BOOK TEN-4: The Louisiana Acadian "Begats" - concluded
Richard is a common surname in France, so it is not surprising that there were several Richards who came to Acadia. First came Michel Richard dit Sansoucy, "without worry," a young soldier born in the Saintonge region of southwestern France in c1630. He appeared at Port-Royal in the early 1650s in the entourage of Emmanuel LeBorgne. According to one source, Michel's dit was a regimental nickname. When his term of service ended, he remained in the colony, took up farming, obtained two grants of land from LeBorgne "at some ten to fifteen miles from the fort" on upper Rivière-au-Dauphin, now the Annapolis River, and married Madeleine, daughter of Jean Blanchard and Radegone Lambert, at Port-Royal in c1656. Between 1657 and 1677, at Port-Royal, Madeleine gave Sansoucy 10 children, six daughters and four sons. Their daughters married into the Broussard, Thériot, Babin, Vincent, Forest, and LeBlanc families. Their sons married into the Landry, Bourg, and Petitpas families. Madeleine died by c1683, when Michel remarried to Jeanne, daughter of Antoine Babin and Marie Mercier, at Port-Royal. In 1684 and 1686 at Port-Royal, Jeanne gave the old soldier two more sons--a dozen children, six daughters and six sons, by two wives, between 1657 and 1686. His sons by his second wife married into the Bourgeois and Levron families.
In the early 1700s, another Richard family appeared in French Acadia and created at least two male lines there. François, son of merchant Jean Richard and Anne Christin d'Auray of Vannes in southern Brittany, married Anne, daughter of Jean Comeau l'aîné and Françoise Hébert, at Annapolis Royal in October 1710, soon after it fell to the British. Between 1712 and 1720, at Annapolis Royal, Anne gave François five children, three sons and two daughters. Anne died there in April 1722. Her and François's daughters married into the Orillon dit Champagne and Richard families. Two of her and François's sons married into the Bastarache dit Basque and David families. Six months after Anne died, François remarried to Marie, daughter of René Martin dit Barnabé and Marie Mignier, at Annapolis Royal in October 1722. Between 1723 and 1728, at Annapolis Royal, Marie gave François three more children, two daughters and a son--eight children, four sons and four daughters, by two wives, between 1712 and 1728. François and Marie's two daughters married into the Comeau and LeBlanc families. Their son's wife's name has been lost to history. Marie remarried at Annapolis Royal in January 1735, so François had died by then.
In 1755, descendants of both Michel Richard dit Sansoucy and François Richard of Vannes could be found at Chignecto and Minas, including Pigiguit, and on Île St.-Jean, but most of them remained in the Annapolis Royal area, where their family progenitors had settled. Le Grand Dérangement of the 1750s scattered these families even farther.
The Acadians at Chignecto were the first to endure a disruption of their lives. In the spring and summer of 1750, in response to the British building a fort at Beaubassin village, Canadian militia, along with Mi'kmaq warriors led by the Abbé Jean-Louis Le Loutre, burned Acadian homesteads in the British-controlled area east of Rivière Missaguash, forcing the habitants there to move to the French-controlled area west of the river. Richards may have been among the refugees in the petit dérangement. After yet another war erupted between Britain and France in 1754, the Chignecto Acadians were caught in the middle of it. When British and New-English forces attacked Fort Beauséjour in June 1755, Chignecto Acadians, pressured by the French, served in the fort as militia. They, too, along with the French troupes de la marine, became prisoners of war when the fort surrendered on June 16. Lieutenant-Governor Charles Lawrence was so incensed to find so-called French Neutrals fighting with the French at Beauséjour he ordered his officers to deport the Chignecto Acadians to the southernmost seaboard colonies. A Richard family was deported to Georgia, perhaps the only one to be sent so far south. The rest of the Chignecto Richards eluded the British and took refuge on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore or moved on to Canada.
One
Richard's escape from the British at
Chignecto became the stuff of family legend. René,
son of René dit Beaupré, fils, married
a Bourgeois at his native Annapolis
Royal but settled at Chignecto, where his family and
friends gave him the ironic dit, Petit René.
Evidently Petit René was among the dozens of local Acadians gathered up by the British that
summer and fall and held under guard at Fort
Lawrence on the Missaguash to await deportation to one of the southern
seaboard colonies.
On 1
Most of the Richards in the Minas settlements were not as lucky as their kinsmen at Chignecto. That fall, New-English forces at Grand-Pré and Pigiguit rounded up many Richard families in the area and shipped them off to Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. The many Richards packed off to the Old Dominion endured a fate worse than most of the other refugees deported from Minas. Virginia's governor, Robert Dinwiddie, refused to allow the hundreds of Acadians sent to him to remain in the colony. Exiles died on the filthy, crowded ships anchored in Hampton Roads while Virginia authorities pondered their fate. As winter approached, Dinwiddied ordered Acadians from one vessel moved up to Richmond, two of the vessels were unloaded at Hampton, and two more at Norfolk. Finally, in the spring of 1756, the governor, his council, and the colony's Burgesses made their decision ... the "papists" must go! In May, the first shipment of Acadians left for England, and in two weeks all of them had gone--299 to Bristol, 250 to Falmouth, 340 to Southampton, and 336 to Liverpool--1,225 exiles in all by one count. Their ordeal only worsened in the English ports, where they were packed into warehouses and where many died of smallpox. Richards were held at Falmouth, Liverpool, and Southampton.
Most of the many Richards at Annapolis Royal escaped the British roundup there in the fall of 1755, endured a hard winter on the Fundy shore, crossed the bay to Chepoudy the following spring, and took refuge on the upper Petitcoudiac or lower Rivière St.-Jean. From there, they joined their cousins on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore or moved on to Canada. Some Richards, including two sons of François of Vannes and their families, ended up on transports bound for Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York. In May 1756, colonial authorities in New York counted two Richard families on Long Island. That August, New York officials counted a Richard among the Chignecto Acadians sent to Georgia who, with permission of that colony's governor, had tried to return to greater Acadia by boat that spring but got no farther than Long Island. New York authorities held them at Courtland Manor in Westchester County. Colonial authorities in Massachusetts counted Richards at Bradford in 1761. The following year, Massachusetts authorities counted a Richard widow and her family at Charlestown. That same year, Massachusetts authorities counted another widow and her Richard children at Westford and one of her Richard sons at Littleton.
Some of the Richards who eluded the British in Nova Scotia and sought refuge in Canada in 1756 failed to escape an even greater menace that killed hundreds of their fellow exiles in and around the Canadian capital from the summer of 1757 to the spring of 1758. At least nine Richards died of smallpox at Québec--among the 300 or so refugees who perished from the dread disease during the year-long epidemic.
Living in territory controlled by France, the Richards on Île St.-Jean in 1755 escaped the British roundups in Nova Scotia, but their respite from British oppression was short-lived. After the fall of the French fortress at Louisbourg in July 1758, the redcoats descended on the islands and rounded up most of the habitants there. Most of the Richards at Malpèque on the island's remote northwest shore escaped the British, crossed Mer Rouge, and sought refuge on the mainland, but their cousins in the interior and on the eastern shores were herded onto transports, sent through the Gut of Canso to Chédabouctou Bay, and then deported to France. The crossing proved fatal for many of them. A family of seven--father, mother, and five children--crossed on Le Duc Guillaume, which left the Maritimes in September 1758. After a mid-ocean incident, the transport limped into St.-Malo harbor on the first of November. No member of the family survived the ordeal. A widow and three of her Richard children also crossed on Duc Guillaume, with tragic result. Only two of the children survived the crossing or its rigors. Other island Richards landed at Cherbourg in Normandy and at the northern fishing center of Boulogne-sur-Mer in Picardie.
Island
Richards sent to Brittany did their
best to make a life for themselves in the St.-Malo area, including the suburb of St.-Servan-sur-Mer, and
in villages on both
sides of the river south of the Breton port, especially St.-Suliac,
Pleudihen-sur-Rance, and Plouër-sur-Rance.
Richards who landed at Cherbourg and Boulogne-sur-Mer moved on to St.-Malo. The
Richard from Boulogne-sur-Mer settled near his
kinsmen at St.-Servan, but the Richard from
Cherbourg moved on to Brest in western Brittany, where he
worked as a sailor. In the
spring of 1763, after prolonged negotiations between the
French and British governments, the Acadians in England
who had gone there from Virginia were repatriated to
France, many Richards among them. Most of them landed at
St.-Malo aboard the transport Ambition, adding substantially to the number of
Richards exiled to the mother country.
Most joined their cousins at St.-Servan-sur-Mer, but
one family settled at St.-Énogat, today's Dinard, across the harbor from
St.-Malo, and another moved on to Morlaix in northwest Brittany, where other Richards
from England had landed in the spring of 1763. In
November1765, Acadians repatriated from England and a few of
their island cousins agreed to
become part of an agricultural venture on
recently-liberated Belle-Île-en-Mer off
the southern coast of Brittany. None of the
Richards from England living at
St.-Servan took up the offier, but three
Richard families from Morlaix agreed to
go. They settled at Kerbellec near Le Palais on the east coast of
the island, at Keroude near Bangor in the island's
southern interior,
at Bedex near Bangor, and near Sauzon on the island's north
shore. In
1773, two Richard families from
St.-Malo, one of them headed by a widow, chose to take part
in an even grander settlement venture, this one on an
influential nobleman's estate near the city of Châtellerault in the
interior of Poitou. In March 1776, after two
years of effort, one of the families retreated with other
Poitou Acadians to the lower Loire port of Nantes and
settled across the river at Rezé. Members of the other
family who had gone to Poitou joined their cousins at Nantes
in the early 1780s and settled at nearby Chantenay. By
the summer of 1784, some of their kinsmen from
Belle-Île-en-Mer and St.-Servan had joined them at Nantes.
I
Elsewhere in North America, the Acadians who had escaped the British in the late 1750s and took refuge on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore were inevitably caught up in the lingering war between the imperial rivals. After the fall of Québec in September 1759, the British gathered their forces to attack the remaining French strongholds in New France. In late June 1760, a British naval force from Louisbourg attacked Restigouche at the head of the Baie des Chaleurs, now a major Acadian refuge. After a spirited fight in which Acadian militia and Mi'kmaq warriors played an important role, the French commander blew up his larger vessels and retreated up Rivière Restigouche, leaving the militia and the Indians to resist a British landing. Unable to capture the garrison or lay waste to the area, the British commander ordered his ships to return to their base at Louisbourg. In October, after the fall of Montréal, another British naval force, this one from Québec, returned to accept the French garrison's, and the Acadians', surrender. On 24 October 1760, on the eve of formal surrender, French officers counted 1,003 Acadians still at Restigouche, many Richards among them. The British held these exiles and others who surrendered to, or were captured by, British forces in the region in prison compounds in Nova Scotia for the rest of the war. In 1761 and 1762, Richards could be found at Fort Edward, Pigiguit, near the family's old homesteads there. Members of at least one family, that of Pierre dit Pitre Richard, may have been held in the fishing center at Chédabouctou on the Atlantic coast. In August 1763, Richards appeared on repatriation lists at Fort Cumberland, formerly French Beauséjour, near the family's old homesteads at Chignecto, and in the prison barracks at Halifax. At least one Richard family was held near their former home at Annapolis Royal.
The war over, Richards still living in the British seaboard colonies, like their cousins in Nova Scotia, theoretically, were free to go, but not until the British discerned their intentions. Even then, colonial authorities discouraged repatriation. Members of the family nevertheless appeared on French repatriation lists and censuses compiled in several of the Atlantic colonies in the summer of 1763. In August, Richards were still living in Massachusetts. Three years later, in July 1766, one Richard family appeared on a list of the "French Who Wish to Go to Canada." In 1763 in Connecticut, Richards were still there. That same year in New York two Richard families were still in the colony. In August 1763, Richards appeared on repatriation lists at Newtown on the colony's Eastern shore, at Port Tobacco on the lower Potomac, at Upper Marlborough in the colony's interior, and at Baltimore. That same month, two Richard families appeared on a repatriation list in that colony, one of them recently arrived from New York.
At war's end, many of the Richards still in North America were living not in Nova Scotia or in the British seaboard colonies but in Canada, where Richards from Chignecto and Annapolis Royal had gone as early as 1756. Though now also a British possession, the far-northern province was populated largely by fellow French Catholics, many of them Acadian exiles such as themselves. So, in a colony nearly as old as Acadia, Richards from both branches of the Acadian family began the slow, inexorable process of becoming Canadiennes. By the late 1760s, when kinsmen from the seaboard colonies joined them, Richards could be found on the upper St. Lawrence and lower Richelieu at Batiscan, Bécancour, Champlain, L'Assomption, Lotbinière, Nicolet, Repentigny, Ruisseau Vacheur, St.-Antoine-de-Chambly, St.-Antoine-sur-Richelieu, St.-Charles-sur-Richelieu, St.-Grégoire-de-Nicolet, St.-Jacques de l'Achigan, St.-Ours, St.-Philippe-de-la-Prairie, St.-Pierre-les-Becquets, Ste.-Angèle-de-Laval, Ste.-Anne-de-la-Pérade, Trois-Rivières, and Verchères; on the lower St. Lawrence at Matane, Rimouski, and Ste.-Anne-de-Pocatière; in Gaspésie at Bonaventure and Carleton; at Aboujagane, Cap-Pelé, Memramcook, Petitcoudiac, Richibouctou, Shédiac, Shippagan, and Tracadie in present-day eastern New Brunwick; on Rivière St.-Jean along the western edge of the province; and on the îles-de-la-Madeleine in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. They were especially numerous on the upper St. Lawrence across from Trois-Rivières. Typical of most, if not all, Acadian families, these Acadiennes of Canada lost touch with their Cadien cousins hundreds of miles away, and, until the Acadian reunions of the twentieth century, may even have forgotten the others existed.
A Richard family being held in Nova Scotia chose to remain in greater Acadia, in the only place in the region that allowed them to escape British rule. By 1767, they had re-settled on Miquelon, a French-controlled fishery island off the southern coast of Newfoundland. To relieve overcrowding on the island, French officials, obeying a royal decree, likely compelled them and other islanders to move on to France later that year, but they returned to Miquelon in 1768. In 1778, during the American Revolution, after the France became an ally of the United States, the British captured Miquelon and nearby Île St.-Pierre and deported the fisher/habitants to France. The crossing to La Rochelle took a terrible toll on the extended family. A number of them died in St.-Jean Parish, La Rochelle, in late 1778 and 1779. Members of the family returned to Miquelon in 1784 after the British returned the Newfoundland islands to France. Two of the families remained there, but most of their loved ones did not. One family led by a widow moved on to Canada, and others resettled on the îles-de-la-Madeleine in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Several
Richard families in the seaboard
colonies emigrated not to Canada, where the British ruled,
but to the French Antilles, where they did not. While the end-of-war treaty was being negotiated, French
officials encouraged exiles in the British colonies to
resettle in St.-Dominique. Although driven from North
America by the Seven Years' War, the French were determined
to hang on to what was left of their shrinking colonial empire.
A new naval base at Môle St.-Nicolas on the northwest end of
the big island would protect the approaches to their
remaining possessions in the Caribbean basin and assist in
the "war of revenge" to come. Exiles who could be
lured to St.-Domingue would prove a ready source of labor
not only for the naval contractors, but also for the
island's wealthy planters, who hoped to supplement the work
of their slaves. To sweeten the deal, the French
promised the Acadians land of their own in the
sugar colony. French officials sent the wayward
Acadians not only to Môle St.-Nicolas to work on the naval base,
but also to the interior community of Mirebalais near Port-au-Prince to work on coffee and
indigo
plantations. Most, if not all, of the Richards
who ventured to St.-Domingue went to Mirebalais, where their
life events soon became part of local church records.
The experience proved fatal for most of them. Yet, in
spite of
the number of deaths the family suffered in their first year
in the colony, when fellow exiles from Halifax and Maryland,
including Richards, came through
Cap-Français on their way to New Orleans from late 1764
through 1768, no
Richard who had gone to St.-Domingue
chose to join them. They either had found a place for
themselves in the sugar colony's slave-based plantation
economy, or none were left to go there--with at least one exception,
thrice-married Rosalie Richard, who was
still on the big island in 1779.
After the war, members of the family went to another island
in the French Antilles. Two
Richard brothers from Annapolis Royal took
their families from New York to Martinique, where they settled
Richards still in Maryland endured life
among Englishmen who, despite their colony's Catholic
roots, did not care much for the French
"papists" thrust upon them. When word
reached the Acadians in the Chesapeake colony that the
Spanish
would welcome them in Louisiana, most of them pooled their meager resources to charter ships that
would take them to New Orleans. From June 1766 to
January 1769, in four expeditions, nearly 600 exiles left Baltimore and Port
Tobacco for the Spanish colony, 14 Richards
among them
The family's name in Louisiana
also is spelled Ribard, Richar, and Richart. The many Richards
should not be confused with the less numerous Ricards, French Creoles who settled at Pointe
Coupee and on the Acadian Coast.34
The first of the family to come to the colony--a middle-aged father, his three children, and two married female cousins, six Richards in all--reached New Orleans in February 1764--among the first Acadian exiles to settle in Louisiana. A robust family line came of it on the river and a much smaller one on the prairies:
Jean-Baptiste (1719-1786) à Michel dit Sansoucy Richard
F
Second
Jean-Marie's third son Michel married Rosalie, daughter of fellow Acadians Pierre Michel and Marie Léger, at the St.-Jacques de Cabahannocer church in February 1795. Their children, born at Cabahannocer/St. James, included Rosalie in December 1795 but died the following September; Marie- or Anne-Rosalie born in August 1797; Justine-Adèle in November 1799; Azélie in August 1801 but died the following March; twins Éloi and Michel, fils born in August 1804, but Éloi died at age 4 1/2 in January 1809; Marie Mélanie born in September 1806; a second Éloi in January 1810; Jean Marie le jeune, also called Henry, in March 1812; twins Marie Joséphine, called Joséphine, and Rosalie Delphine in April 1814; and Pierre Théogène in February 1818 but died at age 7 in February 1825--a dozen children, seven daughters and five sons, including two sets of twins, between 1795 and 1818. Michel, père died in St. James Parish in February 1821, age 45. Daughters Anne Rosalie, Marie Mélanie, Joséphine, and Rosalie Delphine married into the Richard, LeBlanc, Blouin, and Gaudin families. Michel's remaining sons also married. One of them settled on lower Bayou Teche but evidently returned to the river. The others remained on the Acadian Coast. Not all of the lines endured.
Second son Michel, fils married Cléonise, also called Eléonise, Elponise, Econile, Léonise, Louise, and Phelonise, daughter of fellow Acadians Sylvain LeBlanc and Marguerite Gaudin, at the Convent church, St. James Parish, in June 1821. They settled on the river near the boundary between St. James and Ascension parishes. Their children, born there, included Marie Célestine in June 1822; Michel III in July 1824; Rosalie Delphine, called Delphine, in August 1826; Théosin in c1827 but died at age 6 in April 1833; Théogène born in October 1828 but, called Théodore Honoré by the recording priest, may have died at age 17 (the recording priest said 15) in November 1845; Honora or Honorat Théodule or Théodule Honoré born in December 1830; Marie or Marie Caletheria or Eleuthère in February 1834; Victor in November 1836; Marguerite Esilda or Ezilda, called Ezilda, in December 1838; Joseph in July 1842; and Marie Amanda in January 1845 but, called Amada, died at age 9 1/2 (the recording priest said 10) in June 1854--11 children, five daughters and six sons, between 1822 and 1845. Daughters Marie Célestine, Rosalie Delphine, Marie Eleuthère, and Ezilda married into the Besson, Guilfou or Guilfout, Dugas, Gilbert, and Rousseau families, one of them, Rosalie Delphine, twice, by 1870. Three of Michel, fils's sons also married by then, but not all of the lines endured.
Oldest son Michel III married Laura, daughter of fellow Acadians Paul Onésime Landry and Madeleine Babin, at the Donaldsonville church, Ascension Parish, in December 1847. Their children, born in Ascension Parish, included Michel Olézime in August 1848 but, called Michel Olésime, died eight days after his birth; Marie Lise born in April 1850; Constant Gustave in December 1851 but died at age 2 1/2 in June 1854; and John Michel born in September 1853 but, called Jean Michel, died the following February--four children, three sons and a daughter, between 1848 and 1853. Michel III died in Ascension Parish in August 1858, age 34. His daughter did not marry by 1870, and none of his sons survived childhood, so, except perhaps for its blood, the family line may not have endured.
Michel, fils's fourth son Honorat Théodule, as the recording priest called him, married cousin Marie Elvania, called Elvania, daughter of fellow Acadians Pierre Duval Babin and Euphrosie Gaudin, at the Donaldsonville church in September 1850; they had to secure a dispensation for fourth degree of consanguinity in order to marry. Their children, born in Ascension Parish, included Rosalie Louise in October 1851; Ignace in February 1853; Eléonise Elisca in November 1854; Honorat Théodule, fils in December 1857 but died at age 8 1/2 (the recording priest said 9) in August 1866; Marie Elvania born in October 1859; Marie Virginie in November 1861; Michel N. in April 1864; ... None of Honorat's children married by 1870.
Michel, fils's sixth and youngest son Joseph married Joséphine, daughter of Pierre Rougeau and Joséphine Balderas, at the Donaldsonville church in April 1868. Their children, born in Ascension Parish, included Léonise Joséphine in February 1869; Pierre Joseph in May 1870; ...
Michel, père's third son Éloi married Marie Amélie, daughter of fellow Acadians Augustin Méderique Templet and Rose Daigle, at the Donaldsonville church in January 1831. They settled on the river near the boundary between Ascension and St. James parishes. Their children, born there, included Marie Amélie, called Amélie, in December 1831 but died at age 1 1/2 (the recording priest said 10 months), in July 1833; and Éloy Dava born in January 1834 but, called Dava Éloi, died at age 9 in March 1843. Did the family line endure?
Michel, père's fourth son Jean Marie le jeune married Marie Élise, called Élise and Éliza, daughter of fellow Acadians Manuel Breaux and Marie Anastasie Gautreaux, at the St. James church in September 1831. They lived on the river near the boundary between St. James and Ascension parishes before moving to the western prairies later in the decade. They evidently returned to the river by the late 1840s. Their children, born on the river and the prairies, included Rosalie Éliza or Élisa, called Élisa, in June 1833; Anne Anastasie, called Anastasie, in May 1835; Marie Augustine in February 1837; Jean Marie Mathieula or Mathieu in November 1838; Euphémie Euphlavie near New Iberia, then in St. Martin but now in Iberia Parish, in August 1839; Célima in Lafayette Parish in July 1840; Armand in January 1842; Lazard Augustin near New Iberia, then in St. Martin but not in Iberia Parish, in September 1845; and Marie Octavie in Ascension Parish in August 1849 but died there, age 2, in October 1851--nine children, six daughters and three sons, between 1833 and 1849. Jean Marie le jeune died by April 1864, when he was listed as deceased in a daughter's marriage record. Was his death war-related? Daughters Anastasie, Rosalie Élisa, and Célima married into the Baille, Baye, or Boyer, Lirette, LeBlanc, Hébert, and Rivet families, two of them, Anastasie and Rosalie Élisa, twice, and two of them to LeBlancs, by 1870. At least one of Jean Marie le jeune's sons married, after 1870.
During the War of 1861-65, oldest son Jean Marie Matheiula or Mathieu, called John in Confederate records, served in the Donaldsonville Artillery, which fought in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania--one of General R. E. Lee's Louisiana Tigers. He enlisted in the famous battery as a private in September 1861, age 22. At the time of his enlistment he was single, working as a cooper in Donaldsonville, had blue eyes, dark hair, fair complexion, and stood five feet ten inches tall. He served not only as a gunner, but also as a wagoner with the battery. He survived the war, surrendered with his unit at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, in April 1865, and returned to his home. He married fellow Acadian Virginie Landry at Donaldsonville in January 1872, age 33. She gave him no children. He remarried to fellow Acadian Élisabeth Landry at his home in Donaldsonville in January 1883, age 44. She gave him four daughters and two sons. He retired as a farm manager in 1911 and received a Confederate pension through the state of Louisiana. He died of heart failure in Ascension Parish in June 1922, age 83, and was buried in the Major Victor Maurin UCV Camp tomb at Ascension Catholic Cemetery, Donaldsonville.
Jean Marie's fourth and youngest son Jean Pierre married Anne Marie, called Marie, daughter of fellow Acadians Jean Baptiste Melançon and Marguerite Bergeron, at the St. James church in February 1804. Their children, born in St. James Parish, included Jean Marie le jeune in April 1805 but died at age 4 in March 1809; Napoléon born in June 1807; Marie Azélie in June 1811 but died at age 3 in July 1814; Pierre Césaire, called Césaire, born in April 1814; Honorine, perhaps also called Victorine, in February 1817; and Marie Angelina, called Angelina, in September 1820 but died at age 6 1/2 in February 1827. Jean Pierre, at age 40, remarried to Marguerite, daughter of fellow Acadians Joseph Gabriel Breaux and Marguerite Templet of Assumption Parish, at the St. James church in June 1824. Their children, born in St. James Parish, included Marie Hermine or Elmina in June 1825; Marguerite Arsenette, also called Marie Arcelite, in October 1827; Jean Émile in March 1829; and Joseph Émile in c1837 but died at "his sister's, Mrs. Benjamin Richard," age 10, in October 1847--10 children, five sons and five daughters, by two wives, between 1805 and 1837. Jean Pierre died in St. James Parish in August 1839, age 55. Daughters Victorine, Marie Elmina, and Marie Arcelite, by both wives, married into the Bourgeois, Richard, and Gaudet families by 1870. Only one of Jean Pierre's three remaining sons married by then and re-settled on the western prairies.
Third son Pierre Césaire, called Césaire, from first wife Anne Marie Melançon, married cousin Marie Élise or Élisa, daughter of fellow Acadians Étienne Richard, his first cousin, and his third wife Azélie Blanchard of West Baton Rouge Parish, at the Baton Rouge church in August 1843. They settled on the river near the boundary between St. James and Iberville parishes before moving to St. Landry Parish in the early 1850s. Their children, born on the river and the prairies, included Siméon Clément in St. James Parish in September 1844; Constant in July 1846 but died the following December; Camille born in November 1847; Joseph Cephas in late November 1849 but, name unrecorded, died a week or so after his birth (the recording priest said 24 days) in early December; Amédée Camille born in October 1850; Philippe Cléonard in St. Landry Parish in August 1853; Anne Louise in May 1858; Albert in September 1861; ... None of Césaire's children married by 1870.
.
In 1765, 16 more members of the family came to Louisiana, this time from Halifax via Cap-Français, French St.-Domingue. The first of them--two brothers, one of them married with children, five Richards in all--followed their Broussard kin to lower Bayou Teche, but they did not remain. By the following spring, they were among the first Acadians to settle near the upper Teche in the Opelousas District. Two new vigorous family lines came of it there:
Pierre (c1729-1806) à Martin à Michel dit Sansoucy Richard
Cyrille, père's s
Oldest
Oldest
Oldest
Oldest
Victor (c1747-1808) à Martin à Michel dit Sansoucy Richard
S
.
Later in 1765, three more families, one led by a widow; a bachelor; and a young wife--11 Richards in all--reached New Orleans from Halifax via Cap-Français and settled in the established Acadian community of Cabahannocer, where a Richard kinsman and three other Acadian families had settled the year before. Another robust family line came of it on the river, as well as a smaller one out on the western prairies:
Joseph dit Vieux (1717-1777) à René dit Beaupré à Michel dit Sansoucy Richard
Y
T
S
F
T
Second
Second son Désiré married Marie Concepcion, called Concepcion and Constance, daughter of Manuel Suarez and Marie Acosta, at the Paincourtville church, Assumption Parish, in March 1848. Their children, born on the upper Lafourche, included Joseph Augustin in December 1848; Joseph Aristide in May 1849[sic, perhaps 1850]; Joseph Neuville in May 1852; Joseph Ulisse in May 1854; Marie Eugénie in February 1857; and Marie Félicité in April 1859--six children, four sons and two daughters, between 1848 and 1859. None of Désiré's children married by 1870.
Jean Baptiste's third son Jean Bienvenu, called Bienvenu, likely married Aurelia, called Zela, Falteman, Felteman, or Fetteman at the Pattersonville church, St. Mary Parish, in August 1853. They moved down bayou to the Brashear, now Morgan, City, area, on the lower Atchafalaya River, by the mid-1860s. Their children, born on the lower Teche, included Magloire Philomène near Pattersonville in January 1852; Marie in November 1854; and Alexandre Jean Baptiste in November 1856--three children, two sons and a daughter, between 1852 and 1856. None of Bienvenu's children married by 1870.
Jean Baptiste's fourth and youngest son Emelius married Zulmée or Ulmée, daughter of fellow Acadians Alcide Bourg and Arthémise Dugas, at the Paincourtville church in June 1859. Their children, born near Paincourtville, included Marie Zulmée in April 1860; Marie Alise in December 1861; Joseph Olézime in February 1864; Marguerite Élisabeth in December 1865; Marie Virginie in July 1868; ...
S
Oldest
Théodule's second son Joseph Armand, called Armand, married Manette, daughter of Philibert Dupuy or Dupuis, a Spanish immigrant, not a fellow Acadian, and Anaïse Ayraud, at the Donaldsonville church in May 1866. Their children, born in Ascension Parish, included Marie Laure in May 1867; George Hubert in November 1868; Anaïse Louise in June 1870; ...
Only
Oldest
Oldest son Louis Benjamin, called Benjamin, married cousin Marie Arthémise, called Arthémise, daughter of fellow Acadians Sébastien Guidry and Eulalie Breaux, at the St. Gabriel church in March 1832. Their children, born near St. Gabriel, included Louis Émile in February 1832 but died "as a result of a fall down the hold of the Steamboat Belle Creole" in January 1848, age 16; Marie born in September 1834; another Marie in November 1836 but, called Marie Ethelvina, died at age 3 1/2 in August 1840; Jules born in April 1840; Eve or Eva Elvina in March 1843; Adonis in April 1846 but died at age 7 1/2 (the recording priest said 8) in September 1853; and Paul born in March 1852--seven children, four sons and three daughters, between 1832 and 1852. Daughter Eva Elvina married into the Barbay family by 1870. One of Benjamin's remaining son also married by then.
Second son Jules married Marie Victoire or Victoria, called Victoria, daughter of fellow Acadian Joseph Hotaire Orillion and his Creole wife Marie P. Lacroix, at the St. Gabriel church in June 1865. They settled on the river near the boundary between Iberville and Ascension parishes. Their children, born there, included Marie Apolline in January 1866; Joseph Kotman in September 1867; Paul Albert in August 1869; ...
Paul Grégoire's second son Jérôme Trasimond, called Trasimond, married Marie Uranie, called Uranie, daughter of François Philogène Pujol and his Acadian wife Adélaïde Babin, at the St. Gabriel church in April 1833. Their children, born near St. Gabriel, included Jacques Édouard in June 1834 but died at age 4 1/2 in September 1838; Marie Divine or Ludivine, called Ludivine, born in November 1835; Marie Henriette, called Henriette or Henrietta, in August 1837; Trasimond Alexandre in October 1839 but died at age 11 months in October 1840; Alexandre Élie born in October 1841 but died at age 2 1/2 in June 1844; a newborn infant, name unrecorded, died in July 1843; Marie or Mélanie Athalie born in October 1844; and Marie Victoria in November 1847--eight children, at least three sons and four daughters, between 1834 and 1847. Daughters Ludivine, Henrietta, and Mélanie Athalie married into the Gerber, Allain, and LeBlanc families by 1870. None of Trasimond's sons survived childhood, but the blood of the family line may have endured.
Paul Grégoire's sixth son Gerasime Leufroi or Leufroi Gerasime married cousin Marie Virginie, daughter of fellow Acadians Jean Baptiste Breaux and Françoise Landry, at the St. Gabriel church in February 1840. Their children, born near St. Gabriel, included Joseph Albert in April 1841; Marine Nisida or Nezida, called Nezida, in June 1843; Avit Lufroy in June 1845; Marie Aglaé in November 1851; Anne Aurelia in May 1854; and Jean Baptiste in March 1857--six children, three sons and three daughters, between 1841 and 1857. Daughter Nezida married into the Grabert family by 1870. None of Gerasime Leufroi's sons married by then.
Y
S
Old
.
The largest group of Richards to go to Louisiana, 31 of them, reached New Orleans aboard six of the Seven Ships from France 21 years after the first Acadan Richards came to the colony. More new family lines came of it, but not all of them endured.
The first to arrive from France--three small families, one led by a widow, two by brothers; two wives; and another widow, 11 Richards in all--arrived aboard La Bergère, the second of the Seven Ships, which reached New Orleans in mid-August 1785. They followed their fellow passengers to upper Bayou Lafourche, but neither of the lines established there endured:
Third and youngest
.
The next contingent of Richards from France--a large family, including a grandson, six Richards in all--crossed aboard Le Beaumont, the third of the Seven Ships, which reached New Orleans the third week of August 1785. Most of the family followed their fellow passengers to Manchac below Baton Rouge, but the grandson chose to settle on the upper Lafourche. During the third week of December 1785, another grandson reached New Orleans aboard La Caroline, the last of the Seven Ships, and joined his older brother on the upper bayou. Another robust family line emerged on the river, and upper Bayou Lafourche became a new center of Richard family settlement:
.
The third contingent of Richards from France--three unmarried sisters, their younger brother and his wife, and a widower with his daughter, six Richards in all--arrived aboard Le St.-Rémi, the fourth of the Seven Ships, which reached New Orleans during the second week of September 1785. They followed their fellow passengers to upper Bayou Lafourche. Only one new family line came of it:
Y
Old
.
Next came a widow and her umarried sister and two wives--four Richards in all--aboard L'Amitié, the fifth of the Seven Ships, which reached New Orleans during the first week of November 1785. The sisters remained at New Orleans, one wife followed her Russian husband to San Bernardo below New Orleans, and the other wife settled on upper Bayou Lafourche. No new Richard family line came of it.
.
La Ville d'Archangel, the sixth of the Seven Ships, reached New Orleans from St.-Malo in early December 1785. Aboard were three Richards--a wife, a widow, and a teenaged female orphan. They followed their fellow passengers to the new Acadian community of Bayou des Écores in the New Feliciana District north of Baton Rouge but, like most Acadians who went there, did not remain.
.
The last Richard to reach the Spanish colony was a young bachelor who arrived aboard La Caroline, the last of the Seven Ships, which reached New Orleans during the third week of December 1785. He joined his older brother, who had come in with their paternal grandfather on Le Beaumont, on upper Bayou Lafourche, where the late comer created a vigorous family line and helped create a new center of Richard family settlement.
Étienne Rivet or Rivest, born in c1652 probably in France, came to Acadia by c1676, the year he married Marie-Jeanne, or Marie-Anne, daughter of Pierre Comeau and Rose Bayon, at Port-Royal. Étienne and his wife were among the first settlers on the Ste.-Famille side of Rivière Pigiguit at the southeastern end of the Minas Basin, where, between 1677 and 1689, Marie gave Étienne five children, two daughters and three sons. In c1691, at age 39, Étienne remarried to Catherine ____, widow of Jean Labarre. She gave him no more children. In c1694, Étienne married a third time, to Cécile, daughter of François Joseph dit Lejeune and Jeanne Lejeune, probably at Ste.-Famille, Pigiguit. Between the mid-1690s and 1704, Cécile gave him three more children, two daughters and a son--eight children, four daughters and four sons, by two of his three wives, between 1677 and 1704. Étienne died at Ste.-Famillie, Pigiguit, before 1707, in his mid-50s. One of his daughters by first wife Marie-Jeanne married into the Boudrot family. One of his sons by first wife Marie-Jeanne married into the LePrince family. They both remained in the Minas area. Étienne's daughters by third wife Cécile married into the Toussaint dit Lajeunesse and Poupart families at Minas, and one of them resettled in Canada. Étienne's son by third wife Cécile also resettled in Canada before Le Grand Dérangement, married into the Palin dit Dabonville family there, but evidently fathered no children. In 1755, descendants of Étienne Rivet and his first wife Marie-Jeanne Comeau still living in greater Acadia could be found at Pigiguit and on Île St.-Jean. Le Grand Dérangement of the 1750s scattered the family even farther.
The first of the family to be deported from British Nova Scotia in the fall of 1755 were two brothers and their aunt and her Forest husband and children, all from Ste.-Famille, Pigiguit. After being rounded up with hundreds of other Acadians from the area, the British placed them on one or both of the two transports bound from Pigiguit to Maryland, which reached Annapolis via Boston, Massachusetts, at the end of November. After they were finally allowed to land, colonial officials sent both families to the interior settlement of Upper Marlborough southwest of Annapolis.
Meanwhile, a widowed aunt of the two brothers and her Landry children from Rivière-aux-Canards ended up on a transport bound for Virginia, where they endured a fate worse than most of the other refugees deported from the Minas basin. Virginia's governor, Robert Dinwiddie, refused to allow the hundreds of Acadians sent to him to remain in the colony. Exiles died on the filthy, crowded ships anchored in Hampton Roads while Virginia authorities pondered their fate. As winter approached, the governor ordered Acadians from one vessel to be moved up to Richmond, two of the vessels were unloaded at Hampton, and two more at Norfolk. Finally, in the spring of 1756, the govneror, his council, and the colony's Burgesses made their decision ... the "papists" must go! In May, the first shipment of exiles left for England, and in two weeks all of them had gone--299 to Bristol, 250 to Falmouth, 340 to Southampton, and 336 to Liverpool--1,225 exiles in all by one count. Their ordeal only worsened in the English ports, where they were held in warehouses and where many died of smallpox. The widow and her children were held at Liverpool.
Living in territory controlled by France, the Rivet
families on Île St.-Jean--that of two brothers recently
arrived from Pigiguit--escaped the roundup of their kinsmen
in Nova Scotia, but their respite from British oppression
was short-lived. After the fall of the French fortress
at Louisbourg in July 1758, the redcoats rounded up most of the habitants
on Île St.-Jean.
The British deported the older brother and
his wife, if she was still living, to Cherbourg in
Normandy.
The younger brother and his wife, recently married, crossed on one of the
five deportation transports--the
Yarmouth, Patience,
Mathias, Restoration, or John
Samuel--that left Chédabouctou Bay in a 12-ship
convoy in late November
with 1,033 Acadians aboard, bound for St.-Malo in Brittany,
survived a mid-December storm off the southwest coast of England that sank three other
vessels, and reached
St.-Malo together during the third week of January 1759.
The couple settled in the suburb of St.-Servan-sur-Mer, where their only
child, a daughter, was born in May 1760.
The following September, the young father signed up for privateer
service on the corsair Élisabeth
and was promptly captured by the Royal Navy. Only 10 days into his
service, perhaps while in British hands, he drowned on 30 September 1760, age
33, place unrecorded. His widow remarried
to a Frenchman from Rouen at St.-Servan in January 1764. In November
1765, along with dozens of Acadians recently repatriated
from England, they chose to be part of a settlement venture on
recently-liberated Belle-Île-en-Mer off the southern coast of Brittany, where
they settled at Kervarigeon near Bangor in the island's
southern interior. Meanwhile,
the older Rivet brother, i
I
A few non-Acadian Rivets appeared in predominantly-Acadian communities during the late colonial and
early antebellum periods. Pierre Rivet of St.-Nicolas, Nantes,
France, created a substantial family line on Bayou Lafourche
in the 1830s. ...
.
The first of the family to come to Louisiana--a Rivet wife, her husband, and four of their daughters--reached New Orleans from Baltimore in July 1767 and followed their fellow exiles to San Gabriel south of Bayou Manchac on the river below Baton Rouge.
Next came five Rivets--sibling orphans, three brothers and two sisters--who, along with 150 other exiles, left Port Tobacco on the lower Potomac during the third week of December 1767 and reached New Orleans in February 1768. Spanish Governor Ulloa insisted that they settle at Fort San Luìs de Natchez far above Baton Rouge and across from the British outpost at Natchez. After Ulloa was overthrown in a Creole-led rebellion in October 1768, his successor released the Rivets and other Acadians from their "exile" at Fort San Luìs. Two lasting family line cames of it not only on the Acadian Coast, but also on the western prairies and on upper Bayou Lafourche:
Vital's younger
S
According to Acadian genealogist Placide Gaudet, Louis Robichaud of La Chaussée south of Loudun and the Loire valley in central France, came to Acadia in 1642 when he was age 33. He died at Québec in 1649 when his son Étienne, who had been born in France, was only age 10. Étienne remained in Acadia and became a farmer. The problem with this story, according to Acadian genealogist Stephen A. White, is that the man who died at Québec in 1649 was not a Robichaud; he was Louis Rebicher, who could not have been the father of Étienne Robichaud. It was Étienne, not his putative father Louis, who was the patriarch of the Robichauds in Acadia. Étienne was born in France, perhaps at La Chaussée, in c1640 and came to Acadia as a farmer by c1663, when he married Françoise, daughter of Michel Boudrot and Michelle Aucoin, at Port-Royal. Between 1664 and 1677, at Port-Royal, Françoise gave Étienne six children, two daughters and four sons, all of whom created families of their own. Their daughters married into the Landry and Petitpas families. Étienne and Françoise's sons married into the Thibodeau, Bourg, Petitpas, Melanson, and Thériot families. Étienne died at Port-Royal in the late 1680s, in his late 40s. In 1755, descendants of Étienne Robichaud could be found not only at Annapolis Royal, formerly Port-Royal, where their family progenitor settled, but also at Minas Proper and Cobeguit in the Minas Basin, and on Île St.-Jean. Le Grand Dérangement of the 1750s scattered this large family even farther.
When the British struck in Nova Scotia in the summer and fall of 1755, the few Robichauds still at Minas, with one exception, evidently escaped the roundup there and sought refuge in Canada. A Robichaud wife, her second husband, and their family were packed off to Virginia, where they endured a fate worse than most of the other refugees deported from the Minas settlements. Virginia's governor, Robert Dinwiddie, refused to allow the hundreds of Acadians sent to him to remain in the colony. Exiles died on the filthy, crowded ships anchored in Hampton Roads while Virginia authorities pondered their fate. As winter approached, the governor ordered Acadians from one vessel moved up to Richmond, while two of the vessels were unloaded at Hampton, and two more at Norfolk. Finally, in the spring, the governor, his council, and the colony's Burgesses made their decision ... the "papists" must go! In May, the first shipment of exiles left for England, and in two weeks all of them had gone--299 to Bristol, 250 to Falmouth, 340 to Southampton, and 336 to Liverpool--1,225 exiles in all by one count. Their ordeal only worsened in the English ports, where they were kept in warehouses and where many died of smallpox. The Robichaud wife and her family were held at Southampton, where, in her 60s, she likely died.
The Robichauds still at Cobeguit 1755 escaped deportation that terrible autumn. When they learned of the roundups at Chignecto and then at Grand-Pré and Pigiguit on the other side of the Minas Basin, every family in the remote settlement packed up their children and what belongings they could carry and hid in the woods or followed the cattle trail to Tatamagouche and other villages on the peninsula's North Shore. From there, during the fall, winter, and spring, they escaped across Mer Rouge to the south shore of Île St.-Jean, where some of their kinsmen had gone in the early 1750s.
Their cousins at Annapolis Royal were not so lucky. Although many of the Acadians there escaped the British, spent a hard winter on the Fundy shore, and crossed the bay to Chepoudy the following spring, most of the many Robichauds at Annapolis fell into British hands and were shunted aboard transports bound for Massachusetts, Connecticut, and North and South Carolina. Most of them landed in Massachusetts, where colonial officials held them at Cambridge, Wrentham, Haverhill, Westford, Littleton, and in faraway Hampshire County. At least two of the deportation vessels sailing from Annapolis Royal did not reach their destinations. The snow Two Sisters, bound for Connecticut with 250 exiles aboard, never reached that colony, having been lost at sea. The snow Pembroke, carrying 232 Annapolis Acadians destined for North Carolina, suffered a different fate. Soon after the Pembroke left the Bay of Fundy, a heavy wind separated the vessel from the other south-bound transports. Taking advantage of the opportunity, the exiles, led by shipbuilder/navigator Charles Belliveau, overwhelmed the Pembroke's officers and crew and made their escape first to Baie Ste.-Marie and then to lower Rivière St.-Jean. After eluding capture by British sailors at the mouth of the St.-Jean, the exiles spent the rest of a hard winter at Ste.-Anne-du-Pays-Bas farther upriver before joining the Acadian exodus up the St.-Jean portage to Canada. Meanwhile, Annapolis Robichauds who escaped the roundup sought refuge not in Canada but on the upper Petitcoudiac or the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore, where some of them may have joined the Acadian resistance.
Living in territory controlled by France, the Robichauds on Île St.-Jean escaped the fate of their kinsmen in Nova Scotia and then welcomed their kin from Cobeguit who also had eluded the redcoats. The family's respite from British oppression was short-lived, however. After the fall of the French fortress at Louisbourg in July 1758, the redcoats rounded up most of the habitants on the Maritime islands. Others, especially those living in communities on the western shores of Île St.-Jean, including René Robichaud and his family at Bédec on the southwest shore, crossed Mer Rouge and sought refuge with their kinsmen on the mainland. The Robichauds who fell into British hands were herded aboard hired transports and shipped off to France. Most were deported aboard one or more of the five deportation transports--the Yarmouth, Patience, Mathias, Restoration, or John Samuel--that left Chédabouctou Bay in a 12-ship convoy in late November, survived a mid-December storm off the southwest coast of England that sank three other transports, and reached St.-Malo together in late January 1759. Many of them, especially the children, died in the crossing. A Robichaud and his second wife landed not at St.-Malo but at Cherbourg in late 1758. He died soon after they reached the Norman port. Island Robichauds did their best to make a life for themselves in the villages and suburbs of the St.-Malo area, including St.-Énogat, today's Dinard, across the harbor from St.-Malo; Ploubalay on the west side of the river south of St.-Énogat; Plouër-sur-Rance south of Ploubalay; St.-Suliac on the east side of the river south of St.-Malo; and especially in the St.-Malo suburb of St.-Servan-sur-Mer across from St.-Énogat. In the spring of 1763, after prolonged negotiations between the French and British governments, the Acadians in England were repatriated to France. Only one Robichaud, an elderly wife, had ended up in England, and she likely died there. In November 1765, Acadians repatriated from England and a few who had been deported from the French Maritimes agreed to become part of an agricultural venture on recently-liberated Belle-Île-en-Mer off the southern coast of Brittany. A Robichaud wife from St.-Servan-sur-Mer chose to follow her French-born husband to the island, but she did not remain. After he died there, she returned with their young daughter to St.-Servan to live with her widowed mother and her Robichaud siblings.
In 1774, in a movement that took away at least half the Robichauds still in France, the widowed mother and her large family at St.-Servan followed other exiles, probably via the Channel island of Jersey, to the British-controlled fishery at Gaspésie on the north shore of the Baie des Chaleurs. British officials counted the Robichauds in the Gaspésie community of Bonaventure later in the year. Beginning in the early 1790s, some of them crossed the bay to the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore in what had become the province of New Brunswick.
Back in France, in 1773, Robichauds still living in the St.-Malo area chose to take part in an even larger agricultural venture, this one on an influential nobleman's estate near Châtellerault in the interior of Poitou. After two years of effort, the Robichauds retreated with other Poitou Acadians down the Vienne and the Loire from Châtellerault to the port of Nantes, where they lived as best they could, again, on the government subsidy and what work they could find. In the early 1780s, when the Spanish government offered the Acadians in France a chance for a new life in faraway Louisiana, at least 11 Robichauds agreed to take it, but nearly as many remained.
In North America, the Acadians who had escaped the British in the late 1750s and took refuge on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore were inevitably caught up in the lingering war between the imperial rivals. After the fall of Québec in September 1759, the British gathered their forces to attack the remaining French strongholds in New France, including Restigouche at the head of the Baie des Chaleurs, now a major Acadian refuge. In late June 1760, a British naval force from Louisbourg attacked Restigouche. After a spirited fight in which Acadian militia and Mi'kmaq warriors played an important role, the French commander blew up his larger vessels and retreated up Rivière Restigouche, leaving the militia and the Indians to resist a British landing. Unable to capture the garrison or lay waste to the area, the British commander ordered his ships to return to their base at Louisbourg. The following October, after the fall of Montréal, another British naval force, this one from Québec, returned to Restigouche to accept the garrison's, and the Acadans', surrender. On 24 October 1760, on the eve of formal surrender, French officers counted 1,003 Acadians still at Restigouche, Robichauds among them. After the counting, the British held these exiles, and other Robichauds who either surrendered to, or were captured by, British forces in the area, in prison compounds in Nova Scotia for the rest of the war. Robichauds were held at Fort Edward, Pigiguit, and at Halifax.
The war over, Robichauds still in the British seaboard colonies, like their cousins being held in Nova Scotia, also, theoretically, were free to go, but not until the British discerned their intentions. Even then, colonials authorities discouraged repatriation. Members of the family nevertheless appeared on French repatriation lists and censuses compiled in several of the Atlantic colonies in the summer of 1763, including Massachusetts, Connecticut, and South Carolina. In June 1766, in Massachusetts, members of the family appeared on a list entitled "Names of the French Who Wish to Go to Canada."
At war's end, many of the Robichauds still in North America were living not in Nova Scotia or the British seaboard colonies but in Canada, where many of them had gone as early as 1756. Though now also a British possession, the far-northern province was populated largely by fellow French Catholics, many of them Acadian exiles. So, in a colony nearly as old as Acadia, descendants of Étienne Robichaud began the slow, inexorable process of becoming Canadiennes. Especially after the late 1760s, when kinsmen from the seaboard colonies joined their cousins in Canada, Robichauds could be found on the upper St. Lawrence and the lower Richelieu at Bécancour, Boucherville, Deschambault, Nicolet, Pointe-aux-Trembles, Repentigny, St.-Denis-sur-Richelieu, St.-Hyacinthe, Varanne, and Yamachiche; on the lower St. Lawrence at Cap-St.-Ignace, Kamouraska, L'Islet, L'Isle-Vert, Rivières des Capes, and St.-Jean-Port-Joli; in Gaspésie at Bonaventure; on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore in eastern New Brunwick at Aldouane, Bay du Vin, Bouctouche, Caraquet, French Village, Inkerman, Kouchibouigouac, Memramcook, Pointe-Sapin, Pokemouche, Richibucto, Shippagan, Ste.-Anne-de Burnt Church, St.-Charles-de-Kent, St.-Louis-de-Kent, and Tracadie; in the interior of New Brunswick at Petitcoudiac, Kennebecasis, and Rivière St.-Jean; and in Nova Scotia on Baie Ste.-Marie, now St. Mary Bay, and at Bas-de-Tousket, Bear River, Dartmouth, Halifax, and Tusket Wedge. They were especially numerous on the eastern New Brunswick shore. Typical of most, if not all, Acadian families, these Acadiennes of Canada lost touch with their Cadien cousins hundreds of miles away, and, until the Acadian reunions of the twentieth century may even have forgotten the others existed.
Robichauds being held in Nova Scotia at war's end faced a hard dilemma. The Treaty of Paris of February 1763 stipulated in its Article IV that persons dispersed by the war had 18 months to return to their respective territories. However, British authorities refused to allow any of the Acadian prisoners in the region to return to their former lands as proprietors. If Acadians chose to remain in, or return to, Nova Scotia, they could live only in small family groups in previously unsettled areas or work for low wages on former Acadian lands now owned by New-English "planters." If they stayed, they must also take the hated oath of allegiance to the new British king, George III, without reservation. They would also have to take the oath if they joined their many cousins in Canada and other parts of greater Acadia. After all they had suffered on the question of the oath, few self-respecting Acadians would consent to take it if it could be avoided. Some Nova Scotia exiles chose to relocate to Île Miquelon, a French-controlled fishery island off the southern coast of Newfoundland. Others considered going to French St.-Domingue, where Acadian exiles in the British colonies were going, or to the Illinois country, the west bank of which still belonged to France, or to French Louisiana, which, thanks to British control of Canada, was the only route possible to the Illinois country for Acadian exiles. Whatever their choice, many refused to remain under British rule. So they gathered up their money and their few possessions and prepared to leave their homeland. Of the 600 exiles who left Halifax in late 1764 and early 1765 bound for Cap-Français, St.-Domingue, at least 13 were Robichauds.
Robichauds settled early in Acadia and were among the earliest Acadians to find refuge in Louisiana. They came in two waves, 20 years apart. The first of them came to Louisiana from Halifax via Cap-Français in 1765. Four of them, including a family head and a younger male cousin, followed the Broussards to lower Bayou Teche in April, but an epidemic that killed dozens of Teche valley Acadians that summer and fall took the lives of both Robichaud males. Other Robichauds who came from Halifax that year settled in the established Acadian community of Cabahannocer on the river above New Orleans, but none of them remained. One of them "returned" to Attakapas by the early 1770s and established a small western branch of the family. By the mid-1790s, three of his cousins were among the Robichauxs who joined the Acadian exodus from the river to upper Bayou Lafourche and settled near their cousins there. Meanwhile, more Robichauds came to the colony aboard three of the Seven Ships from France in 1785. A young bachelor followed his mother and stepfather to Baton Rouge, but no lasting family line came of it. His cousins, meanwhile, chose to go to upper Bayou Lafourche, creating a third center of family settlement there. During the antebellum period, Robichauxs on the Lafourche drifted down bayou as far as the Terrebonne country, while other Robichauxs from the Lafourche valley, including one from France, crossed the Atchafalaya Basin and joined their cousins on the western prairies, adding substantially to the family's presence there, especially on lower Bayou Teche. In a reversal of the usual Acadian settlement pattern, two Robichaux brothers from the prairies returned to the river and settled in Iberville Parish, but, again, no significant family line developed there. During or soon after the War of 1861-65, more Robichauxs from Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes moved to the lower Atchafalaya and to lower Bayou Teche. Despite all the moving here and there, however, the largest center of family settlement remained on the southeastern bayous. No family line re-emerged on the river until after the war.
Over 20 Robichauxs served Louisiana in uniform during the War of 1861-65, and at least one of them died in Confederate service. ...
No non-Acadian Robichauds came to Louisiana during the colonial period, at least none who appear in area church records, and no Foreign Frenchmen with the name came to the Pelican State during the antebellum period. The family's name was spelled Robichaud in France and Acadia, but in Louisiana it evolved into Robichaux. In Louisiana, it is also spelled Rabosseaux, Rauvichau, Robechaux, Robecheaux, Robichauck, Robichaud, Robichaut, Robichaux, Robicheau, Robicheaux (à la Dave of New Iberia), Robicheux, Robicho, Robichon, Robichos, Robichot, Robijean, Robishau, Robishaux, Robisheau, Robischeau, Robischeaut, Robiso, Roubisceau, Rovechaut, Rovichau, Rovicho. This large Acadian family should not be confused with the Robeaus, French Creoles who settled on the Acadian Coast, where few of the Acadian Robichauxs remained.36
.
The first Robichauds to reach Louisiana--a small family and a young orphan, four Robichauds in all--reached New Orleans from Halifax via Cap-Français with the Broussards in February 1765. That spring, they followed the Broussards to lower Bayou Teche, with tragic result. No new family line came of it:
Second son
Oldest son Jean Baptiste le jeune, by first wife Émilie Babin, married Marguerite Eugénie or Virginie, also called Julie, 21-year-old daughter of fellow Acadian Maurice Blanchard and his Creole wife Marie Madeleine Fontenot, at the Thibodauxville church in June 1833. Their children, born on the Lafourche, included Marguerite Eugénie in April 1834; Jean Leufroy or Leufroi in November 1835; Justin in January 1838; Pierre in December 1840; Marie Uranie in January 1842; Marie Émelie, called Émelie, in September 1843; Émilien Séverin in January 1846; Louis Ozémé in May 1848; Marie Clairville near Raceland in October 1850; and Marie Félicie baptized at the Raceland church, age unrecorded, in October 1853--10 children, five daughters and five sons, between 1834 and 1853. Daughters Marguerite Eugénie and Émelie married into the Autin and Dias families by 1870. Three of Jean Baptiste le jeune's sons also married by then.
Third son Pierre J., given that name by the recording priest, married Marguerite, daughter of fellow Acadian Eugène Bourgeois and his Creole wife Angélique Barrios, in a civil ceremony in Lafourche Parish in July 1861. Their children, born on the lower Lafourche, included Joseph Bernardin near Raceland in May 1862; Joseph Célina in January 1864; Victoria Marcella in November 1865; and Pierre Flavien in February 1868--four children, three sons and a daughter, between 1862 and 1868. Pierre died near Raceland in October 1869. The priest who recorded the burial said that Pierre died "at age 30 yrs." He was 28.
Jean Baptiste le jeune's fourth son Émilien married Vigilia, daughter of fellow Acadian Manuel Landry and his wife Marie Estelle, perhaps Estellet, in a civil ceremony in Lafourche Parish in June 1869. Their son Joseph was born near Raceland in March 1870; ...
Jean Baptiste le jeune's fifth and youngest son Louis Ozémé married Justine, daughter of fellow Acadians Michel Molaison and Carmélite Pitre, in a civil ceremony in Lafourche Parish in May 1867. Their son Joseph Clotaire was born near Raceland in March 1868; ...
François Jérôme's second son Auguste, by first wife Émilie Babin, married Céleste or Célestine, 18-year-old daughter of Jean Pierre Gisclard and Françoise Aimé Mayer, at the Thibodauxville church in July 1834; Auguste's sister Émelie married Célestine's brother Valsin on the same day, at the same place. Auguste and Céleste's children, born on the Lafourche and in Terrebonne Parish, included François Émile, called Émile, in Lafourche Interior Parish in October 1835; Aimée Justine, called Justine and perhaps Augustine, in April 1840[sic]; Édouard, or Éloi, in December 1840[sic]; Émilien in February 1843; Joseph Augustin in September 1844; Marie in c1846; Pierre Justinien, called Justinien, in Terrebonne Parish in December 1849; Félicien Lhotaire, called Lhotaire, in March 1852; Onésile Helena in September 1854; and Henri Félicien, called Félicien, in March 1857--10 children, seven sons and three daughters, between 1835 and 1857. Daughters Augustine and Marie married Crochet brothers by 1870. One of Auguste's sons also married by then.
Second son Éloi married Julie, daughter of fellow Acadians Nicolas Léandre Crochet and Madeleine Bergeron of Terrebonne Parish, in a civil ceremony in Terrebonne Parish in January 1859, and sanctified the marriage at the Houma church, Terrebonne Parish, in April 1864; Julie's brothers Alfred and Henri married two of Éloi's sisters. Éloi and Julie's son Jean Baptiste Augustin was born in Terrebonne Parish in June 1863; ...
François Jérôme's third son Adrien, by first wife Émilie Babin, married cousin Marie Sylvanie, called Sylvanie, 16-year-old daughter of fellow Acadians Étienne Robichaux and Henriette Arceneaux, at the Thibodauxville courthouse in January 1835. Their children, born on the Lafourche, included Céleste Justine, called Justine, in March 1837; François Étienne, perhaps also called Félix, in December 1841; Marie Émelie, called Émilie, in February 1842; Adrien Théophile, called Théophile, in September 1845; Étienne Alidor, called Alidor, in March 1848; and Pierre Octave, called Octave, near Raceland in November 1849. Wife Sylvanie died near Raceland in July 1853, "at age 30 yrs.," but she probably was a few years older. An "Account of Administration of tutor" in her name, listing their children--Félix, Émilie, Théophile, Alidor, and Octave--was filed at the Thibodaux courthouse in May 1860. Adrien remarried to Marie Louise Gisclard in a civil ceremony in Lafourche Parish in August 1865. Daughter Marie Éloise was born near Lockport in August 1866 but, called Marie Louise, died at age 1 (the recording priest said 6 months) in July 1867--seven children, three daughters and four sons, by two wives, between 1837 and 1866. Adrien died near Raceland in December 1869, age 52 (the recording priest said 53). Daughters Justine and Émilie, by his first wife, married into the Falgout and Bellanger families by 1870. Adrien's sons also married by then. One of them moved to lower Bayou Teche after the War of 1861-65. The others remained on Bayou Lafourche.
Oldest son Félix, perhaps also called François Étienne, from first wife Sylvanie Robichaux, married Marie, daughter of fellow Acadians Edmond Foret and Estelle Vina Martin, at the Raceland church in November 1859. Their children, born near Raceland, included Félix Jean Baptiste in January 1864; Marie Félicia in May 1867; Félicia in May 1869; ...
Adrien's second son Adrien Théophile, called Théophile, from first wife Sylvanie Robichaux, married Léontine, daughter of Timothée Delcambre and his French-Canadian wife Arthémise LeBlanc, at the New Iberia church, Iberia Parish, in January 1869. Their son Félix le jeune was born near New Iberia in October 1869; ...
Adrien's third son Étienne Alidor, called Alidor, from first wife Sylvanie Robichaux, married Marie Justine, daughter of fellow Acadians Nicolas Arcement and Rosalie Pitre, in a civil ceremony in Lafourche Parish in January 1868. ...
Adrien's fourth and youngest son Pierre Octave, called Octave, from first wife Sylvanie Robichaux, married Palmire, daughter of Théodule Dias and Eugénie Roux, in a civil ceremony in Lafourche Parish in February 1869. ...
François Jérôme's fourth son François Sylvère, by first wife Émilie Babin, married cousin Marie Justine, called Justine, daughter of fellow Acadian Auguste Babin and his Creole wife Justine Toups, in a civil ceremony in Lafourche Interior Parish in September 1845. Their children, born on the lower Lafourche, included Mathilde in September 1846; Amédée in February 1849; Justine near Raceland in February 1851; Justilien in May 1853 but died at age 2 (the recording priest said 3) in July 1855; and François, fils born in March 1855--five children, two daughters and three sons, between 1846 and 1855. François Sylvère died near Raceland at the end of July 1855, age 31, four months after the birth of his youngest child and two days after the death of his second son Justilien. A petition for succession inventory, calling him François, Jr., naming his wife, and listing his children--Mathilde, Amédé, Justine, and François--was filed at the Thibodaux courthouse in March 1856. Daughter Mathilde married into the Dias family by 1870. One of François Sylvère's sons also married by then.
Oldest son Amédée married Marie Orabit in a civil ceremony in Lafourche Parish in June 1870. ...
Jean-Baptiste's third son
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Roger dit Jean Caissie, also called Caissy, Kuessy, Quessi, or Quessy, born in Ireland in c1648, came to French Acadia during the English occupation of 1654-70 probably as a soldier. After his term of service ended, he married Marie-Françoise, daughter of Jean Poirier and Jeanne Chebrat, at Port-Royal in c1668 and took up farming. In the late 1670s or early 1680s, Roger dit Jean and Marie-Françoise were among the early settlers at Chignecto. They followed Marie-Françoise's brother Michel there and settled near Pointe-à-Beauséjour at Butte-à-Roger. According to one historian of the Acadian experience, Roger may have introduced fruit trees to the Chignecto settlement. Between 1669 and 1697, Marie-Françoise gave Roger seven children, three daughters and four sons. Two of their daughters married into the Doucet and Deveau families. Their sons married into the Bourgeois, Hébert, Mirande, Pellerin, and Gaudet families. In 1755, descendants of Roger dit Jean Caissie and Marie-Françoise Poirier could be found at the family's base at Chignecto, at Minas, and on Île St.-Jean. Le Grand Dérangement of the 1750s scattered this family to the winds.
The Acadians at Chignecto were the first to endure a disruption of their lives. In the spring and summer of 1750, in response to the British building a fort at Beaubassin village, Canadian militia, assisted by Mi'kmaq warriors led by Abbé Jean-Louis Le Loutre, burned Acadian homesteads in the British-controlled area east of Rivière Missaguash, forcing the habitants there to move to the French-controlled area west of the river. Caissies may have been among the refugees in the petit dérangement. After yet another war erupted between Britain and France in 1754, Chignecto Acadians were caught in the middle of it. When British and New-English forces attacked Fort Beauséjour in June 1755, Chignecto Acadians, perhaps including Caissies from nearby Pointe-à-Beauséjour, served in the fort as militia. They, too, along with the French troupes de la marine, became prisoners of war when the fort surrendered on June 16. Lieutanant-Governor Charles Lawrence was so incensed to find so-called French Neutrals fighting with French regulars at Beauséjour he ordered his officers to deport the Chignecto Acadians to the southernmost seaboard colonies. Caissies were among the Acadians the British shipped to South Carolina aboard the transport Edward Cornwallis, which reached Charles Town in mid-November. A Cassie wife and her family sailed aboard the transport Endeavor, which arrived in Charles Town harbor at the same time. In August 1756, colonial officials dispatched 30 Acadians from Charles Town to Prince Frederick Winyaw, a rural Anglican parish farther up the coast at present-day Plantersville, South Carolina. Among the party was at least one Caissie. Meanwhile, a Chignecto Caissie and his family ended up in Pennsylvania. Not all of the Caissies sent to the southern colonies remained there until the end of the war. In the spring of 1756, the governors of Georgia and South Carolina allowed the Acadians in their colonies who were not under arrest to return to their homeland as best they could. Following the example of merchant Jacques Vigneau dit Maurice of Baie-Verte, 200 of the exiles purchased or built small vessels and headed up the coast. In late August, after weeks of effort, 78 exiles from South Carolina, led by Michel Bourgeois, came ashore on Long Island, New York, and were detained by colonial officials. On a list of "names of the heads of the French Neutral families, number of their Children returned from Georgia and distributed through the counties of Westchester and Orange," dated 26 August 1756, can be found two Caissie families who colonial officials had sent to those counties. Most of the Caissies at Chignecto, however, escaped the British roundup there that summer and fall and found refuge at Shediac and Miramichi on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore and later at the French stronghold of Restigouche at the head of the Baie des Chaleurs. Others moved on to Canada. Madeleine Gaudet, widow of a Chignecto Caissie, died at Québec in November 1757, victim, perhaps, of the smallpox epidemic that killed hundreds of Acadian exiles in the area from the summer of 1757 to the spring of 1758.
From Minas, the British sent a Cassie wife and her Mangeant family to Maryland. In the late 1750s, they were among the "French Neutrals' assisted by the influential Carroll family, including a future signer of the Declaration of Independence.
The Caissies on Île-St. Jean, living in territory controlled by France, escaped the British roundups in Nova Scotia during the fall of 1755. Their respite from British oppression was short-lived. After the fall of the French fortress of Louisbourg in July 1758, the redcoats swooped down on Île St.-Jean, rounded up most of the habitants there, and deported them to France. Some members of the family crossed Mer Rouge and escaped to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but others fell into British hands. The crossing to St.-Malo destroyed entire families, including Cassies, but many of them made it to the Breton port. A younger Caissie widower and his 2-year-old son, along with an older, widowed sister, landed at Cherbourg in Normandy. The widower and his son soon joined their kinsmen at St.-Malo. His widowed sister remained at Cherbourg and remarried there. Meanwhile, island Caissies did their best to make a life for themselves in the suburbs and villages of the St.-Malo area, including the suburb of St.-Servan-sur-Mer; nearby Paramé; and St.-Énogat, today's Dinard, across the harbor from St.-Servan.
In April 1764, a Caissie and her family, along with a sister and her husband, left France aboard Le Fort for the new French colony of Guiane on the northeast coast of South America, with tragic result. One of the sisters was pregnant when the family left France. A daughter was baptized at age 6 weeks "by a midwife ... because of necessity" aboard Le Fort in September 1764. One of the sister's husbands was an early casualty of the venture; he died at Sinnamary in the Cayenne district in February 1765, in his early 40s. His widow remarried again--her third marriage--at St.-Sauveur, Cayenne, in July 1765. She died there in August 1768, in her early 50s. Meanwhile, her younger sister also died in the colony, at St.-Joseph, Sinnamary, in August 1765, age 45.
No Caissie family still in France went to Belle-Île-en-Mer off the southern coast of Brittany in November 1765, nor to the interior of Poitou in 1773. Nearly all of them remained in the St.-Malo suburbs. When in the early 1780s the Spanish government offered the Acadians in France the chance for a new life in faraway Louisiana, none of the Caissies still in the mother country agreed to take it. A Caissie wife, perhaps now a widow, from Cherbourg died at Chantenay near Nantes on the lower Loire in January 1787, age 71, a year and a half after the Seven Ships left France for Spanish Louisiana. In c1790, a young Caissie and his family left France for the British-controlled fishery at Gaspésie on the north shore of the Baie des Chaleurs. In 1793, French Revolutionary officials counted a number of Caissies, called Quessy, "in the area around St.-Malo," most of them siblings of the Caissie who had gone to Gaspésie. One, a first cousin, was the middle-aged son of the young Caissie widower who had landed at Cherbourg 35 years earlier.
In North America, conditions got only worse for the Acadians who had escaped the British in the late 1750s and sought refuge on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore. After the fall of Québec in September 1759, the British prepared to attack the remaining French strongholds in New France, one of which was Restigouche at the head of the Baie des Chaleurs, now a major Acadian refuge. In late June 1760, a British naval force from Louisbourg attacked Restigouche, destroyed the French flotilla there, but failed to subdue the French garrison. The following October, after the fall of Montréal, another British naval force, this one from Québec, returned to Restigouche to accept the garrison's, and the Acadians', surrender. On 24 October 1760, on the eve of formal surrender, French officers counted 1,003 Acadians still at Restigouche, but no Caissies appeared on the list. However, Jean-Baptiste Perial and his family of seven do appear on it. Perial's wife, Rosalie Comeau, was the second wife and widow of Michel Caissie dit Roger le jeune, a grandson of Roger; her son Joseph Caissie, who would have been age 15, probably was included in the family. Sometime in the early 1760s, these and other members of the family still in the area either surrendered to, or were captured by, British forces and held in prison compounds in Nova Scotia for the rest of the war. In August 1763, nine members of the family appeared on a repatriation list at Fort Cumberland, formerly French Fort Beauséjour, a stone's throw from their old homesteads at Chignecto. The compiler of the list called the family Quessy.
At war's end, Acadians being held in the seaboard colonies, like their kinsmen in Nova Scotia, theoretically, were free to go, but not until British officials discerned their intentions. Even then, colonial authorities discouraged repatriation. In June 1763 in Pennsylvania a Caissie family, called Quisse, appeared on a French repatriation list there. In July 1763, in Maryland, an elderly Caissie widow and her family appeared on a repatriation list at Annapolis. In South Carolina that August, a Caissie wife, called a Quessy, and her family appeared on a repatriation list there. In the early 1760s, at least one Caissie from a seaboard colony chose to follow dozens of her fellow Acadians to French St.-Domingue. She died at Port-au-Prince in May 1764, age 40. Most of the Caissies in the seaboard colonies, however, chose to resettle in Canada, where some of their kinsmen had gone as early as 1756. Though now also a British possession, the far-northern province was populated largely by fellow French Catholics, many of them Acadian exiles. So, in a colony nearly as old as Acadia, descendants of Roger Caissie began the slow, inexorable process of becoming Canadiennes. Especially after 1766, Caissies could be found at Québec City and at Batiscan and Champlain on the upper St. Lawrence. They were especially numerous at Bastiscan. They also could be found at Bonaventure, Carleton, Miguasha, Newport, and Paspébiac in Gaspésie; and at Baie-de-Vins, Cocagne, Grande-Digue, and Richibouctou in present-day southeastern New Brunswick. Typical of most, if not all, Acadian families, these Acadiennes of Canada, who called themselves Caissie, lost touch with their Cadien cousins hundreds of miles away, who called themselves Roger, and, until the Acadian reunions of the twentieth century, may even have forgotten the others existed.
Acadians being held in Nova Scotia a war's end faced a hard dilemma. The Treaty of Paris of the February 1763 stipulated in its Article IV that persons dispersed by the war had 18 months to return to their respective territories. However, British authorities refused to allow any of the Acadian prisoners in the region to return to their former lands as proprietors. If Acadians chose to remain in, or return to, Nova Scotia, they could live only in small family groups in previously unsettled areas or work for low wages on former Acadian lands now owned by New-English "planters." If they stayed, they must also take the hated oath of allegiance to the new British king, George III, without reservation. They would also have to take the oath if they joined their cousins in Canada. After all they had suffered on the question of the oath, few self-respecting Acadians would consent to take it if it could be avoided. Some Nova Scotia exiles chose to go to Miquelon, a French-controlled fishery island off the southern coast of Newfoundland. Others considered going to French St.-Domingue, where Acadian exiles in the British colonies, including a Caissie, were going, or to the Illinois country, the west bank of which still belonged to France, or to French Louisiana, which, thanks to British control of Canada, was the only route possible to the Illinois country for Acadian exiles. Whatever their choice, many refused to remain under British rule. So they gathered up their money and their few possessions and prepared to leave their homeland. Of the 600 exiles who left Halifax in late 1764 bound for Cap-Français, St.-Domingue, at least four of them were Cassie dit Rogers.
The Acadians in Maryland endured life among Englishmen who, despite their colony's Catholic roots, did not care much for the French "papists" thrust upon them. When word reached the Acadians there that the Spanish would welcome them to Louisiana, most of the exiles prepared to charter ships that would take them to New Orleans. The Caissie widow and her children were not among them. They chose, instead, to remain in the Chesapeake colony, where, in the late 1750s, when husband François Mangeant was still alive, they had been assisted by the influential Carroll family. The widow's Mangeant son was counted by federal census takers at Baltimore in 1790 and 1800--one of the remarkable number of Acadians still residing in the state of Maryland.
Roger dit Jean Caissie of Ireland settled early in French Acadia, and some of his descendants were among the earliest Acadians to find refuge in Louisiana. Calling themselves Caissie dit Roger, three, perhaps four, of the Irishman's descendants came to Louisiana from Halifax via Cap-Français, St.-Domingue, in 1765. In the spring of that year, a Caissie dit Roger wife and her Bergeron family followed the Broussards to lower Bayou Teche, but the death of her husband and two of her children in a mysterious epidemic that autumn sent her fleeing with other Teche valley Acadians back to Cabahannocer on the river. This ended the family's presence on the western prairies, at least during the colonial period. Meanwhile, two of the Irishman's great-grandsons settled at Cabahannocer, but none of their descendants remained on the river. During the late colonial period, two Caissies joined the Acadian exodus from the river to Bayou Lafourche, where they used their ancestor's dit, Roger, not Caissie or its many iterations, as their surname. Here, along the bayou, they created a center of family settlement that stretched all the way down to the Terrebonne country. Some of them settled near Pierre Part north of Lake Verret and at Canal, now Napoleonville, in Assumption Parish. Meanwhile, by 1850, a Roger from Bayou Lafourche moved to the Breaux Bridge area of upper Bayou Teche, re-establishing the families presence west of the Atchafalaya Basin. After the War of 1861-65, several of his cousins settled down bayou near New Iberia.
Church records reveal that non-Acadian Rogers lived in colonial Louisiana as early as the 1720s, decades before their Acadian namesakes arrived. Most of them lived at New Orleans, and one of them, a native of Paris, was the colony's "magazine-intendant." During the late colonial period, Louis Roger dit Brisbois of Canada lived at Manchac on the river below Baton Rouge, remarried to an Acadian, and then moved to the western prairies, which the Acadian Rogers had abandoned in the 1760s. One of Louis's sons also married an Acadian and created a small family line at Carencro at the northern edge of the Attakapas District. Meanwhile, Anglo-American Rogerss, sometimes called Roger in church and civil records, settled along the river and on the western prairies, but few married Acadians. ...
A dozen or so Rogers, most of them Acadians, served Louisiana in uniform during the War of 1861-65. Several of them, including an Acadian, served as officers. ...
In French Acadia, British Nova Scotia, and during and after exile, the family's name also was spelled Caisse, Caissey, Caissy, Casey, Kessy, Kuessy, Kuessey, Quaisy, Quaissy, Quiaiscy. The few family members who came to Louisiana preferred as their surname the family's dit, and the name Caissie and its variants disappeared from Louisiana records by the 1770s. In Louisiana, the Acadian family's name also is spelled Rocher, Rogée, Rogere, Rogeres, Rogerre, Rogers, Rogert, Roget, Rogues, Rojer. In Canada, the many descendants of Roger the Irishman favor the surname Caissie or Caissy. In France, they favor Quessy.37
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All of the Caissie dit Rogers who came to Louisiana--three, perhaps four, of them, including a wife, her unmarried half-brother, and their bachelor first cousin--arrived from Halifax via Cap-Français in 1765. Catherine Caissie dit Roger, her Bergeron husband, and their six children arrived in February with the Broussards and followed them to lower Bayou Teche that spring, with tragic result. After losing her husband and two of her children, including a newborn, to an epidemic, she retreated with her remaining children to Cabahannocer, where her brother and cousin had settled after reaching New Orleans later in the year. All of the Acadian Rogers of South Louisiana are descended from the two cousins:
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Oldest son Louis Onésime, fils married Félicité, daughter of Jean Baptiste Jeandron and Hélène Picou, in a civil ceremony in Lafourche Parish in March 1858. Their son Louis, fils was born near Lockport in December 1861; ...
Louis Onésime, père's third son Charles married Theresa, daughter of fellow Acadians Léon Arceneaux and Azélie Dubois, at the Lockport church in April 1866. Their son Charles Joseph was born near Lockport in October 1866; ...
Louis Onésime, père's fourth son Pierre married Virginie, daughter of Étienne Bossuet and his Acadian wife Adèle Doucet, at the Lockport church in October 1869. ...
Louis Onésime, père's fifth and youngest son François Olézime married Marie, daughter of fellow Acadian Eugène Bourgeois and his Creole wife Angélique Barrios, at the Lockport church in June 1865. Their children, born on the lower Lafourche, included Louis Albert near Lockport in April 1866; Philomène Clotilde in April 1868; Romain Clebert in April 1870; ...
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During the war, only son Augustave dit Gustave, called G. A. in Confederate records, served in Company I of the 26th Regiment Louisiana Infantry, raised in Lafourche Parish, which fought at Vicksburg, Mississippi. After the fall of the Mississippi citadel in July 1863 and while waiting for his regiment to be exchanged, Gustave married cousin Justilia, daughter of Octave Elfert and his Acadian wife Marie Céline Hébert, at the Thibodaux church in September 1864. They moved on to lower Bayou Teche after the war. Their children, born on the Lafourche and the lower Teche, included Auguste Joseph in October 1865; Jean Arthur in February 1867; Henry George near Lydia, Iberia Parish, in April 1869; ... Gustave died in Iberia Parish in April 1902, age 63, and was buried in St. John's Catholic Cemetery, Jeanerette, in Iberia Parish.
The progenitor of the Acadian Roys who ended up in Louisiana was Jean LeRoy or Roy dit La Liberté, born at St.-Malo, France, in c1651, probably no kin to the other Roys and LeRoys of Acadia. Jean dit La Liberté married Marie-Christine, called Christine, Aubois, also called Hautbois and Dubois, a 21-year-old mixed-blood Mi'kmaq, or Métis, in c1686, likely at Cap-Sable. Between 1686 and 1708, Christine gave Jean nine children, four daughters and five sons. Their daughters married into the Clémenceau, Comeau dit Grandjean, Girouard, Fontaine dit Beaulieu, and Trahan families. Four of their sons married into the Lejeune, Corporon, Bergeron, Mazerolle, and Daigre families. In 1755, descendants of Jean Roy dit La Liberté and Marie-Christine Aubois could be found at Annapolis Royal, formerly Port-Royal; Grand-Pré and Pigiguit in the Minas Basin; and in the French Maritimes. Le Grand Dérangement of the 1750s scattered this family even farther.
In the fall of 1755, the British deported a Roy family to Maryland, perhaps the only Roys at Minas who had not moved on to the French Maritimes. Colonial officials sent them to the interior community of Lower Marlborough on the upper Patuxent River, where the family head died in the late 1750s or early 1760s, in his 60s. Their many cousins at Annapolis Royal were luckier. Most, if not all, of the Roys there escaped the British, spent a hard winter on the Fundy shore, crossed to Chepoudy the following spring, and sought refuge on the upper Petitcoudiac or lower Rivière St.-Jean before moving on to the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore or to Canada via the St.-Jean portage.
Living in territory controlled by France, the handful of Roys in the French Maritimes escaped the roundup of their kinsmen in Nova Scotia, but their respite from British oppression was short-lived. After the fall of the French fortress at Louisbourg in July 1758, the redcoats rounded up most of the habitants on the islands. Again, members of the family eluded capture either by leaving the islands before the fall of Louisbourg by crossing Mer Rouge to the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore or escaping the patrols sent out to capture them.
Annapolis Royal and island Roys who had escaped to Canada were the first of the family to suffer the fatal effects of exile. After slipping away from Île St.-Jean in the months before the island's dérangement, a Roy, his wife, their children, and members of his and her family, made their way to Québec, where they were counted in 1757. French authorities placed them at St.-François-du-Sud below the city, with tragic result. The family head died there in January 1758, victim, most likely, of the smallpox epidemic that was raging among the refugees in the area. His wife's parents, as well as his older sister and her husband, also died in the epidemic that struck the Acadians in and around the Canadian capital from the summer of 1757 to the spring of 1758. Despite the tragedy, the widow and her children remained in Canada.
One of the strangest stories of the Acadian expulsion was that of Jean dit La Liberté's oldest son Jean, fils and his family. They were among the many Roys who escaped the roundup at Annapolis Royal in the fall of 1755 and sought refuge in Canada. Sometime in the late 1750s, perhaps after the fall of Québec in September 1759, the British deported them to faraway Massachusetts. On wonders why. In 1760, colonial officials counted eight of their children, ages 13 to 6 months, at Dunstable in the northeastern part of the colony just below the boundary with New Hampshire. One wonders where the other members of the family were being held. In August 1763, Jean, fils, his wife, and nine of their children, five sons and four daughters, appeared on a repatriation list in the Bay Colony. They were still there in June 1766, when colonial officials noted that the family numbered an astonishing 17, liking an extended family by now. Along with dozens of other exiles sent to New England, they returned to Canada that year. Jean, fils died at Champlain on the upper St. Lawrence between Québec City and Trois-Rivières in April 1770, in his late 70s.
Though now also a British possession, the far-northern province was populated largely by fellow French Catholics, many of them Acadian exiles. So, in a colony nearly as old as Acadia, descendants of Jean Roy dit La Liberté began the slow, inexorable process of becoming Canadiennes. By the late 1760s, when Jean, fils and his large family joined their many cousins still there, Acadian Roys could be found in several regions of what, a century later, became the Dominion of Canada: on the upper St. Lawrence and the lower Richelieu at Bécancour, Champlain, Repentigny, Rivière-du-Loup now Louiseville, St.-Ours, St.-Pierre-les-Becquets, Trois-Rivières, and Yamachiche; on the lower St. Lawrence at L'Islet; on the southeastern shore of what became the province of New Brunwick at Baie-des-Ouines now Bay du Vin, Bouctouche, Cormierville, Memramcook, and Petit-Rocher; and on upper Rivière St.-Jean along the northwestern edge of New Brunswick . Typical of most, if not all, Acadian families, these Acadiennes of Canada lost touch with their Cadien cousins hundreds of miles away, and, until the Acadian reunions of the twentieth century may even have forgotten the others existed.
Other Acadians who had escaped the British in the late 1750s and took refuge on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore were inevitably caught up in the lingering war between the imperial rivals. After the fall of Québec in September 1759, the British gathered their forces to attack the remaining French strongholds in New France, including Restigouche at the head of the Baie des Chaleurs, now a major Acadian refuge. In late June 1760, a British naval force from Louisbourg attacked Restigouche. After a spirited fight in which Acadian militia and Mi'kmaq warriors played an important role, the French commander blew up his larger vessels and retreated up Rivière Restigouche, leaving the militia and the Indians to resist a British landing. Unable to capture the garrison or lay waste to the area, the British commander ordered his ships to return to their base at Louisbourg. In October, after the fall of Montréal, another British naval force, this one from Québec, returned to accept the garrison's, and the Acadians', surrender. On 24 October 1760, on the eve of formal surrender, French officers counted 1,003 Acadians still at Restigouche, but no Roys appeared on the list. After the counting, the British held these exiles, and other Acadians who either surrendered to, or were captured by, British forces in the area, in prison compounds in Nova Scotia for the rest of the war. In August 1763, three Roy brothers and their families appeared on a repatriation list at Halifax. The older brothers chose to remain in greater Acadia, taking their families to upper Rivière St.-Jean before crossing the new province of New Brunswick to the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore. The youngest brother and two of his children chose a very different path.
Roys being held at Halifax at war's end faced a hard dilemma. The Treaty of Paris of February 1763 stipulated in its Article IV that persons dispersed by the war had 18 months to return to their respective territories. However, British authorities refused to allow any of the Acadian prisoners in the region to return to their former lands as proprietors. If Acadians chose to remain in, or return to, Nova Scotia, they could live only in small family groups in previously unsettled areas or work for low wages on former Acadian lands now owned by New-English "planters." If they stayed, they must also take the hated oath of allegiance to the new British king, George III, without reservation. They would also have to take the oath if they joined their many cousins in Canada and other parts of greater Acadia. After all they had suffered on the question of the oath, few self-respecting Acadians would consent to take it if it could be avoided. Some Halifax exiles chose to relocate to Miquelon, a French-controlled fishery island off the southern coast of Newfoundland. Others considered going to French St.-Domingue, where Acadian exiles in the British colonies were going, or to the Illinois country, the west bank of which still belonged to France, or to French Louisiana, which, thanks to British control of Canada, was the only route possible to the Illinois country for Acadian exiles. Whatever their choice, many refused to remain under British rule. So they gathered up their money and their few possessions and prepared to leave their homeland. Of the 600 exiles who left Halifax in late 1764 and early 1765 bound for Cap-Français, St.-Domingue, three of them were descendants of Jean Roy dit La Liberté.
The few Roys still in Maryland endured life among Englishmen who, despite their colony's Catholic roots, did not care much for the French "papists" thrust upon them. When word reached the Acadians in the Chesapeake colony that the Spanish would welcome them in Louisiana, most of the Maryland Acadians pooled their meager resources to charter ships that would take them to New Orleans. From June 1766 to January 1769, nearly 600 of them left Baltimore and Port Tobacco for Spanish Louisiana in four expeditions. None of the Roys still in Maryland were among them.
Roys settled early in French Acadia, and a descendant of Jean Roy dit La Liberté of St.-Malo was among the earliest Acadians to find refuge in Louisiana. Widower Abraham Roy and two of his children, a son and a daughter, came to Louisiana in February 1765 with the Broussard party from Halifax via Cap-Français, St.-Domingue. That April, they followed the Broussards to lower Bayou Teche, but they did not remain. By early 1766, they had moved to Cabahannocer on the river above New Orleans probably to escape an epidemic that killed dozens of their fellow Teche valley Acadians the previous summer and fall. Abraham remarried to a fellow Acadian, a widow, at Cabahannocer soon after he got there, and his new wife gave him another son. His two sons settled on the river and had sons of their own. Beginning in the 1810s, Abraham's three grandsons and two of his great-grandsons abandoned the river and "returned" to the western prairies, where they settled in St. Martin and Lafayette parishes. By the 1840s, no Acadian Roys remained on the river.
Roys from France and Canada, where the name is widespread, lived in French Louisiana from its earliest days. A French-Canadian widower who had lived at Detroit and Kaskaskia, Illinois, settled at Pointe Coupée in the 1740s, but his sons by his second wife did not remain there. In the 1780s, they crossed the Atchafalaya Basin to the Opelousas prairies, where their lines proliferated. Most of them remained in what became St. Landry Parish, but some of them moved down into the old Attakapas District, complicating the Roy family's genealogical picture there. By the late antebellum period, these French-Canadian Roys greatly outnumbered their Acadian namesakes on the western prairies. Other, smaller Roy families settled on the parishes. Meanwhile, another French-Canadian family, no relation to the Roys of St. Landry and St. Martin, moved from Pointe Coupée to the Avoyelles prairie in the 1790s and created a new center of family settlement there. During the antebellum period, dozens of Roys, called Foreign French by Louisiana natives, came to New Orleans from France and the Caribbean Basin. Most of them probably remained in the city. No Roy family appeared in the Bayou Lafourche valley until late in the antebellum period. They probably were not Acadian.
Judging by the number of slaves they owned during the late antebellum period, some Roys, both Acadians and non-Acadians, lived well on their plantations, farms, and vacharies on the southwest prairies. By the time of his death in late 1847, Acadian Charles Roy amassed a holding of two dozen slaves on his Lafayette Parish plantation. His eldest son Désiré must have inherited most of his people; Désiré held only three slaves on his Lafayette Parish farm in 1850, but a decade later he owned 36. Some of their French-Canadian namesakes in nearby St. Landry and St. Martin parishes did almost as well. Noël Roy's widow held 30 slaves on her plantation in St. Landry Parish in 1860. Her husband's cousin and her neighbor, Pierre Ulgère Roy, owned 14 slaves. Cousin Alexandre Roy held 13 slaves on his farm in St. Martin Parish. In Avoyelles Parish, French Canadian François Roy owned 14 slaves in 1850 and 19 a decade later. His cousin Villeneuve Roy, also of Avoyelles, held 15 slaves in 1860. The largest slaveholder with the name, however, lived nowhere near his prairie namesakes. Frédéric Roy, a native of France, held 44 slaves on his St. Bernard Parish plantation, on the river below New Orleans, in 1850. A decade later, he owned 50 slaves--enough to qualify him as a "large planter." But most Roys, like most Southerners, did not own slaves, at least none who appeared on the federal slaves schedules of 1850 and 1860. They thus participated only peripherally in the South's antebellum plantation-based economy.
Dozens of Roys, both Acadian and non-Acadian, served Louisiana in uniform during the War of 1861-65. At least one of them, a non-Acadian from New Orleans, died in Virginia in Confederate service. ...
In Louisiana, the family's name also is spelled Leroy, Le Roy, Roi, Roye.38
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All the Acadian Roys of South Louisiana are descended from a widower who came to the colony from British Nova Scotia in 1765:
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François Savoie, a farmer perhaps from Martaizé south of Loudun, in the middle Loire valley of central France, born in c1621, came to Acadia probably in the 1640s. In c1651, he married Catherine Lejeune, sister of Edmée, wife of early Acadian settler François Gautrot, who also was from Martaizé. Between 1652 and 1670, at Port-Royal, Catherine gave François Savoie nine children, six daughters and three sons. Their daughters married into the Corporon, Triel dit Laperrière, Pellerin, Levron dit Nantois, Préjean dit Le Breton, and Chiasson families. Only one of François Savoie's sons, Germain, married, into the Breau dit Vincelotte family. Wife Marie Breau gave Germain a dozen children at Port-Royal, including five sons who married into the Babineau, Richard, Dupuis, Michel, and Martin families. In 1755, descendants of François Savoie and Catherine Lejeune and their married son Germain could be found at Annapolis Royal, formerly Port-Royal; Chepoudy in the trois-rivières area west of Chignecto; and at Malpèque on Île St.-Jean. Le Grand Dérangement of the 1750s scattered this family even farther.
The Acadians at Chignecto and in the trois-rivières were the first to endure a disruption of their lives. When British and New-English forces attacked Fort Beauséjour at Chignecto in June 1755, Savoies from the area may have been among the local Acadians who were serving in the fort as militia. If so, they, too, along with Canadian militia and French troupes de la marine, became prisoners of war when the fort surrendered on June 16. Lieutenant-Governor Charles Lawrence was so incensed to find so-called French Neutrals fighting with French regulars at Beauséjour he ordered his officers to deport these Acadians to the southernmost seaboard colonies. A young Savoie from Chepoudy may have ended up in Georgia, but he did not remain. In the spring of 1756, the governors of South Carolina and Georgia encouraged the exiles in their colonies who were not under arrest to return to greater Acadia on their own hook. Several expeditions left South Carolina and Georgia on boats they built or purchased, and one actually made it to the mouth of Rivière St.-Jean. Most did not. One expedition landed on Long Island, New York, during the third week of August. Colonial authorities in that colony refused to allow the exiles to continue their voyage and promptly deposited them in Westchester County, north of Manhattan. The young Savoie, listed with no wife or children, was sent to the town of Eastchester.
Most of the Savoies at Chepoudy escaped the British roundup in the Chignecto area that summer and fall. Some of them sought refuge in Canada, where French officials counted them as early as 1756. Others went to the upper Petitcoudiac or continued on to the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore, where they joined their fellow exiles at Shediac and Miramichi. By the late 1750s, at least one Savoie family made its way up the shore to the French stronghold at Restigouche at the head of the Baie des Chaleurs, where they may have joined the Acadian resistance if they weren't part of it already.
Most of the many Savoies still at Annapolis Royal escaped the British roundup that terrible autumn. After a hard winter on the Fundy shore, they crossed to Chepoudy the following spring and took refuge on the upper Petitcoudiac or lower Rivière St.-Jean before following their cousins up to Canada or to the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore. At least three of the families at Annapolis Royal were not so lucky. One family ended up on a deportation transport bound for Connecticut but evidently moved on to Pennsylvania later in the decade. Another family endured an even more harrowing experience. A Savoie, his wife, and most of their children ended up on the transport Experiment bound for New York. A North Atlantic storm drove the ship to Antigua in the British Antilles, where the exiles spent the winter. The Experiment finally reached Manhattan in early May 1756. Colonial officials promptly sent the family of 10 to New Rochelle, Westchester County, where local authorities watched them closely. A Savoie, his wife, and four young sons were deported from Annapolis Royal to South Carolina probably aboard the transport Hobson.
Living in territory controlled by France, two Savoie wives living in the French Maritimes escaped the roundup of their kinsmen in Nova Scotia in 1755-56, but their respite from British oppression was short-lived. After the fall of the French fortress at Louisbourg in July 1758, the redcoats rounded up most of the habitants on the Maritime islands and deported them to France. One Savoie was lucky, the other was not. One wife, her Arceneau husband, and their many children, living at Malpèque on the remote northwest shore of Île St.-Jean, escaped perhaps in their own fishing boat across Mer Rouge to the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore. Another, younger wife, recently married to a Boutin from Baie-des-Espagnols at Louisbourg, was deported with him to Rochefort, France, in late 1758. He died there in November 1759, and she remarried to a Frenchman in January 1761. If she was still living in 1785, she did not follow other Acadian exiles in France to Spanish Louisiana.
Another young Savoie wife ended up in France by a different route. She married an Hébert in the mid- or late 1750s probably at Pobomcoup near Cap-Sable, where his family lived. In the spring of 1759, after the fall of Louisbourg the previous summer, British forces rounded up the couple with other Cap-Sable families and held them on Georges Island in Halifax harbor, where their son was born in October. The following month, the British deported the Cap-Sable families to England, and English authorities promptly sent them on to Cherbourg in Normandy, which they reached in mid-January 1760. The couple baptized their son in Très-Ste.-Trinité Parish, Cherbourg, soon after their arrival. The mother died there in March 1760, age 25. The father died there the following August, age 28. If their son was still alive and living in France in 1785--he would have been in his mid-20s--he did not follow other Acadians to Spanish Louisiana.
In North America, the Acadians who had escaped the British in the late 1750s and took refuge on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore were inevitably caught up in the lingering war between the imperial rivals. After the fall of Québec in September 1759, the British gathered their forces to attack the remaining French strongholds in New France. In late June 1760, a British naval force from Louisbourg attacked Restigouche, now a major Acadian refuge. After a spirited fight in which Acadian militia and Mi'kmaq warriors played an important role, the French commander blew up his larger vessels and retreated up Rivière Restigouche, leaving the militia and the Indians to resist a British landing. Unable to capture the garrison and lay waste to the area, the British commander ordered his ships to return to their base at Louisbourg. In October, after the fall of Montréal, another British naval force, this one from Québec, returned to Restigouche to accept the French garrison's, and the Acadians', surrender. On 24 October 1760, French officers counted 1,003 Acadians still at Restigouche, including a Savoie family. A few months later, in January 1761, the family head's older brother, twice-widowed, remarried to an Arseneau from Malpèque, Île St.-Jean, at Restigouche. By 1762, the British had sent the brothers and hundreds of their fellow exiles to prison compounds in Nova Scotia, where they held them for the rest of the war. Two Savoies, one of them counted alone, another with a family of six, appear on a list of exiles at Fort Edward, Pigiguit, in 1762. The brothers from Restigouche and other Savoies with their families appeared on a repatriation list at Halifax in August 1763.
The war over, the hand full of Savoies still living in the British seaboard colonies, like their cousins being held in Nova Scotia, theoretically were free to go, but not until the British discerned their intenstion. Even then, colonial authorities discouraged repatriation. In 1763 in New York, a widow and eight of her Savoie children appeared on a French repatriation list in that colony. In June of that year, two Savoie families were likewise listed in Pennsylvania. In August, in South Carolina, a Savoie family appeared on a repatriation list there as well.
At war's end, most of the Savoies still in North America were living not in Nova Scotia or the seaboard colonies but in Canada, where some of them had gone as early as 1756. Though now also a British possession, the far-northern province was populated largely by fellow French Catholics, many of them Acadian exiles. So, in a colony nearly as old as Acadia, descendants of François Savoie began the slow, inexorable process of becoming Canadiennes. By the late 1760s, after members of the family moved on to Canada from some of the seaboard colonies, Savoies could be found on the upper St. Lawrence at Berthier-en-Haute, Deschambault, Île Dupas, Rivière-du-Loup now Louiseville, and St.-Cuthbert; also at Bouctouche, Miramichi, Néguac, and Pointe-du-Chêne on the Gulf shore of what became eastern New Brunswick; and on the northwestern side of New Brunswick on Rivière St.-Jean. They were especially numerous on the upper St. Lawrence between Trois-Rivières and Montréal. Typical of most, if not all, Acadian families, these Acadiennes of Canada lost touch with their Cadien cousins hundreds of miles away, and, until the Acadian reunions of the twentieth century, may even have forgotten the others existed.
Members of at least one Savoie family in the seaboard colonies went not to Canada, where the British ruled, but to the French
Antilles, where they did not. At least two of the
Savoies who had been held in New York
chose to resettle on French Martinique
Savoies being held in Nova Scotia at war's end faced a hard dilemma. The Treaty of Paris of February 1763 stipulated in its Article IV that persons dispersed by the war had 18 months to return to their respective territories. However, British authorities refused to allow any of the Acadian prisoners in the region to return to their former lands as proprietors. If Acadians chose to remain in, or return to, Nova Scotia, they could live only in small family groups in previously unsettled areas or work for low wages on former Acadian lands now owned by New-English "planters." If they stayed, they must also take the hated oath of allegiance to the new British king, George III, without reservation. They would also have to take the oath if they joined their many cousins in Canada or other parts of greater Acadia. After all that they had suffered on the question of the oath, few self-respecting Acadians would consent to take it if it could be avoided. Some Nova Scotia exiles chose to relocate to Miquelon, a French-controlled fishery island off the southern coast of Newfoundland. Others considered going to the French Antilles, where Acadian exiles in the British colonies, including Savoies, were going, or to the Illinois country, the west bank of which still belonged to France, or to French Louisiana, which, thanks to British control of Canada, was the only route possible to the Illinois country for Acadian exiles. Whatever their choice, many refused to remain under British rule. So they gathered up their money and their few possessions and prepared to leave their homeland. Of the 600 exiles who left Halifax in late 1764 and early 1765 bound for Cap-Français, St.-Domingue, 14 were Savoies.
Savoies settled early in Acadia, and they were among the earliest Acadians to seek refuge in Louisiana. All of them arrived in 1765 on at least three expeditions from Halifax via Cap-Français. A Savoie wife, who arrived in February 1765, followed her Broussard husband to lower Bayou Teche. A young bachelor and two wives, one of them his sister, went perhaps with the Broussards to lower Bayou Teche before moving up to the Opelousas prairies south of the present city. Most of the Savoies who came to the colony that year settled not on the western prairies but in the established Acadian community of Cabahannocer on the river above New Orleans. During the late 1760s and early 1770s, two Savoie cousins moved from the river to the Opelousas District and joined their kinsman already there. By the early 1790s, the Savoies still on the river joined the Acadian exodus from there to upper Bayou Lafourche. Two Savoie brothers from the upper Lafourche, in a reversal of the usual Acadian settlement pattern, returned to the river at the end of the colonial period, and one of them created a family line on the lower Acadian Coast in what became St. James and Ascension parishes. That center of family settlement, however, remained a small one compared to the others. During the antebellum period, Savoies in the western parishes resided in a number of communities from Prairie Faquetaique near present-day Ville Platte, then in St. Landry but now in Evangeline Parish; down to Charenton in St. Mary Parish on lower Bayou Teche; and as far west as Creole in the coastal marshes of what was then Calcasieu, now Cameron, Parish. They were especially numerous around Grand Coteau on the prairie south of Opelousas. On the southeastern bayous, Savoies settled along the Lafourche from Ascension and Assumption down to Lockport, and also on Bayou Terrebonne. They were especially numerous at Paincourtville in Assumption Parish, and at Raceland and Lockport in Lafourche Interior Parish.
Church records show no non-Acadian Savoie/Savoys living in Louisiana during the colonial period. A Joseph Savot married an Acadian Semere at Opelousas in December 1798, but he was a Frenchman, not an Acadian Savoy. A few Savoie/Savoys, called Foreign French by Louisiana natives, came to Louisiana after Jefferson's Purchase. After the War of 1861-65, freed persons named Savoie, probably the former slaves of Acadian members of the family, could be found in St. Landry Parish. ...
The family's name in Louisiana also is spelled Lavoit, Saboa, Savai, Savoi, Savoies, Savois, Savoit, Savoix, Savoye, Scavois, Scavoit.39
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Most, if not all, of the Acadian Savoies came to Louisiana from Halifax via Cap-Française, French St.-Domingue, in 1765. The first to arrive--a wife, her husband, and their son--reached New Orleans in February with the Broussard party. Marguerite Savoie's husband, in fact, was Joseph-Grégoire dit Petit Jo Broussard, second son of partisan leader Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil, leader of the party. Marguerite was pregnant on the voyage, and she gave Petit Jos a daughter on the way to Bayou Teche that spring. Next came three more Savoies--a young bachelor, his married sister and her Comeau husband, and a widow and her Léger children. They reached New Orleans that spring and likely followed the Broussards to lower Bayou Teche, but they did not remain. By the following spring, they had settled farther up the Teche in the Opelousas District, where the bachelor created a western branch of the family:
Oldest
Pierre Valcourt's second son Éloi married Aspasie Françoise Ursine, daughter of François Ursin Manuel and Laizey Reed, in a civil ceremony in St. Landry Parish in December 1853. Daughter Laura was born in St. Landry Parish in November 1862; ...
Pierre Valcourt's third son Valentin married Denise Frugé, place and date unrecorded. Their children, born in St. Landry Parish, included Cléopha on the Faquetaique Prairie in October 1861; Catherine in March 1864; ... They were living near Eunice by the late 1860s.
Pierre Valcourt's fourth and youngest son François may have married Eugénie David, also called a Savoie, perhaps a fellow Acadian, place and date unrecorded. Their children, born near Church Point, included Félix in October 1862; Alicia in October 1865; François, fils in June 1870; ...
F
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Edmond's t
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Second son Hilaire may have married fellow Acadian Marie Thelesia, called Thelesia and Thérèsia, Giroir at the Raceland church, Lafourche Parish, in February 1861. They did not remain on the Lafourche. Their children, born on the prairies and the lower Atchafalaya, included Hippolyte le jeune near Youngsville, Lafayette Parish, in February 1862; Jean Baptiste Prosper near Brashear, later Morgan, City, St. Mary Parish, on the lower Atchafalaya in August 1864; Numa near Youngsville in February 1867; Joseph Ozée in July 1869; ...
Hippolyte, fils's third son Désiré married Aspasie, daughter of Louis Sellers and his Acadian wife Aspasie Boudreaux, at the Vermilionville church in December 1849. Did they have any children?
Oldest
Oldest
Jean, fils, son of Jean Semer and Marguerite Héron, born in c1695 in "Quernesit," or Guernsey, one of the British-controlled Channel islands off the northwest coast of Normandy, married Marguerite, daughter of Michel Vincent and Marie-Josèphe Richard, at Grand-Pré in November 1717. The priest who recorded the marriage called Jean a Lemer. Another source calls him a Lemaire from Ireland. Marguerite gave Jean at least five children, four sons and a daughter, at Minas between 1720 and 1740. All of the sons married, three of them into the Trahan, Saulnier, and Landry families. The name of the youngest son's wife has been lost to history. In 1755, Jean Semer of Guernsey, wife Marguerite Vincent, and their sons and grandchildren were still at Minas. Le Grand Dérangement of the 1750s scattered this small family to the winds.
On 5 September 1755, the commander of New-English troops at Minas, Lieutenant-Colonel John Winslow, ordered the local men and older boys to gather at the Grand-Pré church, where his soldiers held them under armed guard until enough deportation transports could be gathered to take them and their families into exile. According to a list compiled for Winslow, Jean Semer's third son Joseph was one of the local habitants held in the church. Neither his father nor any of his brothers appeared on the list.
Joseph, wife Anne Landry, son Michel, and oldest brother Germain and his wife Marie Trahan--but not Germain and Marie's 11-year-old son Jean-Baptiste le jeune--were exiled to Virginia in late October, arriving there a month later, where they endured a fate worse than most of the other refugees deported from Minas. Virginia's governor Robert Dinwiddie refused to allow the hundreds of Acadians sent to him to remain in the colony. Exiles died on the five filthy, crowded ships anchored in Hampton Roads while Virginia authorities pondered their fate. As winter approached, the governor ordered exiles from one vessel moved up to Richmond, two of the vessels unloaded at Hampton, and two more at Norfolk. Finally, in the spring of 1756, the governor, his council, and the colony's Burgesses made their decision ... the "papists" must go! In May, the first shipment of exiles left for England, and in two weeks all of them had gone--299 to Bristol, 250 to Falmouth, 340 to Southampton, and 336 to Liverpool--1,225 Acadians in all by one count. Their ordeal only worsened in the English ports, where many died of smallpox. Joseph and Anne's daughter Marine was born in England in c1758.
Evidently Jean Semer and Marguerite Vincent, along with youngest son Amand and his wife Anne ____, and perhaps second son Jean-Baptiste l'aîné and his family, were deported from Minas to Massachusetts in December 1755. Called Lemaires, they appeared on a French repatriation list at Boston in August 1763, soon after the war with Britain ended. By 1766, most of the Acadians in New England resettled in British Canada. Some returned to greater Acadia, also now controlled by the British, to join relatives being held there. Others, escaping British rule, chose to go to French St.-Domingue to work on a new naval base on the island's northwest coast. Basile-Romaine Semeure "of Saint-Charles in Acadie," no parents or spouse given, died at Môle St.-Nicolas, site of the French naval base, in July 1778, age 25. An unnamed girl, no age given, daughter of ____ Semeure and Geneviève Renoche, died at Môle the following September. Judging by Basile-Romaine's place of origin, the Semeures in the sugar colony likely were descendants of Jean Semer.
In the spring of 1763, after prolonged negotiations between the French and British governments, the Acadians in England were repatriated to France, the Semers among them. Joseph and his family crossed on the transport Ambition to St.-Malo in late May 1763 and settled in the suburb of St.-Servan-sur-Mer, where, in 1763 and 1766, Anne gave Joseph two more daughters. Wife Anne Landry died at St.-Servan in June 1766, age 38. Meanwhile, brother Germain and wife Marie Trahan either landed at, or moved on to Le Havre in Normandy, where, in 1763 and 1768, Marie gave Germain a daughter and another son. In 1766, Germain received a letter from his older son Jean-Baptiste le jeune, who had sent it from New Orleans that April. Jean-Baptiste urged them to join him in Louisiana, where he had gone with the Beausoleil Broussards the year before, but French authorities refused to let Germain and his family go. In 1773, six years after their son had married in Louisiana, Germain, Marie, and their younger children, but not brother Joseph and his family, chose to follow other Acadians in the French coastal cities to the interior of Poitou as part of a major settlement venture near the city of Châtellerault. After two years of effort, they retreated with other Poitou Acadians down the Vienne and the Loire from Châtellerault to the port of Nantes, where they subsisted on government handouts, again, and what work they could find. Germain worked as a carpenter at the Hôpital du Sanitat in Nantes, where his wife Marie Trahan died in October 1776, age 56. Germain died at Nantes in December 1782, in his early 60s, three months after witnessing the marriage of a cousin at St.-Nicolas Parish church there.
When in the early 1780s the Spanish government offered the Acadians in France a chance for a new life in faraway Louisiana, Joseph Semer, now a widower in his late 50s, agreed to take it. With him would go three of his daughters, grown but still unmarried, and his brother Germain's children: Marie-Françoise, age 24, who had recently married fellow Acadian Joseph Boudrot at Nantes; and Grégoire-Dominique, age 16. Because of the letter sent to his brother back in 1766, Joseph had known for nearly 20 years that his nephew Jean-Baptiste Semer le jeune had been living in Louisiana at a place called Attakapas. Also with Jean-Baptiste le jeune in Louisiana were two of his Trahan uncles, Jean and Michel, one of them married to a Beausoleil Broussard. The Semers were determined to reunite with their kinsmen along the banks of Bayou Teche.
One of the many mysteries of the Acadians' Greast Upheaval is how Germain Semer's son Jean-Baptiste le jeune, only age 11 in 1755, became separated from his parents and remained in greater Acadia. Two possible scenarios present themselves: After escaping the chaos at Minas, perhaps with his Trahan relatives, Jean-Baptiste le jeune may have followed them to the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore and on to Restigouche at the head of the Baie des Chaleurs. By the early 1760s, now in his mid-teens, he may have been captured by, or surrendered to, British forces in the area, who held him with his Trahan relatives in a prison compound in Nova Scotia for the rest of the war. There is also the possibility that he did not escape the British at Minas in 1755 but became separated from his parents during the chaos of deportation and ended up in Massachusetts with his Semer grandfather and his Semer uncles Jean-Baptiste l'aîné and Amand. In 1763, at war's end, unable to reunite with his parents in France, he may have chosen to return to greater Acadia to join his relatives there. Or, from Massachusetts, he may have followed Semer kinsmen to French St.-Domingue with hopes of escaping British rule and making a new life in the sugar colony. He may have found conditions there so unbearable he looked for an opportunity to escape. When the Broussards, with three of his Trahan uncles, came through Cap-Français from Halifax in December 1764, Jean-Baptiste le jeune, now 21, may have joined them on their way to New Orleans.
The Semers were a small family in Acadia, and they remained a small family in Louisiana. However, a simple act of love by a member of this family has given us a priceless glimpse into the lives of our Acadian ancestors during exile. Jean-Baptiste Semer le jeune's April 1766 letter from New Orleans to his father at Le Havre, France, opens a window on the Acadian experience like few other documents that have come to light. Jean-Baptiste le jeune wrote the letter 14 months after he reached New Orleans with the Beausoleil Broussards in February 1765. He followed the Broussards to lower Bayou Teche, and, though he dictated his letter to a nun in New Orleans exactly a year after he settled on the distant bayou, he returned to the Teche, married a fellow Acadian there two years later, and created a family of his own. He never saw his parents again--they died at Nantes, France, before they had a chance to reunite with their son--but 20 years after he came to Louisiana, Jean-Baptiste did reunite with his uncle Joseph, whom he had not seen in 30 years, and with a brother, a sister, and two female cousins he had never met. After arriving on L'Amitié, the fifth of the Seven Ships from France, Joseph, a widower, led his daughters, his niece, and younger nephew from New Orleans to Bayou Teche to live near his long-lost nephew. Joseph never remarried and had no sons of his own. Jean-Baptiste le jeune's younger brother Grégoire, who lived till age 70, never married, so our letter writer was the sole progenitor of this South Louisiana family, which remained on the Teche.
The family may have owned a few slaves during the late antebellum period, but none of them appear on the federal slave schedules of 1850 and 1860. The Semeres were thus petit habitants, or small farmers, who participated only peripherally in the South's antebellum plantation-based economy. However, as early as the 1780s, non-Acadians with similar-sounding surnames also lived on Bayou Teche and on the nearby prairies near their Acadian namesakes. Most, if not all, of them--Semes, Semers, and Semeres--were free persons of color. Two Semés, a father and his young son, arrived at New Orleans from Le Havre, France, in April 1848. Their stated destination was Mississippi, so they probably did not remain in South Louisiana.
Only two Acadian Semeres served Louisiana in uniform during the War of 1861-65. Onésime and Joachim were grandsons of Jean Baptiste the letter writer. Onésime was about to turn 40 when, in January 1863, he enlisted in the Yellow Jackets Battalion Louisiana Infantry, raised in St. Martin Parish, which fought in South Louisiana. In November of that year, the Yellow Jackets became a part of the Consolidated 18th Regiment and Yellow Jackets Battalion Infantry, which also fought in Louisiana. Onésime was assigned to Company G of that unit. Meanwhile, younger brother Joachim, in his late 30s, enlisted in the 18th Regiment Louisiana Infantry, another unit with a large concentration of Acadians, which fought in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The identity of his company in the 18th Regiment has been lost. The Federals captured Joachim at Fausse Pointe near New Iberia in late November 1863, when Federal forces invaded the Teche-Vermilion region for the second time that year, sent him as a prisoner of war to New Orleans, and exchanged him at Red River Landing on the river above Baton Rouge the following July. Both brothers survived the war and returned to their families at Grande Pointe on upper Bayou Teche.
After the war, most of the descendants of Jean Baptiste Semer le jeune did not move very far from the family's home base. They can be found today in northern St. Martin Parish, especially at Breaux Bridge, Cecilia, and Henderson, near where their Acadian ancestor settled.
By the early 1800s, the family's name had evolved from Semer to Semere, which is how it is usually spelled today. The family's name in Louisiana also is spelled Cemair, Cemaire, Cemar, Chemer, Lemere, Seimair, Seimaire, Seimer, Seimere, Seinere, Semair, Semaire, Semar, Semé, Semeur, Seymaire, Seymer, Sumaire. This family should not be confused with that of Louis Simar of La Pointe Noire in the Opelousas District, who were French Canadians, not Acadians.40
Oldest
Louis Saulnier, a sailor born in France in c1663, came to Acadia by c1684, the year he married Louise Bastineau dit Peltier at Grand Pré. Louis died in c1730, in his late 60s, probably at Minas. Louise gave the sailor 14 children there, six sons and eight daughters. Five of their daughters married into the Boudrot, Boisseau dit Blondin, Lapierre, Oudy, and Hébert families. Five of Louis and Louise's sons married into the Hébert, Breau, Trahan, Comeau, and Darois families. In 1755, the sailor's descendants could be found not only at Minas, but also at Petitcoudiac in the trois-rivières region west of Chignecto; at Annapolis Royal, formerly Port-Royal; and on Île St.-Jean. Le Grand Dérangement of the 1750s scattered this large family even farther.
The Acadians at Chignecto and in the trois rivières were the first to endure a disruption of their lives. British and New-English forces attacked Fort Beauséjour at Chignecto in June 1755, and Saulniers from Petitcoudiac may have been among the local Acadians who were serving in the fort as militia. If so, they, too, along with Canadian militia and French troupes de la marine, became prisoners of war when the fort surrendered on June 16. Lieutenant-Governor Charles Lawrence was so incensed to find so-called French Neutrals fighting with French regulars at Beauséjour he ordered his officers to deport the Chignecto-area Acadians to the southernmost seaboard colonies. Residents of the trois-rivières ended up in South Carolina and Georgia, Saulniers from Petitcoudiac among them. Others, after escaping the British, sought refuge in Canada. A Saulnier died at Québec in December 1757, victim, perhaps, of the smallpox epidemic that struck Acadian refugees in and around the Canadian capital between the summer of 1757 and the spring of 1758. His first cousin from Annapolis Royal and members of the cousin's family also escaped to Canada. Three of the cousin's teenage daughters died at Québec in 1757, victims, perhaps, of the pox. Evidently most of the trois-rivières Saulniers who escaped the British at Chignecto ended up on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore, where they likely joined their fellow exiles at Shediac and Miramichi. Later, some of them also may have made their way up to Restigouche at the head of the Baie des Chaleurs. One suspects that some of these Saulniers may have joined the Acadian resistance.
Not all of the Saulniers who escaped the British were from the trois-rivières and Annapolis Royal. In 1755, most members of the family still lived at Minas, where the family's progenitor had settled in the 1680s. One Saulnier and his family escaped the British at Minas and also fled to Canada, where he remarried at St.-Joachim on the lower St. Lawrence below Québec. His younger brother and his family also escaped but likely sought refuge with their cousins on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore.
Some of the Saulniers at Minas were not so lucky. Several families were deported to Virginia, where they endured a fate worse than most of the other refugees deported from Minas. Virginia's governor, Robert Dinwiddie, refused to allow the hundreds of Acadians sent to him to remain in the colony. Exiles died on the five filthy, crowded transports anchored in Hampton Roads while Virginia authorities pondered their fate. As winter approached, the governor ordered exiles from one vessel moved up to Richmond, two of the vessels unloaded at Hampton, and two more at Norfolk. Finally, in the spring of 1756, the governor, his council, and the colony's Burgesses made their decision ... the "papists" must go! In May, the first shipment of exiles left for England, and in two weeks all of them had gone--299 to Bristol, 250 to Falmouth, 340 to Southampton, and 336 to Liverpool--1,225 exiles in all by one count. Their ordeal only worsened in the English ports, where they were held in warehouses, and where many died of smallpox. Saulniers were held at Liverpool. In May 1763, after prolonged negotiations between the French and British governments, the Saulniers in England were repatriated to France with hundreds of other exiles who had endured the ordeal there.
Already in France in 1763 were hundreds of Acadians, including a few Saulnier women, who, after the fall of the French fortress at Louisbourg in July 1758, the British had deported from Île St.-Jean to St.-Malo and other French ports. At least one of their Saulnier kin had not survived the crossing. One of the surviviors married a Frenchman from the Bordeaux area in c1768, place unrecorded. She followed him to the interior of Poitou in the early 1770s and to the lower Loire port of Nantes in December 1775. Between 1776 and 1785, she gave him three sons at Nantes. Another Saulnier and her Aucoin husband settled at Plouër-sur-Rance on the west side of the river south of St.-Malo, where, between 1763 and 1779, she gave him more children.
A Saulnier repatriated from England and his extended family chose to leave the mother country soon after they got there. In 1764 or 1765, he and his family followed other exiles in France to a new French colony in Guiane on the northeast coast of South America. French officials counted them at Sinnamary in the Cayenne district on 1 March 1765. The tropical climate and its fevers took its toll on them during their first months in Guiane. The family head, perhaps a widower again, returned to France later in the decade, remarried--again--to a Canadian widow at Rochefort in August 1769, and died there a few years later. One of his sons may have accompanied him back to France, but his three other sons remained in Guiane. Each of them married and died in the colony, and their children remained.
In the early 1780s, the Spanish government offered the Acadians in France the chance for a new life in faraway Louisiana. Three of the Saulniers still in the mother country agreed to take it. One Saulnier newlywed did not go to the Spanish colony. Her parents, if they were still living, also may have chosen to remain in the mother country.
In North America, Saulniers who had escaped the British in the late 1750s and sought refuge on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore were inevitably caught up in the lingering war between the imperial rivals. After the fall of Québec in September 1759, the British gathered their forces to attack the remaining French strongholds in New France. In late June 1760, a British naval force from Louisbourg attacked Restigouche, now a major Acadian refuge. After a spirited fight in which Acadian militia and Mi'kmaq warriors played an important role, the French commander blew up his larger vessels and retreated up Rivière Restigouche, leaving the militia and the Indians to resist a British landing. Unable to capture the garrison or lay waste to the area, the British commander ordered his ships to return to their base at Louisbourg. The following October, after the fall of Montréal, another British naval force, this one from Québec, returned to Restigouche to accept the garrison's, and the Acadians', surrender. On 24 October 1760, on the eve of formal surrender, French officers counted 1,003 Acadians still at Restigouche. None were Saulniers. During the following months, other refugees, like the Saulniers, either were captured by, or surrendered to, British forces in the region and were held in prison compounds in Nova Scotia for the rest of the war. In 1761-62, British officials counted Saulniers at Fort Edward, Pigiguit. Saulniers also appeared on a repatriation list at Halifax in August 1763.
At war's end, Saulniers still in North America were living not only in Nova Scotia, but also in Canada, where some of them had gone as early as 1756. Though now also a British possession, the far-northern province was populated largely by fellow French Catholics, many of them Acadian exiles. So, in a colony nearly as old as Acadia, descendants of Louis Saulnier began the slow, inexorable process of becoming Canadiennes. By the late 1760s, they could be found on the St. Lawrence below Québec at St.-Joachim and Baie St.-Paul. In Nova Scotia, later a part of Canada, they settled on the Baie Ste.-Marie, today's St. Mary's Bay, along the peninsula's southwest coast. Saulniers were especially plentiful at Pointe-de-l'Église, today's Church Point, and, one suspects, at nearby Saulnierville on the bay. Typical of most, if not all, Acadian families, these Acadiennes lost touch with their Cadien cousins hundreds of miles away, and, until the Acadian reunions of the twentieth century, may even have forgotten the others existed.
Acadians being held in Nova Scotia at war's end faced a hard dilemma. The Treaty of Paris of February 1763 stipulated in its Article IV that persons dispersed by the war had 18 months to return to their respective territories. However, British authorities refused to allow any of the Acadian prisoners in the region to return to their former lands as proprietors. If Acadians chose to remain in, or return to, Nova Scotia or other parts of greater Acadia, as some of the Saulniers were about to do, they could live only in small family groups in previously unsettled areas or work for low wages on former Acadian lands now owned by New-English "planters." If they stayed, they must also take the hated oath of allegiance to the new British king, George III, without reservation. They would also have to take the oath if they joined their cousins in Canada. After all that they had suffered on the question of the oath, few self-respecting Acadians would consent to take it if it could be avoided. Some Nova Scotia exiles chose to relocate to Miquelon, a French-controlled fishery island off the southern coast of Newfoundland. Others considered going to French St.-Domingue, where Acadian exiles in the British colonies were going, or to the Illinois country, the west bank of which still belonged to France, or to French Louisiana, which, thanks to British control of Canada, was the only route possible to the Illinois country for Acadian exiles. Whatever their choice, many refused to remain under British rule. So they gathered up their money and their few possessions and prepared to leave their homeland. Of the 600 exiles who left Halifax in late 1764 and early 1765 bound for Cap-Français, St.-Domingue, 13 were Saulniers.
Saulniers settled early in Acadia and were among the earliest Acadians to find refuge in Louisiana. Most of them--and all of the males who created family lines--came to Louisiana from Halifax via Cap-Français in 1765 on at least two expeditions. The first came with, or just behind, the Broussards, followed them to the lower Bayou Teche, and, perhaps to escape the Teche-valley epidemic that summer and fall, moved back up bayou to the Opelousas prairies, where two vigorous lines of the family emerged. Others who came later that year settled at Cabahannocer on the river above New Orleans, where two more family lines began on what soon became known as the Acadian Coast. Among the 1765 arrivals were seven Saulnier females who were already a part of, or soon married into, the Babin, Cormier, Thibodeau, Chrétien, Forest, Lescossier, Layur, and Léger families. Three Saulnier wives and their Hamon, Aucoin, and Boutary husbands came to the colony on two of the Seven Ships from France in 1785 and settled on upper Bayou Lafourche or joined their cousins on the western prairies. By the early antebellum period, Sonniers on the river had moved either to lower Bayou Teche or to Bayou Lafourche, where a small center of family settlement emerged. Throughout the late colonial and antebellum periods, however, the great majority of Sonniers, most of them descended from two of the brothers from Petitcoudiac who had settled at Opelousas, lived in prairie communities from the Opelousas area down to lower Bayou Teche. They were especially numerous at Bellevue and Grand Coteau in St. Landry Parish; at Carencro, La Butte, and Grand Prairie in Lafayette Parish; and at Fausse Pointe on lower Bayou Teche in St. Martin and Iberia parishes.
French Sauniers, two of them from Paris, settled in Louisiana as early as the 1730s, and settlers with similar-sounding surnames lived on the river and on upper Bayou Lafourche during the late antebellum period. Nevertheless, the great majority of the Sonniers of South Louisiana are descendants of Louis Saulnier and his sons from Minas and Petitcoudiac. ...
In Louisiana, the family's name evolved from Saulnier to Saunier and then to Sonnier, perhaps because of Spanish influence. The family's name in Louisiana also is spelled Saugnier, Saulnié, Saulny, Sauniae, Saunié, Saunnier, Sogné, Sognet, Sognier, Sogny, Sognyer, Soigné, Soignée, Soignet, Soignez, Soignié, Soignier, Soinier, Solnier, Sommé, Somnier, Soné, Sonia, Sonié, Sonier, Sonné, Sonner, Sonnié, Sounier, Suanier. These humble Acadians should not be confused with a French-Creole family named Songé, also spelled Sogny, Songi, Songy, Sonsi, and Sonsy; and the aristocratic French Creoles named Soniat Duffosat, also spelled Sognac, Sonac, and Soniac.41
.
The Acadian Sonniers of Louisiana descend from two sets of brothers who came to the colony in 1765. The first set, actually half-brothers, arrived at New Orleans from Halifax either with the Broussards in February or soon afterwards and followed them to the Attakapas District:
Sylvain (c1736-1801) à Louis Sonnier
Sylvain, oldest son of Étienne Saulnier by his first wife Jeanne Comeau, born probably at Petitcoudiac in c1736, escaped the British roundup there and found refuge on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore. He and his family ended up as prisoners of war in Nova Scotia in the early 1760s and appeared on a repatriation list at Halifax in August 1763. Sylvain came to Louisiana from Halifax via St.-Domingue in 1765, a bachelor in his late 20s, with a younger half-brother, and followed his kinsmen to the Opelousas District, where, in his early 30s, he married Marie-Madeleine, called Madeleine, daughter of fellow Acadians Charles Bourg and Anne dit Titan Boudrot of Île St.-Jean, in the late 1760s. Madeleine, a native of Tracadie, Île St.-Jean, in her early 20s at the time of the wedding, had come to Louisiana with her widowed mother and siblings with the Broussards in February 1765, followed them to Bayou Teche, and remained on the prairies. She and Sylvain settled on Prairie Bellevue south of the present city of Opelousas. Their children, born there, included Marie-Louise, called Louise, in the late 1760s; Catherine, also called Gertrude, in c1770; Sylvain, fils in February 1771; Céleste in February 1772; Joseph in April 1776; Étienne le jeune baptized at the Opelousas church, age unrecorded, in August 1779 but died at age 1 in August 1780; Charles baptized, age 4 1/2 months, in August 1781; Leufroi, also called Godefroi, born in May 1788; and Éloi in c1791 but died in Lafayette Parish, age 45, in July 1836--nine children, three daughters and six sons, between the late 1760s and 1791. Sylvain was one of the 11 Opelousas settlers who petitioned Spanish Governor Ulloa in March 1768 for assistance with oxen and plows to grow wheat in the district. The experiment failed, and he and other prairie Acadians turned to cattle production for the New Orleans market. In 1771, Sylvain owned 43 head of cattle and 15 horses on 6 arpents of land without title. In 1774, he was running 120 head of cattle with eight horses and mules and owned 30 swine. In 1777, his herd had increased to 150 head, and he owned two slaves, 11 horses, and 45 hogs. By 1788, he owned eight slaves, 300 head of cattle, and 34 horses on 32 arpents of land. The number of his slaves had increased to 11 by 1796. Sylvain, père died at Opelousas in January 1801, in his mid-60s. Daughters Marie-Louise, Céleste, and Catherine/Gertrude married into the Thibodeaux, Dugas, Missonier, Comeaux, and Martin families. Three of Sylvain's sons also married and settled in St. Landry and Lafayette parishes, but not all of the lines endured. His oldest son's line was especially prolific.
Oldest son Sylvain, fils married Émilie, called Humile, Humilde, and Mélite, daughter of fellow Acadians Charles Comeaux and Anastasie Savoie, at the Opelousas church in May 1789. Their children, born there, included Sylvain III in April 1789 but died at age 5 in January 1796; Joseph dit Cadz born in August 1792; Louis dit Valière in August 1797; Gilbert baptized at the Opelousas church, age unrecorded, in October 1800; and another Sylvain III born in c1801. Sylvain, fils remarried to Judith, daughter of Italian Donato Bello and his Creole wife Susanne Moreau, at the Opelousas church in December 1802. Their children, born there, included Donat or Donato in c1803 and baptized at the Opelousas church, age 5, in February 1808; Valéry born in c1804 and baptized, age 4, in February 1808; a child, name unrecorded, died at age 10 days in March 1806; Élise born in c1807 and baptized, age 1, in February 1808; Louis, also called Don or Jean Louis, born in March 1808; Benigne or Bélisle, also called William B., baptized, age 9 months, in September 1812; Florian or Floriant born in April 1814; Léander or Léandre in February 1837[sic, perhaps 1817 or 1827]; Judith in c1818; and Azélie posthumously in May 1830--15 children, at least 11 sons and two daughters, by two wives, between 1789 and 1830. Sylvain, fils's succession, naming his wives and some of their sons--Sylvain, fils; Joseph; Louis; and Gilbert--was filed at the Opelousas courthouse, St. Landry Parish, in October 1821. He died "at the home of Charles Saunier," probably his younger brother, in Lafayette Parish in September 1829. The Vermilionville priest who recorded the burial said that Sylvain was age 63 when he died. He was 58. Daughter Judith, by his second wife, married into the Derbonne family. Nine of Sylvain, fils's sons also married.
Second son Joseph dit Cadz, by first wife Émilie Comeaux, married Marie Adeline, also called Juliènne, Juliette, and Zéline, daughter of fellow Acadians Joseph dit Mines Guidry and Scholastique Hébert of Bayou Vermilion, at the St. Martinville church, St. Martin Parish, in February 1811. They settled on the Vermilion. Their children, born there, included Juliènne in January 1812; a daughter, name unrecorded, died at age 8 months in September 1813; Charles, also called Charles Émile, born in February 1815; a daughter, name unrecorded, died eight days after her birth in April 1817; Joseph, fils born in June 1818; Éliza or Élisa in November 1820; Eusèbe dit Cadet "before term" in November 1822 but died at age 3 1/2 in June 1826; Émilie dite Émilite born in January 1825; Jean, also called John, in December 1826; Sosthène in October 1830; Félicia baptized at the Vermilionville church, age 5 1/2 months, in August 1833 but died the following June; and Edward, Eduard, or Edval born in May 1836--a dozen children, six daughters and six sons, between 1812 and 1836. Daughters Juliènne, Émilie, and Élisa married Guidry cousins, including two brothers, by 1870. Five of Cadz's sons also married by then.
Oldest son Charles Émile married Carmélite, daughter of fellow Acadians Ursin Hébert and Marguerite Richard, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in August 1838. Their children, born in Lafayette Parish, included Ursain or Ursin Théodule, called Théodule, in February 1840; Aurelien in February 1841; Marguerite in September 1843; Marie Lisida in February 1848; Irma in May 1850; Adrien in March 1852; and Joseph in February 1854--seven children, four sons and three daughters, between 1840 and 1854. None of Charles Émile's daughters married by 1870, but one of his sons did.
Oldest son Théodule married Marie Coralie, called Coralie, daughter of fellow Acadians Firmin Breaux and Cléorine Richard and widow of Valérien Breause, in a civil ceremony in St. Landry Parish in January 1866, and sanctified the marriage at the Church Point church, then in St. Landry but now in Acadia Parish, in July 1869. ...
Cadz's second son Joseph, fils married Carmélite or Camille, daughter of fellow Acadians Leufroi Boudreaux and Marie Hébert, at the Vermilionville church in February 1837. Their children, born in Lafayette Parish, included Joseph III baptized at age 10 days in early June 1838 but died a few days later; Sevigny baptized at the Vermilionville church, age 1 1/2 months, in June 1839; Sevènne born in December 1842; Marie in January 1847; Philomène in December 1849; and Marie Azéma in April 1854--six children, three sons and three daughters, between 1838 and 1854. None of their children married by 1870.
Cadz's fourth son Jean, also called John, may have married Émelie Fontenot at the Grand Coteau church, St. Landry Parish, in January 1849. Their children, born on the prairies, included Marie Alsina in Lafayette Parish in December 1849; Ignace in August 1856; Joséphine Gadracque in July 1858; Marie Ezema near Church Point, then in St. Landry but now in Acadia Parish, in May 1862; ... None of Jean's children married by 1870.
Cadz's fifth son Sosthène may have married fellow Acadian Célestine Natalie, called Natalie, Broussard, in the late 1840s and lived near Grand Coteau before moving to Bayou Queue de Tortue on the prairie west of Vermilionville by the early 1850s. Their children, born there, included Aminte in June 1851; a daughter, name and age unrecorded, died in July 1852; Joseph Adras born in July 1852 but, unnamed, died at age 2 1/2 in December 1855; and a child, name and age unrecorded, died in July 1858--four children, at least two daughters and a son, between 1851 and 1858. None of Sosthène's children married by 1870.
Cadz's sixth and youngest son Edward, Eduard, or Edval married Marie Célestine, called Célestine, daughter of fellow Acadian Alexandre Cormier and his Creole wife Susanne Ledoux, at the Church Point church in July 1869. They settled on the prairie between Church Point and Vermilionville. Their son Antoine had been born near Church Point in December 1868; ...
Syvain, fils's third son Louis dit Valière, by first wife Émilie Comeaux, married Denise, daughter of Pierre Carrière of St. John the Baptist Parish and Marie Louise Vivarene of Illinois, at the Opelousas church, St. Landry Parish, in February 1816. They settled at Bois de Mallet near present-day Eunice. Their children, born there, included Louis, fils in November 1816 but died the following March; Marie Louise born in November 1819; Aurelien in the late 1810s or early 1820s; Sylvain le jeune in February 1822; Denise in October 1823; Adrien in the 1820s or early 1830s; Aureline in June 1832; and Valérien in April 1834--eight children, five sons and three daughters, between 1816 and 1834. Louis's succession was filed at the Opelousas courthouse in March 1862. He would have been age 65 that year. One wonders if it was post-mortem. His wife, called "Madame Louis Sonnier" by the recording priest at the Opelousas church, died "at Bois Malette," age 62, the following December. One wonders if her death was war-related. Daughters Marie Louise and Denise married Sonnier and Derbonne cousins by 1870. Two of Louis's sons also married by then, but not all of the lines endured.
Second son Aurelien married first cousin Émeline dite Méline, daughter of Michel Derbonne and his Acadian wife Mélite Sonnier, at the Opelousas church in January 1848. Their children, born in St. Landry Parish, included Angelas in June 1850 but, called Angelus, died at age 15 1/2 (the recording priest said 16) in January 1867 (oddly, despite his age, a succession calling him Agelus, "a minor," was filed at the Opelousas courthouse the following April); Dutil born in October 1851; Marie Camelia in June 1854; and Elma in December 1861--four children, two sons and two daughters, between 1850 and 1861. Aurelien's succession, naming his wife, was filed at the Opelousas courthouse in October 1865. If this was a post-mortem succession, one wonders if his death was war-related. None of his children married by 1870.
Louis dit Valière's fourth son Adrien married Unibonne, also called Oniléone, daughter of Jean Baptiste Lebleu and his Acadian wife Marguerite Lejeune and widow of Martin Daigle, at the Grand Coteau church in August 1862. They settled near Church Point. Their son Colombe was born there in January 1866; ...
Sylvain, fils's fourth son Gilbert, by first wife Émilie Comeaux, married Louise Céleste, called Céleste, daughter of fellow Acadians Joseph Babin and Anastasie Melançon, at the St. Martinville church in February 1826. Their children, born on the prairies, included Joseph Vileor baptized at the Vermilionville church, age 5 months, less 8 days, in October 1829; Amélie born in September 1831; and Anastasie born in February 1835 but died the following November (the recording priest said at age 2 1/2 years, but it was only 9 months). A succession for wife Céleste, probably post-mortem, was filed at the St. Martinville courthouse in late July 1838, soon after his remarriage to Madeleine Élise, called Élise and Élisa, daughter of fellow Acadians Valentin Landry and Céleste Bourgeois and widow of Alexandre Breaux, at the St. Martinville church in mid-July 1838. Their children, born in St. Martin Parish, included François Alcide, called Alcide, in April 1839 but died at age 1 1/2 in August 1840; Gustave born in December 1840 but, called Augustave, died at age 4 1/2 in September 1845; Charles Numa born in September 1843 but, called Numa, died at age 2 in October 1847; and Marie Fanilie or Fanelie born in February 1847 but died in June--seven children, four sons and three daughters, by two wives, between 1829 and 1847. Gilberts's remaining daughter did not marry by 1870, if she married at all, but his remaining son did.
Oldest Joseph Vileor, by first wife Louise Céleste Babin, married Mathilde, daughter of Joseph Castille and his Acadian wife Céleste LeBlanc, at the Breaux Bridge church, St. Martin Parish, in July 1849. Their children, born near Breaux Bridge, included Joseph Hertel in June 1850; and Jean Derneville in March 1852. Joseph Vileor remarried to Emérante McBride, place unrecorded, in the 1850s. Their children, born in Lafayette Parish, included Joseph W. in January 1859; and Gustave in February 1860--four children, all sons, by two wives, between 1850 and 1860. None of Joseph Vileor's sons married by 1870.
Sylvain, fils's fifth son Sylvain III, the second with the name, by first wife Émilie Comeaux, took up in his late teens with Joséphine dite Josette, daughter of Joseph Bello, also called Chevalier, Poiret, and Manac, in the late 1810s, and, while in his late 30s, sanctified the union at the Opelousas church in June 1839. Their children, born in St. Landry Parish, included Sylvain IV in February 1818; Carlos in August 1821; Sophie in October 1823; Joséphine in January 1827; Félicité in the late 1820s or the early 1830s; and Sylvanie in February 1832--five children, two sons and three daughters, between 1818 and 1832. Sylvain III's succession, calling him Sylvain Sr. and naming his wife, was filed at the Opelousas courthouse in October 1851. He would have been in his early 50s. Daughters Sophie, Joséphine, Félicité, and Sylvanie married into the Sabadie or Savadie, Carrière, Miller, and Rivière families by 1870. One of Sylvain III's sons also married by then.
Oldest son Sylvain IV married, at age 18, first cousin Marie Louise, called Louise, 17-year-old daughter of fellow Acadian Louis dit Valière Sonnier and his Creole wife Denise Carrière, his uncle and aunt, at the Opelousas church in January 1837. Their children, born in St. Landry Parish, included Silvain or Sylvain V in March 1838; Valérien Silvain or Sylvain, also called Sylvain Valérien, in January 1840; Sidonie in 1842 but died at age 10 months in June 1843; Lorenza born in January 1845; Carlos le jeune in August 1847; Joséphine in April 1852; Joseph Unique in August 1862; ... Wife Marie Louise's succession was filed at the Opelousas courthouse in December 1866. She would have been age 46 that year. Sylvain IV likely remarried to Marie Ozea, daughter of Sylvain Benoit and Joséphine Belles, at the Eunice church, St. Landry Parish, in September 1869. Daughters ... married into the Derosier family by 1870. One of Sylvain IV's sons also married by then.
Second son Sylvain Valérien, called Sylvain V by the recording clerk, from first wife Marie Louise Sonnier, married Valentine Ygnace Fontenot in a civil ceremony in St. Landry Parish in May 1863. Their son Arthur Erange was born in St. Landry Parish in December 1865. Sylvain Valérien, called Valérien by the recording clerk and the recording priest, remarried to Joséphine, daughter of Joel Kinny and Clémentine LeBoeuf, in a civil ceremony in St. Landry Parish in March 1866, and sanctified the marriage at the Church Point church in April. ...
Sylvain, fils's sixth son Donat or Donato, by second wife Judith Bello, married cousin Émilie, Émilite, Carmélite or Mélite Françoise, daughter of François Casanueva and Brigitte Bello, at the Opelousas church in August 1824. Their children, born in St. Landry Parish, included Asélie in May 1825; Aséline in May 1827; Judith in March 1832; Célanie in August 1835; Donat, fils in January 1837; Émilie Donat near Grand Coteau in May 1840; Jean in July 1842; and Éloise in December 1845--eight children, six daughters and two sons, between 1825 and 1845. Daughter ... married into the Miller family by 1870. One of Donat's sons also married by then.
Older son Donat, fils married Flavie Lacase probably in St. Landry Parish in the late 1850s or early 1860s. They settled on the prairies between Ville Platte and Eunice. Their children, born there, included Valérien in November 1861; Donat III in August 1864; Donatien in January 1870; ...
Sylvain, fils's seventh son Valéry, by second wife Judith Bello, married Arthémise, "natural" daughter of Pierre Carrière and Jacente Carrière, at the Opelousas church in October 1824. Their children, born in St. Landry Parish, included Arthémise in November 1828; Valléry or Valéry, fils in October 1829; Paulin in June 1831; Constance in June 1833; Don or Jean Louis Valéry near Grand Coteau in January 1838, Silvain or Sylvain le jeune in April 1841; and Mélina in September 1847--seven children, three daughters and four sons, between 1828 and 1847. Daughters ... married into the Moreau and Lacase families by 1870. Three of Valéry's sons also married by then.
Oldest son Valéry, fils may have married cousin Zélima Sonnier in the late 1840s, place unrecorded. Their daughter Azélima was born in St. Landry Parish in January 1850 and did not marry by 1870. Did they have anymore children?
Valéry, père's second son Paulin married Marie Gimber, place and date unrecorded. Their son Olivier Jemes was born in St. Landry Parish in March 1862; ...
Valèry, père's third son Don Louis Valéry married Zéolide, daughter of François Ignace Fontenot and Lucie Derouen, at the Opelousas church in February 1861. ...
Sylvain, fils's eighth son Don or Jean Louis, by second wife Judith Bello, married, at age 19, Carmélite, called Émilite and Mélite, 15- or 16-year-old daughter of Urbin Carrière and Émilite Lacase, at the Opelousas church in November 1827. Their children, born in St. Landry Parish, included Éliza in November 1828; a child, name unrecorded, died "as a newborn" in April 1831; Azélia born in March 1832; Célimène in late 1834 and baptized at 7 months in May 1835; Don or Jean Louis, fils born in October 1837 but, called Louis, may have died in St. Martin Parish at age 12 in October 1849; Eurasie born in February 1843; and Rosaline in December 1845--seven children, at least five daughters and a son, between 1828 and 1845. Don Louis, père's succession, calling his wife Carmélite, was filed at the Opelousas courthouse in December 1854. He would have been age 46 that year. Daughters Eurasie, ... married into the Charlot, Doguet, and McDaniel families, so the blood of the family line may have endured.
Sylvain, fils's ninth Benigne or Bélisle, also called William B., from second wife Judith Bello, married Rosaline, 18-year-old daughter of William McKay and Françoise Carrière, at the Opelousas church in July 1834. She evidently gave him no children. Bélisle remarried to Éloise or Louise, 19-year-old daughter of Michel Lacase and Éloise Carrière, at the Opelousas church in April 1839. Their children, born in St. Landry Parish, included Marie Helaize in September 1841; Charles Bellisle or Bélisle, called Bélisle, fils, in January 1846; Béllisaire in May 1862; ... Bélisle's daughter did not marry by 1870, but one of his sons did.
Older son Bélisle, fils, by second wife Éloise Carrière, married Clémentine, daughter of Pierre Mouille and Félicité Durio, at the Eunice church, St. Landry Parish, in September 1870. ...
Sylvain, fils's tenth son Florian or Floriant, by second wife Judith Bello, married 17-year-old Cephalide, Sephalie, or Sephalide, another daughter of Ursin Carrière and Émilite Lacase, at the Opelousas church in July 1834. Their children, born in St. Landry Parish, included Octave in October 1837; Joachine in November 1843; Melida in January 1847; Azilda in May 1852; Gerand in August 1854; Étienne in March 1861; ... Daughter ... married into the François family by 1870. One of Florian's sons also married by then.
Oldest son Octave married Juliènne, Juliana, Julima, or Julie, daughter of Jean Louis Miller and Zuline Bello, at the Opelousas church in April 1861. Their children, born in St. Landry Parish, included Octavie in June 1862; Octave, fils in January 1865; ...
Sylvain, père's fourth son Charles took up with Sophie, daughter perhaps of Donatto Bello and Susanne Moreau and a sister of his older brother Sylvain, fils's second wife, at Opelousas in the early 1800s. Charles and Sophie's children, born in what became St. Landry Parish, included "natural son" Charles, fils in April 1805 but died at age 14 in July 1819, an hour after his baptism; Sylvain le jeune born in December 1807; Sophie in September 1811; and Juditte or Judith in May 1818--four children, two sons and two daughters, between 1805 and 1818. Charles died in Lafayette Parish in September 1843. The Vermilionville priest who recorded the burial said that Charles died "at age 65 yrs." He was closer to 62. Daughters Sophie and Judith married into the Winkler and Richard families. One wonders if, except perhaps for its blood, this family line endured.
Sylvain, père's fifth son Leufroi, also called Godefroi, married Marie Céleste Carmélite, called Carmélite, daughter of fellow Acadians Charles Comeaux, fils and Perpétué Broussard of Côte Gelée, at the St. Martinville church in January 1809. They settled at Côte Gelée and at Grand Prairie on the upper Vermilion in what became Lafayette Parish. Their children, born there, included Marie Carmélite Cidalise in November 1809; Leufroi, fils in October 1811; Éloi le jeune in August 1813; Charles in August 1815; Azélie in May 1818 but died at age 4 1/2 (the recording priest said 18 months) in December 1822; Félix born in January 1821; Valérie or Valéry in January 1824; Sosthène in late 1826 and baptized at the Vermilionville church, age 2 1/2 months, in February 1827 but died at age 16 (the recording priest said 14) in October 1842; Jacques, also called Jacques Euclide and Euclide, born in August 1829; Sevigné in c1833 and baptized, age 1, in July 1834 but died at age 1 1/2 in March 1835; and Alphred or Alfred baptized at age 3 months in July 1837--11 children, two daughters and nine sons, between 1809 and 1837. A succession for wife Marie Carmélite, probably post-mortem, naming her husband, was filed at the Vermilionville courthouse in August 1847. Leufroi, père died in Lafayette Parish in December 1848. The Vermilionville priest who recorded the burial said that Leufroi died "at age 65 yrs." He was 60. Daughter Marie Carmélite married into the Richard family by 1870. Four of Leufroi's sons also married by then, three of them to Landrys.
Oldest son Leufroi, fils married Françoise Aureline, called Aureline, daughter of fellow Acadians Alexandre Landry and Marie Brasseaux, at the Vermilionville church in October 1834. Their children, born in Lafayette Parish, included Clara, also called Maria Clara, baptized at the Vermilionville church, age 2 months, in September 1835; Émilie born in late 1836 and baptized at age 3 months in January 1837; Siphorien or Symphorien born in late 1838 and baptized, age 18 months, in May 1840; Eugénie born in July 1843; and Guillaume in December 1848--five children, three daughters and two sons, between 1835 and 1848. Daughter Maria Clara married into the Comeaux family by 1870. Neither of Leufroi, fils's sons married by then.
Leufroi, père's second son Éloi le jeune married Marie Basilise, called Basilise, daughter of fellow Acadians Pierre Landry and Françoise Landry, at the Vermilionville church in April 1834. Their children, born in Lafayette Parish, included Pierre Edgar, called Edgar, baptized at the Vermilionville church, age 2 months, in April 1835; Jean Hopar or perhaps Azenor born in 1836 and baptized, age 6 months, in February 1837; Charles le jeune born in January 1839; Ursule in May 1841; Olivier in July 1846; Euclides in May 1849; Carmélite in October 1851; and Émilie in August 1854--eight children, five sons and three daughters, between 1835 and 1854. Daughter ... married into the Bellaire family by 1870. Four of Éloi le jeune's sons also married by then.
Oldest son Edgar married Amelia or Émelia Fabre probably in Lafayette Parish in the late 1850s. They settled near Youngsville, Lafayette Parish. Their children, born there, included Françoise in July 1857; Leufroi le jeune in May 1859; Edwina in March 1863; ... Edgar's succession was filed at the Vermilionville courthouse in February 1870. He would have been age 35 that year.
Éloi le jeune's second son Jean Azenor, also called Jean Hopar, married Marie Julia Coulard, place and date unrecorded, and settled near Patoutville, now Lydia, Iberia Parish, by the late 1860s. ...
Éloi le jeune's third son Charles le jeune may have married Elizabeth Bellaire at the Abbeville church, Vermilion Parish, in January 1861. They settled on the lower Vermilion. Their children, born there, included Marie Natilia in September 1862; Albert was born in April 1867; ...
Éloi le jeune's fourth son Olivier married Léontine, also called Cléontine, daughter of Treville Fabre and his Acadian wife Clémentine Broussard, at the Youngsville church, Lafayette Parish, in April 1868. They also settled on the lower Vermilion. Their children, born there, included Cléobule in January 1869, Edgar le jeune in November 1870; ...
Leufroi, père's seventh son Jacques Euclide, called Euclide, married Eugénie Besida, Lesida, or Resida, daughter of fellows Acadian Éloi Landry and Marie Berthilde Landry, at the Vermilionville church in May 1853. They settled on the prairies and upper Bayou Teche. Their children, born there, included a child, name unrecorded, died "shortly after birth" in Lafayette Parish in June 1856; Marie Carmélite born in September 1857; Leufroy le jeune near Grand Coteau in November 1861; Léontia near Breaux Bridge in December 1864; Éloi le jeune in December 1866; ...
Leufroi, père's ninth and youngest son Alfred married Marie, Marine, or Maxine Frederick, place and date unrecorded. They settled on the prairie between Vermilionville and Church Point, then in St. Landry but not in Acadia Parish. Their children, born there, included a child, name unrecorded, died "at age a few days" in February 1858; Leufroi le jeune born in November 1858; Augustave in August 1863; Valérie in September 1864; Jacques le jeune in February 1867; Albert in July 1869; ...
Olivier (c1752-?) à Louis Sonnier
Olivier, second son of Étienne Saulnier by his second wife Anne Darois, born probably at Petitcoudiac in c1752, escaped the British roundup there and was taken to the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore. He and his family ended up as prisoners of war in Nova Scotia; they appeared on a repatriation list at Halifax in August 1763. Olivier, in his early teens, came to Louisiana in 1765 with older half-brother Sylvain and followed him to the Opelousas District. Olivier's succession was filed at what became the Opelousas courthouse in August 1775, though a census at Opelousas in May 1777 counted him as a bachelor who owned no slaves, 15 head of cattle, and four horses. He does not seem to have married.
Joseph (c1756-1820) à Louis Sonnier
Joseph, third and youngest son of Étienne Saulnier by his second wife Anne Darois, born in exile in greater Acadia in c1756, followed his family into imprisonment in Nova Scotia. Joseph came to Louisiana in 1765 with an older sister and followed her and his older brothers to the Opelousas prairies. Spanish officials counted him at Opelousas in 1771 with the family of sister Françoise, wife of Pierre Thibodeaux. By 1774, while still a young bachelor living alone, he owned five head of cattle and three horses and mules. At age 22, he married Marie, 16-year-old daughter of fellow Acadians Olivier Thibodeaux and Madeleine Broussard, at the Attakapas church in January 1779. Marie also had come to Louisiana from Halifax in 1765. She and Joseph settled on Prairie Bellevue near his older half-brother Sylvain. Joeph and Marie's children, born on the prairies, included Marie baptized at the Opelousas church, age unrecorded, in March 1780; Joseph dit Padillau baptized, age 6 months, in August 1781; Marie-Madeleine, Madeleine, baptized, age 4 months, in July 1782; Pierre born in the early 1780s; Jean-Baptiste, called Baptiste, in March 1785; Céleste in January 1788; Placide in c1789; Alexandre baptized, age unrecorded, in July 1790 but died at age 18 "at his parents' home" at La Butte in January 1809; Cyrille born in 1794 and baptized, age 8 months, in May 1795; Félonise born in c1796 but died at age 2 in March 1799; another Marie, probably Marie Doralie, called Doralie, born in February 1797; yet another Marie in January 1799; and a child, name and age unrecorded, died in February 1801--13 children, at least six daughters and six sons, between 1780 and 1801. In 1788, Joseph owned 10 head of cattle and 30 horses on 13 arpents of land at Bellevue. In the early 1800s, he and Marie moved south to Grand Prairie on upper Bayou Vermilion then farther up to La Butte between present-day Lafayette and Breaux Bridge, and finally to Carencro at the northern edge of the old Attakapas District. Wife Marie's succession, perhaps post-mortem, was filed at the St. Martinville courthouse in January 1816. Joseph died at Carencro in October 1820, perhaps a widower. The St. Martinville priest who recorded the burial said that Joseph was age 60 when he died. He was closer to 64. Daughters Marie (the older one), Céleste, Madeleine, and Marie Doralie married into the Constantin, Guilbert, Dugas, and Chiasson families. Joseph's five remaining sons also married and settled in St. Martin and Lafayette parishes.
Oldest son Joseph dit Padillau married Marguerite, daughter of fellow Acadians Louis Arceneaux and Anne Breaux of St. James Parish, at the St. Martinville church, St. Martin Parish, in November 1818. They settled at Carencro. Their children, born there, included Joseph Rosémond, called Rosémond, in August 1819 but died at age 11 months in July 1820; Olive born in c1820 but died at age 4 in February 1824; a child, name and age unrecorded, died in August 1823; and Achille or Alcide, baptized at the Vermilionville church, age unrecorded, in August 1825--four children, at least two sons and a daughter, between 1819 and 1825. Joseph dit Padillau died probably at Carencro in September 1829, age 49, a widower. His successions, naming his widow, were filed at the Vermilionville courthouse the previous July (the parish clerk called him John) and later in September. His remaining son married.
Younger son Achille or Alcide married Marguerite Cléonide or Cléonise, daughter of Joseph Allegre or Alegre and his Acadian wife Marie Denise Cormier, at the St. Martinville church in May 1842. Their children, born in St. Martin parish, included Joseph le jeune in October 1845; Marguerite Corine in May 1847; and Omar or Aymar, also called Ernest, near Breaux Bridge in February 1849--three children, two sons and a daughter, between 1845 and 1849. Alcide's succession, naming his wife, was filed at the St. Martinville courthouse in April 1849. He would have been in his mid-20s that year. His daughter did not marry by 1870, but his sons did.
Older son Joseph le jeune married Julie, daughter of fellow Acadians Duclise Broussard and Célestine Broussard, at the Breaux Bridge church, St. Martin Parish, in February 1868. Their son Alcide was born near Breaux Bridge in January 1869; ...
Achille's younger son Aymar, called Eymar by the recording priest, married cousin Aline, daughter of fellow Acadian Théogène Melançon and his Creole wife Cléophine Allegre, at the St. Martinville church in December 1869. ...
Joseph, père's second son Pierre married Marie Adélaïde, called Adélaïde, daughter of fellow Acadians Amand Dugas and Geneviève Robichaux of La Butte, at the St. Martinville church in October 1813. They settled at La Butte and then at nearby Grand Prairie. Their children, born there, included a daughter, name unrecorded, died at birth in May 1814; a son, name unrecorded, died at age 1 month in November 1816; Pierre Hermas or Darmas, called Darmas, born in May 1822; Jean, also called Jean Moléon, in May 1824 but died at age 4 1/2 in March 1829; Narcisse baptized at the Vermilionville church, age 2 months, in May 1827 but died at age 2 years in March 1829; Joseph le jeune born in June 1829 but died at age 1 1/2 in September 1830; Norbert born in late 1830 and baptized, age 4 months, in March 1831; Maximilien born in February 1833; Troisville or Treville baptized, age 2 months, in August 1834 but died later that month; Mayhil born in c1836; and a child, name and age unrecorded, probably theirs, died "at La Grande Prairie" in May 1842--11 children, at least one daughter and nine sons, between 1814 and 1842. Pierre died in Lafayette Parish in November 1850. The Vermilionville priest who recorded the burial said that Pierre died "at age 70 yrs." Only two of his many sons married by 1870.
Second son Pierre Hermas or Darmas, called Darmas, married cousin Julie or Juliènne, daughter of fellow Acadians Célestin Dugas and Julie Chiasson, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in April 1840. Their children, born in Lafayette Parish, included Marie Orphelia in July 1843; Placide le jeune in c1847 but died at age 16 in November 1863; Amélie born in September 1847; Eve in December 1849 but, name unrecorded, may have died at age 1 in December 1850; a child, name and age unrecorded, died in April 1852; Alfred born in June 1853; Alsina died at age 8 months in September 1859; Pierre, fils born in November 1860; Célestine in April 1863; ... None of Pierre Darmas's children married by 1870.
Piere's sixth son Norbert married cousin Zoé, daughter of fellow Acadians Pierre Anaclet Richard and Carmélite Sonnier, in a civil ceremony in Lafayette Parish in September 1859. ...
Joseph, père's third son Jean Baptiste, called Baptiste, married Marie Clémence, called Clémence, daughter of fellow Acadians Joseph Athanase Breaux and Marie Catherine Arseneaux of Carencro, at the St. Martinville church in February 1810. They settled at Prairie Basse near Carencro. Their children, born there, included Marie Marguerite Euphémie, called Euphémie, in February 1811; Hippolyte Bienvenu or Bienvenu Hippolyte in March 1813; Marie Josette in June 1815; Joseph Théodule, called Théodule, in April 1817; Jean dit Duclive or Euclide, called Euclide, in June 1819 but died at age 18 in May 1838; Pierre Mortemar or Mortimer born in May 1822 but a succession for Pierre Martimer was filed at the Vermilionville courthouse, Lafayette Parish, in December 1865, when he was age 43; Cyprien born in August 1824; Silvestre, also called Silvestre Lucain, in November 1826 but died seven days after his birth; and Simon Eugène, called Eugène, born posthumously in January 1828--nine children, two daughters and seven sons, between 1811 and 1828. Jean Baptiste died probably at Carencro in November 1827, age 42. Daughters Euphémie and Marie Josette married into the Breaux and Guidry families. Four of Baptiste's sons also married.
Oldest son Hippolyte Bienvenu or Bienvenu Hippolyte married Angélique, daughter of Joseph Primeaux and widow of ____ Newman, at the Grand Coteau church, St. Landry Parish, in July 1847. The priest noted in the marriage record that Angélique's first husband was "an unbaptized American," and that "She was in danger of death and was living with this man [Hippolyte] for 5 years." Hippolyte and Angélique's children, born near Grand Coteau, included Nathalie in February 1843 but died at age 6 1/2 (the recording priest said 7) in August 1849; Théodule le jeune born in February 1845 but died at age 7 1/2 (the recording priest said 8) in November 1852; Hippolyte, fils born in February 1847; Clémence in February 1849; and Joseph Alexandre in April 1851--five children, two daughters and three sons, between 1843 and 1851. Hippolyte remarried to Carmélite, daughter of Jean Domingue and Bastina Enand and widow of Éloi Mouton, in a civil ceremony in Lafayette Parish in November 1854. She evidently gave him no more children. Daughter ..., by his first wife, may have married into the Domingue family by 1870. One of Hippolyte's sons also seems to have married by then.
Second son Hippolyte, fils may have married Louisa Brisco, Briscoe, or Briscau, place and date unrecorded. Their children, born near Grand Coteau, included Hippolyte Bienvenu le jeune in November 1866; Onésime in February 1868 but died "at age 7 days"; ...
Baptiste's second son Joseph Théodule, called Théodule, married Marie Valsaine or Valsène, daughter of fellow Acadian Augustin Leger and his Creole wife Mérante Meche, at the Vermilionville church in April 1842. They settled near Carencro. Their children, born there, included Augustin Ernest in September 1844; Marie Octavie in March 1846; Marie Onezia in March 1848; Joseph Honoré in September 1849; Clémence in September 1851; Jules in June 1853 but died at age 9 in November 1862; ... Daughters Marie Octavie,... married into the Colligan or Collogan, Fale or Fall, and Richard families by 1870. None of Théodule's sons married by then.
Baptiste's fifth son Cyprien married cousin Céleste Anathalie or Nathalie, daughter of fellow Acadians Julien Comeaux and Céleste Breaux, at the Vermilionville church in November 1849. Their children, born in Lafayette Parish, included a child, name unrecorded, died in Lafayette Parish, age 3 days, in October 1850; Joseph Clairfait born in January 1852; a child, name and age unrecorded, died in May 1853; Marie Elizida born in May 1854; and Mathilde in December 1858 but died at age 1 in October 1859. Wife Céleste, called Mrs. Cyprien Sonnier by the recording priest, died in Lafayette Parish, age 28, in August 1860. Cyprien remarried to Élisabeth, daughter of John Caruthers or Credeur and his Acadian wife Adélaïde Hébert and widow of Oscar Chiasson, in a civil ceremony conducted by "Judge Pierre Arcenaux" and, on the same day, at the Vermilionville church in March 1864. Their children, born in Lafayette Parish, included Marc in October 1865; Euchariste in March 1867; ... Cyprien died in Lafayette Parish in September 1870. The Vermilionville priest who recorded the burial said that Cyprien died "at age 45 yrs." He was 46. His succession was filed at the Vermilionville courthouse in October. None of his children married by 1870.
Baptiste's seventh and youngest son Simon Eugène, called Eugène, married Marie Euzèïde or Merida, daughter of fellow Acadians Pierre Rosémond Breaux and Calixte Arceneaux, at the Vermilionville church in October 1855. Their children, born in Lafayette Parish, included a son, name unrecorded, died in Lafayette Parish "shortly after birth" in September 1856; a child, name unrecorded, died at age 7 months in June 1858; and Alexandre Adam born in July 1859--three children, at least two sons, between 1856 and 1859. Wife Marie Euzèïde, called "Mrs. Eugène Sonnier" by the recording priest, died in Lafayette Parish, age 22, in January 1861. Eugène remarried to Euphrosine, daughter of fellow Acadians Rosémond Mouton and Estelle Comeaux, at the Vermilionville church in February 1868. ...
Joseph, père's fourth son Placide married Anastasie, daughter of fellow Acadians Augustin Dugas and Marie Duhon of La Butte, at the St. Martinville church in February 1813. They settled at La Butte and Grand Prairie. Their children, born there, included Marie Urasie in February 1814; Anastasie in February 1816; Joseph Léonard in June 1818; Gédéon in August 1820; Euphrosine in January 1823; Jean died a day after his birth in June 1825; François, "baptized privately only," died at age 3 weeks in August 1826; and a child, name unrecorded, died 2 hours after his/her birth in August 1827--eight children, at least three daughters and fours sons, between 1814 and 1827. Placide died in Lafayette Parish in April 1835, age 46. Daughters ... married into the Cart, Hernandez, and Trahan families. Placide's remaining sons also married.
Oldest son Joseph Léonard married, at age 19, Céleste or Célestine, 18-year-old daughter of fellow Acadians Antoine Hébert and Céleste Trahan, at the Opelousas church, St. Landry Parish, in June 1837. Their children, born in St. Landry Parish, included Célestine in January 1839; Placide le jeune in March 1845; Marie Eugénie in July 1847; Eléonore in April 1850; and Pierre near Grand Coteau in December 1859--five children, three daughters and two sons, between 1839 and 1859. Daughters ... married into the Breaux and Trahan families by 1870. One of Joseph's sons also married by then.
Older son Placide le jeune married Odalie, daughter of Firmar, perhaps Firmin, Fuselier, at the Church Point church, then in St. Landry but now in Acadia Parish, in February 1868. They settled on the prairie between Church Point and Eunice. ...
Placide's second son Gédéon married Célestine, 15-year-old daughter of William Berwick and his Acadian wife Céleste Lejeune, at the Opelousas church in June 1839. Their children, born in St. Landry Parish, included Célestine in February 1839; Gédéon, fils in April 1843; Zelphia Marie, also called Marie Delphy and Zelphie, in February 1844; Valentine in January 1846; Valentin in November 1848; and Célanie in February 1851--six children, four daughters and two sons, between 1839 and 1851. Gédéon remarried to Joséphine, daughter of fellow Acadians Joseph Doucet and Carmélite Richard, at the Grand Coteau church in June 1856. She evidently gave him no more children. Daughter Marie Delphy,..., by his first wife, married into the Breaux family by 1870. One of Gédéon's sons also married by then.
Older son Gédéon, fils, by first wife Célestine Berwick, married Adélaïde dite Délaïde, daughter of fellow Acadians Onésime LeBlanc and Adélaïde Landry, in a civil ceremony in St. Landry Parish in November 1867, and sanctified the marriage at the Church Point church in April 1869. They settled on the prairie between Church Point and Grand Coteau. Their children, born there, included Joseph Alceus in February 1869; Adam Jean in November 1870; ...
Joseph, père's sixth and youngest son Cyrille married, at age 27, Susanne dite Susette, 16-year-old daughter of Thomas Parr and his Acadian wife Marie Melançon, at the Grand Coteau church in May 1822. Their children, born in Lafayette Parish, included Cyrille, fils in July 1823 but, called Surville, died at age 2 in September 1825; Pierre le jeune born in March 1825; Antoine, also called Éloi, in October 1826; Louis in April 1828; Siméon or Simon in February 1830; Basile in October 1831; Joseph in June 1833 but died at age 1 in June 1834; Olivier born in March 1835 but died at age 1 1/2 in September 1836; Émile died, age unrecorded, in December 1835; Thomas Estel born in late 1836 and baptized at the Vermilionville church, age 3 months, in January 1837; Odéïde born in October 1838; Paulin in August 1840; Alexandre in August 1841; and Marcel in January 1844--14 children, 13 sons and a daughter, between 1823 and 1844. Cyrille died in Lafayette Parish in April 1859. The Vermilionville priest who recorded the burial said that Cyrille died "at age 63 yrs." He was 64. His succession, naming his wife, was filed at the Vermilionville courthouse in August. Daughter Odèïde evidently married into the Gilbert family by 1870. Seven of Cyrille's remaining sons also married by then.
Third son Antoine, also called Éloi, married Sylvanie, also called Eléonie, daughter of fellow Acadians Joachim Dugas and Marguerite Broussard, at the Vermilionville church in June 1848. Their children, born in Lafayette Parish, included a child, name and age unrecorded, died in Lafayette Parish in August 1849; Erneste, perhaps a daughter, born in September 1850; Antoine Numa in November 1854; Coralie in March 1857; a child, name unrecorded, died at age 15 days in April 1860; Joachin born in April 1862; Marie Emetile in November 1865; ... None of Antoine/Éloi's children married by 1870.
Cyrille, père's fourth son Louis married Émelia dite Melia, daughter of fellow Acadians Théovide Broussard and Marie Arthémise Hébert, at the Vermilionville church in August 1849. Their children, born in Lafayette Parish, included Alcides in August 1850; Odille in December 1851; Paul Arther, probably Arthur, in June 1854; Mathilde in November 1858; Élois in November 1870. ... None of Louis's children married by 1870.
Cyrille, père's fifth son Siméon or Simon married Marie Rosalie, called Rosalie, daughter of Pierre Domingue and Marie Josèphine Hernandez and widow of Pierre A. Domingue, at the Vermilionville church in August 1861. Their children, born in Lafayette Parish, included Joseph Numa in June 1862; Edgar in October 1865 but died at age 2 in November 1867; Amédé born in March 1870; ...
Cyrille, père's sixth son Basile married, at age 22, Philomène, 14-year-old daughter of François Guilbert and Émilie Begnaud, at the Vermilionville church in August 1854. Their children, born in Lafayette Parish, included Honoré in December 1855; Cécilia in May 1858; Marie Alsina in December 1859; Célima in April 1861; Mathilde in April 1863; Théophile in February 1868; ... Basile died in Lafayette Parish in July 1895, age 63. He is buried in St. Peter Catholic Cemetery, Carencro, beside his wife Philomène, who died in November 1904, age 64. None of their children married by 1870.
Cyrille, père's tenth son Thomas Estel may have married Marcellite Riggs in a civil ceremony in St. Landry Parish in December 1870. ...
Cyrille, père's twelfth son Alexandre married Marie Émelise, daughter of fellow Acadians Jean Baptiste Chiasson and Julie Dugas, at the Vermilionville church in January 1861. Their children, born in Lafayette Parish, included Cyrille Esseus in April 1866; Julien Eucharis in October 1868; ...
Cyrille, père's thirteenth and youngest son Marcel married Marie Constance, daughter of fellow Acadians Joseph Louvière and Séraphine Delphine Broussard, at the Vermilionville church in May 1866. ...
.
A second set of Saulnier brothers reached New Orleans from Halifax via Cap-Français later in 1765. They went not to the western prairies but to an established Acadian settlement on the river above New Orleans:
Joseph (c1739-1812) à Pierre à Louis Sonnier
Joseph, oldest son of Pierre Saulnier, fils and his first wife Madeleine Haché dit Gallant, born probably at Petitcoudiac in c1739, followed his family into exile on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore and into imprisonment in Nova Scotia in the early 1760s. He may have married a fellow Acadian by then. He and two of his siblings came to Louisiana from Halifax via Cap-Français in 1765 and settled at Cabahannocer on the river. Spanish officials counted him with widowed sister Anne and two nieces on the left, or east, bank of the river at Cabahannocer in April 1766. He married, or remarried to, Marie, daughter of fellow Acadians Pierre Landry and Claire Babin and widow of Alexis Granger, at the St.-Jacques de Cabahannocer church in November 1767. Marie had come to the colony from Maryland as a widow the previous July. She and Joseph were living on the east bank of the river at Cabahannocer in September 1769. Their children, born at Cabahannocer, included Ludivine baptized at the Cabahananocer church, age unrecorded, in February 1771 but, called Louisse, died at age 5 (the recording priest said 6) in August 1776; Marguerite born in c1772; and Donat, perhaps also called Simon, baptized, age unrecorded, in July 1773. In January 1777, Joseph and his family were still living on the east bank of the river at Cabahannocer, but by then he was a widower. Joseph remarried again--perhaps his third marriage--to Marie, daughter of fellow Acadians Jean-Baptiste Breaux and his first wife Élisabeth Henry and widow of Amand Richard, at the St.-Jacques de Cabahannocer church in August 1777. Marie, like Joseph's first wife, had come to Louisiana from Maryland in 1767. Her and Joseph's children, born at Cabahannocer, included Marie-Céleste or Célestine baptized at the Cabahannocer church, age unrecorded, in July 1778; and Joseph-Édouard, called Édouard, baptized, age unrecorded, in May 1780--five children, three daughters and two sons, by two wives, between 1771 and 1780. In 1779, Joseph held three slaves on his holding along the river. He died in St. James Parish in December 1812. The priest who recorded the burial said that Joseph was age 82 when he died. He was closer to 72. Daughters Marguerite and Célestine, by his second and third wives, married into the Bourgeois and Lanoux families. Both of his sons also married, but the older son's line did not endure. His younger son settled on Bayou Lafourche and, along with an uncle and his cousins, helped create a third center of family settlement there.
Older son Donat, perhaps also called Simon, from second wife Marie Landry, may have married Françoise, a woman whose surname has been lost to history, probably at the the St.-Jacques de Cabahannocer church in the late 1790s or early 1800s. Their children, born at Cabahannocer, may have included a daughter, name and age unrecorded, died in July 1805; and a son, name and age unrecorded, died in October 1806. Simon's wife, called "Dame Françoise" by the recording priest, died at age 35 the day after her son's death, perhaps from the rigors of childbirth. Simon himself died at St. James in April 1807, when he would have been in his early 30s. The priest who recorded the burial did not give Simon's parents' names, mention his wife, or give his age at the time of his death, so one wonders if this was him. If it was, his family line died with him.
Joseph's younger son Joseph-Édouard, called Édouard, from third wife Marie Breaux, married Dionise or Denise dite Lise, daughter of fellow Acadians Jean-Charles Arceneaux and Marie-Josèphe Babin, at the St.-Jacques de Cabahannocer church in February 1799. Their children, born on the river, included Marie-Adèle, called Adèle, in December 1800; Joseph le jeune in December 1802; Jean Baptiste le jeune in October 1804 but died at age 1 1/2 in January 1806; Marguerite born in August 1806; Marthe Mathilde in September 1809; Simon le jeune in c1812 but died near Convent, St. James Parish, age 3, in July 1815; Marcellin, also called Onésime and Olézime, born in September 1814; Marie Rosalie, called Rosalie, in August 1817 but died at age 15 (the recording priest said 14) in September 1832; Julien or Jules born in May 1819; Jean Charles, called Charles, in November 1821; and Marie Aureline in November 1824 but, called Marie Oreline, died at age 4 (the recording priest said 5) in November 1828--10 children, five daughters and five sons, between 1800 and 1824. They joined the Acadian exodus from the river to Bayou Lafourche in the early 1820s, the last of the Acadian Sonniers to abandon the river settlements. Édouard died in Lafourche Interior Parish in May 1842. The Thibodaux priest who recorded the burial said that Édouard died "at age 64 to 65 yrs." He was closer to 62. Daughters Marie Adèle and Marthe married into the Authement and Bourg families. Daughter Adèle may have given birth to "natural" daughter Marcelline near Convent in c1817, a year before she married Jérôme Authement there. Marcelline died near Convent at age 3 in June 1820, two years before her mother died. The priest who recorded the girl's burial did not name the father. Four of Édouard's sons also married, but not all of the lines endured. By the antebellum period, they were the only Acadian Sonniers left on Bayou Lafourche.
Oldest son Joseph le jeune married Marie Josette or Rosette, daughter of François Percle and Marie Triche, at the Plattenville church, Assumption Parish, in February 1827. They settled on the upper Lafourche near the boundary between Assumption and Ascension parishes. Their children, born there, included Marie Aurelia or Orellia, called Orellia, in February 1827; Hélènne Victorine, called Victorine, in October 1833; Joseph Omère in August 1830 but, called Joseph Omaire, died at age 3 in October 1833; Édouard Amédée born in December 1832 but, called Jean Amédée, died at age 1 in October 1833; Zéphirin Aristide, called Aristide, born in August 1834; and Joseph Eléonidas or Léonidas in October 1836 but died at age 1 in December 1837--six children, two daughtes and four sons, between 1827 and 1836. Daughters Marie Orellia and Victorine married into the LeBlanc and Lasseigne families by 1870. One of Joseph le jeune's sons also married by then.
Third son Aristide married Honorine, daughter of Henri Lirette and his Acadian wife Marie Breaux, at the Thibodaux church, Lafourche Interior Parish, in December 1851. Their children, born on the bayou, included Joseph Alcide, called Alcide, in September 1852; and Victorine Ernestine posthumously in March 1854. Aristide, père died in Lafourche Parish in September 1853 "during [a] yellow fever epidemic,"age 19. A "Petition for tutorship" for his son Alcide was filed at the Thibodaux courthouse in July 1855, and a "Family meeting," the petition for which named his son but not his daughter, was held at the Houma courthouse, Terrebonne Parish, in March 1856. Neither his daughter nor his son married by 1870.
Édouard's fourth son Marcellin, also called Onésime and Oldézime, married Anne Marie, daughter of Antoine Vicknair and Dolothe Cuvillier and widow of Pierre Lasseigne, at the Thibodaux church in December 1846. Onésime died in Lafourche Interior Parish in December 1847, age 33 (the recording priest said 34). A "petition for administrator" in his name, naming his wife and her first husband, was filed at the Thibodaux courthouse in May 1848. He and his wife had no children, or least none who appear in local church records, so his line of the family probably died with him.
Édouard's fifth son Julien or Jules married Euphrosine, daughter of fellow Acadians Joseph Breaux and Marie Félicité Richard, at the Thibodaux church in June 1855. Did they have any children?
Édouard's sixth and youngest son Jean Charles, called Charles, married Marie Rosalie, called Rosalie, another daughter of Joseph Breaux and Marie Félicité Richard, at the Thibodaux church in September 1846. Their children, born on the Lafourche, included Félicité Léontine, called Léontine, in August 1847; Joseph Édouard Octave, called Octave, in November 1849; Édouard Timothée in October 1851 but, called Thimothé Édouard, died at age 1 in December 1852; Adam Arthur born in November 1853; Édouard Clinton in February 1861; ... Daughter Léontine married into the Bergeron family by 1870. One of Charles's sons also married by then.
Oldest son Octave married Marie Célestine, called Célestine, daughter of Zénon Roussel and Carmélite Grégoire, in a civil ceremony in Lafourche Parish in April 1869; the marriage also was registered in Terrebonne Parish. Their son Joseph was born in Lafourche Parish in February 1870; ...
Jean-Baptiste (c1746-?) à Pierre à Louis Sonnier
Jean-Baptiste, called Jean, second son of Pierre Saulnier, fils and his first wife Madeleine Haché dit Gallant, born probably at Petitcoudiac in c1746, followed his family to the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore and into imprisonment in Nova Scotia in the early 1760s. Jean and two of his siblings came to Louisiana from Halifax via Cap-Français in 1765 and settled at Cabahannocer. Spanish officials counted him on the right, or west, bank of the river there in April 1766 and on the left, or east, bank of the river there in September 1769. He married Marie, daughter of fellow Acadians Abraham Roy and his first wife Anne Aubois, at St.-Jacques de Cabahannocer church in May 1773. Marie also had come to the colony from Halifax in 1765. She and Jean-Baptiste were still living on the east bank of the river in January 1777. Their children, born on the river, included Rosalie baptized at the Cabahannocer church, age unrecorded, in March 1774; Jean-Baptiste, fils baptized, age unrecorded, in August 1776; Marie-Marguerite, called Marguerite, baptized, age unrecorded, in October 1778; Céleste born in the late 1770s or early 1780s; Marie-Madeleine in August 1784 and baptized at the New Orleans church the following March; Félicité baptized at the Ascension church, age unrecorded, in March 1787; Françoise born in April 1789; and Jean-L'Esprit in July 1791--eight children, six daughters and two sons, between 1774 and 1791. The family was living on upper Bayou Lafourche in the late 1780s and early 1790s, the first Acadian Sonniers to settle there, but few, if any, of their children remained. Daughters Marguerite, Marie Madeleine, Céleste, Félicité, and Françoise married into the Henrique, Cuvillier, Nopper, Duval, and Martin families, and most of them settled on the western prairies. Jean Baptiste's two sons, like his daughters, followed their Roy relatives to the western prairies and settled on Bayou Teche.
Older son Jean Baptiste, fils married Adélaïde, daughter of fellow Acadians Côme LeBlanc and Isabelle Broussard of Fausse Pointe, at the St. Martinville church, St. Martin Parish, in June 1813. They remained on Bayou Teche. Their children, born there, included Marcellin in March 1814; Marie Urasie in December 1815; a son, name and age unrecorded, died "at the home of [Scotsman John] Martin, his [Jean-Baptiste, fils's] brother-in-law [husband of sister Françoise] at L'île Labbé," St. Martin Parish, in January 1818; Jean Onésime, called Onésime, born in September 1819; Marie Isabelle in October 1822; and Jean Baptiste III in September 1825 but died at age 3 1/2 in March 1829--six children, four sons and two daughters, between 1814 and 1825. Daughters ... married into the Broussard and Daniel families. Jean Baptiste, fils's remaining sons also married, but only one of the lines seems to have endured.
Oldest son Marcellin married cousin Marie Azélie, called Azélie, daughter of fellow Acadians Raphaël Broussard and Modeste LeBlanc, at the St. Martinville church in August 1834. They settled near New Iberia. Their children, born there, included Mélline or Mélina in c1835 and baptized at the New Iberia church, age 4, in July 1839; Phylemon or Philemon born in July 1839; Marcellin, fils in November 1840; and Carmalite in November 1842. Wife Azélie died on the lower Teche in August 1844. A succession for her, naming her husband, was filed at the Franklin courthouse, St. Mary Parish, in 1847. Marcellin remarried to Sidalise Dubois, perhaps a fellow Acadian, place and date unrecorded. Their children, born in St. Martin Parish, included Joseph Adam in February 1853; Jean Baptiste le jeune in September 1854 but died at age 7 in November 1861; Jean Cibley, perhaps Sibley, called Cibley, born in December 1862 but died at age 4 1/2 in September 1867; Paul Jefferson Davis born in December 1864 but, called Davis, died at age 2 1/2 in May 1867; Pierre Noël born in December 1867; ... None of Marcellin's children married by 1870.
Jean-Baptiste, fils's third son Jean Onésime, called Onésime, married cousin Louise, also called Louisa, Marie Élisa, and Roselia Sonnier, at the St. Martinville church in November 1841. Their children, born in St. Martin Parish, included Marie Élisabeth, perhaps theirs, in September 1842; Marie Elisima or Lesima in April 1845 but, called Elana, may have died in St. Martin Parish, age 7, in June 1852; and Jean Baptiste le jeune born in July 1847 but died at age 1 (the recording priest said 2) in October 1848--three children, two daughters and a son, between 1842 and 1847. None of Onésime's children married by 1870.
Jean-Baptiste, père's younger son Jean L'Esprit married Félicité, daughter of Louis Saucier and Azélie Duroche, probably in the 1820s, place unrecorded. They, too, settled on Bayou Teche. Their son Jean, fils, perhaps also called Jean Azenor or Azenor Jean, was born there in April 1828 and married.
Only son Jean, fils, perhaps also called Jean Azenor or Azenor Jean, may have married Élizabeth, daughter of Gilbert Amy and his Acadian wife Élizabeth Landry, at the St. Martinville church in February 1861. Jean, fils remarried to Marie Julia Coulard and settled near Patoutville, now Lydia, Iberia Parish, by the late 1860s.
Louis-Charles, son of Nicolas Talbot
and Marguerite Aubry of St.-Georges-de-Bar-le-Duc, Lorraine, born in
the parish of St.-Benoist, Paris, in c1714, came to greater Acadia probably
in the 1730s. He married Marie-Françoise, called Françoise, daughter
of François Douville and Marie-Élisabeth Rogé, at St.-Pierre-du-Nord,
the church for Havre-St.-Pierre on the north shore of Île St.-Jean, in November 1739.
In 1764, a
No Acadian family that came to Louisiana has a more interesting story than this one. There is no question that the family's Louisiana progenitor, Louis André Talbot of Assumption Parish, was of Acadian descent in both his paternal and maternal lines. His father's family had lived on either Île St.-Pierre or Île Miquelon off the southern coast of Newfoundland, a part of greater Acadia. His mother's family was from Île St.-Jean, also a part of greater Acadia.
Louis André Talbot did not come to Louisiana with any of the extended Acadian families in the 1760s. And although his mother's family was deported from Île St.-Jean to St.-Malo, France, in 1758-59, he did not come to Louisiana on any of the Seven Ships from France in 1785. He was born probably at Bordeaux in c1791, six years after the Seven Ships sailed from Paimboeuf, Nantes, and St.-Malo. His father was a Lafitte, but Louis André, perhaps a "natural" son, assumed his mother's family name. Louis André came to Louisiana probably in the early 1810s, before another war between Britain and the United States made trans-Atlantic travel more difficult than usual. He did not remain in Creole New Orleans but chose to go to the Acadian bastion of Bayou Lafourche, settling in Assumption Parish. He and his wife, an Acadian Dugas, raised a large family there, including 10 sons. His oldest son settled on the southwest prairies either on the eve of, or soon after, the War of 1861-65, establishing a western branch of the family. Louis André's other sons remained on the upper Lafourche.
There were non-Acadian Talbots, probably Anglo Americans, who settled in South Louisiana. None were as prolific as Louis André and his many sons.
Judging by the number of slaves they owned during the late antebellum period, the Acadian Talbots participated only peripherally in the South's plantation-based economy. In 1850, Louis André held only two slaves on his Assumption Parish farm. A decade later he held none, or at least none who appeared on the federal slave schedule of 1860.
The War of 1861-65 took a terrible toll on the family. Early in the war, successive Federal incursions devastated the Bayou Lafourche valley, and Confederate foragers plagued the area when the Federals were driven off. But the personal loss to the family was even greater. Six of Louis André's sons and a grandson served Louisiana in uniform during the war. Two of his sons, Clovis and Jules--the older one middle-aged, married, and the father of several children; the younger one also married, the father of two daughters, and still in his teens--were conscripted into the same unit in the summer of 1862 and died a few months later at Vicksburg, Mississippi, within days of one another, probably of disease. The other three sons and the grandson survived the war and returned to their families. Evidently the family's ardor for the Southern cause was not diminished by its loss. Two of Louis André's grandsons, twins born in January 1864, were named Camille Beauregard and Émile Davis.
In Louisiana, the Acadian family's name also is spelled Dalbot, Tabbat, Talbat, Talbautte, Talbert, Talbeut, Talboth, Talbotte, Talbout, Talebot, Tallebot, Terbonne, Thalbot, Tolbot.42
S
André Templé, a sailor, born near Avranches, southwest Normandy, in c1728, settled at Port-Toulouse on Île Royale, today's Cape Breton Island, by 1749. Two years later, he married Marie, daughter of Pierre Deveau and Marie Caissie of Chignecto, probably at Port-Toulouse. She gave him at least four children there in the 1750s, two daughters and two sons: Marie-Marguerite, called Marguerite, in c1752; and Bruno, René, and Modeste by 1758.
When the British rounded up the Acadians in Nova Scotia in 1755-56, André, wife Marie, and their children, still living on an island controlled by France, remained unmolested. Their respite from British oppression was short-lived. After the fall of the French fortress at nearby Louisbourg in July 1758, the redcoats rounded up most of the habitants on the big island and deported them to France. André's family endured the crossing aboard the deportation transport Queen of Spain, which left Île Royale in the fall of 1758 and reached St.-Malo in late November. Wife Marie, called a Royer on the ship's manifest, and three of their children--Marie, René, and Modeste, ages unrecorded--died at sea. Only André and daughter Marie-Marguerite, called Marguerite, age 6, survived the crossing.
André and his daughter settled in the St.-Malo suburb of St.-Servan-sur-Mer, where he remarried to Marguerite, daughter of fellow Acadians François LeBlanc and Marguerite Boudrot and widow of Charles Breau, in September 1759. Marguerite, at age 22, had crossed from Île Royale aboard the Duc Guillaume with her husband, a young son, and a niece. Her son died at sea, and the niece and her husband died in local hospitals soon after they reached St.-Malo. Marguerite had been pregnant on the voyage; her daughter died in a local hospital three days after her birth. Between 1760 and 1773, at St.-Servan and Plouër-sur-Rance on the west side of the river south of St.-Malo, Marguerite, still a young woman, gave André nine more children, two daughters and seven sons. In 1773, André took his large family to the interior of Poitou as part of a major settlement venture near the city of Châtellerault. Marguerite gave him another son there in January 1775. In early 1776, after two years of effort, André and his family, at least most of them, retreated with other Poitou Acadians from Châtellerault down the Vienne and the Loire to the port of Nantes. Marguerite gave André two more sons there, in 1777 and 1780--16 children, five daughters and 11 sons, by two wives, between 1752 and 1780, in greater Acadia and France. Between 1776 and 1785, the couple buried four of their sons in and around Nantes. But there were reasons for the family to celebrate. André's oldest daughter Marie-Marguerite, by first wife Marie, married into the Breau family at Archigny, Poitou, in September 1777. Marguerite's husband, like his father-in-law, was a sailor. As the date and place of their wedding reveal, the couple remained at Archigny after her family moved on to Nantes.
By 1777, André Templé, despite being a Norman, evidently was fed up with life in his native country. He and fellow exile Jean-Jacques LeBlanc, a distant kinsman of wife Marguerite, petitioned the government of France to pay their passage to Spanish Louisiana. Jean-Jacques, in fact, had been bearding French authorities about going to Louisiana since March of 1772. Hundreds of their fellow Acadians had settled in Louisiana since the mid-1760s, and André and Jean-Jacques were willing to risk the transatlantic passage with their wives and children. French authorities rejected their plea "on the grounds that the cost would be too great," so André and his family remained in France, but not for long. When in the early 1780s the Spanish government offered the Acadians in France the chance for a new life in faraway Louisiana, André Templé and wife Marguerite were still willing to emigrate to the Mississippi valley colony. They were accompanied not only by their many unmarried children, two daughters and six sons, but also by André's daughter Marguerite, her husband Joseph Breau, and two of their children. (Sadly, André's compatriot, Jean-Jacques LeBlanc had died at Nantes in November 1781, but his widow, Nathalie Pitre, and two of their teenage children also agreed to venture to Louisiana).
Templés settled "late" in greater Acadia, and they came "late" to Louisiana. In fact, if the Spanish government had not allowed over 1,500 Acadians in France to emigrate to its Mississippi valley colony, there probably would be no members of this family in the Bayou State today, at least none descended from an Acadian exile. Ten Templés, all members of a single family, came to Louisiana aboard two of the Seven Ships from France in 1785. Most of them went to Manchac south of Baton Rouge, where one branch of the family remained, and settled in what became West Baton Rouge, Iberville, and Ascension parishes. They were especially numerous around Brusly in West Baton Rouge Parish. During the late colonial period, as part of the Acadian exodus from the river, a new, larger center of Templet family settlement emerged along upper Bayou Lafourche. Unlike other Acadian families on the Lafourche who drifted down bayou during the early 1800s, most of the bayou Templets remained in Assumption Parish. Some of them settled near Pierre Part north of Lake Verret at the northwestern edge of the parish, but most of them remained near Paincourtville and Plattenville on the upper bayou. Meanwhile, in the early 1810s, a Templet from upper Bayou Lafourche crossed the Atchafalaya Basin and settled in what became Lafayette Parish, creating a small western branch of the family. One of his sons returned to upper Bayou Lafourche during the late 1840s, but the oldest son remained on the Lafayette prairie. A third son lived near present-day Morgan City on the lower Atchafalaya before moving up Bayou Teche to St. Martin Parish.
In Louisiana, the family's name evolved from Templé to Templet and even Tamplet. During the antebellum period, a Templé from France settled on upper Bayou Lafourche among his Acadian namesakes. The great majority of the Templets of South Louisiana, however, descend from André Templé of Normandy and Port-Toulouse.
Judging by the number of slaves they owned during the late antebellum period, some members of the family, especially on upper Bayou Lafourche, lived well on their farms and plantations. In 1850, Florentin Templet of Assumption Parish held 16 slaves on his bayou-side farm next to brother Jean Baptiste, who owned a dozen slaves. A decade later, Jean Baptiste's heirs held 29 slaves and Florentin controlled 32 bondsman on their Assumption Parish plantations.
Over a dozen Templets served Louisiana in uniform during the War of 1861-65, and at least two of them lost their lives in Confederate service. In June 1861, Adolphe Templet, a 21-year-old farmer from Assumption Parish, enlisted in Company K of the 8th Regiment Louisiana Infantry, raised in Ascension Parish, that fought in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania--one of Genearl R. E. Lee's Louisiana Tigers. Adolphe's service with the Tigers was short-lived. On the long train ride from Louisiana to Virginia in the summer of 1861, Adolphe's foot was smashed accidentally in a railroad accident, and he died of his injury in August. Enos Templet of Assumption Parish was conscripted into Confederate service in October 1862. He was one of the many men from his civil parish sent to Vicksburg, Mississippi, and placed in the 1st Regiment Louisiana Heavy Artillery, which occupied battery positions along the river. Enos was among the many men from Assumption who fell sick at Vicksburg the following winter. He died at City Hospital in late January 1863. Most, if not all, of their Templet cousins in gray returned to their families, including brothers Hippolyte and Camille of Ascension Parish, who served in the famous Donaldsonville Artillery, which also served with General R. E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Both of them surrendered with Lee's army at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia, in April 1865.
The war took a terrible toll on the family's economic standing. Even before Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation went into effect in January 1863, Federal commands controlling the lower Mississippi freed the slaves on every farm and plantation their forces could reach. This would have included the Templet holdings in West Baton Rouge, Iberville, and Ascension parishes. Union gunboats shelled and burned dozens of plantation houses along the river. Successive Federal incursions in the Bayou Lafourche valley devastated that region, and Confederate foragers plagued the area when the Federals were driven off. Federal armies marched three times through the Teche and upper Vermilion valleys in 1863 and 1864, burning and pillaging many farms and plantations. Thanks to these Federal incursions, emancipation came early to these areas, with its resulting economic and social turmoil. Confederate foraging parties and cutthroat Jayhawkers also plagued the areas where Templets lived, adding to the family's misery. ...
In Louisiana, the family's name also is spelled Tamplay, Tamplé, Tamplet, Temfilet, Templais, Templait, Templey, Tempte, Tomblet, Trampelet, Tramplé. This family should not be confused with the Anglo-American Temple family.43
.
All of the Templés who came to Louisiana--10 of them in a large family--did so in 1785 aboard two of the Seven Ships from France:
During the War of 1861-65, oldest son Séverin, by first wife Bathilde Friou, served in Company H of the 29th (Thomas's) Regiment Louisiana Infantry, raised in Assumption Parish, which fought at Vicksburg, Mississippi. While at home on a parole of honor waiting for his regiment's exchange, Séverin married Louise, daughter of Lucien Feuchere and his Acadian wife Marcellite Bourg, at the Plattenville church in August 1864. Their children, born in Assumption Parish, included Ema Victoria in December 1865; Estelle Zélamie in December 1867; Marie Joséphine in May 1870; ...
Jean, père's fifth and youngest son Charles was, in his early 40s, a conscript from St. Martin Parish during the War of 1861-65, but he probably was too old to serve in a Confederate combat unit. He may not have married.
Second son Aurelien married Euphémie, daughter of fellow Acadians Thomas Isidore Guillot and Constance Eulalie Giroir, at the Plattenville church in January 1858. Their children, born on the upper Lafourche, included Clairville Valsin in November 1858; Elphége François in March 1861; Émile Alcée in October 1866; Zéphirin Maximin in May 1869; ... During the war, Aurelien, called Orellien in Confederate records, served with younger brothers Ursin and Arthur and several of his cousins in Company H of the 2nd Regiment Louisiana Cavalry, raised in Assumption Parish, which fought in Louisiana. As the birth date of one of his younger sons reveals, he survived the war and returned to his family.
Godefroi's sixth son Ursin may have served with older brother Aurelien and Arthur in Company H of the 2nd Regiment Louisiana Cavalry. Unlike brother Arthur, he evidently escaped capture at Bayou Teche and Henderson Hill and returned to his family after the war. Did he marry by 1870? If not, why not?
Godefroi's seventh son Adolphe was age 21 and single, working as a farmer in Assumption Parish, when he enlisted in Company K, 8th Regiment Louisiana Infantry, raised in Ascension Parish, in June 1861. His time in Confederate service was short. After his regiment was organized at Camp Moore, Louisiana, it was sent to Virginia to become a part of General P.G.T. Beauregard's command in the northern part of the state. During the railroad journey, Adolphe's foot was "accidentally smashed." He died of his injuries at Camp Pickens, Manassas Junction, Virginia, in August, a month after the battle there, still age 21.
Jean Thériot, also spelled Terriot and Thériault, born in c1601 perhaps at Martaizé near Loudun south of the middle Loire valley in central France, came to Acadia by c1637 with his wife Perrine Rau or Reau, whom he had married in France the year before. They thus were among the earliest settlers in French Acadia. Between 1637 and 1654, at Port-Royal, Perrine gave Jean seven children, five sons and two daughters. Jean and Perrine, ages 70 and 60, were still alive when the first Acadian census found them at Port-Royal in 1671. Their daughters married into the Thibodeau and Guilbeau families. Four of Jean and Perrine's sons also married, into the Gautrot, Boudrot, Brun, and Landry families. Jean died probably at Port-Royal before the 1686 census there. In 1755, descendants of Jean Thériot and Perrine Rau could be found not only at Annapolis Royal, formerly Port-Royal, but also at Grand-Pré, Rivière-aux-Canards, and Cobeguit in the Minas Basin; at Chignecto; and on Île Royale and Île St.-Jean in the French Maritimes. Le Grand Dérangement of the 1750s scattered this large family even farther.
The Acadians at Chignecto were the first to endure a disruption of their lives. In the spring and summer of 1750, in response to the British building a fort at Beaubassin village, Canadian militia, assisted by Mi'kmaq warriors led by the Abbé Jean-Louis Le Loutre, burned Acadian homesteads in the British-controlled area east of Rivière Missaguash, forcing the habitants there to move to the French-controlled area west of the river. Thériots may have been among the refugees in this petit dérangement. After yet another war erupted between Britain and France in 1754, Chignecto Acadians were caught in the middle of it. When British and New-English forces attacked Fort Beauséjour at Chignecto in June 1755, several hundred local Acadians serving as militia, along with the garrison of Canadians and French troupes de la marine, became prisoners of war when the fort surrendered on June 16. Lieutenant-Governor Charles Lawrence was so incensed to find so-called French Neutrals fighting with French regulars at Beauséjour he ordered his officers to deport these Acadians to the southernmost seaboard colonies. A Thériot family ended up in South Carolina. Most members of the family still at Chignecto, however, escaped the British roundup there that summer and fall and fled to the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore or moved on to Canada.
The Thériots still at Cobeguit also escaped deportation. When they learned of the roundups at Chignecto and at Minas Proper and Pigiguit on the other side of the basin, every family in the remote settlement packed up their children and what belongings they could carry and either hid in the woods or followed the cattle trail to Tatamagouche and other villages on the peninsula's North Shore. That fall, winter, and the following spring, they escaped across Mer Rouge to the south shore of Île St.-Jean, where many of their kinsmen already had gone.
Many of their cousins on the other side of the basin were not so lucky. Minas Thériots found themselves on transports headed for Massachusetts, Virginia, and Maryland. The ones deported to Virginia, the first contingent of which reached Hampton Roads during the second week of November, suffered the indignity of being turned away by the colony's authorities. Exiles languished aboard the five disease-infested transpors anchored in Hampton Roads while the colony's leaders pondered their fate. As winter approached, Virginia's Governor Robert Dinwiddie, with the approval of his council, ordered the "French Neutrals" dispersed to the ports of Hampton, Norfolk, and Richmond. The following spring, the governor and his council, along with the colony's Burgesses, debated the question of what to do about the "Neutrals" and concluded the "papists" must go! Virginia authorities hired more transports and sent the exiles on to England--299 to Bristol, 250 to Falmouth, 340 to Southampton, and 336 to Liverpool--1,225 exiles in all by one count. Their ordeal only worsened in the English ports, where they were packed into warehouses and forced to subsist on a government subsidy. Four Thériot brothers from Rivière-aux-Canards, along with their widowed mother and sister, died at Falmouth in the summer and fall of 1756 perhaps from smallpox, which struck many of the exiles soon after their arrival. Thériots also were held at Bristol, Southampton, and Liverpool. By 1763, more than half of the Minas Acadians sent to Virginia had died in England.
Living in territory controlled by France, Thériots on the Maritime islands escaped the fate of their cousins in Nova Scotia in 1755-56. Their respite from British oppression was short-lived. After the fall of the French fortress at Louisbourg in July 1758, the redcoats rounded up most of the islands' habitants and deported them to France. Several Thériot families and two wives crossed on the deportation transport Duc Guillaume, which left Île Royale in September 1758 and, after a mid-ocean mishap, limped into St.-Malo harbor the first of November. The crossing devastated several famliies. A Thériot crossed with her family on the transport Tamerlane, which left Chédabouctou Bay in a 12-ship convoy in late November, survived a mid-December storm off the southwest coast of England that sank three other transports, and reached St.-Malo in mid-January 1759. She and her family survived the crossing. More Thériots crossed on one of the five deportation transports that left Chédabouctou Bay in the 12-ship convoy in late November, survived the mid-December storm, and reached St.-Malo together in late January, with tragic results for the family.
Island Thériots did their best to make a life for themselves in the suburbs and villages of the St.-Malo area. They settled at Pleurtuit, Pleslin, and Plouër-sur-Rance on the west bank of Rivière Rance south of St.-Malo and at St.-Suliac on the east side of the river, but they were especially numerous at Pleudihen-sur-Rance south of St.-Suliac, and in the suburb of St.-Servan-sur-Mer north of St.-Suliac. Island Thériots landed also at Cherbourg in Normandy in 1758-59, but none remained, at least not among the living. Others landed at the northern fishing center of Boulogne-sur-Mer in Picardie and the naval port of Rochefort on the Bay of Biscay. In the spring of 1763, after prolonged negotiations between the French and British governments, the Acadians in England, including many Thériots, were repatriated to several ports in France, most of them to St.-Malo. They, too, congregated at St.-Servan-sur-Mer. Thériots from England also landed at Morlaix on the northwest coast of Brittany and settled in St.-Martin des Champs, St.-Mathieu, and St.-Mélaine parishes. In late 1765, Acadians repatriated from England, including Thériots from Morlaix, agreed to become part of a new agricultural settlement on recently-liberated Belle-Île-en-Mer off the southern coast of Brittany. Members of the family settled in the island districts of Le Palais on the east end of the island, Bangor in the island's southern interior, and Locmaria on the island's southeastern shore. By the early 1770s, French authorities were weary of providing for the many exiles still languishing in the port cities. An influencial nobleman offered to settle them on land he owned in the interior of Poitou near the city of Châtellerault. Hundreds of Acadians went there in 1773 and 1774, a hand full of Thériots among them. After two years of effort, most of the Poitou Acadians deserted the venture. From October 1775 through March 1776, hundreds of them, including the Thériots, retreated in four convoys from Châtellerault down the Vienne and the Loire to the port of Nantes, where they lived as best they could on government handouts, again, and what work they could find. The Poitou fiasco and hardships at Nantes motivated one member of the family to address the plight of his fellow Acadians in France. Shoemaker Olivier Térrio, as he preferred to spell his surname, a native of Minas living at Nantes, joined Frenchman Henri-Marie Peyroux de la Coudrenière, long-time resident of French Louisiana, in persuading many of the exiles to resettle in Spanish Louisiana. By the summer of 1785, they had coaxed over 1,500 of them--over half of the Acadians in France--into making the transatlantic crossing, 32 Thériots, including Olivier and his family, among them. Despite the efforts of their kinsman, however, many, if not most, of the Thériots still in France refused to abandon the mother country.
In North America, conditions got only worse for the Acadians who had escaped
the British in the late 1750s and sought refuge on the Gulf of St. Lawrence
shore or moved on to
Canada, where they gathered at Québec.
At war's end, Thériots being held in the British seaboard colonies, like their kinsmen in Nova Scotia, theoretically, were free to go, but not until the British discerned their intentions. Even then, colonial authorities discouraged repatriation. In August 1763 in Massachusetts a Thériot family appeared on a French repatriation list there. In June 1766, Massachusetts officials compiled a "List of Names of the French Who Wish to go to Canada." On it was a Thériot and his family of 15. In July 1763, Thériots appeared on repatriation lists at Baltimore, and at Snow Hill and Oxford on the colony's Eastern Shore. In August 1763, in South Carolina, Thériots were listed there, too.
Most of the Acadians in New England, including Thériots, chose to resettle in Canada, where kinsmen from Chignecto, Minas, and the Maritime islands had gone as early as 1756. Though now also a British possession, the far-northern province was populated largely by fellow French Catholics, many of them Acadian exiles. So, in a colony nearly as old as Acadia, descendants of Jean Thériot began the slow, inexorable process of becoming Canadiennes. Especially after 1766, Thériots could be found on the upper St. Lawrence at Bécancour across from Trois-Rivières and L'Assomption below Montréal; at Québec City; on the lower St. Lawrence at Montmagny, L'Islet, St.-Jean-Port-Joli, Ste.-Anne-de-la-Pocatière, Rivière-Ouelle, and Kamarouska; at Carleton in Gaspésie on the north shore of the Baie des Chaleurs; and on the îles-de-la-Madeleine in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. They were especially plentiful in the Kamarouska area and on the Madeleine islands. In what became New Brunswick, Thériots settled at Caraquet on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore, and on Rivière St.-Jean in the province's interior. In Nova Scotia, Thériots could be found on Baie Ste.-Marie, now St. Mary's Bay, and at Arichat on the south shore of Île Madame. Typical of most, if not all, Acadian families, these Acadiennes of Canada lost touch with their Cadien cousins hundreds of miles away, and, until the Acadian reunions of the twentieth century, may even have forgotten the others existed.
At war's end,
a Thériot family held in Massachusetts
chose to resettle not in Canada but on Miquelon, a French-controlled fishery island off the southern coast of
Newfoundland, which offered them an opportunity to elude
British rule.
Other
Thériots languishing in the seaboard
colonies emigrated not to Canada, where the British ruled, but to the French
Antilles, where they did not. While the end-of-war treaty was
being negotiated, French officials encouraged exiles in the British colonies
to resettle in St.-Dominique. Although driven from North America by
the Seven Years' War, the French were determined to hang on to what was left
of their shrinking colonial empire. A new naval base at Môle St.-Nicolas on the
northwest end of the big island would protect the approaches to their
remaining possessions in the Caribbean Basin and assist in the "war of
revenge" to come. Exiles who could be lured to St.-Domingue would
prove a ready source of labor not only for the naval contractors, but also
for the island's wealthy planters, who hoped to supplement the work of their
slaves. To sweeten the
deal, the French promised the Acadians land of their own
in the sugar colony. The first of them reached Cap-Français in late 1763,
perhaps Thériots among them. When
fellow Acadians from Halifax and Maryland, including
Thériots, came through
Cap-Français on their way to Louisiana from late 1764 through 1768, none of the
Thériots still in St.-Domingue chose to
join them. They evidently had died or had found a place for themselves in the
sugar colony's slave-based plantation economy.
The
hand full of Thériots still in Maryland
endured life among Englishmen who, despite their colony's Catholic roots,
did not care much for the French "papists" thrust upon them. When word
reached the Acadians there that the Spanish would welcome
them in Louisiana, they pooled their meager resources to
charter ships that would take them to New Orleans.
Two Thériots were part of the first
contingent of exiles from the Chesapeake colony that reached New Orleans
from Baltimore in
September 1766, and two more were part of the second contingent that
reached the Spanish colony in July 1767
Thériots settled early in Acadia and were among the earliest Acadians to seek refuge in Louisiana. The first of them reached the colony from Halifax via Cap-Français in 1765 and settled in the established Acadian community of Cabahannocer on the river above New Orleans, where two of them remained. Two moved upriver to Manchac south of Baton Rouge in the late 1770s. Another moved to the Attakapas prairies in the early 1780s, creating a western branch of the family. Four Thériot wives came with their families from Maryland in 1766 and 1767 and settled at Cabahannocer and at San Gabriel south of Manchac on what was being called the Acadian Coast. In the late colonial and early antebellum periods, seven Theriots from Cabahannocer--four of them brothers--followed their wives' families to the western prairies and added substantially to that center of family settlement. Other Theriots from the river followed, some of them settling on Bayou Teche as far down as Pattersonville in St. Mary Parish. Their cousins who remained on the river settled in what became St. James and West Baton Rouge parishes, at the opposite ends of the Acadian Coast. During the 1810s, a Theriot from upper Bayou Teche moved to West Baton Rouge Parish, reversing the usual pattern of Acadian settlement. Meanwhile, following a more common settlement pattern, Theriots from St. James Parish joined the Acadian exodus from the river to Bayou Lafourche. One of them settled at first on the middle part of the bayou near Lafourche Crossing before moving his family to Bayou du Large in Terrebonne Parish, where he established the first sugar plantation in the area, eponymously named St. Michel. The nearby town of Theriot is named after him and his many descendants. Either on the eve of or soon after the War of 1861-65, some of the Lafourche/Terrebonne Theriots moved on to the Brashear, now Morgan, City area on the lower Atchafalaya, or to St. Mary and Iberia parishes on lower Bayou Teche, settling near their cousins already there.
The largest contingent of Theriots who came to Louisiana arrived 20 years after the first of their cousins reached the colony. In the early 1780s, many members of the family who had been exiled to France grabbed at the offer of the Spanish government to join their fellow Acadians in the Mississippi valley. In 1785, 32 Theriots arrived aboard five of the Seven Ships from France. More than half of them came on a single ship, La Ville d'Archangel out of St.-Malo, which reached New Orleans in December. They also came aboard La Bergère, Le St.-Rémi, L'Amitié, and La Caroline. The new arrivals aboard La Ville d'Archangel chose to go to Bayou des Écores in the New Feliciana District north of Baton Rouge. Others went to upper Bayou Lafourche. Olivier Térriot, the humble shoemaker from Nantes who helped sign up fellow Acadians for the Seven Ships expedition, crossed on La Bergère, the second of the Seven Ships, and took his family to the Acadian Coast. He settled in what became Ascension Parish and, predictably, became a leader in the community, as he had been in France and on La Bergère. One of his sons settled downriver in St. James Parish. The Bayou des Écores settlement, meanwhile, did not endure. Even before a series of hurricanes devastated the community in the early 1790s, Acadians there, including Theriots, moved downriver to Baton Rouge and Manchac. Others settled among their cousins on the lower Acadian Coast and on Bayou Lafourche.
By the end of the antebellum period, Theriot family settlement patterns mirrored those of their peripatetic ancestors back in old Acadia. Beginning at their original base in St. James Parish, Theriots in Louisiana created three widely dispersed centers of family settlement along the river, up and down the southeastern bayous, and out on the Teche and the southwest prairies. Some even settled at the remote fringes of the region, at Chenière Caminada on the Gulf of Mexico near the boundary between lower Lafourche and southern Jefferson parishes, and at Creole in the coastal marshes of the lower Mermentau basin in present-day Cameron Parish. One river Theriot even lived for a time in Pointe Coupee Parish, where few of his fellow Acadians settled.
Nearly three dozen Theriots served Louisiana in uniform during the War of 1861-65. Not all of them survived Confederate service. ...
Most, if not all, of the Theriots of South Louisiana are descendants of Jean Thériot of Martaizé and Port-Royal. Church records reveal, however, that during the antebellum period local priests baptized and buried slaves who bore the family's name, especially on bayous Lafourche and Teche--evidence of the family's participation in the South's "peculiar institution." Judging by the number of slaves they held during the late antebellum period, some members of the family lived well on their farms, vacheries, and plantations along the bayous, at the edge of the coastal marshes, out on the prairies, and especially on the river. In 1850, Pierre Theriot, fils of the eastern district of St. James Parish owned 132 slaves! ...
In France, members of the family spelled their surname Térriot. In Louisiana, Theriot became the most common usage and also is spelled Teriau, Teriault, Teriaux, Terieaux, Terio, Teriot, Terioult, Terriau, Terriault, Terrieau, Terrio, Terrioult, Terriout, Teruau, Theriau, Therio, Therion, Therreot, Therriot. Their Canadian cousins favor Thériault.44
.
The first members of the family to come to the colony--a young husband, his wife, and two infant daughters, and a widow with four sons, seven Thériots in all--reached New Orleans 1765 from Halifax via Cap-Français. Many new family lines came of it on the river, the western prairies, and in the Lafourche/Terrebonne valley:
T
Old
S
Y
Second son Jean III married Emma, daughter of Élie Pondeville, Panville, Panvel, Panevelle, or Pandevel and Eugénie Pertuit, at the Convent church in February 1846. Their children, born near Convent, included Jean IV in March 1847 but died at age 6 1/2 (the recording priest said 7) in November 1853; Marie Élodie, called Élodie, born in March 1852; Marie Mélodie in March 1855; Joseph Louis in March 1864; ... Daughter Élodie married into the Caillouet family by 1870.
Jean, fils's third son Justilien married cousin Eulalie, daughter of Sébastien Rome and his Acadian wife Eurasie Guidry, at the Convent church in October 1855. Did they have any children?
Jean, fils's fourth and youngest son Lucien married Evélina, daughter of fellow Acadian Benjamin Dugas and his Creole wife Mélisaire Fulcher or Folker, at the Convent church in April 1853. Their children, born near Convent, included Cécilia in January 1855; Marie Lucilla in December 1856; Marie Louisa in July 1858; and Jean Benjamin in August 1859--four children, three daughters and a son, between 1855 and 1859. None of Lucien's children married by 1870.
Only
S
Second
Y
Only
Y
.
Four more members of the family--two wives and their families--came to the colony from Maryland in 1766 and 1767 and settled on the river above New Orleans at Cabahannocer and San Gabriel. No new Thériot family lines came of it.
.
By far the largest contingent of Thériots, 32 of them, came to Spanish Louisiana in 1785 aboard five of the Seven Ships from France. The first of them--two brothers and their families, including a bachelor brother, eight Thériots in all--crossed aboard La Bergère, the second of the Seven Ships, which reached New Orleans in mid-August. One of the brothers, chosen as a leader among the ship's passengers, had been an important Acadian exile in France. They followed their fellow passengers to Ascension on the river and upper Bayou Lafourche, where three vigorous family lines came of it:
Olivier's fourth son Jean Toussaint dit Jean-Jean followed his family to New Orleans and Ascension, where, at age 23, he married cousin Marie Madeleine, called Madeleine, daughter of fellow Acadians Joseph Athanase Landry and Madeleine Babin, in February 1807. Their children, born in Ascension Parish, included Mathilde Marie in December 1808; Hortense Victoire in December 1810; Jean Baptiste in December 1812; Justine in August 1815; Adeline in April 1817; and Eléonise Madeleine in September 1819 but died at age 3 in November 1822. Jean Toussaint remarried to cousin Françoise Arthémise, called Arthémise, daughter of fellow Acadians Amand Gautreaux and Françoise Landry, at the Donaldson church, Ascension Parish, in February 1821; they had to secure a dispensation for third degree of relationship in order to marry. Their children, born in Ascension Parish, included Françoise Irma in February 1822 but, called Truia Françoise, died at age 17 in January 1839; Narcisse, also called Jean Narcisse and J. Narcisse, born in September 1823; and Olivier Aristide, called Aristide, in April 1825--nine children, six daughters and three sons, by two wives, between 1808 and 1825. Jean, called Jeanjean by the recording priest, died in Ascension Parish in November 1830, age 47. Daughters Mathilde and Hortense, by his first wife, married into the Landry and Comstock families, and one of them settled in St. Martin Parish. All of Jean Toussaint's sons married on the river.
Oldest son Jean Baptiste, by first wife Madeleine Landry, married cousin Marie Élisabeth or Élise dite Lise, daughter of fellow Acadians Joseph Richard and Henriette Landry, at the Donaldsonville church in July 1834. Their children, born in Ascension Parish, included Marie Onézida dite Nezida in August 1835; Marie Élisa or Éliza, called Éliza, in July 1837; Marie Marguerite Émilie, called Émilie, in September 1839; Marie Élodie in August 1841; Joseph Enau in November 1843 but, called Henot, evidently died at age 2 1/2 (his age at time of his burial was unrecorded) in August 1846; and Jean Émile born in May 1846 but died in July--six children, four daughters and two sons, between 1835 and 1846. Daughters Nezida, Éliza, and Émilie married into the LeBlanc and Landry families by 1870. Both of Jean Baptiste's sons did not survive childhood, so only the blood of the family line may have endured.
Jean Toussaint's second son Jean Narcisse, called J. Narcisse and Narcisse, from second wife Françoise Arthémise Gautreaux, though only in his mid-20s, was editor of Le Vigilant, a bi-weekly, bi-lingual newspaper published in Donaldsonville during the late 1840s. In February 1848, still in his mid-20s, he served as a delegate to the Whig Party convention in New Orleans that supported Louisiana resident General Zachary Taylor for the presidency. J. Narcisse, at age 25, married Françoise Nathalie, called Nathalie, daughter of Patrice Bethencourt and Rosalie Dué, at the Donaldsonville church in January 1849. Their children, born in Ascension Parish, included Jean Thomas in November 1849; Marie Adeline in June 1851; and Bruno Faso in October 1852--three children, two sons and a daughter, between 1849 and 1852. Interestingly, a succession for Narcisse, son of Jean Theriot and Arthémise Gotreau, had been filed at the Vermilionville courthouse, Lafayette Parish, in June 1843. He would have been age 21 that year. One wonders when, and why, he left the river for the western prairies. As his editorship of the Donaldsonville paper and his marriage record reveal, if he did leave Ascension Parish by the early 1840s, he soon returned. He died in Ascension Parish in November 1852, age 29 (the recording priest said 30), only weeks after his youngest child was born. None of his children married by 1870.
Jean Toussaint's third and youngest son Olivier Aristide, called Aristide, from second wife Françoise Arthémise Gautreaux, married Célestine, daughter of fellow Acadians Bénoni Mire le jeune and Marie Mélanie Bourgeois, at the Donaldsonville church in October 1844. Their children, born in Ascension Parish, included Mélanie in May 1846 but, called Mélania Commesia, died in Ascension Parish at age 8 in November 1853; Marie Yrma or Irma, called Irma, born in May 1848; Joseph Numa in May 1850 but, called a "small child," evidently died at age 1 in June 1851; Jean Olivier born in September 1852; James Narcisse in March 1855 but died at age 7 in July 1862; Amélia born in c1856 but died at age 6 in July 1862, two weeks after her brother James died (were their deaths war-related?); Louis Aristide born in October 1859; Pierre Nestor in December 1861; Albert Nicholas in September 1864 but, called Nicolas, died at age 1 in October 1865; Marie Lala born in February 1867; ... Daughter Irma married into the Lanoux family by 1870. None of Aristide's sons married by then.
Olivier's sixth son Valentin, the second with the name, married cousin Marguerite Justine, called Justine, daughter of fellow Acadian Béloni Landry and his Creole wife Marie Jeanne Chauvin, at the Donaldson church in February 1817. Their children, born in Ascension Parish, included Adeline Marie or Marie Adeline in January 1818 but died at age 1 1/2 in November 1819; Claire Élise or Élise Claire born in August 1819; Joseph Florentin, perhaps their son, in November 1820; Marie Delphine, called Delphine, in May 1821 but died at age 3 in July 1824; and Marguerite Élise born in April 1823. Valentin remarried to Marie Louise, called Louise, daughter of fellow Acadians Paul Melançon and Osite Barbe LeBlanc and widow of Zénon Arceneaux, at the Convent church, St. James Parish, in February 1826. They settled near Convent. Their children, born there, included Léon Étienne in November 1828; Éloie in December 1831 but, called Édouard, died at age 2 1/2 in September 1834; and Jean le jeune born in September 1833 but died at age 1 in October 1834--eight children, four daughters and four sons, by two wives, between 1818 and 1833. Valentin died in Ascension Parish in December 1850, age 61 (the recording priest said 62). Daughters Claire Élise and Marguerite Élise, by his first wife, married into the LeBlanc and Leroy families. Valentin's remaining son also married, twice.
Oldest son Léon Étienne, by second wife Marie Louise Melançon, married Marie Félicité, daughter of fellow Acadians Joseph Babin and Théotiste Basilise Landry, at the Convent church in April 1850. Daughter Marie Léontine was born near Convent in February 1851 but died there the following June. Léon Étienne remarried to cousin Euphrasie or Euphrosine, daughter of fellow Acadians Simon Melançon and Marie Émelie Lanoux, at the Convent church in October 1854. Their children, born near Convent, included Léon, fils died at age 8 days in October 1855; Marie Alice born in January 1857; Marie Émelina in April 1859; Joseph Arsène in December 1860; Jean Baptiste Félix in June 1863 but, called Félix, died at age 2 (the recording priest said 2 1/2) in July 1865; Joseph Willis born in October 1865; ...
Olivier's eighth and youngest son Jacques Fernand or Ferdinand, called Ferdinand, married, at age 30, Marie Aspasie, called Aspasie, 19-year-old daughter of fellow Acadians Raymond Breaux and Rosalie Landry, at the Donaldsonville church in January 1825. Their children, born in Ascension Parish, included Marie Élodie, called Élodie, in October 1825; Savinien Octave, called Octave, in October 1827; Marie Hélène Honorine, called Honorine, in March 1829 but died at "age several mos." in April 1830; Marie Rosalie Lisida or Nesida born in January 1831; and Edward Séverin in February 1833. Ferdinand, at age 47, remarried to Eugénie Mathilde, daughter of Pierre Arrieux and Antoinette Barbet and widow of Jérôme Dugas, at the Donaldsonville church in May 1841. Ferdinand, described as "chantre of this church," died in Ascension Parish in April 1859, age 65. Daughters Élodie and Rosalie Nesida, by his first wife, married into the Dugas and Gaudet families by 1870. One of Ferdinand's sons also married by then.
Older son Savinien Octave, called Octave, from first wife Aspasie Breaux, married Nezida, Nisida, or Nizida Vives at the Donaldsonville church in January 1857. Their children, born in Ascension Parish, included Jean Ferdinand in May 1859; Octave Louis in March 1861 but, called Louis Octave, died at age 2 in February 1863; Marianne Ada born in April 1863; Henri Allen in July 1866; Antoine William in September 1868; Joseph Victor in September 1870; ...
S
Older son Édouard Étienne married Mélanie, daughter of fellow Acadians Isaac Hébert and Marine Landry, at the Plattenville church in January 1846. Their children, born on the upper Lafourche, included William Lazare in November 1847; and Jme. Feling in September 1850. Édouard remarried to cousin Azélie or Asélie Cancienne probably in Assumption Parish in the early 1850s. Their children, born on the upper Lafourche, included Émile Désiré near Labadieville in June 1855; Jean Pierre died at age 1 month in December 1856; Marie Rose Ludeville born in December 1858; Pierre Déomone in April 1862; a son, name and age unrecorded, died in April 1865; ... Édouard Étienne died near Plattenville in May 1868. The priest who recorded the burial, and who did not give any parents' names or mention a wife, said that Édouard died at "age 50 years." Édouard Étienne would have been that age. Neither his daughter nor any of his remaining sons married by 1870.
Oldest
S
Olde
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Five more Thériots--a widow, two wives, and a widower and his son--crossed on Le St.-Rémi, the fourth of the Seven Ships, which reached New Orleans during the second week of September 1785. Another vigorous family line came of it on Bayou Lafourche and the lower Teche:
Oldest son Siméon married Olympe, daughter of fellow Acadians Charles Dupuis and Françoise Daigle, at the Paincourtville church in May 1846. Their children, born in Assumption Parish, included Christine Clémence in April 1847 but, called Christine, died at age 1 1/2 in Novembr 1848; Olésime born in May 1850; Orphelia Armentina in October 1853; Marie Élizabeth in January 1857; Marie Françoise near Pierre Part on Lake Verret in January 1861; Odalie Domitille in October 1863; ... Daughter ... married into the Broussard family on lower Bayou Teche by 1870. Siméon's son did not marry by then.
Ambroise Bernard's second son Ferdinand Sylvanie married Mélanie, daughter of Filbert Friou and Marie Offnal, at the Paincourtville church in January 1853. Daughter Marie Honorine was baptized, age unrecorded, at the Plattenville church in March 1854. Ferdinand Sylvanie remarried to Marie Myrthe, called Myrthe, daughter of fellow Acadians Joseph Hébert and Victoire Catherine Boudreaux, at the Thibodaux church, Lafourche Parish, in January 1858. They moved to the Brashear, now Morgan, City area, on the lower Atchafalaya, either on the eve of, or soon after, the War of 1861-65. Their children, born near Brashear City, included Alea Roséma in January 1862; Joseph Télésphore in December 1867; Joseph Eugène in March 1870; ... Daughter Alea married into the Pontiff family after 1870.
Ambroise Bernard's third and youngest son Jean Baptiste married Louisa or Louise, daughter of Pierre Mendoza and Marie Verret, at the Charenton church, St. Mary Parish, in July 1852. They remained on lower Bayou Teche. Their children, born there, included Jean Gabriel near Charenton in May 1853; Joséphine Annette in July 1855; Octavie in September 1857; Marie Mathilde in April 1861; Pierre Aristide in November 1862; ... None of Jean Baptiste's children married by 1870.
F
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A Thériot widow and her two grown Giroir daughters crossed on L'Amitié, the fifth of the Seven Ships, which reached New Orleans during the first week of November 1785. They followed their fellow passengers to Ascension on the river, but no new family line came of it.
A large contingent of Thériots--two families, one led by a widower with only daughters, the other with a son; several wives; a widow; a spinster; and a girl with her widowed mother, 17 Thériots in all--reached New Orleans from St.-Malo aboard La Ville d'Archangel, the sixth of the Seven Ships, in early December 1785. They followed their fellow passengers to Bayou des Écores, a new settlement in the New Feliciana District north of Baton Rouge. Surprisingly, no new Thériot family lines came of it.
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The last member of the family to immigrate from France--a young husband whose wife had crossed on an earlier ship and who was escorting his widowed mother to Spanish Louisiana--crossed on La Caroline, the last of the Seven Ships, which reached New Orleans from Nantes during the third week of December 1785. He reunited with his wife and settled on upper Bayou Lafourche, but, again, except for its blood, no new Thériot family line came of it:
Pierre Thibodeau, born in c1631 perhaps at Marans on the southwest edge of Poitou near La Rochelle, France, was recruited in 1654 by Emmanuel Le Borgne to work in Acadia. In c1660, in his late 20s, he married 17-year-old Jeanne, older daughter of Jean Thériot and Perrine Rau, at Port-Royal. Between 1661 and 1689, Jeanne gave Pierre 16 children, nine daughters and seven sons, all of whom survived childhood and created families of their own! A miller by trade, Pierre built a mill at Pré-Ronde on the river above Port-Royal "and soon became prosperous." In the late 1680s, he was briefly imprisoned by Acadian governor Louis-Alexandre des Friches de Meneval and had to pay a small fine for trading brandy to the Indians. Despite these troubles, in 1695 the governor-general of New France, Louis de Buade, comte de Palluau et de Frontenac, granted Pierre land between Mount Desert Island and Machias in present-day coastal Maine "with a league on either side of the said river [then called K8askag8she] by two leagues depth, to be measured from its mouth, with the islands and islets if any be found there." But Pierre and his sons probably never settled on the impressive seigneurie. Instead, in the late 1690s, under orders from Acadian commander Joseph Robinau de Villebon, Pierre explored the northern shore of the Baie de Chignecto, an arm of the Bay of Fundy. In the spring of 1698, he founded the Acadian settlement of Chepoudy on the estuary of a wide river that flowed into the bay, and Villebon granted him a seigneurie there. In 1702, Pierre, along with fellow Acadian Pierre Gaudet l'aîné, refused to recognize the authority of the seigneur of nearby Chignecto, former Acadian governor Michel Le Neuf de la Vallière et de Beaubassin, who had granted control of the area to his son-in-law, Claude-Sébastien de Villieu. De Villieu claimed that the Chepoudy, Petitcoudiac, and Memramcook settlements, whom the locals called the trois-rivères, were in his father-in-law's fiefdom. The case was referred to France. Meanwhile, the King's representative in Port-Royal, Mathieu de Goutin, one of Pierre's sons-in-law, noted in a report to the King's ministers in October 1702 that Pierre "had 'equipped and borne the expedition of the first exploration there [at Chepoudy] under the late M. de Villebon's orders. There are presently seven hundred toises of ditch [dykes with aboiteaux] made. He has made a trial planting of wheat, which grew well. He now has six grown boys, as well as one already settled, and eight married daughters who have children in a condition to develop the settlement. There are in addition a grist-mill and a sawmill ready to run. ...'" In March 1703, a decree from the Council of State at Port-Royal granted the settlers of Chepoudy, Petitcoudiac, and even Chignecto "possession of the settlements they had made ...," but, a biographer of Thibodeau adds, "The final verdict [on the legitimacy of Pierre's seigneurie at Chepoudy] did not reach Acadia until after the pioneer's death. A decree of the Conseil d'État, dated 2 June 1705, defining more precisely that of 20 March 1703, confirmed La Vallière's [and de Villieu's] claim. The dream of a seigneury at Chipoudy was dispelled." Pierre died at Pré-Ronde in December 1704, in his early 70s. His nine daughters married into the Landry, Lejeune dit Briard, Robichaud dit Cadet, Boudrot, de Goutin, Le Borgne de Bélisle, D'Amours de Louvières, and Bourgeois families. His seven sons married into the Bourg, Hébert, Préjean, Aucoin, Dugas, and Comeau families. In 1755, descendants of Pierre Thibodeau and Jeanne Thériot could be found at Annapolis Royal, formerly Port-Royal; Grand-Pré and l'Assomption, Pigiguit, in the Minas Basin; Chignecto; Chepoudy and Petitcoudiac in the trois-rivières area west of Chignecto; and on Île St.-Jean. Le Grand Dérangement of the 1750s scattered this large family even farther.
The Acadians at Chignecto and in the trois-rivières were the first to endure a disruption of their lives. In the spring and summer of 1750, in response to the British building a fort at Beaubassin village, Canadian militia, assisted by Mi'kmaq warriors led by the Abbé Jean-Louis Le Loutre, burned Acadian homesteads in the British-controlled area east of Rivière Missaguash, forcing the habitants there to move to the French-controlled area west of the river. Thibodeaus may have been among the refugees in this petit dérangement. After yet another war erupted between Britain and France in 1754, Chignecto-area Acadians were caught in the middle of it. When British and New-English forces attacked Fort Beauséjour at Chignecto in June 1755, several hundred area Acadians serving as militia, along with the garrison of Canadian militia and French troupes de la marine, became prisoners of war when the fort surrendered on June 16. Lieutenant-Governor Charles Lawrence was so incensed to find so-called French Neutrals fighting with French regulars at Beauséjour he ordered his officers to deport these Acadians to the southernmost seaboard colony. Among them was likely Timothée Thibodeau of Chepoudy, a young bachelor, and brothers Joseph and Michel Thibodeau, who escaped with two Broussard kinsmen from the workhouse at Charles Town in late January 1756 and may have attempted to return to greater Acadia with them via the Carolina back country. Or Timothée Thibodeau may have been among the exiles sent to South Carolina and Georgia who, with the permission of those colonies' governors, managed to make their way by sea back to greater Acadia in the spring of 1756. Most of the Thibodeaus at Chignecto and in the trois-rivières did not end up on transports for the southern colonies but escaped the British and sought refuge on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore or moved on to Canada.
Many of their cousins at Minas and especially Pigiguit were not so lucky. Minas Thibodeaus found themselves on transports headed for Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland. The Acadians deported to Virginia, the first contingent of which reached Hampton Roads during the second week of November, suffered the indignity of being turned away by the colony's authorities. Exiles languished aboard disease-infested ships while colonial leaders pondered their fate. As winter approached, Virginia's governor Robert Dinwiddie, with the approval of his council, ordered the "French Neutrals" dispersed to the ports of Hampton, Norfolk, and Richmond. The following spring, the governor, his council, and the colony's Burgesses debated the question of what to do with the Neutrals and concluded that the "papists" must go. Virginia authorities hired more vessels and sent them on to England--299 to Bristol, 250 to Falmouth, 340 to Southampton, and 336 to Liverpool--1,225 exiles in all by one count. Their ordeal only worsened in the English ports, where they were packed into warehouses and where many died from smallpox. Thibodeaus were held at Liverpool, Bristol, and Falmouth, where one of them died of smallpox in November 1756. Seven years later, more than half of the Minas Acadians re-deported from Virginia had died in England.
Most of the Thibodeaus at Annapolis Royal, like their cousins at Chignecto and the trois-rivières, escaped the British roundup. After a hard winter on the Fundy shore, they crossed to Chepoudy the following spring and took refuge on the upper Petitcoudaic or lower Rivière St.-Jean before moving on to the Gulf shore or to Canada. Some the Annapolis Thibodeaus were not so lucky. Early in December, two brothers and their families ended up on a transport bound for South Carolina.
Some of the
Thibodeaus who sought refuge in Canada
paid a heavy price for going there.
Living in territory controlled by France, Thibodeaus on Île St.-Jean escaped the roundup of their cousins in Nova Scotia. Some of them left the island after 1755, crossed Mer Rouge, and took refuge with kinsmen on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore. Most remained. Their respite from British oppression was short-lived, however. After the fall of the French fortress at Louisbourg in July 1758, the redcoats rounded up most of the habitants on Île St.-Jean and deported them to France. Most of the island Thibodeaus crossed on one of the five deportation transports--the so-called Five Ships--that left Chédabouctou Bay in a 12-ship convoy in late November, survived a mid-December storm off the southwest coast of England that sank three other transports, and reached St.-Malo together in late January 1759. The crossing devastated the family nonetheless. Island Thibodeaus did their best to make a life for themselves in the suburbs and villages of the St.-Malo area. They were especially plentiful at Mordreuc and other villages near Pleudihen-sur-Rance on the east side of the river south of St.-Malo, and at Pleurtuit across the river from Pleudihen. One of them lived at Langrolay-sur-Rance near Pleurtuit for a while before crossing the river to Pleudihen. In the spring of 1763, after prolonged negotiations between the French and British governments, the Acadians in England, including Thibodeaus, were repatriated to St.-Malo and to Morlaix in northwest Brittany. The ones who went to St.-Malo settled not only at Pleudihen-sur-Rance, but also in the suburbs of St.-Servan-sur-Mer and St.-Énogat, now Dinard, across the harbor from St.-Servan, and at St.-Coulomb in the countryside northeast of St.-Malo. In late 1763 and early 1764, Acadians repatriated from England, including Thibodeaus, agreed to help settle a new French colony in Guiane on the northeastern coast of South America. Not all of them survived the venture, and some who did promptly returned to France. In the fall of 1765, Acadians repatriated from England, along with a few island Acadians from St.-Malo, agreed to become part of a new agricultural settlement on recently-liberated Belle-Île-en-Mer off the southern coast of Brittany, Thibodeaus among them. They settled near Bangor and Locmaria on the south end of the island. By the early 1770s, French authorities were weary of providing for the exiles still languishing in the port cities. An influential nobleman offered to settle them on land he owned near Châtellerault in the interior of Poitou. Hundreds of Acadians went there in 1773 and 1774, Thibodeaus included. After two years of effort, most of the Poitou Acadians deserted the venture. From October 1775 through March 1776, hundreds of them, including most, if not all, of the Thibodeaus, retreated in four convoys from Châtellerault down the Vienne and the Loire to the port of Nantes, where they lived as best they could on government handouts, again, and what work they could find. Members of the family settled in St.-Pierre de Rezé Parish across the Loire from Nantes; in the Nantes parishes of St.-Similien, St.-Nicolas, and St.-Jacques; and at nearby Chantenay. When in the early 1780s the Spanish government offered the Acadians in France a chance for a new life in faraway Louisiana, at least 23 Thibodeaus at Nantes and St.-Malo agreed to take it. Other Thibodeaus in France, including all the ones who had gone to Belle-Île-en-Mer or moved on from there to Lorient in southern Brittany, chose to remain.
In North America, conditions only got worse for the Acadians who had escaped the British in the late 1750s and sought refuge on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore. After the fall of Québec in September 1759, the British gathered their forces to attack the remaining French strongholds in New France, including Restigouche at the head of the Baie des Chaleurs, now a major Acadian refuge. In late June 1760, a British naval force from Louisbourg attacked Restigouche. After a spirited fight in which Acadian militia and Mi'kmaq warriors played an important role, the French commander blew up his larger vessels and retreated up Rivière Restigouche, leaving the militia and the Indians to resist a British landing. Unable to capture the garrison or lay waste to the area, the British commander ordered his ships to return to their base at Louisbourg. In October, after the fall of Montréal, another British naval force, this one from Québec, returned to Restigouche to accept the garrison's, and the Acadians', surrender. On 24 October 1760, on the eve of formal surrender, French officers counted 1,003 Acadians still at Restigouche. No Thibodeau head of family appears on the list. During the following months, Acadians who had escaped capture at Restigouche, perhaps including Thibodeaus, or who remained in other Gulf-shore camps, either surrendered to, or were captured by, British forces in the region were held in prison compounds in Nova Scotia for the rest of the war. At least six Thibodeau families appeared on a repatriation list at Halifax in August 1763.
The war over, the many Thibodeaus being held in the British seaboard colonies, like their kinsmen in Nova Scotia, theoretically, were free to go, but not until the British discerned their intentions. Even then, colonial authorities discouraged repatriation. In June, July, and August 1763, dozens of members of the family appeared on French repatriation lists in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and South Carolina. In June 1766, reflecting the relunctance of colonial authorities to let the Acadians go, Thibodeaus still in Massachusetts appeared on a "List of Names of the French Who Wish to go to Canada."
Most of the Acadians in New England and Pennsylvania, including many Thibodeaus, chose to resettle in Canada, where their kinsmen had gone as early as 1756. Though now also a British possession, the far-northern province was populated largely by fellow French Catholics, many of them Acadian exiles. So, in a colony nearly as old as Acadia, descendants of Pierre Thibodeau of Pré-Ronde and Chepoudy began the slow, inexorable process of becoming Canadiennes. Especially after 1766, Thibodeaus could be found on the upper St. Lawrence at Bécancour, Cap-Santé, Deschambault, L'Assomption, L'Orignal, Louiseville, Maskinongé, Montebello, Montréal, Nicolet, Pointe-Claire, Québec City, Rigaud, St.-François-du-Lac, St.-Jacques de l'Achigan, Ste.-Anne-de-la-Pérade, Ste.-Foy, Trois-Rivières, and Yamachiche. On the lower St.-Lawrence and on Rivière Chaudière they could be found at Beauport, Kamouraska, Île d'Orléans, L'Islet, L'Isle-Verte, St.-François-de-Beauce, St.-Joachim, St.-Joseph-de-Beauce, Ste.-Anne-de-la-Pocatière, and Ste.-Marie-de-Beauce. In what became New Brunswick, Thibodeaus settled at Ékoupag now Meductic, Sunbury, and St.-Basile-de-Madawaska on the lower and middle stretches of Rivière St.-Jean; at Néguac, Richibouctou, and Tracadie on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore; and at French Village in the Kennebecasis valley between the St.-Jean and the Gulf. In Nova Scotia, Thibodeaus could be found on Baie Ste.-Marie, now St. Mary's Bay. Typical of most, if not all, Acadian families, these Acadiennes of Canada lost touch with their Cadien cousins hundreds of miles away, and, until the Acadian reunions of the twentieth century, may even have forgotten the others existed.
Thibodeaus being held in Nova Scotia at war's end faced a hard dilemma. The Treaty of Paris of February 1763 stipulated in its Article IV that persons dispersed by the war had 18 months to return to their respective territories. However, British authorities refused to allow any of the Acadian prisoners in the region to return to their former lands as proprietors. If Acadians chose to remain in, or return to, Nova Scotia, they could live only in small family groups in previously unsettled areas or work for low wages on former Acadian lands now owned by New-English "planters." If they stayed, they must also take the hated oath of allegiance to the new British king, George III, without reservation. They would also have to take the oath if they joined their many cousins in Canada or in other parts of greater Acadia. After all they had suffered on the question of the oath, few self-respecting Acadians would consent to take it if it could be avoided. Some Nova Scotia exiles chose to relocate to Miquelon, a French-controlled fishery island off the southern coast of Newfoundland. Others considered going to French St.-Domingue, where Acadian exiles in the British colonies were going, or to the Illinois country, the west bank of which still belonged to France, or to French Louisiana, which, thanks to British control of Canada, was the only route possible to the Illinois country for Acadian exiles. Whatever their choice, many refused to remain under British rule. So they gathered up their money and their few possessions and prepared to leave their homeland. Of the 600 exiles who left Halifax in late 1764 and early 1765 bound for Cap-Français, St.-Domingue, at least 29 were Thibodeaus, second only to the Broussards in number.
The Thibodeaus in Maryland endured life among Englishmen who, despite their colony's Catholic roots, did not care much for the French "papists" thrust upon them. When word reached the exiles there that the Spanish would welcome them in Louisiana, most of them pooled their meager resources to charter ships that would take them to New Orleans. A Thibodeau widow and her six children were part of the second contingent of exiles from the Chesapeake colony that reached New Orleans from Baltimore in July 1767. A Thibodeau wife and her family joined a third contingent, this one from Port Tobacco, that reached New Orleans in February 1768.
Thibodeaus settled early in Acadia and were among the prominent families there. They also were among the earliest Acadians to seek refuge in Louisiana. The first of them came to Louisiana from Halifax via Cap-Français in February 1765 with the party led by their kinsman, Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil. That April, they followed the Broussards to lower Bayou Teche, from which four Thibodeaus created vigorous family lines in what became St. Martin, St. Landry, Lafayette, Vermilion, and Acadia parishes. That same year, a cousin who also came to Louisiana from Halifax and may have followed the Broussards to lower Bayou Teche settled on the Opelousas prairie south of the present city and created a vigorous line there, too. Three more young Thibodeaus came to Louisiana from Halifax in 1765 and settled in the established Acadian community of Cabahannocer on the river above New Orleans, but only one of their family lines endured, in what became St. James Parish. In 1767 and 1768, Thibodeaus from Maryland settled on the river, but no new family lines came of it. Even if the Spanish government had not coaxed hundreds of Acadians in France to emigrate to their Mississippi valley colony, the Thibodeaux family would have been a large one in Louisiana, especially on the western prairies. In 1785, however, two dozen more members of the family came to the colony aboard three of the Seven Ships from France. One of these Thibodeaus created a vigorous line in what became West Baton Rouge Parish. However, most of the 1785 arrivals chose to settle on upper Bayou Lafourche, creating a third center of Thibodeau family settlement that, by the end of the antebellum period, stretched all the way down into the Terrebonne country. A Thibodeaux--he spelled his name Thibodaux--probably an Acadian born in one of the seaboard colonies who followed his family to Canada, appeared on the river in the early 1790s before moving to the Lafourche-Terrebonne valley, where he became a major planter in the early 1800s. Amazingly, he served, among others things, as president of the state Senate and interim governor of Louisiana in late 1824. During the antebellum period, other Thibodeauxs joined the Acadian exodus from the river to Bayou Lafourche, and two of their cousins moved from Bayou Lafourche and St. James Parish to the western prairies, which, at the end of the period, still remained the largest center of Thibodeaux family settlement in South Louisiana. On the eve of the War of 1861-65, at least one Thibodeaux from Terrebonne Parish moved to the Brashear, now Morgan, City, area on the lower Atchafalaya. During or soon after the war, more Thibodeauxs left the Lafourche/Terrebonne valley and resettled on the southwestern prairies or in St. James Parish.
No non-Acadian Thibodeaus appear in Louisiana church records during the early colonial period. A Tibido who lived in New Orleans during the late colonial period probably was Spanish, not French. During the late antebellum period, non-Acadian Thibodeauxs who appear in South Louisiana church and civil records were the result of the Acadian family's participation in the South's peculiar institution, not immigration from France and or the French Antilles. ...
Over a hundred Thibodeauxs served Louisiana in uniform during the War of 1861-65. Not all of them survived their Confederate service. ...
The spelling Thibodaux is common in the Bayou Lafourche/Terrebonne valley, but, there and elsewhere, most members of the family favor Thibodeaux. In Louisiana, the family's name also is spelled Etibodeau, Pitibodo, Thibaudau, Thibaudaud, Thibaudaut, Thibaudeau, Thibaudeaux, Thibaudos, Thibaudot, Thibeaud, Thibeaudau, Thibeaudeau, Thibeaudot, Thibeudeau, Thibodaux, Thibodeau, Thibodo, Thiboudeau, Thybodeau, Tibaudau, Tibaudeau, Tibaudo, Tibaudot, Tibeaudeau, Tibodo, Tibodau, Tibodaux, Tibodeau, Tiboto, Tivido. This large Acadian family should not be confused with the much smaller Quebedeaux family, French Canadians who live on the western prairies where many Thibodeauxs settled and whose closeness in pronunciation to the Acadian family befuddled a recording priest or two.45
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The first members of the family to reach the colony--three families, one led by a widow, two by brothers, and another by a first cousin, along with five wives, several individuals, and several newborns, 19 Thibodeaus in all--followed the Broussards to the Attakapas District in early 1765. Several vigorous family lines came of it there: ~
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Élisée Paul's fourth son
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Narcisse's f
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Benjamin's fifth
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Pierre, fils's fourth and younget son Jules married double cousin Belzire, daughter of fellow Acadians Émile Thibodeaux and Mélasie Thibodeaux, at the Abbeville church in December 1868. Their son Justilien was born near Abbeville in August 1869; ...
Older
Don Louis's
Six more Thibodeaus reached New Orleans in the late winter or early spring of 1765 either with the Broussard party or soon after. If they followed the Broussards to lower Bayou Teche that spring, they did not remain. Perhaps in an effort to escape an epidemic that struck the Teche valley settlement that summer and fall, they moved north to the Opelousas District, where they remained. Another vigorous family line came of it:
Oldest
Pierre, fils's younger son Pierre III married cousin Marguerite, daughter of fellow Acadians Victor Richard and Marie-Madeleine Brasseur dit Brasseaux, at the Opelousas church in January 1798; both Marguerite's paternal and maternal grandmothers were Thibodeauxs. Their children, born in what became St. Landry Parish, included Jean-Baptiste, called Baptiste, age unrecorded, in December 1798; Marie, perhaps Marie Zélime, baptized at the Opelousas church, age unrecorded, in December 1800; another Marie born in late 1802 and baptized at the Opelousas church, age 7 months, in June 1803; Marie Louise, Élouise, or Éloyse born probably in the 1800s; Hippolyte in January 1805; Susanne dite Suzette baptized at the Opelousas church, age 4 months, in July 1807; Pierre IV, perhaps also called Tarsile Pierre, born in March 1809; Louis in February 1811; Marguerite in October 1812; Marcellin in October 1814; Emérand in January 1818; Léon, also called Léonce and Ling, in November 1819; Placide in the early 1820s; Joseph in October 1824; and Evelina in August 1835--15 children, nine sons and six daughters, between 1798 and 1835. Daughters Marie Zélime, Marie Louise, Suzette, and Marguerite married into the Lavergne, Bellard, Reaux, and Hébert families, including two Lavergne brothers, by 1870. Six of Pierre III's sons also married by then, but not all of the lines endured.
Oldest son Jean-Baptiste, called Baptiste, married cousin Marie Azélie, called Azélie and Zélie, daughter of fellow Acadian Philippe Richard and his French Canadian wife Marie Eugénie Lavergne, at the Opelousas church in July 1816. Their children, born in St. Landry Parish, included Philippe in December 1817 but died at age 2 months the following February; Célestine born in March 1819; Céleste, also called Marie Céleste, in July 1822; Marie Azélie, called Azélie, in April 1824; Célestin in November 1825; Marceline in April 1828; Jean Baptiste, fils in June 1830; Zéphirin in August 1832; Edmond in November 1834; and Marcellin in c1835--10 children, six sons and four daughters, between 1817 and 1835. Baptiste's succession, calling his wife Marie Belie and listing his heirs--Célestine and her husband, Céleste, Marie Azélie, Célestin, Marcelin, Zéphirin, and Edmond--was filed at the Opelousas courthouse in October 1835. He would have been in his mid-30s that year. Daughters Célestine, Azélie, Marceline, and Marie Céleste married into the Duplechin, Courvelle, Fall, Smith, and Bouillon families, two, perhaps three, of them twice, two to Courvelle brothers, by 1870. Five of Baptiste's sons also married by then.
Second son Célestin married first cousin Estelle, daughter of Joseph Reaux or Reo and Suzette Thibodeaux, his uncle and aunt, at the Grand Coteau church in June 1848. They settled on the prairie between Grand Coteau and Church Point. Their children, born there, included a child, name and age unrecorded, died in August 1849; Marie Marcelline born in February 1854 but, called Marcelline, died at age 5 in February 1859; Marcellin le jeune born in January 1857; Marie Angelina in April 1860 but, called Angelina, died at age 4 1/2 in July 1864; Marie Emma born in June 1862; Célestin, fils in January 1865; Charles in September 1867; ... During the war, Célestin, despite his age, may have served in Company K of the 7th Regiment Louisiana Cavalry, raised in St. Landry Parish, which fought in Louisiana, especially against local Jayhawkers. One of the unit's duties was to round up Confederate deserters like Célestin's younger brothers Jean Baptiste, fils, Zéphirin, and Edmond. As the birth of his younger sons attest, Célestin survived the war and returned to his family. None of his children married by 1870.
Baptiste's third son Jean Baptiste, fils married Elizabeth, daughter of John H. H. Smith and his Acadian wife Céleste Savoy, at the Grand Coteau church in October 1850; Jean Baptiste, fils's sister Marcelline married Elizabeth's brother Robert, and Jean Baptiste, fils's uncle Léon married Elizabeth's sister Céleste. Jean Baptiste, fils and Elizabeth's children, born near Grand Coteau, included Marie Lastinie in January 1852; Eugénie in November 1853; Eugène in February 1856; Félicien in March 1858; Élizabeth in July 1860; ... During the war, Jean Baptiste, fils, along with brothers Zéphirin and Edmond and other St. Landry Parish men, was conscripted into Company I of the 1st Regiment Louisiana Heavy Artillery, which fought at Vicksburg, Mississippi. When the unit was captured with the rest of the Confederate forces at Vicksburg in July 1863, Jean Baptiste, fils and his brothers, along with most of the other conscripts in their unit, refused parole. The Federals sent them to Memphis, Tennessee, as prisoners of war. From there they were transferred to Gratiot Street Military Prison in St. Louis, Missouri, and then sent on to the prisoner-of-war compound at Camp Morton outside of Indianapolis, Indiana. In January 1865, at Camp Morton, all three brothers took the oath of allegiance to the United States government and were released to return home. They may have waited until the end of the war to make the long journey home. Daughters ... married into the Boudreaux family by 1870. Neither of Jean Baptiste, fils's sons married by then.
Baptiste's fourth son Zéphirin married Amélie, Améline, or Amélite, daughter of fellow Acadians Antoine Boudreaux and Marie Émilie Savoy, at the Grand Coteau church in January 1852. Their children, born near Grand Coteau, included Émelie in August 1854; Edgard in April 1856; Marie Célina in January 1858; Joseph Edvi in August 1859 but, called Édouard, died at age 1 1/2 (the recording priest said 2) in February 1861; Antoine Numa born in May 1861; Alcée in July 1869; ... During the war, Zéphirin, like his brothers Jean Baptiste, fils and Edmond, was conscripted into Company I of the 1st Regiment Louisiana Heavy Artillery, which fought at Vicksburg, Mississippi. He, too, refused to sign a parole in July 1863, ended up as a prisoner of war at Camp Morton, Indiana, took the oath of allegiance to the United States government in January 1865, and returned home after the war. None of his children married by 1870.
Baptiste's fifth son Edmond married first cousin Joséphine, another daughter of Joseph Reaux and Suzette Thibodeaux, at the Grand Coteau church in January 1855. Their children, born near Church Point, included Joseph in December 1855; Marie Joséphine in June 1857; a child, name unrecorded, died at age 1 month in October 1858; Aristide born in August 1859; a child, name unrecorded, perhaps theirs, died at birth in June 1861; Cléophas born in May 1862; Edmond, fils in March 1870 but died the following July. ... During the war, Edmond, like his brothers Jean Baptiste, fils and Zéphirin, was conscripted into Company I of the 1st Regiment Louisiana Heavy Artillery, which fought at Vicksburg, Mississippi. He, too, refused to sign a parole in July 1863, ended up as a prisoner of war at Camp Morton, Indiana, took the oath of allegiance to the United States government in January 1865, and returned home after the war. None of Edmond's children married by 1870.
Baptiste's sixth and youngest son Marcellin, perhaps also called Mazant, Méance, and Marie, may have married fellow Acadian Selimène or Celimène Dupuy in a civil ceremony in St. Landry Parish in September 1856. Their children, born on the St. Landry prairies, included Philosie in September 1857; Jean Duplessis in October 1860; Marie Donatile in November 1863; François "at Rivière Mentau [Mermentau]" in March 1868; ...
Pierre III's second son Hippolyte married Arsène, daughter of Étienne Bran, Brandt, Brant, Brain, Branale, Branle, also called Brown, and his Acadian wife Françoise Richard, at the Opelousas church in July 1824. Their children, born in St. Landry Parish, included Lastie or Lasty in June 1825 but died at age 3 1/2 in March 1829; Marcelite born in December 1829; Célima near Grand Coteau in May 1833; and Félicia near Opelousas in May 1835--four children, a son and three daughters, between 1825 and 1835. Daughters ... married into the Breaux, Broussard, and Caruthers families, so the blood of this family line endured.
Pierre III's third son Pierre IV married Marguerite, also called Arsène and Sydalise, daughter of William Wood and his Acadian wife Marguerite Brasseaux, at the Opelousas church in February 1829. Their children, born in St. Landry Parish, included Marguerite in April 1830; Pierre V in February 1833; Émile in October 1837; and Evariste in February 1838--four children, two daughters and two sons, between 1830 and 1838. Pierre IV evidently died near Grand Coteau in August 1864. The priest who recorded the burial, and who did not give any parents' names or mention a wife, said that Trasile, probably Tarsile, Pierre, as he called him, died "at age 55 yrs.," so this probably was him. Considering where he died--in an area infested with cutthroat Jayhawkers, and in the path of an invading Federal army--one wonders if his death was war-related. Daughter Marguerite married into the Ducharme family by 1870. One of Pierre IV's sons also married by then.
Oldest son Pierre V married Anaïse Amélie, Amelia, or Émilia, daughter of fellow Acadians Maxille Cormier and Marie Mélanie Broussard, at the Grand Coteau church in January 1856. Their children, born probably near Church Point, included Félix baptized at the Grand Coteau church, age 7 months, in July 1857; Marie Alsina born in April 1858; Alexandre in April 1860; and Théomile in November 1863--four children, three sons and a daughter, between 1857 and 1863. Pierre V probably was the Pierre Thibodeaux who died near Grand Coteau in August 1864. The priest who recorded the burial, and who did not give any parents' names or mention a wife, said that Pierre died "at age 30 yrs." This Pierre would have been age 31. Pierre V's father seems to have died only four days before he did. One wonders if their deaths were war-related.
Pierre III's fourth son Louis married, at age 41, Louise, daughter of Louis Servant or Sarvant and Marie Lacasse, at the Opelousas church in December 1852. Daughter Marie Eudozie, also called Odesia, Odosia, and Dosia, was born in St. Landry Parish in March 1854. Louis's succession, naming his wife, was filed at the Opelousas courthouse in August 1854. He would have been age 43 that year. Daughter Marie Dosia married a Thibodeaux first cousin. Louis evidently fathered no sons.
Pierre III's seventh son Léon, also called Léonce and Ling, married Céleste, daughter of John H. H. Smith and his Acadian wife Céleste Savoy, at the Grand Coteau church in July 1839; one of Léon's nephews and a niece married Céleste's siblings. Léon and Céleste's children, born near Grand Coteau, included Maie Aséna, called Aséna, in April 1840; Hilaire Lasti or Lasty in January 1842 but, called Lastie, died at age 4 1/2 in August 1846; Cyprien born in January 1844 but died at age 3 1/2 in August 1847; Marie Silvanie born in May 1845 but, called Sylvanie, died at age 1 1/2 in October 1846; Léon, fils born in February 1847 but died the following November; Élisabeth born in November 1848; Léonce in December 1850 but died at age 3 1/2 (the recording priest said 4) in October 1854; Théophile born in December 1852; Joseph in September 1855 but died the following November; Martin born in November 1856; Angelina in January 1859; Félix in November 1861; ... Daughters ... married into the Duplechin and Lavergne families by 1870. None of Léon's remaining sons married by then.
Pierre III's eighth son Placide married cousin Adeline, daughter of fellow Acadians François Richard and his second wife Marguerite Brasseaux, in a civil ceremony in St. Landry Parish in April 1843, and sanctified the marriage at the Grand Coteau church in July 1845. Their children, born probably near Church Point, included Alcide in June 1846; Eusèbe in January 1849; Joseph Omer in January 1851; Onesia in September 1853; Telesmar in July 1856; François in January 1858; Marie Gloise in January 1860; Télisphore in January 1862; Adeline in Octzober 1864; ... None of Placide's daughters married by 1870, but one of his sons did.
Oldest son Alcide married first cousin Marie Eudozie, Odesia, Odosia, or Dosia, daughter of fellow Acadian Louis Thibodeaux and his Creole wife and Louise Servant, his uncle and aunt, in a civil ceremony in St. Landry Parish in June 1868, and sanctified the marriage at the Church Point church in May 1869.
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Five more Thibodeaus--two widows and three bachelors--also reached New Orleans in 1765 from Halifax via Cap-Français. They did not follow their kinsmen to lower Bayou Teche or to Opelousas but settled, instead, at the established Acadian community of Cabahannocer on the river above New Orleans. Another vigorous family line came of it on the river and Bayou Lafourche:
Oldest
Oldest son Paul, fils, married, at age 34, Odile, daughter of fellow Acadians Achille Breaux and Rosalie Dugas, at the Thibodaux church in June 1866. Their children, born in Lafourche Parish, included Marie Séraphine Azema in April 1867; Thomas Achille in May 1869; ...
Olivier's fourth son Joseph Edmond, called J. Edmond and Edmond, at age 17, married 17-year-old Élisabeth, called Élise, another daughter of Louis Robichaux and Élisabeth Babin, at the Thibodauxville church in February 1830. Their children, born on the Lafourche, included Geneviève Estelle in October 1833; Edmond, fils in November 1835 but died at age 1 in November 1836; Joseph, fils born in January 1840; Pierre Tranquillin in January 1842 but, called Pierre Tranguille, died at age 13 1/2 (the recording priest said 15) in July 1855; Marie Marguerite, called Marguerite, born in November 1844; Victoria in May 1847; Élisa in May 1849; Jean Lemel in June 1852; and Marie Octavie in December 1854--nine children, five daughters and four sons, between 1833 and 1854. Daughters Marguerite, Victoria, ... married into the Ledet, Zeringue, Albert, Chauvin, Chiasson, Richard, and Toups families by 1870. One of J. Edmond's remaining sons also married by then.
Second son Joseph, fils married Euphrosine, daughter of fellow Acadian Eugène Chiasson and his Creole wife Hortense Lagarde, at the Thibodaux church in January 1867. Their children, born on the Lafourche, included Joseph Léon in December 1867; Pierre Philippe in March 1869; ...
Olivier's fifth son Michel Aurelien, called Aurelien, married Adeline, 16-year-old daughter of Zénon Chauvin and his Acadian wife Carmélite Robichaux, at the Thibodauxville church in January 1835. They lived near the boundary of Lafourche Interior and Terrebonne parishes. Their children, born there, included Geneviève Evelia in February 1832; Adèle Octavie in February 1836; Julema in November 1837; Geneviève Carolie in February 1840; Carmélite Théoline, called Théoline, in July 1842; Émée in August 1844; Olivier Aurelien in July 1847; Marguerite Justine, called Justine, on Bayou du Large, Terrebonne Parish, in December 1849; Zénon Ernest in June 1853; Joseph Adrien in May 1856; Pierre Armand in December 1858; Adeline Aurelienne in December 1860; Henriette Helena in February 1863; ... Daughters Théoline, Justine, ... married into the Champagne, Chauvin, Theriot, Toups, and Watkins families by 1870. One of Aurelien's sons also married by then.
Oldest son Olivier Aurelien married Fidelie Evaline, Evélina, or Evina, daughter of Washington Watkins and his Acadian wife Anastasie Theriot, at the Houma church, Terrebonne Parish, in June 1868; Olivier's sister Justine married Evaline's brother Edward. Olivier and Evaline's son Alexandre Forest was born in Terrebonne Parish in March 1869; ...
Oldest son Félix married double cousin Calixte, daughter of fellow Acadians Paul Sylvain Thibodeaux and Séraphine Thibodeaux, in a civil ceremony in Lafourche Parish in September 1857. Their children, born on the middle bayou, included Félix Amidas in November 1858; Paul Joseph Milas in October 1861; Seraphine Alice in February 1863 but, called Alice, died at "age 4 yrs. 9 mths." in November 1867; Céleste Cléona born in October 1865; Pierre in December 1868; ...
Félicien's second son Joseph married Emma, daughter of Mathieu Birdsall and Basilie Hotard, at the Raceland church, Lafourche Parish, in February 1864. Their children, born near Raceland, included Firmain, probably Firmin, Joseph in August 1865; Marie Alisse in July 1867; ...
Félicien's third and youngest son Méance married double cousin Céleste, another daughter of Paul Sylvain Thibodeaux and Séraphine Thibodeaux, in a civil ceremony in Lafourche Parish in October 1865, and sanctified the marriage at the Raceland church in July 1866. Their children, born on the lower Lafourche, included Charles Nil in July 1866; Léon Lie in December 1867; Paul in 1870 and baptized at Raceland, age 4 months, in January 1871. ...
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Older son Alexandre Treville may have married Élodie Friou at the Chacahoula church, Terrebonne Parish, in May 1860. They moved to the Brashear, now Morgan, City, area, on the lower Atchafalaya, soon after their marriage. Daughter Aurelia Elezida was born there in November 1861; ...
Firmin Charles's third and youngest son Jean Julien, called Julien, married Marie Françoise, daughter of Philippe Jolibois and Louise Charpentier of St. James Parish, at the Plattenville church in August 1810. They settled on the upper Lafourche near the boundary between Assumption and Lafourche Interior parishes. Their children, born there, included Zéphirin Gédéon in July 1811; Cyprien in the 1810s; Marie Adeline in November 1815 but, called Marie Adélise, died at age 14 1/2 in March 1830; Adélaïde Aglaé born in May 1818; Barthélémy Théodule in May 1820; Adeline in October 1822; Silvanie or Sylvanie Jeanne, probably Jean, a son, in December 1830; and Marcel, actually Marie, Zéolide in October 1832--eight children, four sons and four daughters, between 1811 and 1832. Daughters Adélaïde Aglaé and Marie Zéolide married into the Fremin and Naquin families. Three of Julien's sons also married.
Second son Cyprien married Marie Delphine or Delphine Marie, daughter of fellow Acadians Joseph Bernard and Marie Constance Breaux, at the Plattenville church in October 1840, but they probably had married civilly before that. Their children, born in Assumption Parish, included Joseph Alfred, called Alfred, in June 1839, a year before his parents' church wedding; and Marie Augustine in September 1840, a month before their church wedding. Cyprien remarried to Clémentine Mélasie, daughter of André Percle and Marguerite Faube, in a civil ceremony in Lafourche Interior Parish in June 1844, and sanctified that marriage at the Plattenville church in April 1845. They settled on the upper Lafourche near the boundary between Lafourche Interior and Assumption parishes. Their children, born there, included Cyprien Ozémé in December 1845 but died at age 2 in January 1848; Joseph Dosilien, called Dosilien, born in November 1848; Cléopha Thomassil in April 1851; Jules Léo in February 1854; Marie Arselia in June 1856; ... Neither of Cyprien's daughters married by 1870, but two of his sons did, one of them on the river.
Oldest son Alfred, by first wife Delphine Marie Bernard, married Azélie, daughter of Marcellin Berthelot and Félicité Hoffnag, at the Labadieville church, Assumption Parish, in February 1862. Their children, born on the upper Lafourche, included Marie Asélie in May 1864; Marie Louise in March 1866; Joseph Camille Albert in April 1869; Léonce Edgard in June 1870. ...
Cyprien's third son Dosilien, by second wife Cleméntine Mélasie Percle, married Joséphine, daughter of Armant Mury and Angelina Luquet, at the Vacherie church, St. James Parish, in January 1870.
Julien's third son Barthélémy Théodule married Marie Josèphe Clémence, called Clémence, daughter of Joseph Duroche or Durocher and his Acadian wife Théotiste Boudreaux, at the Thibodaux church in April 1841. They settled near the boundary between Lafourche Interior and Terrebonne parishes. Their children, born there, included Joseph died six days after his birth in December 1841; Théotine Joséphine, called Joséphine, born in January 1843; Mathilde Victorine in January 1845; Angéline Zéomée in October 1847; Maxime, a daughter, in December 1849; Euphémon Cheri in May 1852; Ulysse Gérard in June 1857; Joseph Arthur in December 1860; Marie Florestile or Hortestile, unless they're twins, near Chacahoula, Terrebonne Parish, in March 1864; ... Daughters Mathilde, ... married into the Hébert and LeBlanc families by 1870. None of Barthélémy's sons married by then.
Julien's fourth son Sylvanie married Marie Domitille, called Domitille, daughter of Joseph Larose and Eugénie Fremin, at the Plattenville church in October 1853. Their children, born on the upper Lafourche, included Joseph Olivier in October 1853, four days before his parents' wedding; Omere Cyprien Désiré in September 1854; Ursenie Elmire Técle in June 18[5]6; Osémé René in December 1862; twins Joseph and Omer Aubert in January 1865; ... None of Sylvanie's children married by 1870.
Second son Pierre Gédéon, perhaps the second with the name, married Maria or Marie, daughter of fellow Acadians Anselme Boudreaux and his first wife Marie Modeste Gautreaux and widow most likely of François Marcellus Bourg, at the Labadieville church in May 1857. Their children, born on the upper Lafourche, included Pierre Henri in October 1861; Léo Albert in December 1867; ...
Firmin Gédéon's third son Oville married Uranie, daughter of Jean Baptiste Gros and his Acadian wife Irène Barrilleaux, at the Labadieville church in June 1864. Oville remarried to Elvina, daughter of Jean Lagrange and his Acadian wife Marie Hébert, at the Labadieville church in August 1866.
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A family of six more Thibodeaus crossed aboard La Ville d'Archangel, the sixth of the Seven Ships, which reached New Orleans from St.-Malo in early December 1785. They followed their fellow passengers to Bayou des Écores in the New Feliciana District north of Baton Rouge and created another vigorous family line on the river:
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Pierre Charles's fifth and youngest son Pierre Charles, fils, also called Octave, married Azélie, daughter of fellow Acadian Grégoire Alexis Lejeune and his Creole wife Marie Tardit of West Baton Rouge Parish, at the Baton Rouge church in July 1835. They settled in West Baton Rouge Parish. Their children, born near Brusly, included M. Odile in January 1840; Edvige Adélaïde baptized at the Brusly church, age unrecorded, in July 1842; Pierre Théophile born in October 1845; Émile in October 1847; Joseph Polinaire in August 1849; Deloris Augustine in January 1852 but, called Delorise, died at age 5 1/2 in June 1857; Adonia born in October 1854; Marie Élisa in March 1859; ... Daughter ... may have married a Thibodeaux cousin by 1870. None of Pierre Charles, fils's/Octave's sons married by then.
During the late colonial period, a Thibodeau came to Louisiana not with his family or with other relatives but on his own. His intelligence, ambition, and perseverance made him one of the most accomplished Louisianans of his day. His biographer, Louisiana historian Joseph G. Tregle, Jr., says Henry Schuyler Thibodaux, as Henri spelled his name, son of Alexis Thibodeau and Anne Blanchard, was born at Albany, New York, in 1769. Tregle calls his father "a French Canadian," but the family names Thibodeau and Blanchard were common ones in pre-dispersal Acadia. According to Tregle, Henry was orphaned at an early age and was raised in the family of one of the wealthiest, most powerful men of New York colony, General Philip Schuyler of the Albany area, hero of the American Revolution. Tregle relates that the general sent the bright young orphan to Scotland to receive a formal education. In the early 1790s, Henry Thibodaux, who took Schuyler as his middle name, emigrated to Spanish Louisiana. According to family tradition, Henry's trade was that of shoemaker, an unusual occupation for someone with a classical education.
The research of Acadian/Cajun genealogist Wendy Pitre Roostan tells a different story--one, in fact, which convinces her that Governor Henry Schuyler Thibodaux was a descendant of Pierre Thibodeau of Acadia. The trail begins with the record of Henry Schuyler Thibodaux's marriage to his first wife in Louisiana, which, happily, records his parents' names. As biographer Tregle agrees, Henry's parents were Alexis Thibodeau and Anne Blanchard. Ms. Roostan postulates that the couple were Acadians, not Canadians--transported in the autumn of 1755 from Pigiguit to Pennsylvania perhaps aboard the deportation transport Three Friends. Acadian genealogist Stephen A White notes that Alexis Thibodeau, born in c1723, married Marie-Anne, daughter of René Blanchard and Anne Landry, in c1747, place unrecorded. It could have been at Pigiguit, where the Minas Basin Thibodeaus resided in large numbers. White first says that Marie-Anne Blanchard's husband Alexis was a son of Joseph Thibodeau and Marie-Josèphe Bourgeois, but his online corrections say Alexis's parents actually were Jean Thibodeau and Marguerite Hébert. White says Jean was the eighth child and second son of the Acadian family's progenitor, Pierre Thibodeau. This would make Alexis à Jean Thibodeau a grandson of the seigneur of Chepoudy. Then the story takes a sudden turn. White reveals that Alexis à Jean Thibodeau remarried at St. Joseph Church, Philadelphia, to Catherine, daughter of Jacques à René LeBlanc and Catherine Landry and widow of Jean-Baptiste Babin, on 17 February 1762. If Henry Schuyler Thibodaux was born at Albany, New York, in 1769, as Tregle insists, and Henry's father was Alexis à Jean Thibodeau, as his marriage records hint, then Alexis's first wife, Marie-Anne Blanchard, could not have been Henry Schuyler Thibodaux's mother. Faced with this dilemma, Ms. Roostan proposes that the 1769 birth date is incorrect, that Henry, son of Alexis and Anne, was born in c1761, not at Albany but at Philadelphia, where the family still resided. (If so, Henry's father's remarriage date--17 February 1762--hints that Henry's birth in c1761 may have led to his mother Marie-Anne Blanchard's death). By 1766-67, several years after the war with Britain had ended, most of the Acadians still languishing in the upper seaboard colonies, including Pennsylvania, repatriated to Canada. Alexis Thibodeau was counted on the upper St. Lawrence at Nicolet across from Trois-Rivières in 1795-96, in his early 70s. By that date, son Henry, now in his early 30s if he had been born at Philadelphia in c1761, had gone to Louisiana and married his first wife. Alexis died at Nicolet in July 1802, age 79--when Henry, now remarried, was about to leave Cabahannocer on the river and move his growing family to upper Bayou Lafourche. But, again, the historical record fails to shed light on Henry Schuyler Thibodaux's early years. What evidence is there that he spent any time in Albany, or anywhere else in New York for that matter? If he was age 5 in 1766, as Ms. Roostan postulates, he likely would have been taken by his father and stepmother to Canada, where he came of age. Did he leave his father's home during his late teens, while the American Revolution still raged? Was he conscripted into the Canadian militia and captured by the Americans, perhaps in upper New York, during the war? General John "Gentleman Johnny" Burgoyne surrendered his army of redcoats and German mercenaries to American General Horatio Gates at Saratoga, New York, in October 1777, when Henry, son of Alexis Thibodeau of Nicolet, would have been age 16 or 17. Was the bright young Acadian, who technically was an orphan since his birth mother was dead, taken by his American captors to nearby Albany? Did he ingratiate himself with members of the Schuyler family, who taught him to speak and read English, providing him a basic, if not a classical, education? Ms. Roostan's research reveals that the Schuyler family was noted for their charity, including raising, though not adopting, orphans, both Native and European. Was Henry's tutor Scottish, hence the pleasant fiction that General Schuyler sent the bright young orphan to Scotland for a classic education? Ms. Roostan's research in the United Kingdom has turned up no trace of a Henry Thibodeau, or even a Henry Schuyler, enrolled at any of the universities in Scotland. Nor has her research in Schuyler family records turned up evidence of the family adopting a Canadian orphan named Henri/Henry Thibodeau. The Revoutionary War ended officially in September 1783 with the signing of another Treaty of Paris, when Henry, if he had been born in c1761, would have been in his early 20s. Did he return to Canada and live with his aging father, or did he remain at Albany and learn the shoemaker's trade? What motivated him to emigrate to faraway Louisiana? White shows that most of Henry à Alexis's closest Thibodeau relatives would have been living in Canada, not Louisiana, at the end of the Revolutionary War. Did Henry see more economic opportunity in Spanish Louisiana than in British Canada? Did he have a falling out with his father, or with British authorities, and set out on his own? Joseph G. Tregle insists that, after he finished his education in Scotland, Henry Schuyler Thibodaux "immigrated to Louisiana shortly after 1790."
In May 1793, Henry Schuyler Thibodaux finally generated a primary-source record for future historians to ponder: he married Félicité, daughter of Jacques Bonvillain and Charlotte Eber, actually Saint Ives, of the German Coast, at St.-Jacques de Cabahannocer church on the Acadian Coast just above the Germans. The baptismal records of two of their children give Henry's parents' names, as does the record of his remarriage to Brigitte, daughter of French Canadian Nicolas Bélanger and French Creole Marguerite Lejeune of Pointe Coupée, at the Baton Rouge church in June 1800, which calls the groom "Henri of Canada." (This notation by the Baton Rouge priest may be the origin of Tregle's claim that Henry's father, and therefore Henry, was "a French Canadian," not an Acadian from Canada. There is a difference.) At least four primary sources, then, agree on the names of Henry's parents: Alexis Thibodeau and Anne Blanchard, not Alexis Thibodeau and Catherine LeBlanc. Henry and his wives created a large family. His and first wife Félicité Bonvillain's children, born at Cabahannocer, included Léandre-Bannon in February 1795; Aubin-Bénoni in March 1796; and Eugénie in August 1797. His and second wife Brigitte Bélanger's children, born on the river and Bayou Lafourche, included Marie Elmire, called Elmire, in c1800; Michel-Henry, called Henry-Michel-Joseph, Henry-Michel, and Michel, baptized at the Baton Rouge church, age 1 month, in July 1801; Brigitte Émilie, called Émilie, born on the upper Lafourche in July 1804; Marie Eléonore in May 1807; Bannon Goforth, called Bannon G., in Lafourche Interior Parish in December 1812; and Henry Hubert Claiborne, called Henry Claiborne, H. Claiborne, and Claiborne, in the 1810s--nine children, five sons and four daughters, by two wives, between 1795 and the 1810s.
By 1804, perhaps soon after the transference of Louisiana from France to the United States, Henry and his growing family joined the Acadian exodus from the river to upper Bayou Lafourche and settled near the boundary between what later became Ascension and Assumption parishes. From there, he moved down bayou to near the headwaters of Bayou Terrebonne, a distributary of Bayou Lafourche, which made him one of the pioneer settlers of what became Terrebonne Parish. The humble shoemaker did not remain humble long. He promptly threw himself into local politics while he amassed land and slaves on upper Bayou Terrebonne near present-day Schriever. He named his plantation St. Brigitte (usually spelled Bridget) after his second wife. In 1805, when he was age 36 (if he had been born in c1769; otherwise, he was in his mid-40s), his neighbors sent him to the legislature of the United States Territory of Orleans. In 1808, he became a justice of the peace for Lafourche County, as civil parishes were then known. In 1811, he was chosen as a delegate to the state constitutional convention that helped create the State of Louisiana. After Louisiana became the eighteenth state in 1812, his neighbors promptly elected him to the new state Senate, in which he served for over a dozen years. Meanwhile, from October 1814 to April 1815, he served as a company officer in the Louisiana state militia. In 1824, Henry was serving as president of the Senate when Governor Thomas B. Robertson resigned his office to become a federal judge. The Louisiana state constitution of that day designated the president of the state Senate, not a lieutenant governor, to succeed a governor who resigned from or died in office. Henry Schuyler Thibodaux served as interim governor of Louisiana from November to December 1824, until the inauguration of Robertson's elected successor, Henry Johnson. After his short time as governor, Henry Schuyler returned to the state Senate and continued as its president. Three years later, while campaigning for a regular term as the state's chief executive, he was struck down by an abscessed liver at his home on Bayou Terrebonne. He died in October 1827, in his late 50s or mid- or late 60s, and was entombed at Halfway Cemetery near Schriever, though many decades later his ashes were reinterred at St. Bridget's Church Cemetery in Schriever. His will, dated 28 Jul 1817, named his wife Brigitte and his oldest son Léandre as his executors. His first succession inventory, naming both of his wives, listing his remaining children by both wives, and including his oldest daughters' spouse--Léandre Bannon, Aubin B., and Eugénie and her husband, by his first wife; Henry, Michel, Émilie, Elmire, Henry Claiborne, and Barron[sic] Goforth, by his second wife--was filed at the Houma courthouse, Terrebonne Parish, in November 1827. His second succession inventory, naming his second wife and listing his children by his first wife--Léandre B.; Aubin; and Eugénie--was filed at the Thibodauxville courthouse, Lafourche Interior Parish, in January 1828, so he owned property in both parishes. In November 1828, "Papers relating to Land Sale," naming his second wife and listing some of his children and three of his daughters' husbands--Léandre B.; Eugénie and her husband; Émilie and her husband; Elmire and her husband; Henry Claiborne; and Bannon Goforth--was filed at the Thibodauxville courthouse. The town named after him, originally called Thibodauxville, was incorporated three years after his death. In 1838, it was renamed Thibodaux. The governor's two sons by his first wife married Acadians, and his three sons by his second wife married French or German Creoles. Daughters Eugénie, Brigitte Émilie, and Marie Elmire, by both wives, married into the Bourgeois, Barras, and Porche families, one to an Acadian, the others to Creoles. The governor's grandsons tended to marry French Creoles, and at least three of them married Anglo Americans, but one of his grandsons and several of his granddaughters married Acadians. Judging by the number of slaves the governor's sons held during the late antebellum period, the family prospered on their farms and plantations on upper Bayou Terrebonne and along the middle Lafourche.
Oldest son Léandre Bannon, by first wife Félicité Bonvillain, married, at age 21, Adélaïde Claire, 15-year-old daughter of fellow Acadians Charles Bergeron and his second wife Victoire-Marie Benoit, in a civil ceremony in Lafourche Interior Parish in November 1816, on the same day his sister Émilie married. Perhaps Adélaïde's age, but more likely her "condition," is why she and Léandre Banon married civilly. Their children, born on the Lafourche, included Émilie in c1817 or 1818; Demosthène in the 1820s but died in Terrebonne Parish, no age given, but he likely was in his mid- or late 20s in December 1848 (his succession inventory, naming his siblings--Émilie and her husband, Aglaé and her husband, Lea S. and her husband, L. Bertus, and Élodie--as his heirs, was filed at the Houma courthouse in February 1849); Brigite Aglaé born in the 1820s; Élodie born in April 1829; Susan Lea, called Lea and Leah, in March 1831; and François Numa in January 1832. Léandre remarried to cousin Joséphine Dalila, called Dalila, daughter of Pierre Bonvillain and Thérèse Carlin of St. Mary Parish, in a civil ceremony in Terrebonne Parish in August 1835; his new wife was a sister of his oldest daughter Brigite Aglaé's husband. Léandre and Dalila's children, born in Terrebonne Parish, included Arthur Henry in June 1836; Pierre Élie Elfred or Alfred in September 1837; Léandre Alfred, called Alfred, in December 1838; and Pierre Adolbert or Edmond, called Edmond and Admar, in August 1840--10 children, four daughters and six sons, by two wives, between 1817 and 1840. Léandre Bannon died in Lafourche Interior Parish in August 1843, age 48. Daughters Émilie, Brigite Aglaé, and Lea/Leah, by his first wife, married into the Bonvillain, Pontiff, and Lamoureaux families, the younger one twice within two years, by 1870. Two of Léandre's sons also married by then, but not all of the lines endured.
Fifth son Léandre Alfred, called Alfred, from second wife Dalila Bonvillain, married Odillia, daughter of Claiborne Watkins and Angèle Labit, in a civil ceremony in Terrebonne Parish in October 1864, and sancified the marriage at the Houma church in February 1865. Their daughter Eva Alfreda was born posthumously in Terrebonne Parish in August 1865. Léandre Alfred may have been the L. A. Thibodaux who served as a lieutenant in the Lafourche Parish Regiment Militia. Alfred died in Terrebonne Parish in June 1865, age 26. Was his death war-related?
Léandre Bannon's sixth and youngest son Edmond or Admar, by second wife Dalila Bonvillain, married Félicité or Félicie, daughter of fellow Acadian G. Maximin Hébert and his Creole wife Aimée Vicknair, at the Houma church in June 1860. Their children, born in Terrebonne Parish, included Joseph Armand in November 1865; Thomas Alfred in November 1870. ... During the War of 1861-65, Edmond served as a private in Company H of the 26th Regiment Louisiana Infantry, raised in Terrebonne Parish, which fought at Vicksburg, Mississippi. As the birth dates of his olders sons attest, he survived the war and returned to his family.
Henry Schuyler's second Aubin Bénoni, by first wife Félicité Bonvillain, married Eugénie, daughter of fellow Acadians Guillaume-Bénoni Hébert and Marie Dantin, at the Plattenville church, Assumption Parish, in June 1816. Their children, born on the Lafourche, included Félicité Esther, called Esther, in April 1817; Brigitte or Brigide Célime or Célima in January 1819 but, called Elmire Brigide, died at age 15 1/2 in November 1834 (perhaps after giving birth to a "natural" daughter, also named Brigide Célina, born in Lafourche Interior Parish in early October); Anne Matilde or Mathilde, called Mathilde, born in October 1820; Eugénie Pamelas in November 1822; Marie Lina, probably Célina, in January 1825; Henry Fursi or Furcy, called Furcy, in January 1827; Joséphine in the 1820s; Marie Aglaïde in November 1830; Marianne or Marie Anne Eléonore in March 1832; Aubin Zephir or Zephyr, called Zephyr, in July 1835; Guillaume Cléborne or Claiborne and also William Claiborne, called Claiborne, in September 1837; and Marie Anonène in December 1839--a dozen children, nine daughters and three sons, between 1817 and 1839. In December 1850, the federal census taker in Lafourche Interior Parish counted six slaves--all males, three blacks and three mulattoes, ranging in age from 58 to 16--on A. B. Thibodaux's farm. The previous August, the federal census taker in Terrebonne Parish noted that Aubin Bénoni and his surviving brothers--Henry Michel, Henry Claiborne, and Bannon Goforth--also owned 117 slaves in common, ranging in age from 77 years to a few months, some of the older ones probably inherited from their father. They also owned in Terrebonne Parish, with an associate named Batey, 85 more slaves, ranging in age from 80 to 2, counted in October 1850. In late June 1860, the federal census taker in Lafourche Parish counted four slaves--one mulatto and three blacks, three males and a female, ranging in age from 50 to 30--on A. B. Thibodaux's farm in the parish's Ward 7. Daughters Esther, Mathilde, Eugénie Pamela, Marie Anne, Joséphine, and Célina married into the Pitre, Bourgeois, Umberfield or Umbrefield, Maronge, Daigle, Champagne, and Matherne families by 1870. Two of Aubin Bénoni's sons also married by then.
Oldest son Henry Furcy, called Furcy, married Marie Anne, daughter of John Doyle and Marcelline Ford, at the Thibodaux church in July 1851. Their children, born on the Lafourche, included Eve Bennete in December 1851; Edirie Zéphise in July 1853; Eugénie Nelsona in July 1856; Marie Malvina in January 1861; Marie Furciana in January 1864; Marie Anne Léona in October 1865; Étienne in August 1867; Henri Arthur in October 1868; ... None of Furcy's children married by 1870.
Aubin Bénoni's second Aubin Zephyr, called Zephyr, married Armantine, daughter of Florence Dupré, at the Thibodaux church in August 1861. One wonders who Armantine's father may have been. Aubin and Armantine's children, born on the Lafourche, included Palmira in December 1862; Marie Brigitte in November 1864; Joseph Henry Clet or Clay in July 1869; ...
Henry Schuyler's third son Michel Henry, called Henry Michel Joseph, Henry Michel, H. Michel, and Michel, from second wife Brigitte Bélanger, became an attorney as well as a planter. He married Marie Rosalie, called Rosalie, daughter of François Hymel or Himel and Marguerite Elfer or Helfer, at the Thibodauxville church in June 1820. Their children, born on the Lafourche, included Henry François in March 1821 but died in Terrebonne Parish, age 22, in November 1843; Marie Célina born in January 1823; François Voltaire, called Voltaire, in c1825 and baptized at the Thibodaux church, age unrecorded, in May 1846; Édouard Clet, also called Édouard Clay and Clay, baptized at the Thibodaux church, age unrecorded, in May 1846; Joseph Banon or Bannon, called Bannon, baptized at the Thibodaux church, age unrecorded, in May 1846; and Michel Lamarque, called Lamarque, baptized at the Thibodaux church, age unrecorded, in May 1846. Note that their four younger sons, born in the 1820s and early 1830s, were baptized on the same day, 2 May 1846, at the Thibodaux church probably on the eve of their father's remarriage. Wife Marie Rosalie died in January 1834, and Henry Michel remarried to Louise Eriphile, daughter of Louis Riche of Assumption Parish, before April 1839, when they were called man and wife in a mortgage record at the Houma courthouse, Terrebonne Parish. Their children, born in Terrebonne Parish probably in the mid- or late 1830s, included Louise Irma; Julie Brigitte; and Marie or Mary Laura, called Laura--nine children, five sons and four daughters, by two wives, between 1821 and the late 1830s. In late August 1850, the federal census taker in Terrebonne Parish counted 57 slaves--25 males and 32 females, 37 blacks and 20 mulattoes, ranging in age from 60 years to 3 months--on H. M. Thibodaux's plantation. He and his surviving brothers--Aubin Bénoni, Henry Claiborne, and Bannon Goforth--also owned 117 slaves in common, ranging in age from 77 years to a few months, some of the older ones probably inherited from their father, counted in Terrebonne Parish in August 1850. They also owned in Terrebonne Parish, with an associate named Batey, 85 more slaves, ranging in age from 80 to 2, counted in October 1850. Henry Michel, in his mid-50s, remarried again--his third marriage--to Marie Azélie, called Azélie, daughter of Henri Lirette and Marie Domingue, in a civil ceremony in Terrebonne Parish in July 1855, and sanctified the marriage at the Thibodaux church in July 1856; the marriage also was recorded civilly in Lafourche Parish in July 1856. Their children, born in Terrebonne Parish, included Henri Scaillard or Henry Schuyler le jeune in April 1856; and François or Franklin Claiborne in September 1857--11 children, seven sons and four daughters, by three wives, between 1821 and 1857. In the summer of 1860, the federal census taker in Terrebonne Parish counted 34 slaves--9 males and 25 females, 24 blacks and 10 mulattoes, ranging in age from 49 to 1--on M. H. Thibodaux's plantation in the parish's Ward 10; this was Henry Michel. Henry Michel died in Terrebonne Parish in March 1861, age 60. A "Petition for administration," calling him Henry Michel, naming his two wives, and listing his children and some of their spouses--Laura and her husband, Lamarque, Louise Irma, Julie and her husband, Voltaire (deceased), Marie Célina (deceased) and her husband, Henry François (deceased), Clay, Bannon, and Franklin--was filed at the Houma courthouse a week after his death. Daughters Marie Célina, Laura, and Julie, by his first and second wives, married into the LeBlanc, Dutreil, and Viala or Vialo families by 1870. Two of Henry Michel's sons also married by then, but not all of the lines endured.
Second son François Voltaire, called Voltaire, from first wife Rosalie Hymel, married, at age 21, Marie Emée or Aimée, daughter of Terence Toups and his Acadian wife Marie Caroline Bourgeois, at the Thibodaux church in December 1846. Their son François Henri was baptized at the Thibodaux church, age unrecorded, in October 1848. François Voltaire, called Voltaire, died in Terrebonne Parish in October 1848, age 23. His succession inventory, mentioning his infant son, was filed at the Houma courthouse the following December. Despite his youth and ill health, François Voltaire had served as first recorder of the new Houma church, St. Francis de Sales, from its establishment in 1847 until his untimely death the following year. His son did not marry by 1870.
Michel Henry's third son Édouard Clet or Clay, called Clay, from first wife Rosalie Hymel, married Émilie, daughter of Pierre Lagarde and his Acadian wife Scholastique De La Mazière, at the Thibodaux church in November 1847. Édouard Clay, called Clay by the parish clerk, donated slaves to three of his half-sisters (the clerk erroneously said "children")--Louise Irma, Julie Brigitte, and Marie Laura, all of whom were still unmarried--in December 1853. Were Clay and his wife that rare Cajun couple who had no children of their own?
Henry Schuyler's fourth son Bannon Goforth, called Bannon G., from second wife Brigitte Bélanger, attended local schools before studying law at Hagerstown, Maryland, after which he was admitted to the bar and practiced law in Lafourche Interior and Terrebonne parishes. He married, at age 23, Justine, 17-year-old daughter of Pierre Aubert and Marguerite Barras, in a civil ceremony in Lafourche Interior Parish in July 1836, and sanctified the marriage at the Thibodaux church in December 1840. Their children, born probably in Terrebonne Parish, included Cécilia Adèle in April 1838; Prospère Aubin or Aubane, also called Aubin Prosper, in February 1840; Leusden Aubert in August 1842; Ida Émelie in April 1844; Michel in c1845; Mire Belle in March 1846; Marie or Mary Marguerite in January 1848; Charles Edward in December 1851; Amelia Zuléma in November 1852; Arthur in September 1854; Franklin in January 1856; Bannon Goforth, Jr. in December 1861; and Gaston Skiler, probably Schuyler, in March 1864--13 children, five daughters and eight sons, between 1838 and 1864. Bannon was a member of the state constitutional conventions of 1845 and 1852. A Jacksonian Democrat, he served two terms in the United States House of Representatives (the Twenty-ninth and Thirtieth Congresses), representing Louisiana's Second Congressional District, from March 1845 to March 1849. After his service in Congress, he resumed the practice of law in Lafourche Interior and Terrebonne parishes. In late August 1850, the federal census taker in Terrebonne Parish counted 14 slaves--six males and eight females, seven blacks and seven mulattoes, ranging in age from 40 years to infancy--on B. G. Thibodaux's farm. He and his surviving brothers--Aubin Bénoni, Henry Michel, and Henry Claiborne--also owned 117 slaves in common, ranging in age from 77 years to a few months, some of the older ones probably inherited from their father, in Terrebonne Parish in August 1850. They also owned in Terrebonne Parish, with an associate named Batey, 85 more slaves, ranging in age from 80 to 2, counted in October 1850. In late July 1860, the federal census taker in Terrebonne Parish counted 30 slaves--17 males and 13 females, 13 blacks and 17 mulattoes, ranging in age from 55 to 2--on B. G. Thibodaux's plantation in the parish's Ward 2. Bannon Goforth, Sr. died in Terrebonne Parish in March 1866, age 53. He was buried in Halfway Cemetery near Houma. A "Petition for tutorship" of his minor children, naming his wife and listing his children and some of their spouses--Cécilia and her husband, Ida and her husband, Aubane, Leusden, Michel, Mary, Amelia, Charles, Arthur, Franklin, Bannon, and Gaston--was filed in his name at the Houma courthouse in April 1866. Daughters Cécilia, Ida, and Mary Marguerite married into the Blake or Blasse, Dedrick or Dederick, and Baner or Bauer families by 1870. One of Bannon Goforth's sons also married by then.
Oldest son Aubin Prosper, called Antone Prosper by the recording priest, married cousin Susanne Julie, daughter of Claireville Barras and Julie Tabor, at the Thibodaux church in December 1863. Their children, born on the Lafourche, included Henri Oscar in November 1864; Paul in March 1866; Anna Marie in March 1868; Charles Allen in January 1869; ...
Henry Schuyler's fifth and youngest son Henry Hubert Claiborne, called Henry Claiborne, H. Claiborne, and Claiborne, from second wife Brigitte Bélanger, married Marie Mathilde, called Mathilde, daughter of Terence Toups and his Acadian wife Marie Caroline Bourgeois, in a civil ceremony in Lafourche Interior Parish in August 1838, and sanctified the marriage at the Thibodaux church in July 1841. Their children, born probably in Terrebonne Parish, included Amélie in July 1840; Henry Émile, called Émile, in March 1841; Jessey Beaty, called Beaty or Batiz, in November 1844; Marguerite Brigitte or Brigitte Marguerite, called Brigitte and Brigitte M., in March 1846; Bellenger in the spring of 1850; Jacques in April 1851 but died by November 1855, when he did not appear in his father's succession inventory record; Caroline Mathilde, called Mathilde, born in October 1851[sic] and, called Elmire Caroline Mathilde, baptized the following April at the Thibodaux church, no age given; and Henry Claiborne, fils, called Claiborne, born in September 1854--eight children, three daughters and five sons, between 1840 and 1854. Claiborne served as an administrator of the new Houma church, St. Francis de Sales, after it was founded in 1847. In late August 1850, the federal census taker in Terrebonne Parish counted eight slaves--a male and seven females, six blacks and two mulattoes, ranging in age from 50 to 6--on one of H. C. Thibodaux's farms. He and his surviving brothers--Aubin Bénoni, Henry Michel, and Bannon Goforth--also owned 117 slaves in common, ranging in age from 77 years to a few months, some of the older ones probably inherited from their father, counted in Terrebonne Parish in August 1850. They also owned in Terrebonne Parish, with an associate named Batey, 85 more slaves, ranging in age from 80 to 2, counted in October 1850. Henry Claiborne died in Terrebonne Parish in November 1855, probably in his 40s. A petition for succession inventory in his name, listing his wife and his children--Amélie, Émile, Brigitte, Batiz (Beaty), Mathilde, and Clairborne--was filed at the Houma courthouse later that month. In late July 1860, the federal census taker in Terrebonne Parish, counted 54 slaves--24 males and 30 females, 40 blacks and 14 mulattoes, ranging in age from 70 to 1--on Mrs. H. C. Thibodaux's plantation in the parish's Ward 2; these were Mathilde Toups's slaves. Daughters Amélie and Brigitte M. married into the Knobloch and Tucker families by 1870. Two of Henry Claiborne's sons also married by then.
Oldest son Henry Émile, called Émile, married Laura Emily, daughter of Joseph William Tucker and his Acadian wife Marcelline Émilie Gaudet, also called Falgout, at the Thibodaux church in February 1866; Émile's sister Brigitte married Laura Emily's brother Joseph P. Émile and Laure Emily's children, born on the Lafourche, included Hughes Albert in February 1867; Joseph William in May 1868; Laura in August 1870. ...
Henry Claiborne's second son Jesse Beaty, called Beaty, married Mary Louisa, another daughter of Joseph William Tucker and Marcelline Émilie Gaudet, at the Thibodaux church in February 1867. Their daughter Emely was born on the Lafourche in November 1867; ...
Guillaume, son of Nicolas Trahan and Renée Desloges of St.-Pierre Parish, Montreuil-Bellay, Anjou, France, on the south side of the middle Loire, was born there in c1601. Guillaume was married and an edge-tool maker recently residing at Bourgueil, on the north side of the middle Loire, when he left La Rochelle for Acadia aboard the St.-Jehan in 1636. With him was wife Françoise Corbineau, who he had married in St.-Étienne Parish, Chinon, Touraine, on the lower Vienne, in July 1627; their two young daughters; and a valet--among the first French families to settle in Acadia. They settled first at La Hève, where the St.-Jehan landed, and then, later in the decade or in the early 1640s, followed Governor Charles d'Aulnay to Port-Royal, where they remained. Their daughters married into the Bourgeois and Doucet dit La Verdure families at Port-Royal. The edge-tool maker, despite his humble roots, became a shaker and mover in the Port-Royal community. In July 1640, Guillaume, with future son-in-law Germain Doucet dite La Verdure and other important settlers, testified in an inquiry against former governor Charles de La Tour. When the British seized Port-Royal in 1654, Guillaume was syndic of the settlement and, as head of the Port-Royal council, signed the capitulation document. Wife Françoise died at Port-Royal in c1664. In c1666, at age 65, Guillaume remarried to Madeleine, 21-year-old daughter of Vincent Brun and Renée Breau of La Chaussée south of Loudun, France, not far from Montreuil-Bellay; wife Madeleine, her parents' oldest daughter, was born in La Chaussée. Between 1667 and 1678, Madeleine gave Guillaume seven more children, three sons and four daughters--nine children, six daughters and three sons, by two wives, between 1629 and 1678, in France and Acadia. Guillaume died at Port-Royal in c1684, age 83. Three of his daughters by second wife Madeleine married into the Doiron, Vincent, and Léger dit LaRosette families. His three sons married into the Benoit, Boudrot, and Pellerin families. In 1755, descendants of Guillaume Trahan and his three sons could be found at Rivière-aux-Canards, Grand-Pré, and Pigiguit in the Minas Basin; Chepoudy and Petitcoudiac in the trois-rivières area west of Chignecto; and on Île St.-Jean and Île Royale in the French Maritimes. They were especially numerous at Pigiguit. Le Grand Dérangement of the 1750s scattered this large family even farther.
The Acadians in the Chignecto and trois-rivières settlements were the first to endure a disruption of their lives. When British and New-English forces attacked Fort Beauséjour at Chignecto in June 1755, several hundred local Acadians serving as militia, perhaps including Trahans, along with the garrison of Canadian militia and French troupes de la marine, became prisoners of war when the fort surrendered on June 16. Lieutenant-Governor Charles Lawrence was so incensed to find so-called French Neutrals fighting with French regulars at Beauséjour he ordered his officers to deport these Acadians to the southernmost seaboard colonies. The few Trahans still living in the area evidently escaped the roundup there. Some fled to the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore, where they may have participated with their Broussard in-laws in the resistance against the British. Others may have moved on to Canada.
Some of the many Trahans in the Minas settlements eluded the British and also made their way to the Gulf shore or to Canada. Most, however, did not escape the British that summer and fall. Trahan families were loaded aboard transports bound for Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, but most of them were shipped to Virginia. The hundreds of Minas Acadians sent to the Old Dominion, the first contingent of which reached Hampton Roads during the second week of November, suffered the indignity of being turned away by the colony's authorities. Exiles, including Trahans, perhaps the largest family sent to Virginia, languished aboard the five disease-infested ships anchored in Hampton Roads while the colony's leaders pondered their fate. As winter approached, Virginia's governor Robert Dinwiddie, with the approval of his council, ordered the "French Neutrals" dispersed to the ports of Hampton, Norfolk, and Richmond. The following spring, the governor, his council, and the colony's Burgesses debated the question of that to do with the Neutrals and concluded that the "papists" must go. Virginia authorities hired more vessels and sent the exiles on to England--299 to Bristol, 250 to Falmouth, 340 to Southampton, and 336 to Liverpool--1,225 exiles in all by one count. Their ordeal only worsened in the English ports, where they were packed into warehouses and where many died of smallpox. Trahans were held at Liverpool, Bristol, and Falmouth, where some of them died of smallpox soon after their arrival. Seven years later, more than half of the Minas Acadians sent to Virginia, including many Trahans, were dead.
Living in territory controlled by France, most of the Trahans on Maritime islands escaped the fate of their cousins in Nova Scotia during 1755-56. A family who left Île Royale and returned to British-controlled Nova Scotia before 1755 was a sad exception. Honoré Trahan, his wife, and their children, as well as several related families from Pigiguit, had been counted at Baie-des-Espagnols on the Atlantic coast of Île Royale in April 1752. In the fall of 1754, in fear of starvation, they left the Spanish Bay, as well as French-controlled territory, and, along with dozens of fellow Acadians, ventured from Louisbourg to Halifax by boat. The refugees beseeched Lieutenant-Governor Lawrence and his Council to let them return to their former lands. After hearing their case, the Council agreed to the request only if they "voluntarily" took "the Oath of Allegiance to His Majesty" George II "unqualified by any reservation"--a hard request for self-respecting Acadians. However, "it appearing that they were in very great distress being intirely destitute of all necessitous," the Council minutes noted, they "very cheerfully" took the hated oath and were issued rations to get them through the winter. Lawrence evidently changed his mind about allowing them to return to Pigiguit. In late 1754, he sent them, instead, to Mirliguèche on the Atlantic coast west of Halifax with other Acadians from Pigiguit and Baie-des-Espagnols. However, their oath did not protect them from the British roundups in Nova Scotia the following year. In September 1755, the British gathered up the Acadians at Mirliguèche, including the Trahans, and sent them to the prison compound on Georges Island in Halifax harbor. That December, the British deported them to North Carolina aboard the sloop Providence--the only exiles actually to go to that colony. They likely were held at Edenton on the Albemarle Sound. Other Trahans on Île Royale and Île St.-Jean who left the islands after 1752 crossed Mer Rouge and took refuge on the Gulf of St. Lawrence shore or moved on to Canada.
Most
of the Trahans on the Maritime islands
were still there in 1755, but their respite from British oppression was short-lived.
After the fall of the French fortress at Louisbourg in July 1758,
the redcoats rounded up most of the habitants on the islands and deported
them to France, Trahans
among them. A large extended family crossed on the
deportation transport Duc Guillaume,
which left Île Royale in September, suffered a mishap at sea, and limped
into St.-Malo harbor the first of November. Only two of the
Trahans aboard the vessel survived
the crossing or its rigors. Another extended family crossed on the tranport Violet,
which left Chédaboutou Bay in a 12-ship convoy in late November 1758, bound
for St.-Malo. In mid-December, the Violet, along with another vessel in the
convoy, the Duke William, foundered in a storm off the
southwest coast of England. There were no survivors.
Other Trahans crossed to St.-Malo aboard the transport Supply,
which left Chédabouctou Bay in the 12-ship convoy, was battered by the
mid-December storm, limped to Bideford, England, for repairs, and did not
reach St.-Malo until March 1759.
Trahans
crossed on the transport
Tamerlane, which also left Chédabouctou Bay in the
12-ship convoy, survived the mid-December storm, and reached St.-Malo in mid-January 1759.
Trahans also crossed on one
or more of the five deporatation transports that left Chédabouctou Bay in
the 12-ship convoy,
survived the mid-December storm,
and arrived at St.-Malo together the third week of January. Island
Trahans landed also at the northern
fishing port of Boulogne-sur-Mer in Picardie in early 1759, but few remained
there after the early 1770s. Some moved on to
St.-Malo or Morlaix in northern Brittany or to Rochefort and nearby Île
d'Aix
By the early 1770s, French authorities were weary of providing for exiles still languishing in the port cities. An influential nobleman offered to settle them on land he owned in the interior of Poitou near the city of Châtellerault. Hundreds of Acadians went there in 1773 and 1774, Trahans from the St.-Malo area, Morlaix, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Rochefort, and Belle-Île-en-Mer among them. After two years of effort, most of the Poitou Acadians deserted the venture. From October 1775 through March 1776, hundreds of them, including the Trahans, retreated in four convoys down the Vienne and the Loire from Châtellerault to the port of Nantes, where they lived as best they could on government handouts, again, and what work they could find. Trahans who had retreated from Poitou in 1775-76 were joined at Nantes, nearby Chantenay, and the lower port of Paimboeuf by kinsmen from Belle-Île-en-Mer. Most of the Trahans who had gone to Belle-Île, in fact, moved on to Nantes and other Breton ports in the 1770s or early 1780s.
When in the early 1780s the Spanish government offered the Acadians in France a chance for a new life in faraway Louisiana, at least 98 Trahans at Nantes, Chantenay, Paimboeuf, and Morlaix agreed to take it. They were, in fact, one of the largest families to fill the holds of the Seven Ships expeditions; only the Héberts outnumbered them. Not just larger in numbers but more peripatetic than most of the Acadian families in France, these Trahans, the majority of the family there, agreed to endure yet another trans-Atlantic voyage, for some of them their fourth ocean crossing. Nevertheless, many Trahans in France, especially the ones who had married locals on Belle-Île-en-Mer, chose to remain. Some of the Trahans who had moved from Belle-Île to Nantes and other Breton ports also remained.
In
North America, conditions only got worse for the
Acadians who had escaped the British in the late 1750s and sought refuge on the Gulf of St. Lawrence
shore or in
Canada, where they gathered at Québec.
The war over, exiles being held in the British seaboard colonies, theoretically, were free to go, but not until the British discerned their intentions. Even then, colonial authorities discouraged repatriation. At least four Trahan families appeared on a French repatriation list in Massachusetts in August 1763. In June of that year in Pennsylvania, a Trahan "widower" of l'Assomption, Pigiguit, was still in the colony with five children. In July 1763, Trahan families appeared on a repatriation list at Princess Anne on the lower Eastern Shore and even more of them were listed at Port Tobacco on the lower Potomac, where some had come there from North Carolina a few years earlier.
Most of the Acadians in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, including Trahans, chose to resettle in Canada, where their kinsmen had gone as early as 1756. Though now also a British possession, the far-northern province was populated largely by fellow French Catholics, many of them Acadian exiles. So, in a colony nearly as old as Acadia, descendants of Guillaume Trahan began the slow, inexorable process of becoming Canadiennes. Especially after 1766, Trahans could be found on the upper St. Lawrence at St.-Philippe and Laprairie across from Montréal, Yamachiche above Trois-Rivières, and Québec City. On the lower St.-Lawrence, they could be found at St.-Charles de Bellechasse, St.-François-du-Sud, and St.-Thomas de Montmagny. Typical of most, if not all, Acadian families, these Acadiennes of Canada lost touch with their Cadien cousins hundreds of miles away, and until the Acadian reunions of the twentieth century, may even have forgotten the others existed.
Exiles from the British colonies also settled elsewhere. At least one Trahan chose to avoid British rule by settling in the French Antilles, at Le Cardénange on Île Ste.-Lucie south of Martinique.
Trahans being held in Nova Scotia at war's end faced a hard dilemma. The Treaty of Paris of February 1763 stipulated in its Article IV that persons dispersed by the war had 18 months to return to their respective territories. However, British authorities refused to allow any of the Acadian prisoners in the region to return to their former lands as proprietors. If Acadians chose to remain in, or return to, Nova Scotia, they could live only in small family groups in previously unsettled areas or work for low wages on former Acadian lands now owned by New-English "planters." If they stayed, they must also take the hated oath of allegiance to the new British king, George III, without reservation. They would also have to take the oath if they joined their cousins in Canada. After all they had suffered on the question of the oath, few self-respecting Acadians would consent to take it if it could be avoided. Some Nova Scotia exiles chose to relocate to Miquelon, a French-controlled fishery island off the southern coast of Newfoundland. Others considered going to the French Antilles, where Acadian exiles in the British colonies, including a Trahan, were going, or to the Illinois country, the west bank of which still belonged to France, or to French Louisiana, which, thanks to British control of Canada, was the only route possible to the Illinois country for Acadian exiles. Whatever their choice, many refused to remain under British rule. So they gathered up their money and their few possessions and prepared to leave their homeland. Of the 600 exiles who left Halifax in late 1764 and early 1765 bound for Cap-Français, French St.-Domingue, at least 13 were Trahans.
The many Trahans in Maryland endured life among Englishmen, who, despite their colony's Catholic roots, did not care much for the French "papists" thrust upon them. When word reached the Acadians there that the Spanish would welcome them in Louisiana, they pooled their meager resources to charter ships that would take them to New Orleans. In April 1767, a Trahan family led by a widow left Baltimore aboard the ship Virgin in the second expedition from Maryland to New Orleans. The following December, eight Trahans in several families, one of them led by a widow, left Port Tobacco for New Orleans in the third expedition to the Spanish colony. One of the wives was pregnant when they left Maryland and gave birth to a daughter at New Orleans in June 1768. In early January 1769, four more Trahans and their families departed Port Tobacco aboard the British schooner Britannia on what proved to be the fourth and final expedition from Maryland to Louisiana.
Trahans were among the first families of Acadia and some of the earliest Acadians to find refuge in Louisiana. Three closely-related families led by two brothers and a son reached the colony in February 1765 with the party from Halifax via Cap-Français led by Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil. That April, they followed their Broussard kin to Bayou Teche, but only one of the lines endured there. After their ordeal on the lower Teche, most of them moved west to the valley of the Vermilion. More Trahans came from Maryland in the late 1760s and settled at San Gabriel and San Luìs de Natchez on the river. After the Spanish allowed the Acadians to abandon the distant settlement across from Natchez, the Trahans moved down to Ascension on the Acadian Coast, but none of them created new family lines there. Meanwhile, in 1769, a Trahan family from Maryland reached the colony aboard the ill-fated Britannia. After their harrowing experience in Texas and a short sojourn on the Acadian Coast, they chose to move on to the Opelousas District. The Trahan son married twice to fellow Acadians there and created another vigorous family line on the western prairies. In the 1770s and 1780s, Trahans from the river crossed the Atchafalaya Basin and settled among their cousins in the Attakapas District.
Even if the Spanish government had not offered the Acadian exiles in France the chance for a new life in faraway Louisiana, the Trahans would have been a fairly large family in Louisiana. The Seven Ships' expeditions of 1785 dramatically increased the family's presence in the Spanish colony. Dozens of Trahans--20 or more families--sailed to Louisiana aboard six of the Seven Ships. Most of them settled on upper Bayou Lafourche, where they created a new center of family settlement. A large number, especially from the third ship, went to the Baton Rouge area, creating yet another center of family settlement in what became West Baton Rouge Parish. During the late colonial and early antebellum periods, Trahans on the Lafourche moved down bayou as far as the Terrebonne country. Meanwhile, three families from France chose to join their cousins on the Attakapas prairie.
By the late antebellum period, Trahans could be found in three distinct centers of family settlement across South Louisiana. By far the largest, and earliest, family center was on the southwest prairies in present-day St. Landry, St. Martin, Lafayette, St. Mary, Vermilion, Iberia, and Acadia parishes. They were especially numerous near Youngsville in Lafayette, Abbeville in Vermilion, and Church Point in Acadia parishes. Trahans also could be found on the southeastern bayous from upper Bayou Lafourche down into the Terrebonne coastal marshes. The smallest family center was scattered on the river at the extreme ends of the so-called Acadian Coast, in West Baton Rouge and St. James parishes. During or soon after the War of 1861-65, several Trahans from the Lafourche/Terrebonne valley, including two brothers, moved to lower Bayou Teche, and another moved on to the Lafayette prairie.
Few non-Acadian members of the family settled in South Louisiana, so most, if not all, of the Trahans in the Bayou State are descendants of Guillaume the edge-tool maker of Montreuil-Bellay and Port-Royal. ...
Dozens of Trahans served Louisiana in uniform during the War of 1861-65. Not all of them survived Confederate service. ...
In Louisiana, the family's name also is spelled Drahan, Rahan, Strahan, Thrahan, Traan, Traans, Traham, Trahand, Trahans, Trahant, Trahen, Trahent, Trahon, Trajan, Traon, Traughan, Trauhan, Trean, Trohan, Truan, Truhan.46
.
The first of the family to reach the colony--13 Trahans in three families led by brothers, and two Trahan wives, one of them the brothers' sister--reached New Orleans in February 1765 with their in-laws the Broussards from Halifax via Cap-Français. That April, they followed the Broussards to lower Bayou Teche and remained there despite the mysterious epidemic that killed the brothers' sister and her second husband, who she had recently married. Only one of the brothers created an enduring family line, which remained on the prairies:
Paul dit Hippolyte's third son Joseph Hippolyte married Marie Marcellite, called Marcellite, daughter of Augustin Royer III and his Acadian wife Marie Victoire Cormier, in a civil ceremony in Lafayette Parish in May 1825, and sanctified the marriage at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in July 1826; the wedding was performed at the groom's home. Their children, born in Lafayette Parish, included Marie Marcelite baptized at the Vermilionville church, age 4 months, in August 1826; Natalie, also called Marie Nathalie, baptized at the Vermilionville church, age 3 months, five days in November 1827; Pierre Onésime, also called Pierre Onésime Hippolyte, born in November 1829; Alexis in c1833 and baptized at the Vermilionville church, age 3, in November 1836; Marguerite born in c1834 and baptized at the Vermilionville church, age 2, in November 1836; Joseph Hippolyte, fils baptized at the Vermilionville church, age 2 months, in February 1837; Lasty baptized at the Vermilionville church, age 6 months, in September 1838; Valentin born in January 1840; Ursain or Ursin in July 1841; perhaps a second Ursin in July 1842; Éloise in July 1846; Augustin in February 1848; and Paul le jeune in December 1850--13 children, four daughters and nine sons, between 1826 and 1850. Daughter Marie Nathalie married into the Banks family by 1870. Five of Joseph Hippolyte's sons also married by then.
Oldest son Pierre Onésime Hippolyte married Nathalie, daughter of Jean Baptiste Manceaux and his Acadian wife Nathalie Vincent, at the Abbeville church, Vermilion Parish, in August 1855. Their children, born near Abbeville, included Marguerite in August 1856; Azémma in November 1858; Honoré in June 1863; Émilien in December 1866; ... None of Pierre Onésime Hippolyte's children married by 1870.
Joseph Hippolyte's second son Alexis may have married Eulalie or Euranie Leleux, place and date unrecorded, and settled near Abbeville by the early 1860s. Their children, born on the prairies, included Eulalie near Abbeville in December 1863; Élisée in November 1866; Placide near Church Point, then in St. Landry but now in Acadia Parish, in January 1868; ...
Joseph Hippolyte's third son Joseph Hippolyte, fils married cousin Marie Aurelia, called Aurelia, daughter of Augustin Royer IV and his Acadian wife Caroline Bourque, in a civil ceremony in St. Landry Parish in October 1858, and sanctified the marriage at the Grand Coteau church, St. Landry Parish, in June 1860. Twin daughters Amélie and Mélise were born near Grand Coteau in October 1863; ...
Joseph Hippolyte, père's fourth son Lasty married Bathilde, daughter of Casimir Lavergne, a Creole, not a fellow Acadian, and Marie Meche, at the Grand Coteau church in January 1861. Daughter Marie was born near Grand Coteau in September 1862; ...
Joseph Hippolyte, père's ninth and youngest son Paul le jeune married Marie, daughter of Guillaume Mathieu and his Acadian wife Eulalie David, in a civil ceremony in St. Landry Parish in September 1869, and sanctified the marriage at the Church Point church the following November. They were living near Abbeville a year after their marriage.
Jean Baptiste, père's second son Eugène married Marie Rosa, called Rosa, daughter of Eugène Ducharme and his Acadian wife Carmélite Templet, at the Vermilionville church in September 1859. Their children, born in Lafayette Parish, included perhaps Ambroise in February 1860 but died at age 7 1/2 in September 1867; Joseph Eugène born in May 1863; ... A succession for Eugène Trahan, calling his wife Rosa Trahan, was filed at the Vermilionville courthouse in November 1865. Was this him?
Jean Baptiste, père's third son Clémile married cousin Marie Aureline, called Aureline, daughter of fellow Acadians Edmond Athanase Trahan and his second wife Célanie Broussard, at the Vermilionville church in September 1861. Their children, born in Lafayette Parish, included Emma in April 1863; Albert in April 1870. ... During the war, Clémile served probably as a conscript in Company A of the Miles' Legion Louisiana Infantry, raised in Orleans Parish, which fought in Mississippi and Louisiana. As the birth of his son attestes, he survived the war and returned to his family.
.
At least 13 more Trahans, as many as had come to Louisiana in 1765, reached the colony from Maryland later in the decade. In July 1767, a Trahan widow and her family reached New Orleans from Baltimore with dozens of other Acadians. They settled in the new community of San Gabriel on the river above New Orleans.
In February 1768, a Trahan family, two Trahan wives, and a Trahan widow--seven more members of the family--reached Louisiana from Port Tobacco, Maryland, with another large contingent of exiles. Spanish Governor Ulloa, caring nothing of Acadian sensibilities, ordered the families to the new Acadian settlement of Fort San Luìs de Natchez, far upriver and across from British-controlled Natchez. The exiles protested against the location, so distant from their fellow Acadians, but the governor was adamant that they go there and threatened to deport them and their families if they did not comply with his order. The wife of the Trahan family head gave birth to a daughter at New Orleans before the family was escorted upriver to Fort San Luìs. In 1769, after a Creole-led revolt toppled Ulloa, Spanish Governor-General Alejandro O'Reilly, who had suppressed the rebellion, allowed the Acadians at San Luìs de Natchez to settlement where they wanted. None of them remained at Fort San Luìs. The Natchez Trahans moved downriver to what became known as the Acadian Coast. Another lasting family line came of it, not on the river but on the western prairies:
S
Second son Julien may have married fellow Acadian Azélie Guidry, place and date unrecorded. Their children, born in St. Martin Parish, included Marie Honorine near Breaux Bridge in September 1857; Marie Eléonore in January 1860; Désiré in September 1861; Joseph near Breaux Bridge in March 1864 but may have died at age 6 1/2 in September 1870; Joseph Léonard, called Léonard, born in August 1866 but died at age 1 in August 1867; ...
Guilaume's third and youngest son Jules married Celimène, daughter of Alexandre Wiltz and Celima Barras, at the St. Martinville church in February 1869. Their son William le jeune was born in St. Martin Parish in October 1870. ...
.
A small Trahan family and two Trahan wives, all closely related--four more members of the family--left Port Tobacco, Maryland, in January 1769 aboard the British schooner Britannia--the fourth and last expedition of Acadian exiles from the Chesapeake colony to Louisiana. With the Trahans were other Acadian families and eight German Catholic families who also chose to settle in the Spanish colony. The ship's master somehow missed the mouth of the Mississippi River, and the Britannia ran aground on the Texas coast near Espiritu Santo Bay. Spanish officials, who feared that these ragged refugees were smugglers or spies, held them at nearby La Bahía for six long months, until word reached the presidio commander that the crew and passengers of this vessel were harmless. After a long overland trek from La Bahía to Natchitoches on the Red River, which the passengers and crew reached in October, and a brief time on the Acadian Coast above New Orleans, the Trahans chose to move on to the Opelousas prairies. Another robust family line came of it there:
S
.
A young Trahan first appears in South Louisiana records in 1783, so he likely came to the colony from greater Acadia or a British coastal colony, not from France. The baptismal records of two of his children said his parents were "de la Cadie" and called him "Joseph of Canada," so one wonders if he came to Louisiana from Halifax as a young orphan. Perhaps after living on the river, he moved out to the prairies and created another vigorous family line there:
Oldest
Evariste's third and youngest son Evariste, fils married cousin Azéline, daughter of Auguste Marceaux and Bazeline Hargrave, at the Abbeville church in February 1870. ...
.
A young Trahan came to Louisiana from France before the first of the Seven Ships arrived in July 1785, perhaps as a sailor. He settled on the western prairies, where he married a Trahan cousin in January 1785, months before the first of the Seven Ships left Paimboeuf, the lower port of Nantes, on 10 May 1785. His father, mother, and four of his siblings crossed on the fourth of the Seven Ships, Le St.-Rémi, and joined him on the prairies later that year.
By far the largest contingent of Trahans--at least 98 of them--came to Louisiana from France aboard six of the Seven Ships in 1785. They were, in fact, one of the largest families to fill the holds of the Seven Ships expedition; only the Héberts outnumbered them.
The first Trahans to reach the colony from France--two wives and a middle-aged bachelor, who was a younger brother of one of the wives--crossed on Le Bon Papa, the first of the Seven Ships, which reached New Orleans in July 1785. The wives and their families followed most of their fellow passengers to Manchac on the river south of Baton Rouge. The bachelor brother went, instead, to upper Bayou Lafourche. He married, but no new family line came of it:
.
More members of the family--11 Trahans, including four families, one led by a widow, another by a widower, and two wives--crossed on La Bergère, the second of the Seven Ships, which reached New Orleans in the mid-August 1785. The widow and her Trahan son chose to settle on the western prairies, where another family line emerged. The other La Bergère Trahans followed their fellow passengers to upper Bayou Lafourche, but they created no enduring family lines there:
S
Y
Older
T
.
Twenty-one more Trahans--including four families, three of them led by widows, and four wives--crossed on Le Beaumont, the third of the Seven Ships, which reached New Orleans during the third week of August 1785. They followed their fellow passengers to Baton Rouge, where at least five new family lines emerged. The lines that endured created a new center of Trahan family settlement in what became West Baton Rouge Parish. One family, however, moved on to upper Bayou Lafourche and another to the western prairies:
Y
S
Y
Oldest
Only
Oldest
.
Forty-seven more members of the family, nearly half of the total number of Trahans who came to Louisiana from France--nine families, four of them led by two sets of brothers, seven wives, a young bachelor and a young unmarried woman traveling alone--crossed on Le St.-Rémi, the fourth of the Seven Ships, which reached New Orleans during the second week of September 1785. Most of them followed their fellow passengers to upper Bayou Lafourche, but two families chose to go the western prairies, where one of their sons had gone before 1785. Despite the large number of family members who crossed on this vessel, only a few more enduring family lines came of it on the bayou, the river, and the prairies:
S
S
T
Younger son Jean Baptiste, by first wife Marie Carmélite Duhon, married Marie, daughter of Jean Baptiste Denisse or Denaise and Céleste Harrington, at the Youngsville church in July 1865.
.
Eleven more Trahans--eight of them from one family, two wives, and a young bachelor--crossed on L'Amitié, the fifth of the Seven Ships, which reached New Orleans in early November 1785. One of the wives chose to settle on the western prairies, and another wife and the bachelor settled on the river, one below New Orleans, the other at Baton Rouge, where an uncle had settled. The large family, however, chose to follow most of their fellow passengers to Bayou Lafourche, where the family head's older brother had gone. Several new family lines came of it on the river and the bayou:
Oldest son Joseph Narcisse or Narcisse Joseph married Marie Eléonore, called Eléonore, daughter fellow Acadians Joseph Alexandre Landry and Colette Hébert, at the Plattenville church in February 1829. Their children, born on the upper Lafourche, included a child, name unrecorded, probably Marie, in July 1830 but died at age 4 in September 1834; Marie Stephanie, called Stephanie, born in April 1841; Marguerite Adélaïde in July 1832; and Marie Élodie in August 1843 but died the following January--four children, all daughters, between 1830 and 1843. Narcisse died near Plattenville in February 1844. The priest who recorded the burial said that Narcisse died at "age 40 years." He was 35. Daughter Stephanie married into the Laffitte family by 1870. Did Joseph Narcisse father any sons?
Joseph's second son Auguste Drosin married Marie Stephanie, daughter of Foreign Frenchman Hugue Serre and his Acadian wife Euphrosie Bergeron, at the bride's widowed mother's home in St. James Parish in November 1835; the marriage was recorded at the St. James church. They remained in St. James Parish. Their children, born there, included Rémy or Henry Camille, called Camille, in October 1836; Séverin in February 1839; Marie Elzida or Esilda in September 1841; Augustin Telisma or Thelesmar in June 1844 but, called Telismar, died at age 22 months in March 1846; Joseph Victor born in October 1846; Jean Baptiste Oscar in April 1848 or 1849; Jean Félix in June 1851; and Marie Lavina in September 1854--eight children, six sons and two daughters, between 1836 and 1854. Daughter Esilda married into the Chiquet family by 1870. None of Auguste Drosin's sons married by then.
Joseph's third
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Four more Trahans--a small family of two daughters led by a widow, and a wife and her widowed sister--crossed on La Ville d'Archangel, the sixth of the Seven Ships, which reached New Orleans from St.-Malo in early December 1785. They followed their fellow passengers to the new Acadian community of Bayou des Écores in the New Feliciana District north of Baton Rouge. No new Trahan family line came of it.
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A young Trahan bachelor came to Louisiana by 1790, perhaps aboard one of the Seven Ships in 1785. He appears on none of the ships' embarkation or debarkation rolls, but he did have a younger sister, Marie Blanche, who crossed on Le Beaumont and followed most of her fellow passengers to Baton Rouge. The brother went there, too, and created his own family:
Ignace Heusé, son, perhaps, of Robert Heusé or Huezé and Marie Girardeau of Île St.-Jean, born probably on the island in the 1720s, worked as a seaman as well as a farmer there, but he did not remain. In March 1748, he stood as godfather at Beaubassin for Joseph Caissie. Ignace married Marie-Josèphe Renaud in c1752, place unrecorded. Ignace and Marie-Josèphe had at least one son, Jacques, born at Rivière-aux-Canards, Minas, in c1753 and evidently returned to Île St.-Jean soon after their son's birth. Oddly, no member of the family appears in the French survey/census of the French Martimes islands in 1752.
By returning to Île St.-Jean from peninsula Nova Scotia during the early 1750s, Ignace Heusé, wife Marie-Josèphe Renaud, and their son escaped the British roundup at Minas during the autumn of 1755, or they may have returned to the island that year after escaping the British at Minas. Ignace remarried to fellow Acadian Cécile Bourg, widow of Joseph Longuépée, on Île St.-Jean in c1758. Their respite from British oppression was short-lived. In late 1758, after the fall of the French fortress at Louisbourg in July, the redcoats swooped down on Île St.-Jean and deported most of the habitants there to France. Ignace, wife Cécile Bourg, his son by his first wife, and her daughter from her first marriage made the crossing aboard the deportation transport Supply, which left Chédabouctou Bay in a 12-ship convoy in late November, survived a mid-December storm off the southwest coast of England that sank three other transports, put in at Bideford, England, for repairs, and did not reach St.-Malo until early March 1759. All four of them survived the crossing that took the lives of so many of their fellow exiles.
Ignace and Cécile did their best to make a life for themselves in the suburbs and villages of the St.-Malo area. They settled first at La Gouesnière in the countryside southeast of St.-Malo, then in the St.-Malo suburb of St.-Servan-sur-Mer, and finally at Plouër-sur-Rance on the west bank of the river south of St.-Malo, where, between 1760 and 1774, Cécile gave Ignace seven more children, five sons and two daughters. The younger daughter died in infancy. In 1774, Ignace and his family followed hundreds of fellow exiles in the coastal cities to the interior of Poitou, where their two youngest sons died. In November 1775, after two years of effort, the Heusés retreated with other Poitou Acadians down the Vienne and the Loire from Châtellerault to the port of Nantes. Cécile gave Ignace another son, born there in c1776--nine children, seven sons and two daughters, by two wives, between 1753 and 1776, in greater Acadia and France. Ignace's oldest son Jacques, by his first wife, married into the Peroucho family from Spain at Paimboeuf, the lower port for Nantes, in November 1778. Ignace died at Chantenay near Nantes in November 1783. The St.-Martin Parish priest who recorded the burial said he was age 60 when he died. He probably was in his late 50s. His second son married into the Quimine family, fellow Acadians, at St.-Martin de Chantenay in April 1785.
In the early 1780s, when the Spanish government offered the Acadians in France a chance for a new life in faraway Louisiana, Cécile Bourg, her married Heusé son and his family, and four of her unmarried Heusé children, three sons and a daughter, agreed to take up the offer. Ignace's oldest son Jacques and his Spanish wife Manuela Peroucho chose to remain in France.
Heusés settled "late" in Acadia, and they came "late" to Louisiana. In fact, if the Spanish government had not coaxed over 1,500 Acadians in France to emigrate to their Mississippi valley colony, there probably would be no members of this family in the Bayou State today, at least none descended from Acadians. Five of them, led by their widowed mother, came from France in 1785 and settled at Manchac south of Baton Rouge, but they did not remain. In the early 1790s, the entire family joined the Acadian exodus from the river to upper Bayou Lafourche, where they established a large center of family settlement that stretched as far down as Lockport on the middle Lafourche and into Terrebonne Parish. Some of them also lived briefly at New Orleans. During the early antebellum period, a member of the family, reversing the usual Acadia settlement pattern, returned to the river and created a small center of family settlement in St. James Parish, but his kinsmen remained in the Lafourche/Terrebonne valley. A member of the family from Terrebonne Parish moved to the Breaux Bridge area of St. Martin Parish soon after the War of 1861-65, the first of the family to settle west of the Atchafalaya Basin. ...
By the time the family reached Louisiana, its surname was evolving from Heusé to Usé. The family's name in Louisiana also is spelled Eusé, Euzé, Heuzé, Hisé, Huché, Uersie, Uessie, Usée, Uset, Usi, Usie, Ussée, Usset, Uzé, Uzee, Uzez, Uzuz, Wsset. Today, some members of the family spell their surname Use without the accent, while others still use the accent. Some also favor Usea and especially Usey in southeast Louisiana.47
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All of the members of the family who came to Louisiana--five of them, four sons and a daughter, with their widowed mother--crossed aboard Le Bon Papa, the first of the Seven Ships, which reached New Orleans from Paimboeuf in late July 1785. They followed their fellow passengers to Manchac on the river south of Baton Rouge but moved on to Bayou Lafourche, where the daughter married into the Babin family. Most of her brothers established family lines on the bayou and the river:
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