Matthew
Lawrence Devoe arrived in Boston, Massachusetts on 25 May 1887 aboard the S.S.
Carroll out of Halifax, Nova Scotia, the son of Captain Peter DeVaux and Charlotte
Richard of Cape Breton. He was an Acadian.
Nearly
three-quarters of a century had passed by the time I learned these simple but
significant facts, and the world turned over many more times before my
knowledge of the history of the Acadians went much beyond the words of
Longfellow. Yet Matthew was my grandfather and I presume he knew from his
forebears “la tragédie d’un people”. Perhaps his characteristic
reticence precluded his passing the story on to a twelve year old grandson, for
I recall him as a quiet man, more given to listening than speaking; and of
course, I never asked. As if to make up for it, my paternal grandmother,
Margaret Moore (an English woman, schoolmate of Matthew) made much of the
beauty of Cape Breton and the exploits of Captain Peter and his beloved River
Queen.
The
seeds of curiosity she planted finally germinated in 1961 when, in the company
of my late wife Genevieve, of fondest memories, daughters Joan and Jill and son
John Jr., we traveled through Cape Breton enroute to a U.S.A.F. assignment in
Newfoundland, just north of Old Acadie. My specific duties, in addition to
those of an aircraft commander, were as an officer controller at the Ernest
Harmon Air Force Base Command Post, a position manned 24 hours a day. The long night
shifts were frequently rather quiet, with a minimum of air traffic. I spent
many hours reading, corresponding and talking with those to whom Acadian
history was a familiar subject and, of course, for some, Acadian genealogy a
passion. I wrote to relatives. I wrote to civil authorities. I wrote to parish
priests.
The
facilities at the Command Post included not only a typewriter, but telephone
lines to Cape Breton and the United States…no charge.
Beyond
a folded and faded copy of a poem entitled
“Song of the Schooner, River Queen” that my father had always
kept in the top drawer of his bureau that mentioned a man he knew to be his
grandfather, Dad had little knowledge of his ancestry. Born in Boston in 1895,
family circumstances left little chance for visits to grandparents in Cape
Breton. Grandfather Peter had died when my father was but four years of age and
his grandmother Charlotte died in 1911; he knew neither of them. When I
indicated an interest in doing some research he suggested I contact his sister
Helen, my godmother, for she had stayed in touch and visited with relatives in
Cape Breton and the western United States. My father became interested in my
search, and when I returned to the States we together ventured into the world
of the Massachusetts Vital Statistics in Boston, piecing together the records
of those who had come this way before moving west.
In
1962 two of my grandfather’s brother were still living, one at the old
homestead in Little Bras d’Or, the other in Montana. On a visit to Cape Breton
from Newfoundland I spoke with James, and I corresponded with Arthur. I much
cherish those contacts because soon both had passed on and what I learned from
them was of value in my later searches. During one of my visits, James took
from his wall a beautifully framed photograph of my grandfather Matthew at age
21; and gave it to me. I also corresponded with children of my grandfather’s
siblings…my hope was to identify the parents of Captain Peter and Charlotte
Richard. Neither living brother knew the names of his grandparents, nor did any
members of the family; not a soul.
Concurrent
with my contacts with relatives I wrote to civil authorities in Nova Scotia and
was eventually led to correspondence with the Reverends Clarence d’Entremont,
Anselme Chiasson and A. A. Johnston. All were helpful and inordinately patient
with me, bringing to my attention the works of Tanguay, Massignon, Gaudet,
Godbout, Arsenault. While these last sources were helpful, some of their work
revealed a number of conflicts which I
determined to resolve at a later time; with respect to my family at least, the
work of Arsenault was most suspect, that of Godbout appeared most reasonable.
While an early lineage began to form in my mind, the 19th century
questions remained. From where had they come to Little Bras d’Or? Chiasson and
d’Entremont expressed the belief that they had come from Cheticamp, Cape
Breton, for two of the founders of that place were named “Deveau”. Matthew’s
brothers denied the Cheticamp origin but could not name another. On a
subsequent trip to Cape Breton I began talking with other elderly folk from
Little Bras d’Or and gained the impression that the Acadians from that area had
come from the southeastern part of the island and the name “Arichat” was
frequently mentioned. I turned in that direction and found the name
non-existent in the area by 1962, and my queries to that place went unanswered.
With
respect to Fathers Chiasson and d’Entremont, I came to learn that neither was
in fact a genealogist; Father Chiasson by his own candid admission and Father d’Entremont
by virtue of his correspondence with me and the nature of his work with which I
came to be familiar. Father Clarence did considerable responsible research with
respect to the genealogy of number of individual Acadian families (d’Entremont,
Melanson, etc.) but his forte was above all in the area of history and folklore;
the corpus of his work extensive seemingly beyond measure. As indicated below,
I later met Stephen A. White and was witness to his evolving from a lawyer in
the Boston area to the most eminent of Acadian genealogists, his guiding
principle that of accepting as fact nothing that cannot be sourced from an
primary document…and that makes all the difference.
Getting
back to my journey, I was about to seek possible answers at Cheticamp, when in
August of 1962 I received word from the late (and of cherished memory) Father
Flavian Samson of River Bourgeois: “I have found your family in our registers.” The family found was that of a
Pierre “Deveau” and his wife Colombe Landry, the entries relating to their
children. Based on the family bible in the home of my great-grandfather I had
an estimate of the year of his marriage and a little research revealed that in
that year the church at Little Bras d’Or had been a mission of a North Sydney
parish. A record of the marriage was found in the registers there, identifying
the four parents: those of great-grandfather Peter were indeed Pierre and
Colombe, those of his wife Charlotte Richard, François-Regis and Angelique
Dugas.
My
transfer back to the States in 1963 led to my first actual meeting with Father
d’Entremont, and while subsequent transfers and military duties precluded much
work on my genealogy I remained in touch with him and a few years after my
retirement he introduced me (in 1972) to Stephen A. White, at the time a
practicing barrister in the Boston area. Steve was interested in my work, for
he had spent much time doing research on the families of Richmond County. He
initiated what evolved into many years of correspondence between us,
essentially confirming the findings I had made on my family in the Ile Madame
area, as well as drawing certain conclusions which were beyond my capabilities.
He also provided extensive information on the Landry and Richard families, for
which I am indebted to him. I in turn provided him with considerable
information on members of the DeVaux, Richard, Dugas, and Leblanc families who
had left the Arichat area and settled in Little Bras d’Or in 1847.
I
spent some time in the next few years searching microfilm of extant original
sources, determined to resolve the conflicts in the early family lineages I had
found in the work of my predecessors, and did so to my satisfaction, aided in
some of the matrilineal connections by Steve. In both the early and later years
I was privileged to view the registers of no fewer than six parishes in
Richmond and Cape Breton Counties, often served cookies and tea as I spent
countless hours on pleasant summer days in those glebe houses. I viewed many an
original document at the old PANS in Halifax, once unfolding a corner of the
page of a census to find my great-great-grandmother’s name “Colombe” missed by
a “researcher” I had previously hired to look for her.
My
bride of nearly 35 years died in 1982. The streets and barrooms held no
solution (a Father Ignace Lepp once said that death is not a problem [thus no
“solution”] it is a mystery). I spent the next ten years building a 200mph
airplane…it occupies one’s mind. I also took a bride, Gwendolen Young…Devoe
since 1985…who took an interest in her genealogy and encouraged me to dig out
my many files and notes of so long ago and get on with publishing a family
history. I re-confirmed, altered, and refined my work and compiled what I
believe to be a responsible and well-documented history and genealogy of a
particular branch of the family descended of Michel of Beaubassin. I made a
conscious effort to include much narrative material in the way of history,
placing my ancestors in the world of
their times in an attempt to inform as well as spare readers the boredom of
mere statistics and lineages, to develop an appreciation of a unique people.
That the uniqueness has slipped away as did the centuries is not to say we are
less than they, but for the most part we are no longer Acadians.
REFLECTIONS ON A JOURNEY
The
coterie that was the Acadian people came to me gradually, and a personal
credenda evolved only after my having read volumes on the nature of my Acadian
forebears and the history of the times in which they lived. Little has been
written about their circumstances in Old France and less still of the motives
which precipitated their decision to cross the Atlantic. Soldiers came because
they were sent, but what prompted the women and the other men? They became
another (and unique) people because of the neglect of the mother country, their
isolation from the rest of New France, and because of the coveted real estate
they owned and occupied. That most were former peasants and craftsmen is likely
the case and that most were not literate (a condition not a rarity in those
days) suggests that at least their immediate forebears were something less than
landholders or people of means. Such men and women brought with them a certain
surrender to their status which does not necessarily suggest a less than
contented life, and surely not an absence of intelligence, industry, honour, or
devotion to family. They enjoyed an independence in their new place unimagined
in the Old World…and took every advantage of it. I came to learn they were for
the most part non-entrepreneurial, but the tens of thousands of head of cattle
raised, acres cultivated, healthy children raised (they employed no physicians)
attest to their diligence and intellect. They need no further encomium from me.
In fine, my view of these Acadian ancestors of mine is filled with admiration
for their courage under adversity, regard for their spirit of
self-determination and reliance, esteem for their devotion to faith and family.
These
adventures of necessity brought me to the land of my Acadian ancestors,
resulting in no fewer than several dozen extended visits to what was once
Acadia. These were not always investigative journeys, for often I came in
response to the pleasant memories of previous visits…to stand on the ridges of
what was once the village of Beaubassin and watch a summer sun set across the Baye
Française, bathing it in shining gold, much as my ancestors must have done
some three hundred years ago…to travel to Cape Breton to visit the birthplace
of a grandfather, to kneel and say and Ave over the resting place of
great-grandparents…to view the Bras d’Or Lakes again, contemplating the
significance of those sparkling waters to my forebears. There is no need to ask
“Why?”…and I do not. JBD
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