Pierre Poirier (1733 - aft. 1798)

Born 6 Jan 1733 in Beaubassin, Acadie, Colony of Nova Scotia

Ancestors

Descendants

Died after 1798 after age 64 in Tignish, Colony of Prince Edward Island [uncertain]

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Biography

Pierre Poirier was born 6 Jan 1733. He was the son of Ambroise Poirier and Marie Gaudet. He was baptized the same day at Beaubassin. His godparents were Augustin Gaudet and Marguerite Poirier.^[1][2]

In about 1754 he married Marguerite Girouard (Germain & Marie Doucet). Il est l'ancêtre des Poirier (et des Perry) de Tignish^[3]

He passed away 9/24/1842. ^[4] Note since this date would mean he lived to 109, it is probably for a different descendant. Removing this date until an original record can be found.

"In the summer of 1755, Pierre Poirier was a young man married to Marguerite Girouard. They were expecting their first child. They lived in Tintamarre (near present-day Sackville, N.B.). Like most of the men of the region, Pierre was arrested in the month of August and taken prisoner by the British soldiers. While waiting to be deported, he was incarcerated with others at Fort Lawrence which was located near the place where the Nova Scotia Tourism Information Centre stands today, not far from Amherst.

The wives of the prisoners were allowed to bring them food. At the request of the men, one of the women brought a knife which she hid in a large loaf of bread. With the help of this knife, the men were able to dig a tunnel under the walls of the fort. During the stormy night of the 1st and 2nd of October 1755, Pierre Poirier and 85 other Acadian prisoners managed to escape through the 12 foot underground tunnel they had made!

Pierre immediately headed for home hoping to find his wife who was about eight months pregnant. He found the village of Tintamarre deserted. He met some Mi’kmaq who told him that all the women, children and elders had gone to Cocagne to escape deportation. Pierre headed for Cocagne where he found Marguerite. From there, the couple sailed to île Saint-Jean (PEI). It is not known if their baby was born in Cocagne or on the Island. It is known, however, that Marguerite gave birth on October 15 to a girl, Rosalie, who was baptized the following November 24, 1755, at Port-la-Joye.

Pierre Poirier remained on île Saint-Jean with his young family until 1758. That summer, Lord Rollo and a contigent of British soldiers arrived on the Island to deport the inhabitants to France. For a second time, Pierre managed to escape deportation. With quite a few other families, Pierre fled to a refugee camp on the Restigouche River at the head of the Bay of Chaleur.

Around 1761, the Poirier family returned to the Island and settled at Havre-Saint-Pierre (St. Peters Harbour) for several years. ^[5] Pierre and a number of Acadian men were hired to fish cod for British entrepreneurs. During his stay at Havre-Saint-Pierre, Pierre also went to Trois-Rivières (Montague area) in the winter of 1768 with eight other Acadian men to cut pine trees for William Livingston, and later that same year he was employed as a labourer for 11 days by Isaac Deschamps to do public work on the Island such as clearing land for the settlement of Charlottetown. (...)

From Havre-Saint-Pierre, Pierre Poirier moved his family to Malpeque Bay in the early 1770s where they settled in Lot 17 in what is now North St. Eleanors. We don’t know where and when Pierre and Marguerite Poirier died. They were still alive and living in Lot 17 when the 1798 census was taken. ^[6] By 1799, the Acadians started leaving the shores of Malpeque Bay to settle elsewhere in Prince County. Their children, Pierre (la Grand’couette), Basile, Rosalie, and Marguerite figure among the pioneers of Tignish while the other members of the family, Germain and Madeleine, are listed among the founders of Mont-Carmel.

Rosalie, born in 1755, married Joseph Richard. They are the ancestors of the Richards from the Tignish region. Marguerite married Julien DesRoches and they have among their descendants many of the West Prince DesRoches. As for Madeleine, she married Firmin Gallant, nicknamed “Panneau”, and they settled in Mont-Carmel. Their descendants are found in large numbers in the Evangeline Region, among them are the families with nicknames such as Panneau, Cannon, Calumet, and Blague.

Several of Pierre and Madeleine Poirier’s descendants have made history : 1) Rev. Sylvain Éphrem Perrey (1802-1887) was the first Acadian born in the Maritimes after the Deportation to be ordained to the priesthood; 2) Stanislaus Perry (1823-1898) was the first Acadian elected to the Legislative Assembly of PEI and the first Acadian from the Maritime Provinces to be elected to the House of Commons in Ottawa; 3) Joseph Alphonse Bernard (1881-1962) was the first Acadian to be named Lieutenant Governor of a Canadian province. His mother was a daughter of Stanislaus Perry."^[7]

Sources

1. ↑ Library and Archives Canada Fonds des Archives départementales de la Charente-Maritime [La Rochelle, France] : C-1207 Registres de Beaubassin - reel_c1207 MG 6 A 2 (Image 48) http://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c1207/48?r=0&s=6
2. ↑ Title: Acadian Church Records, vol. II; Author: Milton P. and Norma Gaudet Rieder; Publication: Metairie, LA: Authors, 1976; Note: Covers year 1712-1748. Also available as microfiche #6087649. Includes transcripts of Beaubassin, Acadia church registers, now at the Archives of the Mayor of La Rochelle, Charente Maritime, France. p. 39. Published by Karen Theriot Reader, Rootsweb.com.

   Text: Sponsors: Augustain GODET & Marguerite POIRIER.

3. ↑ White, Stephen A. La généalogie des trente-sept familles hôtesses des "Retrouvailles 94", Les Cahiers de la Société historique acadienne, vol. 25, nos 2 et 3 (1994). Poirier 37 Families
4. ↑ family tree handed down to Gloria (Doiron) McLaughlin, reference: Descendants of Jean (Jehan) Poirier
5. ↑ Liste of Inhabitants from Isle St Jean at Port LaJoye on 17th September, 1763 Letter to the King. List (Archived link) transcribed by Karen Theriot Reader (used with permission granted 5/22/20). Transcription and original published by Acadian.org "Rare list of P.E.I. Acadians intrigues N.B. researchers", accessed May 2021

   Piere Poirier, Marguerite Giroire : 3 Enfants

6. ↑ "1798 Island of St. John Heads of Household Census," transcribed on the Island Register site at http://www.islandregister.com/lotmap.html. (To search the list for a given locale, click on the link to the Lot number.)

   Lot # 17 Peter Perrie, 1 male age between 16 and 60, 1 male over 60, 1 female over 60

7. ↑ Arsenault, Georges. « The Odyssey of Pierre Poirier », Prince Edward Island History, posted to Facebook on Dec 13, 2016 , accessed at http://peihistory.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-odyssey-of-pierre-poirier-by.html

See also:

• Arsenault, Georges et Earle Lockerby, "Les Acadiens à l’Île Saint-Jean et aux Îles de la Madeleine dans les années 1760", Les cahiers de la Société historique acadienne, Vol. 47, no 3, Septembre 2016, p. 114, 115, 123, 129, 130, accessed at https://societehistoriqueacadienne.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/vol-47-no3.pdf
• Brown, Daniel. « 'This is Acadie' - P.E.I. celebrating 300 years of French being spoken », The Guardian, Charlottetown PEI, published 8 May 2020, accessed at https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/news/local/this-is-acadie-pei-celebrating-300-years-of-french-being-spoken-447642/#.XrabbrC-_vw.facebook
• "Family Tree," database, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org : modified 29 December 2018, 16:26), entry for Pierre Poirier dit Perriot(PID https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/4:1:M8G4-DWB); contributed by various users.