Dave Arsenault's Genealogy and History Pages

Children of Pierre and Marie were [2] :

1. Charles Arsenault, born circa 1690 at Mésagouèche Point, Beaubassin. Married Françoise Mirande circa 1712.
2. Jacques Arsenault, born circa 1692 at Mésagouèche Point, Beaubassin. Married Marie Poirier 1720.
3. François Arsenault, born circa 1694 at Mésagouèche Point, Beaubassin. Married Marguerite Bernard 1719.
4. Anne Arsenault, born circa 1697, at Mésagouèche Point, Beaubassin. Probably died before 1701.
5. Claude dit Ambroise Arsenault, born circa 1699, at Mésagouèche Point, Beaubassin. Married Marguerite Richard circa 1725.
6. Augustin Arsenault, born circa 1700, at Mésagouèche Point, Beaubassin.
7. Abraham dit "le petit Abram" Arsenault, born circa 1702, at Mésagouèche Point, Beaubassin. Married Marie-Josephe Savoie circa 1728.

Family History Details

Alternate spellings for the Pierre Arsenault family in this period included Arseneau and Arsenot.

The birthplace and origin of Pierre Arsenault has escaped all researchers amateur and professional to date. His first appearance in the records of Acadia was about 1672, and it has been surmised by Bona Arsenault [4] and others that he was among those who emigrated to Acadia on a ship called L'Oranger which arrived in Acadia in 1671, based partly on the fact that he does not appear in the 1671 census of Port Royal. However, given Pierre's later profession as a coastal pilot on small ships trading up and down the coast, it is possible that he arrived in Acadia earlier and was away at sea at the time of the 1671 census [2] . Pierre Arsenault was probably from one of the Arsonneau families that lived in the coastal areas of the west-central provinces of France at that time (La Rochelle area).

Pierre was employed as a ship's pilot by one of the more prominent of the Acadian settlers, Jacques Bourgeois, and accompanied him in the formation of the new settlement of Beaubassin at the head of the Baie Françoise (Bay of Fundy) about 1672 [4].

According to Surette [19], Bourgeois initially set aside land for Arsenault to settle and farm at the westernmost end of Mésagouèche Point, but Bourgeois' daughter Marguerite and her husband Jean Boudrot claimed the land for themselves by 1675. Between 1672 and 1675, the unmarried Pierre was probably not yet homesteading but rather enaged in operating his employer's sea-borne trading business. Pierre married his first wife Marguerite around 1675 and was forced to set up his family in Port Royal as there was no longer any land for him at Beaubassin (farming 30 arpents at Port Royal in 1686 according to the census, with his second wife Marie). Sources indicate that Pierre and Marie's marriage occurred at Beaubassin, however this seems strange considering their farm was at Port Royal, and Marie's family was from Port Royal, and that there is no existing parish record of the marriage.

Around 1687 [2] or 1689 [19], the widowed Marguerite, by then remarried to the Portuguese Emmanuel Mirande, finally ceded Arsenault's land to him. The Mirandes moved a short distance away across the river to the Beausèjour ridge. The Arsenaults remained on this land until the destruction of the community in 1750.

Surette [19] indicates that a condition of the Mirandes leaving the land is that one of Pierre's sons would have to wed one of Marguerite's daughters to retain the land after Pierre's death, and indeed, Pierre's eldest son Charles Arsenault married Marguerite and Emmanuel's daughter Françoise Mirande and eventually took over the farm.

Pierre's home was probably among those burned and his livestock killed during the American raids from Massachussetts led by Colonel Benjamin Church, in 1696 and 1704 [4].

Pierre is the direct ancestor of all Arsenaults and Arceneauxs in North America, and has large numbers of descendants in Québec, Louisiana, Prince Edward Island, and elsewhere.