Glimpses of the Past Part 32

Name of Master or Mistress of the Family. Men. Women. Boys. Girls. Total.

Hugh Quinton 2 2 2 4 10 Jonathan Leavitt 1 1 1 .. 3 Daniel Leavitt 1 .. .. .. 1 Samuel Peabody 1 1 1 2 5 William McKeen 2 1 5 1 9 Thomas Jenkins 1 1 3 .. 5 Moses Kimball 1 1 .. .. 2 Elijah Estabrooks 1 1 3 3 8 John Bradley 1 1 2 4 8 James Woodman 2 .. .. .. 2 Zebedee Ring 2 1 2 1 6 Gervas Say 1 1 .. .. 2 Samuel Abbott 1 .. .. .. 1 Christopher Cross 1 1 .. .. 2 John Knap 1 .. .. .. 1 Eliakim Ayer 1 .. .. 1 2 Joseph Rowe 1 1 1 2 5 -- -- -- -- -- 21 13 20 18 72

Both of these little communities were of purely New England origin for it appears from Mr. Simonds' return that every individual at Portland Point, with the solitary exception of an Irishman, was a native of America, and at Conway all the inhabitants, save two of English nationality, were born in America. The Conway people, it will hardly be necessary to remind the reader, lived in the district now occupied by Carleton, Fairville and adjacent parts of the parish of Lancaster.

At the time of the census they had 2 horses--both owned by Hugh Quinton, 13 oxen and bulls, 32 cows, 44 young cattle, 40 sheep and 17 swine; total number of domestic animals, 148. On the other side of the harbor Hazen, Simonds and White were the owners of 57 horses and mules, 18 oxen and bulls, 30 cows, 35 young cattle, 40 sheep and 6 swine; the other settlers owned 8 cows, 4 young cattle, 4 sheep and 6 swine; total number of domestic animals on the east side, 208.

It will be noticed that the names of all the adult male inhabitants do not appear in the census lists of 1775; in the case of the households of Messrs. Simonds, White and Hazen, for example, twelve males are returned. These included either relatives such as John Hazen and Stephen Peabody, who are known to have been then living at St. John, or employes and servants who lived with their masters--among the latter were probably Samuel Beverley, Levi Ring, Jonathan Clough, Jacob Johnson, Edmund Black, Reuben Harbut and Michael Kelly.

Quite a number of the settlers in Conway were employed by the company in various capacities, and as they were nearly all tenants of Hazen, Simonds and White they generally traded at the Portland Point store.

These people suffered severely at the hands of American privateersmen as the war progressed, and most of them were forced to abandon their homes and move up the river for greater security.

In the years 1776 and 1777, business being nearly at a stand in consequence of the war and the stock of goods at Portland Point much diminished, it was agreed that James White should take charge of the store and keep the books at a commission of five per cent. His sales during the two years amounted to 3,150.

The war of the American Revolution was at the outset a source of intense disappointment to Hazen, Simonds and White, although in the end it was destined to prove the making of their fortunes by sending the exiled Loyalists in thousands to the River St. John and thereby rendering the lands they owned much more valuable. The war, however, completely overturned the plans the company had in view. Our old pioneers had learned by their experience of a dozen years to conduct their business to the best advantage, and they now had everything in train for a promising trade with St. Croix in the West Indies. The hardships incident to the establishment of new settlements were over, and the partners were now settled in comfortable homes with their wives and children.

It may be noted in pa.s.sing that early marriages were much in vogue in those days, particularly with the ladies. Sarah Le Baron was not sixteen years of age when she married William Hazen. Hannah Peabody had not pa.s.sed her seventeenth birthday when she married James Simonds. Elizabeth Peabody was about seventeen when she married James White and her sister Hephzibeth somewhat younger when she married Jonathan Leavitt. In most cases the families were large and the "olive branches" doubtless furnished sufficient occupation for the mothers to keep them from feeling the loneliness of their situation. James Simonds had fourteen children. James White and Jonathan Leavitt had good sized families, but the Hazens undeniably carried off the palm. Dr. Slafter in his genealogy of the Hazen family says that William Hazen had sixteen children; possibly he may have omitted some who died in infancy for Judge Edward Winslow writes on Jan'y 17th, 1793, to a friend at Halifax, "My two annual comforts, a child and a fit of the gout, return invariably. They came together this heat and, as Forrest used to say, made me as happy as if the Devil had me. The boy is a fine fellow--of course--and makes up the number nine now living. My old friend Mrs. Hazen about the same time produced her nineteenth!"[89]

[89] The following inscription on the monument of Mrs. Sarah Hazen was written by her grandson, the late Chief Justice Chipman:

Sacred to the Memory of MRS. SARAH HAZEN,

Widow of the Honorable William Hazen, Esquire; who was born in the Province of Ma.s.sachusetts-Bay on the 22d February, 1749; and died in the City of St. John on the 3rd April, 1823.

Exemplary for Christian piety and benevolence and the exercise of every female virtue. She bears to her Grave the fond recollections of a numerous host of Descendants and the esteem and respect of the community.

While the presence of young children in their homes may have served to enliven the situation of Saint John's pioneer settlers it added greatly to their anxiety and distress in the ensuing war period. More than this the absence of church and school privileges was becoming a matter of serious consequence to the little community at Portland Point and their friends across the harbor. We shall in the next chapter say something of the religious teachers who endeavored to promote the spiritual welfare of the inhabitants upon the St. John river at this period.

CHAPTER XXII.

SOME EARLY RELIGIOUS TEACHERS ON THE RIVER ST. JOHN.

Our knowledge of affairs on the River Saint John down to the period of English occupation is largely derived from the correspondence of the Jesuit missionaries, the last of whom was Charles Germain. After his retirement the Acadians and Indians remained for several years without any spiritual guide, a circ.u.mstance that did not please them and was also a matter of concern to the Governor of Nova Scotia, who in December, 1764, informed the Secretary of State that a promise had been made the Indians of the River St. John to send them a priest, which the Lords of Trade had now forbidden. The governor regrets this as likely to confirm the Indians in their notion that the English "are a people of dissimulation and artifice, who will deceive them and deprive them of their salvation." He thinks it best to use gentle treatment in dealing with the Indians, and mentions the fact of their having lately burned their church[90] by command of their priest detained at Quebec, as a proof of their zealous devotion to their missionaries.

[90] This statement is corroborated by Charles Morris, who writes in 1765, "Aughpack is about seven miles above St. Anns, and at this place was the Indian church and the Residence of the French missionary; the church and other buildings about it are all demolished by the Indians themselves."

In the summer of 1767, Father Charles Francois Bailly came to the River St. John and established himself at Aukpaque, or, as he calls it, "la mission d'Ekouipahag en la Riviere St. Jean." The register of baptisms, marriages and burials at which he officiated during his year's residence at Aukpaque is still to be seen at French Village in the Parish of Kingsclear, York county. The records of his predecessor, Germain, however, were lost during the war period or while the mission was vacant. That there was a field for the missionary's labor is shewn by the fact that in the course of his year's residence on the River St. John he officiated at 29 marriages, 79 baptisms and 14 burials.

His presence served to draw the Indians to Aukpaque, where there were also some Acadian families who seem to have been refugees of the expulsion of 1755. The older Indian village of Medoctec was now deserted and the missionary ordered the chapel there to be destroyed, seeing that it served merely as a shelter for travellers and "was put to the most profane uses." The building had been standing for fifty years and was much out of repair. The ornaments and furnishings, together with the chapel bell,[91] were brought to Aukpaque.

[91] This chapel bell was most unfortunately destroyed by fire when the chapel at French Village was burned early in March, 1904.

An ill.u.s.tration and some account of the bell will be found in a previous chapters. See pages 75, 76 ante.

For some reason the presence of the Acadians at Aukpaque and its vicinity was not acceptable to the authorities of Nova Scotia, and Richard Bulkeley the provincial secretary, wrote to John Anderson and Francis Peabody, Esqrs., justices of the peace for the county of Sunbury, under date 20th August, 1768: "The Lieut. Governor desires that you will give notice to all the Accadians, except about six Families whom Mr. Bailly shall name, to remove themselves from Saint John's River, it not being the intention of the Govern-ment that they should settle there, but to acquaint them that on their application they shall have lands in other parts of the Province."

It is remarkable with what persistence the French clung to the locality of Aukpaque in spite of repeated attempts to dispossess them.

The New Englanders under Hawthorn and Church tried to expel them as long ago as 1696, but Villebon repulsed the attack on Fort Nachouac and compelled them to retire. Monckton in 1759 drove the Acadians from the lower St. John and destroyed their settlements, but the lowness of the water prevented his ascending the river farther than Grimross Island, a little above Gagetown. A little later Moses Hazen and his rangers destroyed the village at St. Ann's and scattered the Acadians, but some of them returned and re-established themselves near the Indian village at Aukpaque. The governor of Nova Scotia apparently was not willing they should remain, hence his orders to Anderson and Peabody in 1768.

What these magistrates did, or attempted to do is not recorded, at any rate they did not succeed in effecting the removal of the Acadians for we find that the little colony continued to increase. The missionary Bailly wrote from Aukpaque, June 20, 1768, to Bishop Briand, "There are eleven Acadian families living in the vicinity of the village, the same ones whom your Lordship had the goodness to confirm at St. Anne.

* * It is a difficult matter to attend to them for they live apart from one another during the summer on the sea sh.o.r.e fishing and in the winter in the woods hunting." It appears that these poor people were reduced to the necessity of leading almost an aboriginal life to save themselves from starvation, yet they clung to the locality.

Major Studholme sent a committee of four persons to explore the River St. John in July, 1783.[92] The committee reported sixty-one families of Acadians settled in the vicinity of Aukpaque. There were in these families 61 men, 57 women and 236 children. About twenty-five families lived on the east side of the river, most of them near the mouth of the Keswick; the others lived not far from the Indian village on the west side of the river, and there were in addition two or three families at St. Anne's Point. In their report to Major Studholme the committee describe the Acadians as "an inoffensive people." They had a considerable quant.i.ty of land under cultivation, but few, if any, of them had any t.i.tle to their lands save that of simple possession.

Those who claimed longest residence were Joseph Martin who came in 1758 and Joseph Doucet who came in 1763. The settlement began to grow more rapidly after the arrival of the missionary Bailly, for out of the sixty-one heads of families included in the Committees report to Studholme nine came in 1767, thirteen in 1768, ten in 1769 and four in 1770. All of these enjoyed the ministrations of l'Abbe Bailly. The missionary seems to have remained a year in residence and then at the instance of the Governor of Nova Scotia was sent to the Indians and Acadians of the peninsula to the eastward of Halifax. He, however, paid occasional visits to the River St. John as is shown by the records of the baptisms, marriages and burials at which he officiated when there.[93] He is heartily commended by Lord William Campbell, the governor of Nova Scotia, for his tact in dealing with the Indians and his loyalty to the const.i.tuted authorities of the province. It is not probable that there was very much ground for the complaint of Simonds & White in their letter of June 22, 1768, in which they say, "We have made a smaller collection of Furrs this year than last, occasioned by the large demands of the Priest for his services, and his ordering the Indians to leave their hunting a month sooner than usual to keep certain festivals, and by our being late in getting to their village, the reason of which we informed you in our last. * * It's expected that there will be a greater number of Indians a.s.sembled at Aughpaugh next fall than for several years past." The extract quoted serves to show that the Abbe Bailly's influence was felt while he lived on the St. John river. He returned to Canada in May, 1772, and was afterwards consecrated Bishop Co-adjutor of Quebec.

[92] The members of the committee were Ebenezer Foster, Fyler Dibblee, James White and Gervas Say. The first two were Loyalists,the others old English settlers. Ebenezer Foster was one of the first members for Kings county in the House of a.s.sembly. Fyler Dibblee was an attorney-at-law and agent for settlement of the Loyalists. James White and Gervas Say were justices of the peace in the old county of Sunbury and have already been frequently mentioned.

[93] One of the Abbe Bailly's registers is preserved at French Village in York county and another, which seems a continuation of the first, is at Caraquet, Gloucester county.

During the year of his sojourn on the River St. John and in his subsequent visits the Abbe Bailly baptized, married and buried many of the Acadians as well as Indians. The names of a good many individuals occur in his register whose descendants are numerous in Madawaska, Bathurst, Caraquet, Memramcook and other places in the province. Among them may be mentioned Joseph Martin, Jean Baptiste Martin, Louis Mercure, Michel Mercure, Jean Baptiste Daigle, Olivier Thibodeau, Jean Thibodeau, Joseph Terriot, Ignace Caron, Joseph Cyr, Pierre Cyr, Jean Baptiste Cyr, Paul Cyr, Francois Cyr, Pierre Pinette, Francois Violette, Joseph Roy, Daniel G.o.din, Paul Potier, Francois Cormier, Jacques Cormier, Jean Baptiste Cormier, Pierre Hebert, Joseph Hebert, Francois Hebert, Louis Le Jeune, Joseph Mazerolle, and Jean Baptiste Vienneau.

Of these families the Cormiers, Cyrs, Daigles and Heberts came from Beauba.s.sin at the head of the Bay of Fundy; the Martins from Port Royal (or Annapolis), the Mercures and Terriots from l'Isle St. Jean (or Prince Edward Island); the Violettes from Louisbourg, and the Mazerolles from Riviere Charlesbourg.

It is worthy of note that despite the hardships and misfortunes endured there are instances of marvellous longevity among the old French settlers. Placide P. Gaudet, who is by all odds the best authority on this head and whose wonderful knowledge of Acadian genealogy has been attained by years of hard study and patient research, gives a striking instance of this fact amongst his relatives of the Vienneau family. The ancestor of this family was one Michael Vienneau, who with his wife Therese Baude were living at Maugerville in 1770: both were natives of France. The husband died at Memramcook in September, 1802, at the age of 100 years and 3 months; his widow in March, 1804, at the age of 96 years. Their son Jean died at Pokemouche in August, 1852, at the extraordinary age of 112 years, leaving a son Moise who died at Rogersville in March, 1893, aged over 96 yeas. The united age of these four individuals--father, mother, son and grandson--are equivalent to the extraordinary sum total of 404 years.

In the course of a year or two after the arrival of the Loyalists the greater portion of the Acadians living on the St. John river above Fredericton removed--either from choice or at the instigation of government--to Madawaska, Caraquet and Memramcook. A few, however, remained, and there are today at French Village, in York county, about 31 families of Acadian origin numbering 149 souls, and 17 families in addition reside at the Mazerolle settlement not far away. The most common family name amongst these people is G.o.din; the rest of the names are Mazerolle, Roy, Bourgoin, Martin and Cyr. The influences of their environment can hardly be said to have had a beneficial effect upon these people, few of whom now use the French language. And yet the fact remains that from the time the valley of the River St. John was first parcelled out into seigniories, in the year 1684, down to the present day--a period of 220 years--the continuity of occupation of some portion of the soil in the vicinity of St. Ann's has scarcely been interrupted, and the records of the mission on the River St. John may be said to have been continuous for about the same time. The missionaries as a rule spoke well of the people of their charge.

Danielou said that there were 116 Acadian inhabitants in 1739 and that Monsieur Cavagnal de Vaudreuil, governor of Trois Rivieres, was "Seigneur de la paroisse d'Ekoupag." He claims as a special mark of divine favor that in the little colony there was "neither barren woman nor child deformed in body or weak in intellect; neither swearer nor drunkard; neither debauchee nor libertine, neither blind, nor lazy, nor beggar, nor sickly, nor robber of his neighbor's goods." One would almost imagine that Acadia was Arcadia in the days of Danielou.

It may be well, whilst speaking of the remarkable continuity of the French occupation of the country in the vicinity of St. Anns, to state that after Chapter VII. of this history had been printed the author chanced to obtain, through the kindness of Placide P. Gaudet, some further information relating to the brothers d'Amours, the pioneer settlers of this region.

The brothers d'Amours, Louis, Mathieu and Rene, were residents on the St. John as early at least as the year 1686, when we find their names in the census of M. de Meulles. A doc.u.ment of the year 1695[94] shows that their claims to land on the St. John river were rather extravagant and hardly in accord with the terms of their concessions.

Louis d'Amours, sieur de Chauffours, claimed as his seigniory at Jemseg a tract of land extending two leagues along the St. John, including both sides of the river two leagues in depth. He also claimed another and larger seigniory, extending from a point one league below Villebon's fort at the Nashwaak four leagues up the river with a depth of three leagues on each side. His brother Rene d'Amours, sieur de Chignancourt, lived on this seigniory a league or so above the fort.

[94] This doc.u.ment is ent.i.tled "Memoire sur les concessions que les sieurs d'Amours freres pretendent dans la Riviere St. Jean et Richibouctou." A copy is in the Legislative Library at Fredericton.

The statement made in a previous chapter that Rene d'Amours was unmarried and lived the life of a typical "coureur de bois" is incorrect. The census of 1698 shows that he had a wife and four children. His wife was Charlotte Le Gardeur of Quebec. The names of the children, as they appear in the census, are Rene aged 7, Joseph 5, Marie Judith 2, and Marie Angelique 1. While fixing his residence in the vicinity of Fort Nashwaak, Rene d'Amours was the seignior of a large tract of land on the upper St. John extending "from the Falls of Medoctek to the Grand Falls," a distance of more than ninety miles.

After the expiration of eleven years from the date of his grant, Rene d'Amours seems to have done nothing more towards its improvement than building a house upon it and clearing 15 acres of land. Even in the indulgent eyes of the Council at Quebec, of which his father was a member, this must have appeared insufficient to warrant possession by one man of a million acres of the choicest lands on the St. John river. He made rather a better attempt at cultivating the land near his residence upon his brother's seigniory, for the census of 1695 shows that he had raised there 80 minots [bushels] of corn, 16 minots of peas, 3 minots of beans. He had 3 horned cattle, 12 hogs and 60 fowls; two men servants and one female servant; three guns and a sword.

The seigniory of Mathieu d'Amours, sieur de Freneuse, lay between the two seigniories of his brother Louis at Jemseg and Nashwaak, extending a distance of seven leagues and including both sides of the river.

Both Louis and Mathieu made far greater improvements than Rene, having a large number of acres cleared and under cultivation, together with cattle and other domestic animals. They had a number of tenants and eight or ten servants.

The census of 1695 contains the following interesting bit of information: "Naxouat, of which the Sr. Dechofour is seignior, is where the fort commanded by M. de Villebon is established. The Sr.

Dechofour has there a house, 30 arpents [acres] of land under cultivation and a Mill, begun by the Sr. Dechofour and the Sr. de Freneuse."

The reference to a mill, built by the brothers Louis and Mathieu d'Amours in the neighborhood of Fort Nashwaak, may serve to explain the statement of Villebon in 1696, that he had caused planks for madriers, or gun platforms, to be made near the fort.[95] This mill at any rate ante-dates by the best part of a century the mill built by Simonds & White at St. John in 1767 and that built by Colonel Beamsley Glacier's mill wrights at the Nashwaak in 1768. Doubtless it was a very primitive affair, but it sawed lumber, and was in its modest way the pioneer of the greatest manufacturing industry of New Brunswick at the present day.

[95] See Murdoch's Hist. of Nova Scotia, Vol. I., p. 223.

Among the contemporaries of the brothers d'Amours on the River St.

John were Gabriel Bellefontaine, Jean Martel,[96] Pierre G.o.din, Charles Charet, Antoine Du Vigneaux, and Francois Moyse. The author is indebted to Placide P. Gaudet for some interesting notes regarding the family of Gabriel Bellefontaine. Mr. Gaudet has satisfied himself in the course of years of genealogical research, that the G.o.dins now living on the River St. John and in the county of Gloucester, the Bellefontaines of the county of Kent, and the Bellefontaines and Beausejours of Anichat and other parts of Nova Scotia all have a common origin, and that in each case the real family name is Gaudin, or G.o.din. To any one conversant with the practice of the old French families of making frequent changes in their patryonymics this will not appear surprising. The common ancestor of the Gaudin, Bellefontaine, Beausejour and Bois-Joly families in the maritime provinces was one Pierre Gaudin, who married Jeanne Roussiliere of Montreal, Oct. 13, 1654, and subsequently came to Port Royal with his wife and children. Their fourth child, Gabriel Gaudin (or Bellefontaine) born in 1661, settled on the St. John river in the vicinity of Fort Nashwaak. He married at Quebec in 1690, Angelique Robert Jeanne, a girl of sixteen, and in the census of 1698 the names of four children appear, viz., Louise aged 7, Louis 5, Joseph 3, Jacques Phillipe 7 months. Of these children the third, Joseph Bellefontaine, spent the best years of his life upon the St.

John river and his tribulations there have been already noticed[97]

in these pages. He was living at Cherbourg in 1767 at the age of 71 years, and was granted a pension of 300 livres (equivalent to rather more than $60.00 per annum) in recognition of his losses and services which are thus summarised:

[96] Martel and Bellefontaine have been mentioned already. See page 57 ante.

[97] See Chapter xiii., p. 135

"The Sieur Joseph Bellefontaine or Beausejour of the River St. John, son of Gabriel (an officer of one of the King's ships in Acadia) and of Angelique Roberte Jeanne, was commissioned Major of the militia of the St. John river by order of M. de la Galissonniere of 10th April, 1749, and has always done his duty during the war until he was made prisoner by the enemy. He owned several leagues of land there and had the sad misfortune of seeing one of his daughters and three of her children ma.s.sacred before his eyes by the English, who wished by such cruelty and fear of similar treatment to induce him to take their part, a fate that he only escaped by fleeing to the woods, bearing with him two other children of the same daughter."