The Seigneury of Chipody. A Chapter in the History of Albert County.

Newspaper
Year
1886
Month
7
Day
8
Article Title
The Seigneury of Chipody. A Chapter in the History of Albert County.
Author
----
Page Number
2
Article Type
Language
Article Contents
The Seigneury of Chipody, A Chapter in the History of Albert County. 1698.—Religious Habits and Education of French Canadians. - Progress of Settlement of Chipody. - The Seigneur of Beaubassin claims this Domain. (Continued.) Every week they celebrated mass. It was a usage consecrated in all new settlements and continues till to-day, when missionaries can only visit them at distant intervals. Every one assembles in the place consecrated to the offices, and the senior of the pioneers, taking precedence in the assembly, recites the prayers intermingled with liturgical chants, which are sustained in chorus by the others present. One finds amongst the poor colonists, more often than one would imagine, persons knowing how to read and write; one is struck in reading the ancient acts and registers of those countries to find so many signatures of which many were correctly written, and it maybe asserted that the proportion of illiterate people was at least less than in the centre of the rural French Canadian communities thirty years ago. The relative dissemination of primary instruction is surprising in a country devoid of schools. After the destruction of the Recollets, the first school was regularly established in Acadia by Sister Chausson, in 1702. But that is explained by the religious habits of the people: as with Protestant communities the continuous reading of the Bible contributes to instruction, it was the same amongst the French settlers, when religious rites were more frequently and strictly observed. It was rare that the priests did not attach to themselves yearly children better dowered than the rest, to whom they imparted the usual elements of instruction, and during the long winter evenings the parents perpetuated often amongst their children a little of the knowledge they possessed, and taking care that the reading of books of piety was kept up in the family and at public reunions. Dominical assemblies, at which the neighboring Indians assisted, were often followed in the evening by boisterous games and a grand feast, which cemented the friendship of the two races. Sometimes a missionary arrived at the camp of the Pioneers in the course of his long and laborious pilgrimages. It was then a day of great rejoicing with the celebration of morning and evening offices. There was then at Beaubassin a resident priest, M. Trouve, of foreign missions, and a Franciscan friar, M. De Noinville, evangelizing the tribes at the side west of the Bay of Fundy. Later, where there were families and children, the missionary stopped several days confessing some, catechising others, marrying young couples, turning the community into a sort of spiritual retreat, whore they gathered in an improvised camp about their apostolic teachers. However, winter approached and it was useless to pass that rough season at Chipody, when the buildings were not in a more forward condition. They built a shed in which they placed their heavy tools, and placed it in charge of friendly Indians. This had been done a generation before by Lescarbot and Poutrincourt. They embarked the cattle, household goods and themselves, full of joy and hope, set sail for Fort Royal at the close of the year 1698. That winter was employed in completing preparations to carry on their great enterprise, and in the spring of 1699 they sailed with new supplies, including four head of cattle. They found everything in good order, under the care of the Malechites, and commenced promptly their spring's work. The sup-ply of hay was sufficient to keep the cattle. Ploughing and sowing were executed in order; then the work of clearing land was recommenced, and of making ditches and abiteaux. The Indians carried them their winter furs, and in autumn, when the chief of the family returned to Port Royal, he left upon the place his three sons—Pierre, Antoine and Michel — to take care of the property, and they were also to continue the traffic in furs, more profitable in winter than any other season. He arrived then in Port Royal cheerful and hopeful, when he was disturbed by a storm, of which he had no suspicion. The Blanchards, who had accompanied him in 1698, had explored in that same year the locations at the head of the bay, where they wished to settle themselves, but they returned to Port Royal a little before Thibedeau, and had told with great amplitude their expeditions and their labours, the advantages that he possessed, and the great profits he realized on the furs. As these stories were carried throughout the Seigneury and made a great noise, it happened that one of the officers of the little garrison, M. De Villieau, son-in-law of M. De LaValliere, * the Seigneur de Beaubassin, heard of these rumours of these transactions near Beaubassin, and he naively imagining that the latter being Seigneur of Beaubassin, everything that touched that bay belonged to him. De Villieau started an agitation against what he called the usurpations and depredations of Thibedau and other people of Port Royal; he launched forth threats against them, declaring himself satisfied with nothing less than destruction to all their designs. In the midst of this Thibedeau landed in Port Royal. *Michel le Neuf, sieur de la Valliere de Beaubassin, as he is styled by Frontenac, received a grant from the latter of the territory of Chignecto on 24th Oct, 1676, and he settled with a large number of retainers and dependents at Tonge’s Island and Fort Lawrence, where he carried on trade with Massachusetts, and a desultory warfare against isolated fur trading or fishing posts in Acadia, confiscating to his own use anything of value. At one time he held the position of Governor of Acadia but developing into a sort of free-booter, complaints became so urgent he was superceded, but as the French Government had a suspicion from the aggressive and arbitrary character of the man that he might still continue to exercise the prerogatives of Governor, threatened him, in such case, with a fine of 1000 livres. (To be Continued.)