Dark Sentiments 2011 – Day 9: The Payzant Family and That Which Befell Them
Posted By Randy on October 9, 2011
Covey Island, called Payzant Island at the time our tale unfolds.
Signs leading into some communities on the south shore of Nova Scotia read, “We love the beauty that surrounds us and welcome you to share it.” Such a sunshiny bit of prose, but ’twas not always thus.
The town of Lunenburg and its surrounding area was settled by Protestant immigrants of German, Swiss, and French origin beginning in 1753. Among them was the Huguenot family led by the industrious Louis Payzant and his wife Marie who came to the new world in 1755 as part of the Protestant exodus from France as those facing persecution in the wake of Louis XIV’s revocation of the Edict of Nantes voted against his sovereignty with their feet.
In the spring of 1756, the Payzant family were well on their way to establishing a well stocked trading post on an island at the mouth of present day Mahone Bay, now called Covey Island. That is, until the French and Indian War got in the way.
The cavalier English treatment of anyone and anything non-English didn’t earn them any love from the people they’d displaced to build their settlements, and hostilities between the English and French were ongoing. The story goes that late on the evening of 8 May 1756, the Payzant family was roused by the sound of their dogs barking. This was the frontier you must remember. No man opened his door in the night without first filling his hand, and Louis Payzant was no different. He opened the door and loosed a shot into the night as a warning to any interlopers who might be in the vicinity, only to learn the hard way why doorways are called “fatal funnels” in our latter day vernacular.
Some versions say Louis was cut down in a hail of musket balls, while others describe him being overwhelmed by hatchet wielding Abenaki raiders. Whichever it was, Louis Payzant died in his doorway, soon followed by his son, a manservant, and a maid with her infant who were found hiding in a barn. Scalps of the fallen were taken to collect the French bounty on English supporters, while Marie Payzant and her four children found inside the house were taken captive. There is a locally famous rock I’ve seen many times having camped on Covey Island, reputed to bear the bloody hand print of Louis Payzant, left as he crawled out his last breath in a vain attempt to defend his family. I first saw it myself over 35 years ago when it looked more like someone made it with their foot featuring a very prominent big toe, and while it’s unlikely the stain is blood, it isn’t beyond the realm of possibility it’s a mark of a different sort, left by the raiders as a calling card.
The Covey Island rock.
The next day, a force of militia out of Lunenburg arrived at the scene to find five dead, and the raiders long gone. Interestingly, French military financial records of bounty paid declare the body count to be 20, a fact accredited to the skill of their enterprising Indian allies in turning one scalp into several, and the primary reason for keeping the unit price of scalps more than a little on the low side.
Returning to a Jesuit mission on the St. John River at the location of modern day Fredericton, New Brunswick, the raiders sold Marie to the French, keeping the children for ransom, a business practice that was not uncommon in those days. Separated from her children, Marie was taken to Quebec where 9 months after her capture she gave birth to a girl child – Lisette. While rape was one of the spectres stalking women then as now, history has tended to shy away from any specific reference to this inconvenient timing.
It’s said that Marie Payzant successfully reunited her family through impassioned pleas to General Montcalm, and that thereby her children were found and returned to her. However it happened, that was the result. After the fall of Quebec at the battle of the Plains of Abraham, in 1760 Marie Payzant was given a 500 acre grant by the British Crown at the site of present day Falmouth, Hants County.
Think on Marie the next time you feel your life has gone to hell.
I’m a descendant of these people.
But to be fair mentions no abuses of Europeans to natives.
4 of the children were adopted and returned by the Maliseerts in New Brunswick after hearing about the situation
Mr. Payzant, thank you for your comment and the additional information.
Those were indeed troubled times, and I feel the travails of the Payzant family members who survived the events spoken of here, most particularly Marie, can serve as a shining example of just how tough and resilient the human spirit can be.
You come from good lines sir.
Two of the children spoke Maliseet. Their native language was French. Mi’kmaq were indigenous to New Brunswick. The Maliseet came later and come from Ojibiway. The two languages are Algonquin based. Cree and Mohawk is also Algonquin. New Brunswick and I think Nova Scotia was called Acadia. Before that the two provinces were called Mi’Maq’ki. Mi’kmaq means friends. Mi’kmaq’ki probaly means friends where they live. John and his son Andrew became ministers. The famous missionary Silas Rand could be related as well. He wrote the Micmac Dictionary.
It is well documented that Louis Philippe Payzant was killed on the 8th of May, 1756, and his daughter Lizette was born 7.5 months later on December 26–not the 9 months later that you stated.
My great-great-great-great-grandmother’s birth was definitly not “inconvenient timing.”
Thank you for your comment Anne. My sources for Marie Payzant’s state of pregnancy at the time of her capture were http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_on_Lunenburg,_Nova_Scotia_%281756%29 – which states that after her capture, “… Maliseet and Mi’kmaq took Marie Anne Payzant (who was in the first month of pregnancy) and her four young children over land and by canoe to Quebec City ….” and http://unpopularnshistory.wordpress.com/2011/08/30/the-lunenburg-raids-1756-to-1759/ which states that, “Marie Payzant was then taken by the French to Quebec City where 9 months into her captivity she gave birth to another child.” Hence, my reference to inconvenient timing.
None of this is offered to in any way discount what you said. I would appreciate it if you would follow up with some source references for Lisette’s life and times.
Thanks again.
Thank you for the update; I read the links and there it is. I can only conclude that the Wikipedia writer just didn’t check the math because the dates are right there, including Lisette’s recorded baptism on December 27, 1756. As for the second link, its title (The Unpopular History of Nova Scotia) alone sounds like a quest for extra drama–as if the story of Anne Marie isn’t dramatic enough! I find it interesting that she was 45 years old when she gave birth to Lisette–certainly not a young mother.
Lisette Payzant married George Jess and they settled in Scot’s Bay, Nova Scotia, where some of their descendants live to this day. There is a Facebook page you may find interesting: Payzant, Louis and Anne Marie Descendants. Click on “DOCS” and you will find more details. The internet has many other references but who knows how much is accurate!
Among all the women captured by native Americans during the 18th century, and who survived the trip to Québec, there was no instance of rape by a native-American captor.
Historically, it doesn’t appear that Native men of the period in question found European women to be their cup of tea for sexual encounters of any kind, seeing them as inferior to their own women. I would caution, however, that “no evidence” does not equate with “no instance”, so while the mindset of the Natives rules against it, anomalies can and do occur throughout all places and times. That being said, I do agree that Marie Payzant was at little to no risk of being sexually assaulted while in Native hands. In this and other similar cases, the women involved were seen as commodities of value to the French, and it is to the French that I refer with respect to the timing of Marie Payzant’s pregnancy. Rape of female captives has always been a fixture of European warfare.
The FB page lists many descendants and BTW you might be interested in noting West Hants Heritage Society is having a Ball on March 28 at the Brooklyn Civic Center in NS.(chuckle)
This is the page: PAYZANT, Louis and Marie Anne Descendants
Scalping as a form of body count was taught to the indigenous ay Europeans lalong with other disgusting practices as well. Unfortuantely many think it was a barbarous act perpetrated by ‘savages’ in the New World.
No evidence / no instance Good analogy
And now, back to Covey Island Shenanigans 😉