APPENDICES

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

Dubois dit DUMONT

[doo-MONH]

ACADIA

Jean-Baptiste dit Dumont, son of carpenter René Dubois and Anne-Julienne Dumont of Montréal married Marie, daughter of André Simon dit Boucher and Marie Martin, at Port-Royal in May 1710.  Jean-Baptiste died at Grand-Pré in November 1713, but not before fathering a son, Joseph dit Dumont, born at Port-Royal in March 1712.  Joseph dit Dumont settled on Île St.-Jean, today's Prince Edward Island, and married Marie-Madeleine, daughter of Jean-Baptiste Vécot and Marie Chiasson, at St.-Pierre-du-Nord in February 1739. 

Joseph chose as his surname not Dubois but his father's dit and his paternal grandmother's surname Dumont.  Joseph and Marie-Madeleine had only daughters:  Anne, born in c1740, Marie-Madeleine in c1741, Marie in c1742, Marie-Josèphe in c1745, Hélène in c1747, and Susanne in 1751.  Wife Marie-Madeleine died soon after the birth of daughter Susanne.  When a French official counted the family at Havre-St.-Pierre in August 1752, Joseph lived with four of his daughters and no wife.  One wonders what happened to daughters Marie-Madeleine and Marie-Josèphe. 

[See also Book Three]

LE GRAND DÉRANGEMENT

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

LOUISIANA:  RIVER SETTLEMENTS

With three of their children--daughter Marie, age 14, son Grégoire-Alexis, called Alexis, born at Chantenay, near Nantes, in 1781, and son Julien, born in February 1783--Hélène Dumont, age 38, and husband Grégoire Lejeune, age 45, sailed to Louisiana aboard Le Bon Papa, the first of the Seven Ships of 1785, which reached New Orleans in July.  After a month of recuperation in the city, they followed the other passengers from their ship to the Acadian settlement of St.-Gabriel de Manchac, near Baton Rouge.  They had no more children in Louisiana.  Hélène died in West Baton Rouge Parish in September 1815, in her late 60s.  Grégoire outlived her by 11 years, dying in July 1826, in his late 80s.  He never remarried.

CONCLUSION

Since Hélène was the only member of her family to make it to Louisiana, the Dumonts of South Louisiana are French Creoles or Foreign French, not Acadians.  Only the blood of the Acadian Dumonts survived in the Bayou State, as did the blood of the Vecos of Île St.-Jean through Hélène and her children by Grégoire Lejeune.  

The family's name also is spelled Dumon, Dumonde.  [See also Book Ten]

Sources:  Arsenault, Généalogie, 534-35, 2090; BRDR, vol. 3; De La Roque, "Tour of Inspection," Canadian Archives 1905, 2A:137; <islandregister.com/1752.html>; <perso.orange.fr/froux/St_malo_arrivees/Duc_Guillaume.htm>, Family No. 81; Robichaux, Acadians in Chatellerault, 70; Robichaux, Acadians in Nantes, 126-27; White, DGFA-1, 554-55; White, DGFA-1 English, 117.   

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

For a chronology of Acadian Arrivals in Louisiana, 1764-early 1800s, see Appendix.

The hyperlink attached to an individual's name is connected to a list of Acadian immigrants for a particular settlement and provides a different perspective on the refugee's place in family and community. 

NOTES

01.  Wall of Names, 28 (pl. 6R), calls her Elènne DUMON, & lists her with her husband, 3 children, & a niece; Arsenault, Généalogie, 2090;  Robichaux, Acadians in St.-Malo, 586-87, Family No. 661; Robichaux, Acadians in Châtellerault, 70, Family No. 141; Robichaux, Acadians in Nantes, 126, Family No. 229; Hébert, D., Acadian Families in Exile 1785, 6-7, calls her Elènne DUMON, sa [Grégoire LEJEUNE's] femme, age 36, on the embarkation list, Helena DUMONT, su [Jean Bautista (sic) LEJEUNE's] muger, on the debarkation list, & Hélène DUMONT, his [Grégoire LEJEUNE's] wife, age 36, on the complete listing, says she was in the 20th Family aboard Le Bon Papa with her husband, 3 children, & a niece, & details her marriage, including the names of her & her husband's parents, & the name of her husband's first wife, but gives no place of marriage; BRDR, 3:295 (SJO-4, 87), her death/burial record, calls her Helena DUMONDE, "age 70 yrs., wid.," but does not give her parents' names or her husband's name.  See also De La Roque, "Tour of Inspection," Canadian Archives, 2A:137. 

<perso.orange.fr/froux/St_malo_arrivees/Duc_Guillaume.htm>, Family No. 81, shows that in the crossing to St.-Malo in 1758-59, her father, Joseph DUMONT, a widower, no age given, died at sea, but that she & her 2 sisters, Anne, age 20, & Marie, age 17, survived the crossing.

Despite what her burial record says, her husband was still very much alive in Sep 1815.  He did not die, in fact, until Jul 1826, in his late 80s.  See BRDR, 4:370 (SJO-11, 16).  

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Copyright (c) 2007-22  Steven A. Cormier