The Blinns Of St Mary's Bay.

Introduction:
Certain members of the Blinn family can trace their roots back to the French families that arrived in southwest Nova Scotia during the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars. We start, as will be seen, with Etienne Blinn (b. 1794) who was born in Marshalltown. Marshalltown is located on the isthmus of land between Digby and the head of Saint Mary's Bay. According to the Acadian Historical Society of West Pubnico (Bulletin vol. III, no. 3 [Sept. 1985]) Etienne was the son of Julien Blin who had been in the French navy and was part of the naval forces which France had sent, in the 1780s, to help the United States in their revolutionary struggle against Great Breton. Julien, a twenty year old, was "a master cooper" aboard one of these French men of war. With the end of the American Revolution, Julien, having apparently electing not to go back to France, remained in America. By 1783 he was located in Philadelphia and arrived at Boston shortly thereafter. In 1787 he was located on the shores of Saint Mary's Bay, Nova Scotia, where a number of his descendants can be found, yet today. In 1787, our young hero married a French girl, Françoise Thibeau. Françoise was the daughter of Yves Thibeau of Boston who had been part of the grand dispersal of 1755.

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