Excellent catch Ulfberth! That surely does look like those French cutlasses, but anybodys guess what became of the guard.
Mark offers some compelling suggestions toward the presence of this as a possible privateer weapon, and it seems these regulation patterns often ended up becoming altered for any number of uses when out of their original context.
The absence of the large guard makes this resemble the machetes which were becoming well known in tropical colonial regions, and usually without any type of guard. French locations such as Haiti and other Caribbean locations might have been the source for such an altered sword. Being found in circumstances such as barn, garage etc. in modern times does not mean this was its location permanently. This may well have become a souvenier or carried via trade contacts which often went from these locations to American ports of call.
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