♀Marie Blanchard

Marie Blanchard (28 August 1709 – 1756) was an Acadian of Grand-Pré who died a prisoner of the Deportation, at Falmouth, England. She was the fifth great-grandmother of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through her son Jean Chrysostome Trahan (born 1740).

Family and marriage

Marie was born and baptized on the same day, 28 August 1709, at Grand-Pré, the daughter of Rene Blanchard and Anne Landry. On 5 November 1731 she married Joseph Trahant, a fellow Acadian of Pigiguit^W. Their children, born at Pigiguit, included Joseph, Pierre-Simon, Jean Chrysostome (1740), Aimée and Paul.

Deportation and death

The family was expelled from Nova Scotia in the deportation of 1755. Her son Jean Chrysostome is thought to have gone to Virginia that year and on to England in 1756.

Marie died at Falmouth in 1756, the same year as her husband. She was buried at St Gluvias, Penryn, on 1 September 1756, entered as “Mary Trahan, neutral”; that entry is taken to be hers. Joseph was buried there two days later.

Three of her sons married Granger women of Rivière-aux-Canards while still held at Falmouth: two sisters, daughters of François Granger, to Joseph and Pierre-Simon, and Anne, daughter of Jean-Baptiste Granger, to Jean Chrysostome in January 1763. Jean Chrysostome’s family was repatriated to France in 1763 and probably sailed for Louisiana aboard L’Amitié in 1785.

Lines of descent

Through Jean Chrysostome Trahan the line runs to his daughter Julie Trahan, to her daughter Marguerite Eulalie Leblanc, and through Firmin Serrette, Pierre Anatole Serrett and Ida Serrette, Floyd’s mother, to Floyd Amatus Delahorne.

Notes

Birth and baptism

The Diocese of Baton Rouge abstract of the Grand-Pré register (Catholic Church Records, Vol. 1a) reads “Marie Blanchard (Rene Blanchard and Anne Landry) bn. 28 Aug. 1709, bt. 28 Aug. 1709”, with Germain Terriot and Catherine Landry as sponsors. The 1767 declaration of three of her sons gives her birth as 1711, at Saint-Charles-des-Mines. The register is followed: it has birth and baptism on one day, and her age of 23 in the 1731 marriage act is nearer 1709 than 1711.

Parents

Anne Landry is named as her mother in the 1731 marriage act and in her sons’ declaration at Bangor, and as René Blanchard’s wife in a declaration from Sauzon. A declaration made at Locmaria gives Catherine Landry instead. Anne is followed.

Marriage

The marriage act of 5 November 1731, at Saint-Charles-des-Mines, calls the bride “Marie Blanchar, age 23” and the groom “Joseph Trahan, age ca 30”, son of Guillaume Trahan and Jaquette Benoit of l’Assomption de Pigiguit. The 1767 declaration gives the marriage as 1732; the register’s 1731 is followed. The groom’s age in the act does not fit the 1708 birth that the 1767 declaration gives him; 1708 is kept.

Exile and burial

The Virginia route and her son’s later life come from Steven A. Cormier’s compiled history of the Acadians of Louisiana: exile to Virginia in 1755 at about fourteen, deportation to England in 1756, repatriation to Morlaix in 1763, and passage on L’Amitié to Louisiana, arriving in November 1785. The death at Falmouth is in the sons’ 1767 declaration, which is printed in the Casgrain and Rameau collection.

The burial comes from a published transcription of the St Gluvias register at Penryn, not from the register itself. The register enters each exile as “neutral” and enters Acadian wives under their husbands’ surnames, so “Mary Trahan, neutral” on 1 September 1756 is identified as her. A second “Joseph Trahan”, buried on 30 August, belongs to another man, since the declaration dates this Joseph’s death to September. A compiled index that gives her death as 1 September 1756 appears to have taken the burial date for the death.

Sons’ marriages

Joseph’s marriage at Falmouth is dated 22 August 1757, Pierre-Simon’s 18 November 1758 and Jean Chrysostome’s 10 January 1763. All three dates come from the sons’ 1767 declarations; the exiles at Falmouth had no Catholic priest, and the declarations stand as the record of these marriages. Joseph’s wife and Jean Chrysostome’s wife were different Anne Grangers, daughters of François Granger and of Jean-Baptiste Granger. Pierre-Simon’s wife, Marie Josephe Granger, is called a full sister of Joseph’s wife Anne.

Other women of the name

Other Marie Blanchards of Minas, among them the wife of Pierre Melanson, are not this woman. She is placed by her parents, Rene Blanchard and Anne Landry.