Census of Acadian Farmers
Living Around Port Toulouse

In Jacqueline K. Voorhies publication entitled Some Late 18th Century Louisianians , this census was listed as having been taken in 1758. The following is Stephen White's evaluation of this census.

"We have here (meaning at le Centre d'études acadiennes, Moncton University) microfilm copies of series C13A of the Archives des colonies, and I was able to find the original census of Port-Toulouse where it has been misplaced in that series. Ms. Voorhies's reference is entirely accurate. And the reason she said the census was "generally believed" to have been taken in 1758 must come from the fact that it is misfiled among the general correspondence of that year. The one thing she did not indicate, however, is the fact that the record itself is overwritten with the date "1719" in a modern handwriting that uses the double stroke for the number one. From the list's internal evidence, I can date it between late 1715 and February 1716. I spent some time yesterday comparing the writing on it with the writing on the other Île Royale censuses from around that time. It does not match any of those, although it is very similar in some respects to that on the 1717 census of the Acadians at Port-Toulouse (ANF, Col, G1 466, no 58). What does match exactly, however, is the "1719." It is exactly the same as the date overwritten on the 1716 census of Port-Dauphin (ibid., no 60). This persuades me that the two documents were at one time together, and consequently that they were both parts of a whole. I am thus confident that we can conclude that this is a census of Port-Toulouse that was taken very early in 1716."

"François Coste is listed here with four sons and three daughters, which is one more daughter than he had in the census at Port-Royal in the fall of 1714. That obviously suggests that this is later than 1714. He is followed by his son-in-law, Sébastien LeRoy dit L'Espérance, who had married his eldest daughter in Feb. 1714. "L'Espérance" and his wife appear here to have no children, but their daughter Marie-Josèphe was born about 1716, according to her age in LaRoque's census in 1752, so presumably this listing must have been made before her birth. (The censuses were often taken early in the year, and Marie-Josèphe might have been born later the same year.) It is particularly interesting to note that François Coste and his son-in-law are followed in the listing by François's sometime partner, Jacques LeBlanc, who had come with him to inspect the possibilities in Île Royale in June 1714 and like him had received permission the following August to move there. He and his family were back in Grand-Pré by the beginning of September 1716, when their daughter Françoise is said by the depositions at Belle-Île-en-Mer to have been born there. (And Françoise was herself present at Belle-Île, so this detail is probably accurate.) Further study might clarify the question of the document's date."

"I do not know why anyone would think that this record dates from 1758, because all the individuals on it who are easy to identify were dead by then."

"I should point out that what Ms. Voorhies has copied actually consists of two enumerations, the first apparently supposedly being those who were not considered Acadians, although it starts with Mme. de Gannes de Falaise, Nicolas Petitpas, and Bernard Marres de La Sonde, who had all lived in Acadia. Mme. de Falaise had gone to France after the capture of Port-Royal in 1710, and then had lived for a couple of years at Québec, so she had not come directly from Acadia. There is nothing to suggest that Petitpas and La Sonde had been elsewhere, however; Nicolas Petitpas had a son baptized at Port-Royal in Oct. 1714, and Bernard Marres de La Sonde was one of those who, like François Coste and Jacques LeBlanc, had come to see the lay of the land in Île Royale in June 1714 and received permission to immigrate in August of the same year."

1716

The widow Dugas; 1 boy
Joseph Dugas; wife, 2 boys
Estienne Eber [Hebert]; wife, 1 boy, 2 girls
La Girofle; wife, 1 boy, 3 girls
The widow Landrie
The widow Richard
Estienne Comeau; 5 boys, 3 girls
Rober; wife, 5 boys, 3 girls
Baudessein; wife
Guinan; wife
Poutier; wife, 3 boys, 1 girl
Corporon; wife, 2 boys, 2 girls
François Coste; wife, 4 boys, 3 girls
L'Esperance; wife
Jacque LeBlan; wife, 3 boys, 5 girls
Jean Pitre; wife, 5 boys, 5 girls
Piere Espaginole; wife
Destouche; wife, 1 boy, 1 girl
Tillias; wife, 2 boys, 1 girl
Estienne Rivet; wife
Leon
Antoine Leblan; wife, 6 boys, 3 girls
Tjac
René Leblanc; wife, 4 boys, 2 girls
M. Falaise; Mme. Falaise, 5 boys, 2 girls
Mme. Pontif; 1 boy, 1 girl
The widow Marion
Nicolas Petipas; wife, 2 boys
La Sonde; wife, 2 boys

Plaisantin at Ille Mon Repos

Descouse
Sr. Martin; wife, 1 boy, 3 girls
Renau; wife, 1 boy, 1 girl
Pichot; wife
Duclaud; wife
Le Large; wife, 1 boy, 2 girls
La Riviere; wife, 1 boy, 1 girl
La Auguet; wife
Silvain; wife
Jouanis (shoemaker)

Avilles Costebelle

The widow Viquiau
La Chouneveuse; 2 boys, 3 girls

TOTAL:

36 Men
34 Women
57 Boys
42 Girls




© Lucie LeBlanc Consentino
Acadian & French Canadian Ancestral Home
1998 - Present



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