French Colonial Missouri History.

bolduc house museum

Photographs by Bruce Pendleton, © 2009 by the Bolduc House Museum. Three portraits on display in the LeMeilleur House Period Room. Left- John Smith T, a friend and perhaps murderer of Meriwether Lewis; Center– Emilie Bolduc; Right– Jean-Baptiste Sylvester Dupré, Louis Bolduc’s best friend and the executor of his estate
Text Box: The Bolduc-LeMeilleur House at 123 South Main Street was built in around 1820. While not a vertical log house, it retains much of the French Colonial architecture prevalent in the mid-Mississippi River Valley that owes its inspiration to France and the French Caribbean. This house has served many different purposes including a private home, a convent school run by the Sisters of Loretto, a blacksmith’s shop, and a car repair shop. Like the Bolduc House it has been carefully restored by The National Society of the Colonial Dames in America in the State of Missouri. Text Box: The Bolduc-LeMeilleur House Text Box: Items on display include a horse hair sofa, a whale oil lamp, a set of dominoes, and a rope bed The room is interpreted at around 1820 showing a later life-style than that portrayed in the earlier Bolduc House across the fence Text Box: From 1848-1858 this house served the Sisters of Loretto as a convent school from which trained teachers were sent farther west to serve in schools for Native Americans. Father Nerinx had just accompanied two nuns from Kentucky to the Sainte Genevieve convent when he became ill and died.