Title: Index to Supplemental Record Marriage Transcript 1882 - 1906 Volume IV Letters S - Z
Record Location: Marion County, Indiana
W. P. A. Original Record Located: County Clerk's Office, Indianapolie Compiled by Indiana Works Projects Administration 1939
Spouse 1: Jennie M Turpin
Marriage Date: 22 Feb 1888
County: Marion
Book: 2
Original Source Page: 114
Father: James
Gender: F
Age: 20
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Title: Index to Marriage Record 1886 - 1890 Inclusive Volume 9 Letters A to Z Inclusive
Record Location: Marion County, Indiana
Original Record Located: County Clerk's Office Indianapolis W. P. A. Compiled by Indiana Works Progress Administration 1939
Spouse 1: James L McQueary
Spouse 2: Jennie M Turpin
Marriage Date: 22 Feb 1888
County: Marion
Book: ??
Birth Date: 21
Name: ETIENNE CASSARD
State: LA
County: Orleans Parish
Township: 5 W. New Orleans
Year: 1850
Record Type: Slave Schedule
Page: 149
Database: LA 1850 Slave Schedule
Given: Josephine Antoinette
Surname: Cassard
Father: Etienne
Mother: Elizabeth Jadouin
Sex: F
Color: W
Birth Date: 17 Mar 1821
Volume: 1
Page: 85
Name: Josephine Ophilia Cassard
Age: 55 yrs
Death Date: 17 Oct 1876
Page: 375
Volume: 67
Name: Michel Cassard
Year: 1789
Place: Dominican Republic
Family Members: Wife Cassard, Margueritte Marcorelle
Source Publication Code: 7204.40
Primary Immigrant: Cassard, Michel
Annotation: Date and port of arrival, or date and place of settlement or mention in the New World. Occupation, place of residence and information on at least one generation in America may also be provided.
Source Bibliography: REAMY, MARTHA, AND BILL REAMY Immigrant Ancestors of Marylanders, As Found in Local Histories. Westminister, MD: Willow Bend Books, 2000. 358p.
Page: 36
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Michel Cassard and Marguerite Marcorelles were barrel makers and married in Nantes, France and sought to improve their lot in life by immigrating in the late 18th century to the booming French colony of Said Domingue. The numerous coffee and sugar plantations that dotted this Carribean island created great wealth for their propriators, many of whom rose to their eminent positions from the humbler ranks of French society. Word of their success drew to the island ambitious individuals of similar origin such as Michel and Marguerite Cassard.After struggling for many years the Cassard family finally enjoyed a mesure of success. Civil records indicate that they owned property, businesses and slaves in the extreme southwest corner of the island. However, just as their dreams of comfort and security appeared to be realized they were cruelly dashed when the large black slave population, whose labor and sweat accounted for the colony's great wealth, rose in revolt and eventually drove the greatly out-numbered whites from the island.
In the dispersal of refugee colonists that followed, circumstances contrived to deposit the Cassard children in English-speaking Baltimore and French-speaking New Orleans, a separation that proved permanent, and crated two cultually-distinct branches of the family. Time blotted from the memory of subsequent generations of Cassards the reasons for this diaspora with each branch creating its own fanciful explanation for the division.
Herbert Lockwood of the Baltimore branch relates in his family history the following story that was circulated at least among some of the northern Cassards: " With the slaves behind them killing any whites they could find and burning plantations, the Cassard family fled for the nearest port, where they just managed to board a ship bound for the United States. There was Michel Cassard, his wife, tow daughters and twin sons, aged six. The vessel ran into a hurricane and the ship was wrecked. The only survivor was one of the twins who clung to a spar and was adopted by a local family and raised to manhood. In 1840 he had occasion to go to New Orleans on a business trip. He was seated in the lobby of the old St. Charles Hotel when a black coachman came up and said 'your carriage is ready outside, Monsieur Cassard.' The visitor protested that he had no carriage and then looked up and found his twin borther coming around the hotle. desk. The two fell into each other's arms. Ther brother, it appeared, had also survived the hurricane, had been picked up by a boat going to New Orleans, and had there been adopted and raised to manhood. So there are two families of Cassars...in Baltimore and New Orleans."
The southern branch was no less imaginative in devising explanation for the children's separation. One tale told of the Cassard family being chased into the sea with other white islanders one terrible night by rampaging, murderous slaves bent on their destruction. Small boats awaited their salvation in the roiling surf. In the panic and confusion that ensued, resuers from two different boats snatched her children fromt he arms of mother Cassard, leaving her and her husband to be horribly murdred on the beach. Th occupants of one boat eventually ended up in Baltimore and the other in New Orleans. Lockwood labeled the Baltimore verssion of events "pure fiction." The same can be said for this southern version. As the reader of this family history will discover, the real story behind the separation was much less dramatic, but, all the same, marked by grief and heartache.
In the course of comipiling this history, the author tried to identify as many descendants of Michel and Marguerite Cassard as possible. The effort taught him an important lesson: while it is an accepted truth that a rose is arose is a rose, it is not always true that a Cassard is a Cassard.
The namne Cassard occurs frequently in and near Donaldsonville, Louisiana, a riverside community on the Mississippi about 50 miles north of New Orleans. It is to be found regularly starting in the early 19th century in civil and church records, military archives, newspaper sotries, ets. By the late 20th century members of this branch were residing throughout the state of Louisiana, as well as in east Texas and elsewhere in the U.S., New Orleans Cassards always suspected that there might be a family connection but had no proof to support that assumption. In delving farther into the records the author discovered that thes Donaldsonville Cassards were not Cassards at all. They were members of a group called ISLENOS who were brought to Louisiana from the Canary Islands in the 1770's during the Spanish regime to colonize the territory that Spain had just acquired from France. Their arrival in Louisiana coincided with that of larger contignent of French-speaking Acadian refugees from Nova Scotia, Canada, who were also invited to populate the same area. In time, under the influence of the predominant French languagae and culture, the ISLENOS were transmorgrafied into French-speaking Cajuns, and the family name Quesada become Cassard. The Cassard name had come currency in the area since children of Michel and Marguerite Cassard lived across the Mississippi River from Donaldsonville for a time, in fact that probably influenced this transormation.
A similar situation existed in New Orleans in the mid 19th century. City directories of that period include a listing for a P.B. Cassard who in civil records alsor bore the names Pierre Benjamin, B.P. and Pepe. There is evidence that his real name was Cassara or Cassar. Given the social and business prominance of the Cassard family at that time their name possessed considerable cachet, and its adoption by a new immigrant with business aspirations would not be unusual. Three of Pepe's daughters reached adulthood and married. Had they been sons instead and passed on the adopted name, Cassards might have been as common as crawfish in Louisiana.
Mock Cassards were to be found elsewhere in the U.S. as well. In the Greenwodd Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, there is the beautiful and oft-photographed Angel of Death cemetery monument bearing the name Cassard. This plot contains the descendants of Andre Cassard who also resided in Saint Domingue at the time fo the slave uprising. He later fled to Cuba and then to New York City where he was active in the Masonic movement. Mary Stewart Kyritsis is a descendant of Andre Cassard who spent many years searching for his origins. Assuming that he might be connected Michel and Marguerite Cassards, Mary exerted considerable time and effort researching the Cassard family in the area of Nantes, France. The excellent results she obtained eventually turned out to be of more value to the author than to her when she finally learned the Andre Cassard was in fact, Candre Cassar of the island of Malta.
And so it appears that as common as the name is in France there is only one true Cassard family in the U.S. and they are the descendants of Michel and Marguerite. The problem resides in sorting them out from the pretenders. As fars as the name Marcoelles, a few can be found in Californian and, as Marcaurelles, in Louisiana and Canada. They all most certainly trace their origins back to the Department of Averyron in southern France as does Marguerite Marorells Cassard, buy any family connection to her are ancient and lost in the fog of time.
The author spent more than ten years on the trial of Cassard ancestors as they made their way thorught the triumphs and tirbulations of life. Sometimes the tril was as clear as the yellow brick road, but at times it grew dim or faded completely from view. On those occasions when the notarial and church records fall silent the author provides a description of some of the historical events that possibly influenced and shaped the daily lives of the Cassard forebears, and leaves it to the imagination fo the reader to fill in the missing details.
Special Notice: The above listed story is written by an unknown author; therefore citation can not be afforded, albeit; the information was provided by Janice Zimmerman.
Name: Margueritte Marcorelle
Year: 1789
Place: Dominican Republic
Source Publication Code: 7204.40
Primary Immigrant: Marcorelle, Margueritte
Annotation: Date and port of arrival, or date and place of settlement or mention in the New World. Occupation, place of residence and information on at least one generation in America may also be provided.
Source Bibliography: REAMY, MARTHA, AND BILL REAMY Immigrant Ancestors of Marylanders, As Found in Local Histories. Westminister, MD: Willow Bend Books, 2000. 358p.
Page: 36