The previous summer (12th August, 1767) Rev. Thomas Wood officiated at a notable wedding at Halifax the contracting parties being a young Indian captain named Pierre Jacques and Marie Joseph, the oldest daughter of “old King Thoma.” An English baronet, Sir Thos. Rich, and other distinguished guests were present on the occasion. However this Thoma was not our old Maliseet chief, for Mr. Wood observes of him, “Old King Thoma looks upon himself as hereditary king of the Mickmacks.” Moreover the date is too nearly coincident with an interesting event at Aukpaque in which Pierre Thoma was concerned. The event was a christening at the Indian chapel the particulars concerning which we find in the old church register. The Abbe Bailly on two consecutive days baptized thirty-one Indian children, viz., sixteen boys on August 29th and fifteen girls on August 30th. Among the boys we find a son of Ambroise St. Aubin and Anne, his wife, who received the name of Thomas and had as sponsors Pierre Thoma, chief, and his wife Marie Mectilde. The following day the compliment was returned and Ambroise and his wife stood as sponsors at the christening of Marie, the daughter of Pierre Thoma.
The next year (June 5, 1768) there was a double wedding in the family of Governor Thoma at which the Abbe Bailly officiated and which no doubt was the occasion of great festivity at the Indian village. The old chief’s son Pierre Thoma, jr, wedded an Indian maiden named Marie Joseph, and his daughter Marie Belanger married Pierre Kesit. The younger Pierre Thoma was most probably his father’s successor as chief of the Maliseets. At any rate when Frederick Dibblee[112] made a return of the native Indians settled at Meductic in 1788 he includes in his list Governor Thoma, his wife and four children. The Indians were always migratory and two years later we find Governor Thoma living at the mouth of the Becaguimec and tilling his cornfield since become the site of the town of Hartland. This Governor Thoma, may be the same referred to in the following paragraph in the Courier of January 6, 1841:[113]
“Friday last, being New Years day, a large body of the Milicete tribe of Indians including a considerable number of well dressed squaws, headed by their old-old-chief Thoma, appeared at Government House to pay their annual compliments to the representative of their Sovereign, and were received by His Excellency with great kindness. His Excellency availed himself of the occasion publicly to decorate the worthy old chief with a splendid silver medallion suspended by a blue ribbon, exhibiting a beautiful effigy of our gracious sovereign on one side, with the Royal Arms on the reverse.”
Many of the Thoma family were remarkable for their longevity. When the writer of this history was a boy there lived at the Indian village, three miles below the Town of Woodstock, a very intelligent and industrious Indian, whose bent, spare figure was a familiar object to travellers along the country roads. It would be hard to count the number of baskets and moccasins the old man carried on his back to town for sale. He was born at Medoctec in 1789 and died at Woodstock not long ago at the age of nearly one hundred years. The old fellow was famous for his knowledge of herbs, which he was wont to administer to the Indians in case of sickness; indeed it was not an uncommon thing for the white people to consult “Doctor Tomer” as to their ailments. In the year 1877 “Tomer” came to pay a friendly visit to Charles Raymond, the author’s grandfather, who was then in his 90th year and confined to his room with what proved to be his first and last illness. The pleasure of meeting seemed to be mutual. The two had known one another for many years and were accustomed from time to time to compare ages. “Tomer” was always one year younger, showing that the old Indian kept his notch-stick well. He is believed to have been the last surviving grandson of the old chieftain, Pierre Thoma.
While speaking of the Maliseets and their chiefs, mention may be made of the fact that the Indians, as a mark of especial confidence and favor, occasionally admitted one of the whites to the order of chieftainship. This compliment the Maliseets paid to the French Governor Villebon, when he commanded at Fort Nachouac, and a like compliment was paid some sixty-five years ago to the late Moses H. Perley. In early life Mr. Perley was very fond of the woods and frequently visited the Indian villages on the upper St. John to buy furs, which he paid for in silver dollars. So great was the confidence reposed in him by the Indians that he became their agent with the provincial government, and was in the end adopted as their chief. In 1840 he visited England and was presented to Queen Victoria in the character of an Indian chief, wearing on the occasion a very magnificent costume of ornamental bead-work, plumes, and so forth. He received at the Queen’s hands a silver medal three inches in diameter, on the edge of which was engraved, “From Her Most Gracious Majesty to M. H. Perley, Chief Sachem of the Milicetes and Wungeet Sagamore of the Micmac nation. A. D., 1840.” This medal is still in the possession of Mr. Perley’s descendants.
It will be noticed that the St. John river Indians are termed “Milicetes” in the above description. The form Milicete, or Melicete, used by Dr. Gesner and Moses H. Perley, has been followed by the majority of our provincial writers. Dr. Hannay, however, in his history of Acadia, retains the spelling of Villebon and the early French writers, Malicite, which is almost identical with the Latin form, Malecitae, on the stone tablet of the chapel built by the missionary Jean Loyard at Medoctec in 1717. Either of these pronounced in French fashion is practically identical with Maliseet, the form adopted by modern students of Indian lore, and which the writer has followed in this history.