Father: Daniel de la Chaumette (~1619-)
Mother: Marie Au Courturier

Marriage: 29 Sep 1695  Church of French Protestants,Threadneedle, London, England
Spouse: Elizabeth Bourgeois Bouvet
Birth: 1672  London, England or Paris, France
Death: 1715  Martinique, French West Indies

Children: 
Antoine (~1706-)
John Jr. (~1708-1794)
Samuel (~1710-~1774)
Daniel (~1712-1784)

It is claimed that Jean de la Chaumette was a farmer and Attorney. One researcher tells us:

On 20 August 1681 an official list was drawn up of those who were worshipping in Rochechouart. Clovis Palazy, pastor, and Pierre de la Chaumette, apothecary, were named along with 41 others, seven of whom were de la Chaumettes. On 20 October 1684 the Edict of Nantes was revoked, resulting in renewed persecution of the Huguenots. Some paid the price of renouncing their faith for the right to remain in their homes. Others chose exile. Pastor Clovis Palazy left for England with a little group in which there were three brothers, members of the de la Chaumette family. Nothing more was ever heard from them. 1

Another tells:

Jean de la Chaumette fled France with many other Huguenots and came to England. Jean served in the English Army and adopted the English spelling of his name which became John de la Shumate. John later came to the French Martinique, where his wife died. He then departed for the Colony of Virginia in 1723 and purchased two hundred acres of land at Elk Run, Virginia in Stafford County. Until 1730 this area became a part of Prince William County and later in 1759 Fauquier County. According to the tobacco list of Overwharton parrish in 1724, John de la Shumate and his three sons were listed. The ages being: John Jr. over 16, Samuel 14 and Daniel 12. 2

From The Shumate Family

Jean (Baptiste?) de la Chaumette was born in the town of Rochechouard in the Governorship (Department) of Poitiers, probably about 1664. On a modern day map of France, Rochechouard appears as a community of 3952 inhabitants, located some 42 kilometres east of Saint Junien on the route leading through Chalus to Limoges, at the juncture of the Graine and Vayres rivers. In this period, it was of course considerably smaller and was the private bailiwick of the Marquis de Pompadour who had married the last heiress of the Viscount of Rochechouard. Both were ardent Catholics, whereas the townsfolk seem to have been largely Protestant. Jean's father was another Daniel de la Chaumette, also an attorney - a profession which seems to have been almost hereditary in one or more branches of the family; his mother seems to have been a daughter of another town lawyer, one Joseph Fourgeaud. There were several other children in the family, as well as cousins, uncles and aunts galore.

About 1686, following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes previously referred to, Rochechouard was the scene of a mass exodus among its Huguenot populace. Only a few people - among them one or two de la Chaumettes - seem to have been bold enough to risk the cruel attacks and measures which the Marquis de Pompadour - Jean IV Helie - and his vindictive wife, Marie, were undertaking. Several sources, among them Alfred Leroux' "Histoire de la Reforme en Limousin," recount that as early as 1650, Madame de Pompadour, in her capacity as Viscomtesse de Rochechouard, had already initiated a violent persecution of the Protestants-at which time Daniel and his wife had been banned from the town for their resistance, but, insofar as can be ascertained, they were allowed to return by 1660, and continued to reside there until 1686. Jean was probably about 22 years old at this time, presumably the youngest of the family, and they migrated westward to the coast, traveling - as the Huguenot émigré Durand was to write of his own flight - mostly by night. Where they stayed between 1686 and 1692 when the young Jean and his brothers Josue and Antione appear on English records, no one can say with certainty, but it seems that during this period, Jean had married - perhaps a local girl - and his wife was dead by the time he turns up in London. These record, from the Rolls of the Township of London and from the Church for French Protestants, located on Threadneedle Street in London, speak for themselves: In 1681 Josue de la Chaumette registered as an alien in London. In 1686 (2 June) Francois Beliard, son of the deceased Jean Breliard and Anne de la Chaumette, married the widow Elizabeth Tattincloe Brasseur. They applied for papers allowing them to marry in an English church. On 29 September 1695, Jean de la Chaumette, widower, a native of Rochechouard, married the widow Elizabeth Bourgeois Bouvet. Apparently Daniel de la Chaumette died in France, and his older children - Antoine Daniel, who served in a Huguenot regiment under King William III; Josue and Anne went to England right away. So it seems did a certain Arnoul de la Chaumette who was probably elder brother of Jean. Jean, on the other hand and his sister Marie Madeleine, did not arrive until 1694 or later. As has been said, Jean's first wife died en route. Though it may not apply to the narrative, it would seem that both Antoine Daniel and Josue may have left Rochechouard even before the Revocation. Certainly Josue's registration is four years beforehand, while Antoine Daniel seems to have served under the English king for almost as long. His marriage took place in London about 1689, and he had already risen to the rank of a Lieutenant by that time. Between 1695 and about 1711, we have no record on the career of Jean de la Chaumette, but it is thought that he, too, may have served with the English army for much of this period. His children are born between 1705 and 1714, which seems to prove his absence from home for a ten year period. Antoine de la Chaumette was the eldest of the children, born almost certainly by 1705. he appears on a petition of the French planters on Martinique in 1725 as owning land - a plantation which remained in his family at least until the early 1800's. This boy's life seems to verify a suspicion that, in 1708 or thereabouts, the de la Chaumettes and other well-to-do French Huguenots sailed to the West Indies where they remained for several years. A tombstone inscription on Martinique, recorded by Stephen Oliver about 1889, mentions a Madame de la Chaumette who died in an epidemic prior to 1715.

. . . Jean de la Chaumette and his three younger sons arrived in Isle of Wight (a supposition) only to find that Arnell had been dead almost twenty years and that land was pretty well taken up. With money in his pocket, the father now headed westward to more hospitable land and, passing through Westmoreland County, found that his brother-in-law, Marc Hardouin, a Norman émigré, now owned an Ordinary, or Inn, in Stafford County, near where the Germantown trail crossed Elk Run. . .

. . .Jean de la Chaumette arrived in the Elk Run sector no later than 1722. Perhaps through the offices of his probable brother-in-law and certain early traveling companion, mark Hardin, he was introduced to William Allen, the biggest landowner in the area, and soon consummated a deal for some choice bottom land along Elk Run. 3

1. Quoted from Giles County Virginia History - Families, Vol. I". 1982: Giles Historical Society., p. 344: Article submitted by Haskell D. Shumate.

2. Said to be extracted from the book Our Shoemake roots some descendants of Jean de la Chaumette, the Huguenot, of Rochechouart, France by Jeanne Waters Strong, 1984, California, USA.

3. from a RootsWeb WEB site (http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/ cgibin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db= marciamcclure&id=I2639) claiming to quote from The Shumate Family - Theodur-Friedrich von Stauffenberg (Allen Co Library, Ft Wayne, IN) which was privately printed in Washington, D.C. in May 1964 by Phyllis E. Hendrick, Duplicating Services.

This page was prepared by Charles Hartley.