Part 3- Zepherine Sebastienne dePoincy Javain
Zepherine was born to Seigneur Pierre Etienne Javain de Poincy and Jeanne Nouvelet de la Rosiere in St. Domingue. Her baptism is registered in the Ouanaminthe area which is a town in the northern part of St. Domingue.
On the 18th of March of the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty one I have baptised Sebastienne Marie Zephirine, aged 18 months, legitimate daughter of Pierre Etienne Javain de Poincy Royal Notary and of Dame Jeanne Marie Nouvelet de la Rosiere her father and mother living in this city. The godfather was Louis Fabin de Loustaunau and the godmother Jeanne Marie Javain her sister the godfather has signed and the godmother has declared she cannot write.
Her father, Pierre was a Royal notary working in the city of Fort Dauphin. He was baptized at the island of Corsica . His father Guillame passed away in 1763 and is listed as being buried in St. Domingue. Pierre married Jeanne in 1773. In the marriage banns he lists his occupation as a physician. Also, that his father had been a councilor of the king and was a Royal Notary.
Marriage Certificate: Act of Marriage between Pierre Etienne Javain de Poincy and Jeanne Marie Novelet de la Rosiere:
Extract of the register of city hall of Fort Dauphin (Saint Domingue) for the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy three.
The 12th of August one Thousand seven hundred and seventy three at eleven o’clock in the evening after a publication of the banns at the parish mass and dispensation obtained for the other two banns from the reverend Father Colomb Prefect of this mission, no opposition having been found, we the undersigned, missionary and cure of this parish have received the mutual consent for the sacrament of marriage of Seigneur Pierre Etienne Javain de Poincy, physician, dwelling in this city legitimate son of the late Guillaume Javain while alive councilor of the King and substitute for his attorney in the superintendence of waters and woods and of the reformation of the woods affected at Salines de Salin, Royal Notary in the above mentioned place, and of the late Dame Anne Therese Bonnet his father and mother and of Miss Jeanne Marie Nouvelet de la Rosiere native of Oisy, diocese of Liege, daughter of the late Louis Pierre Nouvelet de la Rosiere, while alive officer of the regiment of Monaco, and court crier of the jurisdiction of this city, and of Miss Jeanne Thirion in the presence of Dame Jeanne Nouvelet, her mother, dwelling in this city. We have given the nuptial benediction in the presence of Jean Francois Javain Delalo, brother of the groom, of Joseph Bourgeois de la Requierie Notary, of Alexis Debarras and of Sieur Barthelemy Pinter all living in this city, witnesses in their required presence and called, who with us and the interested parties, signed with Dame Poury, friend of the couple.
Around 1777 Pierre set up as a Notary in the northern city of Le Cap Francais (commonly referred to as Le Cap). Notarial registries give his time as from 1777-1781. I found this advertisement in the Affiche Americaine
https://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00000449/00002/91
His ad starts on the right bottom half as ” Le Sr. Javain demeure …” His office overlooks the Place Notre Dame and was next door to Monsieur Charoff a watchmaker. He says that he makes the establishment of all strong affairs, draws the accounts,business, succession management, management of housing, with the most severe scruples. He also says he speaks Spanish and French.
I found a map of Le Cap circa 1793 on this website
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b55005281x.r=Cap%20Fran%C3%A7ais
Place Notre Dame is the square in front of the cross in the lower middle right area.
This following description of the city is a paraphrase from a gentleman named Louis Mederic that I found inside of the following book link: https://koobez0.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/0674035917creoles.pdf
Mederic traveled extensively throughout St. Domingue cataloging the area and the people.
Also, the following is the translated excerpt used by the aforementioned book:
Méderic-Louis-Elie Moreau de Saint-Mery, A Civilization That Perished: The Last Years of White Colonial Rule in Haiti, trans. Ivor D. Spence (New York, 1985), 114–127, 131–137, 145–148; Madison Smartt Bell, Toussaint Louverture: A Biography (New York, 2007), 63–64
“Le Cap was a bustling major port city. It garnered the nickname “Paris of the Antilles,” as it was Saint Domingue’s cosmopolitan commercial center boasting a printing press, a weekly newspaper (the Affiches Américaines), impressive religious edifices that included the two-block-long Notre Dame church with its bell tower and clock, libraries, a theater, the Royal Society for the Sciences and Arts, and a Masonic Lodge, among other amenities. Members of that order included free blacks and gens de couleur (men of color), several of whom were apparently associates of Toussaint Louverture. The city’s wealthier inhabitants built multistoried masonry houses, some with gardens and aviaries filled with colorful birds from Senegal, Guyana and other tropical locales. Lower-class residents lived in modest shacks on muddy streets lined with numerous taverns selling the cheap rum called tafia, as well as billiard parlors where gambling and other vices ran rampant. Ships from many nations docked in the harbor, bringing goods, passengers, sailors, and news from around the Atlantic.”
Here is another picture I found https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Plan_de_la_ville_du_Cap_Francais.jpg
Again, the square is listed as Place D’Armes in this map.
The cathedral is STILL standing, but it seems it is under renovation.
Pierre advertised his notary office as being in Le Cap, but his official notarial location in the archives is operating in the nearby town of Ouanaminthe.
Ouanaminthe was about a day’s carriage ride away from Le Cap. One of the notarial jobs I did find was for an estate inventory for Francois Goullin who lived in Ouanaminthe.
Here is a link to his some or all of his notarial records online
https://francearchives.fr/en/facomponent/5b63b805b80892faf8163043cb5900dc5c24a720
Pierre and Jean had 4 children. The first two were boys, Peter born in August of 1775 and Pierre Louis Hubert born in June 1778. The next two were girls, Zepherine born August 26 1780 and Jeanne Marie Josephine born in 1781. All of the children’s baptisms are recorded in the town of Ouanaminthe surviving records.
Here is Zepherine’s baptismal info:
On the 18th of March of the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty one I have baptised Sebastienne Marie Zephirine, aged 18 months, legitimate daughter of Pierre Etienne Javain de Poincy Royal Notary and of Dame Jeanne Marie Nouvelet de la Rosiere her father and mother living in this city. The godfather was Louis Fabin de Loustaunau and the godmother Jeanne Marie Javain her sister the godfather has signed and the godmother has declared she cannot write.
1782 was a devastating year for the Javain family. In January little Pierre Louis Hubert died at the age of 3 ½ . Then, in March of that year 1 ½ year old Jeanne Marie Josephine passed away. Lastly, in April, her father Pierre passed away at the age of 45. The deaths are all recorded in Ouanaminthe.
Exract of the Parish registers of the commune of Ouanaminthe (Saint Domingue) for the year one thousand seven hundred eighty two.
“The 17th of April of the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty two I have buried in the cemetery of this parish the body of the late Mr. Javain de Poincy native of Franche-Comte’ Royal Notary of the said place, who died yesterday evening, prepared with the sacraments of the church, aged about 45 years; were present the gentlemen who signed below: Fave, Lafond, Donzoe, Leblance, signed F. Fortuna Cure.”
All that was left were the two children Peter (age 7) and Zepherine (age 2 ½) and their mother, Jeanne. I have not been able to find out what caused these three deaths in this family, but the most probable answer is yellow fever.
After these terrible deaths, I have no record of where the family was staying in Ouanaminthe. After many years of searching , I still have not found an inventory of assets, or any relatives yet. But, I know they lived in st Domingue for another 11 years until the revolution.
As far as I can tell they didn’t live on their own plantation because the Javain name is not listed in any of the indemnity reports. I also have found no record of Jeanne remarrying those next 11 years before their fleeing of St Domingue.
There are many scenarios that could have happened. The most likely is that Peter was sent to France to be educated, and that his mother and sister stayed in St Domingue with her family . They must have had some means to sustain themselves.
The revolution began in 1791 , but it really hit closer to home for the Javain family in 1793. Again, many books have been written on the revolution but for the purposes of understanding the scene in 1793 in Le Cap I found this study of Atlantic Creoles in the age of Revolutions: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/470032
“The following month, in February 1793, England and Spain declared war on France, and both powers began courting Biassou and the black rebels of the north. The French Commissioner Léger-Félicité Sonthonax took the initiative to also offer the northern rebels freedom and alliance in the name of the French Republic, but he did so independently and Saint Domingue’s Colonial Assembly would have none of it. In June of 1793 fierce fighting broke out between the French governor of Saint Domingue, a native who sided with the planters, and the forces of the radical French commissioners who had declared the slaves free. Le Cap was soon in flames, and panicked whites fled the city for ships bound for Philadelphia and Charleston.
Jeanne, her son Peter and daughter Zepherine were caught up in the frenzy. They must have been terrified and desperate to get out. We have a basic understanding of what took place based on three items:
Peter’s own words In his will,
the decision by Zepherine’s son to write down the story that he heard from Peter and his mother Zepherine,
and a description in conjunction with a painting of Zepherine in Colonial Dames book …..
Their slave, or Mammie as they called her, must have cared for them very deeply because she truly saved their lives. They hid in the forests during the attacks on the city and plantations. Mamie then secreted them onto a ship by hiding them in a laundry basket. I do not know if Mammie was on the ship, but I do know at least she or her child was since her grand-daughter is named in Peter’s will.
The ship would have been more than likely docked at the Le Cap port as part of it’s trade route. I am not sure if it was a french ship or an american ship, but the story goes that as it was sailing in the Carribean it was overtaken by english privateers. The privateers demanded all of the jewels from the prisoners and the Javain lost almost everything of value except Zepherine was able to hide a sewn-in jewel in the hem of her dress. The story also goes that sadly, Jeanne was killed while protecting another innocent child from these privateers. There are different accounts of where she is buried. Some say it is at sea, others that her body is buried at the next port the ship went to, which was Jamaica. If she was buried in Jamaica her burial site has been lost to time.
Next post will be about Peter and Zepherine landing in America!
