♂Michel Cormier

Michel Cormier (29 September 1772 – 1833) was a colonist of Spanish Louisiana, baptized in 1773 in the Pointe Coupée register, and the father of Michel Cormier of Grand Pointe on the Bayou Teche. He was the fourth great-grandfather of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through his son Michel Cormier (1799–1853).

Early life

A baptism at Pointe Coupée on 9 May 1773, more than seven months after the birth, names a Michel, born on 29 September 1772, son of Michel Cormier and Anne Saunier. That this child is the Michel Cormier who married Ludivine Guillebaut at Attakapas on 9 January 1793 rests on his name, on the compiled genealogies of Cormier and Bona Arsenault, and on the marriage entry, which gives his parents as Michel Cormier and Anne Saunier of Opelousas, written Nanette Sonier in the register; he is the only Michel Cormier in the Diocese of Baton Rouge’s published abstracts of the period. The child’s godparents were Joseph Cormier and Marie Janson, the wife of Philippe Langlois. The Diocese of Baton Rouge^W’s published abstract of the Pointe Coupée register, which records his baptism, also records that of an elder brother, Amant, born on 13 October 1770 and baptized on 19 April 1771 at Opelousas; the abstract notes that place because it differs from the register’s own parish, and it states no place for Michel’s baptism or birth. Cormier’s compilation of the Acadians of Louisiana, which calls him Michel, fils, and Pierre-Michel and makes him a son of his father’s first wife, says he was born at Opelousas in September 1772 and baptized there in May 1773 by a Pointe Coupée priest.

Marriage and family

The marriage took place at Attakapas on 9 January 1793, and the St. Martinville church register holds the entry. The entry names his parents as Michel Cormier and Anne Saunier of Opelousas, written Nanette Sonier in the register, and her parents as Charles Guilbeau and Anne Trahan, written Nanette Trahan. The first record that names him as a father is the baptism of his son Michel, on 11 March 1799 at St. Martinville, whose entry in the St. Martinville register names the child’s parents as Michel Cormier and Ludivine Guillebaut. Because father and son bore the same name, the son was sometimes styled Michel, fils. The son married Céleste Dupuis at St. Martinville on 8 July 1816 and lived at Grand Pointe; his daughter Madeleine Ordalie Cormier (1827–1867) carries the line forward.

Much of the rest of his family life rests on Cormier’s compilation, whose dates are not matched to the registers here. It says he married Ludivine, called Divine, at Attakapas on 9 January 1793, and that the couple settled at Grande Pointe on the Bayou Teche. Bona Arsenault’s compiled history of the Acadians gives the same day but places the marriage at St. Martinville. Cormier’s compilation names the same parents for her. Cormier’s compilation gives the couple sons Michel-Onésime (March 1799), Louis (October 1800, died at one year old in February 1801), the twins Joseph-Deterville and Amand (December 1801), Nicolas (September 1804) and Éloi (September 1810), and daughters who married into the Allegre, Bertrand, Gauthier and Ledoux families. The 1810 federal census of Attakapas (St. Martin) Parish lists him as a householder, next to Christian Bertrand.

Ludivine died at Grande Pointe in January 1815, aged 45, according to the same account. On 4 June 1816, at St. John the Baptist church in Edgard on the Cote des Allemands, he married Agnes Rodrigues, a widow; the register gives her as the widow of Adam Webre and the daughter of Jean Baptiste Rodrigues and Marie Dervin. Cormier’s compilation says she gave him one more daughter and no sons. In August 1820 he was most likely the head of a household in St. Martin Parish of fourteen free white people and twenty-one enslaved people, with a wife aged 26 to 44 and two girls under ten.

Death

He probably died on 8 August 1833, at his home on the Bayou Teche, Cormier writes, and his succession was filed at the Vermilionville courthouse a few days later. The St. Martinville church register records his burial on 9 August 1833; the entry gives his residence as Opelousas and his age as 65, though he was 60.

Notes

The link between this Michel Cormier and the father of the man born at St. Martinville in 1799 rests on a single published abstract of the son’s baptism; the St. Martinville register entry itself is not cited, and Cormier’s compilation, which names the same parents, may draw on the same abstract. His birth and baptism dates rest likewise on one published abstract of the Pointe Coupée register. Where the abstract gives no place for them, Cormier’s Opelousas is his statement. An online family tree gives the same birth and baptism dates, very probably from the same abstract, and adds a death in 1833, which agrees with Cormier, together with census and residence entries from 1860 and 1870; those later entries cannot belong to a man who died in 1833 and have not been used.

The first marriage

The marriage entry is Donald J. Hébert’s abstract of the St. Martin church register, volume 4, entry 69, in Southwest Louisiana Records, as quoted on WikiTree; the register page itself has not been seen. The abstract comes from the St. Martinville church volume, and Bona Arsenault places the wedding at St. Martinville; the body gives the place as Attakapas, which is Cormier’s wording. The abstract names the groom’s parents as Michel Cormier and Nanette Sonier, of Opelousas. The baptism of 1773 gives the parents as Michel Cormier and Anne Saunier, and the two names are taken here to be the same couple.

Death and burial

The death date of 8 August 1833 and the succession date of 10 August 1833 come from Donald J. Hébert’s abstract of Lafayette succession no. 261, as quoted on WikiTree in the Southwest Louisiana Records. The succession itself is not quoted, so the death date rests on a compiled abstract and the body gives it as probable. Earl E. Vallot’s article “Michel Cormier II - Attakapas Colonial” (Attakapas Gazette, vol. 2, 1967) gives his death as 9 August 1833, and Jehn’s Acadian Descendants (compiled, quoted on WikiTree) gives 8 August. The St. Martinville church entry (vol. 5, p. 31, no. 68), taken here as the burial, is dated 9 August 1833, gives his residence as Opelousas and his age as 65, and is known through Hebert’s abstract.

Residence and second marriage

The 1810 residence comes from Mary Elizabeth Sanders, Records of Attakapas District, Louisiana (1962), which prints the householders of the 1810 federal census of Attakapas (St. Martin) Parish; the Michel Cormier entry falls between Francis Potier and Christian Bertrand. The 1816 marriage comes from the St. John the Baptist (Edgard) register, Archdiocese of New Orleans Sacramental Records vol. 11, SJBED M2, 55, as abstracted on WikiTree, which gives 4 June 1816. Vallot (1967) gives 28 May 1816 at Cote des Allemands; the register abstract’s date is used here.

The 1820 census

The 1820 United States Federal Census for St. Martin Parish, taken on 7 August 1820, has two heads named Michel Cormier, and both are men aged 45 or over. The household that fits this Michel is headed by a man with a woman aged 26 to 44, two girls under ten, and twenty-one enslaved people among fourteen free white people. The woman’s age band suits Agnes Rodrigues, whom he married in 1816. The other head of that name in the parish that day has a wife over 45 and a smaller household, and he is not this Michel. Because the name is shared, the identification is probable rather than certain.