Franchimastabe

 In my research I have come across information from Jennifer Meirs that Franchimastabe is likely the Indian chief that the Favre's are descended from.
 Jennifer stated on her site:

(1)1839 testimony of John Jones Sr, Sumter county, Alabama testified Simon Favre married Maron (maryann) daughter of Franchimastubbee, not Pushmataha. I spoke with Mr. Heitzmann, the author of the book on the Favre's, records for Simon's family show that Maryann was his widow (aka Piskotanay)
Posted by: Jennifer Miers

I tracked down the excerpt she was speaking of, it is as thus:

(2)John Jones affidavit, received and recorded April 2nd 1839. The state of Alabama, Sumter County. Before me John A. Cowan as acting justice of the peace for said county ? affidavit John Jones who being duly sworn according to law deposes ? and sayethe that he was acquainted with Simon Favre in his lifetime that said Simon Favre ? forty and fifty years ago married an Indian woman named M? daughter of France Mastubbee as I understood from communications and by his had Simon's children said Favre married in the Choctaw tribe of Indians and resided on the Tombigby river. Deposee sayeht that he is satisfied and confident the above named ? unreadable were married although he was not there from the fact that he was invited to the marriage and from what ? who was there told him and also from the fact that he was not more than two miles and a ? from (unreadable) at the time of the wedding.

This led me to search more about Franchimastabe and in doing so I have seen just how often he and Simon Favre interacted. Leaving me to believe that he must indeed be the father of Simon's Indian wife and not Pushmataha as was previously believed.

(3) During a presentation by the Mississippi Humanities Council it was said that Franchimastabe was a head of a village of the West Yazoo who was engaged in intense and significant diplomatic negotiations over the question of ownership of the site of Nogales (present day Vicksburg) and other matters with Manuel Gayoso de Lemos the Spanish governor of the Natchez District from 1787 to 1797.

 From the letters of M. Delavillebeuvre to Carondelet,  Delavillebeuvre wrote that:

(4)After making my first speech there [Yasou, Franchimastabe’ village] I went to the Small Part where I am going to reside with Favre, who is employed by the king and who will serve me as interpreter. He is the best one of the province, with a great influence over the minds of the Indians, and he knows how to lead them firmly whenever necessary. When he found out that I was coming as commissioner to this nation, he had a comfortable hut built for me. I shall live there if you will allow me because I find that life there will be simpler. Since it is only four leagues away from Franchimastabe’ village, I shall therefore be able to know what is going on in both parts with equal facility.

He was certainly speaking of Simon Favre here. Showing there was a relationship between Favre and Franchimastabe.

(5,6)There are historical elements about Chief Frantimastabe 's actions with the French, British and Spanish that closely parallel Simon Favre's relationships with the same parties. He was not a friend of the Americans and led in combat against them. Chief Frantimastable encouraged family relationships and marriages between his family and the French and English for stronger ties and alliances.

 "Chief Pushmataha" is strongly considered a possible father for, " Pistikiokonay" by some sources. He was a strong friend and allay of the Americans.



Simon Favre was present at Fort Nogales, near the mouth of the Yazoo River in Choctaw territory, for the signing of the Treaty of Nogales on October 28, 1793.[iii] This treaty was signed between the King of Spain and Emperor of the Indies and the Chickasaw, Creek, Talapoosa, Alibamon, Cherokee and Choctaw nations.
The Spaniards were represented by Don Manuel Gayoso de Lemos, colonel of the royal armies, military and political governor of the post and district of Natchez, commissioned for this purpose by the Baron de Carondelet, governor of the province of Louisiana and West Florida.
Representing the Choctaws was Franchimastabe’, principal chief, and Pushamataha, who apparently was closely tied to Simon Favre, possibly through marriage.
 The text of the treaty detailed where the different tribes were to pick up their gifts to maintain the terms of all treaties since 1784. The Choctaw were to pick up their yearly gifts at old Tombecbe’, “which it has recently ceded to His Catholic Majesty”. The treaty was signed for the Choctaw by Franchi Mastabe’, Mingo Puscus, and Mistichico. Simon Favre was one of the witnesses.(7)

Of Note: relationships with Frantimastabe given by Simon Favre himself from his personal correspondence

"Favre wrote from the Choctaw to Bouligny[i] on November 8, 1785: I learned from Taskaopa in the presence of Nanoulimastabe’ that Monsieur Jorge, a trader in the village of Ousapalchito for Monsieur Maxent, had told him that he has heard from Naquisabe’, chief with a small English medal, that Mr. Fraisiere, trader at Yazoo, in the Large Part, had assured him and the English chief Frantimastabe’ that the stores established in Mobile belonged to Sieur Tourneboul. He also said that all the English, who had formerly been in the different villages of the nation, were going to come back and chase out the French and Spaniards who were there. Mr. Fraisiere stated that he was a good Englishman who did not want to do as the French and Spanish traders and steal their horses. He said that he would take their pelts for two, three or four times as much, that this boat was sent ahead, and that the chiefs and party were following. He also asserted that the Spaniards did not know how to do anything and they were not men, I affirm that I have written exactly what I heard from the Indians.”  In addition, in 1787 Simon reported to Vicente Folch, Governor of Spanish Florida, on a series of assemblies held by Choctaws, Chickasaws and Talapuches about approving the establishment in their territories of whites and the desire of Chief Franchimastabé to visit them.
 Simon Favre’s information went to the highest officers in the Government. On June 29th, 1792, Favre wrote from the Choctaws to Louisiana Governor Carondelet: My Lord: Allow me to take the liberty of having the honor of writing you this letter to send you the enclosed copies which were brought to the Choctaw nation by two Americans the 25th of June of this month. They went back the same day. These messages were translated by a trader for that nation named Jean Pitchlyn. This is one of several similar activities of this man, who does nothing but give bad advice to the savages. That is why I hope, my Lord, that you will be so kind as to give me your orders about this matter. They brought two large medals and two complete suits. They have given one to Franchimastabe’ and the other to a respected chief of this nation called Tloupouye Nantla’, but all this was of no use. They have been unable to take either of them along with them There is nothing else of enough importance to inform you. My Lord, begging you to excuse me for the liberty which I dare to take, I have the honor of being, with respect and submission, my Lord, Your most humble and most obedient servant Simon Favre.
Delavillebeuvre wrote to Don Manuel Gallozo de Lemos from Boukfouca, on September 10, 1792 “At the house of Monsieur Favre where I am staying”: …but as Franchimastabe’ had left for Mobile upon the demand of the commandant, as I had the honor of telling you in my previous letter, he [Jean Pchiline <sic> the interpreter living near the Chickasaw road] did not see him, of course, and stayed with Mr. Favre and myself until Franchimastabe’s return so that he may confer with him and afterwards with all the chiefs of the nation. (8)




List of Sources:
 (1) Jennifer Miers
(2)Sumter County, Alabama deed book 3, page 223
(3)Ms Humanities
(4) From the letters of M. Delavillebeuvre to Carondelet
(5,6,8)Choctaws in a Revolutionary Age
(7)Russell Guerin

Today in my Tree

I plan on trying to pick a person a day from my tree with something relevant to that day, such as a birth, marriage, death, etc. and blog about them.

Today's person is Pierre Saucier who died on this day in 1895.


Pierre Saucier was born April 11, 1819 in Delisle, Ms. He married Mary Jane Smith in 1840 and they had eight children.
Calvin Pierre Saucier, Randolph Saucier, Laura Saucier Bond, Jean Alvin Saucier, Louise Saucier,
Mary Saucier, Edwin and William Saucier.
Mary Jane died in 1867 and Pierre married again to Elizabeth Perkins whom he also had eight children with.
Mary Ovelia Saucier Ladner, Louis Saucier, Marie Saucier,  Peter Saucier, Annabel Saucier Ladner, Phillipe Saucier, and Bertrand Ellis Saucier.

Pierre served in the Confederacy during the Civil war. He was enlisted in Company H, 3rd Mississippi Infantry as a 2nd Lieutenant. 
Pierre later lived in the Soldiers home at Beauvoir. Which was the former home of Jefferson Davis the President of the Confederacy, on the beach in Biloxi, Ms.  Beauvoir is now a museum open to the public, there is also a cemetery on the grounds where many soldiers were buried. 
Pierre was buried in the Saucier family Cemetery in Saucier, Ms.

Wordless Wednesday

Vera Anderson Women's Championship Welder WWII

 My Great Aunt Vera Anderson

Book Review- A Must Have

The Brides of La Baleine

The latest book by Randall Ladnier is a must have for those of Gulf Coast first settler lineages. He spent many years researching this one of a kind book celebrating the lives of the brave women who volunteered to travel across an ocean to a wild new world with the hopes of marriage and a new life. The list of names of these women were lost for 266 years and was found in the French archives in 1987. As Randal states, these women of "the Baleine’s genetic contribution to America approaches that of the the MAYFLOWER, which had arrived 100 years earlier. Thus, Biloxi became the equivalent of “Plymouth Rock” for the French colony of Louisiana. On September 6th, 1620, twenty-nine Pilgrim women had set sail from England on the Mayflower, in order to escape religious persecution.Fifteen of those women died within six months of their arrival in America.

Governor Bienville apparently received at least 72 young women of child-bearing age, desperate to escape social and moral persecution in France. These French women eventually formed the genetic foundation on which Gulf Coast societies have been built."

I am a proud descendant of one of the Baleine Brides, many times over.  

Randall's book can be purchased here The Brides of La Baleine

Purchase a soft cover book  for $25.00 or PDF for $15.00

Echoes of a Lost Cemetery

Sadly one of the significant factors to the loss of Coast history is hurricanes. My grandfather's family cemetery and many other cemeteries along the Coast have fallen victims to the ravages of the many hurricanes. Whether from the waves washing over and washing out tombs, markers and headstones, or covering them completely with debris from the howling winds, the Coast has unfortunately lost a good many of our Old Cemeteries. However, there is once such cemetery in Hancock County that was very old and was unfortunately destroyed first by winds and waves, then again by those who were unaware that a cemetery lay below the debris and in the clean up efforts completely plowed down any remaining vestiges of the cemetery.
This cemetery was known as the Victor Ladner Cemetery and according to testimony given by my grandfather who grew up next to it, contained the graves of his family, including his grandfather and his great grandfather, as well as various family members. There is some debate as to some of the family possibly being moved to another cemetery after the 1947 Hurricane. As of a few weeks ago I thought the cemetery was lost to us forever. Now, there seems to be hope that we may yet find the resting place of those lost graves.
An effort to have a headstone added there for Victor Ladner Jr. who fought in the Civil War is under way. As well as efforts of finding the lost graves of several other family members. Many thanks to the Shieldsboro Rifles division of the SCV for their help and Dorty Necaise for all his help.

The Creole Dedeaux's

The children of Henry Dedeaux and Rosalie Saucier:
Homer Dedeaux
Martial Dedeaux
Anatole Dedeaux
Adelaide Dedeaux
Louise Dedeaux
John Delmas Dedeaux
Armand Dedeaux
Helena Dedeaux

The town of Delmas located in Harrison County near the Wolf River is named after John Delmas Dedeaux. The family of John Delmas Dedeaux once attended the church, Our Lady of Good Hope in Delisle, MS. However a racial split sent the Dedeaux family to Our Lady Of Chartres, fondly called The Little Mission church by those who attend services there. After the split John Delmas Dedeaux  went in search of a new spiritual home for the fractured Catholic family and found a little Church in north Long Beach that he had relocated several miles from New Hope, this became in 1912, Our Lady of Chartres and is still attended by descendants of Delmas Dedeaux today. There was also once a small one room school house next to the church.

The Community of Dedeaux's Catholic church was founded by Delmas' brother, Homer Dedeaux. Their cousin John Jerius Dedeaux donated the land where a combined school and Sacred Heart Catholic Church were built in the  Dedeaux Community where it still remains today.

The two communities were then known as Sherie Dedeaux, and Delmas Dedeaux. Now just referred to as Dedeaux, and Delmas.

From what I have found on the family of Henry Dedeaux and Rosalie is that Rosalie was a mulatto and possible the daughter of a Saucier slave owner, either Henry Saucier or possibly Pierre. Many trees have her as the daughter of Pierre Saucier and Isabel Nicaise. This can not be so, as neither were mulatto. In the 1870 census Rosalie is listed as Rosalie Saucier with son Armand, daughters Louise and Helena, with the children listed as Dedeaux and all as mulatto's. In 1880 she can be found with son Armand's family and is listed as Rosalie Dedeaux, in later census she is listed as a widow. I believe Rosalie and Azelie Saucier, who was married to Clement, Henry's brother and was also listed as a mulatto may likely be sisters.  This family has been difficult to trace and if any reader's have anything of value to add please contact me.

Our Lady of Chartres 1922

Katrina 10 years

I can hardly believe it's been ten years since the storm that changed our lives here on the Coast. I can barely go down to the beach front any longer, it hurts too much still. All the emptiness. I like to keep the image of childhood in my mind. Miles of beautiful old homes right across from the beach with ancient oaks sprawling alongside. Their limbs reaching out to create a canopy over the roadway that a five year old girl laying in the back of a station wagon studied upon passing beneath once upon a time.

I was five months old during the worst storm to ever hit the Mississippi Coast. Her name was Camille. Every year on the anniversary of Camille, my mother would get out her worn pages of "her" story to read us. The story of how in 1969 we survived a monster storm when so many did not.

I never thought that I would one day have my own story to write.

Living on the coast hurricanes are a way of life. I can remember so many, Frederick in 1979, Bob that was just a small wind storm and we went out side in and let the winds blow us gently. Elena, Georges, Ivan and so many more.I always get a funny feeling when it is still way out and I seem to always know the ones that are going to hit us. Katrina I knew was coming for us. Even when they said New Orleans, I knew they were wrong. The Mississippi River always pulls them in and puts us on the bad side.

I began to pack my house up. All my kids baby items, all the clothing for school, all the photo albums. Everything that would fit in the back of the car we put there. We were told to evacuate and we left for my mother's house to stay with them for the storm. We all slept on the living room floor that night. Actually I never slept. I lay there listening to the squall lines that were starting to come in and a transistor radio for news updates. About 5 am my mother got up and started to cook us breakfast, she fried bacon and made canned biscuit donuts. She just took the last donuts out of the pan when the winds got up enough the the electricity went out. it was only a little after 6am. We sat there together in the dining room and ate out last hot meal for weeks. None of us knowing that our lives were about to change forever. Soon the winds were howling and the roof was lifting up and setting back down, you could see the crack on the wall where it was coming off. We could see across at the neighbors their roof doing the same thing. Trees cracked and splintered until we could no longer see the back yard. It was just a maze of trees down. The radio was reporting rescues and people calling for help trapped in their attics with the water rising below them.We worried about our family members who were a few blocks off the beach. A report came in that there was a large tornado in their area and that on their street there was furniture floating in the roadway. I couldn't take anymore and went and lay on the bed and stared at the wall. Finally my husband came in and said you have to be with us in case we have to get out. I don't know how much longer this roof is going to hold. I remember feeling numb and I looked at him and said I don't care. Didn't you hear it's all gone. They said the gulf has come all the way up the highway. That means its all gone. I went and sat and just prayed for it to end.
Finally around noon, I couldn't take it anymore, I wanted to know if my home was still there. I wanted to see if my Aunt and Uncle were alive. The eye had passed and the winds had shifted so my husband and I decided to try to get out to see. What we found was horrifying. At the end of my parents road is a major hospital, the parking lot was filled with the bayou and the cars were floating in it. We managed to get to the highway after my husband stopped a dozen times to cut trees out of the way. We got just a few miles and I could see the shopping center and movie theater had water in them. Flooded. Looked like a large lake. Then when we got near the Walmart it too was flooded. I began to cry. The hotels were flooded and people were standing together on the balconies talking. The very hotel where they had put our beloved sea lions in the hotel pool for safety was flooded over and the sea lions were washed out into the gulf. To be found later. Poor babies.  Suddenly we had to stop. Ahead of us was a wall of water. I said what is that? Oh my God that is the Gulf? It is this far north? If the water was pushed this far north of the coast there can't be anything left south of us. We had to turn around and head back. We finally made it to our neighborhood but the power lines were across the road and we couldn't get through so we decided to go the back way around and park and walk through the woods to our house. I will never forget until the day I die the sounds of those trees creaking around me as I walked through knee deep water to get to my house. What was once thick forest was now a bunch of bare spindly sticks bent from the force of the wind and they were loudly creaking. I was about to jump out of my skin waiting for one to  snap, Finally in what I can only describe as a Scareltt O'Hara moment, I ran ahead of my husband to see it, climbing over downed trees, I had made it, and I saw it, It was there. My home still stood, minus the tin roof that was now in the pool. We walked around front and saw our bedroom window curtains flapping in the breeze. The window was busted. We went inside and the carpet was drenched. I was walking around looking to see if everything seemed ok minus the rain coming down inside of my house, when a miracle happened. The phone rang. I manage to find it and in a sort of awe answered it to hear my daughter yelling I got through its them. Mom are ya'll ok?? We are scared are you coming back? I laughed and said yes we have to board up the window so no one can get in and we will be back. Our neighbor helped us board the window up and in exchange for using our pool water to flush their toilets they agreed to watch the house.
We trudged back through the woods to the car and headed back to my parents house.After we got settled in my husband decided that he had to get in to work as he was a District Chief for the Cities Fire Department and people needed help. He kissed us all goodbye and packed his things, little did we know we wouldn't see one another again for 6 days. He promised me he would get to my Aunt and Uncles and let u know if they were alive.
That evening we were all exhausted. We listened to the radio reports with heavy hearts. Our cellphones did not work because the towers were down. Our land lines would sometimes work but the lines were jammed. We heard they were sending trucks with ice and we could go pick it up in the grocery parking lot. We loaded into the car and headed that way knowing what food we had left had to be iced down. It was getting dark and we stood in line next to those refrigerated trucks for several hours waiting for them to get the order to start unloading. The drivers sat in their trucks staring at us and we just stood there  waiting. Finally the police showed up and we were told they were sorry there was a mistake and we would not be getting ice tonight after all. So we all went home heavy hearted. We had no supper that night. I went and lay on the bed in my sister's old room and opened the window. I could hear my family talking quietly I dozed. Suddenly I hear a loud truck and a familiar noise it was a fire truck pulled up outside my parents home. Two men were standing at the window and I spoke to them. They said my husband had sent them to tell me he had made it in ok and had seen my Aunt and Uncle. They were ok. They had spent the entire storm bailing water and standing in half a foot of water, said the water was just running down the walls. But they were ok as was our 93 year old great aunt who lived with them.
Sleep came and before we knew it it was 6am and we were up to try to find ice. We followed whatever lead was given on the radio eventually getting a bag of ice per family. It was the greatest feeling getting that ice. I can not even fully explain what the fear of suddenly not being able to provide food for your family is like. I lost 20pound in the next few weeks making sure my kids ate before I did, and often only drinking water. The next day was full of loud sounds. The firemen and neighbors were everywhere cutting trees. We heard the levees broke in New Orleans.

We were so desperate for ice. We bought a bag of $1 ice for $10. There is a special place in hell for that person!
My mother began to cook everything in the deep freeze before it would spoil. She cooked on a coleman stove.
Now we were told the National Guard was coming and we were getting MRE's. Thanks to all the wonderful people across our nation we were also getting supplies. Our shopping center that was under water from the bayou 2 days before would be the distribution center. Every morning we had a routine we got up got in line and received a box of MRE's and a bag of ice and a case of water. Sometimes a packet of necessities.  Dog and cat food,  toilet paper. One day we were about to pull off after the guardsmen had loaded my car and one yelled hang on and pulled out what looked like a pink bag. He handed it to my daughter it was a lunch box. She cried because hers was ruined in our now molding wet house. Inside was an uplifting letter from the person who had sent it from North Carolina. We were all crying by time we got home from the spirit of human kindness.
Those guardsmen became like family to us. We saw them at least twice a day,once in the morning to get ice and again in the evening to get ice.
Our nights were filled with the noise of generators, and scary tales of people stealing them and chain saws and gasoline. Our neighbors stayed up at night guarding with their guns. On the third night I got a phone call from my sisters friend she wanted to know if we were alive as the news they were getting was scary. I said yes, and she said hold on I am going to try to connect you to your sister through a three way call. I went outside trying to keep the signal and climbed on top of my SUV and from there in the darkness I heard my sister's voice and I was crying and yelling out. I got you, I can hear you, can you hear me? and I could hear the neighbors laughter as they celebrated with me.
When I told her everything she said ya'll hold on we are coming. We have people here who are donating cash and gasoline we are stopping at family and friends all the way from Connecticut to Mississippi. I said there are no more bridges you can't even get in from Alabama, she said we will get there and they did. The brought food, Sandwich meat, fresh bread, dog food, and best of all gasoline.

Before they came though my husband showed up out of the blue, he had a pizza for the kids from Pizza Hut. They had donated it to the firemen and he did not feel right eating it when his kids only had a sandwich. I warmed that thing upon foil on the gas grill and we ate like kings that night!

It was two weeks before we got power back which was pretty quick considering. Thanks to all the out of state help. My husband finally got to come home and help his family due to all the fire trucks coming in from out of state to relieve them.

We lost a lot, all my clothing and furniture were piled up on the roadside to be collected as trash. The Coast lost everything, but together as a people we pulled together and helped one another. We shared our food, water and ice, protected one another. We became stronger. We survived!

The damage, debris piles

Volunteers in the distribution line

Waiting in line for ice

The line of cars in the distribution line