APPENDICES

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

DUMONT

[doo-MONH]

ACADIA

Jean-Baptiste Dubois dit Dumont of Montréal married Marie, daughter of André Simon dit Boucher, at Port-Royal in c1710.  Jean-Baptiste died at Grand-Pré in c1713, but not before fathering a son, Joseph dit Dumont, born at Port-Royal in c1712.  Joseph dit Dumont settled on Île St.-Jean, today's Prince Edward Island, and married Marie-Madeleine, daughter of Jean-Baptiste Veco, at St.-Pierre-du-Nord in February 1739.  

Joseph chose as his surname not Dubois but his father's dit, Dumont.  He and Marie-Madeleine had only daughters:  Anne, born in c1740, Marie-Madeleine in c1741, Marie in c1742, Marie-Josèphe in c1745, Hélène in c1747, and Susanne in c1751.  Wife Marie-Madeleine died in either the early or mid-1750s probably at St.-Pierre-du-Nord.  

LE GRAND DÉRANGEMENT

When the British deported the Acadians of Nova Scotia in the autumn of 1755, Joseph and his daughters, living in territory controlled by France, remained unmolested.  Their respite from British oppression was short-lived, however.  After the fall of the French fortress at Louisbourg in July 1758, British forces descended on Île St.-Jean, rounded up most of its Acadian habitants, and deported them to France.  Joseph and three of his daughters, Anne, age 20, Marie, age 17, and Hélène, age 12, made the crossing aboard one of the five British transports that left the Gut of Canso in late November 1758 and reached St.-Malo in late January 1759.  Joseph, age 46, died at sea, but his daughters somehow survived the terrible crossing.  

In France, Hélène Dumont grew up an orphan.  At age 20, she married a young widower, Grégoire, son of fellow Acadian Jean Lejeune, at St.-Servan, near St.-Malo, in June 1767.  She gave Grégoire at least eight children, three sons and five daughters.  In the early 1770s, Hélène, Grégoire, and daughters Marie-Josèphe, born probably at St.-Servan in c1772, and Jeanne-Olive-Élisabeth, born in July 1772 at Pleurtuit, near St.-Malo, were part of an Acadian settlement in the Poitou region centered around the town of Châtellerault.  Daughter Geneviève was born at Châtellerault in May 1774, but she died the following August.  Jeanne-Olivier-Élisabeth died later that month; she was only 2 years old.  By December 1775, Grégoire and Hélène had had enough of the failed venture in Poitou.  They and surviving daughter Marie retreated with dozens of other Poitou Acadians to the port city of Nantes, where Grégoire, a sailor, found work when he could, but life in the mother country for these wayward Acadians remained difficult and humiliating.  

In the early 1780s, the Spanish government offered the Acadians in France a chance for a new life in faraway Louisiana.  Hélène Dumont and her husband Grégoire Lejeune agreed to take it.  

LOUISIANA:  RIVER SETTLEMENTS

With three of their children--daughter Marie, age 14, son Grégoire-Alexis, called Alexis, born at Chantenay, near Nantes, in 1781, and son Julien, born in 1783--Hélène Dumont, age 38, and husband Grégoire Lejeune, age 45, sailed to Louisiana aboard Le Bon Papa, the first of the Seven Ships of 1785, which reached New Orleans in July.  After a month of recuperation in the city, they followed the other passengers from their ship to the Acadian settlement of St.-Gabriel de Manchac, near Baton Rouge.  They had no more children in Louisiana.  Hélène died in West Baton Rouge Parish in September 1815, in her late 60s.  Grégoire outlived her by 11 years, dying in July 1826, in his late 80s.  He never remarried.

CONCLUSION

Since Hélène was the only member of her family to make it to Louisiana, the Dumonts of South Louisiana are French Creoles or Foreign French, not Acadians.  Only the blood of the Acadian Dumonts survived in the Bayou State, as did the blood of the Vecos of Île St.-Jean through Hélène and her children by Grégoire Lejeune.  

The family's name also is spelled Dumon, Dumonde.

Sources:  Arsenault, Généalogie, 534-35, 2090; BRDR, vol. 3; <perso.orange.fr/froux/St_malo_arrivees/Duc_Guillaume.htm>, Family No. 81; Robichaux, Acadians in Chatellerault, 70; Robichaux, Acadians in Nantes, 126-27; White, DGFA-1, 554-55; White, DGFA-1 English, 117.   

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, 28 (pl. 6R), calls her Elènne DUMON, & lists her with her husband, 3 children, & a niece; Arsenault, Généalogie, 2090;  <perso.orange.fr/froux/St_malo_arrivees/Duc_Guillaume.htm>, Family No. 81, shows that in the crossing to St.-Malo in 1758-59, her father, Joseph DUMONT, a widower, no age given, died at sea, but that she & her 2 sisters, Anne, age 20, & Marie, age 17, survived; Robichaux, Acadians in St.-Malo, 586-87, Family No. 661; Robichaux, Acadians in Chatellerault, 70, Family No. 141; Robichaux, Acadians in Nantes, 126, Family No. 229; Hébert, D., Acadian Families in Exile 1785, 6-7, calls her Elènne DUMON, sa [Grégoire LEJEUNE's] femme, age 36, on the embarkation list, Helena DUMONT, su [Jean Bautista (sic) LEJEUNE's] muger, on the debarkation list, & Hélène DUMONT, his [Grégoire LEJEUNE's] wife, age 36, on the complete listing, says she was in the 20th Family aboard Le Bon Papa with her husband, 3 children, & a niece, & details her marriage, including the names of her & her husband's parents, & the name of her husband's first wife, but gives no place of marriage; BRDR, 3:295 (SJO-4, 87), her death/burial record, calls her Helena DUMONDE, "age 70 yrs., wid.," but does not give her parents' names or her husband's name.

Despite what her burial record says, her husband was still very much alive in Sep 1815.  He did not die, in fact, until Jul 1826, in his late 80s.  See BRDR, 4:370 (SJO-11, 16).  

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