Jean Baptiste Baudreau dit Graveline
Jean-Baptiste Baudreau dit Graveline ["Graveline"] accompanied Pierre LeMoyne, Sieur d'Iberville, on the original colonizing expedition to Louisiana, arriving at Old Biloxi on the morning of 6 Jan 1700 aboard "The Renommee" from France. His property in Old Mobile [Ft. Louis] bounded the town market. He owned one of the finest private homes in the colony on Isle Massacre [Dauphin Island].At the I-10 rest area just west of the Pascagoula River bridge, an historical marker has been erected honoring Graveline.
Graveline, can be found in the Mobile Paper, in the Suburban, page 3., article "Climbing The Family Tree", date submitted, Thursday February 23, 1995, this article is written as follows:
"Jean Baptiste Baudreau dit Graveline arrived on the Gulf Coast in 1699 (Biloxi-Ocean Springs area) with a group of French Canadian explorers under the leadership of Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville. He was one of the first settlers of Old Mobile in 1702."
According to the book "Mississippi Coast Historical & Genealogical Society", volume 15, number 1., June 1979, page 78.-79.-80., titled: A Gulf Coast Heritage, submitted by : Mary Louise Adkinson, is printed as saying:
"It was the morning of January 6, 1700, at Old Biloxi. The sound of cannons firing was heard from Surgeres Island, heralding d' Iberville's arrival on the "Renomee" from France. A very happy Governor Sauvolle ordered all the muskets and cannons at the fort to be fired to announce the coming of d' Iberville with much needed supplies. Among the Canadians immigrants to disembark from the "Renomee" on that winter day in 1700 was Jean Baptiste Baudrau de Graveline. Jean Baptiste Baudrau de Graveline married and his wife, Suzanne, presented him with a son, Jean Baptiste, sometime around 1710. In a letter to Pontchartrain in 1713, Cadillac wrote that the wife of Graveline was devoted to religion and gave her servants religious instructions. He made a marginal note that she had died since his letter was written."
Jean-Baptiste Baudrau (1671- ca 1762), dit Graveline, was born at Montreal in New France (Canada). In 1700, he landed with Pierre Le Moyne, d’Iberville (1761-1706) at Fort Maurepas in present day Ocean Springs. Iberville was a military commander sent by King Louis XIV (1638-1715) of France to establish and protect “La Louisiane”, the 1682 French claim of Rene Robert Cavalier de La Salle (1643-1687). French Louisiana was defined by La Salle as the watershed of the Mississippi River and its tributaries.
In 1702, Jean-Baptiste Baudreau abandoned Biloxy, the region around Fort Maurepas. With his French cohorts, led by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, de Bienville (1684-1778), Baudrau relocated to Old Mobile. Circa 1718, Baudreau left Dauphin Island to return permanently to what is now Jackson County, Mississippi. He and his family resided on the west side of the Pascagoula River. (Adkinson, et al, 1991, pp. 95-98)
Initially Graveline managed a farm in the present day Martin’s Bluff section. He raised livestock, primarily horned cattle. Graveline utilized Negro and Indian slave labor to work the plantation and tend livestock. (Conrad, 1970, p. 2 and p. 50) Baudreau descendants
The descendants of Jean-Baptise Baudrau are numbered in the tens of thousands. From this French Canadian adventurer, some of the first families of the Mississippi Coast, which still exist today, can trace some of their lineage...Ladner, Bosarge, Fayard, Moran, Grelot (Gollott), Fournier, Ryan, Bang, Seaman and Seymour.
Jean Baptiste Baudrau dit Graveline had married an Indian woman who brought forth two children, Magdeleine Baudrau and Jean-Baptiste Baudrau II (d. 1757). Baudrau II married Marie Catherine Vinconnau. Their daughter Catherine Louise Baudreau (1742-1806) married Joseph Bosarge (1733-1794) of Poitiers, France in June 1762. They are the progenitors of the large Bosarge family of coastal Alabama and Mississippi. (Atkinson, 1991, p. 23) Another daughter of Baudrau II, Genevieve Baudrau, married Charles Leblanc in 1783. Their son, Joseph, born in 1788, became known as St. Cyr Seymour (1788-1845). His issue with Marie-Joseph Ryan (1786-1876) commenced the large Seymour family of our region. (Lepre, 1995 , pp. 54-61 ) The Seymour family has its roots on the north shore of Graveline Lake in Section 5, T8S-R7W. Here the children of St. Cyr and Marie-Joseph made their livelihoods as subsistence farmers and stockmen in the same manner as their great great grandfather, Jean-Baptiste Baudrau dit Graveline. They left their family homestead to settle at Biloxi Latimer, Fort Bayou, Ocean Springs, and North Biloxi. (The Ocean Springs Record, January 15, 1998) Barbara Jean McNamara’s notes concerning the marriage of Graveline to Marthe LaVergne:
In the 1740s, Graveline married Madame Marthe LaVergne, who was deceased by October 1747. Graveline and his good friends, Joseph Simon de La Pointe and Louis LaVergne (LaVergue), had settled at Pascagoula in the early 1700s. The January 1, 1726 census along the Pascagoula River lists these three families...LaPointe and LaVergne are listed with wives, but Graveline is listed only with two children and two Indian slaves. It is possible that Madame LaVergne was the widow of this good friend, whom Graveline married in his latter years following the death of her husband. Graveline's marriage to Madame LaVergne apparently was one of companionship; no children were born of this union. No record has been located of this marriage. However, lawsuits of Madame LaVergne's heirs following her death clearly state that she was married to Graveline.
On 20 Sep 1747, Jean Gregoire Volant petitioned the Superior Council of Louisiana [LHQ Vol 18, pp. 724 and 980] to prevent dissipation of family property and to preclude injury of presumptive heirs of Marthe LaVergne, wife of Graveline, whom Volant says brought dowry and acquired considerable community property in her marriage to Graveline. The petition states 'that sales previously made be declared null and void, and that Baudreau Graveline, who is almost senile, be not allowed to have fortune dissipated by his son from a clandestine marriage, and whom he has legitimated; this son could not act in previous sales, being civilly non-existing.' [Jean Gregorie Vollant, commander of the 4th Company of the Swiss Regiment of Karrer, garrisoned in New Orleans, married Marthe Chauvin (she was deceased by 1752); Marthe Chauvin and Jacques Chauvin were niece and nephew of Madame Marthe LaVergne]. Evidently Volant petitioned the Council on his wife's behalf, as a presumptive heir, due to the imminent death of his wife's aunt, because in a second petition on Oct 7, 1747, he states that 'Marthe LaVergne, who when living, was the wife of Jean Baudreau, called Graveline.' Volant was trying to stop Graveline from 'allowing his son to waste their aunt's fortune'. Marthe Chauvin was the widow of Valentin Devin and daughter of deceased Jacques Chauvin and Marie Anne LaVergne.
Apparently, Graveline was not in as senile as everyone was making him out to be! On June 6, 1748, Vaudreuil requested that Graveline be placed in charge of the Indian Villages guarding Biloxi and Pascagoula where Choctaw followers of Red Shoe had made some atttacks aided by the English. "Baudrau cannot be blamed for attacks already made -- has great respect for him and his long service of more than forty years in Louisiana and Canada, is responsible for the introduction of cattle into the commerce with Havana, and in frequent trips to France brought many people to the colony". Vaudreuil continues that Baudrau, "one of the wealthier men in the colony, asks clemency for his son that he may be with the father in the last days remaining to him of a long life of service to the King." [See Barron, Bill. The Vaudreuil Papers. Publisher: Polyanthos Inc., New Orleans 1975, p. 33; also Jackson Co Genealogical Society Journal, Vol 16, No. 2,3,4 Special Issue, Dec 1999, p. 20]. If Graveline had been in such diminished mental capacity, I rather doubt Vaudreuil would have trusted him with such an important assignment!
Volant's petitions continued for a couple of years as the heirs of Madame LaVergne schemed to acquire the property of Graveline and ensure that his son did not inherit. Apparently, Graveline was constantly badgered until it came to a point in September 1750 following a particularly bad scene with his son that they succeeded, with the assistance of Graveline's godson, in drawing up a Last Will and Testament in which Graveline disowned his only son.
Graveline was then almost 80 years old, probably in failing health and eyesight, had suffered the loss of his wife and companion in his old age, had endured several years of petitions by his wife's heirs labeling him incompetent and senile, plus the added responsibility placed on him by Vaudreuil of being placed in charge of the Indian Villages guarding Biloxi and Pascagoula during an uprising by Red Shoe. I feel strongly that Graveline was coerced into signing the 1750 Last Will and Testament and did not realize the document he signed disowned his only son.
Graveline apparently continued a relationship with his son following the execution of the Will. This is supported by the case before the Superior Council in October 1753 (three years AFTER the Will was executed). Charles Lorreins dit Tarascon, husband of Marie Louise Girardy, widow of deceased Louis Langlois, vs. Jean Baptiste Baudreau dit Graveline, Tarascon is trying to claim possession of land he had been cultivating over the years, but which was owned by Graveline. This petition states that 'Graveline never did cultivate said land...and now he wishes to disturb defendant in his possession...not to enjoy it himself nor cultivate it, owing to his advanced age and infirmities, but for a son declared to be illegitimate and incapable to succeed him or inherit.' [LHQ Vol 22, pp.1176-1177].
It is clearly apparent, several years after the 1750 Will had been signed disowning his son, that Graveline's caring paternal feelings in trying to assist JEAN-BAPTISTE BAUDREAU II had not changed -- he was still conducting his affairs in such a manner as to ensure his only son an inheritance. This is why I believe Graveline did not fully understand the contents of the document he signed on that fateful day in 1750. And it is also equally apparent that the feelings of the French authorities in the Colony were very bitter towards Jean-Baptiste Baudrau II basically due to the fact that he was the son of an Indian woman!! These feelings were culminated in the vicious action of Governor Kerlerec in 1757 when JEAN-BAPTISTE BAUDREAU II was torn apart at the wheel. [The History of Alabama by Albert James Pickett, pp. 304-308