APPENDICES

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

FLAN

[FLONH]

ACADIA

Jean-François Flan of Paris, France, married Marie, daughter of Michel Dupuis, at Port-Royal in January 1706.  Jean-François served as clerk for the Port-Royal fortifications--commis des fortifications--and for a time oversaw the rebuilding of the town's defenses.  In June 1714, after the British took over the colony, Jean-François was among a number of Acadians who went to Île Royale, today's Cape Breton Island, to look at land there.  Evidently he did not move to Île Royale but remained at Port-Royal, which the British had renamed Annapolis Royal.  Jean-François eventually moved his family to Rivière-aux-Canards in the Minas Basin probably to put more distance between himself and the British authorities at Annapolis.  He and his wife had five children, including a son, François-Marie, born at Port-Royal in May 1709, who does not seem to have lived long enough to marry and raise a family of his own.  Three of their daughters married into the LeBlanc and Landry families, so the blood, at least, of the Parisian Flans survived in Acadia. 

LE GRAND DÉRANGEMENT

In the fall of 1755, British forces deported Jean-François Flan's second daughter, Anne, her husband Alexandre Landry, and their children to Maryland, where Alexandre died in the late 1750s or early 1760s.  Jean-François's youngest daughter, Marguerite, her husband Abraham dit Petit Abram Landry, and their children also ended up in Maryland.  In July 1763, colonial officials counted the widowed Anne and six of her children, four sons and two daughters, with other Acadians at Baltimore.  Marguerite and her family, including 10 children, were counted at the same time at Oxford, on Maryland's Eastern Shore.  Marguerite died in Maryland in the mid-1760s, in her late 40s, leaving her husband a widower again. 

LOUISIANA:  RIVER SETTLEMENTS

In April 1767, Anne Flan, still a widow (she never remarried), left Baltimore for Louisiana with most of her children and 200 other Acadian exiles.  They reached New Orleans in July and settled at St.-Gabriel d'Iberville on the river above the city.  

NON-ACADIAN FAMILIES in LOUISIANA

A Flan, probably no kin to the Acadians of that name, lived in Louisiana during the colonial period but created no family there: 

Pierre Flan, "native of Mobile," died at New Orleans in March 1788.  He was 40 years old.  The priest who recorded his burial called him Pedro and did not give his parents' names or mention a wife.  

CONCLUSION

Anne was the only descendant of Jean-François Flan of Port-Royal and Rivière-aux-Canards to find refuge in Louisiana.  The Acadian branch of this family, then, did not take root in the Bayou State.  However, its blood did survive in two lines of the Landry family that settled on the Acadian Coast.  

The family's name also is spelled Blanc, Flanc.

Sources:  Arsenault, Généalogie, 542-43; BRDR, vol. 1a(rev.); NOAR, vol. 4; White, DGFA-1, 619-20; White, DGFA-1 English, 130.  

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, 19 (pl. 4L), calls her Anne FLAN veuve Alexandre LANDRY, & lists her with 3 sons & 2 daughters; Arsenault, Généalogie,1404, profile for her husband in the Pisiguit section, says he was born in 1708, gives his parents' names, calls her Anne FLAN, details her marriage, including her parents' names, says sans doute that Alexandre LANDRY married a second time to Rose LEBLANC c1736 but gives no place of marriage or her parents' names, says his children were, by his first wife [Anne FLAN], son René, born c1733 but gives no birthplace, &, with his second wife, son François-Sébastien, born c1738 but gives no birthplace, that he lived at l'Assomption in Pisiguit[sic], that René was at Ristigouche[sic] in 1759, & François-Sébastien settled in LA; Arsenault, Généalogie, 2521, profile for her husband in the LA section, says he was born in 1708, gives his parents' names, calls her Anne FLAN, details her marriage, including her parents' names, says Alexandre LANDRY probablement married a second time to Rose LEBLANC c1736 but gives no place of marriage or her parents' names, says his children were, by his first wife [Anne FLAN], sons René, born c1732, Firmin, born c1735, & Paul-Marie, born c1736, but gives no birthplace, &, with his second wife, son Sébastien, born c1738 but gives no birthplace, & that René was at Ristigouche[sic], on the Baie des Chaleurs, in 1759; White, DGFA-1, 619, calls her Anne [FLAN (FLANC)], gives her parents' names, details her birth & baptism, says her godparents were Sr. Denis PETITOT dit Saine-Seine, who signed the baptismal record, & Anne RICHARD, wife of Jean DUPUIS, details her marriage to Alexandre LANDRY, including his parents' names, & details her residence in MD in 1763 & arrival in LA in 1767; White, DGFA-1, 933, profile for her husband, says he was born at Pigiguit on 19 Dec 1708 but was baptized at Grand-Pré 14 Apr 1709, says his godparents were Abraham DUGAS & Cécile MELANSON, calls her Anne FLAN, details their marriage, including her parents' names, lists no second wife for Alexandre LANDRY, & says he died before 7 Jul 1763 but does not say when or where; BRDR, 1a(rev.):71, 104 (SGA-2, 212), her marriage record, calls her Anne FLANC, "age ca 21, calls her husband Alexandre LANDRY, "age ca 24," gives her & his parents' names, says her parents were "of the parish of St. Joseph de la riviaire de Canars" & that his were "of the parish of l'Assomption de Pigiguit," & that the witnesses to her marriage were Abraham LANDRY, father of the groom, who signed, Pierre LANDRY, who made his x, Abraham LANDRY, a cousin, who made his x, Jacques RICHART, who made his x, & Jean DUPUIS, who signed.  See also Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 158; Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 428, 429, 431.

[top of page FLAN]

Copyright (c) 2007-13  Steven A. Cormier