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The missionary Bailly wrote from Aukpaque, June 20, 1768, to Bishop Briand, "There are eleven Acadian families living in the vicinity of the village, the same ones whom your Lordship had the goodness to confirm at St. Anne. It is a difficult matter to attend to them for they live apart from one another during the summer on the sea shore fishing and in the winter in the woods hunting."
During King George's war the Maliseet warriors did not, as in former Indian wars, assemble at Medoctec and turn their faces westward to devastate the settlements of New England, the scene of hostilities was now transferred to the eastward, Annapolis Royal, Beausejour and Louisbourg became the scene of hostilities and Aukpaque, not Medoctec, the place of rendezvous.
On their way up the River St. John Mr. Pote and his companions passed several French houses, and at some of these they stopped for provisions, but found the people so "exceeding poor" they could not supply any. When they arrived at Aukpaque, on the evening of the 6th July, they found the schooner Montague had arrived some days before with the other prisoners.
The chapel stood for fifty years and its clear toned bell rang out the call to prayer in the depths of the forest; but by and by priest and people passed away till, in 1767, the missionary Bailly records in his register that the Indians having abandoned the Medoctec village he had caused the ornaments and furnishings of the chapel, together with the bell, to be transported to Aukpaque, and had caused the chapel itself to be demolished since it served merely as a refuge for travellers and was put to the most profane uses.
That there was a field for the missionary's labor is shewn by the fact that in the course of his year's residence on the River St. John he officiated at 29 marriages, 79 baptisms and 14 burials. His presence served to draw the Indians to Aukpaque, where there were also some Acadian families who seem to have been refugees of the expulsion of 1755.
The Indian villages of Medoctec and Aukpaque afforded convenient stopping places. In the year 1746 a great war party, including the Abenakis of Quebec as well as their kinsmen of the upper St. John, arrived at Aukpaque. Thence they took their way in company with the missionary Germain to Chignecto.
For some reason the presence of the Acadians at Aukpaque and its vicinity was not acceptable to the authorities of Nova Scotia, and Richard Bulkeley the provincial secretary, wrote to John Anderson and Francis Peabody, Esqrs., justices of the peace for the county of Sunbury, under date 20th August, 1768: "The Lieut.
John Allan, of Machias, had a conference with the Indians at Aukpaque in June, 1777, and writes in his journal: "The Chiefs made a grand appearance, particularly Ambrose St. Aubin, who was dressed in a blue Persian silk waistcoat four inches deep, and scarlet knee breeches: also gold laced hat with white cockade."
In Kidder's "Military operations in Eastern Maine and Nova Scotia during the Revolution," the statement is made that Aukpaque signifies a beautiful expanding of the river occasioned by numerous islands, but, while this is perfectly correct as descriptive of the locality, it is more probable that Aukpaque or its Indian equivalent Ek-pa-hawk means "the head of the tide," or beginning of swift water.
Most potent of all perhaps in the ultimate result of the conference, was the presence of the French missionary Bourg. It was this that inspired the Indians with confidence in the good intentions of the government of Nova Scotia, and when the missionary accompanied them on their return to Aukpaque their satisfaction was unbounded. In Col.
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