Michoud- Genealogy of a Place

Outside the city of Slidell, Louisiana, is the Michoud Assembly Facility located in New Orleans East, where it has operated as NASA since 1961. Dr. Wernher von Braun, who was living in Huntsville, Alabama, led the effort to make the site part of NASA, as it was a large and remote facility ideal for assembling rocket parts. He was in Huntsville working with a team that was developing ideas for manned space flights at that time, and 834 acres in Louisiana was an ideal location to aid in the endeavor. About twenty years prior, the United States government purchased one thousand acres of the property and commissioned Higgins Industries to build a large shipbuilding warehouse, where production was to focus on the Higgins boats as well as gun turrets and armament for landing craft and airplanes. The site was essential in serving as a defense arsenal facility in WW2, in which Higgins is most known for his design of the Higgins boats, which infamously stormed Normandy on June 6, 1944, D-Day. Furthermore, Strahan’s book, Andrew Jackson Higgins and the Boats that Won World War II, states Higgins proved he could move a shipbuilding industry away from major yards and bring it to New Orleans during wartime which helped to sustain the local economy. This blog will discuss the place before the construction of the Higgins warehouse, focusing on the namesake Chevalier Antoine Michoud, using a collection of records sourced from STPL Genealogy databases.

The land on which the Michoud Assembly Facility now sits was originally part of a larger land grant in the 1700s by Louis XV of France to a New Orleans merchant, Gilbert Antoine de St. Maxent. According to James Coleman Jr's book, Gilbert Antoine de St. Maxent: The Spanish-Frenchman of New Orleans, Gilbert Antoine de. St. Maxent was a native of France, born in 1727, and became a French merchant and military officer posted in New Orleans in 1747, who was involved in the development of French and Spanish Louisiana. Eighty years later, Frenchman Antoine Michoud purchased some of the land in 1827, where he built and operated a sugarcane plantation in which his heirs operated as a refinery into the early twentieth century. At the time he purchased the land it had then been in the hands of an engineer/architect named Bartholomey Lafon.

Chevalier Antoine Michoud

He was born in the the Region Columbe on the River Rhone in France to parents Lacques Michoud (possibly Jacques) and his mother Sophie D. Antillon and arrived in Louisiana in 1827. His death date was July 22, 1862 but his exact birthdate is unknown using the records sourced for this sketch , as listed below:

Birthyear inferred from the following records used for this study:

Burial Permit- 1785
Death Certificate- 1777
1850 Census- 1780
Last Will and Testament- 1783

By 1862 the City of New Orleans had implemented burial permits. See attached record below, which was indexed in French . His vital records of birthplace, death date, and inferred birthdate are listed on burial permit and sourced above. The burial permit tells more information. He was the honorary consul to the S. M. of King of Italy and he is buried at St. Louis Cemetery #3 in New Orleans. After digging up New Orleans newspapers from 1844 we can expand upon his consul position. The Daily Picayune from January to December of 1844 ran a running list of the Foreign Consuls' residencies in New Orleans that year. He was listed as a foreign consul of Sardinia, a region in Italy, and his residence was established to be the corner of Old Levee and Ursuline streets at that time.

Antoine appears in the 1850 Census living at New Orleans Municipality 1 Ward 6, New Orleans which could be his residency in as listed in the 1844 Daily Picayune at corner of Old Levee and Ursuline streets. In the 1850 census his occupation was not specified yet it was noted he was living with 3 clerks and 1 blacksmith: three clerks, two being French and the third from Piedmont and 1 blacksmith who was also a native of Piedmont.

Five years later he appears in Part 1: Jefferson City, Gretna, Carrollton, Algiers & McDonogh of the 1855 Cohen’s New Orleans Directory, which was printed at the office of The Picayune at 66 Camp Street. His residency was established on Moreau and the corner of Elysian Fields. See below. The Cohen Directory also had Part 4: Directory of the Planters of Louisiana and Mississippi as far as heard from and he is not listed there, yet he operated a sugar plantation and refinery at that time outside of Gentilly where Michoud stands today. Then six years later in a Gardner’s New Orleans Directory for 1861 he is listed at house number 27 Elysian Fields, further establishing this residency, see below.

Antoine Michoud was never married and both his death certificate and last testament and will state this. On his death certificate dated July 22, 1862, the informant a Mr. Camille Guillet, stated he was nos nol married. Further, Antoine stated the same on his last testament and will that is dated July 19, 1860, two years before his death on July 22, 1862. The notary wrote that Antoine was “sick in his bed, but of sound mind” on the second floor of his dwelling on Elysian Fields between Morearo and Victory in New Orleans’s 3^rd district. He was surrounded by the requested presence of three named friends as he was making his will to the public notary, Joseph Cohn. The friends names are listed to the best of my interpretation of the hand-writing: Monsieur Charles Buisson, Rudolph Mecht, and Theophile M. Hyde. See clip below and make your own judgment.

In his Last Will and Testament, Antoine names his nephew, Monsieur Michoud, a prominent lawyer residing at Dupesa Street in the city of Lyons, France, as the heir to all his property. He then states he revokes any other wills made previously and that a debt of $50 is to be paid in full to a man named Charles residing on St. Peter and Jefferson Streets. The will names Camille Guillot, Antoine’s informant on this death certificate, as one of the four executors of his estate. To the best of my interpretation of the hand-writing, the other three executors carried the names Joseph Girod, Leopold Guichard, and Jubian Leghus.

One thing that stood out while digging up his residency was how the numerical street address of 27 Elysian Fields was difficult to find. Although only 2 city directories were discussed in this blog, others were searched. It wasn't until the 1861 Gardner's Directory that his street address of 27 Elysian Fields was recorded, and it seems his numbered address was initially written in his will below in 1860, but appears to have been blotted out. One reason could be simply, that street numbers were assigned around 1860 because the previously dated directories are void of street numbers. A deeper look into the layout of the history of the old New Orleans streets could clear up that question if it were to be pursued.

Using seven records, a simple sketch of Chevelier “Antoine” Michoud’s life was made. This study used mostly death records but also city directories, newspaper articles, and an 1850 census record was used to carve out the basic information about his life. Other records such as land records, delinquent tax lists, court records, police reports, and other sources are available digitally on STPL genealogy databases and point to a deeper understanding of his life and time but for purpose of this blog, a focus mostly on vital records and residency to establish a starting point on Michoud.

All records were sourced using STPLibrary Genealogy databases. Please feel free to add any thoughts, comments and insight, they'd be appreciated.

Death Certificate- Family Search

Burial Permit- Family Search

Last Will and Testament- Ancestry Library Edition

1844 Daily Picayune newspaper articles- Times-Picayune online with Historical Archives

The 1855 Cohen’s New Orleans Directory- Family Search

1861 City Directory- Ancestry Library edition

1850 Census- Ancestry Library edition

References

64 Parishes. (2024, June 30). NASA Michoud Assembly Facility - 64 parishes. https://64parishes.org/entry/nasa-michoud-assembly-facility#:~:text=The%20land%20on%20which%20the,planes%20and%20then%20aluminum%20planes.

Malloryk. (2020, August 11). Louisiana spotlight: Mystery at michoud, Higgins Industries and the Manhattan Project. The National WWII Museum | New Orleans. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/louisiana-higgins-industries-manhattan-project

Mission Support Home. United States Coast Guard > Our Organization > Operational Logistics Command (LOGCOM) > Bases > Base New Orleans > General Information > History. (n.d.). https://www.dcms.uscg.mil/Our-Organization/Operational-Logistics-Command-LOGCOM/Bases/Base-New-Orleans/General-Information/History/

NASA. (2025, April 22). MAF Space. NASA. https://www.nasa.gov/maf-space/

Strahan, J. E. (1994). Andrew Jackson Higgins and the Boats that Won World War II. Louisiana State University Press