The Castilles

December 19, 2022

In the 1760s, over 600 Acadian Neutrals exiled in Maryland joined a growing number of “cousins” in Louisiana.  In 1762, that territory passed by treaty into Spanish hands which welcomed colonists to protect their interests against the British.  In 1765 Joseph Broussard led a group from Halifax to New Orleans, with approximately 200 of that group moving on to the Attakapas region along the Bayou Teche.  Maryland exiles were originally settled quite a distance east in Cabanocey (St. James Parish) and St. Gabriel, on the Mississippi and Bayou Lafourche and to the north in Natchez.

Among the first known Marylanders in the Attakapas, however, were the Castilles, listed on the “census” of 1763 in Upper Marlboro (Prince George’s County) with Babins, Marie Brasseu, Forays, Landrys, Richards, and Rivettes. Joseph was not Acadian, but Menorcan.  He had married Osite Landry, widow of Joseph Broussard, in exile, year unknown.  His sole compatriot from Menorca, Dique Landre (Diego Hernandez) and his wife Théotiste Babin, lived nearby in the Upper Marlboro region.  In any case, Castille and Landre/Hernández were such a part of the “Acadian” Neutral community that they left for Louisiana in 1767 and first settled at St. Gabriel.  By 1777, the Castille family moved from the wetlands to the Attakapas prairie; the Hernández family continued to grow while remaining in St. Gabriel.

Steven A. Cormier can best speak to the specifics of Castille history.  What interests me most is the family’s move to St. Martin Parish and the fact that an actual grave marker for son Joseph Ignace (b. 1764) can be seen in the church cemetery in St. Martinville. To see it, cross the Teche in St. Martinville, turn right on Center Street, park alongside the road and enter the cemetery grounds by the first set of steps, turn right on the first sidewalk, and then proceed about nine plots. According to the marker, young Joseph was born in Baltimore, not in Upper Marlboro: “Git Joseph Ignace Castille né à Baltimore Amérique du nord Le 22 Janvier 1764 décédé à son habitation dans la Paroisse St Martin Le 10 Aout 1833.” Of course, Joseph Ignace was not yet born as his parents sought relief from the Duc de Nivernois in London in 1763 because he was not noted on the census.

Joseph Castille the Younger married Scholastique Borda, a 15-year-old resident of the Attakapas, on 29 March 1785. Her father was a surgeon. When Joseph died, his age was apparently overestimated by the local curé in the St. Martin de Tours registry. Do the math: he was still a few years from reaching 75 – “l’an mil huit trente trois le dix aout a été inhumé dans le cimetière de cette paroisse par moi curé soussigné le corps de Joseph Castille natif de cette paroisse décédé ce matin sur son habitation à la pointe agé d’environ soixante et quinze ans en foi de quoi j’ai signé Marcel Borella Curé” (Sépultures, Book V, p. 31, No. 70).  [*La Pointe is near the community of Parks, between Breaux Bridge and St. Martinville.]

Nearly three years later, spouse Scholastique died.  Her marker is affixed on the same slab of cement as her husband, and again age is estimated or mischiseled: “Sous cette pierre repose Scholastique Borda veuve de Joseph Ignace Castille décédée à son Habitation dans la Paroisse St. Martin le 3 Juin 1836 dans la 61eme [sic, 66eme] année.” We do know that 66 is the correct age because two documents attest that she was born on 18 February 1770 (St. Martin de Tours Church, Folio A-1, p. 8; and Vol. 1, p. 19).  There was no pastor as yet at St. Martin, so her baptism a year later was officiated by Father Irénée, a Capucin priest from Pointe Coupée.

To those reading this, I offer a challenge to photograph any early markers of Maryland exiles that may have survived weather and decay to this day.