Glimpses of the Past: History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784

by W. O. Raymond

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 circumstance 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.

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.

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. 248 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 shore 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 quantity of land under cultivation, but few, if any, of them had any title 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 249 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 constituted 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 assembled 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.

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 Godin, 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 Beaubassin 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 250 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.