e real family
name is Gaudin, or Godin. To any one conversant with the practice
of the old French families of making frequent changes in their
patryonymics this will not appear surprising. The common ancestor
of the Gaudin, Bellefontaine, Beausejour and Bois-Joly families in
the maritime provinces was one Pierre Gaudin, who married Jeanne
Roussiliere of Montreal, Oct. 13, 1654, and subsequently came to
Port Royal with his wife and children. Their fourth child, Gabriel
Gaudin (or Bellefontaine) born in 1661, settled on the St. John
river in the vicinity of Fort Nashwaak. He married at Quebec in
1690, Angelique Robert Jeanne, a girl of sixteen, and in the census of
1698 the names of four children appear, viz., Louise aged 7, Louis 5,
Joseph 3, Jacques Phillipe 7 months. Of these children the third,
Joseph Bellefontaine, spent the best years of his life upon the St.
John river and his tribulations there have been already noticed[97]
in these pages. He was living at Cherbourg in 1767 at the age of 71
years, and was granted a pension of 300 livres (equivalent to
rather more than $60.00 per annum) in recognition of his losses and
services which are thus summarised:

[96] Martel and Bellefontaine have been mentioned already. See page
57 ante.

[97] See Chapter xiii., p. 135

"The Sieur Joseph Bellefontaine or Beausejour of the River St. John,
son of Gabriel (an officer of one of the King's ships in Acadia) and
of Angelique Roberte Jeanne, was commissioned Major of the militia of
the St. John river by order of M. de la Galissonniere of 10th April,
1749, and has always done his duty during the war until he was made
prisoner by the enemy. He owned several leagues of land there and had
the sad misfortune of seeing one of his daughters and three of her
children massacred before his eyes by the English, who wished by such
cruelty and fear of similar treatment to induce him to take their
part, a fate that he only escaped by fleeing to the woods, bearing
with him two other children of the same daughter."

Notwithstanding all their misfortunes and persecutions the Acadians
living on the St. John continued gradually to increase. After the
return of the missionary Bailly to Canada they were without a priest
until the arrival of Joseph Mathurin Bourg in September, 1774. This
intrepid missionary was the first native of Acadia to take holy orders
and as such is a subject of especial interest. He saw the light of day
at R