Notable New Orleanians: A Tricentennial Tribute

De Armas, Notarial License.
GEORGE H. AND KATHERINE M. DAVIS COLLECTION,
LOUISIANA RESEARCH COLLECTION, TULANE UNIVERSITY.
two Civil Codes; and the interesting Tratato de Clausulas Instrumentals, which would have provided
the formularies for Spanish wills, marriage contracts, sales, and mortgages.
Christoval’s oldest son Miguel (1783-1823),
the notary Michel de Armas (volumes 1809-1823)
became the first important city notary of New
Orleans. His acts record the activities of the city
corporation in dividing the “Commons” along
what is now Canal St and Esplanade, along with
dozens of sales of the lots to individuals. Michel
also passed the 1810 act of sale to the city of their
plantation by Mr. and Mrs. Claude Tremé. This
transaction precipitated the city’s creation of the
Faubourg Tremé and its sales of land there, Tremé
being the only faubourg not created by private
landowners. Among hundreds of clients, Michel
counted second-generation members of the Enoul
Livaudais family, Edward Livingston, Louise de la
Ronde Castillon (widow of Andres Almonester
and mother of Madame de Pontalba) and Bernard
Marigny, many of whose early sales of land in his
faubourg appear in Michel de Armas’ volumes.
An avid book collector and student of civil law,
Michel assembled one of the most important
libraries of Early American Louisiana. His library,
which he kept in his home and office in the 400 block of Chartres Street, consisted of some 3500 volumes
in French, English, Spanish, Latin, Italian and Greek. As S. Reeves has reported, “Because of his
notarial and legal practice, about a third of the library consisted of legal books such as civil law treatises,
digests, and court reports,” along with the world’s great classical works, natural histories, and
literature in English and French. 2 Michel de Armas died sadly in 1823 at forty, leaving a wife
(Gertrude Dubreuil) and four minor children. The inventory of his estate, including his property, furniture,
books and papers, took a notarial team and family members three months to compile. 3
Michel’s brother Felix Nicolas de Armas (1796-1839) assumed Michel’s notarial and city notary
commission in 1823, practicing as a notary until his death at forty-three, another short life. His acts
reflect the continuing activities of the city to complete its sales and quittances in Tremé, along with
almost innumerable Creole family activities and succession sales—Destrehan, Foucher, Freret,
Marigny, the Rivardes of Bayou St. John, and so on. Felix de Armas became the family notary for
Bernard Marigny, his early 1834 acts recording the sales of land in Mandeville after Marigny’s great
auction of lots there after assembling the tracts of land that would form the town.
Their youngest brother Octave de Armas (1804- ca. 1889) seems to have made up for the short
lives of his siblings, practicing as a notary from 1828 until 1889 (a record) and completing 108 volumes.
His vast works cannot be encapsulated, except to note that Octave became the notary for the
Catholic Church and Archdiocese of New Orleans, along with several white Protestant and African-
American religious groups. Much of the growth of local churches shows in his record of building
contracts, mortgages, sales, and acts of incorporation. He was never a city notary, however.
In the third generation, Felix, Jr., and Charles A. de Armas (1824-ca. 1889), sons of Felix; and
Arthur de Armas (1850-1903, son of Michel, appear in local records, Felix, serving only briefly as a
notary, and Charles’ notarial volumes covering only the period 1833 to 1836. Notarial practice was
not his calling, as Charles de Armas was one of the great artists of New Orleans history.
With some 300 Plan Book drawings and surveys and thousands of sketches, Charles Arthur de
Armas found his calling in the public auction system of civil law New Orleans. A gifted artist, he
drew and painted a vast body of mid-19th Century water color drawings for hanging in the auction
NOTABLE NEW ORLEANIANS: A Tricentennial Tribute
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