APPENDICES

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

GOUSMAN

[goose-MANH]

ACADIA

Jean, fils, son of Jean Gousman and Marie Granielle, born probably at St.-Nicolas, Andalusia, Spain, came to British Nova Scotia by c1755, when he married Acadian Marie Barrieau probably at Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia.  She died without giving him any children.  In January 1760, while in exile, the Spaniard remarried to Rose, daughter of Acadians Jacques dit Jacquot Bonnevie dit Beaumont, fils and his first wife Marguerite Lord of Annapolis Royal and Île St.-Jean, at Restigouche at the head of the Baie des Chaleurs.  Rose gave him at least two children, a daughter and a son. 

[See also Book Three]

LE GRAND DÉRANGEMENT

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

LOUISIANA:  RIVER SETTLEMENTS

Jean Gousman, fils, age 56, second wife Rose Bonnevie, age 44, and two of their children--daughter Rosalie-Charlotte, age 21, and son Jean-Thomas, age 2--sailed to Louisiana aboard L'Amitié, the fifth of the Seven Ships from France, which reached New Orleans in November 1785.  They followed some of the other passengers from L'Amitié to a settlement south of New Orleans.  San Bernardo, also called Nueva Gálvez, was an Isleño community along Bayou Terre-aux-Beoufs dating back to early 1779.  The Isleños, or Canary Islanders, spoke Spanish, so it is no wonder that this Spanish-speaking Andalusian chose to settle there. 

Rosalie-Charlotte probably did not follow her parents to San Bernardo.  In January 1786, she married Frenchman Claude-Epiphane Le Faibre of Caillouel, Picardie, perhaps a crewman aboard L'Amitié.  They settled at New Orleans.  Rosalie-Charlotte remarried to Evan-Jean Detresse at New Orleans in c1795; he was a native of New York.  She died at New Orleans in October 1829, a widow; the priest who recorded her burial said that Rosalie Charlotte died at age "ca. 70 yr.," but she probably was closer to 65. 

Descendants of Jean GOUSMAN, fils (c1729-1790s)

Jean, fils, son of Jean Gousman, père and Marie Granielle of St.-Nicolas, Andalusia, Spain, was the widower of Marie Barrieau of Port-Royal and the husband of Rose Bonnevie dit Beaumont of Île Royale when he came to Louisiana in 1785.  His second wife died at San Bernardo in October 1791.  Their daughter Rosalie Charlotte married into the Lefevre family.  Jean, fils, in his early 60s, remarried again--his third marriage--to Brigitte, daughter of Acadian Charles Trahan and widow of Étienne Landry and Philippe Boudier, at either San Bernardo or New Orleans soon after Rose died.  Brigitte gave him another son, who survived childhood, created a family of his own, and, like his father, married three times.  But the son did not remain in the New Orleans/St. Bernard Parish area. 

1

Older son Jean-Thomas, by his father's second wife, baptized at St.-Martin-de-Chantenay, France, age unrecorded, in August 1783, probably died young. 

2

Younger son Jean III, by his father's third wife, born at New Orleans or San Bernardo in c1793 when his father was in his early 60s, married Anne Marie Candelaria, called Marie, daughter of French Creole Pierre Honoré Veillon of St. Bernard Parish, at New Orleans in June 1817; the recording priest used the surname Gusman for Jean III.  Their son Pierre Cyprien was born at New Orleans in May 1818, Barthélemy Eugène, called Bart, in St. Bernard Parish in February 1820, Valéry in March 1822, and Jean Evariste in October 1829.  In c1822, Jean and Marie moved north from St. Bernard to St. Tammany Parish and settled on Bayou Bonfouca near present-day Slidell.  Their daughters Joséphine and Marie Brigida married into the Hosmer and Merritt families.  Jean III remarried to Mathilde, 36-year-old daughter of René Baham, in St. Tammany Parish in October 1842.  Their son Paul Lyman was born in St. Tammany Parish in c1843, and Martin Joseph in November 1845.  Jean III remarried again--his third marriage--to Hamilton, daughter of Irishman Samuel Stewart, at New Orleans in September 1849; Jean III was in his late 50s.  In 1836, Jean III lived in the Fourth Ward of St. Tammany Parish and owned 70 slaves; he also "engaged in manufactures at his establishment on Bayou Vincent."  His will was notarized at New Orleans in January 1857 and filed at the Covington courthouse, St. Tammany Parish.  Jean III died at his home on Bayou Bonfouca in September 1858, age 65; he was buried next to his first wife in what became Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Cemetery, the site of his old homestead (the Gusman family donated the land for Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic church and school, hence its location on the family's old home site). 

2a

Pierre Cyprien, by his father's first wife, married Moniute or Innocente Piernas in St. Tammany Parish in 1841.  Pierre Cyprien died in St. Tammany Parish in August 1858, age 40. 

2b

Bart, by his father's first wife, married Louisiana Childress in St. Tammany Parish in November 1841.  Their son Alfred Valéry was born in St. Tammany Parish in 1843, and John Arthur in 1855.  Bart remarried to Aglae or Abigail Favre at Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, in November 1859.  Aglae probably was part Indian, perhaps Choctaw.  They remained at Bay St. Louis. Their daughter married into the Luc de Guerre family.  During the War Between the States, Bart served in the 3rd Regiment Mississippi Volunteer Infantry; he enlisted in 1861 as first sergeant of his company but was discharged in October 1862 because of his age; he was 42.  Bart died by 1869, when his wife remarried; he would have been in his late 40s. 

Alfred Valéry, by his father's first wife, died in Mobile County, Alabama, in June 1928, age 85.  

2c

Valéry, by his father's first wife, attended Springhill College in Mobile, Alabama, and died at Mobile in 1839, age 17, probably while still a student. 

2d

Jean Evariste, called John E., from his father's first wife, married Mary Ann, daughter of John Carey, in St. Tammany Parish in December 1857, and remarried to Josephine Cooper at Slidell, St. Tammany Parish, in March 1882.  Jean Evariste died at Slidell in December 1914, age 85; he was buried in Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Cemetery near his parents and near the site of his birth.  Guzman and Carey streets in Slidell are named for him and his wife's family. 

2e

Paul Lyman, by his father's second wife, married Harriet, daughter of Abraham Stover Penn, in St. Tammany Parish in December 1865.  Paul died at Florenville, St. Tammany Parish, in February 1907, in his early 60s. 

2f

Martin Joseph, by his father's second wife, married Estelle Faciane probably in St. Tammany Parish in August 1872, and remarried to Georgianna Cooper probably in St. Tammany Parish in June 1883.  Martin Joseph died at Hodge, Louisiana, in April 1938, age 92. 

NON-ACADIAN FAMILIES in LOUISIANA

Gusman or Guzman is a fairly common Hispanic surname, so it is no surprise that members of the family settled in Spanish Louisiana: 

The Gusman/Guzmans were Isleños who settled at San Bernardo in the late 1770s.  They were neighbors, then, of Jean Gousman of Andalusia, who probably was not their kin. 

Josef, son of Andres Gusman and Juana Cadon of Santiago le los Cavilleros, Santo Domingo, today's Dominican Republic, died at Charity Hospital in New Orleans in March 1798.  The priest who recorded the burial said that Josef was age 42 when he died.  The priest mentioned no wife, so one wonders if Josef had a family of his own. 

Joseph Guzman died suddenly in St. Bernard Parish in October 1813, age 50.  The priest who recorded the burial did not give his parents' names or mention a wife. 

CONCLUSION

This Acadian family, especially its settlement pattern, is like no other.  Their Spanish roots were perhaps unique among Acadian immigrants. 

Jean Gousman, fils of Andalusia, Spain, perhaps a sailor, lived at Annapolis Royal, British Nova Scotia, at Restigouche, Halifax, and on Île Miquelon in greater Acadia, and at Le Havre, Poitou, and Nantes, France, before and during the Great Upheaval.  He married two Acadians--at Annapolis Royal in c1755 and at Restigouche in 1760--in greater Acadia.  He brought a son, Jean-Thomas, to Louisiana from France in 1785, but there is no evidence that the boy survived to raise a family of his own.  Jean, fils, who settled in the Isleño community of San Bernardo, south of New Orleans, remarried--again, to another Acadian--at San Bernardo in the early 1790s, when he was in his early 60s.  He died probably at San Bernardo later in the decade. 

It was a son from Jean, fil's third marriage, to Brigitte Trahan, also twice widowed, who perpetuated this family in the Bayou State.  In 1817, Jean III married into a prominent French Creole family of St. Bernard Parish, but he and his wife did not remain there.  In c1822, they crossed Lake Pontchartrain to St. Tammany Parish and settled on Bayou Bonfouca near present-day Slidell, where Jean III remarried twice.  His second wife gave him more children; his third wife did not.  The Gousmans probably were the only Acadian family living in St. Tammany Parish before the War of 1861-65.  And there they remained.  In the years that followed, their family name evolved from Gousman to Gusman and Guzman.  The town of Slidell was founded in the early 1880s when the railroad came through the area, and it was incorporated in 1888.  The Guzmans, who decades before had settled where the town was laid out, could rightly claim that they were among Slidell's first residents. 

The family did well on its large holdings in St. Tammany Parish during the antebellum period.  Jean Guzman III, called John by his Anglophone neighbors, held 70 slaves in 1836 and "engaged in manufactures." ...

The family's name also is spelled Gouchemen, Gousmont.  [See Book Ten for the family's Louisiana "begats"]

Sources:  Arsenault, Généalogie, 583, 1659, 2096, 2236; Hodson, Acadian Disaspora, 171; NOAR, vols. 3, 4, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18; Robichaux, Acadians in Châtellerault, 45-46; Robichaux, Acadians in Nantes, 71; Marsha Schneider Ladner, descendant.  

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, 39 (pl. 10L), calls him Jean GUSMAN, & lists him with his wife & 2 children; Arsenault, Généalogie, 583, the Port-Royal section, also spells his surname GOUCHEMAN, GOUSMONT, calls him Jean GOUSMAN, says he was born in c1733 but gives no birthplace, gives his parents' names & their home in Spain, presumably his birthplace, calls his first wife Marie BARRILOT, says they married in c1755 but does not give her parents' names nor the place of marriage, details his second marriage, including his second wife's parents' names, says he was at Ristigouche[sic] in 1760, Halifax in 1763, where he says he was a prisoner, Miquelon in 1767, Havre in 1772, & LA in 1785, & says his children were Raphaël, born in 1762, Rosalie-Charlotte, born in 1764, Gousman, born in 1766, Étienne, born in 1767, Joseph-Antoine, born in 1768, Jean-Baptiste, born in 1770, Anne-Marie, born in 1772, & Jean-Thomas, born in 1783, but gives no birthplaces; Arsenault, Généalogie, 2236, the Île Miquelon section, calls him Jean GOUSMAN, says he was born in 1733 but gives no birthplace, says he was from Port-Royal, gives his parents' names & their home in Spain, presumably his birthplace, calls his first wife Marie BARILLOT but gives no details of the marriage, details his second marriage, including his second wife's parents' names, calls his second wife's mother Marguerite LAURE, says he was at "Ristigouche," Halifax, where he says he was detained in 1763, Miquelon in 1766, Havre in 1772, & LA in 1785, & lists no children; Robichaux, Acadians in Châtellerault, 45-46, Family No. 89, calls him Jean GOUSMAN, says he was born in c1729 "in the parish of St. Nicolas of the bishopric of Andolousie," calls his father Jean GOUSMAN but does not give his mother's name, calls his first wife Marie BARRILLOT, says he was a seaman, details his second marriage, says his second wife was born in c1741 but gives no birthplace, gives her parents' names, includes the birth/baptismal & death/burial records of daughter Ludivine, baptized 24 Aug 1774, Cenan, goddaughter of Dominique GIROIRE & Ludivine MOULAISON, died age 17 days & buried 11 Sep 1774, Cenan, &, listing only 2 children, Joseph-Antoine & Rosalie-Charlotte, details the family's participation in the Poitou settlement of the early 1770s; Robichaux, Acadians in Nantes, 71, Family No. 134, calls him Jean GOUSMAN, says he was born in c1729 "in the Parish of Saint-Nicolas of the bishopric of Andalousie," gives his father's but not his mother's name, calls his first wife Marie BARRILLOT, says he was a seaman, details his second marriage, says his second wife was born in c1741 but gives no birthplace, gives her parents' names, includes the birth/baptismal record of son Jean-Thomas, baptized 13 Aug 1783, St.-Martin de Chantenay but does not give his godparents' names, &, listing only 2 children, Joseph-Antoine & Rosalie-Charlotte, details the family's participation in the Poitou settlement of the early 1770s & its voyage to LA in 1785; Hébert, D., Acadian Families in Exile 1785, 66-67, calls him Jean GUSMAN, journalier, age 50, on the embarkation list, Juan GUZMAN, on the debarkation list, & Jean GOUSMAN, day laborer, age 50, on the complete listing, says he was in the 1st Family aboard L'Amitié with his wife & 2 children, lists no implements the Spanish may have given them after they reached LA, &, calling him Jean GOUSMAN, details his second marriage, including his & his wife's parents' names but substitutes his first wife's name for his mother's name, & says he & his second wife married in 1760 but gives no place of marriage.  

His estimated birth year is from Robichaux, not Arsenault or the age given on the passenger list of L'Amitié.  But where did Robichaux get his information?  

He & his family do not appear on the repatriation list compiled at Halifax in Aug 1763.  See Jehn, Acadian Exiles in the Colonies, 243-47, 249-52.  This compels us to take the word of Bona Arsenault. 

Where did Arsenault find the names & birth years of most of his children?

It would make sense that a Spanish speaker would go to an Isleños community, though Valenzuela on the upper Lafourche, near Ascension, where the majority of the passengers from his ship settled, also was an Isleños community, as was Galveztown, near St.-Gabriel, in present-day northeastern Ascension Parish.  Descendant Marsha Schneider Ladner has found Jean GOUSMAN mentioned in several San Bernardo land records from the early 1790s, so I have no doubt that he went there.

Mrs. Ladner also is the source for Jean's remarriage to Brigitte TRAHAN.  They had a son named Jean, born in c1793, who married into the prominent VEILLON family in St. Bernard Parish in 1817.  Jean III and his wife Anne Marie VEILLON moved to the Slidell area of St. Tammany Parish in c1822--a most unusual move for an Acadian.  But this was not your typical Acadian family. 

Mrs. Ladner, the source for Jean's wife Brigitte being called a widow in Jul 1801, found a civil record in St. Bernard Parish that refers to "'Widow Gusman, Brigitte TRAPAN, of St. Bernard, in the City (New Orleans) for this day,' when she gran[ted] her power of Atty to Renato LEROUX (her son in law) in July 1801."  She has found no burial record for either Jean or Brigitte. 

02.  Wall of Names, 39 (pl. 10L), calls him Jean-Thomas GUSMAN, & lists him with his parents & a sister; Robichaux, Acadians in Nantes, Family No. 134, his birth/baptismal record, calls him Jean-Thomas [GOUSMAN], gives his parents' but not his godparents' names, & details the family's voyage to LA in 1785; Hébert, D., Acadian Families in Exile 1785, 66-67, calls him Jean-Thomas, son [Jean GUSMAN's] fils, age 2, on the embarkation list, does not include him on the debarkation list, calls him Jean-Thomas GOUSMAN, his [Jean GOUSMAN's] son, age 2, on the complete listing, & says he was in the 1st Family aboard L'Amitié with his parents & a sister.  

He probably died young, but family historian Marsha Ladner has found no burial record for him.  According to Mrs. Ladner, we can conclude from children's baptismal records, however, that he was not the Jean GOUSMAN who married Anne Marie VEILLON in St. Bernard Parish in 1817. 

03.  Wall of Names, 39 (pl. 10L), calls her Rosalie-Charlotte GUSMAN, & lists her with her parents & a brother; Robichaux, Acadians in Chatellerault, 45-46, Family No. 89, calls her Rosalie-Charlotte [GOUSMAN], gives her parents' names, & details the family's participation in the Leigne-les-bois settlement in Poitou in the early 1770s; Robichaux, Acadians in Nantes, Family No. 134, calls her Rosalie-Charlotte [GOUSMAN], gives her parents' names, & details the family's participation in the Leigne-les-bois settlement in Poitou in the early 1770s as well as its voyage to LA in 1785; Hébert, D., Acadian Families in Exile 1785, 66-67, calls her Rosalie-Charlotte, sa [Jean GUSMAN's] fille, age 21, on the embarkation list, does not include her on the debarkation list, calls her Rosalie-Charlotte GOUSMAN, his [Jean GOUSMAN's] daughter, age 21, on the complete listing, & says she was in the 1st Family aboard L'Amitié with his parents & a brother; NOAR, 18:193 (SLC, F15, 86), her death/burial record, calls her Rosalie Charlotte GUZMAN, "native of Halifax in North America (Nova Scotia), Widow LEFEVRE," says she died at age "ca. 70 yr.," & gives her parents' names.  

Her marriages are from Marsha Schneider Ladner.  Hébert, D., Acadian Families in Exile 1785, 85, calls Rosalie-Charlotte's first husband Claude-Epiphane LE FAIBRE, & includes him on the list of "Names with no reference on the Embarkation list," which means he was either a stowaway or a member of the ship's crew.  Mrs. Ladner says he was a member of the ship's crew.  Rosalie & Claude had a son named Charles, born at New Orleans in Aug 1791.  His birth/baptismal record, dated 26 Aug 1791, in NOAR, 5:104 (SLC, B11, 156), gives the boy's grandparents' as well as his parents' names & where they all were from.  The priest who recorded the baptism calls the boy Carlos DE FEUVRE & says Rosalia Carlota GUZMAN was "of Canada, of San Pedro de Mi(cl)on (St.-Pierre-et-Miquelon)."  Her second husband was from NY.  Why does her burial record not mention her second husband? 

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