Deportation Cross
About 3.2 kilometers from the Grand-Pré National Historic Site’s Visitor Centre, the Deportation Cross at Horton Landing stands as a moving tribute to the forced deportation of 2000 Acadians from Grand-Pré in 1755.
Designed by René-Arthur Fréchet, the Gothic-style cross was constructed by Abrams and Son of Moncton and installed by Thaddée Léger of Lewisville in 1924. Made of malleable iron and standing about 4 meters tall, it features an inscription recounting the deportation, marking the site where Acadians were forcibly taken aboard ships.
The dry bed of the creek which is in sight, a few paces in the marsh is the spot where the VICTIMS OF THE EXPULSION OF THE ACADIANS OF 1755 were embarked on the small boats to be rowed over to the transports lying at anchor in Minas Basin.
In 1924, the Dominion Atlantic Railway deeded a plot of land beside the tracks at Hortonville to the Acadian Memorial Society to erect an iron memorial cross at what was believed to be the site of the deportation. In 2005 the railway assisted in moving the cross to a site owned by Parks Canada, closer to the river, in a location established by more recent research as the actual deportation site.
