Acadiensis/Volume 2/Number 3/The Naming of St. Andrews
The Naming of St. Andrews—a Miss.
LL normal men are born hunters, though the quarry they follow is diverse enough. With the majority it is wealth, with others knowledge, with some reforms, while most return at times with joy to the primitive original of it all, the capture of the wild game of the woods and waters. As for me, I enjoy several forms of the chase, but the one that I follow with particular zest is the historic origin of the place-names of my native province. I do not believe that any hunter ever yet stalked the lordliest moose and brought him to earth, or any fishermen ever yet played the noblest salmon to gaff, with an intenser pleasure than I experience as I trace some one of our historic place-names through all its devious historical wanderings and bring it to book. But like other sportsmen, I sometimes lose big ones, and this is to tell of a beauty which I thought I had but didn't, because I took the wrong trail.
The name in question is Saint Andrews, on Passamaquoddy. It can be traced back on many maps and in many documents to the Morris Map and Report of 1765, (in Ms. in the Public Record Office, London) where it is applied to the island east of the town, which we now call Navy Island. But earlier than that there is no authentic record of it, though there are two or three hints. Thus in the invaluable Boundary Ms. now in the possession of Rev. Dr. Raymond, are several depositions of residents at Passamaquoddy taken in 1796–97; in one of these, by John Curry, we read: "In 1770, when this deponent first came to the country, there was an Indian place of worship and a cross standing upon Saint Andrews, or Indian Point, and a burying ground which he understood from them [the Indians] was consecrated ground;" again, in another, by an Indian, Nicolas Awawas, we read: "There was a cross put up at St. Andrews Point, and it was standing till about fourteen years ago, and was put up by St. André, a priest. . . . and then it was called St. Andrews." These statements must be taken with some caution, but they make it probable that there had been a Christian mission at this place, the name of which was St. Andrews. Here, despite much search, the matter rested until a few months ago, when, working through the newly issued volume on Canadian Archives, the Supplementary Volume for 1899, I hit upon these passages:
July 26, 1702. The Minister writes to the Bishop of Quebec: "Is glad to learn by his letter that the negotiations with the Abbot of St. André au Bois, respecting the establishment of his community in Acadia, are going on favorably. (Page 363).
August 2, 1702. The Minister writes to the Bishop of Quebec: "Will do all that depends on him to induce the King to consent to the conditions upon which the Abbot of St. André-au-Bois would undertake an establishment in Acadia." (Page 363).
August 2, 1702. The Minister to M. Bignon, Intendant of Picardy: "Asks him to endeavor to lease for 8,000 livres, the establishment of the Abbey of St. André-au-Bois, in Artois On condition that that be done, the Abbot consents to found an establishment in Acadia and to go there himself." (Page 363).
April 25, 1703. The Minister to M. Bégon. "Will grant a passage on the ship going to Acadia to the Abbot of St. André-aux-Bois, of the order of Prémontrés, with 9 Religious of his order. " (Page 370).
June 20, 1703. The Minister to M. de Brouillan. " Respecting the Abbot of Saint André-aux-Bois." (Page 371).
July 18, 1703. The Minister to the Bishop of Quebec. "Sends him a letter of the Vicar General of 'La Congregation des Prémontrés,' which will show him what these monks require, before undertaking the missions of Acadia. Thinks their proposals worthy of acceptance, and thinks those which may not be so, would be modified if he should take it in hand." (page 368).
This is all upon that subject in the volume, but it seemed enough! "Eureka!" (or a scientific equivalent) I cried, "the Monks of St. André-au-Bois came to Acadia, some of them founded a mission at St. Andrews and named it in honor of the house of their order in France. This explains, too, the Indian tradition that it was founded by a priest by the name of St. André." But later my joy was tempered by the reflection that 'twas a goodly guess, but where was the proof? So I set to work to find it. I asked a priest of the Roman Church whether the Order of Prémontrés is still in existence, and if so, to whom I could apply for information about the order and its early missions. He told me the order is still active and gave me the address of the Superior of St. Norbert's College of Du Pere, Wis., who in turn referred me to the Bishop of the Order, the Bishop of Namur, in Belgium, to whom I wrote. A prompt and very courteous reply was received from Father Waltman Van Spilbeeck, Sub-Prior of the Abbey of Tougerloo, Belgium, to whom his Lordship had referred my letter, enclosing an extract from a history of the Abbey of St. André-au-Bois, of which the following is a translation:
André Thomas, XXXVe abbe de St. André-au-Bois (1688–1731).
In one of his frequent voyages to Paris, admitted to present to the Cardinal de Noailles his plans of reform, he met the Bishop of Quebec, who persuaded him to take part in the apostolic work in Canada, and proposed to him to attach himself to his person. The imagination of the Abbé Thomas was immediately fired by the thought of consecrating himself to missions, and of leading beyond the seas his disciples of the Mount-Saint-Martin. The reformer straightway became the apostle.
He sought immediately from the court the authority to devote himself to the propagation of the faith, and through the mediation of the intendant Bignon, asked from the abbey of St. André a subsidy of three thousand livres.
The brother Boubert (proctor) and the prior, unwilling to share with the new world resources hardly sufficient for the abbey itself, granted, not without difficulty, a sum of 1,200 livres; Thomas . . . . arrived suddenly at Saint André one evening in September, 1703, in the hope to recruit there at least some disciples; some clergy to preach the gospel; some laymen to found a colony; his brother offered to accompany him with wife and two children, but he required from the King the grant of two square leagues of land to be held in fief from the crown of France, with water mills, wind mills, the rank of esquire, and finally permission to cross and recross the ocean whenever he thought best.
At Saint-Omer, at Serques, where Thomas went to promote the advantages of his project, he obtained many adherents; but the monks of St. André knew their abbe too well to risk following him in such an adventure. When it became necessary to leave family and country, when on his return from Paris, where he was to organize the voyage, André Thomas made his appeal to the missionaries and the colonists, no one presented himself; he himself, moved by the tears of his parents, hesitated and sought trivial excuses; he wrote to the Bishop of Quebec that an abbe ought not to abandon his community and traverse the seas without the authorization of the Pope, and the Bishop answered him through the minister Pontchartrain, that he ought to fulfil his engagements, and to be at La Rochelle the 12th of June, 1703. The Bishop of Quebec cared little for the colonists recruited by promises, but he counted upon the missionaries and would not start without them; a last time he wrote to André Thomas; then, as time pressed, he dismissed him in disgrace, whilst the Recollets took his place on the ship which made sail for Canada.—From the "Histoire des abbayes de Doumartin et de Saint-André-au-Bois," par le Bon Abberie de Calonne. Arras. Sueur-Charruey, 1875, pp. 191 and following.
The correctness of the statements in the above passage is rendered the more probable from the fact that, as Father Van Spilbeeck points out, there is cited among the authorities on which this history is based, a " Chronicle of Saint-André-au-Bois by F. Boubert, 36th Abbé . . from 1135 to 1763." As Abbé Thomas was the 35th Abbé this chronicle was by his successor, and hence likely to be correct. The Abbey itself has been long since destroyed, doubtless during the French Revolution.
Thus vanished my beautiful theory about St. Andrews. But I still think it probable that the name was that of a mission to the Indians at this place, established some time subsequent to Church's raid in 1704. It is a coincidence of some interest that the name Saint Martin occurs in the above passage, as that of a neighboring abbey; for the name Saint Martins in St. John county is also of totally unknown origin, though no record of its occurrence prior to 1786 is known. Incidentally the above passage is also of interest as showing the difficulties the French experienced in securing colonists for New France.