DENISE AND MICHEL PITHON: LAKE CHARLES' PIONEER SETTLERS


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By  W.  T.  Block
	Local legend has made the rounds of Southwest Louisiana for years to the 
effect that in Aug. 1819, a pirate ship sailed up Calcasieu River to Lake 
Charles. Reputedly, at that time Jean Lafitte gave a gold broach, a gift from 
his daughter Denise, to Catherine LeBleu (Mrs. Charles) Sallier, Lake Charles' 
first settler, who was 5 months pregnant with her youngest child.
	Lafitte also traded to Mrs. Sallier his favorite slave, Catalon, for 2 sides 
of beef. Later Mrs. Sallier would surely have died from a pistol shot, except 
that the lead ball struck the broach and flattened out. On Dec. 4, 1819 Catherine 
Sallier gave birth to a daughter, whom she named Denise after Lafitte's daughter. 
	In 1837 17-year-old Denise Sallier married 63-year-old Michel Pithon, who 
was 46 years her senior. It is uncertain why Denise would marry a man old enough 
to be her grandfather, except that the choice of marriage partners at Lake Charles 
in 1837 was probably quite limited. Nevertheless, during their 46 years of 
marriage, Denise bore him 8 children, only 4 of whom reached adulthood. 
	Michel Pithon became one of the most colorful figures in early Lake Charles 
history. He was born in France in 1774, and he served in Napoleon's army from 
1802 until 1812, participating in the Battles of Wagram, Austerlitz, Marengo, 
Auerstadt, and Borodino. In 1812 Napoleon lost 90% of his army of a half-million 
that had battled their way to Moscow, but Pithon was one of the survivors. 
	Upon emigrating to New Orleans in 1820, Pithon sailed upstream to the Missouri 
River, and later trapped beavers in the Rocky Mountains for the next 15 years. He 
became an intimate friend of Jim Bridger and other mountain men, when they 
discovered Yellowstone Park. When the fur trade declined, he came to Galveston 
Bay in 1835, where he served 2 enlistments in the Republic of Texas army. In 
the fall of 1836 Pithon left for Lake Charles, where he lived for the remainder 
of his life. 
	Pithon fitted well into Calcasieu Parish social life following his marriage 
to Denise in 1837. On Aug. 24, 1840, he became a member of the Imperial Calcasieu 
Police Jury, representing Ward 3. In the 1850 census he was described as a 
"planter," owning 167 acres of land, worth $1,800. In 1860, he was both a 
farmer and merchant, with $10,000 worth of personal property, presumed to be 
about 10 slaves.
	In May, 1866, Willard Richarson, editor, published a long article about 
Pithon in his edition of Galveston Weekly News for May 19, 1866. He noted that 
Pithon. although 92 years of age, walked 10 miles daily and "goes to every 
dance in the parish." He added that in 1857, Pithon had sailed back to Paris to 
collect a large inheritance, at which time Emperor Napoleon II offered him 
a pension for life.
	The parish probate Succession No. 352 reveals that Michel Pithon died of 
pneumonia in 1873 while on a trip to Opelousas, and his widow died only a few 
months later in 1873. Their former slave Catalon, who died in 1894, was the 
source of the "Story of Lafitte in Calcasieu River," published in New York 
Herald in 1893, and reprinted in Galveston Daily News on April 28, 1895.
 
Gothic Book News Gothic MT, Published in New York Herald in 1893, and reprinted in 
Galveston Daily News