APPENDICES

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

AROSTEGUY

[ah-ROS-teh-gee]

ACADIA

Pierre, son of François Arostey or Arosteguy and Marie Lassalde, came to Acadia probably from Bayonne, Gascogne, France, by May 1737, when he married Marie, daughter of Charles Robichaud dit Cadet and his second wife Marie Bourg, at Grand-Pré.  They moved on to the Beauséjour ridge at Chignecto where, between the late 1730s and early 1750s, Marie gave Pierre at least six children, three sons and three daughters:  Pierre, fils; François; Anne; Marie-Théotiste; Jean; and Marguerite.

[See also Book Three]

LE GRAND DÉRANGEMENT

[For the family's travails during the Great Upheaval, see Book Six]

LOUISIANA:  RIVER SETTLEMENTS

Arosteguys settled "late" in Acadia, but they were among the earliest Acadians to find refuge in Louisiana.  Pierre Arosteguy, age 52, wife Marie Robichaud, age 53, and four of their unmarried children--Anne, Jean, Marguerite, and Marie-Théotiste--came to the colony from Halifax via Cap-Français, French St.-Domingue, in 1765.  They settled at Cabanocé/St-Jacques on the river above New Orleans where 20 Acadians from Georgia had settled the year before.  Spanish officials counted Pierre and his family at Cabanocé in April 1766.  Son Jean had a boy and two slaves in his household then; one wonders if the boy was Jean himself.  In July 1767, Spanish officials counted three of Pierre's children--Jean, described as a "young man"; Marguerite; and Marie--not at Cabanocé but at New Orleans, making one wonder if their parents had died by then.  Daughters Anne and Marie-Théotiste married into the Capdeville and Morin families in New Orleans.  Anne's husband, Bernard Capdeville, was a ship's surgeon.  Anne died by December 1768, when her husband remarried at Fort San Luìs de Natchez. 

Another Pierre Arosteguy, probably Pierre's son, also came to Louisiana from Halifax via Cap-Français in 1765.  With him was wife Isabelle Comeau.  Their daughter Marie-Rose was born at New Orleans in August.  They also were counted at Cabanocé in 1766.  One wonders if Pierre, fils fathered any sons. 

CONCLUSION

Pierre Arosteguy, fils may not have fathered a son, and his brother Jean may not have created a family of his own.  If so, this Acadian family, except for its blood, did not survive in the Bayou State.  

The family's name also is spelled Apostey, Arostegui, Arostegy, de Chigerail.  [See also Book Ten]

Sources:  AGE, October 2004, 64; Bourgeois, Cabanocey, 161; BRDR, vol. 1a(rev.); Stanley LeBlanc PDF; NOAR, vol. 2; Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 114-15, 426; White, DGFA-1, 1405.

Settlement Abbreviations 
(present-day civil parishes that existed in 1861 are in parentheses; 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, 9, calls her Anne AROSTEGUY; NOAR, 2:6, 40 (SLC, B5, 190), her marriage record, calls her Anne AROSTELY, "native of Beauséjour in Acadia, Diocese of Quebec," calls her husband Bernard CAPDEVIELLE, "native of Mornasse in Bearn, Diocese of Lescard (Lescar), chief surgeon on the ship, L'Intelligence, Captain GARLON," gives her & his parents' names, & says the witness to her marriage was Pierre ROCHE.  

Hers was the first recorded Acadian "mixed" marriage in LA.  Considering that she married Bernard so soon after her family reached LA, did she even go to Cabanocé/St.-Jacques?  As a senior ship's surgeon, he would have been better located to practice his profession in New Orleans, the colony's major port, not in a remote upriver settlement like Cabanocé/St.-Jacques, though as the record of his second marriage shows, he was at Fort San Luís de Natchez, far upriver from New Orleans, in Dec 1768.  The marriage record says he was "surgeon-major" there at the time.  Did she go with him to Fort San Luís?  His second marriage record calls her Anne DE CHIGERAIL.  See BRDR, 1b:30-31 (PCP-4, 33; PCP-3, 268).  

Bernard died at St.-Gabriel in Sep 1800, age 77.  His death/burial record calls his parents Antonio CAPDEVILLE & Catalina COUSAN of Martasi, France, so this is the same fellow.  See BRDR, 2:174 (SGA-8, 25, #136).  If the age given for him in the burial record is correct, he would have been born in c1723.  This means he would have been about age 43 when he married Anne AROSTEGUY at New Orleans in early 1766.  Ship's surgeon or not, he probably was a widower when he married her, though the church record in New Orleans says nothing of a previous wife, nor does the record of his second marriage at Fort San Luís.  

02.  Wall of Names, 9, calls him Jean AROSTEGUY.  See also Bourgeois, Cabanocey, 161; Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 114, 426.

03.  Wall of Names, 9, calls her Marguerite AROSTEGUY.  See also Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 115, 426. 

She could have been the girl in the household of either of the Pierre AROSTEGUYs at Cabanocé in 1766, one her father, the other probably an older brother. 

04.  Not in Wall of Names, 9, with the rest of her family because of the circumstance of her birth.  She is on this list because she was in utero when her mother reached LA.  NOAR, 2:7, her birth/baptismal record, calls her Marie-Rose AROSTHY, gives the names of her parents, calls her father "Acadian, resident [of New Orleans at the time]," & says her godparents were Jean DUGUAS, "resident [of New Orleans at the time]," & Agnes HEBERT.  The birth of this child is proof positive that the family reached LA in 1765 with the refugees from Halifax via St.-Domingue.  Too bad the New Orleans priest did not record the baby's grandparents, too.

05.  Wall of Names, 9, calls her Marie-Théotiste AROSTEGUY; NOAR, 2:211, 245 (SLC, M2, 3 or 33), her marriage record, calls her Marie-Théotiste ROSTOGUI, calls her husband Antoine-Emmanuel MORIN, dates the marriage as "cir." 10 Jan 1768, but does not give any parents' names.  See also Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 115, 426.  

She could have been the girl in the household of either of the Pierre AROSTEGUYs at Cabanocé in 1766, one her father, the other probably an older brother. 

06.  Wall of Names, 9, calls him Pierre AROSTEGUY; AGE, October 2004, 64, calls him Pierre APOSTEY (AROSTEGUI, AROSEGY), & says he was from the diocese of Bayonne in Gascogne; BRDR, 1a(rev.):10, his marriage record, calls him Pierre AROSTEY, gives his & his wife's age at the time of marriage, the names of their parents, the home diocese in France of his parents, & says the witnesses to their marriage were Jean ROBICHAUT (brother of the bride, who made his x), Joseph ROBICHAUT (brother of the bride, who made his x), Ambroise BOURG (who made his x), & Jean LEBER (who signed), & that the bride & groom also made their xs.  See also Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 114-15, 426.  

I have not found the AROSTEGUY family in Arsenault, Généalogie.  White, DGFA-1, 1405, gives his name & the names of his parents in the profile of his wife Marie ROBICHAUD.  His marriage record proves conclusively that he was Acadian, which is why he & his family were listed with the Acadians in the Cabanocé census of 1766 & called Acadians in the Spanish report of Jul 1767.  

There are so many questions about this fellow & his family:  When did the elder Pierre reach Acadia?  My guess would be sometime in the 1730s.  What was his profession?  What compelled him to leave France & settle in a British-occupied colony?  What was his relationship with the other Pierre AROSTEGUY who arrived in LA in 1765?  Father & son?  Why were his 3 unmarried children counted at New Orleans, not Cabanocé, in Jul 1767?  Had Pierre & Marie died by then, leaving them orphans?

07.  Wall of Names, 9, calls him Pierre AROSTEGUY 2.  See also Bourgeois, Cabanocey, 161; Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 115.  

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