Lavandier
Antoine Lavandier was born in Avranches, Normandy, France about 1700. In the 1734 census of Port Toulouse, Antoine was listed as a navigator from Avranches, France. He came to Acadia in the employment of Claude Petitpas of Port Toulouse, a schooner captain and merchant. Antoine came to Isle Royale in an unknown year but prior to Claude’s death about 1731 in his late sixties leaving Francoise Lavergne a widow at age twenty-eight with four small boys to look after. Circumstances obliged her to find another husband in short order and in 1732 she married a younger man in Antoine Lavandier, then about 32 years if age.
Two children were born to Antoine Lavandier and Francoise Lavergne before Antoine’s untimely death in 1735:
- Marguerite, born sometime before the census of 1734, in Port Toulouse
- Abraham, born around 1735, in Port Toulouse
Marguerite married twice, first to Jean-Francois Bonin, in 1750 in Port Toulouse. She then married Charles Pinet, around 1756, and had two sons, Charles and Louis born 1757 and 1760, respectively. They both drowned in 1767 in Ile de Miquelon.
Abraham brought the Lavandier/Levangie name to Harbour au Bouche. According to the LaRoque census in 1752, Abraham was living with his mother and step-father Claude Clerge. He married Genevieve Bernard, the daughter of Pierre Bernard and Cecile Longuepee, in 1758 in Port Toulouse. Abraham followed his half-brother, Louis Petitpas to Chezzetcook in 1760 following the capture of Louisbourg where he spent ten years before returning to Isle Madame about 1770. He took his family to Tracadie in the 1780’s and then on Harbour au Bouche, where he was granted land in 1809. Ten children were born to this couple most of whom put down roots in Harbour au Bouche.
The Lavandier surname has taken on several variatioms over the years including Levandier and Lavangie with Levangie now being the most prominent. Many of the descendants of Amos Lavandier, who married Sophia Clory about 1870 in Harbour au Bouche and moved to Georgetown, Prince Edward Island have retained the surname Lavandier and carried that surname to the northeastern states.