Illustrated by Azor Vinneau
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1. The base of a circular oven and fireplace
complex was uncovered here and it proved unlike any other found in
North America. The base and exterior walls of the oven were constructed
of the same field stones used in the foundation of the house. The oven
door was probably located at the back of the fireplace, inside the
house, and the interior of the bake oven seems to have been plastered
with mud.
2. The heavy foundation of the house and lack of
sufficient stones for constructing walls, led to a theory that the
framing consisted of heavy timbers, probably square hewn. The large
number of hand wrought nails uncovered on site strengthened this
supposition.
3. Building materials discovered , included pieces
of cut and bundled marsh hay, suggesting the roof was thatched. Pieces
of window glass were found, as were iron door hinges and even a
well-preserved door lock. These showed similarities to New England
rather than European models. The number of bricks on the ground
indicated that the chimney may have been constructed with this
material, probably coated with mud.
4. The wooden walls studs seem to have been
infilled with local clay mixed with marsh hay for strength. The inside
wall consisted of a white clay slip, giving a plaster-like surface. The
other side of the slip retained a wood-grain impression reflecting its
application to a wooden interior wall.
5. The lean-to at one end of the house possibly
housed small animals.
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Acadian
Reconstruction at Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia
While explorers, traders, missionaries and other
well-heeled French nationals lived in somewhat grand circumstances, the
housing of settler farmer-fishermen was modest. Belleisle Marsh, upriver from Port
Royal. The settlement was abandoned and it was generally believed that
all the houses were burned by the English. At least 3 seem to have
simply fallen into disrepair and rotted to the ground leaving nothing
but cellar holes. From 5,000 artifacts found at one place they have
deduced the character of this former home. "The house was a substantial
wood framed structure on a basalt fieldstone foundation and is an
example of the French construction method known as "charpente" A
massive hearth, oven and chimney stood at one end of a single room. The
walls were partly infilled with clay and the roof was thatched." Details of construction given at left are based on this excavation.
Like the north shore of old Acadie, the south
shore including Lunenburg, had not only French colonists
but Mi'kmag inhabitants before the "Foreign Protestants" arrived and
displaced them in 1750. The former were reduced by disease so
that there were only 38 left in Lunenburg County by 1861, by 1891, their numbers
had risen marginally to fifty-nine. The bulk of that population appears
to have been removed by small pox. The fifty Acadian families who
settled among them were of course deported in that infamous clearance
by the British military. Nevertheless, there were about 50 families
within the region and some of them are buried in the Old French
Cometary overlooking the Upper Harbour at Lunenburg. Their grave sites are
little more than mounds of earth unidentified by burial markers. They
share their place with later Swiss and German settler who do have memorial stones.
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