Introduction
Greetings, my name is Philip Greene, and I live and work in Washington, D.C. In this document, I will examine my family's French roots, those of my paternal grandmother Mary Louise Greene, nee' Dupre.
What follows is a work in progress, so your patience is appreciated. I cannot guarantee 100% accuracy in my information; what I have here is a good faith effort at giving you the best information available to me.
What I will try to do in this document is to give biographical sketches of some of the people that have played a part in our family's French heritage, be they direct ancestors, i.e., grandparents, great-grandparents, etc., or indirect, such as cousins and uncles/aunts. Further, this document will concentrate on our French ancestry, centering around the city of New Orleans, the French colonies of St.-Domingue (pronounced San Do-mengh, and now known as Haiti) and Guadeloupe, and France. Although I will generally concentrate on the individual ancestors, I will also provide historical and cultural background in hopes of helping put this information into context.
When I began my research, I had a handful of facts, and an assortment of vague notions about what I would find. I knew that my grandmother Mary Louise Dupre (Nana) was born in New Orleans, and that her father and his parents were of French ancestry. As many of you know, I went to law school in New Orleans (1983-86), and have grown to love the city and have become an aficionado of its history, cuisine, architecture, music, folklore and culture (just to name a few). At the risk of sounding corny or sentimental, New Orleans is the sort of city that can get into your blood. Ernest Hemingway once said "If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast." What Paris was to Hemingway, New Orleans is to me. As a result, much of this research has come easily, since for me it is a way of revisiting New Orleans, and has given me an opportunity to delve deeper into its history, etc. on a far more personal level. After all, it was and continues to be especially rewarding to learn that my ancestors were a vital part of the landscape during New Orleans' early history, including its Golden Age (roughly 1810-1860).
At the outset, I knew that New Orleans was originally settled by the French in 1718, but had always figured that its French population primarily came to Louisiana directly from France. As for our own family history, I assumed that our ancestors likely went back a few generations in New Orleans and Louisiana in general, and that with each generation/ancestor I found I'd eventually find the point at which he or she emigrated from France.
What I have learned, however, is that our French ancestors did not come to Louisiana directly from France, but from the French Caribbean colonies of St.-Domingue (which is now Haiti) and Guadeloupe. Further, some of these St.-Domingue ancestors spent a few years in the former British colony of Jamaica, and others in the former Spanish colony of Cuba, as a stepping stone between St.-Domingue and New Orleans. So as it turns out, I've not found any ancestors that came to Louisiana directly from France. What is even more fascinating about the migration through the colony of St.-Domingue is the terrible forces that caused it. As I will explain further, St.-Domingue was the site of a violent slave rebellion and civil war that began in 1791 and continued into the early 1800s.
This bloody revolution caused a mass exodus from St.-Domingue by the French colonists, be they white, mulatto or free persons of color (many of mixed French and African descent), to the neighboring islands of Jamaica and Cuba, and eventually to Louisiana. To date, I have found over a dozen direct ancestors (represented as great-great-great-great grandparents, great-great-great-great-great grandparents, etc.) that lived in what is now Haiti. And this number likely will grow as my research continues, since the island of Hispaniola, on which St.-Domingue was located, had supported thriving Spanish, and later French, colonies since the early 16th century. If you will turn to the attached descendency chart, you will see the strong presence of former French colonists of St.-Domingue in our family's history. I also strongly recommend using this chart as you make your way through this sometimes complicated document.
I have endeavored to give a brief historical account of the Haitian Revolution (see below), but if you are interested in doing additional reading on this fascinating subject, there is a great deal available through conventional sources, including the Internet.
Overview
We start with Nana, Mary Louise Dupre Greene, my grandmother and my father's mother. Nana was born in New Orleans on March 12, 1892. Her father was Louis Arnold Dupre of New Orleans, and her mother was Florence Caroline Wilcox, born in Detroit, Michigan. To the extent that Nana's mother was an American of apparently English descent, and her father was of French descent, Nana was half French, if you will.
In a nutshell, our French ancestry is represented by two distinct "lines" which came together on Christmas Day of 1858 upon the birth of Nana's father Louis Arnold Dupre. His father's line came from France to New Orleans via Guadeloupe, and his mother's line came to New Orleans via St.-Domingue (now Haiti). For purposes of this document, I will examine the two lines and their eventual marriage in New Orleans.
Louis Arnold Dupre's father was Jean-Baptiste Louis Alain Turiaf Dupre, born on the Caribbean island (and French colony) of Guadeloupe, and the son of Jean Francois Dupre and Marie Victoire Elisabeth Mora. Louis Arnold Dupre's mother, Henriette Marie Louise Peychaud (pronounced Pay-show), was born in New Orleans, as were her parents, Henry Peychaud and Felicite de Bodin. Henry Peychaud's father, Hyacinthe Mathias Peychaud, was born in Bourg (pronounced "Boor"), France, and following a military career he emigrated to St.-Domingue and established himself as a prosperous planter, and married into another family of wealthy landowners, the Morels. After the outbreak of the slave rebellions, the Peychaud family fled to Jamaica (1795?), and several years later came to New Orleans (1803?).
Meanwhile, Felicite Peychaud's parents, Louis Alexandre Faustin de Bodin and Marie Elisabeth Gabrielle Henriette de Leaumont, as well as their parents and many of their ancestors, were also firmly established as wealthy plantation owners in St.-Domingue, and also faced severe hardship (and perhaps loss of life) during and following the slave rebellions. The de Leaumont family was an especially prominent one; they were members of the French nobility, carrying titles such as Comte (count), Vicomte (viscount), Baron, Marquis, Chevalier (Knight), etc.
The Peychaud family's arrival in New Orleans marks the first of our French ancestors to come to America. If we stop at this point, our French family tree, going five generations back from my grandmother Nana, looks something like this, which should give you a very good geographical overview:
My grandmother, Mary Louise Dupre Greene (Nana):
Nana's father was Louis Arnold Dupre, born New Orleans, 12/25/1859
Nana's mother was Florence Caroline Wilcox, born Detroit, 1/13/1852
My Great-Grandfather, Louis Arnold Dupre :
Louis Arnold Dupre's father was Turiaf Dupre, born Point-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe, 12/11/1829
Louis Arnold Dupre's mother was Marie Louise Peychaud, born New Orleans, 2/22/1836
My Great-Grandparents:
Turiaf Dupre's father was Jean-Baptiste Dupre, born Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe, circa 1790?
Turiaf Dupre's mother was Marie Louise Mora, born Guadeloupe?, circa 1790?
Marie Louise Peychaud's father was Henri Peychaud, born New Orleans 1810
Marie Louise Peychaud's mother was Felicite de Bodin, born New Orleans 1818?
My Great-Great-Grandparents:
Jean-Baptiste Dupre's father was Francois Furcy Dupre, born Paris, circa 1770
Jean-Baptiste Dupre's mother was Louise Dufour, born France?
Henri Peychaud's father was Hyacinthe Mathias Peychaud, born Bourg (Bordeaux), France
Henri Peychaud's mother was Henriette Morel, born Cap-Francais, St.-Domingue (now Cap-Haitien, Haiti)
Felicite de Bodin's father was Louis Alexandre Faustin de Bodin, born Petit-Goave, St.-Domingue
Felicite de Bodin's mother was Marie Renee Olivie de Leaumont, born St.-Michel, St.-Domingue
OK, now what?
What I will do is start with the generation represented by my great-great-great grandparents (see above), and then divide my analysis into two separate categories, according to geographical locale. I will begin with a discussion of our St.-Domingue ancestry, examining the ancestry of each of my great-great-great-great grandparents (shown in the column on the far right, above), and will follow our St.-Domingue ancestry to New Orleans; by 1810, the migration of all St.-Domingue refugees to New Orleans (including our ancestors) had been completed. I will then discuss these ancestors' lives in New Orleans and New Orleans life in general up through the first half of the 19th Century, and will pause there.
At that point, I will shift focus to our Guadeloupe ancestry, and will go back again to the ancestry of each of my great-great-great-great grandparents, following their migration from France to Guadeloupe and eventually bring the Guadeloupe line to America with the emigration of my great-great grandfather Turiaf Dupre to New Orleans in 1844. His marriage in 1856 to Mary Louise Peychaud brought together the St.-Domingue and Guadeloupe sides of the family, and I will continue from that point to the end of the 19th century, giving detail on the life of the Dupres and Peychauds in 19th century New Orleans.
Throughout this epic tome, I will offer family tree excerpts to show just who it is I'm discussing, their relationship to those around them, and ultimately to us ancestors. These excerpts will be identified by a popular expression "Where y'at," which in New Orleans means "what's new? How's it goin'?" As a result of its widespread use by native New Orleanians, many of the locals are known as "Y'ats," sometimes endearingly, sometimes disparagingly. I will use the expression, however, simply to give the reader an idea of where he's "at" in this document, and to remind the reader who this particular person is.
The St.-Domingue Line
Chapter I - Overview:
It probably makes the most sense to look at the individual principal families, as I now know them, starting with the Peychauds, then discussing the de Bodins, the de Leaumonts, the Mestayers and the Lefrancs. Since it is difficult to follow one line downward from ancestor to ancestor, then change direction and go back "up" an ancestor's spouse's line, at the point, for example, when the Peychauds marry into the de Bodin family, I will simply make a note in my discussion of the Peychaud family, and go into more detail when I handle the de Bodin family at length later on. I’m not saying this is the best way to do it, but it worked for me.
The Peychaud Family:
Opening comments: Our ancestors in this line of our family, and their relations (by marriage) include many notable persons. While you won't find any real household names here, you will find the following:
* Louis XIV's Attorney General (my great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather;
* The alleged inventor of the term "cocktail," and the actual concocter of Peychaud’s Aromatic Cocktail Bitters (my third cousin);
* The youngest participant in the Battle of New Orleans (my great-great-great-great uncle);
* The runner-up in the 1828 New Orleans mayoral election, and also a veteran of that great battle (another great-great-great-great uncle);
* A military hero who not only fought valiantly in the Battle of New Orleans, serving alongside Andrew Jackson, but also served as Jackson's right hand in military campaigns against the British and Spanish in Mobile, Alabama and Pensacola, FL, as well as against the Indians in Alabama and Mississippi. He also was also a member of a cabal of New Orleans adventurers, which included the infamous "pirate" brothers Jean and Pierre Lafitte, and which plotted and conducted many intrigues against the Spanish in Florida and Texas, in hopes of not only adding new territories to the fledgling United States, but for their own gain, as well. And finally, he was runner-up in the 1832 New Orleans mayoral election (yet another great-great-great-great uncle, by marriage);
* A prominent New Orleans judge and legislator, who also served in the Battle of New Orleans (a third cousin, by marriage);
* Several Mayors and City Council heads of the town of Bourg, France, as well as a couple of vineyards in the Bordeaux region of France, and
* Many prominent New Orleans/Louisiana citizens, including the owners of the famous Destrehan and Chalmette Plantations, the first native (and Creole) Governor of Louisiana, and the Lieutenant Governor of Northern Louisiana (all of which are not true relations, but are related by marriage).
Intrigued? I hope so, as I know I have been during my research. What follows is an examination of the illustrious Famille Peychaud.
