Since I'm new on the DeGruy List, please pardon some of my posts if they seem naive and/or out of date. I have been reading old posts to the list and trying to get up to date with others on the list. Anyway, I was reading Ann Voorhies post where she was wondering if the French colonists got financing from the family back in France and whether they went back to France. This made me remember that Joseph Chauvin DeLery's first wife went back to France two or three times in the 1720's and her children were born there and she died on one of ther trips there. Those trips must not have been easy to make. Some Canadians apparently went from Canada to France and then came to Louisiana in the early 1700's, possibly because it was difficult to sail from Canada to Louisiana (via the Atlantic) and dangerous to come down the Mississippi. It appears that Antoine did not have much funds when he arrived in the colony, since he apparently borrowed 2000 livres prior to going to Illinois. What financial help he got seemed to come from his mother-in-law. The French wars with England had many effects on the French colonists in Illinois. During the 1750's the English navy made it very difficult for French ships to reach New Orleans and Louisiana, causing many difficulties and also changing the pattern of trade in the Colony. It also probably increased the reliance of New Orleans on the Illinois country for grain and other supplies. Apparently, the "American Bottoms" area in Illinois and the area near there west of the Mississippi became the "breadbasket" for Louisiana. From what I've read, it seems that the French lead industry in the colony possibly had declined by the time Antoine tried his at hand lead mining. There is a good short summary of the lead industry (though it doesn't mention Antoine) entitled "The French and the Lure of Lead" at www.potosionline.com/history_archive/story-1.html. Frank McFarland