Hi Ann,

Yes, Eloisa Meuillon is the same person as Louise Cheval Meuillon. I think you were looking at Donald J. Hebert’s Southwest Louisiana Records, Vol. 1 thru 41.
Eloisa is not the daughter of Francois Cheval and Marianne Meuillon. Jean Baptiste Meuillon was a married to Marie Celeste Bello, but, fathered Eloisa with a slave named Angelica. And, last of all, Luis Augustin Meuillon (White) and Maria Juana (Black) are parents to Jean Baptiste Meuillon.

Here is a list of books with some info on the Meuillon family:

Black Property Owners in the South: 1790 - 1915 by Loren Schweninger, Pg. 135;
St. Landry Parish, La. Conveyances, Bk. H (March 22, 1830), pp. 32-33
On December, 7, 1829, Jean Baptiste Meullion petitioned the St. Landry Parish court to issue deeds of emancipation for his ten grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

Black Property Owners in the South: 1790 - 1915 by Loren Schweninger, Pg. 101;
Deed of Emancipation for Jean Meullion, February 21, 1776, in Meullion Family Papers, LSU
Meullion was the son of white planter Luis Augustin Meullion, and his slave Maria Juana.

Black Property Owners in the South: 1790 - 1915 by Loren Schweninger, Pg. 103;
Mortage Bond, May 33, 1833, Meullion Family Papers, LSU
Verification of Land Sale, August 15, 1832
Emancipated by his white father, and later marrying the daughter of free mulattto planter Martin Donatto, Jean Baptiste Meullion of St. Landry Parish began acquiring real estate the same year Louisiana became a possession of the United States, purchasing 400 Arpents on Bayou Teche in 1803. Later, in 1819, he added another 840 arpents "lying in the Prairie Laurent fronting on Bayou Teche." Contracting with various New Orleans merchants, he purchased supplies, seed, and machinery, and planted crops of sugar and cotton. In 1834, he sold his sugar crop for $1,418, and in 1838, at the beginning a national depression, he sold 41 bales of cotton for $19,349. His credit rating among merchants in Opelousas, Natchez, Mississippi, and New Orleans was excellent, and at various times during the 1830s he borrowed up to $5,000, while keeping an account open of almost $1,000 in order to purchase coffee, whiskey, pork and other supplies. Meullion was a devout Catholic and made frequent contributions to the parish church, including donations for the construction of a new building in 1826, where, fourteen years later, he received his last rites.

Creoles of Color in the Bayou Country: by Carl A. Brasseaux, Keith P. Fontenot, and Claude F. Oubre

St. Charles: Abstracts of the Civil Records of St. Charles Parish; 1700 – 1803, by Glenn R. Conrad. There is a heck of a lot of info for you there.

Louisiana Census and Militia List, Vol. 1 (1770 – 1789) by pg. 70, will show you Don louis Augustin Meuillon as a Captain in the 1770 Census.

Some Late Eighteenth-Century Louisianians, Census Records 1758 – 1796 by Jacqueline K. Voorhies, if you are interested in just seeing a person’s name on a Census Record.

Bounded Lives, Bounded Places; Free Black Society in Colonial New Orleans, 1769 – 1803 by Kimberly S. Hanger. There you will find the story of Maria Juanna. She is listed as Mariana Meuillon. She died in 1793 and her son, listed as Bautista Meuillon, then, 25 years old.

Here is the story:

Libres, as well as whites, donated slave property to friends and kin in their wills. Near death in 1793, the fifty-six-year-old free morena criolla Mariana Meuillon designated her natural son as her only heir. Bautista Meuillon, a twenty-five-year-old free pardo, thus acquired his mother’s silverware, two lots and houses in New Orleans, a large tract of land upriver from the city, and a morena bozal named Mariana. The last two possessions Mariana had received from Don Luis Meuilon, her likely consort, who had freed her and Bautista without conditions in 1777. Several people owed Mariana money, including one white woman, four free black women, and one free black man.77

77. Acts of Garic, no. 8, fol. 67,21 February 1777; Acts of N. Broutin, no. 25, fol. 108, 4 May 1793.

Enjoy

John