Jean
Corporon,
a farmer from France, married
Françoise, oldest daughter of
François
Savoie,
at Port-Royal in c1670.
She gave him 15 children. Four of their daughters married into the
Boudrot, Doucet, Le Clerc
dit Laverdure, and Hébert families. At
Annapolis Royal in the early 1700s, younger daughter Isabelle had a natural
son by René Fontaine and other natural children by
unrecorded fathers, and another younger daughter, Marguerite, had a natural
daughter and a natural son by Jean Lecul and Jean
Clémenceau, before they "married" into the Johnson
dit Jeanson and Samuel families.
Three of Jean and Françoise's four sons created families of their own:
Oldest son Jacques, born probably
at Port-Royal in c1675, survived childhood but did not marry.
Jean-Baptiste l'aîné, born
probably at Port-Royal
in c1677, married Marie, daughter of Philippe Pinet and Catherine
Hébert, probably at
Port-Royal in c1702. They had 10 children, including two sons who married into
the Bourhis and Viger dit Brigeau families.
Jean-Baptiste and Marie's daughters married into the Lartigue,
Latapy dit La Fleur, Bourhis,
and Lechoux families. In the 1710s, Jean-Baptiste
took his family from Minas to Port-Toulouse on Île Royale, today's Cape Breton Island,
and died there in March 1741, in his mid-60s.
Martin,
born probably at Port-Royal in c1687, married first to Cécile, daughter of François
Joseph dit Lejeune
and Jeanne Lejeune dit
Briard, and widow of Étienne Rivet, probably at Port-Royal in c1708.
They
settled at Pigiguit in the Minas Basin and had three children, including a son,
Pierre, who married into the
Viger and
Simon
families. Neither of Martin and Cécile's daughters married. Martin remarried to
Marie-Josèphe, daughter of
François Viger
and Marie Mius, in c1718;
Martin's new wife was the aunt of his son Pierre's first wife, Marie-Josèphe
Viger.
Martin and his second wife had six children. Neither of their two sons
created families of their own. Their four daughters married into the
Trahan, Roy, Dupuis
dit Raymond, Lejeune, and Simoneau
families. Martin took his family to the French Maritimes and died probably on Île St.-Jean, today's Prince Edward
Island, by July 1750, when his wife remarried to a Benoit
at Port-Lajoie.
Youngest son Jean le jeune,
born probably at Port-Royal in c1692, married Jeanne Pichot in
c1730. He was recorded on Île Royale in 1749, but he died at
Port-Lajoie, Île St.-Jean, in September 1756, age 68.
[For more of this family in
pre- and post-dispersal Acadia and Canada, see
Book Three]
In 1755, descendants of Jean
Corporon could be found at Mirliguèche on the Atlantic
coast southwest of Halifax, perhaps in the Minas Basin, and especially on
French-controlled Île Royale and Île St.-Jean.
LE GRAND DÉRANGEMENT
[For the family's travails
during the Great Upheaval, see
Book
Six]
LOUISIANA: RIVER
SETTLEMENTS
The first Corporon to
find refuge in Louisiana was Marie-Osite-Anne, age 31, daughter of Martin Corporon and
his second wife Marie-Josèphe Viger, who reached New Orleans from
Maryland in 1766 with her husband François Simoneau, age 38, a native of
Lorraine, France. They and
their four children, ages 6 to infancy, followed their fellow Maryland
exiles to Cabanocé/St.-Jacques on the river above New Orleans. By the
late 1770s, they had moved downriver to Ascension.
LOUISIANA: WESTERN
SETTLEMENTS
Marie-Osite-Anne's older sister Marie
also came to Spanish
Louisiana.
She arrived in October 1769
with husband Honoré Trahan,
age 43, and their 18-year-old son
Pierre.
They, too, had come to the colony from Maryland--in this case, Port
Tobacco--but their experience was very different from that of Marie's sister
Marie-Osite-Anne and the
Simoneaus. Marie and her family
left Port Tobacco in early 1769 aboard the ill-fated
British schooner Britannia. With them were other
Acadian families and eight German Catholic families who also chose to settle in
Spanish Louisiana. The English ship captain somehow missed the mouth
of the Mississippi River, and the Britannia ran aground on the Texas
coast near Espiritu Santo Bay. Spanish officials,
who feared that these ragged refugees were smugglers or
spies, held them at La Bahía for six long months, until
word reached the presidio commander that the crew and
passengers of this vessel were harmless. After a
harrowing overland trek from La Bahía to Natchitoches,
which they reached in October, Marie and Honoré chose to settle in the
Opelousas District, north of Attakapas: They settled west of the Atchafalaya Basin in the Opelousas District, where
Honoré had family. Marie died at Opelousas in August 1810; the priest
who recorded her burial said that she was "de cent ans et plus,"
or over 100 years old, when she died, but she
was closer to 90.
LOUISIANA: LAFOURCHE
VALLEY SETTLEMENTS
During the late 1780s and early
1790s, Spanish
officials were counting Marie-Anne-Osite Corporon, her husband François Simoneau, and their children
on upper Bayou Lafourche. Marie-Anne-Osite died at
Assumption on the upper Lafourche in September 1802, in her late 60s.
CONCLUSION
No male Corporon came
to Louisiana, so this old Acadian family, except for its blood, did not take root in the Bayou State.
However, all of the many Simoneuxs of South Louisiana, and many of the
Trahans, are Corporons through
the maternal line.
The family's name also is spelled Corporeaux, Corpran,
Corpron. [See also
Book
Ten]
Sources: Arsenault,
Généalogie, 494-95, 1366-68; Brasseaux, Founding of New Acadia,
105; Hébert, D., Acadians in Exile, 86; <islandregister.com/1752.html>;
<perso.orange.fr/froux/St_malo_arrivees/5bateaux.htm>,
Family No. 135; White, DGFA-1, 363, 411-17, 620, 1033;
White, DGFA-1 English, 92-93, 130, 220.