Louis Deschamps was born in St. Timothee, Beauharnois, Quebec, Canada on March 12, 1838, to Francois Deschamps and Josephte Pare. They were French and Catholic. He was the sixth of 14 children. The Louis Heaneault Deschamps family genealogy is in the Heaneault name. Somewhere back in this line, Deschamps was the name of the family that one or more of an Heaneault family lived with or were raised by, and they took the name Deschamps. 

Louis’s father was a woodsman and Louis and his brothers helped cut wood and float logs thirty miles down the St. Lawrence River. They met many trappers who came from the States; they told wonderful stories of gold being found there. These stories aroused the interest of Louis, now 17 years of age. He and some friends left home to go looking for gold and adventure. They fell in with some trappers and finally reached St. Louis, Missouri. There they found employment cutting logs to make lumber for bridges. 

While there he had an experience that he never forgot. One day the men saw a squaw sitting on a log by the river cleaning fish. One of the men raised his gun and said, “Watch me pick her off.” Before they could stop him he had pulled the trigger and the woman lay dead. Nearby Indians heard the shot and came running. They examined his gun, seemingly to be sure they had the one who shot her. They were so overcome with frenzied anger, the Indians seized him and began a most cruel torture. The other men out of fright were compelled to stand and look on. No words could express the horror of it all. One story that has come by word of mouth to us is that the Indians stripped the man and skinned him alive. The other story is that after torturing the man to death, the Indians left him and carried the body of the squaw away. The men had been very fearful of their own lives but with relief and surprise they were glad to hurry away from the spot. Louis left these companions and traveled with a group of pioneers going west. At the North Platte River in Nebraska, he became ill with fever. A kind French family kept him and nursed him back to health. 

He worked herding mules and horses which were sold for use in the Civil War. This was good pay but when someone told him that his health would be better if he would go to Pikes Peak, he took off. He did not stay long there but found another man to go with to look for gold in Montana. This was a disappointment and when he heard of gold being found in Boise, Idaho, again he was on his way. He built the first house in Boise.  

He decided to move south and his next stop was in Willard, Utah, where he lived at the home of Elsie Zundell. While here he became a convert of the Mormon church. 

Louis was attracted to a young woman by the name of Ann Stephens who became his bride in the Endowment House on 30 March 1867. (Their life together is written in her history). 

Louis was a good natured man and good looking. He was an expert with the axe and could carve most anything out of a piece of wood. He would often stop his wood splitting, sit on the log and tell stories to the children as his fingers kept busy whittling an animal or some small toy for them, treating them by whistling and singing while he worked. After he left home in Canada, he never wrote to or heard from his family until after he married Ann. She persuaded him to write them and his mother was so happy to learn he was alive and well. She died soon after this. His father thought at one time he would come to Idaho to visit him but the brothers and sisters in Canada said he was too old to travel. So Louis did not see either parent after he left Canada. 

Louis and Ann had eleven children (named in her history). Louis died September 20, 1902, after an accident on a wagonload of grain. The brake tore into his abdomen when the wagon could not be brought under control starting downhill. 

Written by Erma Thomas Yearsley and Rosalie Ann Cole Talbot (granddaughters).