Saturday evening, 15th November 1890, promised to be a typical one.
Pierre François Hyppolite MARTINET (picture, facing left), Pierre NECTOUX, and Alexandre FAUCHEUX, met up to have a
Pierre François Hyppolite Martinet. Probably taken in St. Martinville, between 1895 and 1900.
few round of drinks at Joseph-Fortuné DE PENNE’s store on Rue Principale (Main Street), in St. Martinville, adjacent to the courthouse.
It was dark. No electric street lights existed in those days. And the local saloon was dimly lit with kerosene lamps; sufficient for playing cards, and essentially frolicking in a manner similar to frat parties in present-day America.
De PENNE was a serious-minded man. He descended from a long line of businessmen on his father’s side, and built respect and trust on the quality of their products, but also on their reserve.
At some point in the evening, DE PENNE indicated to his 3 friends, that they had had enough to drink, and he was ready to close the store. When the 3 exited the store, police officer Charles VOORHIES and Gaétan FUSELIER were standing near the store.
Intoxicated beyond belief, MARTINET approached FUSELIER, stared him in the eyes, and jokingly grabbed his throat, thinking he was DE PENNE, for asking them to leave the store. Fuselier reacted by launching several blows to MARTINET with his fist.
NECTOUX told MARTINET “if you do not have your revolver, here’s mine” (translated from French). Voorhies instructed him to handover the weapon; apparently, without much success. Both parties engaged in a duo of six rounds of gunshots. Both survived. Martinet ran off towards his home near Rue Honoré.
And, fearing for his life, as 1890 was in the height of “Regulatorism,” or vigilanteism, he abandoned his wife, Fidélice Sidonie DETIÈGE, 9 children (the last born in 1889), home and boat-making and architecture business; probably for New Orleans, where his brother, Louis-André “L.A.” MARTINET, was a reputable activist, once legislator, physician, attorney, and editor, with Federal and state political connections.
On Saturday, 6 August 1892, two years later, MARTINET returned to St. Martinville. And had arranged with locals to provide protection for him from Gaétan FUSELIER, reputed sheriff H. P. FOURNET, and VOORHIES. Laizaire BIENVENU reported in the town paper that citizens reported having seen Gaétan in the neighborhood of the Martinet home that even, loaded with a rifle. The next morning, Sunday, MARTINET again left, and did not return again, sneakingly, until 1895.
The incident shook the MARTINET family to the core. The MARTINETs were what Americans called mulattoes. Pierre’s father, Hyppolite Pierre MARTINET, was a native of Hamme-Mille, near Louvain, Belgium, and his mother, Marie-Louise BENOÎT, was a Creole of French and West African heritage, born a slave, but freed at a young age. The Regulators, a local group of vigilantes, composed of that element of Creole society today termed Cajun, in the early 1890s, harassed, and ran out many honest, respectable, respected, and enterprising residents of St. Martin Parish; white and nonwhite. In 1892, for instance, the Regulators harassed the living daylights out of the family of Gustave BAKER; Pierre’s brother-in-law (they married sisters). So, Pierre’s assault on Gaétan, a “white” man, was enough to erupt the Regulator’s fury.
Nearly all of the MARTINET family, fair of complexion, phenotypically European and ambiguous, left St. Martinville in the first 2 decades of the 20th century for California, where they did not hesitate to tweak their genealogy, so that those curious would see them as the children of a French father and Belgian mother.
Hippolyte Martinet, in his early 20s, taken in St. Martinville.
The effects of racism in St. Martinville affected one of Pierre and Sidonie’s sons, Hippolyte Gervais MARTINET–who followed in his father’s carpentry trade–most. He had formed a relationship with Georgina DE LA HOUSSAYE, and by her fathered a few children. But, at some point, the relationship dissolved, and he relocated to California, spending the rest of his life as a bachelor.
Fed up with the many contradictions in America, Hippolyte took to the road, by foot … barefoot … with no headgear, in the hopes of circumnavigating the Earth. He began his journey, departing from Seattle, on Monday, 19 April 1920, at 5:30pm. Traversing the United States, eastbound, he arrived in Paris, France, on Tuesday, 26 April 1921, taking up temporary residence 42 Rue Saint-Merri. He mailed a letter to family noting poor treatment by the French and was astonished by French attitude towards him (seen as a hobo) in comparison to those of other nations. He left Paris in mid-summer 1921, headed to China, via Switzerland, Monaco, Italy, Albania, Greece, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Burma and, finally, China. He arrived in China in September 1922, and died Saturday, 30 September of that year, in Dali, Yunna Province. He was buried on a sloping hillside next to Mrs. George CLARK, the first western woman missionary in that region of China.
*He is credited for the grotto in the St. Martin Catholic Church, now called St. Martin de Tours Roman Catholic Church, in St. Martinville, Louisiana.
Hippolyte Martinet on the Champs-Élysées, Paris, France.
———————-
Alexandre FAUCHEUX (actually, FAUCHER), born in France, lawfully married Michaëlle ORSO, a Creole native of St. Martinville, on 10 April 1884 in St. Martinville. She was the daughter of Camille ORSO and Marie Charlotte Rosalie CAMPBELL or DE CLOUET, free people of color, all natives of St. Martinville.
Joseph-Fortuné “Luengo” DE PENNE was a brother-in-law of Pierre MARTINET. He married Amélie-Clothilde BAKER, a sister of Gustave BAKER, both of whom were maternal first cousins to Joseph-Fortuné. J-F was born in 1843 a free man of color, to François Jules Luengo DE PENNE and Paméla Alixe BARRIÈRE, also known as Paméla Alixe PRADE/PRAT, both free people of color, native to St. Martinville.
Children of Pierre MARTINET and Sidonie DETIÈGE were:
1) Antoine Zacharie MARTINET (1872-1897) m. Laurence LACASE
2) Louis Honorat MARTINET (1873-1955, Los Angeles) m. Eunice Rose MOLLESS
3) Marie Lorenza MARTINET (1874-1874)
4) Édouard Doctrave MARTINET (1875-1962, Long Beach) m. Edwige Théodora LEDOUX
5) Alexandre Gaston Césaire MARTINET (1876-1876)
6) Hippolyte Gervais MARTINET (1878-1922)
7) Marguerite Élodie MARTINET (1880-1880)
8) Pierre Valentin MARTINET (1882- )
9) Marie Blanche MARTINET (1889-1984, Montebello, Ca.) m. Prosper Chester DAVE or DAVID
Special thanks and mention to my cousins Kathy ELLIOT, Art MARTINET and Brian MARTINET, as well as Charley and Joanne JESTER, for helping to peace together the story of our family.
Beautiful story. Keep up the good work.
Marilyn Pryce Hoytt
Bien merci, Christophe !
Where did you get this information? I am a relative of Hippolyte. My great grandfather was his son Raymond Louis. My grandmother showed me that picture of him many times when i was growing up.
Hi Steve.
Please get ahold of me. I have mega documents and family history.
Tom (Art) Martinet
702-533-8908
thomasmartinet@Hotmail.com
I am Steve Durel’s (previous comment) second cousin. Hippolyte and Georgina are our great-great grandparents. As he mentioned, our great grandfather was their son, Raymond Louis Martinez–formerly Martinet. I think Georgina changed the “t” to a “z” after Hippolyte left. I also would love to know where you are getting your information and your connection to St. Martinville.
Jennifer, we are trying to get in touch with you and Earl…Please send a note.
Brian Martinet
Jennifer, his name was Louis Raymond, not Raymond Louis.
I thought Raymond but went by Louis.
Dear Earl and Jennifer, your forefather was born “Raymond Louis Martinet” in Lafayette, Louisiana, baptized at what is now the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist. Both of his parents, Hippolyte Gervais Martinet and Mathilde Agnès Georgina de la Houssaye, were from St. Martinville. It was Creole custom, until about the 1920s, for the first name to be a Catholic saint’s name, while the person went by the middle name, more commonly. After the 1920s, the custom switched when Francophone Catholic priests were replaced by Anglophone priests. After that, people like Raymond Louis Martinet became Louis Raymond Martinet.
The surname changed BEFORE Hippolyte left on his journey. Hippolyte “Polite” and Georgina, along with Georgina’s parents (Édouard Jr and Marie Léontine Auger/Oger) all moved to New Orleans around 1909. Already in 1910, there’s strong evidence that all 4 adults were fabricating their genealogies in New Orleans’s Vieux Carré, where they lived (Dauphiné Street and also Ursulines Avenue) to not be classed as negro, which would have made them second-class citizens. So, for instance, Georgina’s father fabricated a story of his being born in Spain to Spanish parents and having immigrated to the US in 1870, but never naturalized. No one in Édouard’s lineage came from Spain. Georgina’s mother played a bit with fact and fiction by stating that she was born in France of French parents and having immigrated to the US in 1880, and never naturalized. It is true that her father, Jules Romain Auger was born in France (before the civil war). But her mother, Eulalie Turpeau, a Creole, had been born a slave in St. Martinville and later freed by Jules before the civil war. She was a coffee vendor in St. Martinville.
Polite played with the same fabrications. He claimed that he was born in Louisiana, but that his parents were both from Spain. And hence, the surname was consciously changed from Martinet /mahr tee nay/ to Martínez.
Polite didn’t leave New Orleans until 1919.
The information above come from all kinds of places. The story of the scuffle in St. Martinville is from the St. Martin Weekly Messenger, the town paper at the time, which covered the entire saga. The information about Polite’s journeys was shared with me by our cousins Brian Martinet and Art Martinet, which they themselves got from newspapers, family letters, and so on. Brian got the postcard from some vendor in France, I believe. And the pictures have been circulating in the family. I own one of Polite with my great-grandfather and another local; Kathy owned many from her grandmother; and Brian, Art, Charles and Joanne shared more.
I am from New Iberia, and my family from neighboring St. Martinville. The Martinets are our relatives through intermarriage with the Rochons.
Thanks
Christophe, thank you for this explanation, and thank you for sharing this story on your blog. So, to clarify: Raymond Louis, who we always knew as Louis, was my great-grandfather (Earl’s grandfather), and we remember him well. We have known bits and pieces of his family history for years; other aspects of the story have only come to light (for me, at least) over the past couple of years. I was originally told the last name was changed due to a “family feud” and was later told Grandma G (Georgina) changed it. Hippolyte and Georgina’s three granddaughters are still alive and live in Louisiana–one of them is my grandmother. Next time I visit her and my father (Earl), I plan to come to St. Martinville. I’ve been interested in learning more about Hippolyte and the family in general. I have a rundown of the genealogy (names and dates) but would love more detail and to get a greater sense of what these people–my relatives–were like. Might you, or any of the Martinets who still live in the area, be willing to meet with me? Feel free to send me an email (jentheriot at gmail dot com) so we can discuss further. Thank you, and I look forward to hearing back from you!
I actually live near London (England). My immediate family on this side lives in New Iberia, St Martinville, Lafayette, and New Orleans, however.
The story is exhillirating and, in many ways, our family turned American racialization on its head by subverting American racial identity.
At the time, in the 1910s-1920s, it was a crime to do so. But if you moved to where no one knew you, and lived a low profile, it was possible to escape, all of which 90% of the Martinets did by 1930.
My e-mail is christophe.landry@yahoo.com
Hi Jennifer,
My name is Thomas Arthur Martinet.
Tom Edward Martinet, Brian Martinet & myself have loads of family information.
I would love to talk to you. I live in Las Vegas, Brian in Washington St. & Tom Edward lives in So. Cal.
Please give me a call at 702-533-8908
or email at thomasmartinet@Hotmail.com.
Tom (Art) Martinet
Hi Christophe Landry.
Thank you for this information. Eulalie Turpeau was my great-great aunt (sister to my great-great grandfather, Michel Turpeau). I’m not sure if she was a slave; my family information states that the Turpeaus were free people of color. Of course, they could have changed their family history a bit. Michel was named after his father, Michel Turpeau(x), who supposedly to the States, by way of Canada, from Martinique. I have found record of a Turpeau immigrating in this fashion that seems to support this part of my family history.
That being stated, I have questions as to whether or not I have Landry family connections. My other great-great grandparents, Isidore Louviere and his wife, Melicere (Melissaire) had a young man named Alex Landry that lived with them for a time. My Ancestry.com research has revealed some Landry’s. It seems like there was a LOT of intermingling.
Anyway, thank you for your post. If, perhaps, you have other information that could be of benefit to my search that would be appreciated. I still have Turpeau connections in St. Martinsville (I think it’s just St. Martins Parish now); also, Port Arthur, TX, and in California (where I’m from, although I’ve lived in Florida for the last 15 years).
Take care!
Janice Bradley, nee Turpeau
Earl, last May 2015, you left a comment on my blog – growingsoles.com. I’d love to talk with you some time. You can contact me at mmartinet@aol.com. I hope to hear from you.
Jennifer,
You don’t have to contact Micae. She only went to China to finish Hippolyte’s journey, but she “failed” blaming it on a broken toe! Imagine! She is also writing a book/screen play about Hippolyte. I did get an opportunity to read the first chapter draft and it only made me cry! Your cousin is quite talented! You are connected to a rather large and talented family.
Tom (Art) Martinet