| Notes |
- According to Acadian historian Father Clément Cormier, Jacques Bourgeois was an army officer who served at Port-Royal in the 1650s and evidently was the brother-in-law of Germain Doucet, sieur de La Verdure, an associate of Acadian Governor Charles d'Aulnay. When the English seized Acadia in 1654, four years after d'Aulnay's death, Robert Sedgwick, leader of the English expedition, held Jacques Bourgeois as "hostage" to insure that Doucet, in command at Port-Royal, would fulfill the terms of surrender. Father Cormier says Jacques was repatriated to France along with other French officers and never returned to Acadia. According to Cormier, it was Jacques's son, Jacques dit Jacob, not Jacques, père the soldier, who was progenitor of the family in Acadia. However, more recent studies devoted to this important family, including that of genealogist Stephen A. White, tell a different story:
Jacques dit Jacob or Jacobus Bourgeois was born in France, perhaps at La Ferté-Gaucher on Rivière Grand-Morin in Champagne east of Paris, in c1619, parents unknown. A young surgeon, trained perhaps by members of l'Ordre de Malte, Jacques was recruited by Claude Launay-Rasilly, brother of Isaac de Razilly, after the French re-established control of Acadia in the 1630s. Jacques came to Acadia in 1641 aboard the St.-François and established one of the first families in the colony. He married Jeanne, daughter of prominent settler Guillaume Trahan and his first wife Françoise Corbineau, at Port-Royal in c1643. Jeanne had come to Acadia even earlier than Jacques--in 1636 aboard the St.-Jehan, with her father, mother, and a sister. In February 1653, Jacques stood as a witness to the marriage of Governor Charles La Tour and Jeanne Motin de Reux, the widow of former Governor Charles d'Aulnay. Jacques was second in command of the post when Robert Sedgwick and his New Englishmen captured Port-Royal August 1654. Jacques remained there with his wife and children and became a farmer and a shipbuilder. He also worked as a merchant, trading regularly with the New Englanders of Boston. Having learned to speak English fluently, he served as the King's interpreter in dealings with the English. Jacques also became a successful fur trader among the Indians and ventured to every corner of the colony. It is said that in 1671, when the first Acadian census was taken, Jacques was the most properous habitant in the colony. In 1672, he sold a part of his holdings at Port-Royal and, with his two older sons and two of his sons-in-law, pioneered the major Acadian settlement of Mésagouèche, later Missaguash, on the isthmus of Chignecto, "the first swarming of the Acadians to establish their hive," as one historian describes it. He built a flour mill and a saw mill at Chignecto to encourage settlement beside the wide salt marshes that were perfect for cattle raising. In 1676, part of Chignecto became the seigneurie of Canadian-born French nobleman Michel LeNeuf de La Vallière, père, who named his 100-league holding Beaubassin. La Vallière brought in settlers and indentured employees from Canada, in direct competition with the earlier, adjacent Bourgeois settlement. According to Acadian tradition, a clause in La Vallière's land grant title "protected the interests of Jacques Bourgeois and the other Acadian settlers established on the domain," and "it was not long before the two elements of the population merged into one."
Jacques and Jeanne had 10 children, seven daughters and three sons. Six of their daughters married into the Cyr, Girouard, Boudrot, Mirande dit Tavare, Maisonnat dit Baptiste, Dugas, LeBlanc, and Comeau le jeune dit Des Loups-Marins families. A French census taker found Jacques living with one of his sons at Chignecto in 1698, but otherwise he spent his final days at Port-Royal. He died at Port-Royal in c1701, in his early 80s. All three of his sons, born at Port-Royal, created families of their own, but only two of them had sons:
Oldest son Charles, born in c1646, married Anne, daughter of Abraham Dugas and Marguerite Doucet, at Port-Royal in c1668. Charles and Anne had four children, including two sons who married into the Blanchard family. One of their daughters married into the Caissie family. One of Charles's grandsons, Honoré, who married twice into the Richard family, moved from Chignecto to Île St.-Jean, today's Prince Edward Island, in the late 1740s or early 1750s probably to escape British authority in Nova Scotia.
Germain, born in c1650, married Madeleine, daughter of Antoine Belliveau and Andrée Guyon, probably at Chignecto in c1673. They had three children, including a son who married into the Mius de Pleinmarais and Thibodeau families. Their daughter married into the Breau family. Germain remarried to Madeleine, another daughter of Abraham Dugas and Marguerite Doucet and sister of brother Charles's wife Anne, probably at Chignecto in c1682. They had 10 children, including two sons who married into the LeBlanc family. Their eight daughters married into the Poirier, Richard dit Lafond and dit Beaupré, Girouard, LeBlanc, and Robichaud dit Prudent families. In 1696, during King William's War, Germain commanded a ship in Pierre Le Moyne, sieur d'Iberville's attack on the New England fort at Pemaquid, Maine. Later that year, Germain confronted Massachusetts Colonel Benjamin Church when the Englishman attacked Chignecto. Germaine died in 1711, in his early 60s, from the rigors of being held hostage by British Colonel Samuel Vetch in the dungeon at Port-Royal during Queen Anne's War.
Youngest son Guillaume, born in c1655, married Marie-Anne, daughter of Martin d'Aprendestiguy, sieur de Martignon, a Basque fur trader and seigneur on lower Rivière St.-Jean, and Jeanne de Saint-Étienne de La Tour, daughter of former governor Charles La Tour, probably at Port-Royal in c1686. Guillaume did not follow his older brothers to Chignecto but remained with his father at Port-Royal, where he became a merchant like his father. In September 1727, he was one of the delegates from Port-Royal representing Acadian interests before the Nova Scotia Council at Port-Royal. Along with two other Acadian leaders, Charles Landry and Abraham Bourg, Guillaume refused to take the oath of allegiance to British King George II and was imprisoned for his opposition. Guillaume and his wife had only a single child, a daughter, who married into the LeBlanc family.
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Jacques was a surgeon by trade. He immigrated to Port-Royal in 1642. He married Jeanne Trahan in 1643, and they are the parents of the following:
1) Jeanne (1644-1730) md Andre Coudray
2) Charles (1646-) md Anne Dugas
3) Germain (1650-1711) md Marguerite Belliveau and Madeleine Dugas
4) Marie-Francoise (1652-1741) md Pierre Cyr and Germain Girouard
5) Guillaume (1655-) md Marie-Anne D'Aprendestiguy
6) Marguerite (1658-1732) Jean Boudreau and Pierre Maisonnat
7) Francoise 1659-1697 md Claude Dugas
8) Anne (1661-1747) md Rene Leblanc
9) Marie (1665-) md Antoine Leblanc
10) Jeanne (1667-1716) md Pierre Comeau
Jacques became a farmer and shipbuilder in Port Royal. He traded with Bostonians and learned English, enabling him to become an interpreter. He sold part of his holdings in 1672, and settled in the Chignecto Basin, along with his two oldest sons and two of his sons-in-law. He became the first promotor of Beaubassin, by building a flour mill and a saw mill, encouraging more people to settle the area, which became very prosperous.
He returned to Port-Royal again before 1699, living there until his death in 1701.
Jacob (Jacques) BOURGEOIS, Druggist, 50; cattle 33, sheep 24.
wife Jeanne TRAHAN 40;
children: Jeanne 27,
Charles 25,
Germain 21,
Marie 19,
Guillaume 16,
Marguerite 13,
Francois 12,
Anne 10,
Marie 7,
Jeanne;
1671 Port Royal Acadian Census
https://www.acadian.org/census1671.html
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1621 - 1701 (80 years)