Jean Bautista d'Alarí

  Noted events in his life were:

• Background Information. ²⁵²
Juan Bautista Alarí was a Frenchman who married María Francisca Fernández de la Pedrera, childless widow of Captain Juan Rodríguez, on March 24, 1741. Bancroft wrote that about the year 1740 a party of nine Frenchmen came to Taos, and two of them remained in Santa Fe. One of these, "Jean d'Alay," became a good Spanish citizen practicing his trade of barber (medic), and married a local woman. Bancroft's information was from a letter of Governor Codallos, who wrote the name, "Juan de Alarí." "Jean d'Alay" looks like Bancroft's guess, repeated by Read. Others say that he belonged to a party of thirty-three Frenchmen who visited New Mexico in those times. Was Juan de Alarí, then, the "Petit Jean" or "Jean David" among the eight members of the Mallet Expedition that reached New Mexico in 1739? He was the only European Frenchman among these Creoles of Canada and Louisiana. His alleged companion, Louis Moreau, or Morín, is also among these men.

The year prior to their marriage, his wife had bought the house and lot in Santa Fe where La Fonda now stands. Their known children were Juan Antonio, José Ignacio, María Francisca, who married Francisco Xavier Fragoso, Manuel Isidoro, and María Josefa de Loreto, born March 29, 1754. Their mother died on November 22, 1757, at the age of forty.

Juan de Alarí, now referred to as a soldier, married Ana María Tenorio on June 13,1758, by whom he had another son, José Antonio, April 22, 1763. Old Juan died on October 5, 1772.

In their efforts to spell the name phonetically, the Spanish Padres and others wrote it variously as Alarij, Alaríe, Alejaríe, and Alarí, the last soon becoming the accepted form. The correct French spelling would be Alaríe. It was not until the Nineteenth Century that Alarid came into being, an effort to hispanicize the name, like "Madrid."

~ Origins of New Mexico Families: A Genealogy of the Spanish Colonial Period, Kindle Locations 5251-5278

Jean married María Francisca Fernández de la Pedrera, daughter of Juan Fernández de la Pedrera and María Peláez, on 24 Mar 1741 in Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico, Nueva España.²⁵² (María Francisca Fernández de la Pedrera was born about 1717 in Nuevo Méjico, Nueva España ²⁵² and died on 22 Nov 1757 in Santa Fé, Nuevo Méjico, Nueva España ²⁵².)