July 23, 2023
Sixte Chameau (Chamaux) of Bordeaux was listed on the 1763 census of Annapolis Acadians sent to the Duc de Nivernois in London. Noted at the end with Baudit Gonsault and his wife, Joseph and Marguerite (Guthrow) Paillottet, and François Nicolas, Chameau remained in Maryland because of his ties to the water and his marriage to another Annapolis exile, Marie Rose Belhisle. The marriage date is unknown, but we do know that Sixte and Marie Rose had a child, Marie (Mary, Polly), baptized by Benedict Neale on 5 June 1768. A son, Étienne, was baptized by Ignatius Matthews in October 1771. Records also show that daughter Margaret (Peggy) was sacramentally received by Bernard Diderick in 1775 – perhaps born as early as 1773 if we are to believe the age of 92 ascribed to her at her death in 1865. One last daughter, Elizabeth (Betsy) died in 1838 at the age of 60 or 70 (conflicting sources). A fifth child, Samuel, is later mentioned.
Sixte and family settled in Baltimore by 1773 and purchased land in the French Town quarter on S. Charles Street two years later. Sixte was no longer alive at the time of the 1790 U. S. Census, on which his spouse is listed as the head of the household. Spouse Marie Rose was also noted in the 1796 Baltimore city directory and would pass away in October 1797, a few months after she had written her will (6:77, 28 June 1797), which mentioned just four children – Mary Shameaud Nery, Elizabeth Shammaud Prevotory, Margaret Shammaud Piette, and Samuel Shammaud (note spelling). Étienne was no longer living, or perhaps, he was then known as Samuel.
Sixte’s sailing days seem to have been numbered by the 1780s. His three daughters married non-Acadians: Polly united with her first spouse, Peter Neary, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, on 1 August 1784. Two of the Neary children would be received into St. Peter’s Catholic Church: Louisa (born 6 April 1791; baptized 6 February 1792) and Peter (born 9 Aug 1792; baptized 2 September 1792). Polly wed a second time, to a tailor, John Martiacq, on 1 February 1798 and lived another 29 years before dying of dropsy in 1827.
Daughter Peggy’s marriage to John Baptist Piat (Piet) took place at St. Peter’s Catholic Church on 20 September 1790. She, too, would marry a second time, to William Meredith on 10 February 1803, but at St. Paul’s, like her sister Polly. At that time. It was not known whether her “lost” spouse was still alive after their forced separation in the Saint-Domingue revolts of the early 1790s. When it was discovered too late that her husband Piet was residing in France, fortune intervened. The death of her current spouse William in 1808 greatly relieved Bishop Carroll of a moral headache that would have been quite difficult to handle, especially in light of the Merediths then having two children, Thomas and Caroline. As a widow, Peggy reigned as a respected grande dame until her own death in 1865, at the age of 92. In spite of her earlier indiscretion, Peggy did depart this life with a Requiem Mass at the Cathedral on 3 October. Her Piet son and his descendants married well, yet her two Meredith children each met tragic ends in the 1820s (see 1:439-440).
Betsy’s story remains a little more mysterious. If she were indeed born as late as 1778, she would have been just 14 years old when she first appeared in the St. Peter’s records as Betsy Provotary (or Provotori), a baptismal sponsor for her aforementioned niece Louisa Neary (1792) and Sophia Teucas (26 August 1792). She was also identified as a sponsor with her maiden name Elizabeth Chameau at the Margaret White baptism (12 October 1794); with her full name of Elizabeth Provotory [sic] at the baptismal ceremony for Lewis Priestly (19 June 1806); and at least one more time, as Mrs. Prevetory, for her grandniece Mary Caroline Tucker (26 July 1827, St. Patrick’s).
No record of Betsy’s marriage date can be found in Baltimore. In any case, her spouse was Antoine Provotary, a man born on the Aegean island of Mille (sic – Milos) about 1758. In 1787, after 4 years of residence in Saint-Domingue, Antoine applied for naturalité. Described as a “natif de Grece, habitant de Saint-Domingue,” Antoine was then living in St. Anne parish in “Lance a veau” (sic – Lanceaveaux). His detailed application comprises 56 pages and can be found on the Archives nationales d’outre-mer website (anom.culture.gouv.fr.).1
The Provotary naturalization process began on 28 August 1786, with the official signature of Achille Huet de Lachelle, the conseiller du roy et lieutenant de juge civil criminel de police at Petit-Goâve. An interesting coincidence, because the Huet de Lachelle family will later be mentioned extensively in Vol. 1 of Becoming the Frenchified State of Maryland, not only for Achille’s governmental and Masonic leadership, but also for his wife’s claim to a portion of the Charles White inheritance, their son’s career in Baltimore, and the fortunes of granddaughters Adele and Fanny.2
In the Saint-Domingue papers, Antoine explained that he had come from Greece to assist a cousin in his fishing business. Earning his living as a pêcheur and navigateur, he was named as the sole inheritor of his relative Sieur Cyprien Jean Nicole’s “propriété considérable,” which included an annuity of 10,000 in local currency, a 20-ton boat named La Fortune, three dinghies, 12 enslaved persons who served as fishermen, a horse, cargo, bottles, utensils, Campeche wood, and other items. According to the documentation, Nicole, who also claimed Mille (Mil [sic], or Milos as his birthplace) and Nippes as his residence in southern Saint-Domingue, was about 48 years old at his death.
Antoine’s application for naturalization required Nicole’s death certificate, a certificate de catholicité from the parish priest, and an acte de notoriété from respected locals and the commandant at Petit-Goâve confirming his desire to stay on the island, his bonne reputation, and moeurs inapprochables (high moral character). There is no mention of his marriage to Elizabeth Chameau nor any marriage or birth references in the many original records of the état civil that can be found online from the Archives nationales d’outre-mer.
As Saint-Domingue became a tinder box for revolt, Elizabeth obviously went back to Baltimore, as attested on baptismal registers there indicating her presence as sponsor.
Antoine could not stay safely in Saint-Domingue either. Fast forward in time: a passport issued in New Orleans on 13 September 1814 described him as 56 years old, 5’6” in height, gray hair, hazel eyes, brown complexion, and an inhabitant of Louisiana “on the 30th day of April 1803 and ever since . . . a resident of the city of New Orleans (surname spelled “Provatory”).3 A year and a half later, we learn that Antoine has died apart from Elizabeth: “Antoine Prasatory (sic), Greek, former resident of Santo Domingo, where he married, sp. living reportedly in Baltimore, ca. 75 yr., i. Feb 25, 1816, d. Feb 24, 1816 in the Faubourg Marigny in this parish” (St. Louis Cathedral, F11, 21).
Apparently, Antoine’s age in 1816 has been reversed from 57 to 75! Curious as well is a birth recorded in New Orleans claiming the deceased cousin Nicol(e) as father to a son born in 1812! Surely a mistake has been made, but I leave this information for consideration by other researchers:
Jean Baptiste Prevotory (Nicol, native of Milo in Greece, and Elisabeth Lacouve, native of Petit-Goave on Santo Domingo) b. [baptized] Sep. 22, 1812, bn. Jun. 17, 1812. s. Jean Baptista Meneget, Venetian, and Marie Gertrude Cadez Arnaud, infant’s sister, all residents of this parish (St. Louis Cathedral, B25, 45)
What is certain, however, is that Annette (Ann Catherine) Prevatori, a daughter from the union of Antoine and Betsy Chameau, married James Salenave, a boatbuilder on Fell’s Point in Baltimore, on 3 December 1819. The wedding at St. Patrick’s Church, with the Rev. Jean François Moranvillé officiating, was reported in the Baltimore Patriot.
Annette ‘disappears’ from St. Patrick’s records. Fortunately, it is possible to follow James through city directories all the way to his death. His estate was subject to probate in August 1837 (Baltimore County, 16:316). Annette is absent as a legatee; just her mother Elizabeth is involved. The latter’s own burial will be noted a year later, on 9 August 1838, after having succumbed to a chest tumor the previous day (St. Patrick’s Death and Interments, microfilm 3129, Maryland Center for History and Culture; Interments, Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, microfilm 3184, Maryland Center for History and Culture).
1Cote de communication: COL E 343; Cote d’archives: COL E 343; Producteur: Secrétariat d’État à la Marine; Identifiant ark: ark:/61561/up424tnrutsf; Date(s) extrême(s) du dossier: 1786/1787.
2See pp. 391, 428, 463, and 465-67.
3U.S. Citizenship Affidavits of US-born Seamen at Select Ports, 1792-1869, microfilm 1826, roll 06, image 299, National Archives and Records Administration (642). Of course, Provotary was not actually born in America as the file suggests.
Francophones in Maryland 