APPENDICES

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

SAVARY

[SAH-vuh-ree]

ACADIA

François Savary, a mason and stone cutter, was indentured to Antoine Héron "for the company of Acadia" in 1686.  In c1689, free from his contract, he married Geneviève Foret at Port-Royal.  They had one child, a son named André, who was born at Port-Royal in c1690.  When the boy was only two years old, his mother remarried to Louis Mazerolle dit Saint-Louis, so François must have died soon after his son was born.  Louis Mazerolle raised André, who in February 1712 married Marie-Marthe, daughter of Bernard Doucet dit Laverdure, at Port-Royal.  In the 1730s and 1740s, André and Marie-Marthe lived at Pigiguit and Grand-Pré in the Minas Basin before moving on to Île St.-Jean, today's Prince Edward Island, by the early 1750s.  In 1752, André, now a widower, was counted at Rivière du Moulin-à-Scie on the island.  He and Marie-Marthe had 11 children, including three sons who created families of their own.  Three of their daughters married into the Doiron and Horne families.    

Oldest son Bernard, born at Port-Royal in October 1714, married Marie, daughter of François Michel dit La Ruine, probably at Pigiguit in c1734.  He took his family to Île St.-Jean, where he and Marie were counted with eight children at Rivière-du-Moulin-à-Scie in 1752. 

Joseph, born at Grand-Pré in February 1721, married Françoise, daughter of Antoine Barillot, probably at Pigiguit in c1747.  He also took his family to Île St.-Jean by the early 1750s.  

Youngest son Charles, born at either Pigiguit or Grand-Pré in c1727, married Louise-Geneviève, daughter of Louis Closquinet or Clossinet, on Île St.-Jean in c1755. 

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Another Savary, Jean-Baptiste, son of Jean Savary and Jeanne Baron of Burie, Saintes, France, born in c1730, probably no kin to François and his descendants, came to Acadia by the mid-1750s and also settled on Île St.-Jean.  In August 1756, he married Anne, daughter of Jean Léger, at Port-Lajoie, Île St.-Jean.  They had a daughter, Anne, born probably at Port-Lajoie in 1757.  No member of this family went to Louisiana. 

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Thomas Savary, born at Louisbourg on Île Royale and probably not kin to the other Acadian Savarys, was a boatswain.  He married Jeanne Thériot perhaps at Louisbourg.  Like many of his Acadian namesakes, he, too, ended up in France.  No member of this family emigrated to Louisiana. 

LE GRAND DÉRANGEMENT

When the British rounded up the Acadians in Nova Scotia in the fall of 1755, the Savarys on Île St.-Jean, 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, the victorious British swooped down on the island, rounded up most of the Acadians there, and deported them to France. 

Some of the Savarys on Île St.-Jean managed to elude the British roundup.  Old André, doubtlessly sensing the futility of remaining on the island during a full-blown war between Britain and France, fled north to Québec even before the fall of Louisbourg.  The old man was buried at St.-Jean, Île d'Orléans, just downriver from Québec City, in November 1757, age 65, eight months before the British captured Louisbourg.  Son Joseph and his family must have gone to Québec with him; Joseph died at St.-Charles de Bellechasse, Québec, in January 1758, only 37 years old.  Oldest son Bernard and his family, except for daughter Anne-Marie-Madeleine, also may have escaped the British roundup on Île St.-Jean. 

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Other Savarys on Île St.-Jean did not escape the British in 1758: 

André Savary's youngest son Charles, age 31, wife Louise Clossinet, age 34, and sons Jean-Charles, age 2 1/2, and Charles, fils, age unrecorded, made the crossing to St.-Malo, France, aboard the British transport Supply.  Charles, père, Louise, and Jean-Charles survived the ordeal, but Charles, fils died at sea.  Charles, père died at St.-Suliac, near St.-Malo, in late April 1759, probably from the rigors of the voyage, a month and a half after he and his family disembarked at St.-Malo.  Another Charles Savary, age 18, crossed alone on one of the five British transports that left the Gut of Canso in late November 1758 and survived the crossing.  Charles, père's niece, oldest brother Bernard's daughter Anne-Marie-Madeleine, a young woman in her 20s, made the terrible crossing on a British transport that took her to Cherbourg.   Two other Savarys, Madeleine, daughter of Louis Savary and wife of Jeanne Audaire, and Marie, wife of Pierre Loumeau, also ended up in France.

The Savarys who survived the crossings to France endured life in the mother country as best they could.  Madeleine, now widow of Jeanne Audaire, remarried to Jean Fouquet, widower of Marie Chevalier and a day laborer, at Notre-Dame, Rochefort, in September 1763; her father Louis and brother François witnessed the marriage.  Marie, also a widow now, remarried to Charles, son of François Foubert of Marsay, Aunis, at Rochefort in October 1763.  Charles also was a laborer.  Thomas Savary of Louisbourg remarried to Marguerite, daughter of Frenchman Roch Fabre and widow of Julien Denion, at St.-Martin-de-Chantenay, near Nantes, in October 1782. 

Meanwhile, Andre's granddaughter, Anne-Marie-Madeleine Savary, lived at Pleudihen, near St.-Malo, from 1759 to 1771 and was at Plouër, also a suburb of St.-Malo, in 1772.  She married fellow Acadian Pierre Potier, widower of Marie Comeau, at Pleudihen in May 1771.  By September 1784, Anne was a widow at Nantes with two young Potier sons, Baptiste-Olivier, born in c1773, and Jacques-Sylvain in c1778. 

When, in the early 1780s, the Spanish governed offered the Acadians in France a chance for a new life in faraway Louisiana, Anne-Marie-Madeleine Savary and her sons agreed to take it.  The other Acadian Savarys, having married into French families, chose to remain in France. 

LOUISIANA:  LAFOURCHE VALLEY SETTLEMENTS

Anne-Marie-Madeleine Savary, age 38, widow of Pierre Potier, crossed to Louisiana aboard La Bergère, the second of the Seven Ships from France, with her two sons, Baptiste-Olivier Potier, age 12, and Jacques-Sylvain Potier, age 7.  They reached New Orleans in August 1785 and followed the majority of their fellow passengers to upper Bayou Lafourche, where Anne remarried to fellow Acadian Joseph Granger, another immigrant from France, in June 1786.  She had no more children by him.  Son Jacques-Sylvain Potier seems to have died not long after they reached Louisiana.  Son Baptiste-Olivier Potier married Isabelle, daughter of fellow Acadian Michel Aucoin, who also had come to Louisiana from France.  Baptiste-Olivier and Isabelle set down roots on Bayou Lafourche.

NON-ACADIAN FAMILIES in LOUISIANA

A Frenchwoman with a similar-sounding surname lived in Louisiana during the early colonial period: 

Louise-Françoise, called Françoise, Sauary or Savarie of Dieppe, France, married Barthélémy, son of Pierre Madre, at Old Biloxi, then a part of French Louisiana, in June 1721.  Barthélémy died at New Orleans in December 1732, and Françoise remarried to edge-tool maker Martin, son of Jean-Baptiste Godar of St.-Denis, Paris, at New Orleans in January 1733. 

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During the antebellum period, non-Acadians with similar-sounding surnames settled in Pointe Coupee Parish, at Baton Rouge, and in Iberville Parish.  They probably were not kin to one another.  One of them, in fact, was Anglo American.  Another non-Acadian with a similar-sounding surname was living in Ascension Parish during the War Between the States:

Pierre-Paul-Marie "nat. of Garonna in France," son of Yrené Savary, "militia capt. of the region of Conti of St. Louis," and Louise-Josèphe ____, married Constance, daughter of French Creole Jean Baptiste Pourciau, at Pointe Coupee in June 1806.  Their son Pierre Paul, fils was born in Pointe Coupee Parish in July 1811. 

William Bekus, son of Joseph Savary or Savory and Elizabeth Johnson of New York, married Marguerite, daughter of Antoine Senz, Sons, Sonns, or Suns, at the Baton Rouge church, East Baton Rouge Parish, in September 1814.  Their son Ira Joseph was born near Baton Rouge in August 1815, Samuel Allain near St. Gabriel, Iberville Parish, in February 1826, Cornelius Samuel in February 1829, and Jules Stanislas in May 1834.  They also had a son named Édouard D., who married Marie Joséphine, daughter of Anglo American Jules Peters, at the Plaquemine church, Iberville Parish, in September 1862.  William B.'s daughter married into the Marionneaux family. 

Victor Savary, also called Sovere, married Félicie Acosta and settled in Ascension Parish by the early 1860s. 

François Savory married Sarah Ann Irvin and settled near Plaquemine, Iberville Parish, by the mid-1860s.  Was François kin to William Bekus and his sons?  Perhaps he was another son of William Bekus. 

CONCLUSION

No male descendant of an Acadian Savary emigrated to Louisiana.  However, the blood of one family, that of François Savary of Port-Royal, survived through a line of the Potier family that sprang from one of his granddaughters.  The Savarys, or Savorys, of South Louisiana today are descended from Foreign French or Anglo Americans, not Acadians. 

The family's name also is spelled Sauary, Savari, Savarie, Savorie, Savory, Severio, Sevre, Sovere.

Sources:  Arsenault, Généalogie, 793-94, 2139-40; BRDR, vol. 2; BRDR, vols. 3, 5(rev.), 6, 7, 9, 10; Hébert, D., Acadians in Exile, 404; NOAR, vol. 1; <perso.orange.fr/froux/St_malo_arrivees/Supply.htm>, Family No. 21; <perso.orange.fr/froux/St_malo_arrivees/5bateaux.htm>, Family No. 167; Robichaux, Acadians in Nantes, 152; Robichaux, Acadians in St. Malo, 725-27, 855; White, DGFA-1, 1454-56; White, DGFA-1 English, 305-06.

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, 30 (pl. 7L), calls her Anne SAVARY veuve POTTIER, & lists her with 2 sons; Arsenault, Généalogie, 793-94, 2140, profiles of her father, call her Marie-Madeleine SAVARY, say she was born in 1756, implying that she was born on Île St.-Jean, give her parents' names, say they were married in c1734 but give no place of marriage, list her siblings as brothers André, born 1735, Jean-Baptiste, born 1738, Isaac, born 1743, Charles, born 1749, Louis, born 1751, Firmin-Bernard, born 1757, sisters Agnès, born 1742, Rose, born 1745, & Marie, born 1753, & say that her family was at Pigiguit in c1734, at Grand-Pré c1738, & at Rivière du Moulin-à-Scie, at l'Anse-aux-Sauvages, & Petite-Ascension, all on Île St.-Jean, from 1750 to 1757; Robichaux, Acadians in St.-Malo, 725-26, Family No. 855, calls her Anne-Madeleine SAVARY, says she was born in c1743 but gives no birthplace, gives her parents' names, details her first marriage, says "On July 20, 1759, Anne-Madeleine SAVARY, daughter of Bernard SAVARY and Marie-Madeleine MICHEL, arrived at St. Malo from Cherbourg," & says she lived at Pleudihen from 1759-71, & at Plouër in 1772; Robichaux, Acadians in St.-Malo, 855, the record of her first marriage, calls her Anne SAVARY, gives her parents' names, says that she was their "major daughter" & that they were "resident of this parish [Pleudihen]," calls her husband Pierre POTIER but does not give his parents' names, gives his previous wife's name, says that he was residing in "Plouere, diocese of Saint Malo," that he & Anne were "both natives of Acadie," & that the witnesses to their marriage were Étienne BOUDRAU (who signed), Charle BOURQUE (who signed), Jean METRA (who signed), & Ignace HAMON (who signed); Hébert, D., Acadian Families in Exile 1785, 18-19, calls her Anne SAVARY, veuve POTTIER, age 38, on the embarkation list, Anne SAVARY, on the debarkation list, & Anne SAVARY, widow POITIER, age 38, on the complete listing, says she was in the 31st Family aboard La Bergère with 2 sons, details her marriage, calling her Anne-Madeleine SAVARY & her husband Pierre POITIER but does not give the place of marriage, says that son Olivier POITIER was born in 1772 but does not give a birthplace, details son Baptise-Olivier POITIER's marriage in LA, calling her Anne-Magdalen SAVARIS, & lists the implements the Spanish gave to her & her family after they reached LA; <acadian-cajun.com/ship2.htm>, calls her Anne SAVARY, widow of Pierre POITIER[sic], age 38; BRDR, 2:183, 332-33(ASC-2, 3), the record of her second marriage, calls her Anne Magdalina CHAVINE, does not give her or her husband's parents' names [not unusual for the priest at Ascension at that time] or mention her first husband's name, says that her husband was "of Acadia," & that the witnesses to their marriage were Abraham LANDRY & Jean-Charles BOUD[R?]EAU; BRDR, 3:778 (ASM-3, 86), her death/burial record, calls her Ana Maria Magdalena SAVARY "of Acadia, married to Josef GRANGER," does not give her parents' names, & says she died at "age 60 yrs."  See also Robichaux, Bayou Lafourche, 1770-98, 42, 60, 94, 144, 174.  

The estimated birth year used here is taken not from Arsenault, Robichaux, or her burial record but from the passenger list of La Bergère and the LA censuses in which she is found.  

Her middle names also can be found in son Baptiste-Olivier POTIER's marriage record, dated 30 Apr 1798, in BRDR, 2:600 (ASM-2, 31), which calls her Ana Magdalena SAVARIS of Acadia.  Note that Baptiste-Olivier is listed in his marriage record as a POITIER, but this was the same family as the POTIERs.

Who was Anne SAVARY's second husband?  Their marriage record in BRDR, vol. 2, cited above, says clearly that he was from Acadia.  However, according to the editors of Wall of Names, there were only 2 Acadian Joseph GRANGERs who came to LA, & neither one of them matches her husband's ages in the Valenzuéla censuses of 1788, 1791, 1795, 1797, & 1798.  See Robichaux, Bayou Lafourche, 1770-98, 42, 60, 94, 144, 174; Wall of Names, index.  So there must have been a third Acadian Joseph GRANGER, & he probably arrived in 1785 on one of the 7 ships.  Was he the Joseph, fils, son of Joseph GRANGER & Anne POIRIER, stepson of Simon BABIN, who was part of the failed settlement in Poitou in the early 1770s with his stepfather, mother, sister Luce, & 3 BABIN stepsiblings, & who took the Second Convoy from Châtellerault to Nantes with them in Nov 1775?  See Robichaux, Acadians in Châtellerault, 5, Family No. 8; Robichaux, Acadians in Nantes, 9, Family No. 15.  Or perhaps he was the Joseph, fils, son of Joseph GRANGER & Marguerite GAUTROT, born in c1753 at Grand-Pré, who was exiled to VA in 1755, deported to England in 1756, repatriated to France in 1763, & at St.-Servan from 1763-72.  See Robichaux, Acadians in St.-Malo, 365, Family No. 451.  If he was the latter Joseph GRANGER, his mother came to LA with her third husband Simon LANDRY aboard Le St.-Rémi.  

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