Chouteau

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chouteau was the name of a highly successful, ethnically French fur-trading 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 this family.

People[edit]

children of Marie-Therèse Bourgeois Chouteau and René Augustin Chouteau, Sr.
  • Henri Chouteau II (1830-1854), married Julia Deaver
  • 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):

Places[edit]

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[edit]

  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

External links[edit]