USA > Louisiana > Orleans Parish > New Orleans > Creole families of New Orleans > Part 22
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30
The beautiful Louise de la Ronde, who became the wife of Almonaster, was born there, and as a child played under the shade of the magnificent avenue of oaks which still defy the aging of time. When the famous invasion of Louisiana by the English took place and New Orleans was threatened with conquest, de la Ronde was a Colonel in the Louisiana Militia and, as such, in the forefront of all the measures of defense. When the English
1
1
-
--- -
Oaks at Versailles, de la Ronde Plantation-The Chalmette Battlefield to the Left.
315
DE LA RONDE
effected a landing from the lake in the rear of the city and stole up a little bayou that brought them to the plantation canal, and so to the Villeré place, the de la Ronde plantation was one of the five planta- tions that lay in the way of their advance to the city. When Gabriel Villeré, as may be remembered, made his dashing escape from his British guards, he sped to the next plantation, de la Ronde's, and there found Colonel de la Ronde, who himself had just rushed in from his command at Chef Menteur on the lake with the news of the British landing. The two officials jumped in a skiff at the river bank, crossed the stream and, seizing horses on the other side, spurred to the city where, covered with mud and breathless from their ride, they made their report to General Jackson, surrounded by his aides, that "the British were encamped on the soil of Louisiana"! To repeat the old, old anecdote which can never be too often repeated in the estima- tion of Louisianians-at the close of the report, the General drew up his figure to its full height and with an eye of fire and an emphatic blow with his clenched fist upon the table, swore his oath: "By the Eternal, they shall not sleep on our soil;" and turning to his aides, "Gentlemen, the British are below; we must fight them to-night."
The Chalmette plantation has gained the honor of naming the great victory, but the attack and the retreat were made through the de la Ronde place; and many a gallant British officer and soldier breathed his last under the soft shade of the old oaks whose great trunks still carry the scars of cannon balls and even the balls themselves. De la
316
OLD FAMILIES OF NEW ORLEANS
Ronde fought at the side of General Coffee on his own land. There is a tradition* in the family that it was de la Ronde who overheard the British officers giving the password for the night, "Beauty and Booty," and that he conveyed it to the American Army, thus furnishing them with the deadliest motive that fired their fury against the invaders.
The son of Colonel de la Ronde, Pierre Denis de la Ronde, was born in New Orleans in 1762, married Eulalie Guerbois, daughter of Louis Alexandre Guerbois and Elizabeth Trepagnier: he died at Versailles plantation in 1824. He had one son, who had no children; the name is therefore extinct. The nine daughters all married and have left children. Eulalie married a Hoa. Céleste and Héloise became the first and second wives of Maunsell White of Kentucky. Felicie married a Jorda. Amélie mar- ried a Forestier. Other daughters married into the Ducros and the Villeré families; and another one became the wife of General Lacoste, whose planta- tion adjoined Versailles. Eliza White, the daughter of Céleste de la Ronde, the first wife of Maunsell White, was the mother of the Hon. Cuthbert Bullitt of Louisville, Kentucky. Héloise de la Ronde, the second wife of Maunsell White, had three children; Clara, Maunsell and Annie. Clara married the late Carl Kohn of New Orleans and had one child, Eveline, who married the well-known merchant of New Orleans, Victor Meyer. They had six daughters : Hilda, Clara (Mrs. McCaleb), Eveline, Mildred, Lenore (Mrs. John Hickey), Virginia. Two sons died in infancy. Maunsell White, Jr., married Eliza-
* Affirmed also by Vincent Nolte in his "Fifty Years in Both Hemispheres."
---
-
-
---
317
DE LA RONDE
beth Porter Bradford; their children are: Lucy (Mrs. C. P. Wilkinson); Mary (Mrs. A. R. Brousseau) ; Carl White married Mary Mitchell of Cincinnati (seven children); Sidney Johnson, married to Ellen Tobin of New Orleans; Elizabeth, married to Edwin Rodd of New Orleans; Anna, married to Thomas H. Anderson of New Orleans; Annie White, married to Hugh Kennedy.
CHAPTER XXI
CHALMETTE
T r HE ancestry of Chalmette, a name of glorious memories in New Orleans, has been traced as follows: Claude Martin Sieur de Lino; married Antoinette Chalmette of St. Nazaire. She died and was buried in Quebec in 1731. Their son, Mathurin François Martin, Sieur de Lino, a Councillor of the Sovereign Council of Quebec, was born and baptized in Quebec in 1657, and married Catherine Noland, daughter of the Chevalier Pierre Noland and Catherine Houart. Their son, François Martin de Lino, Attorney-General of the King, married, in 1712, Angelique Chartier de Lotbinière, daughter of René Louis Chartier de Lotbinière, Councillor and Lieutenant-General in Canada.
The Chartier de Lotbnière family, it would be inexcusable not to mention it, belonged to the old French family which bore the famous poet, Alain Chartier, famous not only for his poetry but for the pretty anecdote about him which has survived and which outshines his poetry. It is said that he was kissed by a Queen of France while asleep (Marguerite of Scotland, wife of the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XI; one of the "three Marguerites" of French his- tory.) Her attendant ladies remarking to her that he was the ugliest man in France, "I am not kissing the man," she answered, "but the lips from which so many beautiful words have come."
François de Lino died in 1721 and was buried in the church in Quebec. His widow remarried. Her
318
i
-
-
--
319
CHALMETTE
children from her marriage with de Lino were: Marie Angelique, Ignace François Pierre and Louis Xavier, de Lino de Chalmette, who was born and baptized in Quebec in 1720. He became an officer in the troops of the Marine and was commandant in the Arkansas country in 1751. He is mentioned by Michel de la Rouvillière, the commissary under Vaudreuil, in an official communication as "M. de Lino, Lieutenant, a relative of M. de Vaudreuil," who had left his post without permission and had come to New Orleans, but who was sent back at once by M. de Vaudreuil who, however, did not inflict any punishment upon him, "because there is no discipline here." He married, in New Orleans, Madeleine Marguerite Broutin, daughter of Ignace François Broutin, a Captain of Engineers in Louis- iana and commandant of the post at Natchez. Her mother was Marie Madeleine Lemaire, the widow of Philippe de Marigny. When Louis Xavier de Lino died in 1755 his widow married, the following year, Pierre Denis de la Ronde, a Chevalier of the Order of St. Louis, and son of Louise Chartier de Lotbinière. From this marriage there issued Louise de la Ronde, who married Don Andres Almonaster, and Pierre Denis de la Ronde, who married Eulalie Guerbois.
Madeleine Josephine de Lino de Chalmette, the daughter of Louis Xavier de Lino and Madeleine Broutin, born in New Orleans in 1752. She was married, in 1777, to François de Verges de St. Sauveur, a retired officer, the son of Bernard de Verges, Chevalier of St. Louis and of Dame Marie Therése Pinot. She died in New Orleans in 1722.
Louis Xavier de Lino de Chalmette, son of Louis
320
OLD FAMILIES OF NEW ORLEANS
Xavier de Lino and Madeleine Broutin, born in 1753, married in New Orleans Adelaide Fazende, the daughter of Gabriel Fazende and Charlotte de Verges. Ignace de Lino de Chalmette, on whose plantation the Battle of New Orleans was fought, was the posthumous son of Louis Xavier de Lino and Madeleine Broutin. He married Victoire de Vaugines, daughter of the Marquis Etienne de Vaugines, Lieutenant-Colonel in a regiment of the line and a Chevalier of St. Louis and of Dame Antoinette Pélagie Petit de Livilliers. He died in 1815; his widow in 1836.
Chalmette figures in de Pontalba's letters to his wife, it may be remembered, as returning from his post in the West with a large fortune which de Pontalba looked upon with suspicion until he found out that it was real and legitimately acquired. He came to New Orleans with a large family; among them two young lady daughters, Victoire and Azelie, very gay and charming, but needing the accomplishments to be acquired in the city .*
* A delicate note on miniature paper bordered with roses has carried down the past century the following gallant trite souvenir of Azelie when a young lady.
"To Mademoiselle Chalmet, at her Mother's,
Royal Street between Contti and Bienville:
"The Domino of yesterday evening presents his compliments to Melle. Azelie Chalmet, and begs her to have no feeling against him if he does not make himself known. Circumstances force him to this. Nevertheless, if she is going to the ball next Saturday, she will be teased again by a 'rabbit head,' who will be the same person as last night. It is useless for her to seek to know him by means of this note, for he has changed his handwriting.
"He wishes her all happiness, and will be the first to kiss her hand when she steps aboard Hymen's bark.
"Her devoted servant."
Kindness of the late J. W. Cruzat, who holds the original.
i
- -
---
1 -
-
1
321
CHALMETTE
Chalmette, looking for an investment for his money, was persuaded by Philippe de Marigny, his relative by marriage, to buy a plantation below the city, presumably the very plantation upon which the battle was fought. De Pontalba advised against the purchase and confided to his wife that he thought Philippe de Marigny was unloading on Chalmette an unprofitable piece of property; but this suspicion did not dawn upon the gallant Chalmette, although the plantation never proved a profitable investment.
When Marigny died he made Chalmette the guardian of his young son, Bernard, who, as he had found out, needed a strong hand to guide him. Chalmette's conscientious interpretation of this responsibility and his serious efforts to convert the monumental spendthrift of Louisiana (as he turned out to be) into a thrifty, sedate young gentleman have been detailed in the life of Bernard Marigny. Chalmette used to repeat to his pupil: "Get educa- tion-a man without education is only half a man."
Until he died, his life was that of an easy-tempered, pleasure-loving sugar planter, possessed of ample means to gratify his social tastes. In the Museum of the Historical Society in the Cabildo is shown a silver trophy won by Chalmette in a shooting contest in 1812, a "Papegai" (so named from the target, a gaily painted bird, perched on a post), one of the popular sports of the city. He was a noted shot and could hit a mark, firing back over his shoulder. In the same case with the trophy is a collection of pretty feminine trifles: black lace veils, fans and bits of jewelry, collected from the ladies of the family to whom they had descended; trinkets at which the eye smiles through tears. They had
322
OLD FAMILIES OF NEW ORLEANS
belonged to Madame Chalmette, and as pretty as her trinkets are, so is the praise of her husband, that although a man loving pleasure and the ladies, he never forgot his love for his wife.
When the British Army made its appearance below the city, the Chalmettes abandoned their home and sought shelter in a small house on Royal Street between Conti and Bienville Streets, a little house that they kept in the city as a "pied à terre" when in town attending the opera or balls. One week after the battle, Chalmette mounted his horse and rode to his plantation. Nothing remained of his home but blackened ruins. Even the oak trees that surrounded the house were annihilated. It is said in the family that the rocket that set fire to the house and buildings to destroy them, for military reasons, by Jackson's orders, was sent off by a young man of the connection. To make his ruin the more complete, Chalmette had just bought the plantation adjoining his intending to cultivate it. Without hope of ever retrieving his fortune, he turned his horse homeward. Three weeks after the battle, two weeks after his visit to the scene of it, he died, and was buried in the St. Louis Cemetery.
----
CHAPTER XXII
CRUZAT
T RACING a good family to its genealogical source is like following a path up a mountain to its summit-sure of the prospect to be enjoyed.
Fray Garcia de Engui,* in his manuscript history of Navarre, affirms that the family of Cruzat is one of the most ancient and illustrious of that kingdom; and Lope de Vega, in his "Conquest of Jerusalem," makes mention of Don Pedro Cruzat fighting with Don Ramire, King of Navarre, and Godefroi de Bouileon when the holy city was captured. He gained great fame for himself, which he extended by his further exploits on the Euxine Sea and the Indian Ocean.
A worthy descendant of Don Pedro was Don Aymar de Cruzat who, in the thirteenth century, acquired lordship over many cities of Navarre. With noble and knightly valor, he defended Pam- peluna against the Navarrese, receiving an arrow wound in the face, for which he was rewarded by King Philip in the year 1279.
He had married Madeleine de Marigny, of a noble French family. His one son, Raoul Cruzat, married his first cousin, Blanche Almoravid, daughter
* Taken, with the kind permission of Mrs. J. W. Cruzat, from the compilation made by her late husband from the authentic docu- ments in the family archives of the Marquis de Feria, all of which have been legally attested.
323
324
OLD FAMILIES OF NEW ORLEANS
of Garcia Almoravid and Violante Marigny, in an effort to unite the rival houses of Cruzat and Almoravid and stay their bloody encounters. Their sons, Berenger I, II, and III, maintained the fame of the family as fighters and, during the following century, the family rose to important positions in Spain, enjoying the steady favor of the King, who conferred on them the highest decorations of chivalry and accorded the family the privilege of representing the nobility of Navarre and voting in the Cortes.
By the end of the fifteenth century the elder branch became extinct and the name of Cruzat was merged into that of Gongorra, the name of the marquisat conferred on Jean Cruzat in 1695. To the elder branch belong Don Luis, who became Grand Prior to the Order of St. Iago; Michel, a General in the Spanish Army and a Knight of Calatrava, who died in Havana fighting against the Dutch; and Fray Martin, Grand Master of St. Iago, who was Governor of Galicia and Viceroy of Sicily. The younger branch of the family, known as Espeleta, gave to Louisiana the family known in New Orleans to-day.
Francisco Cruzat, the first of the name in Louisiana and the son of Balthasar, was born in Tafala, Spain, in 1739. He became a Captain of Grenadiers and came to Louisiana in the troops of O'Reilly. Unzaga, the first Spanish Governor after O'Reilly, appointed him to be Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Louisiana (the Illinois country), in 1780. He was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel by Galvez for services rendered in his campaign against the English, and reap- pointed to the position of Lieutenant-Governor of
1
325
CRUZAT
Upper Louisiana, one of the most important positions in the Spanish colony in the critical period of its history when French, English and Indians were all intriguing against it.
Cruzat married a countrywoman, Nicanora Ramos y Tibaldo of Cartagena, Spain. Their home was in St. Louis. She was the heroine of an adventure that made a commotion in the Spanish colony and came near bringing on active hostilities between the British and Spaniards. With her two little sons, she was making the return voyage from New Orleans to St. Louis (to join her husband after a visit to the city) when her boat was attacked at the St. Francis River. According to the report she made of the occurrence, as her boat was passing they were hailed in French by a man who told them that he had letters from Don Francisco Cruzat for his wife. Believing this deceitful pretext, her captain ordered the boat to be stopped so as to get the letters. As soon as they were near the strange boat a rope was fastened to them and they were summoned to sur- render as prisoners of the King of Great Britain. About the same time there came rushing out of the bushes about forty Englishmen, who took posses- sion of the boat and tied the passengers and rowers. While they were tying the rest, Jayme Colbert, a Frenchman in command of the Englishmen, claimed her. He told her to be calm, that she would not receive the slightest offense and that he would conduct her in safety to her husband in Illinois. He had the boat brought alongside and all entered it. When they had gone about a quarter of a league the boat was stopped and all were taken to a prison made of logs, with no opening except a
326
OLD FAMILIES OF NEW ORLEANS
wicket gate and a hole on top for air. She was well treated in prison. Finally, a few days later, the alarm came that some pirogues of Americans were approaching. Colbert took away the other prisoners, leaving her alone, and telling her to keep her sons quiet. He returned soon to put her and her sons on their boat. She told him that she knew nothing of the region and asked that the owner of the boat be released from prison. This was done. They went on foot through a thick wood of sassafras and after having crossed rivulets and brooks arrived at the place where a boat was moored. She did not know how far she was from the Indian (Chickasaw) village, but heard it was about eight days' journey. A Chickasaw chief (a son of Colbert), advised her to ask to be sent to New Orleans instead of to the Illinois Post. After many entreaties, her captors were induced to ransom her for the sum of four hundred pesos. She said the intention of Colbert had been to hold her in the Chickasaw region until they were exchanged for the Englishmen captured at Natchez.
She died and was buried in St. Louis in 1796. Her husband, promoted to a command in the Regi- ment of Louisiana, came to New Orleans in 1788 and from thence went to Pensacola with his battalion and there he died. Their son, Joseph Cruzat y Ramos, served as captain in the Louisiana Regiment. He married Doña Maria Palao and died in Havana. Of his four children, all but one married. Joseph, his son, married Alix Coulon de Villiers, the daughter of Marc Coulon de Villiers, who was the son of the great Villiers, as Louisianians call him for the distinction he won in his celebrated encounter with Washington in 1756. One daughter, Eulalie,
--- -
---
1 1
327
CRUZAT
married Pedro Sedano. Their son became the first Count of Casa Sedano. He became also a Councillor of State, Deputy in the Cortes, and Gentleman-in-Waiting to the King. He wore the Grand Cross of Isabella the Catholic, was a Chevalier of the Order of Carlos III, was given the Grand Cross of Medjidie and was made Commander of the Legion of Honor of France. He was also a member of many literary and artistic societies and became associated with Castillo in the Liberal government of Spain. The other daughter, Malvina, married Nicolas Heredia, an officer of Public Instruction and Professor of Literature in the University of Havana.
To descend to the plainer and simpler folk of our New Orleans narrative, Antoine Cruzat, the son of the Governor of Illinois and Nicanora Ramos, was born in St. Louis and came to New Orleans in 1795. In the same year he entered the service of Spain as cadet in the Regiment of Louisiana, con- tinuing in this service until the cession of the colony to the United States. He then retired from military service with the rank of Captain.
He had married, in 1796, Victoire de Lino de Chal- mette, or, according to the Spanish record of it, Victoria Morenciano de Chalmette. His marriage was a long and happy one, being blessed with fifteen children. He was staid and dignified; his wife sparkling with fun and wit. Many amusing stories are related of them. She was devoted to balls and never missed one; he was too serious to care for them. One night after she was dressed in full ball costume, with her hair piled up in puffs and curls, topped with a feather, awaiting the time to start, he felt a twinge of rheumatism and decided
328
OLD FAMILIES OF NEW ORLEANS
that he could not expose himself by going out. She protested. He was stolid. "To bed then," she said with a shrug of the shoulders and bundled him off to his couch. Dressed as she was, she covered herself up in hers. As she lay there, regret- ting the pleasure she had missed (he, well satisfied, went to sleep at once), she heard whispering and laughing outside her door and her name called. "Come to the ball! Come! Come! We cannot get along without you! Everybody is asking for you! It is not a ball without you!" And so they went on. She stood it as long as she could; then with a bound she was out of the bed. "I am coming! I am com-
ing!" She shook out her skirts quickly. "Bonne nuit, Don Antonio; I hope your rheumatism will get better with sleep." She opened the door to the street. (It was one of the little houses of early New Orleans architecture.) "Ah, how good it was I did not take down my hair!" (putting her hands up to feel her puffs and feathers) was all she said to her friends.
When the colony became American, Antoine Cruzat became an American citizen, though he was the only one of the family to do so. His eldest son, Manuel, born in 1798, fought at the Battle of New Orleans and doubtless witnessed the destruction of his grandfather's home and plantation. He married Malvina de Verges, daughter of Pierre de Verges and Heloise Chalmette, and died in 1848. His children were Malvina, who married Denis Villeré, the son of Gabriel Villeré; and Odile, who married Edmond Villeré, brother-in-law of her sister. Each daughter left five children.
In 1814, Antoine Cruzat was chosen by the Police
-
I. Woodward
Dauphine near Dumaine Street.
.-
ج
331
CRUZAT
Jury of the Parish of Orleans as Treasurer of the Parish. He served also as Secretary of the Jury until it was abolished in 1848. For thirty years, also, he was Warden of the St. Louis Cathedral, a position of the highest local distinction and filled only by men of irreproachable reputation.
He died in New Orleans in 1854-a man of dignity and personal importance; of unquestioned honor and judgment; and an infallible authority on the events and men of the Spanish Domination to whom recourse was ever had when such information was needed. The long list of his children is as follows: Armand, Manuel, Nisida, Luisa, Ignace, Zoé, Laure, Victoire, Gustave, Celestine, Mathilde, Eulalie, William, Charles and Edmond (twins).
Nisida married, in 1819, Laurent Rousseau, the son of Pierre Rousseau, Captain in the United States Navy, later Commodore in the Navy of the Confed- erate States. Luisa married Gustave Laferanderie of St. Domingo. Zoé married Stanislas Nelson Peychaud, born in Kingston, Jamaica, but one of the youngest of Louisiana volunteers in the Battle of New Orleans. She was born in 1803 and lived until 1896. She was twelve years old at the Battle of New Orleans and up to the time she died loved to relate what she remembered of it and of the great men of that time. Like her mother and, indeed, like all her sisters, she was fond of society and shone in light conversation, consequently was very attractive to the old beaux who had the same taste as she. It is one of the pleasant recollections of her that, when she was past eighty, she would always be found of an afternoon in her salon, dressed with care, sitting in her armchair, awaiting the visitors,
332
OLD FAMILIES OF NEW ORLEANS
who never failed to make an appearance. Her maid Annette once asked what colored dress she would put on that afternoon: "Ah, bah! Pink, blue, green, yellow! What difference does it make? At eighty one can wear anything." And it is true, no matter what she wore, she was charming.
When she died she seemed to take away a part of the city with her. New Orleans has never been the same without her. She was the type of lady that made the society of the city delightful a century ago. The garden conditions were more favorable to such productions then than they are to-day and, like the fairies, such old ladies have passed away. Independence of spirit, sure-footed reliance on the stability of fortune, confidence in the divine right of women, made the charm which is lacking in our old ladies of to-day, born into a different world, at a different time, to play on different guitars.
Zoé's sister, Celestine, married also a Peychaud, but not of the same family. Amedée Peychaud, her husband, was born in St. Domingo of French parents. He and his sister, Lasthémie, were saved from massacre in the insurrection of the slaves by their nurse, but in the panic of the moment the chil- dren became separated and the boy was brought to New Orleans alone. As he grew to manhood he never ceased to long for his sister and to search for her. At last he heard that she was living in Paris; he sent for her and had her brought to New Orleans. As the ship came up the river he stood on the levee waiting for her. She was the first passenger to step on the plank and walk to the shore. As she did so, a gust of wind blew aside her skirts and revealed the most beautiful foot and ankle in the world-at
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.