“We are the Pelican Girls. In 1704, Fort Louis at Twenty-Seven Mile Bluff was full of young, French soldiers who were harassing the native women. Bienville wrote to the king asked him to send nice young women to marry the men. They scoured the orphanages and found 23 girls willing to get on a boat named the Pelican. The girls were 14 to 19 years old and came with little boxes, called caskets, filled with everything they owned. The arrived on Massacre Island, later renamed Dauphin Island, in later summer 1704. Most were married in less than two months. There were more girls that followed and they were called “casket girls”.
The organizer of the new Massacre Island Secret Society came up with the idea of story groups and we started the Pelican Girls. We landed on Massacre Island last weekend, just like the originals. This weekend we arrived in Mobile.”
Where can we see the Pelican girls?
They are in the Murder Island Secret Society on Dauphin Island and will be at Joe Cain.
My wife descends from Marie Gabrielle Savary and Jean Baptiste Saucier. She also descends from Margurerite Gaillard a daughter of the King who was Jean Sauciers mother. He was born in Canada.
How can I find out more of the history of these brides? The names of them?
I always wondered where my name came from nobody ever really told me for sure. I didn’t know about the mail order brides the first ones ever.
I am a decendant of Elizabeth Deshayes. Has any research been done to discover the ancestry of these girls? Their parents? Where they came from?
I’m working with two old radio colleagues on a new podcast about little known Mobile history and it wouldn’t be right if we didn’t have an episode telling the Pelican Girls story. We were wanting to see if there two or three descendants with an interesting story to tell who might like to tell their story on the show. Thank you!
I’m a descendant of the pelican girl era.