Francisco Perrotin: 1866 - 1899

Francisco Perrotin

1866 - 1899

“The first cases (of yellow fever) in Orizaba were all of persons living in a small radius, close around the railroad station. In the next epidemic they spread out a few hundred yards farther and took in another block of houses a little farther off from the railroad station as a center, and it may be that in course of time they will establish themselves permanently a little farther off from the railroad station. But at any rate that point, at Orizaba, is the highest point where I found the Stegomyia mosquito permanently breeding in the country of Mexico.” 1   


My great-grandfather, Francisco Perrotín (seen here with his wife, Maria Amaro, their son, Francisco, and infant daughter, Catalina), was one of those “first cases.” A mechanic at the railroad station in Orizaba, in Veracruz state, Mexico, he was likely bitten by an infected Stegomyia fasciata mosquito as he worked on one of the engines there. He was pronounced dead at his home on San Cristóbal Street in Orizaba on Saturday, November 11, 1899, at 6:00 p.m., by Dr. Rafael Labardini, the Perrotin (and later Huesca) family physician. He was 32 years old.


A search for answers

The initial outbreak in Orizaba stunned scientists, as the offending species was not native to a city that rose 4,500 feet above sea level. Scientists and medical experts on the disease quickly descended on the area and traced the source of the disease to the mosquitoes breeding in the waste water from the Montezuma brewery, across the street from the railroad station in the port city of Veracruz. Mosquitoes were believed to have been transported inadvertently on the trains to Mexico City and were released when the cars were unloaded at Orizaba, accounting for the first wave of cases at and around that unfortunate station. 2

Yellow fever was the scourge of the late nineteenth century along the east coast of Mexico, the Caribbean, and several port cities in the United States and Central and South America. After a 3 – 6 day incubation period, victims suffered fever, headache, chills, jaundice and vomiting. Most people survived this first stage, while a fifth of those afflicted were doomed to die in misery, experiencing multiple organ failure, internal bleeding, delirium and coma. The vomit, which took on the consistency of coffee grounds (when it was in fact coagulated blood), gave the condition its Mexican name of El Vómito Negro – the Black Vomit. It might as well have been the plague for the terror it wrought in those days.


Although the modern-day world has seen a significant decrease in cases of yellow fever thanks to the wonders of vaccines, there still is no cure for it. Modern-day treatment for the disease includes offering the patient plenty of rest and fluids, blood transfusions for severe bleeding, and dialysis in the event of kidney failure.


From pot-maker to boiler-maker
If Francisco Perrotin’s demise was dramatic, so too, were his beginnings. We can trace the Perrotin family back to Melle, an ancient rural town in the region of Deux-Sevres in western France. It was rumored that his grandfather, Jacques Perrotin, had served with the Napoleonic Army. Francisco's father, Charles Jacques François, however, had refused to perform his obligatory military service and instead left Melle for America with his brother Romain Paul. With enough money for only one ship’s passage, Charles Jacques François smuggled the younger Romain Paul in a mattress onto the “good ship” Louis XIV at Le Havre, France, arriving at New Orleans, Louisiana, on November 29, 1843. Safe from capture for draft evasion, the brothers shortened their names to François and Paul.


The sons of a long line of chaudronniers / poeliers, or oven and pot makers, François and Paul were hard-working, ambitious, and creative. The brothers arrived in America during the last stages of the Industrial Revolution.  They became entrepreneurs, building stoves and ovens and figuring out how to use their metal-working skills in new ways. They made enough money to travel to Cuba, where they stayed for a time, and returned briefly to France to settle the affairs of their newly-deceased father before returning to the United States. In 1860, François married Catherine Grady, a young Irish seamstress who had sailed to America with her own sister some years earlier. The couple lived in Shreveport for a time before moving to New Orleans and later, it was said, to Niagara Falls before heading to Orizaba to make their mark on the flourishing railroad enterprise being promoted between Veracruz and Mexico City.

The Niagara Falls connection
And here is where the mystery of Francisco’s birth begins.

Family legend has it that my great-grandfather, Francisco Perrotin, was born in Niagara Falls, but no one can say for sure. His sister, Maria Dolores, was born on 15 September 1866, in Orizaba, Mexico. If indeed he was born in Niagara Falls, it could have been between 1865 and as late as March 1866, though the later he was born in this period, the more likely it would have been in Orizaba. Maria Dolores could have been born prematurely; hence, it would be possible that Francisco could be born in the same year as his sister and their mother become pregnant right afterwards. If he was born in Orizaba, it probably would have been after the first part of 1867.


Of the five vital records that mention Francisco, four place his birth sometime between 1 April 1865 and 31 May 1867. Only one, his death record, is way out of range. This would be understandable, as the informant, Porfirio Amaro (Francisco’s brother-in-law), would be more likely to have estimated his age.


1.  Marriage between Francisco Perrotin and Maria Amaro
     Date:  3 March 1889
     Age noted on record:    22
     Possible Birthdate Parameters:
     From March 4, 1867 on


2.  Birth Record of Francisco Perrotin, Jr (Francisco's son)
     Date:   31 March 1890
     Age noted on record:   24 
     Possible Birthdate Parameters: 
     Between March 4 and 31, 1867


3.  Death Record of Francois Perrotin
     Date:  26 May 1891
     Age noted on record:   24
     Possible Birthdate Parameters:
     Between 27 May 1866 and 26 May 1867


4.  Birth Record of Catalina Perrotin
     Date:  31 May 1893
     Age noted on record:  26
     Possible Birthdate Parameters: 
     Between March 4 and 31, 1867


5.  Death Record of Francisco Perrotin
     Date:  11 November 1899
     Age noted on record:  29
     Possible Birthdate Parameters: 
     Between 13 November 1869 and 12 November 1870


As the informant for his father, Francois’ death record, Francisco should be a credible source.  However, his age does not line up with the other records. I think it is possible that with all the grief he was going through and all the affairs he had to handle, he forgot that he had just turned 25 and stated erroneously that he was 24.


By removing Francois’ and Francisco’s death records, we narrow down the birthdate parameters and can conclude that Francisco probably was conceived almost immediately after his sister’s birth and would have been born prematurely in Orizaba, between March 4 and 31, 1867.   It also would mean that he was not 29 years old but 32 when he died of the horrendous Yellow Fever, or “Black Vomit” as it was then called, on November 12, 1899.


As for Niagara Falls, could a third child have been born there – perhaps before Maria Dolores and Francisco? Perhaps it was a boy – also named after his father but more likely “Frank” or “Francois.” This would seem plausible. Part of the legend surrounding my great-grandfather was that he was named “Frank” Perrotin. Could there have been a Frank Perrotin who died young, say, before Francisco was born in 1867? This, too, would be reasonable, as Francois and Catherine had some six years from the time of their marriage in 1860 to the time of Maria Dolores’ birth in 1866, to conceive other children during that time, though these conceptions could have resulted in miscarriages, stillborns, or childhood deaths. It still makes sense to think that Catherine and Francois left Louisiana shortly after their marriage, as it would not have been a desirable place to raise a family on the eve of the Civil War. Niagara Falls, by contrast, was home to a number of Frenchmen, refugees from the politics down south.


Though they may have stayed there for a few years and would been closer to Francois’ brother Paul and his own family (who lived in New Jersey at the time?), I think it became apparent at some point that Niagara Falls was not where Francois and Catherine wanted to spend the rest of their lives.


A new venture
Shortly after arriving in Orizaba, Catherine gave birth to two children within a short period of time. María Dolores was born on September 15, 1866, and (following the theory mentioned above) Francisco followed a scant six months later – a surprise if ever there was one. Though premature, the child was buoyed by the high tropical climate, where the air was pure and everything flourished, and he grew into a strong young man who followed in his father’s footsteps as an engine mechanic.  

Thanks to Francois' keen instinct for opportunity, the family was financially comfortable and well-travelled.  Maria Dolores married a British train driver, Timothy Bennett, at a celebrated wedding at the Orizaba train station in 1885, and Francisco married Maria Amaro in 1889.  He was 22; Maria was 18.  The couple welcomed their first-born son, Felix Francisco “Pancho”, a year later. Four other children followed: Juan, Catalina (my grandmother, or Abuelita, who was named for her own Irish grandmother, Catherine), Hugo Ramiro, and Blanca Luz.


The young family lived in a house on the "with the letter 'I' on the second street of San Cristobal" in Orizaba. Francisco and Maria (who presumably was multilingual like her husband) spoke Spanish, French, and English at home, and their children grew up speaking all three languages fluently and gliding easily from one to another, much as their parents had done before them.


François died of meningitis in 1891 at his home on the station property. A year later, Francisco and María’s infant son, Juan died of the same disease while still in his infancy. Shortly afterward, María Dolores and Timothy left for England with their own two young children. The grief of losing her father, coupled with the fear that the dreaded meningitis might affect her own babies, must have shaped María Dolores’ decision to embark on such a major change, although it is also probable that Timothy was ready to return home to his own family and origins.



Catherine, also grieving for her beloved François and missing her daughter, eventually decided to join her and her son-in-law in England. Though she hated to leave her son and grandchildren, Pancho and Catalina, she told herself that Francisco was going to be all right with his young and growing family, while Dolores, in a new land, needed her more. She left for England in 1895.  As she bade Francisco farewell, she may have wondered whether she would live long enough to see him and his family again.  Little did she know that she would outlive her son by two years.   


When Francisco died in 1899, Pancho was 9; Catalina was 6; Hugo was 4; and Blanca Luz (later called Blanca) was a month shy of her first birthday. Juan had died seven years before of meningitis.  

Of the five children, Juan was the shortest-lived, succumbing at the age of nine months, while Catalina (pictured below, left) would live the longest, dying in 1998 at the age of 105.

Pancho grew up to become a mechanic in the new family tradition. He married a woman named Ester, and they had two daughters, Catalina and Celia. He died in 1921 or 1922, probably in Veracruz state. My father, Gilbert Huesca, recalled that his Uncle Pancho had very Irish looks - a stocky build, red hair and fair skin. He also remembered that his Uncle owned a most unusual cast iron stove, untypical of the stoves in Orizaba at the time. Did Pancho build it? Or did his grandfather, Francois, the poelier?

Hugo became the family correspondent with his grandmother Catherine, his Aunt Dolores Bennett and his cousins overseas. When his letters stopped suddenly following a major earthquake in Mexico, the Bennett family assumed that he and all the rest of the Perrotin family in Mexico had been killed in the earthquake. (Contact between the two branches of the family resumed a century later, when Don and Jennie Murray of Highnam, England, contacted me and began correspondence, in June 2006.) Other than this, I do not know whether Hugo ever married or at what ever became of him.

The three Perrotin women had wavy dark brown hair and lively brown eyes, and they possessed an inner strength that was as appealing as their beauty. Blanca Perrotin was about 5’6”, slender, regal, proud, strong-willed, and beautiful. As a young woman, she was the image of her grandmother, Catherine, and perhaps because of this, she felt extremely close to her all her life, though Catherine had left Orizaba three years before Blanca was born. She was married briefly, but when she found out that her husband had a temper and was known to sleep with a dagger strapped to his calf, she either separated from or divorced him immediately and resolved never to marry again. Perhaps because of this and because she never had the family she had wanted, she became rather bitter. Her stern personality was quite a contrast to her sister Catalina’s, who was a happy person and surrounded by a loving husband and 11 children.

Still, Blanca (shown at right), Catalina, and their mother, Maria (Amaro) Perrotin, were very close. Aunt Blanca and her mother lived together all their lives, always next door or very near Catalina, first in Orizaba , Veracruz , and later in Mexico City. Aunt Blanca was the leading authority on the Perrotin family. When I was 9 years old, our family moved from Chicago to Mexico City. My great-aunt Blanca, my Abuelita (grandmother) Catalina, and my mother became fast friends, perhaps because of their shared Irish heritage, and they spent hours poring over family pictures and sharing family stories. Although she did not need to work, Aunt Blanca was an industrious woman and worked with her nephews (my paternal uncles) in their embroidery businesses. She died in about 1980 or so, roughly at about 88 years of age.

María Amaro Perrotin, Francisco’s widow (shown above), would live to age 98. A beautiful and attractive woman, she would marry again, twice in fact, after Francisco’s death, to foreigners; both of whom died of natural causes. She ran a bakery or café in Orizaba, helped by her daughters.  It was there that Catalina met the young Cayetano Huesca, who she would soon marry.

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1  Dr. L.O. Howard, chief of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Entomology, reporting on the pattern of the initial outbreak of yellow fever in Orizaba during 1899, Transactions of the Second International Sanitary Convention of the American Republics, The Willard Hotel, Washington, D.C., October 9 – 14, 1905
 
2  Dr. Narciso del Río, one of Mexico’s top experts on yellow fever and a member of the Consejo Superior de Salubridad Pública.  Public Health and Reports, Volume 28, by the American Public Health Association, 1903


Post Script:  Revenge

My husband and I have been sick since last week with nasty colds - it is very damp here in California right now - and we’ve spent a considerable amount of time resting and reading. Last Saturday, I read up on yellow fever (not the best topic to tackle when you’re sick, by the way) and learned a considerable amount about Stegomyia fasciata, the species of mosquito that became infected and went on to spread the disease throughout coastal Mexico and beyond. It must have really made an impression on me, because when I went to bed that night, I had vivid dreams about mosquitoes and yellow fever.


Sometime during the middle of the night, our eldest son tapped on our door to ask where the bug spray was. It seemed that there was what he called a "gi-normous bug” flying around outside our bedroom, on the upstairs landing. Our son tapped again on our door a few minutes later and said he couldn't find the bug spray and was going to leave the bug there.


Now, normally one of us (not me, mind you) would have gotten up at that point to take care of the dreaded intruder, but my husband and I were too sick and too out of it to budge. Still, I knew what was out there and spent the rest of the night in restless sleep, terrified of being bitten by that horrible mosquito and getting West Nile Virus or some other blood-borne disease. Funny how one's mind can take off like that! When I awoke in the morning, I rolled up a nearby magazine, gingerly opened the door, and held my breath as I looked about the landing. There it was, just above the bathroom door.


"Damn you!" I yelled at him as I swatted it violently. I startled myself with my own reaction and then realized I had killed it not just for myself but for Francisco and the family he left behind. Looking at its flat, lifeless form on the magazine, it seemed ironic to think that such a small insect could have inflicted so much misery.


I went back to bed and slept quite well.




Did you know Francisco or Maria (Amaro) Perrotin or their children, or are you a member of the Perrotin, O'Grady, Amaro, or Huesca families?  If so, share your memories and comments below.

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