Jules Martial Burguières, Sr.
April 17, 1850 - October 1, 1899
Jules Martial Burguières, Sr. was the seventh child of Eugène and Marie Marianne Burguières. His life spanned the height of the antebellum period, the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the closing years of the nineteenth century. During his lifetime, America changed drastically, and Jules changed with the times by adapting, experimenting, and persevering through the difficult times. With few financial resources to begin a career in sugar planting, Jules learned the business from his half-brother, Alfred Delaporte, who was leasing plantations in Terrebonne Parish. Alfred was the son of Jules's mother, Marie Marianne Verret Delaporte, from her first marriage to Joseph Delaporte.
In 1873, 23 year-old Jules recognized the possibilities of owning and leasing lands that could be turned into sugar-cane-producing properties. When Alfred died prematurely, his leases went to Jules, who by then had learned enough to step in and take over their management. Shortly after the Civil War, Jules and his oldest brother, Ernest Denis (E.D.) Burguières, began purchasing land in St. Mary Parish. Jules soon owned three plantations: Cypremort, Florence, and Inez Plantations. Ernest Denis owned Alice B. Plantation, contiguous to Cypremort Plantation.
In the same year, Jules married Marie Corinne Patout, on April 21 in Old St. Nicholas Church in Patoutville, Iberia Parish. She was the granddaughter of Siméon Patout who had emigrated from France in the 1820s and settled on Isle Piquant Prairie (now Patoutville). Marie Corinne's parents were Isidore and Alida Bonvillain Patout. Isidore died in 1857 when Marie Corinne was five years old and her brother, Leufroy Pierre, was only one. Her mother remarried to Leon Junca and bore seven more children.
Jules and Marie Corinne eventually moved from Houma to St. Mary Parish, settling at Cypremort Plantation, which Jules had purchased in 1877. That year also marked the formation of the J. M. Burguières Company.
Jules Martial Burguières, Sr. and Marie Corinne Patout Burguières had ten children, including two who died in infancy. On January 29, 1890, when Jules was 40 years old, Marie Corinne gave birth to their tenth child, bestowing on the infant her own name—Marie Corinne. Tragically, both mother and daughter died within sixty days of the birth. According to a news account, Marie Corinne's funeral was an impressive affair. A procession of over seventy carriages escorted her body from Cypremort Plantation to Florence Plantation, where she was interred in the family cemetery (now St. Helen's Cemetery).1
Short of his forty-first birthday, Jules, Sr. had become a widower with eight living children and a huge sugar estate.
Marie Corinne Patout
October 15, 1852 - February 28, 1890
Marie Corinne Patout was the granddaughter of Pierre Siméon Patout and Marie Louise Morel Bordier Patout. Marie Corinne's grandmother, Marie Louise, had succumbed to cholera in France. Her grandfather, Pierre Siméon, later married Pauline Napoleone Fournier and immigrated to Louisiana from France in the 1820s, settling in on Isle Piquant Prairie (now Patoutville).
Marie Corinne married Jules Martial Burguières, Sr. at the age of 21. She moved with Jules from Houma to their Cypremort Plantation home in St. Mary Parish. Her marriage to Jules marked the beginning of a long personal and business relationship between the Burguières and Patout families. During their marriage, she and Jules, Sr. made deep in-roads into the business and social fabric of both Terrebonne and St. Mary Parishes.
Children
Jules and Corinne had 10 children, including two who died in infancy.
- Denis Philip Joseph Burguières
- Joseph Eugene Burguières
- Marie Louise Burguières
- Florence Clothilde Burguières
- Jules Martial Burguières, Jr.
- Ernest Felix Burguières (died at 13 months)
- Ernest Alysius Burguières
- Henry Isidore Alysius Burguières
- Charles Patout Burguières
- Marie Corinne Burguières
Michael Wade, Sugar Dynasty: M. A. Patout & Son, Ltd. 1791-1993, Lafayette, LA: Center for Louisiana Studies, 1995.
