February 10, 2024
Ann Guthrow Renaudet Daub(e)court Groc (Revised)
The Gauterots (or Guthrows) stand out among Acadian exiles who remained in Maryland. Joseph Mosley’s marriage records are very limited, but exiles Joseph and Ann Tibodot were married in Newtown, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, by the Rev. Joseph Mosley on 9 February 1766; Laurence, to Françoise Babin on 18 August 1766; and Mary, to John Lockerman, on 10 May 1767. During that period of time, John was united with Ann Burke in Philadelphia on 12 May 1766. All four wound up in Baltimore’ French Town, with Joseph and John at 34 and 38 S. Charles, respectively, for many years.
Joseph and Ann (Tibodot) Guthrow parented two notable children: Ann and Simon (the future doctor). Ann married Pierre Abraham Renaudet in Baltimore in November 1793. Their license was issued on the 14th, with the ceremony performed on the 17th.
The Renaudets had a daughter, Mary, a year later. Born in November 1794, Mary (or Marie Caroline Victoire) was baptized by Rev. Francis Beeston, St. Peter’s, on 14 January 1795, with sponsors John Changeur (from the West Indian community) and Margaret Gautrot (a relative).
At some point in time, the Renaudets moved on to New York City. If there were any further pregnancies, they were not recorded, and in 1800, Mary (Maria, Marie) was noted as the only child.
In October 1800, Pierre Renaudet found himself in failing health and dictated a will in French from the island of St. Croix. At that time, he explained that he was a native of the province of Saintonge, France, and the son of Pierre Renaudet and Marie Marlat. He designated his wife Ann as “tutrice” and “gardienne” of their five-and-a-half-year-old, and it was his wish that the young girl be educated in France. Witnesses to Renaudet’s will in St. Croix included Noël Flaudin, George G. Buffet, and a M. Pélissié (or Pélissier).
Jean (Jean-Baptiste) Magnac, formerly of the St. Marc quarter in Saint-Domingue and then a resident of New York, was named to assist with the inventory of the estate upon Renaudet’s death. Magnac’s origins could also be traced to Saintonge. A coffee grower and businessman, he was involved in Magnac Frères, which participated in the slave trade as “armateurs d’un navire d’esclaves.”
By 10 March 1801, the Renaudet will was making its way to New York from Frederickstad (on the island of St. Croix) and would be delivered in New York by Silvestre Segretier, himself of a family involved in West Indian sugar and a native of Loiret, France. Segretier presented the will to David Gelston, surrogate of the city of New York. The handwriting on the will, executed by Peter Rogeirs of St. Croix, was verified by a Mr. Bentzan, late counsellor of his Danish Majesty for St. Croix, and a Mr. Neilson, a judge in the General Dealing Court of St. Croix. It was fortunate for these St. Croix officials to be in New York, for that island, under Danish control since 1754, was occupied by the British at the end of March 1801 until April 1802, at which time it was returned to Denmark-Norway.
In the March version of the will, the deceased had given Ann “full power of acting for herself and my said daughter as she thinks most fit and becoming” and encouraged her to “recover all that is due to my Estate in any part of the world whatsoever and to give receipt for the same.” Daughter Maria was to receive a “desent mentenance gratis” and to benefit from the inheritance at her marriage or at the age of 21 or at the death of her mother. Pierre’s will called as well for equal donations of five pieces of eight to the “Deanish [sic] Church” and to the Roman Catholic Church of Frederickstad. For himself, Pierre wished for a quick payment of debts, a decent burial, and “a joyfull resurrection.”
On 11 July 1801, George Buffet, a perfumer, appeared before David Gelston in New York to acknowledge that he saw Renaudet prepare his will on 4 October 1800, with the aforementioned Flaudin and Pélissié there as witnesses. [All this documentation can be found in the New York Probate Records, 1629-1971, Wills 1796-1806, Vol. 43:449-453, 470-72.]
By 1803, it is now clear that Ann Renaudet married for a second time to a Francis L. Darcourt, or Daubcourt. Both were then living in Baltimore. The marriage has been listed with two dates, but an examination of the Tuesday, 25 January 1803 edition of the Baltimore Telegraphe and Daily Advertiser confirms that the couple was united in January (the 22nd precisely) at the New Jerusalem (Swedenborgian) Church at the southeast corner of Baltimore and Exeter Streets. Darcourt (also written as Daubecourt in a transcription of New Jerusalem documents for a 22 February wedding) is sort of a mystery man. Noted only in the 1803 city directory as “Daubcourt” once again – a commission merchant, sworn interpreter, and translator – he is listed with a store at Frederick and Second Streets and a dwelling at 14 Albemarle Street.
The New Jerusalem Church was headed by John Hargrove, an Irishman who arrived in Baltimore in 1769 in his late teenage years. Hargrove appears to have been quite a popular figure in town. Originally ordained as a Methodist minister, he was attracted to the Swedenborgian way in 1798. An early follower of Swedenborg/Hargrove was Robert Carter, a Virginia planter living in Baltimore who had progressively decided to free his 400+ slaves in the Williamsburg area, much to the consternation of Thomas Jefferson and others who could not imagine so many Blacks finding freedom in rural Virginia or being safe neighbors. 1
Swedenborgian followers viewed one God as having become man as Jesus (for them, there was a Trinity of one person); one universal Church based on love and charity rather than doctrine. Some were deeply involved in the mysticism of Emanuel Swedenborg, and there was also a deep appreciation of African Blacks as enlightened.
Hargrove’s popularity extended to the new city of Washington, where, in 1802 and 1804, he gave two sermons at the US Capitol – one attracting the attention of Thomas Jefferson. By all accounts, Hargrove was also seeking government employment and did need to provide for a large family. His work with the New Jerusalem Church was uncompensated for 32 years until his “retirement” at the age of 80, but he did serve as Baltimore city registrar in the new century to support his family.
The Hargrove connection was not so unusual. A few other persons of French background were married in the New Jerusalem Church: Élie Despeaux and Eliza Harwood (7 Oct 1813); Jean Despeaux and Ann Isabella Ardery (29 Jan 1817); Francis Laroque (born in Saint-Dominigue in 1795) and Sophia Legendre (17 Mar 1817); and Louis Hyppolite Lyvet and Amélie DeChamp (27 Mar 1817). Church allegiance still wavered, as Élie and Eliza’s son Joseph was baptized at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in 1815. Ironically, Hargrove’s daughter Mary (Polly) married James Escavaille, a Catholic, at St. Peter’s on 7 September 1799. On 9 August 1801, Margaret Hargrove was a sponsor for the baptism of Sophie Elizabeth Margaret Escavaille, a child who would die in October 1802. In 1803, Mary Escavaille unfortunately passed away in Martinique.
Ann Renaudet’s life with Daubcourt/Darcourt lacks detail. Ann returned to her previous married name by 1807 at the latest. Then, she witnessed the second marriage of Margaret Guthrow Minchin and Peter Cox at St. Peter’s on 1 February. Margaret had previously strayed from the Catholic fold and wed Humphrey Minchin at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on 2 June 1803. That brief marriage ended with Minchin’s death in the summer of 1805.
Ann’s flirtation with the New Jerusalem Church was apparently short-lived. In 1808, she enrolled her daughter Marie Caroline at Elizabeth Seton’s school on Baltimore’s Paca Street. At that time, she was also one of the female managers at the Catholic orphaline charity school.
She found herself as a Catholic baptismal sponsor for Margaret Mooney in 1812; lone sponsor in 1813 for Napoleon Bonaparte Zacharie and George Henry Louis, a person of color; and, additionally, for Nicolas Griffith, a fourteen-year-old (1814), her nephew John Lawrence Alexander Guthrow (1815), and Eliza Stone (1816). Her daughter Maria Renaudet served in the same role in 1812, 1813, and 1815. As mentioned in Becoming the Frenchified State of Maryland 1:601, Ann was a Baltimore mail liaison for Mother Elizabeth Seton at Emmitsburg. After marrying the octogenarian Jean Groc in 1817, she dutifully appeared again as a sponsor in 1819 and 1826.
Maria Renaudet married Jacob Frederick Hertzog at St. Peter’s on 6 July 1818. A native of Frankfurt, Germany, Jacob was approximately twelve years older. On 27 May 1817, he had declared his intention to seek full American citizenship, with naturalization granted in 1822. In the 1819 city directory, he was listed as an accountant at the corner of Franklin and Courtland Streets. On the 1820 federal census, the family had three enslaved persons (two of whom under the age of 14) and another female boarder under 25. The couple had two children – John Renaudette (1819) and Julian (1820).
Life ended early for Maria. On 19 March 1823, she died of consumption in her 28th year. Much later, in 1850, her son John was living in St. James Parish, Louisiana, and working as an overseer. At that time, his household included Madeleine Carré née Deschamps, aged 89. Madeleine was a former Marylander and daughter of Acadian exiles Louis Deschamps and Marie Tibodeau. [For more on the Deschamps (Deshields) in Louisiana, see Acadians in Maryland in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, 372-76.]
1 WK 1326, Microfilm 3114, Maryland Center for History and Culture.
Francophones in Maryland 