Mathieu  MARTIN

MARTIN, MATHIEU, weaver, seigneur of Cobequid (Truro, N.S.); b. 1636 or 1637, son of Pierre Martin and Catherine Vigneau; did not marry; d. some time before April 1724, probably on his seigneury.

At the same time as he plied his trade as a weaver, Martin concerned himself with the affairs of the dealers in pelts, both at Port-Royal (Annapolis Royal, N.S.), where he lived with his father, and in the Minas Basin. It is possible that his trips to the far end of the Baie Française (Bay of Fundy) had something to do with the land grant at Cobequid which was made to him in March 1689 and which he named Saint-Mathieu. He had to overcome certain difficulties created by Mathieu de Goutin, who was laying claim to Cobequid, as he wanted to set up there an outlet for spirits as an aid to the fur trade with the Indians. Martin, a man of foresight and determination, knew how to make his land grant prosper. Having first concerned himself with preparing the ground, he allowed three families to

Pierre MARTIN, 70, wife Catherine VIGNEAU 68 Children (married): Pierre 45, Marie 35, Marguerite 32, Andre 30 (not married): Mathier 35 cattle 7, sheep 8.

In late March 1689, Mathieu Martin, perhaps the first Frenchman born in Acadia, had secured a seigneurie at the extreme northeast end of the Minas Basin, where he engaged in the fur trade. Martin's seigneurie, called Wagobagitik or Wecobequitk (Mi'kmaq for 'end of the water's flow,' which refers to the present-day Salmon River), also Ouëcobeguy, St.-Matheiu, and eventually Cobeguit, lay 50 miles northeast of Grand-Pré and 55 miles southeast of Beaubassin. Decades later, a governor of British Nova Scotia noted that 'The seigneury of Cobeguit had always been separate from the lands of the La Tour family....' Although Mathieu Martin married, he and his wife, a fellow Acadian whose name has been lost to history, had no children. In 1701, while Martin remained at Port-Royal with his wife, he allowed fellow Acadians Martin Bourg, Jérôme Guérin, and Martin Blanchard, also from Port-Royal, to move their families to his seigneurie, which, because of the limited numbers of salt marshes and

In August 1695, English authorities imposed on the Acadian inhabitants at Port-Royal an oath of allegiance to King William III. Many family heads signed or made their marks on the document that attested to their having taken the oath. Louis Allain, Jean Babineau, called Babinot, Jean Bastarache, Jean Belliveau, Martin and Guillaume Blanchard, Bernard and Martin Bourg, François Broussard, Pierre Cellier, called Le Cellier, Étienne, Jean l'aîné, Pierre l'aîné, and Pierre le jeune Comeau, Jean Corporon, Pierre Doucet, Claude Dugas, ___ Dupuis, Jean Fardel (an Englishman whose wife was a Gaudet), Pierre Gaudet, Jacob and Alexandre Girouard, Laurent Granger, Giraud (Jérôme) Guérin, Emmanuel Hébert, Claude and Pierre Landry, Daniel LeBlanc, Jacques Léger dit La Rosette, Pierre Martin, fils, Étienne Pellerin, Martin Richard, Charles Robichaud dit Cadet, François Robin, Germain Savoie, Pierre Sibilau, Claude and Bonaventure Thériot, and Jacques Triel dit Laperrière--all made their marks.