| Notes |
- Also called in later life Pablo Gelpi; Paul Gelpi.
The 13 Nov 1873 Times-Picayune announcement of his death says that he was "aged fifty-nine years", which comfortably accords with the baptism of Pau Joan Joseph Gelpi to Joan Gelpi and Rosa Filva on 19 Mar 1814 at Santa María, Villaneuva y Geltrú, Barcelona, the infant having been born the previous day. "Joan" is the Catalan version of the name "Juan" or "John". "Pau" is the Catalan version of "Pablo" or "Paul".
The modern file-card transcription of his naturalization record says that he was naturalized in New Orleans on 25 Jun 1838, and that he originally arrived in New Orleans from "Spain (Catalogne)" in 1828. He would have been about 14 in 1828, so this, along with the fact that he made a significant bequest to his mother in his 1870 will (as discussed below), suggests that he came over with his parents as a child, rather than by himself as an adult. As noted in the entry for his father, a transcribed record does exist for the naturalization of a Juan Gelpi in New Orleans in 1846. But it is far from established that either or both of his parents were ever in the US.
Confusing matters, ancestry.com also has an image of the passenger manifest of the Emilio that lists a Pablo Gelpi, age 24, arriving in New Orleans from Havana. ancestry.com says that this voyage arrived 12 Dec 1838 and infers that Pablo Gelpi was therefore 24 at the time, but nothing visible on the actual document gives any date at all. If this is our Pablo Gelpi, and if this voyage from Havana to New Orleans did take place in 1838, it might well have simply been a business trip, irrelevant to the issue of when Pablo Gelpi initially arrived in New Orleans. Commerce between New Orleans and Havana was robust.
(It should be noted that his Find a Grave page says that "He became a naturalized citizen on June 25, 1829", which if true would affect much of the above reasoning. However, it also says that he "immigrated to the US from his native Spain in 1838", and it seems unlikely that both of these unsourced assertions are correct.)
The 1850 Federal census has Pablo Gelpi living with his family in New Orleans Ward 6, engaged in "Not Specific Retail Trade." The slave schedule in the same year shows him owning two female slaves, one age 23, one age 8.
The 1860 Federal census has him living with his family in New Orleans Ward 6, a grocer. The slave schedule, in the same year, shows him owning five slaves, one male age 16 and four females age 12 to 45.
Also in the 1860 census, as noted by D. Pitard, the family next door to the Gelpis includes a Joseph Viosca, born in Spain, and a Marie, born in Louisiana. These are presumably his in-laws Joaquin and Maria Viosca.
His parents are named in his will of 22 Jan 1870 (misstranscribed on ancestry.com as 22 Jan 1860), probated 14 Nov 1873. His mother must have been alive when he made his will, because it says (translated from the French) "I give and bequeath to Rosa Tilba, my mother, widow of Juan Gelpi, an annuity of four hundred piastres per year for her life."
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Nielsen Hayden genealogy
1814 - 1873 (59 years)
[2, 3]