"To Promote Civility and Benevolence": Rev. Ebenezer Parkman and an Acadian Refugee Family.

This article focuses on the relationship between Reverend Ebenezer Parkman (1703–1782), a Protestant minister in Westborough, Massachusetts, and the Acadian refugee family of Jean-Simon LeBlanc, who were among over one thousand Acadians forcibly removed from Nova Scotia during the 1755–1763 expulsion. Drawing on Parkman’s detailed diary, the article reveals how, despite significant religious differences and widespread local prejudice against Catholic Acadians, Parkman extended pastoral care, hospitality, and employment opportunities to the LeBlanc family and other Acadians in Westborough. The LeBlancs’ relatively high social status, literacy, English fluency, and the labor contributions of their children facilitated a relationship characterized by civility and mutual assistance, contrasting with the harsher receptions many Acadians faced elsewhere in Massachusetts. Parkman’s diary uniquely documents these interactions, illustrating a nuanced example of coexistence amid the broader context of displacement, hardship, and cultural tension experienced by Acadian refugees in mid-18th-century New England.