Carré, John Thomas, ca. 1744-ca. 1825

The educator and Saint Domingue refugee, John Thomas Carré was born in Normandy in about 1744. After apparently receiving a sound basic education, Carré was induced by a physician friend of his to emigrate to the colony of Saint Domingue. Whatever his initial intentions may have been in emigrating, Carré's talent for drawing earned him a position in the Corps des Ingenieurs in the colony, where he worked preparing maps and plans for a variety of public works projects. According to family legend, he also began to study Latin at about this time, allegedly after being embarrassed at misspelling a common Latin phrase when finishing a map.

As surveyor for the parishes of Borgne and Plaisance, near Cap Haitien on the northern coast, Carré was introduced to the widow of a local planter, Mme Chicaneau, and while surveying her plantation, rashly eloped with her daughter, Anne Beatrice. Despite her initial displeasure at the marriage, Chicaneau rewarded the young couple with a sizable estate of their own, along with twelve slaves to manage it (four of them children). Still a young man, Carré became a coffee planter overnight, eventually overseeing almost 50,000 coffee plants tended by as many as 60 slaves. The couple prospered, raising six children in Saint Domingue, Emile, Victor, Sophie, George Washington, Marcelline, and Seraphine, with a seventh arriving later.

...