Page:New Brunswick Magazine Issue 1.djvu/296

On the 10th of Dec. 1730, Alexander Bourg de Bellehumeur was appointed and formally commissioned by Governor Phillips as Procureur du Roi at Mines and Piziguid, Cobequit and Chignecto, to receive all dues and quit rents due to his majesty and all confiscations and aubaines. He was to account twice a year and to retain a certain percentage as his commission. This Alexander may have been a son of Abraham, the deputy for Annapolis River. It will be observed that he had assumed a title, probably the name he gave to his farm at Mines. He continued to fill the important office to which he had been appointed for fourteen years, or until 1744, when he was suspended for misconduct and neglect of duty and René LeBlanc appointed in his place. The inhabitants, however, still persisted in employing him to do their legal business in spite of his suspension, and this was made a ground of complaint against them. Alexander Bourg appears to have removed from Mines prior to the deportation of the Acadians by Winslow in 1755,, for his name does not appear in the list of the inhabitants of that place. Only two families named Bourg are on Winslow's list. But in 1752 there were fourteen families named Bourc or Bourg at Beausejour, five from Cobequid and the others from settlements in the vicinity of the Fort. The name Bourc has now altogether disappeared from the Maritime Province, the modern spelling of the name being Bourque. There are now nearly three hundred families of that name in the Maritime Provinces, about half of them being in the county of Westmorland. One half of the remainder live in Kent and Northumberland. A few of the latter spell their name Bourke, but there is no doubt that all these people Bourques or Bourkes are descendants of the original settler, Antoine Bourc, whose name first appears in the census of 1671.