ALABAMY BOUND

In 1995, Louis and I traveled to Spain with the express purpose of visiting his ancestral Basque country. We rented a car and drove north from Madrid into the most beautiful part of Spain. His ancestors were from Navarra, a province which borders the Pyrenees. By making this trip we were covering ground trod by ancestors from both of our families. My ancestors were from the southern French province of Gascony, present day Department of Gers, also near the Pyrenees.

My children are familiar with their father's Spanish ancestry but there has been little written about my French roots so that is what this is about.

In 1770 my g,g,g,g,g,grandfather, Dominique D'Olive, then about 39 years old, immigrated to America from his birthplace in Tillac, France. He settled in Mobile, Alabama, which at that time was under British dominion. Mobile was established in 1702 by the French and was the first capital of the Louisiana Territory.

Dominque wound up on Mon Louis Island in south Alabama where he married Marie Louise Bodin (Baudin) on May 20, 1772. This marriage was solemnized at the Bodin residence "Miragouine",  on July 30, 1778, because Mobile, under British rule at the time, was without a parish priest between 1771 and early 1773. They had seven children and my ancestor was Louis, born February 15, 1773. He married Louisa LeFleau on November 1802 and died in 1841.

Evidently Dominque was a good business man because he owned cattle and farmed a great number of acres, (680+), on Mon Louis Island. He also owned  17 slaves.( Hey, I have nothing to do with that)
Also land was granted to him north of Mobile on the Tombigbee River, near a little town called Sunflower and later he owned about 1000 acres near the junction of the Tensaw and Middle Rivers in the Mobile delta. He also owned property in the city of Mobile and land known as "the Village" (later Daphne) on the east side of Mobile Bay in Baldwin County. He died at age 64 in 1803.

Because of the frequent changes in ruling parties in this area, many names were changed to coincide with the language of that country. For example "Bodin" was probably originally "Baudin" and "LeFleau" became LaFlor under Spanish rule.  and on and on.

Louis moved his family to the property of the "Village" acquired by his father Dominque in 1787, where they built a home and a hotel named "La Belle Rose". During the turbulent time of 1812-15, the Indians, instigated by the Spaniards plundered Louis's plantation near the Village, taking the overseer and three slaves off to Pensacola. They were later returned.

I know this is long but this all took place almost 250 years ago, so bear with me. I will close this chapter with a quick note about Louis. He was captured by Indians along with one of his slaves and taken some miles away where they were tied to trees and carefully examined. There was much dancing and deliberation as to what to do with their captives and finally the Indians dropped off to sleep whereby Louis was able to free himself and the slave and escape. They were probably not scalped because Louis was bald and the slave's short, kinky hair wasn't conducive to scalping.

More next time.