The Last Guedrys in Merligueche, or The Labrador and the Guedry Family

Who are this family "Labrador"? Several times in the old records we discover at least two Guédry families being called "Labrador". Even today the name is known among the Micmac Indians. Here we only find the surname after the Acadian Expulsion of 1755-1763. For example, in the church registers of Abbé Bailly we notice the baptism of a young boy in Halifax on 23 December 1770 called François Noël Labrador, the son of Philippe Labrador and Marie Bisk8ne, both calling themselves Micmacs.

Later, the registers of Père Sigogne of Saint-Anne- du-Ruisseau mention a François Noël Labrador and Anna Labrador having their young son François Noël Labrador, eight months of age, baptized on 1 July 1832. In Birchtown, near Shelburne, one discovers the birth on 18 March 1900 of Frank Burbine, son of Alphée Burbine and Marguerite Labrador, whose parents were François Labrador and Marie Lucksee. Later, Frank Burbine married Anne Labrador, daughter of Benjamin Labrador and Marie Covy. Note that the spelling of the surname varies slightly in the records.

Historically and even today most of the Micmacs named Labrador reside mainly on the East Coast from Cape Sable to Halifax and occasionally as far as Cape Breton.

The name Labrador first appears in Acadia about 1750. On 27 May 1750 Cornwallis requests some Acadian delegates to apprehend Labrador along with Joseph LeBlanc, J. P. Pitre and Pierre Rembour for having aided a certain number of soldiers of the administrator Philipps to desert. This Labrador may be the Jean Guédry dit Grivois discussed below; however, we are unsure of this at the present time.

We first encounter the name Labrador among the Guédry family in 1753. In that year Charles Lawrence was establishing some "Protestant Foreigners" at the new village of Lunenburg (formerly known as Merliguèche). On their arrival at Lunenburg on 8 June 1753 the new colonists discovered there Vieux Labrador (Old Labrador), who was thought to be at least part Indian according to Lawrence's Journal and his nephew whom Lawrence called Deschamps (nicknamed Cloverwater).

This Deschamps provided valuable services to Lawrence and requested a share of land with gardens so that he could send for his wife and children at Pisiguit. It seems probable that this Deschamps was actually Jean-Baptiste Augustin Guédry, son of Pierre Guédry and Marguerite Brasseau, and the nephew of Paul Guédry, son of Claude Guédry and Marguerite Petitpas, who almost certainly is the Vieux Labrador identified in Lawrence's Journal.

A 1753 map of Lunenburg identifies "Ferme Labrador" (Labrador's Farm) and "Maison Labrador" (Labrador's House) situated on approximately seven arpents of land near the community. When this property was granted to Patrick Sutherland in 1762 it was noted as having belonged to Paul Labrador.

On 24 August 1754 William Cotterell, secretary of the province, penned a letter to Colonel Patrick Sutherland of the Warburton Regiment, who had replaced Lawrence as the commandant of the Lunenburg settlement. In this correspondence Cotterell provided the names of 25 Acadians that had left Louisbourg to avoid famine - several of which are related to Vieux Labrador.

Those listed as relatives of Vieux Labrador included Paul Boutin, Charles Boutin, Joseph Guédry and Pierre Guédry - all of whose families had formerly been from the Merliguèche region. In addition, Julien Bourneuf, husband of Jeanne Guédry, moved to Lunenburg at this time. In October 1754 another group migrated from Louisbourg to Lunenburg including a family bearing the name Labrador.

Could the Vieux Labrador mentioned by Cotterell be Paul Guédry, born in 1701 and son of Claude Guédry and Marguerite Petitpas. Certainly the persons noted in the above correspondence are all closely related to him. Charles Boutin married Marie-Joseph Guédry and Paul Boutin married her sister Ursule Guédry - both daughters of Augustin Guédry and Jeanne Hébert and thus nephews-in-law of Paul Guédry. Furthermore, Jeanne Guédry, wife of Julien Bourneuf, was also a daughter of Augustin Guédry and Jeanne Hébert. It is very probable that the Joseph Guédry and Pierre Guédry referred to by Cotterell were sons of Augustin Guédry and Jeanne Hébert and thus nephews of Paul Guédry. These children of Augustin Guédry and Jeanne Hébert were on Ile Royale (Cape Breton) during the Census of 1752 and later in 1763 Paul Boutin and his wife Ursule along with Joseph and Pierre Guédry were together in Pennsylvania.

We know that Paul Guédry and his family suffered disgrace at Ile Royale when his daughter Marguerite married illegally Chevalier Toussaint-Marie de Lanoue, a young French officer at Louisbourg. At the time it was forbidden for a French officer in America to marry a woman with Indian descent. Marguerite Guédry's mother Anne-Marie Mius d'Entrémont dit d'Azy was of mixed blood and thus Marguerite could not marry the young officer.

In defiance of his commanders orders they married at Baye des Espagnols in February 1754 and a scandal ensued. The marriage was annulled in February 1755 and Paul Guédry and his family disappeared from the record. Could Paul and his family have taken the name Labrador during the scandal of 1754 to gain anonymity and quietly left Cape Breton for the more-friendly Lunenburg?

Furthermore, his age of 53 years old in 1754 certainly would have qualified him for the term "Vieux Labrador" (Old Labrador). Note also that the above correspondence of 1754 was written to Patrick Sutherland, commandant at Lunenburg, who in 1762 was granted the property of Paul Labrador. This evidence strongly suggests that Vieux Labrador (and Paul Labrador) was Paul Guédry, son of Claude Guédry and Marguerite Petitpas.

But what about Vieux Labrador's nephew Deschamp who also was at Lunenburg on 8 June 1753 when the "Foreign Protestants" arrived? On 21 September 1754 William Cotterell, secretary of the province, wrote to Captain Alexander Murray, commander at Fort Lawrence at Pisiguit, requesting that he warn the pilot Grivois that, if he went to Merliguèche without a passport, they would arrest him.

This pilot Grivois could not have been Paul Guédry dit Grivois, son of Claude Guédry and Marguerite Petitpas, who piloted his boat at Ile Royale and along the East Coast, it was rather his nephew Jean Guédry dit Grivois, son of Pierre Guédry and Marguerite Brasseau. Jean Guédry married Marguerite Picot, daughter of Michel Picot and Anne Blain, shortly before the Acadian Dispersion. Earlier he had had to flee from Merliguèche to Pisiguit to avoid a threat from the Micmacs since he had aided the English.

On the 26th of December 1757 the Petition of John Labardor of Wilmington, Massachusetts to Thomas Pownall, Governor and the Council and House of Representatives in the General Court, states:

The humble Petition of John Labardor sheweth that while he lived at Maligast he was so faithful in serving and assisting all Englishmen in distress and from the cruelties of the Indians that one day in particular having sent away out of the harbor one vessel which the Indians intended to prey on and which they forbade him at his peril, they waylaid him coming from the vessel and shot at him with Buckshot seven of which were log'd in his flesh and Thirty odd went thro his coat which marks he now bears, having three yet in his back, but they not satisfied with that treatn'd to take his life away the first opportunity which obiged him to abandon his habitation and go live to Pisiguite, but having done all the service in his power, and in a perishable condition at pres't without any regard or pity showed him almost breaked his heart. For those ten weeks he has had no kind of subsistance only one quarter lamb, and about a quart Milk each Day among seven in family without wood having at length refused him oxen to fetch home his wood which he always cut himself, and left them now in that condition without victuals or firing, and in a kind of house without doors or roof for when it rains they are obliged to shift their bed from part of the wett to leeward and from a melting snow there is no screeing and having told one of the selectman that we were afloat in the house he said I must build a boat and sail in it. He has with his family lived chiefly on acorns three weeks without any pity, and innumerable other cruelties too tedious to mention.

Therefore, if your honours would permit him to quit Wilmington that place of woe and come to Charlestown he would for you as herefore, if your honours would permit him to quit Wilmington that place of woe and come to Charlestown he would for you as in duty bound forever pray so hoping for the love of God (that your Honours being the fathers of your country) you will help and redress the grievances of the distressed, and in this confidence subscribed himself.

Your Honours most Dutiful servt
JN. LABARDOR

As time progressed and no action was being taken by the authorities to relieve his dire situation, John Labrador (Jean Guédry dit Grivois) pursued his desire to find a better life for his family. On 1 December 1764 Jean Guedrit and his family of ten are listed on a role desiring to leave Boston for Hispaniola. On a role of 2 June 1766 of the French who desire to go to Canada we find Jean Guedry and his family of eleven.

On 27 June 1766 in a Petition from John Labrador to the Governor and Council in Boston, Jean Labrador provides a similar account of his attack by the Micmac for aiding an English ship and his dire condition with his family of eight children. At this time he is in Marblehead and requests permission for he and his family to emigrate to Québec where he had a cousin's house to live in during the upcoming winter.

Another petition of 23 July 1766 urges the Boston Council to let John Labrador, a French Acadian, emigrate to Québec at public expense and states that a vessel is sailing for Québec the next Saturday.

From the various Petitions of John Labrador and the Roles of those desiring to emigrate, it is almost certain that John Labrador and Jean Guédry are the same person. Furthermore, the accounts presented in the two Petitions cited agree favorably with both the 1754 request of William Cotterell to Captain Alexander Murray to warn the pilot Grivois not to sail from Pisiguit to Merliguèche without a passport and with the 1753 Journal entry of William Lawrence concerning Deschamps, nephew of Vieux Labrador, who provided invaluable service to Lawrence (an Englishman) and had a family in Pisiguit that he wanted to bring to Merliguèche. Deschamps, John Labrador and Jean Guédry dit Grivois are almost certainly one and the same person - who was to change his name yet one more time.

Persistence provided reward for Jean Baptiste Augustin Guédry dit Grivois as he eventually did emigrate with his family to the Québec region - arriving in Québec in 1766 and eventually settling at Saint-Jacques-del-l'Achigan about 1767. Jean Guédry and his wife Marguerite Picot had at least ten children: Elizabeth (born ca 1754), Joseph (born 1757), Joseph (born 1759), Jean-Charles (born 1760), Olivier (born 1764), Marguerite (born 1766), Pierre (born 1770), Marie-Judith (born 1772), Marie-Anne (born 1774) and Augustin (born 1775).

It seems certain from the available records that Jean Guédry and Marguerite Picot had other children whose births were not recorded and may have perished during their twenty-year struggle beginning about 1750. After arriving in Québec, Jean Baptiste Augustin Guédry dit Grivois changed his name yet another time - taking the 'dit' name Labine of his father Pierre Guédry dit Labine. With that final name change he became the father of the large Labine family of North America.

Most of his children settled with him in the Québec region to begin the Labine family; however, interestingly, one son Olivier Guédry (born 1764) emigrated south sometime after 1766 and carried the Jean Guédry dit Grivois ancestry to Louisiana. On 8 January 1793 at St. Martin Parish, LA he married Felicité Ocoin, daughter of Alexandre Ocoin and Isabel Duhon and the widow of Joseph Faulk. The records of Louisiana consistently refer to Olivier Guédry as "Olivier Guidry of Boston" and his father Jean Baptiste Augustin Guédry as "Augustin of Canada". Olivier and Felicité had two sons and a daughter: Suzanne (born 1794), Pierre (born 1796) and Paul (born 1798).

A close examination of the available records strongly suggests that the last two Guédry's to remain in Merliguèche were the uncle and nephew - Paul Guédry dit Grivois, the youngest son of Claude Guédry and Marguerite Petitpas, who is often called Vieux Labrador, and his nephew Jean Baptiste Augustin Guédry dit Grivois, son of Pierre Guédry dit Labine and Marguerite Brasseau, who is called variously Deschamps, Cloverwater, John Labrador and Jean Baptiste Labine.