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 1790 - 1852 (62 years)
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| Name |
Marie ("White Feather") Gouin |
| Born |
8 Feb 1790 |
Detroit, MI  |
| Gender |
Female |
| Died |
9 Sep 1852 |
Erie, MI |
| Person ID |
I00028 |
Tombeau Family Tree |
| Last Modified |
24 Feb 2007 |
| Family |
Francois LaVoy, II, b. 30 Oct 1776, St-Philippe-de-la-Prairie , d. 13 Sep 1852, Erie, MI (Age 75 years) |
| Married |
5 Jul 1808 |
Detroit, MI (St. Anne Church) |
| Children |
| + | 1. Charles LaVoy, Sr., b. 10 Aug 1809, Detroit, Mi , d. 4 Sep 1858, Erie Twp, MI (Age 49 years) |
| + | 2. Mary ("Sophia") LaVoy, b. 31 Aug 1811, Detroit, MI , d. Bef 1852, Erie, MI (Age < 40 years) |
| | 3. Infant LaVoy, b. 4 Nov 1813, d. 1813 |
| + | 4. Lambert LaVoy, I, b. 1 Mar 1815, Detroit, MI , d. Abt 1855, Bedford Twp., MI (Age 39 years) |
| + | 5. Francis LaVoy, III, b. 7 Dec 1817, Detroit, MI , d. 25 Jul 1869, Erie, MI (St. Joseph Cemetery, large stone (Age 51 years) |
| + | 6. David LaVoy, b. 7 Jul 1821, Maumee River, OH , d. 12 Sep 1852, Erie Township, MI (Age 31 years) |
| + | 7. Fabian LaVoy, b. 6 Apr 1823, Detroit, MI , d. 9 Nov 1909, Erie, MI (Age 86 years) |
| + | 8. Paul LaVoy, b. 28 Feb 1825, Erie Twp., MI , d. 7 Aug 1871, Erie, MI (Age 46 years) |
| | 9. Esther LaVoy, b. 1832, d. Abt 1851 (Age 19 years) |
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| Family ID |
F0041 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
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| Notes |
- March 16, 1997
Jim Ryland
Curator, Historical Collection
Monroe County Historical Museum
126 South Monroe Street
Monroe, MI 48161
Dear Mr. Ryland:
I have meant to type this letter for over a year concerning your exhibit of the LaVoy Family papoose-carrier and artifacts donated by Miss Mildred LaPrad in about 1954. There are some minor errors in the exhibit's description and more information I would like to share with you and your visitors, including a picture of "Mrs. Mary LaVoy".
I am providing the following narrative with footnoted documentation:
The "Mrs. Mary LaVoy" who made the papoose carrier can be further identified as the matriarch of the Monroe County LaVoy Family. She is the former Marie Gouin, daughter of Charles Gouin, an early French-Canadian settler in Detroit of prominent family, and a "sauvagesse", as early parish records of Ste. Anne de D‚troit indicate. This was an illegitimate union as Charles Gouin was married at the time to Suzanne Boyer (1).
Marie/Mary Gouin was thus only a half-blooded Indian, not full-blooded. She was of the Potawatomi Tribe of Indians whose village on Delery's map of Detroit was located west of Fort Ponchartrain de Detroit overlooking the Detroit River. Her Indian name was "White Feather" until she was baptized at the age of 11 at Ste. Anne de Detroit. Her mother's name was "Little Snipe".(2)
Mary/Marie was born February 8, 1790 at Detroit, and married July 5, 1808, at Ste. Anne de Detroit, Francois LaVoy, newly arrived in Detroit from St-Philippe-de-la-Prairie, near Montr‚al, Canada. (3)
Prior to their marriage Francois LaVoy, patriarch of the Monroe County LaVoy Family, was a trapper in what is now the Temperance area, but which at that time was a large woods. He traded his furs in Canada and on trips back and forth in Detroit met White Feather/Marie Gouin. When they were married, they were forced out of the tribe, as Marie/Mary's Potawatomi relatives considered the marriage to a white man a disgrace to the tribe. (4)
Somewhere between 1810-1820 the couple appears to have gradually moved into Monroe County as a permanent settlement, Oral tradition states that they could not successfully farm their land in Detroit because it was swampy. Marie's father had actually sold them land in the Grand Marais, or "great swamp" at what is now Windmill Point in Grosse Pointe.(5)
Fran‡ois and Mary LaVoy parented nine known children from 1809 to 1832, some in Detroit and others in Monroe County. These were: Charles, Mary who married Joseph DuVall, an unnamed ungendered still born, Lambert, Fran‡cois, Jr., David, Fabian, Paul, and Esther. From these children spring the LaVoy families and some DuVall families of Monroe County. They lived in a cabin at Dean and Dixie, now in Temperance, but formerly called Dean's Corners, where the cabin stood as late as 1909. (6)
Mary Gouin LaVoy died September 9, 1852, age 62, and her husband Fran‡ois followed her four days later on September 13, 1852. (7)
FOOTNOTES:
(1) Ste. Anne de D‚troit parish records as published in Denissen's French-Canadian Families of the Detroit River Region.
(2) Baptism found in Denissen, op cit., and family oral tradition passed on through Mary/Marie's great-great-granddaughter, Esther LaVoy Templin of 250 W. Erie Rd, Temperance, MI.
(3) Dennisen, op. cit.
(4) Family oral tradition passed on by Mary/Marie's great-great-granddaughter, Mary Luceilia Reau Stark (whose mother was Lucy LaVoy), who resides in Luther House, Temperance, MI.
(5) Monroe County and Detroit Federal Censuses; 1909 obituary of Fabian ("Tobias") LaVoy, and City of Detroit Deeds; oral tradition passed on by Esther LaVoy Templin, as above.
(6) Dennisen, op. cit.; 1909 obituary of Fabian ("Tobias") LaVoy in Monroe County Historical Collection; 1850 Federal Census for Esther; St. Joseph's Baptism Records, Erie, MI, for Paul.
(7) Monroe County Probate Records of their estate.
The card with the papoose-carrier exhibit states the carrier was first used around 1840 to "carry her (Mary's) 11 children around. Mary/Marie's children were born from 1809-1832, so if that was its original purpose, the carrier dates from that period. Mrs. Mildred LaPrad was a great-great-granddaughter of White Feather, and her grandmother, Mary LaPrad was a granddaughter, not a daughter of White Feather (Marie/Mary Gouin LaVoy). There are only nine recorded children, but Miss LaPrad may well have known of a family oral tradition of two more children not baptized at Ste. Anne de Detroit or St. Joseph's, Erie.
I am sure this is more than is necessary for the exhibit, but as this account records oral traditions of elderly people in Monroe County, it is one way of preserving these traditions.
Thank you for your time in reading this letter and considering any changes to the information in the exhibit. I might add that books on the Potawatomi Indian crafts indicate the designs and materials used for the papoose-carrier are classically Potawatomi.
The picture, of which I am sending you a laser print, of White Feather/ Marie Gouin, has passed down by Marie's daughter, Mary LaVoy Duvall, to a great-great-great-granddaughter, Wendy DuVall-Angelocci of Novi, MI.
Sincerely yours,
Patrick LaVoy Tombeau (313) 421-7323
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