Jacques Donatien LeRay de Chaumont:
On our way from Toronto to Maine, we passed by Fort Drum in upstate New York. I’d never heard of Fort Drum and, once in our hotel room, a half-day from our destination, I looked it up and fell down a rabbit hole. As it turns out, on the grounds of Fort Drum sits the old LeRay Mansion, and that’s where this story gets interesting.
Jacques Donatien LeRay de Chaumont (1726-1803) was part of court of King Louis XVI of France at Versailles, the Governor of Les Invalides in Paris, a hospital for veterans, and the Grand Master of Waters and Lands of Blois in the Loire Valley. He was also the single largest financial supporter of the American Revolution, lending over 3 million livres of his fortune to the cause. In addition to his own fortune, he leveraged his role at the court in Versailles to act as the intermediary between Ben Franklin and King Louis XVI so as to keep secret from England the financial intrigue between the two. Jacques worked hard and persuaded the King to lend money from the French treasury to support the American Revolution. He also had his shipyards refit a merchant vessel he owned into the warship, USS Bonhomme Richard, for Captain John Paul Jones a hero of the American Revolution.
After the Revolution, the elder LeRay sent his son, Jacques Le Ray (1750-1840) to America to collect his father’s loan. In spite of his entreaties, and a letter from Ben Franklin to George Washington pleading for the loan to be repaid in full, young Jacques received only a small partial repayment. Young Jacques used the money to acquire a small property in upstate New York and built the area’s first sawmill. As his prosperity grew, he purchased more land and married a wealthy newspaper heiress from New Jersey, becoming an American citizen. In 1808, the younger Jacques built the LeRay Mansion as the centrepiece of his New York State property.
Jacques Donatien LeRay de Chaumont was never repaid for his loan to the nascent America. The French treasury was all but depleted by its loans to America and, when the country faced a bad harvest shortly afterwards, the lack of money to help the starving masses led to the French Revolution. Jacques Donatien LeRay de Chaumont not only lost the money he lent to America, but he also lost his title, chateaux, and properties to the French Revolution. As for his son, the younger Jacques, unable to recoup his father’s money, he and later his family were forced to sell his property, and finally the United States government expropriated the estate and LeRay Mansion for the expansion of Fort Pine, later renamed Fort Drum.
All that remains of the legacy of Jacques Donatien LeRay de Chaumont is the name of the town of Leray in Jefferson County, NY, home of Fort Drum.