Martin Molinoy Duralde (November 21, 1822) was a native of France who came to North America with the fur trade, surveyed the original square for St. Louis, and served as a Spanish colonial administrator in Louisiana. He is an important source on the Indigenous people of Louisiana and their languages. He served as a Louisiana state legislator, and was considered an important figure in the Francophone community in the early years of the American era of Louisiana history. Three of his children married into notable American political families.

Biography

Duralde was born in

Aix-les-Bains Aix-les-Bains (, ; ; ), known locally and simply as Aix, is a Communes of France, commune in the southeastern French Departments of France, department of Savoie.Basque Country of Spain and France. His father, Pierre Duralde, was French, and his mother, Marie de Eligaza, was Spanish. He himself "spoke several languages" and enjoyed the study of dialects. He migrated to North America in 1767 and was involved in the establishment of

St. Louis St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a populatio ...

in what is now the U.S. state of Missouri,

surveying Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the land, terrestrial Plane (mathematics), two-dimensional or Three-dimensional space#In Euclidean geometry, three-dimensional positions of Point (geom ...

the first town square. He worked in the

fur trade The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal ecosystem, boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals h ...

, hunting and exporting peltry, and eventually moved from the

Illinois country The Illinois Country ( ; ; ), also referred to as Upper Louisiana ( ; ), was a vast region of New France claimed in the 1600s that later fell under Spanish and British control before becoming what is now part of the Midwestern United States. Whi ...

to Louisiana for business. He married his wife in 1776 in St. Louis; her name was Marie Josèphe Perrault, and she was a native of Quebec, her mother being Josèphe Bobé, and her father Louis Perrault being a merchant of Quebec. By 1781 he owned a tract of land along the upper

Bayou Teche Bayou Teche (Louisiana French: ''Bayou Têche'') is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed June 20, 2011 waterway in south central Louisiana in the United States. Bayou Teche ...

. In 1795 governor

Francisco Luis Héctor de Carondelet Francisco Luis Héctor de Carondelet y Bosoist, 5th Baron of Carondelet (1748–1807) was a Spanish administrator of partial Burgundian descent in the employ of the Spanish Empire. He was a Knight of Malta. Biography Youth and military care ...

appointed Duralde commandant of the Opelousas post, which position he held until 1803. Construction on his house, now called Maison Stephanie, was completed in 1796. The bricks used in constructing the house were made on site from local clay, and

bald cypress ''Taxodium distichum'' (baldcypress, bald-cypress, bald cypress, swamp cypress; ; ''cipre'' in Louisiana) is a deciduous conifer in the family Cupressaceae. It is native to the southeastern United States. Hardy and tough, this tree adapts to a w ...

was used for the framing and the doors. The house stands near

, in present-day St. Martin Parish. Duralde was interested in "the natural world and used geologic evidence and Native American oral histories to compare contemporary and historical landscapes and vegetation." He is a primary source on the language of the

Atakapa people The Atakapa Sturtevant, 659 or Atacapa were an Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, who spoke the Atakapa language and historically lived along the Gulf of Mexico in what is now Texas and Louisiana. They included several distinct ba ...

. Further, he is "virtually the only source" on the

Chitimacha The Chitimacha ( ; or ) are an Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands in Louisiana. They are a federally recognized tribe, the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana. The Chitimacha have an Indian reservation in St. Mary Parish near Charento ...

and

Opelousa The Opelousa (also Appalousa) were an Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands in Louisiana. They lived near present-day Opelousas, Louisiana, west of the lower Mississippi River, in the 18th century. At various times, they allied with the ...

. The Duraldes had six children together: Martin Duralde Jr., Joseph Valmon Duralde, Celeste Duralde, Louise Duralde, Julie Duralde, and Clarice Duralde. In 1806, one of his daughters, Clarisse, married the governor of

Mississippi Territory The Territory of Mississippi was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that was created under an organic act passed by the United States Congress, Congress of the United States. It was approved and signed into law by Presiden ...

and American Louisiana W. C. C. Claiborne. Duralde Jr. married Susan Hart Clay, a daughter of

Henry Clay Henry Clay (April 12, 1777June 29, 1852) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the United States Senate, U.S. Senate and United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives. He was the seventh Spea ...

, in Lexington, Kentucky in 1822. Henry Clay's brother John Clay married Julie Duralde. Celeste Duralde married Valerien Allain, son of Pierre Augustin Allain and Manette du Plessis; George Eustis Sr. was one of their sons-in-law. Louise married Pierre Soniat, also known as Gui Joseph Soniat du Fossat, son of the Chevalier Gui de Saunhac and Françoise Claudine Dreux. Joseph Valmon, known as Col. J. V. Duralde, married Gertrude de Vahamonde, daughter of a Spanish officer stationed at Baton Rouge, José Vázquez Bahamonde (also spelled Josef, Baamonde, Vaamonde, Vahamonde), who was possibly born 1748 in Galicia. There is a surviving portrait of Duralde that was painted by Josef Salazar. Duralde served in the

Louisiana State Legislature The Louisiana State Legislature (; ) is the state legislature (United States), state legislature of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is a bicameral legislature, body, comprising the lower house, the Louisiana House of Representatives with 105 ...

in 1812 as a representative from Attakapas. He died on his plantation in the Attakapas section of Louisiana in 1822. He specified in his will that some of his slaves were to be emancipated but most were auctioned off as part of the estate. His plantation was purchased by Charles Henri Lastrapes. Duralde was remembered in 1845 as having been "enlightened and highly respected."

Descendants

After Susan Clay Duralde died in 1825 her children went to live with their grandparents Henry and Lucretia Clay at Ashland in Kentucky. The Clays also helped raise William Charles Cole Claiborne II, son of Clarisse Duralde Claiborne and the governor; Claiborne II at least spent summers at Ashland. Martin Adrien Duralde, usually called Martin Duralde Jr. in American newspapers, was appointed to be U.S. marshal of New Orleans in 1811. Martin Duralde Jr. was a candidate for

governor of Louisiana The governor of Louisiana (; ) is the chief executive of the U.S. state government of Louisiana. The governor also serves as the commander in chief of the Louisiana National Guard. Republican Jeff Landry has held the office since January 8, ...

in 1830. Henry Clay stayed at Duralde Jr. house's "three miles below" New Orleans for several months in 1831. Duralde was appointed to a patronage position in 1841. Duralde died on the return trip from the

Mexican-American War Mexican Americans are Americans of full or partial Mexican descent. In 2022, Mexican Americans comprised 11.2% of the US population and 58.9% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexican Americans were born in the United State ...

, where he had worked as some kind of merchant to the troops; the entire ship caught yellow fever, except for one young boy, possibly an enslaved cabin boy, and Duralde was found dying beside the dead captain after the ship drifted aground near New Orleans. Martin Duralde III was involved in a bloodless duel with Dr. Mosby of Virginia in 1841 in Cincinnati, Ohio. The humorous and charming journal of Martin Duralde III, described as a "tubercular gambler," written during an 1846 tour of Virginia's therapeutic

hot springs A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a Spring (hydrology), spring produced by the emergence of Geothermal activity, geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow ...

, is held in the special collections of the Virginia State Library. Martin Duralde III died in Philadelphia later that year. Henry C. Duralde, Martin III's brother, went to California for the

gold rush A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, ...

but died by drowning after falling overboard off the steamer ''Yuba'' on the

Sacramento River The Sacramento River () is the principal river of Northern California in the United States and is the largest river in California. Rising in the Klamath Mountains, the river flows south for before reaching the Sacramento–San Joaquin River D ...

in 1850. J. V. Duralde Jr. was once a candidate for Louisiana state office on the

Know Nothing The American Party, known as the Native American Party before 1855 and colloquially referred to as the Know Nothings, or the Know Nothing Party, was an Old Stock Americans, Old Stock Nativism in United States politics, nativist political movem ...

ticket and was president of the Grosse Tete and Opelousas Railroad.

References

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Duralde, Martin Pre-statehood history of Louisiana 1822 deaths 1730s births U.S. state legislators who owned slaves 19th-century members of the Louisiana State Legislature People from Louisiana (New Spain) People from St. Martin Parish, Louisiana Fur traders

Biography

Descendants

See also

References

Sources