TIt was a wild shoot out at Fort William one spring night. A family rivalry that had been brewing for years finally exploded into a full-blown war. Even the Army stepped in to stop the families from total destruction. Their efforts, however, would be in vain, and it all started today in 1834.

The story comes from the journal of Charles Larpenteur, a cartman for Fort Union. According to Larpenteur, “There was a family named Deschamps, consisting of ten persons, among whom were the old man and three grown sons, … and were the very worst of subjects; and another family, headed by Jack Rem.”

The rivalry was set in motion today in 1834 when one of Rem’s sons was fatally beat over the head with the butt of a gun by a Deschamps. Before much more could happen, the storekeeper and trader, Mr. Lafferrier slipped laudanum in the whiskey, and the rowdy crew quickly fell asleep.

The families remained quiet through the winter, but in May, the feud was reignited when a man named Baptiste Gardepie conspired to kill old man Deschamps and his eldest son Francois, who had insulted him. The Deschamps had attempted to kill Gardepie, but when Francois offered Gardepie a horse for his girl, Gardepie grew angry. Gardepie swore either he or a Deschamps would die over the insult. The next day he, Mr. Lefferier and the Jack Rem’s two son-in-laws waited for Deschamps after breakfast. Gardepie asked Deschamps if he wanted to make peace, upon which Deschamps replied, “I will never make peace with you as long as there is a drop of blood in my veins.” According to Larpenteur’s journal, “Some blood was quickly let out of his veins, for Gardepie immediately seized the rifle barrel [near the chimney] and struck a fatal blow on the old man’s head.” Gardepie also hit Francois, but only knocked him down. Francois escaped under the bed and begged for his life. Gardepie took pity on Francois and allowed him to live, but proceeded to rip his father’s bowels out with a dirk.

It was believed peace would come between the families since Gardepie had avenged the Rem family. The following fall, however, old feelings began to stir Rem’s sons-in-law were killed by a Blackfeet war party while trapping beaver. According to Larpenteur, “This accident reduced Jack’s family considerably and enabled the Deschamps family to show their wicked dispositions again.” Mother Deschamps told her sons to avenge their father’s death. The boys killed Jack Rem, but also swore to kill any of his friends and threatened others in the fort. Larpenteur was jolted awake by the pounding on the door at Fort Union and women’s screaming voices warning of the ensuing fighting. According to Larpenteur, eight or ten men went to Kenneth McKenzie, head of the American Fur Company and asked to put an end to the Deschamps family. McKenzie complied and the men surrounded Fort William with cannons, muskets, and ammunition and laid siege to the fort. “Old lady” Deschamps came out, peace pipe in hand, to beg for her and her childrens’ lives, but was shot through the heart.

Firing continued through the next day. Wanting to end the battle before nightfall, the Company set fire to the fort. Hunters and horseman watched in case anyone tried to escape through the fire. With both houses aflame, Francois Deschamps escaped to the bastion. The bastion was pummeled with ammo, and Francois was killed, ending the long battle and rivalry.

Larpenteur wrote, “Thus the battle ended, about sunset, in the death of eight in the [Deschamps] family.” Francois’ body was thrown in the fire and the old lady was buried in an unmarked grave. “Such was the end of this troublesome family,” wrote Larpenteur. “[It was] not a crueler death than they deserved, but much crueler than I wished to witness,” he wrote, but claimed peace and comfort was enjoyed in the fort thereafter.

By Tessa Sandstrom
Source:
Milo Milton Quaife (ed.). Forty Years a Fur Trader on the Upper Missouri: The Personal Narrative of Charles Larpenteur, 1833-1872 (Chicago, 1933).

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