APPENDICES

Acadians Who Found Refuge in Louisiana, February 1764-early 1800s

Célestin dit BELLEMÈRE

[SAY-lis-tanh, bell-MARE]

ACADIA

André Célestin dit Bellemère, a blacksmith and the husband of Pérrine Basile, whom he married in France in c1685, reached Acadia in c1690 and settled at Grand-Pré in the Minas basin.  They had seven children, including two sons who married and started families of their own:

Older son Jacques dit Jacob Célestin dit Bellemère, born in c1686 probably at Minas, married Marie, daughter of Claude Landry, at Grand-Pré in February 1719.  Jacques's descendants took the surname Bellemère after his and his father's dit.  

Younger son Antoine, who birth year is unknown but he was probably born at Minas, continued the family name Célestin after he married Marie, daughter of Charles Gautrot, at Grand-Pré in November 1718.

LE GRAND DÉRANGEMENT

Le Grand Dérangement of the 1750s scattered the family to the winds:

The British rounded up Antoine Célestin's family at Minas in the fall of 1755 and deported them to Maryland.  In July 1763, colonial authorities counted the families of Charles, Pierre, and Joseph Célestin and their single brothers Honoré and Antoine at Annapolis.  When over 600 of the Maryland Acadians set sail for New Orleans between 1766 and 1769, amazingly none of the Célestins joined them.  

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During Le Grand Dérangement, Antoine's older brother Jacques Bellemère and his family also were rounded up by the British in the fall of 1755 but were sent to Virginia instead, where their fate was even more tragic than their cousins who ended up in Maryland.  Robert Dinwiddie, Virginia's governor, refused to allow the 1,500 Acadians sent to him to remain in the colony.  Hundreds of the exiles died on the filthy, crowded ships anchored in Hampton Roads while the Virginia authorities pondered their fate.  A few Acadians were allowed to come ashore at various James River settlements, but they were watched closely.  When some of them began to fraternize with African slaves, they were returned to the transports, where they languished with the others.  A hand full of sturdy young Acadians managed to slip off the vessels and trek overland through fields and forests and across the mountains, back to French Canada.  But most of them remained on the terrible ships, and more of them died.  Finally, in the spring of 1756, Governor Dinwiddie and Virginia's House of Burgesses made their decision ... the Acadians 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, 336 to Liverpool--1,225 of the original 1,500.  During the rest of the French and Indian War, the British treated the Acadians in their midst like incarcerated criminals. 

Several of Jacques Bellemère's children survived the ordeal and ended up in France: 

Bruno, born probably at Grand-Pré in c1723, married fellow Acadian Anne Breau, widow of ____ Gautrot, in England in 1759.  They and two of their children--Pierre, born in c1760, and Marie-Marguerite, born in c1763, plus two of Anne's Gautrot sons--were repatriated to England in the spring of 1763 with hundreds of other Acadians.  They reached St.-Malo aboard the ship L'Ambition in late May and settled at St.-Servan, near St.-Malo.  Pierre died at St.-Servan in June 1763; he was only 3 1/2 years old.  Bruno and Marie had at least five more children at St.-Servan between 1765 and 1773:  Jean-Pierre, born in March 1765, died at age 4 in March 1769; Josèphe-Marie was born in November 1766; Rosalie-Geneviève in August 1768 but died at age 4 1/2 in February 1773; Michelle-Françoise was born in April 1771 but died 10 months later; and Pérrine-Victoire was born in January 1773 but died the following March.  In the early 1770s, Bruno and Marie became part of a settlement scheme in Poitou that ended tragically for them.  Daughter Marie-Marguerite died near Châtellerault at age 11 1/2 in August 1774.  After Marie-Marguerite's death, only daughter Josèphe-Marie remained.  Bruno died at L'Hopital de Châtellerault in December 1774, in his early 50s.  Wife Marie may have been dead by then.  When most the Acadians abandoned the Poitou venture in late 1775 and 1776 and retreated to the port city of Nantes, Josèphe-Marie traveled not with her widowed mother but as an orphan with the family of Francois Boudrot and his second wife Euphrosine Barrieu. 

Joseph, born probably at Grand-Pré in c1728, came to France aboard L'Ambition with younger sister Félicité, born in c1741.  They settled at St.-Servan near St.-Malo.  Joseph died at Hotel-Dieu, St.-Malo, in August 1767; he was 39 years old and probably never married.  Félicité bore a "natural son," Jean-Jacques Bellemère, at St.-Servan in June 1768.  The boy's baptismal record says nothing of who his father might have been.  Félicité was still at St.-Servan in 1772. 

Marguerite, born at Grand-Pré in c1735, married Jean-Baptiste LeBlanc at Southampton, England, in August 1758; their son Moïse was born at Southampton in September 1761.  Marguerite and Jean-Baptiste had more children in France--at least three more sons and two daughters.  Jean-Baptiste died at Chantenay in September 1782; he was 58 years old.  Marguerite's fate is lost to history.  

Anastasie, born at Grand-Pré in May 1739, married fellow exile Jean-Baptiste Boudrot probably at Southampton and followed him to France in 1763.  Anastasie became a widow in France.  At age 45, in August 1784, she remarried to 70-year-old widower Honoré Comeau at St.-Martin-de-Chantenay, near Nantes. 

In the early 1780s, the Spanish government offered the Acadians in France the chance for a new life in faraway Louisiana.  Anastasie Bellemère, her husband Honoré Comeau, and two of her Boudrot sons agreed to take it.  Anastasie's niece, Josèphe-Marie, brother Bruno's daughter, also agreed to go to the colony, with other relatives. 

LOUISIANA:  LAFOURCHE VALLEY SETTLEMENTS

Anastasie Bellemère, age 45, her second husband Honoré Comeau, age 71, and her two Boudrot sons--Joseph-Marie, age 17, and Charles, age 14--reached Louisiana in September 1785 aboard Le St.-Rémi, the fourth of the Seven Ships, which reached New Orleans in September 1785.  Honoré and Anastasie followed the majority of the passengers from their ship to upper Bayou Lafourche.  By January 1788, Anastasie was a widow again.  Sister Marguerite, who may have died in France before 1785, did not go to Louisiana with her younger sister Anastasie.  However, Marguerite's son Moïse LeBlanc and five of his younger siblings did go to the Spanish colony aboard Le Beaumont, the third of the Seven Ships.  They also settled at Lafourche.

The only other member of the family to reach Louisiana was Josèphe-Marie, daughter of Bruno Bellemère and Anastasie's niece, who came to Louisiana as a teenaged orphan with the family of Jean Guèdry and Marie LeBlanc aboard Le Beaumont, which reached New Orleans in August 1785.  Josèphe-Marie followed her kinsmen to St.-Jacques, just downriver from Lafourche.  In October 1787, she married fellow Acadian Pierre Lambert at St.-Jacques.  After her husband died there in 1800, she remarried to Félix Pallaquin, a French Canadian.  They settled on Bayou Lafourche, where he left her a widow again in the 1830s.  Josèphe Marie did not remarry.  She died in Assumption Parish in October 1846, age 79. 

CONCLUSION

Since no male Bellemères or Célestins came to Louisiana, the Acadian branch of the family, except for its blood, did not survive in the Bayou State.  The family's name also is spelled Belleme, Belle Mer, Belmer, Célestine, Celistan.

Sources:  Arsenault, Généalogie, 1133-34; Brasseaux, Scattered to the Wind, 8; BRDR, vol. 2; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 381-83; Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 154; Robichaux, Acadians in Chatellerault, 7, 15; Robichaux, Acadians in Nantes, 42, 115; Robichaux, Acadians in St.-Malo, 45-46, 341, 350; White, DGFA-1, 325-26.

Settlement Abbreviations 
(present-day parishes that existed during the War Between the States in parenthesis; hyperlinks on the abbreviations take you to brief histories of each settlement):

For a chronology of Acadian Arrivals in Louisiana, 1764-early 1800s, see Appendix.

The hyperlink attached to an individual's name is connected to a list of Acadian immigrants for a particular settlement and provides a different perspective on the refugee's place in family and community. 

NOTES

01.  Wall of Names, 37 (pl. 9R), calls her Anastasie BELMER, & lists her with her second husband & 2 sons; BRDR, 1a:21 (SGA-2, 180), her birth/baptismal record, calls here Anasthasie BELLEMÈRE, gives her parents' names, & says her godparents were Claude BOUDROT & Hélèine-Joseph BELLEMÈRE; Robichaux, Acadians in St.-Malo, 104-05, Family No. 132, calls her Anastasie BELLEMÈRE, does not give her birth date or birth place nor her parents' names, gives her first husband's name, says he was born in c1735 but gives no birthplace nor his parents' names, says they married in c1758 but gives no place of marriage, includes the birth/baptismal & death/burial records of son Jean-Baptiste BOUDROT, born 8 Oct 1759, England, daughter Marie-Josephe BOUDROT, born in c1762, England, died age 9, 20 Jan 1771, Hotel-Dieu, buried 22 Jan 1771, St.-Malo, daughter Anne-Marie BOUDROT, born & baptized 5 Oct 1763, St.-Servan, died age 7 days, 12 Oct 1763, St.-Servan, son Joseph-Marie BOUDROT, born 17 Mar 1766, baptized 18 Mar 1766, St.-Servan, godson of Joseph BOUDROT & Anne BOUDROT, son Charles BOUDROT, born & baptized 16 Jan 1769, St.-Servan, godson of Charles BOURG & Marie-Madeleine BARBE, & son Pierre-Olivier BOUDROT, born 25 Jan 1772, baptized 26 Jan 1772, St.-Servan, godson of Pierre GAUTROT & Élizabeth LANDRY, died age 14 mos. & buried 5 Mar 1773, St.-Servan, says she, her first husband, son Jean-Baptiste [BOUDROT] & daughter Marie-Josèphe BOUDROT disembarked at St.-Malo from England on 23 May 1763, from L'Ambition, & that her family resided at St.-Servan from 1763-72; Robichaux, Acadians in Nantes, 42, Family No. 81, calls her Anastasie BELLEMER, says she was born in 1738 but gives no birthplace, gives her parents' names & her first husband's name, details her second marriage, says her second husband was born in 1715 at Ste.-Famille, Pigiguit, gives his parents' names & his first wife's name, & details her second family's voyage to LA in 1785; Robichaux, Acadians in Nantes, 205, the record of her second marriage, calls her Anastasie BELLE MER, gives her & her husband's parents' names, says that all of their parents were deceased at the time of the marriage, calls her first husband Jean BOUDROT, gives her second husband's first wife's name, says she & her second husband were granted "dispensation ... of a double impediment of consanguinity and of affinity of third to third," & that the witnesses to her marriage were Joseph SEMER, Acadian, Jean BROUSSARD, Acadian, Francois HÉBERT, Acadian, Blaise TIBODEAU, Acadian, Jean-Baptiste LEGENDRE, Acadian, Jean LEJEUNE (who signed), & Jan-Baptiste DE LA HAYE (who signed); Hébert, D., Acadian Families in Exile 1785, 52-53, calls her Anastasie BELMER, sa [Honnoré COMMAU's] feme, age 45, on the embarkation list, & Anastasie BELLEMÈRE, his [Honoré COMEAUX's] wife, age 45, on the complete listing, says she was in the 45th Family aboard Le St.-Rémi with her second husband & 2 sons, & details her second marriage, including her & her husband's parents' names, says they were married in 1778 but gives no place of marriage.  See also Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 495; Robichaux, Bayou Lafourche, 1770-98, 29.  

The family above hers on the embarkation list of Le St.-Rémi was that of her son, Jean-Baptiste BOUDROT, fils.  

Her younger sons Joseph & Charles BOUDREAUX appear in the Ascension census of 1791 together, ages 22 & 20, unmarried, but without their mother.  Does that mean that Anastasie had died by then or had married a third time & was living with her new husband?  See Robichaux, Bayou Lafourche, 1770-98, 160.  If she remarried, the wedding is not recorded in the church records of the area.  See BRDR, vol. 2.

02.  Wall of Names, 33 (pl. 8R), calls her Marie-Josèphe BELMER, cousine [of Moïse LEBLANC], & lists her with her cousin, his wife & their 2 children; Robichaux, Acadians in St.-Malo, 45-46, Family No. 57, her birth/baptismal record, calls her Josèphe-Marie BELLEMER, gives her parents' names, says her godparents were Joseph BELLEMER & Marie DAIGLE, & that her family resided at St.-Servan from 1763-72; Robichaux, Acadians in Châtellerault, 15, Family No. 28, calls her Marie BELLEMÈRE, "an orphan," but does not give her parents' names; Hébert, D., Acadian Families in Exile 1785, 36-37, calls her Marie-Josèphe BELMER, cousine au dit [Moïse LEBLANC], age 16, on the embarkation list, Maria Josefa BELLEME, su prima [of Juan GUÉDRY, husband of Maria LEBLANC], on the debarkation list, & Marie-Josèphe BELMER, cousin of the above [Moïse LEBLANC], age 16, on the complete listing, & says she was in the 24th Family [Moïse LEBLANC, embarkation list] & 26th Family [Jean GUÉDRY, debarkation list] aboard Le Beaumont with her LEBLANC cousins; BRDR, 2:70, 413 (SJA-2, 4), the record of her first marriage, calls her Maria BELMER, calls her husband Pedro LAMBER "of Acadia," does not give her or his parents' names but says her parents "were of this Parish," & says the witnesses to her marriage were Baptista BURG & Maria LAMBER; BRDR, 3:80, 676 (SJA-2, 81), the record of her second marriage, calls her Marie BELLEMÈRE, "wid. LAMBERT, nat. St. Malo, France, calls her husband Jean Felix POLAQUIN, "nat. Québec, Canada," gives her & his parents' names, & says the witnesses to her marriage were Jean Baptiste CHARPENTIER, Pierre GUÉDRY, & Margueritte CHARPENTIER; BRDR, 6:416 (ASM-10, 68), her death/burial record, calls her Marie Josèphe LE BLANC, "age 79 years wife of PALANGUIN," but does not give her parents' names.  

Her parents' names also can be found in the baptismal record of daughter Maria Magdalena LAMBERT, dated 7 Apr 1799, in BRDR, 2:412 (SJA-3, 181).  How could her parents have been members of the St.-Jacques church parish in Oct 1787, as the record of her first marriage insists, if she had come to LA as an orphan 2 years earlier?  Her parents--Bruno was born in c1723, Anne in c1734--like Bruno's younger sister Anastasie, had been exiled to VA in 1755, deported to England in 1756, where they married in c1759, were repatriated to France aboard L'Ambition in May 1763, & lived at St.-Servan, near St.-Malo.  See Robichaux, Acadians in St.-Malo, cited above, which also reveals that all of Josèphe-Marie's 6 siblings died in France.  

Why does her name appear with 2 families--that of Moïse LEBLANC & Jean GUÉDRY--on the debarkation list of Le Beaumont?  Moïse & his family went to Ascension, Jean & his family to St.-Jacques.  Since Josèphe-Marie married at St.-Jacques in Oct 1787, she probably followed Jean's family to that settlement.  Jean's wife was Marie LEBLANC. 

A "mainlevee" record in the Terrebonne Parish Courthouse, dated 18 May 1832, when she would have been in her early 60s, found in Hébert, D., South LA Records, 1:48 (Houma Ct.Hse.: OA: v.1, #204), testifies that Marie BELLEMÈRE was the widow of Félix PALLAQUIN. 

Her burial record gets her age exactly & gives her second husband's surname, so there is no doubt that this is her, but why does it call her a LEBLANC?  Her mother was a BREAUX!  Does it have anything to do with who she came to LA with decades before?  Probably not. 

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Copyright (c) 2006-13  Steven A. Cormier