Notable New Orleanians: A Tricentennial Tribute

codes. Carondelet’s codes have spurred an unending controversy over whether the “French”
Quarter is really, architecturally speaking, a “Spanish” Quarter.
1 Sally K. Reeves, “The St. Domingue Refugees in New Orleans” Louisiana Historical Society, Creole Family Symposium, 2001.
2 Gilbert C. Din and John E. Harkins, The New Orleans Cabildo: Colonial Louisiana’s First City Government 1769-1803 (Baton
Rouge: LSU Press, 1996), 242.
C LAUDE-JOSEPH F AVROT (1701-1777)
AND H IS D ESCENDANTS
Charles A. Favrot.
LOUISIANA RESEARCH COLLECTION, LOUISIANA IMAGE
COLLECTION NO. 1081, TULANE UNIVERSITY
The Favrot family has made its mark in each of the three centuries of New Orleans history,
tracing its Louisiana origin to the arrival of family progenitor Claude-Joseph Favrot (1701-1777)
from France around 1732. During a long military career, Favrot served at several military posts and
was wounded at the Battle of Ackia in the French campaign against the Chickasaw Indians in 1736,
for which he was awarded the prestigious Croix de St. Louis. In 1735, he married Louise-Elizabeth
Bruslé of New Orleans. Their two children left many living descendants in Louisiana, including
Pierre Joseph Favrot (1749-1824), who had his own long and distinguished career in the Louisiana
military, serving both France and Spain. In 1779, he participated in Governor Bernardo Galvez’s
expedition against the British forts at Manchac and Baton Rouge, where he fired the first shot on
the Baton Rouge fort. He owned a home on Royal St. in New Orleans, experiencing considerable
financial losses in its devastating fires of 1788 and 1794. In November 1814, Pierre Joseph (“Don
Pedro”) wrote an incisive (although inaccurate) analysis to Governor William Claiborne on defense
strategy regarding the anticipated British attack that resulted the following January in the Battle of
New Orleans. He was present in the Place D’Armes (Jackson Square) on Jan. 22, 1815 for Andrew
Jackson’s address to the people after their triumphant victory at Chalmette. Pierre Joseph spent his
later years on his plantation in West Baton Rouge, where he died in 1824.
For the next two generations, the Favrot family was firmly rooted in Baton Rouge, until two of
Don Pedro’s great-grandsons returned to New Orleans. In 1888, Henri Louis Favrot (1864-1918)
began, to study law at Tulane, and remained in the city for the rest of his life. A Spanish-American
War veteran, he had a distinguished career as a lawyer, state senator, and author, and is considered
the “Father of the Boy Scout movement in Louisiana.” He was an authority on drainage, road, and
land bond law, on which he wrote several treatises. He served for fourteen years as a state senator,
was a student of Louisiana history, and collected many documents on the history of the state. He
became an ardent supporter of the Louisiana Historical Society, authoring a pair of articles on the
West Florida Revolution for the Society’s early series Publications. His son, Henry Richmond Favrot,
was a lifelong New Orleanian, also a member of the LHS and of numerous genealogical societies.
Charles Allen Favrot (1866-1939), younger brother of Henri Louis, came to New Orleans in
1885 after being invited to work as an apprentice to his future father-in-law, noted New Orleans
architect James Freret. His thirty-nine year partnership (Favrot and Livaudais) with architect Louis
A. Livaudais produced several courthouses, the Hibernia National Bank building, the Municipal
Auditorium, the Cotton Exchange, and many fine uptown and Garden District residences. Active
in civic affairs, he influenced the creation of the New Orleans City Planning and Zoning
Commission, on which he subsequently served as chairman. For this and other work as a member
of the Tulane University Board of Administrators, and for founding the Bureau of Governmental
Research, he received the Times-Picayune Loving Cup in 1935. He authored “An Historical Sketch
on the Construction of the Custom House of the City of New Orleans,” published in the Louisiana
Historical Quarterly. His son Henri Mortimer “Morty” Favrot (1894-1953), son of Charles, served
as a young man with the Washington Artillery at the time of Pancho Villa trouble in Mexico in
NOTABLE NEW ORLEANIANS: A Tricentennial Tribute
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