Place:Tatamagouche, Colchester, Nova Scotia, Canada

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Tatamagouche (Mi'kmaq: Taqamiju’jk) is a village in Colchester County, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Tatamagouche is situated on the Northumberland Strait 50 kilometres north of Truro and 50 kilometres west of Pictou. The village is located along the south side of Tatamagouche Bay at the mouths of the French and Waugh Rivers. Tatamagouche derives its name from the native Mi'kmaq term Takǔmegoochk, translated as "Meeting of the waters".

Early history

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

The first European settlers in the Tatamagouche area were the French Acadians, who settled the area in the early 18th century, and Tatamagouche became a transshipment point for goods bound for Fortress of Louisbourg.

Battle at Tatamagouche

During King George's War, New England was engaged in the Siege of Louisbourg (1745) in their efforts to defeat the French. On June 15, 1745, Captain Donahew confronted Lieut. Paul Marin de la Malgue's allied force who was en route from Annapolis Royal to Louisbourg. The French convoy of two sloops and two schooners and many natives in a large number of canoes was a relief effort of French and Mi'kmaq on their way to the fortress. Donahew drove the French ashore, preventing supplies and reinforcements from reaching Louisbourg before it fell to the English. The British reported there was a "considerable slaughter" of the French and natives. The battle was significant in the downfall of Louisbourg because Marin's relief envoy was thwarted.

Expulsion of the Acadians

The homes of the Acadians who lived in the village were burned as part of the Bay of Fundy Campaign (1755) during the French and Indian War. Tatamagouche and nearby Wallace, Nova Scotia were the first villages in Acadia to be burned because they were the gateway through which Acadians supplied the French Fortress Louisbourg.

All that remains from that period are Acadian dykes and some French place names.

Fort Franklin was built at Tatamagouche in 1768, named after Michael Francklin. (The fort was built immediately after the abandonment of both Fort Ellis (Nova Scotia) and Fort Belcher.)

Protestant settlement

Ten years later, on August 25, 1765, the land that became Tatamagouche was given to British military mapmaker Colonel Joseph Frederick Wallet DesBarres by the British Crown. DesBarres was awarded 20,000 acres (81 km²) of land in and around Tatamagouche on the condition that he settle it with 100 Protestants within 10 years. Low land prices in other colonies made attracting tenants difficult, but an offer of six years free rent to dissatisfied residents of Lunenburg was a moderate success in 1772.

The earliest settlers of Tatamagouche from Lunenburg were families from Montbéliard on the French-German border near Switzerland. To escape religious persecution following the Edict of Fontainebleau, these families boarded rafts and drifted down the Rhine to Rotterdam. There the Scottish merchant John Dick was recruiting colonists and shipping them across the English Channel to be transported to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Those who survived the Atlantic crossing in 1752 and a difficult winter in Halifax had been taken to Lunenburg in 1753. These french-speaking Lutherans were often identified as Swiss in early census records to distinguish them from the Acadian French Catholics. Their french names have often been Anglicized as shown in parentheses. The earliest families included those headed by James Biguenet (Bigney), George Gretteau (Gratto), George Mettetal (Matatall), George Tetteray (Tattrie), John and Peter Maillard (Millard), John George and John Frederick Petrequin (Patriquin) and David, James and Matthew Langille.

Protestant repopulation also grew considerably before the end of the century with a flood of Scottish immigrants following the Highland Clearances.

During the American Revolution, American privateers pillaged the property of Wellwood Waugh and he was forced to move from Charlottetown to Pictou, Nova Scotia, the following year. In 1777, Waugh was himself implicated in an American privateer raid on Pictou and was forced to move to Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia. He became a prominent inhabitant and Waugh River is named after him.

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