Life History

Other facts

Notes

• There were several individuals in this lineage named Pierre.  Pierre dit la Genvery was one of two sons named Pierre, one with each wife of his father Pierre dit Lalime (Jr).  Angélique Caron's son Pierre was born in 1715.  Angélique died a few days later.  Pierre who came to be called La Genvery was born in 1723, the son of Catherine Maillet (also Malet or Mallet) and Pierre Pertuis dit Lalime.
  
  Pierre Perthuis
  Catherine Malet
  Enfant (Child) Pierre Perthuis
  Baptism 14 nov 1723 Détroit
  [same date is reported as date of birth]
  --  Dictionnaire généalogique des familles canadiennes (Collection Tanguay), 1608 à 1890, Quebec
  
  Pierre Pertuis dit Chevallieur [sic, Chevalier]
  Birth 1756 in Arkansas Post, Death Unknown
  Father Pierre Pertuis dit La Genvery
  Birth 14 Nov 1723, Death Unknown
  Mother Unknown
  --  Pertuis Family Tree, Ancestry.com, http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/10957347/person/-551298971
  
  Pierre dit la Genvery Pertuis' byname Genvery is also found in records and family sources spelled as Janvrie or Janvry.  All three of these are spellings of the same pronunciation.
  
  Peter Perthuis
  Birth 14 Nov 1723 in  Detroit, Wayne, Michigan, Death Unknown
  Parents:
  Pierre Perthuis
  Birth 1691 [this is the date for his brother Pierre, who married Angélique Caron]
  Death 6 Dec 1785 Lachine, Quebec, Canada [I have been unable to find this in records or other genealogies]
  Catherine Mallet 1698 - 1734
  --  Barbara Gray, http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/41103826/person/20013215321
  
  A son or grandson of Pierre La Genvery appears to be the Louis Pertuis for whom we find the marriage record at Arkansas Post in 1793.  In that marriage record, Louis' parents are reported as the deceased Pierre Perthuis and Jeanne Francoeur.
  
  There are gaps in the information, and some individuals and generational connections appear to be missing in our reconstruction.  There were several individuals in the Pertuis family in several generations who were named Pierre or are recorded under variations of that name:  Petro, Pedro, Peter.  The Pierre who married Jeanne Francoeur and his wife both died before their son Louis' marriage in April 1793.
  
  "Pertuis, Louis, son of deceased Pierre Perthuis and Jeanne Francoeur, to Marie Magdeleine Benoit, of Carolina, daughter of deceased Andre Benoit and Suzanne Raye, on 12 April 1793. Witnesses: Ignace Delino, Jean Bte.(Baptiste) DuChassin, Rene Soumande."  From the book Abstract of Catholic Register of Arkansas, 1764-1858, compiled by Dorothy Jones Core.
  --  Cited and transcribed by Delores Lay,  RootsWeb Email Archives, http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/ARARKANS/2001-01/0979281607
  
  "In the 1770s Jeanne Francoeur married Pierre Pertuis, and both of them died before their son Louis was married at Arkansas Post in 1793."
  --  Cultural Encounters Indians and Europeans in Arkansas (c)  By Jeannie M. Whayne, University of Arkansas Press, p. 93, accessed on Google Books, http://bit.ly/1wetDNp
  
  The Pertuis family name comes from Laillevault in Auxerre, southeast of Paris.  There are still Perthuis families there and now in other parts of France.  We are told they were Huguenots, and many left France during the Protestant purge after the Reformation.  But many also continued faithful to the Catholic faith, and are so registered and documented in Quebec, Illinois and Arkansas in New France, as well in several parts of France itself.
  
  -----------------------
  French Perthuis
  
  The English Pertwees have claimed their descent from the French family of Perthuis de Laillevault in Auxerre. The line in France has continued down until the present day.  In more recent times, the head of the family was Comte Bernhard de Perthuis de Laillevault.  He fought with the RAF during World War Two and became a distinguished painter of murals.
  --  Select Surnames, http://selectsurnames.com/pertwee2.html
  -----------------------
  
  The name is also known in England where the spelling was changed to keep the French pronunciation:  Pertwee.  The following source notes that the name Perthuis is associated with Huguenots who fled France for safer places in the Portestant purge of France.  However, the Pertuis family that went to Qubec were firmly Catholic, and remained so during their gradual migration down the river system to Indiana, Illinois, Arkansas and Louisiana.
  
  -----------------------
  The name Pertwee is of Huguenot extraction and was originally Perthuis.  After the French purge of Huguenots in 1685, many refugees fled to Protestant countries such as England.
  
  Canada.
  The Perthuis who left France for Canada kept their Perthuis spelling.  Charles Perthuis arrived in the early 1690's and became a prominent merchant in Quebec.  His sons Joseph and Jean-Baptiste followed in their father's footsteps but returned to France after the defeat by the English in 1763.
  
  The descendants of Pierre Perthuis, a fur trader in Montreal, did stay.  They moved south to Detroit and later as Pertuis to Arkansas when it was still a French trading outpost of colonial Louisiana.  Pierre Pertuis there became Peter Pertuis.
  --  Select Surnames, http://selectsurnames.com/pertwee.html
  -----------------------
  
  "In the same category [settled at Arkansas Post in the 1700s] were Jean Lavale, Pierre Pertuis, Alexis and Jean Jardales. About two miles from the Post on farms antedating 1800 lived Christian Pringle, Francis Gimblet, John Hadsell and George Leard."
  --  "The Arkansas River," All Arkansas History and Pioneers, http://ancstry.me/10bErRU
  
  This Pierre appears to be the fur trader who moved to Arkansas Post in the late 1700s.  If he is the father of Louis as it appears from the spotty evidence, it was his son Pierre who finally obtained the Spanish land grant at the place he named St Charles after the Spanish King (Carlos), and opened a successful regional fur trading post.  The latter was called the Chevalier, it seems from the comparison of family genealogies and somewhat disconnected historical referneces.
  
  "Explorers to visit the state include Hernando de Soto in 1541, Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet in 1673, and Robert La Salle and Henri de Tonti in 1681. Originally a Quapaw village, Arkansas Post was the first European settlement upon its establishment by de Tonti in 1686, in the name of King Louis XIV of France. As Europeans settled the east coast, many other Native American tribes were relocated to Arkansas. Settlers, including fur trappers, moved to Arkansas in the early 18th century. These people used Arkansas Post as a home base and entrepôt. During the colonial period, Arkansas changed hands between France and Spain following the Seven Years' War, although neither showed interest in the remote settlement of Arkansas Post."
  --  "Arkansas," Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas
  
  A section of the book Pioneers and Makers of Arkansas (p 97) states that "Chevalier Pierre Pertuis" died at Arkansas Post on 2 December 1821 at the age of 65.  This would place his birth in about 1856.  This may change our understanding of the family configuration.  This would place "Chevalier Pierre" as the one who opened the trading post at St Charles.
  
  "Chevalier Pierre Pertuis ... died at the Post December 2, 1821, at the age of sixty-five [b abt 56] having lived in this region all his life.  His daughter, Nina Pertuis, married Victor Vasseur at the Post in June 1822, the ceremony being performed by Judge Andrew Scott.  I think the name Pertuis is nearly extinct in Arkansas, but the blood of the old Chevalier is still perpetuated."
  --  Pioneers and Makers of Arkansas, p. 97, accessed on Ancestry.com 3 October 2014, http://archive.org/stream/pioneersandmake01shingoog/pioneersandmake01shingoog_djvu.txt
  
  Because of the time of several events, including the death of Louis' parents before 1793, it seemed likley that Pierre who got the 1797 land grant at St Charles was his elder brother.  But the parents of Louis Pertuis are reported to be Pierre and Jeanne Francoeur Pertuis, both of whom died before Louis' marriage in 1893.  They are also reported to have married in the 1770s.  This would make their birth approximately in the 1850's.  That would make the Chevalier about the same age as Louis' father Pierre.  I cannot resolve this, unless maybe there were two Pierres who were cousins?  But the records and references don't seem to make that very likely either.
  
  There is not enough time after the birth of the Chevalier in 1756 for him to have a son named Pierre who married Jeanne Francoeur and became Louis' father.  If the Chevalier Pierre was born about 1756, he would have married perhaps at the earliest about 1772-74, and for Louis to marry in 1793, he had to be born about 1775 or maybe as late as 1777 (to marry at 16).
  
  Pierre le Genvery had two sons named Pierre, born 1715 and 1723, so one of these could have been the husband of Jeanne Francoueur and the father of Louis.  But the time frame is still quite long, so one of these Pierre's was probably the father of Pierre who was the father of Louis.  Details and records of this era and lineage are disjointed.
  
  It seems that Louis' father Pierre would have to be different from the "Chevalier Pierre" who was born about 1756 and died in 1821.  Another possibility seems to be that the priest was in error when he reported Louis' parents as deceased before his marriage in 1793.  One other possibility may be that Louis's father Pierre was older and had been previously married before he married Jeanne Francoeur in the 1770s, and the other Pierre, (Chevalier) is still Louis's older brother, but much older.  This does not actually seem very likely either.
  
  I have not found any information on an earlier wife, but Pierre dit la Genvery was about 20 years older than Jeanne Francoeur so almost certainly was previously married.  This fits with Pierre le Chevalier's birth in 1756.  I have posited an earlier wife to accomodate the difference in birth dates between Pierre le Chevalier and Louis and the similar age difference between Pierre dit la Genvery and Louis' mother Jeanne Francoeur.  So ....

Sources

• 1. Ancestry Trees
• 2. Dictionnaire généalogique des familles canadiennes (Collection Tanguay), 1608 à 1890 Quebec
• 3. RootsWeb Email Archives
• 4. All Arkansas History and Pioneers
• 5. Select Surnames
• 6. Cultural Encounters Indians and Europeans in Arkansas (c) By Jeannie M. Whayne
• 7. Pioneers and Makers of Arkansas