Three hundred and fourteen years ago my ancestor, Jean Baptiste Saucier made the biggest decision of his life. He signed up as a recruit for d'Iberville, in a quest to colonize the wild new Louisiana territory. He left his family behind in Canada, his father Louis Saucier, mother Marguerite Gaillard Duplessis and a brother Charles Saucier.
I have often wondered why he left. Was it the adventure? Was it that he wanted more for himself. He signed on as a passenger, a free man, not as a soldier. Marrying one of the Pelican Girls, Gabrielle Savary. He died around 1715, leaving behind five children, four of them sons.
He owned a plot of land in the village outside of the fort in Mobile. His portion being adjacent to Graveline and St. Denis.
Gabrielle Savary arrived on Le Pelican on August 1, 1704. She was one of many women sent by they king from France to marry the colonist in Mobile. The women chose their men and married without delay. Except for Gabrielle, she took her time choosing Jean Baptiste Saucier.
Bienville, the brother of d'Iberville was asked to stand as godfather to the daughter of Jean and Gabrielle Saucier. The priest LaVente refused to baptize the child if Bienville was to be godfather.
Gabrielle had married twice more after the death of Jean Saucier.
First to the soldier Pierre Vifvareine who with she had a son Jean
Baptiste Vifvareine. Pierre Vifvareine died shorty thereafter and she
then married the soldier Jean Sansot Lagrange whom with she had daughter
Jeanne Gabrielle Sansot.
Gabrielle later went to live in the village of New Orleans with her children. Gabrielle found life as a widow hard and asked to be able to leave to go to St. Dominigue with her children. She was refused.
She employed herself as a midwife, and had a second hand goods business in New Orleans first flea market.
Her sons went on to make names for themselves in the colony. Henry, Jean Baptiste, and Francois Saucier established a trade business from New Orleans to Illinois. With Francois settling in Illinois. Francois designed Fort Chartres in Kaskaskia, Illinois. He was a surveyor and mapmaker.
Henry later moved his family back to the coast and there raised a large family, whose descendants can be found up and down the coast of Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama today. All you have to do is to open a local phone book to see the multiple pages that contain the name Saucier.
