Paul Hypolite Pitre
1732 Acadia - 31 January 1767 France
Paul Pitre, born c1732 in Acadia, was the fourth of seven sons born to Claude Jean Pitre and Marguerite Doiron. By the 1750’s he was a refugee, and an orphan before the end of 1759. Along with his brothers Claude, Francois, and Raphael, he finally arrived at St. Malo from Cherbourg on 20th July 1759.
Paul lived in Pleudihen, then moved on to St. Suliac where he married Marguerite Louise Valet in February 1763. (Marguerite was the third daughter of Louis Vallet, a Frenchman who had been a soldier of the company of Monsieur Dangeac, and who had settled on Ile St. Jean c1733.) Paul and Marguerite’s first child, a daughter Marguerite, was born nine months later but died early in 1767 at the age of three. Paul himself died two weeks later at about the age of 45.
Son Martin was born about three and a half months after Paul's death. (It is likely that there was another pregnancy in between but no record has been found of a birth or baptism.) At this point Marguerite was twenty-three with an infant son. Unusually it was another two and a half years before she remarried. (Most Acadian widows remarried within the year, undoubtedly for economic support.)
Widowed Marguerite married Charles Hebert, who was about three years her senior, and a fellow Acadian exile. Marguerite, her second husband Charles, their children Joseph and Marie Louise and her son Martin Pitre were in the Third Convoy leaving Chatellerault for Nantes on 7th December 1775. They had at least three more children. Two daughters died as infants.
There is no record of either Charles, Marguerite, or a third daughter having boarded a ship bound for Louisiana so it is probable they died in Nantes between 1780 and 1785 when the ‘Seven Ships’ took the Acadian exiles to Louisiana. Paul's only surviving child Martin, Martin’s half-brother Joseph and half-sister Marie were on the embarkation list for L'Amitie (Martin listed as Joseph), but did not make the sailing on 20 August 1785. They arrived in Louisiana on La Caroline instead which left France on 19th October 1785 and arrived 17th December 1785.
Continuation of tree (4th child of Claude Jean Pitre/Marguerite Doiron); all known surname descendants:
4 Paul Hypolite Pitre b: Abt. 1732 Cobequit, Acadia; d: 31 January 1767 St. Suliac, Bretagne, France
+Marguerite Louise Valet b: 15 December 1743 St. Pierre du Nord, Ile St. Jean; m: 8 February 1763 St. Suliac, Bretagne, France [Louis Vallet dit Langevin/Marie Brigitte Pinet]; d: Aft. 1780
5 Marguerite Genevieve Pitre b: 4 November 1763 St. Suliac, Bretagne, France; d: 15 January 1767 St. Suliac, Bretagne, France
5 Martin Benoni Pitre b: 6 May 1767 St. Suliac, Bretagne, France; d: 21 November 1851 Thibodaux, Lafourche, LA
+Jeanne Dantin b: 4 August 1768 St. Andre-des-Eaux, Cotes du Nord, France; m: 21 January 1786 St. Louis Cathedral, New Orleans, LA [Louis/Jeanne Gesmier]; d: 7 April 1825 Thibodaux, Lafourche, LA
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Items in RED verified from transcriptions in the following:
- The Acadian Exiles in St. Malo 1758-1785, Vol. 2 (Robichaux)
- South Louisiana Records: Church and Civil Records of Lafourche-Terrebonne Parishes (Rev. Hebert)
- Sacramental Records of the Roman Catholic Church of the Archdiocese of New Orleans
- Acadians in Exile (Rev. Hebert)
Last updated: 31 March 2008***