APPENDICES

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

Chênet, Chenais, or Chesnay dit LA GARENNE

[lah-gah-REN]

ACADIA

Louis Chênet, Chenais, or Chesnay dit La Garenne, son of Bertrand, Sieur de Lothainville and Élisabeth Aubert, born at Québec in August 1678, moved to Port-Royal and married Jeanne, daughter of Barnabé Martin, there in c1697.  They had two children, both born at Port-Royal:  Marie-Josèphe in c1698, and Jean dit La Garenne in c1700.   Jeanne remarried to Gabriel Samson at Port-Royal in April 1704, so Louis had died by then.  She followed him to Port-Toulouse, Île Royale, today's Cape Breton Island, where she died in c1728.  Her daughter Marie-Josèphe married Charles Charpentier at Port-Toulouse in c1723, and remarried to Jean-François Morel at St.-Pierre-du-Nord, Île St.-Jean, today's Prince Edward Island, in August 1739. 

Louis's son Jean married Anne, daughter of Jean Potier, at St.-Pierre-du-Nord, Île St.-Jean, in October 1728.  Jean and Anne raised seven children on the island, including four sons, all born at St.-Pierre-du-Nord:  Jean-Baptiste in October 1732, Charles in September 1734, Lange in May 1738 but died 10 months later, and Joseph was born in May 1740.  Their daughter married into the Landry family. 

Jean-Baptiste took his father's dit as his family name and married Anne-Hippolythe, daughter of Paul Doiron, either at St.-Pierre-du-Nord in the late 1750s or in France in the early 1760s. 

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Another Chênet lived at Port-Royal.  Although he, too, came to Acadia from Canada, he probably was no kin to Louis Chênet dit La Garenne.  Pierre Chênet, sieur Dubreuil, born probably in France in c1646, took up with Marguerite, daughter of Jacques Boissel of Beaupré, Canada, and widow of Étienne Bouchard, probably at Québec in c1681.  She gave him a daughter, born at Québec in July 1682.  Pierre was counted at Mégais, present-day Maine, in 1686.  He married Louise dite Jeanne, daughter of Pierre Doucet, in c1691 and served at Port-Royal as procureur du roi in the 1690s.  Pierre died at Port-Royal in c1700, in his late 40s.  Louise dite Jeanne gave him three children, two sons and a daughter, all born at Port-Royal:

Older son Pierre, born in c1692, married Marie-Anne dit Jean, daughter of Jean Denis, in c1724. 

Younger son François, born in c1693, may have died young, as did his younger sister Marie, born in c1698. 

No member of this family emigrated to Louisiana. 

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François Chenay of d'Avranche, France, married to Lucie-Marie Voeline, served as notaire Royal Prevost général de la Baye Royal du Mont St.-Michel.  His son Joseph-Félix married Marie-Louise LeBreton, widow of _____ and René Pichot, at Louisbourg on Île Royale in September 1750.  There is no evidence that they emigrated to Louisiana. 

LE GRAND DÉRANGEMENT

When the British rounded up the Acadians in Nova Scotia in the fall of 1765, the Acadians on Île St.-Jean, including the Chenet dit La Garennes, were safe for now because they lived in territory controlled by France.  Their respite from British oppression was short-lived, however.  After the fall of the French fortress at Louisbourg in July 1758, the victorious British gathered up most of the Acadians on Île Royale and Île St.-Jean and deported them to France. 

Marie-Josèphe Chênet (she did not take her father's dit as her brother Jean had done), now 60 years old and twice widowed, and three of her Charpentier sons crossed to St.-Malo aboard the British transport Supply.  They survived the terrible crossing.

Jean Chênet dit La Garenne, his wife Anne Potier, and their children also crossed to France probably on a British packet boat that carried them first to Portsmouth, England, and then on to Cherbourg in Normandy.  There, Jean died, perhaps during a small pox epidemic that struck the Acadians at Cherbourg in late 1759, leaving Anne a widow.  Daughter Cécile married fellow Acadian Germain Landry of L'Assomption, Pigiguit, at Trés-Ste.-Trinité, Cherbourg, in July 1767.  In April 1774, Anne Potier and daughter Geneviève Chênet, 30 years old and single, were among the Acadians transported from Cherbourg to La Rochelle aboard the ship Le Thomas.  Geneviève married fellow Acadian Pierre Breau at St.-Martin-de-Chantenay, near Nantes, France, in August 1780, where Pierre had been living for 10 years; he was, in fact, one of the first Acadians to reside at Nantes.

Meanwhile, Jean and Anne's oldest son, Jean-Baptiste dit La Garenne, and his wife, Anne-Hippolythe Doiron, endured life in the mother country as best they could, not an easy task for most Acadians.  When the Spanish government offered the Acadians in France the chance for a new life in faraway Louisiana, Jean-Baptiste and Anne-Hippolythe agreed to take it.  Other members of his family remained in France. 

LOUISIANA:  RIVER SETTLEMENTS

Jean-Baptiste Chênet dit La Garenne, age 55, and wife Anne-Hippolythe Doiron, age 46, crossed aboard Le Beaumont, the third of the Seven Ships of 1785, which reached New Orleans in August.  They followed the majority of the passengers from their ship to Baton Rouge.  They brought no children with them from France and had no children in Louisiana.  

CONCLUSION

Jean-Baptiste Chênet dit La Garenne was the only member of his family who emigrated to Louisiana, from France in 1785.  He was married and in his mid-50s when he reached the colony.  He and his wife brought no children to Louisiana and were too old to have any after they got there.  The Chênet dit La Garenne family of Île St.-Jean, then, did not take root in the Bayou State.

The family's name also is spelled Lagaranne, Lagarelle.  The Acadian Chênet dit La Garennes should not be confused with the French-Creole Chênets who lived at New Orleans, at St.-Jean-Baptiste on the Upper German Coast, and at St.-Jacques on the Acadian Coast during the colonial period and in St. James, Ascension, and East Baton Rouge parishes during the antebellum period. 

Sources:  Arsenault, Généalogie, 482-83; 2081; BRDR, vols. 2, 3; Hébert, D., Acadians in Exile, 2, 74-75, 267-68; NOAR, vols. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7;  <perso.orange.fr/froux/St_malo_arrivees/Supply.htm>, Family No. 4; Robichaux, Acadians in Nantes, 37; White, DGFA-1, 339-41.

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, 33 (pl. 8L), calls him Jean-Baptiste LAGARENNE, & lists him with his wife & no children; Arsenault, Généalogie, 2081, profile for his father in the Île St.-Jean section, calls him Jean-Baptiste [CHESNAY dit LA GARENNE], says he was born in 1732 but gives no birthplace, says his father, Jean-Baptiste CHESNAY dit LA GARENNE, was born in 1700, son of Louis [CHENET or CHESNAY] & Jeanne MARTIN of Port-Royale, that his mother was Anne POITIER, daughter of Jean [POITIER] & Marie-Madeleine CHIASSON, that his parents were married 19 Oct 1728 at Port-Lajoie, Île St.-Jean, & that he was the oldest of his parents' 6 children, his siblings being Charles, born in 1734, Claire, born in 1736, Joseph, born in 1740, Geneviève, born in 1744, & Élizabeth, born in 1750; Hébert, D., Acadians in Exile, 268, his birth/baptismal record, calls him Jean-Baptiste LAGARENNE, gives his parents'  names, calling his father Jean, & says his godparents were Augustain GENET & Marie CHIASSON; Hébert, D., Acadian Families in Exile 1785, 34-35, calls him Jean-Baptiste LAGARENNE, laboureur, age 55, on the embarkation list, Juan Bautista LAGARINE, on the debarkation list, & Jean-Baptiste LAGRENNE, plowman, age 55, on the complete listing, & says he was in the 20th Family aboard Le Beaumont with his wife & no children.  See also Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 495, 528.

Did he & his wife ever have children?  Did they go first to the Baton Rouge District with the majority of the passengers from Le Beaumont & then move downriver to St.-Jacques a couple of years later, or did they go from New Orleans straight to St.-Jacques?  Very few Acadians who came to LA in 1785 chose to settle at St.-Jacques because so little land in that oldest of Acadian settlements was still available.  See Appendix. 

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Copyright (c) 2007-13  Steven A. Cormier