La Loire
The ship of the Hainaut Colonists
Judith B. Scola sent us the following:
I have run across the specifications for "La Loire", the ship
Albert deCuire and the others from Hainaut came over on:
"The Loire was 110 pieds on her keel and 28 pieds 8
pouces in width [she was a 500-ton flute built in Brest
in 1684 by the constructeur Louis Hubac...]"
This is from "Old Mobile de la Louisiane 1702-1711" by Jay Higginbotham, (footnote at the bottom of page 144).
History and Voyages of LaLoire include:
1684 - Built at Brest, France by constructeur Louis Hubac
1703 - Left LaRochelle, France March 16, under the command of Dugue deSainte-Therese, arrived in Mobile, Louisiana Province pn August 20, brought much needed supplies to the new colony, stayed two months anchored at Massacre (Dauphin) Island. Enroute, it had stopped at Cap-francais where it took on more livestock, then crossed ocean, followed Bahama Channel and stopped at the Spanish Harbor of Havana to sell some supplies there. It departed in mid October with a new commander, Nicolas Perrot.
1720 - August 11, departed Lorient, France for Biloxi, Louisiana with the Hainaut Colonists, arrived November 9.
According to George DeCoux, the LaLoire made several more trips after between France and Louisiana after 1720 including these notes:
1722 Bourgmon, who was made a knight of the order of Saint Louis at the French port where he embarked in May 1722, set off in the Loire, accompanied by a very young native child who had come to France with him. Bourgmon, appointed by the directors in France as Commandant for the rivers of hte Arkansas and Missouri countries, with the rank of captain in the colony's forces, and he was authorized to confiscate the goods of fur traders who entered these regions without his permission. (Giraud's History of French Louisiana, Vol. V, pg 446)
1726 Nineteen girls set out (from France as passengers) in the Loire in 1724, each equipped with a trousseau that the Company had enabled her to buy, and with the Company's promise to support her until marriage. This was a revival of the Casket Girls program by the Company. (Giraud's History of French Louisiana, Vol. V, pg 261 footnote)
1726 Bourgmont had brought four Indian Chiefs (Missouris, Osages, Otos, of the Missouri, and Michigameas of the Illinois Tribe) to France abord the Gironde, and the Loire was ship used when he returned in early 1726 to Louisiana with the Chiefs. The Chiefs carried with them presents from the royal residences of Paris, including gold chains from the King and the Duchess of Orleans. (Giraud's History of French Louisiana, Vol. V, pg 490)
1726 - May, The Loire had just arrived from France, bringing the Company of the Indies repreated order to the council to register the ordinance of July 11, 1725. (From Giraud's History of Louisiana, Vol. V, page 49)
In later years, after it was no longer seaworthy for long voyages across the ocean, the LaLoire was used as a supply ship between New Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi River. So far, DeCoux has not uncovered any evidence of the final fate of the ship, and he assumes it eventually sunk or deteriorated at port somewhere in the lower Mississippi.
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