This is not a photo of my Acadian ancestress. But it is a painting by a cousin who also descends from the subject of this post. The painting is called “French Peasant” and it is by my third cousin Kevin Leveque. It makes me think of my French and Acadian ancestresses who worked on the land with their families.
Francois Pellerin lived from 1636 to 1678. Never heard of him? I was only slightly familiar with his name in my tree until a few months ago. I read a few stories about him that caught my attention. It wasn’t anything that he had done, but something that was done to him. Interesting stories sometimes pass down through a few generations and most of the time they die out. Fortunately for us, there are still some legal records from over 350 years ago. And they tell an interesting story about our Francois.
Francois was born around 1636 and married Andree Martin in 1665 in Port Royal, Acadie. They were some of the early French inhabitants of that area. In fact, Andree’s older brother Matthieu was reported to be the first child born of French heritage in Acadie. In the 1671 Census, they were still living in Port Royal, and they had three young daughters – Huguette, Marie, and newborn Anne. I descend from their second daughter Marie.
Shortly after this, Jacques Bourgeois – another of my ancestors – decided to create a new settlement in Acadie. It wasn’t too far from Port Royal, but with the primitive mode of travel back then, it took more than a week to make a one-way journey. It was called Beaubassin, and at first it was started with Jacques and several sons and sons-in-law. Not much later on, they were joined by others, including our little Pellerin family.
A couple of years later, the family traveled back to Port Royal for a visit. One of the people they visited was Andree’s younger sister Marie Martin Morin. It was in one of the years that both of the sisters rested between having 25 children between them. During this visit, the two sisters decided to go have a walk into town. While there, they witnessed a disturbing sight. A man was molesting a young girl on the street. Andree was appalled and took it upon herself to do something about it.
She demanded that the man stop. While attempting to make him stop, the man lunged at her. She must have been prepared for this possibility, because she was able to grab a large piece of wood and hit him over the head with it! She hit him pretty hard, because it stopped him from attacking the girl or herself. I love reading an account of one of my ancestors doing the right thing. I think she felt she had done the right thing, too. But she also worried a bit. The man – his name was Jean Campagna – told Andree that she would live to regret the actions she had taken. A not so veiled threat.
You can imagine the retelling of this story when they got home to their families or with their friends. Marie might have said something like, “You should have seen when Andree smacked him on the head! He didn’t know what hit him. Le tonnerre ecrase!” Though it would have all been in French. I wonder if the threat was repeated in the retelling. It had such an ominous tone. And you know it has to have some importance since it was recounted at some point. Otherwise we wouldn’t know about it.
The Pellerin family returned to Beaubassin without further incident. Their life continued there with the arrival of three more daughters. Francois may have been a little disheartened by this. Homesteading in a new area was hard backbreaking work. Some big strong sons were always helpful in those conditions. They needed to dyke the land to get it into condition for growing crops. That took time and with a growing family to feed, Francois felt pressure to do something about it. He went out to find someone who could help him out with all of the hard work. The important thing was to find someone strong and hard-working. In a weird twist to this story, the man who fit that bill for him was none other than Jean Campagna.
You can imagine Andree’s outrage when she saw Francois bring that big brutish man into their home. A home that included six young girls under the age of thirteen. She must have thought he was mad. Didn’t he remember that Campagna had threatened her? Francois stood his ground and insisted that it was necessary for survival. That included having the man live in their home! That’s what happened, but you can be sure that Andree watched him like a hawk and always knew where the closest big stick was!
Then Campagna had the audacity to tell Francois that he wanted to marry their 12-year-old daughter Huguette. There was no way Andree was going to allow that to happen. As Campagna went around claiming he was going to marry soon, Andree went about finding another alternative. It didn’t take her long to make an arrangement with a man named Pierre Mercier. Even though she made this announcement, Campagna told everyone in town that Huguette was promised to him. Campagna had a bad reputation in the town, so I’m sure everyone believed Andree over him. He was bad news all around.
Most of the settlers weren’t fond of his drinking and gambling behaviors. Yet he had money to lend them – at outrageous interest rates. He also acted like he knew all the best ways of farming and working on drainage issues in the marshy land they lived on. He wasn’t the only threat to the area’s tranquility. There was a running history of the English attacking the French in Acadie. Sure, they were willing to trade for things that they needed from time to time, but some of them were just as willing to attack them and burn their homes when something went wrong. And there was always one disease or another.
Around the late 1670s, there was an outbreak of something that claimed several lives. It was probably smallpox. That’s what was reported in Port Royal. Somehow it made its way to Beaubassin. It was a quick-acting disease. A person could be working in the field at the beginning of the week and be dead by the weekend. It sounds quite painful. That’s what happened to Francois Pellerin. He was working in the marsh with Jean Campagna. They may have gotten into some type of disagreement where Campagna “breathed into Francois’ eye.” Not long after that, Francois fell ill.
I’m sure Andree was worried about her husband and also didn’t want her children to fall ill as well. Maybe she kept some distance between them and her husband. This gave Campagna a way to get in and see Francois. He took out a mysterious box and placed it at the feet of Francois. When Francois saw it, he asked Campagna to remove it. In response, Campagna said, “It’s good for grinding barley.” Nobody knew what that meant. Francois died later that day.
Andree was sure that witchcraft was involved. She felt that the visit to Francois on that last day was to finish him off with a spell. Andree’s sister Marie also claimed that Campagna had tried to kill a man in Port Royal. There was also a suspicious death of a woman who had just received a gift of butter from Campagna. Maybe he poisoned her? Maybe he somehow passed on a deadly disease? When Andree’s daughter Huguette died a short time later, she thought Campagna had something to do with that as well. In another odd twist in the story, Andree commiserated with Pierre Mercier (Huguette’s fiancé) about these deaths. They became close and ended up getting married.
They continued to talk about the evil plotting of Campagna. With these allegations, Campagna was imprisoned before being brought to trial in Quebec. Pierre Mercier questioned him about his promise that Mercier would never marry Huguette. Was that a threat? He asked him about the phrase he said to Pellerin, “It’s good for grinding barley.” Campagna’s reply was that it was a joke. What kind of joke is that on someone’s sickbed? Campagna denied any wrongdoing.
A lot of these accusations were made at the urging of Le Neuf, a French seigneur who was in charge of this area of Acadie. He had a grudge against Campagna. Campagna had given his wife that odd gift of butter while he was away. He thought Campagna had tried to win her affections. Le Neuf also collected testimonies of several villagers about the actions of Campagna. It was enough to get Campagna sent to Quebec where he was imprisoned for curses and spells.
In 1685 there was a trial, but it didn’t last long. French law required that there be concrete proof when making claims against someone. There was evidence that people didn’t like him and some of them owed him money that they didn’t want to pay back. There was no proof of witchcraft. The results didn’t really matter. If he had been found guilty, he would have been banished from Acadie. He was essentially found innocent, yet he had the same punishment.
Campagna was not allowed to return to Acadie. At least Andree wouldn’t have to see his disgusting face ever again. That must have been some comfort. I hope so.
Marie Celeste Leveque’s tree with yellow trail back to Francois Pellerin and Andree Martin. Grandma Celeste was my grandfather Rob Landry’s mother.
