Could this be a burial ground for the first Acadians?

From July to November 1765, the Rev. Jean Francois de Civrey recorded the burials of 39 Acadians along the Bayou Teche at camps in the area that would become Loreauville.

Those camps were Premier Camp d’en Bas, Dernier Camp d’en Bas, and Camp Beausoleil, called Nouvelle Acadie.

Some 250 years later, the exhumation of graves possibly belonging to these first Acadians was approved by the State of Louisiana; and by late Saturday afternoon, residents of Loreauville, in whose backyard it would take place, gave the New Acadia Project their consent to do so as well.

“I’m wonderfully excited. I wish them all the luck and I support all their efforts,” said Russ Erickson, former Loreauville High School principal. “It’s about history; it’s about genealogy. It’s about the community maybe having some recognition.

“So, I mean, this is all good as far as I’m concerned,” Erickson said. “I have spoken to some of my neighbors and told them how good this could be to try to convince them to support this.”

Mark Rees, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, leads the multidisciplinary research effort designed to systematically locate, identify and investigate the 18th century homesteads and unmarked gravesites of Acadian exiles — the first Cajuns.

Rees said the concerns of the locals regarding the remains “is not a light matter,” and he welcomed questions and concerns, of which there were none.

But he also wanted the public to get involved in the project “and so a lot of good ideas were presented about continuing funding, about how human remains should be treated,” said Rees. “It’s something people are going to be talking about when we’re here because word is out.

“We want to give people a chance to hear about it firsthand and not make it something that is a source of rumor,” he said.”

Rees said NAP is making progress.

“We’re finding additional sites that date from the 18th century, from the 1700s,” said Reese. “We’ve got a couple of cemeteries, one that we’re going to be coming back to this winter to do some excavations and, potentially find an early burial — maybe not, but we’re making steady progress. I feel good about it.”