the State Historical Society of Missouri
Carl J. Ekberg is professor emeritus of history at Illinois State University.
![A seventeenth-century engraving of Paris’s Hôpital Général de la Salpêtrière, where Marie-Claire Catoire spent her childhood as an orphan. [Courtesy of the Wellcome Collection (CCBY 4.0)]](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2023-12/2.-marie-claire-catoire-billeron.jpg?itok=lKTgC4eu "A seventeenth-century engraving of Paris’s Hôpital Général de la Salpêtrière, where Marie-Claire Catoire spent her childhood as an orphan. [Courtesy of the Wellcome Collection (CCBY 4.0)]")
Marie-Claire Catoire Billeron’s name first appears in North America on the…
Articles Authored
![The Louis Bolduc House in Ste. Genevieve. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Missouri Postcard Collection, P0032]](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2023-07/1.%20Louis%20Bolduc.jpg?itok=pPablfHp "The Louis Bolduc House in Ste. Genevieve. [State Historical Society of Missouri, Missouri Postcard Collection, P0032]")
Louis Bolduc was born near Quebec City in the village of St. Joachim around 1739 (his…
Henri Peyroux de Ia Coudrenière was born in France around 1743, the son of Marguerite-…
![A detail from Thomas Hutchins’s 1778 map of the Illinois Country showing Ste. Genevieve, Kaskaskia, and Fort de Chartres. [Courtesy of the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection, Image 5045002]](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2023-07/1.%20Marie-Joseph%20Deguire.jpg?itok=DrXzrJuZ "A detail from Thomas Hutchins’s 1778 map of the Illinois Country showing Ste. Genevieve, Kaskaskia, and Fort de Chartres. [Courtesy of the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection, Image 5045002]")
During the first half of the eighteenth century, marriages between Native Americans and…
![A detail from the Finiels map of the Mississippi River showing the area around St. Louis. The original is in the Archives de la Marine, Chateau, Vincennes, France. [Courtesy of Carl J. Ekberg]](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2023-07/1.%20Nicolas%20de%20Finiels.jpg?itok=_q_XanVs "A detail from the Finiels map of the Mississippi River showing the area around St. Louis. The original is in the Archives de la Marine, Chateau, Vincennes, France. [Courtesy of Carl J. Ekberg]")
Nicolas de Finiels, an expatriate French engineer who served the Spanish monarchy during…