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Bauduy family papers

Creation: 1823-1839
 Collection
Accession: 0978

Abstract

The Bauduy family was associated with the prominent du Pont family, who immigrated to the United States from France in 1802 and established the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, which manufactured gunpowder at mills on the banks of the Brandywine River just north of Wilmington, Delaware. Peter Bauduy (1769?-1833), a French refugee from Santo Domingo who was a partner of Eleuthère Irénée "E.I." du Pont (1771-1834). This collection contains correspondence of Hélène Bauduy (1806-1881), Peter Bauduy's daughter, and Alexandre Aristide Bretton de Chapelles (1799-1850), and a journal kept by Eulalia Keating (1801-1873), Bauduy's daughter-in-law.

Dates

  • Creation: 1823-1839

Creator

Extent

41 item(s)

Biographical Note

The Bauduy family was associated with the prominent du Pont family, who immigrated to the United States from France in 1802 and established the E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, which manufactured gunpowder at mills on the banks of the Brandywine River just north of Wilmington, Delaware. Peter Bauduy (1769-1833), a French refugee from Santo Domingo who was a partner of Eleuthère Irénée "E.I." du Pont (1771-1834). Bauduy's son Ferdinand Bauduy (1781-1814) married du Pont's daughter Victorine du Pont (1782-1861). Peter Bauduy, his wife Thèrése Jeanne Julienne "Juliette" des Chapelles (1773-1837), and their family had moved to Cuba in 1819.

Eulalia Keating (1801-1873) of Wilmington and Philadelphia was the daughter of John Keating (1760-1856) and Eulalia Bretton des Chapelles (1774-1803), the sister of Juliette Bauduy. She married her cousin Jerome Keating (1792-1833) in 1818, and they had three children who survived to adulthood. In 1844, Eulalia Keating entered the Visitation Convent at Frederick, Maryland, and became known as Mother Mary Joseph. Their daughter Amelia Keating (1820-1886) married Peter Bauduy, Jr. (1816-1856). The couple resided on a coffee plantation, Eden Park, near Matanzas, Cuba. After her husband's death in 1856, Amelia Keating Bauduy entered the Carmelite order and became known as Mother Ignatius.

Hélène Bauduy (1806-1881) was the daughter of Peter and Juliette Bauduy. She married Alexandre Aristide Bretton de Chapelles (1799-1850) in 1823. They lived in Cuba on the sugar plantation Eden Park, the same given to the Bauduy's home in Wilmington.

Scope and Contents

The papers include forty items of correspondence between Amelia Keating's (1820-1886) sister-in-law, Hélène Prudence Ferdinande Bauduy (1806-1881), and her fiancé and cousin, Alexandre Aristide Bretton de Chapelles (1799-1850), prior to their marriage in Cuba in 1823. She was the daughter of Peter and Juliette Bauduy. There are also some letters between the prospective husband and mother-in-law (in French). The letters discuss the father's opposition to the marriage, the couple's feelings for each other, family news, and the enslaved peoples' work.

Translations of selected texts are published in Dorothy Garesché Holland, The Garesché, de Bauduy, and Des Chapelles families: history and genealogy (St. Louis: 1963).

The second part of the papers is a journal (in English) kept by Eulalia Keating (1801-1873) during an 1838 to 1839 trip to Cuba to be with her daughter, Amelia Keating Bauduy, during the birth of her first child. She describes the voyage to Havana and her stay at the Eden Park plantation. Keating offers a good account of life in Cuba on a sugar plantation, the religious and social customs of the people, the conditions of the enslaved people, and descriptions of the country.

Access Restrictions

No restrictions on access; this collection is open for research.

Related Materials

Peter Bauduy family papers (Accession 0945), Manuscripts and Archives Department, Hagley Museum and Library.

Language of Materials

English

French

Finding Aid & Administrative Information

Title:
Bauduy family papers
Author:
John Beverly Riggs
Date:
1978
Description rules:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description:
English
Script of description:
Latin

Revision Statements

  • 2021: Ashley Williams

Repository Details

Repository Details

Part of the Manuscripts and Archives Repository

Contact:
PO Box 3630
Wilmington Delaware 19807 USA
302-658-2400