The Goudeau family of Louisiana descends from Edmé Goudeau and Edmée Poirier of La Rochelle, Province of Aunis, France. Unfortunately, we don’t know where their families originated. But, we do know that on 01 February 1670 Edmé Goudeau was appointed “chirurgien de la marine” (surgeon of the navy) for the Port of La Rochelle. He was the chief surgeon for the naval port. His commission, signed by Louis XIV and his minister, Colbert, recognized that Edmé had already served in this capacity for several years, placing Edmé’s arrival at La Rochelle about 1665. In the last decades of the 17th century, Edmé and another surgeon created a medical school at La Rochelle to train seafaring surgeons for His Majesty’s navy. This school benefitted a number of Goudeau men over the next several generations.

In 1678, Edmé Goudeau transferred his commission to his oldest son, Henry Goudeau (1657 – ~1698). After Henry’s death, about 1698, the position as surgeon-major at La Rochelle was inherited by Henry’s younger brother, Charles Goudeau (1668-1722). That same year, on 01 September 1698, Charles married Marie Anne Dergny (1674-1756), and they had ten children – seven sons and three daughters.

In early 1722, Charles died at the age of 54, and the position was inherited by his oldest surviving son, Charles Henry Goudeau (1702-1725). But, Charles Henry held the position for only a little over three years, as he died on 04 August 1725. At the time of his death, Charles Henry had four younger brothers, and the only one old enough to have attended medical school was 21-year-old Jacques. But, Jacques had shown no interest in following in the medical footsteps of his older brother, father, uncle and grandfather. Jacques emigrated to London where he became a hatter and married in a Huguenot church. And so, the position of chief surgeon at La Rochelle passed out of the Goudeau family.

However, two of the three youngest sons in the family of Charles Goudeau and Marie Anne Dergny did attend medical school. They were François Jean Goudeau (1708-1758) and Michel Charles Goudeau (1713-1764). After attending medical school, they were commissioned “Docteurs de la Roy” (Doctors of the King), and were sent to Louisiana to fulfill a two-year commitment as surgeons at military outposts in the colony. 

FRANCOIS JEAN GOUDEAU:  The older of these two brothers was François Jean Goudeau (1708-1758). He arrived in the Louisiana colony about 1728, and was assigned as Surgeon-Major at Fort St. Jean-Baptiste at the Natchitoches Post. On 25 April 1738, he married Catherine LeBreü, the pregnant 27-year-old widow of the captain of a brigantine, who had recently drowned at La Balize, the fort at the very mouth of the Mississippi. Catherine gave birth to a baby daughter, and subsequently died on 11 August. The child was baptized a few days later and adopted by a local couple at Natchitoches Post.

In New Orleans, a smart businesswoman, Elizabeth Real (widow of Jean Pascal, a ship captain killed in the 1729 Indian uprising at Natchez Post), realized the newly widowed doctor, François Goudeau, would be a good match for her only daughter, Marie Pascal (bn. ~1719). We don’t know how the two were introduced, but, on 30 April 1739, one year to the week after his first marriage, François Goudeau married Marie Pascal. Their first child, Marguerite, was born at Natchitoches Post on 04 May 1741.

Sometime shortly after the birth of Marguerite, François Goudeau, his wife and baby daughter, left the Natchitoches Post and moved to New Orleans, where they lived with Marie’s mother in her large home at 632 Rue Dumaine. Today, the home at that address is known as “Madame John’s Legacy,” and is owned by the Louisiana State Museum. (The name “Madame John’s Legacy” comes from a work of fiction by New Orlean’s author, George Washington Cable.) In New Orleans, François pursued a private medical practice and served as a surgeon at the hospital.

On 15 September 1756, Marie Anne Dergny Goudeau, the mother of François Jean Goudeau and Michel Charles Goudeau, died in La Rochelle. Apparently, the family in La Rochelle sent word of her death to François in New Orleans, and he departed for La Rochelle probably in the early months of 1757. As the oldest available son in the family (Jacques had emigrated to London), it was necessary for François to return to La Rochelle, where could assist his older sister in the disposition of their mother’s estate.

The Seven Years’ War began in mid-1756, and travel between La Rochelle and Louisiana was hazardous as British warships patrolled the Atlantic. In early 1758, on his return trip to New Orleans, the merchant vessel “La Fortune,” on which François was sailing, was captured by the British, and he was taken as a prisoner-of-war to Plymouth, England, where he died in the horrible conditions of one of the prison hulks anchored in the Plymouth harbor. The family in New Orleans received word of his death in late 1758 or very early 1759. As a result, on 29 January 1759, Marie Pascal Goudeau petitioned the Superior Council at New Orleans for permission to hold a family meeting to decide on matters relating to the succession of her deceased husband. The records of his succession are in the Louisiana state archives.

We know of five children of the marriage of François Goudeau and Marie Pascal. They were:

• Marguerite (1741-1775), who died unmarried.
• Elizabeth “Isabel” (~1742-1782).
• Joseph (1744-????), who appears to have died young and unmarried.
• Marie Felicité “Marianne” (1746-1772).
• Benigne François (1753-1781), who was unmarried, and was killed at Pensacola.

The oldest child in the family, Marguerite, born at Natchitoches Post, never married and died in New Orleans. Isabel and Marianne married military officers and had several children. Joseph was 15 when he was mentioned in his father’s succession records in early 1759, but he seems to disappear after that, leading us to assume that he died in his late teens or as a young man.

In the 1763 Treaty of Paris, which ended the Seven Years’ War, France ceded New Orleans and all of Louisiana west of the Mississippi to Spain, and Spanish officials finally took complete control of western Louisiana in the summer of 1769. As a result, a few years later, when François, the youngest child in the family, was old enough to enter the military, it was the Spanish military under Bernardo de Galvez, Governor of Louisiana, that commissioned François as an officer. His family background, their position in New Orleans society and his education all dictated that he would be an officer instead of a private.

However, in 1779, Spain was drawn into the American Revolution, joining France in its support of the American colonists. As a result, in September 1779, young François participated in the captures of Fort Bute and Fort New Richmond at Baton Rouge, and over the next two years he participated in the captures of Mobile and Pensacola. But, on 29 April 1781, during the Spanish attack on the British garrison at Pensacola, he was killed during the attack. Governor Galvez recorded the death of young “Francisco Godeau” in his personal diary, and that name appears on the granite Veteran’s Memorial in Baton Rouge. As a result of the untimely deaths of both Joseph and Benigne François, the Goudeau family name did not descend further from the sons of François Jean Goudeau.

MICHEL CHARLES GOUDEAU:  Michel Charles Goudeau, the younger brother of François Jean Goudeau, also came to Louisiana as a “Docteur de la Roy” – a commissioned “Doctor of the King.” He is the progenitor of all the Goudeaus in Louisiana. From about 1733, Michel Charles served as Surgeon-Major at Fort Toulouse on the Alabama River. On 19 October 1734 he married Marie Therese Huchét in Mobile.

A commissioned “Docteur de la Roy,” sent to Louisiana, was required to give two years of service at one of the military posts in the colony. He was given two-years’ pay in advance, and was issued a large chest containing a change of clothes, medicines, bandages, medical supplies, and other necessary items. But, after his arrival in Louisiana, he would quickly learn that his two years’ advance pay would not go very far. Fortunately, the Surgeon-Major at a military post was given his own private quarters, where he could examine and treat patients, and he would be guaranteed a seat at the officers’ mess. As the Surgeon-Major at the post, he was required to give free medical care to all the officers, soldiers, and their family members, as well as to any civilians who provided goods and services to the military post. This effectively included just about everyone within a day’s journey of the post, including the local Indian tribes. This meant that he could not charge for his medical services. If he wanted to make any money, he would need one or two side jobs. This need could be partially filled if the surgeon was appointed the garde-magasin (quartermaster) of the post storehouse. This was a job that included a nice stipend.

Many post surgeons built a small home outside the fort, where they could have a small farm, and raise chickens and hogs. Michel Charles Goudeau remained at Fort Toulouse long enough to become partially fluent in the language of the local Alabama tribe. His father-in-law, Marc Antoine Huchét (1688-1737), was fluent in the local Indian languages, and was held in high esteem by the chiefs of the Alabama. As a result, Dr. Goudeau was able to do a bit of trading with the local chiefs. He would order trade goods from New Orleans, which would be sold for deer skins. The records of the colony show that Michel Charles Goudeau obtained a trading permit in 1744. But, this may have been after he had completed his service at Fort Toulouse. 

At some point during the 1740s, after serving a number of years at Fort Toulouse des Alibamonts, Michel Charles moved his family to the old Charles Rochon plantation south of Mobile, at the mouth of Riviere aux Chiens (Dog River), on what is now Hollinger’s Island. Charles Rochon (1673-1733) was one of four Canadians who had been contracted by the Sieur d’Iberville, founder of the new Louisiana colony, to come to the colony around 1700 and help with the establishment of Mobile. About 1715, Rochon married Henriette Coulon, daughter of Jean Coulon, another Canadian coureur-de-bois who had accompanied the Sieur de LaSalle on his epic journey to the mouth of Mississippi. Dr. Goudeau’s wife, Marie Therese Huchét, was related by marriage to the Rochon and Coulon families. It does not appear that Goudeau purchased the Rochon plantation, but may have obtained it through a lease agreement from the Rochon family. Nevertheless, in the 1740s, it appears that life was good to Michel Charles Goudeau, living off the products of an established plantation, having a private medical practice near Mobile, trading a bit with his old Indian friends, and spending his free time fishing at the mouth of the river, where it flowed into Mobile Bay.

We know of only five children of the marriage of Michel Charles Goudeau and Marie Therese Huchét. They were:

• Pierre Michel (1735-1813)
• Antoine (~1737 – ~1809)
• Marie Josephe (~1738-1801)
• Louise Marguerite (~1743-1794)
• Marie Therese (1748-1766)

Michel Charles and his wife may have had other children, born at Fort Toulouse or at the Rochon Plantation near Mobile, but we have no record of them. It was common for a number of children in every family to die before their mid-teens, and there would have been no priest at Fort Toulouse to record the baptism or death of a child. In fact, the baptismal records for these five do not survive. We only know of them because they lived to adulthood and married. Years later, after the death of Michel Charles, an intriguing statement made by his widow indicates that there may have been other children born after the five listed above. In a receipt for payment (dated 10 August 1766), written after his widow sold his belongings, Marie Therese, age 50, stated that she was the “guardian of her minor children.” But, in August 1766, the five children listed above were all past the age of maturity. This indicates that there were other, younger children born in or after 1750. But, to date, no record of them has been found, and no descendants have come forward claiming to be descended from anyone but those five listed here, or the two married daughters of François Goudeau and Marie Pascal.

Without the records of their baptisms, fixing the approximate birthdates of the four oldest children in this family has been a bit of a problem. However, Pierre Michel Goudeau, late in life, gave a deposition, written in Spanish, filed on 29 January 1808 at Baton Rouge, in which he stated that he was 72 years old. That indicates he was born before the end of January 1736, most likely in 1735, about year after his parents’ marriage in October 1734. It is likely that Antoine was born next, about 1737. Marie Therese was baptized on 14 September 1748 at Mobile, indicating that she was born sometime shortly before that. She was also the third daughter in the family to marry. All this points to her being the youngest of the five known children in the family, the other two daughters being born during the 11 years between the births of Antoine and Marie Therese. 

In 1751, Michel Charles Goudeau accepted an assignment as Surgeon-Major at Fort Chartres near Kaskaskia in the Illinois country of Upper Louisiana. This assignment was occasioned by the appointment of a new commandant for Fort Chartres. The Governor, Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil de Cavagnial (the Marquis de Vaudreuil), had appointed Chevalier Jean-Jacques de Macarty-Mactigue to be the new commandant of Fort Chartres. Macarty and four companies of Troupes de la Marine were scheduled to depart New Orleans on 20 August 1751 in a convoy of boats bound for Kaskaskia. Michel Charles Goudeau and his family were sent with Macarty and his Marines. Before their departure, Governor Vaudreuil wrote to Macarty and gave a good recommendation for Dr. Goudeau. He wrote:

“I am pleased that you have taken on the Sieur Goudeau with his whole family in spite of the inconvenience which it will cost you. This man will be of great help to you, and it will be right to pay him for the medicines he may have furnished to your detachment.”

There may be a bit more to this story. If Michel Charles Goudeau was living comfortably on the Rochon plantation south of Mobile, it may have been difficult for Governor Vaudreuil to persuade him to take the assignment at Kaskaskia. Eventually, Michel Charles agreed to go. But, part of the agreement may have been that Dr. Goudeau would be permitted to take his wife and family with him. How did Dr. Goudeau convince his wife to leave their comfortable home on the Rochon plantation? Surely, he promised her that he would find her a nice home at Kaskaskia that equaled their home near Mobile. 

Undoubtedly, the Chevalier Macarty objected when he learned that this Dr. Goudeau would be bringing his wife and minor daughters. He objected because of the inconvenience it would cause on the long trip upriver. It was one thing to have four Marine companies in his convoy, but the requirements of women and children were quite different. But, it appears Governor Vaudreuil had his way. That may explain why the Governor felt it necessary to smooth Macarty’s ruffled feathers and reassure him that having Dr. Goudeau at Fort Chartres in Kaskaskia would, in the long run, be worth the extra trouble it took to include the Goudeau family in the autumn convoy. After a journey of about three and a half months, in early December 1751, Macarty’s convoy of boats, loaded with the Marines and the Goudeau family, finally reached Kaskaskia.

In the book, Land of Big Rivers: French and Indian Illinois, 1699-1778, by M. J. Morgan, we learn the following:

“In January [1752] there arrived from New Orleans a French surgeon, Michel Goudeau, who bought property in the town of Chartres…. Master Surgeon Goudeau acquired a mature, choice property, ‘a house with … a yard, well, garden, fence and buildings and conveniences.” 

I’m hope Mrs. Goudeau was satisfied.

It is not certain that the family of Michel Charles Goudeau included his two sons on the trip to Kaskaskia in the autumn of 1751. The boys, about 16 and 14, may have been in France attending medical school. We must speculate about when Michel Charles Goudeau decided to send his two sons, Pierre Michel and Antoine, to La Rochelle, France, where they could complete their formal educations and attend the medical school founded about 1680 by their great-grandfather, Edmé Goudeau (1623-1710). Some have suggested that Pierre and Antoine were educated and trained in Louisiana, but there is no evidence of that. Further, the law required that all physicians serving in Louisiana receive formal medical training in Europe. There were strict penalties for practicing medicine without proper training. For that reason, it is evident that the two sons of Michel Charles Goudeau left Louisiana, probably in their teens, and spent several years in La Rochelle, where they still had relatives, before returning to Louisiana to serve as military surgeons.

ANTOINE GOUDEAU I:  The earliest record we have of either son back in Louisiana is from March 1756, when Antoine, having served as a “surgeon’s aide” at the hospital in New Orleans, was assigned as Surgeon-Major at The Balize, the fort at the very mouth of the Mississippi. We know that he served there as late as December 1759. A letter preserved in the French National Archives approved the payment of three months salary to Antoine Goudeau for his service at The Balize during the last three months of 1759.

After the expiration of his required term of service, Antoine Goudeau ventured to Kaskaskia where his parents and three sisters had been for a decade. Then, sometime before 1762, Antoine left Kaskaskia, returning downriver to settle at the Pointe Coupée Post. On 8 January 1762, at Pointe Coupée, Antoine signed a marriage contract with Marie Jeanne Roy, daughter of the Canadian-born Joseph Roy (dit “Chatellerault”) and Perrine Lacour. Marie Jeanne’s grandfather, Edmond Roy, and his two brothers, had been with the Sieur de Cadillac at the founding of Detroit in 1704. Antoine Goudeau and Marie Jeanne Roy were married on 12 January 1762 at the church of St. François d’Assise.

Within a couple of years, about early 1764, Antoine and his wife were joined at Pointe Coupée by Antoine’s parents, who relocated there from Kaskaskia. This was just after the news reached them that the 1763 Treaty of Paris had ended the Seven Years’ War. With the stroke of a pen, that momentous treaty ceded all of New France, from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, to the British and Spanish. For many of the French-speaking residents of the Mississippi valley, it must have seemed like the end of the world as they knew it.

All French territories west of the Mississippi River and the “isle of New Orleans” were ceded to the Spanish. All of Canada, and all the lands east of the Mississippi were given to the British. Many French residents of the Kaskaskia area chose to leave the Illinois country and cross over to the west side of the Mississippi, which was now Spanish territory. The populations of French towns like Ste. Genevieve and St. Louis, on the Spanish (west) side of the river, swelled with the new arrivals.

Having lost his older brother, François, who died in a miserable British prison ship, it is reasonable to assume that Michel Charles Goudeau, like many others, simply refused to live under British rule. But, rather than escape to Ste. Genevieve or St. Louis, he and his wife chose to say goodbye to their three married daughters, and move downriver to the Pointe Coupée Post, where his son Antoine had settled and married a couple of years before. The authorities at the Pointe Coupée Post would have welcomed the experienced surgeon. But, unfortunately, Antoine’s father would not serve as Surgeon-Major at Pointe Coupée for very long, as he died there on New Year’s Eve 1764. He was buried the following day in the cemetery of the church of St. François d’Assise. The record of his death and burial reads as follows:

“Michel Goudeau, of Illinois, veteran surgeon-major, both at the Posts of Pointe Coupée and Illinois, bur. 1 January 1765, died yesterday.” 

We know of twelve (or possibly thirteen) children from the marriage of Antoine Goudeau I and Marie Jeanne Roy. Four of the first six died before reaching adulthood. They were:  Antoine II (b. 1763 – ~1773); an unnamed infant (1764-1764); Pierre Antoine I (1769 – ~1784); and Augustin I (1772-1773). (The unnamed infant was buried the day after it was born. Pierre Antoine I died between the ages of 13 and 16. The 1769 Census of Pointe Coupée Post indicates that there was another daughter in their family that year, possibly their fourth child. But no baptismal or death record of her has been found, and she does not appear in later census records.)

The other children who grew to adulthood were:

• Joseph (1764-????), for whom no record appears after about 1812.
• Eulalie “Adelaide” (1767 – ~1835)
• Antoine III (1775 – ~1835)
• Augustin II “Auguste” (1777-????)
• Eugenie (~1780 – ~1850), who married her cousin, Pierre Goudeau.
• Charles (1783-????)
• Pierre Antoine II (“Pierrite”) (1786-????)
• Louis (~1788 – ~1855)

(Note that three of these children were named for older siblings who died as minors. Antoine III was named for his older brother, Antoine II, who died about the age of 10. Augustin II, always known as “Auguste,” was named for his older brother, Augustin I. Pierre Antoine II was named for an older brother with the same name, who appears to have died in his teens. Many family genealogists confuse the earlier birthdates of the children who died with the later children who grew to adulthood.)

PIERRE MICHEL GOUDEAU:  We cannot place a date on the return of Pierre Michel Goudeau to Louisiana following his formal medical training in France. There is a record dated 02 May 1759 of a “Sieur Goudeau” serving as surgeon-major at Fort Toulouse on the Alabama River. That was not his brother, Antoine, who was serving as surgeon-major at The Balize from March 1756 through the end of 1759. And we know that their father, Michel Charles, was at Fort Chartres des Kaskaskias with his wife and daughters from late 1751 until about 1763. We have no other knowledge of where Pierre Michel might have been in 1759, so it is logical that the “Sieur Goudeau” at Fort Toulouse that year was Pierre Michel.

The record from May 1759, is found in a report filed by Captain Jean Bernard Bossu (1720-1792), an officer who traveled throughout the province of Louisiana as far north as the Illinois country, writing reports on the geography, plants and animals, and military outposts, as well as descriptions of the local Indian tribes he encountered. In May 1759, he was present at a parlay between the officers of Fort Toulouse and the chiefs of the “Allibamons.” Captain Bossu reported that the chiefs of the Alabama brought their best shamans or medicine men to demonstrate their great power. Their magic consisted primarily of tricks and slight of hand. The French officers, being diplomatic, acted impressed and agreed that the Alabama medicine men did have great powers. 

Then it was important for the French to do the same, and they called upon Dr. Goudeau, who produced a glass phial of mercury and showed it to the chiefs. They passed it around and were fascinated with it, marveling at the silver liquid, and they said they wanted it, and wished to keep it. Dr. Goudeau told them they could have the quick silver, but he needed to keep the glass phial. So, he poured out the mercury onto the ground. But, try as they might, the chiefs could not pick it up. The chiefs then declared that it must be some kind of spirit because it separated into two parts, and then came back together. Then, Dr. Goudeau took a card, easily scooped up the mercury, poured it back into the glass phial and replaced the cork, which proved that he had power over this spirit. Finally, Dr. Goudeau poured out the mercury again, and poured aqua fortis (“strong water,” a distillate of nitric acid) upon it, and the mercury quickly disappeared in a puff of smoke. The chiefs were startled and very impressed at this. Referring to Dr. Goudeau, Captain Bossu wrote in his report, “since that time, the Indians have revered him as a great doctor.”

At some point after this, Pierre Michel was transferred to the hospital at New Orleans, where he joined the company of surgeons there. In 1769, the Spanish-born General Alexandro O’Reilly arrived in New Orleans with over 2,000 Spanish troops and took formal control of the government of Louisiana. Many New Orleans landowners and businessmen had attempted to resist this change of regime, but O’Reilly brutally and ruthlessly put down the rebellion, executed a half-dozen of their leaders, and sent the rest of their leaders to prison in Cuba. There is no evidence that the physicians at the New Orleans hospital took any part in the rebellion, and it does not seem to have had any effect on our ancestor, Pierre Michel Goudeau.

In fact, a few months later, on 12 February 1770, Pierre Michel Goudeau was commissioned a sub-lieutenant in the 3rd Company of Militia in New Orleans. His commission was signed by Alexandro O’Reilly (known to history as “Bloody O’Reilly”), the new Spanish Governor and Commander-General of Louisiana. (There were four companies of New Orleans Militia, and each had three officers, a captain, a lieutenant, and a sub-lieutenant.) This position in the militia was in addition to his normal duties as a surgeon at the hospital.

In January 1772, Pierre Michel Goudeau, a member of the Company of Surgeons at the hospital in New Orleans, on his own request, was appointed Surgeon-Major at Pointe Coupée Post. Part of his motivation for requesting this assignment was to join the rest of his family there, including his widowed mother, his brother Antoine and his family. We know that on 19 July 1774, Balthazar DeVilliers, Commandant at Pointe Coupée, along with François Allain, Lieutenant of Militia, Ricard de Rieutord, Missionary, Pierre Decoux, and Pierre Goudeau, Sub-Lieutenant of Militia at New Orleans and Surgeon of the Post, met with a party of Indians. The record of the meeting does not disclose the purpose of the meeting, but it firmly establishes Pierre Michel Goudeau as the Surgeon-Major at Pointe Coupée Post.

On 09 January 1776, at Pointe Coupée Post, Pierre Michel married Marie Henriette Dufour (1757-1817). He soon purchased land fronting on the river and became a planter. In 1782, he increased his property by purchasing an additional 4 arpents (767 feet) of river frontage, adjacent to his other land.

We know of six children of Pierre Michel Goudeau and Marie Henriette Dufour. They were:

• Pierre (1776-1844), who married his cousin, Eugenie Goudeau, and settled in Avoyelles Parish.
• Sophie (1777-????) – Died unmarried at Baton Rouge, and was not listed as her mother’s surviving heir in October 1817.
• Clarice Jenny (1782-1825), married Knowles O’Brien in Baton Rouge.
• Marie Edvige (1786-1818) – Died unmarried in West Baton Rouge Parish.
• Julien (1788-1850), who settled in West Baton Rouge Parish.
• Antoine IV (1800 – ~1835), who settled in Avoyelles Parish.

NOTE:  Some genealogies list the oldest son of Pierre Michel Goudeau as “Pierre Michel Goudeau II.” However, I have found no record or evidence that his name was anything other than simply “Pierre Goudeau.” I believe this error was introduced into our Goudeau genealogy by the two 2006 books titled Avoyelles Connections, and Dr. Edmé Goudeau and his American Descendants, by Harry James Moreau of Baton Rouge. I have not found the name “Pierre Michel Goudeau II” used in any other genealogy before 2006. Those two books also incorrectly state that the sons of Pierre Goudeau (1776-1844) were named “Pierre Michel Goudeau III,” “Julien Jules Goudeau I” and “Pierre Michel Goudeau IV.” However, the records indicate that their names were simply:  “Michel Goudeau,” “Julien Goudeau” and “Pierre Goudeau II.” If you have these names recorded the wrong way in your family tree, please correct them to prevent the error from spreading to other family trees.)

In 1779, Spain entered the American Revolution on the side of the American colonies. The Spanish crown shared little in common with the predominately Protestant American colonies. But, Spanish interests aligned with those of the French, and the two European powers were united against the British. As a result, Spanish Governor Bernardo de Galvez led his troops up the river from New Orleans toward the British garrisons at Manchac at Baton Rouge. On 21 September 1779, the British garrison surrendered Fort Richmond at Baton Rouge to the Spanish. The militia at Pointe Coupée participated in the siege and capture of Baton Rouge, and the list of members of the Pointe Coupée militia are well known. But, conspicuously absent from the list of names is that of the Surgeon-Major Pierre Michel Goudeau. Why does he not appear on the list of members of the Pointe Coupée Militia? Would the Pointe Coupée Militia have marched off to war without taking their surgeon with them?

Over the next two years, in 1780 and 1781, Governor Galvez and his forces captured Mobile and Pensacola. The Gulf Coast, from the Mississippi to the Apalachicola River, became Spanish West Florida.

THE GOUDEAU FAMILY SEPARATES:  By 1780, frequent flooding of the Mississippi caused Antoine Goudeau I to relocate his family to the Grand Coteau area south of Opelousas Post. Twelve years later, about 1792, Antoine moved to the Bayou Rouge Prairie in present-day Avoyelles Parish, where he purchased a large tract of land from Penroy, Chief of the Tunica. According to one record, Antoine’s brother, Pierre Michel, also purchased land at Bayou Rouge Prairie several years before that, about 1784, but did not move there at that time. If that record is correct, then it appears that purchase had been made as an investment. 

It wasn’t until 1798 that Pierre Michel Goudeau left Pointe Coupée Post and moved his family to Bayou Rouge Prairie, there to join his brother Antoine and his family. We know that, during the first quarter of 1798, Pierre Michel sold his land and property at Pointe Coupée Post, and abandoned or quit-claimed the rest to the prominent landowner Julien Poydras. The records of those sales and quit-claims mark his departure from Pointe Coupée, and his move to Bayou Rouge Prairie, fifty miles to the northwest.

What was life like for a teenager growing up at a place like Bayou Rouge Prairie in the last decade of the 1700s. Imagine Eugenie Goudeau, about 18 years of age, the daughter of Antoine Goudeau, living on her father’s plantation many miles from civilization, surrounded by several brothers. There were very few other families in the area, and their homes were separated by good distances. Her only sister, Eulalie (or Adelaide, as she was called), six years older, had married in 1792. 

At the same time, in 1798, Pierre, the oldest son of Pierre Michel, was 22 years old, and his arrival at Bayou Rouge Prairie would come a day too soon for his first cousin, Eugenie. Imagine Eugenie sitting on the front porch, her chin resting on her hand, her daily chores completed, looking out across the empty fields, when a pair of fully loaded wagons appear approaching the house. As the wagons near, her father Antoine comes out on the porch and says, “It’s your uncle Pierre, and his wife and family.”

A little over a year later, in the summer of 1799, Pierre traveled to New Orleans to present a letter to Bishop Penalver, requesting a dispensation to marry Eugenie. The dispensation was necessary due to their relationship of “four degrees of consanguinity” (first cousins). The dispensation arrived in September, and they were married at the church in Opelousas. (The original letter to Bishop Penalver, and his response, are preserved in the archives of the Diocese of Louisiana and the Two Floridas at the University of Notre Dame, in Indiana.)

PLAQUEMINE AND BATON ROUGE:  It appears as if Pierre Michel Goudeau was ready for a permanent move to Bayou Rouge Prairie, there to build a home and settle down near his brother Antoine’s family. But, in January 1799, Pierre Michel Goudeau purchased a plantation of 3 arpents frontage on the west side of the Mississippi, only two leagues (about 8 miles) upriver from Baton Rouge. On the one hand, it looks as if Pierre Michel wanted to find a plantation where he could settle down. But, on the other hand, it appears that the life of a planter did not suit the old doctor, 63 years old in early 1799. By that point in his life, like his father, he had spent his entire career as a military surgeon at outposts like Fort Toulouse, then at the hospital in New Orleans, and then at Pointe Coupée Post. It appears he enjoyed the military life and the regularity of a government paycheck. So, he soon accepted an appointment from the Spanish military authorities to become the Surgeon-Major at Plaquemine, about 15 miles downriver from Baton Rouge. With his oldest son, Pierre, at Bayou Rouge Prairie, he may have left his wife and the rest of his family at the new plantation near Baton Rouge, while he departed for his remote assignment downriver at Plaquemine. (Note:  I had previously written here that Pierre Michel had accepted an appointment to “the remote Presidio San Felipe – Fort St. Philippe – at Plaquemines Post, downriver from New Orleans.” But we now know that this is wrong. His appointment was to Plaquemine, much closer to Baton Rouge. However, if there was a military post at Plaquemine, I have not yet found a reference to it. Please correct this in your family history.)

In 1803, the United States purchased all that part of Louisiana that Spain had previously acquired in the 1763 Treaty of Paris, that is, all the lands west of the Mississippi River and the “isle of New Orleans.” With the Louisiana Purchase by the Americans, Pierre Michel was relieved of his duties at Plaquemine. As a result, in 1804, he wrote from New Orleans to his Spanish superiors and requested an appointment as a surgeon at the Spanish Royal Hospital at Baton Rouge, which, being on the east side of the Mississippi River, remained in Spanish West Florida. His request was granted and he quickly returned to Baton Rouge, where he was joined by his wife and family.

Of the six children of Pierre Michel Goudeau and Marie Henriette Dufour, four married and had families. Of their three sons, two of them (Pierre and Antoine IV) settled in Avoyelles Parish. The oldest son, Pierre, who married his cousin, Eugenie Goudeau, in 1799, remained at Bayou Rouge Prairie, near the home of his uncle Antoine. In 1807, Pierre purchased a piece of land, 4 arpents by 40, from his uncle and father-in-law, Antoine Goudeau I. The youngest child of Pierre Michel and Marie Henriette – who we call “Antoine Goudeau IV” (1800 – ~1835), as he was the fourth Goudeau to have the name “Antoine” – married Catherine Marcotte (1797 – ~1855) on 20 July 1820 at the parish church in Avoyelles. (Catherine Marcotte was the younger sister of Marie Marguerite Marcotte, who married Pierre Normand (1774-1844) about 1805 – but that’s another story.)

THE BATON ROUGE GOUDEAUS:  Clarice Jenny (1782-1825), one of the daughters of Pierre Michel Goudeau and Marie Henriette Dufour, married Knowles O’Brien on 07 June 1800 at Baton Rouge. They had three children – two sons and one daughter. The other two daughters of Pierre Michel Goudeau, Sophie and Marie Edvige, never married and died about the same time as their mother, in 1817 and 1818.

The fifth child of Pierre Michel and Marie Henriette was Julien Goudeau (1788-1850). (Some genealogical works have his middle name as “George,” but this is an error.) He married Marguerite Courtain about 1815 at Baton Rouge. I know of four children from that marriage – two sons and two daughters. Their son, Julien Goudeau II (1818 – ~1885), married twice, and his two wives, Georgina Chustz (1823-1855) and Aspasie Jacqueneau (1839 – ~1905), bore a combined total of 17 children – 9 sons and 8 daughters. (This explains the proliferation of Goudeau descendants in East Baton Rouge Parish and West Baton Rouge Parish.)

This is an overview of the Goudeau family of Louisiana, from its origins in La Rochelle, France, through the several generations that settled in Avoyelles Parish and the Baton Rouge area. Some members of the Avoyelles Parish branch migrated south to St. Landry Parish, and some members of the Baton Rouge branch migrated from West Baton Rouge Parish to Pointe Coupée and to the Feliciana parishes.

– Pierre Goudeau Normand (updated 11 May 2022)