Bolduc House Museum.

Making French Colonial American History Fun

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

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.

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.