♀Marie Comeau

Marie Comeau was an Acadian of Grand-Pré, in the settlements of Les Mines^W on the Minas Basin, and the wife of François Breau. Their son Alexis Brault lived through the exile of the Acadians in Massachusetts and died near Montréal in 1811. She was the seventh great-grandmother of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through her son Alexis Brault (1721–1811).

Her parents

Two compiled genealogies name her parents as Jean Comeau, called le jeune, and Catherine Babin. Bona Arsenault’s genealogy of the Acadians lists a daughter Marie, born in 1687, among the children of that couple, and Steven A. Cormier’s compilation names her as the daughter of Jean Comeau le jeune and Catherine Babin. The 1693 census of Les Mines, as transcribed, lists the household of Jean Comeau and Catherine Babin with a daughter Marie aged 6, which fits that birth year. Other Marie Comeaus of about her age appear in the same censuses, so the identification rests on the compilations, and no record names her parents directly.

Grand-Pré

François Breau and Marie Comeau married between 1700 and 1703. By 1703 the couple were at Les Mines with no children yet; the roll for that year lists him as ‘francois Broc’ with his wife, and gives no ages.

The 1707 census of Les Mines lists the household of François Breau, written Brault there, with his wife, who is not named: two daughters, four arpents of cultivated land, eight cattle, three sheep and seven pigs.

On 22 September 1721 a son was born at Grand-Pré to François Breau and his wife Marie Comeau, whose name the register writes Como. He was baptized Alexis on 1 November in the parish of Saint-Charles-des-Mines, with Étienne Como and Isabelle Theriot as his godparents. Apart from the rolls, this baptism and the baptisms of the two sons that follow are the only records of the couple in this account.

Their sons Pierre and Chérubin were baptized at Grand-Pré in 1709 and 1711. In 1714 the household is listed at Rivière-aux-Canards with her husband and six children, three sons and three daughters.

The rest of what is known of them comes from compiled genealogies. Steven A. Cormier’s compilation on the Acadian families of Louisiana gives François’s birth as about 1674 and has him marrying Marie Comeau, probably at Port-Royal, about 1703, after which the couple settled at Grand-Pré. It credits them with twelve children, and among the families their sons married into it names the Barrieau, which is most likely the marriage of Alexis to Marguerite Bariault. When François and Marie died is not known.

Notes

The 1721 baptism is known here from a printed abstract of the Grand-Pré registers published by the Diocese of Baton Rouge, and rests on that abstract alone. The abstract writes her name Como and her husband’s Breau; Arsenault gives her name as Comeau, and the son is given as Alexis Brault, the form of the Québec registers.

The compilations that name her give no birth date for her, no record in this account gives her own birth or death, and no roll names her. Cormier’s date and place for the marriage rest on his compilation alone.

The marriage and the rolls

The 1700 census and the 1703 roll bracket the marriage. In 1700 François is listed as unmarried in his mother’s household at Port-Royal; in 1703 the Les Mines roll lists him with a wife and no children. The marriage is therefore dated between 1700 and 1703. The 1703 roll gives no name for the wife and no ages, so the identity of the wife as Marie Comeau rests on the compilations’ dates and on the 1721 baptism, which names her as the mother of their son Alexis.

Her son Alexis

Bona Arsenault’s genealogy of the Acadians names Alexis, born in 1721, as the son of François Breau and Marie Comeau, and follows him through his marriage to Marguerite Bariault about 1745, his home at Rivière-aux-Canards, the deportation to Massachusetts and his burial at L’Acadie in 1811. No record yet found names the parents of the Alexis who went to Québec, so his place as their son rests on Arsenault’s identification and on the Grand-Pré baptism.

The dates agree. The baptism of 1721 is the only baptism of an Alexis Breau in the Grand-Pré registers from 1707 to 1748, and a reconstructed list of the passengers who took Alexis and his family to Québec in 1767 gives his age as 45, which fits a birth in 1721. Only the burial register at L’Acadie points elsewhere: it gave his age in 1811 as about eighty, which would place his birth about 1731.