Until recently, the people of Noel believed there community was named by the Acadian word for Christmas. In 1963, the provincial newspaper the Chronicle Herald ran a headline: “Nova Scotia community has direct association with Christmas.” Uncovered recently, however, are documents that indicate that the village was actually named after Noel Doiron, the first Maritimer along with his wife Marie, who was of European decent to settle in the area.
Noel was born in the capital of Acadia, Annapolis Royal (1864), and then moved to Windsor as a child. While Noel is in Windsor, the British Empire laid siege to the village, destroying the dykes and a famine is created (1605). At age 19, Noel marries Marie who is three years his senior and pregnant. Rather than marrying at home, they have their marriage ceremony in Boston (1705).
Noel and Marie eventually settle in the village now known as Noel (ca. 1714). (At that time, Marie’s parents are the first Maritime settlers who were Acadian to inhabit Maitland.) Noel, Marie and their children build the dykes over the next forty years. They also build a church in the area, located in Burncoat.
Because of the threat of expulsion, Noel, Marie and their children vacate the settlement five years before the expulsion begins. In their late sixties, Noel and Marie along with their children travel with their belongings by foot to Tatamagouche and then by sea to Point Prim, Prince Edward Island (1750).
The expulsion of the Acadians from the Maritimes begins five years later (1755). After the fall of the French Empire’s Fortress Louisburg, Noel and Marie are expelled from Point Prim on November 5, 1758. Noel, Marie and their children’s families are forced on to British ships bound for France. They spend over a month crossing the Atlantic Ocean in the winter with three hundred other passengers. Almost finished the journey, the ship begins to sink. Those on board try to bail the water for three days. Eventually, the crew lower the lifeboats and abandon the Maritimers on the ship. On December 13, 1758, Noel, Marie, their children, thirty-one of their grandchildren, and the rest of the 300 other Maritimers drown in the English Channel.
The dykes built by Noel, Marie and their children in this area still hold back the tides, nearly three hundred years after they were built.
