Martin Duralde

Martin Molinoy Duralde (November 21, 1822) was a native of France who came to North America with the fur trade, surveyed the original square for St. Louis, and served as a Spanish colonial administrator in Louisiana. He is an important source on the Indigenous people of Louisiana and their languages. He served as a Louisiana state legislator, and was considered an important figure in the Francophone community in the early years of the American era of Louisiana history. Three of his children married into notable American political families.

Biography Duralde was born in Bayonne in what is today France. His father, Pierre Duralde, was French, and his mother, Marie de Eligaza, was Spanish.

By 1781 he owned a tract of land along the upper Bayou Teche. Construction on his house, now called Maison Stephanie, was completed in 1796. The bricks used in constructing the house were made on site from local clay, and bald cypress was used for the framing and the doors. He is a primary source on the language of the Atakapa people. Further, he is "virtually the only source" on the Chitimacha and Opelousa.

There is a surviving portrait of Duralde that was painted by Josef Salazar. Duralde served in the Louisiana State Legislature in 1812 as a representative from Attakapas. He specified in his will that some of his slaves were to be emancipated but most were auctioned off as part of the estate.

Descendants The Duraldes had six children together: Martin Duralde Jr., Joseph Valmon Duralde, Celeste Duralde, Louise Duralde, Julie Duralde, and Clarice Duralde. Martin Adrien Duralde: Duralde Jr. married Susan Hart Clay, a daughter of Henry Clay, in Lexington, Kentucky in April 1822. Julie Duralde: Henry Clay's brother John Clay married Julie Duralde. Joseph Valmon Duralde: Known as Col. J. V. Duralde, he married Gertrude de Vahamonde, daughter of a Spanish officer stationed at Baton Rouge, José Vázquez Bahamonde (also spelled Josef, Baamonde, Vaamonde, Vahamonde), who was possibly born 1748 in Galicia.

Susan Hart Clay Duralde died in 1825. In October 1822 he paid a call at Andrew Jackson's Hermitage but Jackson was away on business. Henry Clay stayed at Duralde Jr. house's "three miles below" New Orleans for several months in 1831. Duralde was appointed to a patronage position in 1841. Duralde died on the return trip from the Mexican-American War, where he had worked as some kind of merchant to the troops; the entire ship caught yellow fever, except for one young boy, possibly an enslaved cabin boy, and Duralde was found dying beside the dead captain after the ship drifted aground near New Orleans.

Martin Duralde III was involved in a bloodless duel with Dr. Mosby of Virginia in 1841 in Cincinnati, Ohio. The humorous and charming journal of Martin Duralde III, described as a "tubercular gambler," written during an 1846 tour of Virginia's therapeutic hot springs, is held in the special collections of the Virginia State Library. Martin Duralde III died in Philadelphia later that year.

J. V. Duralde Jr. was once a candidate for Louisiana state office on the Know Nothing ticket and was president of the Grosse Tete and Opelousas Railroad.