APPENDICES

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

HAMON

[HAM-onh]

ACADIA

At least two Hamon families, probably not related, lived on Île Royale, today's Cape Breton Island, and on Île St.-Jean, today's Prince Edward Island, before Le Grand Dérangement:

Jean, son of Oliver Hamon and Françoise Pireau, was born in c1714 at Reintembault, near Dol, France.  He emigrated to Louisbourg, Île Royale, by January 1736, when he married Marie, daughter of Joannis Daguerre, at Louisbourg.  Jean may have been a soldier stationed in the garrison.  He and Françoise had at least six children at Louisbourg, including three sons:  Jean-Baptiste, born in c1738, Jean-François in c1739, and Mathurin in c1740.  Their daughter married into the David and Maigne families. 

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Another Jean Hamon, or Hémond, born probably in France, married Marie Blanchard and settled probably on Île St.-Jean.  They had at least three sons, born probably on the island:  Pierre in c1732, Ignace in c1748, and Joseph in c1752.  Jean and Marie died probably on the island before 1758.  

LE GRAND DÉRANGEMENT

When the British rounded up the Acadians in Nova Scotia in the fall of 1755, those on Île Royale and Île St.-Jean, living in territory controlled by France, escaped the terrible deportations.  Their respite from British oppression was short-lived, however.  After the fall of the French fortress at Louisbourg in July 1758, the victorious British rounded up most of the Acadians on the Maritime islands and deported them to France.  

Jean Hamon at Louisbourg, his wife and children, were deported to Rochefort.  In October of 1759, Jean took his family to St.-Malo, where the majority of the Maritime Acadians had been transported.  They lived at St.-Servan, near St.-Malo, from 1760-63.  Jean's son Mathurin, who was 20 years old in 1760, probably served as a privateer in the war against Britain, was captured and held as a prisoner in England, and was not released until 1763, when the war finally ended.  He returned to St.-Servan to join his family.  Later that year, he and his father left France aboard Le Marie-Charlotte and settled on one of the French-controlled islands, St.-Pierre or Miquelon, off the southern coast of Newfoundland.  Mathurin did not remain at St.-Pierre or Miquelon but returned to France by January 1766, when he married Marie, daughter of René Renault, at St.-Servan.  They had at least two sons:  Mathurin, fils, born in c1768, and Julien in c1772.  Mathurin and Marie sailed from France to St.-Pierre or Miquelon in the 1760s or 1770s, but, again, Mathurin did not stay there long.  During the American Revolution, after France joined the war on the side of the Americans, the British seized St.-Pierre and Miquelon and deported the Acadians there to France.  Mathurin and his family made the crossing aboard the schooner La Modeste, which reached St.-Malo in November 1778.  

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Meanwhile, the other Jean Hamon's son Joseph, now a six-year-old orphan, was transported to France aboard one of the five British transports that left the Gut of Canso in late November 1758 and reached St.-Malo in late January.  Joseph crossed with the family of Pierre Blanchard and Madeleine Hébert and two of their children.  Young Joseph was probably Pierre's nephew.  Joseph Hamon did not survive the crossing to St.-Malo but died along with Pierre Blanchard and both of his children aboard the British transport; only Pierre's wife Madeleine made it to France. 

Joseph's older brother Ignace, who was 10 years old in 1758, also sailed aboard one of the five ships, with the family of another Pierre Blanchard, Pierre's wife Françoise Breau, and their 21-year-old son Charles.  Pierre and Françoise died at sea.  Charles survived the crossing but died in a St.-Malo hospital three months after he reached the port city.  Only young Ignace Hamon survived the terrible crossing.  He lived probably with relatives at Pleurtuit, near St.-Malo, from 1759-60 and then at nearby Pleudihen, where, in May 1770, he married Anne-Josèphe, daughter of fellow Acadian Louis Bourg.  Their daughter Anne-Madeleine was born at Pleudihen in July 1773.  Soon after the birth of their daughter, Ignace and Anne-Josèphe participated in a failed settlement scheme in the Poitou region.  French authorities were tired of providing for the Acadians languishing in the port cities.  A French nobleman offered to settle them on some marginal land he owned near the city of Châtellerault.  The Acadians tried mightily to bring life to the rocky soil around the long line of houses in the woods of Poitou.  After two years of failure, the Acadians gave up and demanded to be returned to the port cities.  Meanwhile, Ignace's wife Anne-Josèphe bore another daughter in Poitou:  Marie-Modeste was born near Châtellerault in May 1775.  In March 1776, Ignace, Anne-Josèphe, and their daughters retreated to the port city of Nantes with the last convoy of Acadians to leave Poitou.  They survived on government hand outs and what work they could find.  Ignace worked as a quarryman at Nantes.  

Ignace and Joseph's older brother Pierre was not deported to France.  He escaped the British roundup on Île St.-Jean and married Marie-Thérèse, daughter of French Canadian Jacques Fradet, at St.-Vallier, on the south bank of the St. Lawrence below Québec City, in November 1767.  Pierre, called Le Cadien by his family and neighbors, died at Bellechasse, Québec, in 1831, purportedly at age 99.  He and his many descendants call themselves Emond. 

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Guillaume, son of Joseph Hamon and his French wife Marie Dameue, born in France in c1761, married Marguerite, daughter of Acadian Charles Saulnier of Rivière-aux-Canards, at St.-Martin-de-Chantenay, near Nantes, in November 1780.  Guillaume worked as a carpenter in Nantes, where Spanish government agents counted him with his wife in September 1784.  His relationship to Ignace and the other Hamons is anyone's guess.  

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When the Spanish government offered the Acadians in France a chance for a better life in faraway Louisiana, Ignace and Guillaume Hamon agreed to take it.

LOUISIANA:  LAFOURCHE VALLEY SETTLEMENTS

Two families of Hamons came to Louisiana from France in 1785 aboard two of the Seven Ships and chose to settle on upper Bayou Lafourche: 

Guillaume Hamon, age 24, and wife Marguerite Saulnier, age 27, crossed to Louisiana aboard Le St.-Rémi, the fourth of the Seven Ships from France, which reached New Orleans in September 1785.   Guillaume and his wife remained childless.  

Ignace Hamon, age 39, wife Anne-Josèphe Bourg, age 41, and daughters Anne-Madeleine, age 12, and Marie-Modeste, age 10, reached New Orleans aboard L'Amitié, the fifth of the Seven Ships from France, the following November.  Anne-Josèphe gave birth to another daughter, christened Martine after Spanish intendant Martin Navarro, in New Orleans soon after they arrived.  Ignace and Anne-Josèphe had no more children in Louisiana.  All three of their daughters married on the upper bayou:  Anne-Madeleine to Urbanne, son of French Canadian Amable Stelly, in August 1793; Marie-Modeste to Pierre-Victor, son of French Creole Pierre Chataignier, in January 1799; and Martine to Jean-Baptiste, son of French Creole Louis Leonard of New Orleans, in September 1804.  A petition for a family meeting was filed in Martine's name at the Thibodauxville courthouse, Lafourche Interior Parish, in August 1821; she would have been in her mid-30s that year. 

CONCLUSION

Hamons settled "late" in greater Acadia, on Île Royale and Île St.-Jean, and they also came "late" to Louisiana--two families of them from France in 1785.  They settled on upper Bayou Lafourche.  Ignace Hamon and his wife had three daughters but no sons, and Guillaume Hamon and his wife had no children, so the Acadian branch of the family, except for its blood, did not take root in the Bayou State.  

In Acadia and Louisiana, the family's name also is spelled Aimon, Amon, Amond, Hamont, Hémond, and should not be confused with the French Creole Aymond or Emond family, who lived at Pointe Coupée and Opelousas during the colonial and antebellum periods.  In Canada, however, descendants of Pierre dit La Cadien Hamon use the surname Emond. 

Sources:  Arsenault, Généalogie, 2191, 2351; BRDR, vols. 2, 3; Hébert, D., Acadians in Exile, 179; Hébert, D., South LA Records, vol. 1; <perso.orange.fr/froux/St_malo_arrivees/5bateaux.htm>, Family Nos. 44, 46; Robichaux, Acadians in St.-Malo, 442-44; Robichaux, Acadians in Châtellerault, 53; Robichaux, Acadians in Nantes, 82-83; Carole Blier, descendant.

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, 41, calls her Anne-Magdeleine AMOND; Robichaux, Acadians in St.-Malo, 442, Family No. 492, her birth/baptismal record, calls her Anne-Madeleine HAMON, gives her parents' names, says her godparents were Jean METRA & Madeleine BLANCHARD.

02.  Wall of Names, 36 (pl. 9R), calls him Guillaume HAMONT, & lists him with his wife & no children; Robichaux, Acadians in Nantes, 82, Family No. 155, calls him Guillaume HAMON, says he was born in c1761 but gives no birthplace, gives his parents' names, details his marriage, including his wife's parents' names, says he was a carpenter & resident of St.-Martin-de-Chantenay at the time of his marriage, that his wife was born in c1758 "in the Parish of Saint-Joseph in Acadie," which was Rivière-aux-Canards, that she also was a resident of St.-Martin-de-Chantenay at the time of their marriage, & details their voyage to LA in 1785; Hébert, D., Acadian Families in Exile 1785, 52-53, calls him Guillaume HAMON, charpentier, age 24, on the embarkation list, & Guillaume HAMONT, carpenter, age 24, on the complete listing, says he was in the 39th Family aboard Le St.-Rémi with his wife & no children, details his marriage, including his & his wife's parents' names, & says they were married in 1780 but gives no place of marriage.  

It was unusual for an Acadian couple to remain childless.  

Wall of Names, 36, 41, spells Guillaume's family name HAMONT & Ignace's family name AMOND, but the spelling of the name in Robichaux's studies of the Acadians in France, on the passenger lists of Le St.-Rémi & L'Amitié, & in the Lafourche censuses, make it clear that they were members of the same family, the HAMONs.  But how was Guillaume kin to Ignace?  The sources I have found do not say.  

03.  Wall of Names, 41, calls him Ignace AMOND; <perso.orange.fr/froux/St_malo_arrivees/5bateaux.htm>, Family No. 46, calls him Ignace HAMON, frère de Joseph, & lists him with the family of Pierre BLANCHARD & Francoise BROS; Robichaux, Acadians in St.-Malo, 442, Family No. 492; Robichaux, Acadians in Châtellerault, 53, Family No. 103; Robichaux, Acadians in Nantes, 83, Family No. 156.  See also Robichaux, Bayou Lafourche, 1770-98, 32, 121, 164.  

Note the contradiction in dates for the marriage of this couple in Robichaux's studies of the Acadians in Poitou & Nantes.  

The birth year in Robichaux's study of the Acadians in Poitou does not conform to the ages given in the passenger list for L'Amitié or the Lafourche censuses.  

04.  Wall of Names, 41, calls her Marie-Modeste AMOND; Robichaux, Acadians in Châtellerault, 53, Family No. 103, her birth/baptismal record, calls her Marie-Modeste HAMON, gives her parents' names, & says her godparents were Jean BOURG, first cousin, & Heleine AUCOIN, first cousin.

05.  Not in Wall of Names because of the circumstance of her birth.  BRDR, 3:399, 576 (ASM-2, 97), her marriage record, calls her Martina & Martine HAMON (AIMON) of New Orleans, says her husband was from New Orleans, gives her & his parents' names, & says the witnesses to her marriage were Pierre VIGNEU & Isaac DOIRON; Hébert, D., South LA Records, 1:261 (Thib.Ct.Hse.: Succ.: Year 1821), her succession record, calls her Martine HAMMOND, & lists her children as Adèle [LEONARD], 10 years old (as of Aug 1821), Théotiste [LEONARD], 7 years old, Zeline [LEONARD], 5 years old, Jean Baptiste Vital [LEONARD], 17 months old, Françoise [LEONARD], no age given, Louise [LEONARD], no age given & Nanette [LEONARD], no age given.

Judging by her first name, she was one of the Acadian children whose honorary godfather was LA Spanish intendant Martin NAVARRO.  

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Copyright (c) 2007-11  Steven A. Cormier