Fougere
Jean Fougere was born in Poupry-en-Bouce, diocese of Orleans, France on September 13th, 1684. Jean first appeared in the 1698 census at Port Royal on February 5, 1709 as a witness at the wedding of Claude Girouard and Elizabeth Blanchard. Jean married Marie Bourg in Port Royal on November 27, 1713. Five children were born to this couple in Port Royal including Joseph born on April 25, 1720.
Shortly after the birth of Joseph, this family relocated to Port Toulouse, Ile Royale where three more children were born. Marie died about 1726 possibly while giving birth to their last child Charles. Jean remarried Madeleine Belliveau about 1728 in Port Toulouse, giving birth to ten more children. Jean established a successful fishing and forestry business supplying the fortress at Louisbourg as set out in the following article researched and written by Charlene (Fraser) MacKenzie of Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia.
Joseph Fougere, born April 25, 1720, married Marguerite Coste in 1747 and he was living in Port Toulouse (St. Peter’s) at the time of a census taken in 1752 for the French government by Sieur de LaRoque. Jean Fougere died about 1749 and a document was signed that year concerning the guardianship of his children. The census of 1752 indicated that Joseph and Marguerite had Marie Madeleine, aged 12 years, a native of Acadia as a domestic. They also had one ox, one cow, one heifer, two geese, four fowls and a share in a vessel.
Most Acadians living on Ile Royale including the Fougeres escaped the deportation of 1755 but their property at Port Toulouse was destroyed by the British following the fall of Louisbourg in 1758.
While Joseph Fougere and Marguerite Coste had only one child at the time of LaRoque’s census, they went on to have eleven more children. Joseph and his family were living in the Petit de Grat area at the time of a census taken by the British government in 1771. They relocated to safe haven at Chezzetcook in the 1760’s to escape the ravages of American privateers but relocated to Isle Madame about 1770 in an attempt to resettle their abandoned homes.
This Fougere family relocated to Tracadie about 1787. Jean Fougere and Jacques Fougere, older sons of Joseph and Marguerite, were each granted 200 acres of land from the crown in the Barrio Beach area of East Tracadie in 1787. The remaining Fougere family had relocated to Harbour Bouche at the time of the 1794 Nova Scotia Poll Taxes Census. In 1809 Marcel Fougere and Charles Fougere were each granted 500 acres in the Frankville area.
Joseph Fougere and Marguerite Coste had five sons and two daughters who settled in Harbour au Bouche in the 1790’s. Jean Fougere died in 1819 without leaving any children. The other four brothers, Jacques, Charles, Marcel and Joseph, all had families. Jacques moved on to Guysborough and Joseph returned to Isle Madame. Charles and Marcel settled in Frankville and married two Richard sisters. They are the ancestors of virtually all the Fougeres in Havre Boucher.
The Fougere name was anglicized as Frazier by many who moved to the Boston States to find employment in the latter part of the 19th century.