Pierre Michel

• Sources:
  • https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Michel-483
  • "Acadian Immigrants to Cabanocé/Cabahannocer, 1765" - http://www.acadiansingray.com
    • On list of Acadians in Province of Connecticut 1763, called Pierre Miche
    • Cabanocé, La Luisiana census, 1766, listed as Pedro de Miguel
    • St.-Jacques, La Luisiana census, 1777, age 39
    • St.-Jacques, La Luisiana census, 1779, listed as Pierre a Michel

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• Notes:
  • Arrived in current day Louisiana in 1765, age 28, a widower

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Pierre Michel is on the Wall of Names at the Acadian Memorial in St. Martinsville, Louisiana Plaque 5 Left. He was widowed at the time, his wife having died at St-Domingue. [1]

Pierre Michel was born at Pisquit, Acadie, Nouvelle-France about 1738, son of Jacques Michel & Jeanne Brau. He was exiled to Connecticut in 1755 in his late teens where he married Marguerite Poirier, daughter of another Acadian, Jean-Baptiste Poirier. [2], about 1763 in Stonington, New London Connecticut Colony. Stephen Cormier writes about how he believes Pierre came to emigrate to Louisiana:

"At the behest of French officials who promised them a new life in one of their tropical colonies, they followed his father to French-controlled St.-Domingue, today's Haiti, which they reached in August 1764. The French sent them to Le Mirebalais, where Pierre and Marguerite's marriage was "attested to" in September. Pierre's father, mother, and wife Marguerite died in St.-Domingue, so Pierre left as soon as he was able. He either booked passage on his own or hooked up with one of the parties that came through Cap-Français in early 1765 and reached New Orleans later that year--one of the few Acadians to come to Louisiana directly from the Caribbean Basin." [3]

After arriving in New Orleans, Pierre married Marie Josephe Leger 3 Mar 1766. Marie Josephe was christened at Port-Royal 8 Mar 1743 daughter of Francois Leger and Madeleine Commeaux .

They were the parents of 6 children:

1. Anastasie Dugas Michel born 8 Dec 1771.
2. Joseph Michel christened 21 Jun 1772.
3. Rosalie Michel christened 1 Nov 1777.
4. Anne Marie Michel christened 2 Apr 1780.
5. Marie Magdelaine Michel christened 2 Apr 1780.
6. Pierre Michel christened 18 Nov 1781.
7. Michel died in March 1813 in St. James Parish.

Residence

• 1763 Connecticut Colony[4]
• 8 April 1766, Verret's Company census; [5]
• 23 Jan 1770, Acadian Coast, Louisiana; Militia of the first Acadian Coast January 23, 1770 (Captain Nicolas Verret)[6][7]
• 1777 Cabahannocer, St. James Parish [8][9]
• 1780, Convent, Louisiana, Church Warden[10]
• Received a Spanish land grant, 1782. Identified as Pierre à Michel in the October 27, 1786 list. Sold his Spanish land grant to Isaac Hays, October 18, 1804.[11]
• On April 24, 1787, Pierre Michel, Joseph Terriot (Theriot), Hypolite Hébert, and Charles Gaudet of St. Jacques de Cabannocé informed the governor that they had spend the previous winter working on a levee across a large unoccupied area in the center of the district. The former lack of a levee had resulted in the annual inundation of large parts of the district. Michel, Terriot, Hébert, and Gaudet complained that their work had largely been destroyed in the period of two hours by the passage of a cattle herd bound for New Orleans under the direction of drovers led by Philippe Boutté of the Attakapas District.