New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-07-19
The True story of Acadia.

Whoever chances TO be N central or east.
ern Maine at this season of the year wit.
uesses the annual incursi"n Of d foreign
people. says the Portland Press. Along all
the highways come strange little wooden
carts without springs, drawn by tough lit
tie Canadian horses. and loaded down with
chatterlng Frenchmen till no part of the
structure 10 visible but the wheels. These
people who come every year from the St.
Francois and the other French settlements
in the province of Quebec to help the
Yankee tarr6ers cut their hay, are for the
most part incredibly ignorant and dirty;
they have certain Gallo aptnees for the
use of strangely involved and complicated
oaths that eXcltes the envy Of Americans
who, in general, are limited to the straight
forward Anglo-Saxon oath with it's
three terrific specifications" But they
are harmless folk, lees quarrel
some than the Irish, more pictu-
rescue than the Germans. and much less
intelligent than either. Many of these peo-
pie. as we'll as those who inhabit the rapid
growing French settlements at Waterville.
Lewiston and other Maine towns, are de.
scendants OF the hapless Acadians whose
removal from Nova Scotia forms the sub
ject of Longfellow's "Eyangeline.' If thi.
be so, there has been great change in the
manners and habits Of the neat and frugal
Norman French of the beautiful village Of
Grand Pre- since the barbarous removal
from their old homes. They have also in
creased and multiplied, in a manner well
calculated to excite the wonder of the un-
prolific American stock. for it was stat ed at
the recent meeting OF the French Canadians
in Quebec that no less than 500 600 of them
had emigrated to the United States, and it
was proposed to lure them back by the
offer Of land bounty.
Here are the poor lost children Of the
Acadans, for instance, right before our
eyes, and who can tell anything of their
sad. romantic story since their dispersion in
H55l Hardly any body in the world-per-
haps nobody in the world but wv. G." the
Hon. William Gould, of Windham, how one
OF our State Senators. By dint of long and
laborious research, prosecuted in libraries
and in the course of visits TO the old Acadian
homesteads, he knows the historical eide of
their story as well as Longfellow knows the
poetcal side. With bis usual good luck he
has come into possession of a genuine treas
ure-trove, nothing less than the journal of
An officer OF one OF the English vessels kept
during the trip from Grand Pre- to Georgia
with the captive French ON board This,
with other journals and log books, also in
HE possession. together with the traditions
of the descendants of the Acadians, a settle
ment OF whom yet remains in Nova Scotia
with all the original hahits and dress, will
enable SO enthusiastic and accomplished a
historian as Mr.. Gould to execute success
fully his project, which is to give us "a de.
scription of the Acadians or neutral French
and a history OF their removal from their
homes on the Bay of Fundy," together with
some account OF the condition o. their de-
scendants in the United States
The true story will be found stranger
than fiction. The people were more numer.
GUS than is generally supposed, mbering
$4,000 in three or four districts, and 1000 at
Grand Pre- alone. They were kept ignorant
of their fate till the moment OF their captiv-
ity. which was simultaneous in all the dis.
tricts. They were allured to labor at the
gathering in of their crops, which were
secretly allotted to the use of their captors.
The 500 men of Grand Pre-, like those of the
other districts, were separated from their
wives and children, who went in separate
ships, and most of the families were never
after reunited From the decks of the
ships at anchor they witnessed the burning
of their villages before sailing. 1t is the
log book of one of these vessels that, after
a quiet sleep of 100 years in some garnet,
has fallen into right hands. Brigadier
Prebe, of Portland, father of the "old
was second in command of
the expedition.