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He was a member of the Sulpician Order. After the founding of Halifax, in 1749, he was accused of encouraging the Acadians in their refusing to take the outright oath of allegiance. He was arrested by Governor Cornwallis* and kept in confinement till the spring 1751, when he was released upon the condition that he was not to return to Cobequid. In August of 1751, he was seized by the Indians, probably by arrangement and taken again to Tatamagouche. There he remained in hiding in the woods until the Bishop of Quebec made him Priest at Point Prime. After his departure, there seems to have been no regular Parish Priest in the Cobequid Parish. Eventually Girard returned to France. The site of the Tatamagouche Chapel was in the field adjoining the rear of
the old school house lot. Here, when the first settlers arrived about 1770, they
found the Acadian burial ground and crosses still standing at the head of the
graves.** The site was in land bought as early as 1830 from Colonel DesBarres,.
the original grantee from the Crown, by the
Hon. Alex Campbell. He, a few years
later, sold the land to his brother, William Campbell, who, regarding the spot
as sacred, never would have it put under the plow. William Campbell always
believed that there was the site of the Acadian Chapel and burial-ground, and he
ought to have known, for when he took up the land, there were men still living,
who were at Tatamagouche at its first settlement. The site is yet owned by his
descendents who have left it in its wilderness state. It consists of about a
quarter of an acre and is now a bramble of bushes, briers and small trees.
Mounds resembling graves at one time could be seen, and perhaps could be yet, if
it were not for the tangle of trees, scrubery and bushes, which hide the earth. Back |
