The Benoists don’t have to send away for a mail-order crest. The line goes back, unbroken, to Guillaume Benoist, chamberlain of Charles VII of France in the fifteenth century. Slide down to Antoine Gabriel Francois, chevalier of the Royal and Military Order of St. Louis, and then to Jacques Louis, who drowned in the St. Lawrence River soon after his son, Francois Marie, was born. Francois Marie, who was related to the founder of New Orleans, came to St. Louis, partnered with Manuel Lisa in the fur trade, and helped lay the foundations of St. Louis. He married Marie Sanguinet, and their son Louis, born in 1803, studied both medicine and law. His first challenge came when he sailed to France to settle his grandfather’s estate and his ship was wrecked in the Bay of Biscay on his return voyage—marooning him in Spain for three years.
When he finally made it back, Louis opened one of the first real estate and brokerage offices in St. Louis, and his business grew into an exchange bank, Benoist & Company. A strategic financier, he made millions. In the Panic of 1837, he paid all depositors in full plus interest, calming the St. Louis economy and earning the sort of loyalty that doesn’t waver.
He married three times and fathered 17 children. (His third wife, Sarah Wilson, was a Hunt on her mother’s side, niece of St. Louis’ longtime postmaster Wilson Hunt.) French Catholics, the Benoists worshipped regularly in the Old Cathedral, sharing Pew Four with the Charleville and Faris families (the brass plate’s still there).
Louis died of cholera on an 1867 trip to Cuba. He left a carefully worded will: “I consider, I believe, that I have amply already provided for all my other children than those begotten by my said wife. I therefore give to each of my children not begotten of my said wife only the sum of one hundred dollars and I hope these children will be content.” They sued each other. “There was drama back then!” laughs his great-great-granddaughter, fashion entrepreneur Nicole Benoist.
At least three of the Benoist sons, Conde Louis, Howard, and Theodore (who married Mary Lucas Hunt), spent their time managing their considerable inheritance. Eugene involved himself in the real estate, steamship, brokerage, and saddlery businesses. There were 19 Benoists listed in the St. Louis Social Register in 1922. A granddaughter, Lucille “Binkie” Benoist Kinsella, sold real estate in the ’50s and volunteered at hospitals. Peter Benoist continues the financial sway as CEO of Enterprise Financial Services. J. Hunt Benoist was mayor of Clayton and CEO of Hercules Construction, which built the Ritz-Carlton St. Louis, St. Mary's Health Center, the A.G. Edwards office tower addition, and the Cheshire Inn. His son, Peter, praised him for helping minority contractors get a foothold in business.
Hunt also helped restore the family’s Italianate home, Oakland, which was built of rough-cut limestone quarried on the estate and has a four-story watchtower. Surrounded by the Lakewood Park Cemetery, it had become as disheveled as an unwashed mourner when the Affton Historical Society, cheered on and aided by some of the 200 or so Benoist descendants in the area, restored it in the 1970s.
On a different branch: Thomas—son of Pierre, another Benoist who came here from Canada—helped make St. Louis a center of aviation long before McDonnell and Douglas got together. Thomas founded the world’s first aircraft parts distributor, and he also taught himself to fly—first takeoff September 1910 at the Kinloch Park Aero Club field. In 1912, Benoist Aircraft’s original plane carried a man over Kinloch Field to make the world’s first successful parachute jump from an airplane. Later that year, the company made a floatplane that set a distance record for over-the-water flight down the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. That December, Benoist Aircraft produced its first flying boat.
Thomas died, some years later, on the ground: He cracked his head against a telephone pole while stepping off a streetcar.
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