From French Nobility to American Farmer: The d'Autremont Family Papers in the Schlesinger Library

摘要

IN 1798, AT THE END OF A LETTER TO HIS MOTHER LIVING IN THE NEW YORK wilderness, Louis Paul d'Autremont, a Parisian aristocrat, pours out his affection for his family and promises to take care of her and his two younger brothers: "Adieu, my good and tender Mamma, the best and truest of my friends. Adieu, embrace my brothers, tell them how I love them, that I will always love them, and that I will do all in my power, if fortune favors me, to prove them my affection." In a later letter (undated but probably written about 1800), Louis Paul writes again to his mother, "I ask you ... in your letters to give me only news of your health. All other details are superfluous ...You can also tell me about my lands and the clearings you have made" Mme. Marie Jeanne d'Ohet d'Autremont, his mother, returns the affectionate expressions in many replies to Louis Paul's letters over the course of the next decade. She also gives him an accounting of money spent, acres cleared, the progress of a house being built, fights with in-laws, runaway pigs, and other ups and downs of pioneer farming in south central New York in the first decade of the nineteenth century. While details about her health are few, she does not spare complaints about the family's pioneer situation, her deprivations, and her acrimonious relationship with her daughter-in-law. In 1807, she writes to her son: "I wish I could give you beautiful accounts, but I have nothing agreeable to communicate."