Excerpt from La Charrette, Chapter 3, pages 13–16
Place Name La Charrette: Chorette or Charette?
The abundance of aquatic and forest life, timber, and fertile land must have attracted Native Americans, French fur traders, and others to the stream soon to be allied with the village. What is known of its name origin? French settlers variously referred to it as Chorette’s (Charette, Cherrette, Charet, Choritte) Creek or simply Charrette Creek, its present name.3,4 The stream likely acquired its name from Joseph Chorette, a French fur trapper working there in 1795. Chorette and seven others accompanied Jean-Baptiste Trudeau (Truteau) from St. Louis since July 7, 1794, on an expedition entitled the Missouri Trading Company for the Discovery of the Nations of the Upper Missouri.5 From the published translation of Trudeau’s journal, the following unfolds:
On the tenth of July, I unfortunately lost one of my Frenchmen, named Joseph Chorette, who was drowned, while bathing alone at dusk, in the Missouri.
Born in Montreal, Trudeau was a distant cousin of Don Zenon Trudeau, then-lieutenant governor of St. Louis, and the first, although intermittent, schoolmaster of St. Louis from 1774 to 1827. He continued chronicling events of the first of three expeditions for the newly formed Missouri Trading Company. They had been traveling with trade merchandise to acquire furs from the Mandan and other Indian nations in a large pirogue propelled by eight oars, but they were now returning to St. Louis a year later:
Two little Indians aged about ten and twelve years old, came running to us to say, that they had seen a white man, who was washing his body on the bank of the Missouri, and while playing had wandered a little farther away from him; a few moments later, they looked towards the spot where he had been and had seen him no more; then going to the spot where he had gone into the water, they found his clothes, which were still there.
Accompanied by the other Frenchmen and several Indians, I ran to the edge of the river; we found his clothes, just as these children had told us. The Indians jumped into the river just at this spot, also some distance below, to make a search, but without avail. For the last few days this man had taken the habit of going to bathe in the Missouri, in spite of all we could say, telling him that the bed of the river being uneven, full of holes and precipices and he being unable to swim, he would undoubtedly be drowned; but incredulous to the last, he obstinately continued his bathing and unfortunately was drowned. I was most unhappy over this misfortune. During the twenty-six years and over, in which I have been making my trips, neither I, nor anyone of my companions, has met with a serious accident. I had him searched for, during several days, but without success.
Chorette, thirty-seven years old, was the son of Jean Chorette, who lived on the Mississippi below Carondelet in 1787, about the time Joseph entered the fur trade. By 1791, he and his family were listed as St. Louis residents. Less than a month before his death, Trudeau sent Chorette and “Quebec,” a fellow expedition member, on a mission to recover stolen horses from the Arikara Indians, with whom they had been trading furs. Chorette was obviously a valued member of the expedition because of his recognized abilities to interact successfully with Native Americans, but he did not have a full understanding of the dangers associated with swimming near the stream that would soon acquire his name. Indeed, as many swimmers have since verified, the unseen currents and eddies swirling about within these streams could behave treacherously.
Trudeau’s informative account further reveals his party remained in the area for several days in close association with the Native Americans, but the remains of Joseph Chorette were never recovered. As usual, Trudeau and his men traded with the local Native Americans and squatters in the area, as they worked from temporary trading posts or “forts” all along the Missouri. Trudeau’s statement he was “accompanied by the other Frenchmen” to locate the remains of Chorette seems to confirm French squatters were there. Based upon this account, the earliest either of them would have traveled up the Missouri River was 1787 for Chorette and 1769 for Trudeau, thereby offering trade opportunities with local Native Americans and squatters well before 1795. However, Trudeau’s bosses in St. Louis did not consider him an effective trader and soon replaced him with John MacKay to lead the next expedition later that same year.
Another viable name origin alternative frequently cited for the stream—and subsequently the village and later still the township—involves the unique, two-wheeled wooden cart the French settlers used. La charette—sometimes improperly called la charrette—in French becomes “the cart” when translated to English, thereby explaining the usage of the definite article “la” as part of the village name.
University of Missouri historians suggest the Chorette surname to be the most probable origin for the name of the stream. Chorette (or Chorette’s Creek) was a place name commonly used in early local documents, including the 1805 District of St. Charles tax records designating both the creek and its associated bottomlands. Despite one account varying with the previous rendition, suggesting Chorette drowned among the Arikara nation farther upriver,6 that account also inappropriately gave the age of Chorette as twenty-nine, not as thirty-seven.
The etymology from the surname Chorette to the feminine noun charette remains obscure. As early as 1797, the map of de Finiels7 shows the stream as R(iver) a Choret. By the early 1800s, variants of La Charette were in common usage by Lewis and Clark and others. In 1997, I even chose that spelling for my “Schakes of La Charette” genealogy Web site. Of course, the stream and village name origins could represent independent events. The stream could originate from Joseph Chorette, and the village could derive from “the cart.” Subsequent renditions shared today’s common spelling of Charrette. The many alternate spellings of the two words scattered across numerous documents suggest as much. The stream was sometimes improperly designated as either Wood River or St. Johns Creek. A 1762 map of Louisiana—with scant details—offers tenuous identification of the stream as R(iver) al Ruey.8 Native Americans and early squatters may even have referred to it as Wolf Creek.9 Nearby to the east is Tuque (often Duke) Creek in Charrette Bottoms. It likely derived its name from the French hat or flat cap called a toque. The de Finiels map shows Tuque Creek entering the Missouri a short distance below Charrette Creek, before the two streams formed their present-day confluence.
Trudeau was not the only fur trader operating in the area by the late 1760s; however, his is the only surviving account giving evidence of trade at Charrette Creek between Native Americans and Frenchmen. His account supports the notion that Charrette Bottoms had a long-standing reputation as a suitable fur trapping/fur trading location. At least one experienced fur-trading squatter named Cardinal must have thought so.
