Pierre-Firmin Breau

• Sources:
  • http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=65288609&ref=wvr
  • "The BROUSSARD dit Beausoleil Party to the Attakapas District, 1765" - http://www.acadiansingray.com
    • On list of Acadians at Weymouth, Province of Massachusetts, 1760-61
    • Cabanocé, La Luisiana census, 1766, listed as Fermin Braud
    • Cabanocé, La Luisiana census, 1769, listed as Firmain Breau, age 20
    • Ascension, La Luisiana census, 1777, listed as Firmain Brau, age 21
    • Attakapas, La Luisiana census, 1779, listed as Firmin Braux, age 28
    • Attakapas, La Luisiana census, Apr 1781, called Firmin Braud
    • Attakapas, La Luisiana census, Apr 1785, called Firmin Brau
    • On Attakapas, La Luisiana militia list, Aug 1789, called Fermin Breau
    • Succession dated 30 Jan 1809, St. Martin Parish courthouse

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• Notes:
  • Exiled to Province of Massachusetts 1755, age 6
  • Arrived in current day Louisiana in Feb 1765, age 16
  • Depicted in Dafford Mural, Acadian Memorial, St. Martinville

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In the 1766 census, Firmin Breau is listed as a bachelor, aged nineteen, living at Bayou Tortue on the Cote Gelee. He must have soon thereafter moved to the District of Cabahanoce (present St. James Parish) since he was married there and is listed in the census of that district taken in 1769. He is shown as a member of the Attakapas militia in 1777.

He was among the Acadian settlers who appear on the roll of the company of Captain Augustin Grevenberg, which joined Galvez's expedition that captured the British forts in the lower Mississippi valley in 1779. ["S.A.R. Spanish Records, Spanish-English War 1779-1783. Men Under General Don Bernardo Galvez..." N.P.: Louisiana Society of the S.A.R., 1925]

As far back as 14 Mar 1786, Firmin owned a large tract of land extending from Bayou Vermilion all the way to the forty arpent road east of Bayou Teche, part of a larger tract ninety-two arpents wide that had been originally granted by the Spanish government to Jean-Francois Ledee. He lived on this land, at the west end of the bridge over Bayou Teche, and he probably built "Breau's Bridge" for which the town is named. (St. Martin Parish Succession No. 38 and Suit No. 334)

In 1792 he bought a tract of four arpents by forty arpents depth on Bayou Vermilion from Joseph Broussard. He apparently disposed of this land sometime before his death since it is not included in the inventory filed in his succession.

On 24 Jul 1796 he bought from Pierre Broussard a tract of land ten by forty arpents on the east bank of Bayou Teche, increasing his holdings on the east side of the bayou to twenty arpents front. This conveyance stipulates that the land was bounded by Claude Martin on one side and by the vendee on the other. These boundaries indicate that the property purchased lay on the downstream side of Breau's original purchase.

At the time of his death, he still owned land at La Pointe as well as at "Grande Prairie" (present day Lafayette).

The marriage record of Agricole Breau dated 1 Jun 1813 recites that his deceased father, Firmin Breau, resided at La Pointe (present day Breaux Bridge) while he lived.

Prior to his death, he made a donation of his property to his six sons and six daughters. He made the donations to his daughters in the names of their husbands, as Louisiana law at the time prohibited married women from holding legal title to land separately from their husbands.

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Firmin Breaux arrived in the Attakapas District in 1765, and eventually settled near LaPointe near the bends of the Bayou Teche in the Upper St. Martin Parish. The area is now known as Breaux Bridge -- his namesake. Firmin's family first settled in Boston in 1755 after their deportation from Nova Scotia, but secured permission to move back to Canada in 1767. However Firmin had evidently decided to leave the Boston area and his family while still a young man of 17 to follow Jean-Batiste Broussard and the first Acadian settlers of Louisiana to the Attakapas County. He did not return to Canada. The Spanish census of 1766 lists Broussard and 15 other Acadian householders as having established their farms and homes at Quartier de la Pointe, the area of a point along the Bayou Teche). It lists Firmin as a bachelor at Bayou Tortue, southwest of Breaux Bridge. His name later appears in 1769 as a householder in the census of the District of Cabahanoce (St. James Parish), married to Marguerite Braud, then on the membership of the Attakapas militia in 1777. He is next listed in the Attakapas District's census of 1781 as the head of a household of nine individuals with 153 animals and 25 arpents of cultivated or cleared land. By 1786, according to Geneva Bailey Seymour's genelogical study of the Breaux, Firmin lived at the west end of the bridge which spans bayou Teche in Breaux Bridge, and owned a much larger tract extending from "Bayou Vermillion all the way to the 40-arpent road east of the bayou (Teche)" until he died in 1808. Firmin's large tract, Seymour wrote, was part of a 92-arpent tract extending from Bayou Vermillion to the 40-arpent road east of the Teche which was originaily grantea to jean-Francois Ledee by the Spanish government. There is evidence that Ledee eventually divided the land into lots and sold it to several Acadian farmers, Sugarcane and cotton were the primary crops and the fertile bayou lands began drawing more and more settlers to the area. In a 1983 interview with the Teche News, Grover Rees, a descendant of Firmin Breaux and David Rees, said that according to an 1829 map showing Breaux Bridge as 'Ila ville du pont de Breaux," meaning more than one Breaux, the original bridge for which the town was named was built by Firmin and one of his sons, (Agricole or Joseph), connecting their properties on the east and west sides of the bayou. The U. S., Survey Map 1816 indicates a bridge connecting Firmin's property to that of his son Joseph. The area was referred to as Pont Breaux at that time. Agricole, the son of Pierre Firmin, was born March 11, 1788 at Breaux bridge. It was he who gave a lot at the corner of the present Bridge and Rees Streets in Breaux Bridge for a public school. A statue of his widow, Scholastique Picou, was recently commissioned by the town fathers.

http://www.gladysdevilliers.acadian-home.org/Breaux-Louisiana.html

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