Most
people would associate Northern New Mexico with its heavy Hispanic and Native
American populations. I’ve written about my Portuguese ancestors who arrived in
Taos in the early 1800s, and played important roles in 19th Century
New Mexico. Another important part of my Northern New Mexico heritage has
French Canadian roots.
My
Great-Great-Grandmother was Virginia LeDoux, who married Jose Cayetano DeTevis.
Their son, Anotnio DeTevis, was my Great Grandfather who I knew from Las Vegas
when I was a child.
I
actually have two sets of DeTevis-LeDoux ancestors; Virgina LeDoux’s brother,
Robert, married Cayetano’s sister, Carolina.
The
DeTevis-LeDoux connection makes sense because both families descend from traders,
merchants and fur trappers who ended up in Northern New Mexico where they would
spend their final days.
The
LeDoux family is traced back to central Canada, near Montreal. Antoine LeDeoux
and Marie Madeline Lussier were the parents of two sons, Antoine Jr. and
Abraham LeDoux, born in 1784 in St. Denis, St. Hyancinthe, Quebec. Those sons
made their way to St. Louis where they entered into the fur trade.
According
to a historical account in Mountain Men, by Janet Lecompte, the brothers made
their way to the headwaters of the Platte and Arkansas rivers in East Central
Nebraska. By 1820, they had been living among the Pawnees. Both men married
Pawnee women and each had a child.
Both
would eventually make their way to Taos; my ancestor, Abraham, took his Pawnee
wife with him, but by 1826, he found a new wife, Guadalupe Trujillo, of Taos.
He was granted Mexican citizenship in 1830. Both brothers spent their final
years farming in Northern New Mexico. Abraham would die in 1842. Antoine would
another 17 years, surviving the 1847 uprising by the local Mexican population
against outsiders. Antoine spent his final years on the other side of the
mountains near Mora.
As
for Abraham’s descendants, he had a son named José,
for whom the village of LeDoux is named. Another son, Felipe de Jesus LeDoux,
born in 1835, would marry Maria de la Luz Trujillo. They were the parents of Virginia
LeDoux and Robert LeDoux.