of Emanuel Hebert with whom Marie had lived as a servant. She would have known the family well. It’s also worth noting that Alexander Richard’s family lived in the area too.

Unfortunately, the Nova Scotia Archives doesn’t translate or index witnesses.

While we don’t know exactly when Jean died, Marie’s marriage just six days after the priest returned strongly suggests that Jean had been deceased for some time.

If Jean Garceau died shortly after Father Durand was captured in January of 1711, Marie would have been a widow for nearly a year.

When Marie remarried, she had three Garceau children. Pierre had just turned 7, Daniel, who was four-and-a- half, and Joseph, the baby, who was 21 months old. The baby would not have remembered Jean Garceau, and Daniel probably didn’t either.

Life With Alexander Richard

Marie’s second husband, Alexander Richard dit Boutin is somewhat confusing. His father had a son by the same name with both of his wives. While that sounds odd, especially if the first son lived, this is not the first time I’ve seen this phenomenon in Acadian families.

The Alexander Richard that Marie Levron married is the younger man, born around 1686 to Michel Richard and Jeanne Babin.

Alexander’s mother, a widow, had married Laurent Doucet, who lived at BelleIsle near the Savoie family.

The older Alexander Richard had died in 1709, so even without the detail in the parish record, we know unquestionably that Marie married the younger man.

Marie’s fourth child, and first child with Alexandre, Pierre Toussaint Richard, arrived on October 1, 1712, and was baptized the following day with Pierre Laure and Jeanne Doucet as Godparents.

Marie’s parents were getting older, and her father, Francois Levron, noted as ”about seventy years old,” was buried on June 23, 1714, according to the parish registers.

Marie, her mother, siblings and their families would have gathered that summer day to lay him to rest in the cemetery inside Fort Anne, probably where her husband, Jean Garceau rested as well. At peace, but with the protective barracks in the background.

The Acadian graves remain, but all are now unmarked. Whatever markers remained in 1755 were subsequently destroyed by the English.

Marie’s mother was noted in the 1714 census as “Widow Nantois, 2 sons and 1 daughter, living in the midst of the Girouard clan – so it’s entirely possible that they had moved upriver after they were burned out in 1707 and 1710. She actually had three unmarried sons, so one of them was missing from the census.

In the 1714 census, Alexander Richard is living with his wife and four sons beside Mathiew Doucet, very near the Julien Lore dit LaMontagne – not far east of Granville Ferry on the north side of the river – near the Leveron land. Of course, three of Alexander Richard’s four sons were his step-sons, but he raised the Garceau boys as his own. In fact, Marie’s youngest Garceau son, Joseph, often used the surname Richard, and sometimes Pierre used Alexandre’s dit name, Boutin.

Another two-and-a-half-year gap between children causes me to wonder if Marie lost a child in 1714.

Claude Richard was born on June 27, 1715, with Pierre Blanchard and Anne Robichaux, daughter of Alexandre Robichaux, as Godparents.

Three years between children nearly assures that a child was born and perished.

Marie Josephe Richard was born on June 17, 1718, and baptized the following day with Yves Maucaire and Marie LeBlanc as Godparents.

Marguerite Richard was born on May 1, 1720, and baptized two days later, with Alexandre Brossard and Marguerite Bourg, wife of Pierre Brossard, as Godparents.

Another three years between children. If Marie was actually losing every other child, she must have been filled with dread and anxiety with every pregnancy, especially every other pregnancy.

Isabelle Richard was born on May 14, 1723, and baptized two days later with René Doucet and Isabelle Levron as Godparents.

Isabelle Levron is Marie’s sister, who is also recorded in some records as Elizabeth.

On January 20, 1725, Marie’s 30-year-old brother, Pierre Levron died. Their father is noted as deceased, but their mother appears to still be living.

With nearly four years between Isabelle and Joseph, I’d wager at least one child was buried during this time. Sadly, without modern medical care, families anticipated losing half of their children. What a sad state of “normal.”

Marie’s youngest child, Joseph Richard was born on February 19, 1727, and baptized the following day with ”Pierre Garceau, son of the late Jean Garceau, and Marie Lor, daughter of the late Julien Lore,” standing as Godparents. Pierre was Joseph Richard’s half-brother.

If you’re scratching your head, thinking to yourself that Marie had a child named Joseph in 1710 with Jean Garceau, and now another Joseph in 1727 with Alexandre Richard – you’d be right. And yes, they were both alive in 1727.

Apparently Alexander having a same-name half-sibling didn’t deter him from doing the same with his own offspring.

Not Peaceful

Just for the record, in case we’re inclined to think that life was peaceful in Acadia after 1710 – it wasn’t.

Conflict with the English continued. First, the Acadians were required to leave in two years. Then, when they planned to depart, the English forbid it because they had come to realize that they had no prayer of feeding their own soldiers without the Acadians raising food for them.

Yet, the English continued to require a loyalty oath, and the Acadians just as adamantly continued to refuse for a variety of reasons. In 1720, some slight of hand resolved the oath issue for for the next 35 years. The Oath the Acadians signed was two pages – but only the first page was sent back to England. So, in essence, both parties got the conditions they required.

It wasn’t until 1720 that Acadians didn’t constantly live under threat of one kind or another. Until 1755, of course.

Marie’s Premature Death

Sadly, there is no happy ending to Marie’s story. No rocking great-grandchildren by the hearth or summers playing in the warm sunshine.

On August 1, 1727, Marie died just four and a half months after she gave birth to Joseph. The parish register tells us that Marie, the wife of Alexandre Richard, died on August 1^st and was buried the following day. Her husband and Louis Tibault, her nephew, were witnesses.

Unfortunately, Marie’s parents were not listed, which would have given us a clue about whether her mother was still living. We know her father died in 1714.

The family was most probably associated with the St. Laurent Church at BelleIsle, because Marie’s sister, Madelaine/Magdelaine Levron was married there in 1722, and it was much closer than Port Royal.

Marie was either buried beside the church there, or in the cemetery at Port Royal.

On that hot summer day, Marie’s nine children would have said goodbye to their mother in the little chapel and buried her in the churchyard outside, now lost to time in the woods on the right side of the river.

When Marie died, none of her children had yet married, and many were young.

• Pierre was 23
• Daniel was 20
• Joseph was 17
• Pierre Toussaint was almost 15
• Claude was almost 12, assuming he was alive
• Marie Josephe had just turned 9
• Marguerite was 7
• Isabelle was 4
• Joseph was only four and a half months old

What was baby Joseph to do without a mother? Someone had to feed him. Perhaps one of Marie’s sisters stepped in. Elizabeth/Isabelle had a baby in September of 1726, and Madeleine had a baby in October of 1726, which meant that both women would have been nursing babies when Joseph was in need. And, after all, they were her sisters and Joseph’s aunts.

Marie had probably already buried 4 or 5 children, mostly babies, along with her father and her first husband. Hopefully, she was buried near her children, all of whom passed too soon.

I can’t help but wonder if Marie’s death was an after-effect of or connected to Joseph’s birth.

Marie was only 40.

Who Raised Marie’s Children?

Who raised Marie’s children? Did her mother or perhaps a sister step in? If Marie knew how ill she was, or suspected that she was dying, that would have been the question foremost on her mind.

The purpose of Godparents is to raise the child in the event that the parents perish and cannot raise the child. In this case, only one parent died. Normally, what happens in cases like this is that the living parent quickly remarries to another individual who has lost their spouse. Clearly, in a small community, everyone already knew everyone else.

There’s absolutely no evidence that Alexandre ever remarried, and his occurred after the 1755 deportation – so he was single for a very long time.

Perhaps the marriages and other records of Marie’s children provide some clues.

• Pierre Garceau, also sometimes known as Pierre Boutin, married Agnes Doucet in 1728 and lived in Port Royal. Alexander Richard did not sign for him. They had eight children. Pierre disappears from records after he witnesses his daughter’s marriage in Annapolis Royal in 1750. His wife, Agnes Doucet, died in Connecticut in 1789, so if Pierre lived long enough to be deported, that’s likely where he ended up. He would have been 51 years old in 1755.
• Daniel Garceau married Anne Doucet about 1730 and lived near Annapolis Royal. No parish marriage record. They had 11 children. After the 1755 deportation, Daniel ended up in New York before making his way to Quebec.
• Joseph Garceau married Marie Philippe Lambert about 1732 and lived in Beaubassin. No parish marriage record found. They had seven children. During the Grand Derangement, aka, forced expulsion of the Acadians, Joseph was reportedly separated from his family and deported to Georgia, while his wife, Marie Lambert, and children sought refuge at Isle St. Jean before making their way to Quebec where the family was reunited.
• Pierre Touissant Richard married Marie Josephe Boudreau about 1732 and lived in Pisiguit. No marriage parish record found. They had six children. Pierre died at Port-la-Joye and was buried in 1751 on Isle St. John, today’s Prince Edward Island. His wife and children were deported to France in 1758 aboard the Duke William, landing in St. Malo, where one son died two days later, his wife died three days later and another son, 4 weeks later. Two additional children recovered, one living the rest of their life in France, and one eventually making it to Louisiana. One son’s wife and child made it to France, but his fate is unknown. The fate of the sixth child is unknown.
• Claude Richard’s fate is unknown, but he could have died young – perhaps before Marie’s untimely passing.
• Marie Josephe Richard married Paul Doiron in Annapolis Royal in 1738, with her father, Alexandre Richard, signing the parish register for her, so we know they were both still in or near Annapolis Royal in 1738. They had 11 children. Marie Josephe gave birth to a child in Pisiquit by 1747 and was on Ile St. Jean by 1752. By 1760, she was living in Saint-Etienne-de-Beaumont, just across the river from Quebec City in Canada, where she died in 1796. Five of her children succumbed to the smallpox epidemic that ravaged Quebec, and Quebec City in particular, in the winter of 1757-1758. Those children died on November 8, 1757, December 20^th, January 7^th , 8^th and 14^th, 1758, and were buried in the same cemetery as her sister, Marguerite’s children.
• Marguerite Richard married in 1745 in Port Royal to Jean Breau “of the Canard River,” which empties into the Minas Basin across from Grand Pre. Alexandre Richard did sign as a witness. We don’t know exactly where Marguerite’s six children were born, but given that there are no Annapolis Royal baptism records for them, we have to assume it was near where her husband was farming. They were in Notre-Dame-de-Quebec by mid-1757, which means they were not deported from Annapolis Royal. Given their early settlement in Quebec, they would have been deported from further north in Nova Scotia, sought refuge in one of the encampments, and had possibly escaped their English guards at Mirimichi. Tragically, all but one of Marguerite’s family members succumbed to the smallpox epidemic of 1757-1758. Her husband, Jean Breau (Brault), died on July 4, 1757, the same day as Francoise, her six-month-old baby. Marguerite assuredly was horribly grief-stricken. She soon became ill herself, with a houseful of sick children. Marguerite died on December 7^th, her 12-year-old son Jean died the following day, three-year-old Marie Josephe died on December 13^th, four-year-old Francois died on December 18^th, and 10-year-old Alexis died on January 12, 1758. They were buried in the cemetery at Notre-Dame-de-Quebec in Quebec City. Only one of Marguerite’s children, Elizabeth, survived to adulthood and died in 1792 at about age 41 in Quebec, after burying two husbands. What a horrific tragedy.
• Isabelle Richard married Francois Raimon in 1753 in Port Royal. Alexandre Richard did not sign for her. We know nothing more about Isabelle other than she reportedly was listed on the 1760 Essex County, Massachusetts Acadian census, and was noted as having been deported to Connecticut in 1755. No children are listed. The next person on the census list is her father, Alexandre Richard dit Boutin.
• Joseph Richard died in 1747 in Annapolis Royal. Alexandre was not a witness.

This tells us that Alexandre Richard did not move someplace else and remarry – and he stayed very involved with his children. He was obviously expelled with Isabelle and her husband and may have been living in the same household.

Marie’s husband, Alexandre Richard, three children and 18 grandchildren living in Annapolis Royal, formerly Port Royal until the English took it, were ensnared in the horrific expulsion of the Acadians. Additionally, four other children were forcibly expelled from elsewhere in Nova Scotia, and many died.

In 1755, by the time Marie’s husband and children who remained in Annapolis Royal were forced to march down the snow-covered Queen’s Wharf, board overcrowded death ships, leaving everything behind, Marie had been in her grave for 28 years.

If Marie’s final resting place was in the Garrison Graveyard, Alexandre and her children would have paused one last time to say goodbye, even if it was from the distance of the wharf.

We can only imagine the hell that followed.

On the 1760 list of Acadians in Essex County, Massachusetts, Alexandre Richard is listed, as is his daughter Isabelle Richard, who was married to Francois Raymond. Alexandre is listed as 70, infirm, and sent to Bradford.

So, it would appear that Alexandre Richard did not remarry, and one way or another, managed to find a way to raise his six children, and three step-children. Perhaps the older children raised the younger children, and everyone worked the farm together.

Alexandre was a good father to all 9 of Marie’s children, and apparently, loved Marie beyond the grave, given that he never remarried, remaining single for the next 33+ years.

Tragedy

Tragically, Marie’s life was cut short, as was that of many family members. Maybe it was a blessing that she did not have to endure 1755 and what followed, with her family separated in as many directions as there were living children.

Marie never got to attend her children’s weddings or cherish the smiles and giggles of grandchildren. She never received the honor of serving as a Godmother to her grandchildren, or seeing them baptized.

Marie buried her first husband, Jean Garceau, who may have died as a result of the 1710 fall of Acadia to the British.

Marie was fortunate enough to marry Alexandre Richard, who raised her three Garceau children in addition to their own. Marie’s youngest Garceau child was a baby and was close enough to Alexandre to take his surname as an adult. So did her eldest from time to time.

Some of Marie’s children remained in Port Royal after marriage, but several others struck out for points North where more land on the Bay of Fundy was available for salt-marsh reclamation and farming.

Marie had at least 48 grandchildren, and probably several more. Records are spotty, and in the colonies, nonexistent.

Of those known grandchildren, 18 lived in Port Royal, so, had Marie lived, she would have known them and been able to see them regularly, probably on a daily basis. She would have been a seamless part of thier lives. I can see her playing hide-and-seek in the sunlight and shadows with them – except she never got to. Perhaps she visited them in other ways.

Marie’s mother, Catherine Savoie, born about 1659, may have outlived her daughter. Unfortunately, there is no existing death record for Catherine, so we don’t know when she died. Based on her son Pierre’s death record in 1725, where his father is noted as deceased, but Catherine is not, she may well have lived several years beyond Marie. She would have been about 68 when Marie died.

While Marie’s grandchildren didn’t have the opportunity to interact with her, they may have known and been close to Catherine – at least for a few years.

As difficult and tragic as Marie’s life was, she raised children who were survivors. Had it not been for those who persevered, with a dash of luck, of course, and probably several rounds of prayers, especially in the Black Hole – I would not be here today.

Our ancestors may have been scattered to the wind, but the Acadians were seeds and took root the world over. Today, WikiTree reports that Marie has (at least) 1984 descendants, and I’m sure there are more whose identities remain unknown.

_____________________________________________________________

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You might have noticed that I haven’t published a 52 Ancestors article recently.

You might also have noticed that I’ve been swamped with conference season this fall, and while that’s part of it, there’s more to this story.

A lot more.

I’m sure you’re aware that I’m the family storyteller and legend-keeper – yet I don’t know how to tell you this.

I’ll just warn you up front that not all of this makes sense – at least not logical sense as we know it on this side of the veil.

Grab a cup of coffee or tea as I screw my courage up to begin.

You see, my ancestors called me.

Not only that, they had been calling me for a very long time.

The Calling

I surely wish I knew how to explain this – that I possessed adequate words.

The ancestors have been calling me for a long time. A cacophony of voices, each seeking to be heard. Much like the din of voices in a noisy restaurant. You can’t hear any one person, and you surely know there are voices, but you have no idea that any of them are speaking to you.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but my draw to genealogy and family history was their voices beckoning – except too jumbled for me to hear. Yet, I heeded the call, masked as curiosity. Mother apparently heard it, too. Sometimes, she would come up with tidbits, pieces of information that she “just knew” but had no idea how she knew. And you know something, she was always right.

Every. Single. Time.

Even though many of them wouldn’t be proven or confirmed for years or even decades later.

I didn’t think too much about it back then. But trust me, I’ve thought a LOT about it recently.

Sometimes, my insistent ancestors lasso other people into this drama, too. Sometimes, as unsuspecting accomplices, encouraging me. Sometimes, as people who have access to records that the ancestors need me to have as pieces of their story. Sometimes, as a passerby with just the right scrap of information – or the right direction. People literally stopped me on the street. Or perhaps, ancestors shapeshifted and took the shape of someone who had disappeared into thin air when I turned back around to ask them for clarification. Perhaps.

So much of this journey has just been surreal.

Talk about unnerving.

At those moments, all you can do is swallow and walk forward into whatever awaits – just hoping and praying you’re in the right place, and safe.

Yes, safe. When you see where I was “shepherded to” as I share this journey over the next few months, one ancestor at a time, you’ll understand.

Ancestral Fate

Sometimes, after you’ve followed an inexplicable path, you find yourself standing exactly at the juncture of fate.

Fate that changed lives. Your ancestors’ lives. Not simply one of them, but all of them living at that time in that place. In an instant, it shifted the trajectory of the lives of countless generations of descendants. Changed the very essence of my life. Had that historic, fateful juncture not occurred, I wouldn’t be here and certainly wouldn’t have been standing there.

Through the thinness of the veil, I could hear their voices, their cries, sometimes bloodcurdling screams. Palpably feel their fear as it rose in their throats and then, standing in their footprints, rose in mine.

Yes, they called me. Summoned me.

I had absolutely no idea the journey I was about to undertake.

I have only ever been on one other journey in my life that shifted time and stirred my soul with wave after wave of overwhelming emotions. An earlier journey I have never written about and shared with few.

This time, this journey, I’m sharing. With you.

I am forever changed.

Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia wasn’t Nova Scotia when this odyssey began for my ancestors. My Mi’kmaq ancestors referred to the lands where they lived as Mi’kma’ki, pronounced something Migmawgee. They were stewards of this land for more than 10,000 years, leaving their petroglyph art and secred legends.

Vikings visited before European fishermen and explorers began to arrive offshore in the 1500s. In the early 1600s, the French were establishing mutually beneficial trade relationships with the Mi’kmaq people.

The Mi’kmaq were entirely unaware of what would befall them. Diseases against which they had no immunity would devastate their population, and eventually, hordes of colonizers would all but displace them from their ancestral lands. Like the French who became Acadians, the Mi’kmaq, too, would become victims of European wars.

However, in the early 1600s, most of that was still in the future.

By the 1630s, the southern coastline of Nova Scotia, then known as Acadia, served as a fishing grounds punctuated with a few French trading forts. The French warred and argued among themselves, as people are wont to do, but for the most part, the Mi’kmaq people were impervious to the quarreling of their trading partners.

In time, European men, mostly French, sought to take wives among the Native women, and deeper alliances were formed – those of blood.

By 1632, encouraged and financed by a minor French nobleman, a few French families had settled at La Have. I will take you there on my journey, but not today. By 1636, the center or capital of Acadia was moved to Port Royal as additional French settlers and families arrived. Port Royal consisted of just a few houses and a fort.

It’s there, in historic Port Royal, later renamed Annapolis Royal in 1710 after being taken over by the English, that Acadia as we know it unfolded.

It’s there, in historic Port Royal, and for a dozen miles upstream, that I waded through marshes, climbed dykes and fortified ramparts, and communed with my ancestors. I was escorted into the marshes by newly-made friends, some of whom turned out to be cousins. I was drawn and guided to the remains of the foundations of my ancestors’ homesteads, their orchards, fields, and the wells that sustained them.

I trekked in the company of a friend from years back who I met when he was searching for his biological parents. We wound up being cousins through several Acadian lines and had a tearful, joyful reunion in our joint homeland.

We stood where our ancestors stood. Walked where they walked, and sobbed where they sobbed. I felt both their fear and unbridled joy.

I realized that my DNA permeates every inch of this land. This is the land of my ancestors.

What I didn’t understand was that they had been calling me for decades. This wasn’t my first trip to Nova Scotia – but it was the first time that I understood.

Chester, Nova Scotia

In the late 1990s, before the days of cell phones with cameras, I accidentally spent time in Chester, Nova Scotia, attending the Embroiderers’ School of Advanced Study.

By accidentally, I mean that I traveled to Chester, Nova Scotia, a small town not far from Halifax, with a few fiber artists for the purpose of art quilting and inspiration.

The inspiration I hoped for and expected was for a quilt and to sharpen my artistic skills. What happened was something else entirely.

I had absolutely NO IDEA at that time that not only was this chapter 1, but it was the first page of the first chapter. This book is not yet complete.

I thought it was just an artist’s retreat.

I received inspiration all right, but not exactly as I expected.

I Am a River

The resulting quilt that I finished months later was titled “I Am a River.”

Yes, indeed, I am that river with all its twists, turns, and rocky protrusions. Fluid, changing, morphing.

My life had changed courses dramatically through events quite outside my control. Death and destruction of lives. Rebirth and recovery. That’s what I thought I was working through.

The instructor realized that something else was going on. Something besides quilting and fabric selection. Something besides good food and companionship.

Perhaps life is art, or art is life. Perhaps our art is influenced by forces far deeper than we know.

While the instructor lectured about color selection and other artsy things, I was increasingly fascinated by something, or some things, outside the window. My mind wandered aimlessly elsewhere.

We gathered for our classes on the second floor of a beautiful historic building, lined with rock walls and old wooden fences.

I was fascinated and enthralled.

I realized that I loved the sea. The maritime landscape beckoned to me as if it was a living thing.

Boats were moored at the docks and anchored in the harbour, bobbing up and down rhythmically on gentle waves. Beautiful leaves and foliage graced rock walls. And the water, the mesmerizing sea, drew me in.

Drew me out.

Drew me away.

The instructor did something very unusual.

She dug her sketchbook out of a bag, along with a box of watercolor crayons, offering them to me. I felt very self-conscious and somewhat embarrassed. I was “that” ill-behaved student. I explained to her that I wasn’t a painter, not a watercolorist – in fact, I had never used that medium before. I didn’t even know watercolor crayons existed.

She was encouraging and told me it didn’t matter. She said to take my camera, her sketchbook, and a box of crayons that turned to watercolor when you rubbed water over them after you colored and just go out and walk. Follow my heart. The sketchbook was my diary, and I was to simply go enjoy myself.

She didn’t have to tell me twice.

I walked and walked. For days and miles, mostly along the water. Oh, I went back and sewed a bit and ate with the group most of the time. However, my classmates seemed to be much more interested in my adventures than I was in theirs. I felt rather naughty, given that I wasn’t really doing what I was “supposed” to be doing. At least I didn’t think so back then.

Now, I realize I was doing EXACTLY what I was sent there to do.

And what an adventure I had!

I even met the local police when I got stuck wiggling under a thorny bush beside a tree that I had crawled under, before realizing it sported fine-as-frog-hair needle-sharp thorns.

I was taking pictures of the stunningly beautiful sunset and foliage over the bay, but all the officers could see was a pair of legs sticking out from under a bush. Backing out was painful, and funny. After they got me unstuck, we all had a good laugh, and they showed me an easier photo location. My fellow artists saw me in the squad car, and by the time I returned, they had already created a MUCH better story. We laughed and laughed!

Everyone was incredibly nice and had suggestions and stories about picturesque locations and what to order in the various restaurants, all waterfront. By the end of the week, everyone in town knew me.

Yes, these pictures are awful because I scanned them more than two decades later. But they are also precious in so many ways.

They foreshadowed the path my life would take. I was metaphorically as well as actually at a fork in the road, a road that would one day bring me back home. To Acadia.

I had no idea that this sun-kissed and wind-swept place was already deeply etched in my psyche and carved into my heart.

I had no idea I was following my soul and that what I “heard” out there was the collective voices of my ancestors calling. Beckoning me.

I had no idea that one day, I would return.

Yes, they were speaking to me, even back then.

I was entirely unaware that I had any connection to Nova Scotia or even Canada or New England. That brick wall wouldn’t fall for at least another 10 or 15 years, and even then, in the strangest of ways.

Acadian Connection

Mother’s grandfather, Curtis Benjamin Lore was Acadian on his father’s side. Of course, Mother didn’t know that, and neither did her mother or her aunts. No one knew that family secret.

I discovered why just a few years ago, long after Mom had joined our ancestors. Our Acadian family was filled with layers of drama.

In fact, Curtis Lore’s father, Anthony, or Antoine Lore as he was baptized in the Catholic church in Quebec, left all churches altogether. Not only that, but he also left Canada for Vermont where he married before moving on to Pennsylvania with his bride. He might or might not have been a river pirate.

Mystery swirls around Anthony’s life and the circumstances of his untimely death and no one but no one talked about that. His wife, Rachel Hill, died shortly thereafter, leaving impoverished orphans trying to make their way in the world. Curtis Lore, their son left it all behind. A chance overheard conversation led me to a cousin in Pennsylvania who helped unearth that part of the story, one boulder at a time.

It took years and a completely unrelated “chance encounter” in North Carolina that led me to Blairfindie in Quebec, and, eventually, Antoine’s 1806 baptism.

Years later, another “chance encounter” with just the right person provided confirmation that the man in Vermont was the child born to Honore Lore and Marie Lafaille.

If you’re thinking this is the strangest thing ever, with all of these “coincidences,” welcome to my world.

I eventually was able to track those ancestors in Quebec, and somehow, against all odds, connected the dots and bridged the seemingly insurmountable gap between the late 1700s in Quebec, back through New England, and then to Annapolis Royal in Nova Scotia in 1755 where the truly unfathomable and unspeakable had happened.

How did I ever manage to navigate those fraught waters? Eventually, DNA helped a lot in the bigger picture, but connecting the dots with individual people was extremely challenging, especially given the lack of records or even a location in New England.

There were so many synchronistic “coincidences.” After an uncanny number of coincidences, I came to question if they really were coincidences.

There were surprises, too.

Native Ancestors

After DNA testing began, I was completely shocked to learn that my mother and I both carried Native American DNA. How was that even remotely possible? It was surely an error. Yes, it had to be. Everyone in her family except for that one grandfather, who I didn’t yet know was Acadian, was either German or Dutch.

But, as it turned out, it wasn’t a mistake.

Then, I assumed our Native DNA came from Pennsylvania where Curtis Lore lived, once we figured that out – but, again, I was wrong. It didn’t. It came through the Acadian lines in early Nova Scotia – a word I didn’t even know yet at the time I discovered Mother’s Native American genetic heritage.

I needed to associate a person with the genetic evidence, but that seemed impossible, given that I couldn’t even figure out Curtis’s parents’ names initially.

Years later, I was able to positively identify one of Mother’s Native American ancestors by combining autosomal DNA testing and ethnicity segments with mitochondrial DNA results of matrilineal descendants of my Mi’kmaq ancestor whose name we don’t know.

We do know she married Philipp Mius and had daughter Francoise about 1684. My Mi’kmaq ancestor didn’t join Philipp in the French Acadian villages. He joined her in the Native villages, up and down the southwest coast of Nova Scotia, including the islands off Chester, Lunenburg, then known as Merliguesch, and Halifax. None of those locations had English names at that time.

Yes, my ancestors lived on and frequented the exact islands I photographed in the 1990s before a future series of coincidences revealed those ancestors and their history.

What are the chances?

Those ancestors were loudly insistent.

Metamorphosis

By the time 2023 rolled around, my life had metamorphosed and changed completely from that of the 1990s. Morphed much like caterpillar emerging as a butterfly from a cocoon and drying its wings.

Discoveries about my Acadian ancestors were flowing like a waterfall, one after the other. Many were shocking, incredibly sad, and horrifying. At the same time, they spoke of incredible courage, bravery, and fortitude.

At first, I was thrilled to break down those brick walls one after the other – but ultimately – I realized that my role was to research, reveal, and document their struggles, loves, and lives as they lived them.

One day, it dawned on me – at least a few of them survived genocide. I never realized the 1755 deportation, or Le Grand Dérangement, the great upheaval, as they called it, was cultural genocide – a crime against humanity. Many people simply disappeared into the abyss of the unknown.

You can’t tell the good without the bad. You can’t document the wins without the losses. Someone needs to tell their individual stories, and I’m doing exactly that.

This had probably been my calling all along.

Generational Trauma

I never understood what generational trauma was or what it meant before I met my Acadian ancestors.

I understand generational poverty all-too-well, and that children suffer from the unfortunate cultural circumstances of the families into which they are born. Circumstances they often cannot escape.

What I never really considered was that generational trauma can span centuries, cultures and many, many generations. Leaving your homeland isn’t enough to escape. I have to wonder how much of this cumulative trauma has been seared into our genetics – epigenetics – genetic memory – whatever.

Does it also lead us home?

Homecoming

Can you experience a homecoming to a homeland you’ve never been to before? Can it feel so incredibly familiar that it moves you to tears? Just simply “being” there? Touching the soil? Feasting your eyes?

Yes, I had been to Chester as an appetizer decades ago, but I had never been anywhere else in Acadia, which spans all of Nova Scotia.

Can generational memories somehow lead and bring you to places you aren’t even consciously aware of? Those places that were the pivot points where your ancestors’ lives were uprooted and changed forever? Is there some unseen force guiding or sometimes pushing us?

Do descendants carry the markers in some way of cultural genocide?

Is there a path back for us? Are the events and memories seared into our ancestors’ souls passed down to us in some way?

How can one possibly be so connected to a place you’ve never been before?

I don’t have answers.

Three Weeks in August

I spent three weeks in August 2024 on the ground in Nova Scotia, tracing my ancestors’ collective footsteps, beginning along the LaHave River, visiting locations I knew that my ancestors had visited and lived.

They sent messages and guided me, including through one man I had just met a few minutes earlier. He took me aside and very uncomfortably said to me, “Don’t think I’m crazy. I can’t believe I’m saying this to you – but your ancestors know you’re here. They are here with you.”

Imagine my shocked look as my mouth fell open. But he wasn’t finished.

“Also, your mother. Is your mother with you?”

What a question.

Yes, mother was with me in multiple ways. Her body had departed this realm in 2006, but this was “her trip” and was she ever with me.

I was also wearing Mom’s ring, the one given to her as a teen by her grandmother, the wife of her Acadian grandfather. She wore it every day of her life, and I wore it on this adventure, taking pictures of “her” in her ancestor’s locations.

Each successive place we visited offered additional adventures of its own. I’ll be taking you along with me as I finish processing not only the photos and research, but the incredible avalanche of emotions.

Let me share just one extremely poignant moment.

The Expulsion

In 1755, following over a century of escalating tensions between the Acadians, who had peacefully lived and farmed in Nova Scotia, and the British, who sought to control the region, the British ultimately succeeded in forcibly deporting and expelling the Acadian population.

Acadian families were rounded up and kidnapped, their farms burned in front of their eyes, their livestock shot, and their dykes that kept the sea at bay from their fields were destroyed. The British wanted absolutely no question in the minds of the Acadians that there was nothing to return for. They had no homes left. No fields. No family. Nothing.

The British fleet anchored in the harbour beside Port Royal which had been renamed Annapolis Royal when the British defeated the French in 1710. The Acadians had previously experienced sporadic attacks by the British where they burned and pillaged, but then went away again.

That’s what the Acadians expected this time, too, but it’s not what happened. The Acadians thought they were safe because the British needed the Acadian farmers to feed the British soldiers, but they were wrong.

The harbour beside Fort Anne in Port Royal was safe and protected from the Atlantic, but ships could not pull directly up to the town itself because the river was tidal and too shallow near the shores.

That was another form of protection from attack.

In 1755, the British decided to end the conflict with the Acadians once and for all by rounding them up and deporting them. Their lands would then be distributed to the much more easily controlled non-Catholic colonists from New England.

The British ships came to anchor in the bay. The Acadians prepared for soldiers to attack and force them to sign a loyalty oath to the British Monarchy.

Instead, the British came ashore and held the men at the fort while rounding up the women and children.

I knew that every one of my ancestors had stood on this hallowed ground at the fort in Port Royal during their lifetimes. Some defended the fort. Some traded there. Some died there. Everyone worshipped there, as the original church was located beside the cemetery.

The original land before the fort was extended and fortified between 1705 and 1710 had belonged to Abraham Dugas. the armorer, who married Marguerite Doucet, Simon Pelletret who married Perrine Bourg, Jacque Bonnevie, military corporal and blacksmith who married Francoise Mius, Guillaume Trahan whose wife is unknown, and possibly Martin Aucoin.

My ancestors had been born, were baptized and married, lived, and were buried on the land under my feet. This fort, cemetery, and Catholic church that had once stood here was the one location that every single Acadian ancestor has unquestionably been – not once but regularly. The hub of their lives.

Not one or some, but everyone. It represents an entire group of people who were isolated to their own community with no newcomers. Everyone was related. That’s part of the power of this place.

Tears streamed down my face.

Earlier generations, before the deportation, were buried in now-unmarked graves in the cemetery at the fort, established before the Catholic church was burned. The fort, church, and cemetery were the center of the town of Port Royal.

In 1755, many of those graves would still have been fresh – and marked.

I walked around the fort grounds several times over multiple days, understanding the central place in the lives of all Acadians.

On the last day, I noticed something off to the side, across the ramparts, extending into the water. This was actually outside the fort, kind of behind the end of the current town. The building in the photo at right is a municipal building housing the police station.

I was drawn to this…thing…whatever it was. But I couldn’t exactly get there.

The hill descending to this walkway of sorts was very steep. It overlooked the land across the river that had been the homesteads of the Doucet, Bourg and Leveron families – also my ancestors.

By the time I found this small peninsula of land, it was late in the day, nearly sunset, and I was exhausted. I had been ill the week before my trip to Nova Scotia and not fully recovered – but nothing was stopping me now.

I had to get down there somehow.

I walked part way into town and around, behind the police station, and discovered stairs descending to the river level.

When I was leaving, I saw a sign and walked over to see what it said. I’m telling you this out of order so you understand what’s coming.

Good heavens! I had stumbled onto the deportation wharf. I had absolutely no idea it still existed.

The physical location where my ancestors’ lives were ripped apart in 1755.

Where they and their unsuspecting children and family members were shoved into rowboats, rowed out into the river, and deposited onto different ships. It was chaos. No one knew what was happening.

Families, in those horrific hours and minutes, carrying only what they could, were eternally separated – never to find or see each other again.

Many searched until death.

Where did death befall them? In many cases, we simply don’t know. Some overcrowded ships sank. Others, as poverty-stricken refugees, were buried and forgotten in anonymous graves where they landed among people all too unhappy to see them.

In most cases, we have no idea where they were – as the ships were intentionally separated and sent to different colonies so that the Acadians couldn’t scheme to return home.

God rest their souls.

I walked out onto the wharf and back in time into their lives.

The fort ramparts were to my left.

The wharf in front of me, now grass-covered, was a one-way ticket to Hell. 

A death march for many. Torturous for all.

How could the British do that?

Much like Hitler’s minions in the 1930s, “just following orders”?

Torture.

Murder.

Genocide.

I reached the end of the wharf where there were only stones, preventing today’s wharf-walkers from proceeding into the endless waters.

Yellow roses for their broken hearts.

The harbour where the ships anchored, and the exit into the Bay of Fundy – the last the Acadians would ever see of their beloved Acadia.

I could see the fort behind me, just as they would have. Originally their fort, but long-since the British fort.

The ships were anchored here. Boats rowed by British soldiers from the wharf to the ships loaded unwilling and probably sobbing Acadians.

No one knew where their family members were.

Standing on the beach, the edge of the town to my right.

A panoramic from the wharf of a now-empty, deceptively tranquil, harbour, but filled with ships taking the Acadians to God-knows-where back then.

I stood here for a very, very long time, realizing that their lives and families were ripped from them. Their agony is still palpable. They did absolutely nothing, aside from simply existing, to deserve this.

We have literally no idea what became of many of these people, or their children. I’m certain that this list of my ancestors is not comprehensive.

• Marie Charlotte Bonnevie, born about 1703, married Jacques Lore/Lord, and died after 1742. Nothing more is known.
• Jacques dit Montagne Lord/Lore, born about 1678, married Marie Charlotte Bonnevie, was probably deported to New York and died in 1786 in Quebec.
  • Honore Lore/Lord, born 1742 to Jacques Lore/Lord and Marie Charlotte Bonnevie, fought in New York in the Revolutionary War and died in 1818 in Quebec.
• Jean LePrince, born about 1692, married Jeanne Blanchard and died sometime after 1752, probably either in Les Mines or after deportation.
• Jeanne Blanchard, born about 1675, married Jean LePrince, death unknown
  • Marie Joseph LePrince, born in 1715, married Jacques DeForest, and died after 1748, probably in Connecticut.
• Francoise Dugas, born 1679, married Rene DeForest, son Jacques DeForest. She may have died about 1751 or perhaps during or after the deportation.
  • Jacques DeForest, born in 1707, married Marie Josephe LePrince and died in Connecticut sometime after 1763.
    • Marguerite DeForest, born in 1747 to Jacques DeForest and Marie Josephe LePrince, died in Quebec in 1819.
• Rene Doucet, born about 1678, married Marie Anne Broussard, death unknown
• Marie Anne Broussard, born in 1686, married Rene Doucet, death unknown.
  • Anne dit Jeanne Doucet, born in 1713, married Daniel Garceau, was deported to Connecticut, and died in 1791 in Quebec.
  • Daniel Garceau, born in 1707, married Anne Doucet, was deported to Connecticut, and died in 1772 in Quebec.
    • Appoline dit Hippolyte Garceau, born in 1742 to Daniel Garceau and Anne dit Jeanne Doucet, deported with her parents and died in 1788 in L’Acadie, Quebec.

Of course, it’s not “just” these people – it’s their families too. Children, grandchildren, siblings, nieces and nephews, and sometimes, elderly parents.

Cruelly separated. Gone where?

On December 8, 1755, at least 1664 men, women, and children, all of whom were related to each other, often in multiple ways, suffered this fate – launched into sure and certain Hell from this wharf.

Eventually, I turned and walked back up what’s left of the wharf, knowing that they never had that privilege. They would have given anything to do what I just did.

I walked for them – even decades and centuries later. I felt their agony as they watched this land that they loved become more distant and then disappear, a dot in the distance, as their ship sailed into oblivion. They had never known any other home or lived anyplace other than Acadia.

What were they to do?

How would they survive?

My heart is so very heavy.

The enormity of this genocidal tragedy overwhelmed me and still does. One doesn’t “recover” from something like this.

I walked a block or so into the town where they had once lived, then onto Hogg Island, formerly owned by Jacques Bourgeois, also my ancestor, watching the sun set as I walked – as I knew they had done hundreds of times in their lives.

They must have watched the sun set over their beloved Acadia from the frigid decks of those ships, slipping behind the mountains and winking goodnight – unaware that it would be the last time for all of Eternity.