John Frederic Herbin

by George J. Dance

The Herbin Cross, Grand Pre National Historic Site, Grand Pre, Nova Scotia.

John Frederic Herbin (February 8, 1860 - December 29, 1923) was a Canadian poet, novelist, and historian who worked as a jeweller and optometrist.

Life

Herbin was born in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, the son of Marie-Marguerite (Robichaud), a native Acadian, and John Herbin, a Huguenot immigrant from France. Despite the fact both of his parents spoke French, he was taught to speak only English. Herbin left school before the age of 10 to assist his father, who worked as a watchmaker in nearby Bedford. The family moved to Halifax in 1870, but in 1877 returned to Wolfville, where both father and son worked as watchmakers..

John Frederic Herbin (1860-1923). Courtesy Acadia University.

In 1882 the Herbins moved to the United States. In 1884, though, John Frederic Herbin returned alone to Wolfville, where he found work with a local watchmaker. In 1885 he established Herbin Jewellers (a firm that celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2005).

In 1886 Herbin became a student at Wolfville's Acadia College; reportedly he "was very active in campus athletics and led the campaign for the construction of a gymnasium and playing field." He also began writing prose and poetry while at Acadia,. publishing in local press and the college paper, the Acadia Athenaeum. He graduated with an honors B.A. in 1890.

In 1891 he began teaching shorthand; in 1896 he took a brief course in optometry, graduating at the top of his class. On June 3, 1897, he married Minnie Rounsefell (Simson) of Grand Pré, Nova Scotia, who bore him 5 children, of whom 2 sons and 2 daughters survived infancy. Through all this his jewelry business continued to prosper, and he became a town councillor of Wolfville and, in 1902-1903, its mayor.

Stained glass window in memorial church, Grand Pré National Historic Site.

Grand Pré memorial park

Herbin had great sympathy for his ancestors, the Acadians, who had been deported from the province in 1755 (an event variously called the Great Expulsion, Great Deportation, or Great Upheaval [Grande Derangement]).. He now made it his "mission to work and write" (as he told a reporter in 1905) ""to preserve for the interested the name and memory of my people, the terribly wronged Acadians." In 1906 he wrote the Prime Minister and others proposing a campaign to build a memorial park on the site of the original Acadian community of Grand Pré.

In 1907 he bought 14 acres of the land on which Grand Pré had stood. In 1909 he erected a cross on the site of the former Grand Pré cemetery (now called the Herbin Cross), made with stones believed to be from the foundations of the Acadians' homes.

Little else came of Herbin's plans in the next decade, and in 1916 he sold the land to the Dominion and Atlantic Railway (DAR), which hoped that a park would capitalize on the growing American tourism to the region inspired by Longfellow's long poem about the expulsion, Evangeline. In 1920 the DAR unveiled a statue of Evangeline in the park, and deeded a portion of its land to the Société Nationale l'Assomption for reconstruction of the community's church (which was completed in 1930).

Writing

Bliss Carman printed some of Herbin's poems in the New York Independent in 1891. The same year saw the issue of Herbin's poetry collection, Canada, and other poems. Another collection, The Marshlands, followed in 1893, and a 3rd (The Turn of the Tides, printed together with The Marshlands) was published in Toronto in 1899, with a 2nd edition in 1909. Charles G.D. Roberts and Theodore Harding Rand, among others, praised Herbin's mastery of the sonnet, while philosopher William James wrote to him: "I don't know that I have ever met so complete a marriage of a man's soul with the land which he inhabits."

Detail from the Herbin Cross.

Herbert also wrote novels and popular histories of the area. The most successful of those was his 1921 historical monograph The Land of Evangeline: printed by Musson Books of Toronto together with Longfellow's poem Evangeline, it sold 15,000 copies that year alone.

Recognition

Herbin was recognized by the Acadian community in a 1924 article in the Acadian newspaper L'Evangeline, and the following year a commemorative plaque honoring his efforts to tell their story was placed on the Herbin Cross on the Grand Pré site.

His poetry was anthologized in the Penguin Book of Canadian Verse.

In 1961, the Canadian government declared Grand Pré Memorial Park a National Historic Site.

Publications

Poetry

• Canada, and other poems. Windsor, NS: J.J. Anslow, 1891.
• The Marshlands: A souvenir in song of the land of Evangeline. Windsor, NS: J.J. Anslow, 1893.
• The Marshlands / The Trail of the Tide. Toronto: William Briggs, 1899; 2nd edition, 1909.

Novels

• The Heir to Grand-Pré. Toronto: William Briggs, 1907.
• Jen of the Marshes. Boston: Cornhill Publications, 1921.

Non-fiction

• Grand-Pré: a sketch of the Acadian occupation of the shores of the basin of Minas. Toronto: William Briggs / Montreal: C.W. Coates, 1898
• The History of Grand-Pré: the home of Longfellow's "Evangeline". Toronto: William Briggs, 1900.
• The Land of Evangeline: the authentic story of her country and her people. Toronto: Musson, 1921.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.

See also

• Confederation Poets
• Nova Scotia poets
• List of Canadian poets
• Timeline of Canadian poetry

References

Fonds

• John Frederic Herbin archives at Acadia University

External links

Poems

• "The Dyke"
• Marsh hay poems of John Frederic Herbin (8 poem) at Hay in Art
• John Frederic Herbin Poems (9 poems) at Inspirational Stories

Books

• John Frederic Herbin at Amazon.com

About

• Herbin, John Frederic in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography
• John Frederic Herbin: A Reconsideration, Canadian Poetry.

This is a signed article by User:George Dance. It may be edited for spelling errors or typos, but not for substantive content except by its author. If you have created a user name and verified your identity, provided you have set forth your credentials on your user page, you can add comments to the bottom of this article as peer review.

{{2013}