Families of St. Mary Parish
Additional families will continue to be added; these are the historic families of St Mary Parish whose generations made it what it is today.
Frere
Alexandre Frere was born in Paris, France prior to the French Revolution. He emigrated to Louisiana during the Revolution and initially worked as a tutor for the Pellerin family. He married Marie-Josephe Pellerin in 1805 at St. Martin de Tours Catholic Church in St. Martinville.
They had three children: Marie Elizabeth Iphigenie, Joseph Alexandre, and Marie Anne Emilie Alzire. Marie Josephe died in childbirth in 1811. Alexandre later married Catherine Caroline Hennen, and finally Marie Louise Pecot, with whom he had Frederic Adrien Frere.
Joseph and Frederic were prominent planters before the Civil War. Joseph married Victoire Armelin, and Frederic married Marie Aspasie Fuselier de la Clair. Both Frederic and Marie Aspasie died in the Last Island Disaster of 1856.
For further reading, see Dr. Thomas Frere Kramer’s book A Family Montage.
Fuselier
Gabriel Fuselier de la Clair was the patriarch of this prominent Creole family that arrived in Louisiana during the French colonial period. Gabriel was born in Lyon, France in 1722, the son of Pierre Fuselier and Ludavine Chaufauron. He emigrated to Louisiana in the mid-18th century. By the time of the Spanish acquisition of the colony, Gabriel was an established New Orleans businessman. Gabriel served the Spanish crown as a military commandant over Attakapas and Opelousas. Around 1760, he purchased a large tract of land from the Native American Attakapas tribe. On this land he built a large estate where he retired after four years of service to Spain.
His first wife was Jeanne Roman, born on the German Coast in 1746 when Louisiana was still a French colony. Jeanne died at the age of 23. She and Gabriel had three children together. Gabriel married a second time in 1771, to Helene Elizabeth Soileau. He had another eleven children with his second wife.
Joseph Agricole Fuselier was born March 2, 1765 in Louisiana to Gabriel Fuselier and his first wife, Jeanne Roman. He was likely born in Attakapas or Opelousas, where his father served as Commandant. Agricole married Christine Berard in 1786 in St Martin Parish and they had six children. Agricole built the famous historic Alice House that still stands today. Originally built in Baldwin, the house was floated up the Bayou Teche to Franklin, where it stands today.
Agricole Fuselier, Jr. was born in 1799 to Agricole Fuselier Sr. and Christine Berard. Agricole is pictured in the portrait below and was the father of Anne Aspasie Fuselier, who married Frederic Adrien Frere. Aspasie's portrait is also seen below. She and her husband and one of their children were killed in the Last Island Hurricane disaster of 1856.
Sorrel
The Sorrel family story begins with Jacques Joseph Sorrel, a Frenchman born in Grenoble in 1741 and who arrived during the colonial period. During his military service in Attakapas, Sorrel acquired a large amount of land on which he established a cattle ranch. Sorrel never married nor had any children of his own nor was he married.
Jacques Joseph was very close to his neighbors, Gregoire and Cecile Pellerin and their children. When he died in 1816, a significant portion of land passed to the Pellerin family.
Antoine Sorrel "le Jeun" was a cousin of Jacques' who was born in France. He had two sons, Antoine Solange and Martial Sorrel. Antoine never came to Louisiana; in his later years, Jacques Joseph asked his two nephews to come and they did.
Col. Antoine Solonge Sorrel was Jacques Joseph's cousin from Grenoble. In the 1750s, he enlisted in the French army as an engineer and after the Seven Years' War, was sent to Saint Domingue after being knighted by the king. His assignment was to map the French colony; he remained there, however, establishing a prosperous sugar plantation. He married and had a son, Francis Mathurin Sorrel.
When the slave rebellion occurred on Saint Domingue, Col. Sorrel was separated from his son. He ended up being exiled to Cuba. When Jacques Joseph learned his cousin was in Havana, he sent Frederic Pellerin to find him and bring him to Louisiana. Col. Sorrel spent the last 25 years of his life on the Pellerin/Sorrel plantation, where he died at the age of 93 on 9 May 1830. At its peak, Jacques Joseph's plantation was over 4,000 acres and stretched from west of the Bayou Teche to Cypremort.
Martial Sorrel and Solange Sorrel, nephews of Jacques Joseph, arrived from France between 1816-1820. Solange was a medical doctor; he married Frederic's daughter, Cecile Rosalie Silenie Pecot, when she was just fourteen years old in 1820. They had one daughter, Emelie Ernestine, who died young. Eight years later, Cecile Rosalie died at the age of twenty-two. Solange Sorrel was murdered by a slave in 1835; on his death, Martial became the sole heir.
Martial Sorrel married Marie Rose Angelique Desiree Pellerin, daughter of Frederic Pellerin and Marie Anne Pecot. Marie Rose died giving birth to their third child and is buried in Paris, France.
The three children of Marie Rose and Martial Sorrel were Emelie Sorrel, Aimee Sorrel and Solonge Arance Sorrel. Emelie and Aimee married the Sillan brothers; Emelie returned to France and Aimee moved to St. Martinville. Solonge Arance, born in Paris in 1842, relocated to Olivier, Louisiana where he married Marie Olivier. The 1850 Census listed the Sorrel real estate value at $200,000; that would be about $10 million in today's money for the real estate alone.
More details of the Sorrel/Pellerin family, their plantation and burial ground, can be found in Jarvis Freymann's Report, The Sorrel/Pellerin Burial Ground which has been linked here.