APPENDICES

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

CORMIER

[COREm-yay, KARM-yay, KAR-mee-ay]

ACADIA

Robert Cormier, born in c1610, sailed from La Rochelle, France, to Acadia in early 1644 aboard the 70-ton Le Petit St.-Pierre--among the earliest settlers in the colony.  He reached Fort St.-Pierre, a post maintained by Cardinal Richelieu's Company of New France on Cape Breton Island, in late spring of that year with wife Marie Péraud and two young sons, Thomas and Jean; he was, in fact, the only engagé hired for work at the fort who took his family there.  In La Rochelle in January, Robert, a master ship's carpenter, had signed an indenture with Louis Tuffet, commander of Fort St.-Pierre, calling for three years service at 120 livres per annum.  According to Acadian genealogist Bona Arsenault, Robert stayed on at Fort St.-Pierre, now St. Peter's, Nova Scotia, until 1650, when he took his family to Port-Royal.  Family genealogist Michael Melanson speculates, however, probably more accurately, that Robert and his family, including older son Thomas, then only age 9, returned to La Rochelle with the other workers hired by Tuffet when the Fort St.-Pierre concession ended in May 1645.  They would have returned to La Rochelle aboard the 50-ton supply ship L'Étoille, which had reached Cape Breton in December of 1645 to take the engagés back home.  Arsenault, however, would have us believe that Robert remained at Port-Royal after he left Fort St.-Pierre and died there in February 1712, age 101!  It is more likely that Robert, Marie, and younger son Jean never returned to New France.  Not so older son Thomas.  He took up the trade of his father probably at La Rochelle.  Melanson speculates that Thomas would have been unable to return to the colony when he came of age because the English had seized Port-Royal in 1654, the year Thomas turned 18, ending immigration from France.  What is certain is that a carpenter named Thomas Cormier, son of Robert of La Rochelle, was working at his trade at Port-Royal, and likely farming there as well, soon after the English returned Acadia to France in 1667.  

In 1668, at age 32, Thomas Cormier finally started a family of his own when he married Marie-Madeleine, called Madeleine, 14-year-old daughter of François Girouard and Jeanne Aucoin at Port-Royal.  Thomas and Madeleine had 10 children.  Five of their daughters married into the Boudrot, Haché dit Gallant, Cyr, and Poirier families.  Thomas and Madeleine's four sons married girls from Grand-Pré, all of them granddaughters of Daniel LeBlanc.

Meanwhile, in c1679, Thomas, along with Jacques Belou, another brother-in-law of Germain Girouard, youngest son of François, left Port-Royal for the new Acadian settlement in the Chignecto area, at the head of today's Bay of Fundy.  By any measure of material success in that place and time, Thomas and his family fared very well in their settlement at Ouescoque along the south or east bank of Rivière La Planche, on the northern shore of the Baie de Beaubassin.  When the census taker came to Chignecto in 1686 and noted the settlers' land and animal holdings, only the seigneur of Beaubassin, Michel Le Neuf, sieur de La Vallière, controlled more land than Thomas Cormier; La Vallière held 60 arpents; Thomas and three other heads of households in the settlement each held 40 arpents of land.  Not even the seigneur had as many cattle as Thomas; the census taker counted 30 head for him. Only the seigneur and two other settlers had more sheep; Thomas had 10.  Only four other settlers had as many or more hogs than Thomas, who owned 15. 

A few years later, in c1690, Thomas died at Chignecto, in his mid-50s.  In the decades that followed, his four sons and their LeBlanc wives from Grand-Pré set down solid roots at Chignecto:  

Oldest son François, born at Port-Royal in c1672, married Marguerite, daughter of Jacques LeBlanc and Catherine Hébert of Minas at Chignecto in c1692.  They had 14 children, including four sons who married into the Cyr and Hébert families.  Eight of François and Marguerite's daughters married into the Thériot, Richard, Poirier, Daigre, Bourg, Hébert, LeBlanc, Cyr, and Landry families.

Alexis, born at Port-Royal in c1676, married Marie, another daughter of Jacques LeBlanc and Catherine Hébert, in c1697.  They had 10 children, including three sons who married into the Cyr, Thériot dit Bernard, and Arseneau families.  Alexis and Marie's six daughters married into the Bourg, Bourgeois, Arseneau, Cyr, and Richard families.  

Germain, born at Chignecto in c1680, married another Marie, this one daughter of André LeBlanc and Marie Dugas of Minas, in c1703; Marie was a first cousin of Germain's brothers' wives.  They had 12 children, including seven sons who married into the Pitre, Thibodeau, Gaudet, Hugon, Lanoue, Doucet, and LeBlanc families.  Germain and Marie's four daughters married into the Doucet, Bourgeois, Comeau, and LeBlanc families.  

Youngest son, Pierre dit Palette, born at Chignecto in March 1682, married Catherine, yet another daughter of Jacques LeBlanc and Catherine Hébert of Minas, in c1702.  They had 11 children, including three sons who married into the Thibodeau, Richard, and Chiasson families.  Pierre and Catherine's seven daughters married into the Bourgeois, Thibodeau, Landry, Dupuis, Cyr dit Croc, Thériot, and Babin families.  

[For more of this family in pre- and post-dispersal Acadia and Canada, see Book Three]

In 1755, descendants of Robert and Thomas Cormier could still be found at Chignecto. 

LE GRAND DÉRANGEMENT

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

LOUISIANA:  RIVER SETTLEMENTS

Cormiers were among the very first Acadians to find refuge in Louisiana.  But the first of them to settle in the lower Mississippi valley were not the young cousins at Halifax:

Seven Cormiers and three related families, the Landrys, Poiriers, and Richards, 21 persons in all, left Savannah, Georgia, on 21 December 1763 aboard the Savannah Packet and sailed to Mobile, "from which place they are to go to New Orleans," proclaimed an article in the Georgia Gazette the following day.  After a short stay in Mobile, which now belonged to the hated British, they reached New Orleans in February 1764--the first recorded group of Acadian exiles to settle in present-day Louisiana.  French authorities, who still controlled the colony even though it had been ceded to Spain in a secret treaty 15 months earlier, had not expected these new arrivals.  The Acadians' reputation for hard work and loyalty to France and the Roman Catholic faith having preceded them, however, the colonial officials welcomed the Cormiers et al., gave them rice, corn, and other necessities, and pondered where to send them.  After overseeing the baptism of several of their children at New Orleans and consulting with authorities, the Acadians moved upriver to the recently-established concession of Cabanocé, later called St.-Jacques.  There they settled on a bend in the Mississippi along the right, or west, bank of the river, in "the area of the vacant lands between [Nicolas] Verret's plantation and [Jacques] Jacqueline's cow ranch," at present-day Lagan, St. James Parish.  Cabanocé thus became the first Acadian community in Louisiana, predating the Bayou Teche settlement by a full year:  

Jean-Baptiste Cormier, père of Chignecto, age 55, came with wife Madeleine Richard, age 56, and five daughters--Madeleine, age 23, Marie-Anne, called Anne, age 19, Marie, age 18, Marguerite, age 13, and Anastasie, age 11.  (These were Jean Baptiste Cormier, fils's parents and sisters.)

Also with the party from Georgia was Jean-Baptiste Cormier, père's cousin Catherine Cormier of Chignecto, age 43, her husband Jean-Baptiste Richard, age 45, and their three children, ages 18, 8, and 5. 

At Cabanocé, Jean-Baptiste Cormier, père's five daughters married fellow Acadians who had come to the community in 1764 and 1765.  Madeleine married Simon, son of Pierre Lemire dit Mire and his second wife Isabelle Thibodeau of Pigiguit, in March 1766, the same day her sister Marie married Michel Poirier, nephew of Jean Poirier.  Anne married Joseph, son of Olivier Landry and Cécile Poirier, in c1768.  Marguerite married Firmin, son of Louis-Paul Girouard and Marie Thibodeau of Pigiguit, in January 1771.  Anastasie married Pierre, son of Joseph Bourg and Marie Landry, in January 1772.  Marie, Anne, and Anastasie remained on the river, but Madeleine and Marguerite followed their husbands to the Attakapas District in the early 1780s.  

~

Cousins of Jean-Baptiste, fils, Joseph, and Michel were among the last Acadians to emigrate to Louisiana.  Jean Baptiste, called Eugène Baptiste, Cormier also had roots at Chignecto, but his family's experience during exile was different from his cousins'.  Alexis Cormier of Pointe-Beauséjour, his wife Madeleine de Liglen, and their infant son Jean had been deported to South Carolina in the autumn of 1755 with hundreds of other Chignecto Acadians.  In 1763, the war with Britain finally over, French authorities encouraged the Acadians still languishing in the seaboard colonies to emigrate to St.-Domingue, where French officials put them to work as cheap labor on the new French naval base at Môle St.-Nicolas on the north shore of the island.  Alexis and Jean Cormier were among the South Carolina Acadians who went to the sugar island and remained there.  Jean married Élisabeth Morel of Pointe-de-Paix at Jean-Rabel, northeast of Môle St.-Nicolas, in February 1783.  Their son Jean-Baptiste was born at Jean-Rabel in March 1784.  Jean died at his father's home at Caracol, east of Cap-Français, in April 1785, age 30.  Alexis probably died at Caracol not long afterwards.  Jean Baptiste evidently was among the St.-Domingue French who fled to Cuba during the Haitian rebellion in late 1803; he would have been age 19 that year.  As a bachelor or a newly-wed, he most likely came to New Orleans with the flood of refugees from Cuba a few years later.  Three of his sisters--Rose-Élisasbeth and Marie-Victoire, called Éloise, also born at Jean-Rabel; and Marie-Renée, born at Môle St.-Nicolas, all of whom married at New Orleans--probably came with him.  During the 1810s, Jean-Baptiste moved on to the western prairies.  Nicolas, son of Amand Cormier and Anastasie LeBlanc of Môle St.-Nicolas, also joined his cousins at New Orleans in the early 1800s.  He married Marie Soltero perhaps in Cuba in the early 1800s after escaping the Haitian rebellion in the late 1790s or early 1800s, or he may have married her at New Orleans soon after his arrival there.  Nicolas's older brother Barthélémy, born at Môle, may have accompanied him to Louisiana. 

LOUISIANA:  WESTERN SETTLEMENTS

One historian speculates that, through the remarkable grapevine of Acadian sailors who plied the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico after Le Grand Dérangement, Jean-Baptiste Cormier, fils received word from his parents in faraway Louisiana of how nicely the French authorities there were treating them.  Still a bachelor, he hooked up with the Broussard dit Beausoleil party at Halifax and with them traveled to Louisiana via Cap-Français, St.-Domingue, arriving in New Orleans exactly a year after his parents got there. 

Jean-Baptiste, fils may not have followed the Broussard party to the Teche valley but joined his parents and sisters at Cabanocé on the river above New Orleans, where the Spanish counted him in April 1766 and where he married in c1768.  But he did not remain there.  In the mid- or late 1770s, he crossed the Atchafalaya Basin to the Opelousas District, where his wife died.  (Two of Jean-Baptiste, fils's sisters, who had come to Louisiana with their parents in 1764--Madeleine, wife of Simon Mire, and Marguerite, wife of Firmin Girouard--also moved from St.-Jacques to the western prairies, in the early 1780s, and settled with their husbands at Côte Gelée, near present-day Broussard, in the Attakapas District.)  After his wife's death, Jean-Baptiste, fils joined his sisters in the Attakapas District, where he remarried.

Meanwhile, Jean-Baptiste, fils's first cousins, Joseph and Michel Cormier, the latter still unmarried, came to Louisiana with fellow Acadians imprisoned at Halifax.  Most likely following Joseph's Sonnier in-laws, they reached New Orleans either with, or soon after, the Broussard party reached the city in February 1765.  Professor Carl A. Brasseaux suggests that the Cormiers, Sonniers, and other Acadians who settled in the Opelousas District may have followed the Broussards to the Teche in April 1765 but relocated to the area near Opelousas Post to escape an epidemic that ravaged the Teche valley settlements that summer and fall.  Spanish officials counted Joseph and Michel at Opelousas in the spring of 1766. 

The great majority of Cormiers in South Louisiana are descended from the three Chignecto cousins, all of whom shared a grandfather, Pierre, youngest of the four sons of Thomas Cormier, the pioneer of Chignecto:

Descendants of Joseph CORMIER (1740-1795; Robert, Thomas, Pierre)

Joseph, son of Pierre dit Palette Cormier and Cécile Thibodeau of Chignecto, older brother of Michel and first cousin of Jean-Baptiste, fils, married Marguerite, daughter of Jacques Sonnier and Anne Hébert of Petitcoudiac, in c1759 during Le Grand Dérangement.  Their daughters married into the Babineaux, Granger, and Thibodeaux families.  Marguerite died a few years after they reached Opelousas, and Joseph remarried to Anne, daughter of fellow Acadians Jacques Michel and Jeanne Breau and widow of Michel Brun and Victor Comeaux, at Attakapas in April 1771.  Their daughter married into the Arceneaux family.  Joseph and his wives did well on the Opelousas prairie.  In March 1768, he, along with brother Michel, were among the 11 signers of a petition addressed to Spanish Governor Ulloa requesting assistance in the form of oxen and plows to help them grow wheat in the district.  In April, the governor, now angry with all Acadians in the colony, rejected the petition.  Joseph became a cattleman instead.  In 1771, the year of his second marriage, he owned 15 head of cattle.  Three years later, in 1773, he owned 78 head of cattle, 15 horses and mules, and 15 pigs.  By 1777, he owned 150 head of cattle, 15 horses, and 20 pigs.  His fortunes increased dramatically in the 1780s.  In 1788, on his 30-arpent vacherie on Bellevue Prairie south of Opelousas Post and on land he owned along Bayou Plaquemine Brûlé near present-day Church Point, Joseph ran 697 head of cattle and 60 horses, one of the largest herds in the district.  He also owned four slaves.  The year before, he was one of the prominent cattle ranchers of the Opelousas District who "renewed demands that stray cattle 'in the woods and prairies of Plaquemines Brulées' be destroyed by firearms, because a few cattle from their own pens tended to join the strays during each winter pasturage."  Meanwhile, in January 1774, Joseph was one of seven residents who urged Opelousas District commandant Gabriel Fuselier de la Claire to construct a church for the district, which was done in 1776.  As was his duty, Joseph served in the Opelousas company of militia.  He was a fusileer in 1776, described on the militia roll as 5 feet, 3 inches tall, an inch shorter than his brother Michel.  Three years later, in their late 30s, Joseph and Michel participated with their company in Governor-General Gálvez's attack against the British at Baton Rouge.  Joseph died at Opelousas in August 1795, age 55.  He fathered two sons, both by his second wife, Anne Michel.  Both sons created families of their own, but one of their lines, that of the younger son, died off early, and the line of the older son almost died out, too.  Anne Michel died probably near Grand Coteau, St. Landry Parish, in June 1818; she was age 85 and outlived both of her Cormier sons.  Joseph's descendants remained at the southeastern edge of the old Opelousas District, around Grand Coteau and Arnaudville in St. Landry Parish.  

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Older son Anaclet, by his father's second wife, born at Opelousas in March 1772, was baptized at Opelousas by a priest from Pointe Coupée four months later.  Anaclet married Madeleine, daughter of fellow Acadians Victor Richard and Marie Brasseur, at Opelousas in July 1793.  They settled in the southeastern section of what became St. Landry Parish, near Grand Coteau.  Their son Paul, also called Hippolyte, was baptized at the Opelousas church, age unrecorded, in November 1800, and Élisée at age 8 months in November 1804.  Their daughters married into the Guilbeau, Melançon, and Patin families.  Anaclet died in St. Landry Parish in c1810, age 38; his succession was filed at the Opelousas courthouse in January 1811.  Judging by the number of times he appeared in church records as a witness to a marriage or as godfather to a neighbor's child, Anaclet must have been a respected member of his community.  

1a

Hippolyte married cousin Adélaïde Mathurin, 17-year-old daughter of fellow Acadians Jean Baptiste Richard and Isabelle Cormier, at the Grand Coteau church, St. Landry Parish, in January 1820; Adélaïde's mother was daughter of Hippolyte's grandfather Joseph's first cousin, Jean Baptiste Cormier, fils.  Hippolyte and Adélaïde's son Valsin Hippolyte, called Hippolyte, fils, was baptized at age 1 at the Grand Coteau church in April 1823.  Their daughters married into the Broussard and Guidry families.  Hippolyte, père died near Grand Coteau  in November 1827, age 27; his succession was filed at the Vermilionville courthouse in October 1829, so he must have owned property in both parishes.  

Hippolyte, fils married Marcellite, daughter of probably Charles Guidry and Marie Bernard, at the Grand Coteau church, St. Landry Parish, in November 1846; the Grand Coteau priest and the St. Landry Parish clerk who recorded the marriage did not give the couple's parents' names.  Their son Hippolyte III was born near Grand Coteau in April 1852.  Their daughter married into the Bergeron (French Creole, not Acadian) family.  In November 1850, the federal census taker in St. Landry Parish counted 5 slaves--3 males and 2 females, all black, ranging in age from 35 to 2--on Hippolyte Cormier's farm.  Hippolyte, fils died near Grand Coteau in September 1851, age 30; his succession was filed at the Opelousas courthouse in January 1855. 

1b

Élisée married Christine or Célestine, daughter of William Johnson of Copenhagen, Denmark, and German Creole Thérèse Ritter, at the Grand Coteau church, St. Landry Parish, in January 1822.  Their son Zéphirin was born near Grand Coteau in February 1825, Élisée, fils in January 1829 but died at age 2 1/2 in September 1831, and Joseph Numa in February 1843.  Their daughters married into the Badeaux, Burleigh, Lalonde, Lanclos, Patin, and Rivet families.  Élisée remarried to Marguerite Hedwige, daughter French Creoles Pierre Bergeron and Eulalie Saizan and widow of André J. Chautin, at the Grand Coteau church in August 1850; he was in his late 40, and she was 50, so she gave him no more children.  In November 1850, the federal census taker in St. Martin Parish counted 5 slaves--3 males and 2 females, all black, ranging in age from 45 to 18--on Élisée Cormier's farm.  Élisée died near Grand Coteau in January 1879, age 75. 

Zéphirin, by his father's first wife, married Marie Azéline, called Azéline, daughter of French Creole Alexandre Lanclos and Azéline Bergeron, at the Opelousas church, St. Landry Parish, in October 1848.  Their son Similien was born near Grand Coteau, St. Landry Parish, in c1849 but died at age 4 in September 1853, and Anaclet le jeune was born in November 1850 but died at age 11 in September 1861.  Zéphirin remarried to French Creole Marguerite, also called Marie Edvine or Edvise, Chautin, widow of Placide Marks, in a civil ceremony in St. Landry Parish in October 1855.  Zéphirin remarried again--his third marriage--to French Creole Marie Sidonise, called Sidonise, Bergeron in a civil ceremony in St. Landry Parish in August 1859, and sanctified the marriage at the Arnaudville church, St. Landry Parish, in March 1888.  Their daughter married into the Dupuis family.  Despite his age, during the War of 1861-65 Zéphirin served briefly in the Grivot Rangers Company Louisiana Partisan Cavalry, raised in St. Landry Parish, which fought in South Louisiana.  

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Younger son Joseph, fils, by his father's second wife, born at Opelousas in c1776, married fellow Acadian Marie Thibodeaux probably at Attakapas in the late 1780s or early 1790s.  Their son Placide, born at Attakapas in April 1792 and baptized at age 2 in June 1794, probably died young.  Joseph, fils remarried to Marguerite, daughter of fellow Acadians Charles Guilbeau and his second wife Marguerite Bourg, at Attakapas in October 1794.  They settled near Carencro.  Joseph, fils died probably at his home near Carencro in August 1811; he was only 34 years old; his succession record was filed at the Opelousas courthouse, St. Landry Parish, in February 1824.  Daughter Marguerite Carmesile was born posthumously two months after he died and married into the Robichaux family.  This family line, except for its blood, probably did not survive.  

Descendants of Michel CORMIER (1741-1790; Robert, Thomas, Pierre)

Michel, son of Pierre dit Palette Cormier and Cécile Thibodeau of Chignecto, younger brother of Joseph and first cousin of Jean-Baptiste, fils, married Anne dite Nanette, daughter of Jacques Sonnier and Anne Hébert of Petitcoudiac, sister of brother Joseph's first wife, and widow of Basile Babin, at Opelousas in c1769.  Anne died in early 1773, and Michel remarried to Catherine, daughter of German Creoles neighbor Johann Georg Stelly and Christine Edelmayer of St.-Charles des Allemands, at Opelousas in c1774.  Michel remarried again--his third marriage--to Madeleine, daughter of fellow Acadians Charles Breaux and Claire Trahan and widow of Étienne Benoit, at Attakapas in February 1789; Madeleine was 20 years younger than Michel and was his wife for less than two years.  Michel and his wives did well on the Opelousas prairies.  In March 1768, he, along with brother Joseph, were among the 11 signers of a petition addressed to Spanish Governor Ulloa requesting assistance in the form of oxen and plows to help them grow wheat in the district; in April, the governor, now angry with all Acadians in the colony, rejected the petition.  After the revolt against Ulloa, in which he and his Opelousas comrades probably did not participate, he signed with his mark an unconditional oath of allegiance to Spain in December 1769.  In the years that followed, he became a cattleman, not a wheat farmer.  In August 1771, Governor Unzaga granted him 253.04 arpents of land, to be occupied and cultivated, on Bayou Bourbeaux between present-day Leonville and Arnaudville, St. Landry Parish.  His house at Prairie des Femmes on Bayou Bourbeaux, "built prior to 1773 ... on ground level with 'poteaux-en-terre, ... had bousillage walls, and a dirt floor, and a gallery or porch surrounding the house."  In 1771, the year he received his land grant, Michel owned 28 head of cattle.  Three years later, he owned 20 head of cattle, 6 horses and mules, and 16 pigs.  In 1777, he owned 50 head of cattle, 16 horses, and 16 pigs.  His fortunes increased dramatically in the 1780s.  In 1788, on his vacherie at Prairie des Femmes, Michel owned a herd of 130 cattle and 15 horses.  He also owned seven slaves.  Meanwhile, as was his duty, he served in the Opelousas company of militia.  He was a fusileer in 1776, described on the militia roll as 5 feet, 4 inches tall, an inch taller than his brother Joseph.  Three years later, in their late 30s, Michel and Joseph participated with their company in Governor-General Gálvez's attack against the British at Baton Rouge.  Michel died at his home at Prairie des Femmes in December 1790, without benefit of sacraments, age 49.  According to family tradition, he was buried in what became the old yellow fever cemetery at present-day Washington, St. Landry Parish.  His daughter, by his second wife, married into the Royer and Sutter families.  Michel fathered five sons by his first two wives; he had no children by his third wife.  All five of his sons created families of their own.  Michel's descendants drifted south into what became Lafayette Parish, clustering around Carencro and Côte Gelée.  After the War of 1861-65, some of them moved even farther south into Iberia, Vermilion, and Cameron parishes or westward to the prairies of present-day Acadia Parish.  An eastern contingent of Michel's descendants settled on upper Bayou Teche in St. Martin Parish.  After the war, like their Lafayette cousins, some of them moved westward, to the Vermilion and Calcasieu prairies, far from their Bayou Teche birthplaces.  Most of the Cormiers of South Louisiana (including the author) are descended from Michel, his sons, and grandsons.   

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Oldest son Amand, by his father's first wife, born at Opelousas in October 1770 and baptized by a Pointe Coupée priest at Opelousas in April 1771, married Marie-Angèlle, called Angèlle, daughter of fellow Acadians Étienne Benoit and Madeleine Breaux of Carencro, at Opelousas in October 1790; Angèlle's mother was his father's third wife, so Amand married his stepsister.  They settled at Grande Pointe on upper Bayou Teche near present-day Breaux Bridge, where their son Raphaël was born in December 1792.  Amand settled at Carencro near his half-brother Pierre.  Amand died in c1795, age 25.  

Raphaël was tutored by Amand's full brother, Michel, fils of Grand Pointe, until the boy came of age.  Raphaël married Marie Carmelite, called Carmelite, daughter of fellow Acadians Jean Melançon and Rose Doiron, at the St. Martinville church, St. Martin Parish, in June 1811.  The settled at Grand Pointe. Their son Colin Amand was born in May 1812, Paulin in February 1814 but died at age 3 months the following May, Jean Valmont was born in May 1815 but died at age 5 in October 1820, Pierre Philogène was born in February 1818 but died at age 14 in September 1832, Joseph Théogène was born in March 1820 but died at age 4 in November 1824, Simeon Valsin, also called Pierre Valsin, died at age 6 months in July 1828, and Alfred (Raphaël's seventh and youngest son and only the second one to reach adulthood) was born in November 1832.  Their daughters married into the Castille and Melançon families.  Raphaël's succession was filed at the St. Martinville courthouse in January 1844; he would have been 51 years old that year.  In November 1850, the federal census taker in St. Martin Parish counted 5 slaves--2 males and 3 females, all black, ranging in age from 50 to 3--on the Widow Raphaël Cormier's farm; this was Carmelite Melançon.  In June 1860, the federal census taker in St. Martin Parish counted 8 slaves--2 males and 6 females, 7 blacks and 1 mulatto, ages 60 to 1--on the Widow Raphaël Cormier's farm.  

Colin Amand married Euphémie, daughter of fellow Acadians Alexandre Guilbeau and Céleste Poirier, at the St. Martinville church, St. Martin Parish, in August 1833.  Their son Joseph Philogène was born in St. Martin Parish in February 1835, Alexandre in May 1837, Paulin in April 1839, Aristide in September 1841, and Raphaël le jeune in August 1846.  Their daughter married into the Huval family.  In November 1850, the federal census taker in St. Martin Parish counted 56 slaves--30 males and  26 females, all black except for 3 mulattoes, ranging in age from 75 to 1--on Colin Amand Cormier's plantation.  In the same year, the federal census taker in Calcasieu Parish counted 2 more slaves--both black and both female, ages 40 and 18--on Colin Cormier's farm, so he must have owned land in that parish, too.  Colin Amand died in St. Martin Parish in September 1855, age 43.  One wonders what happened to his many slaves after his death.  (One also wonders who was the Colin Cormier who died "in Park," today's The Parks, near Plaquemine, Iberville Parish, in March 1861, age 60; the Plaquemine priest who recorded the burial did not give any parents' names or even mention a wife.)

During the War of 1861-65, Paulin served in Company D of the Orleans Guard Battalion Louisiana Infantry, raised in St. Martin Parish, which fought at Shiloh, Tennessee, in April 1862.  Paulin married Marie Eusèide or Zoide, daughter of fellow Acadians Auguste Benoit and second wife Marie Eusède Guidry, at the Abbeville church, Vermilion Parish, in August 1865.  They settled near Lake Arthur, then in Calcasieu but now in Jefferson Davis Parish.  Their son Alexandre was born in April 1866, Léonie in January 1873, Paul Adonis, called Adonis, in January 1875, Joseph Artellus in April 1881, and Joseph Philoges in May 1885.  Their daughter married into the Gary family.  

Aristide married Joséphine, daughter of fellow Acadians Marin Blanchard and Annette Broussard, at the Breaux Bridge church, St. Martin Parish, in December 1863.  Their son Léonin was born near Breaux Bridge in January 1877.  Their daughters married into the Babineaux, Benoit, Dufton, and Huval families.  Aristide remarried to fellow Acadian Julie Broussard in a civil ceremony in Vermilion Parish in November 1889.  They settled in the northwest corner of Vermilion Parish near Lake Arthur.  Aristide's succession record was filed at the Abbeville courthouse in October 1893; he would have been age 52 that year.  

Raphaël le jeune may have married Thersile Benoit, probably a fellow Acadian, and settled near Abbeville, Vermilion Parish, by the late 1860s. 

Alfred married Florentine or Laurentine, daughter of fellow Acadians Charles Babineaux and Céleste Richard, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in April 1853.  They settled near Breaux Bridge.  Their son Alfred Jean was born in c1858 but died at age 2  in August 1860, Robert was born in November 1861, Joseph Ducoudret in February 1867, Alfred, fils or Albert in April 1874, Clebert in February 1876, and Engelbert or Angelbert in c1877.  Their daughters married into the Comeaux, Guilbeau, and Guidry families.  In June 1860, the federal census taker in St. Martin Parish counted a single slave--an 18-year-old black male--on Alfred Cormier's farm.  During the War of 1861-65, Alfred was conscripted into Confederate service from St. Martin Parish but may not have served in a unit.  Alfred, at age 57, remarried to fellow Acadian Cydalise Benoit at the Carencro church, Lafayette Parish, in November 1889.  He died near Carencro in April 1896; the priest who recorded his burial said that Albert was age 66 when he died, but he was 63. 

2

Michel, fils, called Pierre-Michel, from his father's first wife, born at Opelousas in September 1772 and baptized by a Pointe Coupée priest at Opelousas in May 1773, married Ludivine, called Divine, daughter of fellow Acadians Charles Guilbeau and his first wife Anne Trahan, at Attakapas in January 1793.  They also settled at Grande Pointe on the Teche, where son Michel-Onésime, called Onésime and Michel, fils, was born in March 1799, Louis le jeune in October 1800 but died at age 1 in February 1801, twins Joseph-Deterville and Amand le jeune, also called Aurelien-Amand and Hervilien, were born in December 1801, Nicolas in September 1804, and Éloi in September 1810.  Their daughters married into the Allegre, Bertrand, Gauthier, and Ledoux families.  Ludivine died at Grand Pointe in January 1815, age 45, and Michel, fils remarried to Agnès, 32-year-old daughter of Canadian Jean Baptiste Rodrigues of and Marie Josèphe Baudoin and widow of Adam Webre, of St. John the Baptist Parish on the river, in St. John the Baptist Parish in June 1816; she gave him another daughter but no more sons.  Their daughter married into the Richard family.  Michel, fils was affluent enough to hire a live-in tutor for his children and his nieces and nephew; the tutor, Charles de Dernay Plassard of Brest, France, died at Michel's home at Grand Pointe in March 1817.  Michel, fils died probably at his home on Bayou Teche in August 1833; the St. Martinville priest who recorded the burial called him Michel of Opelousas and said he was age 65 when he died, but he was 60; his succession was filed at the Vermilionville courthouse a few days after his death, so he must have owned property in Lafayette Parish as well as in St. Martin.  In November 1850, the federal census taker in St. Martin Parish counted 24 slaves--11 males and 13 females, all black, ranging in age from 85 to infancy--on Widow Michel Cormier's plantation; this was Michel, fils's second wife, Agnès Rodrigues.  In June 1860, the federal census taker in St. Martin Parish counted 20 slaves--6 males and 14 females, all black, ages 78 to 2, living in 6 houses--on Widow M. Cormier's plantation.  Agnès died in St. Martin Parish in November 1871, age 94.  

2a

Michel Onésime, by his father's first wife, married Céleste or Silesie, daughter of fellow Acadians Pierre Dupuis and Rosalie Monique Thériot of St. James Parish but resident of Grande Pointe, at the St. Martinville church, St. Martin Parish, in July 1816.  Their son Michel Treville, called Treville and also Michel, fils, was born at Grand Pointe in November 1818, Sosthène in October 1829 but died at age 5 (the priest at the St. Martinville church said 6 years and 3 months) in December 1834, and Césaire was born in August 1840.  They may also have had a son named Sylvain.  Their daughters married into the Babineaux, Barras, Boudreaux, Melançon, Préjean, Thériot, Thibodeaux, and Wiltz families.  Michel Onésime died at his home on upper Bayou Teche in November 1853; the priest who recorded the burial, and who did not give any parents' names or even mention a wife, said that Michel, fils, as he called him, died "at age 60 yrs.," but he was 54; his succession was filed at the St. Martinville courthouse in December 1854.  

Michel Treville married Marie Azéma, also called Zena, daughter of fellow Acadians Pierre Melançon and Marie Savoie, at the St. Martinville church, St. Martin Parish, in November 1838.  Their son Michel Ernest, called Ernest, was baptized at the Vermilionville church, age 7 months, in April 1840, and Camille Omer, called Omer, in c1850.  Their daughters married into the Barras and Periou families.  Michel Treville died in St. Martin Parish in December 1850, age 32; his succession was filed at the St. Martinville courthouse the following January.  

Ernest married Marguerite Alzima or Alzina, daughter of French Creoles Clairville Lasseigne and Joséphine Allegre, at the St. Martinville church, St. Martin Parish, in June 1859.  Their son Gabriel was born in St. Martin Parish in November 1860 but may have died near Breaux Bridge at age 19 in October 1879, and Joseph Ernest, called Ernest, was born in February 1863.  Ernest, père's succession was filed at the St. Martinville courthouse in March 1864; he would have been age 24 that year.  If the succession was post-mortem, was his death war-related? 

Sylvain died in St. Martin Parish in December 1855.  The St. Martinville priest who recorded the burial did not give any parents' names, mention a wife, or even give Sylvain's age at the time of his death.  His succession record was filed at the St. Martinville courthouse the following February. 

Césaire married Séverine, daughter of Spanish Creole Émile Castille and his Acadian wife Marie Adélaïde Thibodeaux, at the Breaux Bridge church, St. Martin Parish, in January 1861.  Their son Simon Sylvain or Sylvain Simon was born near Breaux Bridge in October 1862, Joseph Adela or Adélard, called Adélard and Joseph D., in April 1866, Crejin or Crepin was baptized at the Breaux Bridge church, age unrecorded, in December 1869, and Émile le jeune, also called Émile C., was born in November 1877.  Their daughters married into the Landry and Thibodeaux families.  During the War of 1861-65, Césaire served in Company A of the Yellow Jackets Battalion Louisiana Infantry, raised in St. Martin Parish, which fought in Louisiana.  

2b

Joseph Deterville, by his father's first wife, married Aimée Scholastique, called Scholastique, daughter of German Creole Adam Webre and Canadian Creole Agnès Rodrigue of St. John the Baptist Parish, at the St. Martinville church, St. Martin Parish, in December 1822, so Joseph married his stepsister.  Their son Joseph Émile, called Émile, was born in St. Martin Parish in January 1824.  Their daughter married into the Guilbeau family.  Joseph Deterville died at Grande Pointe in August 1827, age 26; his succession was filed at the St. Martinville courthouse in January 1829.  

Émile married Julie, daughter of fellow Acadians Sylvestre Broussard and Marie Aspasie Babineaux, at the St. Martinville church, St. Martin Parish, in February 1843.  Their son Joseph Arthur, called Arthur, was born in St. Martin Parish in September 1847, and Sylvain Numa, called Numa, in July 1851.  In November 1850, the federal census taker in St. Martin Parish counted 4 slaves--an 18-year-old male and 3 16-year-old females, all black--on Émile Cormier's farm.  Émile remarried to Léontine, daughter of fellow Acadians Alexandre Babin and Marie Therzile Thibodeaux, at the St. Martinville church in February 1857.  Their daughters married into the Babin and Hébert families.  In June 1860, the federal census taker in St. Martin Parish counted 13 slaves--7 males and 6 females, all black, ages ranging from 60 to 2, living in 3 houses--on Émile Cormier's farm.  Émile, at age 44, remarried again--his third marriage--to cousin Alzire, daughter of French Creole Joseph Allegre and his Acadian wife Marguerite Denise Cormier, at the St. Martinville church in October 1868; Alzire gave him more children but no more sons.  Their daughter married into the Thibodeaux family.  

2c

Nicolas, by his father's first wife, married Osite Delphine, called Delphine and also Josephine, daughter of fellow Acadians David Babineaux and Osite Melançon, at the St. Martinville church, St. Martin Parish, in February 1828.  Their son Nicolas, fils was born in St. Martin Parish in April 1829, and Joseph Declemir in December 1832.  Nicolas remarried to Marie Ozea, daughter of fellow Acadians Joseph Boudreaux and Félice Broussard, at the St. Martinville church in November 1838.  Their son Jules was born in St. Martin Parish in August 1840.  In November 1850, the federal census taker in St. Martin Parish counted 11 slaves--8 males and 3 females, all black, ages 14 to 8--on Nicolas Cormier's farm.  Nicolas, père died in St. Martin Parish by October 1855, when his succession was filed at St. Martinville courthouse; he would have been age 51 that year. 

Nicolas, fils, by his father's first wife, married first cousin Émilie, daughter of French Creole Antoine Auguste Ledoux and his Acadian wife Ludivine Cormier, Nicolas, fils's paternal aunt, at the St. Martinville church in September 1852.  Their son Nicolas Adolphe, called Adolphe, was born near St. Martinville in July 1853, and Anatole in June 1855.  Their daughter married into the Olivier (French Creole, not Acadian) family.  In June 1860, the federal census taker in St. Martin Parish counted 28 slaves--11 males and 17 females, 24 blacks and 4 mulattoes, ages 60 to 5, living in 16 houses--on Nicholas Cormier's plantation; this was Nicolas, fils.  During the War of 1861-65, Nicolas, fils, a captain, commanded Company C of the Yellow Jackets Battalion Louisiana Infantry, raised in St. Martin Parish, which fought in Louisiana; he died probably at his home in St. Martin Parish in December 1863, age 34, perhaps from wounds suffered in Confederate service; his succession was filed at the St. Martinville courthouse in October 1864.  

Joseph Declemir, by his father's first wife, married Clara, daughter of Foreign Frenchman Laurent Tertron and his French Creole wife Louise dite Louisianaise Beauvais of Pointe Coupee and Bayou Tortue, at the St. Martinville church, St. Martin Parish, in December 1852.  Joseph Declemir died in St. Martin Parish in October 1855, age 23.  Did he father any children? 

Jules, by his father's second wife, probably married fellow Acadian Marie Louise Arceneaux.  Their son Joseph Adam was born near Vermilionville, Lafayette Parish, in November 1870.  

2d

Amand le jeune, by his father's first wife, married Marie Cephalie, Cephalide, or Cophalite, daughter of French Creole Furcy Hollier and his Anglo-American wife Juliette Collins, at the St. Martinville church, St. Martin Parish, in April 1835.  Their son Amand, fils was born in St. Martin Parish  in March 1836, Joseph Cléopha, called Cléopha, in September 1837, Rosémond in September 1841, and Louis Homere in August 1845.  Their daughters married into the Broussard, Lasseigne, and Periaux families.  In June 1860, the federal census taker in St. Martin Parish counted 5 slaves--2 males and 3 females, 3 blacks and 2 mulattoes, ranging in age from 38 to 3--on Amand Cormier's farm.  Amand, called Hervilien by the priest who recorded his burial, died near Breaux Bridge, St. Martin Parish, in October 1879; the priest said that "Hervilien" was age 79, but he was 77. 

Cléopha married Palestine, daughter of French Creoles Alexandre Beslin and Delphine Leleux, at the St. Martinville church, St. Martin Parish, in April 1857.  Palestine died in St. Martin Parish in July 1859, age 20.  During the War of 1861-65, Cléopha served in Company A of the Yellow Jackets Battalion Louisiana Infantry, raised in St. Martin Parish, which fought in Louisiana, and Company A of the Consolidated 18th Regiment and Yellow Jackets Battalion Infantry, into which the Yellow Jackets were incorporated in late 1863.  Cléopha died in St. Martin Parish in May 1869; the St. Martinville priest who recorded the burial, and who did not give any parents' names or even mention a wife, said that Cléopha died "at age 32 yrs."; he was 31.  He evidently had not remarried, so his line of the family died with him.  

During the War of 1861-65, Rosémond served in the same units as his older brother Cleopha.  Rosémond married Marie Félicie, called Félicie, daughter of fellow Acadians Joseph Théodore Babineaux and Azélie Melançon, at the St. Martinville church, St. Martin Parish, in January 1866.  They settled near Breaux Bridge.  Their son Léon or Léonce was born in December 1868, and Cleopha le jeune in September 1871.  Their daughters married into the Benoit and Guidry families.  

2e

Éloi, by his father's first wife, died at the home of German Creole Alphonse Oubre at St. Gabriel, Iberville Parish, in October 1839 but was buried at Convent in nearby St. James Parish, age 30.  He probably did not marry.  One wonders what this prairie Acadian was doing in a river parish at the time of his death.  

3

Pierre, by his father's second wife, born at Opelousas in September 1776 (he was often called "Pierre of Opelousas)," married Marianne, 18-year-old daughter of German Creoles Jacob Miller and Anne-Marie Theigen of Alsace and Maryland, at Opelousas in August 1795.  Pierre and Marianne settled at the northwestern edge of the Attakapas District at Carencro, near the bayou of that name.  Marianne died near Carencro in August 1796 at age 19, perhaps from complications of childbirth.  Pierre, at age 22, remarried to Rosalie, 16-year-old daughter of fellow Acadians Amand Dugas and Geneviève Robichaux of nearby Anse La Butte, at Attakapas in January 1798.  They also settled near Carencro.  Their son Pierre, fils, was born in March 1799, Pierre Maximilien, called Maximilien, Maxilien, and Maxille, in September 1807, Amand le jeune in October 1809, and Symphorien in August 1816.  Their daughters married into the Courseau, Fontenot, Gautreaux, Guilbeau, Janis, LeBlanc, and Thibodeaux families.  Pierre, père died at Plaquemine Point, St. Landry Parish, in June 1847 and was buried at nearby Grand Coteau, age 71; his succession was filed at the Opelousas courthouse that month.  His widow Rosalie Dugas died at Carencro in March 1859, the Grand Coteau priest who recorded her burial said that she died "at age 80," but she was 77; her succession was filed at the Opelousas courthouse a week after her death.  

3a

Pierre, fils, by his father's second wife, married Céleste, 25-year-old daughter of fellow Acadians Charles Dominique Babineaux and Marguerite Thibodeaux of Carencro, at the St. Martinville church, St. Martin Parish, in May 1818; Pierre, fils was only 19 years old at the time of the wedding.  They settled at Carencro.  Their son Ursin was born in February 1819, Lucien in October 1822, Pierre Rosémond, called Rosémond, in February 1824, Bélisaire in July 1830, Joachim was baptized at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, age 3 months, in May 1832, Lasty at age 4 months in March 1834, and Camille or Clémile at age 5 months in May 1838.  Their daughters married into the Babineaux, Brasseaux, and Simoneaux families.  In December 1850, the federal census taker in Lafayette Parish counted 16 slaves--10 males and 6 females, all black, ranging in age from 40 to 4--on Pierre Cormier, fils's farm in the parish's Western District.  In June 1860, the federal census taker in Lafayette Parish counted 30 slaves--15 males and 15 females, 21 blacks and 9 mulattoes, ages 59 years to 5 1/2 months, living in 5 houses--on Pierre Cormier's plantation at Carencro.  Wife Céleste died at Carencro in August 1869; the Grand Coteau priest who recorded the burial, and who did not to give any parents' names, said that Céleste died "at age 75 yrs."; she was 76.  Pierre, fils died at Carencro in December 1871; the Grand Coteau priest who recorded the burial said that Pierre was age 75 when he died, but he was 72.  In his will, Pierre, fils donated land for a church and cemetery at Carencro with the stipulation that the name of the church be St. Pierre; the land he gave was exchanged for another piece of property closer to the center of the village, where St. Peter church was established in 1874; for a time, in fact, the village of Carencro was called St. Pierre after the church.  

Lucien married cousin Céleste or Célestine, daughter of fellow Acadians Joseph Babineaux and Céleste Comeaux, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in August 1840; Lucien's mother and wife shared the same first and last names!  They settled near Carencro.  Their son Jean Baptiste was born in June 1845 (but, strangely, his baptism was recorded in the Grand Coteau parish's "Black Bk."), Joseph in December 1846, Joseph Adolphe in April 1848, Pierre le jeune "in Calcasieu" but his birth was recorded at the Grand Coteau church in November 1850 or 1851, Julien in May 1853, Louis Alcide, called Alcide, in February 1855, Placide in November 1856, and Lucien, fils in September 1860.  Their daughters married into the Babineaux, Benoit, Brasseaux, and Hoffpauir families.  Lucien died near Carencro in February 1892, age 69.  

Joseph married Marguerite Aspasie, daughter of French Canadian Edmond Roger and his Acadian wife Ursin Prejean, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in November 1866.  Joseph died in October 1870, age 25; his succession was filed at the Vermilionville courthouse in November.  Did he father any children? 

Jean Baptiste married Clara or Claire, another daughter of Edmond Roger and Ursule Prejean, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in February 1868.  Their son Edmond Lasty, called Lasty le jeune, was born in Lafayette Parish in January 1869.  Their daughter married into the Arabie family.  Jean Baptiste remarried to Célestine, daughter of French Creole Don Louis Carrière and widow of Marcel Arabie, at the Carencro church, Lafayette Parish, in May 1883. 

Pierre le jeune may have married French Creole Celima Lebleu.  They settled probably near Youngsville, Lafayette Parish.  Their son Martin was born in December 1868.  

Ursin married Marie Alexandrine, called Alexandrine, 16-year-old daughter of fellow Acadians Jean Murphy Broussard and his first wife Marie Adélaïde Prejean, at the Grand Coteau church, St. Landry Parish, in April 1845.  Their son Onésime Numa, called Numa, was born near Grand Coteau in February 1848, Jean Murphy, called Murphy, in December 1849, Thelesmar in December 1851, Pierre Neuville, sometimes called Neuville, in February 1858, Ursin, fils in June 1860 but died age 5 in December 1865, and Joseph Clémile, called Clémile le jeune, was born in April 1865 but died at age 8 in January 1874.  Their daughters married into the Brasseaux and Prejean families.  In June of 1860, the federal census taker in Lafayette Parish counted 3 slaves--a male and 2 females, all black, ages 9, 20, and 4--on Ursin Cormier's farm.  During the War of 1861-65, Ursin served in Company K of the 2nd Regiment Louisiana Reserve Corps, raised in Lafayette Parish, which fought local Jayhawkers.  Ursin died near Carencro in April 1895, age 76; his succession was filed at the Lafayette courthouse the following August. 

Jean Murphy married cousin Marie, daughter of fellow Acadians Aurelien Brasseaux and Aurelia Cormier, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in June 1866.  Jean Murphy died probably at Carencro in July 1867; the Grand Coteau priest who recorded the burial, and who did not give any parents' names or mention a wife, said that Morphy, as he called him, died "at age 19 yrs.," but he was 17; his succession, calling him Jean Morphi, was filed at the Vermilionville courthouse in July 1868.  Did he father any children?

Onésime Numa married Alexandrine, daughter of fellow Acadians Alexandre Guilbeau, fils and Françoise Savoie, at the Grand Coteau church, St. Landry Parish, in February 1870.  Their son Alexandre was born near Grand Coteau in April 1871, and Joseph Ernest in March 1878.  Onésime Numa's succession was filed at the Vermilionville courthouse in January 1881; he would have been age 32 at the time.  

Rosémond married Cidalise, daughter of fellow Acadians Arvillien LeBlanc and Julienne Babineaux, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in May 1851.  They settled near Carencro.  Their son Émile, called Émelite, was born in December 1852, a child, name unrecorded, perhaps a son, died at birth in August 1854, Telesphore was born in September 1855 but died at age 3 months the following January, Adam was born in January 1859 but died at age 1 1/2 in August 1860, an unnamed child, perhaps a son, died at age 9 days in February 1861, Alcide was born in February 1862, Joseph Lasty, called Lasty (named after his uncle who had just died in the trenches at Vicksburg) in August 1863, Aurelien le jeune, also called Augustin and Adrien, in October 1865, Arvillien in January 1868, Erestil, probably Aristide, in August 1870, Hippolyte in May 1873, and Arcade in October 1878.  Their daughter married a Dugas cousin.  Rosémond died near Carencro in January 1887; the priest who recorded the burial said that Rosémond was age 64 when he died, but he was 62.  

Bélisaire married Aurelia, daughter of fellow Acadians Joachim Dugas and Marguerite Broussard, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in January 1857.  They settled probably near Carencro.  Their son Joachim le jeune was born in July 1860, Anatole in May 1867, Ambroise in July 1874 but died at age 11 in November 1885, Jean Jacques was born in December 1877, and Romain in March 1881.  Their daughters married into the Babineaux, Leger, and Prejean families.  During the War of 1861-65, Bélisaire served probably as a conscript in Company D of the 26th Regiment Louisiana Infantry, raised in Lafourche Parish, which fought at Vicksburg, Mississippi; his three younger brothers, Joachim, Lasty, and Clémile, served as volunteers in another company of that regiment.  

During the War of 1861-65, Joachim served with his younger brothers Lasty and Clémile in Company A of the 26th Regiment Louisiana Infantry, the Lafayette Prairie Boys, raised in Lafayette Parish, which fought at Vicksburg, Mississippi.  Like his younger brother Clémile, Joachim survived the war and returned to his family.  He married Marie Euphémie, called Euphémie, daughter of French Creole Simonet Simoneaux and his first wife Acadian Azélie LeBlanc, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in August 1865; Euphémie's stepmother was Mélanie Cormier, Joachim's sister.  Joachim and Euphémie settled at Carencro.  Their son Honoré was born in July 1871.  Their daughters married into the Guilbeau and Richard families.  Soon after the death of his wife in the early 1880s, Joachim took up with Azélie, called Azèle, daughter of French Canadian Jean Baptiste Lantier and Creole Christine Olivier of Grand Coteau.  Joachim and Azèle evidently did not marry; Azèle had borne children by Jean Broussard in the 1870s but had not married him either.  Joachim and Azèle's son Honoré Lesseus, called Lesseus or Seaux, a deaf-mute, was born near Carencro in July 1884, and Léonce  in April 1889.  Joachim died of tuberculosis at Carencro in October 1899, age 68.  [Youngest son Léonce, the author's paternal grandfather, married Marie Zelma, called Zelma, 15-year-old daughter of French Canadian Numa Istre and his Acadian wife Paula LeBlanc of Midland, Acadia Parish, probably at Midland in October 1913.  Zelma died at Jennings, Jefferson Davis Parish, in July 1961, age 63.  Léonce died at Jennings in February 1967, age 77.]

During the War of 1861-65, Lasty served in the same company as his older brother Joachim and younger brother Clémile.  Unlike his brothers, however, he did not survive the war.  He was mortally wounded during the Siege of Vicksburg in Jun 1863, age 29.

During the War of 1861-65, Clémile served in the same company as his older brothers Joachim and Lasty.  Clémile married Alice, also called Caliste, another daughter of Joachim Dugas and Marguerite Broussard, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in April 1866.  They settled at Carencro.  Their son Onésiphore was born in January 1867, Horace in December 1868, Esdras in September 1870, Joseph Saul in September 1872, Philibert in April 1874, Maurice in September 1877, Henry in September 1879, Moïse in September 1881, and Peter Théophile in November 1883.  

3b

Maximilien, by his father's second wife, married Marie Mélanie, called Mélanie, daughter of fellow Acadians Joseph dit Augustin Broussard and Anne Hébert, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in April 1828.  They settled probably near Carencro.  Their son Maximilien, fils, also called Onésime, was born in November 1829, Narcisse in December 1831, Rémi in late 1834 but died at age 8 months in July 1835, and a child, named unrecorded, perhaps a son, was born in April 1849 but died at age 4 months the following August.  Their daughters married into the Derosier, Richard, and Thibodeaux families.  The birth of Maximilien and Marie Mélanie's final child must have proved fatal to the mother as well as the child; her succession record, probably post-mortem, was filed at the Opelousas courthouse, St. Landry Parish, in July 1849.  In November 1850, the federal census taker in St. Landry Parish counted 4 slaves--2 males and 2 females, ages 38 to 2--on Maximilien Cormier's farm.  Maximilien, at age 44, remarried to Alexandrine or Azélie, daughter of fellow Acadians Joseph Richard and Joseph's first cousin Eugènie Richard and widow of James Baugh, in a civil ceremony in St. Landry Parish in January 1852, and sanctified the marriage at the Grand Coteau church in April 1853.  They settled near Church Point, then in St. Landry but now in Acadia Parish.  Their daughters married into the Janis, Matte, and Thibodeaux families.  In the summer of 1860, the federal census taker in St. Landry Parish counted a single slave--a 36-year-old black male--on Maximilien Cormier's farm.  Maximilien, at age 58, remarried again--his third marriage--to Célestine, daughter of fellow Acadians Joseph Doucet and Carmélite Richard and widow of Césaire Caruthers, at the Church Point church in April 1866.  Their son Pierre le jeune was born near Church Point in April 1870.  

Maximilien, fils, by his father's first wife, married Adélaïde, daughter of fellow Acadians Antoine Boudreaux and Marie Émelie Savoie, at the Grand Coteau church, St. Landry Parish, in September 1851.  Their son Léonal or Léoval was born near Church Point, then in St. Landry but now in Acadia Parish, in December 1860, and François near Grand Coteau in February 1862 but died near Church Point at age 3 months the following May.  Their daughters married into the Cormier and Mendoza families.  

Narcisse, by his father's first wife, married Marie Mélanie or Mélasie, daughter of French Creoles Jérôme Janis and Marie Bellard, at the Grand Coteau church, St. Landry Parish, in October 1851.  They settled near Church Point, then in St. Landry but now in Acadia Parish.  Their son Narcisse, fils was born in October 1852, Pierre le jeune in December 1856, Jérôme in March 1859, Arvillien in March 1872, Louis in August 1874, and another Pierre in October 1878.  They also had a son named Maxilien or Maximilien.  Their daughters married into the Allemand, Daigle, Leger, Matte, Meche, and Spears families.  During the War of 1861-65, Narcisse served in Company K of the 29th (Thomas's) Regiment Louisiana Infantry, raised in St. Landry Parish, which fought at Vicksburg, Mississippi.  As the birth of his younger children, reveal, he survived the war and returned to his family. 

Narcisse, fils married Marie Émilie or Amelie, daughter of Louis Lejeune, probably a fellow Acadian, in a civil ceremony in St. Landry Parish in November 1870, and sanctified the marriage at the Church Point church, then in St. Landry but now in Acadia Parish, in January 1872.  Their son Joseph was born near Church Point in January 1878, Cléopha in April 1884, Jérôme in April 1888, and Jean in June 1891.  Their daughter married into the Miller family.  

3c

Amand, by his father's second wife, married Eurasie, 16-year-old daughter of Anglo American William Wood or Woods and his Acadian wife Marguerite Brasseaux, at the Opelousas church, St. Landry Parish, in July 1832.  Their son Aurelien was born near Opelousas in April 1833, and Treville in March 1838.  Amand's succession, calling him Amanoo, was filed at the Vermilionville courthouse, Lafayette Parish, in June 1878; he would have been age 68 that year. 

Aurelien married Marianne, daughter of French Creoles Augustin Frugé and Eléonore Lasage, at the Grand Coteau church, St. Landry Parish, in October 1851.  They settled at Pointe Émile Mouton in present-day Acadia Parish.  Their son Aurelien, fils, was born in December 1852, Tainville or Stanville in June 1857, Auguste in January 1860, Edval Joseph or Joseph Edval in October 1862, Aristide or Aurestile in August 1865, and Théodore, also called Théodose, in September 1868.  Their daughters married into the Matte and Richard families.  Aurelien remarried to French Creole Marie Celina, called Celina, Racca in a civil ceremony probably in St. Landry Parish and sanctified the marriage at the Church Point church, then in St. Landry but now in Acadia Parish, in June 1871.  Their son Clairville was born near Youngsville, Lafayette Parish, in September 1873, and Joseph near Vermilionville, Lafayette Parish, in April 1875.  Aurelien, père died in Acadia Parish by May 1892, when his succession was filed at the Crowley courthouse; he would have been age 59 that year. 

3d

Symphorien, by his father's second wife, married Célesie, 25-year-old daughter of French Creole Noël Vasseur and his Acadian wife Angélique Richard and widow of Thomas Bacon, at the Opelousas church, St. Landry Parish, in April 1837.  Their son Symphorien, fils was near Opelousas in June 1840, Louis Alfred near Grand Coteau, St. Landry Parish, in February 1843, and Pierre Mauléon in October 1849.  Their daughters married into the Clark, Sonnier, and Vasseur families.  Symphorien, père died near Church Point, Acadia Parish, in November 1884; the priest who recorded his burial said that "Sifroyen" was age 73 when he died, but he was 68.  

Daughter Angélique, born near Grand Coteau, St. Landry Parish, in September 1845, gave birth to son Symphorien le jeune (named after her father and brother) near Church Point, then in St. Landry but now in Acadia Parish, in June 1864; the priest who recorded the boy's baptism did not give the father's name.  

Symphorien, fils married Céleste, daughter of James Denoli, Desales, Desaul, Desaule, Desaulles, Desault, Desole, Desoles, Desolle, Deussol, Dusold, or Sasle and Eleonore Bergeron, a French Creole, not an Acadian, at the Grand Coteau church, St. Landry Parish, in April 1868.  They settled near Church Point, then in St. Landry but now in Acadia Parish, and Plaisance in St. Landry Parish.  Their son Thomas Gabriel, called Gabriel, was born in September 1871, Jacques or Jacob in February 1876, Willy or William in November 1878, Lucien in October 1881, James in May 1884, and Léonard in July 1886.  Symphorien, fils died near Church Point in June 1894; the priest who recorded his burial said Symphorien was age 58 when he died, but he was 54. 

4

Louis, by his father's second wife, baptized at Opelousas, age unrecorded, in June 1779, married Thècla, daughter of French Creole Michel Meaux from the Saintogne region of France and his Acadian wife Élizabeth Breaux, at Attakapas in October 1799.  Louis and Thècla settled on the upper Vermilion north of present-day Lafayette probably in an area the Acadians called Beaubassin.  They also may have lived for a time at La Pointe, on the upper Teche near present-day Breaux Bridge, where at least one of their sons probably settled.  Their son Célestin, also called Marcellin and Aurelien, was born on the upper Vermilion in October 1804, Alexandre in June 1809, Onésime, also called Lésime and Louis, fils, in September 1811, Jean Baptiste in February 1814 but died at age 8 in October 1822, and Michel le jeune was born in May 1819 but died at age 2 in October 1822.  Their daughter married into the Duhon family.  Thecla died in the early 1820s; her succession record, filed at the Vermilionville courthouse, Lafayette Parish, in June 1823, noted that Louis "is not in a situation to have the tutorship of his minor children due to his being in a habitual state of deafness for the last 5 or 6 years"; Thècla's brother, Athanas Meaux, offered to be the legal tutor of his sister's minor children, sons Alexandre and Lesime, ages 14 and 12, and daughter Mélite, age 8.  Deafness did not prevent Louis from remarrying to Marie, daughter of French Creole Antoine Ledoux and his Acadian wife Marguerite Gaudet of St. James Parish and widow of Joseph Melançon, at the St. Martinville church, St. Martin Parish, in July 1823; Marie's brother, Antoine Auguste Ledoux, had married Louis's niece, Ludivine, daughter of his half-brother Michel, fils, only three months earlier.  Louis and Marie's first child, a son, name unrecorded, died within hours of his birth at their home on the upper Vermilion in October 1825, Joseph, a twin, was born in November 1826, and Don or Jean Louis, called Louis, in c1831.  Their daughter married into the LeBlanc family.  Louis died at his home along the upper Vermilion in June 1843; the priest who recorded the burial said that Louis was age 60 when he died, but he was at least 64.  

4a

Célestin, by his father's first wife, married first cousin Marguerite, 18-year-old daughter of French Canadian Augustin Royer of Illinois and his Acadian wife Victoire Cormier, at the Grand Coteau church, St. Landry Parish, in May 1822; Marguerite's mother was Célestin's paternal aunt.  Their son Alexandre le jeune was baptized at age 14 days at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in September 1825 but died the day after his baptism, Auguste or Augustin was baptized at age 4 months in April 1831, Onésime, or Osémé, le jeune was baptized at age 7 1/2 months in April 1833, a child, name unrecorded, perhaps a son, died within an hour of its birth in May 1835, and another child, name unrecorded, perhaps a son, died at age 14 days in August 1837.  Their daughter married into the Plaisance family.  In November 1835, Célestin bought 40.17 acres of land in Lafayette Parish from the federal government; he "signed" the land deed with an X, so he probably was illiterate.  In the summer of 1860, the federal census taker in St. Landry Parish counted 8 slaves--2 males and 6 females, all blacks, ranging in age from 65 to 2--on Célestin Cormier's farm.  

Onésime le jeune married Eurasie, daughter of French Creole Louis Clément and his German-Creole wife Marie Anne Stelly, at the Grand Coteau church, St. Landry Parish, in June 1851.  Their son Euphémon, also called Eupremont, Fernand, and Fremont, had been born near Grand Coteau the previous March, so they may have been married civilly.  Onésime le jeune died near Grand Coteau in May 1887, age 55. 

Euphémon likely married fellow Acadian Aurelia or Aurelie Trahan in a civil ceremony in St. Landry Parish in March 1870.  Their son Joseph was born near Rayne, then in St. Landry but now in Acadia Parish, in December 1879.  Euphémon remarried to Mélasie Beard, also called Melissa Hébert, in a civil ceremony in Acadia Parish in February 1889.  Their son Théogène was born in March 1894 and baptized at the Rayne church, Acadia Parish, in May, and Jacob was born near Roberts Cove, Acadia Parish, in November 1898. 

Augustin died in Lafayette Parish in April 1853, age 22, and probably did not marry.  

4b

Alexandre, by his father's first wife, married cousin Susanne, daughter of French Creole Charles Alexandre Ledoux and his Acadian wife Susanne Cormier, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in January 1829; Susanne's mother was a daughter of Alexandre's uncle Michel, fils.  Alexandre and Susanne's son Alexandre, fils was born in Lafayette Parish in October 1829, Césaire in St. Martin Parish in May 1834, and Louis Césaire in May 1839.  Their daughters married into the Mire and Sonnier families.  In September of 1860, the federal census taker in Calcasieu Parish counted 8 slaves--4 males and 4 females, all mulattoes, age 35 years to 6 months--on Alexandre Cormier's farm, so he probably had moved west of Bayou Nezpique or owned land there during the 1850s.  Alexandre remarried to Marie Élisabeth, called Élisabeth, daughter of fellow Acadian Prosper Villejoin and his French-Creole wife Clementin LaFosse and widow of Ignace Caruthers, at the Grand Coteau church, St. Landry Parish, in October 1876.  Their son Fernest was born near Rayne, then in St. Landry but now in Acadia Parish, in December 1878 when his father was age 69.  Alexandre died in Acadia Parish by January 1891, when his succession was filed at the Crowley courthouse; he would have been age 81.  The following April, another record filed in the Crowley courthouse provided for the tutorship of Alexandre's youngest son Fernest, who was 12. 

4c

Onésime, by his father's first wife, married Marguerite, also called Arthémise and Mary, daughter of fellow Acadian Joseph Melançon and his French-Creole wife Marie Ledoux, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in August 1831; Marie Ledoux was Onésime's father's second wife, so he married his stepsister.  Their son Onésime, fils or Osémé was baptized at the Vermilionville church, age 7 weeks, in October 1832, Joseph at age 15 months in November 1838, Adam was born in Lafayette Parish in January 1842 but died two months later, a child, name unrecorded, perhaps a son, died at age 2 months in October 1847 (the Vermilionville priest who recorded the child's burial called the father "Onézime of Queue Tortue," so Onésime probably had moved to that bayou, which runs through the prairies west of Vermilionville, now the city of Lafayette), Jean Baptiste Adam was born near Grand Coteau, St. Landry Parish, in September 1852, Placide Antoine, called Antoine, in Lafayette Parish in July 1856, and Jacques near Grand Coteau in December 1863.  Onésime, père, called Marcellin by the Vermilionville priest who recorded the burial, died in Lafayette Parish in January 1879, age 68. 

Onésime, fils married Anastasie, daughter of fellow Acadian Jean Babineaux and his Anglo-American wife Hortense Perry, in a civil ceremony in Lafayette Parish in August 1850.  Their son Pierre was born in Lafayette Parish in February 1856.  They also had a son named Osémé.  

4d

Joseph, by his father's second wife, married Marie Mélanie or Mélasie, daughter of French Canadian Auguste Royer and his Acadian wife Caroline Bourque, in a civil ceremony in Lafayette Parish in July 1849.  They settled near Carencro before moving to the Church Point area, then in St. Landry but now in Acadia Parish.  Their son Louis le jeune was born in August 1852, Joseph, fils in December 1855, Aurelien in January 1859, Jean Lasty in July 1861, another Joseph, fils in December 1866, and Luma, probably Numa, in December 1869.  They also had a son named Auguste.  Their daughters married into the Caruthers and Lantier families.  By the early 1870s, Joseph had moved his family to the Rayne area, then in St. Landry but now in Acadia Parish.  Joseph died near Rayne in March 1893; the priest who recorded the burial said Joseph was age 69 when he died but he was 66. 

4e

Don Louis, by his father's second wife, married Élisabeth Lock, Rauche, Roche, Rodge, Ross, or Rotche in a civil ceremony in St. Landry Parish in 1855, and sanctified the marriage at the Grand Coteau church, St. Landry Parish, in February 1858.  They settled near Carencro.  Their son Joseph Octave, called Octave, was born in October 1857, Don Louis, fils in March 1859, William in December 1863, a child, name unrecorded, perhaps a son, died at age 9 days in May 1868, Célestin le jeune was born in July 1869, Joseph Atherol in May 1872, and Adrien in May 1874.  Their daughters married into the Lavergne, LeBoeuf, and Soileau families.  

5

Youngest son François, also called Jean-François, from his father's second wife, baptized at Opelousas at age 8 1/2 months in August 1783, followed his older brother Louis to the upper Vermilion and married Scholastique, called Colastie, daughter of fellow Acadians Simon dit Agros LeBlanc and Anne dite Manon Hébert, at Attakapas in December 1806.  François and Scholastique remained on the upper Vermilion.  Their son François, fils was born in December 1812, Pierre le jeune in March 1815, Maximilien, called Maxile, in August 1817, and Onésime, sometimes called Onésime F., Onésime François, and Lésime, in August 1820.  Their daughter married into the Duhon family.  Francois, père died at his home along the upper Vermilion in February 1835, age 53; his succession was filed at the Vermilionville courthouse the following April.  

5a

François, fils married Émilie, also called Émilite, Mélite, Carmélite, and Lise, daughter of fellow Acadians Benjamin Broussard and Madeleine Hébert, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in August 1830.  Their son Benjamin was born near Vermilionville in September 1833, François Dolzé in February 1837, and Jean Bénoni, called Bénoni or Béloni, in March 1841.  Their daughters married into the Broussard, Hébert, and Trahan families.  In September 1850, the federal census taker in Lafayette Parish counted 2 slaves--both females, both black, ages 50 and 11--on François Cormier's farm in the parish's western district.  François, fils, at age 40, remarried to French Creole Eugénie Simon in a civil ceremony in Lafayette Parish in January 1855; she gave him more children but no more sons.  Their daughter married into the Duhon family.  In July 1860, the federal census taker in Lafayette Parish counted the same two black female slaves on Francois Cormier's farm that had been counted in 1850.  

Benjamin, by his father's first wife, married Marie Belzire, called Belzire, daughter of fellow Acadians Antoine Denis Trahan and Marguerite Hébert, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in April 1860.  Their daughters married into the LeBlanc and Morvant families.  During the War of 1861-65, Benjamin may have served as a conscript in Company I of the 1st Regiment Louisiana Heavy Artillery, which fought at Vicksburg, Mississippi.  

During the War of 1861-65, Jean Bénoni, by his father's first wife, served in Company E of the 26th Regiment Louisiana Infantry, raised in Lafayette Parish, which fought at Vicksburg, Mississippi.  Jean Bénoni married Louise, daughter of French Creole Hilaire Simon and his Acadian wife Aspasie Hébert, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in January 1867.  Jean Bénoni may have been the Jean Cormier whose succession was filed at the Vermilionville courthouse in August 1872; he would have been age 31 that year.  

5b

Pierre le jeune married Marie Sidalise, called Sidalise, daughter of French Creole Louis Simon and his Acadian wife Marie Louise Trahan, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in June 1834.  Their son Siméon or Simon Duplessis was baptized at the Vermilionville church, age 4 months, in April 1838.  Their daughter married into the Duhon family.  In July 1860, the federal census taker in Lafayette Parish counted 3 slaves--a male and 2 females, all black, ages 23, 15, and 15--on Pierre Cormier's farm.  During the War of 1861-65, Pierre le jeune, along with younger brother Onésime, served in Company K of the 2nd Regiment Louisiana Reserve Corps, raised in Lafayette Parish, which fought against area Jayhawkers.  Pierre le jeune died in Lafayette Parish in December 1876, age 61. 

Siméon Duplessis married first cousin Azelima, Azelime, or Azelina, also called Julie, daughter of his uncle and aunt Maxille Cormier and Azélie Léger, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in April 1855.  Their son Jules was born in Lafayette Parish in March 1857, Siméon Duplessis, fils in December 1858, Dolzin in April 1860, and François Adam in September 1866.  They also had a son named Ludovic.  Their daughter married into the Simon family.  Siméon Duplessis, père remarried to fellow Acadian Octavie Guillot at the Vermilionville church in December 1877.  Their son Ernest had been born in Lafayette Parish two months before the marriage, so they probably had married civilly, and Pierre was born in November 1882.  Their daughters married into the Trahan family.  

5c

Maxille married Azélie, also called Zélie, daughter of fellow Acadians Julien Léger and Marie Duhon, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in July 1836.  Their son Neuville was born in Lafayette Parish in August 1837, Joseph in October 1842, Vital in 1846, and Oculi in March 1852.  Their daughters married into the Cormier, Hanks, and Manceau families.  In September 1850, the federal census taker in Lafayette Parish counted 7 slaves--4 males and 3 females, all black, ranging in age from 30 to 3--on Maxile Cormier's farm in the parish's western district.  Maxille must have owned land in St. Martin Parish as well; in November, the federal census taker in St. Martin counted 20 slaves--11 males and 9 females, all black, ages 40 to 3--on his plantation in that parish.  In July 1860, the federal census taker in Lafayette Parish counted only 3 slaves--2 males and a female, all black, ages 14, 11, and 50--on Maxile Cormier's farm.  Maxille died in Lafayette Parish in August 1877; the priest who recorded the burial said Maxille was age 58 when he died, but he was 60; his succession was filed at the Vermilionville courthouse the following January. 

Neuville married Marguerite Azéma, daughter of fellow Acadians Jean Hébert and Marie Carmelize Landry, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in July 1855.  They settled probably near Youngsville, Lafayette Parish.  Their son Olise was born in December 1857, Joseph in December 1859, a child, name unrecorded, perhaps a son, died at age 8 days in January 1862, Léoscar, also called Joseph, was born in December 1866, Augustin in August 1873, and Cleopha in October 1875.  Neuville's succession was filed at the Vermilionville courthouse in September 1878; he would have been age 41 that year; the succession was not post-mortem.  Neuville, at age 43, remarried to French Creole Eulalie Gaspard in a civil ceremony in Lafayette Parish in November 1880.  Their son Maxille le jeune was born in Lafayette Parish in September 1881, and Neuville, fils near Rayne, Acadia Parish, in October 1895. 

Vital married Edmire or Elmire, daughter of French Creole Lessin Simon and his Acadian wife Claire Landry, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in August 1866.  They settled at Pointe Émile Mouton near Church Point, then in St. Landry but now in Acadia Parish.  Their son François le jeune was born in October 1871, Maxille le jeune in September 1873, Lessin in March 1875, and Norbert in January 1877.  Their daughters married into the Breaux and Ewens families.  

Joseph married Mélanie, daughter of Anglo Creoles Ralph R. Hanks and Arthémise Abshire, at the Abbeville church, Vermilion Parish, in February 1867.  They settled near Rayne, then in St. Landry but now in Acadia Parish.  Their son Joseph, fils was born in August 1874, Zelmire in August 1876, Adam in October 1883, and Lucius in January 1887.  

5d

Onésime married Eugénie, another daughter of Louis Simon and Marie Louise Trahan, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in August 1841.  Their son Désiré was born in Lafayette Parish in November 1842, François le jeune in February 1850 but died at age 7 in March 1858, Jean Baptiste was born in January 1852, Nicaise or Niguez in December 1855, Pierre Onésime, called Onésime, in November 1858, Eugènat, called Eugène, in December 1860, Rupert, also called Dupré, in March 1865, and Joseph Alcide on Bayou Queue de Tortue in August 1868.  Their daughters married into the Broussard, Hébert, and Leleux families.  In September 1850, the federal census taker in Lafayette Parish counted a single slave--a black female, age 6--on Onésime Cormier's farm in the parish's western district.  In July 1860, the federal census taker in Lafayette Parish counted only a single slave--a single black female, now age 15--on Onésime Cormier's farm.  During the War of 1861-65, Onésime, along with older brother Pierre le jeune, served in Company K of the 2nd Regiment Louisiana Reserve Corps, raised in Lafayette Parish, which fought against area Jayhawkers.  

Descendants of Jean-Baptiste CORMIER, fils (1742-1790s; Robert, Thomas, Pierre)

Jean-Baptiste, fils, son of Jean-Baptiste Cormier and Madeleine Richard of Chignecto, the youngest of the three Cormier cousins from Chignecto, married twice, first to Marguerite, daughter of fellow Acadians Joseph Bourg and Marie Landry, at Cabanocé/St.-Jacques on the river in c1768, a few years after he reached Louisiana, and then to Anne, daughter of fellow Acadians Antoine Blanchard and Élisabeth Thériot of Port-Royal and widow of Joseph dit Vieux Richard, at Attakapas in January 1779.  As was his duty, he served in the Attakapas company of militia.  In 1779, in his late 30s, he participated with his company in Governor Galvèz's attack against the British at Baton Rouge.  Meanwhile, he did well in the Attakapas District.  In 1781, he owned 56 animals on his 4-arpent farm at Grand Prairie along the upper Vermilion near present-day downtown Lafayette.  In 1785, he owned a single slave.  By the 1790s, he had accumulated a sizable holding of 350 acres at Grand Prairie as well as 560 acres on the prairie west of Bayou Nezpique in the Opelousas District.  The church records of South Louisiana do not contain a burial record for Jean-Baptiste, fils, but he was recorded as deceased in the marriage record of son Jean-Baptiste III in May 1796; he would have been age 54 that year.  Jean-Baptiste, fils's daughters, all by his first wife, married into the Mouton, Richard, and Savoie families.  He fathered only a single son, Jean-Baptiste III, by his first wife. 

Jean-Baptiste III, also called Jean-Baptiste dit Mano and Baptiste, from his father's first wife, was baptized at St.-Jacques on the river in November 1775.  As an infant, he was taken to the Attakapas District, where he married Marie-Apolline, called Apolline, Polone, or Pauline, daughter of fellow Acadians Claude Martin and Marie Babin of Grand Pointe on the upper Teche, in May 1796.  (Claude was a trustee of the Attakapas church, now St. Martin de Tours in St. Martinville.)  Jean-Baptiste III and Pauline settled at Anse La Butte on the upper Vermilion and at Grand Prairie.  Their son Jean-Narcisse, called Narcisse and Narcisse dit Mano, was born in February 1797, Jean-Baptiste-Luc in August 1798 but died at age 6 in August 1804, Valéry or Valière was born in August 1800, and Célestin in February 1805.  Their daughters married into the Breaux, Dugas, and Mouton families.  Jean Baptiste dit Mano died "at his home at La grand prairie" in July 1808; the St. Martinville priest who recorded his burial said that Jean Baptiste was age 30 when he died, but he was closer to 33.  Jean-Baptiste III fathered four sons, but only one of them, Valéry, had sons of his own.  His descendants settled in Lafayette Parish, but some of them drifted north into St. Landry Parish during the late antebellum period.  

Narcisse married Céleste or Célestine, daughter of fellow Acadians Basile Chiasson and Marie Thibodeaux, at the St. Martinville church, St. Martin Parish, in April 1818.  Their daughter married into the Ferguy family.  Narcisse died at his home on Grand Prairie in February 1821, age 24, and fathered no sons, so his line of the family, except for its blood, died with him.  Narcisse was buried in the cemetery of the new church at Grand Prairie, L'Église St.-Jean du Vermilion, now the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Lafayette; his was one of the first interments there.  His succession was filed at Vermilionville courthouse, Lafayette Parish, in May 1825.  

Valéry married Marguerite, daughter of fellow Acadians Joseph Hébert and Élisabeth Duhon, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in November 1825.  Their son Valéry, fils was baptized at the Vermilionville church at age 1 1/2 months in October 1826, Jean Baptiste at age 21 days in August 1831 but died at age 4 (the priest said 6) in August 1835, Joseph Alexandre, called Alexandre, was born in Lafayette Parish in December 1835 but died at age 7 in September 1843; Émile Thelesmar was born in September 1839, Louis Adolphe, called Adolphe, in May 1841, Philippe Theseus in December 1847, and Henry Arctave in August 1850.  Their daughters married into the Bouchez, Janet, and Monnier families. 

Valéry, fils married Martha Louisa or Louise, daughter of Anglo Americans John and Elizabeth Montgomery, in a civil ceremony in St. Landry Parish in November 1860.  Their son Joseph Ernest was born near Opelousas in February 1863, and Louis Adolphe, called Adolphe, named after his war-hero uncle, was born in Lafayette Parish in November 1864 but died at age 1 in November 1865.  During the War of 1861-65, Valéry, fils served in two units--Company D of the 18th Regiment Louisiana Infantry, raised in St. Mary Parish, in which he probably was a conscript, and Company K of the 2nd Regiment Louisiana Reserve Corps, raised in Lafayette Parish, which fought against area Jayhawkers.  

During the War of 1861-65, Émile Thelesmar served as a sergeant and a lieutenant in Company C of the 6th Regiment Louisiana Infantry, raised in St. Landry Parish, which fought in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania--one of General R. E. Lee's Louisiana Tigers.  Émile Thelesmar survived the war but did not marry.  

During the War of 1861-65, Louis Adolphe also served as an officer in Company C of the 6th Louisiana Infantry.  He rose, in fact, to the rank of captain and commanded the company, but, unlike his older brothers, he did not survive the war.  He was mortally wounded in action at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on 2 July 1863, died the following day surrounded by his comrades and some local ladies, and was buried on the Widow Wibles's farm north of Gettysburg, near the "back of the barn" in which he died, age 22.  In 1872, Louis Adolphe's remains were retrieved along with those of hundreds of other Confederate dead in the Gettysburg area and re-interred at Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia. 

Henry Arctave married Mary Fanny Monnier in June 1870.  Their son Valéry le jeune was born in 1878, and Henry Arthur in 1880.  

~

A distant cousin of Joseph, Michel, and Jean-Baptiste, fils was one of the last Acadian Cormiers to emigrate to Louisiana.  He reached New Orleans probably from Cuba a few years after Jefferson's purchase: 

Descendants of Jean Baptiste CORMIER (1784-1831; Robert, Thomas, ?)

Another Jean Baptiste, also called Eugène Baptiste, son of Jean Cormier and Élisabeth Morel of Jean-Rabel, French St.-Dominguie, today's Haiti, started a fourth line of Acadian Cormiers in South Louisiana.  This Jean Baptiste, like his distant cousins Joseph, Michel, and Jean Baptiste, fils, also had roots at Chignecto, but his family's experience during exile was different from his cousins'.  He most likely came to Louisiana with the flood of Haitian refugees from Cuba in the early 1800s.  Three of his sisters probably came with him.  New Orleans church records show a baptism for Anne-Joséphine, daughter of Jean Cornier of Jean-Rabel, Santo Domingo, and Marie-Françoise-Virginie Cazejus of Jeremie, Santo Domingo, dated 15 October 1813, so Jean-Baptiste may have been married when he came to Louisiana, or he may have married a fellow Haitian exile soon after he arrived.  Most of the Haitian/Cuban exiles, including Jean-Baptiste's sisters, remained at New Orleans.  Not Jean Baptiste.  Perhaps now a widower, he moved on to St. Landry Parish and, at age 34, remarried to Marie Louise or Éloise, called Lise, 15-year-old daughter of French Creole Louis DeVille II of Poste Rapides and his Acadian wife Marie Jeansonne, at the Opelousas church in June 1818.  Called "a Frenchman" by the priest who recorded his burial, Jean-Baptiste died in St. Landry Parish in January 1831, age 46.  His descendants settled on the Opelousas prairie near Ville Platte, then in St. Landry but now in Evangeline Parish.  Meanwhile, at least one of Jean Baptiste's nephews, Pierre Mouillé, fils, son of sister Marie Victoire, settled in St. Landry Parish not far from his uncle and cousins. 

Jean Baptiste, fils, by his father's second wife, born in St. Landry Parish in August 1828, married Cléonise Louise, also called Clonise C., Louise Charles, Eléonore, and Léonise, daughter of fellow Acadian Louis Charles Pitre and his French-Creole wife Phelonise Joubert, at the Opelousas church, St. Landry Parish, in January 1850.  Their son Louis Arthur was born near Ville Platte, then in St. Landry but now in Evangeline Parish, in March 1857.  Their daughters married into the DeVille and Fontenot families.  In the summer of 1860, the federal census taker in St. Landry Parish counted 5 slaves--3 males and 2 females, all black, ranging in age from 26 to 2--on Jean Bte Cormier's farm.  Jean Baptiste, fils died by March 1864, when his wife Cléonise remarried at Opelousas.  His succession was filed at the Opelousas courthouse in November 1869.  

~

Other CORMIERs on the Western Prairies

Area church and civil records make it difficult to link many Cormiers in the western parishes with known lines of the family there. Some of them could have been French-Creole or Foreign-French Cormiers who moved from New Orleans to the western prairies in the early 1800s, but most of them probably were descendants of the Acadian cousins whose kinship to them has been obscured by sloppy record keeping.  One suspects that some of the Cormiers who lived on the western prairies during the post-war period were Afro Creoles once owned by Acadian Cormiers:

Charles Cormier stood as godfather to Louise, daughter of Acadians Pierre Savoie and Louise Bourque, at Opelousas in May 1779.  He also witnessed the marriage of Acadians François Richard and Hélène Brasseaux at Opelousas in January 1798.  Was he kin to Joseph, Michel, and Jean-Baptiste, fils?  Joseph and Michel had a younger brother named Charles, born at Chignecto in June 1744, but there is no evidence that he accompanied his older brothers to Louisiana.  

According to Acadian genealogist Bona Arsenault, Pierre, son of Jean-Pierre Cormier and Élise Cherveau, married French Creole Marie-Victoria Soileau at Opelousas in 1795.  Arsenault does not say if this Pierre Cormier was Acadian or French Creole.  

Lise Cormier gave birth to daughter Madeleine near Grand Coteau, St. Landry Parish, in July 1841.  The priest who recorded the girl's baptism did not give the father's name or the name of the mother's parents. 

Zénon Cormier married Émilie Miller, place and date unrecorded.  Their son Aurelien was born near Opelousas, St. Landry Parish, in March 1842.  

Adélaïde Cormier married fellow Acadian Olivier Guidry at the Grand Coteau church in February 1844.  The priest who recorded the marriage did not give the couple's parents' names. 

Pierre Cormier married Victorine Guidry, place and date unrecorded.  Daughter Marie Formora was born near Grand Coteau in April 1847.  

Marie Clara, daughter of Claude Cormier and Olivia Benoit, married Jérôme Landeau at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in August 1871, so her parents must have married in the 1840s or 1850s.  

Sydalise Cormier married David Bellard, place and date unrecorded, and appears in a succession for him filed at the Opelousas courthouse in December 1850.  Who were Sydalise's parents.  When, and where, did she married David?

Adelma Cormier died in St. Martin Parish in June 1851, age 2.  The St. Martinville priest who recorded the girl's burial did not give her parents' names. 

Victoire Cormier married Louis Dautreuil, place and date unrecorded, and appears in a succession for him filed at the St. Martinville courthouse in February 1852.  Marie-Victoire was the oldest daughter of Michel Cormier, fils and Ludivine Guilbeau.  When, and where, did she marry Louis?

Augustin, son of Onézime Cormier and Jane Portier, died in Lafayette Parish, age 22, in April 1853.  The Vermilionville priest who recorded the burial did not mention a wife.  Who was Onézime's father? 

Symphorien Cormier died near Grand Coteau, St. Landry Parish, in June 1853.  The priest who recorded the burial, and who did give any parents' names or mention a wife, said that Symphorien died at age 37.  If this was Symphorien, son of Pierre Cormier of Opelousas, born in August 1816 and the Symphorien Cormier married to Célesie Vasseur who died near Church Point, Acadia Parish, in November 1884 at age 73, then there must have been two Symphorien Cormiers born in the 1810s.  

Célestine Cormier died in St. Martin Parish, age 6, in October 1853.  The St. Martinville priest who recorded the burial did not give the girl's parents' names. 

Camille Cormier married Arthémise Wiltz, place and date unrecorded.  Their son Joseph Adolphe was born near Breaux Bridge, St. Martin Parish, in March 1855. 

Jean Baptiste Cormier married Azélima or Eliza Guidry, place and dater unrecorded.  Daughter Eve Elsina was born near Grand Coteau in January 1855 and married into the LeBlanc family.  

Hermogène Cormier married Mélanie Savoie, place and date unrecorded, and settled near Creole, then in Calcasieu but now in Cameron Parish, by the late 1850s.  

Narcisse Cormier married Adélaïde Boudreaux, place and date unrecorded.  Daughter Arthémise was born near Church Point in November 1858. 

Élodie Cormier married James Henry, called Henry, Milsparr or Milspaugh, perhaps an Anglo American, in a civil ceremony in Lafayette Parish, Judge William Mouton presiding, in December 1860; the marriage was sanctified at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in September 1863.  The priest who recorded the marriage did not give the couple's parents' names.  They settled at Washington, St. Landry Parish. 

Colin Cormier died "in Park" near Plaquemine, Iberville Parish, in March 1861, age 60.  The Plaquemine priest who recorded the burial did not give any parents' names or even mention a wife. 

Marie Louisa Cormier married William G. Boardman, probably an Anglo American, in a civil ceremony in St. Landry Parish in September 1863.  The parish clerk who recorded the marriage did not give the couple's parents' names. 

Marie Cormier married fellow Acadian Désiré Guidry at the Abbeville church, Vermilion Parish, in October 1865.  The priest who recorded the marriage did not give the couple's parents' names. 

Marie Cormier married Anglo Creole Lucien Caruthers, also Credeur, in a civil ceremony in St. Landry Parish in June 1866.  The parish clerk who recorded the marriage did not give the couple's parents' names. 

____ Cormier died at Washington, St. Landry Parish, in October 1866.  The Opelousas priest who recorded the burial did not give ___ his/her name, gender, age, or parents' names.  

Joséphine Cormier married Anglo American Robert Camp at the New Iberia church, then in St. Martin but now in Iberia Parish, in February 1867.  The priest who recorded the marriage did not give the couple's parents' names. 

Aurelia Cormier's son Adolphe was baptized at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in January 1867.  The priest who recorded the boy's baptism did not give the father's name or the mother's parents' names.  Aurelia's son Philosi was born in Lafayette Parish in February 1873 but died at age 1 1/2 in October 1874; again, the recording priest, true to form, did not give the father's name and the mother's parents' names.    

Augustin Cormier, son of deceased "Bethzy," married Bethsy, daughter of Babe Winson, at the St. Martinville church, St. Martin Parish, in February 1869.  

Geneus or Dunnis Cormier married Marie Hortense, called Hortense, Nunez, place and date unrecorded.  Their son Joseph Geneus was born near Youngsville, Lafayette Parish, in March 1869, Jean Malear in November 1870, Alcide near Abbeville, Vermilion Parish, in April 1873, and Pierre Vince in January 1875.  

Lezima Cormier married German Creole Simon Schexnayder in a civil ceremony in St. Landry Parish in January 1869.  The parish clerk who recorded the marriage did not give the couple's parents' names. 

A succession for Aurelia Cormier, wife of Louis Condelet or Condley, was filed at the St. Martinville courthouse in August 1869.  The parish clerk who filed the succession gave no parents' names. 

Martin Cormier, son of Nancy Louis, married Léontine or Valentine Matalbeau, Matalbo, Montalban, Montalbeau, Montalbo, or Montalbot at the St. Martinville church, St. Martin Parish, in April 1870.  Their son Joseph Albert was born near Breaux Bridge, St. Martin Parish, in April 1879.  One of their daughters married at the Breaux Bridge church in January 1882, so Martin and Léontine must have been together in the early 1860s.  Their daughters married into the Baltazar and Chretien families.  Martin, fils, son of Martin Cormier, père, died near Breaux Bridge, St. Martin Parish, in December 1893, age 18.  

Joséphine, daughter of Jean Baptiste Cormier and Marguerite Richard, married Célestin, son of Squire Bayonne, at the Opelousas church, St. Landry Parish, in June 1870.  Who were Jean Baptiste's parents?

Aurelia Cormier, wife of Valsin Touchet, died near Abbeville, age 35, in August 1870.  The priest who recorded the burial did not give any parents' names. 

Mélanie Cormier married Joseph Allemand in a civil ceremony in St. Landry Parish in November 1870.  The parish clerk who recorded the marriage did not give the couple's parents' names. 

.

Cormier families who lived on the western prairies during the post-war period cannot be linked by area church and civil records to other members of the family in the area:

Descendants of Rosémond CORMIER (?-; Robert?, Thomas?, Pierre?)

Rosémond, son of P. Cormier and Carmélite ____, married Euranie or Uranie Lindor, also called Marie Uranie Étienne, daughter of Lindor Lindor, at the Vermilionville church, Lafayette Parish, in April 1870; the ceremony legitimized their children, but the recording priest did not give the children's names.  Their daughters married into the Griffin and Guidry families. 

Thomas, also called Tameus, born probably in Lafayette Parish in the mid-1860s, married Carmelite, daughter of Jean Baptiste Francois, at the Lafayette church, Lafayette Parish, in October 1884.  Their son Adam was born near Lafayette in February 1887, Joseph Canillus in February 1896, and Alfred in November 1898.  

Descendants of Éloi CORMIER (?-; Robert?, Thomas?, Pierre?)

Éloi Cormier married French Creole Camille, Carmélise, Carmélite, Carmesile, Carmezile, or Darmesine Gaspard probably civilly, place unrecorded, in the 1860s, and sanctified the marriage at the Abbeville church, Vermilion Parish, in January 1877.  Their daughters married into the Hébert family.  Eloi's succession was filed at the Lafayette, formerly Vermilionville, courthouse, Lafayette Parish, in September 1884.  

1

Older son Adam François, born in Lafayette Parish in August 1868, married Acadian Aureline Hébert at the Lafayette church, Lafayette Parish, in September 1886, and remarried to Azélina, daughter of Israel Thibodeaux, at the Lafayette church in October 1897.  

2

Younger son Félicien was born near Abbeville, Vermilion Parish, in June 1871. 

Descendants of Sosthène CORMIER (?-; Robert?, Thomas?, Pierre?)

Sosthène Cormier married Coralie King or Jean Baptiste.  Their daughters married into the Joseph and Pierre families.  Sosthène died in Lafayette Parish in June 1883, age 56. 

1

Oldest son Aristide was born near Youngsville, Lafayette Parish, in August 1869. 

2

Adam was born near Youngsville, Lafayette Parish, in January 1871.

3

Joseph, born near Youngsville, Lafayette Parish, in September 1872, married Emetildia or Emmetilia Comeaux, daughter of Marie Heart, at the Lafayette church, Lafayette Parish, in January 1896.  

NON-ACADIAN FAMILIES in LOUISIANA

At least one Cormier immigrated from France to Louisiana in the decades before the War of 1861 (he would have been called a Foreign Frenchman in South Louisiana).  A Cormier from New Orleans who served in the Confederate army as a field-grade officer also may have been a Foreign Frenchman, or an Acadian whose link to the other Cormiers of South Louisiana has been obscured by a dearth of records:

J. C. Cormier was a 40-year-old French laborer when he reached New Orleans aboard the ship George out of Marseille, France, in March 1826.  One wonders if his parents were Acadians who had remained in France after 1785.  J. C.'s wife, called Mme. Cormier by the port authority clerk, also was age 40 when she and her husband reached New Orleans.  

Charles Émile Cormier, born probably in New Orleans in December 1832, married Anglo American Fannie Weeks at New Orleans in 1857.  In May 1861, when he was commissioned a captain in the 1st Louisiana (Nelligan's) Regiment Infantry in New Orleans, he stood 5' 11", had light hair, a light complexion, hazel eyes, and was employed as a clerk.  During the War of 1861-65, his regiment served in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, so he was one of General R. E. Lee's Louisiana Tigers.  While leading his unit, Company I, in the Peninsula Campaign in Virginia, Charles Émile was wounded in action near Seven Pines, east of Richmond, on 25 June 1862.  He recuperated from his wound and returned to his unit.  On 3 May 1863, during the Chancellorsville Campaign, he was captured at Marye's Heights, Fredericksburg, Virginia, and held in Old Capitol Prison, Washington, D.C., for a month before he was exchanged and released.  During his captivity, he was admitted to a Federal hospital, so he may have been wounded in action again.  On the final day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 3 July 1863, Charles was promoted to major of his regiment.  He was captured a second time at Fisher's Hill, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley, in late September 1864.  Once again, he was wounded; the Federals admitted him to a hospital at nearby Winchester, Virginia, with a "severe contusion of back and side."  In October, when he was well enough to travel, the Federals sent him to the prisoner-of-war holding facility at Fort McHenry, Maryland, before transferring him to the prison-of-war camp at Fort Delaware, Delaware, where he was held for the rest of the war.  Federal authorities released him from Fort Delaware after he took the oath of allegiance to the United States government in late July 1865.  He returned to New Orleans, where he died in February 1873 and was buried in St. Louis Cemetery, age 40.  He was the highest ranking Cormier to serve Louisiana during the war.  This researcher has found no link for him to the Acadian Cormiers in Louisiana, so one wonders what was his ethnicity.

.

Cormiers found in the church and civil records of South Louisiana were Afro Creoles who probably had been owned by Acadian Cormiers before the War of 1861-65:

Théogène Cormier was baptized at the Grand Coteau church, St. Landry Parish, age unrecorded, in August 1845.  The priest recorded the baptism in the parish's "Register of Blacks" or "Black Bk." and did not give the boy's parents' names.  

Lot, Lott, or Lhotte Cormier, a freedman, married Marie Robin, also called Zuline Robertson and Anaïde Jean, in a civil ceremony in Lafayette Parish in August 1869.  Their son Joseph married Lorenza Parks at the Youngsville church, Lafayette Parish, in February 1873, so Lott and Marie must have been together since the early 1850s.  Lott's succession was filed at the Opelousas courthouse, St. Landry Parish, in July 1880.  He and Marie also had a son named Homer, who married Emetilde, daughter of Siméon Chiasson, at the Carencro church, Lafayette Parish, in November 1890.  

CONCLUSION

Cormiers settled early in Acadia and were among the very first Acadians to find refuge in Louisiana.  In February 1764, Jean-Baptiste Cormier, père of Chignecto came to the colony from Georgia via Mobile as part of the first recorded group of Acadians to reach Louisiana.  They settled at Cabanocé/St.-Jacques, on the river above New Orleans, along what became known as the Acadian Coast.  Other Chignecto Cormiers--Jean-Baptiste, père's son Jean-Baptiste, fils and two nephews, Joseph and Michel--arrived the following year with the first large parties of Acadians to seek refuge in the colony; Joseph and Michel settled in the Opelousas District. 

Cormier settlement patterns in Louisiana soon mirrored that of their Acadian ancestors before Le Grand Dérangement.  After Jean-Baptiste, père died at St.-Jacques probably in the late 1770s, no Acadian Cormier male remained on the Acadian Coast.  Even a Cormier distant cousin who did not reach Louisiana until the early 1800s moved to the prairies of St. Landry Parish, not to a settlement closer to New Orleans.  Thus, the Cormiers concentrated in the prairie districts west of the Atchafalaya Basin much as they had done at Chignecto in old Acadia.  By the early 1800s, most of them (the majority descendants of Michel) could be found in a wide arc touching on three parishes and living in over a half dozen communities--Grand Prairie, Anse La Butte, Beaubassin, and Carencro in present-day Lafayette Parish; Grand Pointe in present-day St. Martin Parish; and Grand Coteau, Prairie des Femmes, Opelousas in present-day St. Landry Parish.  A small enclave settled near present-day Ville Platte, Evangeline Parish, on the prairie northwest of Opelousas.  

At least one Foreign-French Cormier emigrated to Louisiana during the antebellum period, and a free person of color named Cormier can be found in South Louisiana church records before the War of 1861.  The great majority of the Cormiers in the region, however, were descendants of Thomas Cormier of Chignecto.  

Judging by the number of slaves they held during the late antebellum period, some members of the family lived comfortably on their farms and plantations on the western prairies.  Colin Amand Cormier owned 56 slaves on his St. Martin Parish plantation in 1850.  That same year, the widow of Michel Cormier, fils held 24 slaves in St. Martin Parish.  A decade later, Nicolas Cormier, fils owned 28 slaves in St. Martin Parish, while his distant cousin Pierre Cormier (the author's great-great grandfather) held 30 slaves on his plantation near Carencro in Lafayette Parish.  The great majority of the Cormiers who owned slaves, however, owned fewer than the 20 needed to qualify as planters, and most members of the family held no slaves at all, at least none who appear on the federal slave schedules of 1850 and 1860.

During the War of 1861-65, Federal armies marched three times through the Teche and upper Vermilion valleys, including the Bayou Carencro area, and burned and pillaged many farms and plantations, some of them no doubt owned by Cormiers.  Thanks to these Federal incursions, emancipation came early to the area, with its resulting economic and social turmoil.  Confederate foraging parties and cutthroat Jayhawkers also plagued the area where Cormiers lived, adding to the family's misery.  

Dozens of Cormiers served Louisiana in uniform during the War of 1861-65.  Most of them served honorably and returned to their loved ones after the fall of the Southern Confederacy.  One of them, Charles Émile Cormier of New Orleans, perhaps a French Creole or Foreign Frenchman, not an Acadian, rose to the rank of major in the Louisiana infantry, was wounded at least three times in battle, captured twice, and endured the horrors of a Federal prisoner-of-war camp during the final months of the conflict.  

The war took the lives of at least three Acadian Cormiers:  In March 1862, Lasty Cormier, son of Pierre, fils of Carencro, enlisted in Company A of the 26th Regiment Louisiana Infantry, the Lafayette Prairie Boys, raised in Lafayette Parish, with two of his brothers, Joachim and Clémile.  While serving with his brothers in the Siege of Vicksburg, in early June 1863, Lasty was struck in the head by a shell fragment and died of his wounds a month later; he was 29 years old and never married.  He was buried with hundreds of other Confederate dead in the city cemetery at Vicksburg.  Lasty's brothers survived the siege, surrendered with the rest of the Confederate garrison on 4 July 1863, and went home on a parole of honor to await the exchange of their regiment.  When orders came in the spring of 1864 for members of the 26th Louisiana Infantry to return to their unit at Alexandria, both of Lasty's brothers stayed at home.  Louis Adolphe Cormier, son of Valéry, père of Grand Prairie, enlisted with older brother Émile Thelesmar in Company C of the 6th Regiment Louisiana Infantry, raised in St. Landry Parish, which fought with General R. E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.  Louis Adolphe was only 20 years old when he enlisted at Camp Moore, Tangipahoa Parish, in June 1861.  Despite his age, he served as his company's first sergeant until he was promoted to junior second lieutenant in October 1861, still only 20.  While his regiment fought under General Stonewall Jackson in the Virginia campaigns of 1862, Louis Adolphe earned promotion to second lieutenant and then to first lieutenant.  That September, only 21 years old, he was promoted to captain and command of  the company upon the resignation of the company commander.  Louis Adolphe's older brother Émile, who had enlisted as a fifth sergeant, had earned promotion to junior second lieutenant by then.  Captain Cormier led his company into Pennsylvania with Lee's army in the summer of 1863.  In the charge on East Cemetery Hill on the evening of the second day's fighting at Gettysburg, the young captain was shot in the abdomen--a mortal wound.  Despite the failure of the Confederate assault, Louis Adolphe's comrades managed to take him off the field.  The next day, 3 July 1863, surrounded by his comrades, including his brother, as well as some local ladies who admired his courage, Captain Cormier quietly died of his wound; he was only 22 years old.  His men buried him in a corner of the farmyard near the barn where he died on the Widow Wible's farm, north of Gettysburg.  Nine years later, his remains were gathered up with those of other Confederate dead in the Gettysburg area and re-interred at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia.  Nicolas Cormier, fils, son of Nicolas of Grand Pointe, also served as an officer in Confederate service.  He enlisted in Company C of the Yellow Jackets Battalion Louisiana Infantry in April 1862 and became the company's second commander.  The Yellow Jackets were raised in St. Martin Parish.  All of their service was in South Louisiana along the Lafourche and the Teche and on the western prairies against Jayhawkers and Confederate deserters.  In November 1863, the battalion was consolidated with the 18th Regiment Louisiana Infantry and became the Consolidated 18th Regiment and Yellow Jackets Battalion Infantry.  But Captain Cormier did not serve with the consolidated regiment.  He died probably at his home in St. Martin Parish in early December 1863, perhaps of wounds suffered in Confederate service, age 34.  

After the war, seeking new opportunities in a free-labor Southern economy, especially as part of the burgeoning Louisiana rice industry, Cormiers moved west from their traditional enclaves into the prairies of Evangeline, Acadia, Jefferson Davis, and Calcasieu parishes, especially around Church Point, Rayne, Lyons Point, Mermentau, Lake Arthur, and Jennings.  Some moved south into Iberia, Vermilion, and Cameron parishes, especially around Abbeville, Maurice, Kaplan, and Creole.  Cormiers in Calcasieu and Cameron parishes, at the far edge of the prairies and the coastal marshes, began spelling their name Courmier and Cormie (Homer Courmier Road lies in northwest Calcasieu Parish, north of the town of Starks).  The oil and natural gas industry that sprang up in the region during the early twentieth century lured more Cormiers to the western prairies and across the Sabine into east Texas.  A few moved to the urban centers of Baton Rouge and New Orleans.  Later in the twentieth century, as a result of military service and job opportunities in a material economy Cajuns inevitably embraced, Cormiers became part of a new Acadian diaspora and moved to every corner of the United States.  However, according to a recent study of Louisiana families with French and Spanish surnames, most Cormiers have remained where their immigrant ancestors settled, in St. Landry, St. Martin, and especially Lafayette Parish, the heart of Acadiana. 

The family's name also is spelled Colmier, Comier, Cormaie, Cormié, Cornié, Cornier.  [continued]  [See Book Ten for the Acadian family's Louisiana "begats"]

Sources:  1850 U.S. Federal Census, Slave Schedules, Calcasieu, Lafayette, St. Landry, & St. Martin parishes; 1860 U.S. Federal Census, Lafayette Parish; 1860 U.S. Federal Census, Slave Schedules, Lafayette, St. Landry, & St. Martin parishes; Arsenault, Généalogie, 494, 909-28, 2221-22, 2275-76, 2297, 2463-66; Brasseaux, Foreign French, 1:130; BRDR, vols. 2, 3, 4, 5(rev.), 9; Brasseaux, Founding of New Acadia, 142, 205-06; Brasseaux, ed., Quest for the Promised Land, 16, 114-15, 128; Brasseaux & Conrad, eds., Road to LA, 212-13; <thecajuns.com/acad1764.htm>, "Acadians Who Arrived in New Orleans in 1764"; La Famille Cormier genealogy database; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 430-31; Griffin, Attakapas Country, 72; Hébert, D., Acadians in Exile, 3, 84-86, 332; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, vols. 1-A, 1-B, 2-A, 2-B, 2-C, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9; Krick, Lee's Colonels, 85; Melanson, Cormier Genealogy; "Mi'kmaq Families at St. George Bay," AGE, May 2008, 44; Milling, Exile Without End, 41-42; NOAR, vols. 4, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18; Oubre, Vacharie, 68-69; <perso.orange.fr/froux/St_malo_arrivees/Duc_Guillaume.htm>, Family No. 51; Robichaux, Acadians in St.-Malo, 213-14, 277; Surette, Tintamarre & Le Lac; U.S. General Land Office Records, 1796-1907; West, Atlas of LA Surnames, 52-53, 160; Stephen A. White, "CORMIER, Pierre," in DCB, online; White, DGFA-1, 400-10; White, DGFA-1 English, 89-92.

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, 15 (pl. 2R), calls her Anastasie CORMIER; BRDR, 2:128, 203 (SJA-1, 15a), her marriage record, calls her Anastasie CORMIER, calls her husband Pierre BOURGE, gives her & his parents' names, & says the witnesses to her marriage were Paul MARTIN, Jean SAVOIS, François SAVOIS, & Jean CORMIER [probably her brother]; BRDR, 3:225 (SJA-4, 37a), her death/burial record, calls her Anastasie CORMIER, "age about 60 yrs. wid. of Pierre BOURG," but does not give her parents' names.

02.  Wall of Names, 15 (pl. 2R), calls him Eugène-Baptiste CORMIER, & lists him singly; Hébert, D., Acadians in Exile, 84, his birth/baptismal record, calls him Jean-Baptiste CORMIER, gives his parents' names, calling his father Jean, but does not give the names of his godparents; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 2-A:243, 300 (Opel. Ch.: v.1-B, p.321), record of what probably was his second marriage, calls him Eugene Baptiste CORMIER, native of St.-Domingue, major son of Eugène CORMIER & Élisabeth MOREL, calls his wife Marie-Louise DEVILLE, "native of this parish" & a major daughter, gives her parents' names, & says the witnesses to his marriage were Louis DEVILLE (probably his father-in-law) & Jean JAQUEMAN; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 3:158 (Opel. Ch.: v. 2, p. 20), his death/burial record, calls him Jean Baptiste CORMIER, a Frenchman, married to Lise DEVILLE, does not gives his parents' names, & says he died at age 42 yrs., but he actually was age 47. 

CORMIERs were exiled to SC in 1755 & some of them left that colony for French St.-Domingue in the early 1760s.  See Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, passim; Milling, Exile Without End, passim.  Jean-Baptiste's parents' marriage record, dated 6 Feb 1783 at Jean-Robel, St.-Domingue, is in Hébert, D., Acadians in Exile, 84, 332.  According to this marriage record, Jean CORMIER of Pointe-Beauséjour, Chignecto, was son of Alexis CORMIER & Madeleine de LIGLEN, so Jean & son Jean-Baptiste were kinsmen of the CORMIERs who came to LA in 1764 & 1765.  A Jean CORMIER was transported from Chignecto to SC in the fall of 1755 aboard the English sloop Endeavor; he had no wife or children, so he probably was no more than a teenager.  See Milling, p. 42.  Jean's wife Élisabeth was daughter of Jean-Baptiste-Louis MOREL & Agnès DANIGRAND.  Where is Pointe-de-Paix? 

The baptismal record of son Jean Baptiste, fils, dated 7 Sep 1828, in Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 2-C:192 (Opel. Ch.: v.3, p.42), calls him Jean Baptiste, not Eugène Baptiste, which must have been a corruption of his name by the Opelousas priest who recorded his marriage back in 1818.  This baptismal record calls Jean-Baptiste, père's wife Éloise.  She was also called Élise.  Her father was French Creole, but her mother was Acadian, daughter of Acadian immigrants Jean JEANSONNE & Anastasie PRÉJEAN.  Her father, son of Michel DEVILLE & Marguerite CASTENBERG, was from Poste Rapides on the Red River & had moved south into the Opelousas District before he married her mother at Opelousas in January 1802.  See their marriage record in Hébert, Southwest LA Records, 1-B:234, 397 (Opel. Ch.: v.1-A, p. 101).  Interestingly, one of the witnesses to the marriage of Louis DEVILLE and Marie JEANSONNE was Joseph CORMIER, fils.  

Evidence of a possible first marriage can be found in NOAR, 11:99 (SLC, B26, 149), birth/baptismal record of Anne Joséphine CORNIER, daughter of Jean [CORMIER], "native of Jean-Rabel (Santo Domingo), and Marie Françoise Virginie CAZEJUS, native of Jeremie on Santo Domingo," dated 15 Oct 1813.  The girl's godparents were Pierre Philippe VALLEZ & Marie Magdelaine PREI(N/R), "all residents of this parish."  The first name of the father & his birth place make it likely that this was the Jean-Baptiste CORMIER of Haiti who later moved to St. Landry Parish. 

Jean-Baptiste evidently had come to LA with at least 3 of his sisters by 1806.  See the profile for sister Rose, below. 

03.  Wall of Names, 15 (pl. 2R), calls her Félicité CORMIER.  Arsenault, Généalogie, 2464, 2465, says she was born in 1765, but the Opelousas census of 1777 says otherwise.  This census & the one for Opelousas in 1771 make it clear that she was the twin sister of Marie-Louise, a fact which seems to have escaped Arsenault.  See De Ville, Opelousas Post Census, 1771, 9; De Ville, Southwest LA Families, 1777, 25.  Even is she & her twin sister were born in the Opelousas District in 1765, they would have been in utero when their mother reached LA earlier in the year.  See also Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 2-C:25.

04.  Wall of Names, 15 (pl. 2R), calls him Jean-Baptiste CORMIER; White, DFGA-1, 406, calls him Jean-Baptiste CORMIER, provides his parent's names, his estimated birth year, his presence at Beaubassin in 1714, his marriage date & place, his wife's name, her parents' names, notes that they received dispensation for 4th degree of consanguinity in order to marry, & says he was recorded in GA in 1763 as well as at Cabahannocer (St.-Jacques) in 1777.  See also Bourgeois, Cabanocey, 161; DeVille, St. James Census, 1777, 20; Faragher, A Great & Noble Scheme, 431, 533n20; Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 231; Melanson, Cormier Genealogy, 117-19; Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth Century Louisianians, 114; Appendix. 

The article in DLB, 196, "CORMIER, Jean Baptiste, planter ...," written by Robert Michael Klumb of Charleston, SC, notes that Jean-Baptiste CORMIER married Marie-Magdelaine RICHARD in Acadia, had 3 daughters by her (but mentions no son from this marriage), & says that Jean-Baptiste "Appears on a list of prisoners sent to Charleston, S.C., November 1755.  Escaped South Carolina authorities; captured in New York and held until the peace of 1763 when he purchased passage from New York to Mobile."  Klumb says nothing of the elder Jean-Baptiste being in GA.  Is he talking about the same Jean-Baptiste CORMIER listed here?  A John CORME/Jean CORMIER with wife & 1 child was exiled to SC in the fall of 1755 aboard the English sloop Endeavour.  See Milling, Exile Without End, 42, a source cited by Klumb in the bibliography of his article.  But, considering the number of children the Jean-Baptiste listed here probably had with him in 1755 (5 daughters), the fellow in SC in 1755 probably was a different Jean CORMIER.  Klumb goes on to say that the Jean-Baptiste CORMIER who came to LA in 1764 also married Marguerite BOURG & Anne BLANCHARD (actually, the wives of Jean-Baptiste, fils, not Jean-Baptiste, père), so I am not certain how much faith one should place in the veracity of this article.  As usual, I will follow White.

05.  Wall of Names, 15 (pl. 2R), calls him Jean-Baptiste CORMIER, & lists him with his parents & siblings; Arsenault, Généalogie, 2464, calls him Jean-Baptiste CORMIER, says he was born in 1734 but gives no birthplace, gives his parents' names, says he married Marguerite BOURQUE in c1758 but gives no place of marriage, that he remarried to Anne BLANCHARD, widow of Joseph RICHARD, at Opelousas on 10 Jan 1779, & lists his children as, by his first marriage, Anastasie, born in c1766, Élizabeth in 1772, Marie in 1773, Jean-Baptiste in 1775, Anne in c1777, &, by his second marriage, another Jean-Baptiste in 1779; Melanson, Cormier Genealogy, 117, 205-06; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:66-67, 206 (SM Ct.Hse.: OA-vol. 9-2, #67), a record of his second marriage, calls him Jean-Baptiste CORMIER, "native of Acadie, resident of this parish," calls his wife Anne BLANCHARD, "native of Acadie, resident of this parish," does not give his or her parents' names or the names of their first spouses, & says the witnesses to his marriage were Joseph GRANGÉ, Pierre-Victor RICHARD, Joseph CORMIE [his first cousin], & Alexandre Chevalier DECLOUET [commandant of Atakapas District]; dates the marriage contract on 2 Jan 1779, Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:206, 658 (SM Ch.: Folio B-1), another record of his second marriage, calls him Jean-Baptiste CORMIER, "of Opelousas, widower of Marguerite BOURC, calls his wife Anne RICHARD, "widow of Joseph RICHARD," says they married on 10 Jan 1779, does not give his or her parents' names, & says the witnesses to his marriage were Aman PREJEAN, Joseph GRANGÉ, & Baptiste GRANGÉ.  See also <thecajuns.com/cardmoney.htm>; De Ville, Southwest LA Families, 1777, 13. 

Arsenault, along with Melanson, says he was born in 1734, so Attakapas censuses miss his age by a mile. 

Arsenault says he married his first wife in c1758, but this makes no sense in light of her age in the Attakapas census of 1777.  If Arsenault's marriage date is correct & the age for her in the census--28--also is correct, then Jean-Baptiste married a 9-year-old in 1758!  The census data is followed here.  They were married probably a year or so before their daughter Anastasie was born in c1769.  Perhaps Arsenault meant c1768.  Marguerite was a granddaughter of Alexandre dit Bellehumeur BOURG, the notary of Minas.  See Books Two & Three. 

Wall of Names implies that Jean-Baptiste came to LA with his parents in Feb 1764, but other sources place him with the BROUSSARD party from Halifax via St.-Domingue that reached LA in Feb 1765.  <thecajuns.com/acad1764.htm>, "Acadians Who Arrived in New Orleans in 1764," does not include him among the 1764 arrivals.  The card money record of Apr 1765, cited above, places him with the BROUSSARD party.  See also Book Seven. 

For his son Jean-Baptiste III's marriage record, dated 31 May 1796, in which the groom's father is recorded as deceased, see Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:206 (SM Ch.: v.4, #129).

06.  Wall of Names, 15 (pl. 2R), calls him Joseph CORMIER, & lists him with his wife, 3 daughters, & brother Michel; Arsenault, Généalogie, 2464, says he was born in 1742 & brother Michel in 1741, but Joseph was the older of the CORMIER brothers; BRDR, 2:203 (PCP-2, part 2, 109a, also PCP-4, 70), the record of his second marriage; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:207 (SM Ch.: v.1, p.20), also the record of his second marriage; Melanson, Cormier Genealogy, 116, 193-95.  See also White, CEA, <umoncton.ca/etudeacadiennes/centre/white/cormier.html>; Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 249; Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 128, 323 ;Brasseaux, ed., Quest for the Promised Land, 114-15; De Ville, Mississippi Valley Mélange, 1:40; De Ville, Opelousas Post Census, 1771, 9; De Ville, Southwest LA Families, 1777, 22, 25.

The Attakapas census of 1771 says he was 2 years older than Michel, hence the 1740 birth year for Joseph.  This is corroborated by the Attakapas census of 1777, which says Joseph was 37, Michel 34 that year.  

A Joseph CORMAIE, his wife, & 3 children appear on the list of Acadian prisoners being held at Halifax, 12 Aug 1763.  However, a Joseph CORMIER, his wife, & 2 children appear on a list of Acadians in SC, 23 Aug 1763.  See Jehn, p. 231.  I contend that the Joseph CORMIER at Halifax, not the one in SC, is the Joseph CORMIER who settled in LA.  He ended up at Opelousas in 1765 probably because he & his wife were following her SONNIER kin to that settlement.  His first wife Marguerite was the sister of younger brother Michel's first wife Anne.

For his Jan 1774 testimony before the Opelousas District commandant, see Baudier, The Catholic Church in LA, 189.  The church was built in 1776. 

See Usner, Lower Miss. Valley Before 1783, 189, for a 1787 complaint by Joseph & other prominent Opelousas District cattlemen about the problem of stray cattle in the woods & prairies of upper Bayou Plaquemine Brûlé, where Joseph owned land. 

07.  Wall of Names, 23, calls her Madeleine CORMIER, & lists her with husband Simon MIRE; Bourgeois, Cabanocey, 171, her marriage record, calls her Madelaine CORMIER; Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 424, also her marriage record, calls her Madeleine CORMIER; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 2-B:240 (SM Ct.Hse.: Succ. #429), likely her succession record, calls her Magdeleine [CORMIER] m. Simon MIRE.

Despite the listing in Wall of Names, Madeleine did not marry Simon MIRE until after she came to LA.  Did she live till 1821? 

08.  Wall of Names, 15 (pl. 2R), calls her Marguerite CORMIER; BRDR, 2:204, 324 (SJA-1, 12a), her marriage record, calls her Margueritte CORMIER, gives her parents'  names, says they were "both Acadians by nationality," calls her husband Firmain GIROIRE, son of Paul [GIROIRE] & Marie THIBAUDOS, Acadians, & says the witnesses to her marriage were Michel POIRIE & Piere BLANCHARD; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 2-B:241 (SM Ct.Hse.: Succ. #373); Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 2-C:193 (Laf. Ch.: v.2, p.18, #51), her death/burial record, calls her Marguerite [CORMIER], "spouse of dec. Firmin GIROIR," that she "died ... at 10:00 at age 76 tears at the home of Jean BERNARD, fils (Jr.), at Cote Gelee," & was buried "in the church parish cemetery";  Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 2-C:193 (Laf.Ct.Hse.: Succ. #88), her succession, calls her Marguerite [CORMIER] m. Firmin GIROIR. 

Arsenault, Généalogie, 2464, the LA section, says she married François GIROUARD, son of Pierre GIROUARD & Marie THIBODEAUX, but on 2592, the same section, Arsenault contradicts himself by saying she married Firmin GIROUARD, son of Louis-Paul GIROUARD & Marie THIBODEAUX.   

09.  Wall of Names, 15 (pl. 2R), calls her Marguerite CORMIER; BRDR, 3:225 (SMI-8, 29), her death/burial record, calls her Marguerite CORMIER, "age 70, nat. Acadia, wid. 1st. Pierre VINCENT, 2nd Pierre HENRI," but does not give her parents' names.

How was she kin to the other CORMIERs in LA?  Was she a widow at the time of her death? 

10.  Wall of Names, 15 (pl. 2R), calls her Marie CORMIER.

11.  Wall of Names, 15 (pl. 2R), calls her Marie-Anne CORMIER; BRDR, 4:138 (SJO-11, 25), her death/burial record, calls her Anne CORMIER, "age 81 yrs., wife of Joseph LANDRY," but does not give her parents' names.

12.  Wall of Names, 24, calls her Catherine CORMIER; Arsenault, Généalogie, 2575, profile of her husband in the LA section, calls her Marie-Catherine CORMIER, does not give her parents' names or her age, & says they were married in c1742 but gives no place of marriage; White, DGFA-1, 405, calls her Catherine CORMIER, says she was born in c1721, gives her parents' names, details her marriage, says she was counted at Cabahannocer in 1777, age 56, that she died between the 15 Apr 1777 census & 23 Jul 1778 [when her husband remarried at St.-Jacques], & says "son vf tém au contrat de m de sa nièce Marguerite CORMIER f Joseph greffe CANTRELLE 1786," whatever that means; <thecajuns.com/acad1764.htm>, "Acadians Who Arrived in New Orleans in 1764," calls her Catherine CORMIER.  See also De Ville, St. James Census, 1777, 20.

Arsenault is the only one who calls her Marie-Catherine.

She would have been 56 or 57 when she died. 

Except perhaps for a Jean-Baptiste CORMIER who came to LA via Haiti & Cuba in the early 1800s, she was the only descendant of Alexis CORMIER of Chignecto to emigrate to LA.  The others who went to the colony, except perhaps for the Jean-Baptiste from Haiti, were descendants of Alexis's younger brother Pierre.  The great majority of Catherine's nephews & nieces remained in present-day Canada. 

13.  Wall of Names, 15 (pl. 2R), calls her Marie-Louise CORMIER; Arsenault, Généalogie, 2464, 2465, says she was born in 1762, but the the Opelousas census of 1777 says otherwise.  This census & the one for Opelousas in 1771 make it clear that she was the twin sister of Félicité, a fact which seems to have escaped Arsenault.  See De Ville, Opelousas Post Census, 1771, 9; De Ville, Southwest LA Families, 1777, 25.  Marie-Louise's marriage date is from Arsenault, 2465.  

If, as the Opelousas censuses of 1771 & 1777 insist, Félicité & Marie-Louise CORMIER were born in 1767 or 1768, & the family reached LA in 1765, they should not remain on this list, unless they were born in late 1765 or early 1766 & were in utero when their mother stepped off the ship at New Orleans.  Wall of Names, 15, includes them with their parents & uncle Michel as immigrants to LA, implying a birth year of c1765.  Did the compilers of the Wall of Names use Arsenault's faulty birth years?  The Opelousas census of 1766 says that Joseph CORMIER had 2 unnamed girls in his household in Apr 1766.  One of them no doubt was Susanne, but who was the other girl?  If Félicité & Marie-Louise were twins & were alive in Apr 1766, the census counter must have had difficulty with his math.

14.  Wall of Names, 15 (pl. 2R), calls him Michel CORMIER, frère [of Joseph CORMIER], & lists him with his brother, his sister-in-law, & 3 nieces; Arsenault, Généalogie, 914, his father's profile in the Beaubassin section, calls him Michel [CORMIER], & says he was born in 1741, that brother Joseph was born in 1742, & that trois de ses fils Étienne, Michel, et Joseph, ont été déportés en Caroline du Sud, dont deux, Michel et Joseph, se sont établis en Louisiane; Arsenault, 921, both his & brother Joseph's profiles in the Beaubassin section, calls him Michel CORMIER, gives his parents' names, says he was born in 1741, Joseph in 1742, & that both of them were déportés en Caroline du Sud, se sont établis en Louisiane; Arsenault, 2464, his profile in the LA section, calls him Michel CORMIER, says he was born in 1741 but gives no birthplace, gives his parents' names & says they were from Beaubassin, says he married his first wife, Anne, daughter of Pierre SAUNIER & Madeleine HACHÉ-GALLANT, in c1760 but gives no place of marriage, says he married his second wife, Catherine STELLY of Opelousas, in c1774 but does not give her parent's names, says he married his third wife, Marguerite[sic] BREAUX, widow of Étienne BENOIT, 10 Feb 1789 in St. Martinville but does not give her parents' names, & lists his children, by his first wife, as Michel, born in 1772, by his second wife, Pierre, born in 1776, Louis in 1779, Victoire in 1780, & François in 1783, & gives no children by his third wife; White, CEA, <umoncton.ca/etudeacadiennes/centre/white/cormier.html> [no longer accessible], calls him Michel CORMIER, says he was born 19 Jan 1741 at Beaubassin, the sixth child of Pierre CORMIER & Cécile THIBODEAU, calls his first wife Anne, daughter of Jacques SAULNIER & Anne HÉBERT, vieuve de Basile BABIN, says he married her c1769 but gives no place of marriage, calls his second wife Catherine, daughter of Johan Georg STELLY & Christine EDELMEYER, says he married her c1775 but gives no place of marriage, calls his third wife Madeleine, daughter of Charles BREAU & Claire TRAHAN, says he married her 10 Feb 1789 at St.-Martinville, & says he was buried at Opelousas 30 Dec 1790; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:114, 209 (SM Ct.Hse.: OA-vol.7, #51; SM Ch.: v.4, #26), the records of his third marriage, call him Michel CORMIER, native of Acadie, wid. of "la fille de" [the daughter of] Mr. STELLY, & Michel CORMIER of Opelousas, widr. of Catherine STELET, call his third wife Widow Éstienne BENOIST, native of Acadie, & Magdeleine BRAUD, wid. of Éstienne BENOIST, do not give his or her parents' names, & say the witnesses to his marriage were Jean-Charles BENOIST, Marain PRÉJEAN, Élie JENNE, Jacques JENNE, Alexandre Chevalier DECOUET, Joseph MODENA, & Sandar GENUA; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:209 (Opel. Ch.: v.1, p.14), his death/burial record, calls him Michel CORMIER, does not give his parents' names or the names of any of his wives, & has a note from the priest that says, "Sacraments not administered due to not being advised in time.  'Ou maldita pereza' [oh accursed slowness (laziness)] on the part of the family."  See also Brasseaux, ed., Quest for the Promised Land, 114-15; De Ville, Opelousas Post Census, 1771, 9; De Ville, Mississippi Valley Mélange, 1:39; De Ville, Southwest LA Families, 1777, 22; De Ville, Southwest LA Families, 1785, 17; Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 249; Melanson, Cormier Genealogy, 116, 198-200; Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 128, 341, 413.   

The exact birth date for Michel is from White, CEA, which, like Arsenault, says that Michel was born in 1741, but, unlike Arsenault, shows that Joseph was the older brother.  See also Melanson.  The Opelousas censuses of 1771 & 1777 indicate that Michel was the younger of the two brothers by a couple of years (Joseph was age 30, Michel age 28 in 1771; Joseph was age 37, Michel age 34 in 1777).

A Michel CORMIER was transported to SC in 1755 aboard the English ship Endeavor.  See Arsenault, 921; Milling, Exile Without End, 42.  But this Michel was listed with a wife & 1 child, so he was not the Michel CORMIER who went to LA; what 14-year-old Acadian would have had a wife & child?  The Michel CORMIER who went to SC was the youngest son of Germain CORMIER, not the grandson of Germain's younger brother Pierre. This Michel CORMIER--son of Germain--married Anne DOUCET in c1753, & it was this couple who were exiled to SC in 1755 & who were recorded there in Aug 1763.  See Jehn, 234; See Melanson, 113; White, DGFA-1, 409.

The CORMIER brothers who settled in LA were not sent to SC in the autumn of 1755 but likely escaped with their mother, brothers, & sisters into the wilderness of present-day southeastern NB when British forces descended on the Chignecto area in the summer & fall of 1755.  Somehow Joseph & Michel became separated from the rest of their immediate family, perhaps before most of them re-united under the leadership of old brother Pierre dit Pierrot at Ste-Anne-du-Pays-Bas on lower Rivière St.-Jean.  Now on their own, the boys may have joined other Acadian exiles in the area--perhaps their THIBODEAU kin--later fell into the hands of the British, & were held prisoner at Halifax until the end of the war.  The British records are too unclear to say for certain when, or if, any of this happened.  What can be certain is that the other members of Joseph's & Michel's immediate family never saw the boys again.  It is likely that the CORMIER brothers, as feisty teenagers (ages 15 & 14, respectively, in 1755), joined the Acadian resistance movement in southeastern NB under Joseph BROUSSARD dit Beausoleil.  See Appendix.  Their older brother, Pierrot, who was age 21 in the fall of 1755, according to family tradition escaped from Fort Cumberland, formerly French Fort Beauséjour, dressed as a woman & was a hero in the Acadian resistance in NB.  For the genealogy & history of Pierre dit Pierrot CORMIER, see White, CEA; Stephen A. White, "CORMIER, Pierre," DCB online, which ignores the family tradition of Pierrot dressing like a woman to escape from Fort Cumberland & relates a more plausible escape from one of the ships at Chignecto bound for SC.  Nor does the White bio. of Pierrot mention his participation in the Acadian resistance.  Pierrot & his family, probably sans Joseph & Michel, lingered at Ste.-Anne-du-Pays-Bas from late 1755 until the British attacked up the river in 1758.  They then hightailed it up to the lower St. Lawrence via the long St.-Jean portage. 

For details of the exodus of Pierre dit Pierrot & his family, based on the White, DCB sketch of Pierre dit Pierrot CORMIER, see Book Five.  White does not mention brothers Joseph & Michel in his narrative, only brothers Jacques & François, who family tradition says served with older brother Pierrot in the Quebec militia & as privateers against the British in the lower St. Lawrence in 1759 & 1760.  Pierrot and his wife were at L'Islet on the lower St. Lawrence from 1761-64, when younger brothers Joseph & Michel probably were being held at Halifax.  Pierrot and his family, including his mother & 4 brothers, returned to the Ste.-Anne area of Rivière St.-Jean in 1765, the year Joseph & Michel reached LA.  Pierrot & his family remained at Ste.-Anne until the late 1780s, when they lost their land to American Loyalists and moved on to the Memramcook valley.  By then, Joseph & Michel were prominent cattlemen at Opelousas.

That Michel CORMIER emigrated to LA & went to the Opelousas District in 1765 is verified by his presence in the Opelousas militia census of 1766, which was taken probably in Apr.  His brother Joseph appears next to him in this census.  They went to the Opelousas District probably because they were following Joseph's wife's SAULNIER kin to that settlement.  Interestingly, there is no church record in LA which says unequivocally that Michel CORMIER of Opelousas was the son of Pierre CORMIER & Cécile THIBODEAUX of Chignecto & therefore was the brother of Joseph; this "fact" comes only from Arsenault, White, CEA, Wall of Names, & CORMIER family tradition.  There is at least 1 church record that names Joseph's parents, but none that name Michel's. See Joseph's marriage record to his second wife Anne MICHEL, dated 25 Apr 1771, in Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:207 (SM Ch.: Folio A-1, p.9; SM Ch.: v.1, p.20).  Michel's death record says that he was "native of Acadie," but this says nothing about his relationship to Pierre, Cécile, & Joseph.  Where is the indisputable primary-source link in the LA records that binds them all together?  Arsenault, White, CEA, Wall of Names, family tradition, & this study must rely on 3 observations to make Michel CORMIER of Opelousas the younger brother of Joseph CORMIER of Opelousas:  first, Pierre CORMIER & Cécile THIBODEAUX of Chignecto had 2 sons named Joseph & Michel who were very close in age; second, Joseph CORMIER of Opelousas was the son of Pierre CORMIER & Cécile THIBODEAUX of Chignecto; &, third, Joseph CORMIER of Opelousas arrived in LA at the same time & settled in the same community as a CORMIER named Michel, who had the same name as his brother back in Acadia & whose ages in 2 of the Opelousas censuses corresponded with the ages his brother Michel would have been.  Strong observations, indeed, but, still, pure assumption.  To beat the subject further, why do these 2 brothers seldom appear as witnesses at the baptisms & marriages of each other's children?  In only 1 extant sacramental record, the marriage of Michel's son Amand, did Joseph serve as a witness.  According to the extant sacramental records, Michel witnessed none of the baptisms & weddings of Joseph's children.  Most interesting, each of the brothers became widowers & remarried after they reached LA, Joseph in 1771, Michel in 1789, but neither was a witness at the other's wedding!  See Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:204, 207, 209.  Also, by the late 1780s, the brothers lived in different communities of the Opelousas District, Joseph in Bellevue, Michel in Prairie Des Femmes.  See Voorhies, J., 323, 341.  One wonders if some kind of rift developed between them after they reached LA.

Arsenault, 2464, calls Michel's first wife Anne SAUNIER, daughter of Pierre SAUNIER & Madeleine HACHÉ-GALLANT of Petitcoudiac.  White, CEA, says that Anne SAULNIER, daughter of Jacques SAULNIER & Anne HÉBERT, & widow  of Basile BABIN, was Michel CORMIER's first wife.  This would make her a sister of Michel's older brother Joseph's first wife Marguerite.  Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:719 (LSAR: Opel: 1773-10), Anne's succession record, says that Anne SAUNIER was first married to Basil BABIN, with whom she had 2 daughters (Lisa-Marie-Josephe, called Lise, Lize, or Lizette, born c1761, & Marie-Josephe, born c1764), & that Michel CORMIER was her surviving husband at the time of her succession record, dated 7 Jan 1773.  If the ages for these BABIN girls from Anne's succession record are correct (Lizette 12, Marie 9), Anne most likely married Michel after 1764, the birth year of her younger daughter by Basil.  Wall of Names, 15, lists Michel with the family of brother Joseph as though he had no wife when he arrived in the colony in 1765, so he was most likely a bachelor when he reached LA.  Wall of Names, 10, lists Anne SAULNIER only as widow of Basil BABIN & says nothing of her marriage to Michel CORMIER.  Jehn, 255, lists an Anne SULNIER, widow of Basil BABIN, at St. James (Cabanocé) in 1766 with 2 children, so her marriage to Michel probably occurred in the late 1760s.  See also Bourgeois, Cabanocey, 169, which says that Anne was 25 in the Cabanocé census of 1766 & thus born in 1741, the year Michel was born.  Arsenault puts the marriage c1760.  White, CEA, says that Michel & Anne were married c1769.  In the Opelousas census of 1771, taken 6 years after his arrival in LA, Michel had an unnamed wife age 20, so this was probably Anne SONNIER, since he did not marry his second wife, Catherine STELLY, until 3 years later, a year or so after Anne SONNIER died.  However, the age for Anne in this census is grossly understated.  If Anne SONNIER was age 20 in 1771 & Arsenault's marriage date of 1760 is used, she would have been born in c1751, making her age 9 when she married Michel & only age 10 when she had her first child, daughter Lizette, by first husband Basil BABIN a year after she married Michel!  See De Ville, Opelousas Post Census, 1771, 9.  Therefore, Anne's correct age can be found in the Cabanocé census of 1766.  

Catherine STELLY, Michel's second wife, is also a tough lady to document.  I have found no birth/baptismal record for this great-great-great-great grandmother of mine, but her parentage can be found in White, CEA, & in the facts surrounding the immigration, marriage, & settlement of Johann Georg STELLY, a German-Swiss mercenary, on the German Coast in the 1730s & 1740s.  See Robichaux, German Coast Families, 329-31, for a short history of the STELLYs.  I have found no marriage record for Catherine & Michel, only references to their marriage in church records & the Opelousas census of 1777.  For the census record, see DeVille, Southwest LA Families, 1777, 22.  For the sacramental records mentioning this couple, see Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:205 (Opel. Ch.: v.1-A, p. 44; Opel. Ch.: Folio OA, p. 48), the baptismal record of son François, dated 17 Aug 1783, with says the baby was 8 1/2 months old & the son of Michel CORMIER & Catherine CHETELY [STELLY].  See also Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:207 (Opel. Ch.: v.1-A, p.17), the baptismal record of son Louis, dated 27 Jun 1779, citing Michel & Catherine as the baby's parents.  And then there is the baptismal record of my own great-great-great-grandfather, Pierre, in Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:209-10 (Opel. Ch.: v.1-A, p.9), which says he was born 1 Sep 1776 & baptized 6 Oct 1776 at Opelousas; the baby's father's first name is blank but the mother's name is given as Catherine STELY.  However, other records for Pierre of Opelousas, as he was known, say clearly that his father was Michel; see, for example, Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:210 (SM Ch.: v.4, #148), the marriage record of Pierre & my great-great-great-grandmother, Rosalie DUGAS.  In a record of Michel's third marriage, cited above, Michel is called a "native of Acadia; wid.[ower] of 'la fille de' (the daughter of) Mr. STELLY."  So there is no question that Michel & Catherine were man & wife.  I have not found her burial record either.  In the records of Michel's third marriage to widow Madeleine BREAUX, which produced no children for him since he died soon afterwards, both the church & courthouse entries mention Michel's second wife Catherine STELLY but not his first wife.  Madeleine outlived Michel by decades; she did not die until 1825, 35 years after he had died.  See Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 2-B:242 (Laf. Ct.Hse.: Succ.#75).

Note how quickly Michel CORMIER accumulated slaves in the 1780s.  According to the 1777 Opelousas census, he owned no slaves.  But in 1785 he had acquired 4 slaves, 2 males & 2 females.  In 1788, the year before he died, he owned 7.  This may help account for the remarkable number of slaves his grandson Pierre CORMIER, fils of Carencro owned in 1860--30! 

Family tradition says that Michel was buried in the old yellow fever cemetery, which still can be seen in the middle of the small town of Washington, St. Landry Parish, the site of the original Opelousas Post.  Sadly, there is no gravestone there with Michel's name on it.  And it is unlikely that he died of yellow fever.  This terrible mosquito-born disease, called "the yellow jack" or "black vomit," did not reach New Orleans until 1796, & there were no reported cases of it in the Opelousas area during the colonial era, which ended in 1803.  See De Ville, Opelousas History, 39, 68n2.  The old cemetery probably earned its terrible name years after the death & burial of Michel CORMIER of Opelousas.  

Michel's oath of allegiance to the Spanish in Dec 1769, his land grant from Gov. UNZAGA, & the description of his house on Bayou Bourbeaux are from La Famille CORMIER files.  See Voorhies, J., 413, for the Jul 1789 Opelousas militia list, which may have been the last public record in which Michel CORMIER of Opelousas appeared.  Or this may have been his son Michel, fils, who was age 17 or 18  in 1789; Michel, père was age 48, still not too old for the militia.

15.  Wall of Names, 15 (pl. 2R), calls her Susanne CORMIER; Arsenault, Généalogie, 2464, 2465, says she was born in 1761; Hebert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:211 (SM Ch.: v.4, #223), her death/burial record.  See also De Ville, Opelousas Post Census, 1771, 9; De Ville, Southwest LA Families, 1777, 25.

16.  Not in Wall of Names.  Marriage information from descendant Geraldine Mouillé Morris. 

17.  Not in Wall of Names.  Hébert, D., Acadians in Exile, 85, her baptismal record, dated 22 Sep 1785, at Jean-Rabel, French St.-Domingue, calls her Rose Marguerite CORMIER & gives her parents' names.  Her father had died at Caracol, French St.-Domingue, the previous Apr.  NOAR, 8:73 (SLC, M5, 182), her marriage record, calls her Rosa, gives her parents' names, & says she was "native of the island of Santo Domingo, resident of this city."  NOAR, 13:99 (SLC, F11, 163), her burial record, calls her Rose Elisabeth [CORNIER], "native of Jarabel (Jean-Rabel) on the island of Santo Domingo, sp. Pierre Marie VINCENT," but does not give her age at the time of her death. 

She came to LA probably with her brother & sisters, so her marriage date gives an idea of when they arrived.  Like most of the Acadian refugees from Haiti/Cuba, she & her sisters remained at New Orleans, but her brother moved on to St. Landry Parish. 

Brasseaux & Conrad, eds., Road to LA, 212-13, part of an article entitled "The Saint-Domingue Refugees in Louisiana, 1792-1804," written by Gabriel Debien & René La Gardeur & translated by David Cheramie, says "A native of Jean-Rabel, Elisabeth-Rose CORMIER, married on December 4, 1829, Pierre-Marie VINCENT, the son of Améda and Louise ISNARD, in Saint Louis Cathedral, but she appears to have arrived in New Orleans well before 1809."  The marriage date given in Road to LA appears to be a misinterpretation of her death date.  The marriage date followed here is from NOAR, vol. 8.  Her husband likely was a French Creole VINCENT, not a fellow Acadian. 

18.  Not in Wall of Names.  NOAR, 11:98 (SLC, M6, 125), her marriage record, calls her Maria Renata, gives her parents' names, & says she was "native of Mole St. Nicolas on the island of Santo Domingo, resident of this parish." 

19.  Not in Wall of Names.  Hébert, D., Acadians in Exile, 85, his baptismal record, dated 7 Sep 1779, at Môle-St.-Nicolas, French St.-Domingue, calls him Nicolas CORMIER, & says his parents were M. [CORMIER] & Anastasie LEBLANC.  NOAR, 14:93 (SLC, F13, 40), his burial record, calls him Nicolas CORMIE, says his parents were Amand [CORMIE] & Anastasie LEBLANC, says he was "native of Môle St. Nicolas, island of Santo Domingo, that his wife was Marie SOLTERO, & says he died at age 42. 

Did he & his wife have any children? 

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Copyright (c) 2006-24  Steven A. Cormier