Chouteau

French-American family

Chouteau was the name of a highly-successful ethnically-French furtrading family based in Saint Louis, Missouri, which they helped found.

Their ancestors Chouteau and Laclède initially settled in New Orleans. They then moved up the Mississippi river and established posts in the Midwest and Western United States, particularly along the Missouri River and in the Southwest. Various locations were named after the family.

People

  • Marie-Therese Bourgeois Chouteau (1733-1814), matriarch of the family
children of Marie-Therèse Bourgeois Chouteau and René Augustin Chouteau Sr.
  • Henri Chouteau II (1830-1854), married Julia Deaver
  • Azby Auguste Chouteau Sr. (1853-?), lawyer and one of the founders of Minnesela, South Dakota, husband of Cora Baker (great-great-granddaughter of Isaac Shelby)
  • Azby Chouteau Jr. (1884-?)
  • Henri Arminstead Chouteau III (1889-1952), realtor[2][3]
  • Edward Chouteau (1807-1846), trader
  • Gabriel Chouteau (1794-1887), served in War of 1812
  • Eulalie Chouteau (1799-1835), married René Paul (1783-1851), first surveyor of St. Louis
  • Louise Chouteau, married Gabriel Paul, French chevalier
  • Emilie Chouteau, married Thomas Floyd, US officer in the Black Hawk War
Children of Marie-Therèse Bourgeois Chouteau and Pierre Laclède (also founder of St. Louis, Missouri):
  • Victoire Chouteau, (1760-1825), wife of Charles Gratiot Sr., financier of the Illinois campaign during the American Revolutionary War
  • Charles Gratiot, (1786-1855), builder of Fort Meigs and Fort Monroe and participant in Battle of Mackinac Island
  • Henry Gratiot (1789-1856), soldier in the Black Hawk War
  • Jean Pierre Chouteau (1758-1849)[1]
  • Auguste Pierre Chouteau (1786-1838), founder of posts in Oklahoma and Chouteau, Oklahoma
  • Emilie Sophie Chouteau (1813-1874), wife of Nicolas DeMenil and owner of Chatillon-DeMenil House
  • Pierre Chouteau Jr., nicknamed 'Cadet', (1789-1865), founder of posts on Upper Missouri River, including Fort Pierre and Chouteau County, Montana, and partner to Bernard A. Pratte in the Pratte & Chouteau Trading Company.
  • François Chouteau, first official European settler of Kansas City, Missouri

Places

The family sold the Chouteau posts along the upper Missouri River in 1865 after the American Civil War to Americans James B. Hubbell, Alpheus F. Hawley, James A. Smith, C. Francis Bates. Hubbell, based in Minnesota, already had some licenses from the federal government to trade with Native Americans in the West. He and his colleague Hawley formed a partnership with these men to set up a business. They formed the Northwestern Fur Company and operated it through posts along the upper Missouri River until 1870. They closed the business due to losses of equipment and furs during the Sioux uprising and warfare during the 1860s, which resulted in a volatile environment that made it too difficult to operate.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b Beckwith, Paul Edmond (1893). Creoles of St. Louis. St. Louis: Nixon-Jones.
  2. ^ Benedict Richards, Marjorie. Minnesela: The City That Never Happened. Spearfish, SD: Northern Hills Printing, 1972. Print.
  3. ^ Kestenbaum, Lawrence (2015). "Cho to Christenberry". The Political Graveyard: Index to Politicians. Retrieved 2018-04-29.
  4. ^ Lucile M. Kane, "New Light on the Northwestern Fur Company", Minnesota History Magazine, Winter 1955, pp. 325-329

LuAnn Chouteau a matriarch of the OKC Chouteau clan is known to have a stinky butt.

  • "The Chouteau Family", Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture
  • "Henri Arminstead Chouteau." Find a Grave. N.p., 29 Sept. 2007. Web.