Jacinto Ramírez

Biography

Jacinto Peltán Ithier was born in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico in 1824 to Alexander Pétain and Marguerite Ithier. His family was of mixed Haitian ancestry having enslaved African and French ancestors. His family had fled Saint-Domingue during the Haitian Revolution and settled in Cabo Rojo and later Mayagüez with his maternal grandparents and mother dying in Puerto Rico. His parents held a good status in Puerto Rico and had Jacinto educated. He grew up the youngest of five children and was fond of fishing traveled throughout the Caribbean. His mother died in 1836 and soon after his father died on a trip to the Bahía da Samaná in 1840. At this point he was orphaned and chose to settle in Santa Bárbara de Samaná and later Santiago de los Caballeros where he made a business relationship with Pepe Morillo, a wealthy merchant.

Jacinto and Pepe traveled between Samaná and Santiago on commercial business. It was around this time that Jacinto changed his surname to Ramírez when anti-French sentiment on the island from the Boyer administration and later the independent Dominican Republic made having a common Spanish surname more palatable. He married Blasina Marte (also known as Blasina del Rosario) and had 10 children with her. His son by Blasina, Telésforo Ramírez Marte, was a mechanic and owned a blacksmith shop. Jacinto owned many distilleries in Santiago where he produced aguardiente, a strong alcoholic beverage, and brandy. These many distilleries where likely responsible for fueling the flames that ravaged the city on September 13, 1863. On that day General Gaspar Polanco ordered to set fire to part of the city of Santiago to prevent it from being of use to the attacking Spanish forces. While the strategy succeeded in driving the Spanish to Puerto Plata, an irreplaceable damage was caused when all of the documents pertaining to births, marriages, and deaths from before this date were destroyed in the flames. There were only about twenty distilleries remaining by the beginning of the 1900s.

After the war, his wife Blasina died and Jacinto remarried to Hipólita Almonte in 1867 having 3 more children born in San José. At some point the couple would become estranged living in Nibaje. In 1896, Jacinto began living with Carolina Fernández. Soon after, his wife Hipólita died in 1898 in Nibaje. Jacinto married Carolina a year later. Carolina then died in 1906. After this, Jacinto had a fourth and final marriage to Amelia Martínez Almánzar (died 1950).

In the mid 1870s, Jacinto had a relationship with Dolores Pérez and had a son with her, Félix Pérez. Félix died in 1894 at the age of 18 and his obituary mentioned his family was in mourning over the loss.

When Jacinto was in his seventies, he completed construction of his retirement mansion in Nibaje overlooking the river and the countryside on the southern part of Santiago. Here he spent his days reading with one book in his collection by a French author which Jacinto used to prepare embalming chemicals. He gained many customers from this and it appeared he was concerned about the mystery of death. He was fixated on the physical resting place and prepared his own coffin and tomb in the municipal cemetery while he was still alive. He never used this tomb though as after the assassination of president Ulises Heureaux on July 26, 1899 in the outskirts of Moca,  it was asked of Jacinto to donate his coffin. Jacinto agreed and immediately put his son Telésforo to import the materials for the construction of a new coffin. Jacinto Ramírez died in Santiago de los Caballeros on February 15, 1910 at the age of 85. He was buried in the 30 de Marzo Cemetery in the same city.

Plaza Colón and Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico (c. 1898)

Transcription of the baptism of Brigida Peltán Ithier

November 6, 1809; Mayagüez, Puerto Rico

Burial record for Esteban Peltán Ithier

July 23, 1823; Mayagüez, Puerto Rico

From Haiti to Puerto Rico

The Haitian Revolution drove numerous white and mixed families from the colony of Saint-Domingue in 1804 when a nationwide killing of the white population was decreed by Jean-Jacques Dessalines. The family of Jacinto Ramírez fled the country during this time with his father, mother, uncles and aunts, maternal grandparents, and maternal cousins fleeing the violence. Charles Ithier and Marguerite Corporan were the grandparents of Jacinto. The children of Charles and Marguerite were Marguerite (1784-1835; Jacinto's mother), Carlos, Mariana, María Josefa, Lorenzo, Benito (c. 1798-1894), and Teresa (c. 1800-1885) Ithier Corporán. His grandmother's family, the Corporan, settled in San Cristóbal in the eastern part of the island of Hispaniola. The Ithier family settled first in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico where they resided during the marriage of Jacinto's parents on April 25, 1808 and the death of his grandmother in May 27, 1813. Jacinto's parents, Alexander Pétain and Marguerite Ithier, had five children, Petrona (c. 1798-1893), Brigida (1809-1891), María Josefa (c. 1814-1891), José, and Jacinto Peltán Ithier. Jacinto's sister, Brigida, was born October 8, 1809, his grandfather Charles Ithier died January 29, 1818, and his mother Marguerite Ithier died February 27, 1836 all in Mayagüez. The family eventually integrated into Puerto Rican society with numerous descendants of Jacinto's sisters existing in Puerto Rico.

Family tree of the ancestors and immediate family of Jacinto Ramírez.

Charles Ithier

Baptism for Charles Blanchard, natural son of Nanette Blanchard, mulatresse libre

April 8, 1760; Croix des Bouquets, Saint-Domingue

Marriage of Charles Ithier, illegitimate son of Nanette ditte Blanchard and Antonie Ithier with Margueritte, daughter of Joseph Corporan and Hélène Lester

June 11, 1783; Mirebalais, Saint-Domingue

Burial record for Charles Ithier

January 29, 1818; Mayagüez, Puerto Rico

Marriages and Other Records

Obituary of Félix (Ramírez) Pérez

El hogar de nuestro bueno amigo Don Jacinto Ramires esta enlutado: victima de una de esas dolencias que limitan los dominios del saber humano y se befan de la cacareada ciencia de Hipocrates y Galeno cayo en la huesa el apreciable joven Felix Ramires, en la tarde de ayer.

Nos asociamos al dolor que aflije a Don Jacinto, padre amaoroso de Felix, y a los amantes hermanos y demas familiares del malogrado joven, q. d. e. p.

April 28, 1894; Santiago de los Caballeros

Catholic Church Marriage of Jacinto Ramírez and Hipólita Almonte

January 11, 1867; Concepción de la Vega

Civil Marriage of Jacinto Ramírez and Carolina Fernández

July 22, 1899; Santiago de los Caballeros

Civil Marriage of Jacinto Ramírez and Amelia Martínez

September 24, 1906; Santiago de los Caballeros

Civil Death Registration of Jacinto Ramírez

February 16, 1910; Santiago de los Caballeros

Mirebalais, Haiti

Origin of Alexander Pétain and Marguerite Ithier, Jacinto's parents. His family in Haiti also lived in Croix des Bouquets and Léogâne.

Mayagüez, Puerto Rico

Birthplace of Jacinto Ramírez.

Nibaje, Santiago de los Caballeros

Jacinto Ramírez had his mansion overlooking the river.

Telésforo Ramírez Marte

Son of Jacinto Ramírez and Blasina Marte.

Descendants

With Blasina Marte del Rosario

With Hipólita Almonte

The Mauseleum of Jacinto Ramírez