Jack's Uncle Louis

John de Saulles had one other uncle – his father's younger brother Louis de Saulles Jr. He was the third of three boys, the rest being daughters, born in New Orleans in 1845/1846. He was about 8 years old when his father Louis de Saulles Sr. decided to quit the cotton export business at the peak of the “boom.” The family moved to New York and stayed for a few years, then relocated to a villa in the south of France.

Louis Jr. was about 13 years old and living in France when the Civil War broke out. His older brother Henry signed up for the Confederacy, and so did his second brother Arthur (who is John de Saulles's father.) Henry was killed in action, Arthur survived the war, but all the while Louis Jr. stayed safely in France with his parents and his sisters. I don't know if he felt frustrated or glad to be left behind, or if he would have lied about his age to enlist if he weren't living in France. I don't know if he admired his “war hero” brothers or if he condemned the foolishness of fighting for the losing side.

What I do know is that Louis Jr. returned to the U.S. after the Civil War ended, leaving behind his parents and sisters in the south of France. He married Miss Carrie Manwaring, daughter of Simon Manwaring, in New York City on January 4, 1870 (certificate #1688, LDS microfilm #1544275)

They lived for a while in Atlanta, Georgia where their only son Louis Manwaring de Saulles was born on Feb. 8, 1874. Then Louis Jr. followed in his brother Arthur's footsteps, also moving to Pennsylvania around the turn of the century to work in the developing steel, coal, and coke industry. His detailed obituary appears in Coal Age, a mining and engineering journal, that pays tribute to Louis for being part of a group that opened one of the first coke plants in Fayette county.

He is in the 1900 federal census of Uniontown, Pennsylvania living comfortably on E. Church Street with his wife Caroline, his son Louis M., and his two daughters Ella and Odele, ages 22 and 18. His occupation is listed as superintendent of the coke works, and his 25 year old son works as a bookkeeper.

Things would fall apart for Louis in the next few years. His daughter Odele died in 1904, his wife Carrie died in 1905, and he became mired in a lawsuit starting in 1906 to prevent the Percy Mining Company from ravaging his private property to excavate coal deposits. He won an injunction from the courts, but I assume it was a hollow victory without his wife to share it.

The 1910 federal census finds Louis de Saulles living alone, a broken man at the age of 64, renting a room in a home on Pittsburgh Street in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. He lived long enough to see Jack marry Blanca Errazuriz, but I don't know if they ever met.  

Louis deSaulles committed suicide on September 6, 1915 by shooting himself in the head.