Pierre Goicheau was the father of Acadian founder Jean dit Tranchemontagne Garceau, who was born about (or before) 1680 and was serving as a soldier at Fort Naxouat, in present-day New Brunswick, by August 1696.

Jean’s 1703 marriage record at Port Royal to Marie Levron names his parents as Pierre Garsseaux and Jacquette Soulard, although the evidence presented here strongly suggests that Jacquette was probably his stepmother rather than his biological mother.

Additionally, his marriage entry tells us that he was a soldier serving at the garrison in Port Royal. In that record, his surname is spelled Garsseaux, but elsewhere it’s spelled Garceau and other phonetically similar surnames.

We are exceedingly fortunate that their marriage record provides the names of his parents, which is actually quite rare when the parents never left the old country.

Not only does it tell us their names, but it provides a location as well. Parish of St. René of the diocese of Poitiers.

Yippee!!!

We’re home free, right?

Nope!

As it turns out, as specific as that location sounds, it isn’t.

There isn’t a parish of St. René in the diocese of Poitiers, but there is a Saint-Rémy.

Not only that, but while one Pierre Goicheau, did marry Jacquette Soulard, it wasn’t in Saint-Rémy.

This one makes my head hurt, and my heart ache.

Normally, in my 52 Ancestors articles, I write an article for each individual parent, but in this case, I really can’t do that. What I can and will do is to present the evidence arguing in both directions. Barring the discovery of additional records, Jean Garceau’s biological mother remains unidentified.

We now have additional information about Jacquette Soulard, who married Jean’s father, Pierre Goicheau, along with other evidence that shifts our interpretation of this record.

Sometimes, the real story is not what’s actually contained IN the records. Sometimes life is shaped by the forces surrounding the records – the silence that holds heartache and tragedy.

That silence envelops the Garceau family.

What We Know

We know for sure that on August 24, 1696, Jean Gorseau dit Tranchemontagne, is on the list of soldiers serving with the military company of Claude-Sébastien de Villieu at Fort Naxouat, also called Nashwaak, a French wilderness fort that served as the Acadian administrative capital after Port Royal was captured by the English in 1690.

The log fort was located near present-day Fredericton, New Brunswick at the intersection of the St. John and Nashwaak Rivers, on the south shore across from Bowie Island. Their neighbors were the Native people.

Built in 1691 and 1692, and overlooking the river, the fort was a trading post, about 120 feet square, that became a small military base with only a few buildings and quarters for about 40 soldiers.

Given that we know Jean was on the roster on August 24th, it stands to reason that he was also with the unit on August 14th and 15th when Villieu’s unit, along with Abenaki forces, laid siege to the English fortification at Pemiquid, present day Bristol, Maine, after the English commander violated a truce, murdering several Abenaki chiefs at an assembly.

Jean was among the men who defended Fort Naxouat from an English attack that took place on October 18^th, 1696. Joined by their Mi’kmaq neighbors, a few scattered French settlers, and the notorious French pirate, Captain Pierre Maisonnat dit Baptiste who arrived on foot and without a ship, they managed to fight off four times the number of English soldiers. The priest gave a final communion before the battle, because they knew they would all be slaughtered if they lost, which was certainly the expected outcome. They were both outmanned and outgunned.

In the greatest of ironies, it was the weather, a sudden, unexpected winter storm descending upon them, that saved the French garrison and Jean. The English soldiers from Boston were unprepared for the Canadian weather. The English hastily departed after two miserable days and nights, leaving two ships behind, which provided Baptiste with another vessel to resume his life of piracy. Both feared and revered, Baptiste was endeared to the French at Port Royal. He saved them more than once.

We don’t know when Jean Garceau arrived at Naxouet, but it could well have been on February 14, 1694 when “the vessel La Bretonne was fitted out to bring help…This vessel carries 10 soldiers to replace those who may be missing from among the 40 that His Majesty wishes to maintain at the said fort…” Jean Garseau dit Tranchemontagne may well have been among them, although there is no roster.

If Jean was on that ship, then he was present at the Raid on Oyster River, also called the Oyster River Massacre, on July 18, 1694, when a group of Abenaki and Maliseet. along with French soldiers, raided an English settlement at present-day Durham, New Hampshire, on the border between New England and Acadia.

The attack began at daybreak, with the small forts quickly falling to the attackers. In all, 104 inhabitants were killed and 27 taken captive, with half the dwellings, including the garrisons, pillaged and burned to the ground. Crops were destroyed and livestock killed, causing famine and destitution for survivors. Much like the English had done to the settlers at Port Royal in 1690.

The European French and English wars were brutal in the North American colonies.

Jean is again found among the 26 soldiers at Naxouat on the September-December 1697 payment roster.

In 1698, Fort Naxouat was abandoned and dismantled, and Villieu used the material to construct Fort Saint John across the bay from Port Royal which was still under English control.

Located at the mouth of the Saint John River, Fort Saint-Jean became the Acadian capital at that point, and the garrison’s soldiers were stationed there.

Then, in 1700, Port Royal was returned to the French, with Villieu as the administrator. He moved the capital of Acadia back to Port Royal, along with the soldiers who were then quartered at Fort Anne.

This move provided Jean with the opportunity to meet Marie Levron whose family lived across the river.

Jean Garceau (spelled Garsseaux in his marriage record) dit Tranchemontagne married Marie Levron in Port Royal on November 20, 1703, where the priest recorded that he was the son of Pierre Garsseaux and Jaquette Soulard of the parish of St. René in the diocese of Poitiers.

Pierre and Jacquette are neither referenced as living nor deceased. Normally, if a parent is deceased, it says so, so one would presume Pierre and Jacquette were living, although if they died after Jean left France, he would probably not have known.

Searching for Saint-Rémy

Cousin Mark, who is much more fluent in archaic French records than I am, did a lot of work to locate Pierre and Jacquette in the given parish, but he did not find them there.

He did find a very old parish church by that name in the town of Saint-Rémy just northwest of Niort in the Deux-Sèvres department. Unfortunately, those records only reach back to 1693, but the church is much older. Mark reviewed the records in three parishes, page by page, to gather what he could. But that’s not where he found Pierre and Jacquette.

Mark found Pierre Goicheau and Jacquette Soulard marrying on July 2, 1685, in Saint-Marsault in La Forêt-sur-Sèvre, Deux-Sèvres.

Saint-Rémy is 59 km, or approximately 35 miles, south of Saint-Marsault, so not exactly close, especially before the days of automobile travel.

It would be highly unusual to find two people with the exact same rather unusual names marrying, but it’s not impossible.

Mark tells us that:

There are three parish churches named Saint-Rémy in the department of Vienne, all some distance northeast of Poitiers, one in the village of Saint-Rémy-sur-Creuse and two in the villages of Chenevelles and Liegné-les-Bois, near to each other. Departmental parish records for each go back to the period of time of this research.

There is also a very old parish church in the town of Saint-Rémy, just northwest of Niort in the Deux-Sèvres department. 

Unfortunately, despite the church’s obvious age, departmental parish records for Saint-Rémy, Deux-Sèvres, only go back to 1693, but I believe this is the one referenced in the marriage record, based on my review, page by page, of the parish records in the other three parishes and what I found at Filae.com.

Before I engaged in the very tedious and difficult reading of old parish records in French, I consulted and thoroughly researched Jean and his parents’ names at Filae.com. Filae is the primary genealogical site for French genealogy, similar to Ancestry.com, and was purchased by MyHeritage a couple of years ago. I’ve subscribed to it for several years, since I started my research into French origins.

They have original records, but only back to about 1700. Besides family trees, they include the database of what genealogical societies in France have researched for older records. I have found, by comparing what is listed and my own viewing of the original records, that the two in the area, Cercle Généalogique Poitevin and Cercle Généalogique des Deux-Sèvres are very reliable and comprehensive.

I searched between 1650 and 1700 for Jean Garceau and the name’s phonetic variants, and for Pierre Garceau and Jacquette Soulard between 1630 and 1730. For Jean Garceau, there were only two family trees and absolutely no records for the Vienne department. Both trees were Acadian.

Searching Deux-Sèvres, there were 14 genealogical society entries for a Jean Garceau spelled a few different ways. Based on other evidence, none could be the one we are looking for.

For Pierre Garceau, it was about the same: no records for Vienne from 1630-1730, but for Deux-Sèvres for the longer time frame, there were 51 entries by genealogical societies. This is one reason I believe it likely that the Saint-Rémy indicated was the town in Deux-Sèvres and not the three villages in Vienne. Again, however, none of the entries pointed to the Pierre we are seeking and none with a wife named either Jacquette or surnamed Soulard.

But I hit pay dirt with my search for Jacquette Soulard. While there were just three entries for Vienne, none of interest, there were 47 entries for Deux-Sèvres.

Five of them showed children’s births to her and a Pierre Gaucheau or Goicheau, between 1686 and 1698, at villages about 30 miles north of Saint-Rémy: Saint-Marsault, La Ronde, and Moncoutant.

Given the wide variations in spelling in parish records based on varied pronunciation of the names and the subtle changes over time, it is very easy to see Gaucheau becoming Garceau or Garsseaut by the time Jean arrived in Acadia.

Pay Dirt in Saint-Marsault

Mark found 47 entries for Soulard in the Saint-Marsault parish register, including Pierre Goicheau and Jacquette Soulard’s marriage. Five additional records showed their children’s births between 1686 and 1698, recorded in three villages: Saint-Marsault, La Ronde, and Moncoutant.

Their marriage record, originally translated by ChatGPT, corrected by Mark, then retranslated with a much-improved version that agrees with Mark, reads as follows:

On the same day (which was July 2, 1685 (referencing the preceding entry), Pierre Goicheau, a laborer, thirty-three years old, son of the deceased Nicolas Goicheau and Marie Cousin (or Coutin), received the nuptial blessing with Jacquette Soulard, eighteen years old, daughter of Jacques Soulard and the deceased Perrine Estancheau.

Those present were François Goicheau, the full brother of the said groom and a laborer; the said Marie Cousin (or Coutin), his mother; the said Jacques Soulard; and Pierre Soulard, paternal uncle of the said bride. The laborers declared that they did not know how to sign.

That tells us that Pierre Goicheau was born about 1652.

The Five Children of Pierre Goicheau and Jacquette Soulard

I can’t imagine why Cousin Mark is still speaking to me given the amount of work he has invested in my ancestors (who aren’t his), especially after I asked him if he could dig deeper and see what else he could discover. Miraculously, though, he is and has graciously agreed to share his meticulous research.

Mark found baptismal records for five of Pierre Goicheau and Jacquette Soulard’s children.

• Mathurin Goicheau was baptized August 23, 1686, at Saint-Marsault, a little over a year after their marriage. Mathurin was also the name of one of Pierre’s brothers, but the brother was surprisingly not the godfather.

There was not enough time between their marriage in July of 1685 and August of 1686 for Jacquette to have given birth to Jean too.

They probably lost a child in 1688.

• Louis Goicheau was also baptized at Saint-Marsault on May 15, 1689.
• Jacques Gaucheau was baptized at Moncoutant on September 7, 1691.

The surname is spelled differently, and the location is just 7.5 km or about 4.5 miles east of Saint-Marsault, so still quite near where they married and the two earlier children were baptized.

The Moncoutant baptism could actually have taken place in one of two churches in close proximity to Moncoutant.

The 15th-century Church of St-Gervais and St-Protais is located in the center of Moncoutant, on the old road. It was enlarged in the 1600s and partially rebuilt in the 1800s.

All old churches were either on the main road, generally in the center of town, or at crossroads.

La Chapelle-Saint-Étienne is located slightly outside of Moncoutant in this beautiful crossroads village whose origins are lost in antiquity. You can even see the old well in the yard to the right of the church. The church dates from at least 1219 when it was mentioned in a bull of Honorius. Destroyed in the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453), it was partially restored later.

In 1598, the year the Edict of Nantes was signed, the church was reported to be in very poor condition, and in 1686, the church was reported to be in danger of collapse, inside and out. The record further notes that:

In a chapel there is an arm in which there is a silver vase containing some linens, without the appearance of relics and which is nevertheless traditionally called the arm of Saint-Étienne.

The small cemetery, completely cut off by roads, is in the middle of the town. The priest is sick and crippled.

Going to the waters of Bourbon, he has taken as his replacement a priest named Avice, previously in Largeasse and coming from the diocese of Bayeux. The inhabitants are very unhappy about it. He let three people die (sic) at the door of the church, without giving them communion. He has no sign of a priest, neither in his clothes nor in his speech. He drinks wine very often and, in church, does nothing decent.

And then, in 1695, immediately following a famine:

The sanctuary is still in danger of ruin and has only 4 bushels of rye as income.

If this is the church closest to where Pierre Garsseau and Jacquette Soulard lived, the beleaguered condition of this ancient church and the resident priest’s lack of sobriety explain why they might well have looked elsewhere to have at least some of their children baptized.

Famine Strikes

In 1693, when Jacquette would have been expected to give birth to their next child, the Poitou suffered a catastrophic famine that lasted through 1694.

Cold, exceptionally wet weather ruined successive harvests. Grain reserves disappeared, prices soared, malnutrition spread, and disease followed. Approximately 1.5 million people died in France, roughly 10% of the population, although some estimates are double that. The crisis was intensified by Louis XIV’s war expenses, increased taxation, and military requisitions.

People, desperate for food, were reduced to eating wild herbs, roots, and contaminated bread. Peasants rioted and attacked revenue collectors, tax offices, and military units. The ravages of hunger triggered waves of fatal intestinal infections, including typhus, which quickly spread throughout the population, including churches.

The tiny, neighboring rural parishes of Moncoutant and Saint-Marsault were ground zero for the devastating convergence of Louis XIV’s oppressive policies and the 1693-1694 famine.

Peasants in these two towns resorted to eating boiled grass, thistles, acorns, and decaying roots dug out of the woods. The parish registers note a surge of deaths caused not just by starvation, but by “le mal de gorge” (severe throat/intestinal infections) and typhus brought on by eating contaminated organic matter.

Dead bodies were found lying along the roads, in ditches and fields. People walked until they couldn’t anymore, begging, and died where they dropped.

The Goicheau family would have been struggling mightily, along with their neighbors, and if starvation didn’t prevent Jacquette from becoming pregnant, they buried a child in 1693 or 1694.

Parish registers reflected many deaths and almost no births. Starving women stop ovulating.

Given that Jean was already serving in Acadia in 1696, and likely arrived in 1694, he would have been at least 15 when the famine hit, and possibly somewhat older. The famine provides a reason for Jean to enlist in the military. The official enlistment age was dropped from 18 to 16 during this time, but some recruiters, desperate to be paid in bread, turned a blind eye if boys a year or two younger joined up. Everyone needed to eat.

Jean probably enlisted in the Compagnies franches de la Marine in 1693 or 1694 to secure daily bread rations during the famine. He would have been quickly processed and shipped to New France. We don’t know when he arrived at Fort Naxouat, but it was assuredly before August 24, 1696 when he is listed on the muster roll.

This strongly suggests that Jean was born no later than 1680, and probably earlier. If born in 1680, he would only have been 16 when serving at Fort Naxouat in New Brunswick, which is extremely young.

If he arrived in 1694, then he was probably born around 1678.

If he was 16 in 1693 and enlisted to survive the famine, he would have been born in 1677, when his father was 25.

It’s amazing that Jean survived, and no wonder that he left France. His childhood, beginning in 1681 and continuing through the famine, was spent surviving one kind of trauma or another. By the time Jean was 20, he was probably a battle-hardened warrior in another land.

Pierre and Jacquette had apparently found sustenance and conceived a child in the summer of 1694.

• Pierre Gaucheau was baptized April 1, 1695, at La Ronde, a village just west of Moncoutant and south of Saint-Marsault, likewise in the La Forêt-sur-Sèvre commune.

There is no death record, but this child apparently died because another child by the same name was born in 1698. The devastating effects of severe malnutrition don’t simply resolve when a food source is restored. Mothers’ bodies don’t recover well, and the frequency of stillbirths, low birth weight infants, and infant deaths are elevated for some time afterward.

Another child was probably born and died in 1697.

• Their fifth child was also named Pierre Gaucheau, likely born after his brother Pierre died, and was baptized on August 26, 1698, also at La Ronde.

There, the trail goes cold.

Mark was unable to find any additional baptisms, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t additional children.

Jacquette was 18 in 1685, so in 1698 she would have only been 32, clearly young enough to bear more children. Either she died, Pierre died, they attended church elsewhere, or the records are missing.

Based on several records, we know that Pierre, and therefore Jean, lived at Saint-Marsault for some time, at least a decade, because Mark found several records placing Pierre there.

Both Pierre and his brother François witnessed their father Nicolas’s death entry on November 23, 1680, five years before Pierre married. That parish entry gave Nicolas’s age as 70, meaning he would have been born about 1610. Pierre was born when his father was about 42.

The Neighborhood

It was less than 5 miles between Moncoutant and Saint-Marsault, so Jean Garceau’s parents probably lived someplace in between.

La Ronde, where the fourth and fifth children were baptised, is dead center between Moncoutant and Saint-Marsault.

The small village of La Ronde is located at a crossroads between Moncoutant and Saint-Marsault and has its own church, L’Eglise Notre Dame La Ronde, La Forêt-sur-Sèvre, which dates from the 12th century and was rebuilt in 1478 following a fire.

This historic building at the main intersection across from the church in La Ronde probably marked the way for Jean Garceau’s parents too – although they would have been familiar and didn’t need a sign.

Today, a Madonna figure still resides in the alcove between the door and window, faithfully guarding the residents of the home and looking across the street at the church.

These quaint French villages of a few houses each are all connected by tiny one-lane roads threading their way like ribbons through farm country that has been tilled since before time was recorded. It seems that every couple of miles there’s a tiny crossroads village, so small there’s not even a stop sign, with its requisite Catholic church to serve the local villagers and farmers. Often you can see the steeples from one village to the next.

It was someplace here that Jean Garceau was born, grew up, and ultimately said goodbye to his family as a soldier. He probably remembered this scene well – the crossroads, the churches, the villages, and yes, his parents and siblings.

He would have never forgotten the hunger pains either, the hollowed-out eyes of starvation, waiting for the grim reaper to put an end to their suffering. He probably wondered if his family had survived after he joined the military. We know that thousands died, but we can’t say their names. Jean’s family members and friends perished, but his light survived.

Leaving France meant escaping the inevitable, and reserving the few scarce resources for his family members left behind. That’s all he could do for them.

Nicolas Goicheau and Marie Cousin

Mark was able to locate a few more records for Pierre Goicheau’s parents, although neither their marriage record nor the baptisms for their children were found.

Nicolas’s death record in Saint-Marsault in 1680 was witnessed by Pierre and his brother François, who, five years later, witnessed his brother Pierre’s marriage in the same church.

Nicolas and Marie also had a daughter, Jeanne Goicheau, who was married at Saint-Marsault on July 8, 1686, listing her parents as Nicolas Goicheau and Marie Cousin. Witnesses at this wedding included her brothers Pierre, François and Mathurin Goicheau, which tells us that Nicolas and Marie had at least four surviving children.

They likely welcomed several more children into their lives between 1635, or so, and about 1660, when Marie would have been 43.

Nicolas Goicheau was also recorded as godfather to a Nicolas Couzin, son of a François Couzin, clearly a relation to his wife, in January 1646 at Saint-André-sur-Sèvre, a tiny country crossroads village consisting of a few picturesque French houses, a church and cemetery to the northwest of La Forêt-sur-Sèvre, the same place where Pierre’s future wife, Jacquette Soulard, was baptized in 1666.

This church clearly served the needs of nearby farmers whose families would have walked to church.

Saint-André-sur-Sèvre is only about three and a half miles from Saint-Marsault.

Given that family records are found in both churches, they probably lived someplace along this beautiful, quaint French country road, winding through the beautiful countryside between the two towns.

François Goicheau, Nicolas and Marie’s son, was also listed as a witness to Marie’s death at Saint-Marsault in 1692, where her age is given as 75, so born about 1617. Mark notes that François is listed twice in that record, so it’s unclear if that was a clerical error or if there were two men by the same name.

Mark found 88 results for a Marie Cousin between 1600 and 1700 within just 20 km of La Forêt-sur-Sèvre, and it is likely she was a godmother to a few infants, but he could find no other records that related to Goicheau/Gaucheau. Marie Cousin seems to be a common name, unlike Nicolas Goicheau by whatever spelling.

Mark did find additional information about François, although it’s a bit confusing, but then again, everything about this family has been “interesting.”

Complicating this still further, there is a marriage record at Saint-Marsault, the acknowledged village for much of the family records, on 16 Jul 1691, of François Goicheau, age 30, so born about 1661 and a Perrine Geay, age 20. The record shows his parents as François Goicheau and Marie Cousin! – and as a witness a brother François! There are just too many men named François in this picture, and some are assuredly incorrect!

I need to locate the original Deux-Sèvres record to see what it really shows.

The groom’s father should have been Nicolas, not another François, and I doubt he had another brother with the same name, although his death record at Saint-Marsault, of 12 Jan 1695, age 35, likewise shows as a witness a brother François and sister Jeanne. In addition, Marie Cousin’s death record of 1692 shows as witnesses two sons named François! I guess it’s possible.

The famine took hold in the fall of 1692 when summer grain crops failed. The King’s soldiers had depleted any supplies that might have normally been held in reserve, so the suffering began immediately.

Marie died on May 1^st of 1692, so she was spared the fate of starvation. While I’m sure they grieved her passing, I’m equally as sure that her family thanked the Lord that she did not suffer what was coming.

The death of Francois Goicheau in January of 1695 was almost assuredly a result of the famine. While the acute starvation ended in the fall of 1694, survivors would have been in terrible health, mere walking skeletons, and the famine-induced diseases and their after-effects persisted for years.

We don’t know what happened to the rest of the family.

Jacquette Soulard’s Family

While it’s extremely unlikely that Jacquette Soulard is the biological mother of Jean Garceau (Goicheau), I can’t definitively close the curtain on that possibility either.

Mark was hoping to find additional information that might reveal more. While there is nothing conclusive regarding the probability or possibility of Jacquette being Jean Garceau’s mother, I’m including Mark’s research in case one day we discover that, in fact, she is.

As I could not find any record of Pierre’s parents’ marriage, likewise I could not find any record of the marriage of Jacquette Soulard’s parents, Jacques Soulard and Perrine Estancheau, under either name or its variants, anywhere in France.

There is a record of the baptism of a Perrine Estancheau on 20 May 1623 at Montravers, about five miles northwest of Saint-André-sur-Sèvre. The parents listed were François Estancheau and Michelle Bodet. This would require that Perrine gave birth to Jacquette at around age 43, which is certainly possible.

I did find Perrine’s death record of 17 May 1668, at Saint-André-sur-Sèvre, less than two years after the birth of Jacquette. Her husband Jacques Soulard is named, and witnesses include her brother Jacques Etancheau, brother-in-law Pierre Soulard and sister Catherine Etancheau, leaving no doubt of her identity. No other children of Jacques and Perrine were found. Her death may have been as a result of childbirth if she did give birth to Jacquette at age 43 and was again pregnant.

There were 17 births of a Jacques Soulard between 1600 and 1650 within 200 km of La Forêt-sur-Sèvre, but none within the immediate area, making it impossible to determine which, if any, were relevant without a marriage record naming his parents. Jacques may have remarried a Michelle Brouard. A marriage record at Saint-André-sur-Sèvre of a Pierre Soulard on 10 Aug 1708, age 33, so born about 1675, names his parents as Jacques Soulard and Michelle Brouard. A brother François Soulard is named as a witness. I found no record of any remarriage for Jacques. It would be surprising if Jacques Soulard did not quickly remarry given Jacquette’s very young age, but without a marriage record, one has to put other pieces together to draw inferences.

I also could not find a definitive death record for Jacques. There is a death record for a Jacques Soulard on 28 Apr 1695 at Combrand, Deux-Sèvres, several miles to the north of Saint-André-sur-Sèvre. He is likely the same Jacques Soulard baptized in the same parish on 24 May 1609, although the death record shows an age of 60, so born about 1635, and married to a Françoise Guesdon or Guion. As I mentioned, there were several Jacques Soulards in the greater area so I cannot draw any clear conclusions.

Revisiting Saint-Rémy

How many times have you failed to find something where you thought it should be, then gone back and revisited that same drawer again?

Mark did the same thing:

I’ve also taken another look at the area around Saint-Rémy, keeping in mind there are no records for the parish before 1693. Saint-Rémy is close enough to La Forêt-sur-Sèvre and the surrounding villages such that most of the same records that appear within 200 km are the same for both locations. I first checked for any records for a Pierre Garceau or Goicheau. The Pierre Goicheau that married Jacquette Soulard was born about 1652 according to the marriage record.

For the name Pierre Garceau and its many spelling variants, there were no results at all within 20 km of Saint-Rémy. Within 200 km there were no baptisms around the 1650s. One occurred in 1637 and another in 1671, both at some considerable distance from Saint-Rémy. There were no marriages at all for a Pierre Garceau within 200 km. For a Pierre Goicheau, the only marriage was that to Jacquette Soulard. As I mentioned earlier, I could find no baptisms for any of the children of Nicolas Goicheau and Marie Cousin. Nor were there any Pierre Goicheau baptisms by other couples between 1638 and 1697 within 200 km. As I noted, there was an almost total lack of records for Nicolas Goicheau, the earliest being his appearance as godfather in 1646. Throughout France, there were only ten entries at Filae for a Nicolas Goicheau from 1560 to 1700, and four of those I’ve already noted.

Moreover, Filae shows no records of a Jean Garceau or Goicheau born to a Pierre Garceau or Goicheau or any spelling variants, nor a Jacquette Soulard, anywhere in France between 1620 and 1700.

Evaluating the Possibilities

When Jean Garceau married, he gave his parents’ names as Pierre Garsseaux and Jacquette Soulard. Jean did not know how to write, so the priest would have written the names as he heard them.

We know from Mark’s research that this couple was married in 1685 and had a baby in 1686, thirteen months later, and it wasn’t Jean.

Jean’s father, Pierre, was 33 in 1685 when he married, so born about 1652, although we have no baptismal record for him. Jacquette was 18, baptized on November 28, 1666, in the village/commune of Saint-André-sur-Sèvre, six km northwest of Saint-Marsault.

When Jean married in 1703, in Acadia, given that he was already serving in 1696 as a soldier, he could not have been born later than 1686. If he were born in 1687, he would have been only nine years old in 1696 as a soldier, and 16 in 1703 when he married. That’s simply impossible.

Given what we know, only a few scenarios are possible, and the situation is further complicated by upheaval in the part of the Poitou where Jean’s family lived.

Could Religious or Social Upheaval Have Affected the Records?

Jean could have been born before his parents, Pierre and Jacquette, were married. If that’s the case, then he was born in 1685 or earlier – and several years earlier given his 1696 military service.

If Jacquette was his mother, it raises the question of why his parents didn’t marry when Jacquette was pregnant with Jean, since they clearly did marry in July of 1685. French girls were considered of marriageable age at 14, and she turned 14 in 1680.

This scenario, at least on the surface, has several flies in the ointment. However, taking into consideration what was happening locally might make a difference.

Protestantism was deeply established in the Poitou, including the present-day Deux-Sèvres. This was not a distant national controversy to the local families. Moncoutant had a substantial Protestant community, and its own municipal history specifically says that the community suffered the notorious dragonnades late in the seventeenth century.

In 1681, the Poitou became the first region in which Louis XIV used the dragonnades.

Royal dragoons, shown in this 1886 painting by Jules Girardet, were forcibly quartered in Protestant homes, where they were permitted to intimidate, abuse, rob, and otherwise torment the occupants until they converted to Catholicism.

In 1681, Jacquette would have been 14 or 15.

We know Pierre and Jacquette had some connection with Moncoutant, because one of their children was later baptized there, and Jacquette was born just north of there.

We have no evidence that Pierre or Jacquette was Protestant. Their marriage received a Catholic nuptial blessing, and Jacquette was baptized in a Catholic church in 1666.

We have no marriage or baptismal records for the children of Nicolas Goicheau and Marie Cousin, nor for a first marriage for Pierre Goicheau. Nicolas witnessed a Catholic baptism in 1646 in the church at Saint-André-sur-Sèvre that includes both the Couzin and Soulard families, so he was Catholic at that time. These records substantially reduce the likelihood that either family was Catholic in the 1670s or 1680, but does not entirely remove the possibility.

Pierre and Jacquette’s children were baptized in Catholic churches, except for Jean, whose baptismal record is missing. Still, in the 1680s, they were living in upheaval –  among frightened neighbors, forced conversions, soldiers quartered in private homes, destroyed religious communities, and families fleeing or practicing their faith secretly.

Protestant baptisms and marriages could have been recorded separately before 1685. After the Protestant pastors were banished and churches destroyed, records were lost, and a Protestant background would probably have been hidden. Catholic baptism and marriage became compulsory. A missing earlier marriage or baptism might reflect religious disruption, although there is no evidence that this explains Jean’s missing baptismal record or those of the children of Nicolas Goicheau and Marie Cousin.

It does, however, provide insight into the times in which they were living.

So, what are the possibilities surrounding Jean’s birth and parents?

Possibility 1: An Earlier marriage and baptism at Saint-Étienne that were not recorded 

It’s possible that Pierre and Jacquette (or another wife) were married at nearby Saint-Étienne, and Jean was baptized there too, but neither event was recorded due to the chronically drunken condition of the priest. If the wife was Jacquette, they remarried at Saint-Marsault.

However, given that they couldn’t read or write, how would they have known that their marriage wasn’t recorded? And if that was the case, then why was Jean not rebaptized too?

This is a rather unlikely scenario, but still a possibility.

Possibility 2: Jean was born in 1680 or 1681 to Jacquette before she married Pierre

If Jean was born when Jacquette was 14 or 15, that would have been in late 1680 or 1681, which means he was only 15 or 16 by the time he was serving at Fort Naxouet in 1696, and probably two years younger when he enlisted during the famine.

This is really the only tiny sliver of a window in which we can make this scenario of Jacquette being Jean’s mother work. However, it still doesn’t explain why Jacquette and Pierre didn’t marry when she was pregnant, given that they did marry in 1685. Unless they did marry at Saint-Étienne and remarried later when they discovered their marriage hadn’t been recorded, or unless they were Protestant, which is highly unlikely.

Given Jean’s age, this scenario is highly unlikely, bordering on the nearly impossible.

Possibility 3: Pierre was previously married

A more probable scenario is that Jean’s father, Pierre, was married previously and Jean was born about 1677 or 1678 to Pierre’s first wife, who died. Pierre then married Jacquette in 1685, who was functionally Jean’s mother, so he thought nothing of listing her as such.

In this scenario, if Pierre, who was 33 in 1685 when he married Jacquette, had originally married at 25, in 1677, which was still relatively young, Jean Garceau would have been born about 1677 or 1678, so 14 or 15 when the famine struck in 1692, 18 or 19 in 1696 in Naxouet, and roughly 25 when he married Marie Levron in Acadia. That’s much more reasonable.

That said, being born out of wedlock might have been a reason for Jean to join the military relatively young too, but given the dates and that Jacquette and Pierre married in 1685, I’d wager the famine was Jean’s motivation. His parents were probably glad to see him go, not because they didn’t love him, but because it gave him a chance for survival.

There’s absolutely no way for Pierre Goicheau and Jacquette Soulard to be the parents of Jean Garceau who was serving in Naxouet in 1696 if he was born after they married. Yet, when Jean married in 1703, he clearly said they were his parents, even though the parish name given was not where Pierre and Jacquette lived when Jean left.

Saint-Rémy is improbably distant from Saint-Marsault where all of the other Garceau and Soulard records are clustered. These families were farmers and laborers, as recorded in parish registers. They didn’t simply come and go, moving around the country at will. They were tied to the land and the landowners, and their children would have been baptized in nearby churches.

Maybe Saint-René as recorded in Acadia was not Saint-Rémy, and maybe the parish given was simply wrong or misunderstood. Mark is a meticulous researcher and first tried to find a parish of either St. René or St. Rémi(y), as either could have been what was written or intended. Spelling was not standardized at that time, and he searched all over France.

Based on Mark’s findings, I believe we have enough evidence to conclude that this is the correct family, and that Jean Garceau spent his childhood and much of his formative years living on a farm near Saint-Marsault, and one way or another, was raised by his stepmother, Jacquette Soulard.

I think this is really the only reasonable possibility.

Visiting Saint-Marsault

Thanks to Mark’s exhaustive work, I was able to visit Saint-Marsault in the spring of 2024 on a bus tour.

I felt as if I was literally walking in their footsteps, and that was before Mark had discovered the additional information, including Pierre Goicheau’s children’s baptisms and his parents’ death records in the same parish.

Our guide had made room in the schedule for this detour, and our tour bus pulled up outside on the main road, at a pull-off beside a park along the village stream. Our time at this stop was limited to about 15 minutes.

These old churches are often difficult to get to, with little, if any, parking at the actual church. The original members didn’t need parking as they simply walked or perhaps rode to church in a wagon.

The church, L’Église Saint-Martial (Saint-Marsault, La Forêt-sur-Sèvre), stood on a little hill, just up from the main road. This ancient church dates back to the Middle Ages in this tiny village and was named after a third-century saint venerated for his role in the spread of Christianity in France. The church was restored in the 18^th century, but the various parts date from different periods in its history. The bell tower dates from the 12^th or 13^th century, so it would have already been “old” when Jean and his parents attended church here in the late 1600s.

We walked up the slight hill from the contemporary road that now bypasses the church.

The priest promised to meet us, but no one was there. Our knocks echoed on the thick wooden door but went unanswered. My heart was sinking with disappointment.

I tried to console myself by telling myself that at least I was there, in that sacred place, and able to view the exterior. Parts would have looked much the same as when Jean and his parents trod this same land.

We walked around to the side when one of my Acadian cousins discovered that they had left the church’s side door open for us.

Oh, happy day!

This beautiful door looks to be original. Pierre and Jacquette would have come and gone through this door, perhaps announcing themselves to the priest through the window if they were in need of a baptism or were sent to fetch the priest for last rites for someone.

This church is stunningly beautiful. I could picture my ancestors here and hear their voices echo across time.

Young Jean was probably being hushed to stay quiet during the services. He was probably 7 or 8 when his father married Jacquette, so would have been watching as the priest united his new family.

Jean would have sat in these pews and perhaps knelt on the floor. As young boys will, his attention probably wandered as the priest’s voice droned on in Latin, and he looked out the windows at the clouds.

Of course, I took the opportunity to light a candle to honor my ancestors, exactly as they would have done. That flame of love that burns eternal, timeless, and endless.

Light and sacred prayers winging their way across the ages – 339 years from Pierre’s wedding to my return.

I always wonder if my ancestors are watching or somehow know that I’ve returned home.

Are they here with me? Silent souls in the church they loved so.

I closed my eyes, feeling them and drinking in the elixir of their devotion.

Where they celebrated life and mourned death.

Seeing what they saw in the alcove. Acadians were staunchly religious. They fought and sacrificed for the right to worship in the Catholic faith.

The priest’s door, slipping into the side chapel.

These doors were reinforced because the church served as a place of safety during times of attack.

Knowing that they sat here, stood here, knelt and worshipped here made it difficult for me to leave. I walked through that same doorway they had. Part of my soul is connected here through an invisible umbilical cord reaching across endless generations.

More than one tear slipped down my cheeks as I stepped outside and walked back down that hill.

Tears of joy, tears of longing, tears of separation from something I had just found. How could I possibly have become so connected so quickly? Or maybe it wasn’t quickly.

Maybe it was threads and ropes and bonds reaching across the centuries.

Maybe it was my ancestors holding me, calling me.

Maybe it was my own struggle to reach them, and theirs to survive.

Maybe, maybe our hands and our hearts had finally touched and bonded, here, in this sacred place.

Not just Jean Garceau and Pierre Goicheau either, but Jean’s grandparents, Nicolas Goicheau and Marie Cousin, and those unknown and unnamed who had come before. Generations who had probably trod on these same stones, under this same roof, worshipping and praying for those they loved.

I knew I had to leave, but I wasn’t ready. Something was holding me here. But our time was up.

I began my walk down the hill, back to the bus, my eyes blurred by tears. I told myself that crying like this was ridiculous.

Why was I having this visceral reaction?

Then, I noticed a pathway to the far side of the church, behind the foliage. I had to follow it. But I also needed to hurry, as everyone else was already headed for the bus and I was already bringing up the rear.

More tears flowed at my next discovery.

Alone, I walked around to the far side of the church, where I happened upon a courtyard of sorts, with a fountain. That seemed rather…odd.

I wondered what this was. I only had a quick minute, as everyone else was already boarding the bus, so I had to turn around without exploring. I was climbing the steps, on my way out, when I made the discovery that illuminated where I had just stood.

As I held onto the railing, I looked down and wondered what I was seeing. It looked quite unusual. Upon closer inspection, I realized that tombstones had been recycled into the landscaping, beneath the railing, beside the steps that led up to the front of the church. That’s when it hit me. The “garden” was the old cemetery, which, of course, was just outside the door of the church. Now it all made sense!

The most that could be recovered from this photo is “ici repose,” meaning “here rests.”

This was the parish cemetery, apparently paved over when the gravestones were recycled into the landscaping. The fountain and statue of the Madonna are all that’s left to honor those who were buried here.

This is where generations of Garceau family members rest, marked by only that fountain and the dust of their bones.

I had no idea I had just been standing on generations of my ancestors. Perhaps they summoned me. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t leave.

I hear you.

I see you.

Maybe their ache, still lingering from the horrors of famine, reached my heart. Standing there, that day, I didn’t yet know about that terrible chapter that occurred here. How many died – their deaths perhaps never recorded, and buried quickly by the few well-enough to dig a grave.

And the tiny graves of Pierre and Jacquette’s babies.

Eternal Spring

As I crossed the street to board the bus, I noticed the old well in the little park.

The lush green foliage and spring flowers were thriving along the stream that conferred life – its water sustaining and nourishing the community.

The priest drew the cool water from the well and blessed it to make it sacred, although it was already the sacred key to life and always had been.

A community well was dug near the stream to provide clean water, and everyone took their bucket to the well, where they exchanged news of the day. Today, that’s just a memory, but the well remains, as do the whispers of our ancestors, traveling on the breezes.

Children had probably played here since time immemorial.

The Goicheaus were laborers, living on a nearby farm, so they would have come and gone, traveling along this road, perhaps visiting the well when they were in the village. From time to time, they probably gathered flowers and laid them on the graves of their ancestors and family members as they passed by. In a time when graves were marked by neat wooden crosses, before gravestones were recycled as something else.

My family stood exactly in this spot – right here – some 340 years ago, and before. Probably for centuries. Today, the well housing remains in the little park beside the stream, across the main road and down the hill from the church. The park probably exists because it’s low and the stream likely floods in the spring.

Dandelions bloomed that day just as they did when spring announced itself on those long-ago spring days, too.

I noticed this stately tree and wondered if it stood witness then, or if just the well and stream remain from that time.

Did the tree shelter Pierre’s descendants who heard stories beneath its branches about the life and times of Pierre, Jacquette, and Jean? The one who went to seek his fortune across the ocean in Acadia during the starving times called the “years of misery” by the peasants?

Did Pierre’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren play beneath these protective branches, beside the stream?

Did this tree, or its ancestors, bear witness to generations of Garceau family members who married and worshipped here, as Pierre and Jacquette’s babies were baptized and some were buried beside the church?

Did it witness the funerals of Pierre and Jacquette, and Jean’s grandparents, Nicolas Goicheau and Marie Cousin?

Maybe this little park is, in reality, a living memorial to their lives. Maybe the tree, like them, was once young and has now grown old, holding cherished memories that it has no one left to share with.

That is, until one of us returns home.

_____________________________________________________________

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It was five years ago this week that I visited my parents’ graves for what was probably the final time.

I gathered silk flowers from my home, which was being emptied, arranged them into glorious bouquets, and took treats – for both them and me.

You don’t see it in the photo above, where I was just setting up for our picnic on the picnic quilt that always lives in my car, but it took me an entire box of Kleenex to get through that picnic and what I had to share with them that day.

This was it. I wasn’t coming back. They were already buried six hours away from where I lived then – and now that distance is measured in days, not hours. There’s no one left there to visit now, and it’s not on the way to anyplace.

Dad loved popcorn and cheese cubes with turkey and salami, and Mom absolutely lived for Hershey bars.

Of course, I knew “they” couldn’t enjoy them in the here and now, and I was probably just feeding the wildlife. It was more about the ritual, the expression of love and caring, tinged with regret that I can no longer steal cubes of Dad’s cheese (he just smiled at me) or give Mom oversized Hershey bars.

Mom smiled at me too, but for an entirely different reason.

Recalling sitting on that quilt, discussing things with Mom and Dad while baking in the summer heat, much as I remember doing on the farm, makes me smile now too.

Facebook memories brought that day back this week. As I lay in bed in the silent night, reliving that hot July day picnicking with Mom and Dad, I realized that their graves aren’t the only places I had “left them something.”

Until that night, I didn’t realize that I had done it twice, once for each of my parents, but never for anyone else.

Dad

All of my regular readers know that Dad was actually my stepfather, and that he had lost his only daughter, Linda, as a baby.

No one can ever take another person’s place, but Dad told me twice that he “got his daughter back” when he married Mom. My allergies immediately acted up.

My biological father died when I was a child, so I felt like I had hit the jackpot and lucked into the best father ever when Mom married Dean.

I worshipped the ground that man walked on.

Dad died in 1994, following a horrific, progressive disease. His death was a devastating loss. On top of another loss just the year before.

Now, Dad was well-known for his orneriness, practical jokes, and sense of humor. Perhaps what made it even funnier was that he was such a quiet man – the last person you’d expect as the culprit.

So, when we all gathered at the church for his viewing and found no casket, we patiently waited for the funeral home to show up with Dad.

But when that visitation hour passed, and there was STILL no Dad, we began to worry. Mom was frantically calling the funeral home, which was about 20 miles away, but no one answered. She was a nervous wreck.

My brother was laughing. Most people were quietly and awkwardly visiting, hoping nothing was wrong.

Our imaginations were running wild. Had there been an accident? Was Dad lying someplace beside the road in his Sunday finest? Let’s face it, Dad was already deceased – he couldn’t die twice if there was an accident, but what if, what if Dad was at the wrong church or some such thing? Did they bury him by accident?

Finally, the hearse pulled up outside the church, and we heard doors slamming. Mom rushed out and asked, in her “not my church deacon” voice, where the devil they had been. Well, devil might not have been the word she used, but whatever. I was all too personally familiar with that voice, and I knew they were in BIG TROUBLE!

As it turned out, they had gotten the times mixed up, making Dad late for his own funeral.

Perhaps it was a combination of nerves and grief, plus Mom clucking around like an angry wet hen, but that whole scene just struck me as incredibly funny, and I started to laugh.

Mom gave me the side-eye like only mothers can give, so I tried to stifle myself – which made me laugh even harder, snorting through my nose.

About this time, the men from the funeral home were trying to carry the casket in the back door and up the narrow steps into the church. At the top, there was a right-angle turn, and let’s just say the casket and the men didn’t quite make it.

Well, they kind of made it, but one of the men got pinned between the casket and the corner of the wall in a very awkward place. He was also trying very hard not to let on, but you’d have had to be both deaf and blind to miss what was happening.

My mother was following this entourage up the stairs, and even she stopped talking as the scene unfolded.

By this time, I was laughing hysterically beyond any semblance of composure, tears streaming down my face, and so were most of the guests. Laughter like that is highly contagious. Most of the men were trying to help, but we had to back Dad down the stairs to free the trapped man.

I’m laughing as I write this. I can see it all over again and just can’t help myself.

Right about that time, the most inappropriate thought popped into my head. I couldn’t help it. I wondered if Dad had paid them to ensure that he was late for his own funeral.

The ultimate prank. He certainly WOULD have done that – in a heartbeat. Only question that remained was DID HE? And of course, we’ll never know.

All things considered, with everyone still laughing and crying, we were hardly in the proper frame of mind to begin a funeral, so the minister suggested that we have the viewing and recompose ourselves before the funeral. You really can’t start a funeral with everyone laugh-crying, and we were already so late by that time that it didn’t matter.

Mom had dressed Dad in a suit. I had only ever seen him in a suit a handful of times.

His wedding to Mom, my wedding, Gary’s wedding, church pictures, and maybe one other time.

Dad hated suits. He was a dyed-in-the-overalls farmer, and those overalls would have suited him much better than a suit. However, I’d wager that Dad knew Mom would dress him in a “funeral suit” for his funeral, so maybe this was his way of commenting on that.

Regardless, by the time it was my turn to step up to the casket for the final time, as grief-stricken as I was, I certainly appreciated the levity that he had introduced that day. Yes, I’m crediting him!

I dug around in Mom’s purse and found a small pair of scissors. As an Avon lady, she had literally everything in there – her purse was bottomless. I cut a lock of my hair, found a ribbon or piece of string buried in the depths of Mom’s purse, tied it around the lock, then lovingly tucked it into Dad’s starched shirt pocket for eternity.

I patted his hand one last time and told him I loved him as I smiled through my tears. I bent close and whispered that he had done a fine job as my tears dropped onto his white shirt. I swear – I swear – I saw a smile flicker across that man’s lips just for an instant.

I hadn’t planned it, but I sent Dad on his last journey with a little bit of me in his pocket. Forever.

Mom

Mom was an Avon lady for the last quarter century of her life. She loved to dress up and look her finest, so Avon was a perfect fit for her. Plus, it gave her an excuse to check in on the elderly and those with challenges in the community. She was always taking food or something to someone. Every. Single. Day.

Mom retired in the spring of 2005 at 82.

One of her longtime customers took this photo of Mom on her last day making Avon deliveries.

Mom wanted to retire with her best sales year ever, and I purchased a lifetime supply of soap, bubble bath, and Skin-So-Soft. Maybe two lifetimes’ worth. Trust me when I tell you that I’m still using Avon products.

Every Christmas, we all received our favorite Avon items in our Christmas stockings from Mom. Plus, Avon Care Deeply chapstick. Didn’t matter – man, woman, child, elderly neighbor – someone in line at the grocery whose lips looked chapped. You got Avon chapstick.

As far as I’m concerned, one can never have too much chapstick. I have chapstick, aka lip gloss, everyplace, including one or two of Mom’s that I still cherish and keep in my nightstand and desk drawer.

When Mom retired, she was one of her own best customers and stocked up on things.

Just this past week, my husband found a little wooden box that was in a drawer in his nightstand in our old house. He opened it, and voila, there they were.

Three chapsticks from Mom.

Vintage Avon Care Deeply from 2002, 2004, and 2005. Mom really liked Jim. He received the first one even before we were married. He has now kindly given all three to me. Now that’s true love.

How can chapstick make you cry?

Mom passed away unexpectedly in the spring of 2006. She had a stroke and managed to crawl into her closet and put her “pretty shoes” mostly on. No one is quite sure how she managed that, but she did. That’s how we found her. She loved shoes.

Mom’s funeral was much more subdued than Dad’s. My brother and I met with a different undertaker, so she would actually arrive at the church on time.

I selected Mom’s clothes along with her favorite “pretty shoes.” The funeral director told us that he could not get high heels on her feet. We told him that whether he could get them fully on or not, he was to get them as far onto her feet as possible – and do something to make sure they didn’t fall off. I didn’t care if he tied them on. She needed her pretty shoes. She would haunt me forever otherwise.

Saying goodbye to a parent just before the casket is closed is one of the most difficult things you will ever do.

Mom always had everything in her purse, including spare Kleenex, which she often tucked up her sleeve at her wrist, under her watch band so they would always be quickly available.

She was always handing out Kleenex at church to anyone who needed it, and probably several people who didn’t actually need one, but she thought they might. She accused me, accurately, of never having a Kleenex when I needed one. How was I supposed to predict that?

After Mom passed, we found clean Kleenex everyplace. In her pockets and purses, of course, used as bookmarks, and even tucked into the door handles inside her car.

On the day of her funeral, I had a full box of Kleenex with me. I was clearly going to need them and couldn’t depend on Mom for that anymore. She would have been proud.

As always, I had multiple Avon chapsticks, not the imposter kind, in my purse and pockets. Somehow, Mom would have known if I cheated with something other than Avon.

Standing there, saying my final goodbyes, I realized that I could NOT send Mom off into the afterlife without Kleenex and Avon chapstick, both of which she used religiously. So, I tucked a few Kleenex into one of her crossed hands and a chapstick into the other, closed my eyes for a minute, said a little prayer, then nodded for the casket to be closed as I wiped my eyes. They had been patiently waiting for me. I was struggling. Part of my heart was in there with her.

The funeral itself was a blur. When the minister finished, Mom was loaded into the back of the black hearse for her final ride along those oh-so-familiar roads to the cemetery. The little white church was at a farm crossroads, and the cemetery was probably a dozen miles away, down country roads too narrow for center lines. No one needed them anyway. The only people out there were members of local farm families who all knew each other, slowed down, and waved.

Suddenly, the hearse slammed on the brakes. We were in the car immediately behind, and I had a very up-close view of its brake lights, just before we came so close that they disappeared from view. I waited for the crunch, but fortunately, we managed to stop with an inch or so to spare, but we were quite shaken. Both figuratively and literally.

Someone had run the stop sign in front of the hearse, which missed the car by a hair’s breadth. For me, that was déjà vu, because years before, the only life-threatening accident I had ever had occurred a few miles on down that same road, under the same circumstances – minus the funeral procession.

I couldn’t help but think about the supreme irony of potentially being killed in Mom’s funeral procession, on that same road, some two decades later. I was more than a little shaky already, given the circumstances, and that didn’t help one bit.

But then, an even worse thought struck me.

What if Mom’s chapstick had been knocked out of her hand and was rolling around beyond her reach for eternity? How could I condemn her to that fate? If you know, you know.

Did she drop her Kleenex?

But perhaps more importantly, did her shoes fall off?

William Hunt was probably born between the years of 1603 and 1605 in England, although the dates and location in England are both uncertain.

We know that he was probably married to Elizabeth, whose last name is unknown, about 1630, because their first three children were baptized in St. Mary, Nottingham, in England.

• Samuel Hunt was baptized on April 10, 1631, and eventually married Elizabeth Redding in the colonies.
• Nehemiah Hunt was baptized on January 6, 1632/33, married Mary Toll, and died on March 6, 1717/18.
• Elizabeth Hunt was baptized on October 11, 1635, and married John Barron in 1664.

Earlier researchers have presumed that William Hunt and his family arrived on the ship, Susan and Ellen, but that’s impossible, given that it departed on May 2, 1635, which conflicts with Elizabeth’s baptism in October.

• William and Elizabeth Hunt apparently lost a child in 1637 or 1638.
• The next child we find is Hannah Hunt, who was born on February 12, 1640/41, in Concord, Massachusetts. She apparently died between 1654, when she is mentioned in the will of Robert Best, and before her father made his will in 1667. The other children are mentioned, but she is absent.
• William’s last child, Isaac Hunt, was born about 1647 and married Mary Stone in 1680.

This sequence of events tells us that William Hunt and Elizabeth, founders of Concord, Massachusetts, arrived sometime after October 1635, so probably between 1636 and sometime in 1640.

Thomas Wyman, in his book, Genealogy of the Name and Family of Hunt, published in 1862 and available on the Internet Archive, here, describes William Hunt’s decision to leave England. Extracted and edited slightly for readability:

The Life of William Hunt.

He was born in England about the year 1605, two years after the tedious but glorious reign of the Maiden Queen had ended, and the mild and pacific James Stuart had come from his native realm to rule the three kingdoms; and all the nation was glad at the happy change. It was a pleasant time to live in England. There was no very great emigration taking place, and no serious occasion for people to leave their native land to get a living. King James gave to his subjects the Bible in the same form we use this day; and learning and wisdom received happy impulses from the new light diffused by revelation, spreading its lustre more widely over civilized life. Our ancestor partook, in his daily career, of the free average advantage which a somewhat middling position in social rank allowed to realize the benefits flowing to the interior social state of the people from the refreshing access of intelligence and progress rapidly accelerating. His joyous days of childhood and youth passed into ripe manhood. Getting forward in life beyond the perils incident to all conditions, amid the protecting influences that guard the English home, — as from the early consecration at the baptismal font by the revered pastor, to the gradual growth in school and church attendance; under parental or friendly care, coming to know and practice industry and every good accomplishment that could be an attribute “of the intelligent and likely young man; then to the blissful married state, and to be father (before he left England) of at least two sons, — gifts tender and promising to infold and bring over from the Old Workl hither, to bear fruit and multiply, replenish the wilderness, and give seed for yet countless generations.

Not long after the bright and happy state of conjugal life had been entered by our revered ancestor, the policy of public affairs grew gloomy: and the hearts and wishes of worthy subjects of the king inclined them to leave the land of their nativity; to forsake the castled hills and sunny dales that they were so familiar with; to separate from the neighborhood of the kind and friendly nobility of the land, the earl and the earl’s daughter, whose presence was always inspiring; to go from the domain of the good duke, who was so firm in Parliament to support the living interests of the kingdom, the strong arguer for right, and a pillar of the realm. Could William Hunt go with his friends and neighbors, and build a commonwealth, and hope to live?

Ah! The effort was made; the achievement apparently has been accomplished. He sailed in the year 1635, with his companions, away from Old England, giving up more especially the succoring and sustaining influences of the best home society, — old neighbors, helpful and friendly (dear, good souls, known from childhood), — willing to lose all comforts and nurture so well accustomed. Greater sacrifices were to be made; the rich and blessed communions of early friendship were to be cut off. These quiet, homely English folk were going in a merchant vessel to sea. A ship took them with goods, customhouse certificates, charts, compasses, sailing gear, ocean fare, and all things strange and unused, in hazard of all dangers of the deep. The company arrived safe. From different counties came the hardy settlers. The goodly and godly Peter Bulkley, Capt. Willard, the Wheelers, Thomas Bateman, and others, are all familiar to the page of history. The weary and faithful craft came to anchor at the quay in Boston. No inducement for the stanch husbandmen was there to remain, and get subsistence in town: so they came up soon to Musketaquid, now changed (from the Indian [name]) to the sweet and intelligent name Concord, for town and river. Had they a dictionary to help them find this good name? We will take down Walker’s edition, and we find,

“Concord, noun substantive – Agreement between persons and things; peace, union, harmony; concert of sounds.”

It was the sentiments of the hearts of our Christian forefathers that moved them to bestow this choice name. The township, six miles square, was regularly bought of the Indians. The bargain was made by Capt. Willard and others, at the house of Mr. Bulkley, with Squa Sachem, Nuttunkurta, and others, of odd and long names; and the pay was duly delivered. The land was swampy in some places, with none but Indian paths, about one foot broad, and anon a broad plain, with thick, prickly bushes. Plenty of deep woods, where “sweet feme” grew so abundant, that in summer, under the sun’s rays, the strong aroma thereof caused many to faint, and fallen trees impeded very much the early proprietors. Uplands they had, and meadows which overflowed at times with water unexpectedly, as the old records say. They could make hay. Fish were caught. Alewives were plenty, even to bestow to enrich the ground.

The habitation of our ancestor was built, like the others, by digging into the bank of the hill, driving posts into the ground, and covering the top and sides with brushwood. This might be called a mere wigwam; and so were the beginnings of his American home. In process of time, land was divided, and the town-business organized; and affairs were conducted. He was one who petitioned the Governor and Assembly, in the year 1645, concerning matters of finance.

Early Concord, Massachusetts

The area that became the town of Concord was originally known as “Musketaquid,” an Algonquian word for “grassy plain.” It’s located at the confluence of the Sudbury and Assabet rivers. Native American people had lived here for time immemorial, fished, and cultivated crops like corn.

Sadly, the 1633 smallpox epidemic, a disease introduced by New World settlers, had essentially depopulated the area. This made it particularly attractive to the English, who were seeking land.

In 1635, a group of English settlers led by Rev. Peter Bulkley and Major Simon Willard received a land grant from the General Court and negotiated a land purchase with the local indigenous people. Bulkeley was a religious leader who “carried a good number of planters with him into the woods”; and Willard was a trader who spoke the Algonquian language and had gained their trust.

Six square miles were purchased in exchange for wampum-peage, hatchets, knives, hoes, cotton cloth, and shirts, useful items that the Native people could only acquire from Europeans. Concord was incorporated on September 2, 1635.

On September 6, 1636, the first church was established when the settlers voted to build a meeting house near Monument Square, along with a nearby burial ground.

There is no complete list of the original settlers who received land in 1635 and 1636, but William Hunt was assuredly there near the beginning. Not only was his daughter born in early 1641, but he took the oath of freeman on June 2, 1641. Requirements to be a freeman included:

• Religious Orthodoxy: A man had to be a formally admitted member in good standing of the local, orthodox Puritan church. This was the hardest prerequisite, as church membership required passing a rigorous public screening of one’s personal salvation experience.
• Age & Gender: Had to be a male at least 21 years old.
• Property Ownership (The Freeholder Rule): He had to own a “ratable estate” (taxable property) valued at a minimum threshold—often legally recorded as 20 pounds.
• Character Standing: The applicant had to be formally recommended by his town’s selectmen as being of “sober and peaceable conversation.”
• The Oath: Finally, he had to swear the strict Oath of a Freeman, pledging total allegiance to the colony’s government rather than the British Crown.

Clearly, William Hunt owned land by 1641. We know, based on William Hunt’s will, that he purchased his original 30-acre “great lot” from Reverend Peter Buckley.

Reverend Buckley held the original Concord town deed. Some of the deeds and records are missing, so in 1653, Concord compiled a land registry, which was later used to correlate property conveyed in sales and by will in estates.

According to the History of Concord, Massachusetts, the original homes were built on small lots in the center of town, near Concord Square.

William’s lot was not one of the small lots clustered together in the center of town, so he was not there for the original 1635/1636 land distribution.

Based on the land William owned in 1668, as described in his will, we know he left 15 distinct parcels in Concord totaling 626 acres. His real estate was valued at an impressive £596, 12s, making him one of the wealthiest early landholders in the town.

William divided his massive Concord acreage exclusively among his three surviving sons. William had remarried after his wife Elizabeth died in 1661, and subsequently moved to Marlboro where his second wife lived, about 16 miles away, so he wasn’t living on his land when he died.

• Samuel Hunt (William’s eldest son): He was bequeathed the original William Hunt homestead, which was built on Ponkawtasset Hill in northern Concord. He also received accompanying acreage, pasture lands, and meadows.
• Nehemiah Hunt (William’s second son): He received 297 total acres, which included his own house site (25 acres), a 30-acre “great lot,” 188 acres from the town’s second land division (1653), and multiple parcels of fertile meadow land (including Wigwam Meadow and Bound Meadow). Wigwam Meadow eventually became part of Ponkawtasset Hill, today’s Punkatasset Hill and Conservation Area.
• Isaac Hunt (William’s youngest son): He was granted the remaining parcels of Concord farmland, meadows, and managed woodlots to establish his own estate.

What Happened to the Land?

Samuel Hunt had already relocated to Ipswich when William died, and his land was incorporated into Nehemiah’s holdings.

Due to his massive landholdings, Nehemiah Hunt became known as the “Lord of Punkatasset” and lived there his entire life. He died intestate in 1718, but his land passed on within the family after his death.

You can read more about the history of William Hunt’s land in The History of Two-Rod Road, here.

William’s land followed distinct paths through the generations, transitioning from pioneer farmland to historic landmarks and protected Conservation areas. Estabrook Woods, which includes all of Isaac’s land and part of the rest has been acquired by Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology to protect what it describes as a “priceless resource.”

Henry David Thoreau lived in Concord for most of his life and regularly sought refuge on Punkatasset Hill and Estabrook. Thoreau wrote fondly and eloquently about “the great wild tract” in his journal.

In 1837, recently graduated from Harvard and unemployed because he quit a teaching job that required him to flog his students, Thoreau began journaling, and three weeks later wrote:

Ponkawtasset

There goes the river, or rather is, “in serpent error wandering”–the jugular vein of Musketaquid. Who knows how much of the proverbial moderation of the inhabitants was caught from its dull circulation?

The snow gives the landscape a washing-day appearance–here a streak of white, there a streak of dark–it is spread like a napkin over the hills and meadows. This must be a rare drying day; to judge from the vapor that floats over the “vast clothes” yard.

A hundred guns are firing and a flag flying in the village in celebration of the whig victory. Now a short dull report–the mere disk of a sound shorn of its beams–and then a puff of smoke rises in the horizon to join its misty relatives in the skies.

Punkatasset Hill, also known as Hunt’s Hill in the early 1700s, marks the southeast corner of the Eastabrook forest and had played a pivotal role in the Revolutionary War just sixty years before Thoreau put pen to paper.

The Estate

Remarkably, the original Nehemiah Hunt and Daniel Hunt homes on Ponkawtasset Hill still stands today as a historic private estate, recognized as one of the oldest standing colonial dwellings in Concord.

In 1920, William Henry Hunt (1830-1926), a farmer who inherited the deteriorating family homes, wrote about his recollections of the Hunt family and their lands, including their abolitionist beliefs and activities before and during the Civil War.

William Henry Hunt was six generations removed from William and Elizabeth Hunt, descending through son Nehemiah Hunt (1631-1718), William Hunt (1678-1756), Nehemiah Hunt (1726-1785), Nehemiah Hunt (1764-1846) and his father, Daniel Hunt (1796-1870).

One of the things William Henry Hunt provided was a photo of the two homes that are described as “adjoining.” You can view an 1880s photo, here. Nehemiah’s home is on the left, and the “Daniel Hunt” house, built between 1780 and 1790, is on the right.

William Henry Hunt, Daniel’s son, spent much of his life attempting to rejuvenate the deteriorating farm homes. By 1863, Nehemiah’s original home was probably 200 years old, given that he married in 1663, and his father died just five years later, stating that Nehemiah already lived on his property.

In 1887, William Henry Hunt gave up and sold the land to the Reverend Henry Hutchins, who created a large-scale commercial dairy farm to sell milk into the Boston market.

Hutchins built a massive barn and merged the two “adjacent” homes into one. Hutchins unified and expanded the living quarters. He structurally tied the older architectural wings together under a continuous, sprawling gambrel roof layout. This architectural choice masked the distinct joins of the previous Hunt and Barrett structures visible in the 1880s photo, expanding the main footprint into a singular, cohesive 6-bedroom grand country estate. To accommodate farm staff and his own family, he also added two cottages. We’ll visit in a little bit.

You may wonder why I’ve spent so much time discussing William Hunt’s property. As it turns out, William Hunt’s property is uniquely important in the history of the United States – of its birth, 250 years ago, today.

You see, William Hunt’s land, then Nehemiah’s land, included Ponkawtasset Hill.

Ponkawtasset Hill, in turn, directly and profoundly shaped our nation’s history a century later.

Ponkawtasset Hill

Tensions had been building for months, years actually. Taxation by the British government, lack of representation, and more. The retaliatory “Tea Party” took place in nearby Boston on December 16, 1773, serving as a flashpoint.

The British government punished Boston for the Boston Tea Party by closing its harbor and revoking Massachusetts’ self-governance, which led the colonists to stockpile weapons in Concord and organize a militia network.

Concord residents burned tea. Anyone caught buying or selling tea, or even drinking tea was publicly humiliated and shamed. To make a public statement and stand in solidarity with Boston, the townspeople gathered their remaining stores of tea and burned them in the town common right outside the Wright Tavern.

The situation escalated. In August 1774, the British Parliament enacted the Massachusetts Government Act, a law that stripped colonists of their democratic rights, banned town meetings, and dictated that local judges and court officials would now be directly appointed by the British Crown rather than local authorities. The citizens realized that by allowing those courts to open and those judges to sit, they were submitting to tyranny, and they weren’t having it.

In Concord, they had had enough. Concord residents determined to overthrow British rule themselves – and they did.

Throughout the week of September 13, 1774, thousands of armed citizens and militiamen marched into Concord. On September 17, 1774, armed Middlesex County citizens blocked the crown-appointed judges from opening the county court, effectively establishing an independent, illegal provincial government.

The British had mightily underestimated the populace, especially in Concord.

The militia forced these officials to march outside through a gauntlet of citizens and publicly sign a recantation, swearing they would never execute their royal commissions. Then, the Crown-appointed judges, clerks, and the royal sheriff sought shelter inside Daniel Heywood’s local tavern.

How humiliating! And inspiring.

Not only did those judges never sit again in Concord, they never sat again in Middlesex County. But this was just the beginning.

Unbeknownst to those brave citizens at the time, the American Revolution had begun, and they were the sparks. Emboldened by Concord, the rebellion spread throughout Massachusetts. But they knew that the British would not walk away without a fight, and following what had just occurred, consequences were coming.

Concord prepared.

On October 4^th, 209 towns sent more than 300 delegates to Concord, by now the seat of the rebellion, to form the Massachusetts Provisional Congress.

In Worchester, at the town meeting, the instructions were given.

You are to exert yourself in devising ways and means to raise from the dissolution of the old constitution, as from the ashes of the Phenix, a new form, wherein all officers shall be dependent on the suffrages of the people, whatever unfavorable constructions our enemies may put upon such procedure.

“As the ashes of the Phenix” – I love that!

William Hunt and his sons had been dead for decades, but you know their spirits were cheering.

We have no written records of their political leanings, but given what we know about what happened soon enough, and that their descendants felt that their abolitionist views 90 years later were a continuation of their Revolutionary War commitment, we really don’t need any.

Knowing that the Redcoats would descend upon them soon, the townspeople focused on preparation. They knew that British General Gage was waiting on reinforcements, and once they arrived, the fight would be on.

Had Concord bitten off more than they could chew?

They needed to raise a fighting force of 15,000 men, with guns and ammunition for all of them – a seemingly impossible, overwhelming task.

But then again, this was Concord, a town who knew no bounds and had the spunk of their ancestors running through their veins.

The entire population of Concord, maybe 1,400 people was spread among roughly 260 families. That’s maybe 300 males of fighting age. The imbalance and seeming impossibility simply boggles the mind.

To purchase supplies, the Provincial Congress commandeered all of the taxes that would have gone to the British government. How they did this isn’t exactly clear, but they did, bought munitions, and stored their supplies in both Concord and Worcester.

General Gage knew this, and that made Concord a bullseye. He would make an example out of Concord and quell that rebellion.

Concord knew that, too, and they were much closer to Boston than Worcester.

Because Concord was designated as the central munitions depot, Colonel James Barrett, whose family was intermarried with the Hunts, was tasked by the Provincial Congress with organizing, safeguarding, and distributing the massive colonial arsenal.

He began to smuggle arms and supplies out of Boston, including musket balls, gunpowder, medical supplies, and four very valuable brass cannons.

British reinforcements arrived, and General Thomas Gage ordered 700 British Regulars to march secretly from Boston to Concord.

“Sir, you will march with the corps of grenadiers and light infantry put under your command with the utmost expedition and secrecy to Concord…”

I’m not quite sure how 700 soldiers in bright red coats with their equipment clanking can march secretly through the countryside, even if it was the middle of the night, but whatever. Their mission was to seize and destroy a massive stockpile of colonial weapons and gunpowder.

The British, were, indeed, coming.

Paul Revere Rides

It was the night of April 18^th, 1775, and Paul Revere was summoned by Dr. Joseph Warren. Revere was informed that General Gage had ordered the Redcoats to proceed with “utmost expedition and secrecy to Concord,” where they were tasked with destroying the munitions stores and arresting the Patriots, of course.

Paul Revere, a silversmith, was selected as the rider who would secure his place in history books because of his proven reliability and established network in the countryside. He had been serving as a clandestine express courier to New York and Philadelphia to keep them apprised of the brewing rebellion in Boston, and was widely credited with participating in, if not leading, the Boston Tea Party revolt.

After the Tea Party, the British forced the Boston citizens to “quarter” the British soldiers in their homes. Revere and other tradesmen began to meet at the Green Dragon, probably the early version of Cheers, to exchange information and watch the British. Already a member of the Sons of Liberty and producing political documents, Revere began submitting engravings to a new Patriot publication as well.

His goal that night was to ride to Lexington and Concord ahead of the British to warn Patriot leaders and alert the militia to be on guard.

Revere, fearing capture, instructed the sexton to hang two lanterns in the steeple of the Old North Church, indicating that the British were crossing the Charles River by sea, not land.

Revere then rowed across the Charles River, actually rowing unnoticed right past a British warship under the cover of darkness. Upon arrival in Charlestown across the river, they had aleady seen the lanterns and knew Revere would need a horse, so had one waiting for him as he began his famous ride into history. .

Along the way, in around 40 towns and villages, he alerted one pre-appointed person who took over from there. Local church bells were rung to alert the militia, who began preparing as Revere was silently off to his next stop.

Revere made it as far as Lexington, where he arrived about midnight and was able to alert Samuel Adams and John Hancock, but he was captured after leaving Lexington and never reached Concord.

However, at Lexington, William Dawes, a fellow express rider out of Boston caught up with Revere, and about 1 in the morning, the two men decided to press on the next seven miles to Concord where the weapons were stockpiled. On the road, they encountered Dr. Samuel Prescot, a Concord physician returning home from treating a patient, who joined their mission.

Shortly thereafter, they were ambushed by a roadblock of British officers who had been stationed there to intercept any rebel messengers. Revere was cornered in a field, captured, questioned, his horse confiscated, and eventually released on foot.

Dawes turned around and made for Lexington, but his horse threw him and ran away.

Dr. Prescott knew all the ins and outs of the local roads and farms, having ridden them many times. He jumped his horse over a stone wall, escaping into the deep woods, and successfully made it to Concord to alert the sentry on guard, who rang the church bell to awaken the townspeople.

Prescott also continued riding and alerted the neighboring militias in Acton and Stow, a brilliant decision. They immediately gathered their men and began marching towards Concord.

The Mad Rush

Concord immediately knew what was happening, and who was coming. Everything the British were seeking was hidden on the farm of Col. Barrett, who was the head of the local militia units. The residents set about in a mad rush to distribute the munitions and hide the cannons.

They loaded heavy wooden barrels of musket balls, flints and medical supplies onto carts, distributed and hid them in various locations in town, including marshy areas behind the Hunt land on Punkatasset Hill. They successfully hid the four cannons on Barrett’s farm, two by plowing them into fields.

Sometime before dawn, a contingent from Lincoln, Massachusetts, under the command of Capt. William Smith, the brother of Abigail Adams, arrived to assist Concord.

As dawn broke, Barrett assembled the armed militia in the town center, which assuredly included Nehemiah Hunt, who lived in the family home that still stands on Punkatasset Hill today. This Nehemiah Hunt (1726-1785) was the great-grandson of William Hunt (c1604-1667), and the grandson of Nehemiah Hunt (1633-1718).

Concord scout Reuben Brown was dispatched towards Lexington, where, about 5:30 AM he heard gunshots, which turned out to be at Lexington Green, and knew that the British were on their way to Concord.

Around 7:00 AM, the townspeople watched as 700 Redcoats appeared on the horizon, with drums beating, fifes playing, and bayonets fixed.

That was half the population of the entire town, and more than twice as many as the 250 militiamen under Barrett’s control.

Barrett knew what was coming, and rather than face slaughter, he ordered a tactical retreat out of the town center, across the Old North Bridge, ascending straight up the extremely steep, defensive Punkatasset Hill onto their designated staging field, and higher yet.

From the top of the hill, the entire terrain for miles was visible, and on a clear day, one could see all the way to Boston.

The hill provided not only safety and visibility, but the opportunity to regroup without being under the immediate emotional turmoil of a clearly suicidal battle.

The Battle

When the British troops arrived in Concord to find an abandoned town, they were quite perplexed. Where were the people, and where did the militiamen go?

The British decided to secure the three bridges, including the Old North Bridge. They sent some of their soldiers right past Nathaniel Hunt’s land to search Barrett’s farm for munitions and those cannons.

Unflustered, Barrett’s wife slowed them down by fixing them breakfast as the cannons were plowed under in the fields. They had no idea that they had just been outsmarted by a “housewife.”

The British soldiers who remained in town discovered some wooden gun carriages, which they smashed and burned.

During this time, reinforcements were arriving on Punkatasset Hill – a Bedford Company and three from Acton, bringing their total to about 400 men. One of the Acton units was led by Captain Simon Hunt (1704-1790), the great-great-grandson of Nehemiah Hunt who died in 1718, and the great-great-great-grandson of William Hunt, the founder who originally owned Punkatasset Hill.

The men up on the hill wanted to be able to watch the activity at the Old North Bridge, so about 9 o’clock, they moved down the hill partway to Major John Buttrick’s muster field, a lower plateau that provided an unobstructed view of the bridge.

There, they spotted a plume of thick, black smoke above the town and thought the soldiers were burning their homes.

Adjutant Joseph Hosmer yelled, “Will we let them burn the town down?” The rest shouted, “No!” That was all it took.

Their short respite on the hill, and the reinforcements had turned the psychological tide, providing a contingent of Massachusetts farmers with the confidence to advance on the world’s most powerful military force. God bless them one and all.

The decision was made to march down the hill immediately, and onto the Old North Bridge that the British soldiers were guarding. Because they were the best armed, Isaac Davis and his Acton Minutemen were asked to lead the column, to which he replied, “I haven’t a man who is afraid to go.”

The order was given to load their muskets.

Colonel Barrett ordered the advance, instructing them not to fire unless they were fired upon. Their hearts must have been beating out of their chests, knowing they were outnumbered and facing a contingent of professional soldiers.

Still, they marched.

Led by Acton’s minutemen, who had bayonetts, they descended the hillside, marching in a tight double-file line straight down the hill to where the Redcoats were waiting – probably wondering what on earth was going on.

This tactical descent led directly to the famous Battle at the Old North Bridge.

The 90 Redcoats guarding the bridge suddenly realized they were outnumbered and hastily retreated back across the bridge. In their panic and resulting confusion, they only managed to pull a few planks up off of the bridge, so the militia was able to cross easily.

The British formed a deep, narrow line on the other side of the bridge. This formation, where the front men fired, then stepped to the read to reload as the next group fired, was designed for street fighting, not open riverfront while firing across a narrow bridge. They weren’t trained for this and crowded together, blocking each other’s views.

The Patriot militiamen just kept on advancing, reaching the western edge of the bridge, when the British opened fire. At first, warning shots fell into the water, but then a full-on volley followed, killing Acton’s Captain Isaac Davis with a bullet directly through the heart.

Standing where this monument stands today, and seeing men drop, Major John Buttrick leaped into the air, screaming the historic words, “Fire, fellow soldiers, for God’s sake, fire.”

And fire they did.

“The shot heard round the world.”

The front ranks of the colonial militia leveled their muskets over the bridge and loosed a devastating, concentrated volley. Because the British were bunched up in their narrow street-firing column, the colonial musket balls tore through their ranks, wounding four of the eight British officers on the bridge, and killing four privates.

The British panicked, broke formation, and fled into the Concord town center.

The fallen British soldiers were left laying at the bridge, where this monument stands today.

The entire first battle, the opening salvo of the Revolutionary War had only lasted two or three minutes, and took place at the base of Punkatasset Hill.

The minutemen crossed the bridge, but did not immediately pursue the fleeing British soldiers into the town center. Some fell back across the river and took up a defensive position behind the stone walls beside the road, near the British monument today.

The British soldiers who had gone to Barrett’s to search his property, finding nothing because the munitions had already been distributed, were now cut off and the victorious minutemen stood firmly between them and the rest of the British soldiers.

For the next hour, a tense standoff ensued, and neither side did anything.

Around 10:30, unaware of what had transpired, the unit dispatched to Barrett’s farm marched directly back into Concord, only to discover their comrades’ bodies. One man, not yet dead, had been struck in the head with a hatchet by a colonial boy who obviously didn’t wield a gun, but that terrified the Redcoats, thinking that the Native people had joined the Patriots in the fray.

The militiamen chose to regroup and stay quiet, expecting an attack or ambush that never came. After the group returned from Barrett’s and joined the British in Concord, the Redcoats spent the next couple of hours treating their wounded and trying to regroup.

They left at least two of their dead who were buried beside the road, near the British monument today.

The British didn’t realize it, but as the standoff continued, reinforcements from nearby towns continued to arrive from all directions, soon outnumbering the British. More than 32 militia companies with just under 1400 men eventually joined the fight at Concord. You can see a print of that day, drawn shortly thereafter, here.

Around noon, the British officers decided to retreat to Boston, but they were too late and the fuse had aleady been lit.

As the British began their march back to Boston, fighting resumed on the outskirts of Concord, at Miriam’s Corner.

Thinking they were safely regrouping in the Concord town center, away from Concord’s militiamen, they were sorely mistaken. What they had done was given away precious time, a fatal strategic flaw. The silent alarm system in the Massachusetts countryside was hard at work, and thousands of men headed towards Concord, blocking the British escape route.

The final fight at Concord killed a few more Redcoats, but the real war would take place all along the 16-mile route back to Boston, known as the “Nightmare of Battle Road”.

The colonial militia did not meet the British columns of soldiers in their bright red coats head on. Instead they used guerilla tactics, firing from the woods, from barns, behind walls and from inside houses into the increasingly depleted and battle weary soldiers who had been marching and fighting since midnight. The number of militia increased, as the number of soldiers decreased.

By the end of that day, the British had marched back to Boston with their red tails between their legs. One of the British officers lamented that, “their numbers increasing from all parts while ours was reducing by deaths, wounds and fatigue.”

The final tally was:

• British casualties: 247 casualties with 73 killed and 53 missing
• Colonist casualties: 88 casualties, with 49 killed

When the fighting ended in Charlestown that evening, it wasn’t the end of the fight, it was the beginning of a new era. More than 20,000 Massachusetts militiamen had responded and began a siege of Boston.

The battle for America was on.

I choose to believe that William Hunt and his son, Nehemiah, were watching what transpired on their homeland, Punkatasset Hill, and that they were silently cheering the men on. Maybe helping in some unknown way.

America’s turning point happened on Punkatasset Hill. It was here that the final spark was lit, half a mile above the town. One that transformed localized protests into an organized military resistance.

The hill provided the local militia with time to consolidate their resources, spy on the British, make a strategic offensive decision, and obtain the psychological advantage. Then, a few hundred outnumbered soldiers in farmers’ clothing descended the hill, marching two-by-two, staring directly into the face of death.

Without Punkatasset Hill, the path of our history may well have been charted differently.

The fate of America hung in the balance that day, and might well have taken an entirely different turn.

Punkatasset Hill Today

There are two parts to the question of Punkatasset Hill’s location today. The first is the location of the hill itself and the second is the location of Nehemiah Hunt’s original home on the Hunt property.

Today, most of Punkatasset Hill is a preserved historic site within Concord, serving as a monument to the quiet hour of anticipation that directly birthed the American Revolution.

This area is replete with hiking trails, one of which provides access to the top of Punkatasset Hill, where the militiamen stood and America embarked on freedom’s path.

The short hike to the hill can be found on TrailMaps, here, noted as trail 7. You can watch a video of the hike to nearby Hutchins pond on YouTube, here.

The Town of Concord provides several trail maps and guides, here.

William Hall’s Land and Nehemiah Hall’s Home

While William Hunt’s land expands across almost all of Punkatasset Hill, and his original home is gone, we can pinpoint exactly where Nehemiah Hunt lived, because the home, while heavily refurbished, still exists today.

The trailhead is just above Nehemiah’s residence on Monument Street, and across from Hutchins Farm.

You can still see the shape of the two adjoining houses today, although they look vastly different than in the 1880s.

Take a look at these beautiful photos of the property on Realtor.com, here. The residence is gated and can’t be seen from the road.

The structure to the rear is Nehemiah’s home and dates to pre-Revolutionary War days. The brave Patriots gathered on the hill directly behind this home.

The barn and outbuildings do not date to this period. The pool, in the drone photos, is directly behind Nehemiah’s part of the home.

I can’t tell which rooms are in the original portion of the house, but they are all stunning. I know William and Nehemiah Hunt stood in these rooms and warmed themselves by the fire.

What I really want you to look at is the aerial view. I can’t quite place the hill, but it’s someplace here, perhaps slightly behind and to the right of the barn. Regardless, it’s William Hunt’s land.

But why not fly over?

There’s a video tour here, on Vimeo.

How I wish this were a VRBO.

The Hill I Will Die On

William Hunt founded Concord, with others, between 1636 and 1640. He died in 1667, and just over a century later, his land would provide the launching pad for what would become the United States.

I can only imagine the shock, and how proud he would be, were he to know what he begat and the outsized role that Punkatasset Hill played in history.

Punkatasset Hill provided the clarion call for the foundation of this country. It was a humble beginning with a few brave men on a hilltop one chilly April morning.

This is a hill that I, too, am willing to die on.

The Declaration of Independence

Fifteen months after the encounter beneath Punkatasset Hill, on the Old North Bridge, a new country would be formed. On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed at Independence Hall, severing our political ties with Great Britain. We threw off the mantle of a form of government where monarchs ruled and became a sovereign nation, in charge of our own fate.

The Declaration’s Introduction

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

The preamble begins:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security

The Constitution

The Declaration of Independence was followed by the Constitution, which sets forth the structure of how the republic is to be run. It was signed on September 17, 1787.

At the close of the Constitutional Convention, when leaving the building, a woman asked Benjamin Franklin, “What have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin famously replied:

“A republic, if you can keep it.”  

The Constitution provides a balanced federal structure, divided between three equally powerful but distinct branches of government, the Judiciary, the Legislative, and the Executive. It provides separation of power, and divides power between the federal government and the states.

A summary of the Seven Articles of the Constitution:

• Article I (The Legislative Branch): Creates Congress (the Senate and House of Representatives), sets member qualifications, and details its powers like taxing, coining money, and declaring war.
• Article II (The Executive Branch): Establishes the presidency, details the Electoral College system, outlines presidential powers (like commanding the military), and defines the impeachment process.
• Article III (The Judicial Branch): Creates the Supreme Court, allows Congress to set up lower federal courts, defines the types of cases they can hear, and explicitly defines treason.
• Article IV (The States): Regulates relationships between states, requires them to respect each other’s laws, guarantees citizens equal treatment across state lines, and outlines how new states can join the Union.
• Article V (The Amendment Process): Sets up the two-step system needed to change the Constitution, requiring a two-thirds vote in Congress and approval from three-fourths of the states.
• Article VI (Federal Supremacy): Establishes the Constitution and federal laws as the “supreme Law of the Land,” meaning federal law trumps state law if they conflict, and bans religious tests for holding public office.
• Article VII (Ratification): Explains the original startup rules, stating that 9 out of the original 13 states had to approve the document for it to officially take effect.

You can read the full text of the Constitution, here.

Because we were no longer a monarchy, where one person told the rest of us what to do, the Constitution needed to be ratified. It took nine months for the Constitution to complete the ratification process and be approved.

• September 17, 1787 (The Proposal): The Constitution was completed and signed by the delegates, then sent to the states.
• December 7, 1787 (The First State): Delaware became the very first state to vote in favor of approval, earning its nickname “The First State”.
• June 21, 1788 (Official Approval): New Hampshire became the crucial 9th state to ratify the document. This officially made the Constitution the legally binding framework of the United States.
• March 4, 1789 (The Government Begins): The new constitutional government officially began operations.
• May 29, 1790 (Unanimous Approval): Rhode Island, the final holdout state, finally ratified the document, making the approval unanimous across all 13 original states.

Constitutional Amendments

The founding fathers provided enough flexibility that the Constitution could be amended, and it has been several times.

The first 10 amendments are known as the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights was officially proposed by Congress on September 25, 1789, and ratified by the states on December 15, 1791.

Two Amendments in the original Bill of Rights didn’t pass. The first dealt with Congressional representation in the House of Representatives as the country grew. The second dealt with Congressional pay raises and was tabled. It eventually became the 27^th Amendment, but took 202 years to pass.

The Bill of Rights

The purpose of the Bill of Rights was to safeguard individual liberties and place strict, legal limits on federal power

• 1st Amendment: Freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly, and petition.
• 2nd Amendment: The right to keep and bear arms.
• 3rd Amendment: Restrictions on housing soldiers in private homes.
• 4th Amendment: Protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.
• 5th Amendment: Rights of the accused (due process, double jeopardy, self-incrimination).
• 6th Amendment: The right to a speedy and public trial by jury in criminal cases.
• 7th Amendment: The right to a jury trial in civil cases.
• 8th Amendment: Protections against excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishment.
• 9th Amendment: Ensures that citizens have rights beyond those listed in the Constitution.
• 10th Amendment: Reserves powers not given to the federal government to the states or the people

Amendments 11-27

• 11th Amendment (1795): Stops citizens of one state or another country from suing another state in federal court.
• 12th Amendment (1804): Fixes the Electoral College so electors vote for President and Vice President separately.
• 13th Amendment (1865): Abolished slavery and involuntary servitude across the entire nation.
• 14th Amendment (1868): Guarantees birthright citizenship, due process, and equal protection under the law to all citizens.
• 15th Amendment (1870): Bans the government from denying a citizen the right to vote based on race.
• 16th Amendment (1913): Allows Congress to levy a nationwide income tax.
• 17th Amendment (1913): Changes the law so citizens vote directly for U.S. Senators instead of state legislatures choosing them.
• 18th Amendment (1919): Banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol (Prohibition) and was repealed by the 21st Amendment.
• 19th Amendment (1920): Granted women the right to vote.
• 20th Amendment (1933): Shortened the time between elections and inauguration, moving the presidential start date to January 20.
• 21st Amendment (1933): Ended Prohibition by completely repealing the 18th Amendment.
• 22nd Amendment (1951): Limits the President to serving a maximum of two terms.
• 23rd Amendment (1961): Gives Washington, D.C. residents the right to vote in presidential elections.
• 24th Amendment (1964): Bans poll taxes, making it illegal to force people to pay a tax to vote.
• 25th Amendment (1967): Clarifies that the Vice President takes over if the President dies, resigns, or becomes disabled.
• 26th Amendment (1971): Lowers the national voting age from 21 down to 18.
• 27th Amendment (1992): Prevents members of Congress from giving themselves an immediate pay raise until an election has passed. (Took 202 years to pass and finally did in 1992)

Stalled

• 28th Amendment (stalled): The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) states that equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress passed it in 1972 with a deadline of March 22, 1979 for three-fourths of the states to ratify, but they failed to do so, even after an extension to 1982, so it remains stalled among lawsuits.

You can read the full text of the Amendments, here and here, or here.

The Oaths

All elected officials swear an oath to uphold the Constitution, which includes the Amendments.

The exact verbiage of the President’s oath is dictated by Article I of the Constitution, as follows:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Similar Constitutional oaths are required for every elected official and virtually every person working in federal or state government, including the military.

Regardless of their job description, their first and foremost obligation is to defend the Constitution, meaning the safety and security of the country, and the rights of the American citizens.

May we have the wisdom to protect our republic, the legacy for which so many of our forefathers laid down their lives, and the constitutional system of government that those brave men who marched down Punkatasset Hill were willing to die for. Ordinary men who did something extraordinary and, with it, changed history.