Marguerite Hebert was born around 1652 to Etienne Hebert and Marie Gaudet in or near Port Royal, Acadia.

Marguerite’s life is at least partially documented, but at the same time uncertain, in part because we have conflicting information that has proven impossible to sort through and resolve.

Marguerite Hebert is first found in the 1671 census as the last entry on this page with her recently widowed mother.

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

The 1671 census is unique in that married children are listed with their parents, plus in their own households. This is the BEST IDEA EVER, because females are listed by their birth surname, and this census clearly ties them to their parents AND spouse, even without parish records.

Except, that is, for Marguerite.

Of course.

Marie Gaudet’s entry on the census page clearly states that two of her children are married and lists them. Marie Hebert, Marguerite’s older sister by a year is shown in the census entry above Marie Gaudet’s entry, married to Michel de Forest, living in her own household.

Marguerite Hebert’s husband, whoever he might have been, is no place to be found, and neither is Marguerite found in another household.

What gives?

Great question. I wish I knew the answer.

Marguerite’s mother’s household had to be in quite the state of upheaval. Marguerite’s father had recently died, leaving his wife with ten stair-step children, including a one-year-old.

By the 1678 census, Marguerite Hebert was married to Jacques LePrince and was shown with 1 child, a girl, but no age is given. Ages are provided for children in other families in that census.

It’s possible, based on how far upriver Marguerite and Jacques are living, that the census taker simply didn’t venture out that far and asked the closest neighbor that they did visit, or maybe someone at the church in Port Royal.

So, if Marguerite is married to Jacques and has a child in 1678, and IF that child is the first child born after their wedding, then they would have been married by 1676 or 1677.

If this was not their firstborn child, they could have been married prior to 1671 – except that begs the question of where Jacques LePrince was in the 1671 census, and why Marguerite is shown as married, but not in another household with her spouse. Not to mention, where are the children born between 1671 and 1678, aside from that one girl?

If Jacques is living with Marguerite in her mother’s home, which would seem like a reasonable scenario given that her mother was recently widowed and would desperately need help, why isn’t he listed there?

So many unanswered questions!

Who is Jacques LePrince?

Jacques LePrince is a conundrum, too.  I wrote about Jacques, here, including the uncertainty about his early years.

To summarize, there is a soldier with the Carignan Company who served in Trois Rivieres, near Quebec City, between 1665 and 1667. Additionally, a man by that same name is found as a valet to a notary in the 1666 Quebec census in Trois Rivieres.

Are those two different men, or one?

Additionally, the Jacques LePrince who is a soldier witnesses a marriage in 1667, and he is probably the same man who witnessed another marriage on April 15, 1671. He is never found in Quebec records again.

Given that the 1671 Acadian census was taken in the spring of 1671, how would it be possible for him to be married in Port Royal, and in Quebec, hundreds of miles away from his wife? That journey takes from 1-3 months by ship.

Furthermore, the transfer of control of Acadia from the English to the French had only taken place in September of 1670, which is when the census was ordered, so it would be very unlikely for Jacques to have been in Acadia before that occurred.

More questions!

Who Is Marguerite Married To in 1671?

It would be outside any norm, but somehow, it might have been possible for Marguerite Hebert to be married to Jacques LePrince in 1671.

It’s also possible that Marguerite could have married, then become widowed prior to the census and was actually living with her mother. If Marguerite was widnowed, would she have been listed as such if she was living with her mother? We don’t know.

Acadian females tended to marry quite young, so she could well have given birth to a child or two by this time. Those children could have died too.

I realize there are a lot of speculative words of uncertainty here – but it’s a perplexing situation, and we can only work with the information we have. The only things we know for sure are her age, that she was or had been married, and that there’s no sign of a husband or household elsewhere. This is not a “normal” situation.

It’s also possible that the Jacques LePrince(s) in Quebec in 1666 and in April of 1671, and the Jacques LePrince who arrived in Acadia at some point and married Marguerite Hebert are entirely different people. The ship L’Oranger sailed from La Rochelle in the spring of 1671 with 50 new settlers to resupply the colony. Jacques could have arrived on that (or another) ship.

Marguerite Hebert’s Children

I’m going to create a table to track Marguerite Hebert’s children, because they aren’t straightforward either.

Nothing about Marguerite is straightforward.

In the 1678 census, based on the neighbors, Jacques La Prence and Marguerite are living far upriver, across from present-day Bridgetown, on four arpents of land, with five cattle, and one female child. Oliver Daigle lives next door, and Marguerite’s brother, Jean Hebert is an unmarried neighbor as well.

The 1686 census shows that Jacques and Marguerite have four children, but does NOT give names and ages, although the census taker does provide that information for other families. They have five sheep and 3 hogs, but no land is listed, nor a gun. Both are quite unusual, especially given that they are literally living the furthest distance from Port Royal of any family in the river valley.

	1678 census	1686 census	1693 census	1715 census
Jacques LePrince	No age	40 (1646)	Deceased 1691-1693
Marguerite Hebert	No age	35 (1651)	40 (1653)
1678	Girl born in 1678 or before	Child	Marguerite, 15 (1678)
1680		Child	Francois, twin, 13 (1680)	Francois (no age)
1680		Child	Jacques (actually Antoine), twin, 13 (1680)	Antoine (no age)
1682		Child	Missing
1684
1686
1687			Estienne, 5 (1687)
1689
1691
1692			Francoise, 1 (1692)

By the 1693 census, Marguerite and Jacques have moved from Port Royal to Minas, where, finally, names and ages of children are given. However, Jacques has died, and no land or livestock was listed.

Unfortunately, problems exist with this census accounting too. According to multiple later records, the twin recorded as Jacques is actually named Antoine. Also, we know that son Jean LePrince, who is unlisted here, was born around 1692, so either the child listed as Francoise is actually Jean, or Jean was born to Marguerite in 1693 after the census was taken.

Or, some other even more unusual perturbation has occurred.

Unfortunately, Marguerite now finds herself in the same position as her mother in 1671 – a widow with young children. Except it looks like Marguerite had absolutely no resources – no son-in-law living next door, no land and not even a cow. What was she to do? How was she supposed to feed her family?

How did she feed her family?

In 1671, there were a total of 68 households and about 378 residents in Port Royal and living along the Riviere Dauphin, now the Annapolis River Valley.

In 1693, just 22 years later, in the entire Minas Basin, a much more dispersed area, there were 55 households with 307 residents. Minas was not settled until about 1682, so, in just a decade, it had grown to be about 80% as large as the Port Royal area had been in 1671. By 1693, Port Royal and the surrounding area had about 81 homes and around 500 people.

Marguerite is missing entirely from the 1701, 1703, and 1707 census, and she shouldn’t be. We know she was alive and she had to be living someplace. Unfortunately, widows weren’t enumerated in Minas in 1701 and 1703, but they were in 1707, so where was she living?

What happened in 1704 may provides clues.

The 1714 census is simply a list of male heads of household, so Marguerite is not listed. Her twin sons who married in 1712 are present on the Pisiquid list, as is her son-in-law.

What Do We Actually Know About Marguerite Hebert?

Marguerite’s parents, Etienne Hebert and Marie Gaudet, lived on the upper reaches of the Riviere Dauphin, now the Annapolis River, near today’s Bridgetown. At that time, Bridgetown was called Gaudet Village.

Based on later maps and information, it appears that Marguerite may have grown up in or near the area of Chapman Avenue above the cemeteries. The Old Pioneer Cemetery is shown at far left, above.

Various homes in the Gaudet Village may have been located near the arrows.

Today, we can’t see much from the road at the location of the upper arrow, and I couldn’t get to the land at the lower arrow at all.

The land cross the road from the entrance to the main Riverside Cemetery.

Regardless of exactly where Marguerite’s parents lived, it wasn’t far between the Hebert and Gaudet family clusters along the river. Jean Prince (LePrince) eventually farmed his father’s land across from the Gaudet Village.

Marguerite grew up in a mostly peaceful time, that is, until 1690 when the English brutally attacked Port Royal. Thankfully for Marguerite, she and her family were living upriver, and while they would have heard about the attack, and the subsequent pirate attack, they were beyond the immediate brutality. They may have gone into hiding for safety. Marguerite’s husband, Jacques LePrince, was not on the list of men that were sequestered against their will in the church in Port Royal and forced to sign a loyalty oath to the English monarchy.

However, Marguerite and Jacques may have already left for Minas, or Pisiquid, wherever they originally settled – or these 1690 events at Port Royal may have pushed them over the edge.

Family Migration

Several of Marguerite’s siblings had migrated, or would, to Minas. The family was already used to living remotely from Port Royal, so living even more distantly didn’t much matter. It would have been safer, away from English interference, and provided the advantage of opening new lands that may have been more plentiful and fertile.

Minas soon became the breadbasket of Acadia.

Marguerite’s siblings were:

• Marie Hebert, who was born about 1651, married Michel Le Forest and died about 1677 in Port Royal. Her son, Michel Forest was in Minas by 1693, as was his brother, Pierre. Their sister, Gabrielle Forest married Pierre Brassard and they made their way to Minas too.
• Emmanuel Hebert, born about 1653, married Andree Brun. They lived most of their lives in Port Royal, but after her death in 1727, Emmanuel made his way to Grand Pre where most of his children were already living. He died there in 1744.
• Etienne Hebert, born about 1654, married Jeanne Comeau and was settled in Les Mines by April of 1682 when his second child was baptized. He was one of the founding families and died there in 1713.
• Jean Hebert, born about 1659, married Jeanne Doiron around 1692 in Minas. They settled in Pisiquid. He died around 1744.
• Francoise Hebert, born about 1661, married Jean Comeau. In 1705, the family was still in Port Royal, but by 1707, they were recorded in Les Mines. However, she died in Port Royal in 1713 and was buried in the Saint-Laurent Chapel at BelleIsle.
• Catherine Hebert, born about 1662 married Philippe Pinet. In 1682, they were in Beaubassin, but in 1683, they baptized a child in Grand Pre where they settled. Philippe died about 1710, and by 1714 she had moved to Ile Royale (Cape Breton) with her children where she worked as a gardener. She died in Louisbourg in 1727.
• Martine Hebert, born about 1665, married Nicolas Barrieau. In 1686, the couple was still in Port Royal, but by 1693, they had made the move to Les Mines where she died sometime after 1726, probably in Pisiquid where she was living in 1714.
• Michel Hebert was born about 1666 and married Isabelle Pellerin around 1692. The young couple went to Minas where they were living in 1693. They moved around a bit, were at Riviere des Gaspereau in 1701, back to Les Mines in 1703 and 1707, Port Royal in 1714, then back to Grand Pre/Les Mines in 1715. He died in Les Mines in 1735 or 1736 (date transcription discrepancy) and was buried in the cemetery at Les Minas.
• Antoine Hebert, born about 1670, married twice and lived his life in Port Royal, dying before July of 1753.

Here’s the Shocker!

• Marguerite’s half-sister, Marie Gareau, born about 1677, married twice, but had no children with her first husband. She married the second time to Jerome Darois in 1698. By 1701, they were in Les Mines. In 1706, their son was born as the couple was held hostage in Boston. After their release, they returned to the Minas Basin where Jerome died in 1750. In 1755, Marie was exiled to Virginia where she died.

Wait! What? Held Hostage?

What is going on?

Take a deep breath, pull up a chair and sit down! Maybe get a beverage too.

As it turned out, during Queen Anne’s War, the English, with 17 ships and 550 men, attacked Grand Pre in June of 1704.

Their goal was retaliation and to capture Acadian prisoners to exchange for hostages being held by the French in Montreal resulting from the February raid on Deerfield, Massachusetts. Colonel Benjamin Church’s orders were specifically to:

Use all possible methods for the burning and destroying of the enemies houses and breaking the dams of their corn grounds, and make what other spoil you can upon them.

After arriving in the waters at Grand Pre, Col. Church sent one of his lieutenants ahead, under the white flag of truce, with this proclamation, giving the Acadians and Mi’kmaq one hour to surrender.

We do also declare, that we have already made some beginnings of killing and scalping some Canada men, which we have not been wont to do or allow, and are now come with a great number of English and Indians, all volunteers, with resolutions to subdue you, and make you sensible of your cruelties to us, by treating you after the same manner.

Church expected that his men would have reached the village from behind by the time the hour had passed, but that’s not what happened.

Church’s raid on Grand Pre began something like the Keystone Cops, as his soldiers didn’t understand the extremely high tides in the basin, over 20 feet in some places, with high tide sometimes reaching 52 feet.

Their ignorance combined with the strong tidal rivers caused them to get themselves stuck. At the time they were attempting to come ashore, the tide was receding, which means it was rushing out at more than 33 feet a minute at a rate of about 10 miles an hour, eventually miring his struggling soldiers in mud flats.

I’d laugh if this hadn’t evolved so tragically.

The Acadians were clearly not surrendering, and the delay provided them with the opportunity to evacuate, taking at least some of their cattle and “best goods,” according to Church.

After becoming hopelessly stuck and very muddy, the soldiers extracted themselves and returned to their boats.

The English waited overnight for high tide, but that tide was so high that it elevated their whale boats enough that it exposed them to gunfire from the local militia, Acadian men and their Mi’kmaq allies who had taken cover in the woods along the banks. While the Acadians clearly understood the gravity of the situation, and how vulnerable they were in the face of warships, they must have been at least a little amused. Right up until Church fired his cannon at them, killing one and injuring others, forcing their retreat.

Grand Pre had no fort or defensive structures, so the Acadians were entirely exposed.

Overnight, the English successfully regrouped and tricked the Acadians into believing they were retreating, but they weren’t.

On the morning of the third day, the English attacked the village where, that evening, they proceeded to burn at least 60 homes and even more barns, six mills, and the church. Benjamin Church stated that, “the whole town seemed to be on fire all at once,” and all but one home was burned.

Church’s soldiers tore down the dykes to flood their fields with saltwater, and burned the crops, destroying the harvest.

On the fourth day, Church’s men proceeded on upriver to raid Pisiquid where they took 45 prisoners, then began the trip back to Port Royal to rejoin the fleet blockading the port there.

For comparison purposes, the 1703 Acadian census at Les Mines, which included Pisiquid, shows a total of 61 homes, so Church may have been exactly right – only one house was left standing. That means that Marguerite’s home, along with those of her siblings and children, were all burned.

Another source says that 100 hostages were taken, that the English took as many as they wanted, and that only 5 homes were left standing in Grand Pre. That statement is believed to apply to the larger area surrounding Grand Pre, which would include Pisiquid.

That may have been an slight exaggeration or a bit of braggadocio, given that it was Church’s later telling, but who knows what actually happened. Exaggeration or not, one home or five left standing, the attack was shocking and brutal, and no one in the Minas area was unscathed.

Hostages 

The hostages were loaded up and shipped to Boston.

After arriving in Boston, initially the captives were given free rein of the town, but when citizens complained later in 1704, they were confined to Castle William in the harbour and Fort Hill in Boston proper. They were ultimately exchanged in two groups in 1705 and 1706.

Eighteen months later, in December of 1705, the first group of 57 Acadian hostages was released. In September 1706, after being held for 27 months, the second group of 51 was released and arrived back in Port Royal on September 16^th.

Thankfully, the parish records at Port Royal reveal a little more of their story. The captives returned to Port Royal before continuing on their way back to Minas. We know this because two baptisms took place for children who were born while their parents were held hostage in Boston. In one case, the parents of the Doiron baby were officially married in the Catholic faith three days later by the priest, although they had been civilly married in Boston during their captivity.

Father Justimen Durand officially baptized the two babies born in Boston just five days after they arrived in Port Royal.

On September 21, 1706 he baptized Louis Mathieu Douairon who was born on February 1, 1706 in Boston to Marie Henry and Noel Douairon (Doiron), and was baptized there by Jean Douiron. Jean had to be either the father or brother of Noel, because there were no other candidates by that name. Noel’s father also lived in Pisiquid, as did his brother.

Of course, this tidbit also tells us that Jean Doiron was being held in Boston at that time as well. It also raises another question. I suspect that there were more than two babies born and baptized in Boston. Why are there only two baptisms in Port Royal? Noel’s father, Jean Doiron, was having children in 1705 and 1706, so I would have expected at least one baptism back in Port Royal – but there are none other than these two, both for children purportedly born on the same day.

On the same page, we find the baptism of Paul Davonois, born February 1, 1706 to Marie Gavoche and Jerome Davonais. Godparent, Pierre Prince.

The names were mistranslated on the archives website and are actually Jerome Darois and Marie Gareau

On the twenty-sixth of September 1706, I the undersigned, performing the curial functions, supplied the ceremonies of baptism for Paul Darois, son of Jérôme Darois and Marie Gareau, his lawful wife.

He was born in Boston on the first of February of the present year, and was baptized conditionally.

The godfather Jean Prince was not able to be present, and the godmother…

Signed:
Fr. Justimen Durand, Recollect missionary

Marie Gareau was Marguerite Hebert’s half-sister. Jean Prince (LePrince) was Marguerite Hebert’s son, which means Jean was Marie Gareau’s half-nephew. Jean was not at the baptism, which is somewhat remarkable because he married at Port Royal in 1715, which suggested the possibility that he grew up there.

If Jean was not in Port Royal in 1706, when he was 13 or 14, that hints that he may have been living with his mother in Pisiquid, and that his mother, Marguerite, if she was a hostage, was not in the group released in 1706 either. Of course, that doesn’t mean she wasn’t kidnapped. She, along with her family, could have been released in 1705.

It’s unusual that the only two babies baptized were born on the same day. Perhaps that date was an estimate.

The Acadians in Grand Pre had clearly not been prepared to defend themselves. Needless to say, they never again trusted the English – and with good reason. Fifty years later, the English did even worse to the Acadians.

If 108 hostages were taken, I wonder how many residents were not taken.

In 1707, the year after the last of the hostages had been returned, there were 88 households in all of Minas with about 575 residents. That means that about one in five people across the entire region were taken hostage.

In 1714, the only census that lists Pisiquid separately, there were 57 households, with 372 people. Realizing that 1714 is a decade later, it looks like about one third of the population of Pisiquid was taken hostage.

In 1714, there were an additional 47 households listed separately at Minas, so the region-wide population probably hadn’t changed much.

My initial reaction was that the English probably didn’t want children, so most of the hostages would have been couples or at least not young children. However, further research revealed that exactly the opposite was true. According to Church’s own memoirs, the majority of the hostages were wives and children of Acadian farmers. He stated that this was a tactical decision, and said he took between 45 and 100 prisoners at Grand Pre, a large portion of whom were families.

I can’t help but wonder if the Pisiquid families weren’t warned in enough time to disappear into the woods or seek safety elsewhere. Surely, they didn’t just sit there, waiting.

Maybe they thought that one of the safest places they could be was far down the Riviere Hebere, where the English wouldn’t have dared to go. The English had never attacked there before, so maybe they were well-enough hidden? That’s initially what I thought too, but that clearly wasn’t true.

Where was our Marguerite? Was she taken hostage? Her children? She would have been 52 or 53 at the time.

In 1704 when the English arrived, her youngest child would have been Jean LePrince who was about 11 if he was born after the 1693 census. Francoise, if she actually existed and was still living was 12. Estienne would have been about 15. The twin boys, Francois and Antoine, 22.

There’s a lot of confusion about Marguerite’s oldest daughter or two oldest daughters, so I’ll leave that for the next section.

At least Marguerite and her siblings had each other. Someone cared for her sister, Marie Gareau’s children during her two-year absence, assuming they weren’t all taken hostage too.

Pisiquid

Only one of Marguerite’s siblings remained permanently in Port Royal, aside from her older sister, Marie who died there in 1677, although Marie’s husband and children made their way to Minas as well.

Virtually all of Marguerite’s family left Port Royal, so it’s little wonder that she and Jacques LePrince departed too. This is presuming that Jacques didn’t die in Port Royal first.

Marguerite couldn’t have been in a better place to receive the support she needed while raising her family alone. Still, I wonder what happened to her, how she lived, where and with whom? I also wonder if she remarried and we simply don’t have the records, meaning we don’t know to whom. It was quite unusual for widows, especially with young children, to remain single. That would also explain why she doesn’t appear in later censuses where she would be expected to be found.

I did have one other fleeting thought. I hope that Jacques LePrince didn’t just disappear, either willingly or against his will – leaving Marguerite with no closure or resolution, and also unable to remarry.

Sometimes the frontier was unforgivingly harsh.

Marguerite’s Children

We have yet another mystery.

The census tells us only so much.

We already know the census was “odd,” with no information provided when other families had information, and then in another census listing erroneous names of children.

I don’t want to read anything more into this than there is, but there are a lot of “strange” things, both with Jacques LePrince and his family, and then with their son, Jean LePrince and his.

Some of the circumstances leave me uneasy.

That said, let’s see what we have.

Some of the children are relatively straightforward, but the most challenging ones are the oldest.

I’m going to discuss Marguerite’s children in birth order.

Referring back to the chart I made for her children, you’ll recall that Marguerite was noted as age 19 and married in the 1671 census. However, no husband or family is recorded, aside from her deceased father, mother and siblings.

An Acadian female would be expected to have married by age 19, so it would be somewhat unusual if Marguerite had NOT married.

If we are to take the census-taker at his word, this would mean one of three things:

1. Marguerite’s husband and household were missed in the census
2. Marguerite was married, but had been widowed, and was living with her mother who had recently been widowed and had young children.
3. Marguerite was married or widowed, and had given birth to children or was pregnant. In either case, there are no signs of multiple children in the next census, so we are left to presume Marguerite buried three or four children between 1671 and 1677, or so.

Given that Marguerite and family were living in the proximity of Port Royal, those babies might have been buried beside the church in Port Royal, which isn’t terribly likely since they lived far upriver.

They could have been buried at Saint Laurent “Mass House” at BelleIsle, which is closer to where they lived and where one of Marguerite’s siblings is buried.

Or, perhaps they were laid to rest in the old pioneer cemetery in what was the Gaudet Village, found in present-day Bridgetown. Marguerite’s mother was Marie Gaudet, so the unmarked portion of the Old Pioneer Cemetery would be my best guess, but we’ll never know for sure.

Or, maybe the original cemetery was located in the oldest part of the Riverview Cemetery, off of Chapman Avenue, in the unmarked portion near the river.

We don’t know which Bridgetown cemetery is older and was established first, and no records exist in any of the churches for that timeframe.

One thing is certain. It would have been virtually impossible to travel all the way back to Port Royal for burials, and burials couldn’t exactly wait. Out of pure necessity, there was certainly a cemetery someplace here and it was likely continued when the New England settlers took over the Acadian farms after 1755.

Marguerite LePrince

By the 1678 census, Marguerite is shown living with her husband and one female child, with no age given. In 1686, four children are reported, but no names or ages are included. It’s not until 1693 that we have names for Marguerite’s children.

Therein lies the rub. We know the 1693 census wrongly recorded at least one of Marguerite’s children, and possibly two or three. That’s not very good odds and reduces our confidence in the remainder of the information.

In 1693, Marguerite Hebert, the widow of Jacques LePrince, is living in Mines.

The 1693 census shows that Marguerite’s oldest daughter, also named Marguerite, is age 15, which maps exactly to the one female child in 1678. Is Marguerite that child?

However, there’s one Marguerite LaPrincesse, age 12, living with Daniel LeBlanc in Port Royal at BelleIsle, as a servant. Daniel LeBlanc is 66, living with Francoise Godet, his wife, 76, Pierre 28, Pierre the son of Pierre, 7, and two servants, Jean LaForet and Marguerite LaPrincess. Daniel has a large farm with 20 cattle, 35 sheep, 9 pigs, on 18 arpents of land, and owns 3 guns. He is clearly not a poor farmer.

Given that Daniel’s son, Joseph LeBlanc, seems to be widowed and raising a child, they may have taken servants to help with both household and farm chores.

We don’t know when Jacques LePrince died, or when Marguerite Hebert moved to Mines. Regardless, her daughter, Marguerite LePrince, can’t be living in two places at the same time.

There are also no other Prince males in Acadia, so if the Marguerite LaPrincess living with Daniel is a Prince or LePrince, she has to be Jacques’ child.

I have to ask this out loud. Why on earth would a mother leave her 12-year-old daughter as a servant in someone’s home and move to the next frontier?

The only reason I can imagine is that Marguerite Hebert was just dirt poor and had no other choice. That’s certainly possible following Jacques’ death. Yet, she had several siblings in Minas who would have helped feed her, so I’m baffled.

Marguerite LePrince married Francois Tillard around 1701 in Port Royal. My first thought was that this was very unlikely to be Marguerite Hebert’s daughter, but a deeper dive shows that it almost certainly was.

Marguerite LePrince and Francois Tillard had four children:

• Marie Louise Tillard born around 1701 and died in 1751. Marie married Claude Trahan of Pisiquit about 1724.
• Francois Tillard born 1712 in Annapolis Royal, married Marie Denis in 1732 in Minas. His father is Francois Pillard, decd, and Marguerite Prince of Pigiguit of the parish of l’Assomption de la tres Ste. Vierge. Antoine LePrince (Marguerite Hebert’s son) is a witness. In 1742, Rene LePrince is Godfather to their child. L’Assomption is the Pisiquid parish, and the one closest to Riviere Hebere.
• Marguerite Tillard was born in 1714 in Port Royal, and married in Minas in 1734 to Joseph Dueron from Cobequid. Her mother is Marguerite LePrince.
• Magdelaine Tillard was born about about 1717 and married in 1738 in Minas to Francois Doiron. Mother is listed as Marguerite LePrince.

Marguerite LePrince apparently moved to Minas after Francois Tillard died, sometime after 1717 and before 1724 when her daughter, Marie married Claude Trahan from Pisiquid.

In 1734, Marguerite LePrince, daughter of Jacques LePrince and Marguerite Hebert, both deceased, received dispensation for a third degree of consanguinity and married in Minas to Jean Hebert, who lived at Cobequid. Their common 3^rd degree ancestor would have been the unknown parent of Marguerite Hebert’s father, Etienne, and his brother, Antoine Hebert. This confirms that Marguerite LePrince who married Jean Hebert is Marguerite Hebert’s daughter.

All of this, taken together, strongly suggests that indeed, the Marguerite LePrince who was a servant to Daniel LeBlanc in 1693, and who was also listed with her mother in Minas, is the same person who remained in Port Royal when her mother moved.

What we don’t know is whether Marguerite was born in 1678, as the census with her mother states, or was born in 1681 as her age listed with Daniel LeBlanc states.

We don’t know when Marguerite LePrince died, other than it was after her daughter Magdelaine Tillard married in 1738.

This brings us to the second challenge. An unrecorded daughter.

Anne LePrince

In the 1678 census, only one child is shown for Marguerite Hebert, a daughter. In 1686, four children are shown, so one born around 1678ish, the twins in 1680, and a child in the 1682 slot that’s missing later.

Or, maybe, just maybe, the oldest child is actually Anne LePrince, followed by the twin boys, then Marguerite, born in 1681.

If that is the case, then where is Anne in 1693?

We already know that the 1693 census is flawed. Maybe Marguerite actually was living with Daniel LeBlanc and never moved to Minas with her mother.

Perhaps the “slot” for Anne is taken by Marguerite’s name. We know that the census-taker got one of the twins’ names wrong too, and possibly misreported Francoise in place of Jean.

So, the next question is, how do we know Anne existed, at all?

• On July 18, 1709, Rose Rivet was born and baptized that September in Minas to Etienne Rivet and Anne Prince.
• Two years later, in the same months, Michel Rivet was born and baptized in Minas to the same parents. Antoine Prince, Marguerite’s son, stood as Godfather.

This suggests that Anne LePrince was married to Etienne Rivet by at least 1708. The Minas parish records only exist from 1707. If Anne was born in 1678, she would have been 30 by this time, a spinster by Acadian norms. Of course, she could easily have been married several years earlier.

There’s more.

After the Expulsion of 1755, some of Anne’s descendants wound up on Belle-Ile-en-Mer where they were initially housed in a warehouse adjacent the Palais inside one of the city gates where they gave depositions about their French origins.

While that sounds brutal, it wasn’t, because for the first time in more than a decade since the 1755 Expulsion, they were safe and free and awaiting assignment to land, homes and livestock in various locations around the island.

When I first tried to sort through this quagmire of testimony, I initially thought that this Anne was not the daughter of our Marguerite Hebert, but putting everything together, it certainly appears that she was.

In 1755, the Acadians who eventually wound up on Belle-Ile-en-Mer were rounded up, held in Fort Edward at Pisiquid where they were informed of their fate, then shipped to Virginia, where their ship was ultimately refused. The ship was sent on to England, where the Acadian passengers suffered, essentially as prisoners of war, living in cramped conditions in warehouses along the docks until after the Treaty of 1763 ended the conflict. 242 Acadians arrived in Liverpool, but many died of disease, especially smallpox during the seven years they were held there. Many of the English complimented the work ethic of the “Neutrals.”

In 1763, with the end of the war, they were repatriated to various locations in France, where the French government and citizens helped them establish new homes.

One of those locations was Belle-Ile-en-Mer.

Part of the process was to explain how they were French, so depositions were taken where we learn the following:

• Rose Rivet, born in 1760, was the child of Jean Rivet and Rosalie Bonniere. Jean Rivet was the son of Estienne Rivet and Anne LePrince who lived at Pisiquid and were members of the Sainte Famille Parish in 1727.
• Anne’s first child, Marie Rose Rivet swore that she was born at Pisiguit, in the parish of La Sainte Famille, on July 18, 1707 to Anne LePrince and Estienne Rivet, and that Anne (her mother) died in Maryland after she was deported in 1755.

The deposition then continues to say that all of Anne LePrince’s children were born at Pisiquit, when they were born, and what happened to them.

• Michel Rivet born in 1709 died in 1740.
• Etienne Rivet born in 1717 was transported to Maryland with his family.
• Anne Rivet born in 1719 died in Pisiguit in 1750.
• Claire Rivet born in 1723 was transported with her family to Maryland

If Claire was Anne’s youngest child, Anne would have been 43 years old when Claire was born, which is just about right.

Anne LePrince survived the deportation itself, and died, hopefully surrounded by her family, in Maryland. She would have been 77 in 1755 when forcibly herded onto those ships, with no possessions, to endure the freezing winter crossing.

Francois LePrince

Francois is the only one of Marguerite Hebert’s children whose documentation is consistent.

Twins were rare in Acadia. He and his twin brother, Antoine, were born about 1680 in Port Royal, according to the census.

By 1693, he was age 13, living with his widowed mother in Minas.

Francois and his twin brother had a double wedding in 1712 in Minas. Actually, it was a triple wedding, but I haven’t figured out a blood relationship to the third couple, if they were related. Fortunately, the Minas parish registers were taken to Louisiana and still exist.

• Francois Prince (<father’s name omitted> and Marguerite Hebert) married May 23, 1712 Catherine Benois (Martin Benois and Marie Chosegros of Pigiguit), witnesses Jacques Terriot, signed, Pierre Forets, signed, Guillaume Trahan, mark, Francois Rimbauld, mark, Pierre Benois, mark, Francois Michel, mark, Francois Prince, mark, Catherine Benois, mark. Triple wedding with Louis Sire/Marie Joseph Michel and Francois Prince/Catherine Benois (SGA-1,11)

Based on this and other information, while they were probably married in the church in Minas, they would have been living in Pisiquid, which is a significant distance from where the church was located in Grand Pre, the hub of the settlement.

Francois and Catherine had seven known children, and probably another five or six who did not survive.

We don’t know when Francois died, other than it was after his youngest child was born in 1731, and before the 1750 census on which he does not appear.

Many of his children sought refuge at Port LaJoye on Ile-St-Jean, today’s Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island, which was initially supposed to be a safe-haven. From there, about 3500 Acadian refugees were imprisoned and shipped on to France. Three overcrowded ships, the Duke William, the Violet and the Ruby tragically sank, killing hundreds. 

Francois’s youngest son, Claude, perished on December 13, 1758 along with his wife and three children when the Duke William sank after being separated from the rest of the fleet during a severe storm. Her mast broke, and her hull failed, causing the ship to be overwhelmed with water and sink near Falmouth, England.

More than 360 passengers, if you can call them that, drowned, but the captain, crew, priest and a few others managed to survive in small boats.

Noel Doiron, whose son, Louis Mathieu, was born in Boston as a hostage in 1706, was aboard that ship, along with Louis, Noel’s wife and four of their other children – 50 years after they survived being kidnapped, held as hostages, and released.

I can only imagine the indescribable terror.

Antoine LePrince

Antoine LePrince celebrated his wedding with his twin brother, Francois. Perhaps the wild roses that still grace the Acadian homelands were in full bloom.

• Antoine Prince, (Jacques Prince, decd, and Marguerite Hebert, of the parish of des Mines), married May 23, 1712 Anne Trahan (Guillaume Trahan and <mother omitted>, habitants of Piguguit), witnesses Jacques Terriot, signed, Pierre Forets, signed, Guillaume Trahan, mark, Francois Michel, mark, Antoine Prince, mark, Anne Trahan, mark. Triple wedding with Louis Sire/Marie Joseph Michel and Francois Prince/Catherine Benois (SGA-1,11)

I can’t help but think about that joyful gathering. They probably planned carefully, coordinating a trip to Minas so a priest would be present. Everyone from the neighborhood, even though it was miles away, probably made the journey because they wanted to attend all three ceremonies.

Had they married in the local parish, Sainte Famille, at Pisiquid, we would have no record today because those parish records no longer exist.

Antoine LePrince and Anne had nine known children, and probably another four or five who didn’t live to adulthood.

In 1730, Antoine’s name appeared on the list of Pisiquid inhabitants who agreed to swear an oath of allegiance to the English crown. He may have had little choice in the matter.

The Belle-Ile-en-Mer depositions state that his great-great-great-granddaughter died at Liverpool in June of 1763. It further states that Antoine LePrince and his wife both died as Pisiguit.

Antoine’s Daughter, Anne LePrince – Marguerite’s Granddaughter

Additionally, the depositions tell us that Anne LePrince, daughter of Antoine, married Sylvain LeBlanc who died in Liverpool in 1756, but “Anne LePrince is living in Morlaix with her family.”

Anne was born about 1724, and was listed on the ship manifest for “The Sturgeon,” bound for France from Liverpool, with her children:

• Anastasie LeBlanc
• Joseph LeBlanc
• Marguerite LeBlanc
• Modeste LeBlanc became a Carmelite nun at Morlaix, taking the name of Sister Augustin de Saint-Francois de Sales, according to Karen Theriot Reader, here

Anne LePrince lived in the port city of Morlaix for the last 20 years of her life, until 1794. She is listed on the census there in 1772, 1786 and 1792 and was among the city’s poor. She and her daughter reportedly sold knitting to help support themselves.

According to the historian Clarence J. d’Entremont, Anne was executed by guillotine along with one of her daughters Anastasie (others say it was Angelique, but there’s no evidence of a daughter by that name), and Abbé Clech, a priest, on July1, 1794 in Brest, France.

Anne lived here, at 97 Rue des Vignes, in Morlaix, with her daughter or daughters.

It was here that she and her daughter sheltered the priest who arrived at their door asking for a place to stay during the French Revolution – for which they were taken to Brest, tried, and subsequently beheaded.

They were arrested on June 21st, 1794 in Morlaix and taken to Brest on the 23rd.

They were all three imprisoned at the castle, with Anne and her daughter accused of having harbored the priest in their home, thus defying the laws of the Revolution.

They would have been led down these stairs into the castle dungeon.

On July 1st, their trial began at 8 in the morning, here, in the Revolutionary Tribunal Chapel, the site of the former Jesuit seminary, at today’s intersection of Rue de Lyon and Rue Duquesne in Brest. These buildings no longer exist. If not torn down before, Brest was heavily bombed during WWII.

The verdict was pronounced nearly immediately, which said:

The Tribunal ordains that the said August Clec’h shall be delivered to the executor of the criminal cases to be put to death according to articles ten (etc.). Sentences Anne LePrince, Anastasie LeBlanc, her daughter, to die according to articles 2 and 3 (etc.)

Executions were public spectacles, designed to take place where the maximum number of people could gather and bear witness. They took place nearly daily during this period in history, referred to as the Reign of Terror, at Place du Chateau, in front of the castle.

Anne, her daughter and the priest, all three condemned, would have been marched through the streets immediately thereafter, if not carried by cart, as part of the exploitive “entertainment”.

The locations shown on this early map no longer exist as they did at that time. The Place du Chateau functioned as both a military esplanade and site of public executions.

The crowd would have gathered. Who was going to be guillotined today? What would they do? Beg? Cry? Confess?

At noon, first the priest, then Anne LePrince, by then an elderly woman of at least 70, followed by her daughter, Anastasie, about 38 or 39, climbed onto the scaffold platform to provide the day’s amusement for the gathered crowds by having their lifeblood spilled.

I can’t even begin to imagine watching this horrible fate happen to YOUR MOTHER!

I can’t even look at a guillotine without becoming nauseous, so you’ll have to google that one for yourselves.

After the Revolution ended, public executions slowed and ended at this location in 1839. In the 1840s, France began “civilizing” former sites with such a brutal history into promenades and public squares.

In many cases, what was originally the “central figure”, meaning the scaffold and execution site, was replaced with a fountain, also located in the center of the same expansive location.

So it was probably right here that Anne and her daughter were murdered. Not for violence, or a crime – but for refusing to surrender their faith and giving a man of the cloth shelter in their home.

Blood was replaced by water. Gardens and fountains softened the space, their gentle sounds drowning out the echoes of terror that once filled the square. Gone were the sounds of the crowd as they watched. Did they cheer? Gasp? Did they turn away? This was sport.

People forgot – or chose not to remember – what happened here. Over time, the cheerful voices of the next generations wafted in the air where screams once echoed, replacing the intentionally-erased and deliberately-buried trauma of the place where bloodthirsty crowds watched hundreds die beneath the executioner’s blade – one terrified human being at a time.

Among them stood Marguerite’s granddaughter and her child, condemned not just for what they had done, following the example taught in the Bible, but for what they refused to deny.

I can’t even begin to comprehend Anne’s bravery. She assuredly knew the risks.

For that, she was martyred.

By 1902, just 108 years later, La Place du Chateau had become a gardens for families as pictured in this post card. No one knew what had systematically occurred here.

By 1944, this entire area had been bombed into oblivion during the siege of Brest.

In a different location, but for the same underlying reason, 32 Carmelite nuns were executed. They refused to take the required oath and revoke their vows, so they were loaded onto carts and went to their death singing hymns before being publicly executed and buried in a mass grave.

This sends shivers up my spine. I hope that Anne’s other daughter, Modeste, didn’t suffer this fate. Given that she was a nun in Morlaix, she assuredly knew what happened to her mother and sister.

While Anne and her daughter, Anastasia, must have been utterly terrified, I picture them defiantly singing as well. They were already convicted and sentenced to death. What else was left to do?

After their execution, their bodies and heads would have been thrown into the cart, which would have been drawn through the city to some obscure trench on the outskirts, leaving a trail of blood behind. Clearly, there was no family to claim them, and no one would risk claiming a priest.

There is some great irony knowing that because of the unique circumstances, Anne and her daughter unquestionably received last rites.

You can read the rest of Anne’s story, here and here.

I hope Anne’s grandmother, Marguerite, was watching over her and waiting on the other side to embrace and greet Anne and Anastasia. Maybe one day we will have two official martyrs in the family.

Anne wasn’t alone in Morlaix, at least not initially. Her sister, Marguerite was with Anne in Virginia, then in Liverpool, then Morlaix, but died in 1778.

Two of Anne’s siblings made it to Pennsylvania, one landed in Maryland, one eventually made their way to Quebec, another died in Liverpool, and one, Tranquille, died in Louisiana in 1798.

Antoine LePrince’s children were truly scattered to the winds.

Marguerite’s Missing Children

After Francois and Antoine LePrince’s births about 1780, and probably Marguerite LePrince’s birth around 1781, there are at least two missing children, in 1783 and 1785.

They died before the 1786 census, and like the others, they are probably buried at either St. Laurent, above, where nothing remains today, or one of the two cemeteries in Bridgetown.

Estienne LePrince

Estienne is shown in 1693 as five years old, which means he would have been born about 1687.

Unfortunately, Estienne apparently died before marrying, because we have no further records. He would have married in the 17-teens, meaning he or his children would have probably appeared in some record.

Estienne is probably buried either in the cemetery at Grand Pre, marked today by this cross beside the church, at Sainte-Famille, or maybe in a family chapel cemetery along the Riviere Hebere.

More Missing Children

Following Estienne in the census are spaces for children who would have been born in 1689 and 1691.

Two more small graves for Marguerite. Two more babies for her to prepare for burial.

This was also the time period in which Marguerite’s husband, Jacques LePrince, died as well.

They were all three gone by the 1693 census.

Poor Marguerite. Her aching heart!

Francoise LePrince

We really have no idea if Francoise actually existed, or if the census-taker was falling down on the job again.

In the 1693 census, in Minas, Francoise is shown as one year old. If she existed, she perished.

We do know, however, that a male child, Jean LePrince was born about that time.

Jean LePrince

Jean LePrince was either:

1. Actually Francoise in the census, and the name was a mistake
2. Or he wasn’t living with his mother in 1693
3. Or he was born after the 1693 census, and after his father had died

We know beyond any doubt that Jean was the child of Jacques LePrince and Marguerite Hebert.

He married in 1715 in Port Royal, where his parents are listed as Jacques Prince, deceased, and Marguerite Hebert, habitant of Mines.

Jean lived at Port Royal. Now, based on the fact that Marguerite Hebert’s daughter, Marguerite LePrince, who married Francois Tillard around 1704 in Port Royal and seems to have lived a nontrivial portion of her life in Port Royal too, I can’t help but wonder if Jean LePrince never left Port Royal.

Why is this family so split between those two locations? Port Royal and Minas. Two children living and marrying in the Port Royal area after their father died and their mother is found with the rest of their siblings in Minas in 1693. In 1693, both Jean LePrince and Marguerite LePrince would have been young teens.

Maybe someone else took them in to raise, but why?

Maybe Jean LePrince hadn’t yet been born when the census was taken in 1693.

Nothing else gives his age or even a hint at his birth year.

Maybe his mother, Marguerite, couldn’t handle any more than she was already handling.

It has always been presumed that Jean was the child born in 1693, not Francoise. However, in 1715, at what would be age 22 if he was born in 1693, the married a 33-year-old widow. Acadian males typically did not marry that young, and not to someone 11 years older. Now I wonder if Jean was actually one of those older missing children.

If so, then where was he at the time?

Why isn’t he listed in the census?

But then again, why isn’t Anne LePrince listed in the census?

Why aren’t Jacques LePrince and Marguerite Hebert’s children listed with names and ages in 1686 when everyone else’s children have names and ages?

And why was Marguerite “LePrincess” listed in Port Royal as a servant to Daniel LeBlanc in 1693, age 12, and also in Minas with her mother at age 15?

Why was this family so scattered?

Not to mention, even harkening back to 1671, where was Marguerite’s husband, Jacques LePrince?

Something has always been a bit unsettling about this family.

I know there’s a backstory that we will never know.

There are just too many anomalies to be coincidence.

I hope, whatever the circumstances, Marguerite was able to find peace during her earthly existence and joy in her 34 grandchildren.

Marguerite’s Death and Burial

Thanks to marriages recorded by the priest in the St. Charles aux Mines Parish, which is the church at Grand Pre, we know that Marguerite’s twin sons were married in a triple ceremony in 1712, and she was living then. Marguerite is listed as “of the parish of Minas” but both of her sons married women from Pisiquid (Fort Edward on this map), which is highly suggestive of where they actually lived, regardless of where they married. It’s also possible that the priest was visiting locally and they were actually married at Pisiquid, not in Grand Pre.

In 1714, both twin sons are living in Pisiquid as is Marguerite’s daughter, Anne Prince, with her husband, Estienne Rivet. Additionally, several of Margaret’s siblings have settled there too, including her brother Jean Hebert, sister Martine Hebert, with husband Nicolas Barrieau (Barillot), her half-sister, Marie Gareau, who had been held as a hostage with husband Jerome Darois, Marguerite’s deceased sister Marie’s children, plus several nieces and nephews. Not to mention many Forest, Trahan and LeJeune neighbors – all people from the old Port Royal upriver neighborhood, most of whom Marguerite was probably related to one way or another – or maybe even multiple ways.

Pisiquid was very clearly a close-knit family community.

Fifty-six households would assuredly be enough people to warrant a convenient cemetery, perhaps at the “Ville Trahan” family chapel.

In 1715, Marguerite’s son, Jean LePrince, who is entirely omitted from the census, married in Port Royal, and she is listed as living in Minas.

By 1734, when her daughter, Marguerite LePrince, married in Minas, Marguerite was noted as deceased, but there was no death record for her in the parish register between 1712 and 1734. Of course, parish records may not have been complete, or, more likely, she wasn’t buried by the priest in the cemetery beside the church in Grand Pre. Only two Pisiquid burials are recorded in the Minas parish records, which stretch from 1707-1748.

So Marguerite died sometime in the span of 19 years, between 1715 and 1734, probably at Pisiquid, which puts her age between 63 and 82.

While we don’t know when Marguerite departed this life, the one thing we can surmise is that her funeral sermon would have been given either by the visiting priest, later, or a neighbor or family member when she died.

The closest consecrated ground before 1722 was at the Sainte Famille Cemetery on Gabriel Road in Falmouth, established in 1698.

After 1722, the closest cemetery associated with a parish church was at l’Assumption, where Fort Edward stands today. The cemetery there is considered a “lost cemetery,” but archaeologist Jonathan Fowler suggests that the cemetery is located within sight of the remaining blockhouse. You can read his article, here.

Only the block house remains today, but in the above satellite image of the Fort Edward National Historic Site, you can clearly see the outline of the original fort. According to Dr. Fowler’s research, compiled from earlier photos and descriptions of surrounding willows, he believes that the original parish cemetery was located about 200 feet from the original fort, which was built where the church was torn down, in the approximate location of the red circle.

Neither parish location was close or convenient to people living along the Riviere Hebere, another nine miles east of the church at l’Assumption, and both required crossing tidal rivers.

We know that, in addition to the known parishes, there were two family chapels, one of which, Trahan, was between l’Assumption and the Riviere Hebere, where Marguerite and her children assuredly lived.

The Trahan Village is located someplace near Three Mile Plains, according to the Avon River Heritage site.

Maybe Marguerite is buried there, or maybe the priest consecrated family plots at remote Acadian homesteads, and Marguerite is buried in a long-forgotten Hebert family cemetery. Of course, all Acadian cemeteries were abruptly abandoned in 1755, by no choice of the Acadian families. Perhaps Marguerite was buried in a cemetery later adopted by the English planters who were given the Acadian farms after the 1755 Expulsion.

It’s unlikely that the new inhabitants, New England settlers who took over farming the Acadian homesteads, would have destroyed existing graves. They may have simply begun burying their own family members in an already established graveyard. That’s exactly what happened in Port Royal.

Two cemeteries, the Old Riverview Haven Cemetery and the Old St. James Anglican Cemetery, both with many unmarked graves, are located on Chambers Road.

Chambers, a remote dirt road, inaccessible even on Google maps, runs along the Rivière Héberè, now the Herbert River, just beyond where the tidal bore settles and becomes nothing more than a ripple, whispering secrets from the past. It traces the edge of the marshlands where Marguerite lived for the second half of her life, since at least 1693.

It’s probably along this tranquil stretch, close to her home, that Marguerite spent her final days.

Wherever you are, Marguerite, rest easy.

_____________________________________________________________

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Despite my attempts at clarity, the early life of Jacques Le Prince remains a mystery, as does his death.

We can’t prove anything about Jacques’ early years at this point, but there are possibilities that need to be considered and evaluated.

It’s likely that Jacques was born in France, around 1646, according to a later census.

The Carignan Regiment?

A man named Jacques Prince, or LePrince, was a member of the 1300-man Carignan Regiment, which was dispatched to New France from 1665 to 1667 to fight the Haudenosaunee, an Iroquoian confederacy. Their numbers were impressive, but the French soldiers were ill-prepared for the type of fighting they would encounter on the frontier.

After peace was declared in 1667, most of the soldiers returned to France, but not all. France offered attractive incentives for those who wished to stay and settle, including land, a year’s worth of provisions, and a sum of money dependent upon the soldier’s rank.

About 400 stayed, and 283 are known to have married near Quebec where many Acadians would one day take refuge after the 1755 Expulsion, including Jacques’ grandchildren.

However, that leaves about 120 Carignan soldiers unaccounted for.

One Jacques LePrince is on the regimental list of soldiers in the Laubia company.

A WikiTree contributor provides the following summary. I have fixed the broken links in this version.

According to an article by Chantal Gaillardetz Bourque, “Les Prince,” ^[7] and to various compiled genealogies, a soldier named Jacques Leprince (or Prince) appears in lists associated with the Carignan-Salières Regiment. There was a Jacques Leprince or Prince in the regiment’s list of soldiers.

It is claimed that he embarked from La Rochelle aboard “Le Saint-Sébastien” on 24 May 1665 and arrived at Québec on 12 September 1665. Two days later, members of the Laubias Company reportedly traveled to Trois-Rivières aboard La Justice, where they remained until about 1668.

A Jacques Leprince, aged 25, is said to appear in the 1666 census of Trois-Rivières as a servant in the household of the notary Sévérin Ameau. Stephen White questions whether this individual can be identified with the Jacques Leprince who later married Marguerite Hébert in Acadie. ^[1] It is also believed that after being discharged from the Regiment, Jacques went to Acadia, around 1667.

The website migrations.fr, citing Roy and Malchelosse, notes that the surname Leprince does not appear in the official roster of the Laubias Company, but is mentioned elsewhere in the same source.

(My note.) Page 111 in the same volume for soldiers not included on the roll who returned to France or remained in Canada. The soldiers are listed by their nicknames. This means that if this is our Jacques, his actual surname may not have been Prince or LePrince. We need a LePrince man proven to descend from Jacques through all males who is willing to take a Big Y-700 test. I’m offering a  DNA testing scholarship, so please reach out.

From this, some authors infer that the soldier and the Acadian settler were the same person; however, no direct documentary link has been demonstrated. ^[9]

Other writers further hypothesize that Jacques Leprince was born about 1641 in Normandy, the son of Nicolas Leprince, seigneur de la Bretonnière, and Judith Hurault. This lineage is based on interpretive readings of heraldic material rather than on contemporary civil or parish records.

Another person also states, with no evidence, that Jacques was actually named Jacques Nicolas LePrince and was born in St. Malo.

Cousin Mark did a deep dive into the French records at Filae and reports:

There is absolutely no evidence that Jacques Le Prince was born in Normandy or the son of anyone from there.

The soldier Jacques Le Prince recorded in the 1666 census for Trois-Rivières as domestique for the notary Sévérin Ameau shows an age of 25, so born about 1641, not 1646.

On 3 Nov 1667 he appears as witness to the marriage of Noël Laurence dit l’Orange, a soldier in the Lafouille Company, at Trois-Rivières; he is identified as “soldat nommé LePrince de la compagnie de Loubias”. Likely the same Jacques Le Prince appears as a witness on 15 Apr 1671, to the marriage of Paul Daze, an immigrant from Loudun and an older widow Françoise Goubillo, which raises an interesting thought. This Jacques Le Prince no longer appears in the records of Québec.

While PRDH and others have linked the soldier Jacques Le Prince with Acadian Jacques Le Prince, there is no additional evidence to do so. Stephen White had reason to wonder if the two are the same.

It is even possible that Le Prince was a “dit” name given to the soldier, just as Julien Lore/Lord dit La Montagne was usually referred to by his “dit” name in Acadia. There are several family trees on Filae.com with a Jacques Prince/Le Prince scattered throughout Southwest France, the recruitment area for the Carignan-Salières Regiment and the Loubias/Laubia company. It was not Normandy.

This information makes me wonder if there were actually two men named Jacques LePrince in the Quebec area at the same time. One, a soldier, while the other, is, at the same time, a valet for the notary. It seems impossible that one person is serving in both positions at the same time, but I don’t know.

Is this the same Jacques Le Prince or Prince that married Marguerite Hebert in Acadia sometime between 1671 and 1678? We don’t know.

Keep two things in mind:

• The English had captured Port Royal in Acadia in 1654, but it was returned to France by treaty in 1667. However, it wasn’t until September of 1670 that the new French governor was established, marking the effective return of Acadia to French control. It’s unlikely that Jacques LePrince, the soldier, would have made his way to Port Royal until after it was firmly under French rule.
• Jacques LePrince, who may or may not be our Jacques LePrince, witnessed a marriage in April of 1671, in Trois-Rivieres.

What We Do Know

The first actual record that we have that positively includes “our” Jacques LePrince in Port Royal, or anyplace, is the 1678 Acadian census.

Jacques “La Prence” and Marguerite Hebert are listed with one child, a female, 2 arpents of land, and 8 cattle. Their household is located far upriver, between Olliver Daigre and his wife, Marie Godet, and neighbor, Jean Hebert, northeast of Bridgetown today.

Essentially, Jacques LePrince and his family inhabit one of the furthest homesteads from Port Royal, some 18 miles upstream as the crow flies, but Jacques would have been paddling a canoe through all of the twists and turns in the river – so probably more like 25 miles to get to town, or church.

This census suggests that Jacques and Marguerite Hebert were married by at least 1677 if they had an infant daughter. The child’s age is not recorded.

However, there’s evidence to suggest that they might have been married by 1671. In the 1671 census, Marguerite Hebert, age 19, is listed with her widowed mother, and the census indicates that she is one of two married daughters. In the 1671 census, typically the married children are listed with their parents, PLUS in their own household – but there is no hint of Marguerite in any other household, nor is Jacques LePrince listed. The other married daughter, Marie Hebert, age 20 with three children, is living next door with her husband Michel de Forest.

Relative to Jacques LePrince, there are two flies in this ointment.

The first Acadian census was taken in the spring of 1671 following the new governor’s arrival in September of 1670. We know the census was taken sometime in the spring of 1671, because the passengers on the ship, L’Oranger, which left La Rochelle in the spring, so probably arrived May-ish, were not recorded in the census. This includes Pierre Arsenault, Martin Benoit and wife Marie Chaussegros, and possibly Francois Broussard which means they arrived after the census had already been taken.

Therefore, if Jacques LePrince was witnessing a marriage in Trois Rivieres in mid-April 1671, he probably didn’t have a wife in Port Royal. Not to mention that those locations are hundreds of miles apart, and transportation was challenging. While an overland walking route is shown above, it would have been very dangerous and quite long. The typical journey was on a ship, traveling down the Saint Lawrence River, crossing the open sea, then circumnavigating Nova Scotia to Port Royal. The trip took between one and three months, depending on the weather.

I’m not saying that the Jacques in Quebec isn’t the Jacques in Port Royal, I’m saying we need to consider this possibility carefully, all things considered.

The second potential fly is that the 1671 census says that Marguerite Hebert, age 19, was married – but it doesn’t say to whom. It’s possible that she had married but was  widowed by 1671, but had remarried by the 1678 census when she is found with Jacques LePrince.

It’s also possible that Jacques LePrince was on the ship, L’Oranger that arrived in Port Royal from France later in 1671 with 50 new colonists.

If Jacques and Marguerite had children before their daughter, Marguerite, was born around the time the 1678 census was taken, those earlier children had all died prior to the 1678 census.

In 1678, Jacques La Prence and Marguerite Hebert are living between Oliver Daigre and his wife, Marie Godet, and Jean Hebert. In 1715, Jacques’ son, Jean LePrince would marry the widow of Oliver Daigre’s son, Oliver. Jean Hebert is Marguerite’s brother.

In 2024, I located the Daigle homestead near Button Brook, east of Bridgetown.

The Daigle homestead is shown here on the MapAnnapolis map.

In the 1686 Port Royal census, Jacques LePrince is age 40, so born about 1646, and shown with his wife, Marguerite Hebert, 35, with 4 children, 5 sheep, and 3 hogs. Children’s ages and names are listed for other Acadian couples, but frustratingly, not for Jacques and Marguerite’s children. No land is listed either, nor does Jacques own a gun, which is very difficult to believe. We really can’t tell where he’s living based on his neighbors, although it’s likely that they are living in the same location as 1678. I suspect they are living very remotely – and the census taker simply didn’t visit. Hence, the omission of data.

Jacques’ name is also absent from the 1690 mandatory loyalty oath to the English crown, forcibly signed under duress in Port Royal by all the Acadian men. The English clearly weren’t coming to find him in the hinterlands.

The Move to Minas

It’s difficult to know whether to interpret the lack of his 1690 signature as evidence of the fact that he lived so far away, meaning upriver beyond Bridgetown, or evidence that he had already taken his family and settled at Minas, which is also possible. If he hadn’t already left, the unprovoked 1690 attack on Port Royal by the English, followed a few months later by a second pirate attack, may have been what prompted that move.

In the 1686 census, 10 families had already settled at “Baye des Mines,” including Marguerite’s brother, Etienne (Estienne in the census) Hebert, who married Jeanne Comeau, and Marguerite’s sister, Catherine Hebert, who married Philippe Pinet.

By the 1693 census, Jacques Le Prince and his family had moved to Minas, and Jacques had died, probably either in Minas or Pisiquid, but we will never know for sure. Both are possibilities. It’s also possible, but extremely unlikely, that Jacques died in Port Royal and Marguerite joined her family in in the Minas Basin.

Marguerite Hebert, Jacques’ widow, is listed in the census as age 40, with:

• Daughter Marguerite, 15 (so born about 1678)
• Twins Francois and Jacques, 13 (born about 1680)
• Estienne, 5 (born about 1685)
• Francoise, 1 (born about 1692)

Francoise may be incorrect. Francoise may have been their youngest son, Jean LrPrince, unless Francoise died young and Jean was actually born in 1693 after the census had already been recorded.

Another child;s name was misrecorded too. Based on later marriage records, the twin named Jacques here was actually named Antoine.

Were their children mis-recorded because they were newcomers to the area, or perhaps because they were living very remotely again?

This tells us that Jacques LePrince died between 1691 when Marguerite would have become pregnant for the child who was listed as “1” in 1693, and when the census was taken that year. Unfortunately, there are no parish registers prior to 1707, so Jacques’ death is not recorded.

If daughter Marguerite was 15 in 1693, then she would have been born about 1678, which correlates with the 1678 census when one female child was listed.

This means that Marguerite and Jacques were probably married by 1676 or 1677, or if they married earlier, prior to the 1671 census, their children born between their wedding and Marguerite’s birth about 1678 had all died.

Life at Grand Pre and Minas

Pierre Melanson and his family led the way to Minas between 1682 and 1684, followed by others. The first families to settle in Grand Pre in the Minas Basin would have selected land close to each other. One of the first group activities was probably to dig a well and build a small church, home of the St. Charles aux Mines Parish, founded in 1686. Of course, that church was probably improved and expanded in later years before being destroyed by the English in 1755.

The church at Grand Pre has been rebuilt and preserved, welcoming visitors today.

Inside the church, mirrors are beautifully engraved with the names of the early families as recorded in the parish register. Our Le Prince family is honored here, shown to the right of my black bag.

I don’t know if this was the intention or not, but as I looked at their name, and me, in the mirror, I’m looking at a little bit of them.

Jacques LePrince would have worshipped here. At least his youngest child, and perhaps more of his children, would have been baptized here if they actually lived at Minas when the family first moved to the Basin from the Riviere Dauphin, as the Annapolis River was called then.

Ten households consisting of 57 people were recorded in the 1686 census.

Probably encouraged by Marguerite’s siblings who had already made the move, Jacques and his family arrived sometime during the next seven years, likely with a group of Port Royal families who made the journey together. When the next census was taken in 1693, there were 307 people living in 55 homes. The population had increased more than fivefold.

The labor, as well as the fruits of that labor, were shared.

Jacques probably helped plant this orchard, but he never lived long enough to reap those benefits. His wife and children may have.

If he didn’t plant this orchard, he surely planted one similar.

A community well was dug which tells us that the inhabitants lived in close proximity.

This particular well is believed to have been used to water livestock.

How many times did Jacques dip the wooden bucket in the well for fresh water?

Standing beside the church, as Jacques surely did, we see the Bay of Fundy in the distance, across the salt marsh fields.

The millstone lying beside the church today speaks of grinding crops – wheat, oats, barley, rye and sometimes buckwheat. Grains essential to their survival and particularly suitable for production in the rich reclaimed marshlands.

Flowers line the walkway between the church, the well, and the cemetery.

If Jacques died in close proximity to the church, and a priest was available, his funeral mass would have been celebrated in this sacred place.

A stone cross marks the location of the cemetery and honors the Acadians who are buried here. This cemetery location was confirmed when coffins were found in the late 1800s.

Incomplete parish records show about 170 burials, but historians believe there are probably around 400 located between the church and the road.

Graves would have been marked with white crosses when they were fresh, but anything left was destroyed by the English during and after the Expulsion.

This French Willow tree was probably standing when Jacques and the Acadian men were fetching water from the well and planting the orchard.

This tree probably was too. They may have been planted by the Acadians.

Initially, Jacques may have lived within walking distance of the church.

We don’t know when settlers migrated away from the Minas area to Pisiquid and the Riviere Hebere.

We don’t know where or how Jacques died. He was still a relatively young man, between 45 years old in 1691, and 47 in 1693, his bracketed death dates.

Jacques could have perished in the sea, the river, or in the back country. If so, there would have been no funeral or graveyard burial.

He could have died at home, perhaps from a farming accident, an infection or illness that we have medicines to effectively treat today.

If the family actually did live at Minas, at least initially, and not distantly, he would have been buried in the cemetery beside the church in Grand Pre, in consecrated ground.

Today, we can sit quietly and reflect, knowing that their graves surround us.

Perhaps Jacques’ spirit came to visit in the form of this raptor. Was he carrying a message?

Do they know we’ve come to visit them?

Given the early date of Jacques LePrince’s death, it’s possible that the original settlement group was still clustered together and the next wave of settlers had not yet begun reaching out further to establish homesteads.

That said, we really don’t know exactly when the new frontier summoned several families to move on. We do know that Jacques certainly wasn’t concerned about living some distance away from the main village.

We also know, from priests’ records, that Father Jean Buisson de Saint-Cosme served Minas from 1692-1698. There were significant periods when the area, especially the villages established further east, at or near Pisiquid, were without priests or churches.

Riviere Hebere

Based on this 1755 map of Minas, it’s possible that the Jacques LePrince and Marguerite Hebert family lived a significant distance away from Minas and Grand-Pré itself, near the arrow indicating the Riviere Hebere.

When did the early families settle at Pisiquid, relatively distant from Minas? Did family groups settle into small villages there directly, and not establish themselves at Minas first?

Today, the Riviere Hebere, now the Herbert River, is beyond the St. Croix River that branches into the Meander River, then branches again into the Herbert River to the east of Mantua.

Tidal bore rivers provided fertile salt marshes that were dyked and drained using sluices.

The Grand-Pré National Historic Site provides a wonderful museum that, among other things, illustrates the Acadian farming practices.

Sluices let the rainwater escape as the wooden flap opens, then closes to prevent seawater from flooding the fields.

Remnants of the old aboiteau drainage systems are regularly unearthed, more than 300 years later.

This area would have felt quite familiar to Jacques LePrince and the Acadians, as it is located on a tidal bore river that required dyking and draining through a complex series of aboiteau and sluices – just like Port Royal.

You can read more about the Herbert River, here. Be sure to download the pdf file for wonderful maps.

Tidal rivers always look brown thanks to the constant churn of the mud from the bottom of the river as the tide rushes in and out twice each day.

The Herbert River stretches many miles inland but loses the tidal bore effect at the point where the brown coloration changes on the map. Acadians were experts at reclaiming and farming tidal marshland. In fact, the more marsh, the better, so they would have settled and farmed the area near the Meander River split.

If, in fact, Jacques LePrince did live among the Hebert family in the remote area near Mantua, it’s no wonder the census taker listed his children incorrectly. The census taker may have been the priest, and you can bet the only time those in the remotest regions saw the priest was when he passed through from time to time, baptizing babies and hoping for a friendly place to stay. Maybe he asked someone who came to town, “Who else lives out there?”, and recorded what they said.

The overarching theme, to this point in Jacques’ life, is that he lived in the most remote part of Port Royal at Paradis Terrestre, possibly followed by the most remote part of the Minas Basin at Pisiquid.

The curves of the Meander River as seen from Avondale Road near the Mantua Bridge, although we don’t know if this was considered part of the Riviere Hebere at the time. It’s still quite remote, and there are few roads.

As I look at this tidal river, I can’t help but wonder if Jacques got too close when the tide was rushing in or out. It’s quite dangerous, and nothing like the tidal river at Bridgetown which is barely visible and quite tame by comparison. This YouTube video is taken at nearby Moncton, but you can see the huge wave and the person riding the surf in front of it. This video shows the smaller tidal bore on the St. Croix River further inland.

Crossing the Mantua Bridge. You can see progressive photos of the tidal bore, here. This is probably very close to, or where the Hebert family village was located, and where Jacques would have lived if they had established homes here before he died.

By the time you’ve driven just a mile or so further east of the bridge, the terrain has changed and is no longer primarily salt marsh, although it’s still tidal to some extent. I see marshlands to the right, but not on the left-hand side.

This part of the Herbert River shoreline would probably not have been cultivated by the Acadians.

The Herbert River is heavily forested here and would have been the abode of the friendly Mi’kmaq people. Today, there are hiking trails.

Remote Parishes and Parishioners

The original parish at Pisiquid, Sainte Famille, was established in 1698. Priests traveled throughout the region and served several parishes. If Jacques lived here when he died, his Acadian neighbors would simply have taken care of business and buried him someplace dry.

When no priest was available in a remote location, a community elder or family member would have lead prayers, prayed the rosary, and said funeral liturgies, similar to a memorial service or less formal celebration of life, today.

The family may have held a veillée, similar to a wake, where the family surrounds the deceased all night, lighting candles, praying the rosary and singing hymns. This served as a form of protection and support for the family, especially in the absence of clergy.

The following day, the family or a neighbor would perform a “dry” funeral, sprinkling holy water if it was available on the casket and grave, before a reading and the burial. When a priest did visit, often months later, he would officially bless the deceased person, maybe perform a funeral mass, and record the burial in the parish register that he carried with him.

In 1996, a work crew accidentally unearthed bones on Gabriel Road in the Mountain View Subdivision near Falmouth. More than two dozen graves were identified along with artifacts dating to the 1700s. Additional analysis of the site showed roughly 300 burials and the lot next door was identified as the original location of the Sainte Famille church.

The church would have been located in the center of the Acadian community. While the original families may have initially used a house or barn as a church, they would have established a graveyard with the first community death, and the ground would have been consecrated as soon as possible. The subsequent church was probably built adjacent to the cemetery.

A memorial park was established at 419 Gabriel Road between the homes.

While closer than Minas, this location was still far from what would eventually be marked on the map as the Riviere Hebere. It was also difficult to get there from the east side of the river, which is why another parish. L’Assumption, was established in 1722 in the location where Fort Pisiquid, then eventually Fort Edward, would one day be located. This church was torn down in 1750 when the English erected Fort Edward, but there are assuredly burials there as well.

That’s still not convenient to the families living at Riviere Hebere – at least six miles distant.

Interestingly enough, there were also two known family chapels, one at Ville Foret and one in the Trahan Village. We don’t know when they came into use, but it’s very likely that no one transported their deceased family members across heavily tidal rivers to Sainte Famille once they had established their homesteads in the furthest eastern area of Pisiquid. It’s most likely that the LePrince family worshipped in the Trahan Chapel, or perhaps in their own home in a personal chapel that has evaded recorded history.

Did the early Acadian group settle at Saint Famille and then spread further east? Where was Jacques Le Prince living when he died, leaving his wife, Marguerite Hebert, with a 15-year-old daughter, 13-year-old twin boys, a 5-year-old, a daughter shown as one, plus Jean, his youngest son who was either mis-recorded as Francoise, or was born in 1693 after the census, to a mother who was already widowed?

Jean was the son Jacques would never know.

Fortunately for Marguerite, in 1693, after Jacques had died, of the 55 households in Minas, 7 held her closest relatives, including:

• Her brother, Estienne Hebert (already there in 1686)
• Her sister, Catherine Hebert, who married Philippe Pinet (already there by 1686)
• Her brother, Michel Hebert, 24, married to Isabelle Pelerin
• Her sister, Martine Hebert, 27, married to Nicolas Barillet or Barrieu
• Her brother, Jean Hebert, 33, married to Jeanne Doiron
• Her nephew, Jean Hebert, 40, who married Anne Doucet
• Her niece, Catherine Hebert, 32, married to Jacques LeBlanc

Marguerite would have needed all the support she could get without Jacques. To the best of our knowledge, she never remarried.

It appears that when they moved to Minas, Jacques did not sell his land upriver from Port Royal. Truthfully, few would have wanted to be that distant from other settlers, market and trade opportunities, the mill, or the church. Maybe the famly wasn’t sure they wanted to stay in Minas and decided to try it out, retaining the option to return.

Two Decades Later, Jean LePrince Returns to Paradis Terrestre 

Jacques’ youngest son, Jean LePrince, born either just before or just after his death, returned to Port Royal in 1715 to marry and farmed what appears to be his father’s land near present-day Bridgetown. Then, Bridgetown was known as the Gaudet Village. An important tidbit is found in an article written by Vincent Prince in 1968 where he states of his extensive research:

First, tradition holds, according to Monsignor Louis Richard and Lucien Serre, that Jean Prince inherited the land that his father had kept at Port-Royal when he moved to Pisiguit after 1686. Moreover, thanks to a member of the Genealogical Society Canadian-French, Mr. Marcel Dubois, married to a Doucet, I was able, recently, to become acquainted with old papers preserved in the archives of this Doucet family concerning certain transactions carried out by Jean Prince.

These contracts identify the exact location of Jean’s land, northeast of Port Royal.

Given the landmark of “Paradis Terrestre”, which still exists today, and a description of the waterways, I was able to locate the land that probably belonged to Jacques LePrince.

Looking south.

Looking north, across the Riviere Dauphin (Annapolis River) in the distance, viewing North Mountain on the horizon. If this is not Jacques’ exact land, then his land was nearby.

It was this mountain range over which Jacques’ grandchildren would escape in the bitter winter of 1755, first to Morden beach, then on to Quebec.

Jacques’ son, Jean, along with about 200 other refugees who escaped the brutal English didn’t survive the winter on Morden Beach, where this cross stands today, but some of Jean’s children did.

Had Jacques disposed of this land when he took his family to Minas, then Jean’s family would not have been living in the best possible escape point in all of the Annapolis River Valley. So, two generations and half a century later, Jacques saved them! But I digress…

As we continue to sift through the clues, it’s also worth noting that Vincent Prince’s narrative mentioned Jacques LePrince moving to Pisiquid, not Minas. Of course, we don’t know if Vincent had informatoin that we do not.

The road from Minas, past where Fort Edward (originally called Pisiquid Post and Pisiquid Fort) would be constructed in 1750, and passing the Riviere Hebere, is labeled as “Road to Pizaquid.”

You can see the same family groupings that we find at Port Royal.

Foret is Forest, who owned land near Jacques LePrince and the Heberts, all neighbors living upriver from Port Royal on this 1733 map.

Piziquid, spelled multiple ways, reflected the Mi’kmaq place name of Pesikitk which means “to flow splitwise” or “junction of waters,” and refers to the Avon River basin and fork area, including the St. Croix River.

This 1744 map shows the broader region, including Les Mines, the basin, “le Grand Praye ou les Mines”, which is Grand Pre, the Pigiquit river, the “Pigiguit Village Sauvage” which is the Mi’kmaq village standing where Assumption Parish was established in 1722, and Fort Edward would be built in 1750, then the Riviere St. Crois to the right. The settlement at Cobeguit (Cobequid) is shown to the right of the Minas Basin.

You can read more about the early settlement of Pisiquid in an article by archaeologist Jonathan Fowler, here.

One Final Hint – Maybe

Although beginning a decade after Jacques’ death, we have records the marriages of four of Jacques’ children.

Records exist in the St. Charles aux Mines Parish in Grand Pre beginning in 1707.

In the “Mines” parish registers, we find three LePrince marriages:

• Antoine Prince, (Jacques Prince, decd, and Marguerite Hebert, of the parish of des Mines), married May 23, 1712 Anne Trahan (Guillaume Trahan and <omitted>, habitants of Piguguit) witnesses Jacques Terriot, signed, Pierre Forets, signed, Guillaume Trahan, mark, Francois Michel, mark, Antoine Prince, mark, Anne Trahan, mark. Triple wedding with Louis Sire/Marie Joseph Michel and Francois Prince/Catherine Benois (SGA-1,11)
• Francois Prince (<omitted> and Marguerite Hebert) married May 23, 1712 Catherine Benois (Martin Benois and Marie Chosegros of Pigiguit) witnesses Jacques Terriot, signed, Pierre Forets, signed, Guillaume Trahan, mark, Francois Rimbauld, mark, Pierre Benois, mark, Francois Michel, mark, Francois Prince, mark, Catherine Benois, mark. Triple wedding with Louis Sire/Marie Joseph Michel and Francois Prince/Catherine Benois (SGA-1,11)

Interestingly, Jacques and Marguerite are listed as members of the “des Mines” parish, not Saint Famille at Pisiquid. This strongly suggests they were originally members there, so may have initially lived in Minas.

This triple wedding was performed by the priest of St. Charles aux Mines, and must have sufficed as a joyful regional reunion. Both brides, Anne Trahan, and Marie Chosegros lived at Pisiguit. The Trahan family is one of the neighbors of the Hebert family at Pisiquid, as is the Foret family.

Jacques’ daughter, Marguerite, married in 1734.

• Marguerite LePrince (Jacques LePrince and Marguerite Hebert, both decd) married 27 April 1734 (dispensation for third degree consanguinity) Jean Hebert, habitant of Cobedic (Jean Hebert and Anne Doucet, both decd) witnesses A. Bourg, priest writes for Alexandre Bourg, Jacques LeBlanc, signed, Pierre LeBlanc, mark, Bellile, signed, Jean Hebert, mark, Marguerite LePrince, mark (SGA-2, 201-202)

Cobedic is also referred to as Cobequid

In the 1751 Acadian census for this area, there are four Jean Heberts, and all four are living among the 20 families at “Riviere des Mines ou Riviere des Hebert.”

It’s also worth noting that there are no LePrince burials in the St. Charles aux Mines parish register, which suggests that they were not living at Minas. Furthermore, you can’t court and marry people you don’t see – so that’s probably why there was a double wedding of the LePrince boys to brides from Pisiquid. It was a long way to travel for a wedding, so three couples took advantage of the opportunity when the stars aligned, the weather was good, and the priest was present.

The parish registers for both Pisiquid and Cobequid are lost, and only two burials at Pisiquid are recorded in the St. Charles aux Mines register.

In 1715, Jacques’ youngest child, Jean LePrince, married in Port Royal. Jacques was listed as deceased, but Jean’s mother, Marguerite was listed as a resident at Minas.

We know that Jacques’s wife, Marguerite, died sometime between 1715 and 1734, and there is no burial record in the existing Minas register, so it stands to reason that she was living at, and eventually buried someplace else – probably at Pisiquid.

At least one child died after the family moved to the Minas region. In the 1693 census, Estienne was 5 years old, but we find no further record. No marriage and no burial. If the family lived at Minas, and Estienne died, he would have been buried in the St. Charles aux Mines cemetery. If Estienne died at Pisiquid, no record remains.

If Francoise LePrince was recorded correctly in 1693, and wasn’t mistakenly entered in place of Jean, she died too. Again, there’s no record in the Minas parish register.

Last, there are no baptisms for Jean LePrince, nor any of the children of either Francois LePrince or Antoine LePrince who married in 1712, yet we know conclusively that they had children.

While we don’t know where the family was living in 1692 or 1693 when Jacques died, they were assuredly living in Pisiquid after 1707 when other records should have been showing up in Minas parish registers if they lived there.

In 1714, both Antoine LePrince and Francois LePrince are recorded in the census “de la Riviere Pisiguit.”

I wish we had a more definitive answer for Jacques’ early life, as well as the end of his life – an event that, tragically, occurred far too soon, leaving a young family.

We will just have to settle for a rosary that would have assuredly graced Jacques’ life and probably his home altar, left by an Acadian descendant on the base of the cross honoring all Acadians at Horton’s Landing, overlooking the Minas basin at Grand Pre.

_____________________________________________________________

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Jean LePrince was born to Jacques Le Prince and Marguerite Hebert around 1692 probably in Minas, based on the 1693 census. He could also have been born in Grand-Pré, which is only about 10 miles from various portions of Minas, also known as Les Mines.

Grand-Pré was settled about 1680, and Les Mines about 1682.

In 1686, Jean’s parents were living in Port Royal, but by 1692, they had relocated. The Heberts were one of the founding families in the Minas basin, which included Grand-Pré and Les Mines.

This map was drawn in 1755, 63 years after Jean was born, but you can see the location of the Riviere Hebere. This may well be where the Hebert family lived, which would include Marguerite, who would have settled among her family.

Sadly, Jean LePrince never knew his father, because his father died sometime after his conception in either 1691 or early 1692, and before the 1693 census where his mother is shown as a widow in Minas. To be clear, there is no differentiation in the census between Grand-Pré and Minas.

Marguerite Hebert, widow of Jacques LePrince, age 40, is recorded with daughter Marguerite, 15, Francois and Jacques, 13-year-old twins, Estienne, 4 and Francoise 1. She is one of two widows living among 52 households, with a total of 307 residents.

Jean was apparently misrecorded as Francoise, unless Jean’s mother was pregnant with him when the census was taken. Two other children’s names or ages were misrecorded as well. This makes me wonder if the person who took the census didn’t actually know the family, or didn’t know them well, and was recording the children’s names from memory – or based on what other people told them. This might suggest that the family didn’t actually live in Grand-Pré where the church was located, because it would have been easy for the census-taker to visit their home there. If they lived more remotely, the temptation to record the family members without visiting would have been greater. Apparently, census-takers haven’t changed much over time.

Jean LePrince Marries

We know for sure that Jean LePrince was the son of Jacque LePrince and Marguerite Hebert because his marriage record to Jeanne Blanchard in Port Royal, on January 30, 1715, tells us as much.

In 1715, Jean’s mother was still living in Mines. Jean, about 23 years old, probably met the widow, Jeanne Blanchard, while trading or visiting relatives in Port Royal.

Jean LePrince did not sign his marriage document, but his wife, Jeanne Blanchard signed with a mark, as did Guillaume Blanchard and Emmanuel Hebert. Guillaume Blanchard , J Dugas and Bernard Godet all signed with signatures as witnesses.

Jeanne Blanchard was the widow of Olivier D’Aigre, Daigre or Daigle, and was about a decade older than Jean LePrince. When they married, she had six children ranging in age from 5 to 14. Olivier Daigle had died in September of 1709, and Jeanne had not remarried.

At his wedding, Jean LePrince became the stepfather to Jeanne’s children, the eldest of whom had been born when Jean was about 9.

Jean and Jeanne had five more children who were baptized by the local priest. .

We know that Jean LePrince stayed in the Port Royal region because he was present for the marriages of his children in 1734, 1738, 1740, 1747 and 1750.

On November 24, 1738, Jean’s son, Honoré Le Prince, age 22, married Isabelle Forest, age 28. Both her father, René Forest, and Jean LePrince signed.

Jean signed again in 1747 when his son, Jean Baptiste LePrince, married Judith Richard.

Jean actually signed for three of his children’s marriages, but did not sign in 1750. However, he is not listed as deceased in Pierre LePrince’s 1750 marriage record in the parish register.

Interestingly, Jean’s three eldest children married children of his neighbors, René Forest and his wife, Francoise Dugas.

Jean’s Land

We know where Jean’s land was located, thanks to a 1733 map.

When I visited Nova Scotia in 2024, I was able to locate at least the general area where Jean LePrince lived and raised his children.

A cemetery is located beside the road today.

The LePrince land is someplace near Button Brook on the south side of the Annapolis Royal River.

It’s difficult to pinpoint an exact location using the old maps. Jean would have farmed his wife’s deceased husband’s land, too.

Acadian homes stood on the high ground, with the saltmarsh dykes draining the land closer to the river.

This land looks deceptively tranquil – and it is today. But it wasn’t back when Jean lived there.

Conflict

Conflict between the English and Acadians was a constant state of affairs, but it worsened in 1720 when the English began to speak of expelling the Acadians because they would not swear their loyalty to the English monarch.

In 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht had ceded Acadia to Britain, and Port Royal officially became Annapolis Royal. The British “encouraged” the Acadians to leave and resettle in territory still controlled by France, but they refused because the English stipulated that they had to leave their land with no compensation and couldn’t take anything with them.

The Acadians stood firm in their resolve.

By 1720, things had cooled a bit. The Acadians had decided they wanted to leave, but the English refused to let them because they had wizely realized they needed the Acadian farmers to feed the English troops stationed at the fort in Port Royal. The English, especially not soldiers, had no idea how to farm salt marshes.

By 1720, the Acadians had decided that neutrality was the best position possible.

The Acadians were characterized as stubborn and recalcitrant, and, in 1721, as insolvent and treacherous.

The demands to sign a loyalty oath to the English monarchy continued, as did the Acadians’ staunch refusal. An earlier oath that they had signed was determined to be too lenient and declared void.

Everyone is angry and frustrated.

Confusion Reigns

There’s a great deal of confusion surrounding Jean’s life, the division and distribution of Jean’s land, and his death. Let’s start with his land.

Thanks to a WikiTree volunteer, Cindy, I was able to obtain an article written by Vincent Prince in 1968 and published in French in 1971, which I had translated. Vincent researched the LePrince/Prince family extensively, gaining access to documents that I certainly don’t have access to, nor have I ever seen discussed elsewhere. He did an incredible amount of work before any of this information was available online. Long before “online” existed.

Thankfully, he shared his work.

Jean’s story, according to Vincent (indented), with slight modifications for readability. Additional comments and research by me and Mark:

In December 1729, Jean’s name appears first in the list of the Acadians of Port-Royal who request permission to sign the oath of allegiance, then a few days later, among these same inhabitants who actually swear the oath in question.

This is the infamous oath where page one bonds the Acadians with a loyalty oath to the English, page two lists the conditions and exceptions desired by the Acadians, and page three contains the signatures and witnesses’ signatures. The English commander only sent pages one and three to England, but the Acadians never knew – so everyone thought they got what they wanted. Relative peace blanketed the valley, at least for a while.

On November 11, 1731, one again notes the name of Jean Prince at the bottom of the document where the citizens of the Annapolis Royal River respond in the negative to the order that had been given to them by the English authorities to have their lands surveyed. (With regard to the oath of allegiance and the refusal to have the lands surveyed, see Placide Gaudet, “Les Prince,” in History and Genealogy of the Acadians, pp. 129, 131, and 133.)

This latter document would alone suffice to demonstrate that Jean Prince was indeed a farmer. But we have several other proofs.

First, tradition holds, according to Monsignor Louis Richard and Lucien Serre, that Jean Prince inherited the land that his father had kept at Port-Royal when he moved to Pisiguit after 1686. Moreover, thanks to a member of the Genealogical Society Canadian-French, Mr. Marcel Dubois, married to a Doucet, I was able, recently, to become acquainted with old papers preserved in the archives of this Doucet family concerning certain transactions carried out by Jean Prince.

Five Contracts

These are five contracts of sale or transfer of lands, of which the originals have been preserved to our days.

• • In the first contract, dated October 1, 1731, one sees that the couple Jean Prince and Jeanne Blanchard bought from Jean-Baptiste Préjean, at the price of forty livres tournois, a tract of land in the upper of the Annapolis Royal River extending from “the aboiteau that one made to divert the stream of the Lower Meadow situated in the upper of the said river,” as well as the share that Jean-Baptiste Préjean possessed in “a point that is along the large stream of the earthly paradise of the low land.”

This contract provides that Jean Prince, in partnership with others, may build a mill along the river.

Jean-Baptiste Préjean was born in 1692, and married Marie Gaudet in 1716. His father, Jean Préjean would have been about 80 years old in 1731, and died two years later.

When Jean LePrince purchased this land, it was located on the far upper reaches of the river, beyond most family villages. Note that the “Paradis Terrestre”, earthly paradise, on the map below, just to the right of the Bastarche land. Given this description, it’s possible that Jean owned land on both sides of the river, and that this contract actually refers to two different tracts of land.

This land was known for its beauty, hence it’s name, “Paradis Terrestre.”.

Jean LePrince’s land, according to several maps, would have been across the river from the Gaudet Village, present-day Bridgetown, established by Jean Gaudet. Jean LePrince’s grandmother was Marie Gaudet.

This is most likely the location of Jean’s stream, based on the various descriptions and maps. His house would have been located on the higher ground to one side or the other, or towards the rear.

On the north side of the road, today, the stream meanders to the river, just out of sight here. I wonder if the aboiteau mentioned still exists. Most do, today appearing as a burm or slight rise in the terrain.

In order to be able to build a mill, Jean would have needed a reasonable water source, and this is the only stream on the south side of the river in this area that meets that criteria, although there is another candidate stream located about two miles further east, near the “Paradise” area on the south side of the river.

There is no historical evidence of a mill actually being built that far upstream, but then again, with this family, anything is possible. However, it seems like Jean was plagued with chronic problems.

• • The second contract is one of sharing or subdivision of the property of Jean Prince between his five children. It is dated April 13, 1742.

Note that this is just 11 years after Jean LePrince, or Prince as it’s written here, acquired the property from Jean-Baptiste Préjean. This is highly unusual. In 1742, Jean’s children would have been ages, 27 (daughter), 25, 23, 21, and 19 (sons). This also doesn’t say if it’s one property, or all of Jean’s property, whatever that might be.

• • As for the third contract, dated January 19, 1746, it makes a new division or redistribution of these same properties among the four sons of Jean.

This is even more unusual and suggests that either none of his sons had actually “taken possession,” or they were all living on the land and farming it jointly. It also appears to cut Jean’s eldest child, daughter Marie Josephe Le Prince, who had married Jacques Forest in 1734, out of the land distribution. I wonder if this was a result of, or caused, family friction.

• • The fourth contract, dated July 3, 1752, settles a division of land held in common up to that time with Bernard Pellerin and the two younger sons of Jean Prince.
  • Finally, the fifth contract, which is in fact an appendix to the first, constitutes a transfer by Jeanne Blanchard, wife of Jean Prince, of the share that reverted to her of lands acquired by Jean-Baptiste Préjean and Alexandre Pellerin, to her two younger sons, Jean-Baptiste and Pierre, for the price of thirty-three livres, six sols. This appendix bears the date July 3, 1752, the same as the fourth contract.

Bernard and Alexandre Pellerin were brothers, but I find no connection between the Pellerin family and either Jeanne Blanchard, Jean LePrince, Oliver Daigle, or Jean-Baptiste Préjean

Vincent remarks that “a precise study of these contracts would undoubtedly establish quite precisely the place where Jean Prince and his children lived at Port-Royal. The abundance of photocopies of originals would allow volunteers to undertake such a study.” I wonder where that “abundance of photocopies of originals” is located today.

In 1752, if Jean was living, he would have been about 60 years old. The fact that his wife was involved with this distribution suggests that Jean might have been deceased by this date. But then again, that’s what Vincent thought about the 1742 contract, and we know that Jean was alive many years later.

Vincent continues:

Jean Prince had three lawsuits

Jean Prince was therefore truly a farmer. He was probably also quite typical of the average Acadian. It has been said, in fact, of the Acadians that they were very religious and very hardworking; they were also stubborn and quarrelsome. Rameau de Saint-Père has left us this portrait that could flatter them. They did not disdain small lawsuits. Jean Prince had at least three, two of which he certainly lost. (20)

In the first lawsuit, Jean claimed and asserted that he had inherited from the estate of the widow Richard at L’Anse-Contre (uncertain reading of place name; appears to read L’Ancontre or similar), notably [the share] of Pierre Dupuis. Unfortunately for him, the widow Richard had made a will before witnesses, a will that he claimed was contrary and whose authenticity was recognized by the Council of His Majesty at Annapolis Royal, on January 22, 1731.

Pierre Dupuis was married to Jeanne Richard, whose mother was Isabelle Petitpas, who was married to Alexandre Richard. Pierre had died in 1709, and Isabelle died in October 1729, which meant that Pierre’s wife would have been an heir of Isabelle and Alexandre.

Pierre Dupuis owned the land near Centrelea, along the river, a few miles further west of Jean LePrince’s land.

Note that this is only about ten months before Jean acquired the land from Jean-Baptiste Préjean. Perhaps Jean had designs on the Richard land, and when that failed, he bought the Préjean land.

In the second lawsuit, which took place before the same tribunal on January 28, 1732, Jean is accused by Jacques Goupil of having abused his good faith in a land exchange. Goupil maintained that the land Jean Prince had transferred to him in this exchange belonged already to him, Jacques Goupil. The Council of His Majesty referred the matter to arbitration, but unfortunately, the result of this arbitration is not known.

For the third lawsuit, which also took place before this Council of His Majesty, on February 21, 1735, Jean Prince was finally condemned, jointly with Pierre Dupuis and Baptiste Richard, to pay damages caused by the animals of Jean Bastrache to the harvest of Jacques Goupil, because proof was made that these three neighbors had not seen to the maintenance of their common fence.

(20) Nova Scotia Archives, III Original Minutes of His Majesty’s Council at Annapolis Royal, 1720–1739, printed by authority of the Legislative Assembly, Halifax, N.S., McAlpine Publishing Co. Ltd., 1908. Pages 206, 212, 233 and 332-337.

Several of the landowners we’ve been discussing are indicated on this map by MapAnnapolis. Jean Bastarche is Jean LePrince’s neighbor, as is the Richard family.

Jean LePrince’s wife, Jeanne Blanchard, was the widow of Oliver Daigle (D’Aigre, Daigre), who was also the son of an Oliver Daigle. It’s possible that Jean LePrince was farming the Daigle land after their 1715 marriage, until he purchased the Prejean land in 1731. At that point, he would have been farming all of that land.

This also tells us unquestionably that in 1735, these families were sharing or at least owned a common fenceline, so they are clearly neighbors.

Another 1733 map, although dark and difficult to read, includes the names of the family “villages,” along with the individual homes. The Jean LePrince grouping has four houses, which suggests that multiple generations were probably farming that land.

Although I had never heard of Jacques Goupil before this contract, as it turns out, Jacques, whose surname was also spelled Gouzil, married Marie Daigre in 1711, the sister-in-law of Jeanne Blanchard. Marie Daigre and Jacques Goupil/Gouzil had four children, the youngest of whom was born on December 13, 1719 and died 15 days later. Marie also died about this time, because she had no more children and is not found in any further records.

Based upon the lawsuit in 1732, my guess would be that Jacques Goupil actually owned the right to his wife’s share of property, probably the Daigre land – and Jean LePrince attempted to transfer Jacques’ own land to him?

It would appear from all of this, taken together, that Jean LePrince may not have been a particularly upstanding citizen.

Jean’s Transactions Aren’t Normal

Vincent Prince deduced, based on the 1742 contract where Jean’s land is being distributed among his children, that he died shortly thereafter.

Normally, I would agree, but Jean’s transactions and those of his wife are anything but normal for the time and place in which he lived.

Remember that Jeanne Blanchard was a widow, roughly a decade older than Jean LePrince, with land that she had owned with her previous husband, Oliver Daigle, when Jean married her in 1715. She had been widowed for six years, farming on her own, and was clearly a resourceful and capable woman. That doesn’t mean she didn’t welcome a new partner.

Jean hadn’t grown up in Port Royal, so she wouldn’t have known him well.

By 1720, when the widow Richard died, and by 1731 when Jean LePrince is taken to court for attempting to defraud her heirs of her land, Jeanne was 50 and Jean was about 40.

Based on what appears to be two instances of fraudulent or shady land deals, or attempts at fraud anyway, it’s possible that by 1742, in order to protect her children’s future inheritance, Jeanne insisted that Jean divide up his land – if not in actuality, then at least legally.

Vincent indicated that Jean signed that document, and thought, based on the fact that Jean apparently did not sign future documents, that he had died.

However, we know that’s not the case.

Based on everything we know so far, my guess would be that this is the result of a contentious relationship in which Jeanne laid down the law.

We know for a fact that Jean LePrince was alive in 1738, 1740, 1747 because he actually signed the parish register as a witness for his children’s marriages in those years.

Jean After 1747

Jean’s last child married on February 3, 1750, in Port Royal.

Jean did not sign as a witness, but he is also NOT listed as deceased, which would be expected and the norm if he had died.

In February 1750, Jean would be about 58 and was apparently still living.

What happened to him?

Let’s take a look at several possibilities.

Grand-Pré

Did Jean LePrince go to Grand-Pré?

Jean grew up in that area, so it’s reasonable to assume he maintained contact with people there, and might possibly have decided to relocate back to Grand-Pré or Minas.

But did he?

There is a Jean LePrince on the Grand-Pré Expulsion list in 1755.

John Winslow, the British Army officer charged with removing the Acadians from their land compiled a list of Acadian men, their children, and property prior to the Expulsion. His goal was to inventory the people to assure that no one was left behind, not because he was charitable, but because they didn’t want any trouble from Acadians hiding in the woods after the rest were shipped away.

In addition, Winslow listed their assets that would be confiscated in the name of the English King. Those soldiers were probably licking their chops.

Jean LePrince (column 2 entry 296) is shown on the 1755 list of Acadians in the Grand-Pré area compiled by Winslow prior to the removal. Jean is shown in the village of Grand LeBlanc with no sons and no daughters, 2 oxen, 3 cows, 7 young cattle, 7 sheep, 15 hogs and 1 horse.

Grand LeBlanc, as one might imagine, was the location of a group of interrelated LeBlanc families. In Port Royal, the LeBlancs lived across the river from Jean, a couple of miles downstream towards Port Royal, near BelleIsle. Many Acadian families had settled in and near Grand-Pré, as his own parents had done 65 years earlier.

The residents of Grand LeBlanc Village lived along the Upland Ridge, overlooking the church, slightly right of center, where the men were held after the expulsion orders were read to them. You can see the bay, at left, where the terrified Acadians were forced upon horribly crowded ships that sailed for destinations unknown.

This suggests a couple of very different alternatives about the Jean LePrince on Winslow’s list.

• Unmarried men did not begin farming their own land until they married. Therefore, this Jean was not a young, unmarried man.
• He’s not listed with any children, so either he was newly married, or substantially older, and his children had already flown the nest.

Who might this Jean LePrince have been?

Antoine LePrince was the brother of (our) Jean LePrince. He married Anne Trahan, and they had a son named Jean LePrince born in 1725 who married Marie Osite LeBlanc around 1753 in Grand-Pré. We don’t actually know when they married, but given the location where they lived, “Grand LeBlanc,” this would make sense.

I was very hopeful that this Jean LePrince, especially given that he had no children but did have livestock, might actually be “our” Jean. Alas, since this Jean LePrince is found in 1756 in Pennsylvania with one child, and in 1763 with 9 children, he is very clearly a younger man. This Jean LePrince eventually migrated to Quebec with his family and died there in 1781.

While this wasn’t our Jean LePrince, it was his nephew, probably his namesake. Our Jean may well have even stood with him at his baptism in 1725, as his godfather.

This cross marks the Grand-Pré deportation site.

God rest their souls.

Back to Our Jean

So, where does this leave us with our Jean?

We know he was unquestionably alive on February 8, 1747 when he signed for his son, Jean Baptiste, to marry. He is not mentioned as deceased on February 3, 1750, when his son, Pierre, married, but he did not sign the parish register for him.

Was Jean ill? Or absent?

Did he survive to 1755 when all Acadians were forced upon ships to be scattered to the winds?

Did he die before that?

Is he buried either in the old cemetery in the Gaudet village in what is today Bridgetown, or at the Mass House across the river near BelleIsle? It would have been a long way to transport a body for a burial in Port Royal.

Jean’s Reported Death

On February 16, 1762, in Bécancour, Quebec, Jean LePrince, Jean’s namesake son, married Marie Madeleine Bourg.

The parish entry says:

Year 1762, the fifteenth of February, after having published three banns of marriage between Jean LePrince, son of Jean LePrince and of Jeanne Blanchard, deceased of Port-Royal, his father and mother, and Marie Madeleine Bourg, widow of Pierre Richard, daughter of Michel Bourg and of Marie Cormier, her father and mother, also deceased, residents of Beaubassin, after having obtained dispensation for the third degree [of consanguinity], we received their mutual consent of marriage and gave them the nuptial blessing, in the presence of the parents and a large number of other persons, they declared not knowing how to sign.

This entry tells us two things.

• That Jean LePrince is assuredly deceased by February 1762, as is his wife, Jeanne Blanchard.
• It also suggests that they both died in Port Royal, so before the 1755 Expulsion, but that’s not actually what it says.

It’s also possible that Jean-Baptiste, with the confusion surrounding the Expulsion, didn’t know where his parents wound up. This also doesn’t say they died IN Port Royal, it says they were “of” Port Royal, in Acadia, which was true no matter where they died.

Jean LePrince, the son who remarried in 1762, was exiled someplace in 1755, and if either of his parents were living, they were too. They may NOT have been sent to the same place as any of their children. People were simply herded onto ships. For all we know, the family was separated, never to be reunited this side of the grave.

Escape!!!

When searching for information about Jean’s children, something caught my attention.

All four of Jean’s sons, and their families (with the exception of one grandchild), somehow escaped deportation from Port Royal in 1755.

Sometimes people think, because they can’t find their ancestor after deportation that they excaped into the woods, but often, there’s no proof or even a suggestion of that fate.

This situation is different.

• Jean’s eldest child, daughter Marie Josephe LePrince who married Jacques LeForest was exiled to Connecticut with her family. Jacques’s name is found on a 1763 list asking for repatriation to France. Based on what follows, we know that she was separatef from all of her siblings.
• Honore LePrince, Jean’s oldest son, married Isabelle Forest and somehow escaped the English during the roundup at Port Royal in 1755. Honore reportedly died in Canada in 1756 (according to Acadians in Grey), and between 1760 and 1762 according to his daughter’s marriage records where he is listed as deceased in 1762. His widow, Isabelle, proceeded on to Bécancour, across from Trois-Rivieres, where she died in September of 1767.
• Joseph LePrince married Anne Forest, Isabelle’s sister, and they too escaped the expulsion. They were in Quebec City by January of 1758 when their daughter died of smallpox and was buried the following day. Joseph’s wife died as well, and in 1761 he married an Acadian widow, Madeleine LeBlanc, at Ste.-Crois-de-Lothbiniere between Quebec City and Trois-Rivieres. Joseph died in Bécancour in May 1781.
• Jean-Baptiste LePrince, whose 1762 marriage is noted above, was in Quebec City in September 1756 when his four-year-old daughter died. Jean-Baptiste died in Bécancour in March of 1787.
• Pierre LePrince married Felicite Bourgeois and they were in Quebec in 1756 when two of their daughters died. Their seven-month-old baby died in August, and their not-quite-three-year-old daughter died a month later. Pierre died in January 1758. Felicite moved on to Bécancour with their last living child, an older daughter, where she remarried in 1760.

Why were so many people perishing in Quebec in the 1750s? Canada, including Nova Scotia suffered from a terrible smallpox epidemic that spanned man years and claimed many victims.

That just seems so unfair, given what it would have taken to escape the English in Nova Scotia.

What Was Goiing on in Port Royal?

Reading the parish registers from Port Royal (Annapolis Royal) in 1755, there were some early death and burials, but it looks like the registers were no longer maintained by spring. We know that the original expulsion order was given in July, in Grand Pre, so the Acadians in Port Royal certainly had notice that the same fate was certainly going to await them.

Some people might have felt like there had been so many threats and conflicts over the decades with the English that this time would be no different. Things would work out and blow over – except they didn’t.

Maybe Jean’s recalcitrance and the traits that caused him to be somewhat “difficult”, “rough around the edges” and noncomplaint are the same qualities that saved his family.

Given that there’s no burial record for either Jean or his wife at Port Royal, it’s certainly possible that he devised some scheme for evading the British. Maybe it helped that his land was the furthest away from Port Royal, some 15 miles or so upriver, which means they were also the least visible to the English. Perhaps no one noticed him making preparations. It’s also possible thta the Mi’kmaq people assisted the upriver Acadians.

We know for sure that the ship, Pembroke, manned by only six English sailors, and separated from the rest of the deportation ships on December 8th, 1755 by bad weather, was commandeered by the Acadian passengers, sailed up the St. John River, where they encountered problems, then scuttled and burned the ship. After a winter of trials and tribulations, they made their way to Quebec in 1756.

However, based on the reconstruction of the Pembroke’s passenger list, it seems unlikely that the entire LePrince family was on that ship. They were probably together, elsewhere. They may have simply taken refuge in the woods and made their way across land to Quebec. They may have walked to Les Mines and proceeded from there, either by water or on foot. However, considering the number of children, it’s highly doubtful that they walked the entire distance.

It’s also possible that they escaped in the later summer and early fall by boat, abandoning their farms when they saw the proverbial handwriting on the wall.

Maybe all the English found of them was an abandoned homestead.

Were Jean and his family some of the 300 or so Acadian families who escaped with Pierre Melanson upriver and over North Mountain to Aylesford, where many died, then on to the Morden beach site where they spent the winter? Less than one third of the Acadians survived that 40 miles, mid-winter trek, between inadequate shelter and starvation.

In the spring, their Mi’kmaq allies helped the survivors escape to Chignecto, across the bay, on the border of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, where they were evantually able to escape to Quebec.

Before leaving, the Acadians erected a cross to honor their fallen family members, known as the French Cross, which stood until about 1820. This cross was rebuild on the beach and stands today. I can’t help but wonder if Jean is buried nearby. He was not a young man.

Were the Acadians marking the location of their deceased family members, or praying for mercy and deliverance? Maybe some of each.

We will never know if this was the LePrince family path to Quebec, but given that they were all together, if Jean LePrince and his wife, Jeanne Blanchard were still living – I’d give it 100% odds that they would have chosen to rebel and not comply. I can see Jean, even in his 60s, leading the charge. Compliance was not his strong suit – and that might just have saved his family from the English – but not from the deadly, invisible smallpox.

But wait, there’s one more possibility…

One More Twist

Just when you think Jean LePrince (the father) can’t get any more confusing…he does.

From Vincent once again, in footnote 22:

In a letter he wrote me on September 24, 1966, Bona Arsenault transmitted to me the information, following one of my genealogical investigations, that Patrick Gaillant, of Rimouski, in a recent study on François (uncertain whether this refers to François Prince specifically, but context suggests so), had interested himself in unpublished notes concerning a certain number of Acadian families who had stayed in the region of Nantes, following the Dispersion of 1755.

One of these notes was the death record which reads: “Jean Le Prince, husband of Jacqueline Guérin, deceased at Saint-Servan-de-Saint-Malo, on December 31, 1766, at the age of 73 years and 3 months.” Bona Arsenault intended to give the proof that this Jean Prince, husband of Jeanne Blanchard, would be simply the second husband of Jacqueline Guérin.

Evidently, this Guérin would be from the first Acadian marriage; there is confusion in the text and the identification is uncertain. On the other hand, Jean Prince, husband of Jeanne Blanchard, did not have, it seems, a son named Jean. It is nevertheless possible that Jean-Baptiste, son of Jean-Baptiste, was established at Bécancour, near Nicolet.

Moreover, Jean Prince of Saint-Malo, it must be noted, was a son of the first ancestor. But, then, this first ancestor would have had two wives in the same region and, consequently, a name from one and from the other he would have borne none in any Acadian registry document of the period? … At least this Jean LePrince of Saint-Malo would not truly be of Acadian origin …

That’s a lot to process, so let me dissect it a bit.

Nantes

It’s well known that many of the Acadian families eventually wound up in Nantes, beginning in 1758, and from there, some went on to Saint-Malo.

These murals in Nantes honor their journey.

Nantes is twinned to Martinville, LA., where many Acadians eventually settled.

France welcomed her lost children back home, and attempted to help them establish new lives.

Many of those refugees came from Isle Saint-Jean (Prince Edward Island) following the fall of Louisbourg. Others came from Isle Royale (Cape Breton Island) and some from Grand-Pré who had first landed in Virginia, only to be rejected by that colony, and then held as prisoners-of-war in British seaports. Eventually, they were released and sent on to France as well.

Saint-Malo

In Saint-Malo, more than 1100 Acadian refugees had arrived by 1762, mostly having been released from British port cities. Their numbers continued to grow between then and 1773 when the Acadian families began to move elsewhere.

I wrote about the Acadians in Saint Malo, extensively here.

If Jean made it to Saint-Malo, assuming he was originally exiled from Port Royal and not someplace else, he would have endured the Virginia rejection along with being held prisoner for some time in England.

He was not a young man. This description provided by the priest is critically important.

Jean Le Prince, husband of Jacqueline Guérin, deceased at Saint-Servan-de-Saint-Malo, on December 31, 1766, at the age of 73 years and 3 months.

If this is our Jean, he would have been 63 or so when he boarded that ship at the wharf in Port Royal.

He was at least 66 when he arrived in Nantes and older when he would have arrived in Saint-Malo.

If he did make it to Saint-Malo, a heavily fortified French seaport city, he would have passed into the city through the city gates.

Someplace along the line, if this is our Jean, his wife had died, and he had remarried.

There’s no evidence of the death of Jeanne Blanchard or Jean LePrince’s or a remarriage being recorded in Port Royal. The records do reach into 1755, but records aren’t always complete. Plus, he could have remarried anyplace along the way.

Did a different Jean LePrince live among the Acadian community in Saint-Servan, a small village just a stone’s throw from Saint-Malo? Or is this “our” Jean?

Jean would have been buried in the Chapelle Saint-Saveur de Saint-Malo/Hotel-Dieu Cemetery, a now defunct cemetery built on the site of the chapel of the former hospital. This area was bombed heavily during WWII. The Hotel Chateaubriand was built adjacent the hospital location, where I accidentally stayed during a visit before I had any idea I had family connections there. You can see the city wall to the right.

Looking from the other direction, the hotel and Chateaubriand restaurant is the white building at right, the city wall and towers are to the left, and the hospital was where the cars are parked today. The chapel of the hospital was located where the Chateaubriand restaurant stands.

Is this coincidence even remotely possible?

Bona Arseneau, I think, was arguing that this Jean LePrince who died in Saint-Malo in 1766 wasn’t an Acadian, but was a son of a French man whose son was the first Acadian immigrant (Jacques LePrince.) His logic is difficult to follow, so I turned to Cousin Mark for help.

Cousin Mark’s research skills saved the day once again.

Mark found the original Jean LePrince burial entry, not on the 31st, but a couple of pages back, on December 22nd.

Mark:

When I didn’t find him on the last page for the year, I went back every page until I did. He died “le jour hier” the 21st. Present was his son Jean Le Prince and a Pierre Sertel.

Translation:

Jean Leprince, husband of Jacqueline Guérin, aged seventy-three years and three months, who died yesterday, was buried in the cemetery of this church today, the twenty-third of December 1766, in the presence of Jean Leprince, his son, Pierre Sertel, his nephew, and several others, among whom signed Jean Leprince.

J. M. Navet, priest.

Mark checked to see if he could find a marriage between Jacqueline Guérin and any LePrince in the Filae database. He found 72 marriages for Jacqueline or Jacquette Guérin beginning in 1720, within 200 km of Saint-Malo. None were to a LePrince or anything similar. He also noted that there were a huge number of Jean LePrinces in Filae.

Here’s the problem:

• Jean LePrince did not have a son by the first name of Jean.
• He did have a son named Jean-Baptiste LePrince born about 1721. However, we accounted for him, above, in 1762 in Bécancour where he said both of his parents are deceased. Assuming that Jean in Bécancour actually KNEW that his father was deceased, then this Jean LePrince who died in Saint-Malo in 1766 cannot be our Jean LePrince.
• All of the children of our Jean LePrince were born in Port Royal following his 1715 marriage. There is no “space” where another child might fit. His children were born every two years, based on parish baptism records, through 1723, when his wife was 42.
• I also can’t find any record of a Pierre Sertel, or anything similar, who would be Jean’s nephew.

Where does this leave us?

The chances of two unrelated or distantly Jean LePrince’s being found in the Acadian community in Saint-Malo in 1766 are relatively low, but it’s certainly not zero. We do know that there are other LePrince family members from Acadia who DID wind up in Saint-Malo, but none of them are candidates to be this man.

The age given for Jean LePrince who died on December 31, 1766 is 73 years and 3 months. That subtracts to September 30, 1693. This is uncannily close to the birth of our Jean LePrince who is recorded in the 1693 census by the wrong name, Francoise. That said, Jean could also have been born in 1693, after that child. His mother is listed as a widow in 1693, but she could have been pregnant at the time. We just don’t know.

This would be easier to square if:

• Jean LePrince from Acadia had a son named Jean
• We could find a connection with a nephew named Pierre Sertel
• His wife was not named Jacqueline Guerin
• If there was a marriage record for (our) Jean LePrince and Jacqueline Guerin
• Jean (Jean-Baptiste) LePrince’s marriage record in Bécancour in 1762 hadn’t given his parents’ names correctly and said Jean LePrince was deceased
• There was a death record for Jean’s wife, Jeanne Blanchard, in Port Royal or elsewhere

Regardless of how compelling it is to find a Jean LePrince in Saint-Malo, with other Acadian families, some with the same surname, and born at almost exactly the same time – this does NOT appear to be our Jean. In fact, if the points above are all accurate, this man in Saint-Malo CANNOT be our Jean.

Saint-Malo, in our hunt for Jean LePrince, was a red herring – although if you descend from Jean LePrince’s siblings, you’ll find his sister-in-law along with several nieces and nephews seeking refuge there.

Bless all their hearts.

I found this seashell heart in the sand on the beach in Saint-Malo, which is so representative of our Acadian family members who lived there and the grace of the French people who helped them establish new lives.

When Did Jean LePrince Die?

After all this, we still don’t know when Jean passed away.

We can, however, bracket the years.

• We know for sure that Jean was alive in 1747 because he signed his son’s marriage document in Port Royal.
• He was probably alive in 1750, because he was not marked as deceased in the parish register when his child married.
• He may have been alive in 1752 when his land was being sorted – or perhaps not.
• There was no death/burial record for Jean or his wife in Port Royal prior to the 1755 exile – although clearly records may have been somewhat incomplete. However, it’s less likely that BOTH of them would be omitted.
• Jean LePrince’s son, Jean-Baptiste, who was called Jean LePrince when he remarried in Quebec in 1762 gives his parents’ names, so we know he’s their son. The register says his parents are “of Port Royal” and that they are both deceased.

Jean’s life was contentious and his death, mysterious.

Based on missing death records in Port Royal, I’m inclined to think that Jean died either very close to the actual Expulsion, with a hurried, unrecorded burial, or that he died during or after the Expulsion.

This would validate his son’s 1762 marriage register and explain the other evidence.

• He was dead by 1762.
• He was “of” Port Royal.
• He was not the Jean LePrince in either Grand-Pré nor in Saint-Malo.

I would suggest that a death date of “about 1755”, or broadly between 1750 and 1762 would be accurate.

There has been a lot of information about dates, research and analysis in this article. This is my best effort to prove or disprove various rumors and theories so that future researchers at least know what I found down the ratholes I’ve been inhabiting.

However, I’m left wondering about Jean LePrince, the man.

Redemption

I cannot help but wonder if Jean was, at heart, a troubled man. The shadows surrounding him are dark — yet those very shadows may, in the end, have saved his family.

Three lawsuits and five “unusual” contracts over twenty-one years speak of more than ordinary business. They don’t read like a simple man trying to make his way in the world. They provide evidence of strained relationships within the community, distrust, contention, and carry the unmistakable scent of chronic defiance.

Conflict, it seems, was never far from his door.

Whatever the genesis of his path, whether a result of temperament, circumstance, or a volatile combination of both, turbulence and conflict seem to have been his constant companions.

And yet, herein lies the supreme irony. If Jean survived the Expulsion, it may well have been because of those very same qualities – stubborn resolve, refusal to bend, and unwillingness to comply, probably fueled by righteous anger.

I can see him pounding his fist on the table and hear him shouting, “Hell NO,” in French, of course, when the English demanded loyalty oaths – and eventually, when they demanded everything.

He would rather die than board those ships – and perhaps he did.

Yet the very characteristics that complicated Jean’s life, made it difficult, and rendered peace elusive, may also have been what made him impossible to break. Perhaps, in the end, it was his unrelenting defiance and dogged persistence that saved his family — traits that once caused problems, but facing the horror of the Expulsion, became his redemption.

As the Acadian world unraveled around him and those ships loomed dark and threatening on the horizon, promising disaster, Jean’s unbreakable spirit — call it stubbornness or bravery — was the one thing no one could strip from him.

It was this steely resolve that stepped with his family into the void of the unknown – facing either death or deliverance, together.

____________________________________________________________

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Before I share Jean Blanchard’s life story, I’m going to confess right up front that while all of my ancestors’ stories move me, this one was particularly heartwrenching. Incredibly emotional. Just get the box of tissues and a cuppa tea and settle in. We’re going on a journey together, and we’re visiting Jean.

I was as shocked at what I discovered as you’re going to be.

Meet Jean

Jean Blanchard was among the founding Acadians in Port Royal.

He was born about 1611 and probably arrived in Acadia around 1639 or 1640, but possibly a few years earlier or later. By 1642, he had married Radegonde Lambert, who was born in the 1620s in France. They settled down in Port Royal to raise their family, with their first child born about 1643.

Jean Blanchard has been a difficult ancestor to write about because there is so much misinformation about him floating around in well-meaning but unsourced files and trees. I’m not repeating any of that, except to say that I’ll vote with the late Stephen A. White, renowned Acadian genealogist and researcher, who assigns no parents to Jean, despite decades of rumors and conflated information that states otherwise. For discussion, please see Jean Blanchard’s WikiTree profile, here.

Cousin Mark’s research later in this article provides additional information, never before reported.

The French Depositions

One source of information about the Blanchard family are the Belle-Ile-en-Mer depositions given by Acadian refugees who were attempting to resettle in France a dozen traumatic years after the 1755 Expulsion – long after Jean’s death.

From Stephen A. White, translated to English with slight edits for punctuation and clarity:

Jean Blanchard came from France with his wife, according to Jean LeBlanc, husband of his great-granddaughter Françoise Blanchard (Doc. inéd., Vol. III, p. 43).

The deposition of Françoise’s nephews, Joseph Trahan and Simon-Pierre Trahan, is to the same effect (ibid., p. 123). Both depositions mistakenly give Guillaume as the ancestor’s given name. Jean LeBlanc’s deposition makes an additional error regarding the name of Jean Blanchard’s wife, calling her Huguette Poirier.

The censuses of 1671 and 1686, meanwhile, clearly show that she [Jean Blanchard’s wife] was named Radegonde Lambert (see DGFA-1, pp. 143-144).

The source of these errors is probably a simple confusion arising from the fact that Jean LeBlanc’s wife’s grandfather, Martin Blanchard, had a brother, Guillaume Blanchard, who was married to a woman named Huguette, as this writer explained in an article published in 1984 (SHA, Vol. XV, pp. 116-117).

This Huguette was not named Poirier, however, but Gougeon, although her mother, Jeanne Chebrat, had married a man named Jean Poirier before she wed Huguette’s father, Antoine Gougeon, and all her male-line descendants in Acadia were Poiriers.

Unfortunately, we do not know just what questions Jean LeBlanc asked in trying to establish the Blanchard lineage, but he might certainly have had the impression that Huguette was a Poirier from the fact that so many of her relatives were Poiriers, including her grandnephew Joseph, who was also on Belle-Île in 1767 (see Doc. inéd., Vol. III, pp. 13-15).

Keep in mind that the 1767 depositions were given more than 150 years after Jean Blanchard was born, and about 75 or 80 years after his death.

While Jean Blanchard is reported to have come from France with his wife, Radegonde Lambert, we know of other instances in depositions where that statement means that both people individually came from France, not necessarily married to each other, or even arriving at the same time. We know from Jean Blanchard’s Y-DNA and Radegonde’s mitochondrial DNA, that, unquestionably, neither of them were Native American.

Jean LeBlanc, who gave one of the depositions, was the husband of Jean Blanchard’s great-granddaughter, Françoise Blanchard, who was born in 1707 in Grand-Pré, Nova Scotia. Her father, René Blanchard, Martin Blanchard’s son, was born in 1677, so he would have known Jean Blanchard, and would have been between 10 and 17 when Jean died.

However, René Blanchard may not have known his grandfather well, because we know that Jean’s son, Martin Blanchard, lived in Port Royal, and Jean Blanchard had relocated 15 miles or so upriver to BelleIsle before René was born about 1677. That’s 15 miles before roads or automobiles – 15 miles by canoe.

Françoise Blanchard’s two nephews, sons of her sister, Marie Blanchard, also provided depositions and are another generation removed from Jean.

This means that the information provided in those depositions needed to be handed down correctly, and remembered accurately for either three or four generations, respectively.

There were no written records that survived the 1755 Expulsion with the Acadians, so all of their information was based on memories and oral history alone.

Can you name your great-grandparents without a memory aid? Could someone who was not a genealogist?

When I started working on genealogy, I only knew the names of my mother’s grandparents. Fortunately, my mother knew the full names of my father’s parents and of her own grandparents. Beyond that was a mystery. Several of my great-great-grandparents remained elusive for decades, and then the information I initially found wasn’t accurate.

Fortunately, for Acadian researchers, new information occasionally surfaces and continues to be discovered.

We have many resources available today, such as transcribed French parish registers, so let’s take a look at Cousin Mark’s laborious work attempting to locate Jean Blanchard’s birth record which would provide us with the names of his parents.

The Blanchard Surname in France

From Cousin Mark:

Unfortunately for origin research, Blanchard is a fairly common surname in France.

Steven Cormier points this out on his Acadians in Grey website in discussing the hundreds of Blanchards that settled Louisiana, both Acadian and non-Acadian French.

Geneviève Massignon includes Blanchard as one of the common surnames found in the parish records of the seigneury of Menou d’Aulnay. Several Blanchards are listed in the Jousserand censitaire, as you show in the Jean Gaudet article. I see named a Maurice Blanchard (heirs), Pasquier Blanchard and a François Blanchard.

So, let’s start with them in the Loudunais.

I accessed Filae.com, the only database I know of for the early records that have been reviewed by the various genealogical societies in France. As you know, there are no indexes at the departmental archives themselves. I selected 1560 through 1660 and locations within 200km of Loudun. For comparison, La Rochelle is 134km from Loudun, and Nantes is 126km, as the crow flies.

There was only one Maurice Blanchard shown, who was born in 1658, so no luck there.

There was also only one Pasquier, as a father in 1639, in a village just south of Orleans, so fairly distant from Loudun.

As expected, François had many more entries, 287 in fact. So, focusing at 20km from Loudun, which includes Martaizé and La Chaussée, the latter at 14km, I found eleven entries, seven from the same couple, one of which was a double entry as the child was also named François. Between 1589 and 1604, he and Sara Chesneau baptized six children, one named Jean in 1604, all at the Protestant Temple in Loudun. Yes indeed, there was a Protestant Temple in Loudun and I’ve previously gone through the records for it. 1604 seems a little too early for our Jean Blanchard who is recorded as having been born in 1611 in two Acadian censuses, but who knows?

I also reviewed any other records for a Jean Blanchard, first within 20km and then within 200km. In addition to the above Jean, there was another Jean who is shown as father to three baptized children, the mother named Françoise Neveu. The children are René in 1634, Pierre in 1637, and Jeanne in January 1642. All three were baptized at Loudun’s Saint-Pierre-du-Marché. Given the date of the last baptism, it is possible, but unlikely, that our Jean was the father. In addition, there is a Jehan Blanchard listed as the father in 1630 at Les Trois-Moutiers, close to Loudun, to a child named Mathurin Blanchard, whose mother was named Toinette Lacompte.

Looking at a 200km range, there were 984 entries, which includes the five within 20km. Yes, a lot of Jean Blanchards!  So I narrowed the date range to 1600 through 1650. That reduced it to 666. And then just baptisms between 1600 and 1620. Now down to 119, but these included baptisms where a Jean Blanchard is named as father, which Filae doesn’t separate out. A few were double entries, and I counted 34 birth/baptisms, including the one from 1604 Loudun.

There was only one from 1611, April 18th, in fact, interestingly, from Ivoy-le-Pré, in the Cher department, north of Bourges, smack dab in the middle of France. The father was an Estienne Blanchard, and the mother a Magdeleine Chrestien. There were three from 1610, one of which was from the Deux-Sèvres department next door to Vienne, one from 1612, and one from 1613. While one of the 1610 baptisms was from La Peyratte, Deux-Sèvres, on the road from Loudun to La Rochelle, the others were not close to the Loudunais.

Next, I looked at marriages between 1620 and 1650, again first at 20km and then 200km. There was no Jean Blanchard married near Loudun during this time period. Within 200km there were 42 marriages for a Jean Blanchard, 12 after 1644. Of course, none was with a Lambert. But interestingly, one was with a Nicole Pellerin in 1638 in the Loiret department.

While Filae.com contains entries for early parish records, they are limited before 1700, and for that period, most all from genealogical societies that have taken the time and effort to search through original archival material. As we know, many such records are lost, and many that are found are illegible. We are entirely reliant on these societies, which means we don’t know how complete the searches were. When I searched through parish records page by page for the Loudun and elsewhere, I found several that were not noted by these societies. In addition, all the Paris records went up in flames during one of their several revolutions. So, I must assume that there are a large percentage of parish records, surely a majority, that are missing from the Filae database.

Jean Blanchard was assuredly baptized in France, somewhere, but we can only speculate regarding any one of the several records now available.

Also remaining speculative is whether he married in France or Acadia and whether it was a second marriage to Radegonde. I regret not having found more suggestive records than the above. Sigh.

I’m extremely grateful to Mark for his incredibly thorough research and sifting through thousands of documents on our behalf.

Jean Blanchard is one of the ancestors that Mark and I share.

Now, let’s visit Acadia, where Jean spent most of his life.

The Acadian Civil War

Most people have never heard of the Acadian Civil War, but it was very real to the settlers who participated in and suffered through it.

If there is blame to be placed, it lies with the French officials who, apparently ignorant of geography in distant Acadia, meted out portions of this new land to different men, followed predictably by misunderstandings about who controlled what.

With this statement, I’m giving everyone the benefit of the doubt – because regardless of the motivation, the results were the same.

Isaac de Razilly, Lieutenant-General of Acadia, at right, died unexpectedly in 1635 in La Hève, today’s LaHave, which was at that time a tiny outpost on the southern coast of Nova Scotia that served as the seat of Acadia.

In 1632, Razilly brought “300 hommes d’elite” to La Hève. This group included six Capuchins, lots of men who were to engage in fur trading, and possibly some noblemen.

No roster has ever been discovered, but it’s clearly possible that Jean Blanchard was among them and would have viewed this harbor from the La Hève beach. Even if Jean didn’t live in La Hève, it still remained an outpost for decades, so it’s not unlikely that Jean would have visited during fishing or trading expeditions at one point or another.

There may or may not have been a dozen colonist families that arrived with Razilly. If so, they would have lived in the habitations on the spit of land, shown above to the right of the beach, not far from the fort which succumbed to coastal erosion decades ago.

Razilly formed a good relationship with Charles La Tour, another Frenchman who controlled other parts of the Acadian coastline.

After Isaac de Razilly’s unexpected death, his brother back in France inherited his assets and retained Charles Menou d’Aulnay, Isaac’s right-hand-man, to act on his behalf in Acadia. Eventually, d’Aulnay bought out the Razilly family interest in Acadia.

In April 1636, d’Aulnay’s ship, St. Jehan, transported several settlers to La Hève, and it wasn’t long thereafter that d’Aulnay moved the seat of Acadia to Port Royal, on the other side of Nova Scotia.

On this 1609 map drawn by Champlain, what would one day become, Port Royal, the seat of Acadia, is noted by the map legend “H,” at center right, which says it is a place of cultivation where wheat is grown. Clearly d’Aulnay knew it was fertile, being farmed and somewhat protected from the direct Atlantic.

Charles de La Tour, a Protestant, was granted territory by King Louis XIV, and d’Aulnay, a Catholic, was granted a different portion of Acadia; but their territories overlapped, fueling escalating animosity between the two men.

After d’Aulnay’s move to Port Royal, the two warring Acadian factions were separated only by a few miles of easily-crossed water.

La Tour had fortified his headquarters, Fort Saint Marie, also known as Fort La Tour, at the mouth of the St. John River in 1631 and clearly felt that d’Aulnay, a latecomer to Port Royal, was an interloper.

La Tour sought support from the English in Massachusetts, which he readily received because he allowed them to fish and harvest lumber along the shores of the Bay of Fundy at no charge, whereas d’Aulnay insisted on payment.

La Tour told the New Englanders that d’Aulnay was planning to attack his fort, which may or may not have been true. John Winthrop, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, appealed to wealthy merchants and coughed up a sizeable loan for La Tour to fortify his fort and add men, probably in the form of mercenaries, to aid in his defense.

We don’t know if there was truth in La Tour’s allegations or not, but we do know that it wasn’t d’Aulnay that launched the first attack.

The 1640 Attack

In 1640, La Tour left Saint John, sailed across the Bay of Fundy, and then attacked d’Aulnay at Port Royal. D’Aulnay prevailed despite his captain being killed. La Tour gave up the fight, and d’Aulnay proceeded to follow him back to St. John and blockade his fort. Clearly, there’s more about this scenario that hasn’t been handed down through history, and I’d surely love to know the details.

During this timeframe, d’Aulnay was busily recruiting settlers, soldiers, and laborers, but we don’t know for sure whether Jean Blanchard was yet in Acadia by 1640 – although there are hints.

Based on the birth of Jean’s first known child in 1643, he was probably in Acadia and married no later than 1642.

Stephen White believed, based on Jean’s land assignment along the waterfront with the earliest settlers in Port Royal, including Michel Boudrot, who signed as syndic in 1639, that Jean Blanchard was already present when Port Royal became the capital under d’Aulnay.

In 1640, Blanchard, then 29, was in his prime. He would also have been part of a 1642 blockade of St. John by d’Aulnay, followed by the 1643 Battle of Port Royal.

Life was certainly “interesting” in early Port Royal.

Fear and Trepidation

In 1643, Jean Blanchard was about 32, and his wife was expecting or had just given birth to a child. Their first, or at least the first one that lived to the 1671 census.

Jean may have been wondering what he had gotten himself into. He lived on the Port Royal waterfront where he could literally watch ships, friend or foe, sail up the river, right in front of his house.

Standing on his land by the river, this was his view as he looked towards the distant mouth of the river that served as an entrance from and exit to the sea.

Every single day, Jean would have squinted through the mist and fog or maybe sleet and snow, looking across the river to see who was approaching.

Is that a ship?

What flag are they flying?

Friend or enemy?

Do I need to sound the alarm?

Where’s my family?

The 1643 Battle of Port Royal

There is some discrepancy about which of the following events occurred in 1642 and which in 1643, but all of these events occurred during those two years.

La Tour was absent from his fort across the bay more than he was present – often traveling to Boston for months at a time to trade and visit with his English merchant friends.

La Tour was in New England during the first half of 1643, and d’Aulnay took advantage of the opportunity to blockade La Tour’s fort for five months. La Tour, of course, got wind of this and returned on July 14^th with four ships and 270 men to recover his fort, which he did. He then attacked d’Aulnay at Port Royal, but somehow couldn’t actually catch him. Port Royal was in a better defensive position.

La Tour succeeded in freeing his fort, only to be unsuccessful in capturing d’Aulnay, but nonetheless, he remained furious.

Next, LaTour chased d’Aulnay to Penobscot Bay near present-day Castine, Maine, where d’Aulnay was forced to run two of his ships aground.

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

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

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

La Tour burned the mill at Port Royal, which was probably very near Blanchard’s home. Bent on destruction and revenge, his men rampaged through the town, killed livestock, seized furs, gunpowder, and other supplies, but La Tour did not directly attack the fort, which was only defended by 20 soldiers. We don’t know why he hesitated, but perhaps because it was a French fort that actually belonged to the King.

I expected that there would be a lot more than 20 soldiers guarding the fort, and La Tour probably did too. This provides some indication of the lack of a defensive force at Port Royal. The French had not resupplied the Acadians there for some time, but La Tour was clandestinely being supported by New England.

Perseverance

This entire situation seems very unfair and quite uneven, the balance tipping in favor of La Tour. The fact that the Port Royal Acadians persevered is a testament to their resilience and determination.

Some years later, this trait would be characterized as “stubbornness,” but whatever. It served our ancestors well, and we would not be here had they not been determined in the face of seemingly insurmountable adversity.

I’m grateful for their perseverance, by whatever name.

What transpired next, though, was ugly.

Easter Sunday 1645

In 1645, Jean Blanchard was approximately 34. The preceding several years had probably been a highly anxious period in his life, although he likely would never have admitted it. He had a young family, his wife was pregnant with their second child, and he would have watched the river like a hawk for signs of approaching ships he didn’t know.

Word had come that La Tour was in Boston, and d’Aulnay decided the time was ripe.

On April 13^th, Easter Sunday, d’Aulnay gathered every man, which would have consisted of all soldiers and every Acadian man who could carry a gun – reportedly about 200 in total, and boarded ships at Port Royal.

Jean would have waved goodbye to his wife, not knowing if he would return. His eyes were probably watering from salt spray. Yes, that was it – salt spray.

D’Aulnay crossed the Bay and attacked La Tour’s fort, once again, in his absence.

Greatly outnumbered, La Tour’s wife, Francoise-Marie Jacquelin, only 23 or 24 years old, commanded the soldiers and defended the fort for five days. Ultimately, she had to negotiate surrender terms, which included granting quarter to all soldiers in the garrison if they surrendered, which they did. The terms were agreed upon and accepted by both parties.

In spite of the agreement, in which d’Aulnay agreed that the soldiers would not be harmed, he immediately broke the treaty and proceeded to hang all 47 of La Tour’s soldiers, except one who served as the executioner. He forced Françoise-Marie to watch, while standing on the scaffold, with a noose around her neck. She died three weeks later as a hostage.

The death of La Tour’s brave young wife and the execution of his soldiers signaled the end of warfare between La Tour and d’Aulnay. La Tour sought refuge and lived in exile in Quebec for several years.

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

Karma Visits

Jean Blanchard was 39 or 40, when, in 1650, d’Aulnay drowned in an accident. One might say karma paid him a visit.

This turn of events may have been very upsetting to Jean, given that he had been recruited by d’Aulnay or d’Aulnay on behalf of Razilly, fought side by side with d’Aulnay multiple times, and had clearly participated in the 1645 capture of La Tour’s fort and execution of his soldiers with d’Aulnay.

D’Aulnay’s demise meant that the governorship was now available, which prompted La Tour to return from Quebec. That alone must have made Jean’s blood run cold, along with the other Acadian men in Port Royal. Was there going to be another war? Worse yet, were they going to be ruled by the man whose wife and entire garrison they had killed?

What happened next is simply jaw-dropping.

Wedding Bells

As incredible as this sounds – in 1653 d’Aulnay’s widow, Jean Motin, married Charles LaTour in an effort to end the division and unite Acadia. It worked, at least for a while.

The next challenge for Acadia did not come from another French contingent. It arrived in the form of English ships, and a united Acadia stood a much better chance than a divided Acadia.

The English Strike

In 1654, Jean was 43. We don’t know how many children were living at that time, but Radegonde would have given birth to about six children by 1654. Five survived beyond 1671.

The waterfront in Port Royal, where Jean lived, was just about the most dangerous place he could have lived in 1654.

However, he had probably already obtained land at BelleIsle from La Borgne prior to 1654 in order to expand his agricultural production – not to mention it was much safer upriver. Jean still owned the land at Port Royal, so he could have farmed both or farmed the one in Port Royal while he dyked and drained the saltmarsh at BelleIsle.

On July 14, 1654, the English sailed up the river and unexpectedly attacked Port Royal.

English Colonel, Robert Sedgwick, commissioned by Oliver Cromwell, was prepared to attack New Netherlands when a peace agreement was reached. “All dressed up with no place to go,” Sedgwick decided to attack Acadia instead.

Sedgwick first reached La Tour’s fort at Saint John on July 13th and took that, capturing La Tour in the process. He then sailed across the bay, where Port Royal’s governor, Emmanuel Le Borgne, was known to be quite friendly with the English and had been accused by La Tour of conspiring with them.

Port Royal was entirely unprepared for an attack, especially of this magnitude.

Sedgewick had 533 New England militia members, plus 200 professional soldiers sent by Oliver Cromwell. About 130 soldiers at Port Royal attempted to defend the fort, but the English killed five and forced the rest to retreat into the fort. The English probably had more soldiers than the entire population of Port Royal and the surrounding area, including women and children.

The resulting siege lasted until August 8th, when Le Borgne surrendered with conditions very generous to the English, and to himself – perhaps “too generous”. By this time, 113 Acadians were being held captive by the English, along with 23 cannons, 500 weapons, 50 barrels of gunpowder, and Le Borgne’s own ship, the Chateaufort, which was loaded to capacity with alcohol.

In the surrender conditions, Le Borgne was allowed to keep his ship, plus the alcohol, which was quite valuable, and return to France. His sons were allowed to remain at Port Royal “as hostages” to watch over his property in Port Royal and elsewhere in Acadia, which he was also allowed to retain. Many Acadians accused him of treason and blamed him for the capture of Port Royal and the ensuing savagery.

Sedgewick’s men were unleashed and tore through Port Royal, defacing the church, smashing windows, floors, and paneling before burning the church and then killing the settlers’ livestock just because they could.

Sedgewick and Le Borgne’s handiwork would not be undone for another 16 years when Acadia was returned to French control through the Treaty of Ryswick. However, the actual transition didn’t occur until 1670. One of the first things the French did was to order a census. Thank goodness for us they did!

The 1671 Census

The 1671 Acadian census is the earliest actual individual record of Jean Blanchard, who is noted in that document as Jehan.

Jehan Blanchard was a 60-year-old laborer, aka farmer, so he was born about 1611. His wife, Radegonde Lambert, is 42, so born about 1629. Radegonde’s age is one reason why many believe they married in Port Royal, about 1642 when she would have been 13. In 1671, they have six children, and three are married.

• Martin Blanchard, age 24, is married to Françoise LeBlanc, daughter of their neighbor, Daniel LeBlanc, at BelleIsle. They have no children, so they have probably recently married.
• Madelaine Blanchard is 28, married to Michel Richard, and they have seven children.
• Anne Blanchard, 26, listed only as the widow of Francois Gudcin (Guerin), is living next to her parents and has five children between the ages of 12 and 2.

Jean Blanchard and Radegonde Lambert’s three unmarried children are Guillaume, 21, Bernard, 18, and Marie, 15. The family has 12 cattle and 9 sheep and farms 5 arpents of land.

It’s very unusual that they have no children under the age of 15. Radegonde would be expected to have children every 18-24 months, so they should have had at least seven more children. Their absence speaks of at least seven small coffins buried in the churchyard and a great deal of grief.

By 1671 when this census was taken, based on his surrounding neighbors, Jean and family are almost certainly living upriver. However, Jean’s son, Martin, is living beside Jehan LaBatte, listed as a farmer, but who was also the military engineer. We know that LaBatte lived in the town of Port Royal along the waterfront.

This, combined with LaBatte’s 1702 map and information discovered from 1705 documents, leads me to believe that Martin Blanchard is living on the original land allocated to Jean Blanchard beside the fort in Port Royal.

Where is that land?

Jean Blanchard’s Land in Port Royal

In 1702, Labatte drew this plan of Fort Royal (today’s Fort Anne) at Port Royal as it would look when complete. He also noted the ancient fort perimeter inside the new fort, along with landmarks, according to the notation in the legend at upper left.

The pink squares outside the fort are the buildings that LaBatte expects to remain AFTER the fort is built. He doesn’t say this, but it appears that the outline-only squares near the fort’s walls are existing buildings that will need to be removed.

Jean, a laborer, initially lived beside the fort in the heart of Port Royal, near and beside other Acadian founding families. The location of his property indicates that he was among the earliest pioneers.

Had Jean not been in Port Royal when it was first established, he could not have received one of the prime pieces of waterfront, fort-side, real estate. Unfortunately, none of those early records survive but later information presented by Nicole Barrieau in her 1994 thesis reconstructs the earliest waterfront owners.

When the new fort was being constructed in 1705, several lots were expropriated to accommodate the expansion of the fort’s footprint, including one owned by Jean Blanchard, which was located between Simon Pelletret and Guillaume Trahan, founding families of Acadia.

These families were among the earliest arrivals, establishing themselves in Port Royal when Charles d’Aulnay relocated the seat of Acadia from La Hève to Port Royal between 1636 and 1639. Jean Blanchard’s neighbor, Guillaume Trahan, arrived in Acadia in 1636, and Michel Boudrot signed a document in Port Royal in 1639, so it stands to reason that the men who received these fort-side premier real estate lots were the earliest arrivals and settlers in Port Royal.

For purposes of clarification, there is a Louis Blanchard among the 1636 St. Jehan passengers, a vintner from La Rochelle. He is not married, and there is no indication that Louis and Jean Blanchard are the same person. Furthermore, there are no known vintners in Port Royal, and Blanchard is a very common surname. If one Blanchard arrived, it’s certainly conceivable that others from the same family followed, or perhaps others with the same surname but of no relationship.

We also know that most of the 1636 men either died or returned to France at some point, because their surnames are never found again in Acadia.

The Port Royal Waterfront

Using Nicole’s map, aerial photos, and my own photos taken while walking these lands in 2024, it appears that Jean Blanchard’s land is probably the land where the Queen’s Wharf stood more than a century later, in 1755.

Imagine my shock when I made this discovery. It was a “steal your breath,” unbelievable, moment.

Let’s take a walk with Jean as our guide.

This is the location where, on or about December 8^th, 1755, the Acadians were rounded up by the English, marched to the waterfront beside the fort where they were divided and forced onto ships, forever dispossessed of their lands.

How fateful is it that this is Jean’s land – this parcel that he once owned – that singularly represents both the beginning and end of Acadia?

I have cold chills.

Standing on Jean’s property, where the Queen’s Wharf connects the water with the land and the past with the present, I looked out over the area where his salt marsh fields once stood. The timeless view he would have seen directly in front of his home.

His family would have had a front row seat to every ship’s arrival, and every battle as well.

This wharf was the last place that Port Royal Acadians stood together, touching the rich earth of their homeland, as they were forced to board ships on a bitter winter day, leaving anything they carried stacked on the wharf to blow in the winds. Then forced to watch their homes and property burn, so they knew beyond a doubt there was nothing to return to.

English sailors and settlers who were awarded their lands and took their place months later described those abandoned belongings, still waiting dockside, representing the ghostly remains of lives lost and destroyed.

Jean’s descendants, along with hundreds of others, were scattered to the winds on overcrowded ships that were intentionally sent in different directions, landing in distant colonies. Many, passengers died due to the miserable, squalid, freezing conditions. Some ships were blown off course in horrific storms, winding up in the Caribbean, and some simply sank. Many people were never heard from again. To this day, we have no idea what became of them.

Jean owned this very ground – the place that became the tragically sacred site marking the literal end of French Acadia, where his descendants were forced to walk at gunpoint.

This is where Acadia in Port Royal both began and ended.

It’s where we return to bear witness.

Tracing Jean’s Land

The white statue in the distance is visible in the aerial photo above and serves as a visual anchor to identify Jean’s land.

In this photo, standing on his land, part way out on the wharf near the river’s edge, I’m looking straight back into what was originally the town of Port Royal where Jean’s home would have stood – before the fort’s stone and earthen ramparts and glacis were expanded in 1705 to encompass his original land and bury it beneath the fortifications.

Standing on his land by the river, even today, you can see remnants of the saltmarsh Jean would have drained to grow wheat and pasture his cattle.

The beautiful Rivière Dauphin flows to the sea just beyond. No wonder the Acadians were willing to fight to their death to keep and protect this land. No wonder they resisted any and all coercive measures to force them to leave. Until they were literally kidnapped and held as hostages, overpowered and taken away against their will.

Their hot tears watered this wharf as the world they knew ended.

When Jean lived on this land and dyked it for farming, the little freshwater stream, still visible as it meanders its way to the river, would have nourished his family.

The 3-chimney garrison, visible to the right of and behind the white statue, would have stood in the old fort, adjacent his home. It’s here that the soldiers retreated in 1654 when being attacked by the English.

The original garrison was eventually replaced by this one with three chimneys.

The original bricks and a few timbers of the original structure remain and were incorporated into the later garrison, which is now the Fort Anne museum.

Cousin Mark and me, enjoying a glorious day in front of the remains of the original garrison, visiting our ancestors. Trust me, there’s nothing on earth like bonding with much-loved cousins on your ancestors’ lands, rich with history – our history.

This might be a good place to note that when Mark and I were standing there, we didn’t yet know the location of Jean’s land, or that he even owned land in Port Royal. We knew that Jean Blanchard had lived upriver. It was later on during that trip that Mark texted me the 1705 map while he was attending a reunion, and we didn’t have time while we were in Annapolis Royal to overlay those lots on today’s fort.

How I wish we had! I’d have taken a lot more photos, and probably shed buckets more tears.

Looking towards town from near the garrison, the bridge over the culvert beside the rampart with the white monument would have been the south end of Jean Blanchard’s land. This is very likely where his house would have been built. The fields and grazing area were always closest to the river, and the homestead was built on the highest ground.

Standing beside the white monument, overlooking the river and hills on the other side, much as Jean would have done.

In the 1686 census, Jean was living upriver, but his son Martin was farming this land in Port Royal. By 1705, when the land was expropriated, Martin had already moved on to the next frontier.

Fifty years after Jean obtained this land, a new fort had been built, its bastions, ramparts, and glacis covering Jean’s original land, except for the wharf that would become the location representing the collective grief of all Acadians.

The joy of new beginnings as Jean stepped ashore, and the agony of betrayal and removal. All in one sacred place.

Today, the remains of Queen’s Wharf have been preserved and stabilized by Parks Canada, but there are no signs indicating where it is, or that this small spit of land is the expulsion wharf, infused with agony and heartache. I discovered it quite by accident, wandering around, and a Park Ranger confirmed its genesis.

No wonder I was so drawn here.

When I laid these yellow roses on the Queen’s Wharf to honor my Acadian ancestors, collectively, I had no idea I was actually laying them directly on my ancestor’s land.

I placed roses for the more than 2000 Acadians whose feet trod here in sorrow, many never to see their families again, at least not until death. I placed them for the ache in my heart that I can still feel some 270 years later.

I swear, Jean summoned me here to hear his voice as he revealed the chapters in his life. In the lives of Acadians in Port Royal. To show me the wharf on his original land, his hand touching mine, where everything changed in the blink of an eye. I felt his presence. I just didn’t know it was him at the time.

Otherwise, the chances of the stars aligning, bringing me here, to this exact place, to place those roses, are astronomical…

The 1678 Census

In the 1678 census, Jean and Radegonde appear to be living in the same location, given that Antoine Hebert, their neighbor in 1671 still lives four houses away.

The primary difference is that their son, Guillaume, who was not married in 1671, is now married to Hugette Gougeon and they, along with their three children, live with Jean and Radegonde. Jean Blanchard is still listed as the head of household, so this appears to be a case of the young couple setting up housekeeping with Guillaume’s parents to help farm. All of Jean’s children have married or died, so the only children living in Jean and Radegonde’s household are grandchildren.

As grandparents, they probably enjoyed the laughter and joy that babies and grandchildren bring.

At 67, after a life of hard manual labor, not to mention several battles, Jean Blanchard probably wasn’t feeling any too spry.

The 1686 Census

In the 1686 census, Jean Blanchard, age 75, and Radegonde Lambert, 65, live next door to their son Guillaume and his family. No land or livestock is assigned to Jean, but Guillaume has 4 guns, 16 cattle, 20 sheep, and lives on 5 arpents of land, the exact amount farmed by Jean Blanchard in 1671.

We don’t know when Jean moved upriver from Port Royal, but based on the neighbors who are known to live just north of the BelleIsle Marsh, Jean has very clearly been living there since at least 1671, and probably substantially earlier, possibly before 1654. No land was appropriated to the Acadians by the English from 1654 to 1670, and we know that several Acadian families had already moved upriver by 1654.

Moving Upriver

We now know that Jean started life in Acadia along the river, beside the fort, in Port Royal, but subsequently moved upriver. When, and why?

In 1653, Nicolas Denys, an English captive held at Port Royal said that there were about 270 residents living in the Port Royal area, and that they were mostly families brought by de Razilly. That would include d’Aulnay who was Isaac Razilly’s right-hand-man in Acadia. D’Aulnay served as Governor after Razilly’s 1635 death, which is when he decided to relocate the seat of Acadia, along with the settlers, from rocky La Hève that faced the open Atlantic, to fertile Port Royal, sheltered and protected by the Dauphin River and surrounding hills.

If indeed Jean Blanchard did arrive with Razilly, who died in 1636, he would have married Radegonde Lambert in Acadia, not in France, given that she was only about seven years old in 1636.

Denys recorded in his journal that the Acadians had “multiplied much at Port Royal.” He also added that many had abandoned their houses in the town of Port Royal and settled along the river on farms, specifically around the BelleIsle Marsh.

Ocean-going vessels could not navigate the river above Port Royal and knew better than to foolishly brave the river’s boar tide and rocks beyond Hogg Island.

Based on what happened in 1654, that decision to relocate upriver was probably an incredibly fortuitous decision for those who had already made the move.

Brenda Dunn, in her book, A History of Port Royal / Annapolis Royal 1605-1800, explains the move of families away from the fort after it was captured by the British in 1654:

“During the years of British rule, most of the Port-Royal population moved upriver away from the town. Using the agricultural practices initiated under D’Aulnay, the Acadians dyked and cultivated extensive salt marshes along the river and raised livestock. Through necessity, residents had reached an accommodation with New England traders who had become their sole source for the goods that they could not produce themselves… New England traders exchanged their goods for Acadian produce and furs… There were seventy to eighty families in the Port Royal area in 1665.”

I don’t know how Brenda calculated the number of families in 1665, as there was no census. There seemed to be about 45 families in 1653, assuming two parents and four children per family based on the 1671 census. In 1671, there were 392 people in 68 households, corresponding to an average of 6 people per household, so Brenda’s estimate might have been high.

Regardless, there really weren’t very many people living in and near Port Royal. Within a generation or two, they were all related.

Cobequid

A new fort had been planned in Port Royal since about 1697 when Port Royal once again reverted to the French after being captured by the English again in 1690.

The Acadians were already looking to other areas to expand their settlements.

Cobequid Village is today’s Truro, NS, at far right on this 1755 English map used to identify Acadian settlements prior to the Expulsion.

November 1, 1699 extract from a letter from Mathieu de Goutin concerning the founding of Chipoudy: “Guillaume Blanchard and other settlers from Port-Royal came here two days ago to take up grants …”

December 27, 1699: Chartering of a ship by Guillaume Blanchard to his associates Jean Labat and Christophe Cahouet, at a rate of thirty livres per month.

In the 1700 census, it appears that Jean Blanchard’s son, Martin Blanchard, is still living on Jean’s Port Royal land, based on the neighbors, and that Guillaume is still living at BelleIsle on Jean’s land there.

By 1701, according to the census, Martin Blanchard was one of only three families who had relocated to Cobequid, today’s Truro, shown above. In Martin’s case, he was probably motivated because the drawings for the new fort showed that it was unquestionably going to take his Port Royal land, and many of the Acadians were putting down roots on the new Acadian frontiers. Opportunity was calling!

Cobequid was similar to Port Royal, in that there were substantial marshlands to be dyked and drained along the arm of the Bay of Fundy that experienced twice daily bore tides. Acadians were experts at managing this environment.

The potential in Cobequid for salt marsh farming was endless, and stretched as far as the eye could see.

In 1701 or 1702, work on the fort in Port Royal began again, using the new design that caused Jean Blanchard’s original land to be expropriated. Apparently, anticipating that this was going to occur, Martin Blanchard had already moved on to the next frontier at Cobequid, although both Martin and Guillaume were clearly scouting the area.

October 2, 1702 extract from a report by Mathieu de Goutin concerning the founding of Les Mines requested that Guillaume Blanchard be granted a half league on either side of the Petitcoudiac River: “the said Blanchard has a sailing vessel, and grown sons, sons-in-law and nephews, who will put the Pecoudiak the land along the Petitcoudiac River to use and will settle there many people, and in three years the colony will draw support from them…”

Three years is how long it took for salt marsh land to be usable for farming after the salt was washed out after dyking and draining.

In the 1703 Cobequid census, we find Martin Blanchard, his wife and 5 children, plus 18 additional households. Four couples appear to be newly married, and two are single men, perhaps seeking their fortune.

By 1705, when Jean Blanchard’s Port Royal land was expropriated, Martin was already settled and farming in Cobequid where he died about 1717. As early as 1699, he knew he was losing his home, and he didn’t have a backup plan, so he became one of the founding families at Cobequid where land was plentiful.

Based on the various censuses, Guillaume Blanchard never made the move to Cobequid, or elsewhere – but he didn’t actually need to move, because he lived on and farmed his father’s land in BelleIsle.

Martin, on the other hand, needed to move, so we find him in Cobequid by 1701.

BelleIsle

We know that Jean Blanchard moved near or perhaps even beside the Daniel LeBlanc family on the east side of the BelleIsle marshes. In fact, the road where he likely lived is named Marshlands.

Jean was probably granted land on both sides of this road.

Looking towards the marsh and the river beyond the marsh.

Looking towards the hills to the north from today’s main road.

Jean’s son, Martin Blanchard, married Daniel LeBlanc’s daughter around 1670 or 1671, not long before the census given that they didn’t yet have children.

The LeBlanc family has placed a memorial marker, map, and stone near this location.

The stone doesn’t mark the exact location of Daniel’s home, but the neighborhood, which was also the neighborhood where Jean Blanchard lived.

According to the various censuses, the LeBlanc, Gaudet and Blanchard families lived in very close proximity, here.

The grassy semi-swampy area between the main road and Marshlands Road is the likely location of many of the LeBlanc and Blanchard homesteads.

It was here, in the warm sunshine, with the mountains in the distance, that Jean lived out the golden years of his life.

Jean Blanchard began his life in France where he lived until he was a young adult. He  may have lived at La Hève for a few years, but no more than 5 or 6 at most. He lived beside the fort in Port Royal for at least a dozen years, and perhaps as many as 30. Then, he lived upriver at BelleIsle for between 20 and 40 years.

Jean Blanchard Departs This World

We don’t know exactly when Jean Blanchard died, but we do know that both he and Radegonde passed away between the 1686 and the 1693 census.

Jean had probably already crossed over to the other side by the time that the English captured Port Royal again in May of 1690. Both Guillaume and Martin Blanchard signed the required loyalty oath, but Jean’s signature is conspicuously absent, suggesting that he had already passed. He would have been about 79 years old.

It’s possible that when the soldiers rounded up the Acadian men that they skipped Jean because he was old and frail and couldn’t travel to the Catholic Church in Port Royal where the Acadian men were sequestered and forced to sign the oath. Regardless, Jean was definitely gone by the 1693 census, as was his wife.

For a man who sailed across the ocean, spent the first few years fighting in the Acadian Civil War, followed by the 1654 fall of Acadia to the English, carved a homestead and farm from nothing, either two or three times –  Jean lived an incredibly long life, somewhere between 75 and 82 years.

Jean’s Burial

While most researchers assume that Jean Blanchard and Radegonde Lambert are buried at Port Royal, in the cemetery behind the garrison, I don’t think so.

When Acadia fell to the English in 1654, and the Catholic church was burned, there was no reason for the Acadians from 15 miles or so upriver to continue to travel to Port Royal if they didn’t have to. Not only was traveling that distance inconvenient, it was unsafe in the winter, and when people died, they needed to be buried regardless of the weather. The Acadians established a “Mass House”, later named St. Laurent, in their neighborhood at BelleIsle.

On early maps, this little church is shown right beside the LeBlanc Village, which would have been located very close to where Jean Blanchard and Radegonde Lambert lived, less than a mile away, if that far.

When Jean died, he would have been living with or beside his son, Guillaume, who lived near the Mass House. Jean would have been buried in the little churchyard the next day, after mass was said. If a priest wasn’t available, they did the best they could.

The LeBlanc and Blanchard families lived in the area at left, and the Mass House was located in the area at right.

Unfortunately, we don’t know the exact location of the Mass House, nor its adjacent cemetery, but we do know the general area. The photo above shows the location shown on the 1733-1753 map.

This is the approximate location shown on the 1757 map.

We will likely never know where Jean is buried, but his spirit remains in Acadia, the land that he founded.

Beginning to End

This panoramic photo, standing on Jean’s land, overlooking the Queen’s Wharf, signifies both the beginning and the end of the Acadian chapter at Port Royal.

Although the Acadians were brutally dispossessed of their land and heritage, their spirit did not die.

It lives on in every single one of their descendants today. Beginning to end. Just like Jean Blanchard.

At Fort Anne, in December 2024, on the 269th anniversary of their forced departure, a monument was placed on the rampart beside Queen’s Wharf, perhaps on Jean’s land, and dedicated to the memory of our Acadian ancestors.

If you listen closely, you can still hear them – their footfalls in the snow, the echoes of their anguish as they were forced to board the ships, being forever separated from their families and loved-ones, and their whispered prayers for deliverance.

Jean’s grandchildren and their children, forced from the very shore where he built his home and his life. The exact place where he stood, gingerly placing his foot on Acadian soil and gazing hopefully into the distant future, before Port Royal was anything more than a field.

This hallowed land where Jean’s life in Acadia had begun, more than a century earlier.

_____________________________________________________________

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Madelaine (also spelled Madeleine) Blanchard was born to Jean Blanchard and Radegonde Lambert about 1643, probably in Port Royal, Acadia.

Madelaine grew up right beside the fort, on the waterfront in Port Royal, at least for the first several years of her life. Her family’s home stood right about here, on the other side of the erosion-prevention boulders, back on higher ground out of the photo at right. Every Acadian had at least some access to the waterfront, and her family’s was here.

Madelaine would have scampered down to the river, perhaps searched for pretty rocks, taken off her shoes, and waded in the water.

How do we know where the Blanchard land was located?

Locating the Blanchard Land

When a new fort was being built in 1705, several lots were expropriated, including one owned by Jean Blanchard, which was located between Simon Pelletret and Guillaume Trahan, founding families of Acadia.

These families were among the earliest arrivals, establishing themselves in Port Royal when Charles d’Aulnay relocated the seat of Acadia from La Hève to Port Royal between 1636 and 1640. Their neighbor, Guillaume Trahan, arrived in Acadia in 1636, so it stands to reason that the men who received these fort-side premier real estate lots were the earliest arrivals and settlers in Port Royal.

Madelaine would have grown up playing along the Port Royal waterfront, as viewed here from across the river.

Born about 1643, Madeleine was an infant, or not yet born, during the Acadian Civil War from 1640-1645, but she would have been an eyewitness to the events of 1654.

The English Invasion

In July of 1654, when Madelaine was about 11, the English sailed up the river and anchored right in front of her home, in the part of the river shown above.

The Acadians had one day’s advance warning, because Emmanuel Le Borgne had been in the process of attacking the rival French fort of Saint John, across the bay, when the English arrived to do the same. French on French warfare was an ugly family feud, but the English attack was another matter altogether.

For better or worse, instead of staying to help defend Fort Saint John against the English, Le Borgne scooted back home to Port Royal.

After taking Fort Saint John, the English arrived in Port Royal to find French soldiers and Acadian men poised to ambush. The 130 men in Port Royal tried their best to fend off the British, but had absolutely no chance against more than 530 English soldiers. They quickly had to retreat into the fort, and the English laid Port Royal under siege.

We have no idea where the women and children were sheltering, although they may well have been inside the fort too, in the garrison. That’s the typical arrangement. There wasn’t much of anyplace else other than the woods and hills behind the town, or someplace upriver.

The English siege lasted approximately four weeks, from July 13^th to August 8^th, when Port Royal surrendered.

Given the circumstances, the capitulation terms were generous. The Acadians were to remain unharmed, could retain their property, including homes and livestock, and were permitted to continue worshiping as Catholics. The French soldiers and administrators would be sent back to France, and all property belonging to the French King would become the property of the English.

The English were now in command, but they had not planned ahead for how they would administer Port Royal. Major Robert Sedgwick had not originally planned to attack the French, but did so when the war with the Dutch was settled and New Netherlands became off limits. His warships were ready, and his men itching to go – so he headed for the French Acadian ports.

Sedgwick left a small contingent of Redcoat soldiers at the garrison in Port Royal, and an Acadian delegation in charge. Aside from the English coming and going from time to time, as far as a child like Madelaine was concerned, not much changed.

After the siege was over, Madelaine would have returned home from wherever she had taken shelter with her mother and siblings, but I’d wager that she was forever wary of English ships and English soldiers.

The English would rule Acadia for the next 16 years, but Madeleine was busy with other things.

Madeleine Marries

Madeleine was about 13 in 1656 when she married Michel Richard dit Sansoucy, who probably arrived as a soldier, either with Charles d’Aulnay before his 1650 death, or with Emmanuel Le Borgne, his successor, prior to the 1654 fall of Acadia.

While 13 sounds young today, it wasn’t uncommon for Acadian brides to marry early. There were probably few marriage candidates in Port Royal at the time, so one needed to strike while the iron was hot and a good candidate was available and interested.

Nicolas Denys, an English captive held at Port Royal, said that there were about 270 residents there, and that they were mostly families brought by de Razilly. That would include d’Aulnay who was Razilly’s right-hand-man in Acadia. D’Aulnay served as Governor after Razilly’s 1635 death, which is when he decided to move the seat of Acadia, along with the settlers, from rocky La Hève to fertile Port Royal.

A decade or so later, in 1653, Denys recorded that the Acadians had “multiplied much at Port Royal.” He also added that many had abandoned their houses in the town of Port Royal and settled along the river on farms, specifically around the BelleIsle Marsh. Maybe that’s where the women and children sheltered in 1654. Soldiers never braved the river’s boar tide and rocks beyond Hogg Island at Port Royal. Ocean-going ships could not navigate the river above Port Royal.

The small number of residents in 1654 likely amounted to approximately 30 families, or 60 parents, leaving about 210 children, or roughly 7 per family. Those children would range in age from newborn to approximately 20, implying that there were 10 people in each year age bracket from 0 to 20, with an average of 5 males and 5 females. Therefore, Madeleine either needed to marry a widower, or one of the older male candidates, who typically didn’t marry until they were 25ish.

Michel Richard would have had his choice of a widow or maybe a total of 10 females who were old enough to marry.

That’s not much selection.

We know very little about the earliest church in Port Royal, but the Acadian families knew each other quite well and would have either gathered together in the church, or in the priest’s home, to witness Madelaine and Michel’s marriage and celebrate the joining of their lives.

Weddings were probably social events as well.

1671 Census

In 1667, Acadia was returned to French control via treaty, although functionally that didn’t occur until 1670.

The first Acadian census was taken in 1671, where we obtain our first glimpse of Madelaine herself.

In her parents’ census entry, it’s noted that three of their children are married. Fortunately, French and Acadian women retained their birth surnames, so locating Madeleine in the census was easy.

Madeleine Blanchard, 28, is married to Michel Richard, a farmer, 41, and they have seven children. Rene is 14, so born about 1657, Pierre is 10, Catherine is 8, Martin is 6, Alexandre is 3, and Madeleine has just given birth to twin daughters, Anne and Magdeleine, who are five weeks old.

Madeleine and Michel have 15 cattle, 14 sheep, and farm 14 arpents of land.

It’s challenging to determine precisely where they are living because they are listed beside Abraham Dugas on one side, who we know is the armorer and lives beside the fort, and beside Charles Melanson on the other side, who lives across the river and is married to Abraham Dugas’s daughter. It’s likely that the census taker was canoeing back and forth across the river and not listing residents in house-to-house order.

What the Census Doesn’t Say

There’s a tale of heartbreak hidden in this census, told by blank spaces.

Madelaine would have given birth to another child who should have been 12 and one who should have been 4 – and that’s assuming that each of those children lived long enough to be weaned. Madelaine could have given birth to more children if the baby died shortly after birth, so she would have become pregnant quickly, leaving just a year between births.

There’s also room for a possible child who died in 1670.

By 1671, Madeleine had already buried at least two, if not three, children, the first one when she was only 16, the second at 24, the third one just the year before, when she was 27. I wonder if any of those births were twins, too. Twins are often born underweight.

Childbirth was dangerous for women and children alike, and only about half of the children born survived to marry.

The 1678 Census

The 1678 census is somewhat unusual for Michel Richard and Madeleine Blanchard. Based on the neighbors, they are almost assuredly living in the town of Port Royal.

1. Their oldest daughter, Catherine Richard, has married Francois Broussard. The newlywed couple has five cattle, but no land, and are listed beside her parents, Michel Richard and Madeleine Blanchard. How do you graze five cows with no land?
2. Michel Richard and Madeleine Blanchard are listed with no additional information – no children, no livestock, nothing. That’s very odd.
3. Next, we find Germain Doucet and Marie Landry with a normal listing, including their children, livestock, and land.
4. Then, the census shows Michel Richard without Madeleine’s name, but WITH four boys and five girls, plus 21 cattle on 10 arpents of land.
5. Next is Michel Boudrot “at the brook”, who we know lives beside the fort and beside Abraham Dugas.

So, what exactly does this mean? No one else is listed twice, let alone once with and once without a spouse.

Madeleine Blanchard Dies

Based on the next census, taken in 1686, Michel Richard, now 56, has remarried to Jeanne Babin, who is 18. They have been married for at least three years because they have a child who is 2.

This tells us that Madelaine had died by 1683 when Michel remarried.

The strange 1678 census entry might indicate that Madelaine died sometime during the census. Or maybe not.

Michel Richard’s children in the 1686 census who would have been born to Madeleine Blanchard include: Martin, 19, Alexandre, 17, Marie, 12 (born 1674), Cecile, 10 (born 1676), and Marguerite, 7 (born 1679).

Madeleine’s youngest child, Marguerite, is shown as age 7 in 1686, so born in 1679, but in two later censuses, she is shown as born in 1677. This date, which is the most critical for determining Madelaine’s death year, is uncertain because it brackets 1678.

Can we determine anything more?

Unfortunately, the 1678 census only provides a count of children by sex. Let’s retrofit this information for Madelaine’s family.

We know that daughter, Catherine Richard, was married because she was living next door. This leaves a total of 5 girls in the household. Using the 1671 and 1678 censuses, we can account for all daughters, including the youngest, Marguerite. Therefore, we know Marguerite was NOT born in 1679, unless an unknown child was born in 1677 or 1678 and had died by 1686.

Madelaine’s children are as follows:

Child	Birth – Death	Marriage/Spouse	# of Children
Rene Richard	1657 – before 1693 in Port Royal	Married Magdelaine Landry about 1680	5 children
Unknown child	1659 – before 1671
Pierre Richard	1661 – after Jan. 1739 in Grand Pre	Married Marguerite Landry about 1686	In Minas by 1693 – 10 children
Catherine Richard*	1663 – after 1714 in Port Royal	Married Francois Broussard about 1678	11 children
Martin Richard	1665 – before Feb. 1748 in Beaubassin	Married Marguerite Bourg about 1691	In Beaubassin by 1695 – 10 children
Unknown child	1667 – before 1671
Alexandre	1668 – October 1709 in Port Royal	Married Isabelle Petitpas about 1690	9 children
Possible child	1670 – 1670
Twin, Anne Richard	1671 – 1745 in Grand Pre	Married Germain Terriot about 1686	In Minas by 1693 – 11 children
Twin, Magdeleine Richard	1671 – after July 1729 in Grand Pre	Married Charles Babin in 1686	In Grand Pre by 1688 – 12 children
Unknown child	1673
Marie-Joseph Richard	1674 – 1709 in Pisiquit	Married Michel Vincent about 1689	In Pisiquit by 1690 – 8 children
Cecile Richard	1676 – after 1731 in Pisiquit	Married Pierre Forest about 1692 in Pisiquit	9 children
Marguerite Richard	1678 – after June 1731 maybe in Minas	Married Jean LeBlanc about 1698	In Grand Pre by 1699 – 10 children

*Catherine Richard’s first child born in 1678 or 1679 may have been born before Catherine’s mother, Madeleine, died. Sadly that child died soon after birth, as did Catherine’s second child born about 1680. Catherine’s first child that lived was born about 1681, although it’s very unlikely that her mother lived that long, given that Madelaine’s last known child that lived, Marguerite, had been born by the 1678 census.

In 1678, Madeleine Blanchard was 35 years old and had given birth recently, within the year, to Marguerite. She had nine children at home, and her oldest daughter had married and was living next door.

Madeleine may have died in 1678, or she may have died anytime between 1678 and 1683 when her husband remarried. Had she been alive during the intervening years, she would have been expected to have borne a child in both 1680 and 1682. For all we know, she did, and they died as well.

If Madeleine did not die in 1678, she would have buried her first grandchild, standing beside her distraught daughter, Catherine, who was only about 15. She may well have buried a second grandbaby too, a year or two later, if she lived long enough. Maybe Madeleine and Catherine bonded in an incredibly sad way – they may both have buried multiple children in a very short timeframe. First children for Catherine, the daughter, and last children for Madeleine, the mother.

One way or another, Catherine’s mother, Madelaine, was gone by 1683, joining several of her children and her first grandchildren, too.

Magdelaine’s Funeral

Michel and their children would have made their way to the church beside the fort, within sight of their home. The parish priest, probably Father Louis Petit, would have given Madeleine’s Requiem Mass, in Latin, of course, focusing on Christ’s resurrection and Madelaine’s soul. The service would have included scripture, hymns, communion, and prayers for the departed.

He would have offered the Holy Sacrifice of the Eucharist for the faithful, making Christ present with them on that day.

Then Madeleine’s sons would have lifted their mother’s coffin, lovingly carrying it into the churchyard, and lowering her mortal remains into the earth, where she rests today in an unmarked grave.

Tears watered the soil.

Catherine named her first surviving child, born about 1681, after her mother. If they were both exceedingly lucky, Magdelaine lived long enough to welcome that baby and enjoy her for at least a few months.

Catherine probably helped raise her remaining siblings left behind by their mother’s passing, especially given that her new stepmother was three years younger than Catherine, and Michel may not have remarried right away.

I feel like Madelaine’s life was somehow unfairly short-circuited. She endured a great deal of sorrow but was never able to enjoy grandchildren, which, in Acadia, were assuredly among the finer things in life.

Madelaine was simply gone much, much too soon, leaving a sorrowing family to carry on without her.

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