Sergeant Jean-Louis Fonteneau

  Throughout most of the eighteenth century, France, England and Spain were  engaged in a mighty struggle to determine who would possess and control the  land west of the Appalachians. 

England had already established several   colonies along the east coast as far south as the Carolinas. Spain had   gained a foothold in the Florida peninsula and France had laid claim to all  land drained by the Mississippi River. This latter claim was hotly disputed  by the English. In order to bolster their presence and to deter the English from migrating westward, France built a large number of military forts along the boundaries of their claims and manned these forts with Colonial Marines. 

Fort Toulouse, located near the present town of Wetumpka, Alabama at the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa Rivers was the most southeastern post  in this chain of forts. Many of these soldiers were encouraged to settle the  lands and establish homesteads in the vicinity of the forts. 

French girls were also given passage to the colonies to provide wives for the soldiers.  This was the setting and times that gave rise to the beginning of the  Fonteneau family in North America. 

Our ancestor, Sergeant Jean-Louis  Fonteneau, left home (Poitiers, France) in 1720 on the ship "Drommadaire" for 
 assignment in the colonies. He came through Mobile, the French military headquarters and the seat of government for the Louisiana territory, and was  initially assigned to Fort Conde near Mobile. In 1726 he met and married a  young widow named Marie Louise Henrique in Mobile. She was about 27 years old and Jean-Louis was 40. Shortly afterward, he and Marie moved to Fort Toulouse, some 300 or so miles up river from Mobile and remained there for  many years afterward; enough time to have and raise 12 children 
(8 boys & 4 girls). Jean-Louis died at the fort in October 1755 and Marie and the rest  of the family remained there until it was surrendered to the English in 1763.  Rather than submit to English rule, the family and many of their Indian  friends moved west and resettled on land grants in Spanish controlled  Louisiana. It is from this family that all of us descended. The spelling of our last name was probably changed to its current spelling by the Spanish census authorities when the family settled in Louisiana.  

Our progenitor's  (Jean-Louis) remains lie in an unmarked grave at the cemetery at Fort Toulouse.