What was the real name of Guillaume Fouquet?

 

By Howard Vallance Jones

 

According to every account of the Fuqua family, its American founder was Guillaume Fouquet, a French Huguenot refugee who came to Virginia in the 1680s, married Jane Eyre, and became a farmer in Charles City County, Virginia, where he presumably died some time after 1698.

 

It is amazing how little of this has ever really been proved. There is good documentary evidence for the marriage to Jane Eyre, and not much doubt about the farm in Charles City County. That's about as far as the proofs go.

 

There is no proof that the founder was a French Huguenot refugee. The 1680s certainly saw a very large number of Huguenot refugees in such places as Prussia, England, and the colonies. Louis XIV of France dropped all pretence of toleration of the Protestants in France after 1683, leading to an increasingly severe persecution in the following years, culminating in the withdrawal of permission for Protestant worship (the revocation of the Edict of Nantes) in 1685. Therefore Guillaume Fouquet certainly arrived in Virginia at the right time to be a Huguenot refugee.

 

Fouquet must certainly have been a Protestant. There was no welcome for Catholics in 17th century Virginia, and the Humphries-Eyre family would probably not have countenanced a marriage to a Catholic.

 

However, although Guillaume Fouquet was a Protestant, there is no proof that he was French, and thus a Huguenot. He apparently came to Virginia from England. We have no record whatsoever of his place or date of birth, and thus he conceivably could have been born in England, perhaps... to explain the name... of a family which had come from France in earlier generations.

 

The name "Guillaume Fouquet" is most certainly French, but is that the man's correct name? Amazingly enough, "Guillaume Fouquet" does not appear in any documents, from the lifetime of the founder, such as they are... which is not much for, to date, only 12 documents which mention the founder's name have been found. Unfortunately, none of these is a document he signed... which is where we would expect to find the most authentic spelling of his name. The destruction of many of the records of Charles City County poses us a formidable handicap.

 

At any rate, here are the documentary references to "Guillaume Fouquet:"*1

1. 1689 - Grant to Thomas Cock for importation of 17 persons, including Gill Fuckett

2. 1695/96 - Grant to William Randoloh for importation of 59 persons, including Gill Ffucket

3. 1687 - License to Gill Fuquett

4. 1687 - Witness paid by Gill Fuquett

5. 1687 - Philip Thomas deposes about Gill Fuquett

6. 1687 - Ann Thomas deposes about Gill Fuquett

7. 1687 - Philip Thomas paid as witness by Gill Fuquett

8. 1687 - Petition to court by Gill Fuquett

9. 1691 - Estate of Francis Cleverly shows Gill Fuquett as purchaser; Gille Faucque as security for Ralph Hudspeth; Gile Fugett, Gill Fucque in accounts

10. 1692 - Gill Fucque receipts for wife's legacy

11. 1696 - Thomas Cocke will refers to Gill ffugitt *2

12. 1698 - Gill ffucque paid by estate of William Cocke

 

Obviously, none of these documents gives the name as Guillaume Fouquet. Therefore, how do we know that this was his name?

 

We must remember that back in the l8th Century, the rules about spelling were just beginning to settle down, and there was also a lot of illiteracy. Therefore, the clerks writing official documents often spelled names phonetically... as they heard them. Guillaume Fouquet was probably illiterate... his sons were... and thus would not be able to sign his name. Furthermore, it's very possible that he was not too clear on how to spell it either... and even if he did know how to spell it, who knows how good his command of English was? He was clearly at the mercy of the clerks making the records, which accounts for the variety in the documents cited.

 

So, is it possible that his name was something other than Guillaume Fouquet? Since that name does not appear in the documents, just what was the founder's name?

 

For a start, since the spelling was phonetic, let's look at how "Guillaume Fouquet" would be pronounced in French: "Ghee-Yome Foo-Kay"... Actually, the last syllable of Fouquet is somewhere between "Key" and "Kay." How did county clerks get the variety of spellings listed above out of that?

 

Actually, most of the spellings of the last name are within shooting distance of "Fouquet." 7 of the 12 are "Fuquett," which is very close. "Fucque" (three times), and "ffugitt," *3 "Fugett," and "Faucque" (one time each) are harder to imagine.

 

Altogether, "Fouquet" may be correct as the founder's last name, although one wonders why his son Giles spelled his name "Fewqua", and the Fuquas apparently pronounced their name similarly. The "few" is wrong; they should have used something that sounded like "Foo-qua." There is no way in French for the "Fou" in "Fouquet" to be sounded as "Few." That would argue that the original name was something like "Fuquet" or, more likely, "Fuquette", since the single "t" would not be pronounced in French, but the final "t" sound appears in most of the versions of the name. If ever proper research is done in France, this should be remembered.

 

Much more debatable is the founder's first name, Guillaume. It seems strange that none of the records of his name give him a two syllable first name; no doubt he was called "Gill" or some variation of that but, for legal documents, his full name should have appeared somewhere.

 

Actually, it is possible that something close to his first name is in front of us. "Gilles" is a perfectly good French first name. It would be pronounced "Zhee-yuh", with the "yuh" just a little sound, not a separate syllable. For a less sophisticated pronunciation, "Zheel" will do.

 

Now when we come to the English letter "G," we find ourselves dealing with a rather shifty character. "G" can be pronounced like "J” or "ZH," as in Giant (a soft G), or it can be pronounced as a hard "G," as in gallows.

 

The records on the founder are almost unanimous in calling him "Gill." But was that pronounced "Ghill" or "Jill"? If this "Gill" stood for "Guillaume," it would have the hard "G;" if the name was "Gilles," it would have the soft "G," and would probably be pronounced "Jill" or "Jeel" or something like it.

 

Note that one son of the founder is named "Giles," which is an English name, pronounced the soft "G," "Jiles." I assume that this is probably an anglicised version of "Gilles," and I have to suggest that it's entirely possible that the founder was named "Gilles" and that one of his sons was named after the father (of course there's another son, William (which is the English version of Guillaume). What's more, Giles Fewqua just might have been the eldest son. Guillaume surely got some land before he died, no doubt in Charles City County *4 where most records of that period are missing. My hypothesis is that this land passed to son Giles.

 

It would no doubt help if we knew where the name "Guillaume Fouquet" came from. Obviously, it does not appear in the documents of the early history of the family, and my guess is that it does not surface until the late 19th or early 20th Century. From what Mrs. Irwin says, the founder's name was already established as Guillaume Fouquet when she began her researches, and from what I have seen of the work of that generation or the generation before it, no-one ever questioned whether Guillaume Fouquet might be wrong.

 

The comfortable answer to all that would be that in some branches of the family, tradition carried the founder's full and correct name down for over two centuries. That might well be true; however, if I were placing a bet, I'd be inclined to wager that some while back, probably in the late 1800s or the early 1900s, a "professional" genealogist was hired to check the Fuqua ancestry. He or she got back safely to the documents in Henrico County, but then sought a more satisfying name for the founder than Gill Fuquett. There were some Fouquets who made a mark in French history, especially one in the time of Louis XIV, and so that name was adopted. Perhaps this came from the same source that created the tradition that Guillaume's father was a marquis. Why "Guillaume" was used instead of "Gilles" stumps me.

 

As things stand, this is a riddle we'll never be able to solve. It does not seem likely that any further documentation will turn up in Virginia. The founder's stay in England was probably very brief, with little activity that would leave a documentary trail. To date, no-one seems to have had much luck finding the founder in France... a formidable job, since we do not know for sure where his home was (what traditions there are look prime facie untrustworthy), and since also he probably was not from a wealthy or prominent family (certainly not from the family of any marquis).

 

The last certain reference to the founder is his mention in the estate of William Cocke in 1698. There is an interesting reference to the land of Giles Faque in a deed of 1731. It is usually assumed that this is the founder's son Giles, but it could be the founder himself'.

The earliest mention of any of his sons comes in 1710, when William and Joseph Fuqua were deeded land by their uncle, Ralph Hudspeth. Although neither was literate, the name seems to have settled down as "Fuqua," with only rare variations in later documents. Giles is mentioned in a court record of 1745 *5 as "Giles Fuqua," although in his will he prefers the "Fewqua" spelling *6. Ralph is referred to as "Ralph Fouquay" in a 1743 document *7, but is "Fuqua" thereafter.

 

Incidentally, just to be unkind, I might point out that there is no proof that William, Joseph, Ralph or Giles were sons of Guillaume and Jane. The proof is there that William and Joseph were brothers, since they are referred to as such in a deed, and the fact that they were given land by Jane Eyre's brother-in-law, Ralph Hudspeth, by the same deed, is good support for making them Jane's sons. But proof it is not, and as for Ralph and Giles, the only indication that they belong in the same family is their names... Ralph named after Ralph Hudspeth, supposedly his uncle, and Giles after his father (if I'm right) *8.

 

Actually, unless some desirable connections turn up for one spelling or another, it doesn't make a heck of a lot of difference what name the founder had. Changing his name doesn't change what he did, and however he called himself, his sons used "Fuqua" or "Fewqua." Nevertheless, I'd really like to know whether he was Guillaume Fouquet or Gilles Fuquet.

 

 

*1. Except for the importation records, all these documents are quoted at length in Alya Dean Irwin, Fuqua, Fight for Freedom. The importation record, discovered after the book’s publication, is in Patent Book VIII, pp. 1-2. The second importation is in Patent Book IX, p.2, repeated in IX. 71.

 

 

*2.  Per my 1ranscript. Mrs. Irwin has it Ffuiquitt.

 

 

*3. The double “f” is simply an early way of writing a capital "F".

 

 

*4. Charles City Co. Deeds, 3 Apr. 1731. John Hamlet of Charles City Co., planter, to Richard Hamlet, 86 acres in Westover Parish, adj. Shiplies branch, Northern branch, Giles Faque's land…

 

 

*5. Court Minutes, 1737-1751,376. July Court 1745. On the motion of Giles Fuqua and John Maynard, witnesses for James Mitchall agst Thomas Hudson it is orderedd sd Mitchell pay each of them 5O pds tobo for two days attendance at this court.

 

 

*6. Charles City, Deeds and Wills, 1766-1775, 223-5.

 

 

*7. Goochland Co., DB IV. 5 Apr 1743, Ralph Fouquay given power of attorney to act unconditionally for Thomas Owen.

 

 

*8. Joseph would be named for Joseph Ayres, William for William Humphries. I am indebted to Janice Babb for pointing all this out.

 

=O=