Connecting the Callahans of Concord

One of the brick walls in my Irish family history on my mother's side is the connection of her great grandmother Abbie Callahan Leary to the other Callahan's living in the town of Concord NH where they settled in the 1850's. Abbie died in 1875 and when her death was registered her husband John Leary did not give her parents' names even though he must have known them. Since they followed the traditional Irish naming pattern I suspect that her father was Daniel (from her second son Daniel who died in Ireland) and her mother was Mary (from her second oldest daughter). John's parents' names James and Hannah were given to the first son and the oldest daughter. (note - other areas of Ireland have a slightly different pattern with eldest son named for paternal grandfather and the eldest daughter for maternal grandmother)

So I began collecting Callahans in Concord - hoping that somehow I could make the connection. After exhausting all the vital records available I checked out the parish registers in Concord and Manchester where some family weddings were recorded for Learys and Callahans. Baptisms and weddings required two witnesses for each. The Irish custom was to ask family members when possible,  to serve as sponsors for these events. I came across two possible links - At the wedding of Abbie's daughter Mary to Andrew Bresnahan in 1854 at St. Ann's in Manchester one of the witnesses was a John Callahan. In 1859 Margaret Callahan daughter of John and Mary Walsh had Catherine Leary (daughter of John and Abbie) as her godmother. Joseph Patrick Leary baptized 1879 had an Eugene and Margaret Callahan as his godparents. A John Callahan served as pall bearer for John Leary Sr. at his funeral in 1881.

The next task was to figure out which "John", "Margaret" or "Eugene" was the person mentioned in the record since the Irish are often repeat similar names in each generation. I was able to eliminate some who were deceased before the event took place, too young to serve as a godparent or living in another state.

The most likely of the Callahans in town (although other Callahans may also be related) are two brothers Michael and John P. Callahan who were born in Ireland and arrived in Concord in around 1849-54. Their parents are Eugene (Owen) Callahan born 1799 in Ireland and Margaret O'Connell  from the brothers' death records. There is no indication that their parents immigrated. 

In Irish records I have found a Eugene Callahan and a Margaret O'Connell living in Glen Flesk Kerry who baptized three children - a son Eugene born 20 June 1837, a daughter Johannah born in 1839 and a son Jeremiah born in 1844. Since the father's name was usually given to the third born son according to the Irish tradition,  they could be the parents of Michael (who could have been born as early as 1825) and John born about 1833. Records from earlier times are sometimes not extant. There are no earlier entries for this family so if  this is the family  of Michael and John Callahan who settled in Concord they might have been the only ones who immigrated to America.

I strongly believe that Eugene is related to Abbie Callahan Leary based on the involvement of this family in events in the Leary family and viceversa. Based on his age he could be her elder brother. It also might explain why the Leary family immigrated to Concord NH (John possibly first with his two eldest daughters Mary and Hannah landing in Boston and then John going back to bring the rest with him) In 1853 when John and wife Abbie Callahan landed in NYC with James, Catherine and John they went directly to Concord NH. The families lived close to one another in Concord and members of each worked for the railroad.

Michael born in 1825-1830 in Ireland was married in 1854 to Hannah Prendeville. He and Hannah had three children between 1857 and 1860. Michael served in the Civil War and served in Company E of the New Hampshire 18th Infantry Regiment 24 Sept 1864 to 10 June 1865.  He, with wife and  his sons Eugene and John  appear in the 1870 census in Concord, His daughter Margaret b. 1860 can't be found in the 1870 census so she may have  died. All three Michael, Eugene and John die in 1871 - perhaps from some illness.

John P. born in 1833 in Ireland married two years later to Mary Walsh. If his is the immigration record from 1855 for a John Callahan from Concord, NH,  he arrived in 1849. John and Mary had 10 children and they alone are the progenitors of most of the Callahan's who live in Concord. (I have found several other families Barney F.and wife Ellen Kelliher, another John and wife Bridget Fitzgerald and some other stray Callahans but I cannot connect them with each other or with this Callahan line.)

I suspect that John P. Callahan was the man who witnessed the marriage of Mary Leary, daughter of John and Abbie, in 1854 to Andrew Bresnahan. Catherine Leary, daughter of Abbie Callahan Leary was godmother for John and Mary Walsh's daughter Margaret born in 1859. Their first born son Eugene (named for his grandfather) with his sister Margaret were godparents to Abbie's grandson Joseph Patrick in 1879. Michael and Hannah Prendeville also had a daughter Margaret about the same age as her cousin so she also could be the godmother. John P. was living near the Leary family when John Leary Sr. died and is probably the John Callahan who was a pall bearer for his funeral in 1881. There are other John Callahans in town at that time but they seem less likely because there is no other connection with the Leary clan.

St. John the Evangelist Church Concord

Msgr. Eugene O'Callaghan

Even the parish priest in Concord at the time my family lived there was O'Callaghan - Msgr. Eugene O Callaghan from Kinsale, Co. Cork.  No connection found with him either although he officiated at a number of family baptisms and weddings. The Leary family had a persistent oral tradition handed down in both lines of the immigrant family (James - mine and his brother John) that they were from Cork which is likely since they lived about a mile from the Kerry Cork border. Certainly Abbie could have been from Cork. It is also possible that the Callahan's were from Kerry.

Oh, if only my great great grandfather had remembered to put his wife's parents on her death record!

Complicated cousins

As a child traveling to visit family in Highgate, Vermont I would ask how people we met were related and most of the time Dad just replied that we were cousins. It seemed like the entire town was related to us. As I began to study family history I realized just how complicated the relationships were. My Chicoine-Raymond-Dupuis ancestors and their blended families of Bouvier Lemelin, Cook and Raymond half siblings began to settle there in the 1830's and first appear in the 1840 census. My Chicoine-Beaulac ancestors appear in nearby Swanton in the 1820's moving back and forth to Canada until the early 20th century when my Dad and his family finally settled there for good.

Chicoine- Bouvier-Cook-Raymond cousins ca 1920

This confusing mix can be seen through the story of my 2nd great grandmother Salome Dupuis. She grew up in the town of Lacadie (L'Acadie) in the province of Quebec situated in the Richelieu river valley south of Montreal. It was founded by her ancestors. Her grandparents Charles Dupuis and Anne Doucet arrived there around 1770 after meeting and marrying in exile in Connecticut during the Acadian expulsion in 1763..

Ste. Marguerite Parish church Lacadie QC

Salome was the youngest of a large Dupuis family. She was married in 1840  at age 18 to Louis Lemelin age 42. Louis was from a Lacadie family and had married there in 1816 before Salome was born,  to Marguerite Herbert. From that first marriage 12 children were born but only two sons, and a girl of 10 were living with him in Napierville when his wife died.

Louis married Salome in 1851, a woman of about the same age as his sons. She became a second mother for his young daughter Marie Marguerite. Louis and Salome had a baby which they named Salome but sadly she died during infancy. Their 4 other children thrived.Louis and Salome lived most of their married life in the town of Henryville, only one of their four children was born elsewhere, in 1844 in Napierville.Then almost 9 years and 5 children later he died leaving Salome age 27 alone with her four living children.

How did she support herself after her husband's death? Or did she depend on her extended family for help? It is quite possible that her stepsons Leon and Louis both close to her own age were still living at home. (Louis' sons by his first marriage.) They later married but not until after 1850. Using census and church records I have tried to trace her marriages and migrations from her hometown of Lacadie, QC  to the border towns of Henryville, Quebec and Highgate, Vermont. In the process, like many other French-speaking  immigrants to an English speaking world her name was anglicized to Sally Wells (a translation of Du-puis or Du puit - well)

Salome Dupuis' sister in law Domithilde Allard  was married to Salome's brother Joseph Dupuis. Domithilde's sister Emeliene had married Marcel Raymond brother of Julien Raymond. The Raymond family probably knew the Dupuis family as they lived in Lacadie from before her birth until around 1829 when they moved first to Napierville and then to Henryville.. After 1837 the two oldest Raymond sons were living in Highgate Vermont just across the border. Since Henryville was the nearest Catholic parish to Highgate in the 1830's it is possible that Salome and Julien met at family weddings and baptisms.  However they met, Salome wed  Julien Raymond in 1851. He was a recent widower age 33 with at least three children under 10 according to the 1850 census but perhaps 7 under 10 according to the ages of children listed in the 1860  US census who were born before 1850. 

Bouvier-Chicoine-Cook blended family

Julien Raymond had lived in the US since before 1840 - perhaps immigrating there as a result of the uprising of 1837 and its disruptions of life in the area of the Richelieu valley. He may have come with his father Antoine and mother Marie Garand and sibling Marcel who also appears in the 1840 census. Both men are listed under their surname's "dit" name, the nickname Toulouse, he as Jules and his brother as Marshall..Julien who married Theotiste Fontaine in 1837 in St. Valentin has no children in the census but they would go on to have 7 children. In the same 1840 census my Dad's great grandfather Jean Baptiste Chicoine (John Chequin)  and family were listed as residents of nearby Swanton, VT..

Chicoine Lemelin (Lemnah) cousins 1918

Salome and Julie and their blended family of at least 7 and perhaps 11 lived in Highgate in a section that was called Frenchtown. In an 1871 map of the area there are at least two Raymond families listed (Rainmount). Adult children of their previous marriages: Julien and Theotiste, Salome and Louis Lemelin also settled in Highgate and some of their descendants wound up marrying each other. Eventually Jean Baptiste Chicoine's children and the descendants of the Raymond-Lemelin clan married. Two of my Dad's grandmothers were Raymonds - Adelaide the daughter of Julien and Salome and Virginia - the daughter of his brother Marcel and Emeliene Allard.  Virginia Raymond was married three times and raised a blended family of Bouvier, Chicoine and Cook children thereby  adding to the confusion.  

No wonder my Dad's explanation for everyone we would meet in Highgate was - we are just cousins!

Louisiana Cousins: Broussard

Until I did two blog entries about my 5th great grandparents, Charles Dupuis and Anne Doucet I had not thought about relatives in Louisiana. After doing that research I discovered that I probably have quite a few cousins,* some from their siblings and others from other lines. One of them, my 6th great grand uncle Joseph Broussard,  is famous. Joseph was a sibling of Anne Doucet's grandmother Marie Broussard, daughter of Jean Francis Broussard and his wife Catherine Richard.

The Broussard family lived in Port Royal, L'Acadie, now Nova Scotia. Following the "expulsion" from Nova Scotia in 1755 by the British, Joseph and his brother Alexandre,  formed a resistance group which would fight the British and the expulsion for 4 years. Both were nicknamed "dit Beausoliel" meaning good sun, which in turn referred to that area of Nova Scotia which they had settled. Finally, to avoid killing their group off by starvation, Joseph negotiated a surrender which provided for his group being housed,fed and kept together as prisoners until 1763. Following the "Treaty of Paris" in 1764 Joseph chartered a schooner on which a large group of Acadian refugees sailed for "any land where French was spoken". 

This voyage taking the group initially to Santo Domingo (St.Dominique) and eventually to Louisiana in 1765. Upon arriving in Louisiana the group of Acadians were dispatched with tools to the Attakapas region with Joseph named as group leader with the rank of Captain in the militia. Shortly after his arrival at the Attakapas, Joseph would contract yellow fever and die, as did his brother Alexandre and other members of their family.

The Broussard clan would survive in Louisiana through their children. The Broussards are a particularly prolific family.

For more information see  http://kandrtell.tripod.com/gen/broussard.html. 

Descendants of Joseph, Alexandre and their siblings Catherine (1st Landry and 2nd Prejean) Isabelle (Trahan), Timothee, Armand, Charles Eloy and Francoise (LaBauve) settled in  St. Martinsville, Louisiana and surrounding areas. More information on St. Martinsville, LA.

more information on St. Martinsville, LA

http://www.cajuncountry.org/st-martinville.php

*I will be blogging about my other Louisiana cousins just as soon as I sort them all out. They include the surnames Dupuis, Doucet, Landry, Dugas, Bourg and Robichaud. 

W26p/8uHUrdgLjiLniKqBVruqhOMw4H+InyuL0H0Fdn0PPE7xBJSGN8ga3vKw0zDztQ0OAGIkzSBUyR5NNLsx1PoAPnWkxmEDRledswI/
From Desc. of Francois & Nicolas Broussard CD ROM

Lost in the California Gold Rush: Where is Uncle Richard?

I was surprised when I learned that I was not the only member of my family who lived in California. My great granduncle Richard Corbett was a ship's carpenter who had preceded the Corbett family, my great-grandfather Dominick, his widowed mother Anastasia and big brother Patrick to the US. They were settled in Taunton, Massachusetts by 1855 where Patrick and  Dominick followed the trade of carpenter. They appear in the 1855 state census. However brother Richard is not with them in either the 1855 or 1865 state census or the 1860 US census when they were joined by three other siblings, Johanna, Ellen and William.

Two ads posted in the Boston Pilot http://infowanted.bc.edu/ gave me information allowing me to trace the family back to their place of origin in both Ireland and the US and recover baptism records for my great grandfather and some of his siblings. Richard was baptized March 21, 1830 in the parish of Oning and Templelorm, Fiddown, Kilkenny. His family was living nearby in Turkstown, Kilkenny when he was a young man. That town had a ship building business run by the Dwan brothers who lived on the same property as the Corbetts. Perhaps Richard and his brothers gained their carpentry skills working in it. He also may have experienced the lure of the sea since vessels could come up the Suire river from the seaport of Waterford as far as this small town.  The ads note that he “followed the sea for some years” . He had arrived in the US “some years before”. 

I believe that based on that information Richard appears on a passenger list, a carpenter coming into NYC  on the Siddons Jan 6, 1851. Did he jump ship there and decide to travel to the gold fields influenced by the many ads for travel there and stories of quick riches?

If so It is possible he is the R. Corbett listed on one of the ships heading for the Isthmus of Panama (where passengers crossed on foot or riding donkeys to meet a ship on the other side to head to California.) 1849 gold had been discovered and a "gold fever" seized many miners seeking to hit it rich. Ads like this one  in newspapers promised a swift journey instead of the long one round the tip of South America or the long and arduous one across the US by wagon. All the family knew was that he had arrived and was working in San Francisco when they wrote the ad looking for him in June 1855.

San Francisco early 1850's

If Richard signed on as a ship’s carpenter (on the Siddons or another) to get free passage,  he might have taken the much longer and more dangerous passage via Cape Horn. Whichever way he traveled Richard apparently reached San Francisco between 1852 and 53 and wrote to his family. He is not listed in the California State census of 1852. By the time he arrived in San Francisco the nearby fields were overcrowded and not producing the prodigious amounts of gold that they had in the early days. He  lost no time heading north – perhaps by stage coach or coastal boat for northern California writing from Shasta Co to his family that he was heading from Shasta to Yreka in Siskyou co. In June of 1855 the family was trying to get in touch with Richard and referred to his letter of May 1854. This much the family knew when his brother Patrick tried again to find him in another ad in 1857 searching for him in Yreka.They had evidently had at least two letters from him - the original from San Francisco and a later one from Shasta.

Stage Yreka California

Gold was discovered in Yreka in 1851 at a spot called "Thompson's Dry Diggins". Miners poured into the town which was called Shasta Butte City. Residents found this confusing with the town of Shasta, in Shasta County, so the name was changed.  Joaquin Miller described Yreka during 1853-54 as a bustling place with "...a tide of people up and down and across other streets, as strong as if in New York". More stage lines used the town for a stage stop than any other community in the state. The Deadwood district of Siskiyou included the towns of Liberty, Sawyers Bar. The miners produced a steady stream of gold until late in the 19^th century.

The rugged area on the California Oregon border

Chinese andCaucasian miners in No California

In the 1860 census for the Deadwood district in the town of Liberty there is a Richard Corbett of about the right age living with three other miners. All are Irish ranging in age from 33-22 and each has a total of $250 in property.  In that census the miners are mostly living in groups of less than 10 grouped perhaps by language. There are men from all over the US and from Europe. The town is predominately male and young. Large groups of Chinese miners are also listed, sometimes only listed by one name or only "Chinaman" and one age for all in the group. They were perhaps 1/3 of the population. Only 3 Chinese women appear none of them married.

There are only 13 families in the town 7 of whom have about 24 children between them in the 14 page census. Women and children are a definite minority. For the most part the census taker didn't bother to total them correctly in the tally at the end of the page. A recent widow runs a hotel with her California born children, the youngest of which is only a year. There must have been enough of school age children for a schoolhouse since one of the women is listed as a schoolteacher. All of the other white women are married most of them to miners.

Rare woman at a mining site

Those who run a business such as a hotel, a stable or a blacksmith shop, are considerably better off than the average miner like Richard with real estate and personal property worth $1000 to $10,000. The wealthiest persons in town are the lone lawyer, merchants and hotel owners. The presence of many Irish like Richard led to the  location of Catholic places of worship at Liberty and Sawyers dating from the mid 1850’s. There are two other Corbet(t) in town: a Mike also from Ireland and a William born in Massachusetts. If they were related to Richard they are not living with him. 

Since there were no other ads by his family one wonders if they were hearing from him by this time or had given up hope of finding him? Unfortunately the correspondence did not survive the death of his older brother Patrick around 1870 or his mother in 1873. His younger brother Dominick, my great grandfather was in New London, Connecticut in 1860, later moving to Vermont and fighting in the Civil War as a ship's carpenter in the Union Navy. He married in Vermont in 1867. My grandmother had little memory of her father who died in 1877 and never mentioned an uncle or her grandmother Anastasia. Dominick had named her older sister Anastasia “Annie” but evidently she didn’t know the connection.  Dominick named his his only son, John Richard,  after his father and Richard after the long lost brother.

John R. Corbett nephew

Richard does not appear on any of the Voter Rolls for California but then again he may not have become a citizen. Richard’s who appear in 1870 and 1880 in US census in California are not likely matches because age is too far off and most live far south of where he was in 1860. There is a Roger Corbett who settled in the Liberty area and is buried in the Catholic cemetary of Sawyer's Bar but he is younger and born in 1844 in Massachusetts. There are Army enlistment records for several Richard Corbetts, from Kilkenny who served in the 1860-1875 period. Is one of them Richard? In the 1870 census for Boise, Idaho there is listed a Richard Corbett,  born in Ireland, about the right age, now a US citizen, working as a miner. It makes sense that Richard would follow the mining lure still hoping to “strike it rich”.

So where is Richard? Even what I have discovered shows me that he was a person who liked adventure and was a risk taker.

 It is possible that Richard died before he was 50 as did his father and three of his four brothers. There appears that some congenital defect – perhaps heart trouble plagued these men. No record of death has been found in Idaho but their death records start in 1890.A search of California death records also came up a blank.record.

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/californiagoldrush.htm

Acadian Expulsion II: Exile brings my 5th great grandparents together

It was a clear fall day in Port Royal, L’Acadie (now Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia) when Anne Doucet age five , my 5^th great grandmother, stood on the deck of the ship that would take her, her parents Jean Doucet and Anne Bourg and her two younger siblings Joseph three and Jean Baptiste less than one year old, away from all that was dear and familiar to them. Did she stand tall straining to see over the rail as their world went up in smoke? Did she tearfully cling to her mother’s skirts as her parents held her younger siblings? Little did she know that day what more changes would come in her young life. Oddly enough if her family had not been exiled she probably would never have met her future husband Charles Dupuis, age 9, who was being deported from Grand Pre the same year.  Exiles they would be brought together by fate in the British colony of Connecticut. There they would exchange wedding vows about 8 years from now.

The ship, possibly the Experiment, was bound for New York under a British order expelling over 6,000 Acadians from their home which they had occupied for over 150 years. They were being scattered all over the British colonies in North America and the Antilles. For some reason this ship stopped in St. Christophe, an island in the Antilles held by the British. There her father Jean would die of the chicken pox at age about 30. Her mother would continue with her small children to New York and eventually Connecticut where she met and married another deportee, Joseph Herbert who  had lost his spouse Madeleine Dupuis, sister of Charles Dupuis my 4^th great grandfather. Anne is listed with him there in 1763 and their combined family of nine children. By the time they would be free to leave exile Joseph Herbert and wife Anne would have five more children. Did Charles and Anne meet when Joseph and her mother married and there were relatives of his first wife in attendance? Charles Dupuis, an orphan, was also living in Connecticut with his brother Simon-Pierre and his family. Connecticut was more prepared and hospitable to the deportees and the legislature made provisions for the Acadians of whom 700 eventually wound up on their shore.

They were civilians caught up in Le Grand Derangement – the Great Expulsion of neutral Acadians during what is called in North America, the French and Indian War and in Europe, the Seven Years War. They had lived under British rule since before Anne and her parents were born. (See my blog Acadian Expulsion I for explanation of the reasons for the expulsion and the story of Charles and his 10 siblings)  

The British victory in the  battle on the Plains of Abraham, near Quebec City, in 1759 and the treaty  of 1763 gave the refugees from L’Acadie another hard choice. There was little possibility of returning to their farms confiscated and given to British settlers. A few stayed in the colony to which they had been deported but most sought to find more culturally congenial places to live. Those deported to England where conditions were harsh asked to be sent to France. There was a promise of land but the French King failed them and most left again to immigrate to a new territory. Louisiana had passed from French to Spanish rule by 1762 and the Spanish were welcoming to new settlers especially Catholics. The first Acadians arrived in Louisiana in April 1764 and a flood would follow them as news got back about the area. Some who went to the Caribbean to the island of Dominique, French territory eventually wound up in Louisiana.

Charles and Anne exchanged their wedding vows privately before two witnesses around July of 1768 in Connecticut, since there was no priest present to witness their marriage. Perhaps they  were already preparing to go back together to Canada. Daughter Marie Anne would be the only of their 11 children born in Connecticut. Nine months later, in the parish church of Laprairie in the Richelieu valley south of Montreal, they renewed those vows in April 1769. Charles was the only one of his siblings who would return to Canada – perhaps because of his marriage to Anne as most of the Herberts would return to this area as well as her mother and step-father Joseph Herbert and her half siblings. Only Anne’s brother Joseph appears to have decided to follow other Acadians south, perhaps via the Isle of Dominique to finally settle in Louisiana. In 1772 at age 20 he marries Anne Landry, a fellow Acadian,  in St. Martinsville, Louisiana and they settle and raise a family in Opelousas where he dies in 1803.  Jean Baptiste disappears from the records and may have died during the expulsion or while in Connecticut. In a list of Connecticut residents in 1763 Joseph Herbert and second wife Anne Bourg are listed with nine children only, Jean Baptiste would have made 10 if he was still alive.

Anne Doucet’s family now merged with that of Joseph Herbert decided to return to French speaking lower Canada (now under British rule) and settle in the Richelieu valley and join her daughter and her husband. There was no hope of returning to L'Acadie and reclaiming confiscated lands. They probably were homesick for their own language, customs and religious tradition. They arrived in 1774 when her mother’s 1762 second marriage in Connecticut was blessed in the church of Laprairie.  They brought five small children born in Connecticut between 1763 and 1773 which may account for their longer stay in Connecticut. Did tensions between the American and their British rulers influence their move?Joseph died six years after they had their marriage blessed and recorded in the parish records. Members of Joseph’s family including his father had settled in Laprairie area after 1763.

Charles Dupuis and Anne Doucet would have  10 more children in Lacadie and in Laprairie where they moved in the 1780's. Anne died 10 days after giving birth to their youngest child in 1790 and Charles in 1798. Both are buried in Lacadie. They never saw Salome their  granddaughter my 2nd great grandmother born there to their son Antoine and his wife Josephte Montminy in 1822.

Acadian Explusion: a family scattered

Contemporary painting of another Acadian town being burnt - Thomas Davies 1758*

On a summer day in 1755 my 4^th great grandfather Charles Dupuis, age 9 watched from shipboard as everything he knew receded over the horizon. He, with 10 of his brothers and sisters, their spouses, uncles, aunts and cousins watched in horror as British soldiers set fire to their farm houses and barns. He left behind the graves of his parents Antoine and Marie Josephte Dugas who died when he was only a year old. He would be the only one of his family who would return to what had been French territory. Before that he would be a refugee in the British colonies of North America.

My great grandmother Adeline Raymond pictured on the right,  was descended from many of the original settlers of L'Acadie. (modern Nova Scotia)  Her mother was listed as "Sally Wells" on US records. I knew she was French and eventually discovered that her real name was Salome Dupuis, daughter of Antoine Dupuis resident of Lacadie, a small town south of Montreal in the Richelieu valley. Her paternal grandparents Charles Dupuis and Anne Doucet were both born in L' Acadie - he is Grand Pre in 1746 and she in Port Royal around 1750. Hence both as children would have been witnesses to the expulsions and emigrations from Acadie which began in the late 1740's and escalated 1755-1762. It is unlikely that Salome knew her grandparents as both died before she was born. Did she learn of the exodus from stories passed down in her family? If so did she pass them on to Adelaide?

The fate of the children of Antoine Dupuis and Marie Josephe Dugas, parents of Charles, gives a sample of the various places of deportation and emigration experienced by families in L’Acadie. Antoine and Marie both died in Grand Pre in 1747 right before the Acadian Expulsion known as L’Grand Derangement. My ancestor Charles, twin brothers Joseph and Jean Baptiste and sister Euphrosine were all under 10 when the parents died and likely were taken into the homes of older married brothers and sisters.

Charles Dupuis and Anne Doucet had lived under British rule all their lives.  Britain ruled L'Acadie since 1713, before both of their births. Their ancestors had settled this area in the early 17th century.  After the British takeover initially their families' lives on their prosperous farms had continued as before. The "Great Meadow" had rich farmland that had been reclaimed from the sea by a system of dikes. In 1730 the Acadians swore an oath of allegiance to the British on condition they would not have to fight the French or their Native allies. But toward the end of the 1740's there was unrest in the area due to British insistence on an unconditional oath of allegiance. Wars being fought far away in Europe had repercussions on the land of L'Acadie. Unrest spread and between 1749-1755 active armed resistance to British rule spread throughout the area.

The 11 living Dupuis children (which included two sets of twins) their spouses and children were scattered through the British colonies and England. The names of Charles' brothers, uncles, cousins, brothers-in-law all appear on the list of men scheduled for deportation in 1755. Some of these colonies were hospitable to the refugees but others resented having these families thrust upon them - French speaking and Catholics in an English speaking and Protestant colony. Those who went to England fared worse since they were regarded as enemy combatants and prisoners of war. Three of Charles siblings were sent to England: Francoise Osite Dupuis, her husband Honore Daigle, their children, his brother Jean Baptiste age 10, and eldest sister Marie Josephe Dupuis with her children and  husband Pierre Theriot. Of these Francoise died in England as well as brother -in-law Pierre.

Older brother Antoine Dupuis, wife Marguerite Boudrot and family were sent to New York. Simon-Pierre, wife Marie LeBlanc and children may also have originally been sent to New York but made their way to Connecticut with widowed sister Marguerite Dupuis Boudrot, Charles and sister Euphrosine. His  sister Marie Anne and husband Michel Boudrot were deported to Portabac in Maryland Joseph Herbert and wife Madeliene Dupuis were sent with their teenage children to an unknown British colony perhaps New York with Jean Baptiste's twin Joseph.  Later, after Madeliene's death,  they wind up in Connecticut where he will meet and marry my 5th great grandmother Anne Bourg widow of Jean Doucet, parents of Anne Doucet who would later marry Charles Dupuis. (but that is a story for another blog entry)

When the war between France and Britian ended with a treaty in 1763 the Acadian exiles were free to move to more congenial locations. Between that date and 1767 siblings and their families went to the French speaking island of Dominique (present day Haiti) in the Carribean. Antoine and wife  baptized their children born in New England in Mirebas. Both  parents  died and were buried in Mirebas. Some of their children would continue on to Louisiana. A Spanish colony in 1765 it was especially hospitable to Catholic immigrants seeing them as a bulwark against the British. Acadians who stayed in Dominique were forced to more again during the Haitian Revolt and many moved to  Louisiana which was once again French and back to the former British colonies now the United States.  Marie Dupuis Boudrot and family  brother Joseph, Marguerite Dupuis Boudrot and children,  also sought refuge in Louisiana. Marie Anne Dupuis widow of Michael Boudrot deported to Portabac Maryland went with her family to Louisiana. In 1802 with the Louisana purchase that territory became part of the expanding United States.

Those in England went to France: eldest sister Marguerite Dupuis Theriot  now widowed, her children and Jean Baptiste age 21. In 1767 they were among 78 Acadian families living on the island Belle-Ile-en-Mer off the coast of Brittany. It is from an affidavit sworn by her that much of the information about the family migrations is known. Those in France were often disappointed because the French government did not live up to promises of land and support for the refugees. Some Theriot children who went to France eventually wound up returning to the New World and settling in Louisiana. Jean Baptiste died, unmarried in France in 1783.

 Of the 11 living children of Antoine and Marie Josephte only my ancestor Charles found his way back north after being deported to Connecticut. While in Connecticut he met and married Anne Doucet (her family story will be another blog entry)  In 1769 he came back to former French territory with his new wife and some of her relatives,  to have their 1768 marriage blessed in the newly founded town of Lacadie, Quebec. This town was founded by Acadian refugees and its church Ste Margaret of Blainfindie has the records of the many descendants of Charles including my 3rd great grandmother Salome Dupuis.

This summary of the fate of Antoine Dupuis and Marie Josephte Dugas' children is a microcosm of the Acadian Expulsion - to the British  colonies, to France, England and the French Caribbean islands and eventually migration back to French Canada and Louisiana.

* http://cybermuse.gallery.ca/cybermuse/search/artwork_e.jsp?mkey=3755

---