Jean Baptiste was 4th generation of the very prominent Trudeau family in New France. With his good schooling in his home area of Montreal and after the British conquest of New France, Jean Baptiste took off following the footsteps of generations of his forefathers into the lucrative fur trade to the south. He traded and explored into the area of the Kaskaskaskia River, down to the Mississippi to where his father’s cousin, Louis Trudeau, lived. From there he went on to New Orleans on the Gulf of Mexico where another cousin, Zenon Trudeau, lived. Jean Baptiste and Zenon went back up-stream to the frontier area of the Missouri River, where Jean Baptiste traded west from there and founded his own post on the Charles River. Years later Zenon became Lieutenant Governor upper Louisiana.

During his 16 years at that post, “J. B. Trudeau” (as he always signed his name, in very legible writing) married, in the “Old Cathedral” of St. Louis, a local girl named, Madeleine LeRoy.  (Translating that last name to English, it means “the King” and it is through that ancestor of ours that it can be traced to the well know name, Charlemagne.)  They built a house in St. Louis where their 5 children were born. JB went back and forth between his post on the Charles River and St. Louis. But JB’s career was about to change. With children to raise, Jean Baptiste decided to start a school, the first ever in that frontier town. He taught, not only his own children but other’s as well, including those of his cousin Zenon.

Because of his education and experiences exploring JB had the qualifications that recommended him to financial interests from New Orleans and St. Louis and he was engaged to take an expedition, back up the Missouri. There he was to assess the potential of trading into that area, then quite unknown to white men. A very detailed contract was made and included what they expected him to do. He was to find out where the Natives lived, how many were there,  who they were, and their languages. He was to determine how accepting they would be to the presence of white men and their customs. What it was like for access to and a route to the mountains and through them right to the “western sea”. And finally to bring back a written report of what he found. Nobody really understood, the next to impossibility of the task the contract covered and underestimated the resources he needed when he set out.

So, this new challenging adventure commenced, and he set off upstream with his small vessel loaded with goods for trade and gifts to help establish good relationships with the Natives he would encounter. But with only a little food for himself and the few paddlers that went with him. They were expected to provide for themselves off the land along the way. Progress was slow against the current, but it went well enough for many days. The journal reports one lament –  for the first time ever in his years of exploration and trading, he lost an employee, who drowned, while taking a bath in the river. 

When ice began to form on the river, he knew it was time to prepare for winter. He and his men set up a new post during the winter, and nearby friendly Natives came to trade. As soon as spring arrived, Trudeau and crew set off again, struggling their slow way up-river. J.B. reported that he felt that he was getting into hostile territory both of nature and Natives. He became positive of it when a large band of Sioux entered the river, seized his boat, and dragged it ashore. They did not kill the men, but helped themselves to anything they wanted which left the expedition with an empty boat. There was nothing they could do but turn around and drift back down to where he found a band of friendly Natives and settle with them for the winter. Jean Baptiste spent the time there studying and writing detailed accounts of those people for his own interest as well as the contract which had been made.

The trip down stream the next spring, with no load was swift and easy. But to his surprise, when he arrived home, he found that he had a new baby son. He had not known that Madeleine was pregnant when he left. She had made Zenon Trudeau the baby’s Godfather and had given that top official the honor of naming the child. He chose the name “Rene” and Rene Trudeau is the ancestor we have in the next generation. The boy’s father went back to his former occupation of teacher and began to acquire more property in what the downtown area of the city of St. Louis is now. His property included a site, right at the foot of that large iconic arch that now can be seen in pictures on the internet. Unfortunately, only a portion of Trudeau’s journal from his trip into Indian territory survived. I have a translation of it in my files. I have not been the only person interested in that journal.

President Jefferson, of the United States also had a copy of Trudeau’s journal, as well as the 45 articles of the contract. The USA, at that time, extended only west as far as the Mississippi River and was intending to purchase, from Spain, all the area west to the Pacific Ocean. The Americans had little knowledge of what was west of the Mississippi at that time so two military men, Lewis and Clark were ordered to organize an expedition. Those orders were almost the same as those arranged with Trudeau. Lewis and Clark set off for St. Louis and there, spent the winter making arrangements. It is obvious that they would have spent part of their time getting as much information as possible from the man who had tried to make that original effort and must have learned from Trudeau’s mistake due to being under supplied with the resources an enterprise of that type would need. That knowledge was Jean Baptise Trudeau’s contribution to the expansion of the United States, doubling it’s former size. In the spring, Lewis and Clark set off with a larger boat, a force of well armed men, including a cannon, able paddlers, a cook, hunters to supply food and a lot more supplies that Trudeau had started out with. The hunters could be onshore looking for meat while the paddlers did their job on the river. It was a well organized, militarily arranged and government financed expedition. They left and were gone for years, so long so that people feared they had perished. They finally returned and the people of the United States can boast about this great achievement of Lewis and Clark. But who, among them, have ever heard of Jean Baptise Trudeau who had provided his personal knowledge despite his suffered experiences, as a base for  Lewis and Clark’s success?

  “J B Trudeau” continued with 50 years as a teacher then turned his property over to his son Rene, to retire an old man. Sadly, he ended destitute when Rene mishandled the property. Perhaps his memorial is all those signatures, so legibly written in so many church records, evidence of his concern for the welfare of others.