All this time I am forgetting my hostess, whose sweet and gracious presence is often in my thoughts, a descendant of one of the earliest pioneers, herself the daughter of a judge, who has given six stalwart sons to the Province and the Empire, one to the army, one to the Civil Service, two to medicine, another to science, scattered thousands of miles apart—the true breed of British mother who is, after all, Britain’s greatest glory.

Readers of Longfellow’s poems will not question the appropriateness with which this house has been named. It is “St. Eulalie.” In the very heart of the old Acadian settlement it stands. A tablet within the porch states:

All the walks and drives hereabout are full of the charm of scenery—of the magic of historic association. On a hummock by the river I came across a tall tree, upon which was fixed the following inscription: “Near this spot Coulon de Villiers with about 20 French officers and 400 Canadians and Indians on the night of 10th Feb. 1747, from Beauséjour, crossed the river in a snowstorm to attack Colonel Noble with a force of 500 New Englanders at Grand Pré.”

The expulsion of the Acadians is perhaps the most striking and pathetic passage in New Scotland’s history. The British authorities could not treat all these thousands of people as rebels, for the great majority of them had not fought against them at Beauséjour and elsewhere, but had sulked quietly in their villages. But the long patience of the Provincial Government was exhausted. Repeatedly Governor Lawrence urged them to take the oath, repeatedly and stubbornly they refused.

Then and not till then did the decree of exile go forth. Ignorant of the trades and callings by which they could earn a livelihood in those countries, the Acadians could not be shipped to France or England. Colonists they were, and the sons of colonists, suited only for a colonial life, and on banishment they could only be distributed in batches amongst the English colonies along the Pacific coast.

Many hearts, even amongst the soldiers, warmly compassioned the fate of the unhappy Acadians. Those who had taken the oath were safe in their homesteads. A number fled into the forest. As for the rest the military officers were given their instructions, At Beauséjour 400 men were seized, and without warning the people, Colonel Winslow marched rapidly to Grand Pré. He summoned the men of the village to meet him in the chapel, and there read to them the decree of banishment. In vain they tried to escape; the doors were shut and guarded by English soldiers. The people of village after village were seized, until 6000 souls had been gathered together. For a long time they had to wait for transports to bear them away. Many had forcibly to be conducted on board the ships. Old and young men, women, and children, were marched to the beach. A few members of the same family became separated from each other, never to meet again. But the soldiers strove their best to perform their painful duty as humanely as possible, and no unnecessary harshness marked their operations.

From Minas, Chignecto, and Annapolis, ship after ship bore their weeping burdens southward. Many, long years afterwards, returned again to Acadia, where, when Quebec and the French flag had fallen, they were no longer a danger to the Government. Such of the Acadians as reached Quebec were treated with inhumanity by the French officials there, and nearly perished of famine. It is said that they were reduced to four ounces of bread per day, and sought in the gutters of Quebec to appease their hunger. Smallpox broke out amongst them, and many entire families were destroyed. Such, alas! was the fate of those unhappy beings “whose attachment to their mother country was only equalled by her indifference.”

The expulsion of the Acadians may seem to us a cruel act, but it was forced upon the English by the hardest necessity—the necessity of self-protection,[7] and in spite of all that has since been written to the contrary, no impartial student of history can perceive in what other way than the deportation of these irreconcilables could the peace of New Scotland have been assured, a peace which has lasted to this day.

Of Grand Pré it has been said that it boasts a threefold attraction—beauty, fertility, and sentiment. Originally Grand Pré was a long straggling Acadian settlement beginning at what is now the Grand Pré railway station, three miles east of Wolfeville, with Horton Landing one mile away. The salient features of the landscape to-day is, and the older portions of those dikes are, relics of the Acadian occupation.

A group of old willows in one part of this great meadow, undoubtedly planted by the original French inhabitants, the well supposed to have been part of the village’s water-supply, and the reputed sites of the forge of Basil the blacksmith and of the house of Father Felicien, are duly shown to the visitor. I have already mentioned the place where a body of New England troops were massacred by the French and their Indian allies nine years before the expulsion.

A recent discovery at Grand Pré revealed portions of the foundations of the Acadian Church of St. Charles. Most of the stone had been removed, either to be used in other foundations built by the English settlers after the deportation, or had been removed to enable the owner to plough over the church site, but enough has been exposed to determine the size of the church.

Excavations have brought to light also the remains of the fireplace and foundations of the chimney built by the soldiers who were quartered in the church. After the first removal 600 Acadians had to be kept prisoners till ships arrived from Boston to take them away. All Minas was destroyed, save the few houses in Grand Pré needed to shelter these 600 people. Wherefore the soldiers made the church comfortable for themselves during the early winter, till they finally departed.

I had an interesting chat with a descendant of the original Acadians, one Herbin by name, an intelligent and enterprising spirit, who has recently set up business in the Grand Pré district, and seems to prosper at the hands of the numerous tourists to the shrine of Evangeline.

Each morning I arose and gazed across the Basin of Minas at Blomidon, as it lay like some sleeping lion. And the sun shone, and the summer wind rippled the tall marsh grass as if it were pale green sea. And far beyond the white sails of ships stole in and out of the Basin, bending and veering like seagulls. And once out from an orchard a farmer’s boy sang a selection from “Parsifal” (“Learnt it off a gramaphone. Learnt a lot o’ operatic songs that way”); and my heart, too, sang, and I was glad I had come to Grand Pré.

From Grand Pré I went on to Wolfeville, a pleasant little town which, for some odd reason, is spelt “Wolfville.” When the “e,” which allies its history with the name of the famous young general, was elided, I cannot precisely state, but the town was Wolfeville on the old maps and in Haliburton’s account of the Province.[8] Here is situated the Acadia College, a flourishing Baptist institution, which has recently enjoyed some of Mr. Rockefeller’s favour, and which has long been an eminent seat of learning in this part of the Province. But Wolfeville’s chief asset is the fact of its being a convenient centre for American tourists visiting the “Evangeline District.”

Wolfeville’s growth has been steady and uninterrupted since the old coaching days of three quarters of a century ago, when a few houses on one street composed the settlement. From this hamlet it grew into a village, and in 1893 into a town.

The Acadia College and its allied institutions have from the first been the chief asset of the place. Adding to its attractiveness as a residential centre, they also bring annually about 400 young men and women here, and pay out to teachers about $30,000 a year. And besides the educational, the natural advantages of Wolfeville are considerable. It is the commercial centre of a fertile and prosperous region where orcharding and dairying is remunerative, and the farming population increasingly prosperous.

With railway facilities there is excellent water communication for domestic and foreign trade, and a daily steamboat service to Kingsport and Parrsboro for nine months in the year, which makes Wolfeville a promising distributing centre.