MySource:Aberksan/Naquin in Louisiana

Naquins of Louisiana

The Naquins of Louisiana stem from the families of two Acadians of that surname, Ambroise and Charles who arrived in New Orleans with their children in the 1785 migration of exiles from France.^[1] The two were cousins, grandsons of Jean-Baptiste Naquin dit l'Etoile who came to Acadia from France around 1690.^[2] Sent by Spanish authorities first to the Acadian Coast (Ascension Parish), the Naquins eventually settled along Bayou Lafourche^[3].

By 1788, Charles Naquin (Widower of Anne Doiron) and his children, as well as one of the sons of Ambroise - Pierre (m. 1878 Anne Robichaux) - had made homes along the bayou; by 1795 Pierre's twin brother, Joseph (m. 1787 Marie-Josephe Arcement) had joined him on the Lafourche.^[4] The descendants of Pierre and Joseph settled along the central part of the bayou, especially from present Thibodeaux southward in the Lafourche Parish, whereas those of Charles Naquin established farms mainly along the various bayous in eastern Terrrebonne Parish.^[5] Today nearly half of the approximately 900 Naquin households in Louisiana still reside in those 2 parishes, chiefly in the cities of Thibodeaux (130) and Houma (86).^[6]

Like other early settlers in the Lafourche area, the Naquins were small farmers, Charles Naquin was one of the first Acadians to take up land along Bayou Terrebonne, the main distributary that branches southward from the Lafourche; in 1795 he obtained from the Spanish government a grant of about 400 acres, probably around the present city of Houma.^[7] After the Civil War an increasing number of Charles' descendants (stemming mainly from his son, Jean-Charles (m. 1800 Madeleine LeBoeuf)) were registering baptisms and marriages in the church at Montegut, indicating settlement in the lower port of Bayou Terrebonne and likely along Bayou Petit Caillou immediately to the west.^[8] At least by the early 1900s, and possibly earlier, several Naquin families were residing along Bayou Pointe-aux-Chenes (Pointe-au-Chien) within the coastal marshes of extreme southeastern Terrebonne.^[9] Probably most of these, like other Acadians of that area, were part-time farmers and trappers; apparently none of the Naquins of Terrebonne became large sugar planters.

Before the Civil War another movement of the Naquins of Lafourche and Terrebonne, along with other French-speaking families, took place along Bayou Black westward from Houma toward the lower Teche; by the late 1850s many were using the church at Chacahoula, northeast of Bayou Black, for recording baptisms and marriages.^[10] This movement continued with the Bayou Teche area during the 1870s and 1880s, for during that period several Naquin families that once resided near Thibodeaux and Houma were recorded as living near New Iberia and farther up the Teche at Cecilia and Arnaudville. ^[11] One family from Houma (Michel-Leufroy, great-grandson of Charles Naquin and Anne Doiron, and wife Aimie Butler) even settled as far north as Ville Platte in the early 1880s.^[12] The relatively few Nawuins who now live in the Teche country and the parishes of St. Landry and Evangeline are the descendants of those migrants. Unlike many of their Acadian compatriots, few Naquins settled in the rice country of southwestern La.; recently many probably have been attracted more by jobs in the industries of New Orleans and Baton Rouge than by similar opportunities in more distant southeastern Texas.

Footnotes

1. ↑ Reeder & Reeder 1965, 40, 41; Voorhies 1963, 49 (Acadians in France who want to go to Louisiana, 1784)
2. ↑ Jean-Baptiste det l'Etoile, an army sergeant and master tailor, was a relatively late arrival in Acadia, most of the colonists having come from France between the 1630s and 1670s (Arsenault 1978, 2:702. Charles was the son of Francois Naquin and Angelique Richard, Ambroise the son of Jacques Naquin and Jeanne Melancon, both Francois and Jacques being the sons of Jean-Baptiste d l'Etoile Naquin and Marguerite Bourg, progenitors of the Naquins in Acadia. The grandsons and their families were exiles to France in 1759 (Robichaux 1981, 2:634, 636, 637, 638; Robichaux 1981, 2:634, 636, 637, 68; Robichaux 1978, 138).
3. ↑ Diocese Baton Rouge 1878-84, Vols. 2-3.
4. ↑ Robichaux 1974, 25, 46 (1788 General Census Inhabitants of Lafourche), 54 (1795 Census of Valenzuela).
5. ↑ Hebert 1978, Vols. 1-10.
6. ↑ 1981 telephone directories.
7. ↑ ASP 6:678.
8. ↑ Hebert 1978-84, Vols. 4-6; Ledet 1982, 262, 267,
9. ↑ For example, Joseph-Lotaire Naquin, a 5th generation descendant of Charles Naquin with Anne Doiron, and his wife Marie-Louise Thibodeaux, were living at Pointe-aux-Chenes in 1908 (Ledet 1982, 257).
10. ↑ Hebert 1978, Vols. 4.
11. ↑ For example, Basile Naquin (son of Joseph with Marie-Josephe Arcement), his wife Marie-Bonne Bourg and several of their children were living near New Iberia in the early 1870s. In the late 1870s Ernest-Paul Naquin (grandson of Joseph and Marie-Josephe Arcement) and his second wife Marie Victoire Malbrough, were residing on Bayou Teche near Cecilia (Hebert 1974-, 11:284, 13:380).
12. ↑ Hebert 1974-, 15:421.