Dominique Ducharme (; 15 May 1765 – 3 August 1853), from

Lachine, Quebec Lachine () is a borough (''arrondissement'') within the city of Montreal on the Island of Montreal in southwestern Quebec, Canada. It was founded as a trading post in 1669. Developing into a parish and then an autonomous city, it was Montreal m ...

, was a French Canadian

fur trade The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal ecosystem, boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals h ...

r, settler, militia officer, and public servant. He was named François Ducharme at birth, the son of Jean-Marie Ducharme. In 1793 Ducharme was the first white European to settle in the Fox Valley. He paid two barrels of rum to two Indians for land on both sides of the Fox River near the Kaukauna rapids, this gave him control of the portage around and of the lower Fox. The Ducharme deed was

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

's first recorded deed. He built a house on the land and settled there. He began trading with the

Menomini The Menominee ( ; meaning ''"Menominee People"'', also spelled Menomini, derived from the Ojibwe language word for "Wild Rice People"; known as ''Mamaceqtaw'', "the people", in the Menominee language) are a federally recognized tribe of Nati ...

and Chippewa Indians. At the time, 1,500 Indians lived in the village of Kaukauna. The following year, he and another trader, Jacob Franks, obtained from the Menominee Indians "for value received," a 999-year lease on a total of on both sides of the Fox at La Baye; at the time Ducharme already possessed a concession on one side of the river beside one of the leased lots. He is presumed to have continued to engage in fur trading in the west for the next 15 years; certainly he acquired a working knowledge of several native dialects. Ducharme eventually returned to the Montreal district, settling at Lac des Deux Montagnes. On 26 June 1810, he married Agathe de Lorimier, a

Métis The Métis ( , , , ) are a mixed-race Indigenous people whose historical homelands include Canada's three Prairie Provinces extending into parts of Ontario, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and the northwest United States. They ha ...

daughter of Claude-Nicolas-Guillaume de Lorimier, resident Indian agent at Caughnawaga (

Kahnawake The Kahnawake Mohawk Territory (, in the Mohawk language, ''Kahnawáˀkye'' in Tuscarora) is a First Nations reserve of the Mohawks of Kahnawà:ke on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec, Canada, across from Montreal. Establi ...

). On 21 July 1812, after the US invaded Canada, Ducharme was commissioned a lieutenant in the Pointe-Claire Battalion of Militia. In May 1813 Ducharme was ordered to the Niagara frontier,

Upper Canada The Province of Upper Canada () was a Province, part of The Canadas, British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North America, formerly part of the Province of Queb ...

, in command of a party of Six Nations Indians from Lac-des-Deux-Montagnes and Saint-Régis. He led 300 Caughnawaga Indians to reinforce the militia at Lacolle who were then transferred to Upper Canada in 1813 and based at Burlington Heights along with other native warriors. At the Battle of Beaver Dams, Ducharme organized a party of warriors who effectively forced the American detachment to surrender. Returning quickly to

Lower Canada The Province of Lower Canada () was a British colonization of the Americas, British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence established in 1791 and abolished in 1841. It covered the southern portion o ...

, Ducharme was placed under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Charles-Michel d’Irumberry de Salaberry; for his participation in the Battle of Châteauguay on 26 October he was later awarded a medal and clasp. On one occasion, according to the journalist Pantaléon Hudon, Ducharme’s Indians tracked down and captured six deserters from Salaberry’s unit; they were court-martialled and, on the lieutenant-colonel’s orders, shot. Ducharme, who regarded such punishment as too severe, never forgave Salaberry and told him that he would have helped the men to escape had he known the fate that awaited them. Ducharme remaining years were spent in the quiet obscurity of Lac des Deux Montagnes, where he continued as interpreter for the Indian Department. He died in 1853.

External links

Biography at ''the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online''Fort George Web site

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ducharme, Dominique 1765 births 1853 deaths British Indian Department Settlers of Canada Canadian people of the War of 1812