TRANSLATION IN ENGLISH BELOW
Etat de la Louisiane
Paroisse St Martin
L’an mil huit cent soixante quatre le vingt troisième jour du mois d’Aout.
Pardevant Edmond Mongé, Recorder et ex-officio notaire public dans et pour la paroisse St Martin soussigné et en
présence des Messieurs Gabriel Fuselier, Hippolyte Martinet, et Jules Oger témoins demeurant dans la paroisse St Martin.
A comparu Mr. Louis Joseph Detiège, demeurant dans la paroisse St Martin lequel a declaré au Recorder soussigné en présence des mêmes témoins soussignés qu’il voulait faire son testament ou acte de dernières volontés.
En conséquence il a dicté au Recorder soussigné en présence des susdits témoins ce qui suit qui a été écrit sous sa dictée par le Recorder soussigné en présence des dits témoins tel qu’il a été dicté, savoir:
Je révoque tous testaments que j’ai pu faire avant le présent.
Je donne et lègue à mes enfants naturels Marie Louise, Adelina, Azélie, Félicie, Rosa, Louis Edgar Hippolyte, et Louis Detiège et à leur mère Louise Fontenette tous personnes de couleur libres, tous les biens meubles et immeubles, papiers tires et créances qui pourront m’appartenir au jour de mon décès pour par eux jouir faire et disposer par portions égales c’est à dire un huitième chacun à partir du jour de mon décès susdit.
Ce qui précède a été dicté par le testateur au Recorder soussigné qui l’a écrit tel qu’il a été dicté et qui l’a lu en présence des dits témoins au testateur qui a déclaré le bien comprendre et y perséverer comme étant son testament.
Tout ce qui a été fait en la présence continuelle des témoins sus-nommés sans interruption et sans dictée à d’autres actes.
Dont acte : fait et passé à mon bureau à St Martinville paroisse St Martin.
Après lecture les témoins ont signé avec le testateur et le Recorder les mêmes jour mois et an qu’en tête.
(signé) Louis Joseph Detiège, G. Fuselier, H. Martinet, J. Oger, E. Mongé Recorder
MY ENGLISH TRANSLATION
State of Louisiana
St. Martin Parish
In the year eighteen hundred sixty-four, on the twenty-third day in the month of August,
Before Edmond MONGÉ, undersigned Recorder and Ex-officio Notary Public in and for St. Martin Parish, in the presence of Misters Gabriel FUSÉLIER, Hippolyte MARTINET, and Jules OGER, witnesses residing in St. Martin Parish,
Appeared Mr. Louis Joseph DÉTIÈGE, resident in St. Martin Parish, who declared to the undersigned Recorder, in the presence of the same undersigned witnesses, his desire to give his last will and testament.
Thus, he gave to the undersigned Recorder, in the presence of the aforementioned witnesses, the following, which was written according to his spoken word, by the undersigned Recorder in the presence of the said witnesses, as follows:
I revoke any testaments that I may have made before the present one.
I give and bequeath to my natural children – Marie-Louise, Adélina, Azeelie, Félicie, Rosa, Louis Edgar Hippolyte, and Louis DÉTIÈGE – and to their mother, Louise FONTENETTE, all free persons of color, all of my movable and immovable property, papers, titles, and debts that I may have at the time of my death, to share in equal portions of 1/8 each, from the day I die.
The aforementioned testament was given to the undersigned Recorder by the testator, who wrote it as it was said to him, who read it in the presence of the said witnesses to the testator, who declared understanding it well and wishing to file it as his testament.
All of this was done in the constant presence of the above named witnesses without interruption and deflection to other civil acts.
After the reading, the witnesses signed with the testator and the Recorder on the above stated day, month, and year.
(signed) Louis Joseph Detiège, G. Fuselier, H. Martinet, J. Oger, E. Mongé Recorder
My genealogical notes
Louis Joseph DÉTIÈGE and three brothers – Édouard, Nicolas, and Noël Joseph – were born at Hamme-Mille, in the Beauvechain section of the Brabant-Wallon Province of Francophone Belgium in the 1810s. They fought in the Napoleonic Wars, and arrived in Antebellum Louisiana on 7 Nov 1843 aboard the Narrangasett. All four were bachelors when they arrived.
Three of these brothers, Louis, Édouard, and Nicolas, formed longterm, consensual, loving relationships with Louisiana Creole women. Two of the women, Marie Louise FONTENETTE and Paméla-Charlotte ISIDORE (widow of Charles NEVEU), both mulâtresses were born free; the third, Roséline DARTÈS, also mulâtresse, had been born a slave of Pierre-Louis NÉE, M.D. and his wife Marie Claire BENOÎT de Sainte-Claire.
Of these relationships, Louis and Édouard, married their belles in St. Martinville on 7 Dec 1869 and 4 Dec 1869, respetively, and legitimated their natural children. Noël Joseph likely would have married Roséline DARTÈS, but died young on 21 July 1843 in St. Martinville at age 32, before being legally able to do so. Louisiana law prohibited “mixed” marriages until the reconstructed state constitution of 1868. Louis and Édouard seized on the new provisions within a year of its passing.
Many illustrious Louisiana Creoles come from this line, including Émile DÉTIÈGE, a son of Nicolas and Roséline, whose apprenticeship as a brick mason, Nicolas – himself a brick mason – arranged before his untimely death. Émile’s eyes went far beyond St. Martinville brickyards: he served with distinction in the Civil War, as a 1st Lieutenant in the 73rd Regiment, and Lieutenant of the 96th Regiment, the only state that admitted men of color as soldiers in the war on this scale. He was the first (and last?) man of color to serve as sheriff of St. Martin Parish, and was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives in 1878. His tomb is in St. Michael’s Cemetery in St. Martinville, with an imposing civil war veteran tombstone, located in the first quadrant, at the corner of Cemetery Highway and Bridge Street. He married Célita Marie VIDAL in New Orleans in 1871 and they had two children.
Édouard and Paméla-Charlotte’s grandson, Hippolyte Gervais MARTINET, is generally credited as the mastermind of the grotto in St. Martin de Tours Roman Catholic Church in St. Martinville. After abandoning his wife, Mathilde Agnès Georgine DE LA HOUSSAYE, and their two sons, he spent the remainder of his adult life circumnavigating the globe … on foot. He died in Dali, Yunnan Province, China on 30 Sept 1922. His sons were 18 and 16 at the time of his death and resided in New Orleans with their mother and maternal grandparents. Hyppolite’s brother, Édouard Doctrave MARTINET, and his wife, Edwige Théodora LEDOUX, relocated to California in the World War One era, like so many Louisiana Creoles of color from south Louisiana, where he went on to live a successful professional life, even receiving a patent on his design work.
The current mayor of St. Martinville, Thomas NELSON, is a great-great-grandson of Louis and Louise. Their son, Hyppolite DÉTIÈGE, who married Euzéïde BROUSSARD, had a daughter, Rosa DÉTIÈGE. She married Honoré SINGLETON in 1905, and their daughter, Berthe SINGLETON, was Thomas NELSON’s mother.
There are no longer St. Martinville residents carrying the surname DÉTIÈGE, but several branches of the family did not leave for California and Texas. Many of them are well known in the town. Besides Thomas NELSON, there was Ella ST JULIEN, wife of Hilaire “Khrine” DÉCUIR, and Charles Joseph DÉTIÈGE who was married to Joséphine PRATT, all of whom are now deceased and are great-grandchildren of Louis and Louise. Pedro ALEXANDER’s great-grandmother was Dolorès Martha “Della” DÉTIÈGE, who married the Filipino Togo ALEXANDER in 1914. Della was a granddaughter of Louis and Louise through their son Jean Ernest “Bébé” DÉTIÈGE.
Testament source: St. Martin Parish Clerk of Court (St. Martinville, La.), Conveyances Book vol 30, pp 44-45, #5034. Translation made by me.
Copy of testament.