{"id":61,"date":"2022-09-10T16:20:17","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T20:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regportersstory.com\/pei\/?p=61"},"modified":"2023-05-05T21:16:57","modified_gmt":"2023-05-06T01:16:57","slug":"my-story-begins-with-a-secret-acadian-settlement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regportersstory.com\/pei\/2022\/09\/10\/my-story-begins-with-a-secret-acadian-settlement\/","title":{"rendered":"My Story begins with a Secret Acadian Settlement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before I talk about myself, I would like you to know something about the world of my maternal Acadian ancestors. I wish to be seen as emerging from this context.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Acadians and some Frenchmen lived on the Island, which they called Ile St. Jean, from 1720-58. Then they were cruelly got rid of in a major deportation, an act of ethnic cleansing. Because the deportation happened late in the season it was not possible to round up scattered families in the west part of the Island.<\/p>\n

The British took over and surveyed the complete Island into 67 Lots which were to be owned by English landlords and settled by British colonists. There was no place, in the 1765 survey for the Mi\u2019kmaq, the original owners of the land, or a few Acadian refugees. Nonetheless, a number of Acadians gradually trickled back and, under the eye of a tolerant landlord, settled in the Summerside area.<\/p>\n

Samuel Holland, the surveyor of the Island, produced a huge hand-drawn map on which the new Island was depicted. The dream was to colonise it from shore to shore, utilising all the inland resources, in which the French had never shown any interest.\u00a0 This was Holland\u2019s dream of Lot 1, poorly surveyed in winter, and described in his report as not being much good for anything.<\/p>\n

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Holland seemed to be completely unaware of the fine harbours in Lot 1, starting with the Tignish River, emptying into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence through a narrow opening called the Run [of the Waters]. Just north of it was a large lagoon later called The Green. It was surrounded by marshland, dearly loved by the Acadians who had the necessary skills to drain it with dykes to produce, in a couple of years, very rich farming soil. No forests had to be cut down.<\/p>\n

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The Plot to Abscond<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In reading various books and articles about the Island in the Eighteenth Century one gets the impression that the Acadians knew very little about the Island\u2019s geography. I believe that impression is wrong because, travelling about with their friends the Mi\u2019kmaq, they would have gained an extensive knowledge of the Island, even of its interior. Therefore, it is not surprising to learn that in October of 1799 eight families from Malpeque packed their canoes with all their possessions and secretly sailed north along the coast until they entered the lagoon next to the Tignish Run and set up a settlement there. They knew exactly where they were going and had probably been familiar with that isolated, but rich spot for years. The first settlers, on whom genealogists place great store as the \u201cfirst families,\u201d were:<\/p>\n

Basile Poirier
\nJacques Chaisson
\nGr\u00e9goire Bernard
\nPierre Poirier
\nEtienne Gaudet
\nJoseph Richard
\nJoseph Desroches,
\nGermain Poirier<\/p>\n

In 1800 they were followed by Joseph Doucette, Charles Doucette, and Pierre Arsenault.<\/p>\n

Knowing already the lay of the land, they settled mostly around the Green and the harbour itself. There is a wonderful manuscript map by John Ball in the Public Archives and dating from 1853 that, in this detail, gives a clear view of the community half a century after the great escape.<\/p>\n

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Like nearly all early settlers the Acadians built log houses, a subject which I discuss in a post in my PEI Heritage blog. This log house, formerly in Anglo Tignish and now demolished, dated back to those early times, and could have belonged to either an Acadian or Irish settler.<\/p>\n

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After a generation the Acadians began to build larger, more comfortable frame houses. Pierre \u00e0 Maximin Chiasson first built a centre gable house, seen here in this 1960 photo as the kitchen wing. In late Victorian times prosperity and social ambition caused him to build a new main house where the formal parlour and main staircase were located.<\/p>\n

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A substantial study of the furniture with which the Acadians furnished their houses has not yet been written. It is fascinating because the inspiration for furniture styles was still that of country furniture in Seventeenth Century France, not at all like the styles brought by the British colonists.<\/p>\n

I once owned these two pieces, an armchair from the Pierre \u00e0 Maximin Chiasson house, and a sideboard, probably from the parochial house at the original site of the village, built by Father S. E. Perrey. Both are now in the Acadian Museum at Miscouche.<\/p>\n

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Clothing was stored in pine chests, such as this one, all single pine boards, that belonged to my mother\u2019s family. Today it is empty and next to my armchair, serves as a lamp stand and side table by the window in my study. As a small child I used to hide in it, with the lid closed.<\/p>\n

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The First Church – 1801<\/h3>\n

Being devout Catholics, two years after their arrival, in 1801, the Acadians erected a log chapel, 30 by 25 feet. Of course, the Church, through its vast information network, knew all about the Tignish settlement and very early on there was a visit from a priest who administered the sacraments of Baptism, Confession, Holy Communion and solemnised the marriages that until that time, had been civil unions. The Bishop of Quebec, under whose jurisdiction the Island fell, visited Malpeque in 1803 and wrote a report in which he mentioned that in just under four years the population of Tignish had grown to 103 persons. This woodcut, meant to represent the church, was published in L\u2019Impartial Numero Illustr<\/em>\u00e9<\/em>, published in 1899 to celebrate the centenary of the village of Tignish.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

The Coming of the Irish<\/strong><\/h3>\n

By 1812, perhaps to their immense surprise, Irish settlers began to arrive from the North Shore of New Brunswick. One Irish scholar I met years ago, the late Cyril Byrne, told me that in his research he had discovered advertisements in Irish newspapers that described the emigration options available at that time. One shipping company advertised a passage to the North Shore of New Brunswick that was described as \u201cwithin easy travelling distance of New York.\u201d This scholar went on to tell me that the exhausted and discouraged Irish chose, in desperation, to sail across Northumberland Strait and settle instead on the West Coast of Lot 1. News of the empty unsupervised and untaxed lots in that part of the Island had obviously spread quickly. The landlords back in England did not seem to care, nor did their agents, if they had any, investigate the alarming number of Acadian, and then Irish, settlers on that land.<\/p>\n

Traditionally the first Irish settler to appear weas a man called Reilley, who came from Richibucto. He was quickly followed by others. Here is a list, compiled from various sources, of the Irish who came, first along the Norway Road, then across into the Lot, during the first generation of settlement.<\/p>\n

Edward Reilly
\nMichael Reilly
\nMichael Brennan
\nJames Phee
\nJohn Ready
\nPatrick McHugh
\nRichard Aylward
\nJames McGrath
\nWilliam Handrahan
\nJoseph A’Hearn
\nPeter A’Hearn
\nJames A’Hearn
\nEdward O\u2019Connor
\nSimon Luttrell
\nJohn Carroll
\nPatrick Dalton
\nJohn Dorgan
\nJames FitzGerald
\nJohn Kennedy
\nPatrick Nelligan
\nThomas Conroy
\nWilliam Dillon
\nPatrick Carrigan
\nPatrick Hogan
\nThomas Hackett
\nMaurice Nelligan
\nJohn Dorgan
\nThomas Mansel
\nJohn Broderick
\nMartin Doyle
\nTimothy Casey
\nMichael Ready
\nMichael Christopher
\nJames Christopher
\nPatrick Clohossey
\nJohn McCarthy
\nJames McGrath
\nJohn McCarthy
\nCharles Hyde Cadegan
\nChristopher Cadegan
\nFrancis Hughes
\nWilliam Carter
\nThomas Conway
\nDennis Fennesy
\nMoses Foley
\nJohn Gavin
\nThomas Noonan
\nEdward O’Brien
\nPatrick O\u2019Brien
\nJohn O\u2019Donahoe
\nMichael Ready
\nTimothy Ryan<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Labour of Clearing the Land<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Acadians had had an easier time of it in settling in because they took advantage of the bogland around the Tignish lagoon that could be drained and quickly turned into fertile agricultural land. The Irish had a harder time of it and worked very hard, as they moved inland, to clear away the virgin forest. This early engraving from the American Agriculturalist<\/em> of 1880 gives you a powerful image of what that seemingly endless process was like.<\/p>\n

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Once the land had been cleared the first log cabins were built, to be replaced as soon as possible by substantial braced frame houses in the symmetrical Georgian or Neoclassical style such as the John McGrath house along the Norway Road which I photographed in 1960. It was a sophisticated house with a central hall flanked by four rooms, each with access to a chimney with fireplace or franklin stove.<\/p>\n

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The Irish who settled in Lot 1 came from a Europe that was on the tail end of the Napoleonic wars. Socially they came from a culture of literacy, unlike the Acadians, with their peasant origins in Seventeenth Century rural France.\u00a0The houses the Irish built were more sophisticated than those of the Acadians, and so too was the furniture they brought with them when they emigrated. Unlike the Acadian furniture which ultimately went back to the Late Middle Ages in inspiration, the Irish examples came directly from a country where the latest Georgian styles reached even the poorest homes. It was the style of the day.<\/p>\n

These Regency chairs belonged to the Aylward family of Tignish. It is possible they came with them on the ship that brought the family to this area, or quite possibly, they were bought from English cabinetmakers who had settled on the Island. One thinks of Mark Butcher, the best-known of them. The lovely simple candle stand was also found in Prince County and could easily have come from an Irish home.<\/p>\n

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Some of these houses would have had sofas in their sitting rooms, and the earliest style of sofa would have resembled this Regency model, dating perhaps from about 1825-35, and which came from a Prince County home.<\/p>\n

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Contemporary Irish Values versus Acadian Traditionalism and Isolation<\/h3>\n

This connection with the contemporary world placed the Irish in a position to want to assume leadership in Lot 1, and this often soured their relationship with their Acadian neighbours who felt pushed out of their secret place.<\/p>\n

All was not love in Lot 1\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

One must wonder how the Acadians and Irish got on in this tight space of Lot 1 as each ethnic group chose the land they were going to farm. There was no landlord, or arbitrator, or surveyor who designated lots. How did they do it? It is still a mystery, but by 1880, according to Meacham\u2019s map of Lot 1, it had been accomplished. One wonders how much violence was expended in settling disputes.<\/p>\n

A story is told about Edward Rielly, an Irishman arrived from the Bay of Chaleurs and settled next to Peter Doyle. His behaviour towards the Acadians who had preceded him was arrogant and high-handed and he tried to take some of their possessions. He was confronted by Joseph Bernard and there was a fight. Rielly grabbed a wooden shovel that was at hand and struck Bernard on the head with it. The shovel split. Bernard, a noted fighter turned on Rielly and smashed his nose with his fist. Tensions between the two groups in time diminished and Bernard gained the nickname of Fendeur de pelle<\/em> or Shovel Splitter. (Buote, p. 13).<\/p>\n

It is my belief, based on a lifetime of observation, that the Acadian\/Irish ethnic tensions have never gone completely away, in spite of two centuries of intermarriage.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Second Church – 1826<\/strong><\/h3>\n

After only twenty-five years the population had grown so much that a new church was needed in this almost completely Catholic region. It was a splendid Neoclassical building three bays long and six deep that was built near the log church. It was like the church at St. Andrews which had been built in 1805. It was 60×36 feet and had only four lateral round-headed windows. The new church at Tignish was larger, 60×45, feet with 9 over 6 sash windows. Drawings on manuscript maps in the Archives indicate that it probably had a small wooden steeple.<\/p>\n

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The interior arrangement was similar to other churches of the time, with the altar, elevated on a platform in the centre of the back wall, and a gallery running along the back and sides.<\/p>\n

A site for the cemetery had been chosen nearby and has survived to this day. It is accessible through the Cemeteries Act of the Province. This aerial photo of the church and cemetery site shows you where they were located at the edge of the lagoon.<\/p>\n

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The Acadians marked their graves with wooden crosses which soon rotted away. The Irish, of a different class, and more prosperous, set up elegant Nova Scotia sandstone monuments in the classical style of the day. About a dozen remain.<\/p>\n

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Sylvain Ephrem Perrey (Poirier<\/strong>)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In 1802 a boy was born in the log cabin that once stood on this spot, now in the bend of the road going to the Green. We can still see the cellar of the house where root crops were stored during the winter.<\/p>\n

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Sylvain Ephrem Poirier was a studious delicate boy who was considered to be a suitable candidate for the priesthood. He was sent to the seminary in Quebec and was ordained in 1828. Having changed his name to Perrey he was sent to Tignish and put in charge of ministering to all the Catholics of a vast region. He completed the church begun in 1826 and built a parochial house nearby which survived into the early 1960s.<\/p>\n

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He suffered greatly because of his delicate health and the constant travel from mission to mission under the most difficult conditions until 1843 when he was relieved of his duties in Tignish and transferred to Miscouche.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The landlords finally come to collect their rent<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Starting in 1832, several Protestant entrepreneurs began to settle in Lots 1 and 2. Rent collectors for the absentee landlords began to arrive in 1820 but were told there was no money. They left Tignish alone again for nearly 20 years. When the rent collectors tried again in 1843-44, they met with violence. Although the little rebellion failed, there is no further evidence of harassment either. Rent was being paid spasmodically as this receipt from Edward Palmer shows. There was no money in circulation so rents were paid in kind, and sometimes labour.<\/p>\n

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Photo from the Tignish Arts Foundation Collection of Negatives<\/p>\n

Edward Palmer (1808-89) and Edward Cunard (1816-69) were powerful ambitious men who would stop at nothing. They gained possession of Lots 1 and 2 and from the 1840s had to deal with the recalcitrant tenants. This detail from the Wright-Cundall map of 1852-61 clearly shows the control they had over the lands the Acadians and Irish had settled. By the mid-1840s things got very unpleasant.<\/p>\n

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There is a story, probably written by Gilbert Buote, the founder of the Impartial <\/em>newspaper in Tignish, that talks about an encounter between the rent collectors, sneaking in at night, and the reception they received from the Acadians who were aware of everything that was going on. These were very troubled times for the Acadian and Irish settlers as they struggled to establish farms in an area that was in the process of being surveyed so that rent could be collected. The farms could not be bought, only rented. It is worth quoting all of it here to give you a feel for the underlying nature and character of Lot 1. It is the personality of Lot 1!<\/p>\n

The Year of the \u201cConstables\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

It was mid February 1844. It was nine o\u2019clock in the evening. A mantle of snow two feet thick covered the ground. There was not a breath of wind. The weather was fine and clear as glass. You heard the trees snapping with the frost. The moon was full, and in its majestic course, covered the earth with its silver rays.<\/p>\n

The entire family was at home. The father [was] in the big armchair that he had made with his own hands, sitting next to the fire, [and] the mother was knitting. The elders were talking about bad time they were going through and the evils they were prey to because of the proprietors\u2019 persecutions. The children, seven of them, less aware of the anxieties that dominated their lives, were [busy] elsewhere in the one-room house.<\/p>\n

Suddenly the piercing sound of the borgo<\/em> (alarm) was heard from the sentinels\u2019 cabin at McNeill\u2019s Portage. Since the beginning of the troubles two men took turns staying in the cabin, day and night, and each time a stranger arrived, those sentinels sounded the alarm and made the air ring with their borgos<\/em>, and these strangers, whoever they were, were stopped and asked to give an account of themselves. In less than a quarter of an hour the alarm was heard in the rest of the parish and everybody, men women and children, were up and ready, some with sticks, others with iron forks or axes. Nearly three hundred of them gathered at the cross-roads in front of Firmin Julien\u2019s house. Almost at the same moment the officers of the law arrived. They were determined to grab hold of anything they could that belonged to those people against whom they had seize warrants and to take prisoner several other people against whom they had arrest warrants … There were sixteen of them: Bearsto, the high sheriff, deputy-sheriff Warburton and fourteen constables.<\/p>\n

When they arrived at the cross-roads the waiting crowd barred their way. The deputy sheriff advanced first. Stopped by the crowd he demanded, in the name of the law, that they be allowed to pass. His words were ignored. Turning to the High Sheriff who was behind him he cried, \u201cPass me your pistol!\u201d Scarcely had he uttered these words than his horse fell from under him, as if dead. Big Nanette \u00e0 B\u00e9lone, one of the women who had come with the others to help defend their homes, was armed with a log from Firmin\u2019s wood pile. With one blow between the ears, she knocked the deputy sheriff\u2019s horse to the ground, and, with eyes protruding from their sockets, it lay there like a corpse on the road.<\/p>\n

Gilbert Buote (translated by Reg Porter).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mid-Century Growth<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Tignish’s main industry, fishing, began in 1845, when Frank Arsenault and Thomas J. Caie set up stores in the district and began to trade with the local inhabitants. In 1850, W. B. Dean, an American, and Captain Hubbard, founded a big fishing enterprise and general store. In 1856 John Myrick of Boston and Isaac Hall followed their example. Myrick’s fishing enterprise, general store and other businesses were to endure for over one hundred years. They controlled the local economy and quite literally held the fishing population in financial slavery with the credit system of purchase.<\/p>\n

The Tignish Run became the main centre of the fishing industry and never ceased, to this day, to be rich and highly productive.<\/p>\n

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During these challenging times Tignish’s first member of the provincial Legislative Assembly, Stanislaus Perry (Poirier) was elected in 1856. He was also the first Acadian to become a member of the House of Commons in Ottawa for two terms.<\/p>\n

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Peter McIntyre<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In 1844, Peter McIntyre became Tignish’s first resident priest, replacing Fr. Perrey who had been transferred to Miscouche.<\/p>\n

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His first months in office were concerned with dealing with the revolution of the tenants against their landlords, a most difficult task which only ceased years later when the landlord system was abolished. The biggest of his community betterment projects was the building of the present church, by local labour. All the materials were local too. The completion of the church in 1860 was the climax of Tignish’s first 60 years.<\/p>\n

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Henry Cundall, Views of the Tignish Church<\/em>, DuVernet Album,1860, PARO.<\/p>\n

It was in all this settling activity, and the energetic establishment of the fisheries that a large and splendid lighthouse was built at North Cape to warn mariners of the great reef that shot out to sea for miles, and which had been noted by Jacques Cartier and the Basque fishermen. In 1865 Fr. Peter McIntyre, fresh from his triumph of building the great brick church, bid for the contract to build the lighthouse and thus local labour and materials were used and the money from the contract invested in the community.<\/p>\n

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Photos from the Reg Porter Collection with a detail of the 1935 aerial survey from the National Archives.<\/p>\n

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From 1860 to 1899, Tignish continued to develop and grow. It was linked to the rest of the world by telegraph, starting in 1870, and by the railway, which arrived in 1875.<\/p>\n

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The village of Tignish grew up in a simple grid plan next to the railway terminus and the great church, which would soon be flanked by a brick parochial house and a huge brick convent where the Sisters of Notre Dame from Montreal set up a boarding school for girls. The town plan was not particularly outstanding, lacking, for example, a public square, something which adversely affected the future evolution of the town. Perhaps the church yard was so overwhelming, and the focus of the people so Catholic, that it was thought unnecessary at the time. The wise Fr. Peter McIntyre, before the Western Road or the railway were built had bought hundreds of acres inland, away from the site of the original village. It is most probable that he foresaw a new future, and a new location, for the settlement of Tignish. His acres, and his majestic brick church, provided the locus for the future.<\/p>\n

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Map of Tignish, from Meacham’s ATLAS, 1880<\/p>\n

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The State of Things in 1880<\/strong><\/h2>\n

If we look closely at the map of Lot 1 that appeared in Meacham\u2019s 1880 ATLAS, we are shocked to discover the extent of settlement by the Acadians and Irish. Every bit of land has been surveyed and bears a name. Here is a poor hand-coloured copy of that map with colour coded properties.<\/p>\n

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You can see that the Acadians had pushed across the tip of the island to Nail Pond, separating the original Irish settlement from its later expansion to North Cape down to the Tignish Run on the Gulf of Saint Lawrence side.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

End of Century Progress<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In 1893, Gilbert and Francois-Joseph Buote started the Island’s first francophone weekly paper, l’Impartial<\/em>, which continued until 1915. All this educational, social, and cultural development made remote Tignish a very important centre that would continue to grow to this day.<\/p>\n

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Impartial composing room, Tignish.<\/p>\n

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The first period of growth culminated in 1899 with the centennial celebrations organized by the Buotes. The special centennial number of the Impartial<\/em> is our source for much of the history of Tignish’s first 100 years.<\/p>\n

This glorious photograph was taken during the 1899 centennial celebrations. More than any other photograph it encapsulates the power, drive, and exuberance of the Acadian and Irish founders of this village.<\/p>\n

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This is where my maternal family steps into this narrative.<\/strong> My grandparents were children at that time, but it is most likely that the Gaudets and the Poirier\u2019s were part of this large crowd.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The next post will introduce you to the territory of Acadia, specifically the isthmus of Chignecto, where my Poirier and Gaudet ancestors once lived and helped to drain the vast tidal lands that became known as the Tantramar Marshes, supervised by the village of Beaubassin (now Fort Lawrence NS) and later when defense became necessary, Fort Beausejour on a ridge parallel to Beaubassin.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Resources<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Buote, Gilbert et Fran\u00e7ois, L\u2019Impartial Numero Illustr<\/em>\u00e9<\/em>, Souvenir de le Celebration di 100me Anniversaire de la Fondation de Tignish<\/em>, L\u2019Impartial, Tignish, 1899.<\/p>\n

Cran, Emily Elizabeth, A Brief History of the Parish of St. Simon and St. Jude, Tignish, Prince Edward Island<\/em>, Under the sponsorship of the Liturgical Committee, photocopied at Thomas More Institute, Montreal, 1970, 1971.<\/p>\n

MacMillan, Rev. John C., The History of the Catholic Church in Prince Edward Island from 1835 till 1891<\/em>, L\u2019Evenement Printing Co., Quebec, 1913.<\/p>\n

Porter, Reginald, Storyline for an Interpretative Centre on the History of Tignish<\/em>, typescript, 1999.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before I talk about myself, I would like you to know something about the world of my maternal Acadian ancestors. I wish to be seen as emerging from this context.   The Acadians and some Frenchmen lived on the Island, which they called Ile St. Jean, from 1720-58. Then they were cruelly got rid of in a major deportation, an act of ethnic cleansing. Because the deportation happened late in the season it was not possible to round up scattered families in the west part of the Island. The British took over and surveyed the complete Island into 67 Lots which were to be owned by English landlords and settled by British colonists. There was no place, in the 1765 survey for the Mi\u2019kmaq, the original owners of the land, or a few Acadian refugees. Nonetheless, a number of Acadians gradually trickled back and, under the eye of a tolerant landlord, settled in the Summerside area. Samuel Holland, the surveyor of the Island, produced a huge hand-drawn map on which the new Island was depicted. The dream was to colonise it from shore to shore, utilising all the inland resources, in which the French had never shown any interest.\u00a0 This was Holland\u2019s dream of Lot 1, poorly surveyed in winter, and described in his report as not being much good for anything. Holland seemed to be completely unaware of the fine harbours in Lot 1, starting with the Tignish River, emptying into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence through a narrow opening called the Run [of the Waters]. Just north of it was a large lagoon later called The Green. It was surrounded by marshland, dearly loved by the Acadians who had the necessary skills to drain it with dykes to produce, in a couple of years, very rich farming soil. No forests had to be cut down.   The Plot to Abscond In reading various books and articles about the Island in the Eighteenth Century one gets the impression that the Acadians knew very little about the Island\u2019s geography. I believe that impression is wrong because, travelling about with their friends the Mi\u2019kmaq, they would have gained an extensive knowledge of the Island, even of its interior. Therefore, it is not surprising to learn that in October of 1799 eight families from Malpeque packed their canoes with all their possessions and secretly sailed north along the coast until they entered the lagoon next to the Tignish Run and set up a settlement there. They knew exactly where they were going and had probably been familiar with that isolated, but rich spot for years. The first settlers, on whom genealogists place great store as the \u201cfirst families,\u201d were: Basile Poirier Jacques Chaisson Gr\u00e9goire Bernard Pierre Poirier Etienne Gaudet Joseph Richard Joseph Desroches, Germain Poirier In 1800 they were followed by Joseph Doucette, Charles Doucette, and Pierre Arsenault. Knowing already the lay of the land, they settled mostly around the Green and the harbour itself. There is a wonderful manuscript map by John Ball in the Public Archives and dating from 1853 that, in this detail, gives a clear view of the community half a century after the great escape.   Like nearly all early settlers the Acadians built log houses, a subject which I discuss in a post in my PEI Heritage blog. This log house, formerly in Anglo Tignish and now demolished, dated back to those early times, and could have belonged to either an Acadian or Irish settler. After a generation the Acadians began to build larger, more comfortable frame houses. Pierre \u00e0 Maximin Chiasson first built a centre gable house, seen here in this 1960 photo as the kitchen wing. In late Victorian times prosperity and social ambition caused him to build a new main house where the formal parlour and main staircase were located.   A substantial study of the furniture with which the Acadians furnished their houses has not yet been written. It is fascinating because the inspiration for furniture styles was still that of country furniture in Seventeenth Century France, not at all like the styles brought by the British colonists. I once owned these two pieces, an armchair from the Pierre \u00e0 Maximin Chiasson house, and a sideboard, probably from the parochial house at the original site of the village, built by Father S. E. Perrey. Both are now in the Acadian Museum at Miscouche. Clothing was stored in pine chests, such as this one, all single pine boards, that belonged to my mother\u2019s family. Today it is empty and next to my armchair, serves as a lamp stand and side table by the window in my study. As a small child I used to hide in it, with the lid closed.   The First Church – 1801 Being devout Catholics, two years after their arrival, in 1801, the Acadians erected a log chapel, 30 by 25 feet. Of course, the Church, through its vast information network, knew all about the Tignish settlement and very early on there was a visit from a priest who administered the sacraments of Baptism, Confession, Holy Communion and solemnised the marriages that until that time, had been civil unions. The Bishop of Quebec, under whose jurisdiction the Island fell, visited Malpeque in 1803 and wrote a report in which he mentioned that in just under four years the population of Tignish had grown to 103 persons. This woodcut, meant to represent the church, was published in L\u2019Impartial Numero Illustr\u00e9, published in 1899 to celebrate the centenary of the village of Tignish.   The Coming of the Irish By 1812, perhaps to their immense surprise, Irish settlers began to arrive from the North Shore of New Brunswick. One Irish scholar I met years ago, the late Cyril Byrne, told me that in his research he had discovered advertisements in Irish newspapers that described the emigration options available at that time. One shipping company advertised a passage to the North Shore of New Brunswick that was described as \u201cwithin easy travelling distance of New York.\u201d This scholar went on to tell me that the exhausted and discouraged Irish chose, in desperation, to sail across Northumberland Strait and settle instead on the West Coast of Lot 1. News of the empty unsupervised and untaxed lots in that part of the Island had obviously spread quickly. The landlords back in England did not seem to care, nor did their agents, if they had any, investigate the alarming number of Acadian, and then Irish, settlers on that land. Traditionally the first Irish settler to appear weas a man called Reilley, who came from Richibucto. He was quickly followed by others. Here is a list, compiled from various sources, of the Irish who came, first along the Norway Road, then across into the Lot, during the first generation of settlement. Edward Reilly Michael Reilly Michael Brennan James Phee John Ready Patrick McHugh Richard Aylward James McGrath William Handrahan Joseph A’Hearn Peter A’Hearn James A’Hearn Edward O\u2019Connor Simon Luttrell John Carroll Patrick Dalton John Dorgan James FitzGerald John Kennedy Patrick Nelligan Thomas Conroy William Dillon Patrick Carrigan Patrick Hogan Thomas Hackett Maurice Nelligan John Dorgan Thomas Mansel John Broderick Martin Doyle Timothy Casey Michael Ready Michael Christopher James Christopher Patrick Clohossey John McCarthy James McGrath John McCarthy Charles Hyde Cadegan Christopher Cadegan Francis Hughes William Carter Thomas Conway Dennis Fennesy Moses Foley John Gavin Thomas Noonan Edward O’Brien Patrick O\u2019Brien John O\u2019Donahoe Michael Ready Timothy Ryan   The Labour of Clearing the Land The Acadians had had an easier time of it in settling in because they took advantage of the bogland around the Tignish lagoon that could be drained and quickly turned into fertile agricultural land. The Irish had a harder time of it and worked very hard, as they moved inland, to clear away the virgin forest. This early engraving from the American Agriculturalist of 1880 gives you a powerful image of what that seemingly endless process was like.   Once the land had been cleared the first log cabins were built, to be replaced as soon as possible by substantial braced frame houses in the symmetrical Georgian or Neoclassical style such as the John McGrath house along the Norway Road which I photographed in 1960. It was a sophisticated house with a central hall flanked by four rooms, each with access to a chimney with fireplace or franklin stove.   The Irish who settled in Lot 1 came from a Europe that was on the tail end of the Napoleonic wars. Socially they came from a culture of literacy, unlike the Acadians, with their peasant origins in Seventeenth Century rural France.\u00a0The houses the Irish built were more sophisticated than those of the Acadians, and so too was the furniture they brought with them when they emigrated. Unlike the Acadian furniture which ultimately went back to the Late Middle Ages in inspiration, the Irish examples came directly from a country where the latest Georgian styles reached even the poorest homes. It was the style of the day. These Regency chairs belonged to the Aylward family of Tignish. It is possible they came with them on the ship that brought the family to this area, or quite possibly, they were bought from English cabinetmakers who had settled on the Island. One thinks of Mark Butcher, the best-known of them. The lovely simple candle stand was also found in Prince County and could easily have come from an Irish home. Some of these houses would have had sofas in their sitting rooms, and the earliest style of sofa would have resembled this Regency model, dating perhaps from about 1825-35, and which came from a Prince County home.   Contemporary Irish Values versus Acadian Traditionalism and Isolation This connection with the contemporary world placed the Irish in a position to want to assume leadership in Lot 1, and this often soured their relationship with their Acadian neighbours who felt pushed out of their secret place. All was not love in Lot 1\u2026 One must wonder how the Acadians and Irish got on in this tight space of Lot 1 as each ethnic group chose the land they were going to farm. There was no landlord, or arbitrator, or surveyor who designated lots. How did they do it? It is still a mystery, but by 1880, according to Meacham\u2019s map of Lot 1, it had been accomplished. One wonders how much violence was expended in settling disputes. A story is told about Edward Rielly, an Irishman arrived from the Bay of Chaleurs and settled next to Peter Doyle. His behaviour towards the Acadians who had preceded him was arrogant and high-handed and he tried to take some of their possessions. He was confronted by Joseph Bernard and there was a fight. Rielly grabbed a wooden shovel that was at hand and struck Bernard on the head with it. The shovel split. Bernard, a noted fighter turned on Rielly and smashed his nose with his fist. Tensions between the two groups in time diminished and Bernard gained the nickname of Fendeur de pelle or Shovel Splitter. (Buote, p. 13). It is my belief, based on a lifetime of observation, that the Acadian\/Irish ethnic tensions have never gone completely away, in spite of two centuries of intermarriage.   The Second Church – 1826 After only twenty-five years the population had grown so much that a new church was needed in this almost completely Catholic region. It was a splendid Neoclassical building three bays long and six deep that was built near the log church. It was like the church at St. Andrews which had been built in 1805. It was 60×36 feet and had only four lateral round-headed windows. The new church at Tignish was larger, 60×45, feet with 9 over 6 sash windows. Drawings on manuscript maps in the Archives indicate that it probably had a small wooden steeple. The interior arrangement was similar to other churches of the time, with the altar, elevated on a platform in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regportersstory.com\/pei\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regportersstory.com\/pei\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regportersstory.com\/pei\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regportersstory.com\/pei\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regportersstory.com\/pei\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/regportersstory.com\/pei\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":405,"href":"https:\/\/regportersstory.com\/pei\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions\/405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regportersstory.com\/pei\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regportersstory.com\/pei\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regportersstory.com\/pei\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}