The fifth most frequent surname of French origin in Louisiana, Guidry, or Guedry, is found throughout the southem part of the state, with concentrations in the Teche country and in Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes. All Guidry families in Louisiana are probably of Acadian descent, their ancestors having entered as refugees during the last half of the eighteenth century. The large Guedry clan of Acadia apparently descended from a single progenitor, Claude Guédry dit Grevois, who arrived from France ca. 1671 and six years later married Marguerite Petipas in Port Royal.* Guidrys were among the earliest Acadian refugees to come to Louisiana, one Joseph Guedry probably being among the group that arrived in early 1765, led by Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil.

Going first to the Attakapas, Joseph Guédry finally settled along the Mississippi in Ascension Parish, where he married (1769) Élizabeth Comeau,3 beginning a long line of descendants, most of whom obtained small farms on the east bank of the river in St. James Parish.

In 1768 two Guidry families arrived from Maryland, where they had been exiled for many years: Pierre and wife Marguerite Dupuy and the window of Pierre's brother Jean, Anne Dupuy, with her five children.

Both families were first sent to Natchez, but by 1770 they had removed down river to the second Acadian Coast (Ascension Parish).

There one of widow Guidry's sons, Firmin (m. 1786 Marguerite Landry), remained to begin a substantial line of antebellum farmers, whereas a second son, Jean (m. 1785 Marie-Madeleine Breaux), soon left for the Attakapas.

Earlier, Pierre (m. 2d, 1769 Claire Babin, 3d ca. 1780 Marguerite Miller) had also moved to the Attakapas, where he and his several sons began the largest and most influential line of Guidrys in Louisiana.

Seven Guidry families were among the large group of Acadian refugees who arrived from France in 1785, and all but one settled initially along the Mississippi north of Bayou Manchac in what is now East Baton Rouge Parish.

The principal Guidry family of this contingent was led by Claude and his second wife (m. 1762), Anne Moyse, with five young sons by her. Two other Guidry families of the Manchac group were headed by sons of Claude by a previous marriage (ca. 1749) to Anne Lejeune: Pierre-Janvier (m. 1773 Marie-Josephe Lebert), and Jean-Baptiste (m. 1774 Marguerite Hébert).

Most of the latter and their descendants, however, migrated to the Lafourche after the turn of the century. Although the Acadian Coast was initially the main center of Guidry settlement in Louisiana, by the mid-nineteenth century most of the families of that area, selling out to rich Anglo planters, had moved elsewhere, some to the Lafourche and Teche areas, others inland to the vicinity of present Gonzales in Ascension Parish.

Pierre of Acadia and Maryland was the first of the Guidrys to settle permanently in the Teche country of the Attakapas, today the main center of Louisiana's Guidry clan. By 1777 he had obtained land on the east side of Bayou Teche in the La Pointe area near present Breaux Bridge.

Before his death in 1825 he had amassed a fortune in land, livestock, and slaves, including some 2,000 acres in the Prairie Gros Chevreuil east of the Teche and several tracts in the Carencro and Grand Coteau areas within the Opelousas District.

Reared in the La Pointe area, his twelve sons from his second and third marriages, and their descendants, gradually spread outward from the La Pointe area to settle in various parts of southwestern Louisiana and, eventually, in southeastern Texas. Pierre's eldest son from Claire Babin, David (m. 1787 Marie-Modeste Borda), settled in Grand Coteau as a planter-stockman;14 in 1803 he and partner Jean Mouton purchased from the Attakapas Indians more than 2,000 acres of prairie land on the Mermentau River in the Calcasieu, at that time the cattle frontier of Louisiana.

In the Grand Coteau area several of David's sons became successful antebellum planters, such as Onésime (m. 1813 Julie Poitier), whose widow owned 55 slaves in 1850, and Joseph (m. 1826 Céleste Mouton), who in 1860 was working 95 slaves on his 1,000 acres of improved land.

Most of David's brothers were less successful in amassing wealth. Three of them, Joseph (m. 1793 Scholastique Hébert), Jean-Baptiste (m. 1797 Solange Hébert), and Paul-Hypolite (m. 1800 Adélaîde Duhon), by 1803 were settled as small farmers on Bayou Vermilion in the Grande Prairie area near present Lafayette.

When grown, three of Paul-Hypolite's sons left the Grand Prairie area for Texas, Leufroy (m. 1822 Christine Dugas) departing in 1835, Joachim (m. 1827 Marie Giroir) and Jean-Baptiste (unmarried) leaving about 1842, these being some of the first Louisianians of Acadian descent to reside in the neighboring state.

David's brother Olivier (m. 1791 Victoire Semer) remained with his father Pierre in the La Pointe area, but by the 1850s his descendants had moved into Vermilion Parish near Abbeville.

Moreover, the six sons of Pierre, Sr., through his third wife Marguerite Miller, apparently all remained in the Teche area, contributing to the Guidry concentration there.

Besides the long line of Guidrys established by Pierre and his sons in the Teche country, there were several other lesser lineages in that area, including that begun by Pierre's nephew, Jean, and wife Marie-Madeleine Breaux; and that of Olivier "of Boston" (m. 1797 Félicité Aucoin) who settled in the Grande Prairie near Lafayette.

Probably their descendants, together with those of Pierre, took part in the western migration of Acadians into southwestern Louisiana and southeastern Texas during the last 100 years.

The Lafourche and the bayous of Terrebonne Parish formed the locale of a second concentration of Guidrys in Louisiana, many of the early settlers being members of the 1785 refugee families from France. Only one of the seven Guidry families who arrived in 1785, however, was sent directly to the Lafourche: Joseph (son of Claude and Anne Lejeune) and wife Madeleine Comeau with five children; the rest were directed to the Manchac area below Baton Rouge.

By the 1790s at least two of the Manchac families had filtered into the upper Lafourche (Assumption Parish)23 and 10 to 20 years later many Guidrys from the river parishes began to settle along the Lafourche near Thibodeauxville and farther downstream in the vicinity of Lockport; others penetrated Terrebonne Parish via Bayous Terrebonne, Black, and du Large.

For instance, Olivier Guidry (m. Henriette Bergeron), one of the sons of Claude and Anne Moyse of Manchac, in 1812 claimed nearly 1800 acres of land along the east side of the lower Lafourche, probably most of it in marsh;25 church records suggest that from the 1820s through the 1870s his sons and grandsons occupied land along the bayou between Lockport and Larose and possibly farther downstream.

Again, Jean-Baptiste Guidry (m. 1805 Marguerite Comeau), a son of Joseph with Élizabeth Comeau of St.

James Parish, migrated to Terrebonne Parish ca. 1820, settling near Houma.

By the mid-nineteenth century his sons and grandsons had established homes along Bayou Terrebonne near Bourg and Montegut and possibly beyond into the coastal marshes