♂Jacques Michel

Jacques Michel (about 1665 – 18 February 1748) was a newcomer to Acadia who married at Port-Royal, farmed there, raised a large family, and lived on under British rule until his death at the age of eighty-three. He was the seventh great-grandfather of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through his daughter Madeleine Michel (born 1712).

Arrival and marriage

Jacques is said to have come to Acadia from France about 1687, and to have been known as Jacques Michel dit Saint-Michel. Within a year or so he probably married Catherine Comeau, the daughter of the farmer Étienne Comeau and his wife Marie Lefebvre; their eldest son, François, was born about 1689.

Port-Royal

The household grew steadily. In 1693 Jacques, aged 35, and Catherine, 21, had two small sons, François and Jean, and kept 6 cattle, 8 sheep and 6 hogs on 6 arpents^W of land, with one gun. By 1698 there were four sons, Charles and Joseph having joined their brothers, along with 8 cattle, 10 sheep, three fruit trees and a servant. In 1701 the family had a daughter, Judith, still an infant.

Six more children were baptized at Port-Royal between 1704 and 1714, among them Madeleine, born on 5 August 1712; her baptism names her parents as Jacques Michel and Catherine Comeau, lawfully married. In the autumn of 1710 a British and New England force had taken the town in the Siege of Port Royal^W, and it was renamed Annapolis Royal. The family stayed, and the younger children grew up in a colony that had passed to Britain.

Later years

On 2 January 1733, at Port-Royal, Joseph Guilbeau, son of Charles Guilbeau and Anne Bourg, married Madeleine Michel, daughter of Jacques Michel and Catherine Comeau. Two years later Jacques lost his youngest son, Paul, who was buried at Port-Royal in January 1735 at the age of 21. Jacques himself died at Port-Royal on 18 February 1748, aged 83, and was buried there the next day.

Notes

Sources for his life

His birth about 1665, his arrival about 1687 and his marriage about 1688 come from Bona Arsenault’s history of the Acadians, which calls him Jacques Michel dit Saint-Michel; Arsenault’s earlier book of census abstracts puts his arrival about 1688. Steven A. Cormier’s compiled history of the Acadians of Louisiana also calls him Jacques Michel dit Saint-Michel. The censuses of Port-Royal for 1693, 1698 and 1701 give his age as 35, 33 and 34, so they do not fix his birth; his age of 83 at burial agrees with 1665. Catherine’s age, from the same censuses, puts her birth about 1671 or 1672. The baptisms of the six younger children, Madeleine’s marriage, Paul’s burial and his own death and burial are in the Port-Royal registers. The index entry for his burial gives his wife’s name as Marguerite Commo rather than Catherine Comeau.

His children

Eleven children are known from the censuses and the registers: François, Jean, Charles, Joseph and Judith from the censuses, and Jacques (1704), Marie Anne (1706), Michel (1708), Pierre (1710), Madeleine (1712) and Paul (1714) from their baptisms. Arsenault lists thirteen, adding Marguerite, born in 1702, who married René Martin at Port-Royal in 1726, and Anne, born in 1719; he gives Judith’s birth as 1699, where the 1701 census has her, as Judie, aged 1.

His parents

A dictionary of the Belliveau family names his parents as François Michel and Madeleine Germon “de France”. This does not fit: a François Michel and Magdelaine Germon counted at La Hève in 1686 were aged 35 and 40, so François was born about 1651 and could not have fathered a son in 1665. The same book dates the marriage to about 1698, nine years after the birth of the eldest son. Where in France Jacques came from, and who his parents were, is not known.