Gargas


This data comes to us through William Inglis Morse (1874-1952) author, historian, minister, collector of Canadiana, and philanthropist. He taught in a rural school near his home in Paradise in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia for one year, then at the age of 18, spent a year at Horton Academy and then entered Acadia University in Wolfville. He completed his BA in 1897, and then enrolled in the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, graduating three years later with a Bachelor of Divinity. Within a few years he was appointed rector at the Church of the Incarnation in Lynn, Massachusetts, where he served for the next twenty-five years.
Morse also pursued literary and scholarly interests and in 1908 published his first book, Acadian Lays and Other Verse. As his interest in Acadia expanded, Morse began to research the early decades of Acadian settlement in Nova Scotia. His research took him to England and France and soon he began collecting in his areas of interest. He published a number of travelogues chronicling his travel adventures and also edited and published the contents of the significant Acadian documents he had acquired: Gravestones of Acadie (1929), The land of the new adventure (1932), Acadiensia Nova (2 volumes, 1935), and Pierre du Gua, Sieur de Monts (1939).
Morse and his wife, Susan Alice Ensign Morse, were active collectors and philanthropists, and their daughter, Susan Morse Hilles, was later known as an avid art collector and philanthropist as well. Between 1926 and 1942, Morse collected and donated major groups of Canadiana to Acadia University and to Dalhousie University. In 1943, Morse was appointed Honorary Curator of Canadian Literature and History at Harvard University where he donated a major collection of Canadiana; he also donated significant collections to Yale University and the University of King's College (Halifax).

The census of Gargas is a manuscript purchased by Morse and included in Acadiensia Nova. Gargas (first name unknown) was an ecrivan principal sent to Port Royal to take an exhaustive census in 1687. He counted people of all categories, buildings, weapons and acres. Added together, they are one measure of the extent of settlement. 587 Things counted at Chicnitou would be unmistakable. The 12 at Canseau might be harder to spot.

The size of the flags is roughly proportional to the number of things counted by Gargas. Click a flag for details. "Certain location" means the modern location is easily determined.
On the tree chart:

· The size of the box is proportional to the sum of all things counted by Gargas
· The color of the box represents the number of Europeans—red to green: 0 to 115.


View Gargas II in a larger map

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