USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Hartford > History of the diocese of Hartford > Part 10
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To Ditto James Flint to Ashford. I 5
To my Vittiling the People at Norwich as per bills .. O II 3
2 2 912
3 7 5%
0 4 5 6 -
To by Expence on the Rhoad to Canterbury I
7 6
To Capt. Skiner Bill transporting from Rocky Hill. 2 15 °
To Selectmens Bill Transporting to Stonington 0 15 0
To Expence at Capt Kingsbury Norwich. 0 15 6 Entertaining teems to Windham.
To Mansfield Selectmen Bill 0 16 0
To Mr Stores Transporting to Coventry
I 8 2
To Dec Williams Transporting to Woodstock 0 60
To Capt Konts Bill Transporting from Winsor to Suffield & Enfield ... 0 10 0
To Woodbury Selectmen Bill Transporting their people from Infield- 38 miles. 4 20
Amt Brot over
£36 3 212
To my time & Trouble in Contracting With the People and Collecting the amt and to pay them off. 1 00 0
To Norwalk Selectmens Bill Transporting french people from Fairfield 1 60 To Waterbury Selectmen Do for Do 3.30
To Danbury Selectmen Do for Do
2 13 0
To Simsbury Do.
0 80
£44 13 21/2
To Canterbury Selectmen
I II 9
To Gilford Selectmen,
2 II 8
Windsor Bill
I 38
Collo. Avery & Pygan Adams Esqrs
6 6
56 6 3
Collo. Saltonstall pr Bill.
43 17 94
100 04 214
Thus were these unhappy people scattered throughout Connecticut. Family ties were shattered, wives were separated from husbands and tender cliildren were deprived of their natural and God-given protectors. Strange . faces met them wherever they wandered. Depressed in spirit, broken in body, their thoughts cver reverted to distant Acadia, the scene of so much peace and happiness and contentment, and, alas ! of so much sorrow. There they were surrounded with abundance; here they had become the objects of public charity. A less virtuous and religious people would have broken into open rebellion at the sight of their chains, even though against overwhelin- ing odds ; but their religion, to which they were fervently attached, supported them amid their trials, gave them strength to bear their exile and taught them holy submission to the will of Him who, for His own all-wise purposes, permits His children to be burdened with licavy crosses.
70
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN NEW ENGLAND.
In Connecticut the Acadians were not only frequently treated as paupers, they were bound out to the mnost menial service.
The legislation of the General Assembly, January, 1756, directed and required each town to take care of and support them as though they were inhabitants. The aged and infirm were to receive ample provision from the treasury of the Colony. But some of the towns were not faithful to the humane spirit embodied in these enactments. The town of Wallingford received twelve exiles, and the manner in which it discharged its trust is exemplified by an entry in the records of the town under date of December 21, 1756. It was voted, "That the Selectmen be impowered to proceed with the French people in this town as with other town's poor, respecting binding them out, etc., etc."
The town of Plainfield recognized its duty to the strangers within its borders. It listened to the voice of humanity pleading for these impover- ished people, and it has the honored distinction of being the only town in Windham county to make official and public provision for them. They were furnished with wood and meat, and inedical attendance was provided.
In Hartford the French were comfortably housed. The Selectinen were directed by a vote of the town to erect a building suitable for the accommo- dation of the thirteen people sent there, as no house with the necessary room could be rented. Two years after this vote was passed the records show that a Robert Nevins was allowed 20s., partly for rent and partly for damages his house sustained during its occupancy by the French.1 Of the nine allotted to Woodbury the names of four have come down to us. Petre Beau- mont, Henrie Scisceau, Alexander Pettigree and Philemon Cherevoy. The descendants of Cherevoy were, until recently, residents of the town.2 The name of Sibyl Sharway, or Shearaway, has been preserved as that of one of the Acadians assigned to Litchfield. She had come to Connecticut from Maryland, and was one of the persons forming the "two families" referred to in an act of the General Assembly, passed February, 1757. The enact- ment vividly recalls the wanderings, the unsettled and dependent condition of the French exiles. With no spot they could claim as home, subsisting on charity-too often reluctantly bestowed-and depending upon severe mas- ters, they excite our profound cominiseration and arouse feelings of indigna- tion against their oppressors. The Act of 1757 is as follows :
"Upon the memorial of Elishia Stoddard and others,3 selectmnen for the town of Woodbury, representing to this Assembly that there has lately come to said town of Woodbury two families of the French neutrals from Maryland, three persons in each family; and also shewing to said Assembly that said town of Woodbury had their pro- portionable part of the French neutrals to support, sent to this government by Governor Lawrence ; praying to said Assembly to order concerning said neutral families : Where- upon it is resolved by this Assembly, that one of said families be immediately trans-
1 " Memorial Hist. of Hartford Co.," Vol. I., p. 302.
2 A child of Philemon Cherevoy, name unknown, died at Woodbury, August 22, 1790. Philemon Cherevoy died March 1, 1801, aged 52 years ; Nathaniel Cherevoy died April 29, 1813, aged 28.
3 " Col. Rec.," Vol. X., p. 615.
71
DIOCESE OF HARTFORD.
ported to the town of Litchfield, and the other of said families to the town of New Mil- ford, by the direction of the selectmen of Woodbury, and that the selectmen of said towns of Litchfield and New Milford are hereby ordered and directed to receive said French families and provide for their support and deal with them from time to time according to the directions of an act of Assembly of this Colony made respecting the French sent to this government by Governor Lawrence, and that the expence of transporting said French families from said Woodbury to said towns be at the expence of this Colony."
Litchfield provided for its Acadian charges in a manner consonant with the spirit of Christianity. In the records of the town we find these entries : In January, 1759, it was "voted that the Selectmen may provide a house or some suitable place in the town for the maintenance of the French." In the County Treasurer's record is the following: "To paid John Newbree for keeping William Dunlap and the French persons, 54s. 6d., which the County allowed, and R. Sherman, Justice of the Quorum, drew an order dated April 25, 1760, as per order on file."
We have seen that fourteen Acadians were assigned to Stratford. Among them was William Rose, a gardener.1 Rose married Jeannette Mann. His children were Peter, Mabel, Charity and Polly. He died April 21. 1812, aged 90 years.
The Stratford Acadians remained steadfast to the Catholic faith, though strenuous efforts were put forth to proselytize them. The Church of Eng- land minister at Stratford bears witness to their unconquerable fidelity in the midst of the spiritual dangers that environed thein. Writing to the Home Secretary, the Rev. Mr. Winslow said : "Besides these (Dissenters), there are no other sectaries among us, except a few families of French neutrals, of inconsiderable notice, who were in the beginning of the war dispersed from Nova Scotia, and remain inflexibly tenacious of their superstitions (?). But there is not the least danger of any influence from them. It is rather hopeful that if they are not themselves, their posterity may in time be brought off from their errors (!), though hitherto they will not suffer any efforts of this kind." 2
These lines throw a flood of light upon the anti-Catholic sentiment then prevalent. The unfortunate Acadians became the objects of unpardonable ridicule, were branded as superstitious and as the disciples of error. Socially they were outcasts, destitute of influence among thieir fellows, and solely because they worshiped God according to the manner of the church founded by Jesus Christ. If they had abandoned their religion ; had they set their faces against all they had previously held sacred at the "efforts" of proselytizing clergymen, they would not have been superstitious, but children
1 This anecdote is told of Rose. It was his custom to fish in the harbor of Bridge- port in a boat, accompanied only by his faithful dog Lyon. One day he lost his balance and fell overboard, and was on the point of being drowned wlien his dog swan to him. He grasped the dog's tail and directed him to swim for the shore. When the faithful animal had brought his master almost to the shore, he turned about and began to swim out again, when Rose, in his broken French, called out : "Tudder way, Lyon." Thic dog obeying the command, towed his master to the shore .- Orcutt's " Hist. of Stratford and Bridgeport."
2 Church Documents of the Prot. Ep. Ch. in Connecticut, Vol. II., p. 31.
72
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN NEW ENGLAND.
of light, nor would they have been "of inconsiderable notice." The last few lines of the above are a inelancholy commentary on the spirit that ani- mated some of the Protestant clergy of colonial times. As it was then, so is it now. If perversions cannot be made among the parents, strike the church in her children. But as the elder Acadians of Stratford inanfully resisted all "efforts" to seduce them from the path of duty, we would fain believe that "their posterity were not in time brought off from their errors," but, stimu- lated by the noble teachings and heroic example of their parents, they refused to bow assent to a creed that held them in abhorrence.
In 1759 we find traces of a small band of these helpless people at New- ington, though they were not originally assigned there. They were provided for by the selectmen, who, in 1762, built a house for them near Howard's Pond. It is probable, they were a part of the Hartford contingent.
As we have seen, Waterbury's allotment was six, all ineinbers of one family. In 1763 the town "Voted, to give the French family in this Town, in order to Transport sd. French Family into the Northward Country, not exceeding Ten pounds, including Charitable Contributions."
The paucity of authentic records makes it no easy task to follow the wanderings of the Acadian exiles in Connecticut. In 1767, however, some persons, evidently of influence and authority, gathered the scattered rem- nants of their people at Norwich, whence 240 of them were carried to Quebec by Captain Leffingwell in the brig "Pitt." The historian of Nor- wich, Miss Caulkins, asserts that "their priest" returned with them. If priests were with the expatriated French, they were not numerous. It is traditional, that two Acadian priests resided near Hartford. The Neutrals at Baltimore were consoled by the ministrations of a fellow-exile, Father Le Clerc, and we know that the priests of Mines, Piziquid and Annapolis were put on board of transports bound for New England. But, notwith- standing, it was not the intention of the English oppressors that the Acadians should remain loyal to the Catholic faith. Every ineans was employed to deprive them of this precious treasure. Every obstacle that might cause them to forget their religion was thrown in their way. When some of the broken-hearted people craved the privilege of being allowed the presence of priests in their exile, they were heartlessly refused the boon, as we gather from a paragraph in a letter written by the arch-conspirator, Governor Lawrence, to the Board of Trade : "As the three French priests, Chevereuil, Daudin and Le Maire, were of no further use in this province after the re- mnoval of the French inhabitants, Admiral Boscowan has been so good as to take them on board of his fleet and is to give them a passage to England."
Presuming, however, upon the presence of Acadian priests in Connecti- cut at this period, it is probable they did not extend the sphere of their minis- terial labors beyond the limits of their immediate domicile, owing to the law enacted by the General Assembly, January 21, 1756, which forbade any Acadian to depart from the town to which he had been assigned without written permis- sion from the civil authorities of such town. The law comprehended both clergy and laity, and the enforcement of it would preclude the exercise of sacerdotal
73
DIOCESE OF HARTFORD.
functions beyond the towns in which the priests resided. Moreover, ignorance of the English language would make traveling from town to town both diffi- cult and dangerous. Laws of similar purport prevailed also in Massachusetts, where opposition to Catholic priests was inore violent and more openly pro- nounced than in Connecticut. It may be stated without reserve, that no Acadian priest in Massachusetts, if any such there were, ever officiated pub- licly at divine worship. "No exception was taken to their prayers in their families, in their own way, which I believe they practiced in general, and sometimes they assembled several families together ; but the people would upon no terms have consented to the public exercise of religious worship by Roman Catholic priests." 1
The existence of these prohibitory laws, the sentiment of hostility enter- tained against Catholic priests and the entire absence of priests in many places, were, no doubt, among the reasons for the appointment and authoriz- ation of Acadian laymen in New England and elsewhere to join their fellow- exiles in marriage rather than have the ceremony performed by clergymen of alien creeds. The parties to the marriage expressed their consent in the presence of their assembled families and the old Acadian people, with the understanding and promise, however, of renewing their consent and having their union blessed by a priest, should they ever have the happiness to meet one. The Abbé Cyprian Tanguay, the Canadian genealogist, in his work, A Traves les Registres, Montreal, 1886, publishes an entry taken from the regis- ter of the parish of Deschambault anent the renewal of consent of marriage by Michel Robichan and Marguerite Landry before the cure of the parish, Rev. Jean Menage, on October 27, 1766:
". . . Who (Michel Robichau and Marguerite Landry) presented a writing by which it is said that, having been taken prisoners by the English and expelled from their coun- try, for want of receiving the teachings and the doctrines of the English ministers, they inarried themselves in the presence of their assembled families and of the old Acadian people, in New England, in the hope of renewing their marriage, if ever, after their cap- tivity ended, they fell into the hands of French priests."
Among those mentioned by the Abbé Tanguay who were authorized to receive the consent of persons wishing to be married was " Louis Robichaud, husband of Jeanne Bourgeois, Acadian refugee in Quebec, who was at Salem, New England, in 1774. He was then aged 71 years. This respectable old inan had received the extraordinary power of dispensing the publications of the banns and the impediments to marriage, etc., (meaning those purely ecclesiastical) for Catholics who could not have recourse to the ministry of priests in New England."
"The form of acts of marriage given by Louis Robichaud was as follows:
SALEM, . . . 1774.
" By virtue of tlie powers given me, Louis Robichaud, by Mons. Charles Francois Bailly, priest, Vicar General of the Diocese of Quebec, at present at Halifax, missionary to the Indians and to the French, to receive the mutual consent of Catholics desiring to unite themselves in marriage, in this Province, as also to grant dispensations to those
1 Hutchinson's " Hist. of Mass. Bay."
-
74
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN NEW ENGLAND.
who would be married within certain degrees of affinity or of consanguinity, and who are in need of such, I confess to having received the mutual consent of marriage of . . .. . of the 3d to the 4th degree of consanguinity ..... the said parties have promised and do promise, on the first occasion that they shall find a priest approved by the Holy Cath- olic, Apostolic and Roman Church, to receive the nuptial benediction.
"The said act made in the presence >> 1
We shall bring this chapter to a close with the testimony of historians who cannot be charged with pro-Catholic sympathies. Their words are the eloquent expression of hearts stirred to their depths with sorrow for the un- paralleled sufferings of the French Neutrals, as well as a severe but righteous indictment of their oppressors; and their sentiments, so honestly and fearlessly recorded, will serve to dispel, in some degree, at least, the mists of prejudice raised against the hapless Acadians by apologists of English cruelty and vin- dictiveness.
Says Haliburton : Tradition is fresh and positive in the various parts of the United States where they were afterwards located, respecting their guile- less, peaceable and scrupulous character ; and the descendants of those whose long-cherished and endearing local attachments induced them to return to the land of their nativity, still deserve the name of a mild, frugal and pious people.
Upon an impartial review of the transactions of the period, it must be admitted that the transportation of the Acadians to distant colonies with all the marks of ignominy and guilt peculiar to convicts, was cruel; and although such a conclusion could not then be drawn, yet subsequent events have dis- closed that their expulsion was unnecessary. It seems totally irreconcilable with the idea of justice entertained at this day, that those who are not involved in the guilt shall participate in the punishment; a whole community shall suffer for the misconduct of a part. It is, doubtless, a stain on the Provincial Councils, and we shall not attempt to justify that which all good men have agreed to condemn.
From Smith's Acadia: History is replete with instances of the readiness of man, in every degree of enlightenment, to lay down his life in defense of his right to worship God as he chooses : the Neutrals were denied the services of their priests, when such deprivation meant, according to the light of their faith, the loss of their hope of happiness in the world to come. . ... The banishment from one's country has ever been adjudged one of the most severe penalties known in jurisprudence; this, and the other extremes of human misery, the poor, exiled Acadians suffered, by the voluntary acts of men differ- ing only in language and religion.
From Lossing's History of the United States: The cruel sequel (of the war) deserves universal reprobation. The total destruction of the French settlements was decided upon under the plea that the Acadians would aid their
1 Quoted by U. S. Cath. Hist. Mag., Jan'y, 1887. Similar faculties were granted to and exercised by a Canadian layman, Pierre Mallett, at Vincennes, Ind., between the departure of Rev. P. Gibault in October, 1789, and the arrival of Rev. Benedict Flaget in 1792 .- " Hist. of the Diocese of Vincennes." Alerding.
75
DIOCESE OF HARTFORD.
French brethren in Canada. The innocent and happy people were seized in their homes, fields and churches and conveyed aboard the English vessels. Families were broken, never to be united; and to compel the surrender of those who fled to the woods, their starvation was insured by a total destruction of their growing crops. The Acadians were stripped of everything, and those who were carried away were scattered among the English colonies, helpless beggars, to die heart-broken in a strange land. In one short month their paradise had become a desolation and a happy people were crushed into the dust.
The words of Smith form an appropriate comment on this passage of the American historian : This incursion, aided and abetted and paid for by Eng- land, consummated by New England troops, under a Massachusetts com- mander bred in a Puritan atmosphere, in the name of religion, was conducted in so heartless a manner, that as though by common consent, the reports of details have been purposely destroyed, and historians have passed over it with only an allusion, as if unable to record the shame of the transaction.
We shall supplement this testimony with the words of Most Rev. William Walsh, Archbishop of Halifax, who, on the centennial of the expulsion, issued a pastoral letter in which he reviewed the sad history of the Acadians. The letter, dated September 8, 1855, is addressed "To Our Dearly-Beloved Breth- ren, the Acadians of the Archdiocese of Halifax." We submit an extract:
"DEARLY BELOVED BRETHREN .- On the Ioth of September, 1755, nearly two thous- and Acadian Catholics were barbarously driven from their happy homes by the ruthless hand of persecution. For their attachment to the faith of their fathers were they thus pursued ; and the voice of posterity has proclaimed the foul injustice of the act, and the cold-blooded hypocrisy and cruelty with which it was accomplished. The annals of history scarcely record a more heart-rending scene than that which was witnessed at the mouth of the Gaspereau, and on the shores of the Basin of Minas, on the memorable day alluded to. No doubt it was fondly hoped that the wholesale deportation of this innocent people, and the confiscation of their property would effectually extinguish the Catholic religion in Nova Scotia. Here, however, the impious calculations of the perse- cutor have been defeated by the miercy of heaven, thank God. After a long and gloomy interval of suffering, proscription and exclusion the Acadian Catholic still survives in the cherished land of his fathers, and the glorious faith for which the exiles and victims of 1755 endured the loss of property and life, still flourishes in the heart of nearly one- third of the people of Nova Scotia. ..... It is now a matter of history that the children of these Confessors of the Faith who were driven forth fromn Nova Scotia in 1755; and inost cruelly dispersed over the American Continent, made frequent attempts to return to their native land, that their bones inight rest in the bosom of their beloved Acadia. A few, at lengtlı, happily succeeded,1 and established themselves in the midst of the untrodden forest, and along the virgin shores of that beautiful bay which their piety delighted to honor with the endearing name of the Immaculate Mother of God. Here, whilst the spacious and fertile lands of their fathers in the most luxuriant spots of Acadia were possessed by strangers, who had never toiled to reclaim them from the dominion of the wilderness, those new settlers mnade secret progress. Fostered by the protecting hand of Him who will not suffer ' the just inian to be abandoned, nor his secd to want bread,' they tlirove apace, and with the patient spirit of thicir ancestors, they made the wilderness blossom as tlic rose. The children of confessors and martyrs, they were sure to merit the protection of Heaven. The ' little flock ' soon increased to hun- dreds, and from hundreds to thousands, and their children and children's children are
' See page 72.
.
76
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN NEW ENGLAND.
now to be found in various parts of Nova Scotia and the neighboring provinces, speaking the language of the country from which they boast of being descended, and glorying in the profession of that Catholic faith which their forefathers prized beyond life itself.
"In these few words, cherished portion of our beloved flock, we have traced your melancholy but glorious history. You are the descendants of those who passed through the Red Sea of persecution, and were marked with the sign of suffering, because they were the faithful disciples of Christ crucified; of those who in 'the former days being illuminated ' with peace from the Father of lights, endured a great fight of affliction."
THE FRENCH ARMY IN CONNECTICUT.
CHAPTER XV.
PRELIMINARY CONFERENCES.
T HE services rendered by the soldiers and sailors of Catholic France to the Colonies in their struggle for independence form a brilliant chapter in American history with which every student is familiar. Washing- ton gratefully acknowledged their assistance in his Reply to an Address from the Roman Catholics of the United States. The address was signed by Right Rev. John Carroll, Bishop of Baltimore, on behalf of the clergy, and by Charles Carroll, of Carrollton ; Dominick Lynch, Thomas Fitzsimmons and Daniel Carroll, on behalf of the laity. Washington said : "I presume your fellow- citizens will not forget the patriotic part which you took in the accomplish- inent of their revolution and the establishinent of their government-or the important assistance which they received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic faith is professed."
The names of Lafayette and De Grasse, of Rochambeau and De Choisey -names "that were not born to die," and which are synonymous with chivalry, dauntless courage and nobility of character-are wreathed with undying lustre and are held in benediction by a grateful nation. It is no part of our purpose to relate the story of their heroic achievements on land and on sea; ours it is to follow them in their march through Connecticut, to place on record here the impressions their magnificent appearance and superb discipline made upon this portion of the American people, and to recall tlie fact that it was within the present limits of our diocese, a few miles only from the episcopal residence, and by the aid of the experienced counsels of the French generals, that the plans were arranged which resulted in the defeat of Cornwallis at Yorktown, and the termination of British power in the Colonies. Brave and generous sons of a Catholic nation and devoted children of the Catholic church, they are a part of the history of early Catholicity in Connecticut. They fouglit no battles on our soil, nor performed here great deeds of valor. Their meet- ings were with friends, not with foes. Their passage across the State was as rapid as the circumstances would permit, for theirs was a mission of tremen- dous importance to the American cause. Nevertheless, they left upon the
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