Lesage, West Virginia

Lesage is a census-designated place (CDP) on Ohio River Road in Cabell County, West Virginia, USA. As of the 2010 census, its population was 1,358. It is the nearest community to Clover Site, a National Historic Landmark.Lesage is a part of the Huntington-Ashland Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). As of the 2010 census, the MSA had a population of 287,702. New definitions from February 28, 2013 placed the population at 363,000.The community was named after Jules F. M. LeSage, an early settler. Jules-François-Marie Lesage was the eldest child of Michel-François Lesage 1788-1866) and his wife Marie-Josephine Duval (1787-1863) of Paris. French state records note his birth on July 15, 1811, though he later claimed his birthday as July 14—Bastille Day. His parents had him baptized at the ancient Church of Saint-Gervais in the 4th Arrondissement, where the family lived. Lesage père was a prosperous manufacturer of printed wallpaper and hat boxes. Raised under the restored Bourbon monarchy and the successor regime of Louis Philippe, young Jules reportedly espoused dangerous republican sympathies. In the early 1830s, following service with the French army in Algeria, he immigrated to New York City where his father established him in the family business.On June 20, 1835 Jules (or Julius) Lesage married Marie Magdeleine Tessier Bellemère (1804-1882) at St. Peter's Catholic Church in lower Manhattan. Marie (or Mary) Lesage was a Paris-born widow. The couple settled first in New York City, then moved for a few years to Philadelphia, finally returning to New York where Lesage continued the family business of manufacturing "Paper hangings and hatter's boxes." The couple had three sons: Francis Julius (b.1836), Joseph Achilles (b. 1838), and Leo Horace (b. 1842). Leo died in 1843 during the family's extended visit to Paris (1842-1843).