♂Samuel Dillahunt

Samuel Dillahunt (1815–1860) was a carpenter in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana, who married into the Marcotte family in the same month as his sister Elizabeth: on 3 March 1840 he married Delphine Marcotte, and sixteen days later he stood witness as Elizabeth married Sallust Marcotte, very likely Delphine’s brother. He was the great-grandfather of Floyd Amatus Delahorne (1922–2014), through his son Augustin Delahunt (1845–1915) and grandson Jeffrey Delahorne (1899–1929).

Early life

Samuel Dillahunt was born in Louisiana in about 1815, the year given by his age of 35 in the census of 1850. He was a son of John Dillahunty and Elizabeth Martin. John was dead by 17 September 1830, when an Emilie Hunt, presumably his sister Emily, married Thomas Rhodes and was entered as a daughter of the “late John Dailey Hunt”, most likely a garbled form of his name. An Avoyelles Parish act of 3 May 1844, a receipt given by her heirs to the administrator of her estate, names Samuel Dillahunt of Avoyelles, his sister Amelia, wife of Martin Dunn of St. Landry Parish, his sister Elizabeth, wife of Salluste Marcotte, and a minor brother, Lewis, as “the only heirs of Mrs. Elizabeth Martin widow John Dillahunt deceased”, each taking one fourth of her succession; she was therefore dead by that date. An act of 12 October 1833 shows her already a widow, living on land in the Prairie of Bayou Rouge in Avoyelles. A 1978 transcription of the Mansura church register separately names his sister Elizabeth as a daughter of John Dillahunt and Elizabeth Martin. His surname was written in several ways, among them Dillahunt and Delahunt, and his son Augustin was recorded as Delahunt.

Marriage and family

Samuel married Delphine Marcotte, a daughter of the Marcotte and Joffrion families of Avoyelles, on 3 March 1840; she was sixteen. The date and parish come from compiled Louisiana marriage indexes, not from the original act. On 19 March 1840 he was a witness, with Prudent Rabalais and H. Couvillion, at the civil marriage of his sister Elizabeth to Sallust Marcotte before Joseph Joffrion, justice of the peace, and he witnessed the church blessing of that marriage at St. Paul the Apostle, Mansura, on 6 February 1841. A printed abstract of the parish’s marriage records, as quoted in a member’s tree, gives the two weddings of March 1840 consecutive record numbers.

Two children of Samuel and Delphine are documented: Virginie, born about 1843, and Augustin, born in 1845. In the census of 1850 the family lived in Avoyelles Parish, with Samuel, aged 35, listed as a carpenter born in Louisiana, and his sister Elizabeth’s household was enumerated on the same page. A family history written by one of his great-great-grandsons says that the couple lived at Mansura, that Samuel made several transfers of what appear to have been town residences there, and that he signed his marriage document while Delphine made her mark; its author took these to mean that Samuel worked as a craftsman in town rather than as a farmer.

Death

Samuel is said to have died in Avoyelles Parish in 1860. No death or burial record for him has been found. When the census taker reached Marksville on 10 December 1860, a household there was headed by “Mrs. S. Dillahunt”, aged 35, with no adult man in it; this is taken to be his widow, which places his death before that date. Delphine married Pascal Maillet in April 1862; the family record gives 1900 as the year of her death.

Notes

The year of his death rests on the family history and on his widow’s appearance at the head of the household in December 1860. One compiled tree gives about 1862 instead, and another places his death between 1851 and 1860. Where John Dillahunty lived before he came to Louisiana is not known, and it is unclear whether he is the man of that name recorded in Davidson County, Tennessee.