APPENDICES

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

DUPLESSIS

[doo-PLEH-see]

ACADIA

Claude-Antoine, son of Claude Duplessis and Marie Derivie, born at St.-Jean de St.-Quentin, Noyons, Picardie, France, in c1709, reached Acadia by September 1736, when he married Catherine, daughter of Pierre Lejeune dit Briard and Marie Thibodeau and widow of Antoine Lanoue, at Grand-Pré; Catherine was eight years older than her surgeon husband and a granddaughter of Pierre Thibodeau of Pré Ronde and Chepoudy.  In the 1740s, Claude-Antoine moved his family to Chignecto, and they were there in 1750 when Canadian soldiers and Abbé Le Loutre's Mi'kmaq burned the villages east of Rivière Missaguash to drive the Acadians into French-controlled territory west of that stream.  Soon after, Claude-Antoine and Catherine moved on to Île St.-Jean, today's Prince Edward Island, probably to escape the chaos at Chignecto.  In August 1752, a French official counted the family at Havre-St.-Pierre on the north shore of the island.  With them were three children:  Anastasie-Adélaïde, born at Grand-Pré in June 1737; Marie-Louise in April 1739; and François-Marin probably at Chignecto in c1749.  Also with them was orphan Louis Labauve, age 12, native of Acadia's Atlantic coast. 

[See also Book Three]

LE GRAND DÉRANGEMENT

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

LOUISIANA:  LAFOURCHE VALLEY SETTLEMENTS

Pierre Gautrot and his wife Marie-Louise Duplessis made the journey to Louisiana in the spring and summer of 1785 aboard Le Bergère, the second of the Seven Ships from France.  Only daughter Marguerite-Adélaïde Gautrot, called Adélaïde, age 9, accompanied them; all of their other children had been buried in France.  They settled on upper Bayou Lafourche with most of their fellow passengers from La Bergère.  Daughter Adélaïde married a French Creole, François Freoux, whose mother was a Robichaux, at Lafourche in February 1792.  Pierre and Marie-Louise had no other children.  Marie-Louise died in Assumption Parish in January 1808, age 68. 

CONCLUSION

Dupleci/Duplessiss were living in colonial Louisiana as early as the late 1740s.  They became especially numerous at New Orleans by the 1770s.  Marie-Louise Duplessis of Grand-Pré was the only member of her family to come to Louisiana.  Except for its blood, then, the Acadian branch of this family did not survive in the Bayou State.  The many Duplessiss of South Louisiana are descended from French Creoles or Foreign French, not Acadians.

The family's name is also spelled Duplecy, Duplesix, Duplessy, Duplicy.  [See also Book Ten]

Sources:  Arsenault, Généalogie, 1159-60; Brasseaux, Foreign French, 1:182-83, 3:93; BRDR, vol. 1a(rev.), 2, 3, 4, 5(rev.), 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11; De La Roque, "Tour of Inspection," Canadian Archives 1905, 2A:139; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, vols. 1-A, 3; <islandregister.com/1752.html>; NOAR, vols. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7; <perso.orange.fr/froux/St_malo_arrivees/5bateaux.htm>, Family Nos. 72, 97; Robichaux, Acadians in Châtellerault, 44; Robichaux, Acadians in Nantes, 69-70; Robichaux, Acadians in St.-Malo, 310-11, 351-53.

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):

Asc

Ascension

Lf

Lafourche (Lafourche, Terrebonne)

PCP

Pointe Coupée

Asp

Assumption

Natc

Natchitoches (Natchitoches)

SB San Bernardo (St. Bernard)

Atk

Attakapas (St. Martin, St. Mary, Lafayette, Vermilion)

Natz

San Luìs de Natchez (Concordia)

StG

St.-Gabriel d'Iberville (Iberville)

BdE

Bayou des Écores (East Baton Rouge, West Feliciana)

NO

New Orleans (Orleans)

StJ

St.-Jacques de Cabanocé (St. James)

BR

Baton Rouge (East Baton Rouge, West Baton Rouge)

Op

Opelousas (St. Landry, Calcasieu)

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

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

Name Arrived Settled Profile
Marie-Louise DUPLESSIS 01 Aug 1785 Asp born & baptized 2 Apr 1739, Grand-Pré; daughter of Surgeon Claude-Antoine DUPLESSIS & Catherine LEJEUNE; at Havre-St.-Pierre, Île St.-Jean, Aug 1752, age 13; married, age 19, Pierre, son of Pierre GAUTREAUX & Marie BIJEAU/BUJOLE of Grand-Pré, c1758, probably on Île St.-Jean; deported from Île St.-Jean to St.-Malo, France, aboard one of the Five Ships 25 Nov 1758, arrived St.-Malo 23 Jan 1759, called Marie DUPLESSIS, age 18[sic]; at Châteauneuf, France, 1759-62; at St.-Servan-sur-Mer, France, 1762-72; in Poitou, France, 1773-75; in Third Convoy from Châtellerault to Nantes, France, Dec 1775; on list of Acadians at Nantes, Sep 1784, called Marie, with husband & 2 unnamed daughters; sailed to LA on La Bergère, age 46; in Valenzuela census, 1788, left bank, called Marie DUPLESSY, age 45[sic], with husband & 1 daughter; in Valenzuela census, 1795, called Maria DUPLESIX, age 53[sic], with husband & no children; in Valenzuela census, 1797, called Marie, age 54[sic], with husband & no children; in Valenzuela census, 1798, called Marie, no surname given, age 63[sic], with husband & no children; died [buried] Assumption Parish 26 Jan 1808, age 67[sic], a widow

NOTES

01.  Wall of Names, 30 (pl. 7L), calls her Marie DUPLESSIS, & lists her with her husband & a daughter; Arsenault, Généalogie, 1159-1160, calls her Anne-Louise DUPLESSIS, says she was born in 1739, provides her parents' names, her grandparents' names, the details of her parents' marriage, & the names & birth years of some of her siblings; BRDR, 1a(rev.):67 (SGA-2, 178), her birth/baptismal record, calls her Marie-Louise DUPLECY, gives her parents' names, calls her father Me. chirurgien, says he signed as C. A. DUPLESSIS, & that her godparents were Éstienne LEBLANC & Euphrasine LANOUE; <perso.orange.fr/froux/St_malo_arrivees/5bateaux.htm>, Family No. 97, shows that in the crossing to St.-Malo in 1758-59, she & her husband, age 27, survived, but their son Nicolas GAUTROT, born 30 Mar 1759 probably at St.-Malo (which means she was pregnant the entire voyage) died 19 Jun 1759 probably from the rigors of the voyage; Robichaux, Acadians in St.-Malo, 310-11, Family No. 374, her birth/baptismal record, calls her Marie-Louise DUPLESSIS, gives her parents' but not her godparents' names, says her father was born in c1710 & her mother in c1702, gives her grandparents' names & her paternal grandparents' home parish in France, says her mother's first husband was Antoine LANOUE, that her parents married on 3 Sep 1736, at "St.-Charles-des-Mines, Acadie," that she was counted at St.-Pierre-du-Nord, Île St.-Jean, in 1752, with her parents & 2 siblings, brother Francois-Marin & sister Anastasie, that she married Pierre GAUTROT in c1758 but gives no place of marriage, that her father & mother survived the crossing to St.-Malo in 1758-59 aboard one of the Five Ships, that her parents resided at Châteauneuf from 1759-62, at St.-Suliac from 1762-63, & at St.-Servan from 1763-72, & that her father died at age 62 on 16 Sep 1772 & was buried next day, St.-Malo; Robichaux, Acadians in St.-Malo, 351-53, Family No. 426, calls her Marie-Louise DUPLESSIS; Robichaux, Acadians in Châtellerault, 44, Family No. 86, calls her Marie-Louise DUPLESSIS, details her birth/baptism, gives her parents' names, says she married in c1758 but gives no place of marriage, does not give her husband's parents' names, says he was born in c1732 but gives no birthplace, that he was a ploughman, provides the birth/baptismal and death/burial records of son Jean-Pierre GAUTROT, born & baptized 11 Aug 1763, St.-Servan, godson of Jean DAIGLE & Marie COVENANCE, died age 11 & buried 18 Sep 1774, St.-Jean-L'Evangeliste, Châtellerault, daughter Marie-Angélique GAUTROT, born 28 Dec 1770, baptized next day, St.-Servan, goddaughter of Alexandre LEMOTHE & Élizabeth LEJEUNE, died age 3 & buried 20 Aug 1774, St.-Jean-L'Evangeliste, Châtellerault, & daughter Marguerite-Adélaïde GAUTROT, baptized 20 Jul 1774, St.-Jean-L'Evangeliste, Châtellerault, goddaughter of Alexis GAUTROT & Marie LEBLANC, wife of Jean GUÉDRY, & details the family's participation in the Poitou settlement of the early 1770s; Robichaux, Acadians in Nantes, 69-70, Family No. 131, calls her Marie DUPLESSIS; Hébert, D., Acadian Families in Exile 1785, 18-19, calls her Marie DUPLESSIS, sa [Pierre GOTREAU's] femme, age 47, on the embarkation list, does not include her on the debarkation list, calls her Marie DUPLESSIS, his [Pierre GAUTROT's] wife, age 47, on the complete listing, says she was in the 33rd Family aboard La Bergère with her husband & a daughter, details her marriage, gives her parents' names but not her husband's parents' names, & says daughter Adélaïde GAUTROT was born in 1774 but gives no birth place; BRDR, 3:297 (ASM-3, 52), her burial record, calls her Marie Louise DUPLESSIS, "age 67 yrs., wid. Pierre GOTEREAU," but does not give her parents' names.  .

Her sister Anastasie-Adélaïde married Louis-Auguste, son of Bonaventure DARDET & Antoinette BLIN of St.-Jacques la Boucherie Parish, Paris, on 7 Dec 1790 at either St.-Sauveur of Cayenne or Notre-Dame-des-Ardiliers, Île Miquelon, depending on the source.  They did not go to LA.  

[top of page DUPLESSIS]

Copyright (c) 2007-22  Steven A. Cormier