DCB/DBC Mobile beta
+

As part of the funding agreement between the Dictionary of Canadian Biography and the Canadian Museum of History, we invite readers to take part in a short survey.

I’ll take the survey now.

Remind me later.

Don’t show me this message again.

I have already taken the questionnaire

DCB/DBC News

New Biographies

Minor Corrections

Biography of the Day

Confederation

Responsible Government

Sir John A. Macdonald

From the Red River Settlement to Manitoba (1812–70)

Sir Wilfrid Laurier

Sir George-Étienne Cartier

Sports

The Fenians

Women in the DCB/DBC

The Charlottetown and Quebec Conferences of 1864

Introductory Essays of the DCB/DBC

The Acadians

For Educators

The War of 1812 

Canada’s Wartime Prime Ministers

The First World War

MELANSON, CHARLES, ploughman, settler; b. 1643; d. some time before 1700.

Historians agree neither on his ethnic origin nor on the date of his arrival in Canada. Undeniably, he “came from Scotland”; but, as a notarial contract designated him “Sieur de La Ramée, and as his brother Pierre was nicknamed “La Verdure,” Placide Gaudet concluded that the family might have been of French origin, and that, because it was Huguenot, it might have emigrated to Scotland, whence it went to Acadia. Some writers claim that the Melansons, belonged to the settlement founded by Sir William Alexander, the younger, According to Placide Gaudet, the family arrived in the colony in 1657 with Governor Temple; it settled at Port-Royal; later it is thought to have emigrated to Boston, leaving in Acadia Pierre and Charles, the only members of the family whose names have been preserved in history.

The elder, Pierre, dit La Verdure, a tailor, husband of Marie-Marguerite Mius d’Entremont, was one of the founders of Grand-Pré. Charles, a “laboureur” (ploughman), according to the 1671 census, worked the paternal estate and became prosperous; in 1664, after renouncing Protestantism, he married Marie Dugas, by whom he had several children. Their descendants have been numerous.

Clément Cormier

Recensements de 1671, 1686. Placide Gaudet, notes correspondence, genealogical studies in the PAC and Université de Moncton; study published in Weymouth Free Press, 6 Jan. 1899. Bona Arsenault, L’Acadie des ancêtres: avec la généalogie des premières familles acadiennes (Québec, 1955), 39–41, 143–44. James Hannay, “Our first families,” New Brunswick Magazine, I (1898), 129, 177–86; II (1899), 92–96; III (1899), 17. Rameau de Saint-Père, Une colonie féodale. A. W. Savary, “The Acadian Melansons,” New Brunswick Magazine, I (1898), 360; II (1899), 222. The “Laverdure” referred to in PAC Report, 1912, App. E, 56, 58, and App. F, 69, may be Pierre.

General Bibliography

Cite This Article

Clément Cormier, “MELANSON, CHARLES,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 1, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed March 29, 2024, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/melanson_charles_1E.html.

The citation above shows the format for footnotes and endnotes according to the Chicago manual of style (16th edition). Information to be used in other citation formats:


Permalink:   http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/melanson_charles_1E.html
Author of Article:   Clément Cormier
Title of Article:   MELANSON, CHARLES
Publication Name:   Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 1
Publisher:   University of Toronto/Université Laval
Year of publication:   1966
Year of revision:   1979
Access Date:   March 29, 2024