I’ve had such good luck with people contacting me about past family mysteries that, what the heck - I’m going to try again. For all the regular readers – sorry. You’re probably sick of the LeBeau family. Back to our regularly scheduled programming soon.
Thomas Dumont was my g-g-g-grandfather and he has always been something of a mystery. He married Louise, the daughter of Jean Baptiste LeBeau and Marguerite Barada. She was a young widow with two children. Louise and Charles only had one child: my g-g-grandfather Charles Dumont. Louise came from a family with a St. Louis history. Thomas? Thomas seems to have just shown up one day. We can’t find any family that he would have come to join. Since it seems so unlikely that she would have married a total stranger who had no “references” we assume that he must have been involved in the fur trade and her male relatives must have known him from somewhere.
Here’s what we do know.
Marie Louise LeBeau and Thomas Dumont were married at St. Charles Borromeo Church, St. Charles, Missouri, on February 9, 1836.
“After a publication, dispensation having been given for the two others, I received the mutual consent of Mr. Thomas Dumont and Miss Marie Louise LeBeau, in the presence of several witnesses. His mark Baptiste LeBeau; His mark Louis Gournon; His Mark August Dorlac; His mark Baptiste LeJeunesse; A. Janis; His mark Sylvestre Barada His mark Louis Geau; Van Assche”
All the witnesses were from the area. Baptiste LeBeau was either her father or her brother. Sylvestre Barada was an uncle. August Dorlac was probably the uncle of her first husband. Louis Gournon and Louis Geau were from the area as were Baptiste LaJeunesse and A. Janis. We know that LaJeunesse and Janis were in the fur trade and it is possible that they were friends of Thomas Dumont, but we can’t tell for sure.
The marriage record does not say where Thomas Dumont came from but family lore said that he came “from Canada”. The burial record for Thomas Dumont lists his parents:
Burial at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church St. Charles Missouri; November 20, 1849, Thomas Dumond, 60 yrs, s/o Charles Anton & Catherina (Aught); spouse Louisa (LeBeau)
If Thomas Dumont was about 60 when he died in 1849 he would have been born about 1789. Fr. Van Assche was a Belgian priest and he tended to mangle the spelling of French names. After researching various Dumont couples my dad feels fairly sure, and I agree, that Thomas Dumont’s father was Charles Antoine Dumont and that his mother’s name wasn’t Catherina Aught but was really Catherine Hotte. They lived in Canada, mostly around the Montreal area.
Here is what we know about Antoine Dumont and Catherine Hotte:
Antoine Dumont, son of Charles Dumont dit LaFleur and Genevieve Baribeau Beaupre (Ste-Genevieve de Batiscan), was born March 6, 1749. (see PRDH Cert. # 110291) This couple appears to have had two sons named Antoine, one married Marie Josephe Baillergeon and the other (ours) married Marguerite Decelles Duclos in 1771 and then married Catherine Hotte.
Catherine Hotte, daughter of Claude Hotte and Catherine Pilet (Quebec) was born July 13, 1760. (see PRDH Cert #247977)
Antoine Dumont (s/o Charles Dumont and Genevieve Baribeau) married Marguerite Decelles Duclos, widow of Joseph Lavigne, in St. Denis sur Richelieu on January 21, 1771. They had Francois Noel Dumont b. 12-24-1771, d. 10-04-1773 and Antoine Dumont b. 06-26-1775, d. 07-16-1775. Marguerite Decelles died 07-22-1775. Their marriage, the baptisms of their children and all burials were at St. Denis sur Richelieu although at the burial of their son Noel there is a notation that the parents are strangers of the parish.
At the burial of theisecond child, Antoine is listed as a “Fermier” but at the death of Marguerite he is listed as a “Journalier”. (See PRDH certs 226862; 546880; 562601; 704217; 562655; 378146).
Antoine Dumont did not remarry for five years – which seems a long time for those days.
On February 7, 1780, at Batiscan, Antoine Dumont, widower of Marguerite Duclos, married Catherine Hotte daughter of Claude Hotte and Catherine Pilet. (PRDH 215391).
These are their children as listed in PRDH and where they were baptized:
Antoine b. 07-07-1782 (Champlain civil archives) PRDH 740294
Esther b. 03-31-1784 (Champlain civil archives) PRDH 740320
Marie Marguerite b. 04-21-1786 (Sault au Recollet) PRDH 656276
Marie Rose b. 02-16-1789 (Montreal) PRDH 625763
Marie Louise b. 08-12-1791 (Sault au Recollet), d. 05-31-1792 PRDH 656531 and 516383
Michel b. 10-01-1795 (St. Eustache), d. 04-10-1796 PRDH 651548 and 515266
Marie Louise b. 03-30-1797 (St. Eustache) PRDH 651860
On all of these records the spelling of Catherine Hotte’s name is all over the place: Hotte, Hot, Huot, Hote, Hante, Hauilt.
Antoine Dumont died 01-24-1798 and was buried at St. Eustache (see PRDH 385196 which lists his age as 53 but he would have been 49 based on his birthdate of 1749).
On January 7, 1799 Marie Catherine Hotte, widow of Antoine Dumont, remarried Charles Masson at St. Eustache (PRDH 347320). Her brother in law Charles Dumont and nephew Joseph Dumont were witnesses. One child is listed as born to them (but there could have been more, PRDH stops at that point). He was named after his father: Charles Masson b. January 28, 1799 St. Eustache (PRDH 652287)
Charles Masson died March 13, 1814 at St. Eustache at age 75. (PRDH 1145019)
In searching generally on the web I found a website that states that Catherine Hotte married a third time to Jean Baptiste Gagnon on October 20, 1823 at St. Eustache. There is no citation so I don’t know how reliable it is, but the other information they have on that site is correct:
So … the problem is obvious …. There is no Thomas Dumont listed in PRDH as the son of Antoine Dumont and Catherine Hotte, much less a son born around 1789 who lived. Of course ages were often simply guesswork. Perhaps Thomas is really the Antoine Dumont born in 1782? Or perhaps his baptism record is simply missing?
I’ve searched for his siblings on the web to see what may have happened to them, and I found a reference to his youngest sister Louise married to Jean Benjamin Cadorette. There is no citation so, again, I don’t know how reliable it is.
I also found this on the web:
“Je cherche le mariage
et les parents de Jean-Baptiste
DUCHESNE & Marie-Louise CAILLÉ,
leur fils Michel a épousé
en premières noces
Angélique VALIQUETTE
(François & Angélique BOURDON
) le 14 août 1794 à
Sainte-Thérèse-de-Blainville
et en secondes noces,
Catherine DUMONT (Antoine
& Catherine HOTTE) le 12 juillet 1802
à St-Eustache.”
That stumped me too – there is no Catherine Dumont listed in PRDH as the daughter of Antoine Dumont and Catherine Hotte. If she married in 1802 let’s assume she was born sometime in the early to mid 1780’s. So was she really Esther or Marguerite? Or, again, maybe her baptism is missing? Just like her brother Thomas?
There is a Thomas Dumont who is listed as an employee of the Northwest company at Ile-a-La-Crosse in 1812-1814. I do not know if that is my Thomas Dumont. He would have been about the right age, but there were other Dumonts out in the west. My dad found some St. Louis fur trade records that show payment to a Thomas Dumont at a post along the upper Missouri in the 1820’s. My Thomas Dumont showed up in St. Charles in the 1830’s when he married Louise LeBeau. As I said, we have always assumed he came to Missouri in connection with the fur trade.
[Update:] This is the Upper Missouri information we have from records of the American Fur Company account books (lists that didn't reproduce well so some of the information is a best guess at what is written). In October 1829 a Thomas Dumond was affiliated with the "Kanzas Outfit".
1830 - 375 Thomas Dumond paid his order (31.00) (I don't know where this was)
May 2, 1832 Fort Union Th. Dumond 396.25
August 2, 1832 payable our note to Th. Dumond 153.00 (Fort Clark?)
August 3, 1832 to cash pd. C. Labuyr in acc't of note to Th. Dumond 32.00
August 13, 1832 Thomas Dumond for amt. of his acknowledgment of his note given him.
October 26, 1832 Thomas Dumond - reference acct. Vanderburg family
November 10, 1832 Th. Dumond 300.19
So. Anybody out there have any additional information? I also posted this on a genealogy forum but thought maybe my blog would get other hits. We’ll see.
