More about Felicite
Thanks for all of the feedback and interest in our great, great, great “grand mere” Felicite Constant! I decided I needed to do a bit more research to understand her life. My dad gave me yet another very informative book by historian Carl J. Ekberg. This one is titled “Francois Valle and His World”. Valle was a wealthy man who lived in the same general area (Upper Louisiana/Illinois Country) in roughly the same time period (1780-90s) when the area West of the Mississippi was under control of the Spanish Crown. I’ve used Ekberg’s description of Valle and his life to extrapolate information about Felicite and her family.
As we know, Felicite was born in 1783 in Carondolet, Missouri, a small agricultural town just south of St. Louis. Felicite was a French Creole, which means a French-speaking person born in the French colonial territories outside of France. Technically the area Felicite lived in was under Spanish control at the time of her birth, but Felicite was born into a French-speaking community and surely identified as both French and Catholic.
Felicite’s parents, Gabriel Constant and Marie Duplanty, were both born in Quebec, which was known as New France. The records say that Gabriel was born in Montreal in 1740 and Marie in Deux Montagnes, Quebec in 1752. There are no records of how they journeyed from Quebec to Carondolet, but we have a general idea from the migration patterns of this group.
Here is a map from the Ekberg book showing the French settlements in 1770. The French government encouraged settlement around the St. Louis area so settlers could farm and send crops down to New Orleans. Our ancestors likely settled in the St. Louis area for that reason. After the French and Indian war settlement in 1763, French settlers preferred to settle West of the Mississippi River.
There were a few different routes they could have taken to get from Quebec to Carondolet. I don’t know how they did it, but they were in Carondolet by 1780.
After learning about Felicite, my sister and I wondered if she was literate. Honestly, we cannot know that, but I would say no. First off, if she were literate, she would have written down her bandanna tale instead of relying on oral history. Second, there were no schools in an agricultural community in the 1780s and there would have been no way to learn how to read and write unless she had a parent who was literate, which I’m guessing she did not. I imagine that Felicite did learn English, but that is a guess. Carondolet was part of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and she technically became an American at that time. Did she learn English then or later when she followed her son to Iowa? I have no idea, but I am guessing that she did learn English and was able to communicate in some way with her English speaking daughter-in-law, Mary McGuire, who was born in 1826 in Kilrush, Ireland.
I was really hoping to find out when precisely Felicite left Missouri and moved to Iowa. I had high hopes that census records could answer this, but, alas, I can’t find this out. Here’s what I do know: Felicite and her husband Francois had children from 1805 to 1822. They lived in Portage Des Sioux, another agricultural town not far from Carondolet. According to Ancestry records, they had the following children: Antoine, Mary Elizabeth “Marie”, Francois, Basile, Louis, Constance, Joseph, Marguerite and Felicite Christine. Our direct ancestor, Joseph, was born in 1818. From the records, it appears that Francois died in 1828, leaving Felicite with several children under age 18 who I presume lived with her. I am guessing the land in Portage Des Sioux went to the oldest son, Antoine. Our Joseph can be found in Iowa around 1850 and then we can find Felicite (sometimes called Phyllis in anglicized records) living either with or near Joseph. For example, in this 1863 City Directory, she is living near Joseph.
By the 1870 Census, Felicite is listed as living in the same household with Joseph and his wife, Mary.
Let me go back to Felicite’s parents, Gabriel and Marie. Men are easier to find in the historical record, Felicite’s father Gabriel can be found due to some legal disputes. The details of this legal dispute are too byzantine for me to comprehend, but I will try to summarize the dispute. Felicite had a father, brother and nephew all named Gabriel Constant. Her father (our direct ancestor) got some land in 1798 from the Spanish Crown. The ownership of that land was later being disputed by the heirs of the other two Gabriel Constants (brother and nephew of our Felicite…Since Felicite was a daughter, she was never getting the land, the oldest son did). Here’s the article from 1897 to read yourself:
As you can see, it is a convoluted tale! My cousin Brian did notice a delightful detail–one of Felicite’s nieces was named Constance Constant. Try saying that name a few times.
Anyway, like Jarndyce and Jarndyce in Bleak House, the legal dispute went on for years and was ultimately dismissed according to this article from 1923.
Where exactly was this valuable land? We are not sure. I did find a 1838 land map from St. Louis City and County showing some land in Carondolet owned by a Gabriel Constant. Because of the date, I believe it is Felicite’s brother, Gabriel. Here is the 1838 map with his area highlighted:
Here is the present day google earth map of the same area, with the Gabriel Constant of 1838 area highlighted.
Is this the area where our Felicite was born and raised? Hard to know precisely, but it could be. It could also be that her brother Gabriel decided to get additional land in the area for whatever reasons. Again, it is impossible to know the specific details of their land ownership without more complete records. Do those records exist? Who knows? Should we go check out our land or at least go to the nearby Ted Drewes frozen custard? Yes, definitely. Road trip anyone?
Thanks for reading…
Sources:
Ekberg, Carl J. Francois Valle and His World: Upper Louisiana Before Lewis and Clark. University of Missouri Press, Columbia, MO. 2002.
Atlas of the City and County of St. Louis. January 1, 1838. E. Dupre Lithographer, St. Louis, MO 1838.
Thanks to database searches by Tammy of Eledge Family genealogy.
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