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

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

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

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

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

Early Life

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1690 Attack

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

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

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

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

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

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

1690 – The Loyalty Oath

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

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

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

So helpe us God.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marriage

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The red star marks this satellite view from Google Maps.

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

1710

This time, the English unquestionably meant business.

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

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

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

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

Here is what we know about the battle:

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

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

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

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

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

This hurts my heart.

Conditions of Surrender

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

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

There’s that oath issue again.

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

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

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

Then, there was Bloody Creek.

Bloody Creek

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

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

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

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

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

1713

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be Careful What You Wish For

Oh, the irony.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Still, they refused to take that bloody oath.

The next few years were a mess.

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

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

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

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

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

1720 – Another Ultimatum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Wedding

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

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

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

That Oath – AGAIN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Subterfuge

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Family Life

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

Six girls and seven boys graced their lives.

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

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

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

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

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

Marie – 1718

Joseph – 1720

Marguerite – 1724

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marie – 1731

Jacques – 1734

Catherine – 1737

Elizabeth (Isabelle) – 1738

Anne – 1740

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

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

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

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

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

René’s Death and Burial

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Acadia

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

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

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

That didn’t work.

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

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

Fortunately, a census was taken by the French periodically.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That wouldn’t last.

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

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

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

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

Ambush

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

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

Where was Bloody Creek? So glad you asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Oath

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

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

But wait…there’s more.

The Neutral French

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marriage

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The 1755 Removal, Known as The Great Upheaval

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

418 men attended, and 418 men were trapped.

September 5, 1755

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Annapolis Royal

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

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

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

The expulsion had begun.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Deportation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arrival

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

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

1763 to 1766

The New England Historical Society tells us that:

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

However, they had to pay for their own transport.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Benoit is unknown to us.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Happened to Jacques Forest?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Le Grand Dérangement

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The End of the War

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

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

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

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

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

Where did they go?

Quebec, Eventually

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

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

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

They rented a farm that September.

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

Translation from Father John:

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

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

*On the tenth of November of the said year.

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

Is that why they stayed after 1775?

Why did they leave, probably in early 1788?

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

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

Catholicism could not be practiced in the colonies.

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

The 1790 census might hold a few clues.

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

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

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

I wish we knew.

Life in Quebec

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Children

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

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

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

	Total children	Children born before 1819	Died before 1819	Unknown death date before 1819
Marie	15	15	2	1
Marguerite	12	12	1	6
Suzanne	7	7	2	0
Julie	8	8	2	0
Francois	11	6	1	1
Bridget	12	11	0	10
Angelique	?
Marie Ann	7	6	2	1
Antoine	4	3	1	0
Pierre Clement	13	7	0	3
Francoise	10	3	2	1
Totals	99	78	13	23

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

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

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

Marguerite’s Death

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

Translation by Father John:

Burial of Marguerite Laforet

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

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

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

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François Lafay, Lafaye or Lafaille is a mystery man.

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

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

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

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

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

Is there anything else we can discern from his name?

Lafay

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

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

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

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

This was an interesting exercise but not much help.

Who He’s Not

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

French Sailor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where Did François Come From?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Puy-Paulin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Escape!

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

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

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

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

The location in Haiti, today.

Bernard continues:

Why does François escape?

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

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

According to the roster:

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

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

Back to Bernard:

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

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

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

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

There might be another explanation, however.

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

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

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

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

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

Back to Bordeaux

Bernard was a persistent researcher and continued his story.

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

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

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

Sylvie Lord translates his baptism as:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is he “our” François Lafaye?

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

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

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

Today, a tree blooms in the beautiful French springtime.

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

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

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

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

Where Do We First Find Our Proven François Lafay?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arrival in Quebec

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I sure wish I knew where that farm was.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Translation from Father John:

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

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

*On the tenth of November of the said year.

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

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

Farmer

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

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

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

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

War of 1812

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If I have missed anything, please let me know,

Paul Drainville

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

François Loses His Wife

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

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

Marriage Times Two

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

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

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

This just couldn’t be any sweeter.

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

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

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

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

The priest would then begin the Celebration of Matrimony.

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

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

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

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

François Passes Over

François continued farming until his death on June 16, 1824

Father John’s translation:

Burial #44 François Lafaille

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

A. Brais, priest

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

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

Inventory

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

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

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

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

Someone on WikiTree posted a brief summary:

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

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

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

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

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

Column 1

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

Column 2

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

This begs the question of the rest of the children.

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

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

What About the Others?

Three living children are missing from this document.

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

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

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

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

In Summary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We simply don’t know.

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

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

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

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

Need Lafay or Lafaille Man for Y-DNA Test

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This Iroquois hunter is carrying this same French trade gun.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jacques and Angélique had two children:

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

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

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

All Hell Broke Loose

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was ugly.

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

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

Here is what we know about the battle:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grand Pre

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

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

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

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

Uneasy Times

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

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

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

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

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

He also wrote to the Board of Trade in London:

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

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

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

We will see.

The 1714 Census

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Lose-Lose Situation

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

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

Suddenly, the Acadians were valuable.

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

What a mess.

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

The situation dragged on.

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

1720

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

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

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

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

Plot Twist, Or Two

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Life Went On

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

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

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

A Wedding

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

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

Jacques and Charlotte Bonnevie had eight children.

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

French Neutrals

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

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

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

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

That Oath – AGAIN

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

This is where it gets interesting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Family Grows

Jacques and Charlotte added five more children to their family.

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

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

Something Happened in 1742

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

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

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

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

Brutal.

The Expulsion Begins

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

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

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

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

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

According to Acadian.org:

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Happened to Jacques?

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

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

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

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

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

In 1742, Jacques would have been 53 years old.

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

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

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

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

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

The Garceau Alliance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jacques’s Legacy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What he survived, assuming he did, was genocide.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jacque lives on.

_____________________________________________________________

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Family

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Exile

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

I have never found a death entry for Jacques.

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

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

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

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

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

He got married.

Exile Ends

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back to Rev. Choquet’s letter:

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

That’s exactly what they did.

Marriage

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

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

Brother Bernard’s translation.

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

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

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

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

Upriver

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

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

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

Why not?

Where were they?

Sit down and buckle up for this one!

The Revolutionary War

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

What? Acadians didn’t do that!

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

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

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

Honoré’s card number.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Honoré’s Unit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A plaque erected at Fort Saint Johns reads:

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

Fort St. Jean today.

Fort Frederick in Albany

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can see the church a little better looking east.

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

Service Confirmed

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

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

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

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

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

The Catholic Church

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

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

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

Apoline Dies

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

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

Honoré and Appoline’s Children

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Remarriage to Suzanne Lafaille.

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

Yes, I know this is confusing.

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

Then, in 1806, Honoré Sr.’s son, Francois (born in 1771) from Honoré Sr.’s first marriage, married Marie Anne Lafaille, the sister of the other two Lafaille sisters who were married to Honoré Lore Sr. and Jr., respectively. So yes, three Lafaille sisters married the father and two Lore sons.

My head was spinning with all this, just in case you were wondering.

Ok, now for Honoré Sr.’s marriage record.

I’m not quite sure why there was a notarial record in addition to the church record, but the notarial record is much easier to read.

Brother Bernard’s translation of the second marriage for Honoré Lord with Suzanne Lafaille.

“The eleventh of January 1790, after the publication of 3 banns of matrimony at our parochial Masses on two Sundays and one intervening holyday between Honoré Lord, widower of Apolline Garseaut, of this parish, of the first part; and Suzanne Lafay, daughter of Francois Lafay and of Marguerite Foret, her parents also of this parish, of the second part; no impediment having been discovered to said marriage, we undersigned priest received their mutual consent and gave them the nuptial benediction according to the form prescribed by our Mother the Holy Roman Church, and this in the presence of Joseph Michell, Victor Girouard, Joseph Commeaux cousin, Honoré and Francois Lord sons, Andre Lancieau, Antoine Grousseau, Francois Brousseau friends of the groom, and of Francois Lafay, Pierre Trahan, Kean Dupuy, Marie Hebert friends, Marguerite and Julienne Lafaye sisters of the bride, several of whom signed with us after this was read.  (Signed)  Marie Lore  Honoré Lore  Marguerite Lafay  francois Lafay Jean Dup  Drosseau  Lancto priest”

This signature appears to be Honoré the son, not Honoré the father.

Suzanne and Honoré had seven children.

• Henri Lord was born March 23, 1791, in L’Acadie and was baptized at Ste-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie.

Henri’s baptism was witnessed by both Francois Lafay and Marguerite Lafaye. Francois is almost assuredly Suzanne’s father, but it’s unclear whether Marguerite is her mother or her sibling by the same name. I suspect her sibling since women were normally listed by their birth surname.

Henri married Louise Lebert on January 13, 1812, Suzanne Comeau on June 14, 1819, and Marie Babin on November 23, 1841. He died after the 1861 census. He is noted as a carpenter and farmer.

• Louise Lord was born on February 27, 1793, in L’Acadie and married Pierre Babin at St-Luc on May 4, 1812.
• Julien Lord, named after Honoré’s grandfather, was born on March 29, 1795, married Marie-Louise Brosseau at St-Luc on February 14, 1820, died on December 8, 1872, and was buried in the St. Luc cemetery.
• Suzanne Lord was born on March 24, 1797, in L’Acadie, and married Charles Ficiault at St-Luc on November 21, 1814.
• Jacques Lord, named after Honoré’s father, was born on July 16, 1799, in L’Acadie and married Marie Desnoyer on August 7, 1820, in Ste-Marie de Monnoir.

The baptisms above were all at Ste-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie. From this point on, baptisms took place at St-Luc after it opened in 1801.

• Marie Phebee Lord was born on March 13, 1802, and baptized on the 14^th at St-Luc. She died on June 9^th of the same year and was buried two days later.
• Hippolyte Lord was born June 17, 1803, and baptized the next day at St. Luc. The baby died a month later, on July 17th, and was buried the following day.

Even though Suzanne was thirty years younger than Honoré Lord Sr., he outlived her.. The first five of their seven children lived to marry, but the daughter born in 1802 died three months later, and the child born on June 17^th, 1803, died on July 17th. Suzanne died on August 9^th, less than a month later. I can’t help but wonder if those deaths were connected.

Suzanne died on August 7, 1803, in L’Acadie and was buried at St-Luc, probably beside her two children. She was only 32 years old.

Honoré remarries to Marguerite Babin

Honoré, now 61 years old, had small children to raise. Three of his older children had married, but the rest were still at home. He wasted no time in marrying 18-year-old Marguerite Babin, 43 years his junior, on February 13, 1804. Honoré was two years younger than Marguerite’s father and 16 years older than her mother.

Brother Bernard’s translation of the third marriage of Honorius Lord with Marguerite Babin.

“February 13th, 1804, after publication of 3 banns of matrimony at our parochial Masses on 3 consecutive Sundays between Honoré Lord, farmer and widower of Susanne Lafay, his second wife, and living at St Luc, of the first part; and Marguerite Babin call LaCroix, minor daughter of Louis Babin called LaCroix and of Marie Jeanne Laporte, her parents consenting to said marriage and living with their said daughter in this parish, of the second part; no impediment having been discovered to said marriage, we undersigned received their mutual consent and gave them the nuptial benediction according to the form prescribed by our Mother the Holy Roman Church, and this in the presence of Antoine Brosseau son in law, Victor Girouard friend of the groom and Pierre Babin paternal uncle, and Charles Fisesset friend of the bride, who all declared that they could not sign.  (Signed)  R P Lancto”

Oh, how I wish Honoré had signed.

I can’t help but wonder if Marguerite got to vote or if this was an arranged marriage. All of Honoré’s children from his first marriage were older than Marguerite, and many from his second marriage were just a few years younger than she was.

Honoré and Marguerite had eight children.

• Marie Rose Lord was born November 22, 1804, and was baptized the following day at St-Luc. She married Andre Comeau on November 6, 1820. She died on September 10, 1887, and was buried two days later.
• Augustin Lord was born on February 26, 1806, and was baptized the next day at St-Luc, but nothing more is known.
• Clare Lord was born on January 8, 1808, and was baptized at St. Luc. She married Paul Dupuis at St-Philippe on February 3, 1834, and Edouard Peladeau on November 29, 1855. She died on February 24^th, 1899, and was buried on the 27^th.
• Edouard Lord was born on June 9, 1809, baptized the next day at St-Luc, and died just two months before his fourth birthday on April 26^th, 1813. He was buried the following day.
• Moise Lord was born on October 27, 1810, and was baptized at St-Luc. He married Marie-Anne Sanders in St-Paul on October 3, 1842. Marie-Anne was the granddaughter of Tse-Tse, an Iroquois, and his wife, Marie.
• Catherine Lord was born on June 5, 1812, and was baptized the following day. She was buried on August 21, 1831, in LaPrairie.
• Pierre-Noel Lord was born and baptized on Christmas Day in 1814 at St-Luc, died a few days before his nine months birthday, on September 19, 1815, and was buried two days later.
• Modeste Lore was born on May 1, 1816, and was baptized the following day at St-Luc. He died on November 25, 1820, and was buried on the 28^th. In his baptism record, Honoré is still listed as a “laboureur” which translates to plowman, or farmer.

Catherine, born in 1812, probably had vague memories of her father, but Modeste would have had no memory of him at all.

When Honoré welcomed his last child, he was a month shy of 74 years old and apparently still farming. Marguerite was 31.

When Marguerite married Honoré, she had to have known that one day she would be raising their children without him. She could have born children for another decade. Had he lived, he would have been 84 at that time, and had he lived to raise those children to age 20, he would have been 104.

I can’t help but wonder how a farmer in his 60s and 70s provided for an ever-growing family.

Of course, his older children were grown and married with children older than his younger children, so perhaps everyone helped. If Honoré had an estate, it would be interesting to see what it held. His widow, Marguerite, remarried in 1820 to Francois Giroux. I don’t know how spousal inheritance worked in Quebec, nor inheritance involving underage children, nor children from earlier marriages.

Honoré’s oldest son, Honoré, married in 1789 and had his first child in 1790. Father Honoré and son Honoré were having simultaneous children from 1790 through 1810 when son Honoré Jr.’s wife, Marie Lafaille, was 43 years old. However, Honoré Sr. continued having children with his third wife. Honoré Sr.’s childbearing years were greatly extended by having three wives, with the second two being significantly younger than him.

It’s rather remarkable that Honoré had children from 1768 (some accounts claim 1766) through 1816, nearly half a century.

When Honoré died, he had 16 or 17 living children, seven of whom were under the age of 20.

His eldest living child was age 50 and had adult children, yet his second to the youngest child died in 1815, and his youngest would perish in 1820, not even five years old.

Altogether, Honoré had 23 known children, plus probably at least four children born between 1777 and 1787, totaling at least 27 children.

It’s also interesting to note that Honoré had one set of twins, his son Honoré had two sets of twins, and four more of his children had a set of twins.

Christmas 1815

If Honoré’s family was like most Catholic families, they attended a beautiful midnight Mass celebrating the birth of Christ and the beginning of Christmastide.

However, this Christmas was probably different.

Honoré’s daughter Marie Anne, had a daughter, Marie Anne Brosseau, who was born in April of 1792. However, the child died on Christmas Day in 1815, just 23 years old. She was obviously very ill in the days leading up to Christmas.

To make matters worse, Honoré’s son, Pierre Noel, who had been born on Christmas Day in 1814, had died in September of 1815.

I’m sure the families were used to some amount of death, often in babies, but to happen on Christmas and to an older child must have taken the wind out of everyone’s sails, turning a day of celebration into a time of deep mourning. They had loved Marie Anne for 23 years, and now she was gone. The following day, they buried her. I’m sure the family never celebrated Christmas again without the tinge of grief.

Honoré’s Death

Honoré Lord, Lor, Lore, or Laure died in 1818 at the age of 76 years. He had quite some life. Chocked full of adventures he didn’t sign up for.

Brother Bernard translated the burial record of Honorius Lord.

“On May 22nd 1818, by us undersigned Priest, was buried in the cemetery of this place, after a funeral High Mass, the body of Honoré Laure, farmer, who died yesterday in said locality at the age of 76 years, fortified by the Sacraments of the Church, the husband of Marguerite Babin of this parish. At the burial were present Etienne Martin and Alexis Cartier, who said that they could not sign, (Signed) C Martin Priest”

Honoré’s two younger children with Suzanne Lafaille and all of his children with Mauguerite Babin were baptized at St. Luc. His four and possibly five children who died after St. Luc opened in 1801 and before his death in 1818, along with his second wife, were buried at St. Luc.

The long cemetery behind the church is where Honoré is buried, along with several of his children and wives, Suzanne and Marguerite.

The Saint-Jean-L’Evangeliste St-Luc church is not large, but probably larger than the original. This is the third church to be built in this location, the first burning in 1875. Honoré’s funeral was held in the church before he was buried in the churchyard, probably close to the rear door where there are many early, unmarked graves.

It’s possible that when the church was expanded and rebuilt, Honoré wound up under the rear portion of the church.

I realized that my mother’s great-grandfather, Antoine Lore, who would have been 13 in 1818, sat in a pew in this church as the Priest spoke in Latin during his grandfather’s service. Antoine would have walked with Honoré’s casket out the back of the church into the graveyard, listened as the Priest performed the Rite of Committal, recited the Catholic version of the Lord’s Prayer, then heard the clods of dirt hollowly hitting the casket lid.

This family probably knew the words to everything in this service by heart, even the Latin words they didn’t understand.

I would love to have heard Honoré’s funeral Mass, even though I can’t understand Latin. You can observe a contemporary High Mass funeral in Latin here. Regardless of the language, the ritual would have comforted his family, and the service would have been well attended. Extremely well attended. His immediate family may have filled the entire church. Given that he died in May, I hope his grandchildren gathered beautiful wildflowers and decorated the church and his casket.

High Mass would have been an honor and performed by either a Bishop or other prelate allowed to wear Pontifical liturgical vestments. You can learn about Catholic funerals here.

This beautiful stained-glass window in the Canterbury Cathedral shows a funeral procession. I can imagine that Honoré’s looked something like this. His sons probably were pallbearers, carrying Honoré on his final journey.

Honoré and his family certainly paid a high price to remain Catholic, so a beautiful funeral was well-deserved.

Honoré’s Legacy

Honoré has the distinction of having the most children of any of my known ancestors.

He had 23 known children and probably at least 27, based on the “holes” that are unaccounted for during the time he was (probably) in New York in the 1770s and 1780s. One of his known children disappeared during that time too, and likely died and was buried wherever they were living. For a Catholic, burying children without the benefit of a Catholic baptism and in unconsecrated ground would have been painful indeed. Maybe that’s part of what sparked their decision to return to Quebec, even though it was still officially held by the British. At least they could practice the Catholic faith freely in Quebec.

Honoré never knew that several of his grandchildren would be the first converts in Quebec to the Methodist faith less than two decades later, in the 1830s. He might just have turned over in his grave a few times since the entire Acadian experience had been one long battle to retain their ability to be “French” and, in that spirit, devoutly Catholic.

Not all of Honoré’s children survived to adulthood, of course, but 13, about half, did. I find nothing more for Joseph, born in 1775, so he likely died in New York, and I found the birth and baptism for Augustin in 1806, but nothing more. Honoré’s children from his third marriage tended to be more scattered than the older children who settled in L’Acadie.

I don’t know if Honoré left an estate and, if so, how it was divided, but that too could have made a difference in terms of who stayed and who left. His third wife remarried, and many of those children either didn’t know him well or at all. They would have established relationships and roots elsewhere.

Honoré might have spent more time in church than any other ancestor, too, by virtue of all of those baptisms, marriages, and, sadly, burials. I literally had to make a spreadsheet to figure out where he was, and when. You can see that as he aged and his children married and blessed him with more grandchildren, he attended church outside of regular services more and more frequently. Lots of baptizing going on.

I do not have the actual church records for all of the baptisms, but it appears that Honoré may not have been able to write. I never find his signature anyplace. Sometimes witnesses signed, so there is still hope.

Honoré’s Child’s Name	Spouse	Honoré‘s Grandchild	Great-Grandchild	Event	Date
	Appoline Garceau			Marriage validation	9-28-1767	Becancoeur, Yamachiche
Honoré Lore 1768-1834				Baptism	2-28-1768	Yamachiche
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852				Baptism	12-31-1769	St Denis
Francois Lore 1771- Dec 13 1824				Baptism	9-20-1771	St Ours
Marie Claire Lore 1773-1773				Baptism	5-13-1773	St Ours
Marie Claire Lore 1773-1773				Burial	1-16-1775	St Ours
Joseph Honoré Lore 1775 – ?				Baptism	3-5-1775	St Ours
Joseph Honoré Lore 1775 – ?				Burial	1775-1787	New York?
Charlotte Marguerite Lore 1777-1833				Baptism	7-1-1787	Ste Marguerite
Jean Baptiste Lore 1779-1828				Baptism	7-1-1787	Ste Marguerite
	Appoline Garceau			Burial	5-4-1788	Ste Marguerite
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845			Marriage	11-10-1788	Ste Marguerite
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845	Antoine Brousseau		Baptism	9-2-1789	Ste Marguerite
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845	Antoine Brousseau		Burial	9-4-1789	Ste Marguerite
	Suzanne Lafaille			Marriage	1-11-1790	Ste Marguerite
Honoré Lore 1768-1834	Marie Lafaille 1767-1836	Joseph Lore 1790-1835		Baptism	3-9-1790	Ste Marguerite
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845	Antoine Brousseau		Baptism	2-5-1791	Ste Marguerite
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845	Antoine Brousseau		Burial	2-23-1791	Ste Marguerite
Henri Lore 1791-aft 1836				Baptism	3-23-1791	Ste Marguerite
Honoré Lore 1768-1834	Marie Lafaille 1767-1836	Samuel Lore 1791-1821		Baptism	9-4-1791	Ste Marguerite
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845	Marie Ann Brousseau		Baptism	4-8-1792	Ste Marguerite
Louise Marie 1793-1834				Baptism	2-27-1793	Ste Marguerite
Honoré Lore 1768-1834	Marie Lafaille 1767-1836	(Isabelle) Marie Elisabeth Lore 1793-1857		Baptism	3-1-1793	Ste Marguerite
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845	Pierre Broussard		Baptism	2-13-1794	Ste Marguerite
Honoré Lore 1768-1834	Marie Lafaille 1767-1836	Marie Josephte Lore 1794-aft 1871		Baptism	12-19-1794	Ste Marguerite
Julien Lore 1795-1872	m 1820			Baptism	3-29-1795	Ste Marguerite
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845	Marguerite Broussard		Baptism	1-27-1796	Ste Marguerite
Honoré Lore 1768-1834	Marie Lafaille 1767-1836	Hyppolyte Lore 1796		Baptism	7-17-1796	Ste Marguerite
Honoré Lore 1768-1834	Marie Lafaille 1767-1836	Marie Victoire Lore 1796-1831		Baptism	7-17-1796	Ste Marguerite
Honoré Lore 1768-1834	Marie Lafaille 1767-1836	Hyppolyte Lore 1796		Burial	7-20-1796	Ste Marguerite
Charlotte Marguerite Lore 1777-1833	Pierre Victor Dussault 1778-aft 1835			Marriage	2-20-1797	St Ours
Suzanne Lore 1797-1833				Baptism	5-25-1797	Ste Marguerite
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845	Antoine Brousseau		Baptism	7-24-1797	Ste Marguerite
Honoré Lore 1768-1834	Marie Lafaille 1767-1836	Pierre Lore 1798-1799		Baptism	3-24-1798	Ste Marguerite
Honoré Lore 1768-1834	Marie Lafaille 1767-1836	Alexis Lore 1798-1875		Baptism	3-24-1798	Ste Marguerite
Charlotte Marguerite Lore 1777-1833	Pierre Victor Dussault 1778-aft 1835	Victor Dussault		Baptism	9-2-1798	Contrecoueur
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845	Marie Louise Brousseau		Baptism	2-19-1799	Ste Marguerite
Honoré Lore 1768-1834	Marie Lafaille 1767-1836	Pierre Lore 1798-1799		Burial	7-4-1799	Ste Marguerite
Jacques Lore 1799-aft 1831	m 1820			Baptism	7-16-1799	Ste Marguerite
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845	Marie Louise Brousseau		Burial	7-22-1799	Ste Marguerite
Honoré Lore 1768-1834	Marie Lafaille 1767-1836			Marriage	8-10-1789	Ste Marguerite
Honoré Lore 1768-1834	Marie Lafaille 1767-1836	Benoni Lore 1800-1888		Baptism	2-6-1800	Ste Marguerite
Charlotte Marguerite Lore 1777-1833	Pierre Victor Dussault 1778-aft 1835	Unnamed Dussault		Birth	5-11-1800	Contrecoueur
Charlotte Marguerite Lore 1777-1833	Pierre Victor Dussault 1778-aft 1835	Unnamed Dussault		Burial	5-13-1800	Contrecoueur
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845	Phebee Brousseau		Baptism	8-14-1800	Ste Marguerite
Charlotte Marguerite Lore 1777-1833	Pierre Victor Dussault 1778-aft 1835	Marguerite Dussault		Baptism	4-3-1801	Contrecoueur
Marie Phebee Lore 1802				Baptism	3-14-1802	St Luc
Honoré Lore 1768-1834	Marie Lafaille 1767-1836	Honoré Lore 1802-1882		Baptism	3-22-1802	Ste Marguerite
Marie Phebee Lore 1802				Burial	6-11-1802	St Luc
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845	Joseph Brousseau		Baptism	10-10-1802	Ste Marguerite
Charlotte Marguerite Lore 1777-1833	Pierre Victor Dussault 1778-aft 1835	Marie Marguerite Dussault		Baptism	2-2-1803	Contrecoueur
Charlotte Marguerite Lore 1777-1833	Pierre Victor Dussault 1778-aft 1835	Marie Marguerite Dussault		Burial	2-25-1803	Contrecoueur
Hippolite Lore 1803				Baptism	6-17-1803	St Luc
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845	Celeste Brousseau		Baptism	7-8-1803	St Luc
Hippolite Lore 1803				Burial	7-18-1803	St Luc
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845	Celeste Brousseau		Burial	7-21-1803	St Luc
	Suzanne Lafaille			Burial	8-9-1803	St Luc
Honoré Lore 1768-1834	Marie Lafaille 1767-1836	Rene Zephyrin Lore 1803-1877		Baptism	8-26-1803	Ste Marguerite
Charlotte Marguerite Lore 1777-1833	Pierre Victor Dussault 1778-aft 1835	Genevieve Dussault		Baptism	12-5-1803	Contrecoueur
Charlotte Marguerite Lore 1777-1833	Pierre Victor Dussault 1778-aft 1835	Genevieve Dussault		Burial	8-25-1804	Contrecoueur
Marie Rose Lore 1804-1887	m 1820			Baptism	11-23-1804	St Luc
Honoré Lore 1768-1834	Marie Lafaille 1767-1836	Antoine Lore 1805 to US		Baptism	3-25-1805	Ste Marguerite
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845	Celeste Brousseau		Baptism	4-30-1805	St Luc
Charlotte Marguerite Lore 1777-1833	Pierre Victor Dussault 1778-aft 1835	Francois Dussault		Birth	6-13-1805	Contrecoueur
Charlotte Marguerite Lore 1777-1833	Pierre Victor Dussault 1778-aft 1835	Francois Dussault		Burial	6-15-1805	Contrecoueur
Augustin Lore 1806-?				Baptism	2-27-1806	St Luc
Francois Lore 1771- Dec 13 1824	Marie Anne Lafaille 1782-1849			Marriage	6-9-1806	Ste Marguerite
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845	Adelaide Brousseau		Baptism	6-30-1806	St Luc
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845	Marie Justine Brousseau		Baptism	6-30-1806	St Luc
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845	Adelaide Brousseau		Burial	7-14-1806	St Luc
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845	Marie Justine Brousseau		Burial	7-15-1806	St Luc
Jean Baptiste Lore 1779-1828	Marie Madeleine Ligny 1786-1857			Marriage	8-18-1806	La Prairie
Honoré Lore 1768-1834	Marie Lafaille 1767-1836	Celeste Lore b 1806		Baptism	9-15-1806	Ste Marguerite
Jean Baptiste Lore 1779-1828	Marie Madeleine Ligny 1786-1857	Edouard Lore		Baptism	3-3-1807	St Luc
Francois Lore 1771- Dec 13 1824	Marie Anne Lafaille 1782-1849	Hilaire Lore		Baptism	5-19-1807	Ste Marguerite
Claire Lore 1808-1899	m 1834			Baptism	1-8-1808	St Luc
Jean Baptiste Lore 1779-1828	Marie Madeleine Ligny 1786-1857	Emelie Lore		Baptism	3-13-1808	Ste Marguerite
Honoré Lore 1768-1834	Marie Lafaille 1767-1836	Pierre Lore 1808-1814		Baptism	3-17-1808	Ste Marguerite
Francois Lore 1771- Dec 13 1824	Marie Anne Lafaille 1782-1849	Marie Olive Lore		Baptism	9-6-1808	Ste Marguerite
Charlotte Marguerite Lore 1777-1833	Pierre Victor Dussault 1778-aft 1835	Marie Pelagie Dussault		Baptism	10-6-1808	St Denis
Jean Baptiste Lore 1779-1828	Marie Madeleine Ligny 1786-1857	Aubin Lore		Baptism	3-30-1809	Ste Marguerite
Medard Lore 1809				Birth	6-9-1809	St Luc
Medard Lore 1809				Death	6-10-1809	St Luc
Edouard 1809-1813				Baptism	6-10-1809	St Luc
Honoré Lore 1768-1834	Marie Lafaille 1767-1836	Marguerite Lore 1810-1855		Baptism	4-25-1810	Ste Marguerite
Francois Lore 1771- Dec 13 1824	Marie Anne Lafaille 1782-1849	Domitille Lore		Baptism	6-1-1810	Ste Marguerite
Francois Lore 1771- Dec 13 1824	Marie Anne Lafaille 1782-1849	Domitille Lore		Burial	6-13-1810	Ste Marguerite
Moise Lore 1810-1908	m 1842			Baptism	10-27-1810	St Luc
Charlotte Marguerite Lore 1777-1833	Pierre Victor Dussault 1778-aft 1835	Francois Dussault		Baptism	4-12-1811	St Luc
Francois Lore 1771- Dec 13 1824	Marie Anne Lafaille 1782-1849	Rene Lore		Baptism	6-20-1811	Ste Marguerite
Francois Lore 1771- Dec 13 1824	Marie Anne Lafaille 1782-1849	Rene Lore		Burial	7-25-1811	Ste Marguerite
Jean Baptiste Lore 1779-1828	Marie Madeleine Ligny 1786-1857	David Lore		Baptism	10-8-1811	Ste Marguerite
Louise Marie 1793-1834	Pierre Babin			Marriage	5-4-1812	St Luc
Catherine Lore 1812-1831				Baptism	6-6-1812	St Luc
Francois Lore 1771- Dec 13 1824	Marie Anne Lafaille 1782-1849	Marie Julienne Lore		Baptism	6-8-1812	Ste Marguerite
Louise Marie 1793-1834	Pierre Babin	Unnamed Babin		Birth	1-27-1813	St Luc
Louise Marie 1793-1834	Pierre Babin	Unnamed Babin		Burial	1-30-1813	St Luc
Edouard 1809-1813				Burial	4-27-1813	St Luc
Charlotte Marguerite Lore 1777-1833	Pierre Victor Dussault 1778-aft 1835	Augustin Dussault		Baptism	8-28-1813	Ste Marguerite
Henri Lore 1791-aft 1836	Louise Lebert	Julie Lore		Baptism	11-30-1813	St Luc
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845	Pierre Broussard		Marriage	1-31-1814	Ste Marguerite
Jean Baptiste Lore 1779-1828	Marie Madeleine Ligny 1786-1857	Henry Lore		Baptism	5-26-1814	Ste Marguerite
Jean Baptiste Lore 1779-1828	Marie Madeleine Ligny 1786-1857	Henriette Lore		Baptism	5-26-1814	Ste Marguerite
Jean Baptiste Lore 1779-1828	Marie Madeleine Ligny 1786-1857	Henriette Lore		Burial	7-12-1814	Ste Marguerite
Honoré Lore 1768-1834	Marie Lafaille 1767-1836	Pierre Lore 1808-1814		Burial	9-5-1814	Ste Marguerite
Francois Lore 1771- Dec 13 1824	Marie Anne Lafaille 1782-1849	Joseph Lore		Baptism	9-14-1814	Ste Marguerite
Louise Marie 1793-1834	Pierre Babin	Pierre Babin		Baptism	9-16-1814	Marieville
Honoré Lore 1768-1834	Marie Lafaille 1767-1836	Samuel Lore 1791-1821		Marriage	11-7-1814	Ste Marguerite
Suzanne Lore 1797-1833	Charles Ficault			Marriage	11-21-1814	St Luc
Pierre Noel Lore 1814-1815				Baptism	12-25-1814	St Luc
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845	Pierre Broussard	Pierre Broussard	Baptism	3-12-1815	St Luc
Pierre Noel Lore 1814-1815				Burial	9-21-1815	St Luc
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845	Marie Ann Brousseau		Burial	12-26-1815	St Luc
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845	Marie Ann Brousseau		Death	12-25-1815	St Luc
Honoré Lore 1768-1834	Marie Lafaille 1767-1836	Samuel Lore 1791-1821	Marie Elmire Lore	Baptism	2-3-1816	Ste Marguerite
Modeste Lore 1816-1820				Baptism	5-2-1816	St Luc
Honoré Lore 1768-1834	Marie Lafaille 1767-1836	Joseph Lore 1790-1835		Marriage	5-6-1816	St Luc
Henri Lore 1791-aft 1836	Louise Lebert died 1816			Burial	6-12-1816	St Luc
Louise Marie 1793-1834	Pierre Babin	Pierre Babin		Burial	7-26-1816	Marieville
Marie Anne Lore 1769-1852	Antoine Brouseau 1760-1845	Pierre Broussard	Moise Broussard	Baptism	12-2-1816	St Luc
Louise Marie 1793-1834	Pierre Babin	Marie Louise Babin		Baptism	12-3-1817	Marieville
				Death	5-21-1818	Honoré ‘s death
				Burial	5-22-1818	Honoré ‘s burial

Honoré died in 1818, long before his younger children married.

His children from his second and third marriages grew up playing with his grandchildren from his first marriage. Honoré had three great-grandchildren who would have attended his funeral, the eldest being three years old. Honoré’s last child, born in 1816, was younger than his two eldest great-grandchildren, and two more followed in 1818, shortly after his death.

So that means his great-grandchildren were playmates with his youngest children. No wonder my tree looks like an insane vine!

There were probably over 100 people wedged into the pews at Honoré’s funeral, and that’s without counting his siblings and their families or his wives’ families. Several babies would have been crying, but they would have been among good company as the rest of his family would all have been shedding tears at his departure. One thing is for sure, Honoré lived a long and full life.

I began to lose track of Honoré’s descendants quickly, but in the next three generations, I found eight different children named Honoré, clearly honoring him. That tells you something about him. No one names a child after someone they don’t like.

• Honoré’s son born in 1768
• Grandson Honore was born in 1802 through son Honoré
• Grandson Honoré born in 1821, died in 1821 through son Henry
• Grandson Honoré Fissiau/Ficialut born in 1826, died in 1829 through daughter Suzanne
• Grandson Honoré born and died in 1825 through son Jacques
• Grandson Honoré DuPuis was born in 1834 through daughter Claire
• Great-grandson Pierre Honoré Boudreau was born in 1833 through son Francois and his daughter, Marie Olive
• Great-grandson Honore was born in 1826 through son Joseph, then his son Joseph

There may well have been more.

I used various sources to assemble Honoré’s family, including PRDH as well as family records. Unfortunately, PRDH does not include the Grande Ligne Protestant baptismal records. I don’t have copies of everything, and I’m unsure where to look for his estate records.

Honoré’s grandchildren began venturing to newer frontiers. One to Vermont, then on to New York and Pennsylvania, one to New York, and another to Oregon. There were probably many more that left, spreading our Acadian seeds near and far. Every time I see the surname Lore, Lord, or even Laure, I wonder if that is one of the descendants of Honoré.

Honoré began life in the Acadian homelands, then spent many years in forced exile. We know the family lost everything, and we don’t know how they survived or where. Given those beleaguered beginnings, with warfare constantly haunting the family like a predator, no one would have dared to predict that Honoré’s life would end as a humble farmer in the pastoral green countryside of L’Acadie in Quebec, rebuilding his life and that of his family among other Acadian families.

This landscape evokes peace and tranquility, which is what I’m sure Honoré desired perhaps more than anything else.

Honoré was truly a devout Catholic. He made his way to church on the day of each new baby’s arrival for an immediate baptism, no matter the weather, just in case. The mother wouldn’t have been able to travel right after giving birth, but the child needed to be baptized.

We don’t know exactly where Honoré lived, but it had to be someplace between the Ste-Marguerite and St-Luc churches.

Maybe someplace halfway in between.

Regardless, Honoré spent an inordinate amount of time in both Ste-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie and St-Luc.

Honoré had wives, children and grandchildren buried in both locations, all in unmarked graves. At the time, they were probably marked with wooden crosses.

After the Acadian families were incredibly scattered to the wind and endured such horrific circumstances in his early life, the fact that Honoré managed to settle and keep his family intact in one place is rather remarkable. I’d love to know how he did it and the location of his exact land. How did he purchase it? What happened to it after his death? Can it be located today?

His sixteen or seventeen living children, ages two to 50, assembled one last time to honor the patriarch of the family, Honoré. I hope it was a joyful celebration and recollection of his amazing life, with grieving, yes, but also laughter and storytelling.

Rest in Peace, Honoré.

_____________________________________________________________

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The difference in the name of Marie Lafaille and Mary Lafay, the same person, is emblematic of her life – a clash of cultures. Tug of war. Catholic versus Protestant – and no – this isn’t Northern Ireland’s Troubles. It’s Canada.

This conflict raged all of her life, beginning before Marie was born to Francois Lafaiille or Lafay as he signed his name, and Marguerite LaForest, Forest or LaForet, until the day Mary, as she was called then, died – and even beyond.

Except Marie/Mary became emblematic of the battle, ensnared in the crosshairs.

Both sides used Marie or Mary as a shining example of what one should aspire to, or, as a shamed example of what one should never do. In the process, or perhaps I should say, during that war, her family was torn apart, never to reconcile.

Ironically, it’s a result of that clash and the role Marie, or Mary, played that we know much about her life. Granted, the information we have is, to some extent, somewhat biased, but at least we have SOMETHING!

I worked on Marie’s history about 15 years ago with now-deceased Paul LeBlanc and others. It’s truly complex. But it’s time to commit to paper what I know, with the hope that others may be able to contribute additional information.

One day, in 2008 or 2009, a tidbit was dropped by a cousin on the now-defunct Acadian RootsWeb message board. He mentioned Marie and “the missionaries”.

The Missionaries?

Missionaries?

What missionaries?

Probably Catholic missionaries, given that Marie was Acadian, but I needed to know more. Any tidbit is a reg flag to genealogists.

Further digging slowly revealed scraps of information like layers of earth being excavated from an artifact. This prized artifact is Marie or Mary’s life.

First, Marie had become protestant. Protestant? An Acadian?

Seriously?

Second, I discovered the name of a book, thankfully in English, that told bits of this story. Henrietta Feller and the Grande Ligne Mission was written to honor the Baptist missionaries, so readers need to interpret the contents in that context.

We had always thought that Marie had been born in Connecticut based on the fact that her aunts and uncles, at least some of them, were deported to Connecticut. Her father, Jacque Fourest is listed there with 10 persons in 1763.

We know that Marie’s mother, Marguerite DeForest, was married about 1765 someplace in New England to Francoise LaFaille, reportedly a French sailor. For the ten years before her marriage, she would have been living with her parents and siblings.

Nothing is known about either Francoise or the LaFaille family.

However, if the missionaries’ records are accurate, they reveal that Marie, who was born in 1767, was born in Boston. Her two directly younger sisters, born in 1769 and 1773, were born in New England too.

I have found no record of Francois Lafaille or Lafay, as Francois always signed his name, and Marguerite deForest, Forest or deForet in Massachusetts, but no record elsewhere in the colonies either.

Francois Lafaille and his wife, Marguerite De Forest (Forest, Foret and derivatives) first appeared in L’Acadie, in lower Canada, in 1788 with 9 of their 10 children. The youngest was born in January of 1789. Marie’s mother was probably pregnant as the family made their way to Canada.

The area broadly known as L’acadie, outlined in red, isn’t far from the St. Lawrence River and Montreal. It’s even closer to Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu on the Richelieu River.

The Lafay family lived someplace in the L’Acadie farming community, close to Ste-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie Catholic church, at the red arrow. Family members are buried in the cemetery there.

Marie’s parents had their three oldest daughters baptized at Ste-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie in 1789, and their own marriage renewed in 1792. They had been married in the colonies in front of a clerk without benefit of a priest after the 1755 Acadian deportation from Nova Scotia.

On August 10^th, 1789, Marie Lafay married Honore Lore, of the Acadian Lore family..

From Paul:

I found the marriage of your ancestor Marie Lafay and Honoré Lord. From what I can read from the original records they were married on August 10, 1789 in L’Acadie, QC parish of Ste-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie. Honoré lord is said to be the son of Honoré Lord and deceased Apolline Garceau. Marie Lafay is said to be the daughter of François Lafay and Marguerite Foret. The following witnesses have signed: Honoré Lord father, Charles Lanoue friend of the spouse, Marie Lafay, Francois Lafay, Françoise Lafay, Marguerite et Suzanne Lafay.

Paul states that the text is handwritten and in French so somewhat difficult to read, and that caution should be used with his interpretation.

Not only is this an incredible record, it gives us the signatures of Marie herself, her new husband, Honore Lore, her father, Francois Lafay in a beautiful script, and two of her sisters. I’m presuming here, that the Marguerite that signed was her sister and not her mother, who would have signed as Marguerite DeForest.

Now that we know where Marie is in 1789, the year she was baptized for the second time and then married, how did she get there?

Marie LaFaille Lore

I discovered additional information in the book, Canadian Baptist Women, edited by Sharon M. Bowler.

“Madame Mary Lore,” in fact, receives her own chapter entitled A Lower Canada Baptist Beginning.

Now, if you’re thinking to yourself, “Weren’t the Acadians Catholic?”, you’d be absolutely right. In fact, Acadians identify themselves by their very Catholicness.

The Acadians had suffered greatly for roughly a century and a half by the time they were horrifically removed from their land in Nova Scotia in 1755. They continued to suffer, many perishing during their exile as impoverished refugees in New England and elsewhere. They had endured extreme deprivations for their Catholic faith, and it sustained them. To turn one’s back on Catholicism was just about the worst act of betrayal one could commit or even conceive of in an Acadian family.

Let me put this in perspective. Marie’s mother, Marguerite DeForest, is the only known child of her parents. Marguerite was born about 1747 or 1748. Her parents were married in 1734 in Port Royal, so they should have had 10 or 12 children, maybe more, before the deportation in 1755. Yet the only child whose birth record we find is Marguerite’s. Did they live elsewhere, outside Port Royal, meaning their children’s baptism records have not survived? Birth control not only didn’t exist, but this family was Catholic. The family was deported because they were Catholic. They lost everything. They suffered. If all of Marguerite’s siblings perished during the deportation, she would have witnessed it all. If they did not perish, where are their records as adults?

Therefore, Marie’s own parents and grandparents had suffered through genocide in order to remain Catholic. Everyone suffered indescribably, many were forever separated, with no idea what happened to their family members, and countless numbers died in the process. No family escaped.

For Marie to leave the fold, the family who experienced and remembered suffering firsthand, to become Baptist was incomprehensible. It’s not a matter of changing churches and attending services at the one down the street.

New believers in any religion are referred to as converts. Converts are often considered betrayers and heretics from the perspective of their former religion, especially if their conversion was by choice, not force.

The author of Canadian Baptist Women explains that conversion from Catholicism to the Baptist faith is more than just occupying a different pew in a church. (Footnotes are mine, not in the original text.)

Baptists differ from Catholics in their use of and belief in the Bible, in their manner of interpreting the way of salvation, justification, the freeness of salvation, grace in regeneration, repentance and sanctification, church and church government, and in the concepts surrounding the understanding of death. A person moving from a Roman Catholic to a Baptist faith foundation took, in many ways, an opposite faith direction, which posed risks to their social, economic, and physical safety.

After reading that, I remind myself how many wars have been fought and sacrileges have been committed over and in the name of religion.

Consequences included shunning, expulsion, ostracization, exclusion from family, business, and social life, exclusion from Catholic burial, and condemnation to Hell.

A Lower Canada Baptist Beginning draws the curtains back on Marie’s story by referring to her as Mary and her married name, Lore. French women were generally referred to, even after marriage, by their birth surname.

Mary Lore’s family was part of the 1755 Acadian expulsion from Nova Scotia to Massachusetts called Le Grand Derangement that drove an entire culture into political, economic and social crisis. The Acadians were not a free people in their new American land and experienced much uncertainty and danger.

Mary was born Marie Lafaille in Boston, Massachusetts to an Acadian mother and French father. Her 1767 Boston birth occurred at a time when many Massachusetts Acadians travelled to Boston to petition for transport to return to Canada.[1] [2]

Some, however, were considering staying, taking into account:

…the dangers of sea travel, which included storms, sinking, contagions and even piracy, recently illustrated by the fate of 80 young Acadians taken and pressed into the service of privateers. They knew that they retained no place or residual rights in Nova Scotia. Moreover, old age, the very ache of their 50-year-old bones, reminded them how difficult it would be to scratch out a new place on leftover and, thus difficult, lands. Just perhaps, they still resisted taking an oath to the throne…Just possibly they and their children began to envision rural Massachusetts as home…children had no doubt learned English and accustomed themselves to the ways of these strangers. Time had not resulted in their isolation, and familiarity with Protestants and colonial law had not bred contempt.[3]

Perhaps the Lafaille family had settled in and become somewhat established over the 11 years since the expulsion from Nova Scotia began. Children had been born and others were nearly raised. Mary was educated in a Protestant school and learned to read the Bible there.

Someplace along the line, Marie Lafaille became Mary LaFay, spelled the way it sounded in English. Her father signed his surname the same way.

In 1766, a year before Marie’s birth, a Massachusetts delegation visited Quebec and obtained permission for Acadians to return.

Yet, Marie’s family did not move to Quebec at that time. They didn’t join other Acadian families until sometime about 1788, more than two decades later.

We know that the family was in L’Acadie on the Richelieu River in Quebec by January 6, 1789, when Marie and two of her sisters, Marguerite and Susanne, were baptized in the Catholic Church.

On January sixth Seventeen Hundred Eighty Nine, I, priest undersigned, baptized conditionally Marie, age twenty-one, Marguerite, age nineteen, and Suzanne, age sixteen and ten months, daughters of François La Faye and of Marguerite Foret. The godfather and godmother of Marie were Laurent Roy and Isabelle Bro, his wife, undersigned. The godfather and godmother of Marguerite were Pierre Lavoie and Marie Anne Melanson, his wife. The godfather and godmother of Suzanne were Pierre Trahant and Euphrosine Leroux. [These last] godfathers and godmothers declared that they were unable to sign. The baptized girls signed with us.

/s Lamité, priest,  Laurent Roy, Isabelle bro, Marie Lafay, Margit Lafay, Suzanne Lafay, Françoise Lafay.

If Marie was 21 on January 6th, she very likely was still to experience her 1789 birthday, in which she would turn 22, placing her birth in 1767.

Just five days later, their youngest sister, Francoise, was born and baptized the same day.

Marie was her sponsor, signed her name, and stood up at her sister’s baptism, swearing before God, the church, and the parishioners that she would raise her sister in the church should something happen to her parents.

A Clue

One clue about where they might have lived is that sometime before the family left Massachusetts, Mary said that she received a Bible from Pliny Moore, an American military Lieutenant, a Baptist, and then a Congregational Church leader. Pliny was born into a wealthy Sheffield, Massachusetts family in 1759.

Pliny’s family was in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, by 1764 and in Spencertown, NY, by 1770, where his parents remained.

Many Acadians were, in essence, “adopted” or sponsored by wealthy Massachusetts families. Pliny served in the American Revolution in New York, then settled in Champlain shortly thereafter.

Mary reportedly cherished that Bible from Pliny for the rest of her life. I can’t help but wonder if it survives now.

From the book, Canadian Baptist Women:

Roman Catholic church histories have focused on the power and authority of Catholic leadership over the souls of the congregation. Baptists, however, unlike Roman Catholics of the 20^th century, emphasized their personal relationship with God.

Years later, Mary said she enjoyed reading the Bible as a child, but she was no longer allowed to read the Bible after her Catholic baptism in 1789.

Mary was the first Baptist convert in Quebec. She eventually became one of the earliest founders of the Grande Ligne Baptist Mission in Quebec, on the Richelieu River. But how did she get there, and why?

The L’Acadie Area

In 1784, the area near Champlain, New York, on the border of New York and Canada, was settled by Scotch and French-Canadian refugees on lands granted by the State of NY to those who fought against the British during the Revolutionary War.

In 1787, Pliny Moore, a veteran, obtained land where Champlain, New York, would eventually be located. In 1788, Pliny surveyed the land and in 1789, he moved his family. Champlain is just downriver from l’Acadie, so perhaps these families planned their move together, and maybe even joined each other on the journey. Somehow Marie and Pliny knew each other, and their lives intersected many more times.

According to what Mary told the Baptist missionaries, her elderly grandmother, who would have been Marie Josèphe Le Prince, became upset in 1787 that her children were losing their religion and culture and made the decision to send the family back to Canada.

Mary also revealed that she had encouraged her father to make the 1788 trip to Canada after something she recalled as “a fearful disappointment.” I wonder if her disappointment was personal in nature, perhaps a suitor, or something more widespread. It is interesting to note that Pliny Moore was married in January of 1787 in Vermont. It may or may not be relevant, but it is a possibility.

We don’t know what Mary’s disappointment was, but according to historian Joseph Amato’s research into one Acadian family, Marie’s family’s experience may have been similar.

The Revolutionary War magnified federal and state debts, leaving the majority with useless currency and no means to repay debts, turning newly ordained national citizens into ordinary migrants and squatters. The battle raged between creditors and debtors. Between the financial and mercantile coast against the farmers of the inland countryside. Shay’s Rebellion, an intense revolt of the indebted in Massachusetts resulted in a terrible shock to the new nation. It ended in 1787 having accomplished little. Many migrated back to the larger coastal cities where there was a chance to find work and make money, or initiating the great trek inward toward the frontiers.

And so, the great trek it was.

Mary’s grandmother was probably ecstatic, but ultimately, Mary was not. After arriving in l’Acadie, Mary later said that she was forced to stop reading her Bible when she was baptized in January 1789 “under condition,” along with her sisters, into the Catholic Church.

Under condition in the Catholic church means that there is some doubt as to whether a person was ever baptized, or if so, whether the former Catholic baptism is valid.

Mary could not have married a Catholic man were she not baptized into the church. The only men in Quebec were Catholic.

Marriage

Did Mary not want to marry Honore Lore? Was this an arranged marriage, if not in the traditional sense, then in the functional? She was baptized on January 6th and married on August 10, 1789.

It might be relevant that her first child, Joseph, was born on March 8^th, 1790, so Mary and Honore clearly had a close relationship by June. Young people fall in love quickly. The marriage does not appear to have been arranged, although it may have been somewhat unplanned. I feel much better knowing there was an attraction between them, and that Mary appears to have had a choice.

Mary and Honore had at least 15 children, and man oh man, have they been difficult to track. I’m still not positive I have everyone accounted for.

I’ve used various pieces of information to weave the family together. Baptism, marriage and death records, the 1851, 1861 and 1871 Canadian census, and estate records. I’ve not been able to locate the baptism record, or death record, for every child. “Confirmed” in the table below means that I have some confirmation. Unfortunately, due to same-name and other issues, there’s a lot of incorrect information about this family online.

Fortunately, French Catholic priests’ records tend to be very good about recording the names of the parents in the various documents, plus the mother’s birth surname. Thank goodness! Reading them both from a script and image quality perspective is quite another matter.

Bolded names signed their father’s estate inventory in 1834.

Child	Birth or Baptism	Death or Burial	Spouse	Religion
Joseph Lore	March 8, 1790 confirmed	May 30, 1835, confirmed he was married to Celeste	Celeste Coulombe confirmed married in 1815	Catholic buried St. Jean l’Evangeliste in St. John sur Richelieu
Samuel Lore	August 31, 1791 confirmed	Jan 23, 1821 confirmed	Archange Hubert (Hebert) confirmed Nov. 7, 1814	Catholic, died before Marie’s conversion
Marie Elizabeth Lore – listed as Baptist in 1851 census, but stricken through	May 1, 1793 confirmed	February 20, 1857 buried Grande Ligne confirmed	Jean-Baptiste Leveque (Elizabelle in 1819 marriage record)	Baptized and buried Feb. 20 at Baptist church, Grande Ligne
Marie (Josephte) Lore	December 19, 1794 confirmed	After 1871	Single in 1861 & 1871 census, “deaf and dumb”	The birth is shown as 1797 or 1798 in all three censuses. No burial found
Marie (Victoire) Lore (twin)	July 17, 1796 confirmed	June 30, 1831 buried St, Jean sur Richelieu – her husband was listed as Catholic in 1851 as were the children.	Albert Patenaude. She is listed as Marie Victoire Laure in her 1819 marriage) He signs estate. Also remarried in Nov. of 1831.	Catholic, died before Marie’s conversion
Hyppolite Lore (twin)	July 17, 1796 confirmed	July 18, 1796 confirmed, buried l’Acadie	The baptism says Marie and Hippolite.and is signed by father.	Catholic, died as child
Alexis Lore (twin)	March 24, 1798 confirmed	July 28, 1874 or 1875 buried l’Acadie – Grande Ligne Baptist, confirmed	Never married, single on all census	Baptist, 1861 census shows him as a Baptist farmer age 60
Pierre Lore (twin)	March 24, 1798 confirmed	July 1, 1799 buried l’Acadie confirmed		Catholic, died as child
Benoni Lore	February 6, 1800 confirmed (father signed)	Sept 15, 1888 buried Grande Ligne, confirmed	Francoise Therrien, married 1823 confirmed	Listed as Baptist in 1851 census, but stricken through
Honore Lore	March 21, 1802 (confirmed)	February 23, 1882, confirmed	Henriette Molleur confirmed 1828 Louise Piedalue	Baptist in 1851 census, buried Grande Ligne
Rene Zephyrin Lore	August 26, 1803 confirmed signed by Honore	November 5, 1877	Marie-Rose Lecuyer confirmed 1833	Baptist in 1861 census, buried Grand Ligne
Antoine “Anthony” Lore	March 24, 1805 confirmed	1862/1868 Warren Co., PA	Rachel Hill confirmed 1831	Unknown, not Catholic
Celeste Lore	September 13, 1806 – cannot find baptism	January 13, 1860, Hebron, NY confirmed	Jean-Baptiste Labossiere – marriage record in St. Luc says child of Hilaire Laure de St Jean and Francoise LaFaris or Lafave	Baptist, child married at Grande Ligne in 1847
Pierre Lore	March 17, 1808 – confirmed	September 3, 1814 buried l’Acadie confirmed		Catholic
Marguerite Lore –	April 24, 1810 confirmed	March 11, 1855, confirmed	Laurent Labossiere	Catholic buried l’Acadie

It’s interesting that Marie had two sets of twins.

Of these children, nine, in bold, signed Honore’s estate inventory record after his death in April 1834. I’ll be telling that story separately, as a kind soul has offered to translate the documents for me as she can.

Their three living, married, daughters signed with their husbands on Honore’s estate inventory which helped confirm Marie’s children, but I still can’t sort them out entirely.

Marie had two children who never married – Alexis and a female recorded as Marie, Marie J. and Josephte Lore/Lord in various censuses. I finally found her birth record, but never found a burial record. She’s recorded as Baptist, so clearly buried at Grande Ligne.

Josephte Lord, a 63-year-old single Baptist woman, is noted as “deaf and dumb,” meaning she could not hear, so she consequently could no speak. Dumb did not mean unable to learn, although without being able to communicate, learning was impossible.

In the 1851 census, Rene, Alexis (age 51) and a female named Marie J. Lord, age 54, are all recorded in the same positions, as they are for the 1861 and 1871 census too. This suggests, strongly, that all of these people are living in Rene Lord’s household.

In the 1861 and 1871 censuses, she is listed adjacent, then with, Rene Lord’s family, and also beside Alexis Lord, also single. We know that the census has recorded Rene’s and Alexis’s ages incorrectly, so Josephte’s may be wrong too.

Mary must have worried incredibly about this daughter who clearly could neither make her own way in the world, nor protect herself from becoming vulnerable and being taken advantage of. Today, she could have learned to speak and communicate, enlarging her world beyond silence. It’s also worth noting that she did not sign her father’s estate inventory, probably because they could not communicate with her at that level.

Her family took care of her all of her life.

Marie/Mary Lafaille/Lafay Lore died in August of 1836, which means that she buried six of her children, three as adults – one just a year before her death.

• Marie Hippolyte, one of a set of twins, died the day after her birth in 1796.
• Marie had a set of twin boys born in 1798. One, Pierre, died at 16 months of age in the summer of 1799.
• They apparently tried naming a child Pierre again, but the second Pierre died in 1814 when he was six.
• Samuel, her second oldest child died at age 30 in 1821.
• Her daughter Marie died at 34 years of age in 1831.
• Son Joseph died at 45 in May of 1835.

Mary helped care for and nurture several orphaned grandchildren in addition to a daughter who could not hear or speak, and a male child who never married.

These children who preceded Mary in death would have been buried in the Catholic cemetery at Ste. Marguerite de Blairfindie. If they ever had stones, they don’t today.

1808 – Fork in the Road

Something happened in Mary’s life in 1808. Somehow, Mary retrieved her Bible that had been given to her by Pliny Moore. Mary was 41 years old and explained to the Baptist missionaries that she realized, with her reading of the scriptures, that she could no longer follow the Roman Catholic Church, although the rest of her family remained committed to that faith. According to Canadian Baptist Women, “She found that it was a struggle to keep her growing family (she eventually had 8 children), her husband and parents respectful of her Bible as she shared it with them.”

It appears that, in some way, Mary maintained contact with Pliny Moore, who lived just downstream in Champlain until his death in 1822. Moore was involved in the fur trade business in lower Canada. He had connections, owned property and businesses in Montreal. In other words, he would have gone back and forth, either by water or horseback.

The path from Champlain to Montreal was up Lake Champlain, the Richelieu River, and right past L’Acadie where Mary lived. If Pliny took the road, he would have literally gone right past Mary’s home, probably regularly stopping to visit.

In 1814, Moore was able to obtain a French Bible for Mary. She stated that it enabled her to “better understand her growing walk with the Lord.”

It seems that about this time, Mary reached a turning point in her religious life. She went for confession in the Catholic church, and according to her report, “unexpectedly and suddenly realized during this confession that the priest had no right to intervene on her behalf in her personal relationship with the Lord.”

In Champlain, Pliny Moore was becoming increasingly more evangelical and influential. In 1816, Mary obtained from Pliny a copy of the Bible for each of her children. Ironically, it was eventually through her adult children that she learned of the Baptist missionary work that was undertaken.

We know nothing more of Mary’s religious leanings between 1816 and 1835 when Mary Lore is reported as being the first French Canadian Baptist convert, but we do know more about her family.

Family Challenges

Like all families of that time, Marie, or Mary would have faced her share of grief and joy. A woman’s family was more than a full-time responsibility and Mary had a very large family.

In July of 1794, daughter Marie Josephte was born, probably without hearing. Since she never spoke, it’s unlikely that she had ever been able to hear. It would have been some time before the family realized that Marie could not hear, and they would have developed some form of communication with her.

In July of 1796, a twin daughter, Marie Hippolyte, was born and died the following day.

In 1798, her next pregnancy was also twins – both boys. One, Pierre, died 16 months later.

The 1808 event that may have precipitated Mary’s religious crisis, of sorts, could have been related to the birth of a second child named Pierre.

Mary’s last child was born in 1810 when she was 43 years old. That child, along with the rest were baptized Catholic.

In September of 1814, her son Pierre died, a little boy of six and a half. We don’t know if Pierre had some sort of life-altering issue from birth, or if he simply fell victim to the many childhood ills that claimed so many.

That happens to be the same year that Mary obtained the French Bible from Moore, so she may have been seeking comfort.

Three months later, son Samuel married, but he too would die in 1821.

Mary’s mother, Marguerite DeForest died in 1819. It’s never easy when parents die, but at least her parents lived long lives, in spite of their years in exile.

Elizabeth married in 1819, followed by Benoni in 1823.

Mary’s father, Francois Lafay died in 1824.

Son Antoine, by then using the name Anthony, married in Starksboro, Vermont in 1831, so he had clearly left home before that time.

Rene married about the same time, as did daughter, Celeste.

Then, Mary’s eldest son Joseph died on May 30, 1831, just 41 years old.

Mary must have been crushed every time a child died. Deaths as babies are bad enough, but adult children who died have been loved by their mother for decades, not days or months. Furthermore, she also would have had to watch her grandchildren’s mourning and grief, too.

Grandchildren are every grandmother’s soft spot.

Mary’s husband, Honore Lore died on March 5, 1834. But she wasn’t done yet,

Mary’s son, Joseph died on May 30, 1835 at 45 years of age.

Mary’s children were all married, except Alexis and Marie Josephte who never married.

The Missionaries Arrive

It just so happens that this cascade of grief occurred about the time that the Baptist missionaries were increasing their presence, amidst almost universal resistance, in lower Quebec. Mary’s daughter had died in 1831, followed three years later by Honore’s death. Then, only 13 months later, her adult son perished too.

Mary was at her lowest point of grief, having lost her husband and adult children in a short time. She would have been emotionally quite vulnerable, seeking comfort that she was no longer finding in the Catholic church.

Mary’s life was about to change. In many ways, it seems that she became one of the spoils of war, with both sides fighting over her. She served as a symbol of something much larger.

From Canadian Baptist Women:

Swiss missionary Louis Roussy arrived in Grande Ligne to take charge of a Roman Catholic school. His Protestant evangelism there found him without a position within only two months of his arrival, when “the parish priest having heard of ‘his evangelizing’ had the school closed by his sole authority.”

Madame Feller, another Swiss missionary encountered similar issues in Montreal, and sought refuge in Grande Ligne in 1836. When Mary eventually met these missionaries, they were both failing in their ministry. It took Mary’s intervention in their ministry to begin the work at the Grand Ligne Mission.

The Roussy family led the Baptist charge, as told in Henrietta Feller and the Grande Ligne Mission:

On Jan. 29, 1836, Henrietta Feller was not yet in L’Acadie as shown by her letter. She notes that M. Roussy obtained a school in L’Acadie.

“Meanwhile M. Roussy had obtained a school at L’Acadie. He held it for two months only. His evangelical leanings could not be endured by the priest of the district; for he preached from house to house. Dismissed from the school, he resolved to engage in Gospel work as an evangelist, and soon had cause to thank God for the enforced change. Several instances of conversion occurred, and there were promising appearances of a spiritual harvest.” (Cramp)

April 22, 1836 – another letter.

The opposition of Romanists to Protestants, existing for ages, was active at the time under review, and it was not strange that after six months of Christian activity in Montreal, the hotbed of Romanism in the Canadas, it should become unendurable. The priests and the nuns succeeded in closing all doors against Madame Feller. But she had become acquainted with the people, their character, ways and religious ideas, and thus prepared herself for the larger work which Providence had in reserve for her. Montreal, closed now to the Gospel for the French, was to be opened at a later day and a good degree of success achieved.

“Mr. Roussy remained but ten days in Montreal and then left for Grande Ligne to take charge of a primary school entirely Roman Catholic. After his school hours he would devote his time to making the Gospel known around him. The parish priest having heard of this had the school closed by his sole authority, none of the parties interested having the courage to make any opposition, to retain a school teacher superior to any one they had known before.”

Madame Feller, thus compelled to leave Montreal, retreated to St. Johns, where she first landed.

She engaged rooms there for herself and a school, she entered the place on May 20^th. Mr. Roussy united with her in effort in that place, hoping to establish a preaching station. But it also seemed to be a barren field.

“Priestly opposition could not be overcome. He had obtained the use of the Methodist chapel and sought to gain an introduction for the Gospel by colportage. All his endeavors were useless. Not only did the inhabitants of St. Johns, generally, refuse to listen to him, but some of them employed force. The French-Canadian women set themselves against the truth, and so maltreated Mr. Roussy that he was compelled to desist from his labors.”

Madame Feller’s account of the situation is thus given: “We came to St. Johns, feeling our way, and considering it as a place of observation, in which we might ascertain whether we should pitch our tent there or in any other spot. We had not long to wait before we saw that this village shut all its doors against us. Brother R. began to preach. At first he had a few hearers, but after a little while no one attended. He tried to publish the Gospel from house to house, but with two or three exceptions he was ill treated and driven away. At one place he was beaten by a crowd of women who fell upon him, armed with sticks. This was noised abroad. ‘The minister who was beaten ‘ was the subject of common talk, and hatred became more violent.” Contempt easily grew into hatred.

“I had made the acquaintance of a considerable number of women, to whom I read and explained the word of God. They listened for a time, and some of them seemed to be seeking the truth; but it was not even ‘the morning dew.’ I soon saw that they were influenced by self-interest; they would have willingly left off going to mass if I had paid them well. As there is no free school here, I offered to instruct their children. My offer was joyfully accepted, and I began a school; but the priest forbade them to allow their children to come to me, and the project fell to the ground.” The expenses of living, including the cost of keeping a horse, so necessary to Mr. Roussy, were so heavy as to justify their removal.

During their short stay in St. Johns, they had a token from the Lord which sustained their belief that He was pleased with their offering of themselves on His altar. It was the example of one who had forsaken popery and had the privilege of protesting against its tyranny in a public way. One of the converts in I’Acadie had died, witnessing to the saving power of Christ to the very last, in the face of contempt from Romanists, even of her own domestic circle. It was Madame Lore, who figures strongly in the starting of the Grande Ligne Mission.

She was the daughter of a French sailor, who lived near to Boston and where she passed her childhood years. She then enjoyed the privilege of hearing and reading the word of God. But her father was married to a Catholic and removed to Canada, and there she also married a Catholic, embraced his religion and practiced it for twenty years.

It is very interesting in that Mary’s father is identified as a French sailor. Elsewhere her birth location is given as Boston.

Witches?

From Canadian Baptist Women:

Mary met the missionaries through her son Alexis, and when Missionary Roussy was driven from his school by the priest, Mary invited him to hold his first church services in 1835 with her son-in-law Jean-Baptiste Leveque and her daughter Elizabeth in their home in Grande Ligne. The story describes a young girl who was in fact Mary’s granddaughter, and who was also Madame Feller’s pupil. This story documents some of the difficulties faced by the missionaries and places Mary’s family at the center:

The general belief they entertained concerning the two first missionaries was that they were witches. Madame Feller was, in their estimation, the greater one, for she had taught a young girl to read fluently in two weeks, while in other schools this was not accomplished in less than two years.

This was for awhile so firmly established among Canadians that some did not even dare to touch her garments, much less to allow her to come into their houses. A short time after that, when the mission house was almost finished, the priests thought it expedient to invent some new tale, relative to the missionaries, that would keep their parishioners from being led astray by the Protestants. From the pulpit resounded declarations which struck the people with terror.

It was stated by the priests that Satan had made a sort of bargain with M. Roussy to this effect: “This heretic,” to use their expression, was engaged to delude a certain number of souls for a certain sum of money, and according to their opinion, he was building, with that money, a magnificent dwelling house for the purpose of alluring the souls of men with greater facility.

Of course, it was the Mission that was believed to be the Devil’s House, and the article goes on to explain that the neighbors reported all types of horrible sounds resulting from demonic battles emanating from Roussy’s home.

Mary’s Conversion

A Baptist minister recorded the circumstances of Mary’s conversion stating that she was a Catholic for about 20 years after her marriage, “though not without much uneasiness of mind.”

He went on to say that after Pliny Moore, then referred to as Judge Moore, had given Marie the French Bible, she had been “reminded of the days of her youth and resisted her convictions and extinguished the light which once gleamed over her mind. The last 20 years of her life had been spent in folly.”

Given Mary’s baptism in 1789, this puts her realization about 1809.

Mary reportedly decided to go for confession but could not utter a word. The priest, disgusted, reportedly absolved her of her sins and told her to go away. Mary reportedly said, “Can this be the right way. He has absolved my sins, yet he does not know what they are. This cannot be the right way,” resolving never to go to confession again.

Apparently, Mary still attended church from time to time, until the Priest was warning against reading the Bible and said, “The reading of the Scriptures by the common people is like mixing poison with good bread. The person eats the bread without suspecting poison is in it, and only learn the evil by the consequences which ensue.”

After that, Mary never returned to the Catholic church, although I do wonder if she attended her grandchildren’s baptisms and her children’s funerals. I have not reconstructed her children’s families, but I imagine she had several grandchildren that died as well.

Mary’s foiled confession may have occurred sometime between 1814 and 1818, because her next recorded act was obtaining Bibles for her children.

She reportedly anguished greatly during this time period because of the manner in which she had raised her children, meaning in the Catholic church. No one said this, but I also wonder if she blamed their disabilities and deaths on herself and questioned whether or not their souls were in Heaven or Hell. Of course, this questioning would also have extended to any grandchildren who perished during this time too.

Poor Mary.

Henrietta Feller and the Grande Ligne Mission:

Recalling her early habits of reading the Bible, she again turned to it and continued to peruse it to the end of her life; was enlightened and renounced Romanism. It was not until her sixty-eighth year, however, that she met the needed help to becoming a Christian; not until Mr. Roussy went to L’Acadie to labor. He was the means of securing to her the joys of pardon. After making her acquaintance he went to visit one of her married daughters, residing at Grande Ligne, and gladly was admitted to her home, with the privilege of preaching there. Great blessings followed the conversion of souls and the full, successful introduction of evangelical religion among the French Romanists of Canada.

I’d wager that Mary’s daughter, Elizabeth Leveque, was her best friend. Probably her only friend. At least Mary had one accepting family.

Mary was clearly estranged, if not immediately, then shortly, from the rest of her children. I wonder about Marie Josephte, who clearly would not have understood, and Alexis. Did Alexis live with Mary? I would wager that he did.  

Canadian Baptist Women:

The Baptists believed that “Brother Roussy has removed the darkness from her mind and introduced her to the marvelous light of the gospel…she was filled with joy and peace. From this time to the day of her death, she walked with God. Her spiritual journey in this world was short and her end was peace – she fell asleep in Jesus.”

This was written within a year of her death because the preacher says “she went to slumber there sometime in August last.”

Another minister, Rev. Lafleur added about Mary:

She was married to Mr. Lore, a good Catholic, and for 20 years she lived without the gospel, without being allowed to read it, and also without confidence in the religious practices she had to perform. It was a most miserable life to her, so much so that those who knew her well would say that the tears she had shed would be sufficient to turn a mill.

After 20 years of such a life, and after the death of her old parents [1819 and 1824], Mrs. Lore returned to her previous book again, and when she met our missionaries, she had been reading it for 28 years [1807 or 1808], in the midst of a continual spiritual struggle. She saw the truth but dimly and surrounded as she was, she found no one to whom she could open her mind and who could understand her. She was often heard to say to her children: “I shall have a most fearful death, for I know that I have been induced to practice what is not the truth: the truth is here, pointing to her Bible, and I have not followed it.” She had such a high regard for the Bible that going one to Champlain Village, procured from Judge Moore a copy of the Holy Scriptures for every one of her children.

When she heard of this strange school teacher, who read the Holy Scriptures to the children in the school at Grande Ligne, and in houses around, she hastened to see him. After a few moments of conversation, she exclaimed: “The Lord has heard my prayers. He has not despised my tears. This is God’s servant. I know it. This is the man of God whom I had asked of Him these many years.” She very soon found sweet peace in believing – a peace that never was disturbed during the eight months that she lived in this world after her conversion.

We learn several things from this entry, although I have to wonder if some of this information was exaggerated.

If Mary was truly that chronically miserable, did she suffer from a mental health condition, perhaps clinical depression? Her euphoric death might suggest drastic mood swings that might be classified today as bi-polar disease.

Part of what makes me wonder is what I know of her descendant generations. Her son, Anthony Lore, disappeared. He may have drowned or been murdered – at least that’s the story. At least one of Anthony’s children suffered from mental health issues that would probably be quite treatable today. His son spent time institutionalized, as did two of Anthony’s granddaughters who were sisters.

I truly hope Mary was not as miserable as described for what seems to encompass her entire adult life. I hope the missionaries were speaking in hyperbole in order to convert and convince others.

Mary referenced a great disappointment before they moved back to Canada, then seemed unhappy from the time they arrived until 8 months before her death 47 years later. That sounds absolutely horrible.

I wonder who prevented Mary from reading the Bible, if she was actually “prevented” from reading the Bible. Was it hidden someplace? I wonder at this, given that she was eventually given a French Bible that no one prevented her from reading. Was the real issue that her English had been forgotten over time?

Was this incident exaggerated by the missionaries? The story about Mary being forbidden and prevented from reading her Bible would have engendered outrage and sympathy.

In a different excerpt, I was given to understand that her son Alexis was in the missionary school class, but given that Alexis was born in 1798, unless adults were being taught, which is entirely possible, Alexis was about 37 or 38 tears old when this occurred. It’s also very possible that Alexis was learning-impaired.

We have Mary’s death date in August of 1836, so we know that her “conversion,” such as it is, occurred about December of 1835.

Christmas that year, her last one on earth, must have been very interesting – and probably very strained.

Henrietta Feller and the Grande Ligne Mission:

Mrs. Lore became a great help to Mr. Roussy. Her heart and house were open at all times. She gave him the use of her horse and cariole for his missionary tours, and sent her son to conduct him over roads with which he was not acquainted; always waiting and watching for their arrival at whatever hour of the night.

Was this son, Alexis who probably lived with Mary?

The next quotes are from Missionary Roussy in Canadian Baptist Women:

The baptism of our first four Canadians, and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper the following day made a deep impression upon the rest of our Canadians. Mary Leveque and one of her aunts, the wife of Honore Lore were baptized which was made a great blessing to them.

Religion is the great concern, from the youngest to the oldest. These things have produced very contrary effects; some seek for and read the word of truth, whilst others insult and threaten us, and do us every kind of injury to an extent never before attempted.

Rev. Lafleur continues:

“She was seen to come on foot to the meetings held at Grande Ligne to hear the preaching of the Holy Word. At the time of her departure drew near, her Roman Catholic neighbors, accustomed to see infidels repent and return at the last hour in submission to the Church, they expected that she would also at last submit and accept the offices of the Priest. In a glowing heart she bore her affectionate testimony of the Savior as the All Sufficient One at the hour of death. The whole family, composed of eight children and many grandchildren, after her example, left the Church of Rome to embrace the Gospel.

This excerpt is interesting because it says she had eight children, but that’s incorrect. This clearly refers to the eight children they knew of at the time of her death. She had nine living children when she died, and had born fifteen in total – that we know of. Furthermore, they did not all leave the Catholic church, or if they did, one returned.

Mary had several more children who had died, including one recently, in 1835, but the point of this commentary was to emphasize the conversions.

I determined Mary’s children’s religion based on several pieces of evidence. The 1851, 1861 and 1871 census, plus the burial locations of her children who died after her death.

Six of Mary’s children were buried in the Baptist Grande Ligne cemetery or otherwise had interactions with the church there:

• Elizabeth
• Alexis
• Benoni
• Honore
• Rene
• Celeste

Marie Josephte was probably also buried there given that she lived with Rene and Alexis.

Two of Mary’s adult children were buried in Catholic cemeteries, which generally means they were Catholics in good standing at the time of their death:

• Joseph
• Marguerite

Of course, all of Mary’s children who died before her death were buried in the Catholic cemetery.

Two children moved away:

• Anthony Lore – not Catholic, burial, if any, unknown, reportedly drowned in a river·
• Celeste – Moved to and died in Hebron, New York, probably not Catholic given that her child was married at the church in Grande Ligne

Mary’s Final Illnesss

Roussy reports that in her final illness, a great number of people visited Mary. I get the distinct impression that most of them had an agenda. And the Baptists, not wanting to miss an opportunity, even if it was at the side of a dying woman’s bed, utilized the opportunity to evangelize to all her visitors.

Shortly, we will see that perhaps Mary’s family wasn’t as quick to leave the Catholic church as Roussy stated, or maybe there was something else afoot.

Something was very definitely wrong. Information seems to contradict each other.

Henrietta Feller and the Grande Ligne Mission:

On being fatally ill, Madame Feller and Mr. Roussy attended her constantly, and were made glad by the continual testimony she bore to the saving grace of Christ, and her unswerving opposition to Romanism and to the offices of the priests when urged upon her by a neighbor.

As her sufferings became excessive her anxiety to depart and be with Christ increased, and often she asked that her pulse might be examined and she informed if the moment of release were not near. At length her suffering abated; the end was at hand, and her countenance was radiant with peace and joy.

A great number visited her during her sickness, and the missionaries were by no means neglectful of the opportunity for talking Christ to them.

She desired to see all of her relatives before her death, but many of them refused to visit her, claiming that she had dishonored her family by changing her religion, and accusing her of having brought on her death by fatiguing journeys to Grande Ligne to attend meetings there. Her home was about two leagues [six miles] from the place of meeting, and when the horses were needed for something else she walked, never failing to go. In reply to expression of surprise that one of her age should be able to walk so far, especially as she had not shown the ability previously, she said, “I serve so good a Master this year; He increases my strength.”

So, a great many people visited her, but her relatives did not? This is contradicted in further writings stating that her children were at her bedside. However, the missionaries also claim that the reason that Henrietta Fuller and Roussey were attending Mary, is because her family would or could not.

Canadian Baptist Women:

Roussy wrote about Mary’s deathbed testimony in a letter for the Christian Watchman and was unusually detailed, perhaps because Mary was an “ordinary woman” in extraordinary circumstances – just when the Baptists needed an example in Canada.

It was on the night between the 5^th and 6^th instant that our sister Lore was seized with a violent inflammation of the intestines. We were apprised of it early in the morning and immediately Mrs. Feller and myself proceeded to her house, when she received us with joy. From this moment, Mrs. Feller did not leave her night or day, for none of her own family was able to give her the numerous attentions requisite during her severe illness.

She was so thankful to God and blessed him that he had sent Mrs. Feller such a distance to do her so much kindness; she was so humble that she thought herself unworthy of all the tender cares with which she was surrounded, and the love of God and the brethren which she experienced.

From the beginning of her sickness our blessed sister manifested the most true and solid piety which the heart could display. She foresaw that she would not get better, and therefore was occupied only with her latter end. All the things of earth were viewed as nothing with her; her treasure and her heart were on high. She showed no impatience in her pains, though they were extremely sharp, but blessed the Lord that he spared her from more excessive pains. “It is on account of my sins – it is on account of my sins,” she said, “that I am suffering so much. I deserved to suffer a great deal more, even everlasting condemnation, but Jesus has delivered me from it. He has pardoned all my sins, although they are very numerous.”

The night of Monday which was the last of her life, her children, Mrs. Feller and I were all together, near her, in prayer and conversation about our heavenly citizenship.

Note here that he states that her children are present.

Just then, at 2 o’clock in the morning, came in one of her neighbors, a zealous Catholic, who, after some compliments, asked her if she would not call the Priest, adding that he was ready and he would go and bring him.

Our sister said “No!” that she did not want him.

He asked, “Will you not die in the Roman Catholic and Apostolic church?”

“No,” said she, “because I belong to the church of Jesus Christ.”

He asked if the Romish church was not the church of Christ.

“O no,” she answered, “because in everything – everything – it is contrary to the gospel.”

“But,” answered her neighbor, “you know that the Catholic is the oldest religion.”

“Yes,” she answered, “it is an old religion; it is that which the Pharisees possessed at the time of Jesus Christ was on this earth.”

“But,” he said, “you were always of the Roman Catholic religion; will you leave it now?”

She said, “I have left it this long time, ever since I have read the gospel. I cannot follow it. It is not the religion of Jesus Christ.”

It would be too long to inform you of all the conversation of this man, which was full of impiety. He tried all possible means to draw from our dear dying sister the permission to go and fetch a priest. But all his efforts were of no avail. She continually answered in the negative, with most remarkable firmness, calmness and wisdom. At length, finding he was only fatiguing her, and being myself likewise fatigued with the ungodly language and the torrent of words of this Papist, I said to him that since he had delivered his message, and now knew the sentiments of Mrs. Lore, I must beg of him not to trouble her any further. He then answered me in a very passionate manner, and a young man, a nephew of Mrs. Lore who was a witness of what passed encouraged by the example given by this church-warden, likewise flew into a passion against me and went off, calling false prophet etc.

It’s interesting to note that in one place, he mentions that her family could not minister to her needs, yet in his description, they were present. Furthermore, it appears that both her newly-converted Baptist family members, and Catholic ones were both present, given the final comment about her nephew.

Perhaps the fact that the Baptist missionaries took advantage of a captive audience and continued their attempts to recruit converts among her family members at the side of her literal deathbed had something to do with why some of her family members might not have been present.

I can certainly see that there would definitely have been two sides to this story, two perspectives, but we only have a direct record of one.

Back to Roussy’s letter:

Alexis Lore and his brother-in-law Leveque put an end to the Roman Catholic’s mission by speaking to him very faithfully of the truth which is in Christ. He, as he hated it, did not receive it, but went away quite in a state of irritation, on account of the bad success of his attempt.

We were all made glad by the good testimony our sister had just given to the truth. Her children were all strengthened, and we gave thanks to the Lord that he had given her strength sufficient; to go through such a scene. She was extremely weak and suffered excessively. Her desire to depart increased, not so much that she might be delivered from her pains, as that she might be present with the Lord, whom she unceasingly called upon.

She often requested Mrs. Feller or myself to feel her pulse, that we might tell her if the moment of her departure was at hand. She had hoped not to begin another day upon earth; and when she saw the sun appear, she said “O! How long I am in departing.”

A few hours before her death, her sufferings abated sensibly. She scarcely spoke to us, but was continually in prayer and was often heard to repeat, “Lord Jesus receive my spirit, receive me into thy glory.” The expression of her countenance became completely changed, and quiet radiant; serenity, peace, joy and something heavenly were visible on it.

We have the pleasant hope that this sickness, this death, has not been unto death, but for the glory of God. During her sickness, our sister was visited by a great number of persons to whom this solemn moment gave us an opportunity of declaring with all seriousness the whole counsel of God. Perhaps this incorruptible seed will one day bring forth fruit in the salvation of many.

Our dear sister had desired to see all her relations before her death, but only a few visited her. Others refused to come because she would not send for a priest. They all said she had dishonored her family by changing her religion and they overwhelmed her with reproaches and contempt.

They accused her of having killed herself by her frequent journeys to the Grand Ligne, and could not forgive her with the zeal with which she followed the meeting, for she never missed a single one notwithstanding the distance of two leagues that there was between her own house and that of Leveque, she sometimes traveled it on foot, when her horses were needed for something else. When surprise was expressed that at her age, she could support so long a journey, which she had not been able to do previously, she answered, “I serve so good a Master this year, he increases my strength.”

Mary’s Funeral

Canadian Baptist Women:

On Thursday, the 11^th instant, the mortal remains of our sister Lore were brought to the English burial ground at St. John’s. None of her relations, and no Canadian whatever, would accompany her to her last dwelling; to such a length did the spirit of ill-will go. She was, however, honorably interred. Several persons among the most esteemed in the neighborhood and friends of the gospel assisted, and as we passed the house of an old Canadian, who I had several times visited, we had the joy to see him join the procession.

A gentleman who had gone on before us on horseback, unknown to me, had the bell tolled as is usual for a funeral.

A pretty considerable number of persons were in the churchyard, among whom were several Canadians. I prayed, read a portion of the Bible, and addressed a few remarks to those who were present. The greatest tranquility prevailed, which we had not dared to hope for – as the Catholic population informed of the event were in a rage and passion, that made us fear there would be an uproar.

Our sister Lore had often been told that since she had abandoned her religion, she should be deprived of the honor of internment and buried in the fields, which is in the opinion of the Canadians a great disgrace and ignominy – for in general they are at more trouble to procure, through the favor of the priest, a place for their body in consecrated ground, than to obtain a part in the only good place that can receive their immortal soul.

So, they hoped their threats would be fulfilled and that the young Lores would be compelled to bury the remains of their glorified mother in some corner of her farm. But those who, with impatient delight, were looking forward to this kind of triumph, were as surprised as chagrined when they saw a burial ground opened for her whom they despised only on account of her religion, for in general she was beloved and respected by all that knew her, who, with one voice, gave testimony that she had been the nurse of the sick, the comforter of the afflicted and the friend of the poor, with whom she always shared what God had given her; and that she had been a counselor and mother to all. With one thing only was she reproached – that she had left her religion.

Marie died on August 9^th, 1836 and was buried on the 11^th. It feels odd to see English in her death record, but she had converted to the Baptist faith, and those records were indeed in English.

On this eleventh day of August Eighteen hundred and thirty-six the body of Marie Lore, widow, of l’Acadie, a converted Catholic, who died on the preceding ninth was interred in presence of the subscribing witnesses by me, Louis Roussy, M. James Beddy, James Harrison

While this doesn’t tell us Mary’s cause of death, Roussy’s description suggests that it was probably either Dysentery or Typhoid Fever.

That poor woman.

Henrietta Feller and the Grande Ligne Mission:

Her body was borne to St. Johns and admitted to honorable sepulture in the English burial ground. None of her relatives and no Canadian in her neighborhood would accompany it.

However, several respectable people in St. Johns assisted; an old Canadian on the way joined the procession, and a gentleman rode in advance and caused the bell to be tolled, which was very unusual for a funeral.

Order prevailed during the ceremonies, though, in view of the rage among the Catholics, a disturbance was feared. The deceased had been told that if she forsook the faith, Romanism, she would be refused honorable interment and would be buried in disgrace, in the field. But the enemies were utterly confounded by the outcome. Her respectable burial, as also her triumphant death and eminently good life bore strongly against Romanism and were influential for the almost friendless cause of Protestantism.

Mrs. Lore had been a nurse to the sick, a comforter of the afflicted, a friend to the poor, a counsellor and mother to all. Above all, she maintained her faith in the Book; she read it, and it elevated her life and strengthened her to abandon popery and to secure deliverance from its power for her children, her son-in-law and her daughters-in-law, who joined her in receiving the word of God.

Hers was the first death that occurred in the little company of disciples, “scattered and peeled” and without a certain dwelling-place. It was one of those peculiar “providences” that contribute to the furtherance of the Gospel. The community were awakened, and reasonable views developed in the minds of some who without this occurrence would have remained dormant if not on the wrong side. Then there was the victory of one soul over spiritual despotism and over the grave the gaining, likewise, of honorable sepulture.

I’m still dumbstruck that NONE of her children attended her burial. I wish I knew the rest of this story, because you know there’s more. We know positively that some members of her family were already Baptists, according to this account.

Mary’s Grave

In 2009, cousin Paul Drainville wrote:

The graves I believe are lost…as I emailed a few years back an individual familiar with the Feller Museum…He told me the locations of the graves are lost and the home has fallen into disrepair and might be torn down…He sent a photo of the home, which if I figure out how to attach I will.

At this time, we thought that Marie was buried at the Grande Ligne Mission, but she wasn’t.

This map shows four locations of interest.

• At the bottom is the mission at Grande Ligne. This is where Mary’s daughter Elizabeth, and son-in-law Jean-Baptiste Leveque lived who opened their home to the missionaries for a school. They had clearly converted before Mary died.
• At top left, the Ste-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie Catholic church and cemetery where all of Marie’s children were baptized, and where her husband and children who died before her death are buried.
• At right, Vieux cimetiere St. James is the English graveyard where Mary was taken by the missionaries to be buried.
• About halfway between the English cemetery, and Ste. Marguerite, we find L’Acadie. It’s believed that this area is where Mary’s farm was located. It may well have been close to or on the Grand Ligne road. I’m hopeful to learn more from the translation of Honore’s inventory documents. I wonder if there were estate documents after Mary died.

If we are to presume that Mary’s body was prepared for burial at home and the procession moved from someplace in L’Acadie to the church in St.-Jean-sur-Richelieu, the path with the horseman and the bell-ringer would have looked something like this. Of course, they wouldn’t have needed to be concerned about one-way streets and traffic back then. They were, however, worreid about being attacked given the brewing Rebellion combined with the very angry Catholic community.

The church, within sight of the river, was constructed in 1816, so the churchyard would have had some burials, but probably not many.

The cemetery today seems almost empty, but that’s probably because so many graves are unmarked. There are a few earlier burials recorded and even fewer have stones. While the missionaries were concerned about Mary’s burial, specifically that she not be buried in a Catholic cemetery, or on her farm, no one seemed concerned about either recording or marking her grave for posterity. It seems like they were more concerned about the spectacle and statement of her funeral procession and burial, as a “win.”

The St.-John-sur-Richelieu website at one time provided information, translated from French, about the St James church and cemetery behind the church.

St James Church built in 1816 along the garrison graveyard of Fort St. John which extends behind the church.

This cemetery is of special interest for French Protestants. It is here that Mary Lafaille, better known as Mrs. Lore (the Lord family of Quebec), was buried. Mary was the daughter of François Lafaille and Marguerite. The family lived in the Boston area where they had several children who were probably raised in the Protestant religion.

The family emigrated in the l’Acadie area a little before the Mary married Honoré Lord on 10 August 1789; she was twenty-one years old at the time. Three other of her sisters also married to Catholics. The couple Lafaille-Lord had six children. It is only at the end of her life that Mrs. Lord (Lore) met the evangelist Louis Roussy who made her regain the Bible of her youth and reconverted her in 1836.

She invited the missionary to get in touch with her daughter Elizabeth, married to Jean-Baptiste Lévêque, living in Grande-Ligne who made his home available to the evangelists for prayer and preaching meetings. Sometime after, other members of the Lord family converted to Protestantism.

Mrs. Lore was a key player in the early conversions. At her death in 1841, she fell asleep in the Lord strong of her faith despite the last-minute attempts of a neighbor to bring her in “the right path.” There was no question to bury her in a Catholic cemetery and the St James Anglican community welcomed her along; a large crowd gathered for this first burial a French Protestant. Unfortunately for us, the headstones suffered the ravages of time and vandals, and it has not been possible to trace the exact place of her burial because there is no historical record of the burials.

This confirms that the is no cemetery map. Their death date for Mary is five years late and so is the count of her children, but at least we know she’s there, someplace. It does sadden me that she is buried alone, without family nearby.

Birth of the Grande Ligne Mission and Mary’s Family

Henrietta Feller and the Grande Ligne Mission:

After Mary’s death, the missionaries were still unsettled. Their experience in this respect was like that of pioneers in the missionary cause generally. The country was before them, but with opposition to the work they proposed to do for the souls of the inhabitants. Fixing a location was but to invite persecution. A permanent home was hardly to be hoped for, but there was permanent work for their hands, and with renewed resolution they looked for another center of operations. Mr. Roussy, undaunted by his dismissal from the school at L’Acadie, had preached the Gospel throughout the adjacent regions. An indication of providential favor was found in the opening of a private house for meeting, as stated: the home of Mr. Leveque, son-in-law of Madame Lore, whose abandonment of Romanism has been noted.

This house was situated on what came to be known as The Grande Ligne. A grande ligne is simply a division line between districts, or concessions of government land, usually a straight line, extending several miles. It becomes a road, along which homes are established; and the one mentioned became so prominent as a mission center that the place assumed the name given. Thither the thoughts of the missionaries turned.

It was felt by them that it would be necessary to stand away from the cities and begin the mission among a more quiet population. And such an opportunity was presented and embraced; the friendships of some of the Canadians there giving assurance that peace might prevail and the missionaries not be molested.

Scarcely four months had been spent in St. Johns, and less than one year in Canada, and in this brief time they had been persecuted and compelled to flee from two cities and seek a home in the open country. The assailants, not satisfied with abusing human beings, vented their wickedness upon Mr. Roussy’s horse, and tried to kill him; but the blows which at first seemed fatal proved to be only deep flesh wounds that after some weeks, it was hoped, would be healed.

Yielding to the impression that Grande Ligne was the place God had purposed for her, Madame Feller removed thither in September 1836. Some of the inhabitants had desired her to settle among them, feeling the need of instruction; parents as well as children. But there was no school-house, nor a lot on which one might be built at that time. Meetings had been held in Mr. Leveque’s house, a poor cabin. Two small rooms in the garret, though unfinished, were available for her use; and when ready she entered them, with joy and thanksgiving, feeling that her way and her task were alike ordered of the Lord, and that expected trials would be for her good and His glory.

The beginning was small. The rooms were about twelve feet square, each. One of them was her chamber, the other answered the purposes of parlor, kitchen and schoolroom. In such narrow circumstances was commenced the conquest of the land to a pure Christianity – the attic of a log house for a fort and an unformed company of children of which to make an army, and with the ignorant and hostile Canaanite in the land.

With a steady purpose and a firm resolve she entered upon a life campaign. “From nine in the morning till noon, and from two till five in the afternoon she instructed children, upwards of twenty being generally present. At six in the evening there was a meeting for adults, which partook of the character of a school and a Bible class. At that meeting, after the elementary part of the business had been dispatched, she read and explained portions of the Scripture and answered innumerable questions respecting the truths of the Gospel. So deeply interested were those who attended that the exercises were not infrequently prolonged until midnight.”

An increase of knowledge so greatly desirable was not the only consideration with either teacher or pupil. Enlightenment was not the end, but the means; and great was the gratification attending the soul’s submission to Jesus Christ, the highest aim in all efforts. “The work prospers at Grande Ligne,” wrote Madame Feller; “we have there about twenty Protestants, who have entirely abandoned Popery, and we are happy to inform you that six of them give satisfactory proof that they are Christians.”

There seems to have been an unspoken longing in the minds of some for such a blessing as the Gospel brings. The Canadians were not an entire exception in the human family, to which “The Desire of all Nations ” was to be a welcome guest. One of the very first converts said to Madame Feller: “Before I saw you, I had asked God to send some one to instruct us and our children. I did not mention it to anybody, because I did not see how it could be done. But I continued to pray, and now you have come.”

Mr. Leveque, whose house was being used, could not read, though forty-two years of age. He also cherished a longing for Scripture truth, saying, “I take the Bible I hold it in my hand. I look at it, I open it would that I could read it! I cannot tell you my distress; I am heartbroken. I would ask the Lord to work a miracle for me, so that I might be able to read; but He will do it in giving me understanding. Oh, if I could once read it to those who are ignorant! It is not for myself only; I would go and read the word of God to those who know it not.”

Another man, about sixty years of age, of dreadful temper and an enemy of the Leveques and of the Gospel, was found to be in a subdued state of mind, and willing to permit his large number of children to learn to read. Considering himself too old to learn, he would frequently attend the school and listen to the readings of the Bible. Midnight often surprised the school while engaged in reading, explanation, and prayer. The wife of this man reported that he was sometimes so excited after the evening conferences that he could not sleep, but talked all night about the things he had heard.

Such were the indications of the divine pleasure. On the other hand there were displays of the adversary’s displeasure. Children were withdrawn from the school; priests visited homes that had received little or no attention previously, threatened and tried to turn away those favorably disposed to the Mission. And yet there was a change to a favorable attitude toward the Bible on the part of one of the opposing priests, showing the divine hand, and he gave permission to the family last named to have the children educated.

That husband and father, regardless of ridicule, took the Bible under his arm, and going from house to house, sought out persons to read to him its precious contents. He in turn told them what he had learned from the holy book. And joy, such as angels experience, filled the souls of the workers on the conversion of Benoni Lore, who gradually had passed through a stage of distressful conviction and then fully and joyfully entered the new life. He then became one of the most eager learners in the school.

Mr. Roussy had quarters in a house belonging to the Lore family, in L’Acadie, and itinerated in the surrounding district. Grande Ligne was the most important of the seven or eight preaching stations he occupied, and the mutual counsel and sympathy enjoyed were doubtless much needed.

It’s unclear when these conversions occurred but given that only Elizabeth Lore and Jean-Baptiste Leveque along with Alexis Lore were the only family members reported as Baptist at Mary’s death, I’d presume the rest of these were later.

After Mary’s Death

After Mary Lore’s death, the political situation worsened, as did the Catholic/Baptist schism, if that can be imagined.  

Canadian Baptist Women:

Roussy reports that the Lore family and missionaries:

Now have neither relations nor friends and are forsaken by all those who formerly loved them. They bear it joyfully, esteeming themselves happy to be hated of all for the name of Christ.

It’s noted that the missionaries felt that, through Mary, God had given them an answer to their own prayers. Roussy writes of her, “This pious woman was a great help to me, not only her heart but also her house was open.” He refers to her as “our esteemed Sister Lore.” He refers to her elsewhere as “the first good seed of the Grande Ligne Mission.”

They viewed her as “the victory of one soul over spiritual despotism and over the grave” although Roussy also said, “We have been deeply affected by the death of this our dear sister whom we had so much reason to love.”

The missionaries subsequently used Mary’s story both to evangelize and to solicit and obtain funding. She was their shining example of how they had touched Catholic lives and been successful in their conversion efforts.

The heart-wrenching division this caused within the Lore family was still felt and reflected generations later.

Roussy discusses the problem of finding a location to teach a school, but states that Leveque has made them two little rooms in the garret of the house he lives in.

Upon quitting St. John’s I intend going to live in the house of our deceases sister where two of her sons will continue to dwell.

Obviously that’s Mary Lore, but which of her two sons are residing there? Clearly Alexis is one, but who is the other son? Did Rene or Benoni inherit the family home? The only other possibility is Mary’s son, Honore.

The Beginnings of the Grande Ligne Mission

Henrietta Feller and the Grande Ligne Mission:

1837

A small school-house was built, the first structure to indicate progress; the friends at Montreal also showing a lively, practical interest in its erection.

The Leveque family, which had kindly granted the garret of the cabin for Madame Feller’s use, now yielded to her the entire dwelling, and temporarily domiciled in the new school-house.

Accommodations thus were greatly enlarged. Besides the two upper rooms, each twelve feet square, she could command also the entire lower part, twelve by twenty-four, for school, meetings, and household purposes. Behold the mansion!

It was reported that by the time the 1837 rebellion occurred, the mission had amassed 16 converts.

In February 1837, the Bishop of Montreal received an even more alarming report from the Parish Priest – 11 households had been converted for a total of 53 people. Apparently, the seed had sprouted.

In an 1893 Sketch of the Grande Ligne Mission by it’s president, he tells us that:

Henrietta Feller found her way to a little country place called Grande Ligne, where in a log house she commenced her word. In an upper room, partitioned with rough boards, she lived and toiled. She soon succeeded in gathering around her a few children to whom she taught reading and writing, at the same time carefully instructing them in the blessed truths of the gospel.

After school hours, she spent her time visiting the houses of these children and any house to which she could find access in Grande Ligne to tell the story of the cross and give general instructions to the poor Canadian women, who were, like their husbands in a deplorable state of ignorance and superstition. Hardly one person in 10 could read or write. No wonder this province is called Darkest Canada.

In 1837, after two months exile, owing to the Canadian Rebellion, the first French Protestant Church ever founded in Canada was organized at Grande Ligne with 7 members to whom 9 others were added a few months later.

I sure wish we had the names of those seven people. I’d wager that at least some of them were her family members, if not all.

Ironically, not one word in this 1893 book is about Mary or any member of the Lore or Leveque families, without whom, the mission would not have existed. The person who owned that founding “log house” was indeed none other than Mary Lore’s daughter Elizabeth and son-in-law, Jean-Baptiste Leveque.

The Rebellion

In 1837, the political situation became ever more volatile, fueled by politics and the divisive rhetoric pitting Catholics and Protestants against one another, both in the government and the churches.

The first battle of the Patriot Rebellion took place at St. Eustace, near Montreal on December 14, 1837.

The churches were involved with the French patriots taking refuge in the Catholic churches. St. Eustace and Saint-Benoit were burned that December, along with the houses of the opposing rebellion’s leaders in four additional villages. English “rebels” attempted to make it to the Canada/US border, but many were taken prisoner.

The countryside was terrified, angry, and in an uproar.

Eustace was only about 50 miles away from L’Acadie.

The closest escape route to the border would take the rebels directly down the Richelieu River, terrifying the population and inflaming the anti-Baptist sentiment.

All clergy, be they Protestant or Catholic, probably used this opportunity to proselytize and encourage their congregations to assure their piety and salvation…just in case.

Catholic families would have been very angry at the English, meaning the missionaries, for bringing this battle and from their perspective, needless upheaval upon them.

Mary had been the Catholic icon for the Baptists, and now the Baptists were iconic representatives of the English.

Given the history within the L’Acadie community surrounding Mary’s conversion and death, all things considered, it’s no surprise that the reaction was so volatile and heated.

Henrietta Feller and the Grande Ligne Mission:

A letter from Henriette Fuller (above):

The missionaries left Grande Ligne for NY it became so dangerous in November 1837.

The movements of the rebels always took place in the night. They met in companies of one hundred, two hundred, and sometimes more. They were all masked and furnished with instruments of every kind imaginable to get up a charivari. They went from house to house, mingling with their infernal music shouts and imprecations still more infernal. Those who did not come out immediately and join them were pelted with stones and threatened with fire. Some houses were entirely destroyed with their contents. Almost all of the inhabitants of Grande Ligne being patriots (as the rebels called themselves), they became so violent that there were no bounds to their disorderliness. Some friends came to warn us that we were in danger, and that we ought to remove as quickly as possible, and absent ourselves for some time.

On Monday morning brother Roussy set off for Champlain, to ascertain whether accommodations could be obtained there, should God show us that it was our duty to leave. He had not been gone an hour when I learned that the patriots were determined to kill him; they spoke of it quite openly and expressed themselves in the most violent manner. I passed a sad day. It appeared very evident that it was our duty to go away; but to give up my Canadians was to give up my life. I was warned that the patriots were preparing to come to my house that night, and that their intentions were of the worst kind. How I blessed God that brother Roussy was absent! I spent the evening in reading and prayer, with some of my dear Canadians, encouraging myself in God and expecting that He would guide me, for I knew not what I ought to do. Oh, how true it is that we must look to Jesus if we would not lose courage! I had full experience of it that night, for when the mob came to the house, I felt no fear. Brave brother Leveque went out of his house to ask them what they wanted. They told him, and in an imperious manner, that he must immediately discontinue the scandal of the new religion which he had permitted in his house, adding that they would compel us to quit the country.

Mr. Leveque asked them who gave them the power to act in that way. They replied that they assumed the power, and that they would show us that they were masters. I was obliged to go and speak to them at the door and was able to do it calmly. They commanded brother Roussy and me to go away, and said that if we did not go quickly, they would return and force us; that we had come to trouble the country with a new religion, and that they would not suffer any persons to live in that place who did not profess their own excellent religion and were not good patriots like themselves.

They uttered many blasphemies and threats and left me to carry on their outrages at the houses of the members of our little church. They introduced themselves by the charivari and throwing stones at the windows. They ordered all who had renounced popery to abandon their new religion, and return to the mass, and told them that if they would not do it they must quit the country, or expect to be burned out. See how clearly the path was marked for us; for all determined rather to give up everything than to go back. Then we prepared for our departure, trusting that the merciful God would find a refuge for His poor, persecuted church.

As early as 1838 she [Fuller] seems to have gained a correct view of their general condition and wrote: “The Canadians are devoted to unchanged routine. They have no idea of doing anything differently from their grandfathers. They cultivate and crop only one half of their farms every year, leaving the other half to their cattle; and the consequence is that, though a man may possess a hundred arpents (an arpent being three-fourths of an English acre), he is very probably without bread for one half of the year. We have persuaded our people this year to plough and sow all their land, the meadows only excepted, which produce abundant crops of hay. This is an innovation and is regarded as a remarkable event.”

It’s worth noting here that “fire” is one of the oral stories passed down in the Antoine Lore family who carried the anti-Catholic stories, but where the fire occurred, or under what circumstances, was not specified.

Summary

Returning to Henrietta Feller’s letter:

Glancing at authentic documents for a brief survey of this grand enterprise, it is learned that for the first year (1835-6) the main result of their flight from one hostile locality to another was the finding, finally, a place to rest the foot. A convert had been gained, raised up for their relief in pointing them to an “upper room ” (the log hut), and then taken to her mansion in the skies before the year closed. It was her reward here that she, Mrs. Lore, had a proper Christian burial, and by the loving hands of the missionaries.

The second year (1836-7) was signaled by two great events. One, the organization of a church of seven members, increased to sixteen before the year closed, which, by the grace of God, continues to this day; the second, the persecution and exile already described. Thus, through joy and sorrow in immediate succession, were they tempered for their life further on missionaries and converts together.

From Canadian Baptist Women:

After Mary’s death in 1836, the Grande Ligne Mission continued to share important ties to both the Champlain area and Mary’s family. The Grande Ligne Mission and Mary’s family became targets for the 1837 lootings, fires and charivaris during the Rebellion. The missionaries and mission families, including Mary’s, abandoned their homes and fled for refuge to the safety of Champlain. Additionally, it was reported that the Grande Ligne Mission received yearly financial support from the associations in Champlain that had been founded by Pliny Moore.

Grande Ligne Mission

Where is the Grande Ligne Mission today?

Fortunately, the little cabin owned by Elizabeth Lore and Jean-Baptiste Levique was not torn down and has been restored as a historic site.

Mary was assuredly here many times, both to visit her daughter, then to visit the mission. Her spirit probably still visits faithfully. Eventually, this humble cabin site was the foundation of Feller College, but that was still decades in the future.

Cousin Ed tells us that the conversion experiences, difficulties with the Catholic population at the time, etc., had been a vague bit of family lore within the Lore family for many years. “It intrigued me enough to spend a significant amount of time and effort researching. It was back in 1992 that I finally made the information break-through and was able to visit Jean-Baptiste Leveque’s cabin in Canada where Madame Feller started her work, now the Henriette Feller Museum.”

Fortunately, today the little cabin has been preserved and restored, complete with signage. I hope to one day tour this cabin, sit on those benches, and ponder the lives of Mary and her family.

In the 1851 census, Mary’s daughter, Elizabeth Lord, was living in a large household, probably the Grande Ligne mission, with Madam Feller, age 52, and her religion is listed as Baptist, but then Baptist is marked through as with many of Elizabeth’s siblings.

Perhaps wishful thinking on the part of the census taker, or maybe for their safety?

Part of the Roussy memorial today, the first church was the mission, but this church was built in 1880. The original steps probably remain. Although Mary clearly would not have visited this church, Alexis, Benoni, and Honore did not die until in the 1880s. I hope they remembered the sacrifices of their mother here.

This postcard shows the church sometime between 1898 and 1917.

Many of Mary’s grandchildren and descendants would have worshipped here, and some may still.

The cemetery, located to the rear of the properties is part of the “complex” that at one time included the college, boarding school, church, original mission, presbytery, and other buildings.

Five of Mary’s children, plus probably Marie Josephte, are buried here:

• Elizabeth
• Alexis
• Benoni
• Honore
• Rene

Ironic that there was concern about Mary being buried in some field in the corner of her farm. Although not her farm, I’d bet she’s love to be buried here where her children toiled and tilled the soil. Indeed, in the corner of her daughter and son-in-law’s farm field, with them and her family. Many Lore/Lord family members were still being buried here into the 1990s.

Mary’s DNA waters the soil of Grande Ligne through her children and descendants.

You can read more about the Mission, here and here.

What About Mary, the Person?

I come away from all of this saddened. I feel like Mary, at a time when she was aging and vulnerable, became somewhat of a pawn, revered more for what she represented to both the Catholics and Baptists than for Mary herself. I feel like she was viewed as a prize, and whatever happened to her and her family relationships was either ignored as irrelevant or collateral damage. I hope she didn’t blame herself for what happened to her family as a result of “her sins.” Of course, according to both religious philosophies – there would have been no “damage” if people had simply corrected their way of thinking.

Only a few words are spent on the kind of person Mary was. Everything else was focused on using Mary to recruit others.

“She had been the nurse of the sick, the comforter of the afflicted and the friend of the poor, which whom she always shared what God had given her; and that she had been a counselor and mother to all.”

That’s it. Everything else is about Mary’s religious agonies or, in the end, ecstasies as death approached. They never even bothered to acknowledge her lifelong role as mother and grandmother by naming her children. Furthermore, the missionaries didn’t even record the number of her children accurately. I feel like they were primarily interested in what Mary could do for them, not what happened to Mary or her family. Even during her death watch – they used her as an opportunity to evangelize.

I’m trying very hard to not view the records and acts of yesteryear from a contemporary perspective, but I’m struggling. My heart aches for Mary being without her family in the last days and hours of her life.

My heart aches for her family members, being deprived of being with their mother in her last hours, and at her funeral.

From the vantage of time and distance, I find it very difficult to be happy about the situation, with Mary seemingly exploited by both sides, to the point where her family was driven away. I’m assuming the reports were correct that none of her children or family members walked with her funeral procession and attended her burial.

I could understand, perhaps, why her Catholic family did not attend, but not even her Baptist family members? Where were Elizabeth and Jean-Baptiste Leveque, and family? What about Alexis? And maybe even some of her family members who had not converted yet but had softened somewhat? There’s mention of another daughter-in-law being converted. She had adult grandchildren who surely loved her. Where were they?

And poor confused Marie Josephte. OMG my heart aches for her.

Where were all the people Mary had loved unconditionally for her and their entire lives?

There seems to be an untold story here. More than meets the eye.

Everyone had somehow been alienated by this battle, it appears, except for the Baptist missionaries themselves. Were they sentries instead of guardians? I guess they “won” “their” battle and Mary’s body and funeral procession through the community were their trophy.

Perhaps Mary’s family members were all just disgusted to death with the behavior of all external parties and wanted nothing more to do with any of it. It seems they had been robbed of their mother and grandmother – first by a lifelong battle with Mary’s own grief and agony surrounding religion, then a battle between religions with Mary as the symbolic trophy, and then by death itself. Who wouldn’t be utterly exhausted?

They had also experienced the same grief experiences that Mary had – their siblings died, their grandparents died and their father died just before the missionaries arrived on the scene.

Within various lines of the family, vague references to terrible times remained well into the 1900s.

Mary was my mother’s grandfather’s grandmother. My great-aunt Eloise lived into the 1990s and told about riding in the buggy with her father, Curtis Lore, in the early 1900s when she was a child. Mary was his grandmother, and he never, not once breathed a word about any of this. He assuredly knew.

Curtis never met Mary, of course, as he was born 20 years after her death. Curtis had, however, disassociated himself from strong ties to any religion. That’s not to infer that he was an evil person. His wife was raised Lutheran, then was Presbyterian as an adult, and he perfunctorily attended services with her as required. His daughters attended church and Sunday School regularly. He didn’t interfere, but he certainly wasn’t more than lukewarm towards organized religion. Religious bickerings and outright war within the family had a horrible impact on his grandmother and his father, with aunts and uncles remaining estranged until their deaths.

Estrangement is living grief. Every. Single. Day. Trust me on this one.

Curtis’s father, Anthony Lore, born Antoine in 1805 to Marie/Mary and Honore Lore was in Vermont by about 1830. In 1831, he married outside the Catholic faith, so he was probably already an outcast. Maybe his mother’s obsession with religion was part of why he left, although she had not been “reconverted” yet at that time.

Anthony’s side of the family, meaning his grandchildren, carried mostly vague stories and references about how horrible Catholics were, and how dangerous. “They” were certainly not to be trusted.

I found the word “dangerous” in this context remarkable when I first heard it.

I first encountered those rumblings before I knew who Anthony’s parents were. I discounted them, or figured they were based on some sort of misinformation.  After I discovered that Anthony’s ancestors were Acadians, I found this “Catholics are evil” story rather incredulous, especially given that Acadians fought so hard and so long, undergoing such deprivation to remain Catholic. They literally sacrificed everything. Their religion was extremely important to them, and a Catholic Acadian family would never have these kinds of stories, hinted at or otherwise.

From the Acadian perspective, the English and protestants were very clearly evil for what they had done. There was truly no doubt about that.

Surely, these family stories were confused or came from a different line. Maybe from one of the non-Catholic lines – right???

Nope. As it turns out, they were based on actual facts, even though the specifics had been obscured or forgotten. This situation became even worse after Mary’s death. The Baptist Lore family who lived in Mary’s home was reportedly burned out in 1837, probably during the Rebellion when the French and English were firmly pitted against each other and the area was rocked by revolutionary upheaval.

I wonder if Antoine, then Anthony, saw his mother after she converted and before she died? He’s never mentioned anyplace in these records, but we know he was present in 1834 when Honore’s estate was divided.

These family members remained in touch, somehow, at least during the first generation and before Mary’s conversion, or Anthony would not have known to be present when his father’s estate was divided. We know Anthony was there, because he signed his name.

The situation surrounding Mary’s death and subsequent political/religious terrors endured by the family were treated pretty much as a closely guarded family secret – something that was occasionally whispered about or inferred, but the actual story was never told. There was head-shaking, tongue-clucking and long sad grimacing glances at the floor that clearly conveyed the sentiment, and that there was some horrible secret that could not be discussed – never to be revealed. And yes, people took those secrets to their graves.

I’ve tried to dig them up.

It’s possible that the family, in some way, still feared retaliation, or the division cleaved by the Catholic/Baptist feud over Mary’s body and soul was too deep and painful to navigate.

Estrangement is the willful severance of your relationship with your family. The person on the receiving end couldn’t interpret the intended message more clearly. “You’re dead to me. You don’t exist. I’ve killed you in my heart.” And this was caused by religion.

Where is God’s love in all of this?

If the Baptist letters are to be believed, Mary died in a euphoric state, but I still feel incredibly sorry for what she had to endure, and for the horribly painfully divided family she left behind. Those scars have been passed from generation to generation, while her actual legacy as a wonderful, giving, human being, regardless of her religion, has been entirely erased and forgotten.

Not anymore, Mary.

Not anymore.

I can’t do much, but I can honor Mary’s life with a virtual headstone, even if it is 187 years late, and create a memorial, here.

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[1] http://www.acadian-home.org/acadians-massachusetts.html

[2] http://www.acadian-home.org/acadians-massachusetts-2.html

[3] Jacob’s Well: A Case for Rethinking Family History by Joseph Amato