If you’re driving along French Cross Road in Morden you might have seen this stone cross. If you like the ocean, or history, you might have read the plaque on the cross and did a bit of internet research to learn more – I did.

There is some interesting history here:

The village of Morden started life as a refuge for a small band of French Acadians fleeing the British expulsion of the French from Nova Scotia in 1755. Under the leadership of one Pierre Melanson and with the help of a local Indian boy, he attempted to move those Acadians across the Bay of Fundy to freedom in New Brunswick. Melanson made a temporary encampment of these Acadians in a place on the Fundy shore, now Morden, in sight of Cape Chignecto and the Isle Aux Haute with plans to move the band by canoe to New Brunswick. However, over the winter of 1755/56 most of them died of disease and starvation and Melanson ultimately also lost his life on a return trip from New Brunswick after making arrangements for their safety. Although the exact number of Acadians who were encamped at this place is unknown, sixty were saved the following day having been transported by canoes to Cape Chignecto into a bay now know as Refugee Cove.

In 1756 a wooden memorial cross of drift wood was erected close to the place where those Acadians died in the winter of 1755. The village that soon grew up around that cross became known as the village of French Cross.

A short history of the village of Morden

Point Brook flowing into the Bay of Fundy below the stone cross on French Cross Road in Morden.

Looking toward Cape Chignectro and Ile Haute