APPENDICES

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

BOUCHER

[boo-SHAY, boo-SHARE]

ACADIA

Marie Boucher married Jean Dubordieu probably at Plaisance, Newfoundland, part of greater Acadia, in c1683.  She died at either La Beleine or Lorembec, Newfoundland, in February 1745, a widow.  

Jean Boucher, Marie's brother, married Anne Pinochon on Newfoundland in c1685.  They had two daughters, both born on Newfoundland.  Jean died at Plaisance in c1693, and his wife remarried. 

No member of this family emigrated to Louisiana.

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Canadian Pierre dit Desroches, son of Pierre Boucher and Hélène Gaudry dit Bourbonnière of St.-Nicolas Parish, Québec, married Anne, daughter of Étienne Hébert, at Grand-Pré in February 1714.  They moved to Port-Toulouse, Île Royale, today's Cape Breton Island, and had two children, a daughter and a son.  Their daughter married into the Touquerand family at Louisbourg in January 1832.  Their son, Honoré dit Villedieu, born probably at Port-Toulouse in c1716, married Marie-Anne Marres dit La Sonde at Port-Toulouse in c1743.  Evidently no member of this family emigrated to Louisiana either.  

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André Simon dit Jacques (Le) Boucher, born in c1663, was a butcher, hence his dit, and was variously called Jacques Le Boucher and Jacques Boucher in Port-Royal censuses.  He married Marie, daughter of Barnabé Martin dit Pelletret, at Port-Royal in c1688.  They had nine children, four sons and five daughters, all born at Port-Royal, most of whom used the dit Boucher, but they were Simons.  

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Pierre Boucher married Marie, daughter of Jean Doiron, probably at Chignecto in the early 1750s.  They had at least one child, daughter Marie-Anne, born "at Beaubassin" in c1754, on the eve of Le Grand Dérangement. 

LE GRAND DÉRANGEMENT

In the autumn of 1755, the British deported Pierre Boucher, his wife Marie Doiron, and their infant daughter Marie-Anne to South Carolina aboard the British sloop Dolphin, which left Chignecto on 13 October and reached Charleston on 19 November.  Pierre died in South Carolina, and Marie remarried to Pierre, son of fellow Acadian Philippe Lambert and widower of Marguerite Arseneau and _____, in c1761.  Two years later, in August 1763, South Carolina officials counted Marie Doiron, daughter Marie-Anne Boucher, Pierre Lambert, his son by a previous marriage, Pierre and Marie's infant son Jean, and three orphans, still living in the colony.  Marie-Anne was nine years old.  Later that year or in 1764, the family may have followed hundreds of other Acadians who were exiled in the British colonies to French-controlled St.-Domingue, today's Haiti, where the French were building a new naval base at Môle St.-Nicolas on the north shore of the island. ...

LOUISIANA:  RIVER SETTLEMENTS

Marie-Anne Boucher, age 11, came to Louisiana probably from Haiti with her mother Marie Doiron, age 28, stepfather Pierre Lambert, père, age 39, and stepbrother Pierre Lambert, fils, age 14, in 1765.  They settled at Cabanocé/St.-Jacques on the river above New Orleans where 20 Acadians from Georgia had settled the year before.  Marie-Anne married Jean-Baptiste, son of Jean Goudreau, at St.-Jacques in August 1775; Jean was either a French Creole or a French Canadian. ...

CONCLUSION

Marie-Anne probably was the only Acadian Boucher who emigrated to Louisiana, so this branch of the family, except for its blood, did not take root in the Bayou State.  The Bouchers of South Louisiana (including Bobby the Waterboy, geaux Mud Dogs!), are French Creoles or French Canadians, not Acadians. 

Sources:  Arsenault, Généalogie, 441, 1107-08, 1806; BRDR, vol. 2; White, DGFA-1, 182-84, 1469-72; White, DGFA-1, English, 38, 309.

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.  Not in Wall of Names.  BRDR, 2:167, 317 (SJA-1, 55), her marriage record, calls her Marie BOUCHÉ of Beaubassin, calls her husband Jean-Baptiste GODEROT, calls her parents Pierre [BOUCHÉ] & Marie DOIRANT, says her father was deceased at the time of the wedding, calls his parents Jean [GODEROT] & Geneviève BELANGÉ "of Parish of Bon Secour," says his father was deceased at the time of the wedding, & that the witnesses to her marriage were Olivier PART & Germain BERGERON.  See also Milling, Exile Without End, 40; Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 234.

Someone "of Beaubassin" is decidedly Acadian.  So why is she not on the Acadian Memorial's Wall of Names?

How else would an Acadian who was in SC in 1763 have come to LA in 1765 except via Haiti?

Was her husband an Acadian?  If he was Acadian, he is not in Wall of Names either.  Arsenault, Généalogie, 2491, in the LA section, lists a Jean-(Baptiste) GAUTREAUX, born in 1741, son of Charles [GAUTREAUX] & Marie-Josèphe LEBLANC of Grand-Pré, who married Marie BOUCHER, no date or place of marriage given, & says they had a son named Jean-Pierre in 1776.  This would make Jean-Baptiste the younger brother of Simon & Amand-Paul GAUTREAUX of St.-Jacques, who came to LA in 1765 & 1766.  Trouble is, Marie BOUCHER's marriage record, cited above, is clear--her husband's parents were Jean GODEROT & Geneviève BELANGÉ, not Charles GAUTREAUX & Marie-Josèphe LEBLANC, so back to square one.  Judging by his mother's surname--BELANGER--I suspect that Jean-Baptiste was a French-Creole or French-Canadian GOUDREAU, not an Acadian GAUTRO/GAUTREAUX, & I will treat him as such unless I find a primary source that proves otherwise.

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