CHAPTER III

CHAPTER III CHAPTER III
THE ACADIAN FRENCH

Ever since the writing of Longfellow's Evangeline, an atmosphere of peculiar romance has encircled the country about Minas Basin, in Nova Scotia's garden County of King's. Except Scott's Lady of the Lake no modern narrative poem has done so much to excite interest in a special locality as the famous poem which perpetuates the loves and sorrows of the simple French peasant folk who in the 18th century were rudely torn from thrifty homes in a favoured province, and dragged forcibly into suffering exile in other colonies, where as miserable paupers they were hated and shunned. In the very names, Acadia or Acadie, and Grand Pre, a certain compelling poetry for most men resides, and the opening lines of Longfellow's poem:

"In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,

Distant, wluded, still, the little village of Grand Pr6

Lay in the fruitful valley "-

have awakened multitudes to feel the charm that lies in the ancient musical nomenclature of this lovely region. No less have they tended to arouse interest in the real beauty that dwells in the rural landscape about this peaceful inland bay. When one visits the region one will not find very near the Basin the soft shade of Itimurmuring pines and hemlocks", nor will one see waving in the sunlight the Acadians' pleasant fields of flax and corn, but one will find the vast shimmering dyke-lands, the calm Basin's surface of matchless turquoise blue; and from the hills above the spot where the Minas Acadians' chief village stood one will see a panorama of unusually varied beauty unfold.

The first voyager of whom we know anything, who visited

this part of Acadia, was the famous explorer, De Monts. In 1604, from Port Royal, with Champlain and Poutrincourt he sailed up la Baie Francoise, as the party then named the Bay of Fundy, and at Mines, which they probably so named because of specimens of copper they saw at Cape D'Or, and glittering purple amethysts they picked up on the shore below Blomidon, they disembarked. In 1606, Champlain a second time went to Minas, and in his "Voyages" we have the following account: "We went", he says, "as far as the head of this bay, and saw nothing but certain white stones suitable for making lime, yet they are found only in small quantities. We saw also on some islands a great number of sea gulls. We captured as many of them as we wished. We made the tour of the bay, in order to go to Port aux Mines, where I had previously been, and whither I conducted Sieur de Poutrincourt, who collected some little pieces of copper with great difficulty. All this bay has a circuit of perhaps twenty leagues, with a small river at its head, which is very sluggish and contains but little water. There are many other little brooks, and some places where there are good harbours at high tide, which rises here five fathoms. In one of these harbours, three or four leagues north of Cap de Poutrincourt (Cape Split), we found a very old cross, covered with moss and almost rotten, a plain indication that before this there bad been Christians there. All of this country is covered with dense forests, and with some exceptions is not very attractive".

In 1607, Poutrincourt again visited Minas, but Port Royal, which had been founded in 1605, being at the close of this year temporarily abandoned and every European inhabitant removed, we have no further mention of the district until 1612. In the latter part of August, 1607, Monsieur Biencourt, son of Poutrincourt, who bad returned to Acadia two years before, inheriting his father's love of adventure went from Port Royal to "Mines and Chinictou" in a small sballop, so that he might see what the country further up the Bay of Fundy was like. A priest, Father Biard, probably a Capucin, accompanied him, and at "Chinictou" they saw "fine meadows reaching as far as the eye could see".

It is possible that some few settlers may have found their way to Minas before the destruction of the French settlements by Captain Argal in 1613, but of this there is no record, and there was no attempt at resettling Acadia under English auspices until 1621, when James I of England granted Acadia to his favourite, Sir William Alexander, also a Scotsman, whom he afterward created Earl of Stirling. It is in Alexander's grant that the name Nova Scotia first appears. In August, 1622, Alexander sailed for his new dominions, and after this the ownership of Acadia was continually in dispute. From Sir William the province passed to Sir David Kirk, one of the early merchant adventurers of Canada. By the treaty of Saint Germains it was restored to France, and Isaac De Razilly was appointed its lieutenant-goverDor. At De Razilly's death, Monsieur d' Aulnay Charnisay was made governor, and then began the long period of strife between him and Charles de la Tour, in the climax of which figures so proudly the Dame of one of the true heroines of modern history, the brave Madame de la Tour.

After the death of Charnisay, Major Robert Sedgwick, one of Cromwell's officers, the founder of the well-known New England Sedgwick family, was ordered by the Protector, who believed that Acadia belonged to England by right of discovery, to seize the French forts and take possession of the country. The mastery being gained by the English, Sir Thomas Temple was appointed governor, and the country was divided between Sir Charles St. Stephen, Charles de la Tour, Thomas Temple, and William Crowne. In 1667, by the treaty of Breda, Nova Scotia was again ceded to France, but the little progress in colonization made from year to year, is shown by the fact that in 1671 the entire French population of the province did not exceed four hundred, and that in 1686, it was not more than nine hundred and twelve, this number being shortly after reduced to eight hundred and six. Under Sir William Phipps, in 1690, England again achieved the mastery of Acadia, but seven years later, by the Peace of Ryswick, it was once more given to France.

The first permanent settlers in Acadia, says Placide Gaudet,

were the people who have been called de Razilly's " three hundred Kommm d'elite". These came in 1632, and were joined by other immigrants brought by Charnisay between 1639 and 1649. In 1651 more settlers came with Charles de St. Etienne de la Tour, and still later, at various times, a few fresh groups increased the population. These people were chiefly from Rochelle, Saintonge, and Poitou, a district on the west coast of France, now within the modern department of Vendee and Charente Inferieure. Their native country was a country of marshes, from which the sea was kept out by artificial dykes, and in the new province to which they migrated their intimate knowledge of dyke building soon found room for exercise. The rich marshes on the shores of Annapolis Basin and along the Annapolis river attracted them much more than the forest covered uplands, and as early as 1672, Denys says, the Port Royal marshes under their tillage were producing great quantities of wheat. In 1671 a census was taken of the Acadia and Cape Breton French, and the return showed at Port Royal, ninety-eight families, numbering three hundred and sixty-three souls, at Pubnico fourteen persons, at Cape Negro fourteen, at Musquodoboit thirteen; and at St. Peter's, in Cape Breton, seven, and Riviere aux Rochelois three.

The settlement of Minas was begun shortly before 1680. Of its founding we have a detailed account by Rameau de Saint Pere in his Une Colonie Fiodale en Amerique L'Acadie, published in 1889. Towards 1680, Rameau says, two inhabitants of Port Royal, Pierre Me1anson and Pierre Terriau, the former of whom, a tailor as well as farmer, seems also to have borne the name La Verdure, quite independently migrated from Port Royal to the country about Minas Basin. Both men were in comfortable circumstances, and both were sufficiently enterprising to see the opportunities Grand Pre offered for the further improvement of their fortunes. Me1anson was a man of about forty-five and was the father of five young children; Terriau was only twenty-six, but he also had recently been married. Near Me1anson, at Port Royal, lived his brother Charles, one of the most prosperous colonists

there, his wife's brothers, the Messieurs D'Entremont, seigneurs of Pobomcoup, (Pubnico), and his son-in-law, Jacques de la Tour, but none of them seems to have had any idea of accompanying him. Me1anson, though be had all the energy necessary for a successful pioneer, was of a somewhat morose and churlish disposition, and to that fact, Rameau thinks, is due the comparative isolation in which for a good while he remained on his Grand Pre farm.

Unlike Melanson, Terriau was open-hearted, genial, and frank, and about him, on the banks of the Saint Antoine, where he located, a stream which Rameau decribes as one of the loveliest streams flowing into the Basin of Minas, settled also a number of his relatives and friends. Terriau's wife was Ce1ine Landry, of another Port Royal family, and with their sister and her husband also migrated to Minas, Claude and Antoine Landry, and probably Etienne Hebert and Claude Boudrot, all of whom were married and presumably had children. Shortly after the settlement began, Terriau sent to Port Royal for one of his nephews, Jean Terriau, and about the same time Martin Auqoin, Philippe Pinet, and Fran~ois Lapierre, the last two, new comers from France, joined the group.

In 1686, four years from the migration of these men, in M61anson's neighborhood there were still only two or three families, but in Terriau's settlement there were seven families, comprising thirtyfive persons. During the next seven years, from 1686 to 1793, the region attracted settlers in such numbers that the population increased six-fold. Census returns give the population of Minas in 1686 as 11 families, comprising 57 souls; in 1693, as 55 families, comprising 307 souls; in 1701, as 79 families, comprising 498 souls. Following the farmers came a tailor, Franqois Rimbaut, son of an old tailor at Port Royal, a blacksmith, Ce1estin Andre, a man newly arrived from France, a physician, Amand Bugeant, also lately from France, but now the son-in-law of Pierre Me1anson, near whom he established himself; and two or three sailors, who no doubt did their part in establishing the export trade to Louisburg and Port Royal that before long reached such comparative importance.

By the beginning of the 18th century other settlements had been made, at Rivi6re aux Canards, across the Grand Habitant, and at Piziquid, Cobequid, Chipody, and Peticodiac, the last two being in what is now the province of New Brunswick.

It is difficult to define the exact limits either of the district of Minas, or of the special part of that district known as Grand Pre. In general, says J. F. Herbin, Minas may be said to have included all the land bordering on the Gaspereau, Cornwallis (Grand Habitant), Canard, Habitant (Petit Habitant), and Pereau. rivers. This covers the present territory of Avonport, Hortonville, Grand Pre, Gaspereau, Wolfville, Port Williams, New Minas, Starr's Point, Canard, Canning, and Pereau. The French settlement of Piziquid (Fort Edward, now Windsor) was for a time included in Minas, but this before long became a separate district. In the township of Horton, Minas extended as far west as Kentville, the site of which town it included, but it is doubtful if beyond Kentville there were ever any French houses or farms. In Cornwallis it included Church Street, as far west as Robinson's Corner, Upper Dyke Village being perhaps its western limit here. As the settlement on both sides of the Grand Habitant river increased and the hamlets became more numerous, the Horton part of the district was usually exclusively 'known as MiLas, the Cornwallis district being known as Riviere aux Canards.

The special part of Minas in Horton designated Grand Pre, was undoubtedly of much wider extent than the mere village or hamlet of that name. Its limits were possibly nearly coterminous with those of the present Grand Pre, which includes the country between Long Island on the North, Gaspereau. river on the south, Horton Landing on the east, and Wolfville on the west. The village of Grand Pre was evidently very closely settled,-in comparatively recent years, on the farm of the late Robert L. Stewart, along the line of the railway no less than twenty-eight French cellars could be seen, thirteen of these rather close together. At the time of the expulsion, in the district of Grand Pre, 225 houses, 276 barns, 11 mills, and a large number of outhouses or sheds, were burned.

In eighty-four Years from the beginning of the settlement of Minas, the Riviere aux Canards district comprised twenty-one hamlets, with from three to eighty inhabitants each; the Minas district comprised seventeen hamlets, with from three to ninety-four inhabitants each. According to Herbin, the names of the Canard hamlets were: Antoine, Aueoine, Brun, Claude, Claude Landry, Claude Terriau, Comeau, De Landry, Dupuis, Franqois, Granger, Hebert, Jean Terriau, Michel, Navie, Pinous, Poirier, Saulnier, Trahan. The names of the Minas hamlets were: Comeau, De Petit or Gotro, Gaspereau, Grand Le Blanc, Grand Pre, Granger, Hebert, Jean Le Blanc, Jean Terriau, La Coste, Landry, Me1anson, Michel, Pierre LeBlanc, Pinour, Pinue, Richard.

The largest hamlets on the Grand Pre or south side of the Grand Habitant were: De Petit or Gotro (the chief village of this district), Pierre LeBlanc, Michel, Me1anson (the largest settlement of what is now Gaspereau), Grand Le Blanc, Gaspereau, Jean Le Blanc, and Grand Pre. The largest hamlets on the Canard or north side of the Grand Habitant were: Claude, with eighty inhabitants, Aucoine, with seventy-seven, Comeau, Claude Landry, and Hebert, with seventy-four each; Dupuis, Jean Terriau, Brun, Trahan, and Saulnier. The exact location of the largest Canard villages is said to have been at Town Plot, Boudro's Point (Starr's Point, the steep bank at Town Plot being called Boudro's Bank), Blenn's Point, Hamilton's Corner, and the late Mr. William Thomas' farm. There was a settlement about half way between Mr. Andrew McDonald's place, at Upper Dyke Village, and the Gibson Woods road; one which seems to have extended from the Gesner place, or the Beckwith (now Mrs. William Young's) place, to the Isaac Reid place; and one on the George Borden place, where a few years ago French cellars were said still to exist. On Wilson Pierson's farm on Brooklyn or Shadow street, once owned by Mr. John Lyons, was an Acadian hamlet, and on the site of an old French cellar Mr. Lyons built his house. French orchards are remembered as having existed on the Ward Eaton place, the Gesner place, the Beckwith place, and the farm of the late Isaac Reid. In some places the houses

clustered more or less closely, but often, as in the case of the dwellings of the New England settlers who succeeded the French, the houses stood far apart.

The settlement known as "New Minas", between Kentville and Wolfville, must have been a somewhat important hamlet. A letter from Mr. Edward Seaman to the late Dr. Brechin gives traditions concerning this settlement that are probably based on fact, though no historical documents known to the author mention a chapel or a priest at this point. Mr. Seaman says:

"On what was formerly known as the Best Farm, now owned by Amos Griffin, in New Minas, was a French village, where there was a chapel and a resident priest. Most of the cellars have been filled, but the foundations of the chapel, say 28x36 feet, are still partly visible, as are also the supposed site of the priest's house, this house being longer than the average. By the side of the brook, about fifty rods from the chapel, some of the first English settlers found a set of blacksmith's tools buried. They found also, a mile or two south, in the woods, remains of a stone building, which has always been known since as the 'French fort'. Very few traces can now be seen except in rough places, of the old French roads. North of Robert Redden's, across the hollow running east and west, the French road can be traced yet. It can be seen again, crossing the hollow east of Mr. Silas Elderkin's, about forty rods south of the present road. Near the western limit of the Thomas Barss farm, just off the post road, two or three cellars have always been visible. Henry Terry's father built over a French cellar the house where the Hon. Thomas Lewis Dodge long lived. I have heard of a cellar near Herbert Denison's, and that was probably as far west on this side of the river as the Acadians built. About 1827 a Frenchman travelling from French Town (Clare, Digby County) to Cumberland, staid all night at my father's and told the following story: 'Almost at the head of the tide was a French village. It had a chapel and a priest. When the Acadians were summoned by Winslow to Grand Pr6 the people of this village did not go, but taking from their houses what they could, went south into

the woods, about two miles. There for eleven months they lived in buts, building, however, a stone house for the priest. Always hoping the French would recover Acadia, they used often to go along on the hills to the westward, above Greenwich and Wolfville, and look eagerly across the Basin to see whether the French colours were visible there. Finally they became discouraged, and leaving Minas went to the western part of the province'. The man said that his father, who was then about eighty years of age, was one of the children who with their parents underwent this experience, and that he remembered the facts well".

Of the French settlement of New Minas, the late Mr. Edmund J. Cogswell once wrote: "Minas, with its dykes, consisted of the village along the banks of the upland, with the Grand Pre lying in front, and with Long Island and Boot Island bounding it on the north. As new lands for settlement were wanted, some of the inhabitants went up the Cornwallis river and found a place that seemed curiously familiar. There was a piece of marsh somewhat resembling the Grand Pr6, with Oak Island lying outside it. On the edge was a similar chance for settlement to that furnished bythe upland that bordered the Grand Pr6. They, therefore, put in short dykes at each end of Oak Island, reclaimed a considerable piece of marsh, built themselves some houses, and called their settlement 'New Minas'. In later times French cellars have been numeroas here, and we know from the vitrified debris that has been found that at the expulsion the houses above them were burned. The centre of the hamlet was what afterward became known as the Foster farm. The French burying ground is said to have been on a little knoll near the railroad track. To the south and east of the 'Griffin house' a chapel was built, part of the foundations of which can still be seen in the bushes. It would seem as if there was a burying ground here, too, and tradition says that not far off there was a mill. After the removal of the Acadians, the English built their village further south, on the military road, but although they left the old site they retained the name, 'New Minas' ".

When the Acadians were expelled their buildings as a rule, throughout the whole of Minas were burned, but in a few cases, at least, barns were left standing. In testimony of this is a statement once made to the author by the Hon. Samuel Chipman, who died in 1891 at the age of a hundred and one, that he himself reinembered a French barn still standing when he was a boy, on what is now the land of Mr. Ross Chipman. On the Stewart property at Grand Pre, long after the New England settlers came, a French barn still stood, and likewise one on the Albert Harris place in Horton. As a rule, wherever in Horton or Cornwallis willow trees were conspicuously present in the early part of the 19th century, French hamlets had existed, for the willow, imported from France, seems to have been the Acadians' favourite ornamental tree. Within the memory of living men a large number of French cellars have been visible in these two townships and it is probable that even at this late day some few of them remain.

In a comparatively short time after its settlement, the district of Minas became by all means the most prosperous part of the whole Acadian land. The census of 1686 ascribes to it eighty-three acres, probably of upland, under cultivation, and the people's possessions as including ninety horned cattle, twenty-one sheep, and sixtyseven swine. For weapons of defence, it says, they had twenty guns. In 1714 the population numbered 878, and at the time of the expulsion, according to Winslow, 2,743. In Winslow's account it is stated that the people were then possessed of 5,600 sheep, 4,000 hogs, and 500 horses. How soon the Minas French began to build dykes we do not know, but it is estimated that before they were expelled they had dyked, of the Grand Pre marsh some 2,100 acres and along the Canard river no less than 2,000 acres.

In road building also, here as well as at other points in Acadia, the French were far from inactive. In 1720 the Port Royal people, and probably in conjunction with them the people of Alinas, had begun a road, on the basis, no doubt, of old Indian trails, between Port Royal and the Minas settlements, but they were stopped by Governor Phillips, who feared that there was some sinister in-

tention in their work. Nine years later the enterprise, thus arrested, was still in abeyance, but before the expulsion passable roads had been made from Minas, westward to Annapolis Royal, and eastward to Windsor and so to Halifax. On the north side of the Cornwallis river a road was made from Town Plot to Church Street, where the Fox Hill road now runs. The present road from Port Williams to St. John's Church, for a considerable distance from the river at least, was also a French road. Through the "Dry Hollow" a road ran from Cornwallis into Kentville, a little to the west of the present main Cornwallis road. This road probably began at Centreville, near the French hamlet on the "Gibson Woods" road, passed through Steam Mill Village, south-west, by Harris Vaughn's, through the Kentville Trotting Park, near the present Aldershot Camp grounds, and then crossing "Gallows Hill" near the spot where the house of the late Charles Jones long stood, came into Kentville a little above the present Cornwallis bridge.

The following description of the French roads in Cornwallis is taken, except for many necessary changes in expression, from Dr. William Pitt Brechin's manuscript, written about 1890. To people born in the county its details though intricate, for the most part will be perfectly clear. The first roads, says Dr. Brechin, were only paths made through the woods by the Indians, and were zigzag in their course, from one point of high ground to the next. From time to time, as the need of more passable roads became urgent, these paths were improved and widened, until they became fairly good highways. When it was necessary to cross ridges they always crossed, not straight, but diagonally. The main roads of Cornwallis ran parallel with the rivers, in the most natural way, and as close as possible to these streams. Of course, as the various dykes were constructed across the Canard river, the direction of the roads, for obvious reasons, was somewhat changed. The road to the French settlement near Mr. William Thomas', must have been in use prior to the building of the Grand Dyke, for before the Grand and Wellington dykes were constructed all roads must have gone round the head of the tides. After leaving the settlement this road prob-

ably wound round the meadow that makes up on the farm formerly owned by Simpkins Walton, and passing the orchard on what was formerly Mr. Ward Eaton's place, met the present Canard road. Following this road till it came to the top of the hill at the Baptist Church, it descended the hill and passed a spot at the foot, about twenty yards south of an apple tree, near the willow trees on the easterly side of Mr. Perez M. Brechin's farm, where it is said an Acadian blacksmith shop stood. It then led toward the dyke on the easterly side of Mr. Brechin's farm, took in the settlement on the John Harris place, went westward across the brow of the hill on the Brechin place, passed another stray cellar or two in its course, went on till it reached the residence of George C. Pineo, and after the completion of the Middle Dyke, crossed that and met the French road that followed the course of the present Church Street. Then it continued toward Kentville, running back of the Hon. Samuel Chipman's place, at Chipman's Corner. Before the completion of the Middle Dyke this road undoubtedly ran where the road now does that leads from the George Pineo house to Mrs. John T. Newcomb's.

From this point it followed round Sheffield's Brook, which it crossed, met the road that came up the southerly side of the Habitant river, which can be traced from the John Gibson place, went down on the westerly side of Sheffield's Creek, and after passing two French cellars came out on the west side of William Newcomb's house. It then ran along the present Upper Dyke Village road as far as William Newcomb, Sr.'s, from there went south, after the Upper Dyke was constructed crossed that, and finally met the continuation of the Church Street road. Before the Upper Dyke was built it led, by the most accessible route, to Leander Crocker's. then bore across toward Shadow Street, passed the settlement that existed where the John Lyons house stands, and ran towards Kentville, across the "Gallows Hill", and down the Dry Hollow, a little west of the present road. In its course the road ran through Steam Mill Village, south-west of Harris Vaughn's, and crossed the Cornwallis river directly opposite Dry Hollow, which is about fifty rods

above the present bridge, at which Place there is a spot that is easily forded. On the Horton side of the river is a gorge in the bank, and the road came through that, ran round the base of the now removed "Sand Hill", and connected with the road going west beyond Kentville.

A Frenchman starting from the Pereau settlement to make a visit to his friends in Minas, would have gone through Canning, crossed the Habitant, and landed in his skiff at or near the place now called the "Pickets". He would then have taken a southerly course, and coming to the Canard road would have followed that till he reached Hamilton's Corner. If his journey had been made after the completion of the Grand Pr6 Dyke, he would have crossed the Canard river on the cross dyke, which for part of the way followed the present road (though for fully a quarter of the way, particularly after crossing the present bridge, it lies west of this). If his journey had been made before the dyke was built he could have gone over the river in his skiff, or by way of the ford, and then would have passed on, down the road to Town Plot, and have crossed the ferry to Minas. If he had wished to reach a part of Minas further up the river, he would have crossed the ferry or ford at the place now called Port Williams, for tradition states that at both these places ferries or fords had been made.

Concerning the roads on the Horton side of the Grand Habitant, Dr. Brechin has also much of importance to tell us. The chief road of Grand Pre, to the westward, ran through the present village of Grand Pre, north of the main highway, which it joined near Scott's Corner. Thence it led to Johnson's Hollow, just beyond the Horton Academy boarding-bouse, and from that point diverged and ran near the present rail-road to Kentville. There was a road, also, from the village of Grand Pre to the landing place on the Gaspereauriver. What is known as the "Island", where the French well and the willows are, bad a road running through its whole length. From the main village of Grand Pre a road ran south, over the hill, to Wall Brook, and crossing the river at that point by a sunken bridge, which could be used only at low tide, proceeded

36 KING'S COUNTY THE ACADIAN FRENCH 37

to Windsor. From Kentville the main highway to Annapolis Royal ran parallel with the present post road, a little to the north. Passing a French cellar, opposite a French orchard, both of which lasted till recent times, it reached the Col. Moore place, then crossed diagonally the present road to another French cellar, again ran parallel with the post road, on the south, near Robert Harrington's barn; followed beside the post road till it reached the place once owned by William Harrington and afterward by Maurice Barnett, at this

point re-crossed the main road and ran north of it, opposite John Harrington's, and then extended on to the Curry Brook and the Thomas Griffin place. Some claim that it ran from there round the Aylesford Bog, and others that it ran through the Bog, for near the place where the old Aldershot Camp Ground was, there is a turnpike, about fifteen feet high and perhaps twenty feet across the top, with ditches on both sides. It has been stated that the French never made turnpikes, but they must have constructed some,

for between Kentville and the Moore place, and also at the Aylesford Bog, a turnpike, or as some might call it, a breastwork, can plainly be seen. That in the most advanced stage of their industrial development in Nova Scotia the Acadians had turnpikes is further shown by the fact that across the hollow, at the edge of the woods west of the William Harrington place, near the old brick kiln, there are clear traces of a French bridge. Besides the roads we have mentioned, there was also, doubtless, a road running from the

Cornwallis valley over the mountain to the bay shore, probably either to Baxter's or Hall's harbour. All French cellars now found remote from the river banks were clearly on cross roads from one settlement to another.

Ecclesiastically, the large district of Minas was divided into two parishes, St. Joseph at Rivi6re aux Canards, and St. Charles, at Grand Pre, and at each place was a wooden church with a tower and a bell. The church of St. Joseph stood at Chipman's Corner, almost on the site of the old Congregationalist-Presbyterian meeting house, which was built in 1767-8, and taken down in 1874. The ,church of St. Charles stood at Grand Pre on a little strip of land, which at high tide was surrounded by water, where now is a clump

of old willows that every visitor to the "Evangeline Country" is religiously shown; and an ancient well, which is supposed to have been digged in Acadian times. About each church was a buryingground, and near the church of St. Charles was the house of the cure, who was the loved and feared mentor and guide of the Grand Pre people in both their spiritual and their temporal concerns.

Regarding the French priests who ministered in King's County, a few words must be said. The first priest who resided at Grand Pre was Pere Claude Moireau, a Recollect, who made the earliest entry in the parish register, June 25, 1684. From 1694 to at least 1697, M. de St. Cosme was there. In 1698 Bishop Valliers of Quebec visited Minas, but there was no priest there, for it is recorded that finding the people entirely without religious ministration, the Bishop staid with them a day to hear confessions, give them the Holy Communion, and baptize their infant children. They were very anxious for a priest and promised if one were sent them to support him and build a church and a cur6's house. In 1710 a priest was residing at Minas, for Governor Brouillan reports the Minas cure as having a salary of eight hundred livres.

In 1705, no doubt to replace the sacred vessels and ornaments Col. Church and his soldiers the previous year had taken away, Bonaventure, Lieutenant du Roi, presented to the church at Minas as a royal gift, un ostensoir, un calice, un ciboire, et un ornement complet, for the furnishing of the altar and the celebration of the Eucharist. From 1707 to 1710, Bonaventure Masson, a Recollet, was priest at Minas; from 1711 to 1717, Abbe Gaulin was there, after 1717, Fathers Felix Pain and Justinian Durand, perhaps together, held the cure. In 1724 Father Felix Pain and Father Charlemagne of Annapolis Royal were charged with complicity with the Indians, and Father Felix was dismissed from the province. The latter's successor, it is said, was Pere Isadore, but in 1739, and until 1748, Abbe de la Goudalie was the priest. At the time of the expulsion, Abbe Chavreulx was at Grand Pre, and Abbe Le Maire at Riviere aux Canards.

Of the churches at these two places, Abbe Casgrain says: "These temples surmounted by, graceful spires, their wooden interiors

carved with taste, were all in oak, and had cost the people much sacrifice". With more definiteness Lady Weatherbe has, in substance, written: "The church of St. Charles at Grand Pre, so far as we are aware, was constructed of wood, the style of the building being similar to that of the churches in Canada at the time. These were all built on the same plan; the belfry tower, surmounted by its cross was mauresque in style, as is the case now with the old church of St. Anne de Beaupre, near Quebec, though that of the church of St. Charles was somewhat smaller. Twice daily sounded the Angelus, always responded to by the pious inhabitants. The interior also resembled the interiors of the churches of Canada. Usually, the choir had its architectural ornamentation, pillars, either Ionic or Corinthian, supporting the cornice, though sometimes the entablature continued into the nave. The cemetery adjoined the church, and was inclosed by a wooden railing or fence, and near by was the house of the resident cure". When Winslow turned the church at Grand Pre into an arsenal and prison, from the number of men he made it accommodate we see that it must have been large enough to hold five or six hundred worshippers. Before he devoted it to this secular use, to his credit be it said, the Puritan commander ordered the elders of the village to remove the sacred things.

From time to time interesting relies of the Acadians have been unearthed at Grand Pre and elsewhere in the county. Before the French went away, it is said, some of them, perhaps hoping to return, buried in caches, or stoned-up places like wells, their farming and household utensils. Some twenty years ago a cache was discovered on the farm of Mr. John A. Chipman, on Church Street, in which were plow-shares, pitch-forks, and other farming utensils, all of the best iron. At about the same time, or perhaps a few years earlier, some chains and plow-shares were unearthed on Enoch Collins' farm at Port Williams. In 1892 a French Louis D'Or, bearing the effigy of Louis XIV of France and Navarre, was turned up by the hoof of a cow that was being driven to pasture on the farm of a Mr. McGibbon, within the confines of the present Grand Pre.