The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1880-10-27
The Original Story of LongselIow's Beauti-
full Poem.

Senator from Maryland.
The Original Story of Longsellow's Beauti-
full Poem.
New York Evening Post.l
| Bringing the vision back again. it rests on
the Grand Pre-, the great field which for
| twenty miles extends between the hills; so
long is it that the eye can not traverse its
length; so wide it is, that for hours We must
toll from border to border 1t lies
| in the sun like great in
land lake. walled in with hills of
green, and yet no lake that ever lay in a
poets dream was so fair as this-channeled
with rivers and lagOons, green with grass,
bright with flowers furrowed like q great
battlefield with trenches and dykes which
| have beaten back the sea, and rescued this
plain, year by year, rod by rod, from the
tides 1t is the harvest season. and the
whetting of the mowers scythe comes up
with its cheering music; the numbering vain
creaks behind the sleek oxen; while in the
fields, behind the toiling men, brown-faced
women and laughing girls as in the days of
Evangeline, toss the hay and assist husbands
and fathers.
The story of Evangeline is familiar to all
readers but very few are acquainted with
the history of the Acadian people. Nova
Scotia was discovered by fishermen from
Brittany in 1906. In 1908 an expedition
ullueT lDt Vi I1clTO v. SdlleU
the New World. The leader was Protest
ant gentleman, by name De Monts. There
fore the country had been called New
France, but in the patents of this expedition
the part laying east of the PenObscot en-
bracing the present Provinces of Nova
Scotia, New Brunswick, and part of Maine,
was named Acadia.
The long contest of England and France
was bitter one. These fair fields formed
the backgrounds, and in alternate victory
and defeat the fortunes of war moved on.
Gradually the territory of Acadia became
circumscribed to this central part of Nova
Scotia inhabited by the descendants of Nor
mans They had taken but little interest in
the great wars that had surged around them.
The Indian, who was the enemy of England,
was their friend; outlawed by the English,
with price set upon his scalp, he found
friendship among the Acadians. They
could not forget their old home beyond the
sea, nor readily transfer their love to the
alien Nation many times were they com
manded, not infrequeutly were they entreat-
ed. but never dreaming that they would be
molested, they refused to take the oath of
allegiance to England. At length, by order
of the Government, transports were
ordered from Boston TO repair the various
ports and convey away the entire Acadian
people The instructions were severe; the
officers were to use force if necessary to get
the people on board the transports, and if
any escaped to the woods their houses and
barns were to be burned.
No intimatiOn of the great calamity was
given to the people The crops were gath
cred in field and barn, when up the basin to
the mouth of the GaSpeTeau the transports
sailed. The order of the King commanded
all the people to assemble within the parish
church, where the edict of Punishment was
read. An old writer describes the scene of
fields, now lighted with their burning
homes, the young men. 16O in number.
through long line of weeping parents and
friends, were driven to the ships. The bless
ings of the gray-haired priest, the weeping
of children, the moaning of mothers fol-
lowed them. while the sad procession moved
on with slow and reluctant steps praying,
weeping, and singing hymns This detach-
ment was followed by the seniors who
passed through the same scene Of sorrow and
distress. In this manner was the whole
male population of the region put on board
five transports stationed in the river each
vessel being guarded by six non-com-
missioned officers and eighty priyateS As
soon as the other vessel arrived the wives
and children followed, and the people were
transported away from Nova Scotia. The
total number sent away from the province
was 1000. In this district, which bordered
Minas Basin, there were 1,923; 235 houses
and 273 barns were destroyed, besides eleven
mills.
Even to this day many of the old charac-
teristics of this people remain. In the region
west of Grand Pre-, in the Clare country, there
are many of the Acadians The village
priest is still the monarch of the village, re-
ceiying all their condolences; the medium Of
communication with the outer world,
making and keeping their wills, and being
their friend and father. The parish church
upon Sundays gathers them all, and when
the simple service is finished, winding
homeward through the roads just as of old,
the Acadians youths and maidens whisper
their sweet condolences and tell each other
the old, old story that was first told when
Adam wooed Eve in the groves of Eden.
The simple life of the Acadian seems lily
suited to the days in which he lived, and it
has been thought that, perhaps, the senti-
nient of the poet had, in the village of Grand
Pre-, drawn the features of an ideal spot and
peopled it with an ideal people, but to-day,
after the lapse OF years, just the same lies
the little village as when in the olden times
In the Acadian land on the shores of the basin of
Minas,
Distant, secluded, STILL the little village of Grand
Lay in the secluded valley;
and in those Villages where the descendants
of the banished people live, in the customs
the simple primitive life of the people we
may recast the old days of Eyangeline's peo-
pie. when
Neither locks had they to their doors nor bars to
their windows,
But their dwellings were open as day and the
hearts of their owners.
Wandering over the old fields, watching
shadows as they chase each other over the
slopes of the distant mountain, seeing the
wild fields of the Grand Pre- beneath our
feet, it is not difficult to bring back the old
life of the Acadian village, to see the Parish
priest on his round of mercy, and watch the
smoke rising from the chimneys above the
matched cottages of the peasantry. We see
nothing in the features. of the people who
till these fair acres to remind us of the old
colonists, who built these ramparts against
the sea, and filched these fair fields from the
waves; the church has gone, its ashes have
fed the soil; the forge of Basil is SILENT the
site on which it rested is but an imaginary
one, and yet, though
Naught but traditions remain of the beautiful viii
49, lage Of Grand Pre-,
Though waste are the pleasant farms and the
farmers forever departed,
still the outlines of the picture are the same,
the river which flows oward is the one by
whose banks Gabriel wooed the fair Evange-
line, the distant mountain is the prospect on
which the eyes of the lovers rested, and the
NCaters of fair Minas which olisten beneath