APPENDICES

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

BAUCHER dit St. Martin

[BAW-sher]

ACADIA

François dit Saint-Martin or Martain, son of Pierre Baucher or Boschet and Marie Labbé of Ste.-Croix, bishopric of Rouen, was born at Rouen, date unrecorded.  He emigrated to Plaisance, Newfoundland, by January 1703, when he married Marie-Anne, daughter of Pierre Baudry and Jeanne Meschin of Plaisance.  He worked as an armateur, or shipowner, there, so he likely engaged in fishing and commerce.  In the early 1710s, after the British secured possession of Newfoundland, François and his family, along with the other French fisherfolk at Plaisance, relocated to Petit-Dégrat, a small island off the southeast coast of Île Madame, then part of the new French province of Île Royale.  Between 1704 and the mid-1720s, at Plaisance and Petit-Dégrat, Marie-Anne gave François nine children, five daughters and four sons.  François died probably at Petit-Dégrat between 1724 and 1726, age unrecorded.  Three of his daughters married into the Hiriard, Auger, and Morin de Fonfay families on Île Royale.  Only one of his sons created a family of his own, but not in greater Acadia.

Third son Pierre dit Saint-Martin, born probably on Petit-Dégrat in c1723, was still very young when his father died.  In 1726 at Petit-Dégrat, his widowed mother was counted with eight children, four sons and four daughters, a domestic servant, 60 fishermen under her employ, nine chaloupes, and two bateaux ou goélettes en pêches, a total of 11 fishing boats, so her husband, and now she, ran a good-sized fishing operation.  In c1734, she remarried to Jean Hiriard, père, father of her daughter Marie-Anne's husband.  Marie-Anne Baudry died at Petit-Dégrat in c1740, age unrecorded.  Son Pierre Baucher dit Saint-Martin, after he came of age, evidently followed his father's trade of fisherman, merchant, and sea captain.  Pierre does not appear in the Sieur de La Roque's census of Île Royale in early 1752, so he may have been at sea at the time.  He would have been in his early 30s and still unmarried when war came again to greater Acadia in 1755. 

[see also Book Four]

LOUISIANA

During the Seven Years' War, Pierre Baucher dit Saint-Martin, a fisherman/mariner from Petit-Dégrat, Île Royale, in greater Acadia, appeared at New Orleans.  Still a bachelor in his early 30s, he may have plied the waters of the Atlantic as a privateer, or he may have been a simple fisherman seeking refuge in a part of New France not yet overwhelmed by British might.

 In October 1758, three months after the British had captured the French citadel of Louisbourg on Île Royale, not far from his home, Pierre dit Saint-Martin, at age 35, married a New Orleans Creole, Charlotte-Thérèse, daughter of Julien, also called François, Gallot, "former employee at the naval bureau," and Marie-Thérèse Drillant, at New Orleans.  The couple remained in the city, where Pierre likely engaged in ship-borne commerce, and where Marie-Thérèse gave him a family:  Charlotte born in September 1759; Pierre-Auguste in January 1761; Louis in December 1762; François-Louis in April 1766; and Marie-Félicité in September 1768--at least five children, two daughters and three sons, between 1759 and 1768.   Younger daughter Marie-Félicité married into the Labatut family at New Orleans in April 1785, age 16, died at age 70 in the city in August 1838.  Oldest son Pierre-Auguste married Geneviève-Thérèse, daughter of Louis-Antoine De Callonge and Marie-Thérèse Carrière, at New Orleans in May 1785.  Youngest son François-Louis married Céleste, daughter of Dominique Daspit St. Amand and Françoise Pugeole, probably at New Orleans by August 1796, when their daughter Marie-Adeline was born in the city.  Pierre dit Saint-Martin died at New Orleans in March 1805, age 82. 

CONCLUSION

Two men bearing the name Baucher--the first one born on île d'Orléans, just downriver from Québec, by the 1670s; the other one a native of Rouen--emigrated to the French fishery at Plaisance, Newfoundland, in the early 1700s.  After 1713, when the British took possession of Newfoundland at the end of Queen Anne's War, both men took their families to the new French province of Île Royale, the first to La Baleine on the Atlantic coast of the island, the other to Petit-Dégrat off of Île Madame, also on the big island's Atlantic coast.  No member of the Canadian family emigrated to Louisiana, but a son of the fisherman from Rouen, a native of Petit-Dégrat, did go to the colony, by 1758, perhaps the first Acadian "exile" to reach French Louisiana.  He remained at New Orleans, married, and created a family of his own.  His descendants most likely called themselves French Creoles, not Acadians, despite their Louisiana ancestor's birthplace and his status as an exile from greater Acadia.  [See also Book Ten]

Sources:  De La Roque, "Tour of Inspection," Canadian Archives 1905, 2A; NOAR, 1:112, 2:13-14, 133, 4:20, 76, 6:16; White DGFA-1, 83-88; Mark Deutch, descendant. 

Settlement Abbreviations 
(present-day parishes that existed in 1861 are in parenthesis; hyperlinks on the abbreviations take you to brief histories of each settlement):

Asc	Ascension	Lf	Lafourche (Lafourche,Terrrebonne)	PCP	Pointe Coupée
Asp	Assumption	Natc	Natchitoches (Natchitoches)	SB	San Bernardo (St. Bernard)
Atk	Attakapas (St. Martin, St. Mary, Lafayette, Vermilion)	Natz	San Luis de Natchez (Concordia)	StG	St.-Gabriel d'Iberville
BdE	Bayou des Écores (West Feliciana)	NO	New Orleans	StJ	St.-Jacques de Cabanocé
BR	East Baton Rouge, West Baton Rouge	Op	Opelousas (St. Landry, Calcasieu)

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.  Not in Wall of Names because of the circumstance of his arrival.  See "Sources" above for evidence of his status as an Acadian.  He may in fact have been an Acadian exile. 

For his father's ventures in greater Acadia, see Book Four. 

Pierre's avocation can be found in some of his children's sacramental records.  See, e.g., baptismal record of son Pierre-Auguste, dated 9 Feb 1761, in NOAR, 2:14 (SLC, B4, 117), in which Pierre is described as "burgher, merchant"; baptismal record of son Louis, dated 27 Dec 1762, in NOAR, 2:14 (SLC, B4, 117), in which Pierre is described as "merchant"; & marriage record of daughter Marie-Félicité, dated 2 Apr 1785, in NOAR, 4:20 (SLC, M5, 36), in which Pierre is described as "native of Isla Royal, former sea captain, presently resident in this province." 

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