Ancient Port Royal

During a newspaper dicussion.

for :

prett; gate,

and © felt a

ciation oi the two names, Still i Y be so, nl may have been caused by the much es vith the very common name [fi

he true name, nothing could be more appropriate than t

| res on cit | together the delightfu) sictur misnamed Bear River, sut Pnbert would }h the merit oi

tua té name of a man 4

carly history of Aca lia,

pared to a imit that T om

arbot aril

H, Sa v LU { pervi PS (a!

borately abandoned the nov for a scttlement in à lovel mt ‘ounty, for the field, of wh

dready ?

Wn, away West of us, in Michi u* Ï know of no other and when I used to visit the d l spot in question, drive Ing from Beaver or Salmon River, I rue no name could be more appropriate and beautifn!, ns well a3 remarkable for its quaintnes, like Paradise in Ann: polis county. Can't its people undo their odious work, and restore its primitive and Pretty name to that Sunay and pretty scttlement ? Mr. Woodgate, the Jate post office inspector, à gentleman of refined and cultivatod taste, exposed with some feeling, the rewrot he

felt at having to change the name on the post office hooke

and mail bags to the ever recurring and commonplace Springfield.

Before closing, I must express my gratification at perceiving by the initials of your correspondent, that an old and

valued friend, whose able pen did such service for his Pro- May we s001

vince in days lang syne is again among us.

enjoy a summer holiday together in the groves of Imbert.

Li * *

It accured to me that more explicite statement was necssary in this explanation and the Digby Courier published my second letter on the 3rd May 1889.

Louis Hébert, apothecary of Paris, married Marie Ro!-

Jet about 1601, and accompanied de Monts in 1604, when this gentreman landed at Ste. Croix and afterwards on the mainland, where he founded Port Royal. Mare Lescarhot, à lawyer from Paris, à good writer also, and a keen observer, arrived at Port Royal in 1606, and found Hébert busily engaged in sowing wheat and planting vine. “He ji: a man very much given to the study of his art and devoted to agricul- «ture”, says Lescarbut. Soon after Poutrincourt went on à journey of exploration towards Cape Cod, and Hébert spent his time in collecting samples of the plants emd natural products of the soil wherever they landed. Poutrincourt haû made up his mind to bring his family into the settlement; Hébert who had aiready two children, was determined to do the same, but de Monts Company lost part of the privileges conceeded to them by the King of France and Hébert and Lescarbot returned to Paris. In 1610, Poutrincourt brought back the clever apothecary to Port Royal; both of them were to take their wives into the new counry the next year, 0 they

nex t on th come the w:

are pi brancl a shot the de

N V'Equi map a Lescar direct from + same :

Roche ; comes |

BEAR RIVER 101 ES DRE Dre did. These were the first women settled in Acadia. Father Biard wrote, in 1612, from Port Royal: “We have twenty people here besides the women.” At the destrnction of Port Royal, in 1613, Hébert and his family returned to France, but in 1617, they sailed for Quebec, where they became the first real settlers of the colony. The descendants of Hébert are numerous amongst the French-Canadians to-day, L cannot say whether the Hébert of Acadia have any relation wita this group.

Simon Imbert (3) was in the employ of Poutrincourt. In January 1612, he arrived at Port Royal as hendman in a vesse] chartered by his master. This is all I know about him,

On the map delineated by Champlain, in 1604, as an annex to his official report of that year, Port Royal is situated on the entrance of River l'Equille. Ascending that river we come to a fork. On the point of land, between the division of the water is the wheat field. Further on, in the cast direction, ar prairies covered by the sea at high tides. The south branch of River l’Equille is called Ruisseau du Moulin, and at a short distance from its emptying in‘o the main current is the design of a mill built by Poutrincourt.

Now, opposite Port Royal, right in the mouth of River lEquille, is an island with no name on it; if you compare the Map accornpemying this letter with the one published by Lescarbot, you find that it is called Biencourville. Going direct south from that island, there is a rivulet, flowing from the mainland; no name attached. Westward, on that ame shore of the mainland is another rivulet styled La Roche; Lescarbot calls it Original River. Westward again tomes River St. Antoine, the very one named Hébert, accord-