Today Duplechin is not a frequent surname in either France or in French Canada, but it is common in southwestern Louisiana; moreover, it is among the earliest family names to appear in colonial records of the state.

In 1720, a Joseph Duplechin, carpenter by trade, arrived in newly founded New Orleans aboard the ship Alexandre, which carried among its passengers several workmen destined for the LeBlanc Concession near Natchez.* In 1725, Joseph and his wife Anne-Marie Taverre (Lavergne?) were residents near the Indian village of Tunica (present site of Angola, La.) well below Natchez,2 but by 1731 they had moved across the Mississippi River to Pointe Coupee.

There, Joseph died a widower in 1746, leaving one son, Philippe, to carry on his name.

Existing data indicate that Joseph, through his only son Philippe, was the progenitor of perhaps all the Duplechin families who live in Louisiana today.

Prior to his death in 1775, Philippe Duplechin (m. ca.

1750 Reine Boftz, ca. 1775 Marie Philippeau) had acquired land at Raccourci along the Mississippi, probably a part of his father's holdings in the northern part of present Pointe Coupee Parish.

By his first wife he sired three sons who lived to adulthood, Philippe, Jr., Jean-Baptiste, and Antoine, and by his second wife, a fourth, called Philippe dit Cadet.

The several marriages and migrations of these men have made the tracing of Duplechin family history anything but simple. Little is known about Philippe, Jr., who in 1793 married Julie Hollier.

After living for a time in the Avoyelles country, both Jean-Baptiste (m. ca. 1785 Perrine Juneau, 1794 Marie-Rose Trahan) and Antoine (m. 1790 Marie-Louise Joffrion, 1797 Marie-Louise Deshotels) moved to the Opelousas area, probably around the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Philippe dit Cadet (m. 1813 Marguerite Chatelain) settled in Avoyelles9 where many of his descendants may still remain.

The descendants of Jean-Baptiste and Antoine today comprise the majority of Duplechin families now living in Louisiana, where they are concentrated in St. Landry, Evangeline, and Acadia parishes. Church and civil records suggest that Jean-Baptiste and his family settled in the Prairie du Petit Bois, near Grand Prairie, north of Opelousas Post. Many members of this line descend through Jean-Baptiste's elder son of his first marriage, David, who married three times, producing a large prober of progeny. These included several sons who helped preserve the Duplechin name in the central part of St.

Landry Paris. Other members descend through three sons of Jean-Baptiste's second marriage, who settled along Bayou Teche and adjacent prairies south of Opelousas Post.

In the late nineteenth century the areas around Grand Coteau, Arnaudville, Cecelia, and Breaux Bridge became the main locale of that line.

Jean-Baptiste's brother Antoine had only one son, whose name was also Jean-Baptiste. Married to Carmélite Guillory in 1828 Jean-Baptiste began a long line of Duplechins who settled in the vicinity of Ville Platte and Eunice during the nineteenth century.

Church records suggest that few Duplechins moved out of old St. Landry Parish until after the beginning of the present century, when several families migrated to Calcasieu Parish to engage in rice farming, lumbering, and other industries, particularly in the Lake Charles area