There appears to be some confusion over when Timothy Demonbreun first left New France for America. In Mrs. Whiteford’s 1939 book about Timothy she mentions Judge Josephus Conn Guild’s 1878 book Old Times in Tennessee (yay! another public domain!). According to Judge Guild, Timothy (or Timote, as it is spelled in his book)…you know what? Let’s just go through Judge Guild’s book
According to Guild, Timothy was born in 1731 in France (look! more lore!). In Guild’s own words, “After attaining his majority, he joined the army of his native country, and participated in the great battle of Quebec, between the British and the French, in 1759. His term of service having expired, he remained in Canada until 1760, when he left there and settled in Kaskaskia, Illinois. Here his given name was Anglicised to Timothy.” I would LOVE to know where he got this information. We already know he was born in Boucherville in 1747, not France in 1731. And then, as Mrs. Whiteford points out, the possibility of Timothy having even traveled to the Kaskaskia area in 1760 is slim, considering he would have been only about 13 years of age. Guild goes on to say that Timothy wanted to build a trade with the Native Americans in Middle Tennessee, so he set out in the Fall of 1760 in a small boat down the Cumberland River (known back then as Warioto by the Native Americans-having been named so by the Shawnee, and Shauvanon by the French) accompanied by two companions. Now, this is where Guild starts getting creative. So, as his story goes, a Native American man spotted the three men floating down the river and, having never seen a boat such as theirs or white people, his first thought was that it was a warship from the Great Spirit Lake. He wrapped himself in his buffalo robes and went running back to his cabin to tell the others (totally ignoring the tasty deer frolicking about). Guild’s words, not mine. Not the part about tasty deer—those are my words. THEN the three men, being thirsty, dipped down into the water for a drink. “It was remarked by one of themen (sic) that there was a ‘lick’ where this water came from and another said, ‘Where there is buffalo there is red Injuns, by jingo!’ They again tasted the water. ‘Sulphur as Limbo down below!’ exclaimed one; ‘Salt as Lot’s wife!’ chimed in another. ‘Give me the flask to wash my mouth with, Franco,’ and the flask went around of the party.” I am going to suppose at this point that this is the “story” of how French Lick, now known as Nashville, got it’s name.
From what I can find, it appears that Timothy actually set out for America about 1768 with pregnant Therese, Therese’s cousin Father Pierre Gibault and Father Pierre’s mother and his sister Marie Louise Gibault. Timothy’s uncle Pierre Boucher de Monbrun de La Soudraye was Captain of the Militia at Kaskaskia, Illinois. Timothy’s great-uncle or second cousin (depending on the source) Captain (Charles) Louis Boucher de GrandPre was the governor of Florida. There seemed to have been a worry that the French were going to turn over the churches to the British and that unrest may have been why they decided to leave for Kaskaskia.
According to Mrs. Whiteford and the Timothy Demonbreun Heritage Society, on August 18, 1768 Therese gave birth to her and Timothy’s first child, a daughter, at Fort River St. Joseph in Illinois. She was baptized the next day on August 19th and named Therese Archange after her mother, but was known as Agnes. Again, I have not seen the record of this, and I did search for it online in case someone had posted it somewhere.
It is not known how long the family stayed in this area. Father Pierre Gibault arrived in Kaskaskia in the Fall of 1768 and began his duties as parish priest. Whether Timothy, Therese and Agnes were with him or if they came a bit later is unknown.
Now, before I end this post I want to share the story behind the Timothy Demonbreun statue.
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia contributor Gorovich.
We will go back to Judge Josephus Conn Guild’s book. From what I understand it was his dramatic description of Timothy that was the basis of this statue, which was sculpted by Alan LeQuire and erected in 1996 overlooking the Cumberland River. The description Guild gave was “DeMonbreun wore a blue cotton hunting shirt, leggins of deer-hide, a red waistcoat that had once been in the French army, and a fox-skin cap, with the tail hanging down his back. He was a tall, athletic, dark-skinned man, with a large head, broad shoulders and chest, small legs, a high, short foot, an eagle eye, and an expression of daring about his mouth.” Which leaves me to imagine something a bit more comical than the statue itself.
I searched and searched on the exact location of the statue, and after help from my mother (who found it pretty quickly on Google Maps) I can now give the exact location for anyone else who is wondering (the main problem I had when searching it out being that ten different people online give ten different locations for the statue). Pretty much if you are standing at Fort Nashborough reconstructed site facing the Cumberland River, you would turn to your left and start walking up 1st Avenue, past the statue of the two guys shaking hands (James Robertson and John Donelson), to Gay Street. You then take a right on Gay Street. Follow that down until almost the red bridge (Woodland Street) and the statue is on the right. Timothy isn’t facing the river, but rather looking off into the distance at the WKDF station sign.
This is what it looks like when you’re coming up on the statue (source Google Maps Street View)
And this is an aerial view of the location of the statue (source Google Maps)
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