Wednesday’s 260 mile drive from Bar Harbor to St Agatha was
another stressful one. It was beautiful the whole way, but after we got
off I-95 (which was great - very smooth with no traffic) the road got rough and
curvy. It was another “let’s make the cats sick” drive like the one in
Minnesota. Even Lovie got sick except she kindly waited until we got her
out of the truck. Then, to add icing to the cake, we set up in a
cloudburst and got thoroughly drenched. We’ve been incredibly lucky in
not getting wet in all our many set-ups and break-downs so I guess we were
due.
Taken from the Mount Katahdin overlook on I-95. This
mountain is where the Appalachian Trail ends or starts, depending on which way
you’re going. Unfortunately it was totally hidden by clouds, but it was
still a beautiful view. I’ve seen pictures of it and it’s not that
impressive coming from the Great Smokies.
We’re now in the middle of our week in St Agatha. It’s
a tiny place about 12 miles from the town of Madawaska and the border crossing
into Edmunston, NB. This is part of the Upper St John Valley, created by
the St John River which is the border between Maine and New Brunswick down to
Hamlin, ME, where the border drops south in a straight line for a while before
continuing higgledy piggledy to the coast. This whole area is
gorgeous. It’s part of the northern Appalachians, a lot like home except
the mountains are lower. St Agatha is sort of on the edge of the
mountains as the terrain becomes more hilly than mountainous here. The
campground overlooks Long Lake which reminds us of the lakes in western NC and
SC but without red clay mud and fluctuating water levels. The black soil
up here can make almost as big a mess (as attested to by the condition of the
truck and RV after Wednesday’s rainy drive) but somehow it doesn’t have the
same effect as red clay.
The area is very lightly populated so there’s no traffic and
no feeling of being overrun by people as we’ve had in many of the places we’ve
been. It’s a predominantly French-speaking area but so far we haven’t run
into anyone who couldn’t speak English.
These were all taken Thursday evening from our
campground. It was impossible to choose just one. The view is of
Long Lake.
We spent Thursday going over to St-Basile which was the
little town many of my ancestors lived in. It’s now part of Edmunston
which is a town of about 16,000 people. I don’t know if cities do
annexations in NB, but it’s probably much like Asheville taking over Arden and
Skyland……we still call them by their original names but they’re really part of
Asheville now. They have a very good library with a lot of local history
where I gathered a lot of information. The only problem is that it’s all
in French. My ability to read French is extremely limited, especially
without a dictionary handy, but I was able to get the gist of things. The
library we visited today (Saturday) in Madawaska has much more information in
English so I’ll be going back there for as much time as possible.
The object of going to St-Basile, apart from just seeing
what it looks like, was to visit the cemetery and the library. The
cemetery is well-organized but we couldn’t find the 100+ year-old graves we
were looking for. I suspect the markers for the missing ones have
disintegrated to the point of being unreadable or maybe even
disappearing. The very oldest graves have been put in a row marked with
new crosses with name plaques attached. I’m sure they weren’t originally
lined up like granny’s onions so must have been moved. They were
undoubtedly falling apart with the names no longer legible. It’s
unfortunate all the oldest ones couldn’t have been marked in the same
way. We went over to the church office across the road but no one was
there. If we go by again and see a car there we’ll stop to see if their
cemetery records are available.
The St-Basile cemetery. Berceau du Madawaska = Cradle
of Madawaska.
Chapel of the Pioneers 1786 – at the bottom of the slope
between the cemetery and the St John River.
Plaque on the side of the chapel. In Honor of the
Pioneers of Madawaska. First families arrived in 1785. The Cyrs
listed were five of nine brothers. I am a direct descendent of Jacques
Cyr, Firmin Cyr, Alexandre Ayotte, and Michel Mercure. Five are not
direct ancestors but brothers and a brother-in-law of the four.
The Alexis Cyr House, dating to the early 1800’s.
Moved to this location in 1981 and restored by the Historical Society.
Alexis Cyr was my 4th great-grandfather. Imagine going through
a lifetime of winters of 20 to 30 degrees below zero in a house like
this. Actually, this could have been better insulated than today’s mobile
homes.
Plaque explaining the significance of the Alexis Cyr House.
Madawaska….on both sides of the St John River….is very
important to Acadian history. Its history in a nutshell: France
brought settlers to Acadia starting in the early 1600’s. France and
England were constantly going to war with each other in Europe so Acadia was
pulled back and forth depending on which country had won the latest round. By
1710 England had lasting possession of Acadia and changed its name to Nova
Scotia. From then on the French settlers were in deep trouble. Britain wanted
get rid of them and finally, in 1755, figured out a way to do it. They herded
the people of the Grand-Pré, Nova Scotia, area onto ships and spread them down
the Atlantic seaboard (to colonies that didn’t want them) and Haiti and across
to English prisons and destitution in France. They had done nothing
wrong, had agreed to sign the demanded oaths of allegiance to England, but
England wanted their farms for the English and to be rid of “the French
problem”. The deportation, called “le Grand Derangement” or the Great Exile,
resulted in 10,000 to 12,000 Acadian deaths and the deliberate and, in many
cases permanent, separation of all the families. In the 20th
century this genocide was finally acknowledged and apologized for by the
British government. The Acadians who finally ended up in Louisiana are today’s
Cajuns, a contraction of the name “Acadian”. (All Cajuns are descendants of the French but not all are Acadian descendants.)
Not all Acadians were caught and exiled but they all lost
their lands and possessions in Acadia. Some went to the eastern area of
Quebec, others escaped the English by going to French-controlled areas which
are now in New Brunswick. The ones who settled in New Brunswick got
hammered by the British yet again after the American Revolution when land was
wanted for the Loyalists who left the U.S. Instead of finding unoccupied
places for the Loyalists, many were given the farms the Acadians had been
working years to develop. Once again the Acadians were thrown out with no
place to go. They petitioned the government to grant them land in
Madawaska, 140 miles up the St John River. Permission was finally granted
and the group listed on the plaque set off immediately. One of the
Acadian leaders who was instrumental in the drive to secure a new settlement
was the father of the five Cyr brothers on the plaque (and four other sons who
went soon after). Jean Baptiste Cyr died in 1785 before he could get to
Madawaska but at least he knew his family would get there. He was born
the year England took over Acadia (1710) and had spent his entire life trying
to live under the rule of a government that wanted him and his people
gone. He was a grandson of the first Cyr who came to Acadia sometime
prior to the 1671 census so his family had been there for over 80 years before
the Exile.
Even in Madawaska the Acadians were not without trouble from
the English. They were promised title to their land in three years but it
took five. Some of them were so suspicious of English government they
were afraid they’d lose all their hard work yet again and left before they got
their land titles. Then there was the 56 year border dispute between
Maine and New Brunswick which was finally settled in 1842 by the placement of
the international border right down the St John River, effectively dividing one
people and culture between two countries. I gather from talking to locals
that the international border didn’t bother anyone until the recent requirement
of having a passport to cross the river. People would still cross the
river in boats just like they always had. Now it’s a lot more of a
nuisance.
Yesterday (Friday) we went down to Van Buren about 35 miles
south of St Agatha. We were looking for the grave stones of some of my
relatives. While we were searching, the church sexton drove up and offered
his help with their records. That was a stroke of good luck as it saved
us from going through the whole cemetery. He said the people we were
looking for were buried around the time a nearby local cemetery was dug up and
the bodies moved to this one with no records of who was moved. It’s a
small parish which can’t afford to computerize its records so all they’ve got
are 3x5 cards filed under the name of the person who purchased the plot.
If the plot was bought by someone with a different last name it would be very
hard to find. The sexton was an interesting person….he was with the U.S.
Border Patrol in Texas for a year before deciding that was no place for his
family. Can’t imagine someone from northern Maine being able to tolerate
the south Texas climate.
Van Buren has an historical Acadian village which is made up
of original buildings from the area. They were all dismantled, moved and
reconstructed on the site. They are all full of very interesting
information about the people and culture.
In the Acadian Village with the statue of Evangeline.
The heroine of Longfellow’s poem, she’s the symbol of the Acadians. This
is one of only three statues of Evangeline, all modeled on the actress Dolores
Del Rio who played the part of Evangeline in the movie decades ago. The
other statues are in St. Martinsville, Louisiana, which we saw last October,
and in Grand-Pre, Nova Scotia, where the Exile took place. Longfellow's poem is fiction but it represents the Acadian exile.
Some of the reconstructed and renovated buildings, all good
examples of original Acadian structures. Steeply pitched roofs help
snow slide off.
Today (Saturday) we went 12 miles north to Fort Kent which
is a small town but big enough to have its own branch of the University of
Maine. The one site of historical significance is the Block House which
was built as a fort to defend the area in the Aroostook War, the “bloodless
war” over the border dispute in which no shots were ever fired.
(Aroostook is the name of the county we’re in. The rest of Maine just
calls it “The County.” It’s the biggest county east of the Mississippi.)
The border dispute lasted for 56 years and became very complicated. Maine
claimed land many miles up into New Brunswick. Britain claimed land about
a third of the way down Maine. Caught in the middle once again were the
Acadians who ended up with their communities split by the border which was
finally agreed upon after years of negotiation and mediation by people as
diverse as an Indian chief and a European monarch (whose decision was accepted
by Britain but rejected by the U.S.).
The Block House in Fort Kent. If there had been a
firefight the occupants would have smoked themselves out or died of smoke
inhalation.
Main Street in Fort Kent with the Acadian flag on every
third light pole.
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