♂Nicolas Thibodeaux

Nicolas Thibodeaux (born 15 June 1771) was a son of Acadian settlers of the Attakapas District^W in Spanish Louisiana, who married Éléonore Prejean at Ascension, on the Mississippi, in 1793. He was the fourth great-grandfather of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through his daughter Anne Doralie Thibodeau (1799–1855). His brother Cyrille Thibodeaux, a witness at his wedding, was also a fourth great-grandfather of Floyd, by a separate line; the two lines met again in Floyd’s grandmother Amelia Pennison Daigle (1869–1906), whose father descended from Nicolas and whose mother from Cyrille.

Early life

Nicolas was a son of Olivier Thibodeau and his second wife, Agnes Brun. He was born on 15 June 1771 and was baptized at Pointe Coupée more than a year later, on 17 July 1772, with Francois Grevenberg and Anne Landry as his godparents. Steven A. Cormier’s compiled history of the Acadians of Louisiana gives his birthplace as Attakapas and says that a priest from Pointe Coupée baptized him; it also places him, a boy of six, in his father’s household in the district’s census of 1777.

Marriage and family

Nicolas Thibodeaux and Éléonore Prejean were married at Ascension on 21 October 1793, with Pierre Carmouche and the groom’s brother Cyrille Thibodeaux as witnesses. The bride, baptized at St. James in 1770, was a daughter of Basile Prejean and Marie Josephe Godin. By 1794 Nicolas was most likely back in the Attakapas District: a general census of the district’s militia taken that year lists a Nicholas Thibodaux, aged 21 and born in the colony, as a second corporal of the Second Company. Cormier’s compiled history says that the couple settled at Grand Prairie, near present-day downtown Lafayette, and at Grande Pointe on upper Bayou Teche.

Bona Arsenault’s compiled genealogy of the Acadians lists ten children born to the couple between 1795 and 1810, among them two pairs of twins. An index of Louisiana baptisms gives the birth of their daughter Anne Doralie Thibodeau, written Ana, on 8 April 1799; she married Anaclet Melancon at Saint Martinville in January 1820.

Later life

His father died in 1803, and when that estate was settled in 1808 Nicolas was among the heirs named, according to Cormier’s compiled history. An undated list of the landowners and slaveowners of the Attakapas, which its editor took to be the tax list of 1810, enters a Nicholas Thibodeau, most likely this man, as the owner of eight enslaved people; the list does not name them.

Nicolas had died before 5 December 1817. On that day the St. Martin Parish judge, Paul Briant, having been told of his death, named a subrogé tuteur, a guardian appointed to watch over the children’s interests, for five minor children of the couple: Arthemise, Doralie, Marcellite, Surville and Derville. The judge chose their paternal uncle, Cyrille Thibodeaux, who accepted and signed the act. The act describes the five as the legitimate children of Nicolas and of his wife, Éléonore Prejean.

An inventory of the community property was taken on 18 December 1817 at his widow’s request. Besides the land, it valued eleven enslaved people: Étienne, a man of about thirty-four; Baptiste, about twenty-three; Henry, about thirty-five; a man of about twenty-two; Constance, forty; an old man named Jean; Marie Anne, about thirty, with her three children Angélique, Jean Pierre and Antoine; and Jean, a boy of about fifteen. On 27 March 1819 a family meeting of relatives advised a sale. The January 1820 marriage entry for his daughter Anne Doralie already calls him the late Nicolas. Éléonore outlived him: in August 1825, Cormier writes, one of their sons died at his mother’s home at Grande Pointe.

Notes

The birth date given here, 15 June 1771, is the one in the published abstract of the Pointe Coupée baptism, in the Diocese of Baton Rouge Catholic Church Records; a second index entry and Cormier give the same, and a 1974 sketch of his father in the Attakapas Gazette gives 15 September 1771. An index of Louisiana baptisms and Arsenault give 1772. The 1771 date puts the baptism thirteen months after the birth, which fits a district then served by a priest from Pointe Coupée. The census ages point both ways: six in 1777 fits 1771, and 21 in the militia census of 1794 fits 1772 or 1773. His name is written Nicholas Thibodaux in the militia census and Nicholas Thibodeau in the tax list.

Arsenault places the marriage at Saint-Martinville about 1794 and says the family lived at La Fourche (Donaldsonville); the Ascension register dates the marriage 21 October 1793, and the militia census, the tax list and the St. Martin estate all point instead to the Attakapas District.

Anne Doralie’s birth date of 8 April 1799 comes from an index of Louisiana births, which gives Ana Thibodeaux as the daughter of Nicolas Thibodeaux and Éléonore Prejean. Anne Doralie’s place in this family rests on that index, on a baptism transcription of 1 November 1799 that names the same parents, on the 1820 marriage entry, on Cormier, who names Anne Doralise, the wife of Anaclet Melançon, as their daughter, and on Arsenault, who lists an Anne born in 1799 among their children. The parent link is on record rather than proven, because both church entries are known only from a published transcription. The 1820 entry calls Anne Doralie the minor daughter of the late Nicolas and Éléonore, with the father’s surname written Thibaudot. A different Anne Thibodeau, born on 27 April 1800 to Joseph Thibodeau and Pelagie Broussard, appears in a St. Martin family list printed in the Attakapas Gazette in 1972; a burial entry of 12 May 1800 for that child rules out the identification.

The estate of 1817

The record is St. Martin Parish estate No. 282, the succession of Nicolas Thibodeaux. Its tutorship act is dated 5 December 1817 and says that the judge had been informed of his death, so the death came before that day. Hébert’s Southwest Louisiana Records and some family trees give 18 December 1817 for the succession; that is the date of the inventory taken that day, not the date of his death. The act writes the children’s surname as Thibodeau throughout and names Cyrille as their paternal uncle. The inventory names the enslaved people with their ages and values; the name of the man of about twenty-two is written unclearly (Ham or Hans). The family meeting of 27 March 1819 comes from a machine-generated transcript of the page, so its date and its advice to sell are less certain than the other dates in this bio.

The children named in 1817

The act names five minor children: Arthemise, Doralie, Marcellite, Surville and Derville. It does not list all of the couple’s children. Cormier’s compiled history treats Surville, Terville or Derville as one son. The act names Surville and Derville as two separate sons, so Derville is a child that the compiled list does not count separately.