LEVIS, PQ: A new book is providing a unique look at local history, using as its a source, notes from one of the first permanent priests in this area.
Published on March 15 and entitled “Le cahier de messes de l’abbé François Lejamtel: Missionnaire à l’Isle Madame, Cap-Breton, 1796-1802,” the French language essay chronicles the efforts of Father François Lejamtel, the missionary priest who was responsible for the Parish of Arichat between 1792 and 1819.
“He was the second priest responsible for the Parish of Arichat after Father William Phelan,” said author Martine Bérubé. “There was a shortage of priests and he became a refugee when he had to leave Saint Pierre et Miquelon because of the French Revolution.”
Upon his arrival in Halifax, the Bishop of Quebec appointed Lejamtel to Arichat, a post he held for 27 years.
After obtaining a degree in economics and political science from McGill University, Bérubé had a 21-year career in the federal public service, then pursued her passion for history and genealogy. She has a keen interest in Isle Madame.
“I have an ancestor who lived in Arichat. Her name was Rosalie Briand,” she said. “My ancestor, he was a blacksmith, so he left Quebec City in 1812 and went to live in Arichat and he married Rosalie Briand. I was looking for her parents but because 53 years of parish records burned in 1838, the register of their marriage and their children, everything burned.”
After Father Lejamtel left Arichat in 1819, he took over the parish near Nicolet, Quebec, and while researching her roots at the Archives régionales, Séminaire de Nicolet, Bérubé discovered something that had been hidden for more than 200 years.
“What I found was this little black book that contained six years of information, from 1796-1802,” she explained. “It’s a little book that he used to note people who paid their annual contributions.”
Between 1796 and 1802, Lejamtel kept track of all parishioners who paid their tithe and ordered religious services in a little black notebook called “cahier de messes,” noted the author. She said some families paid with money, others with cod, sugar, cattle, crops, or lamp oil.
With help from Stephen A. White, genealogist at the Centre d’études acadiennes Anselme-Chiasson of the Université de Moncton, they drew up a list of 273 heads of families who paid their annual contributions to the church, the reconstitution of more than 80 marriages, and the identification of some 130 Acadians who passed away prior or during the 1796 to 1802 period.
“It’s not just for Isle Madame, he was also responsible for what he called Baie Saint-Louis, or Baie Saint-George, today in the Antigonish region; so Pomquet, Tracadie, and Havre Boucher,” she said. “The people in the Antigonish region, he was there twice a year, in the spring and in the fall.”
Lejamtel also traveled to Les Iles-de- la-Madeleine, Louisbourg, Sydney, Chéticamp, Margaree, as well as other parts of Richmond County like L’Ardoise, St. Peter’s, River Bourgeois, Louisdale, and D’Escousse.
Because the priest’s notes included a calendar, Bérubé was able to calculate that Lejamtel was away 25 per cent of the time during some years, and in more busy years, he was away more than 180 days per year.
“Father Lejamtel was on the road a lot; he was travelling all over the place,” she noted. “It’s incredible; he had to travel in canoes, in ice, by foot, and all over Cape Breton. He didn’t know the territory.”
Lejamtel was also responsible for administering to the people of what is now known as Potlotek First Nation, said the author. She noted that every summer, people from Potlotek visited the Feast of Sainte-Ann in Arichat.
Each April, Bérubé said Lejamtel did a Mass for the Seal Hunt, one in Arichat, the other in Antigonish County.
By crosschecking Lejamtel’s agenda with his correspondence to the bishops of Quebec, Bérubé said the book evokes the numerous journeys of the missionary, and the challenges he faced during a time characterized by wars, political tensions, and the arrival of migrants coming from the islands of Saint Pierre et Miquelon.
“He told the bishop that he almost died in 1798 when he went to les Iles-de-la-Madeleine. There was a big wind called Les Suetes and he was on a boat,” she stated.
Lejamtel also started expanding the size of the first church in Arichat, said Bérubé.
“In 1802, looking at the correspondence with the bishop, we found out he was renovating the church of Arichat, making it bigger because the population was getting bigger,” said the author. “In 1803, the following year, the bishop was coming to visit Arichat so they wanted to make sure they had a big enough church to welcome everyone.”
Bérubé calls the book a “real gold mine” for those with an interest in Acadian genealogy and heritage. She said the notebook is an important source of demographic information on Acadians living in Cape Breton and eastern Nova Scotia during a time when data on births, marriages and deaths is fragmentary, and some church records are nonexistent.
For example, the author noted that the documents include a research paper by Lejamtel from 1792 which identified the 17 founding families of the Parish of Arichat dating back to 1786.
“This gives us more information about those families, and the next available information is the census of 1811, so we’re kind of in between with information which is very useful,” she said.
A contributor to the book, White is the author of Le Dictionnaire généalogique des familles acadiennes first published in 1999, as well as many columns including one in 1992 about the founders of the Arichat parish in Les Cahiers de la Société historique acadienne.
White’s grandparents were from Isle Madame, a place he is particularly attached to, according to Bérubé.
“All the pertinent information regarding Arichat genealogy was from him,” she stated. “He helped me organize the data and sort out who’s who and everything. He’s kind of a specialist on this. I’m very grateful for him to help me organize this.”
Bérubé added she will be making the book available through Eastern Counties Regional Library, as well as the Isle Madame Historical Society in Arichat, and it can be purchased by emailing: infolejamtel@gmail.com, or visiting: https://www.leslibraires.ca/livres/le-cahier-de-messes-de-l-martine-berube-9782982149601.html.