Part 2- Jean Constantine DeGeneres – getting started in America
This is Part 2 of Jean Constantine’s life story.
The earliest record in the United States I have found is an advertisement for a letter left at the post office for Monsieur Generes on November 14 in 1792 in Philadelphia. I do not know which Monsieur Generes is being referred to, but it probably was one of the brothers.
I have found no advertisements in the papers until June of 1798 in Fredericksburg, Va, where Jean informs the public he is lately from Europe and intends to give instruction “in the most useful and fashionable parts in the Art of Dancing”.
This would have put Jean in France during the rebuilding years of France after the Revolution. Napoleon was gaining popularity as a successful military commander. The French people were anxious to return to normalcy. There was a wave of patriotism with a multitude of festivals celebrating the arts and sciences. There were well-received Expositions such as the Paris Industrial Exposition of 1798 . ( see http://www.arthurchandler.com/1798-exposition )
Jean would have been caught up in this celebration of the arts and due to his excellent education as a young man would have been well versed in the current dances of the era. I suppose he saw an opportunity in America to teach what he knew.
On April 18, 1801 in Annapolis, Anne Arundel County, Maryland, Jean married Mary “Rosalie” Marguerite Marye. I have not found any documentation yet on this, but it is listed in Roland Gravois’ book.
In December of that year, Jean Constantin and his new wife become the Godparents to Charles Constantin Pise. Interesting side note, when Charles Pise grows up he joins the priesthood. Later, the Rev. Charles Constantine Pise became the first (and, to this date, ONLY ) Catholic chaplain of the Senate in 1832.
Le vingt deux du mois de Novembre de l'an mil huit cent un,
est néCharles Constantin fils légitime de Louis Pise et de Marguerite Gamble,
et fut baptisé le vingt de Décembre même année que cy dessus et fut tenu par Marsolan Générés et par Marguerite Mury
qui ont signé avecnous a Annapolis le 20 Decembre 1801
Signe Vfrgnes pretre.Mary Generes-Maraine. I. Constatin M. Generes-Parain.
Tragically, his new bride, Rosalie passes away sometime in 1802. I have tried to find further documentation on this, but all I find is passed down info as Family source according to Roland Gravois.
Jean soon moves to Alexandria, Va. He states in an ad that he has moved from Annapolis and is planning to open a Dancing school.
Wednesday, Oct 13, 1802 Alexandria, VAVol: IIIssue: 570Page: 4
* I discovered an Interesting side story when researching Mrs. Griffiths Boarding house on King st. :
https://www.alexandriava.gov/uploadedFiles/planning/info/Waterfront/AACWaterfrontHistoryPlan.pdf
Henry George, an African-American slave owned by Alexandrian Sally W. Griffith, had an unusual amount of freedom for a slave in pre-Civil War Virginia. He was the captain of the schooner Llewelyn, owned by Griffith and her nephew, Colville Griffith. In the 1830s, George sailed the schooner out of the Griffith farm on the Northern Neck without a white overseer or any white man on board. He took the schooner to Baltimore, Annapolis, Richmond, and Alexandria transporting timber, bark, logs, and grain and ―was determined to let them [his white masters] see that though black I was a man in every sense of the word.‖ He also cut on the Northern Neck and delivered to Georgetown the oak piles used to build the Alexandria Canal‘s aqueduct that ran across the Potomac River. On trips up the Potomac, he would pass ―more times than I have got fingers and toes‖ ships owned by slave dealers Franklin and Armfield leaving Alexandria for New Orleans with a load of slaves. Then one day walking down a street in Washington with a friend, he heard ―such screaming and crying, we couldn‘t tell what it meant, so we kept on till we met about two hundred men and women chained together, two and two. . . . [T]he scene was enough to bring tears into any man‘s eyes if he had a heart.‖ He later learned that this was a group of Franklin and Armfield‘s slaves. From time to time, he also found himself in Alexandria in the unsettling position of ―unloading wood on one side of the wharf when [a Franklin and Armfield] vessel [was] loading slaves on the other side of the wharf.‖ One day Henry George had enough. He left Sally Griffith‘s schooner and its load of grain docked in Baltimore and made his way by foot and boldly by train to Philadelphia where he found himself ―with the wide world before me, [now only] to look out for myself as any other free man.‖
Franklin and Armfield are the despicable slave dealers that were described in the biography “12 years a Slave” by Solomon Northup. I just thought that was a great story, I loved how he just had enough and boldly left for his freedom!
So back to Jean:
Enough people pay the tuition and Jean finds a home for his dancing school at Mrs. Fletchers on 506 Prince St. The days of tuition were on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. 10 am for the ladies, and the gentleman at 5 in the evening.
“Parents”, he noted, “whose children should be trusted to his care, may depend on his most particular attention, as dancing and good manners are the principal basis of his school. Grown persons will be taught privately in the most fashionable style either in his own academie or at their own house.”
Jean also noted that he could be reached at Mr Hieskell’s home.
Here is a google map and picture of 506 Prince Street- it is the red brick house behind the tree.
The property sold in 2007 for 2 million dollars even.
His dancing school was a success, and he continues advertising the following year, and setting up practicing balls .
In researching Jean I found an entire chapter dedicated to him in “Mary Slocums “ Recollections of her childhood” in Alexandria written in the late 1800s. I am forever grateful she decided to include in her recollections her tutelage under “Monsieur Generes” and describe him and his family. I will refer to her descriptions many times forward. I love how she summarizes Jean’s decision to become a dance instructor thus:
“He took in the necessity for prompt action and came up with the conclusion that poetry of motion and graceful action were good introductions in polished society; and as he had been provided with that sort of investment, he tried to convert it into a fund that would yield paying results. He tried. He succeeded. “Feet” won the prize! He did not at that time and in that old fashioned town lose caste as a good citizen and highly respected man. There and then the manners made the man.”
It was somewhere in this next year he would meet Zepherine. I like to imagine she attended his lessons and she fell in love with this dashing dance instructor. Their stories are intertwined, so next up I will catch you up with Zepherine and her brother Peter’s journey up until this point in time.
