Born in Beaufort, SC on November 17, 1864 into a prominent, old family of French ancestry.  DeTreville's grandfather fought with George Washington in the Revolutionary War and at the time of his birth during the Civil War, his father was Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina.  Little is known about his art training; he was possibly self-taught.  In 1892, he moved to California and settled in Stockton where he established a small newspaper called Det's Magazine.  Shortly after 1910 he moved from Stockton to San Francisco where he worked as a cartoonist for the Park Presidio News.  In his studio on Clement Street he exhibited his paintings as well as in local department stores and art galleries.  His works were handled locally by Schussler Brothers and Sanborn & Vail.  The last few years of his life were spent across the bay in Alameda where he died on Feb. 25, 1929.  DeTreville worked in oil and, on rare occasions, in watercolor.  He was known to be an excellent portraitist although his portraits are rare.  The most prolific of early California painters, his thousands of small landscapes are invariably of the SF Bay area, Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, and Northern California.