From Proud Heritage, Volume I by DCPA, currently out of print.
Jean Priot was born in Nevers, France, in 1832. Educated in Nevers, he moved to Paris where he became an apprentice in a tailoring establishment. He came to New Orleans at the request of a friend, who had come to America years before and was doing well in the tailoring business there. The glowing promises which he had set forth to the young man failed to materialize, and Jean Priot, disappointed and discouraged, met a group going to La Reunion and decided to join them.
Upon arriving he found that there was no demand for tailor-made clothes; consequently he became a farmer. During the Civil War he was offered the job as freighter for the government and became head of a wagon supply train carrying supplies and ammunition to the Texas regiments. He married Leontine Frichot, who had come to the colony with her father, Pierre Philip Frichot, and who stayed with her father during his absences.
At the war’s end Jean Priot moved his family to Dallas, where he went into the brick manufacturing business with the Frichot brothers. Bricks were made by hand and required much handling; the clay was first dug and pulverized in a large hogshead barrel. Into the side of this barrel was inserted the small limb of a tree which, in revolving, would crush the clay. The power used was an old pack horse, which was driven around and around until the clay was fine enough to mould.
In the late sixties Jean Priot opened a brickyard of his own but was forced to move a few years later when his land became the intersection for Harwood and Bryan Streets. Jean Priot and Philip Frichot built homes of brick and stone on the corners made by the new intersection. A few years later Jean Priot organized a new brickyard outside the city limits and operated it until he retired in 1883. At that time he built a two story building on the corner of Akard and Elm Streets and leased it to the government for a post office while the large post office was being built.
In 1884 Jean Priot returned to France. His wife had died in 1876. Four children had been born to them during their marriage. Two boys died in infancy, and another, Ernest Priot, died from lockjaw in 1880. A daughter Ernestine Priot married Raphael Santerre in 1885. For twenty years Jean Priot lived at Pont Patin, Coulanges les Nevers, where he built a small chateau. In 1906 he closed his home and returned to Dallas to live with his daughter Ernestine Priot Santerre and his grandchildren. He died in 1908 and was buried in the old Greenwood Cemetery.
By Eloise Santerre, Dallas
