News Release Archive
NS MUSEUMS--RARE ACADIAN COSTUME ON DISPLAY ----------------------------------------------------------------- A skirt and jacket worn by Marguerite Bellefontaine, an Acadian who lived in Chezzetcook, Halifax County, from 1824 to 1910, is on display at the Museum of Natural History, Halifax, until March 2 as part of Celebrating l'Acadie, a seven week festival of Acadian events. Sixty years ago provincial museum curator Harry Piers discovered the striped wool skirt and cotton jacket in Chezzetcook, east of Halifax. He also learned that these costumes were still occasionally seen in Digby County as late as 1935. The skirt is the only complete example known to survive. Early clothing is rare because women often recycled old clothing for other purposes. Marguerite Bellefontaine made the skirt in the mid 1800s and wore it to church on Sundays. Though she was born 70 years after the Expulsion of the Acadians, her clothes and those of the other women of Chezzetcook were very similar to those worn by their great-grandmothers in the 1750s. Mr. Piers, in a museum report, wrote about the skirt; "such costumes without a doubt were practically the same as those of the period of Evangeline". Around the same time as Marguerite made her skirt, an American, Frederick S. Cozzens, visited Nova Scotia and wrote a book about his travels called Acadia, or, a Month With the Blue Noses, published in 1859. He included in his book two lithographs based on ambrotypes (a very early form of photograph) of two Acadian women from Chezzetcook. The two women in the pictures are wearing skirts similar to that of Marguerite. Cozzens calls the Acadian costumes "nothing modern" and describes the two women photographed: "These are the first, the only likenesses of the real Evangelines of Acadia". Ronald Labelle in his book, Acadian Life in Chezzetcook, quotes French historian Edme Rameau who visited Nova Scotia in the latter half of the 1800s: "Chezzetcook, that is the name of this village, originated with a certain number of Acadian families who had been captured at various times after their banishment. They were led to Halifax, where they were held captive for a long time on an island in the middle of the south harbour and that it is called ile Rouge (Devils' Island). There they lived at times from prison rations, and at other times from the fruits of their labour, when they were permitted to work for the townspeople. Finally 10-12 years after the great catastrophe, they were permitted to settle a few leagues north of Halifax at the little harbour of Chezzetcook." Among these early settlers were two men: Jean-Baptiste and Alexandre Bellfontaine and their families. The Museum of Natural History is open Tues-Sat 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Wednesday 9:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. -30- Contact: Joan Waldron 902-424-7398 trp Jan. 31, 1997 - 11 a.m.