52 Ancestors - Week 43 - Dig a Little Deeper

Eliza Leonard Booksh (1819-1895)

October 14 is the birthday of my Great Great Grandmother Eliza Leonard Booksh. She was born 14 October 1819 in Plaquemine, Iberville Parish, Louisiana, and baptised on 25 October 1819 at St. Gabriel Church. Her parents were Honore Leonard (1771-1861) and Elisabeth Kraus (1781-1858).

She married Charles Booksh on 18 December 1837 and they had ten children, including my Great Grandfather Samuel Walker Booksh (1853-1930).

She died at age 77 on 10 May 1897. This studio portrait was taken in New Orleans about 1895 and is believed to be her.

Marie Eliza Elizabeth Leonard Booksh 1819-1897

All reactions:

    In tracing her ancestors back I had discovered that her paternal grandparents were Louis Leonard, born 1743 in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Marie Anne Dardenne, born 13 Sep 1750 in Natchitoches, Louisiana. Her maternal grandparents were John Kraus born c1730 in Baltimore, Maryland, and Ana Margarita Shafer born c1737 in Germany. Every one of them had interesting stories of their own, but it was when I got to her paternal great grandparents that it got really interesting.

     Her great grandfather was Jean Baptiste Leonard who was born 17 October 1690 in Liege, Diocese of Luxemburg, Belgium. He and his wife and four children arrived in New Orleans aboard the ship Venus from L'Orient on 7 April 1721.  In  the 1727 census they are "Habitants in the Environs of New Orleans along the River, Right Bank Ascending." But he is listed alone with two sons. His wife, Marie Paullus, and two of their children had died. 

      I was doing research at the Indian River County Library in Vero Beach, looking through the Catholic Church record books, when I found the marriage record of Jean Baptiste Leonard and his second wife, Anne Coudray, Eliza Leonard's great grandmother, on 11 July 1730 in the St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. The marriage record said that Anne from St. Malo in Brittainy, France, was the widow of Julien Chartier who had died in the Natchez Massacre of 1729. He was from Burgundy and had come to Louisiana to work on the concession of Mr. de Koly.

     This led to more research and I learned Anne was one of the few survivors of that massacre. The women and children who survived were kept prisoners by the Natchez Indians for over two months until the French and their Choctaw allies freed them in January of 1730. They were taken to New Orleans and placed in the care of the Ursuline nuns.  Several books have been written that tell the whole horrible story.

     On July 11, 1730 Anne was married to widower Jean Baptiste Leonard at  the St. Louis Cathedral. They went on to have three children of their own including Louis Leonard, Eliza's grandfather, born in 1743. You never know what you'll find when you dig a little deeper.