10) Etienne Trudeau (1641-1712)

A few years ago, in 2017, I and my wife Dorothy and daughters Susan and Gwen traveled to France. We went to visit the birthplace of my ancestor Etienne Trudeau. He was the first of all my ancestors to come to North America. While in France we also visited La Rochelle where Etienne boarded ship in 1659 and sailed to New France. Etienne Trudeau and his wife, Adrienne Barbier, should be placed at the top of the ten. They are important, if not well known, not only to our family but also the people of Canada, America and then I suppose the whole of the western world.

 Etienne was an immigrant from France who came to the struggling little Catholic settlement called “Ville Marie” on an island in the wilderness, where a handful of French people, including the Barbier family were having trouble surviving. He, as a master builder, provided better housing and defences for the people there and played a big role with the militia in defence against Iroquois attacks. The struggling village is now one of Canada’s largest cities, Montreal. While Etienne and Adrienne made their own contributions to the new colony of New France the couple’s biggest claim to fame comes from the 1 sons and one daughters they had and raised.

 Their eldest child, also called Etienne, at an early age, did as many of his brothers had and joined in the fur trade, The trade in furs was the biggest industry of the time and brought wealth to the family, boosted the economy of their village and provided a better understanding of the dangerous, unknown environment Canada was at the time. For the large Trudeau family, it gave the resources to raise and educate the children making them contributing members of society and history and turning several into trusted, respected leaders and people, in turn who produced a string of sons who followed the fur trade and became explorers.

The second child, Pierre also entered the fur trade but his most notable contribution to history is through his descendant Pierre Elliott Trudeau, former Prime Minister of Canada and Pierre’s son Justin Trudeau, current Prime Minister of Canada.

Their fourth child Francois is a very interesting person. At age 26 he went off from his Montreal home, with the famous LeMoyne brothers to explore and find a route to the mouth of the Mississippi. There they were to take possession of the area and establish a colony they named Mobile. All this under the authority of the King of France.  They had gone by sea along the coast, into the gulf and found the mouth of the mighty river. Pierre left his brother Jean-Baptiste with Francois and “a host of men” who  located a favourable  place to establish New Orleans. Pierre then hurried across to France to recruit the men and supplies required to establish defences and meet other necessities for the growth of the colony. Francois Trudeau was the master carpenter and built several of the first forts in the southeast part of what is now the United States.

On one of his trips to France, Pierre LeMoyne brought back to New Orleans cannoneer Jean-Baptist LeRoy. On another trip, aboard his vessel “The Pelican”, LeMoyne brought a group of young women to be wives for the earlier recruits. These girls became known as “Pelican Girls”. JB LeRoy married one of these girls and their great granddaughter married into the Trudeau family as you will see in a bit. It is easy to see that the name LeRoy is a french translation of The King. This fact provided the clue which allowed the tracing of our ancestry back to Charlemagne, a blog for another time.

The fifth child, Nicolas, while in service to the French colony, gave up his life at a place called “La Prairie south of the Great Lakes. The French considered this area their own and were defending their right to the fir trade there from invasion by the English.

The Trudeaus’ seventh child was named Jean Baptiste, a very common name at the time it seems, and was the ancestor of my mother, Grace Attix Tatro, In 1701 at the age of 21 JB signed a contract to canoe to what is now Detroit. In that same year Cadillac also went by canoe to establish Fort Pontchartrain and an accompanying settlement. Despite the claim he established the first settlement there, there was already a Metis settlement and likely a Native settlement before that. This settlement later became Detroit. I believe that it is possible that Jean Baptiste traveled at that time with his future father-in-law Joseph Parent. Joseph travelled between Detroit and Montreal several times and easily could have been with the group that travelled with JB Trudeau.

Jean Baptiste married Marie Madeleine Parent in 1715 and eventually became the great grandfather of Jean Bapitiste Trudeau. (It does become confusing with so many in one family with the same name but don’t give up) At about the same time as J.B. Trudeau’s marriage to Marie-Madeleine, 1715, J.B. LeRoy married one of the “Pelican Girls”. They had a son Jacque who had a son Julien who had a daughter Madeleine who married Jean Baptiste Trudeau in 1781.This JB Trudeau is Important Tatro Ancestor #3. You can read more about his exploits in that blog.

Here I will include a story about Julien LeRoy. He grew up away north, up the Mississippi at a French fort and was a very responsible boy. As a young man he landed where the Missouri River flowed into the Mississippi. A decision had been made to make a settlement there and Julien was there to cut logs to make the first buildings for what has become the City of St. Louis.

During an “Indian” attack, Julien was caught out in open country. He took flight toward the safety of the settlement’s defences but soon discovered that the warrior after him, was much fleeter afoot than himself. He turned and fired his musket and shot his attacker in the face. Julien saw that the man was wounded and went back and did best he could to patch him up. In return the wounded man guided Julien on to safety, while the raid continued.

The ninth child and eighth of the 13 Trudeau sons was Charles, he was the ancestor of my father, Henry Lynn Tatro making Etienne and Adrienne ancestors twice over to our branch of the Tatro family and to a very large number of distant relatives today.

In 1710 he married Marie-Madeleine Loisel. They had six children that survived to be adults. Their sixth child born in 1719, Marie-Charlotte, married Michel-Pascal Dubuc and became our ancestor. It seems likely that Charles started out in the fur trade like most of his brothers. Later Charles’ parents, Etienne and Adrienne, made an agreement with him that he would inherit the Longueuil farm in exchange for their care in their later years. So, it would seem that at that time he must have been a farmer or helping on his father’s farm. Etienne died July 22, 1712 and his mother Adrienne May 10, 1721.

This is the last of The Ten Most Important Tatro Ancestors. I hope you have found their stories interesting and entertaining. We do, of course, have many more ancestors with their own stories. If you would like to hear more of about the ten I chose to include here or about any of the many others please let me know. I am always looking for more ideas for the blog.