Paul and Anne's fourth son Thomas d'Aquin was the second to last ancestor to be born in colonial Louisiana in 1802, just 20 months before the Americans assumed control. He married Marie Celeste Matherne in February 1831. They had their first child, Thomas d'Aquin, Jr., a short ten months later just before Christmas of that year.
Marie Celeste gave birth to a total of twelve children over a period of twenty-four years. The women who read this can understand how difficult it was for her as she was in one stage or another of pregnancy for a total of nine of those twenty-four years. Her last child, James, was born in 1855 when she was forty-three.
The 1840 and earlier census records only contain the name of the head of the household, not the name of the wife, children, or others in the home. They only contain the number of males and females in various age groups. Therefore, to date time has not been taken to examine these records. Starting with the 1850 census, the names, ages, and other information about each person in the census are recorded. The 1850 and 1860 census also included a separate schedule that enumerated the number of slaves owned by each slave holder. Thomas owned 14 slaves of various ages in 1850 on his property in St. James Parish. The early twenty-first century implications are left to interpretation.
In 1851 he purchased land in St. John the Baptist Parish, LA near what is believed to be the current town of Laplace or the town of Garyville and moved his family there. The land had about 300 feet frontage on the river and extended for about three miles inland. Such shaped farms / plantations were required because there were no common places to load and offload items from the river boats.
He apparently bought additional land between 1851 and 1860 that has not been researched as of this writing.
It is interesting to note that before the move, in the 1850 census his occupation was farmer, but in the 1860 census after the move he identified himself as a planter with his eldest son Thomas d'Aquin, Jr as his overseer. The location is noted in the census as Bonnet Carré Post Office.
The 1860 census is interesting because it includes in a single household, Thomas, Sr and Celeste; Thomas, Jr and his wife Marie Melasie and their children; the newly married second son Jules Paul and his wife Eva, plus four other children of Thomas, Sr and Celeste.
Thomas and Celeste's youngest son James was born in 1855; three years after the marriages of Thomas, Jr. and the eldest living daughter Marie Elodie. Their eldest daughter Marie Noemie Leonice apparently died at age 6 in 1840.
Their son James was to live a long life, born in 1855 - six years before the Civil War. He experienced that war as a child, Reconstruction as a teen, the Spanish-American War in his forties, the rise of the US on the world stage in his fifties, World Wars in his sixties and eighties, the Depression in his seventies. He died in 1951 at age 96, six years after World War II. His life spanned a full one third of the history of the US. What a history could be found in his writings.
Thomas, Sr. died in 1868 in Mt. Airy, LA but was buried in St. Michael's Cemetery in Convent . Celeste is believed to have died in 1879 or 1880 because she shows up in court records early in 1879 but is not in the 1880 census. She is also buried in St. Michael's Cemetery in Convent. The last letters of her name and last digits of death date are missing from the grave marker.
The 1870 census, the first after the Civil War and freedom of slaves, was also the first after the death of the elder Thomas d'Aquin. His probate was not completed for another year, but I have not yet seen those records and cannot tell how the property was divided.
Yet related families were living next to or close by each other as six families related to Thomas and Celeste are on a single 1870 census page:
· Thomas and Celeste's oldest living daughter Elodie, her husband Jean Baptiste Baudry, and their nine children,
· Elodie's mother-in-law in her own home, identified simply as the widow of Jean Baptiste Baudry with no given name,
· Thomas and Celeste's daughter Aurelia, her husband Numa Poche, and their two children,
· Celeste and her two youngest children, Aloysia and James, both in their teens,
· Thomas d'Aquin, Jr, his wife Melasie, and their then six children
· Thomas and Celeste's son Jules, his wife Eva, and their then four children
