“From the Archives” — Revolutionary War Veterans

As we celebrate Independence Day this week, we can salute two Saint Mary’s Revolutionary War veterans who were Frenchmen: Pierre LaCroix (1734-1830) and Ignatius Junigal (d. 1810). Both are buried in Saint Mary Cemetery.

Pierre LaCroix served as a drummer boy, just 14 or 15 years old, in the French and Indian War. He is believed to have been the last surviving soldier to serve under the Marquis de Montcalm in the Battle of Quebec in 1759. The British army, under General James Wolfe, crossed the Plains of Abraham and scaled the walls of Quebec, to establish Britain’s dominance in Canada. Both Montcalm and Wolfe were killed in the battle. Later, LaCroix often spoke of the bravery of both men. He also served in the Revolutionary Army against the British, this time on the winning side.

We do not know when LaCroix came to Alexandria, or his occupation, but he was well known in town. In his later years, he lived with Dr. Edward Smyth and his wife, Susan, at their home on Pitt Street, where he died in 1830. A reporter with The Alexandria Gazette noted in LaCroix’s obituary that “he was a soldier, and he died a Christian, professing and feeling the faith of the true Catholic Church, of which his name LaCroix was an emblem. This writer has often greeted him in passing, and he was a real sample of the old French regime, in native urbanity.”

Ignatius Junigal emigrated from the West Indies. We know little about his war service, but he came to Alexandria after the war ended and became a successful merchant at the corner of Prince and Union Streets, on Captain’s Row. He probably dealt in imports and exports since his business was near the harbor. Junigal was a generous man. The epitaph on his tombstone reads: “When living he gave most zealously, his work, his purse. When dying, he bequeathed all he had to St. Mary’s Church, Alexandria.”

Junigal’s entire estate amounted to more than $3,000 — a huge sum at that time. The donation enabled Father Francis Ignatius Neale, S.J., Saint Mary pastor from 1811 to 1818, to expand the small parsonage and chapel on Royal Street. Money from the Junigal estate also was used to erect a bell tower and bell for the church. The bell is now in the cupola of The Basilica School of Saint Mary.

— Kitty Guy, Parish Historian