Pierre DOUCET dit LAVERDURE
Doucet family

"Doucet is a name now very widely diffused in the Martime Provinces, there being about five hundred families who bear that name in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Of these, 170 families are in Gloucester, 120 in Yarmouth county, 100 in Digby and 60 in Inverness. There are a few families of the name, 45 in all, in Kent, Northumberland, Restigouche, Mada- waska and Westmorland. All these people are undoubtedly descended from Pierre and Germain Doucet, whose names appear in the census of 1671. Pierre Doucet was 50 years old when that census was taken, and in 1687 he was one of the "ancient inhabitants" of Port Royal who certified with regard to the work done by Charnisay in the settlement of Acadia. He signed this document with his mark, so that he was an uneducated man. He was married to Henriette Peltret and they had five children, three boys and two girls, the oldst son, Toussant, being only eight years old. Doucet's trade was that of a mason. Germain Doucet was 30 years old and he was married to Marie Landry, by whom he had three sons, the oldest six years of age. Abraham Dugast, armorer, who was 55 years old, was married to a woman named Doucet, and as she had eight children, a son of 19 and daughters possibly still older, we may assume that she was then not much less than 40 years old. Pierre and Germain Doucet and Abraham Dugast's wife were probably the children of the original settler Doucet who may have come to Acadia in 1632. At all events, Doucet is one of Acadia's ancient names and the Doucets are among our first families. Peltret, the name of Pierre Doucet's wife, was also the name of the wife of Barnabu Martin, who had two young children. Doubtless the two women were sisters and both quite young, the children of a deceased original settler. This conjecture is strengthened by the fact that, although there was no male head of a family named Peltret in Acadia in 1671, there was a family named Peltret at Port Royal in 1686, when the census of Acadia was again taken. In that year Port Royal was still the home of the Doucets, but in 1714 some of them were residing at Mines. The oath of allegiance of 1736 was signed by no less than fifteen men named Doucet. There were only three families of the name deported from Mines by Winslow in 1755, but in 1752 there were ten famil1es of that name at Beausejour, all of them, except one from Cobequid, being residents of the settlements in the vicinity of the fort."

Source:
The New Brunswick Magazine
Published by W.K. Reynolds, 1899
Item notes: v.2 (1899)
Original from Harvard University
Digitized Sep 29, 2007



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