WAY BACK WHEN
I have gone over my notes, the letters from my cousin Bill D'Olive and some information gleaned from the library in Mobile and have arrived at the conclusion that someone younger than I and with more patience is going to have to finish this family story. There's a massive amount of information on this family because they laid down the towns along Mobile Bay, Alabama, and they contributed to the history of the area...well, they ARE the history of the area. Anyway, here's what I know and most of it is probably correct, but there's a lot more.
In 1721 a ship called La Baleine arrived on Ship Island off the coast of Mississippi, having traveled from Nantes, France, carrying eighty-eight young women with the express purpose of providing wives for the men of the Louisiana Territory. The girls were chaperoned by the Grey Sisters and were plucked from Paris' General Hospital, La Salpetriere, where, according to one story, they had lived since infancy. Thus begins the confusion as to their background. The Salpetriere was a depository for all and sundry unwanted persons in France. This included not only orphans, which it appears these young ladies were, but mentally ill persons, prostitutes, thieves and whoever else the government of Paris decided shouldn't be out among the populous. One account refers to the young girls as "guaranteed to be virgins". Sound like a rating for a salable product! Nevertheless, they were referred to as "Casket Girls" because they carried a small trunk containing two pairs of habits, two skirts and petticoats, corset and other necessities. One account states that the prospective husbands rowed out to Ship Island to greet them and rowed them back to land whereupon they were united in marriage with men they had never laid eyes on before. Talk about "go forth and populate the earth"!
Anyway, I am telling you this because one of my ancestors was a fille de cassette and her name was Marie Anne Fourchet. One account gives her name as Marie Ann Foucault, but that is wrong. My ancestor Fourchet was given in marriage to Jean La Case, a soldier, who was called "La Douceur", loosely translated as "sweet one". (I think that is a mistake in my notes.) Jean died in 1726 so they were married a very short time and produced one daughter. Marie Anne, his widow, married soon after his death as was the practice in those days since a woman with no visible means of support had little choice as to her existence. She married Pierre Galand called "La Chaumette" and they lived on his plantation north of Mobile where they had two children. The story handed down to my cousin Jean and me is that the Chickasaw Indians murdered them and I am sharing with you a description from the MISSISSIPPI PROVINCIAL ARCHIVES French Dominion 1729-1748.
Referring to the Indians, the document reads, "They have carried their audacity so far as to come on the twenty-sixth of the month of last September and murder the man named La Chaumette, his wife, two of his children, and Moisel, with his negress on the Mobile River ten leagues from this post, who let themselves be taken by surprise by people who had hunted for them for several years although I had ordered them to come here arms an baggage. Such is the character of the majority of the French, who let themselves be butchered through blind confidence."
Moisel was a settler and evidently a neighbor and the negress is listed as being named Agette, which I think is a lovely name.
There is a lot more but this is enough for now
In 1721 a ship called La Baleine arrived on Ship Island off the coast of Mississippi, having traveled from Nantes, France, carrying eighty-eight young women with the express purpose of providing wives for the men of the Louisiana Territory. The girls were chaperoned by the Grey Sisters and were plucked from Paris' General Hospital, La Salpetriere, where, according to one story, they had lived since infancy. Thus begins the confusion as to their background. The Salpetriere was a depository for all and sundry unwanted persons in France. This included not only orphans, which it appears these young ladies were, but mentally ill persons, prostitutes, thieves and whoever else the government of Paris decided shouldn't be out among the populous. One account refers to the young girls as "guaranteed to be virgins". Sound like a rating for a salable product! Nevertheless, they were referred to as "Casket Girls" because they carried a small trunk containing two pairs of habits, two skirts and petticoats, corset and other necessities. One account states that the prospective husbands rowed out to Ship Island to greet them and rowed them back to land whereupon they were united in marriage with men they had never laid eyes on before. Talk about "go forth and populate the earth"!
Anyway, I am telling you this because one of my ancestors was a fille de cassette and her name was Marie Anne Fourchet. One account gives her name as Marie Ann Foucault, but that is wrong. My ancestor Fourchet was given in marriage to Jean La Case, a soldier, who was called "La Douceur", loosely translated as "sweet one". (I think that is a mistake in my notes.) Jean died in 1726 so they were married a very short time and produced one daughter. Marie Anne, his widow, married soon after his death as was the practice in those days since a woman with no visible means of support had little choice as to her existence. She married Pierre Galand called "La Chaumette" and they lived on his plantation north of Mobile where they had two children. The story handed down to my cousin Jean and me is that the Chickasaw Indians murdered them and I am sharing with you a description from the MISSISSIPPI PROVINCIAL ARCHIVES French Dominion 1729-1748.
Referring to the Indians, the document reads, "They have carried their audacity so far as to come on the twenty-sixth of the month of last September and murder the man named La Chaumette, his wife, two of his children, and Moisel, with his negress on the Mobile River ten leagues from this post, who let themselves be taken by surprise by people who had hunted for them for several years although I had ordered them to come here arms an baggage. Such is the character of the majority of the French, who let themselves be butchered through blind confidence."
Moisel was a settler and evidently a neighbor and the negress is listed as being named Agette, which I think is a lovely name.
There is a lot more but this is enough for now
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