APPENDICES

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

HUGON

[YOU-gonh]

ACADIA

Louis Hugon, born at Villefagnan, Angouleme, France, in c1695, married Marie Bourgeois at Chignecto in April 1720.  They had six children, four sons and two daughters.  Two of the sons, both born at Chignecto, created families of their own:  

Older son Jacques, born in c1730, married a woman whose name has been lost to history probably at Chignecto before Le Grand Dérangement.  

Younger son Joseph, born in c1732, married Théotiste Broussard probably at Chignecto.  They had at least one daughter, Marie, born probably at Chignecto in c1751.  

LE GRAND DÉRANGEMENT

Le Grand Dérangement of the 1750s scattered this small family to the wind:

The first Acadians in Nova Scotia rounded up by the British in the fall of 1755 were the ones at Chignecto.  After yet another war erupted between Britain and France in 1754, the Chignecto Acadians were caught in the middle of it.  When British and New England forces attacked Fort Beauséjour in June 1755, Chignecto settlers, pressured by the French, served in the fort as militia.  They, too, along with the French regulars, became prisoners of war when the fort surrendered on June 16.  Governor Lawrence was so incensed to find so-called French Neutrals fighting with French regulars at Beauséjour that he ordered his officers to deport the Chignecto Acadians to the southernmost British colonies on the Atlantic seaboard.  Hugons were among them.  In the fall of 1755, British forces deported Louis Hugon and his family to South Carolina aboard the English sloop Endeavor.  Louis must have died in South Carolina.  Colonial officials counted his widow Marie Bourgeois, son Jacques, Jacques's daughter Marie-Madeleine, and Jacques's son Joseph, still living in the colony in August 1763; Jacques's wife was not in the census with them, so she, too, probably died before 1763.  

Acadians exiled in New England and South Carolina were encouraged by French officials to go to French St.-Dominique, today's Haiti, to work on a huge naval base at Môle St.-Nicolas.  Although driven from North America, the French were determined to hang on to what was left of their shrinking empire.  The new naval base on the north shore of St.-Domingue would protect the approaches to what was left of their possessions in the Caribbean basin.  French officials saw the Acadian exiles as a ready source of cheap labor.  They promised them land of their own if they came to Haiti to help build the naval base.  And so Acadians, including Jacques Gravois and his brother Joseph, emigrated to St.-Domingue in late 1763 and 1764.  But they found no farmland at the naval base, only misery and death in the jungles of northern Haiti.  Joseph died probably soon after the family reached the island.  Jacques's son may have died there, too.  This would have prompted him and Joseph's widow to quit the place as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

Jacques's daughter Marie-Madeleine stayed in Haiti.  She married three times, to Félix Thibault, to Francois Regnault, and then to Jean-Baptiste Chaumette, son of Nicolas Bourgeois of St.-Didier in Sommeil en Barrois, France, at Môle St.-Nicolas in June 1785.  

LOUISIANA:  WESTERN SETTLEMENTS

None of Jacques Hugon's children were with him when he came to Louisiana, so his family either died or, in the case of his daughter Marie-Madeleine, remained in Haiti.  The place and time of Jacques's death are clues that he hooked up with the Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil party from Halifax going to Louisiana via St.-Domingue in late 1764.  If so, he would have reached the colony in February 1765 and followed the Broussards to the Attakapas District that April.  Fate did not give Jacques the opportunity to start another family.  He died on the Teche only a few months after he got there, victim of the epidemic that struck down dozens of his fellow Acadians that summer and fall.

Most likely, Jacques's younger brother Joseph's widow, Théotiste Broussard, and Joseph's daughter Marie Hugon also came to Louisiana directly from Haiti with the Broussard party.  Théotiste and Marie would have followed their kinsmen to the Bayou Teche valley, and they probably were there when Jacques Hugon died in the epidemic that October.  Dozens of their fellow Acadians escaped the sickness by fleeing to the river, but Théotiste and Marie remained on the Teche with their Broussard kin.  Théotiste never remarried.  Marie married cousin Paul, son of fellow Acadian Michel Trahan, at Atakapas in July 1772; their marriage was recorded at Pointe Coupée, but the priest who recorded the ceremony noted that Marie and Paul were residents of Atakapas and that they had to secure dispensation for third degree of affinity in order to marry. 

NON-ACADIAN FAMILIES in LOUISIANA

Hugons lived at New Orleans during the late colonial period and probably were no kin to the Hugons of Acadia:

Jean-Baptiste, called Baptiste, Hugon, "captain of the mulatto militia," died at New Orleans in August 1792.  His daughter Céleste married Jean-Pierre, son of Augustin Claver, "corporal of the militia of free men of color," at New Orleans in October 1794. 

Marie-Dorothée, daughter of Constance Hugon, was born at New Orleans in February 1794.  Constance gave birth to daughter Clara at New Orleans in June 1796, son Andrés-Florence-Laurent in April 1799, and son François in October 1800. 

One wonders if the presence of this prominent Hugon family among the city's gens de couleur libres motivated Marie Hugon of Atakapas to call herself a Dugon. 

~

During the antebellum period, a Hugon, who would have been called a Foreign Frenchman by Louisiana natives, came to New Orleans from his native France:

Pierre Hugon, a 29-year-old cooper, reached New Orleans aboard the ship Ann Penhallon out of Bordeaux, France, in January 1838. 

CONCLUSION

Hugons settled "late" in Acadia, but they were among the earliest Acadians to find refuge in Louisiana.  Brothers Jacques and Joseph Hugon of Chignecto ended up in South Carolina, where Jacques became a widower, and then went to St.-Domingue, where Joseph died; Jacques's children died there, too.  Jacques, along with Joseph's widow, Théotiste Broussard, and Joseph's daughter Marie, came to Louisiana probably with the party from Halifax via St.-Domingue led by Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil.  Jacques died in the Teche valley epidemic of 1765 before he could remarry and father another son. 

The only other Acadian Hugon who came to Louisiana was Jacques's niece Marie, so this branch of the Hugon family did not took root in the Bayou State.  Marie married a Trahan at Atakapas, and the Hugon family's blood lived on in a number of Trahan family lines.  In the many church records in which she is found, Marie is invariably called Marie Dugon, but there is no question that she was the daughter of Joseph Hugon of Chignecto, South Carolina, and St.-Domingue. 

The family's name also is spelled Dugan, Hugond.

Sources:  Arsenault, Généalogie, 1006, 2614; Brasseaux, Foreign French, 1:278; BRDR, vol. 2; Hébert, D., Acadians in Exile, 197; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, vols. 1-A, 1-B, 2-A; Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 235; Milling, Exile Without End, 42; NOAR, vols. 5, 6, 7; Wall of Names, 19.

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, calls him Jacques HUGON, & lists him singly; Arsenault, Généalogie, 1006, 2614, calls him Jacques HUGON, says he was born in c1730, & says he died 12 Oct 1765; Hebert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:423-24 (SM Ch.: v.1, p.13; SM Ch.: Slave Funeral Register v.1, #26), his death/burial records, call him Jacques HUGON, says he died 8 Oct 1765 & his death was recorded 12 Oct 1765, but do not give his parents' names or mention a wife.  See also Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 235; Milling, Exile Without End, 42.  

What happened to his wife & children?  Did they die in St.-Domingue, & he latched on to the BROUSSARD party when they came thru Cap-Français in early 1765?  How else could someone who had spent his exile in SC end up in the Attakapas District in 1765?  Jacques was the older brother of Joseph HUGON, deceased husband of Théotiste BROUSSARD (Joseph never made it to LA but died in SC or St.-Domingue).  See Arsenault, p. 1006.  This may explain why Jacques, probably accompanied by his widowed sister-in-law & his niece Marie, hooked up with the BROUSSARD party on its way to LA.  

He perished in the epidemic that struck down dozens of fellow Acadians along the Teche that summer & fall.

02.  Wall of Names, 19, calls her Marie HUGON; Arsenault, Généalogie, 2606, calls her Marie DUON, & gives her wedding date & her parents' names; BRDR, 2:253, 707 (PCP-2, part 2, 140), & Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:279-80, 774 (BRDR: Pointe Coupée Ch.: v.2, Part 2, 140), her marriage record, calls her Marie DUGAN, gives her & her husband's parents' names, calls her parents Joseph [DUGAN] & Théotiste BROUSSARD, & says the witnesses to her marriage were Augustin GREVENBERG & Gérard de VERBOIS; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:279, 774 (SM Ch.: v.1, p.27), another marriage record, calls her Marie DUGON, "of Acadie," calls her husband Paul TRAHAN, "of Acadie," gives her & his parents' names, calls her parents Joseph [DUGON] & Théotiste BROUSSARD, & says the witnesses to her marriage were ____ BORDA, ____ de VERBOIS, ____ BERARD, Augustin GREVEMBER, Francois GREVEMBER, ____ DURIEN, & Joseph LANDRY; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:280, 775 (SM Ch.: Folio A-1, p.20), yet another marriage record, calls her Marie DUGON, "of Attakapas," calls her husband Paul TRAHAN, "of Attakapas," gives her & his parents' names, calls her parents Joseph [DUGON] & Théotiste BROUSSARD, says all parents were "all natives from Acadie," that "The couple is related in the 3rd degree of afinity[sic], Dispensed by virtue of the powers granted to foreign missionaries," that the witnesses to her marriage were ____ BERARD, Augustin GREVEMBER, Francois GREVEMBER, ____ DURIEU, & Joseph LANDRY, & that the recording priest was "of Pointe Coupée"; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 2-C:262 (Laf. Ch.: v.2, p.75, #121), her death/burial record, calls her Marie DUGON, "spouse of dec. Paul TRAHAM (TRAHAN)," says she died "at 1:30 a.m. at age 72 years," & was buried the same day she died.  See also Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 236; De Ville, Southwest LA Families, 1777, 14.  

Her estimated birth year is based on the age given in the British report of Aug 1763, not the Attakapas census of 1777, which makes her only 16 at the time of her marriage, or her burial record, which makes her only 15.  However, Acadian girls, especially orphans, were known to marry that young in LA.  Then again, the age given in her burial record hints that the 8-year-old Marine HUGON in SC in Aug 1763 may have been her, not the 12-year-old Marie HUGON! 

Where are her parents in the British report of Aug 1763?  Her mother, at least, was still alive then. 

Her mother was a BROUSSARD, so when the party from Halifax led by kinsman Joseph BROUSSARD dit Beausoleil came through Cap-Français, St.-Domingue, in late 1764 on their way to New Orleans, she & her mother, now a widow, probably hooked up with their relatives and moved on to LA, taking recently-widowed uncle Jacques HUGON with them.  

Although Attakapas had its own church, or at least its own priest, as early as 1765, there were times in the early years of the parish when there was no pastor at the post on Bayou Teche.  Priests from Pointe Coupée would cross the upper Atchafalaya Basin and administer the sacraments to the settlers in the Opelousas District, which did not get its own priest until 1776, and in the Attakapas District when there was no priest residing there.  This is why Marie & Paul's marriage was recorded at Pointe Coupée as well as at Attakapas.  

The birth/baptismal record of granddaughter Julie ELLENDER, daughter of Marie's daughter Christine TRAHAN, dated 11 Aug 1800, in Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:293 (SM Ch.: v.5, #329), calls the maternal grandmother Marie Anne DUGON, but the many other church records in which Marie HUGON is found call her simply Marie.  See the indexes to Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, vols. 1-A, 1-B, 2-A, 2-B, 2-C.  Moreover, all of these records, including her marriage records, cited above, call her Marie DUGAN or DUGON, never Marie HUGON, but, as Wall of Names points out & as other records show, there is no doubt that she was the daughter of Joseph HUGON & Théotiste BROUSSARD of Chignecto, SC, & St.-Domingue.  Not that the Attakapas census taker in 1777 calls her Marie HUGON. 

In 1823 & 1824, 2 children, Joseph & Virginie DUGON, were baptized in Lafayette Parish.  See Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 2-B:322 (Laf. Ch.: v.1, p.40).  The children's parents were listed as Delphin [DUGON] & Victorie TRAHAN for Joseph, & Jean Baptiste [DUGON] & Pélagie TRAHAN for Virginie.  The godparents for Joseph were Joseph TRAHAN & ... Marie DUGON.  Virginie's godparents were Onésime DUGON & Eufrasine TRAHAN.  Were these DUGON children actually TRAHANs?  Again, Marie HUGON was the only member of her family who survived the rigors of life in colonial LA & created a family of her own.  So why were these children, probably her descendants, called DUGONs & not TRAHANs?

Her husband, who was about her age, died at Atakapas in Dec 1799, so she was a widow for nearly 30 years.  She did not remarry. 

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Copyright (c) 2007-11  Steven A. Cormier