History of the Ledet Family
Several people have recorded the history of the Ledet's family from Louisiana.
I would like to tell you the story my Grandfather (John Daniel Ledet) told me
when I was a young boy.
The Ledet's came from France, but lived on the French/German border. This was
because my Grandfather was a tall man with blue eyes. He (Antoine Ledet) came
to the New Orleans area around the 1780's and eventually ended up in Thibodaux,
Louisiana. He had seven boys who spread out over the tri-parish (Lafourche,
Terrebonne, and Assumption) area. And all the Ledet's descendants still live
in these main areas of the tri-parish.
Although his story is mostly true, in doing genealogy research I have discovered
that there were several Ledets who came to Louisiana in the 1700's. One a soldier
who died never having children. Another was a plantation owner in the Saint
Martinsville area who never had children or married and Antoine Ledet.
Antoine Ledet came to New Orleans from the Diocese, of Launny, France in about
1786. He made his way to Edgard, Louisiana where he married Marguerite Villac
in 1788. This was her second marriage but his first marriage. They had seven
children (Antoine, Pierre Marcellin, Adelaide, Henry, Marguerite, Jean Pierre,
and Augustine. Antoine made his way to Bayou Lafourche (a tributary of the Mississippi
River) in Donaldsonville. He traveled South to present day Thibodaux, Louisiana.
His first wife died about 1796 and he remarried a Victoria Quimine (Her first
marriage) They had 8 children (Isabel Hortene, Marie Clotilde, Auguste, Mariana,
Elisa Serphina, Alexis Amant, Francois Claude, and Pierre). Antoine died at
8 PM at his home in Thibodaux on March 28, 1825. He is buried in the church
cemetery. His wife Victoria remarried to Jacob Templet.
Antoine's children did move throughout the tri-parish are and settled down
in such places as; Thibodaux, Larose, Leeville, Houma, Point Aux Chien, Raceland,
Plattenville, and etc. And as my grandfather said most of the Ledet's can trace
their roots through these areas.
Although my namesake is Ledet, I have Terrebonne, Plaisance, Lee, Griffin,
Bromont, Lefort, Albardo, Richaux, Pitre, Hebert, Savoie, Daigle, in my past.
Each with a separate story but each just the same poor people who just wanted
to make a decent living and raise a proper French/Acadian family.
Jean Daniel Ledet
John was a shrimper and boat operator. During the depression he would
buy shrimp from boats at sea and bring them to the shrimp shed. He live
a ripe old age and at death was hard of hearing and his eye sight was
very poor. I remember him getting up very early every morning and
coughing (due to his emphysema) on his way to the outhouse. He was tall
blond and blue eyes. He had no formal education. He lived in the
Leeville area until a hurricane forced him and many others to move to
the Golden Meadow area.
John also raised his godchild (Eddie Hingle) as one of his children because their parent died.
I have his birth as 1881 but his grave has 1885.
Bernadette Louisiana Lee Ledet
Grandma Dan, as we called her, was a thin short woman who reminds me of
Grandy on the Bevely Hillbillies. She always looked old to me but she
was full of energy. She use to chew tobacco and always had her spit can
nearby. She used to tell the children (her grandchildren) stories about
the rugaru. they were better than the movies. I remember hearing about
her grave illness while I was attending LSU so I rushed to Terrebonne
General Hospital to see her but she had passed away. Died from cancer
and bled to death from chewing tobacco.
She and Grandpa Dan were a pair. He went to bed early to get up early
and she went to bed late and go up lather than him. When she made
coffee for the men she had coffee with sugar and milk mixed in the pot.
All we did was pour the coffee and drink. The men drank mostly a small
"demi toss" of coffee. We used to live right behind them in G.M.
As a child I remember when she wanted to whip us she would say for us
to go find a GOOD one in her bush. One time I didn't want to get
whipped so I tried to run away from her but she was too quick.
Lovency Terrrebonne
Lovency (my grandfather) had a very strange pet. the pet was a pelican
and it would stay on the roof of my grandfather’s house wheneverr he
was home. When he went off down the bayou the pelican would follow him.
Was in hurricane of 1893 and saved his mother and (T dole) & (Taunt
Rose ( Rosa' and coon) Rosa's mother)) some (sister) people by tying
them to a tree during the tidal surge. I heard that he used his
sister's hair to tie her to the tree. I have doubts of this fact but
their hair could have gotten tangle in the tree. He was Fifteen at this
time. Because of this my Mother said that he always carried a knife and
a nail in his pocket because that was what helped him save them. He is
in the 1880 Census # 74-77.
He lived in Golden Meadow with his second wife. He had pelicans as pets
also farm animals and would trap for a living by pirogue. They
lived in an old Acadian style home with a large iron stove in the
kitchen. The beds were made with moss matress.
On his grave he is listed as born May 24 1876.
I was at his home when he died.
Mom said he did not work on the day of the great hurricane and would
instead say rosaries in honor of the dead all day. Mom also said that
when their was a marsh fire he would claim that the people would say
that he set the fire. He would also go see the old sick people until he
got older and could not stand seeing them anymore.
Felecie Thereze Plaisance Terrebonne
Felecia (my grandmother) was seen riding a horse in Larose when Lovency
saw her and the story is he fell in love. She operated a used
furniture store next to her home in Golden Meadow.
She loved flowers because her yard was always full of flowers.
History of the Cormier family
First three Cormier families settled here in 1765
(This history of the Cormier family was prepared by the staff of the Congres Mondial Acadien-Louisiane 1999.)
By SHERMAN GUIDRY
XPLORIN’ ACADIANA
July 2, 1997 - The Bayou Catholic
The first of the Cormier family in North America was Robert Cormier, a
master carpenter from La Rochelle, France. He arrived at Cape
Breton in 1634 with his wife, Marie Peraud, and their two sons. By
1650, Robert had moved to Port Royal. For the most part, his immediate
descendants settled the new Acadian community established by Jacques
Bourgeois at Beaubassin. This new settlement was located on the Isthmus
of Chignectou which connects present day Nova Scotia with New
Brunswick.
The deportation of the Acadians from their homeland by the British in
1755 resulted in three Cormier families arriving at New Orleans in
1765, amongst the first groups of Acadians to arrive in Louisiana.
These first groups were sent to settle in St. James Parish, along the
Mississippi River, how ever all three of the Cormier families migrated
rather quickly to the Opelousas and Attakapas regions of south central
Louisiana. The family quickly established itself as small farmers along
the Bayou Teche and as cattlemen on the prairies near Carencro and
Grand Coteau. This latter region remains the center of the Cormier
family in Louisiana to this day.
The first of these Cormier families was headed by Michel Cormier and
his second wife, Catherine Stelly. They raised cattle in the Bellevue
and Carencro regions of south central Louisiana. Michel and Catherine's
three sons and seven grandsons settled along the Bayous Teche and
Vermilion and became small farmers there. Jean-Baptiste, his wife
Marguerite Bourque and their children remained in St. James Parish
until the late 1770s. Jean-Baptiste married Anne Blanchard of Opelousas
after the death of Marguerite and moved his family near St.
Martinville. Jean-Baptiste was quite prosperous, as he owned a
350 acre tract near present-day Lafayette and another 560 acres
on Bayou Nezpique in the Calcasieu country. Jean-Baptiste's only son,
Jean-Baptiste Jr. began an important line of the Cormier name.
Another Cormier family to arrive in Louisiana was headed by Joseph, who
arrived with his sons, Michel, Anaclet and Joseph Jr. Joseph became
quite prosperous, and his cattle herd expanded from 150 head to nearly
700, with 60 horses between 1777 and 1788. Joseph owned several hundred
acres south of Opelousas and on the Bayou Plaquemine Brulee, near
present day Church Point, LA. Joseph's son, Anaclet, remained on the
southern Opelousas Prairie. Michel and Joseph Jr., however, moved and
settled along Bayou Teche. As with many Acadian families in
south-central Louisiana, some of the Cormier family began a gradual
westward migration after the Civil War. This migration brought several
families to the Abbeville and Queue Tortue (Rayne) areas in the mid
1860s.
By the 1880s, a few Cormier families had moved west all the way to the
Mermentau River near Lake Arthur and Jennings. The migration continued
westward into Calcasieu Parish and even southeast Texas with the advent
of large scale rice farming in the 1890s.
Today, the Cormier family is still centered in south central and
southwest Louisiana, roughly along an axis that runs along Interstate
10 from Lafayette to the Texas border. There is also a concentration of
Cormier families in east Texas. In Canada, the name is most commonly
found in the Acadian regions of New Brunswick.