a LAFAYETTE PARISH article

Cultures of Acadiana
a look at the French, Cajun, Creole, and Native American cultures of south Louisiana
(a project of Carencro High School - 721 West Butcher Switch Road, Lafayette, LA  70507)

Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, January 27, 1998

Mouton family contributed early leaders to Lafayette

by Jim Bradshaw

After the English banished them from Acadie in 1755, three Mounton's brothers, Salvador, Louis, and Charles -- sons of Jean-Jacques and Marie Girouard, and one nephew, Jean Mouton dit Neveu, eventually reached Louisiana. By 1766, Salvador, Louis, and nephew Jean were living along the Mississippi River in St. James Parish. Charles was also there by 1777. However, by 1820, only a few Moutons, descendants of Louis and Charles, remained in St. James .

Two of Salvador's sons, Jean Mouton (m. 1783 Marie-Marthe Borda of New Orleans) and Marin Mouton (m. 1777 Marie Lambert of Mobile), migrated to the Attakapas district in the 1770s or early 1780s, both settling along upper Bayou Vermilion in the Carencro area.

According to family legend, Jean Mouton wore a homespun capuchon (cap) made of wool. His brother, Marin, wore a chapeau (hat). Because of this, the branches of the family are identified as Capuchon Moutons or Chapeau Moutons.

Jean Mouton eventually claimed several tracts of land in the area and even as far west as the Mermentau River, apparently engaging in cattle ranching. It is from the line of Jean and his eight sons that most of the Moutons of political fame have descended. Of his sons, Jean-Baptiste Mouton (m. 1801, Marie-Josephe Martin), Joseph Mouton (m. 1809, Cydalise Arceneaux), Gov. Alexandre Mouton (m. Zelia Rousseau, Emma Gardner), and Antoine-Emile (m. Marie Rosseau), all became antebellum planters and cattlemen. Each owned sizable numbers of slaves in the Carencro area and along Bayou Vermilion in the vicinity of today's Lafayette. Their success may well have stemmed in part from the influence of their well educated mother, Marie-Marthe Borda, daughter of Antoine Borda, a New Orleans surgeon.

Jean's brother, Marin, in addition to his Carencro holdings, obtained land along the lower Vermilion River in what is now southern Lafayette Parish and in northeastern Vermilion Parish. There, his three sons, Marin Mouton Jr. (m. Elizabeth Broussard), Salvador Mouton (m. Anastaise Comeaux, Suzanne Boudreaux), and Joseph-Onézime (m. Aspasie Hebert) and their descendants became small farmers in contrast to the more affluent and urbane line of Jean Mouton.

From the 1840s through the 1880s, Abbeville and Youngsville were the main religious and market centers for Marin's descendants.

This article is copyrighted © by the Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser and is used with permission.  This web site was originated through a grant awarded to Carencro High School (Joel Hilbun/Bobbi Marino, Grant Administrators) by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education from the Louisiana Quality Education Support Fund - 8(g).