| |
Guiding Questions
|
What do we know
about the extended family & ancestry of Marguerite Bleau dit
Rossignal Bottineau Baldwin, her brothers Felix, Aiken, and Louis Bleau, and this whole
generation of Bleau dit Rossignal siblings (born 1823-1852)? |
Evidence &
Interpretations
Every story has its main
characters.
This story has four:
Marguerite
Bleau dit Rossignal Bottineau Baldwin,
her husband
Bailey T. Baldwin, her
brother
Louis Bleau, and
her sister-in-law Nellie
Kinsman Lang Blow. We
don't even have photos of Nellie and Louis. All we know
for sure is
that:
-
Nellie was in very desperate straits in the early 1870s after
divorcing Frank Lang
-
In the early 1870s she
moved to Minneapolis or Anoka and married Louis Bleau
-
In December 1874 Louis
Bleau was murdered at a holiday dance in Centerville, Anoka County
-
Soon thereafter Nellie
bore Louis's daughter Louise Blow
-
Nellie's small
daughters -- little Louise Blow, our great-grandmother
Jennie Lang (b.
1866) and her little sister Nelly Lang
(b. 1868) -- lived with
Bailey T. & Marguerite Baldwin and their extended family through at
least part of the
1870s. (Above right:
Marguerite Bleau dit Rossignal Bottineau Baldwin, ca. 1862; photo
courtesy of Jeane Morneau DeCoursey)
Yes, you heard right:
all this fuss is about the extended
family of a guy to whom our great-great-grandmother was married for a
couple of years in the 1870s.
That may seem a pretty slender reed on which to hang so much attention,
but it's also true that
Nellie's marriage to Louis Bleau dit Rossignal brought her and her girls under the care and
protection of Louis's extended family -- a family with Marguerite &
Bailey T. Baldwin at its center. The stately "half-breed" Ojibwe-Métis
woman and the portly, big-hearted Alabama-born blind man became the
grandparents for our great-grandmother Jennie Lang, when she was very
young, vulnerable, and desperately in need of help.
We believe it very likely that without the love and care of Marguerite & Bailey T. Baldwin, our great-grandmother Jennie would not have
survived. (Right: Bailey T. Baldwin, from the Minneapolis
Tribune, 2 July 1899)
This page thus
represents, first, a kind of homage to the spirits of Marguerite and
Bailey as we look back through time -- a way for us to try to thank you
and to honor the years you spent on this Earth. More prosaically, the
page serves as a kind of filing
cabinet and bulletin board on which to organize data on
Marguerite & Bailey T. Baldwin and their extended kin. In
other words, it's not quite a story yet. It's more a collection of
documents, the raw materials from which a coherent narrative can one day
be built.
Many thanks to Ruthanne Fresonke
and Jeane Morneau DeCoursey, whose knowledge and help is woven
throughout this page, and this whole section of the website.
There are several other websites
that bear directly on these genealogies, and from which we have
liberally drawn in order to try to make sense of this material:
1.
http://www.ojibwe.info
A vast database on Ojibwe genealogy.
2.
http://www.maquah.net
An expansive and very useful site that includes many primary
documents on Ojibwe history.
3.
http://users.ap.net/~chenae/geneal.html "My
Elusive Ancestors" by Debra McCann; a
marvelous resource that is especially strong on the Bottineau line.
4.
http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=SRCH&db=pouliot-12-26-04&surname=@
"My Pouliot, Dupont, Potvin and Menard Family Tree" by Warren
Kramer; another marvelous resource, linked through Ancestry.com's RootsWeb
project, that has tons of information on Bottineau's, Blue's, and
other families.
5.
http://www.lareau.org/pep.html "Pig's Eye Notepad:
A Historical Encyclopedia of St Paul, MN, 1830-1850." A very
useful compendium of data put together by Paul and
Beth Lareau of Little Canada, MN.
5.
Other pages on this website can be found via the Documents Home,
including
nellie in minnesota, 1866-1927
and
remember the red river
valley, along with all the other stuff listed under Bailey & Marguerite Baldwin.
Included at the bottom of this
page is
correspondence
with several descendents of these families, their reckonings of how they fit
into the picture, and related topics. Needless to say, it's a very complex story which
we're just beginning to sort out; hence this
page.
Any help would be much appreciated!
Marguerite Bleau dit Rossignal's Ancestry
Naming
Patterns
Perhaps the first thing
to be said about Marguerite Bleau dit Rossignal and
her siblings, genealogically speaking, is that they all basically had
two surnames, each of which had many spelling variations:
|
Bleau |
Rossignal |
|
Blow |
Rasignole |
|
Blowe |
Rushenall |
|
Blue |
Rescenlibue |
|
Blu |
Ruchenell |
|
Below |
Roussin |
Needless to say,
this makes searching for members of this family pretty difficult.
So too does the commonness of their given names. According to the
1850 census, the most common given names among the Métis
in Pembina County, Minnesota Territory, were as follows (total
population = 1,219; total population with gender identified, 1,218):
|
Male Given Names
(total pop =
620) |
|
Name |
No. |
% of total |
|
Joseph |
79 |
13 |
|
François |
58 |
9 |
|
Baptiste |
53 |
9 |
|
Antoine |
42 |
7 |
|
Louis |
37 |
6 |
|
TOTALS:
|
269 |
43% |
|
Female Given Names
(total pop =
598) |
|
Name |
No. |
% of total |
|
Marie / Mary |
113 |
19 |
|
Marguerite |
83 |
14 |
|
Angelique |
31 |
5 |
|
Magdalene / Madeline |
23 |
4 |
|
Catherine |
23 |
4 |
|
TOTALS:
|
273 |
46% |
In other words,
among the Métis of the Red River
Valley in the year 1850, nearly half the people shared one of ten
given names, all related to biblical figures and Catholic saints.
Nearly one female in five was named "Mary"; about one in seven named
"Marguerite"; and more than one male
in eight named "Joseph" !
What does the "dit"
mean? A
conjugation of the irregular French verb dire, meaning "to say"
or "to tell," the word dit has the same root as the English words
"dictate" and "diction," and as the Spanish verb "decir" -- all
stem from the Latin verb "dicere," meaning "to speak" or "to
say." According to "genealogyabout.com" (a subsidiary of the
New York Times),
Meaning of the French surname conjunctive "dit"
"In
some areas of France,
a second surname may have been adopted in order to
distinguish between different branches of the same
family, especially when the families remained in the
same town for generations. These alias surnames can
often be found preceded by the word "dit." Sometimes an
individual even adopted the dit name as the family name,
and dropped the original surname. This practice was most
common in France among soldiers and sailors."
source:
http://genealogy.about.com/cs/surname/a/french_surnames.htm?terms=dit+surname
(accessed 17 Oct 2006)
|
In other words, "Bleau dit
Rossignal" basically meant "the Rossignal Bleau's," or, "those
Bleau's who married into the Rossignal family."
Ojibwe and Ojibwe French-Métis
cultures
in the Red River Valley were extraordinarily complex, as we
have seen (see
remember the red river valley). In addition
to the Métis diaspora that compelled
hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children to migrate out of
the Red River Valley from the 1870s, two aspects
of those cultures are of particular interest to genealogists:
their oral nature, and their naming patterns. Both were
closely related. In oral, non-literate cultures generally,
people's names are neither fixed, permanent, nor even spelled -- or,
if they are spelled, are spelled without much attention to
consistency. The best example we have is Aiken
Bleau, who, whenever he pops up in the documents, does so under
a different spelling (Ekan, Ecan, Etienne / Blow, Blue, Blu).

Spatial
representation of the Red River Métis diaspora;
www.metisstudies.ca.edu
In Ojibwe and Lakota cultures,
names commonly changed throughout the course of one's life.
One might begin life with one name, adopt another with
coming-of-age, and assume yet another during old age. Names
were not fixed but contingent on the stage of life, memorable
events, and other factors. This was also true of Métis
culture in the Red River Valley, from its formation in the early
1700s until the "Red River diaspora" of the late 1800s.
Further,
most Métis
during this period had two names: Native, and European.
The Ojibwe and Lakota customs of adopting
different given names at different stages of life could also, under
some circumstances, apply to Métis'
European names.
Most of the Bleau dit Rossignals were not literate, giving
census-takers and government authorities free rein on how to spell
their surnames.
All of these factors combined to make
finding individuals and families in census data and other official
government documents exceptionally challenging.
Ancestry of the Bleau dit Rossignals
and Bottineaus
Who were
Marguerite's parents?
This
part is easy, thanks to the research already undertaken by Debra McCann:
Marguerite Bleau dit Rossignol, b.
1823, d. 31 March 1900. Daughter of Antoine Rossignal and
Marguerite Bourdon.
First husband Basil Bottineau, b. 1820. Marguerite & Basil had
two children: Charles Mijigisi Bottineau, b. 7 March 1838, and
Louise Bottineau, b. 7 Jan 1856.
Source: "My Elusive
Ancestors" by Debra McCann,
http://users.ap.net/~chenae/geneal.html
|
Margaret's parents
Antoine Bleau
dit Rossignal and
Marguerite Bourdon were married in 1822 in
St Boniface, Manitoba, according to marriage records posted a website
devoted to Métis history & culture:
"Antoine Rossignolle
b. 1789-1796, married 1822, St. Boniface, Red River,
Marguerite Bourdon (1804-1846), daughter of
Louis
Bourdon."
Source: "Canadian
History: A Distinct Viewpoint,"
http://www.telusplanet.net/public/dgarneau/metis26.htm
|
From this we learn the
probable name of Margaret's maternal grandfather: Louis Bourdon.
The date of the marriage in 1822 corresponds precisely with the date of
Margaret's birth in 1823.
According to
the "Modern Leather-Stocking Tale"
(in turn based mainly on Margaret
Baldwin's memory), Margaret's parents were half French and half Ojibwe (Métis), with full-blooded
Ojibwe mothers and full-blooded French fathers.
She [Marguerite Bleau
dit Rossignal, b. 1824] was born near the Red River
of the North, and her grandmothers on both sides were
full-blooded Chippewas married to French husbands.
Source: "Modern
Leather-Stocking Tale," Minneapolis Tribune,
Sunday, July 2, 1899
|
.jpg)
Cart trails between St
Paul-Mendota and Pembina-Red River Valley, 1840s, from D. W. Meinig,
The Shaping of America,
vol. 2. p. 121.
This would mean
that, in biogenetic terms,
Marguerite Bourdon and
Antoine
Bleau dit Rossignal were each half Ojibwe and half French, and
that their children were thus the same. These biogenetic proportions
say nothing about culture or upbringing, of course. As we have
seen, Ojibwe-French Métis culture in
the Red River Valley, a complex and dynamic synthesis of Native and
European cultures, experienced mounting pressures from
immigrant settlers and the US and Canadian governments as the 19th century progressed.
By the 1850s, Ojibwe-Métis lifeways
were being increasingly challenged by expansionist white Anglo Protestant
cultures. This was just as the Bleau dit Rossignal siblings
were coming of age and figuring out how to carve out a life in the
new social world being created before their eyes.
Who were the
siblings in Marguerite's
generation? As best as we can
determine, Antoine & Marguerite Bleau dit Rossignal
had from eight to ten children, spread out over a full 24 years:
|
Marguerite
|
(1823 - 1900) |
|
Antoine
|
(1827 - aft 1870) |
|
Alexis /
Augustus
|
(1829 - 1862?) |
|
Jeandron
|
(1831 - aft 1868) |
|
Joseph
|
(1837 - ?) |
|
Delagois
|
(1843 - ?) |
|
Etienne /
Aiken |
(1844 - 1903) |
|
Felix
|
(1848 - 1926) |
|
Louis
|
(1852 - 1874) |
Bleau dit
Rossignal siblings, children of Antoine and Marguerite Bleau dit
Rossignal; sources below
We are certain about the two eldest,
Marguerite and
Antoine, and the four youngest:
Jeandron, Aiken, Felix, and
Louis. We are not so sure about
Alexis, to whom we have no further references, and who might well be the
Augustus killed by Sioux (Lakota) Indians at Fort Abercrombie
during their uprising in 1862 (see below). Nor do we have further
references to Joseph.
Felicité
Bleau (b.
1848 and female in the 1850 census) &
Felix Blue (b. 1848, male) were probably the same person, with an
incorrect gender in the 1850 census.
When Marguerite
(b. 1824) was around 14 or 15,
she married
Basil Bottineau, the brother of the famed
Pierre Bottineau,
bearing him at least one child, Charles Mijigisi Bottineau.
What do we know about Basil and Pierre's ancestry? Again,
that part is easy. To summarize again from Debra McCann's
website:
Basil Bottineau,
b. 1820, brother of Pierre Bottineau. Son of
Charles Bottineau (b. 1 May
1776) and Marguerite Machequayzaince Son-gabo-ki-che-ta (b. 1775
near present site of Warroad, Roseau Co MN). Married Marguerite
Bleau dit Rossignal, had two children with her: Charles Mijigisi Bottineau
(b. 1838) and Louise Bottineau (b. 1856).
Source: "My Elusive
Ancestors" by Debra McCann,
http://users.ap.net/~chenae/geneal.html
|
The date given here for Louise
Bottineau's birth (1856)
must be incorrect, because the widow Marguerite Bleau dit Rossignal
Bottineau married Bailey T.
Baldwin in February 1851, and had her first child with Bailey,
daughter Lucy Baldwin, in April 1852. We
have no further reference to Louise Bottineau.
What about
Charles Mijigisi Bottineau? Again,
Debra McCann:
Charles Mijigisi Bottineau, b. 1838,
son of Basil Bottineau and Marguerite Bleau dit Rossignal. Born
7 March 1838, died 5 March 1921. Married Marie Ducette, b.
1843. On Feb 14, 1862 enlisted in the 5th MN Infantry Regiment,
discharged on March 23, 1865 in Dauleys Mills, AL.
Source: "My Elusive
Ancestors" by Debra McCann,
http://users.ap.net/~chenae/geneal.html
|
All of this is confirmed by other
evidence.
Charles Mijigisi Bottineau's
pension file shows he was born
in 1838, married Marie
Ducette, and served in the 5th Minnesota Infantry Regiment. Here's
a summary of what we learn of Charles's family from various of his
pension papers:
This means that Charles's mother Marguerite
was only 14 or 15 when she bore him. The "Modern
Leather-Stocking Tale," on the other hand, says Marguerite was married
to Basil for only two years; it also says that after
Bailey married the widow Margaret in 1851, he
"gave her little son
a home."
The first claim, coming from Margaret more than half a century after
the fact, is likely the result of her telescoped memories. The
second is corroborated by other evidence, like Bailey's deposition
in Charles's Civil War pension file.
So Charles
Mijigisi Bottineau
was
13 years old in 1851
when his mother married
Bailey.
What about the ancestry of
Basil and Pierre Bottineau?
Here again, thanks
to the work of Debra McCann and others, we know a fair amount about their father,
Charles
Bottineau (see box, below, to read more).
Basil and Pierre Bottineau's mother
was
Marguerite
Machequayzaince Son-gabo-ki-che-ta (also
referred to as Ah-Dick Songab
["Clear Sky Woman of the Reindeer Clan"] and
Margaret Clear Sky,
1775-1864).
Here's some of what we know about her ancestry and descendents:
|
Marguerite
Machequayzaince Son-gabo-ki-che-ta
("Clear
Sky Woman," 1775-1864)
Mother
of
Pierre Bottineau and his lesser-known brother Basil
Bottineau (the first husband of Marguerite Bleau dit Rossignal)
Born in 1775 near present site of Warroad, Roseau Co., MN, d. 1864 in
St. Anthony Falls, Hennepin Co., MN, buried St. Vincent de Paul
Cemetery. Her birth name is Machequayzaince Son-gabo-ki-che-ta
of the Ah-dik-do-daun (Reindeer) Clan of the Lake of the Woods
(Red Lake) Ojibwe (Chippewas). Among those who signed the Old
Crossing Treaty of 1863 were Margaret's brother Mis-co-muk-quoh,
Red Bear, chief of Pembina, her son-in-law Joseph Montreuil
warrior of Pembina, and her son Pierre Bottineau interpreter and
guide.
In a 1932 Affidavit of Laura Bottineau Greym,
Marguerite's brothers and sisters were Pewanejeet (Charlo, Chano),
Omaniknay or Mrs. Temp Claire (the wife of Mizhaquot) (Temp
Claire), Ahdickons (Little Reindeer), LeBroche, Aceguemanche,
Miskomakwa (Old Red Bear the first, a Chief). They lived on
Roseau Lake and River, Lake of the Woods, Pembina River, Turtle
Mountain and the upper Red River country.
Source: Debra McCann's family tree website, "My
Elusive Ancestors" at RootsWeb.com, email address
chenae@ap.net
|
Further evidence
comes from the painstaking work undertaken by
Ruthanne Fresonke over the course of nearly 30 years, which she has
very generously shared with us. In the box below we present
the fruits of Ruthanne's genealogical labors over these past
decades, which henceforth we will affectionately call, for
shorthand, the
Fresonke Files:
So that is a sketch
of the ancestry of Marguerite and her
siblings, and of the ancestry of Marguerite's first husband Basil
Bottineau.
What do we know about Marguerite's life?
The best place to start is the
modern
leather-stocking tale (which comes mostly from her
memory, filtered through the journalist "K. B. M."). From this
extraordinary newspaper article we learn
that she was a knowledgeable, resourceful, energetic, and creative
woman, devoted to her family and loved ones, among many other things. Here we carry the story forward and fill in the blanks as best we can
with other evidence.
Margaret Bleau dit Rossignal Bottineau Baldwin & Family,
1849-1900
The earliest US census evidence
we have for Marguerite's family is the Minnesota Territorial Census of
June 11, 1849, which shows
Antoine
Blowe living in Pembina County (the Red River Valley) with two males
and two females.
(source:
http://www.parkbooks.com/Html/res_18~1.html;
accessed Oct 2006)
This conflicts with the 1847 date
in the "Modern Leather-Stocking Tale" for Marguerite's epic 600 mile
foot journey. Yet in some ways it matters little: 1847, 1849
-- the overall effect was the same: some members of the Bleau dit
Rossignal family, including both parents and some of their children,
migrated out of the Red River Valley and into the bustling cities of the
Mississippi River Valley.
By September 1850,
thanks largely to
Marguerite's efforts, she, her parents, and at last four of her siblings were
ensconced in St Paul, as seen in the following 1850
census.
1850
Census St Paul MN Territory
(
)
Antoine Bleau, 60, m,
laborer, $250, b. Minnesota Territory [b. 1790]
Margaret Bleau, 45, f [b. 1805]
Margaret Bleau,
26, f [b. 1824]
Joseph Bleau, 13, m [b. 1837]
Aiken Bleau, 4, m [b. 1846]
Felicite Bleau, 2, f
[b. 1848]
Delagais Bleau, 7, m
[b. 1843 – all born in Minnesota Territory]
|
Another of Marguerite's brothers,
Antoine, b. 1827, married to
Catherine Roussin (Rossignal), decided to stay up in the Red
River region, where they raised their family (including
Charlotte
Blue; see below). Other of Margaret's brothers who stayed
up north probably included Augustus (Alexis)
and
Jeandron (see
correspondence with Jane Bucknall, below).
1845-1851. Bailey T.
Baldwin's Early Years in the Upper Midwest
What about Bailey T. Baldwin?
The earliest indirect evidence for him
comes from the "Modern Leather-Stocking Tale":
In the spring of 1845
B. T. Baldwin was among those who came
from the South to the new trading post at St. Paul. He had lived in
Alabama, brought up among the Southerners of the Southland, and he
was eager to try his luck in the North . . . Six years later, in 1851,
he wooed and won the widow of Bazill Bottineau, and he gave her
little son a home with her.
"Modern
Leather-Stocking Tale," Minneapolis
Tribune,
Sunday, July 2, 1899
|
The earliest direct evidence for Bailey's presence in the Upper Midwest is from the year 1847,
and comes
from the Eagle Eye of Jeane Morneau DeCoursey and her husband Bill,
who found the following documentary evidence for Bailey in St Croix
Falls, Wisconsin, just across the St Croix River from Taylor's
Falls, Minnesota, about 15 miles northeast of St Paul. According to a "minibiography" that accompanies a compilation of
documents recently published by the Washington County Historical
Society,
|
Bailey T.
Baldwin B. c 1819. He was at St. Croix
Falls by 1847, and is probably the _____ Boldin on the tax
list that year (he was delinquent on 1847 taxes). In
1848 he got 1 vote for judge, but was beaten by H. H.
Perkins. He enlisted in 1862 in Co. D, 5th Minn. Reg.,
and was discharged for disability the following January. |
Excerpt from
Minnesota Beginnings:
Records of St. Croix County, Wisconsin Territory, 1840-1849
(Stillwater, MN: Washington County Historical Society, 1999, p.
291); click on top image to view entire page
A man whom we think might be Bailey
appears in St Paul in the 1849 Minnesota Territorial Census:
|
B. Baldwin, 2
males, 1 female, St. Paul, June 11
http://www.parkbooks.com/Html/res_18~1.html
|
Bailey does not appear
in the 1850 census,
which is not entirely surprising given his itinerant lifestyle as a
cart-trader between St Paul and Pembina.
In February 1851,
Marguerite & Bailey T. Baldwin married, and in April 1852 they had their
first child together, Lucy Baldwin. Bailey continued trading between St
Paul and the Red Valley through the mid-1850s. Part of his
business was buying and selling land, as seen in the following document:
3 April 1857 Bailey T. Baldwin and George Worts,
Land Purchase of 83 Acres near Stillwater, Minnesota Territory
(U.S. General Land Office
)
(click on thumbnail to view full
image -- thanks to Ruthanne Fresonke for providing a copy of this
document)
Map
Break!

Adapted from a topographical map
of Minnesota, showing the principal places mentioned in the documents on
this web page;
adapted from http://fermi.jhuapl.edu/states/maps1/mn (accessed
Oct 2006)
1860 Census Columbus Twp, Anoka Co MN
By 1860, Bailey, Margaret, their three children,
and two of Margaret's brothers were farmers in Columbus Township, Anoka
County (
).
Baldwin, Margarette,
, 37, b. British America
Baldwin, Charles,
23,
b. Minn
Baldwin, Lucy, 9, b. Minn
Baldwin, William, 2,
b. Minn
Blowe, Ekan,
15, b. Minn
Blowe, Felix, 13, b. Minn
|
Remarkably, we can identify all of these people:
parents Bailey T. & Marguerite Baldwin; Marguerite's first
child, 23 year-old Charlies
Mijigisi
Bottineau Baldwin; Bailey & Marguerite's first two children
together, Lucy
and
William Baldwin; and Marguerite's
younger brothers, Aiken and
Felix Bleau dit Rossignal.
When this census was taken,
12 year-old Nellie Kinsman was living somewhere around Burr Oak,
Michigan. Soon she would meet Frank Lang
(Aug 1861), marry him (Jan
1865), bear his child (Nov 1866), and migrate to Minnesota (Dec 1866).
A short time later she divorced Frank and married
Louis Bleau (b. 1852), the youngest of the Bleau siblings.
Moving forward in time
to the Civil War years,
things begin to get confusing. Here's some of what we know:
1861-1865
Civil War Service of Baldwin, Bleau, and Bottineau Me
|
Name |
Unit |
Age
at Enlistment |
Pension |
Dates of Service |
|
Baldwin, Bailey T. |
Co D, 5th Reg |
43 |
yes |
2-12-62 to 1-5-63 |
|
Blow, Felix |
Co H, 8th Reg |
18 |
yes |
2-2-64 to 7-11-65 |
|
Bottineau, Charles |
Co F, 5th Reg |
24 |
yes |
1-14-62 - 3-23-65 |
|
Bottineau, Peter |
Co F, 5th Reg |
22 |
? |
1-30-62 - ? (Veteran; promoted to corporal) |
|
Rescenlibue, Ecan (Aiken Bleau, Ecan Ressenblue) |
Co H, 8th Reg |
19 |
yes |
10-30-62 - 7-11 65 |
Sources:
Minnesota in the Civil
and Indian Wars, 1861-1865 (St Paul MN: Pioneer Press Co,
1890); pension data from online searches, National Archives &
Records Administration; on Etienne Bleau Rossignal's Civil War
veteran status, see 18 Sept 1903, below.
|
The service records and pension files of Ecan Rescenlibue and
Felix
Blow shows that these were in fact
Aiken and his brother
Felix Bleau, and that they served in
the same unit together along with their nephew
Charles
Bottineau.
Sept 1862: Death of Margaret Bleau dit Rossignal Baldwin's Brother
at Fort Abercrombie, Dakota Territory
According to
Margaret Baldwin's story of her life as related in
the modern leather-stocking tale,
|
Between Sept. 20 and 30, 1862,
there was a terrible fight, in which Mrs. Baldwin's brother
was killed and scalped. |
As we've seen,
Margaret had somewhere
around seven brothers: Antoine (b. 1827),
Alexis (b. 1829),
Joseph (b. 1837),
Delagois (b. 1843),
Aiken (b. 1846),
Felix (b. 1848), and
Louis (b. 1852). We have post-1862 references for Antoine, Jeandron, Aiken, Felix, and Louis. From this it would appear
that either Alexis, Joseph, or Delagois was the one "killed and scalped" at Fort
Abercrombie in Sept 1862 during the Great Sioux Uprising.
Speaking
directly to this question is page
761 of the wonderful old book from
R.G.'s smelly old trunk,
Minnesota
in the Civil and Indian Wars, 1861-1865 (St Paul: Pioneer Press Co.,
1890), which contains the following roster:
Roster of a Company of
Citizens Mustered in at Fort Abercrombie by Order of
Captain J. Van Der Horck, Commandant of the Post, on
Aug. 25, 1862. This Company Participated in the
Defense of the Fort in All the Attacks Made Upon It, and
Was Commanded by Captain T. D. Smith
|
The four men killed
are listed as follows:
Edward Wright,
Sergeant, killed in service by Indians Sept 23, '62
James Bennett,
Corporal, killed in service by Indians, with party sent
to Breckenridge
Charles W. Snell,
Ostler, Killed in action Sept. 6, '62
Augustus Ruchenell,
private, killed in service by Indians
|
Is this
Augustus Ruchenell
Margaret Bleau dit Rossignal's brother Alexis?
Very probably. As best as we can tell, the brothers who remained up north
were Antoine, Alexis,
and Jeandron, while Margaret, Felix, Etienne,
and Louis either migrated to St Paul
or were born there (as was Louis in 1852).
1864-1874:
Half-Breed Scrip
and Land Purchases Among the Bleau dit Rossignals and Baldwins
The phenomenon of "half-breed scrip"
provides a fascinating window into the Red River Métis
and the Bleau dit Rossignal family in the 1860s and 1870s -- a topic is
so intricate that it appears on a separate page on this website,
half-breed
scrip and the bleau dit rossignals.
The following table
summarizes the principal "half-breed scrip" events and land
purchases among the Bleau dit Rossignals and Baldwins from 1864 to 1874 -- at
least those we know about.
|
"Half-Breed Scrip" Events & Outright Land Purchases
among the Bleau dit Rossignals & Baldwins, 1864-1874:
Chronology,
People, Events
|
|
Date |
Name |
Result of Transaction or Event |
|
Nov 1864 |
Margaret Baldwin |
Issued 80 acres,
Scrip
#123 |
|
May 1865 |
John B. Bleau |
Issued
80 acres (number unknown) |
|
May 1865 |
Margaret Bourdon
Bleau |
Issued 80 acres, Scrip #71 |
|
May 1865 |
Antoine Bleau
dit R. |
Issued 80 acres, Scrip #70 |
|
Dec 1868 |
Felix Bleau dit
R. |
Scrip
application #608 (rejected 1871) |
|
Jan 1869 |
Etienne Bleau
dit R. |
Scrip
application #605 ( " " ) |
|
Jan 1869 |
Louis Bleau dit
R. |
Scrip
application #609 ( " " ) |
|
Jan 1869 |
Antoine Bleau
dit R. |
Scrip
application #606 ( " " ) |
|
Jan 1869 |
Jeandron Bleau
dit R. |
Scrip
application #607 ( " " ) |
|
May 1869 |
Margaret Baldwin |
Scrip patented
in Stockton, CA (?) |
|
Aug 1869 |
Antoine Bleau
dit R. |
Scrip patented
in St Cloud MN |
|
Aug 1869 |
John B. Bleau |
Scrip patented
in St Cloud MN |
|
May 1871 |
John Bte. Blow |
Scrip
application #66; rejected |
|
March 1873 |
Felix Bleau dit
R. |
Issued 160
acres, Scrip #143 |
|
March 1873 | |