Sources: various, including Ravenel's List, Hugenot Society of London
Once again, the family's greatest fiction writer —one Emma Juliette Juhan born in South Carolina on October 28, 1830— has proven herself woefully distant from the facts and even more bogged down in tawdry, social-climbing melodrama.
The reality, in sum, is a bit different. The old lady got some things dead wrong and others simply mixed up. James Bordeaux, born in Grenoble, emigrated to England, staying there barely a year before moving onward to South Carolina. His oldest three children, all girls, were born in France, the three younger, all boys, in South Carolina. James was a blacksmith. His son Anthony was a carpenter. Anthony's grandson was the Daniel who married the Smith. Daniel's mother was Esther Savineau, not Griselle de Leon. There doesn't seem to have been a Griselle or anybody else de Leon in the family. Daniel was not an only child, but the youngest of five. He did marry a descendent of Thomas "Landgrave" Smith, three years after his father (James Number Two, not the emigrant) died. He did have only two children. He did do some farming, and did own land, though scarcely thousands of acres. In Charleston in 1790, he also lived rather close to his future son-in-law Alexander, and even closer to the brother of his. Even given how small Charleston was and is, you never do know who you'll encounter during that after-dinner stroll:
Listed in [Charleston, 1790] The Charleston Directory; and Revenue System of the United States, 1790, MILLIGAN, Jacob, Charleston. Printed by T. B. Bowen
Among [the Hugenots in England] was the family of Vis Count Francis Purcell De Bordeaux, a nobleman of great wealth, a near relative of Henry IV, who was himself a Protestant, as were nearly all of the nobility of that Province. Besides his landed estate in France, he had great wealth invested in merchant vessels, through which he carried on business with all the principal cities in the world. His landed estates he disposed of at great sacrifice, but his commercial business was successfully transferred to other countries mostly England, where he at once took his family in 1635, just before the revival of the horrors of persecution by the Roman Church.... For many years the family remained in England; sons and grandsons engaging in mercantile pursuits with great success. One of the grandsons, James Bordeaux, with a large company of other French Huguenots decided to emigrate to the new world, which was proving very attractive to the young and adventurous spirits of those who had for conscience sake left their native land in search of freedom. Though England is a Protestant country, there was not enough religious liberty to suit their views, and then, imagine, a Frenchman can never feel entirely at home in England; there seems to be a natural enmity or a feeling of jealousy between them. A large number of families, among whom were the Marions, the Hugers, the Heriots, the Huguenins, the Jaudons, and very many others, came over in the same vessel to Charleston, South Carolina, settling there or in the vicinity and soon becoming prominent in the City and State. The Bordeaux were nearly related to several of them, among them the Marions, one of whom, Francis Marion, became so famous during the Revolutionary War. James Bordeaux was quite an elderly man when he came over but his son, Daniel, was young and single. He was the only child of his father and, at his death which occured not many years after, inherited all his wealth and carried on the immense mercantile business in which the family had for generations been engaged.
About a year after his father's death, Daniel Bordeaux married Miss Esther Smith, a niece [fact: great-granddaughter] of Thomas Smith, to whom had been granted immense tracts of land by the King of England for important service rendered to the King.... Daniel Bordeaux (the family had dropped the prefix "de", a title of Nobility, soon after coming to this country, though many others of the Hugenots retained it), had only two children: Isaac and Eliza Martha, his only daughter. His mother, Griselle De Leon De Bordeaux, lived to a great age, not dying till about the close of the 18th Century; she was nearly 90 years old. The Huguenots were all staunch patriots, and entered with all their chivalrous souls into the struggle for freedom on the part of the Colonies. Many of them lost heavily through the war, especially those engaged in mercantile pursuits, as was Daniel Bordeaux.
Though meeting with heavy losses, he continued his shipping business for the good of his country to supply the needs of the Army, which would have been without ammunition and stores of all kinds if he had suspended his business.... [M]any of his ships were captured and destroyed, their cargoes falling rich prizes to the British. During the siege of Charleston three vessels had just gotten in to the harbor with their cargoes unloaded when, with true patriotism, he consented to their being sunk to block the entrance of the British Fleet. But the City was taken and he, along with eleven other principal citizens, was taken prisoner and sent to St. Augustine, Florida, to the British Prison where they were kept nine months, suffering great privation and insult, when they were at last exchanged and returned to their homes with health broken and fortunes ruined.... As long as he would serve, after the close of the war, he was kept in the Senate of the State Legislature. When he concluded to retire from public life, he also gave up his mercantile business. Having large tracts of land in Barnwell and Orangeburg districts he moved on his plantation, cultivating both rice and cotton, and also carried on several saw-mills, as he had thousands of acres of timber land. He had only two children, a son, Isaac Purcell, and a daughter, Eliza Martha....
Moved to England before 1687 and moved to South Carolina between 1687 and 1692. Letters of Denization and Act of Naturalization for Aliens in England and Ireland, 1603-1700, edited by William A. Shaw in The Publications of The Huguenot Society of London, vol. 18, 1903, "page 164, Denization from S. P. Dom. Car. II, Entry, Book 67, April 9, 1687, includes: James de Bordeaux, Magdalen, His wife, Margaret, Madgalen, Judith and, Janet, their daughters".
Liste des Francois et Suisses, from an old manuscript of French and Swiss Protestants settled in Charleston, on the Santee and at the Orange Quarers in Carolina who desired Naturalization, prepared probably about 1695/96. New York, 1888 ,"No. 38: JACQUES DE BOURDEAUX, ne a Grenoble, fils de EVREMOND DE BOURDEAUX [and his wife] et CATHERINE FRESNE, Madeleine Garillond, [?] sa femme. Madeleine, Judith, leurs filles nez a Grenoble. Anthoine, Jacques, Israel De Bourdeaux, leurs enfans en Caroline."
Salley, A. S., Jr. Warrants for Lands in South Carolina, 1672-1711m Rev. Columbia, Univ. of S. C. Press, 1973. page. 433,
The 1693 Warrant was for Lot 160 of the Grand Model and is currently listed as 106 Broad Street, Charleston, SC. We know that for a period James De Bordeaux operated his blacksmith shop at that location and most likely lived there. The first mention of a house in a deed dated 1715, in which William Livingston and his wife, Ann, conveyed to William Harvey, Jr, a butcher, the corner lot With the messuage of Tenemt's thereon standing." The deed indicated that the tenement had been standing for some time, had been rented to David Balantine before he died . . Harvey sold the property, describe as having a Large Dwelling thereon erected, to Charles and Elizabeth Hill in 1828. The Hill's daughter Elizabeth married Samuel Quincey. Elizabeth left the property to John and Sarah Lining on March 5, 1757. Since then the house has been know as the "John Lining House" and is noted as having been constructed about 1695. All or some part of the present house located on the lot may have been original. citations: Steedman, Houses of History AND Rogers, Charleston in the Ages.
James de Bordeaux was one of the residents of Orange Quarter. Henry A. M. Smith, "The Orange Quarter and the First French Settlers in South Carolina." SCHGM, 1917 vol. 18:101-123. He is listed among those who had land in the Orange Quarter on p. 114.
The Huguenot Society of South Carolina [for persons with ancestors in SC by 1699] Moore, Records of the Secretary of the Province of SC, 1692-1721, p.101. "We Anthony Poitvin, Lewis Pasquereau and James Du Bose are bound unto Rt. Hon. Joseph Blake, Esq., Propr. and Gov., in sum of 2,000 pounds stg. Dated 20 December 1699. CONDITION OF OBLIGATION: Anthony Poitvin, administator of estate of JAMES DE BORDEAUX, late of this Province, deceased, made inventory of said estate by 3 freeholdlers to Office of Sec., within 90 days after date hereof according to ... Wit. Henry Wiginton."
Ibid. "Warrant: of appraisement of estate of James De Bordeaux was directed to James Le Serurier, Henry Le Noble, Peter de St. Julian, Nicholas de Longemare, Abraham Le Suer, or any of the three of them."
Ibid. "Letters of Administration of estate fo Said DeBordeaux were granted to Anthony Poitvin. D. 20 Dec. 1699."
Ibid. "Item: that the said De Bordeaux made a will in writing and made Mr. James Francis Gignilliat and Mr. Peter Lesalle (sic. PETER LE SADE?) exors., but they dying before they inermeddled with the estate, the administation by order of the Gov. was committed to said Poitvin the date above. Wit.: Henry Wiginton, Dep. Sect'y, p. 314." Following from Flowers, op. cit.
Jacques died sometime before 20 Dec 1699...on that date Anthony Poitevi, Lewis Pasquereau, and James DuBose executed a bond to Governor Blake for Poitevin's faithful performance of his trust as administrator of James (Jacques) DeBourdeaux. Witness: Henry Wigington See SC Historical and Genealogical Magazine, volume 11, pg 242
From: "The Huguenot Church of Charleston, SC" by Marguerite Couturier Steedman (c) 1970. "On April 30, 1680, the ship, Richmond, from London, dropped anchor off Oyster Point, in the new Province of Carolina. On this southern tip of the peninsula between the Ashley and Cooper Rivers, there were few houses as yet, for the first settlement at Albemarle Point, west of the Ashley, had just been moved to this new site."
"The Richmond brought orders from King Charles II that the settlement be re-named Charles Town. It also brought forty-five Huguenots - French Protestant refugees from France's continuing religious persecutions. They had fled to Protestant England, where they had waited long months for transportation to a land where they might work and worship in peace and freedom. King Charles had subsidized the voyage with 2,000 pounds, so that these people, "skilled in ye manufacture of silkes, oyles, wines, &c," might establish on British territory these crops and industries that had long been French monopolies."
"The emigrants' silk worms aboard the Richmond had hatched prematurely and died for want of food. But silk culture was only one Huguenot skill. The group included grape-growers, expert farmers, wine-makers, weavers, brick-makers, business men and at least one goldsmith. Though the Richmond's passenger list is lost, early land grants establish the identity of most of the new-comers."
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