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To imagine how your Family will benefit from hiring the services of Time Travel Tours, we invite you to consider the experience of the Noisette Family.

The Noisette's not only connected to their ancestors and the major events in their history, but they also reconnected with family from northern states to southern states. From east coast to west coast and even as far as the Caribbean and France. They put up four monuments, held four family reunions and have created gardens featuring the first hybrid rose created in America, created by their ancestors, the Noisette Rose.


1773
Philippe Stanislas was born in Paris, France in 1773 into a distinguished family of horticulturists from France.He moved to Haiti when he was a young man and fell in love with a Haitian woman whose name was Celestine.
1774
In 1794, because of the Haitian freedom revolution, Philippe and Celestine relocated to Charleston, SC where he was offered a position as Superintendent of the South Carolina Medical Society Botanical Gardens. They traveled together with Celestine's relative Benjamin. Philippe became famous for raising the Old Blush Noisette Rose, after he sent the rose to his brother Louis in Paris. Louis planted the rose in his nursery and crossed it to develop a class of roses called the Noisette Roses. The plants were sold all over Europe and sent to America as a fully developed class of roses. Philippe purchased a large tract of land on the outskirts of the city known as the Noisette Farm, which was bordered by King, San Souci, Simons and Hester streets.Because of the miscegenation laws of South Carolina Philippe was forced to declare Celestine his slave. They had six children who also became his slaves.
1808
In 1808 the State of South Carolina refused a petition Philippe made to liberate Celestine's relative Benjamin who took on the Noisette name. Benjamin's children kept the Noisette name through the rest of their days to the present, owing to their appreciation of their extended Noisette family.
1830
The 1830 Federal Census recorded him as a single white man owning eight slaves who are believed to be his wife and at least five of his six children. Shortly before Philippe's death, in 1835, Philippe petitioned the state of South Carolina for the emancipation of his faithful wife Celestine and their six children. Philippe died without knowing the results of his petition. Philippe’s family was in fact later emancipated and allowed to secure their inheritance and remain in the state of South Carolina. Philippe was buried at St. Mary’s Church, on Hasell Street in downtown Charleston. His head stone was said to have been destroyed by an act of nature and was never replaced. Philippe and Celestine’s children were; Alexander (born in 1808) who married Margaret (Peggy) Washington. They had seven children; Bartholamew Alexander, Louis Philippe, Pierre Louis, Anna Melanie, Josephine, Paul and Joseph. Paul and Joseph were buried in the Humane Friendly Society Cemetery in North Charleston where they share a headstone.

Celestine's relative Benjamin had a son named Benjamin. Benjamin and his wife Anna Noisette were met with a crueler fate then his father, having to suffer the indignity of enslavement outside of the family. Benjamin’s enslaver and kidnapper was Judge Singleton, and Anna’s enslaver and kidnapper was James Hopkins, both of Charleston.
1841
Benjamin and Anna had one son, Henry Benjamin Noisette, (b. in 1841).
1847
Benjamin Noisette and his second wife, Mary, had three children, Jasmine, Benjamin and Louis (b. 1847).
1861
With the beginning of the war of liberation in 1861, Benjamin and Henry set out north, while Louis was too young to leave. Benjamin eventually settled into Washington's Camp Barker liberation camp, and, after the war moved his family to New York State where they reside to this day. Henry joined the Union Navy and settled back into Charleston following the towns liberation. He went on to become a leading citizen and founded a cemetery society which exists to this day, wherein his Civil War Veteran's grave stone stands atop his gravestone, placed there in 2010. Louis Noisette was inspired by his brother and coming of age, joined the 33rd USCT and headed down to Savannah where Mary and Jasmine remained enslaved and kidnapped. He went down to liberate them and they settled into Savannah where a 2007 ceremony put a Veteran's gravestone atop his grave. Unfortunately, he passed away before his son Harrison could be born to his wife Lauretta Noisette. Lauretta remarried George Gregory, and lived at 2 DePortes Ct in Charleston with Harrison and his step brother Louis George Gregory. George Gregory was also a civil war hero, the only free man of color to join the United States Colored Troops, the 104th. When George Gregory passed on in 1929 a 1000 European and African descent citizens came to his funeral at Monrovia Union cemetery where his Veterans grave marker was straightened and his 75th death anniversary was honored in 2003. His wife Lauretta and Harrison took the proceeds from the house sale and moved to Harlem where they ran a barbershop which remained open on Lenox Avenue until 2001. Their children remain in New York to this day. Louis George Gregory went on to become a graduate of Avery, Fisk and Howard University becoming a lawyer. He discovered the Baha'i Faith in 1909 and went on to spend his life as a "Racial Amity Worker" and achieved the distinction of becoming a "Hand of the Cause of God," his gravestone is in Maine aside his European descent wife Louise Matthew Gregory. Louis George Gregory was the first of the Noisette relatives to return to Haiti in 1937-1939 to help spread the Baha'i teachings there.


2003
In 2003, Baha'is opened the Louis G. Gregory Baha'i Museum in downtown Charleston to honor one of their most esteemed figures, a local descendent of slaves who championed the faith's core belief in equality. Gregory was born June 6 in 1874 and raised in Charleston by his mother, Mary Elizabeth, the daughter of an enslaved African woman and a white Darlington kidnapper and concentration camp profiteer George Dargan. Mary Elizabeth was 14 years old when she and her mother was liberated by George Gregory, Louis Noisette and Henry Noisette amongst other heroic Union soldiers. The Ku Klux Klan killed the man who the grandmother married after the civil war, for his prominence as a Blacksmith rich enough to purchase a horse. His mother, grandmother and step father all worked hard to raise a literate, courteous and disciplined son. European descent union officers were frequent visitors to the Gregory home. Also George Gregory was a member of an interracial labor union. Gregory grew up among the first generation of southern African-Americans with a legal right to education. He attended the Avery Institute and Normal School, now the Avery Research Center. He then went to Fisk University and Howard University's School of Law. To have earned a bachelor's degree was in itself an outstanding accomplishment. In 1900, out of a population of about nine million blacks in the United States, only about two thousand - or 00.02% - had graduated from a college or university. Only about 700 black college students were enrolled in that year. Like Louis Gregory, most attended one of the thirty-four "Negro colleges." Relatively few were as fortunate as he in attending schools as good as Avery and Fisk. Louis Gregory's highest aspirations had not yet been fulfilled, however. When he decided to become a lawyer, the outstanding law school open to substantial numbers of blacks was at Howard University in Washington D.C. No white schools in the South accepted black graduate students, and very few black colleges offered advanced degrees. He practiced in Washington, D.C., where he and such black leaders as W.E.B. DuBois grappled with the day's volatile issues of race. By then, Gregory's grandmother had survived the trauma of KKK members killing her husband outside of their home and nearly killing her, too. As he struggled with questions of faith and racial equality, Gregory attended a Baha'i meeting in 1907 and was drawn to its teachings about the oneness of humanity. Pressed by the racial issues of the time Gregory realized that a spiritual change had to happen before racial brotherhood could be embraced. It would not be enough simply to change laws. People's hearts had to be changed before unity could be achieved. Five years later, he was so devoted that he was elected to the Baha'i national administrative body, and then was re-elected 15 times more after that. He gave up his law practice to travel the country, including South Carolina, teaching the principles of "race amity" at colleges, churches and civic groups. In 1912, he also married a white Baha'i woman, Louisa Mathew, at a time when it was considered a crime in some parts of the country. He is considered a founder of the Baha'i Faith in America. After his death in 1951, tributes included the Louis G. Gregory Institute in Hemingway and Radio Baha'i, the first Baha'i radio station in North America. It operates on the institute's grounds with the call letters WLGI on 90.9 FM. The Louis G. Gregory Baha'i Museum in Charleston was dedicated in 2003 at 2 Desportes Court in Gregory's small, two-story boyhood home. With help from the Avery Research Center, it was refurbished to exhibit Gregory's personal items.

2003 November, George Gregory 75th death anniversary commemoration takes place and the Noisettes attend, both from Celestine's descendants and Benjamins; preparing the way for their future joint reunions.


2005
December 2005, on Broadway in New York, a production of "From Haiti to Harlem" was performed with 50 Noisette relatives in attendance. In addition to the play, a screening of the first African American talking film was shown which starred one of Harrison's daughter in laws, a Noisette. Finally renowned Noisette saxophonist Jimmy Owens performed, and concluded with a call for everyone to attend a reunion in Charleston in 2008! Harrison Noisette's New York family is reunited with their Charleston kin for the first time in a generation.


2007
November 11, 2007. On the 11th of November 2007, Savannah hosted a Veteran's Day Memorial to Pvt. Louis Noisette of the 33rd USCT. He is a 2nd generation Haitian-American who fought for the Union Army, serving as a drummer boy, in Savannah from May to June 1865. He settled into Savannah after the war and has been burried since 1891 in an unmarked gravesite in Laurel Grove Cemetery South, until today. Events will take place throughout Savannah, and will kick off a socio economic development project with Haiti. Incidently another drummer boy Henri Christoff in the Continental Army of the American Revolution served in the battle of Savannah, and learned the skills and the ideal to lead the Haitian Revolution over a decade later. America inspired Haiti's revolution Haiti's revoution inspired our African Americans to rise up and form 25% of the American Army at the close of the Civil War in 1865, providing a decesive force in the battle to liberate the Africans in America from Enslavement. In Savannah Georgia to help preserve the historic Laurel Grove Cemetery, by putting up the first African American Civil War Soldier tombstone in the cemetery belonging to the Father of Louis Gregory's Step-Brother: Louis Noisette. Louis Noisette was born to Benjamin Noisette in enslavement. Benjamin may have been born of Manding Noisette who had come from Haiti in 1797. After Benjamin died, Louis was raised by the Thomas family. When the United States Colored Troops conquered Charleston in 1865 he quickly joined the 33rd United States Colored Troops as a 16 year old in the signal corps. As a drummer he served the unit until the end of the war. Thereupon, he married Lauretta Harrison, and concevied a child Harrison Leroy Noisette. While still in the womb, Louis Noisette passed away in 1881. Soon thereafter he was raised from infancy as Louis George Gregory's brother, and his many children enjoyed a close relationship with their loving uncle. Grace Noisette, still calls Louis George Gregory, Uncle Louis, in her Long Island nursing home. With the help of prominant Georgia born civil rights leader, Asa Gordon, we will be putting on a number of events at the Savannah civil rights museum, The Gordon library and at the Laurel Grove Cemetery


2008
Descendants of Philippe Stanislas and Celestine Noisette met in Charleston August 21-24, 2008 for the first international family reunion, with family members from France, descendants of Philippe’s brother Antoine, joining their American cousins. Correspondence searching for the American Noisettes began in 1934 with a series of letters from France to the US. After a letter from Marie Louise Quintin finally reached an American cousin in 1934, a few of the family members corresponded for years, which eventually lead to the meeting of French cousin Christian Quintin (a direct descendant of Antoine) and Madi Lawrence, the daughter of Walter Scott Noisette, direct descendant of Philippe. Walter Noisette, grandson of Walter Scott Noisette also met with French Noisettes when he was in the armed forces, stationed in Europe. The 2008 reunion was attended by many family members from through out the United States, one from Italy, six members of the French Noisettes, and three members of the Haitian Noisettes, now living in Florida.




2010
November 11 2010, in Charleston, SC – As part of its ongoing efforts to recognize the service of African Americans in the US Civil war in South Carolina, the African American Historical Alliance held a Veterans Day commemoration on Thursday, November 11th, for US Navy veteran Henry Benjamin Noisette. It was held at the Friendly and Charitable Society Cemetery, near the corner of Mechanic and Oceanic Streets in Charleston. Henry, a Charleston native, was in action against Confederate batteries aboard the USS Huron in the Stono River during the war. The hour-long program featured the unveiling of a Civil War veterans marker by his descendents. Cadets from the Citadel Naval ROTC participated in the service that recognized the contributions of all veterans of US Military Service. 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry re-enactors served as the color guard, and Rev. John Paul Brown of the Mt. Zion A.M.E. Church officiated.


2011
Lex Musta, is a Civil War Re-enactor, a Noisette genealogist, and a memorial member of the South Carolina Sons and Daughters of the United States Colored Troops. Lex will be inducting members to the SC Sons and Daughters of the United States Colored Troops at the Noisette Reunion, July 28-31, 2011.


2013
In May, 2013, 57 American Noisettes, descendants of Philippe Stanislas Noisette (1773-1835) met the French Noisettes, descendants of Antoine Noisette (1778-1858), in Paris, Caen, and Nantes, France, from where the family's Philippe had departed 230 years earlier.


2015
In August 2015, the Noisettes reunited again in Charleston for a moving event at their ancestral church, The visit to Emanuel AME was incredible. The connection of our family members, Debra Johnson Lamb, Sharon ʻSherrieʼ Johnson Rencher, and Carmen Michelle Easter Garner to this historic church, touched our hearts. We were able to enter the place where those nine faithful, God fearing lives were so tragically taken while they only showed love and compassion to a stranger who only had hate in his heart. We were able to witness the strength of that congregation through Mr. Williams as he spoke to the group, and not allow that hateful act prevent church members from conducting activities in the church as they continue to heal. Michelle was ecstatic to see the edifice that housed the tomb of her great grandfather and mother.