Jean-Baptiste de Macarty

Macarty, Juan Bautista (also Jean-Baptiste), merchant, planter. Born, New Orleans, March 7, 1750; son of Barthélémy Daniel de Macarty and Françoise Hélène Pellerin. Son of a French colonial officer, he entered militia service in 1777, rising to the rank of captain in 1793. Beginning as a small wholesale merchant, in the 1770s, by 1784 was one of New Orleans' leading merchants. After 1790 developed extensive contacts with American merchants in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Favorable family connections aided his success. His sister Marie Céleste Eléonore was the wife of Gov. Esteban Miró (q.v.), and his brother's daughter, Marie Delphine, married Intendant Ramón de López y Angulo. Married Héloïse Charlotte Fazende. Children: Louis Barthélémy (Louisiana secretary of state, 1812-1816); Edmund, and Marie Céleste (b. 1785). From land purchased in 1778 and other land grants obtained in 1795 he established a magnificent plantation on land formerly owned by Nicolas Chauvin de La Frénière (q.v.). Died, New Orleans, November 10, 1808. B.C. Sources: Judicial records of the Spanish cabildo, Louisiana State Museum #178803061; Robert Smith and Nicolas Low Papers, Special Collections Division, Tulane University; New Orleans Genesis, VII; John G. Clarke, New Orleans, 1718-1812 (1970); Herman de B. Seebold, Old Louisiana Plantation Homes and Family Trees (1941); Stanley Clisby Arthur, Old Families of Louisiana (1931; reprint ed., 1971).