Family history, tales of woe and a surprise

I have a penchant for history and family history and Ginny’s post about her grandmother got me to thnking about a conversation with my wife we had about family history.

I had been telling her about my great grandfather Lars Peter Kofoed, who had been from a well to do family on the Isle of Bornholm (off the coast of Denmark). An interesting character (and an unbeliever to boot) he had joined the Merchant Marine at age 16 to escape national service. He married an Irish woman and ended up in Australia.

Now the reason I was relating this story was that it involved skulduggery and a bit of a targic tale. His parents had died and the solicitor managing the estate, misappropriated the family fortune, when caught the solicitor killed himself. There was a lot of back and forth, letters to the Danish consolate in Australia and eventually they were able to get about 400 pounds (still a considerable amout in the late 1800′s.)

It was while relating this tale of woe that my wife remarked that, her ancestor had once owned a castle, but had lost it when the property was mortgaged and he couldn’t pay back the money in time. Now she said it wasn’t a “real’ castle more a fortified manor – she had been shown pictures as a child.

The ancestor she said had been a certain John Law who apparently had something to do with banking in France.

And to this day we had not thought to much about it. But tonight I was inquisitive and decided to look up the name of the castle on google, thinking it would be nice to go and visit if we were ever travelling in the British Isles .
And so here it is Laureston Castle, just outside of Edinborough.

Next I did a bit of research on John Law and this is where it gets more intersting.

Now while I still have to confirm the details/strength of the connection to this ancestor I include for you an article from the
Edinburgh Evening News called -

New Orleans: Edinburgh boy’s crazy gamble
by JULIA HORTON

RICHES, looks, brains, wit and charm – all agreeable qualities which might be sought in the founding father of a city. John Law had them all.

But it was a far less desirable – though appropriate in hindsight – aspect of his character which eventually led the Edinburgh goldsmith’s son to found the hard-partying city of New Orleans.

For John soon developed a passion for gambling which was to become both the making and the breaking of him. Ultimately, it led to him creating the world’s first paper money system in France, setting up that country’s first bank and creating a trading company in Louisiana – and founding the town of New Orleans – to exploit French possessions in the New World.

It was a very long and winding road, however. Born in a goldsmith’s luckenbooth in St Giles’ in the Royal Mile in 1671, John was still a boy when his father, who had made his pile through money-lending, bought Lauriston Castle. The family left the stench of the city centre behind but then tragedy struck. John was little more than 12 when his father died suddenly following surgery.

Already developing a taste for debauchery, his mother removed him from Edinburgh High School and their Edinburgh home in Lauriston Castle. She sent him to complete his education in the Renfrewshire countryside in a bid to save him from becoming just another 17th century rogue. As a way of stopping his gambling habit, it backfired spectacularly. Not only was he able to hone his already clear genius for maths, he also became a skilled fencer. His mother brought him back to Edinburgh with the intention of sending him to university. But the young Law had other ideas. He set off to London where he was soon caught up in the same world of debauchery which his mother had hoped to save him from in the Scottish capital.

At more than six feet tall with handsome features, impeccable taste in clothes and a castle to his name back in Scotland, he attracted plenty of attention, soon earning the nickname Beau Law. Before long he had lost the fortune his father had left him, however, and faced debtor’s prison and the loss of his family home. His mother bailed him out, and it was the shame of that which fuelled his determination to clean up his act and use his brains to make his fortune. Far from quitting gambling though, he continued, but with a new, scientific approach. As a skilled mathematician, it did not take him long to research the laws of probability and put his newfound knowledge into practice against gamblers throughout London. But he still moved in a dangerous world, where disputes were settled by the sword. When challenged to a duel by a love rival over a lady in London, his first defensive lunge killed his opponent, a move which saw him jailed for murder, in 1694, aged 23.

With many friends as well as enemies, John managed to escape prison and flee to the Continent. He eloped with a married woman and headed to Switzerland, where they married, settling in Genoa. There, and later in France, John pursued his interest in a paper money system. He was the only one of his peers who realised the potential of using paper money and understood the limitations of using reserves of precious metals like the gold which his father dealt in.

In 1703, he returned to Edinburgh and set up home at Lauriston Castle once more where he developed a plan to issue bank notes. While still in Scotland, in 1705, he published a pamphlet entitled Money and Trade Considered – but it attracted little attention and his attempts to persuade his home country to use paper money failed.

By 1715, when he arrived in France, that nation was in the grip of financial disaster. Expensive conflicts had left massive debts. Suddenly, John had found someone willing to take a gamble on his theory. His charming manner and good humour earned him the ear of the Duc d’Orleans, who as Regent for the infant French King, approved John’s idea. Keen to make the most of France’s interests abroad, John gained permission to set up not only the first Bank of France but also a trading company in Louisiana. The land had been claimed for Louis XIV in 1682, by French explorer Rene Robert Cavalier.

Under John’s orders, a settlement was founded and named La Nouvelle Orleans, after John’s best friend, the Duc D’Orleans. The first residents of the area were men but, in 1727, 88 female convicts were shipped to the colony to marry the settlers. Back in France, John’s customers were issued with the new paper money which they were able to use to buy shares in his trading company. The system created a huge stir around the world and soon people were clamouring for a share of the ‘riches’. While his financial theory was sound enough, John’s nature as a gambler and a bit of a rogue remained. He claimed that Louisiana was a land of riches, with masses of precious gems and metals. When people discovered that the land was more or less one vast swamp populated by disease-spreading mosquitoes but little else, the bubble burst. I

n 1720 an edict was issued which resulted in the devaluation of the French currency and led to the collapse of Law’s “system”. He was exiled and died in Venice in 1729. Meanwhile, New Orleans was incorporated as a city in 1805. It has suffered many hardships over the centuries including union occupation in the civil war, two disastrous fires, a severe hurricane in 1915, a flu epidemic in 1918 and, now, the devastating consequences of Hurricane Katrina. Michael Turnbull conducted research on John Law for his new book, Curious Edinburgh. In the book, he says: “In 1716, his proposal for a joint-stock bank was accepted by the French government. Law then set up a company to develop French commercial interests in North America. “A Company of the West was set up to represent French commercial interests in North America. The new company had exclusive trading rights with Louisiana (as well as mineral rights) and transported some 6000 white and 13,000 black settlers to the new territory. “The Company of the West was amalgamated with the French East India Company and the China Company, and Law ordered the construction of a new town, the future New Orleans. “A colossal boom in Mississippi shares followed, making Law the first ‘millionaire’. “He acquired over 20 landed properties in France (some carrying the title of Marquis), he had a collection of jewels, a library of 45,000 books and wine cellars and held the post of King’s Secretary, being also elected a member of the French Academy and receiving the Freedom of the City of Edinburgh.”

While John retained his reputation as a gambler, Michael says that at the height of his success he was also charitable: “Law was generous, giving much money to charity and emptying the Paris prisons of debtors.” It was the kind of generosity the residents of the city he founded need now more than ever.

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