The Mystery of the Vanished Château
In Chevannes, people have always said that the owner of Bois-des-Fossés had the old château pulled down around 1930 to build the house we know today. Legend or fact? The association has decided to investigate. This is the first episode of a series that will take you through our research.
A persistent tradition
Everyone who knows Bois-des-Fossés has heard it: the house where Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours lived no longer exists. Around 1930, an owner is said to have replaced it with a new one. But who was this owner? Why would he have destroyed a house so rich in history? And what, if anything, remains of the old residence today?
A “château” on the 1832 map
Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours bought the estate in 1774. He parted with it in 1815, after his family had left for America. On the Napoleonic land register of Chevannes, drawn up in 1832, the main building is still labelled “Château”. The word is probably generous: it was rather a manor house, surrounded by its farm and gardens.
Still standing in 1929
The house did not disappear in the nineteenth century. The American painter Stanley Arthurs depicted it around 1920, and members of the du Pont family photographed it during a trip to France in 1929; these documents are held by the Hagley Museum and Library in Delaware. If the house was demolished, it happened after 1929, which is consistent with the tradition.
Our method
To separate fact from legend, we turned to public archives: population censuses, civil registers, estate duty indexes and land registers. Digitised by the departmental archives of the Loiret and Seine-et-Marne, these records let us follow, census after census, the people who lived at Bois-des-Fossés. The next episode will introduce them: tenant farmers, and a remarkable line of gardeners.
An appeal for your memories
Do you have a photograph, a postcard or a memory of Bois-des-Fossés before 1930? Did your parents or grandparents talk about it? Please write to us through our contact form: every account may help the investigation move forward.
Coming next: “The Keepers of the Garden (1806-1936)”.
Illustration: Bois-des-Fossés photographed by Pierre S. du Pont in 1925. Contributions by Marsha Mills, Foundation Archivist, Hagley Museum and Library.
Sources: Napoleonic land register of Chevannes, 1832 (Archives départementales du Loiret, 3 P 91/3); Hagley Museum and Library (painting by Stanley Arthurs, c. 1920; photographs, 1929); population censuses of Chevannes (Archives départementales du Loiret).
Written with the help of the AI assistant Claude (Anthropic), reviewed and approved by the association.