APPENDICES

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

SURETTE

[suh-RET]

ACADIA

Pierre, son of Noël Surette and Françoise Colarde of Mauset, diocese of La Rochelle, France, born in c1679, was a sailor when he married Jeanne, daughter of Étienne Pellerin and Jeanne Savoie, at Port-Royal in February 1709.  They remained at Port-Royal, soon renamed Annapolis Royal, and settled in the parish of St.-Laurent on the haute rivière, now the upper Annapolis River.  Although Pierre became a farmer along the upper Rivière-au-Dauphin, he also continued to work as a sailor.  As late as 1724, when he was in his mid-40s, records show him as a crew member on Englishman William Winniett's sailing vessel.  Pierre died at Annapolis Royal in October 1749, age 70.  Jeanne died at Québec in January 1758 during exile, also at age 70.  Pierre and Jeanne had nine children, all born at Annapolis Royal.  Four of their daughters married into the Doucet, Gignac, Long, Mius d'Azy, and Petitot dit Saint-Seine families.  Pierre and Jeanne's three sons also created families of their own, but they did not remain on haute rivière.  

Oldest son Pierre, fils, also called Pierre II, born in December 1709, married Catherine, daughter of Pierre Breau and Anne LeBlanc, at Grand-Pré in September 1732 and lived at Minas before moving to Beaubassin.  

Joseph, born in May 1712, married Marguerite, daughter of Claude Thériot and Marguerite Cormier, at Grand-Pré in October 1730.  They remained at Minas before moving to Petitcoudiac, where Joseph drowned in the river there in c1750.  

Youngest son Paul, twin of sister Madeleine, born in November 1721, married Marie-Josèphe, daughter of ____ Landry and Élisabeth Thériot and widow of Jean Landry, in c1758, during exile.  

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

In 1755, descendants of Pierre Surette the sailor could be found at Annapolis Royal, Minas, and Petitcoudiac. 

LE GRAND DÉRANGEMENT

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

LOUISIANA:  WESTERN SETTLEMENTS

Surettes were among the earliest Acadians to seek refuge in Louisiana.  Pierre Surette, age unrecorded, came with the Broussard dit Beausoleil party from Halifax that reached New Orleans via Cap-Français, French St.-Domingue, in February 1765.  He was a part of the Broussard party because his wife, 25-year-old Marie Thibodeau, was a Broussard cousin.  With them was daughter Marie-Anne, age 3.  Also in the party were Marie's widowed mother and three of Marie's younger siblings.  After a short respite in New Orleans, during which daughter Marie-Anne was baptized on March 4 at the St.-Louis church, Pierre and Marie followed the Broussards to the Attakapas District, where they helped created La Nouvelle-Acadie on the banks of Bayou Teche.  Marie was pregnant when they reached Attakapas, and in June, two months after they settled on the Teche, she gave birth to son Augustin.  

That summer and fall, an epidemic swept through the Teche valley settlements and killed dozens of Acadians.  When French officials counted the surviving Attakapas settlers in April 1766, only Marie Thibodeaux and daughter Marie-Anne Surette were left in her household at La Manque on the lower Teche.  Pierre and infant son Augustin must have died by then, perhaps unrecorded victims of the epidemic.  Marie remained on the Teche and remarried to fellow Acadian Jean-Baptiste Semer at Attakapas in c1768.  

Daughter Marie-Anne married Firmin dit Ephrem, son of fellow Acadians Bruno Robichaux and Félicité Broussard, at Attakapas in April 1778, and remarried to Marcel, son of fellow Acadians Paul LeBlanc and Agnès or Anne Babin, at the St. Martinville church, St. Martin Parish, in August 1811, in her late 40s.  Soon after their marriage, Marie-Anne's second husband secured a decree of separation from her.  She died at her home at Grand Pointe on the upper Teche in November 1817; the priest who recorded her burial said that she died at "age about 53 years"; she was 55.  Her successions were filed at the St. Martinville courthouse, St. Martin Parish, in August 1811 and December 1817. 

CONCLUSION

Though Pierre Surette had a son in Louisiana, the boy died in childhood, and Pierre did not live long enough to father more children.  His daughter, however, married twice, into the Robichaux and LeBlanc families.  The Acadian branch of the family, then, except for its blood, did not take root in the Bayou State.  The Surettes of South Louisiana today are descended from French Creoles or Foreign French, not Acadians. 

The family's name also is spelled Suret, Surre.  This family should not be confused with the Serret or Serette family from Bordeaux, France, who lived at New Orleans, on the Acadian Coast, and briefly at Attakapas during the late colonial period and settled in Iberville Parish and the Baton Rouge area during the antebellum period.  [See also Book Ten]

Sources:  Arsenault, Généalogie, 802-03, 1289-93, 2594; BRDR, vols. 1a(rev.), 2; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, vols. 1-A, 1-B, 2-A; Marshall, Acadian Resistance;<museeacadien.ca/english/archives/articles/72.htm>; NOAR, vol. 2; White, DGFA-1, 1476-78; White, DGFA-1 English, 309-10.  

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.  Not in Wall of Names because of the circumstance of his birth.  Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:735-36 (SM Ch.: v.1, p.7; SM Ch.: Slaves Baptism Register v.1, p.1, #3), his birth/baptismal record, calls him Augustin SURET, gives his parents' names, & says his godparents were Augustin GREVEMBERG, Catherine THIBAUDAU, & ____ [Édouard?] MASSE.  See also Voorhies, J., Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, 125.  

Since he was born only 4 months after his family reached LA, he was in utero when his mother stepped off the ship at New Orleans, so he is included on this list.  Was he a victim of the epidemic that killed dozens of Teche valley Acadians in the summer & fall of 1765?  His early death & the death of his father soon after he reached the colony, perhaps also in the Teche epidemic, is why the Acadian line of the SURETTE family did not survive in LA.

02.  Wall of Names, 25, calls her Marie-Anne SURETTE; NOAR, 2:259 (SLC, B5, 84), her birth/baptismal record, calls her Marie-Anne SURRE, gives her parents' names, says she was born 24? Feb 1762 "in Chipute, England," & says her godparents were Jean LAFITTE, "merchant in this city," & Marie-Anne FORTIER; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 1-A:677, 736 (SM Ct.Hse.: OA-vol.1, #80), the record of her first marriage, calls her Marianne SURET, "native of Acadie," calls her husband Freme ROBICHAUX, "native of Acadie," gives her & his parents' names, says both sets of parents were "of Acadie," & that the witnesses to her marriage were Jean-Baptiste BROUSSARD & Silvain BROUSSARD; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 2-A:602, 895-96 (SM Ch.: v.5, #218), the record of her second marriage, calls her Marie SURETTE, "inhabitant of this parish, native of Acadie, widow of Ephrem ROBICHOT, calls her a major daughter, calls her husband Marcel LEBLANC, "of this parish, native of St. James Parish on the River," calls him a major son, give her & his parents' names but not his first wife's name, says all parents were deceased at the time of the wedding, & that the witnesses to her marriage were Michel MARTIN, Marcelle PATIN, Jean LANDRY, Alexandre BROUSSARD, & Léon LATIOLAIS; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 2-A:896 (SM Cte.Hse.: Succ. #96), her first succession record, dated 6 Aug 1811, calls her Marie SURETTE, "wid. Euphreme ROBICHOT," & lists her children by her first husband; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 2-A:896 (SM Ch.: v.4, #1143), her death/burial record, calls her Marie SURETTE, "spouse of Marcel LEBLANC, inhabitant of la grand-pointe, native of Halifax," says she died "at age about 53 years at her home," that she was buried "in the parish cemetery," but does not give her parents' names; Hébert, D., Southwest LA Records, 2-A:896 (SM Cte.Hse.: Succ. #283), her final succession record, calls her Marie SURETTE, "m.1st to Freme ROBICHOT m.2nd to Marcel LEBLANC, but does not give her parents' names or list any children.  See also Arceneaux, D. J., Attakapas Post in 1769, 23; De Ville, Attakapas Census, 1771, 13; De Ville, Southwest LA Families, 1777, 8. 

Where is Chipute, England, found in her baptismal record at New Orleans?  Her burial record says she was born at Halifax, which makes more sense in light of her birth date.  Did the New Orleans priest mean to say that she was born in an English colony?  If so, he was right.  Perhaps "Chipute" was Chepoudy, an Acadian settlement founded by her ancestor, Pierre THIBODEAU, across the NS peninsula from Halifax, in present-day NB, & the priest was noting that her parents were from that place.  White, DGFA-1, 1476, notes that Joseph SURRETTE, likely her paternal grandfather, drowned in the Petitcoudiac River in c1750.  Chepoudy is located on the estuary of that river.  Her maternal grandfather, Charles THIBODEAU, was a younger brother of Marguerite & Agnès THIBODEAU, wives, respectively, of Alexandre & Joseph BROUSSARD dit Beausoleil of Petitcoudiac.  See White, 1517-18.  It is likely, then, that Marie-Anne's parents lived at Chepoudy, but she could no have been born there in Feb 1762. 

Was her godfather, the merchant Jean LAFITTE, that Jean LAFITTE?  The answer is no, because the famous LA pirate was not born until c1780, & his name was spelled LAFFITE. 

See the footnote for her second husband's profile for details of their separation in 1812. 

03.  Wall of Names, 25 (pl. 6L), calls him Pierre SURETTE, & lists him with his wife & daughter Marie-Anne; Arsenault, Généalogie, 2594, the LA section, calls him Pierre SURET, does not give his birth year or his parents' names, says he married Marie THIBODEAUX but gives no date or place nor her parents' names, says his children were Marie-Anne, born in c1760, & Augustin in 1765, & that he settled at Attakapas.  See also <thecajuns.com/cardmoney.htm>.  

So how was he connected to the SURETTEs of Acadia?  Was he the Pierre, son of Joseph SURET & Marguerite TERIOT, born & baptized at Grand-Pré on 25 Sep 1736?  See BRDR, 1a(rev.):180 (SGA-2, 157).  Probably not.  Arsenault, 1291, the Grand-Pré section, has this Pierre SURETTE marrying Marie-Josèphe PELLERIN in c1769 & settling near Point-du-Diable, near Halifax, after Le Grand Dérangement.  A younger Pierre SURETTE, born in 1744 to Pierre [SURETTE] & Catherine BRAULT of Minas, married Hélène GODIN dit BELLEFONTAINE in c1764, & remarried to Marie, daughter of Abel DUON, in c1785, but Arsenault does not say where they settled.  Judging by the profiles of his children, however--see Arsenault, 1292-93--they settled on Baie Ste.-Marie, NS.  So the questions must be asked:  Which Pierre SURETTE went to LA?  And where did he marry Marie THIBODEAU in the early 1760s?  Restigouche?  Halifax?  Note that Arsenault, 2594, says daughter Marie-Anne was born in c1760, but her baptismal record at New Orleans--NOAR, 2:259 (SLC, B5, 84)--dated 4 Mar 1765, says she was born at Halifax in late Feb 1762.  

Evidently, Marie & Pierre had no time to produce more children between the birth of Augustin in Jun 1765 & the death of Pierre in either late 1765 or early 1766.  Did Pierre & Augustin die of the same thing?  Were they victims of the epidemic that killed dozens of their fellow Teche valley Acadians in the summer & fall of 1765?  If they were, their deaths were not recorded by the priest at Attakapas.  In c1768, Marie THIBODEAUX remarried to Jean-Baptiste SEMER, who also had come to Attakapas with the BROUSSARD party & who had written the famous letter of Apr 1766 to his father in France.  

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