Life History

Notes

• Sometimes Louis' name is found in records with the Spanish spelling Luis.  His last name is spelled variously, Peruy or Pertui.  Sometimes (as in some of the land surveys), the family name is noted with the variation Perti (a very close English phonetic approximation of the originally French pronunciation).
  
  Louisiana was originally claimed as French territory, but it passed into the possession of Spain due to the fortunes of war.  It returned to France under Napoleon in either 1800 or 1803, depending on the authority reporting the story, and it was France that sold the huge Louisiana Territory to the United States in 1803.
  
  "Explorers to visit the state include Hernando de Soto in 1541, Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet [also spelled Joliet, the spelling used in the name of the city named for him] 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
  
  "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
  
  A more complete record of the transcription is found in another source.
  
  --------------------
  PERTHUIS, Louis and Wife
  
  12 April 1793
  
  I, a missionary priest, had the following persons repeat their mutual marriage vows and administered this sacrament according to the way prescribed by the Church -
  
  LOUIS PERTHUIS, born on this Post, son of the late Pierre Perthuis and the late Jeanne Francoeur, his father and mother, and
  MARIE MADELEINE BENOIT, from Carolina, daughter of late André BENOIT and SUZANNE RAYE, her father and mother.
  
  They had already taken each other as husband and wife in the presence of witnesses for lack of priest in the same place, present to their marriage the brothers (?) Delino, Ducassin, Babe, Soumande who sign below with us. The brother and sisters-in- law of the groom as well as the mother and sisters of the bride declared they could not sign.
  
  /S/ RENE SOUMANDE
  J BTE [Jean Baptiste] DUCHASSIN
  IGNACE DELINO
  P. GIBAULT, Ptre Missre [Prêtre Missionaire = Missionary Priest]. (p 23, 24)
  --  Original records translated and transcribed by Dorothy Jones Core, University of Arkansas Libraries, http://digitalcollections.uark.edu/cdm/ref/collection/CAPA/id/695
  --------------------
  
  The record of their daughter is also found in this record collection:
  
  --------------------
  Feb 16, 1797 was baptised SUZANNA b. 14 May 1796 of the legitimate marriage of LOUIS PERTUY and MAGDELEAINE VANOIS of this parish,
  god-father Albert Bardoutt "Sergent du regiment de la louzianna" [Sergeant of the Louisiana Regiment]
  god-mother HENRIETTE VAESE, grandmother of the of the child who signs with us
  /S/ ALBERTO BERDU
  TENESH RICE
  JANIN curé [priest] (p 40)
  --  Original records translated and transcribed by Dorothy Jones Core, University of Arkansas Libraries, http://digitalcollections.uark.edu/cdm/ref/collection/CAPA/id/695
  --------------------
  
  In February 1818 a survey was commissioned for Louis Pertuis, who seems to be this Louis, on a portion of land that seems to be part of the original Spanish land grant land deeded by the colonial Spanish authorities of New Madrid in 1797 to Pierre or Pedro Pertuis, an ancestry or older brother of Louis.
  
  "St. Charles is located on the west bank of the White River about 30 miles north of its terminus at the Arkansas River.  Founded in 1851 by Colonel Charles Belknap on a portion of Spanish Grant 2424, it had been the site of the St. Charles fur trading post opened by Pedro Pertuis in 1797 (Henderson 1957).  The town is located on a bluff just south of where the White, after flowing from the east, makes a hard bend south.  This would prove of strategic importance during the War Between the States."
  --  "The Battle of St. Charles, Arkansas 17 June, 1862," http://www.academia.edu/469059/The_Battle_of_St._Charles
  

Sources

• 1. Cultural Encounters Indians and Europeans in Arkansas (c) By Jeannie M. Whayne
• 2. RootsWeb Email Archives
• 3. University of Arkansas Libraries
• 4. Arkansas, Compiled Marriages, 1779-1850