Ernest Lagarde

Ernest's grandmother Marianne Céleste Dragon

Ernest was born in New Orleans to Jean Baptist Lagarde a French man and Marie Francesca Athenais Dimitry. Jean was Marie's second husband she was married three times. Alexander Dimitry, Marie's brother played an important role in Ernest's early life. Ernest, Charles Patton Dimitry, John Bull Smith Dimitry, and other family members were educated by Alexander. Marie's daughter Marie Francoise Virginia Ernestine Martainville from her first marriage married her nephew George Pandely. Pandely was Ernest's brother-in-law and first cousin. Pandely was involved in a racial incident known as the Pandely Affair. It was not the first time the Dimitry family encountered racism dealing with their identity.[7][8]

Ernest's grandmother Marianne Céleste Dragon passed as a white person on public records due to their hi social status within the Creole community.[9] People of color were persecuted by strict laws and passing as white was a legal solution. Her marriage records indicate that she was white. Marianne was brought to court in the 1830s by the Forstall sisters Pauline and Josephine because Marianne inherited property from the Forstall family.[10] The property was left to a woman of color named Marianne, not a white woman. The court revealed that she was posing as two different people. They wanted the white woman to return the property. The court sided with Marianne allowing her to keep her property and white status, ruling that the family had been in possession of the right to be categorized as a person not born of Negro extraction.[11]

The second incident involving the Dimitry family included Ernest's sister's husband George Pandely. Pandely was running for a seat on the Board of Assistant Aldermen a position similar to a city councilman. The position was responsible for urban infrastructure in New Orleans including streets and sidewalks. George's opponent Victor Wiltz accused George's grandmother of having African ancestry to discredit his election.[12] He resigned the office seven months later. Pandely took his opponent to court for slander, the incident led to the court case entitled Pandelly v. Wiltz (1854) the case was dismissed in favor of Pandely but no financial reward was awarded. Three similar cases were Cauchoix v. Dupuy (1831), Bollumet v. Phillips (1842), and Dobard et al. v. Nunez (1851) dealing with race. Crowds of spectators flocked outside the court in February to watch the trial some of the Dimitry children attended the proceedings with Alexander Dimitry. Ernest was seventeen years old at the time. The children of the Dimitry family witnessed the horrors of racial oppression and in one instance a member of the Dimitry family was racially insulted and fleed the courtroom with the children. Because of the massive news coverage, Alexander's school went from having fifty students to only five.[13][14][15]

The Creole community significantly suffered cultural oppression which eventually became a normal way of everyday life. The Pandely Affair forced later generations of the Dimitry family to create a new genealogy where they claimed descent from a mythical, Indian princess of the Alibamu tribe named Malanta Talla.[16] The case is a clear example of ethnocide where the African roots were completely forgotten. Luckily, New Orleans records indicate both their grandmother and great-grandmother were not of Indian descent. Their great-grandmother was a former slave named Marie Françoise Chauvin Beaulieu de Montplaisir. She belonged to Mr. Charles Daprémont de La Lande, a member of the Superior Council and she is listed as mulatto.[13]

Ernest endured racial horrors during his teenage years. He was very close to his uncle Alexander Dimitry. Alexander named one of his children Ernest Lagarde Dimitry. By the late 1850s, the family survived the Pandely Affair and Ernest was the Librarian of Mercantile Library Association, New Orleans, Louisiana from 1857 to 1860. Around 1859-1860, he briefly served as deputy clerk for the United States District Court (Eastern District of Louisiana).[17] He also attended classes at the University of Louisiana studying law and medicine. He decided to become a journalist along with his first cousin Charles Patton Dimitry. As early as 1857, he wrote for a New Orleans paper entitled The Magnate. He also started a campaign paper named The Sentinel along with his cousin Charles P. Dimitry. He married Anne Angelique Leonie Laforque on February 11, 1861. Her parents were M. Laforque and Angelique Langlois. They were both French.[7] During the American Civil he joined the Crescent Regiment, under Colonel Marshall J. Smith.[18][1]

He was sent to Richmond, Virginia, and was detailed in the ordnance bureau as a clerk to Colonel Georgas. His uncle Alexander Dimitry, Charles Patton Dimitry, and John Bull Smith Dimitry were also in Richmond. While he was at the ordnance bureau he published a monthly magazine in Richmond under the partnership name of Ernest Lagarde and Co. The editor was W.H. Burwell and the magazine was entitled The Age.[19] While in Richmond he also edited the evening edition of the Richmond Whig. After Richmond surrendered to Union forces Ernest published the Richmond Bulletin along with Charles Patton Dimitry and George C. Weddenburn who was also from New Orleans. His father was an anatomy professor at Louisiana University.[18][4]

At the end of the war, Ernest was elected professor of modern languages at Randolph Macon College then located in Mecklenburg County, VA. Ernest then moved to Petersburgh VA. where he remained for one year editing the Petersburgh Press. Ernest also taught at the Petersburg Female College. He received both a bachelor's and master's degree from Georgetown University between 1866 and 1869. His cousins Charles Patton Dimitry and John Bull Smith Dimitry also received degrees from Georgetown around the same period.[20] In 1869, he was elected chair of modern languages and English literature at Mount Saint Mary College a position he held for the rest of his life. Ernest was honored by Saint Francis Xavier College of New York which conferred him a degree of Doctor of Laws.[5] Ernest had a feud with another faculty member composer Giuseppe Ferrata in the 1890s because he wanted to marry his daughter Alice. Eventually, Ernest consented to the marriage. Luckily Giuseppe became an important composer and pianist. He was also a student of Franz Liszt.[21] Ernest almost became a diplomat like his uncle Alexander Dimitry. He was endorsed as Minister to San Salvador roughly one year prior to his death.[22] Ernest died on October 25, 1914, at 78 years of age. Hundreds of people attended his funeral and the pallbearers at his funeral were eight senior students from the college. His wife was still alive at the time of his death.[18][6]

The thirteen-acre parcel for the Inglewood Estate was purchased on August 31, 1880, by Ernest and Leona Legarde from Mathew and Mary Moran. It was one mile south of Mount St. Mary's University. Ernest built Inglewood and occupied it until his death in 1914. The home was built in the typical Victorian architecture prevalent around the period in Emmitsburg, Maryland. The property features various outbuildings built by Ernest. The library of the estate was used by Ernest to publish the school's first newspaper The Mountain Echo. After his death in 1914, the house was rented to George and Blanch Wilhide and a Baltimore physician Dr. Martin, who used the estate as a summer home. By July 31, 1920, the estate was sold at a public auction for around 4000 dollars. It was obtained by a catholic priest named Rev. John H. Echkenrode who used it as a boarding house in the 1930s. In 1939, the house was purchased by Leona C. Mercer who resided there until 1955. Then the house was sold to Kenneth P. and Margaret Anders who briefly owned it and in 1959 it was purchased by Floyd Lewis who sold it in 1977. During this period it was declared a historical site by the Maryland Historical Trust. The current estate is about seven acres. The address for the estate is 15942 Saint Anthony Rd, Thurmont, MD 21788.[23][24]

• Thompson, Shirley Elizabeth (2009). Exiles at Home The Struggle to Become American in Creole New Orleans. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674023512.
• Tucker, Susan (2016). City of Remembering: A History of Genealogy in New Orleans. Jackson, MI: University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 9781496806222.
• Smith, James Power; Archer, Anderson; Christian, George L.; Mccabe, W. Gordon (October 1917). Southern Historical Society Papers XLII. Richmond, VA: The Southern Historical Society Society.
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• Maxwell, W.J. (1916). General Register of Georgetown University. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.
• Pecquet du Bellet, Louise (1907a). Some Prominent Virginia Families. Vol. 4. Lynchburg,VA: J. P. Bell Company (Incorporated).
• Pecquet du Bellet, Louise (1907). Some Prominent Virginia Families. Vol. 3. Lynchburg,VA: J. P. Bell Company Incorporated.
• Herbermann, Chase; Cahalan, John E.; Wynne, John J. (1897). The College of St. Francis Xavier A Memorial and a Retrospect, 1847-1897. New York, NY: The Meany Printing Company.
• Eanes, Edward (1998). Giuseppe Ferrata Èmigrè Pianist and Composer. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press.
• Patterson, Homer L. (1915). "Obituary Dr. Ernest Lagarde". The American Educational Review. Vol. 36, no. 2. New York, NY: American Educational Company.
• Galt, Sterling (October 30, 1914). "Professor Ernest Lagarde" (PDF). The Weekly Chronicle, Vol. 36, No. 28 (Emmitsburg, Maryland), Page 1. The Emmitsburg Chronicle and The Carroll Record. p. 1, col. 3. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 13, 2023. Retrieved August 13, 2023.
• Bancroft, Fredrick (1898). Portrait and Biographical Record of the Sixth Congressional District, Maryland. New York,NY: Chapman Publishing Company.
• Walker, James; Doherty, Francis B (1898). "Authentic Sketches of Living Authors Ernest Lagarde". The Catholic World a Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science. Vol. 66, no. 393. New York, NY: The Office of the Catholic World New York.
• Maddox, Joseph H. (August 4, 1853). "Evidence of Lineage The Pandelly Affair". New Orleans Daily Crescent, Volume 6, No. 129. New Orleans, Louisiana: New Orleans Daily Crescent. p. 3, col. 2. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 25, 2023. Retrieved August 25, 2023. The Pandelly Affair
• Munday, George W. (1860). The Court of Claims submitted to the House of Representatives During the First Session of the Thirty-Sixth Congress. Washington D.C.: Thomas H. Ford Printer.