A ton of research has been done on my 5th great-grandfather Jacques Timothée Boucher, Sieur de Montbrun (aka Timothy DeMonbreun). I won’t go into everything about him right now because there is so much. However, I was just kind of searching around and I happened to find an article that mentions him. The article, titled Big John’s Wife, was found in The Atlanta Constitution, December 13, 1896, page 11.
“In the year 1777 Captain DeMumbrane (Demonbreun), a Frenchman, who commenced hunting in the country as early as 1775, met with a company of six men and one woman at a place called Deacon’s Pond, not far from where Palmyra is now situated. The company informed him that a man by the name of William Bowen who had come out with them had been run over and trampled down by a herd of buffaloes and had lain in the woods eight days before he was found and died in consequence of the wounds he received the day after he was found. John Duncan, whom the company called Big John, had brought the woman along as his wife, but she had become tired of him and took up with James Ferguson, another of the company. Duncan was taken sick and the woman persuaded the company to leave him, and Duncan died. Captain DeMumbrane saw the corpse. This was no doubt the first white woman that ever visited the country now denominated middle Tennessee. This company, woman and all, having taken water, sailed onto the Mississippi, halted there for a time and hunted, but they were finally all killed by the Indians in 1779, except one or two; whether the woman escaped or not is not known, nor is it very material. If she lived it was only to disgrace her sex, and if she died society sustained no loss.”
D.G. CHARLES, C.E.
The final sentence is pretty cruel.
I bet you the woman hooked up with Timothy.
