Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, August 26, 1997

Cornelius Duson ran from the law to Louisiana

by Jim Bradshaw

Cornelius was the youngest of six sons of William McNaughton and Catherine Lambert in 1837, when the French rebelled against the British government of Canada, all of the family except then-17-year old Cornelius remained loyal to the British. "Our young hero," writes biographer William Henry Perrin, "had a bosom friend and companion, one S. Lambert, whom he had learned to love from childhood. Through Lambert's influence, he was reduced to join the French revolutionists."

Cornelius was called before a family council and his father and five brothers begged him not to disgrace the family by joining an attempt to overthrow the government. They warned that he could be killed in the insurrection, or, if the French lost, hanged for treason afterwards.

"But Cornelius ... had his course mapped out and his convictions were too strong to be changed," Perrin said. "He (told his family) that if the French cause was lost they would never hear from him 'til the grass grew green over his grave.'"

The English captured Lambert and seven other rebels and jailed them in Ottawa but Cornelius wasn't caught. According to the Perrin account, he then went to Ottawa, met the jailer, and attempted to "get him drunk and steal the jail keys." But the jailer stayed sober.

"After they returned from a dram shop to the jail, (the jailer) suspected evil designs in his new acquaintance and ordered him away," Perrin recounts. But "Duson had thrown ... his cap on a heap of wood in the jail ... and, when ordered away, ostensibly reaching for his cap, picked up a stick, knocked the jailer down, secured the keys... and helped his companions make their escape."

The rebels made their way to Kingston, a settlement on the Canadian side of Lake Ontario, where Duson's cousin ran a ferry. Duson and his companions stole the boat and ferried themselves. British soldiers chased them, killing some of them and shooting Cornelius through the thigh. He hid in a cabin in the woods until he was well enough to travel and eventually got to Boston. There he learned that the British were offering a reward for his capture. He dropped McNaughton from his name and kept running from the law.

He made his way to the vicinity of Lake Arthur on the Mermentau River and befriended John Webb, a sailor from Essex, England, who came to America as a young man.

Duson was an expert diver. He and John Webb located the sunken hull of an old pirate schooner in Bayou Queue de Tortue, a few miles from where it joins the Mermentau River.

Down wooed and won the heart of Webb's 15-year-old daughter, Sarah Ann, and married her on May 6, 1845. He became a tanner and saddle-maker, as was his father-law, and moved to St. Martin Parish, where he died in 1857.

"He often refuted the story of his youthful experiences to the family," Penin said, "and how, among other things, his brother Michael broke an engagement to (Lambert's) sister because of the loyalty of the Lambert family to the French cause. ...But the mystery of the name he bore, he breathed not a word."

He did tell his wife that he wished that after his death his sons would re-establish family ties, and he told his doctor to warn him when death was near--apparently so that he would then reveal his true family name. But Cornelius died suddenly, away from his family, and the secret died with him.

His two sons visited Canada in 1884 to try to find their family. First, they visited Lambert's sister, the onetime sweetheart of their uncle. But she said she'd never heard the name Duson. Then they found Lambert himself, but he was sure he'd never heard the name, either.

Finally, when C. C. Duson began to relate the tale his father told him, Penrin says, "the feeble old man (Lambert) burst into tears and with an effort rose to his feet and said, 'No, no! I see it now. You are Con's children. Your name is not Duson, but McNaughton. Let me lead you to your people.'"

Lambert told the brothers that they were the grandchildren of William McNaughton, who had come to Canada from Scotland--that they were Scotsmen not Frenchmen. He said the McNaughton family had long before secured a pardon for Cornelius. It was not until later that the sons learned that their father had a friend in St. Martin Parish who visited Quebec regularly, and who had secretly kept Cornelius informed about the family. They found that Cornelius had known about the pardon and that he knew that his family was searching for him.

"But," as Perrin tells it, "with terrible determination he kept his vow, and his people never did hear of him 'til 'green grew the grass over his grave.'"

This article is copyrighted © by the Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser and is used with permission.  This web site was originated through a grant awarded to Carencro High School (Joel Hilbun/Bobbi Marino, Grant Administrators) by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education from the Louisiana Quality Education Support Fund - 8(g).