Grand-Pré was founded in 1682 by families who left Port-Royal so they could own their own lands and expand. Grand-Pré was often referred to as Mines and extended from La Pointe Noire also called Vieux Logis (today's Horton's Landing)on the Gaspéreau to the town of present-day Wolfville.
Grand-Pré soon replaced Port-Royal as the bread basket of Acadia so much so that it did a good deal of shipping of its agricultural goods to the Massachusetts Bay Colony at Boston.
Four hundred and eighteen men and boys were detained as prisoners in the church on September 5, 1755 after the Deportation order was read by Colonel John Winslow. There is a cross where the parish cemetery is believe to have existed. The families who lived here were the Melanson, LeBlanc, Thériault, Bujold, Hébert, Landry, Trahan, Bourque, Forest, Bourgeois, Doucet, Blanchard and Granger.