Dr. Giraud

May 2, 2023 (with additions on July 16, 2023)

Some forty-six years after his death in Baltimore in 1839 at the age of 82+, Dr. John J. Giraud was back in the news in the 6 August 1885 edition of the Sun. It appears that his will was being contested in France, and it was even suggested that two Girauds had resided in the city.

Much of the issue stems, in this historian’s opinion, from the anglicization of the physician’s given names and two wedding ceremonies with Ann Harriet Wheeler, in 1796 and in 1826.  The first union took place on 18 Jun 1796, at the First Baptist Church, Baltimore (Rev. Lewis Richards, MS 690, Maryland Center for History and Culture, as noted in Robert Barnes, Maryland Marriages, 1778-1800, Genealogical Publishing Co., 1978). 

John James/Jean Jacques Giraud practiced medicine in Baltimore from the 1790s until his passing. Clearly identified as Jean Jacques at his marriage to Ann Harriet Wheeler at the cathedral on 13 December 1826 (Archbishop Maréchal officiating), Giraud had been listed in the very first city directory in 1796, where he was noted as part of I. I. [sic, J.J.] Giraud & Co., druggists and chemists, 40 Baltimore Street, and as John James Giraud, surgeon and apothecary, Bond Street, Fell’s Point.  From 1802 to 1833-34, he was located at four different addresses on South Street, and, at one point in the final years of his life, on Water Street, near the bridge.  In the inventory of his estate in 1840, Baltimore County Register of Wills, 49:574, his name is reduced to John J.  Two of his children with Harriet (Harriot) had passed away in 1804 (Catharine Adelaide, 3 yrs. 2 mos.) and 1811 (Emmeline, about 18 mos.).  Note that these burials recorded at St. Peter’s greatly preceded in time his Catholic nuptials with Harriet.

In any case, widow Ann H. is noted in Inventories, Register of Wills, 69:65 in 1853.  A son, Dr. Augustus T. Giraud, appears in the 1842 city directory on Lombard Street, west of Front Street.

The aforementioned notice in the Sun in 1885 mentions that Étienne Richard, of Passage de l’Avenir 36, St. Onen [sic – St. Ouen], Préfecture de Paris, had asked Baltimore’s mayor to hand over to the “presiding judge of the Baltimore bench” an inquiry contesting estate heirs following the death of Augustus John Turenne Giraud, on 28 June 1880.  In short, Monsieur Richard was in someone’s employ in France to investigate legal “obstacles in the way of the proper heirs getting their rights.”  It was suggested that “there has been some error in regard to the identity of two Girauds,” so M. Richard petitioned the mayor and chief justice “to aid him in securing justice.”

Dr. Giraud, the father, had originally left $11,859 in his will, with two-thirds given to Augustus and one-third distributed to Ann H.  Further complicating the matter later on was the fact that Augustus left no will in 1880.  When affairs were thought to be resolved in 1884, the estate of the son was determined to be nearly $15,000.  Upon settlement, three individuals – W. N. Robertson, Mary E. Mann, and Eliza Dacamara – each received a net of $4200.

It just goes to show that dying intestate can complicate matters and that the evolution of one’s name – however practical in an American setting – might cause some confusion in legal documents.

For those wishing more, it may be beneficial to view official documents in the Giraud genealogical file, Filing Case A, Box 70, Maryland Center for History and Culture, Baltimore, Papers from the 1880s. Claimants to the family inheritance included Catherine Giraud, supposedly a niece of the doctor residing in Fleurieux, France (département of the Rhône), and Louisa Giraud, a grandniece in Nîmes (département of the Gard).  The “genealogist” assisting in the case wrote that “no act of Decease can be found,” yet that date and a will from 1839 (Baltimore County, 17:257) are known and mentioned in the second volume of my work.  It was thought that Giraud probably had sailed for the Antilles in 1789 or 1790 to escape family issues in France and that he subsequently acquired a large fortune in the United States!