ONEZIME JACQUET

   Onezime Jacquet lived a long and fruitful life of 85 or so years, but the controversy over his
estate following his death filled the courtroom!  Onezime Jacquet was born circa 1832, the son of Jean Baptiste Jacquet and Marie Celeste Augustin.  Onezime was separated from his Jacquet family at an undetermined but early age and bought under the ownership of Francois Chevalier Delahoussaye (b. 1790), and his wife Charlotte Eliza Olivier Duclozel as a slave.
It was during this time period with the Delahoussaye family that he married
another of the Delahoussaye slaves named Philomene Arcene Allen.  The marriage was blessed
and honored by their slave owners when it was legal for slave owners to marry their slaves.
*(30)*  Of their marriage there was only one child born, that of Virginia Jacquet who was born
about the year 1861 or 1862.  According to the succession record of Onezime, it was "...after the
decree of slave emancipation in January 1863, the said Onezime Jacquet and Philomene Allen
continued living together as man and wife under their said marriage, until about the year 1865,
when they were forcibly separated at the end of the Civil War, or about the year 1866, when
Onezime Jacquet who had enlisted in the Federal army, left with the said army at New Orleans,
La. *(30)*

   Wherever Onezime spent his time the decade after the Civil War, by the year 1880, he was back
in St. Martin parish.  According to the 1880 census, Onezime can be found living with his brother
Jean Baptiste Jolivet Jacquet along with Jolivet's wife Rosa Jean Louis and their nine children.
The family was living next to Nicholas Adolphe Cormier and his wife Maria Josette Olivier,
the family that had enfranchised Jolivet and Rosa after the Civil War.  The property the Jacquets
were living on was part of a real estate purchase Jolivet had received from Adolphe Cormier in
1875.  It would be in 1884, that Onezime would adventure in with his brothers and make some
large land acquisitions.  According to the succession record "...a large tract of land so partitioned
was acquired by Onezime Jacquet, Oscar Jacquet, Jean Baptiste Jacquet, Hypolite Jacquet
and Edward Jacquet  from C. T. Cadeas per act passed before Sidney Greig, Notary, on July
12th, 1884, the original of which was recorded on August 5th, 1884, in Conveyance Records of
the Clerk's and Recorder's office of the Parish of St. Martin, Louisiana.  And together with the
above described tract of land there is included as an appurtenances thereto, the rights, titles and
interest of the said Onesime Jacquet in a road fifteen feet wide and fifty four chains and 18 links
long, acquired by the said Jacquet brothers from Aglae Petavin, wife of Ulger Bourque on
December 16th, 1884..."  Onezime and his brothers would partition the huge purchase of Real
estate and divide it up amongst themselves.  Onezime's property consisted of 38.14 arpent (32.4
acres).  The property was situated at "The Coteau" in the first ward of St. Martin parish and was
bounded north by lands of J.P. Breaux and assigns, south by lands of Mrs. Ulger Bourque, east
by property of Hypolite Jacquet and assigns, and west by land of Oscar Jacquet and assigns.  The
land that Onezime owned along with the rights to the above mentioned road were appraised at the
sum of $1600.00 dollars.  Onezime's movable property was small and only consisted of two mules
named Mike and Frank, both 20 years old and valued at $50.00 each; and an old bed valued at
one dollar.  Thus the total value of Onezime Jacquet's estate was appraised at $1701.00 dollars.

   Onezime Jacquet died on the 28th of January in the year 1917.  It was here that one of the most
controversial court cases involving the Jacquet family occurred.  It seems that Onezime's brother
Oscar Jacquet made the petition to the nineteenth Judicial District Court of St. Martin Parish to
be appointed administrator of the estate of his brother Onezime Jacquet under the erroneous
assumption that Onezime had no heirs to his estate.  However, on the 19th of February, 1917, just
three weeks after the death of Onezime came the opposition of Felix Gaspard.

  "...Into court comes Felix Gaspard of Orleans Parish, state of Louisiana, through counsel, and
by way of opposition to the demand of Oscar Jacquet to be appointed administrator of the estate
of Onezime Jacquet...

...Henri Gaspard, the husband of the deceased Virginia Jacquet, had to prove in court the
legitimacy of his children as heirs to the estate of their grandfather Onezime.  Philogene Arcene
Allen, the mother of Virginia Jacquet, apparently was still alive at the time of the court case and
apparently had to testify.  She had married again to Guillaume Jean Louis in 1869.  The couple
had three girls and two boys.  The case dragged on into the next year and came to a boil when
some of the children of Edward Jacquet and Hypolite Jacquet, the brothers of Onezime, filed a
counter suit on May 20, 1918, in opposition to the courts decision to recognize the children of
Virginia Jacquet and Henri Gaspard as the legal heirs to the estate of Onezime Jacquet.

   Thus on June 3, 1918, came into the court through their representive counsel "...appeared
Martin Jacquet, Onezime Jacquet, Onelia Jacquet, and Tela Jacquet, legitimate descendants
of Edward Jacquet, a predeceased brother of Onezime Jacquet, and Joseph Jacquet, Robert
Jacquet, Louis Jacquet, Ivory Jacquet, Helena Jacquet,  legitimate descendants of Hypolite
Jacquet, a predeceased brother of Onezime Jacquet, the aforesaid being the sole legal heirs of the
aforesaid Edward Jacquet and Hypolite Jacquet, who by way of opposition to the homologation
of the account herein filed, respectfully represent:

1st
 That through collusion and fraud Oscar Jacquet and the heirs of
Virginie Jacquet have connived together in the opening of the succession
of the said Onezime Jacquet, deceased, and have made it to appear that
the said Onezime Jacquet at the time of his death owned certain debts, all
to deprive your said opponents of their just rights in the said succession.

 2nd
  That your opponents particularly aver and represent that
the said heirs of Virginie Jacquet are not in any way the heirs at law of the
said Onezime Jacquet as represented in said succession proceedings, and
have no interest whatsoever in the said succession.

 -3rd-
  That their consent to and their acknowledgment of, a debt
of one thousand dollars said to be due by the said Onezime Jacquet to
Oscar Jacquet for taking care of the deceased from 1906 to 1916  is
in fact a fraud intended to defeat the rights of your opponents without in
basis in fact, and which your opponents especially aver is not due.  Your
petitioner representing instead that Onezime Jacquet was a frugal,
economic person, receiving a pension from the government in addition to
the revenues from his farm..."

   The case was soon settled and the heirs of Virginia Jacquet were allowed to be legitimate heirs.
*(30)*

The descendants of Onezime Jacquet

   Onezime Jacquet had only one child named Virginia Jacquet.  Virginia was born circa 1862.
She married Henri Gaspard on February 6, 1888 (SM.ch.V.11,p.110).  Henri was born circa
1862.  The records show that Virginia and Henri had six children.  They were:

 Ivory Gaspard (b. 1889)
 Felix Gaspard (b. 1891)
 Lillian Gaspard (b. 1893), m. Clement Edgerson
 Margaret Gaspard (b. 1895), m. Ernest Edgerson
 Samuel Gaspard (b. 1897)
 Aimee Gaspard   (b. 1899)...