Mining For Pioneers

      If your ancestors were miners, you might be interested in the vein of research that has obsessed John Ashton for the past three years.

The amateur historian had unearthed a long-abandoned village in the hinterlands of central Nova Scotia settled by French immigrants in the 1870s.

The mystery now is, where did the nine or more families go after they left the short-lived settlement they called Raymond-ville, a place no name you won’t find on the maps of today.

“There were only two families left there after 1881 – the Bonnets and the Oudins,” says Ashton, a graphic designer of Bridgeville.

So what became of the others: Hommé, Floret, Segretain, Durand, Mazzee and Passieux families?

Did any of them moved on to other Atlantic Canadian mining towns?

The genealogy bug and the history bug are closely related, says Ashton, who has no blood connection to the French miners, but feels a kinship through the discoveries he is making.

Ashton’s first inkling of the settlement was an obscure notation on an 1879 county atlas near the convergence of the county boarders of Pictou, Colchester, Halifax and Guysborough, near present-day Trafalgar.

“The day I stumbled across the foundation of a 25 x 30-foot log cabin there and then discovered a dug well nearby,” is recalled by Ashton as one of the biggest thrills of the research so far.  Alone in the forest, accompanied only by his dog, Ashton let out a whoop of joy.

Later he discovered other artifacts, like a spoon, an old photo, an ax head, an iron skillet, a horseshoe and a broken bottle he pieced back together.

“I can’t describe the feeling,” he says of the unfolding of an historical settlement where children played and adults struggled to eke out and existence.

Only one tombstone remains in a fenced-in cemetery area.  “There’s supposed to be six individuals buried there.”

“I am bitten by the history-bug now, I may never stop,” he laughs at the notion that his project may have a concluding point.

Ashton hopes to bring Raymond-ville to the attention of a wider circle perhaps with some sort of recognition at the Acadian Congrés in 2004.

 He also hopes to find lots of descendants of these families.  One Hommé descendant from Pennsylvania has already surfaced and visited Pictou County this summer.