TIBAUDEAU (Thibaudeau, Thibodeau), PIERRE, miller, settler, founder of the Acadian family of that name; b. 1631 in the province of Poitou; d. 26 Dec. 1704 at Prée-Ronde.

Tibaudeau arrived in 1654 in Acadia and married Jeanne Terriot around 1660. Being a miller, he settled and built a mill near Port-Royal (Annapolis Royal, N.S.), in a canton called Prée-Ronde, and soon became prosperous.

Tibaudeau is noteworthy particularly as the founder of Chipoudy (Shepody, N.B.). At an advanced age, he decided to acquire a seigneurial domain, and in the spring of 1698, with four of his sons and a comrade, he chose his site at Chipoudy. Guillaume Blanchard and two of his sons accompanied them there, then settled on the Petitcodiac.

A legal dispute arose which threatened his plan when an officer from Port-Royal, Claude-Sébastien de Villieu, asserted that the domains claimed by Tibaudeau and Blanchard formed part of the fief belonging to his father-in-law, Michel Leneuf de La Vallière (the elder). The case was referred to Paris, but this did not stop Pierre Tibaudeau from carrying on with the task of beginning a settlement. The final verdict did not reach Acadia until after the pioneer’s death. A decree of the Conseil d’État dated 2 June 1705, defining more precisely that of 20 March 1703, confirmed La Vallière’s claims. The dream of a seigneury at Chipoudy was dispelled. Nevertheless, the pioneers retained possession of their “lands and inheritances,” and the settlement was able to develop: the 1706 census listed 55 persons at Chipoudy, and that of 1752, 359.

A daughter of the founder, Jeanne, had married the Sieur Mathieu de Goutin, naval commissary at Port-Royal and civil administrator; he wrote several letters or reports about the litigation between La Vallière and the Chipoudy settlers, and they constitute a valuable source of documentation concerning Pierre Tibaudeau.

Clément Cormier

[Historians have used as one of their main sources for this period Rameau de Saint-Père’s work, Une colonie féodale, which contains an interesting chapter on Pierre Tibaudeau. After years of genealogical research Placide Gaudet pointed out some errors in the family relationships described in the chapter in question. In a letter to Msgr Louis-A. Richard of Trois-Rivières, he stigmatized them as “pure invention concerning the old miller’s children.” Gaudet attributed these errors to the fact that Rameau had only the censuses to guide him. In preparing this biography and that of Jean-François Brossard errors in Rameau have been indicated, for example the two alleged marriages of Brossard’s daughters, the first one with Pierre Tibaudeau, the other with Jacques Martin, neither of which took place.  c.c.]

AN, Col., B, 27, f.153; C^11D, 2, f.126; 3, ff.225–26; 4, ff.178–83; 5, ff.81–83; Section Outre-Mer, G¹, 466 (Recensements de l’Acadie, 1671, 1686, 1693, 1698, 1700, 1703). PANS, MS docs., XXVI (parish register of Port-Royal, 26 Dec. 1704). P.-G. Roy, Inv. concessions, IV, 108. Placide Gaudet, “Notes généalogiques” (preserved in PAC and Archives de l’Université de Moncton). Arsenault, Hist. et généal. des Acadiens, I, 518. Geneviève Massignon, Les parlers français d’Acadie, enquête linguistique (2v., Paris, 1962). E. C. Wright, The Petitcodiac: a study of the New Brunswick river and of the people who settled along it (Sackville, N.B., 1945), 6–14. Ganong, “Historic sites in New Brunswick,” 308, 316. Placide Gaudet, “Les ancêtres de feu l’honorable Sénateur Joseph Rosaire Thibaudeau,” Moniteur Acadien (Moncton), 8 juillet 1909. L. Jore, “Mes ancêtres acadiens,” SGCF Mémoires, VI (1955), 270–71. P.-G. Roy, “La famille Thibaudeau,” BRH, XXXVIII (1932), 65–67.