BOURG, ABRAHAM, deputy representing Upper Cobequid, Nova Scotia, 1720–26; b. at Port-Royal (Annapolis Royal, N.S.) 1662, son of Antoine Bourg and Antoinette Landry; married in 1683 Marie Brun, daughter of Vincent and Marie Breaux; date of death unknown.

Abraham Bourg was one of the deputies chosen by the Nova Scotia Council to represent the Acadian districts in 1720, under the governorship of Richard Philipps*. He was apparently released from his duties in 1726 at his own request, because of lameness and infirmity. On 16 Sept. 1727 he, Francis Richards, and the deputies Charles Landry and Guillaume Bourgeois refused to take the oath of allegiance to George II. Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence Armstrong maintained, moreover, that they had assembled the inhabitants a day earlier than they had been ordered. Armstrong charged that “instead of persuading them to their duty by solid arguments of which they were not incapable they [the deputies] frightened them . . . by representing the oath so strong and binding that neither they nor their children should ever shake off the yoke.”

For their alleged opposition they were committed to prison. It was ordered that Bourg, however, “in consideration of his great age,” should be allowed to leave the province as soon as possible, but without his goods. As the others were released after a short time, it appears unlikely that Abraham Bourg actually left. An oath of 1730 bears a signature which may be his. It is not known when Bourg died, but it may have been after 13 April 1736, when Marie Brun’s burial record identifies her as the wife (not widow) of Abraham Bourg.

Maud Hody

Archives of the Bishop’s House, Yarmouth, N.S., Registre de baptêmes, mariages, et sépultures pour la paroisse Saint-Jean-Baptiste à Annapolis Royal, 1727–1755 (copy in Archives de l’université de Moncton). AN, Section Outre-Mer, G¹, 466 (Recensements de l’Acadie, 1671, 1686, 1693, 1698, 1701, 1703 [Port-Royal], 1714 [Cobequid]; copies in Archives de l’université de Moncton). PANS, MS docs., XVII, Letter of Lawrence Armstrong, 17 Nov. 1727 (printed in PRO, CSP, Col., 1726–27); XXII, 150, 153, 160, 216ff. (printed in N.S. Archives, III). PANS, Oath of loyalty to George II, 1730 (no.7 in box of original oaths).