| Notes |
- Antoine Landry, Jr., the eldest son of Antoine and Marie (Thibodeau) Landry, was born on December 4, 1683 in Acadie, presumably along the Rivière St-Antoine (later dubbed La-Rivière-des-Habitants and eventually renamed the Cornwallis River) near present-day New Minas, Nova Scotia. His parents were married c1681 in Port-Royal (now Annapolis Royal); and shortly thereafter, they were among the first group of pioneer families to establish in 'Le Grand Pré', a new settlement overlooking the Minas Basin, about 60 miles north of Port-Royal. According to an entry in the old registers penned by Reverend Claude Moireau (a Récollet missionary priest assigned to that region), Antoine was formally christened at 'les Mines' on June 25, 1684, nearly six months after his birth; and his godparents were René Landry, his 'pépère', and Cécile (Melançon) Landry, an aunt by marriage. One of 12 children, Antoine Jr. was a second-generation Acadien, his grandfather having emigrated from France in the late 1650s; and like his father, Antoine Jr. became a family man and a farmer.
Marie-Blanche LeBlanc, the eldest daughter of Antoine and Marie (Bourgeois) LeBlanc, was born c1687 — probably in Port-Royal, though a post-deportation genealogical document known as the 'Declarations of Belle-Île-en-Mer' indicates that Blanche, like her husband, had been born at 'les Mines'. Nonetheless, her parents did in fact move north to the Minas Basin, settling near the village of Grand-Pré (still so-named today) where they raised a family of 10 children. Blanche was also a grandchild of the prominent pioneer-surgeon Jacques Bourgeois who had emigrated from France in 1641, as well as a niece of René LeBlanc who is said to have been the Grand-Pré notary immortalized in Longfellow's poem 'Évangéline'.
Antoine and Marie-Blanche were no doubt married at L'Église de St-Charles-des-Mines in Grand-Pré, c1705; and together they raised a family of 10 children, their youngest having been born in 1734 when Blanche was in her late 40s. They would be blessed with enough longevity to be surrounded by more than three dozen grandchildren; but like many Acadiens of that era, their lives would end in tragedy. During that fateful autumn of 1755 in what came to be called 'Le Grand Dérangement', the Landry family was literally torn apart. Six of the Landry children and many of the grandchildren were rounded up and detained by British troops to be deported from their beloved Acadie; and though four of the couple's sons managed to evade capture by fleeing into the woods, Antoine and Blanche (he in his early 70s and she in her late 60s) were far less fortunate. Like thousands of other Acadiens, they were eventually prodded at gunpoint into the hold of a wooden cargo vessel and shipped off to an unfamiliar place — in their case, Boston, Massachusetts. The name of the vessel which carried them away is unknown, though it's possible (even likely) that the Landry couple departed Acadie aboard the 'Race Horse' or the 'Swallow', both of which sailed from Grand-Pré and arrived in Boston just after Christmas. It was without a doubt a harrowing experience. Wedged below deck, side by side, in an unventilated holding area were hundreds of Acadiens who sat in the dark, fearing for their lives. Though historians suggest that both Antoine and Blanche perished 'between September of 1755 and September of 1756', no one knows for sure when either died — whether while imprisoned at Grand-Pré, or aboard the ship, or after disembarking at Boston. Their fate, like that of many, is known but to God. May they rest in peace, knowing that their story has been told.
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