The following comes from the book Kith and
Kin, written by Kate McLemore in 1948 and published by The Paragon Press in
Montgomery, Alabama.
Eliza B. Haskell was born on April 22, 1814 and died January 12, 1852, but the book does not specify where. It's very possible that some of the records on her might have been lost when the cities of
Columbia and Orangeburg in
South Carolina burned down during the Civil War. The book details very little about
Haskell and Alfred Raoul, although it does include a letter written by Alfred in the aftermath of General William Tecumseh Sherman's burning of
Columbia in 1865. Is Eliza
Haskell related to Confederate Col. Alexander
Cheves Haskell?
The father of Alfred Raoul was indeed Dr. John Louis Raoul, or in full, Jean Rose Marie Desire' Raoul de ChampManoir. Raoul de ChampManoir was born in 1783 in
Dinan, France and was a marquis during Napoleon's reign. His family hailed from
Burgundy. Dr. Raoul studied medicine under Napoleon's physician
Phillippe Pinel and developed a close friendship with Napoleon's nephew, the
Duc D'Enghein. Raoul penned a set of memoirs after the duke's assassination and
Napoleon was so incensed by them that he imprisoned Raoul, but his life was spared by the intercession of his brother. However, he was exiled from the country in 1809 and boarded a vessel that eventually sunk off the Atlantic coast. He clung to the wreckage for 24 hours before being rescued by a schooner that brought him to
Charleston. The day afterward he came to aid an elderly man who was thrown out of a carriage by his horses. Raoul set the man's leg in place and ended up being paid to continue attending upon the man, which enables him to start up his own practice in
Charleston. He married the widow of John Paul
Thompson, Caroline Eliza
Theus in
Belleville plantation,
South Carolina sometime in 1812, probably during that summer. Raoul would die of typhoid fever on August 17, 1827.
Raoul and his wife Caroline had six children, including Alfred, who was the second to be born. Caroline was born in
Charleston on January 1, 1786 and died in
Columbia, S.C. on January 23, 1839. Both were buried in Columbia's Trinity
Churchyard.
I hope that helps. Speaking of the Raouls, would you or anyone else happen to know of
Sadie Cromlin Raoul is the granddaughter of Thomas
Cooper Raoul, the son of Alfred's brother
Frederic Sebastian Raoul?
Ian Beverly