Found quite a bit more about the Gamache line through Ancestry and Google today. Got to practice my French (pretty rusty) while reading the Catholic church records of baptisms and marriages, of course in old style script too. I've made a lot of progress in piecing the family together. Check out this US Supreme Court case from 1838 regarding a land dispute over a large tract of land that once belonged to Jean Baptiste Gamache through a Spanish land grant. http://supreme.justia.com/us/37/410/. I also found that a Gamache descendant and researcher recently published a book on the Gamache genealogy - See the book on Amazon. I'm looking forward to reading this.
The Gamache line came from France to Quebec, and then Jean Baptiste Gamache went to the area that would become St Louis, Missouri. He was one of the founding settlers there. In 1776, King Charles III of Spain ordered a land route to stimulate commerce between the trading posts of St Louis and Ste Genevieve. Subsequently, the Lt Governor of Louisiana, Francois Cruzat, offered 1050 arpents of land (about 893 acres) to anyone who would build and operate a ferry across the Meramec. Jean Baptiste Gamache completed the project in 1776 and established what was known as the lower ferry. Gamache's ferry was part of the King's Trace or El Camino Real (the Royal Road). After 1850, this route became known as Telegraph Road because the first telegraph line in Missouri followed the route with the first poles embedded along the old trail. Gamache was one of, if not the first permanent settlers in the Arnold area. He claimed the 1050 arpents of land and settled and cultivated land in the area until 1780, when he was ordered away on account of Indian disturbances. He went to the village of Carondolet (later part of St Louis) where he lived until his death in 1805.
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