| |
Individual:
LeBlanc family
Telegraph-Journal, Wednesday, August 3, 1994; P. A6
Daniel LeBlanc and Françoise Gaudet are the ancestors of one of the largest Acadian families in the Maritime provinces. Neither the place of origin nor the parents of Daniel LeBlanc are known. Some have pretended that he came from Martaizé in Poitou, or from the province of Dauphiné. However, lacking proof or documents, his birth place has not been identified with any degree of certainity.
Daniel came to Acadia in the spring of 1650 before the death of governor Charles de Menou d'Aulnay. He then married Françoise Gaudet, daughter of Denis and Nicole Coleson, one of the oldest families of the young colony.
It is likely that Daniel came to Acadia under contract to governor d'Aulnay. He became one of the most successful farmers in Acadia during the 17th century. He settled along the banks of the Port-Royal river where his children were born between 1651 and 1664. Five sons married and gave the couple 35 grandchildren.
On the eve of the Deportation, the LeBlanc family was already the largest in Acadia and was found in all of the main Acadian communities such as Port-Royal, Grand-Pré, Rivièr-aux-Canards, Chipoudie, Port-Toulouse, and Port-Lajoie.
Along with their Acadian compatriots, the LeBlancs would undergo the trials of the Deportation. Most of the victims of the expulsions between 1755 and 1758 were exiled to anglo-American ports, in France and in Quebec. Others managed to escape their enemies and found refuge in the forests of present day New Brunswick. After a few years of resistance from the forest, these fighters surrendered to the British authorities in 1763, at the end of the Seven years War.
Once freed from the forts, descendants of Daniel LeBlanc and of Françoise Gaudet settled in different areas of the Maritime provinces. LeBlanc families are numerous in the Gaspé, in southeastern New Brunswick, at Baie-Sainte-Marie and in Wedgeport in the southwestern area of Nova Scotia, as well as on Ile-Madame and in Margaree on Cape-Breton.
Contributed by Fidele Theriault of Fredericton, New Brunswick.
|
| - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
|
| |
