Originally from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Samuel's American lineage extends back to his great great grandfather, Henry Sherburne, who arrived in the new world in 1631. The Sherburne family is recognized as one of the pioneer families of Portsmouth. The men of the family preceding Samuel on this side of the pond include Judges, Governors, Commissioners, Selectmen, Magistrates and Ship Captains. More ancient Sherburne's include influential landowner's back in England. The well established family purports to trace a direct lineage to Charlemagne.
The Sherburne family legacy is still evidenced around Portsmouth. Samuel's great grandfather's house, The John Sherburne house, still stands today and can be visited at the Strawbery Banke Museum. It's an impressive structure-- especially for having been built in 1695!
https://www.strawberybanke.org/houses/sherburne.cfm
Samuel was born in 1770 and schooled in New England through the 1780's. He was a bit too young to serve during the American Revolutionary War, though he was certainly an eyewitness. We know his father served in the New Hampshire Light Horse Volunteers and signed the Portsmouth Association Test. The Sherburne's were Patriots.
By the time Samuel was 22 (in 1792) he acquired the position of American Consul at the important inland port city of Nantes, France. The French Revolution was in its third year and ongoing. After four years as consul in France, Samuel married a local-- the young Ursule Rose Dubois de Corbières. I wrote a bit about Rose and her French background here. The two were married the third of August, 1796 at Saint-Servan-sur-Mer, Ille-et Vilaine, Bretagne, France. She was from a well-to-do family. Her father, by then deceased, had been a wealthy ship builder and public official in St. Malo. Her eldest brother was also a ship builder and arguably more successful than the father.
Benjamin Dubois, the brother, made a significant fortune building and outfitting war ships for King Louis XVI during the American Revolution. Some of his ships saw action off the US east coast. The ships Benjamin built were not large "ships of the line." They were smaller privateer ships commonly known as Corsairs. St. Malo is famous for having been home to a major hub of Corsair activity. Corsair captains would hold a "lettre de marque" which was license from the King to seize merchant vessels of enemy nations and carry them and their cargo back for profit to be split between the crown, the shipowner and the captain and crew. The majority of Benjamin's wealth came from prizes taken on the open seas by the Privateers that manned his ships.
When the French Revolution rolled around, Benjamin was perceived as a bit too close to the monarchy. Benjamin was dealt the wrath of the "general committee of security." He was arrested and held in Parisian jails throughout 1793 and '94. Two men arrested alongside him lost their heads, but Benjamin was spared, eventually cleared and released. Benjamin was back home in St. Malo in time to likely attend the wedding of his little sister, Rose and the American, Samuel Sherburne.
Benjamin's home, coincidentally, is also still around and apparently worth a visit...
http://www.domaine-du-montmarin.com/
Ursule Rose Dubois de Corbières was the youngest of her siblings and her brother Benjamin was the oldest. The gap was great enough that Benjamin's daughter married about the same time as Rose. Rose's niece married Antoine René Thévenard a sea captain in Napoleon's French navy. Within a year of their marriage, Thévenard commanded the French 74-gun "Aquilon" at the famous battle of the Nile. He is credited with performing a risky unorthodox tactic involving the spring on his anchor cable to quickly bring about his broadside against the bow of Admiral Horatio Nelson's flagship, HMS Vanguard. The damage wreaked on the Vanguard was intense resulting in over 100 casualties, including Nelson who suffered a gruesome open wound to his forehead. The severity of the bleeding induced Nelson to fire off a letter to his wife for fear the wound was mortal. It was not, and he soon returned to the battle.
http://www.domaine-du-montmarin.com/
Ursule Rose Dubois de Corbières was the youngest of her siblings and her brother Benjamin was the oldest. The gap was great enough that Benjamin's daughter married about the same time as Rose. Rose's niece married Antoine René Thévenard a sea captain in Napoleon's French navy. Within a year of their marriage, Thévenard commanded the French 74-gun "Aquilon" at the famous battle of the Nile. He is credited with performing a risky unorthodox tactic involving the spring on his anchor cable to quickly bring about his broadside against the bow of Admiral Horatio Nelson's flagship, HMS Vanguard. The damage wreaked on the Vanguard was intense resulting in over 100 casualties, including Nelson who suffered a gruesome open wound to his forehead. The severity of the bleeding induced Nelson to fire off a letter to his wife for fear the wound was mortal. It was not, and he soon returned to the battle.
The Aquilon was captured and Thévenard would not survive the day, making Rose's niece a very young widow.
By 1814, the young Sherburne family, residing in Nantes, consisted of Rose, her American husband and 8 children between the ages of 4 and 17. The records show the first five were born in Lorient, France. Lorient, Nantes, St. Malo and St. Servan are all in the region of France on the northwest coast called Brittany by English speakers and Bretagne by the French. Lorient was the home of Rose's sister, Elizabeth, who five years previous had also married an American Consul. Elizabeth and Rose were very close. Birth records imply that Rose's first five children were born in Elizabeth's home with Elizabeth's children serving as witnesses for their cousins' births. Both families eventually moved to America. Elizabeth and her family moved to Washington DC about the same time, Rose and Samuel moved to Baton Rouge.
The move to Louisiana must have been a significant turn of events for the Sherburne children. They were accustomed to a certain amount of refinement in France that would be lacking on the banks of the Mississippi River in 1816. Samuel settled on a plantation about 18 miles upriver of Baton Rouge. The lots there were generally long and skinny radiating out from the river affording each landowner water access and plenty of land inland for planting. It was a characteristic of the geography of the Mississippi river in the lower deltas that the highest ground in the area was found right up against the river. Over centuries the river's meandering and annual flooding tendencies caused sediment to be deposited most concentrated nearest the river bank in effect creating natural levees. This high ground is where the planters located their homes. They would generally orient the homes facing the river as that was considered the primary public view and where most traffic occurred. This was the case with the Sherburne plantation home. On September 7th of 1819, the Baton Rouge paper published a harrowing story regarding Samuel and Rose's home. I found a typewritten copy of it at the website of the Louisiana Digital Library here. The text of the story is as follows:
By 1814, the young Sherburne family, residing in Nantes, consisted of Rose, her American husband and 8 children between the ages of 4 and 17. The records show the first five were born in Lorient, France. Lorient, Nantes, St. Malo and St. Servan are all in the region of France on the northwest coast called Brittany by English speakers and Bretagne by the French. Lorient was the home of Rose's sister, Elizabeth, who five years previous had also married an American Consul. Elizabeth and Rose were very close. Birth records imply that Rose's first five children were born in Elizabeth's home with Elizabeth's children serving as witnesses for their cousins' births. Both families eventually moved to America. Elizabeth and her family moved to Washington DC about the same time, Rose and Samuel moved to Baton Rouge.
The move to Louisiana must have been a significant turn of events for the Sherburne children. They were accustomed to a certain amount of refinement in France that would be lacking on the banks of the Mississippi River in 1816. Samuel settled on a plantation about 18 miles upriver of Baton Rouge. The lots there were generally long and skinny radiating out from the river affording each landowner water access and plenty of land inland for planting. It was a characteristic of the geography of the Mississippi river in the lower deltas that the highest ground in the area was found right up against the river. Over centuries the river's meandering and annual flooding tendencies caused sediment to be deposited most concentrated nearest the river bank in effect creating natural levees. This high ground is where the planters located their homes. They would generally orient the homes facing the river as that was considered the primary public view and where most traffic occurred. This was the case with the Sherburne plantation home. On September 7th of 1819, the Baton Rouge paper published a harrowing story regarding Samuel and Rose's home. I found a typewritten copy of it at the website of the Louisiana Digital Library here. The text of the story is as follows:
Louisiana Gazette,9-7-1819 P-2 C-1Baton Rouge, September 4We have been informed that a distressing circumstance occurred a few days since on the plantation of Mr. Sherburne, late American Consul in France, now a resident of the Parish of West Baton Rouge, about eighteen miles above this place. It is reported, that whilst that gentleman and family were setting in the house, the bank suddenly gave way and the house was precipitated into the river, and it was with the greatest difficulty the family escaped from the jeopardy to which they were exposed - no lives, however, we are happy to learn, have been lost.One of the children of that gentleman was thrown into a chasm of the ground from which he was happily rescued by means of a rope let down to him, when the cavity was immediately filled by other ground falling in; another young man also one of the family, was taken into a boat from a piece of ground in which he stood in the middle of the water. All the furniture is said to be lost.
There is no way to know for sure which of the boys were cast into the chasm or stranded in the river, but surely, the experience was harrowing for all of them. Homeless in a matter of seconds. I can imagine whatever personal treasures they brought from France were lost that day.
The family took refuge in Baton Rouge but hardly a month later Samuel passed away. He was 49 years old. It is tempting to speculate that his death was the result of some lingering injury sustained in the recent catastrophe. Newspapers, as far away as the Northeast, recorded his death occurring on October 6, 1819 near Baton Rouge but none gave cause. The Sherburne family of Baton Rouge had lost their patriarch. Rose, now 50 years old and mother to 8 (5 who were likely still at home), was faced with some decisions.
Rose promptly advertised the opening of Madame Sherburne's Academy for Young Ladies in Baton Rouge where students were taught the three "R's" as well as English, French, Geography and "all kinds of Needlework." But this was not to last long as Rose passed away in 1824. Her burial date, June 9, 1824, is registered in the Diocese of Baton Rouge Catholic Records, though no location is given for the burial.
Rose promptly advertised the opening of Madame Sherburne's Academy for Young Ladies in Baton Rouge where students were taught the three "R's" as well as English, French, Geography and "all kinds of Needlework." But this was not to last long as Rose passed away in 1824. Her burial date, June 9, 1824, is registered in the Diocese of Baton Rouge Catholic Records, though no location is given for the burial.
Two of Rose's sons had predeceased her but the remaining children ultimately stayed in Louisiana, married and raised families of their own. The following is a condensed version of what I have found to date regarding the 8 interesting children of Samuel and Rose Sherburne:
1. Samuel Aaron Sherburne (1797-1821) Samuel, the oldest child, was likely named "Samuel" for his father and "Aaron" for his uncle, Aaron Vail, the American Consul who married Rose's sister, Elizabeth. As mentioned, it is evident he was born in Aaron Vail's home in Lorient. Sadly, Samuel Aaron's life ended too soon. An announcement of his death appears in the July 7, 1821 edition of "The Evening Post," of New York. He died on the 4th of July, 1821 in Baltimore, Maryland.
Samuel Aaron was 24. He doesn't appear to have married. I believe he was likely at school or in the early stages of an occupation related to trade and commerce and died of sickness. That's just conjecture on my part. Baltimore was a significant port at that time and was only 40 miles or so from Washington DC where his Vail cousins were living. The Vail's were a civic minded family. At least one cousin worked for the State Department. Another was serving in the US Navy while a third was just finishing up West Point.
Samuel Aaron's burial location is not known.
2. Felix Benjamin Sherburne (1798-1857) We have Felix's birth record. He was born to Samuel and Rose on October 2, 1798 in Lorient, France. He probably went to the east coast for school like his brother and cousins did before him. I imagine that is why I can't find him in the census records with his mother and siblings. He is listed among the baptisms enumerated in the St. Francis Catholic Church records 1817-1840 in Natchitoches, Louisiana. He is also found in the 1850 Louisiana census record from Natchitoches Parish showing him as F. B. Sherbourne. This is highly likely him at 52 years of age. It was a slave schedule indicating he had (2) 40 year old slaves. Felix was a lawyer and notary practicing in Natchitoches Parish. One evidence of this is a case abstract from the year 1851 out of said Parish...
5. Elizabeth Charlotte Sherburne (1804-1884) Eliza was born in Lorient on May 19th of 1804. She was named for her maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Charlotte LeMortellec. Like those of her brothers, her early French records are dated using the French Republican calendar. Her birthday is listed as "29 florial in the year XII." That makes her about 12 years old when she and her family relocated to Louisiana.
Nine years later, she married another French born resident of West Baton Rouge Parish, Paul Choppin. She had lost both parents in the intervening years, her mother-- the prior year (1824). Paul was likely from the Burgandy region of France as described in a biographical book published in 1917, (Vol. 3, Makers of Amercia: Biographies of Leading Men...). He was 6 years her senior. His Choppin family was what we would today say are quintessentially "Creole". They were urbane, sophisticated, French speaking and had been in Louisiana at least as early as 1803 when we find an older brother married in St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. The name Choppin is pronounced the same way you hear the composer, Frédéric Chopin's name pronounced. As Frédéric was born in Poland in 1810 and his name only had one "p," It seems unlikely there was a recent family connection. Subsequent generations of Paul and Eliza's family, interestingly, eventually dropped the extra "p" in the spelling of their name.
There is a US Citizenship Affidavit dated March 28 of 1815 in which a 17 year old Paul Choppin claims US citizenship at the port of New Orleans. These affidavits were carried by US seamen in the early 1800's in an attempt to avoid being pressed into his majesty's service by the Royal Navy. I suspect Paul anticipated some business travel between France and Louisiana and wanted to avoid the apparent risk.
One account of Paul Choppin states that he and a brother were pioneer sugar planters and are credited with the production of the first white loaf sugar in the State. Paul was certainly a planter. The 1830 census shows 34 slaves on his property.
The 1830, 1840 and 1850 US Census records show Paul and Eliza and family living in West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana. The 1850 Census shows all three of their sons living at home. The oldest is listed as a 21 year old physician. Samuel Paul Choppin MD (1828-1880) is a colorful figure in the history of Louisiana.
The eldest son of Elizabeth Sherburne and Paul Choppin, Samuel made a name in the medical profession. He studied medicine in Louisiana and did some graduate work in France and Italy. Back home in New Orleans, he became resident Surgeon at Charity Hospital. He taught anatomy at the New Orleans School of Medicine. He edited the local medical journal and became well known throughout the State as President of the Board of Health. When the civil war rolled around, he was Staff Surgeon under General P.G.T. Beauregard. One of his obituaries claims that "his career in the army was marked by capacity of the highest order and elicited eulogiums from Lee, Beauregard and other leaders of the Confederacy..."
But what he will probably most be remembered for is an impromptu duel that occurred in front of Charity Hospital on August 28, 1859. An altercation with a fellow physician escalated to the point of garnering newspaper headlines. The affray involved derringers, six shooters and Bowie knives! I found the story not only in New Orleans papers but also Vicksburg, Nashville, and Charleston. The story even surfaced in the London Observer. An exhaustive article on the incident can be read in the New Orleans Crescent here...
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/24992852/the-new-orleans-crescent/?xid=637&_ga=2.224978138.1525615779.1588595091-1409360912.1587759655
I had an email exchange with a distant cousin recently who descends from Samuel Paul Choppin's daughter, Rosa Eliza Choppin. Rosa was Elizabeth Charlotte Sherburne's grand daughter. I learned that Rosa took the family back into the diplomatic world of her great grandparents. Rosa married Miguel Covarrubias (1860-1924). He was the Mexican envoy or Charges d'Affaires in London off and on from May of 1907 to April 1921. They had 3 daughters who were well known in the social circles of Washington DC of the 1920's and 30's. One daughter married the Brazilian ambassador to the United States. Another married the Charges d'Affaires of the Romanian Legation to the United States and another became a Baroness when she married the English Baron Henry Roland Casimir D'Erlanger. Elizabeth and Paul Choppin's descendants bumped elbows with the muckety mucks!
Elizabeth Charlotte Sherburne Choppin died on February 22, 1884 in New Orleans, Louisiana. She was 79 years old and outlived her husband and two of her three sons. The remaining son died that same year. She outlived all of her siblings by nearly 20 years. She spent her last years living with the family of a niece in New Orleans.
6. Henri Claude Sherburne (1805-1859) Henri is one of the Sherburnes that I have already covered to some degree. I wrote about his dramatic death in a post here. Henry is the first of the Sherburne children not born in Lorient. His birth record is found in Nantes, France. Actually, the last three Sherburne children were born in Nantes. Nantes is the French port city where Henri's father served as American Consul. Henri was only 10 when the family arrived in Louisiana. At 26, he married Mary Adine Guesnon. Mary was active in the Catholic Church at Baton Rouge. She and Henry's two sisters are found to be committee members of the Ladies Charity Society associated with St. Joseph, the Catholic Church in Baton Rouge. In 1842 they organized a fair to help raise funds for the repair of the Catholic cemetery there. This led me to speculate that Rose and Samuel may be buried in one of the early Catholic cemeteries in Baton Rouge.
Henri and Mary had no natural children but adopted a young girl in 1852. Anna, who was 7 at the time of Henry's death, lived 35 years, married twice and left 6 children. One of Anna's children, a daughter also named Anna, lived until 1975.
Henry practiced law in Baton Rouge. He traveled the river frequently between there and New Orleans. On February 27, 1859 he became one of 70 or so who perished in the dramatic Steamboat "Princess" explosion. Unfortunately, he was standing too near the boilers on that tragic day. The story was all over the papers. One account suggests that Henry certainly must have died instantly and mercifully was spared the terrible lingering burns that others endured.
In October of 1859, Mary advertised an estate sale in which 80 acres of land in East Baton Rouge Parish acquired by Henry W Sherburne and also the Library of the deceased consisting of "valuable Law and other books" were offered for public sale. Mary died 6 years after the Princess disaster.
7. Charles Guillaume Sherburne (1807-1823) Charles' birth record shows him born in 1807 at Nantes, France. The next record I can find for him is his burial listed in the Diocese of Baton Rouge Catholic Church Records. He was buried on July 27th 1823. That would make him 16 years old. He died a year before his mother. It could be they both were buried in the old Spanish Catholic cemetery in Baton Rouge. In 1825, the year after Rose's burial, St Joseph Catholic Church of Baton Rouge bought property to house a new cemetery. Signage at the 1825 cemetery indicates the burials from the old Spanish cemetery (The Cemetery of Our Lady of Sorrows) including "some of Baton Rouge's first settlers" were disinterred and moved to the new property. However, the Diocese record does not specify burial locations for Charles and his mother, Rose. Also, there is no Diocese record for Samuel Sherburne's 1819 burial. He may not have been a practicing Catholic and therefore not buried in the Catholic cemetery. Samuel's baptism in New Hampshire was not in the Catholic Church. If he was not buried in the Catholic cemetery, it is possible Rose and Charles were not buried there either. If Samuel, Rose and Charles were buried at the Old Spanish Catholic Cemetery and their remains moved to St. Joseph in 1825, their graves may not be marked. As of today, there is no indication they have marked graves at St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery.
8. Henrietta Rose Sherburne (1808-1865) Henrietta was the youngest of Rose and Samuel Sherburne's children. She would have been 5 or 6 years old when they made the move to the United States. Henrietta married Claude Antoine Choppin, a brother of her sister's husband, Paul. Claude was 18 years her senior. They had one daughter. The 1850 census locates this family in the heart of the city of Baton Rouge. Claude Antoine or "Anthony" is listed with an occupation of baker. Their neighbors include clerks, tailors, and grocers.
Claude and Henrietta's daughter, Cecelia, was born in 1838-- a Louisiana native. At 27 years old Cecelia married Maximilian Augustus Dauphin. Dauphin was the same age as Cecelia but came to New Orleans from Strasbourg, Alsace, France when he was 16 years old. He had completed classical studies in France and attempted to make a living through painting and sculpture but eventually ended up at the New Orleans School of Medicine where he came under the influence and lifelong friendship of Dr. Samuel Paul Choppin, Cecelia's 1st cousin. Maximilian practiced medicine for a while but made his fortune as the head of the Louisiana Lottery Company.
Later in life, Max had an elaborate family tomb constructed at the Cemetery in Metarie. He arranged to have the remains of his Choppin friends and family re-interred in this tomb. Dr. Samuel Paul Choppin's remains, and those of his wife were moved there. When Max's wife, Cecelia, passed she was placed there as well. Max remarried and passed away a few short years later. The second wife and now widow, Cecile Rose LaBranche Dauphin, then became involved in a dispute with the Choppin descendants over the inheritance. Ultimately, the case went all the way to the Louisiana Supreme Court after LaBranche filed an injunction to have the Choppin family remains removed from the Dauphin Tomb. She lost. The Choppin's are still in the tomb.
Henrietta Rose Sherburne and her sister Elizabeth were the only Sherburne children to see the Civil War. Henrietta passed away only months after Appomattox. Elizabeth lived another 20 years. Henrietta's husband Claude Antoine died in 1853 and was one of the Choppin's re-interred in Dauphin's tomb. Henrietta is likely in there too, but I have yet to find that record for her burial.
1. Samuel Aaron Sherburne (1797-1821) Samuel, the oldest child, was likely named "Samuel" for his father and "Aaron" for his uncle, Aaron Vail, the American Consul who married Rose's sister, Elizabeth. As mentioned, it is evident he was born in Aaron Vail's home in Lorient. Sadly, Samuel Aaron's life ended too soon. An announcement of his death appears in the July 7, 1821 edition of "The Evening Post," of New York. He died on the 4th of July, 1821 in Baltimore, Maryland.
Samuel Aaron was 24. He doesn't appear to have married. I believe he was likely at school or in the early stages of an occupation related to trade and commerce and died of sickness. That's just conjecture on my part. Baltimore was a significant port at that time and was only 40 miles or so from Washington DC where his Vail cousins were living. The Vail's were a civic minded family. At least one cousin worked for the State Department. Another was serving in the US Navy while a third was just finishing up West Point.
Samuel Aaron's burial location is not known.
2. Felix Benjamin Sherburne (1798-1857) We have Felix's birth record. He was born to Samuel and Rose on October 2, 1798 in Lorient, France. He probably went to the east coast for school like his brother and cousins did before him. I imagine that is why I can't find him in the census records with his mother and siblings. He is listed among the baptisms enumerated in the St. Francis Catholic Church records 1817-1840 in Natchitoches, Louisiana. He is also found in the 1850 Louisiana census record from Natchitoches Parish showing him as F. B. Sherbourne. This is highly likely him at 52 years of age. It was a slave schedule indicating he had (2) 40 year old slaves. Felix was a lawyer and notary practicing in Natchitoches Parish. One evidence of this is a case abstract from the year 1851 out of said Parish...
Felix B. Sherburne and John B. Smith, attorneys at law, seek to recover $5,000 in legal services rendered to Melite Auty, wife of Auguste Metoyer and a free woman of color. Sherburne and Smith contend that, throughout 1843 and 1844, they provided Mrs. Metoyer with legal services in an ongoing suit between her and one Baptiste Adlé. They defended her interest before both the District and Supreme Courts and won the fight on her behalf. Not only did she recover her property but she was also awarded damages for its unlawful seizure and detention. Sherburne and Smith affirm that their professional efforts in this case are well worth the sum of $5,000 charged to Mrs. Metoyer. They therefore pray for an order directing Mrs. Metoyer, assisted by her husband, to stand in judgment and pay the debt.
I found a more interesting reference for him in the Louisiana Historical Quarterly Vol. 17, No. 1. The passage describes a notable duel fought between General Francois Gaiennie and General Pierre A. Bossier (namesake of the Parish of Bossier). The two gentlemen lived along Cane River not far from Natchitoches. They were bitter political rivals whose feud boiled over in September of 1839. F. B. Sherburne is listed as a second to General Gaiennie, a Whig, who was killed in the duel with the Democrat, Bossier.
A "Second" was chosen by each primary duelist from among his closest friends. The second's job was to ensure that all aspects of the duel were carried out fairly. He assured the weapons of both parties were equally prepared and serviceable.
It is recorded this duel was fought with rifles. Gaiennie fired first and missed. Bossier then fired instantly killing Gaiennie. The passage further reads... "Before leaving home Gen. Gaiennie promised his wife that if he survived, a messenger would bring her the news riding a white horse, but if he did not survive, a black horse would bear the messenger, that, watching across the level stretch of the Cane River country, she might thus know the news ere it was announced by voice."
I show a death date of 1857 for Felix but that date came from someone else and was not sourced. I can only really say he died some time after 1850.
3. Achilles René Sherburne (1800-1836) Achilles, the third son, is enumerated in the 1820 census in his mother's household in Baton Rouge. That census shows Rose D Sherburne as head of house. Samuel Sr had passed away the previous year. Just numbers indicate the rest of those living there-- 8 people total including one slave. Achilles' column reads "white males 16-25 years." His two older brothers were already out of the home.
There is an 1826 marriage record for Achilles found in the Louisiana Compiled Marriage Index. It was a Catholic wedding at St Joseph Catholic Church in Baton Rouge. His bride was the widow, Gertrude Vahamonde Duralde. She was ten years older than Achilles and she had six children by her first husband who passed in 1817. We find Achilles' new family enumerated in the 1830 census living in West Baton Rouge Parish. The census shows 4 people in his household and 30 slaves. Achilles had married into a planter family. Newspapers of the day record him acting as Clerk of Court for the Parish District Court by 1833.
On November 6, 1835 Achilles took oath and gave bond in West Baton Rouge as curator of the estate of his cousin, the late Capt. Thomas Jefferson Vail of the Army of the United States. Jefferson was another son of Aaron Vail and Rose's sister, Elizabeth Dubois Vail. An 1821 graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point, Jefferson served for a time at New Orleans under Base Commander and future President Zachary Taylor. There he would have had the opportunity to frequently call on his aunt and cousins in nearby Baton Rouge. In 1833 he was assigned to the remote Fort Snelling, Minnesota. Interestingly, Dr. John Emerson, a fellow officer at the Fort, was owner of the slave Dred Scott. Scott and his wife, Harriet, lived at the fort with Emerson. It's quite likely Jefferson was familiar with the Scotts whose later court battles would make such an impression on the political climate leading to the Civil War. Of course Jefferson Vail would miss all that. By late 1835, Jefferson was back in Louisiana where he died of illness. Achilles curated his estate and died himself the following year at 36 years of age. I believe he left no children of his own.
4. Eugène Amédée Sherburne (1802-1860) Eugène is my own connection to the Sherburne family. He is a 3rd great grandfather-- a maternal great-grandfather to my father's mother, Annie Lou Sentell McBride. She was very proud of her Sherburne family. I'm sure she never heard the story of his house falling in the river when he was 18 years old, or I would have heard it from her years ago. Of course he died 43 years before her birth. It's understandable that story would get lost. Eugène is almost always referred to as E A Sherburne in documents from the period. He is the best documented of his siblings among available Louisiana records. I have found a string of accomplishments-- Sheriff of Iberville Parish, distinguished planter and businessman, Vice President of the State Whig Party, school board member, election commissioner, and founder in his Church.
3. Achilles René Sherburne (1800-1836) Achilles, the third son, is enumerated in the 1820 census in his mother's household in Baton Rouge. That census shows Rose D Sherburne as head of house. Samuel Sr had passed away the previous year. Just numbers indicate the rest of those living there-- 8 people total including one slave. Achilles' column reads "white males 16-25 years." His two older brothers were already out of the home.
There is an 1826 marriage record for Achilles found in the Louisiana Compiled Marriage Index. It was a Catholic wedding at St Joseph Catholic Church in Baton Rouge. His bride was the widow, Gertrude Vahamonde Duralde. She was ten years older than Achilles and she had six children by her first husband who passed in 1817. We find Achilles' new family enumerated in the 1830 census living in West Baton Rouge Parish. The census shows 4 people in his household and 30 slaves. Achilles had married into a planter family. Newspapers of the day record him acting as Clerk of Court for the Parish District Court by 1833.
On November 6, 1835 Achilles took oath and gave bond in West Baton Rouge as curator of the estate of his cousin, the late Capt. Thomas Jefferson Vail of the Army of the United States. Jefferson was another son of Aaron Vail and Rose's sister, Elizabeth Dubois Vail. An 1821 graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point, Jefferson served for a time at New Orleans under Base Commander and future President Zachary Taylor. There he would have had the opportunity to frequently call on his aunt and cousins in nearby Baton Rouge. In 1833 he was assigned to the remote Fort Snelling, Minnesota. Interestingly, Dr. John Emerson, a fellow officer at the Fort, was owner of the slave Dred Scott. Scott and his wife, Harriet, lived at the fort with Emerson. It's quite likely Jefferson was familiar with the Scotts whose later court battles would make such an impression on the political climate leading to the Civil War. Of course Jefferson Vail would miss all that. By late 1835, Jefferson was back in Louisiana where he died of illness. Achilles curated his estate and died himself the following year at 36 years of age. I believe he left no children of his own.
4. Eugène Amédée Sherburne (1802-1860) Eugène is my own connection to the Sherburne family. He is a 3rd great grandfather-- a maternal great-grandfather to my father's mother, Annie Lou Sentell McBride. She was very proud of her Sherburne family. I'm sure she never heard the story of his house falling in the river when he was 18 years old, or I would have heard it from her years ago. Of course he died 43 years before her birth. It's understandable that story would get lost. Eugène is almost always referred to as E A Sherburne in documents from the period. He is the best documented of his siblings among available Louisiana records. I have found a string of accomplishments-- Sheriff of Iberville Parish, distinguished planter and businessman, Vice President of the State Whig Party, school board member, election commissioner, and founder in his Church.
Eugène was born in Lorient on the 19th of November, 1802. His birth record names his parents and lists witnesses including a couple Vail cousins. At 14 he came with his family to Louisiana. He is listed among those residing in his mother, Rose's household in Baton Rouge in 1820. I can't find him in the 1830 census. He was 28 at the time. A couple years later he married a young lady from Port Gibson, Mississippi. I have not turned up a marriage record for their union, but later court records show the relationship. The bride was 17 year old Margaret Newton Lindsay, a Protestant whose father had been a Parish Judge in Louisiana across the river from Walnut Hills (Vicksburg) before taking residence in Indian lands near the Choctaw Agency in what is now central Mississippi. Margaret was born at the Agency.
Margaret and Eugène settled on farmland in Iberville Parish. By 1848 they had 4 boys and one girl. Eugène raised sugar cane and was in partnership with a number of large sugar producers in the area. One of Eugène's partners was Charles Henry Dickinson Jr. who had a large plantation near Rosedale, Louisiana. The home called Live Oaks is still there and can be seen while driving along Bayou Grosse Tete. Charles' father, Charles Henry Dickinson Sr. was killed in a duel with Andrew Jackson but not before he lodged a ball in Jackson’s chest an inch from his heart. Jackson carried Dickinson’s lead and the painful complications it caused for the rest of his life. Charles Jr was 2 months old at the time of his father’s death.
The 1850 census shows the E A Sherburne family and the family of a Presbyterian Pastor living on the Iberville Parish property. J E C Doremus, the Pastor, was likely tutoring the Sherburne Children. The youngest Sherburne child was named Edward Doremus Sherburne at his birth in 1848, so there must have been a meaningful relationship between the two families. JEC Doremus pastored at First Presbyterian Church at Baton Rouge among other places.
Margaret died in July of 1852 and the family relocated to a plot of prime land on the Mississippi River just south of Port Hudson in East Baton Rouge Parish. This property was called "Fontania." Eugène married a second time to Miss Patience Young. They had no children.
Margaret died in July of 1852 and the family relocated to a plot of prime land on the Mississippi River just south of Port Hudson in East Baton Rouge Parish. This property was called "Fontania." Eugène married a second time to Miss Patience Young. They had no children.
Eugène appears to be the only Sherburne to have left the Catholic Church although it is unclear if his father was ever really Catholic. A sister of Eugène's second wife (and coincidentally my 3rd great grandmother) wrote a history of the Plains Presbyterian Church. That church is located at Buhler's Plains, Louisiana near Zachary. She mentions EA Sherburne and two of his children being converted in 1855. They were members of the Church for the rest of their lives. One child, a daughter, married a Presbyterian missionary to China. I wrote about their story HERE. There is a cemetery near the Plains church where a number of Eugène's descendants and extended family are buried.
Eugène died in 1860. His obituary states he was "a most estimable man and citizen, esteemed and respected by all." It is believed he was originally buried at his Plantation, Fontania, next to the river. His first wife, Margaret, died when they were still in Iberville Parish, so it is possible he buried her there and was buried there himself later on. The Fontainia property is now mostly covered up by a Georgia Pacific Paper Mill.
The property where Eugène may have been buried looks like this today-- in the red lines...
The northeast corner contains about a quarter of the National Cemetery at Port Hudson. The east half is mostly paper mill and the west boundary is the old Mississippi River bank location. I suspect the house would have been in the wooded area near the river on the west. If there were burials on the site they were likely in the wooded area on the west side where the high ground and house would have been although there is a curious square of wooded area between the parking lots toward the east that may have remained wooded for a reason.
Virginia Lobdell Jennings wrote in "The Plains and the People" that she believed Eugène's grave was moved from the Port Hudson property to the Young Cemetery near the Plains Church because of encroaching erosion but there is no source for this info and I have found no marker for him at the Young Cemetery. The official plot map and burial ledger for Young Cemetery is in the possession of Mr. John Troth of Zachary. I met with him in October of 2022 and looked at the documents. They confirm that Margaret and Eugène Amedee are interred unmarked next to his first wife, Patience Young Sherburne (1800-1870), inside a cast iron fence in section EC B.
Virginia Lobdell Jennings wrote in "The Plains and the People" that she believed Eugène's grave was moved from the Port Hudson property to the Young Cemetery near the Plains Church because of encroaching erosion but there is no source for this info and I have found no marker for him at the Young Cemetery. The official plot map and burial ledger for Young Cemetery is in the possession of Mr. John Troth of Zachary. I met with him in October of 2022 and looked at the documents. They confirm that Margaret and Eugène Amedee are interred unmarked next to his first wife, Patience Young Sherburne (1800-1870), inside a cast iron fence in section EC B.
5. Elizabeth Charlotte Sherburne (1804-1884) Eliza was born in Lorient on May 19th of 1804. She was named for her maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Charlotte LeMortellec. Like those of her brothers, her early French records are dated using the French Republican calendar. Her birthday is listed as "29 florial in the year XII." That makes her about 12 years old when she and her family relocated to Louisiana.
Nine years later, she married another French born resident of West Baton Rouge Parish, Paul Choppin. She had lost both parents in the intervening years, her mother-- the prior year (1824). Paul was likely from the Burgandy region of France as described in a biographical book published in 1917, (Vol. 3, Makers of Amercia: Biographies of Leading Men...). He was 6 years her senior. His Choppin family was what we would today say are quintessentially "Creole". They were urbane, sophisticated, French speaking and had been in Louisiana at least as early as 1803 when we find an older brother married in St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. The name Choppin is pronounced the same way you hear the composer, Frédéric Chopin's name pronounced. As Frédéric was born in Poland in 1810 and his name only had one "p," It seems unlikely there was a recent family connection. Subsequent generations of Paul and Eliza's family, interestingly, eventually dropped the extra "p" in the spelling of their name.
There is a US Citizenship Affidavit dated March 28 of 1815 in which a 17 year old Paul Choppin claims US citizenship at the port of New Orleans. These affidavits were carried by US seamen in the early 1800's in an attempt to avoid being pressed into his majesty's service by the Royal Navy. I suspect Paul anticipated some business travel between France and Louisiana and wanted to avoid the apparent risk.
One account of Paul Choppin states that he and a brother were pioneer sugar planters and are credited with the production of the first white loaf sugar in the State. Paul was certainly a planter. The 1830 census shows 34 slaves on his property.
The 1830, 1840 and 1850 US Census records show Paul and Eliza and family living in West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana. The 1850 Census shows all three of their sons living at home. The oldest is listed as a 21 year old physician. Samuel Paul Choppin MD (1828-1880) is a colorful figure in the history of Louisiana.
The eldest son of Elizabeth Sherburne and Paul Choppin, Samuel made a name in the medical profession. He studied medicine in Louisiana and did some graduate work in France and Italy. Back home in New Orleans, he became resident Surgeon at Charity Hospital. He taught anatomy at the New Orleans School of Medicine. He edited the local medical journal and became well known throughout the State as President of the Board of Health. When the civil war rolled around, he was Staff Surgeon under General P.G.T. Beauregard. One of his obituaries claims that "his career in the army was marked by capacity of the highest order and elicited eulogiums from Lee, Beauregard and other leaders of the Confederacy..."
But what he will probably most be remembered for is an impromptu duel that occurred in front of Charity Hospital on August 28, 1859. An altercation with a fellow physician escalated to the point of garnering newspaper headlines. The affray involved derringers, six shooters and Bowie knives! I found the story not only in New Orleans papers but also Vicksburg, Nashville, and Charleston. The story even surfaced in the London Observer. An exhaustive article on the incident can be read in the New Orleans Crescent here...
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/24992852/the-new-orleans-crescent/?xid=637&_ga=2.224978138.1525615779.1588595091-1409360912.1587759655
I had an email exchange with a distant cousin recently who descends from Samuel Paul Choppin's daughter, Rosa Eliza Choppin. Rosa was Elizabeth Charlotte Sherburne's grand daughter. I learned that Rosa took the family back into the diplomatic world of her great grandparents. Rosa married Miguel Covarrubias (1860-1924). He was the Mexican envoy or Charges d'Affaires in London off and on from May of 1907 to April 1921. They had 3 daughters who were well known in the social circles of Washington DC of the 1920's and 30's. One daughter married the Brazilian ambassador to the United States. Another married the Charges d'Affaires of the Romanian Legation to the United States and another became a Baroness when she married the English Baron Henry Roland Casimir D'Erlanger. Elizabeth and Paul Choppin's descendants bumped elbows with the muckety mucks!
Elizabeth Charlotte Sherburne Choppin died on February 22, 1884 in New Orleans, Louisiana. She was 79 years old and outlived her husband and two of her three sons. The remaining son died that same year. She outlived all of her siblings by nearly 20 years. She spent her last years living with the family of a niece in New Orleans.
6. Henri Claude Sherburne (1805-1859) Henri is one of the Sherburnes that I have already covered to some degree. I wrote about his dramatic death in a post here. Henry is the first of the Sherburne children not born in Lorient. His birth record is found in Nantes, France. Actually, the last three Sherburne children were born in Nantes. Nantes is the French port city where Henri's father served as American Consul. Henri was only 10 when the family arrived in Louisiana. At 26, he married Mary Adine Guesnon. Mary was active in the Catholic Church at Baton Rouge. She and Henry's two sisters are found to be committee members of the Ladies Charity Society associated with St. Joseph, the Catholic Church in Baton Rouge. In 1842 they organized a fair to help raise funds for the repair of the Catholic cemetery there. This led me to speculate that Rose and Samuel may be buried in one of the early Catholic cemeteries in Baton Rouge.
Henri and Mary had no natural children but adopted a young girl in 1852. Anna, who was 7 at the time of Henry's death, lived 35 years, married twice and left 6 children. One of Anna's children, a daughter also named Anna, lived until 1975.
Henry practiced law in Baton Rouge. He traveled the river frequently between there and New Orleans. On February 27, 1859 he became one of 70 or so who perished in the dramatic Steamboat "Princess" explosion. Unfortunately, he was standing too near the boilers on that tragic day. The story was all over the papers. One account suggests that Henry certainly must have died instantly and mercifully was spared the terrible lingering burns that others endured.
In October of 1859, Mary advertised an estate sale in which 80 acres of land in East Baton Rouge Parish acquired by Henry W Sherburne and also the Library of the deceased consisting of "valuable Law and other books" were offered for public sale. Mary died 6 years after the Princess disaster.
7. Charles Guillaume Sherburne (1807-1823) Charles' birth record shows him born in 1807 at Nantes, France. The next record I can find for him is his burial listed in the Diocese of Baton Rouge Catholic Church Records. He was buried on July 27th 1823. That would make him 16 years old. He died a year before his mother. It could be they both were buried in the old Spanish Catholic cemetery in Baton Rouge. In 1825, the year after Rose's burial, St Joseph Catholic Church of Baton Rouge bought property to house a new cemetery. Signage at the 1825 cemetery indicates the burials from the old Spanish cemetery (The Cemetery of Our Lady of Sorrows) including "some of Baton Rouge's first settlers" were disinterred and moved to the new property. However, the Diocese record does not specify burial locations for Charles and his mother, Rose. Also, there is no Diocese record for Samuel Sherburne's 1819 burial. He may not have been a practicing Catholic and therefore not buried in the Catholic cemetery. Samuel's baptism in New Hampshire was not in the Catholic Church. If he was not buried in the Catholic cemetery, it is possible Rose and Charles were not buried there either. If Samuel, Rose and Charles were buried at the Old Spanish Catholic Cemetery and their remains moved to St. Joseph in 1825, their graves may not be marked. As of today, there is no indication they have marked graves at St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery.
8. Henrietta Rose Sherburne (1808-1865) Henrietta was the youngest of Rose and Samuel Sherburne's children. She would have been 5 or 6 years old when they made the move to the United States. Henrietta married Claude Antoine Choppin, a brother of her sister's husband, Paul. Claude was 18 years her senior. They had one daughter. The 1850 census locates this family in the heart of the city of Baton Rouge. Claude Antoine or "Anthony" is listed with an occupation of baker. Their neighbors include clerks, tailors, and grocers.
Claude and Henrietta's daughter, Cecelia, was born in 1838-- a Louisiana native. At 27 years old Cecelia married Maximilian Augustus Dauphin. Dauphin was the same age as Cecelia but came to New Orleans from Strasbourg, Alsace, France when he was 16 years old. He had completed classical studies in France and attempted to make a living through painting and sculpture but eventually ended up at the New Orleans School of Medicine where he came under the influence and lifelong friendship of Dr. Samuel Paul Choppin, Cecelia's 1st cousin. Maximilian practiced medicine for a while but made his fortune as the head of the Louisiana Lottery Company.
Later in life, Max had an elaborate family tomb constructed at the Cemetery in Metarie. He arranged to have the remains of his Choppin friends and family re-interred in this tomb. Dr. Samuel Paul Choppin's remains, and those of his wife were moved there. When Max's wife, Cecelia, passed she was placed there as well. Max remarried and passed away a few short years later. The second wife and now widow, Cecile Rose LaBranche Dauphin, then became involved in a dispute with the Choppin descendants over the inheritance. Ultimately, the case went all the way to the Louisiana Supreme Court after LaBranche filed an injunction to have the Choppin family remains removed from the Dauphin Tomb. She lost. The Choppin's are still in the tomb.
Henrietta Rose Sherburne and her sister Elizabeth were the only Sherburne children to see the Civil War. Henrietta passed away only months after Appomattox. Elizabeth lived another 20 years. Henrietta's husband Claude Antoine died in 1853 and was one of the Choppin's re-interred in Dauphin's tomb. Henrietta is likely in there too, but I have yet to find that record for her burial.
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