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Introduction
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Violette House
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Daigle House
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Pelletier House

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Treaty Lot 53: Eloi Daigle House

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The Eloi Daigle House around 1982.
The Eloi Daigle House in Fort Kent, Maine, sits on its original site on Lot 53. The land was deeded by the Commissioners of Maine and Massachusetts to Jean Baptiste Daigle (1791-1846) on July 12, 1845.

Jean Baptiste Daigle was the grandson of Joseph Simon Daigle (1738-1814), who headed the Acadian migration to Madawaska in 1785. Like his grandfather, Jean Baptiste Daigle initially resided at Saint-Basile, New Brunswick, where the family received British grants in 1790. His nine sons fanned out from the early settlement site and established residences from Fort Kent to Van Buren. Deane and Kavanagh note the presence of three of Daigle's sons on Daigle Island, between Baker Brook and Fort Kent, by 1810. The same report notes that one son, Jean Baptiste Daigle, Jr., owned the point of land formed at the junction of the Fish and St. John rivers. This is confirmed by a later grant of the land (identified as Lot 32) that Daigle, Jr., received in 1845 from the states of Maine and Massachusetts.

Jean Baptiste Daigle, Jr., married Emilienne Morin (d. 1877) at Saint-Basile, New Brunswick, in 1818. The couple had 17 children. In order to provide for his offspring, he took up several lots in Fort Kent, including Lot 53. However, he died a little over a year after receiving the lots, which apparently went unrecorded at the registry of deeds until 1924. About three months before Daigle, Jr., died, local merchant trader A. & S. Dufour noted that Daigle had been asked to deliver 71 bushels of oats to James Perley's lumber operation. This indicates that Daigle was working as a supplier to the lumber operation.

Excerpt from an 1877 map of land lots just west of the town of Fort Kent shows Lot 53, the site of the Eloi Daigle House, then owned by Vital Daigle.In 1858, in a deed signed by Jean Baptiste Daigle's widow and 13 other family members, Vital Daigle (1836-1899) received title to the family homestead on Lot 53. Vital Daigle also went to develop new land in Township 17, Range 6, the township immediately south of the original family settlement, now known as New Canada Plantation.

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Barrels of hand-picked potatoes are picked up by truck at the J.A. & R. Farm in St. Francis, 1995.  Photographer, Paula Lerner,   2003.


The entry for New Canada Plantation in the Maine Register for 1882 lists Docite Daigle as assessor, Alcime Daigle as tax collector, John B. Daigle as treasurer, Mrs. Arthemise Daigle as school committee member, and Vital Daigle as lumber manufacturer. The prominence of the Daigle family at that time may suggest the reason New Canada Plantation became known locally as Daigle, Maine.

In 1888, long after Vital Daigle and his wife Julie Cyr Daigle brought 12 children into the world, Vital deeded Lot 53 to his son Raymond (1858-1952). There, Raymond and his wife raised a dozen children of their own. One child, Arthur Daigle (1887-1952), went into the car sales business in Fort Kent. Another son, Eloi Daigle (1904-1963), went to Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, graduating in 1929. In 1950, Eloi was elected principal of the new Madawaska High School. His wife, Lillian St. Pierre (1913-1987), taught school after graduating from Madawaska Training School in 1931.

In 1934, Eloi Daigle succeeded into ownership of the east half of Lot 53 which contained the Daigle homestead. After Eloi's death, his wife deeded the property to her daughter, Eulalie Mae Daigle-Martin. In 1972, she deeded the old homestead out of the family. The current owner of the Eloi Daigle House, a lineal descendant of Vital Daigle, is a resident of Massachusetts who uses the house as a summer home.

 
Barrels of hand-picked potatoes are picked up by truck at the J.A. & R. Farm in St. Francis, 1995.  Photographer, Paula Lerner,   2003.
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