![Paul Tulane engraved portrait](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Paul_Tulane_engraved_portrait.jpg)
Paul Tulane (May 10, 1801 – March 27, 1887) was an American philanthropist and donor. Born in Sherry Valley, near
Princeton
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...
,
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
to a prominent French merchant family, Tulane made his fortune from a retail and dry goods company. Later, he became one of
' most prominent pro-
confederate
Confederacy or confederate may refer to:
States or communities
* Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities
* Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...
philanthropists and the namesake of
Tulane University
Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private university, private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into ...
, formerly known as the Medical College of Louisiana.
He was the son of Pierre Louis Mathurin Tulasne deformed in "Tulane" (July 16, 1767, Rillé, Indre et Loire, France - Sherry Valley, Princeton, July 21, 1847), commercial trader in French luxury manufactured goods between France (
Nantes
Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabita ...
) and his establishment in St Marc (St Domingue). Louis Tulane, the father traded mainly with
Pierre Dubern
Pierre is a masculine given name. It is a French form of the name Peter. Pierre originally meant "rock" or "stone" in French (derived from the Greek word πέτρος (''petros'') meaning "stone, rock", via Latin "petra"). It is a translation ...
(1735 - 1810), manufacturer in Nantes, France (source: see Wikipedia in French, come in Pierre Dubern and the book by Serge Chassagne, a great French historian), who exploited a factory of Indians and a merchant of Paris Jean François Mermillod (see source on election in paris). He never had any establishment of slaves in Santo Domingo, as implied by demagogic writings. Tulane is not on the list of landowners, in St Domingue, compensated, between 1828 and 1834 (6 volumes), by the French government, in execution of the law of April 30, 1826. After the revolt of 1791, in Santo Domingo, Louis Tulane went into exile in Cherry Valley in 1792, near Princeton, took American nationality in 1793 and bought a 500-acre farm in 1799 from an exiled Belgian, Peter Anthony Malou (1753 - 1827), patriot and priest. This farm remained in the family until 1847, then sold in circa 1870 (see History of Burlington and Mercer Counties, New Jersey, 1883 and History of Princeton and its institutions). The house built by Father Louis Tulane was destroyed.
Tulane, a devout Catholic, baptized in
Rillé by his uncle, Pierre Tulasne (1742, Rillé - 1811, Cuon, near Baugé) parish priest of Baugé, refractory priest and deported to Spain by the
French revolutionaries
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
, registered the birth from his arrival in Princeton, of his eldest son Louis Stephen Tulane (August 4, 1795, Princeton - October 2, 1871, Wetumpka, Alabama) in the only authorized Catholic parish, of the 13 American colonies (predominantly Anglican), the parish of St Joseph of Philadelphia. now "
Old St Joseph's".
General de Rochambeau and the
Marquis de La Fayette
Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette (6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), known in the United States as Lafayette (, ), was a French aristocrat, freemason and military officer who fought in the American Revolutio ...
came to pray there in 1782, during American independence.
It says on page 11 (source: records of the St Joseph's church): Tulane, the 17th, by Rev. G. Lagrange, at Princeton, N.J. Louis Stephen, born Aug. 4, 1795, of Louis Mathurin Tulane, and his wife Mary Jeanne Velligus; sponsors: Stephen Lebreton and Alexandra Constance Angot.
Since, the distance being probably too great between Philadelphia and Sherry Valley, for the services, Louis Tulane would have taken the Presbyterian religion.
Louis Tulasne (Tulane), Paul's father is the son Gatien Tulasne-Jaminière (1739, Rillé – 1783, Rillé) seneschal of the lands and seigniories of Gizeux, royal notary in Baugé, resident in Rillé (April 22, 1759 – August 18, 1783 ), bailiff of the barony of Rillé and the brother of Gatien Pierre Urbain Tulasne-Jaminière (1764, Rillé - 1823, Rillé), royal notary in Baugé resident in Rillé (3 October 1784 – 9 July 1816), of which there are descendants. by the women, who still own the domain of "La Jaminière". The notary office in Rillé still exists " 1 rue de l'Eglise ". It is a beautiful house. The great-grandfather of Paul Tulane is Pierre Urbain Tulasne (1709, Hommes, Indre et Loire – 1749, Rillé), merchant, master butcher in Rillé.
On February 25, 1815, before a notary in Château-du-Loir (Indre et Loire, France), the two brothers divided the inheritance of their father Gatien, who died in 1783. The notary Gatien Pierre Urbain bought his brother Louis his share of land and farms, named "La Valinière farm", still in the family, for 5,925 Francs at the time, on Rillé (transcription of transfer act, February 25, 1815, archives of the department of Indre et Loire, France).
Paul Tulane, was educated in private schools, including Somerville Academy in New Jersey, until the age of fifteen. He worked briefly in a store in Princeton and then spent from 1818 three years traveling the southern United States with his first cousin Paul Tulasne-Jaminière (1795, Rillé – 1830, Tours), lawyer, son of notary Gatien Pierre Urbain Tulasne-Jaminière and his older brother Louis Stephen Tulane. Louis Tulane returned several times to France. On June 5, 1835, during a travel from Le Havre to New York, on the ship "Albany", he was designated: age 65, merchant, United States (source : document district of New York, Port of New York)
In 1840, Paul with his father, visited their native town, Rillé, and the commercial ports of France, and made his observations on the decadence of the foreign trade of the ports of
Bordeaux
Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectur ...
(Louis the father had already left Bordeaux in 1790 - see source "Revue Touraine Généalogie") and Nantes because of the flight of slaves to the West Indies, convinced him that a similar fate would befall New Orleans in the event of emancipation in the United States.
It was from his two tours that Tulane developed a keen interest in New Orleans and in the economic, cultural, social and educational development of this state of New Orleans, devoting his fortune to it, which was already a quarter million dollars in 1840 (see source: office of Education: 1898)
![Paul Tulane (Tulane University) Tomb](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/Paul_Tulane_%28Tulane_University%29_Tomb.jpg)
In 1822, he established Paul Tulane and Co. in New Orleans, a retail and wholesale dry goods and clothing business. Later, he invested in real estate in both New Orleans and New Jersey. By 1828, he had amassed a fortune of over $150,000. His business operated for nearly 40 years. He retired with a large fortune in 1857. About this time he bought the
John P. Stockton
John Potter Stockton (August 2, 1826January 22, 1900) was a New Jersey politician who served in the United States Senate as a Democratic Party (United States), Democrat. He was New Jersey Attorney General for twenty years (1877 to 1897), and ser ...
home in Princeton, now known as the
Walter Lowrie House, where he subsequently resided. During the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
, Tulane was the largest donor in New Orleans to the
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States or the Confederacy was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confeder ...
, but the historian
John D. Winters in his ''Civil War in Louisiana'' (1963) does not give the amount Tulane contributed.
For many years he gave liberally to the charitable institutions and
Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
churches of Princeton and New Orleans. He donated $300 (1874 value) to erect a Confederate monument in
Greenwood Cemetery, New Orleans. Tulane has been described as one of the most generous contributors to the Ladies' Benevolent Association of Louisiana; an institution dedicated to producing Confederate monuments.
[Confederated Southern Memorial Association. 1904. History of the Confederated Memorial Associations of the South. Page 171] In 1882, he donated $363,000 (1882 value) to improve higher education in the city of New Orleans. Tulane's Act of Donation ultimately resulted in the renaming of the University of Louisiana (founded as the Medical College of Louisiana) to
The Tulane University of Louisiana, in his honor and turning the once public institution into a private one, the only such instance in United States history.
He died near Princeton and is buried in the
Princeton Cemetery
Princeton Cemetery is located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. It is owned by the Nassau Presbyterian Church. John F. Hageman in his 1878 history of Princeton, New Jersey refers to the cemetery as "The Westminster Abbey of the United State ...
on Witherspoon Street. In his honor, he has several streets named after him throughout the country, including Tulane Street in Princeton, and Tulane Avenue in New Orleans.
References
Sources
*''Collier's New Encyclopedia'' (1921).
*"Paul Tulane," ''A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography'', Vol. 2 (1988), pp. 799–800.
*John P. Dyer, ''Tulane: The Biography of a University, 1834-1965'' (1966).
*John Smith Kendall, "Paul Tulane," ''Louisiana Historical Quarterly'', XX (1937).
*Dumas Malone, ed., ''Dictionary of American Biography''.
*Memorial cyclopedia of New Jersey (volume 4), auteur Opgden Mary Depue - published : 1915
*History of Burlington and Mercer Counties, New Jersey : with biographical sketches of many of their pioners and prominent men.....pages 660 / 661 - by major Woodward, E.M. (Evan Morrison) & John F. Hageman - published, Philadelphia : Everts & Peck, 1883
*Circular of Information of the Bureau of Education, for.......pages 177-183 - United States, office of Education : 1898
*Revue Touraine Généalogie N°048, published 2001 - Cercle de Généalogie de Touraine - archive file F/5b/42 - Boarding in Bordeaux - October 1790 on the boat "Le Pierre Paul" from Bordeaux to Santo Domingo, Louis Jaminière, merchant in Rillé in Anjou, 23 years old and Urbain Tulasne de Rillé, 22 years old (it is his little brother, who is lying about it, because he is 18 years old, born May 21, 1772, Rillé)
*Peter Antony Malou, patriot and priest (1753-1827) by Patrick J. Dignan - Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia Vol. 42, No. 4 (December, 1931), pp. 305–343 (39 pages) - Published By: American Catholic Historical Society.
*transcription of transfer documents - departmental archives of Indre et Loire, France.
*Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, March 1906, vol. 17 N° 1, pp 1–32 published by : American Catholic Historical Society. Sacramental registers at St Joseph's church, Philadelphia, PA, of the eighteenth century, sixth series, baptism administered by fathers Ennis, Carr, Neale, Houdet, Lagrange, Helbron and de Borniol, from January to December 1798.
*Cotton and its Patrons, France (1760 - 1840) by Serge Chassagne - Editions de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociale - Paris - 733 pages - see pages 98, 101, 114 & 162 - Dubern & Compagnie (Nantes) had a share capital of 144,000 pounds, around 1760, in Indian industry.
*Collection of documents relating to the history of Paris during the French Revolution - Electoral Assembly of Paris November 18, 1790 - June 15, 1791 - minutes of the election by Etienne Charavay - Paris, Quantin house 1890 - see page 40 "Mermillod (Jean François), merchant, elector from 1789, 50 years old, rue Phelippeaux, 15 ".
*History of Princeton and its institutions, volume 2, by John Frelinghuysen Hageman, 1878, 499 pages (pages 198, 199, 200 and 201)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tulane, Paul
1801 births
1887 deaths
American people of French descent
American Presbyterians
Businesspeople from New Orleans
People from Princeton, New Jersey
Tulane University
Burials in New Jersey
Burials at Princeton Cemetery
19th-century American philanthropists
19th-century American businesspeople