Monsieur Guillaume Duduit was another French settler of the Grant who

lived there during forty of the most active years of his life.  He came

down the fall of 1796 and built a cabin and made other preparations to

take possession of his lot.  On the 21st of March, l797, five families

landed in the Grant and commenced work on their respective lots, viz?

Duduit, Bertram, Gervais, Lacroix and Dutiel.

     Duduit was a hard worker and went immediately to clearing his land

and farming.  It is altogether probable that he raised a very

considerable crop of corn and other vegetables that year.  If so, he can

claim to be among the first successful farmers of Scioto County.

     His parents were wealthy.  They lived about seven leagues from

Paris, and were engaged in agriculture.  He was born in the year l770.

His father died when he was quite small.  His education was very limited,

being sent to school where the teachers were wholly incompetent to teach.

     He early learned the trade of silversmith, and lived in Paris.  In

l789, he joined the revolutionary party under LaFayette, and was at the

storming and taking of the Bastile.  This was the first act in the great

drama of the French revolution, which proved so bloody in its results.

However, Mons. Duduit escaped the horrors of that revolution by marrying

a young wife and embarking for America in the colony of French emigrants

who were to settle in the wilderness of Ohio.

     It is not necessary to speak here of the trials and difficulties

they had to undergo in reaching their new home in the west.  They arrived

at Gallipolis in the year l790, and young Duduit comprehended at once the

whole situation.  He saw they had been deceived, and without

extraordinary exertions on their part they must suffer for the

necessaries of life.  Their main dependence for support was on the wild

game of the woods.

    Young Duduit, as if by instinct, took as naturally to the woods as a

young duck does to water.  He soon became an expert hunter and an

excellent woodsman...two qualifications almost absolutely necessary to

the success of a pioneer.  The Indian was raging at that time.

     Col. Sproat, who commanded the military post at Marietta, appointed

four spies and scouts for the protection of Gallipolis..two French and

two Americans.  Duduit was one of the Frenchmen.  He, in company with

Major Robert Safford scoured the country between Marietta and the mouth

of the Scioto.  Through their vigilance and timely notice of the approach

of hostile Indians, Gallipolis was saved from any depredations of any

great consequence.

    One time, while out hunting in the night, his dogs chased something

up a tree.  He waited for the moon to shine out bright in order to see

how to shoot.  As soon as he got fair sight of the animal which appeared

to be in the act of springing at him, he fired, and brought down a large

panther, shot through the heart.  One time he was out hunting, in company

with some other Frenchmen.  They were very cautious for fear they might

fall into an ambuscade of Indians.  As they were passing along a

hillside, Duduit was behind the others.  A deer came within range of his

rifle, which he fired at and killed.  The French, supposing they were

fired on by Indians, fled in every direction as fast as their legs could

carry them.  Duduit hung up his deer as quick as he could, and hastened

back to the village.  The others had returned and reported that they had

been fired on by Indians and that Duduit was killed.

     He soon relieved them of their fears as to Indians, and for them to

go to where they heard the firing, and they would find a fat buck hung

up.

     Duduit was among the first to come to the Grant.  He was a hard

worker, and unlike Mons. Gervais went immediately to clearing his land

and farming.  In a few years he had fine orchards, the peach trees being

very productive.  He had a small distillery, for the purpose of

distilling his own grain and fruit.  His farm was next below Valodin’s

about a mile below Haverhill.

      Madame Agnes Duduit died July ll, l8ll.  Her education was refined,

being from an aristocratic family.  She was mother of 13 children, of

whom three died infants.  The others were, according to age, Agnes, born

at Alexandria, soon after they landed; Caroline, Virginia, William, Oyet,

Fanny, Frederick, John and Desot who was born at the death of his mother.

     M. Duduit remained single for six years, and on July 3, l8l7, he

married Mille Faire Lacroix in her l7th year, and he in his 47th year.

     M. Duduit was out in the war of l812.  While at Sandusky he was

recognized by an Indian who said that he had seen him while he was a spy,

and that he could have easily have killed him, but he was afraid of his

dog, which Duduit constantly had with him.  And if he should kill the dog

he was afraid of Duduit.

     The children of the second consort of Mons. Duduit were eight in

number.  Mary Catharine, born April 14, l8l8; Emily, Eliza, Adaline,

Francis Edward, Nancy Mariah, Andrew Lacroix and Louis, born Nov.23,

l834, making seventeen living children in all doing pretty well for one

man toward populating a new country.

     Mons. Duduit died suddenly April 5, l836, being 66 years of age.

The cause of it is related to have been a spasm of suffocation.  It

happened in the night.  He had been employed the day before in the barn

at a kind of work in which he was forced to inhale an atmosphere full of

vegetable dust.

     He was a believer in the Christian religion though he never belonged

to any Protestant church.

     His industry made him respected, and obtained for him good property.

 After the death of Mons. Valodine, he obtained his home farm and the

fine buildings thereunto appertaining, in which he lived at the time of

his death.

     He was a great hunter, a good farmer, an affectionate husband, a

kind father and an honest man.  (From James Keyes book on Scioto Co.

Pioneers)

Third Generation

Agnes Duduit b. l796 (Gallia Co., Ohio or Alexandria, Va.) married

Pressley

Gillellen (Gillen) in Scioto Co., Ohio Dec. 6, l8l0.  Pressley was b.

ca1785

Va. s/o William and Hannah Achlen Gillellen.  He died before March 30,

l860 in Lawrence Co., Ohio

Children:       Samuel b. l8l6 Lawrence Co., Ohio