APPENDICES

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

BOUTIN

[boo-TANH]

ACADIA

Jean-Joseph Boutin, born in c1676, perhaps the son of Jean Boutin and Susanne Rocheteau of Québec, was a 25-year-old fisherman at Port-Royal in 1701.  He married Marie-Marguerite Lejeune dit Briard at Port-Royal in c1708, and moved to La Hève then to Pigiguit, where his five sons, all probably born at Pigiguit, started families of their own:  

Oldest son Joseph, born in c1710, married Francoise, daughter of Jean Pitre, in c1731.  He moved to Baie-des-Espagnols, Île Royale, today's Cape Breton Island, with his father and brothers probably during the 1740s.  He died on Île Royale in June 1755 of an abcès qui a crévez dans le corps (an abcess that burst in his body).  

Eustache, born in c1712, married Agathe, daughter of Francois Viger, in c1734 and also moved to Île Royale.  

Pierre married Marie-Marcelle, daughter of Claude Trahan, in c1745 and also moved to Île Royale, where he died in 1751 or 1752.  

Charles, born in c1723, married Marie-Josèphe, daughter of Paul Guidry, in c1746 and moved to Île Royale.  

Youngest son Pierre-Paul, called Paul, born in c1727, married Ursule, daughter of Augustin Guidry of Cobeguit, at Louisbourg on Île Royale in November 1750.  

Jean-Joseph was 76 years old when he was recorded at Baie-des-Espagnols in 1752.  He probably died there before Le Grand Dérangement.

LE GRAND DÉRANGEMENT

Like most Acadian families, Le Grand Dérangement of the 1750s scattered this family to the winds. ...

Typical of most, if not all, Acadian families, the Acadiennes of Canada lost touch with their Cadien cousins hundreds of miles away, and until the Acadian reunions of the mid-twentieth century, they may even have forgotten the others existed. 

Two Boutin sisters, Josèphe and Anne, probably daughters of Pierre, were rounded up by British forces on Île Royale in late 1758 and transported to St.-Malo, France, aboard the English transport Duke William.  Josèphe died at sea.  Anne survived the terrible crossing.  Gillette-Théotiste Boutin, who also crossed in the Duke William, died at the hospital in St.-Malo 10 days after the ship arrived in November 1758. ...

LOUISIANA:  WESTERN SETTLEMENTS

Only one family of Acadian Boutins ended up in Louisiana.  Jean-Joseph's youngest son Pierre-Paul, his wife, and their children must have moved from Île Royale back to Pigiguit before 1755.  In the fall of that year they were rounded up by the British and transported to Pennsylvania, where they were counted by colonial officials in June 1763, soon after the French and Indian War ended.  Soon afterwards they moved to Maryland probably to join their Guidry kin who had been exiled to that colony eight years before.  They came to Louisiana in July 1767 with the second contingent of Acadians from Maryland who chose to settle in the lower Mississippi Valley; with them was Pierre-Paul's niece Marie-Francoise, daughter of older brother Charles.  The Boutins settled at St.-Gabriel d'Iberville on the Mississippi above New Orleans, where Marie-Francoise married a Spanish corporal in April 1768.  By the early 1770s Pierre-Paul and his family had moved to the Grand Coteau area of the Opelousas District, where Pierre-Paul died in 1801, age 74.  

Pierre-Paul's older son Joseph married Marie-Jeanne, daughter of Isidore Trahan, at Opelousas in July 1790; Joseph died six years later, in November 1796, age 43; he produced no sons.  On the same day and at the same place as Joseph's wedding, his younger brother Paul married Anne-Spesse, a German girl, daughter of Jean Teller, who also called himself John Taylor, of Pennsylvania.  They, too, settled at Grand Coteau, where Paul died on his farm at Prairie des Femmes in February 1832, age 67.  

All of the Boutins of the Opelousas area, and probably all of the Acadian Boutins in Louisiana, descend from the two surviving sons of Paul le jeune of Grand Coteau:  Jean-Baptiste, born in September 1795, married Elisabeth, daughter of Christophe Gatt, a German Creole, in St. Martin Parish in 1819.  Joseph, born in September 1796, married Uranie, daughter of Frederic Miller, another German Creole, at Opelousas also in 1819.  (One of Paul Boutin le jeune's daughters, Marie-Madeleine, born at Grand Coteau in October 1791, married Jean-Baptiste, son of Jacob Miller, a German who had come to Louisiana from Maryland aboard the ill-fated British vessel Britannia in 1769, at Opelousas in April 1816.  Jean-Baptiste was the widower of fellow German Creole Francoise Mayre and brother of Marie-Madeleine's brother Joseph's wife's brother, Frederic  One of Jean-Baptiste and Marie-Madeleine's sons, Jean-Baptiste, fils, is my mother's paternal great-grandfather.)  

Another male Boutin, Olivier, born in c1749, place unknown, reached Louisiana by August 1770, when he was counted in the Spanish census at Ascension, still a bachelor.  This researcher has not been able to tie him to the other Boutins who came to Louisiana.  Since his is found on the Acadian Memorial's Wall of Names, he must have been an Acadian, not a French Creole, and kin somehow to the other Boutins.  He may have died at New Orleans in February 1773.

NON-ACADIAN FAMILIES in LOUISIANA

There was a French Creole family named Bouton that came to Louisiana in the early 1700s, but this was a different family from the Acadian Boutins.  Jean-Baptiste, son of Jean-Mathurin Bouton and Francoise Portier of La Valle, Angers, France, married Marie-Anne Saucie at St.-Charles des Allemands on the German Coast, now St. Charles Parish, in August 1745.  His brother Mathurin married Marianne De Roche at St.-Charles des Allemands in April 1747.   Jean-Baptiste and Marie-Anne moved to Pointe Coupée by the late 1760s.  Their daughter Anne married Jean De Sage at Point Coupée in July 1768.  Their son Nicolas was born at Pointe Coupée in November 1769, and their daughter Marie married Joseph Gallien of Montréal, Canada, there the following year.  Thomas Boutin, a cooper, husband of Marie-Louise Onesse, no kin to the Acadian Boutins, was living in New Orleans in 1755.  Henry Boutin was the curé, or pastor, of Ascension Parish church in March 1808 when he drowned in Bayou Lafourche, age 40, while delivering the last sacrament to an ill parishioner; he of course left no wife and children.  A Pierre Boutin of Paimboeuf, Brittany, France, died in Assumption Parish in June 1838, age 46.  A Nathan Boutin, also called Bouton, parents unknown but perhaps one of the Boutons of St. Charles and Pointe Coupée, married Betsey Kershaw in St. Mary Parish in August 1828. ...

CONCLUSION

The family's name also is spelled Bota, Botan, Boten.

Sources:  Arsenault, Généalogie, 1346-47, 2437; BRDR, vols. 2, 3, 5(rev.); Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, vols. 1-A, 1-B, 2-A, 2-B, 2-C; Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 218; <landrystuff.com/ExpulsionShips.html>; NOAR, vols. 1, 2, 3;  <perso.orange.fr/froux/St_malo_arrivees/Duc_Guillaume.htm>, Family No. 35; White, DGFA-1, 264-65; White, DGFA-1 English, 58.

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, 12, calls him Joseph BOUTIN; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-1: 103-04, 772, his marriage record, calls him Joseph BOUTIN, says his parents were Paul BOUTIN & Ursule GUIDRY, provides the day of the week as well as the exact day of the marriage, & says the witnesses to his marriage were DEBORDE, Jean TRAHAN, J. GUIDRY, & Rensuval MIRS(?)[sic]; Hébert, D., 1-A:104, his death/burial record, calls him Joseph BOUTIN, but does not give his parents' names.  His birth year is based on the age in the Spanish report of 1767, not the Opelousas census of 1777.  See De Ville, Southwest LA Families, 1777, 24; Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth Century Louisianians, 433.  See also Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 218.   For some reason, Arsenault, Genealogie, 2437, calls him Joseph RICHARD dit BOUTIN, born 1727, the birth year of his father(!), no place given, son of Alexandre RICHARD & Marie LEVRON of Port-Royal.  That Arsenault is confusing his Joseph RICHARD dit BOUTIN & Joseph, the older son of Pierre-Paul BOUTIN, is revealed by his claiming that his Joseph RICHARD dit BOUTIN married Jeanne TRAHAN c1750; note that Joseph, son of Pierre-Paul, married Marie-Jeanne TRAHAN at Opelousas in 1790.  Where did Arsenault get his information?  I follow the primary sources here of course.

02.  Wall of Names, 12, calls her Marguerite BOUTIN.  She must not be confused with her younger sister Marguerite-Louise, who was born in LA & is therefore not on this list.  That they were different people can be seen in their respective marriage records & in the birth/baptismal records of their children.  For example, on 19 Oct 1788, Salome SAVOIE, daughter of Jean SAVOIE & Marguerite BOUTIN, was baptized at Opelousas.  A few months later, on 12 Jul 1789, Michel LEGER, son of Michel LEGER & Marguerite-Louise BOUTIN, was baptized at Opelousas.  See Hebért, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:514, 702.  See also Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 218.   Marguerite's death/burial record in Hébert, D., 2-C:96, calls her Marguerite BOUTIN, widow of dec. Jean SAVOY.  Her succession record in Hébert, D., 2-C:96, calls her Marguerite BOUTIN & is numbered 477.

03.  Wall of Names, 12, calls her Marie-Francoise BOUTIN, & lists her separately; BRDR, 1b:28, 170, her marriage record, gives her parents' names, says that they both were deceased, provides the names of her husband's parents & place of origin, & says the witnesses to her marriage were Joseph GIMENEZ, Marie MORIN, & Anne BERGERON.  The marriage was recorded in Point Coupée because there was no church at St.-Gabriel until the early 1770s.  See also Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth Century Louisianians, 433.  Judging by her age, she probably died in childbirth.  Alonso's second marriage record in NOAR, 3:177, 276, calls him widower of Maria [BOTEN?], & says he was corporal of the Seventh Company of the Louisiana Battalion; the Catalina LAMBERT he married in New Orleans 6 Feb 1777 probably was not Acadian.  

04.  Wall of Names, 12, calls him Olivier BOUTIN.  See also Robichaux, Bayou Lafource, 1770-98, 7.  The death/burial record in NOAR, 3:35, that could be his gives no first name, only a last name, BOUTIN, & says that he was "native of Acadia."  None of the other Acadian BOUTINs fit this date.

05.  Wall of Names, 12, calls him Paul BOUTIN.  His birth year is based on a compromise of the ages given in the Spanish report of 1767 & the Opelousas census of 1777.  See De Ville, Southwest LA Families, 1777, 24; Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth Century Louisianians, 433.  The age given in his death/burial record in Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 3:82, nails it.  His wife's information is from her family's records in Hébert, D., 1-A:737-39.  Her family was German & anglicized their name perhaps in PA or MD before coming to LA.  See also Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 218.  His succession record in Hébert, D., 3:82, calls him Paul BOUTIN from Prairie des femmes & is numbered 583.  

06.  Wall of Names, 12, calls him Pierre-Paul BOUTIN.  His birth year is from White, Dictionnaire Acadiennes, 265, which calls him Paul.  See also Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 218. 

07.  Wall of Names, 12, calls her Susanne BOUTIN.  See also Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 218. 

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