The Myers and Perry Families of
Tignish, Prince Edward Island

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Welcome to the Maillet/Myers and Poirier/Perry portion of my site! It is from these families that I draw my French lineage. To date, I have been able only to explore small aspects of this story. What follows is a direct translation into English of the book, “Les familles Maillet du Comte de Kent and du sud-est de N.-B.” by Julien Belley.I take no credit for any research done, only for the translation. In time, I will add information about the Poirier's as well, drawing on the research of Sheila Peckham.

Generation 1
Jacques Maillet (1695 Paris – USA in exile) married 25 November 1720 at Port Royal, NS to Madeleine Hebert (@1699 Port Royal – USA in exile). Jacques entered Acadia in October 1708 on Le Loire, recruited to defend Port Royal against the English among a number of other young Parisians. In 1729, Jacques was part of a list of Acadians who signed an allegiance to the King of England. However, deported during the Acadian Expulsion, he and part of his family (Madeleine and two sons) are found in New York City, N.Y., in 1763.

Generation 2
Charles Maillet (17 April 1726 Port Royal - @ 1756 Moncton) married @ 1752 at Memramcook to Marie Babineau (@1731 Port Royal – 20 June 1809 Memramcook).

The fourth son of Jacques Maillet and Madeleine Hebert, Charles was not deported in either 1755 or 1758 because he died in captivity @ 1756. Born in Port Royal, he settled in the region of Memramcook a little before 1752(in that census, he is listed as a refugee and single), the year he married Marie Babineau.

Marie was the eldest daughter of Jean-Pierre Babineau and Isabelle Breau. Jean Pierre was the son of Nicholas Babineau (Deslauriers), who arrived in Acadia in 1685 and married Margaret Granger about 1687, the daughter of Laurent Granger and Marie Landry of Port Royal. Laurent Granger was an English Protestant from Plymouth, England. He came to Acadia in 1657 and converted to Catholicism to marry in 1660 in Port Royal to Marie, the daughter of Rene Landry and Perrine Bourgeois. Isabelle Breau’s father was Pierre Breau (s/o Vincent) an Anne LeBlanc (d/o Jacques, s/o Daniel LeBlanc).

Charles Maillet and his family were at Petitcodiac in 1755 at the time of the Deportation (in that Census there is one son, Jean-Baptiste). Charles took part in the French resistance at Fort Beausejour. One source cites his death at the hands of an English soldier in 1757. Also, in the notes of Placide Gaudet, it cites, “Charles Maillet was surprised by some “Rangers”. A soldier pursued him over a mile and across a river. He was taken prisoner aboard a navy ship.” We are led to believe he died on this vessel. At the time, Marie was pregnant with Charles Jr. and after Charles Sr.’s death, left for Boston, Massachusetts, with the children.

The family later returned to Acadia to settle at Richibucto. Charles’ two sons are the ancestors of the Maillets of New Brunswick. Before her return to New Brunswick, Marie married Germain Thibodeau, relict of Blanche Prejean and son of Philippe and Elizabeth (Vincent) Thibodeau of the Parish of Memramcook. Marie Thibodeau died June 1809 in Memramcook at the age of 78 years.

Generation 3
Jean-Baptiste Maillet (11 July 1753 Petitcodiac – 29 March 1837 Richibucto) married @ 1779 at Memramcook to Marguerite Richard (@ 1762 – 26 August 1856).

He was the eldest of three children to Charles Maillet and Marie Babineau, and Jean-Baptiste’s father was actively involved in the defense of Fort Beausejour in 1756. Upon Charles’ death, Marie and her three children were deported to Boston about 1758 to join Charles’ uncle Jean-Jacques, who had been deported in 1755. The family of Jean-Jacques returned to Maskininge, Quebec about 1767.

Marie remarried about 1765 to Germain Thibodeau, widower of Blanche Pejean, and Germain and Marie returned to Acadia about 1775 with her children (to Charles) and settled in Memramcook, NB.

Before Jean-Baptiste married in 1779 to Marguerite Richard, at aged 23 years, he enrolled on 14 November 1776 as a soldier in the Company of Frenchmen in Cumberland County, NS. In a legal reference in writings on the Maillet family by Stephen White (of the Acadian Congress), Sergeant Jean-Baptiste is reported as being under the orders of Cp. Isaac Boudreau and Colonel Jonas Eddy, and served for 3 months, discharged 14 February 1777 at the rate of 2 pounds, 8 pence per month.

After the founding of New Brunswick in 1784, Jean Baptiste and his new wife and four children received from the government a grant of land beside the Petitcodiac River (near Dieppe and St. Anselme). An application was accepted 30 May 1788 and was presented by Sylvain Babineau with 20 other Acadians including Jean-Baptiste, Germain Thibodeau and Joseph Leger (married to Marguerite Maillet, J.-B.’s sister). A grant of 4473 acres was divided between them. The land had been supposedly attempted for settlement by other Acadians before 1784.

In 1791, after several visits to Bouctouche, Jean-Baptiste decided to settle in Richibucto Village and bought land from Pierre Doiron (s/o Pierre Sr.). The new property was located south of Richibucto on the old Bay of St. Antoine. His son Marc was 6 and the last son Amand (born about 1792) was the first baptised at the new mission by the missionary fathers at the Bay Chaleur (Fr. J. Castenet, among others). It is worth noting that Charles Maillet, son of Antoine-Solomon Maillet, received a grant 11 December 1783 comprising most of Richibucto Village.

Generation 4
Simon Maillet (20 December 1798 Richibucto Village - ??) married 7 January 1818 at Richibucto to Marguerite Hebert (@ 1799 - ??).

The sixth son of Jean-Baptiste Maillet and Marguerite Richard, he married, as soon as he reached a mature age, a daughter of Jean Hebert and Marie Thebeau of Bay des Ouines (Bay du Vin). According to records of the Acadian Congress, there were two Jean Heberts at this time in the region. The first Jean was married to Ozite Vincent and had brothers Joseph and Francois in Baie des Ouines, and the second Jean married Marie Thebeau and also lived there. Marguerite appears to be a legitimate daughter of the second Jean (called Janvier) Hebert. One of her sisters Anne-Marie Hebert was born 1 April 1801 and a brother Etienne married an Anne-Marie (or Pelagie) Savoie on 27 November 1820, daughter of Jean Savoie and Marie Allain, who established themselves in the region of Grand Chockpishe.

Simon’s marriage was witnessed by Jean Baptiste (his father) and Antoine (his younger brother) at the same time as Jean-Baptiste witnessed the marriage of Joseph Richard, a friend of his spouse. After celebrating their marriage on 7 January 1818, Simon and Marguerite had ten children between 1819 and 1840. The last son, John, was born in Tignish, Ile-Ste-Jean (Prince Edward Island) so the family likely moved there about that year.

Most of Simon’s sons (Anselme, Ruffin, Calixte, and John) and their descendants raised their families in Prince Edward Island and there are many family members left there today. Of the death of Marguerite and of Simon, her husband, we know nothing, but can be almost certain they died in Tignish, Prince Edward Island.

Generation 5
Anselme Maillet (1 April 1822 Richibucto Village - ?? Tignish, PEI) was married on 6 November 1843 in Richibucto Village to Gertrude Johnson (October 1825- @ 1844 Richibucto Village). They had no children.

Anselme married secondly about 1845 at Tignish to Francoise Arseneault (@ 1826 - ??). After the death of his first wife, Anselme rejoined the family of his brother Remi in PEI, where he met and married in 1845 Francoise Arseneault, daughter of Francois Arsenault and Modeste Richard, natives of PEI. Francoise descends probably from the children of Paul (s/o Jacques, s/o Pierre) Arsenault, all of whose children (except Joseph) remained in PEI. In his second marriage, between 1848 and 1870 Anselme had ten children and they continued to live in Prince Edward Island.

In the 1881 Census at Tignish, the family was composed of Anselme (59 years), his wife Francoise (55 years) and six children: Simon (24 years, fisherman), Jean (18 years, fisherman), Modeste, George (16 years, fisherman), Pierre (13 years) and Jerome (11 years). The four eldest children appeared as follows: Ursule (@ 33 years) was probably married at the time, Joseph (30 years) was a single fisherman, and Francis was also a single fisherman, aged 26 years.

Caliste, the second son, was found in the Census at aged 29 years. He appears with his wife, Marie Gaudet (26 years) and two children, Narcisse (2 years) and Joseph (3 months, born January 1881) and a domestic, Magdeleine Desroches (35 years).

The following information was collected by the author of this newsletter, and compiled to compliment the information from Mr. Belley’s book.

Generation 6
Caliste Maillet (12 Oct 1852 Tignish – 1937 Princes County, PEI) married prior 1879 In Princes County, PEI, to Marie Gaudet (?? - ??) of that place. A son of Anselme Maillet and Francoise Arsenault of Tignish, Calais remained in that vicinity for the duration of his long life. It was in Calais’ generation that the name Maillet gradually became anglicized to Myers. The majority of the Maillet descendants on Prince Edward Island today go by the latter surname.

Marie died about 1900, leaving Calais to enter the twentieth century with ten children to feed, the eldest boy, Narcis, being only 22 in 1901. Narcis worked as a fisherman, as did his brother Joseph (20 at the time of the Census), while the next brother, Arcade (Archie) helped his father on the farm. After Marie’s death, Maggie Myers, a cousin, came to live with the family and help raise the younger children and run the household. Calais’ granddaughter remembers her father’s tales of Maggie being very harsh with the children when Calais went away to work.

On his farm, Calais raised red foxes for many years, as well as a number of sheep. Although there would have been an abundance of work to do on the farm, the elder boys ventured elsewhere for work. Narcis left home at the age of seventeen years for the booming towns of Chatham and Newcastle, New Brunswick. Calais gave him a cow from the farm to sell when he got to his final destination, and the $7.00 he received for it kept Narcis warm and avoiding hunger until he found a job. Returning from Chatham to PEI on a regular basis on his cousin Jim Myers’ schooner, Narcis eventually met and married Mary Eleanor Perry (24 October 1884 – 29 January 1940), a daughter of Gregory Poirier and Adele Arsenault.

He and his new wife had four children in Prince Edward Island, and moved to Chatham after the Great War. Lenore passed away in 1940; Narcis remarried in 1943 to the widow Celeste (Laviolette) Gaudet. Narcis died 20 December 1975, aged 97 years. Joseph, the next son of Calais, married and moved to Snow Lake, Manitoba, where he lived out the rest of his years. Archie came next, and he died, likely of a haemorrhage in the abdomen, in the summer of 1909. Maggie Ann Myers was the eldest daughter, and she married a LeClair from PEI.

Little is known of Mary, the next daughter. Frances (Fanny), however, married and spent her life in Alberton, PEI. Her husband was an Arsenault and the couple had three children: Emma, Esther, and Morris. George Myers follows Fanny, and he and Henry, his younger brother by one year, both worked in Chatham, N.B., at one time or another. George enlisted for overseas service 18 January 1918. He received his medical examination in December 1917 in Riley’s Brook, N.B. George never saw action in Europe. He married but died of cancer at the age of 61 without issue, having lived in the vicinity of St. Louis, PEI.

Henry Myers enlisted for overseas service on 16 October 1916, while living in Chatham. He served alongside long-time Chatham physician, Dr. Arthur J. Losier, and was overseas for two years. He was gassed in Europe in October 1918, two weeks before the end of the Great War. He married twice. His first wife bore him no children, as she was older than he, and died early in their marriage. Henry’s second wife was Phoebe, who still resides near Tignish. She bore Henry a number of children, including: Joe, Bert, Earl, Allan, Earnest and Neil, as well as a daughter who resided in Ontario.

Celina and Kate are the two youngest children of Calais. One of the two married a LeClair from West Prince, PEI, as her sister Maggie had done. Kate is remembered by her niece Emma (Myers) Barry as being very beautiful. She, like all the girls except Fanny, made her home in the United States with her husband and died relatively young of cancer.

Calais Myers raised his children successfully with the assistance of his family, but in later years, still felt there was something missing in his life. It also happened that Narcis’ mother-in-law had experienced a similar situation. Adele (Doucette) Poirier lost her husband, Gregory, when her children were young, sometime between 1894 and 1901. She worked in a factory to support her nine children, but also in later years felt her life wasn’t quite fulfilled, or so we may assume, as we do in the case of Calais. Whatever the circumstances, Calais Myers, widower, married Mrs. Adele Poirier, widow, and they lived their remaining years together in St. Louis, Prince Edward Island.

Adele survived yet another husband, living a decade after Calais until 1947. A newspaper account of her 95th birthday was published in 1945. It records her superb memory and dedication to her faith, for she attended mass that very morning, before entertaining a host of friends for an open house at the home of her son, Mederick Poirier.

Generation 7
Joseph Narcis Myers (31 January 1878 – 20 December 1975) married about 1904 to Mary Eleanor Perry (24 October 1884 – 29 January 1940), the daughter of Gregory Poirier and Adele Doucette. Narcis moved to Chatham, NB, at the age of seventeen years. He acquired a job at the Snowball Mill, but the pay there did not keep him in Chatham permanently, for he eventually returned to the Island.

He subsequently met and married Lenore (Mary Eleanor) and they first lived in Waterford, where the eldest three children were born. Sometime between 1907 and 1914 they removed to St. Louis, PEI, where the fourth and final child was born. During the Great War, Narcis moved the family to Badeque, where he worked with a potato farmer, Mr. Craig.

In 1919, the family moved to Chatham, where they lived in a number of locations, the final one being on Duke Street on what is known as “The Hill” Calais, the eldest child, married around that time to Annie Gautreau, also a girl from “the Hill.” The eldest daughter Emma married in 1927 to a “Hiller”, Richard “Dick” Barry. The second daughter, Clara, moved to Saint John about 1928 and met and married her husband, Ronald Cobham, there.

In 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, Lenore returned to care for her ailing mother, and Narcis followed shortly thereafter. The youngest child, Dora, stayed in Chatham with Emma until she finished high school, and then she too returned to PEI, where she married Edward Kenny and spent her life.

Tragically, at the age of 55, Lenore succumbed to pneumonia in 1940. Narcis remarried 9 June 1943, to the widow Celeste (Laviolette) Gaudet. They resided in Leoville, PEI, until they both passed on to their heavenly reward.

Myers Quick Facts:

Children of Narcis and Lenore:

Joseph CALAIS Myers
Born 31 January 1905, Waterford, Prince Edward Island.
Married Annie Guthro of Chatham, NB.
Children: Raymond, Mary Shirley, Olive Ann, Eleanor, Elizabeth Clara.
Died 9 January 1975, Norton, NB.

Mary Adele EMMA Myers
Born 9 April 1907, Waterford, Prince Edward Island
Married Richard Barry of Chatham, NB.
Children: John Joseph, Robert James, Elizabeth Clara, Richard George, Arthur Henry, Dorothy Mary Ellen, Thomas Edward, Joseph Calais, Adele Mary, Ronald Narcis, Mary Lenore, Judith Barbara, Terrance David, Linda Theresa, Gregory Alphonses, and Brent Gerard.
Died 6 August 2006, Miramichi, NB.

Mary CLARA Myers
Born 9 February 1909, Waterford, Prince Edward Island
Married Ronald Cobham of Saint John, NB
Children: Peter and Outley.
Died 9 January 2000, Saint John, NB.

Mary Dorothy "DORA" Myers
Born 28 May 1914, St. Louis, Prince Edward Island
Married Edward Kenny of Tignish, PEI.
Children: Richard, John, Patrick, Philip, Terrance, Clare, June, June, Barbara, Jean, and Joseph.
Died 28 April 2006, Alberton, Prince Edward Island.

My family descends from Narcis's eldest daughter, Mary Adele Emma, who married Richard Barry, eldest child of James ("Rope") and Mary (Clancy) Barry of Chatham.

Josephine Myers with Child 1910	Janie Myers "a la lune"	Janie Myers and Husband
Leona Myers with Child	Celina Poirier and Husband	A cousin on his Confirmation
Haytime - Calais, Narcis and others	Haytime - Calais, Adele, Narcis, Lenore & others	Emma Myers - Circa 1921
Emma's Friend Fanny	Emma's "Beau" - Josh Arsenault	Landlady, Clara and Lenore 1928
Narcis and George Myers	Narcis, George Myers, and Others	Celina and ? Myers (twins)
Unkown Aunt and Uncle visiting from US	Narcis, Lenore and Others 1	Narcis, Lenore and Others 2
Unkown Myers/Poirier Realtions - PEI	Clara as a young woman	Calais and Annie's Shirley
Jack Barry, Naval Seaman	Jerry and Doris (Barry) Donahue - 1959	Emma (Myers)and Helen (Cripps) Barry - 1956
Emma (Myers) and Helen (Cripps) Barry - 1956	Bob Barry and Friend	Calais and Annie Myers - at a Wedding 1959
Calais and Annie	Clara, Calais, Emma, Peter and Outley	Family visiting Narcis and Celeste
Narcis and Celeste with Spotty	Celeste and Narcis	Celeste (Laviolette) Myers
Narcis and four generations	Narcis at 97	Dora's eldest son Richard

Page Last Updated 5 April 2009

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