• 1

 

Two oral  traditions exist about the origin of leprosy in Tracadie.

The most ancient of these legends tells about a French ship, having sailed from Morlaix in France, around 1758, that sank at the mouth of the Miramichi River.  That ship was named Indienne and one of its sailors had been infected by leprosy.  This oral tradition could be true since this ship was involved in commercial activities between France and countries of the Orient where leprosy existed.

However, the most plausible of the oral traditions is the following:

altAt the beginning of the 19th century, two Acadians from Caraquet, Michel (son of Pierre of Alexis Landry) and Alexis Landry (son of Anselme of Alexis Landry) had a schooner named La Florida that sailed from Chaleur Bay to Quebec. During one of those voyages, two Europeans asked Captain Landry to take them to Chaleur Bay.  The captain took them to the shore of Caraquet; from there, they travelled by foot to Tracadie.

The two men were, it was believed, deserters from the Lazaret of Forks in Norway and they were in the final stages of leprosy.

The two men stopped for a few days at an inhabitant’s house in Tracadie where the people lived in great poverty.  Those inhabitants were very welcoming; nobody knocked on the door of an Acadian without being welcomed.  Ursule Landry-Benoît contracted the disease from these strangers and she died from it in 1828.  The day of the burial, one of the pallbearers lost his balance and hurt his arm or shoulder. Unfortunately, oozing from the corpse came in contact with his wound and he was infected with the disease.