Matthew Nugent b. (abt) 1724

Matthew Nugent was born about 1724 in the Brunswick area of North Carolina and died in 1795 in Rapides Parish, LA.
The family immigrated from NC to MS in the early to mid 1770's. Matthew Nugent probably used the Pee Dee River Valley, NC to Cole's Creek and Curtis Landing route to relocate from the Brunswick, NC area to Natchez, Adams County, MS area. Matthew came with his wife, Isabel Macbray and his sons, Edmond and Matthew and his daughters Mary (Marie) and Dorothy and their husbands, Gabriel Martin and Gerald Brandon. Gabriel's brother Zachariah Martin traveled with them.
In 1779, an expedition under Don Bernardo de Galvez, Spanish governor of Louisiana Territory, captured the British Fort in Natchez. After the fall of the British at Baton Rouge, General Galvez negotiated the surrender of the English Fort Panmure in Natchez on September 21, 1779. The Spanish, with generous land grants, gave the residents opportunity to move to Opelousas Post in early 1780. After a decade at Opelousas Post, the Nugent family moved to Rapides Post about 1790. Dorothy and her husband Gerald Brandon stayed in Mississippi when the rest of the family relocated to Louisiana.
The images below are from microfilm located at the Louisiana State Archives in Baton Rouge, LA. You can click on the image to view a larger image. This was a request by Edmond Nugent made on January 18, 1799 for the reissuance of a deed to land belonging to deceased father, Matthew Nugent, so that the land could be sold to Jean Baptiste Bauvais. You can see the signature of Edmond Nugent.


Click on image for larger view.

The following is from the American State Papers Volume 2, 1809 - 1815, Public Lands, Published by Gales and Sexton in 1834
1994 Revised Edition, Southern Historical Press, Inc of Greenville, SC 29602
ISBN #0-89308-506-5 (vol 2)
Pages 797 and 798
   No. 128. This claim is for four hundred arpenis on the bayou Rapides, claimed by the heirs of Matthew Nugent, Senior. The following documents and evidence are found with the notice. A plat of survey, executed by William Atchinson, dated 18th February 1797, and the depositions of Matthew Nugent and Alexander Innis, each taken the 25lh February.1806. Matthew Nugent was deposed. That the tract of land claimed was inhabited and cultivated ten or twelve years ago, since which time the cleared land, consisting of five or six acres, has been cultivated by Gabriel Martin, but the said land has not been inhabited hy any person. The testimony of Alexander Innis is of the same import, adding only that said Matthew Nugent, deceased, resided at the time of his death with Gabriel Martin, son-in-law of the deceased, on an adjoining tract, at the time the land in question was occupied by him, the said Matthew, deceased. The deposition of Matthew Nugent the second, aged about fifty-seven years, has also been taken and filed in the claim, 3rd December, 1811, and which is as follows: That the land claimed was improved about eighteen years ago, and had been cultivated almost ever year since. The improvements consisted at that time of about three acres of land cleared, with a tolerable house, and indigo vats. From the testimony of this last witness, it would appear that the land in question has been used since the year 1793, making about ten years of possession prior to the taking possession of Louisiana bv the United Slates, on tlie 20th December, 1803. The other two witnesses state that the land was built on and cultivated, hut was not inhabited after the year 1795 or 1796. The survey is dated in 1797. From the small extent of the claim, and the nature of the possession, together with a view to the length of time it has been occupied, the undersigned commissioners are in favor of recommending its confirmation, although two olher claims, which are supposed if; have been derived from Matthew Nngent, deceased, have been confirmed by the Board; one fur four hundred and eighty-live and fifty-five hundredths acres, under settlement, and the other fur six hundred arpents. under a requete and possession, by certificates B , Nos. 1049 and 1291, the first to Gabriel Martin, on bayou Rapides, and the other to John Hay, in Opelousas.
   No. 129. This claim, for six hundred and forty acres, is entered in the name of Matthew Nugent, and supported bv the requete of the claimant fur sixteen arpenls front on Beaver creek, about fourteen miles from Rapides, on the track leading from the rapids of Red river to Catahoula, the petitioner setting forth that he had resided in the district of Rapides as a siihject of His Catholic Majesty many years, and had never had a grant of land. and soliciting this tract to settle on. This petition is dated 12th October, 1800; to which is subjoined the vericafication of Valentine Layssard. then commandant of the post of Rapides, stating “that the exposition of the petitioner is true, and the land solicited may be accorded to him without prejudice." This certificate is of the same date of the petition. A plat of survey, by Matthew Stone, dated 5th December 1805, is also filed in the claim, and no other document of title. The deposition of Benjamin Miller, taken in this claim the 25th February 1806, is as follows: That the claimant, late in the fall of the year 1803, built a Iog house upon the land claimed; that some time in the winter after he removed to it, and has continued to reside there ever since; that this deponent docs not believe that there was any of the laud under cultivation during that year. Though there are claims confirmed of which Matthew Nugent was the original claimant, it is to be presumed, from the petition and certificate of the commandant, that this claimant has not been the original proprietor of any tract except the one claimed under this nonce. The claim has been reported on the ground of its not having been actually settled and cultivated on and prior to the 20th of December, 1803, though it appears to have been built on prior to that time, and settled shortly after by the claimant. The confirmation is recommended.
Microfilm records at the Louisiana State Archives for Opelousas have records of a slave sale from Matthew Nugent, Sr. to Matthew Nugent, Jr. on October 29, 1787 (3 pages). Also, there are microfilm records from Opelousas dated December 21, 1784 of a land claim of Edmond Nugent on bayou Chicot and the sale of the same plantation to Gitfried Krieger, in French and English (5 pages).
The book, Natchez Colonials, A compendium of the Colonial Families of Southwestern Mississippi, 1716 - 1800, by Johnnie Andrews, Jr. of Prichard, AL was published by the Bienville Historical Society in 1986 and on page 10 has a reference to Dorothy Nugent married Gerald Brandon in Natchez in 1788. Other records show they were married in 1785 and their first child, a daughter was born in 1786. Their fourth child was named Matthew Nugent Brandon.
Official Plat Map: 1857 Original Plat of Township 5N, Range 1E, North of Red River has land plats that show Matthew Nugent and Edmund Nugent and others property in the area.
A history of the area is in the book, Rapides Parish, an illustrated history by Sue Eakin.
Windsor Publications, Inc. of Northridge, CA - 1987
ISBN    0-89781-201-8
Bayou Rapides leaves Red River about twenty miles upstream from the falls and reenters the river about a mile below the rapids. The island formed by the bayou and the river is about fifteen miles long and two to five miles wide, shaped in a loose circle. At different turns of Bayou Rapides early settlers, probably not realizing this was only a single stream, called the bayou "Cotile" and "Jean de Jean."
The island created prize plantation land that attracted many of the first European settlers. They, in turn, would nurture a little village, Alexandria, platted in 1805.
Early in the nineteenth century plantation communities with focal centers, a small store or church, developed every five to ten miles along the streams. Often these were communities of kinsmen or migrants- from" the same state or eastern county. On Bayou Rapides one historian notes that settlers from Maryland preferred the section near the falls, while Virginians chose the opposite end of the stream at Cotile Landing, which later developed into the Town of Boyce. Whether the planters migrated from New England, New York, Pennsylvania, or other states, as many did, and whether they lived on Red River, Bayou Rapides, or one of the other bayous---the Boeuf, Lamourie, Robert, or Clear---they adopted the same identical plantation life-style.
The Great Raft upstream, the ever-changing riverbed, snags, sandbars, annual low water level, the rapids, and generally unpredictable behavior of the river caused navigation on the Red to be risky business. As American settlers arrived, trade centers at this natural crossroads developed on both sides of the river. Since incomparably rich alluvial soil lay on the south, and picturesque pine-covered hills of North Louisiana terrain lay on the north, the site became an even more unusual meeting place in another sense. Two totally different cultures emerged.
1.) That of the independent, hard-working individual, priding himself on his ruggedness, developed to the land north of the Red River.
2.) The more apt-to-be formally educated, committed to leading and disdaining manual labor as an indication of lower class, the slaveholder, cut out his plantation along the streams of the land south of Red River.

EARLY YEARS
The French owned Louisiana from 1682 to 1763, and Natchitoches was an important outpost, guarding the Red River boundary from the Spanish, who built their fort, Los Adais, only thirteen miles to the west. Traffic, though sporadic, increased through the Rapides area. Etienne Layssard, an Indian trader, was one of the first Frenchmen recorded as residing near the rapids. He and his four sons arrived from French Ohio country sometime during the early eighteenth century. Etienne and his sons knew many Indian languages, which gave them a •decided advantage in trade with the Indians from whom they secured pelts, tallow, furs, and bear oil, which netted fine profits in Europe.
After Spain made good its claim in 1769 with Governor O'Reilly's arrival in the colony, Etienne became Estevan Layssard and was given a franchise to trade with the Indians in the area. He was named commandant of El Rapido, the post established in the pinehills on the north bank of the river. O'Reilly sent Eduardo Nugent and Juan Kelly to study and report to him regarding this part of the Red River country. They reported:
33 Blancos [whites] and 18 esdavos [slaves]. This place is composed of eight houses belonging to a like number of poor inhabitants, who cultivate tobacco and corn, and keep a few cows for their subsistence. The soil is of the same quality as that of Natchitoches, and can produce, if adequately tilled, the same products.
A small village of Apalache Indians is established there, composed in all of twenty-one houses of little stability, twenty-six men, and about eighteen women, of all ages.
The above information is from page 13 of the book Rapides Parish.

Early Nugent - Christopher Nugent
Christopher was transported in 1634 or 1635 on the John and Dorothy by Capt. Adam Thorougood. He removed before 1672 to Somerset County, Maryland where his daughter Katharine married William Onorton (Onaughton-O' Neachtain) also of Ireland. They must have known each other in Virginia and left about the same time. William was of the ancient royal family of O' Neachtain of Ireland.
Christopher was probably of the Nugent family there, descendents of Sir Gilbert of Normandy who came over with Sir Hugh de Lacie in the 12th century and had a castle of Devlin. Most of these Anglo-Norman families were tricked, in the time of Elizabeth, into giving up control of their lands in Ireland, they being Catholic, or she simply seized them. The family estates were declared forfeit after the Battle of Boyne on July 12, 1690 and many left for America or were forced into indentureship.
There is a deed from a Howard Cobb to Christopher Nugent on 7 May 1638 on land in Virginia.
NC Colonial Militia Records

   Liberty Chapel Cemetery