Guiding Questions
 

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:

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):

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),

Who were Marguerite's parents?  This part is easy, thanks to the research already undertaken by Debra McCann:

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:

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. 

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: 

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:

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: 

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:

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  ( )

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":

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,

A man whom we think might be Bailey appears in St Paul in the 1849 Minnesota Territorial Census:

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 ( ).

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

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,

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:

     The four men killed are listed as follows:

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.

Wow!  That's a lot of land transactions.  Evidence for those events not included in the "Half-Breed Scrip" page is included in the box below:

1868:   Pembina Annuity Payments to Jeandron Rossignal

In the wake of the Great Sioux Indian Uprising of 1862, the federal government signed a series of treaties with both renegade Sioux (Dakota) and not-so-renegade Chippewa (Ojibwe) bands (the texts of these treaties are reproduced in the pages remember the red river valley and half-breed scrip).

The compensation forced upon Ojibwe and Métis peoples for their lands in these treaties was a series of annuity payments.  One such payment was made in 1868 to Jeandron Rossignol, to wit:

Interestingly, the headman of Jeandron Rossignol's band in 1868 -- Way ke ge ke zhick -- was also the headman of the band to which Jeandron's brother, Etienne Blue, belonged 21 years later, in 1889 -- Way ke che ge shig.  This may well have been the Pembina Ojibwe band to which all the Bleau dit Rossignal siblings belonged (see data on Etienne Blue for the year 1889, below, located under the "1900 Census" data for Etienne (Steven) Blue). 

1869-1870:  Riel's Rebellion, or the Red River Rebellion

This was another complicated episode, basically having to do with the expansion of the Canadian state and the formation of the province of Manitoba in the wake of Canadian Confederation in 1867.  The roots of the crisis of 1869-1870 are explored in greater detail in the page titled remember the red river valley. 

For our purposes here, the upshot is that the turmoil in the Red River region, combined with the massive influx of English-speaking setters from Ontario, probably prompted Aiken, Louis, and other Bleau dit Rossignal siblings to migrate away from the Red River and toward Minneapolis and St Paul.

(The full text of many relevant books on the topic are available online; just google "Digital Book Index Red River Rebellion Canada" to find the links.)

Summer 1870   Census Pages

In June 1870, Aiken Bleau was living with his aging, presumably widowed mother Margaret Bourdin Bleau (mistakenly listed as Margaret Blee in the Ancestry.com database) in Watab, Benton County, MN, P.O. Sauk Rapids, as shown in these census pages: (   ) :  

Most neighbors are listed as "Indian-White."  Aiken was also illiterate (as were Margaret and Adeline) -- something he had in common with his future sister-in-law Nellie Kinsman Lang.  Louis Bleau was probably illiterate too, and he and Nellie probably met soon after this.  Adeline was probably Aiken's wife.   

Meanwhile, Bailey T. & Marguerite Baldwin were living in Centerville, Anoka County, with their extended family; there are three different census pages listing them.  Here is the first ( ):

1870 Census (Aug 4), Centerville, Anoka Co MN Enumeration No. 9 Blowe, Felix, 22, b. Minn; no occupation listed Blowe, Josephine, 19, b. Minn Blowe , Carolina, 1/12, b. Minn McClure, Theodore, 17, b. Minn  [ ten years later Lucy Baldwin's husband; see 1880 census, below ]

back to felix blue pension file

1880 Census   Four Census Pages, Minneapolis & Richfield MN

In the 1880 census we see the families of Nellie Lang and Bailey T. & Marguerite Baldwin together for the first time.  Four separate census pages list who was living where and with whom, though quite a few people are double-counted.  This suggests, among other things, a high degree of fluidity and mobility in living and residential patterns.  In other words, people moved around a lot, and lived with different people at different times depending on a range of factors.

     1)  Minneapolis, 5 June 1880 ( )  

Here we see Bailey & Marguerite's son William C. Baldwin living in the same house as Nellie Blow's three children:  Jennie Lang (age 14), Nellie Lang (age 12), and Louise Blow (age 5).  In fact it shows ten people in the same house on Main St. near 12th Ave NE, Minneapolis.

Two families sharing one dwelling place -- the Mueller's, German-Americans, were probably not part of the Bleau-Baldwin extended family but simply sharing the house and paying half the rent.  John Lamart (LaMotte) was somehow connected to the Baldwins, along with other LaMotte family members – nearby neighbors up in Centerville, Anoka County, in 1870 and before (listed as "Lamot" in 1885 MN census; and, thanks to information provided by Jeane EagleEye Morneau DeCoursey, spelled "LaMotte" on their gravestones in Centerville, Anoka Co MN; see Jeane's note of Oct 2006).  William Baldwin, of course, was the son of Bailey T. & Marguerite Baldwin.

 

It seems clear that John LaMotte and William C. Baldwin were the heads of the second family in this house, and that three minor children officially fell under their supervision and care -- Nellie Lang's three daughters:  two by Frank Lang, and one by Louis Bleau (Janey Lang is our great-grandmother Jennie Lang).

 

The "Germany" listing for Louise Blow's father is incorrect, yet revealing. since it shows that the census-taker was led to understand that these three children shared the same parentage. 

 

Where was Nellie, the mother of these three children?  This leads us to the second census page:

     2)  Richfield, 7 June 1880  ( )  

Nellie Blow, domestic servant, in Richfield, Hennepin Co MN (just south of Minneapolis along the railroad tracks leading to St Paul and Hastings), working as a live-in domestic servant for 35 year-old single mother H. B. Freeman -- and only four doors down from Fort Snelling army barracks and hospital.  All the data fit our Nellie (except her parents' birth in New York, which is close enough to Vermont to explain the difference) -- including the fact that she could neither read nor write.  It's her.

There is no address listed, but the house was not only right next to Fort Snelling, but also right along the railroad tracks that led into Northeast Minneapolis.  Bailey T. Baldwin's pension file shows that he was a frequent visitor to the Fort Snelling hospital in the 1860s and 1870s.  Both Nellie and Bailey took would have good reason to ride the train with fair frequency. 

 

This leads us to suspect several things:  (1) that from Richfield Nellie visited her daughters in Minneapolis by commuting on the train; (2) that she was too poor to rent a house and raise her children by herself, so she left them in the care of Marguerite & Bailey's extended family in Northeast Minneapolis; and (3) that it may well have been on the train running along Hiawatha Avenue from Fort Snelling to Northeast Minneapolis that Nellie and Bailey first met.

 

Where are Bailey T. and Marguerite?  This leads us to the third relevant census page

     3).  East Minneapolis, 11 June 1880 ( ).  

Now we're in the eastern hinterlands of Minneapolis, a part of the city so undeveloped it still lacked street names: 

We see here five adjacent houses, four of which sheltered different members of the same extended family, almost all of them ethnically Canadian -- with Bailey T. & Marguerite Baldwin in one house; next door to their daughter Lucy Baldwin McClure and her husband Theodore McClure; next door to them Theodore's brother Peter McClure and his wife Mary McClure; and, two doors down from Bailey & Marguerite in the other direction, Anthony LaMotte and his family.  Again, the connection between the LaMotte family and the Baldwin-McClure families is not entirely clear, though it is clear that the LaMotte's were friends of Bailey & Marguerite from their days in Centerville in the 1870s at least, and were enmeshed in the same circle of close friends and extended kin.

     4)  East Minneapolis, 14 June 1880  ( )  

Here we see many  of the same people, double-counted by the census-taker:

People counted twice in the 1880 census included Bailey T. & Marguerite Baldwin; little Louise Blow; her half-sister Nelly Lang (Jr.); Theodore & Lucy McClure; and Peter & Mary (Louise) McClure. 

 

Interestingly, Louise Blow was listed as the "cousin" of Theodore McClure, which sort of makes sense if she were Nellie & Louis's daughter, as all the evidence suggests (Louise Blow was Theodore's -- what?  Niece?  Cousin?  The daughter of his mother-in-law's brother and his wife.  Whatever that made Louise to Theodore, cousin comes as close as anything in the English language of kinship).

It also seems important that Nellie Lang was listed as the granddaughter of Bailey T. & Marguerite.  We interpret this as a key piece of evidence suggesting the de facto nature of the relationship between Bailey & Marguerite and Nellie's daughters.  Officially Bailey & Marguerite were the girls' aunt and uncle by marriage; in effect they were their grandparents.

 

Also, Louise McClure's birth surname was evidently Louise Goburn, as her two brothers, Alexander and Nelson, lived with her and her husband Peter.  Once again we see how densely interwoven were the Baldwin & McClure families.  We also see the importance of Canadian ancestry and ethnic identity in these residential patterns.

 

Overall these four census pages from 1880 suggest exceedingly dense familial relationships connecting Nellie Blow and her three kids; Bailey & Marguerite Baldwin and at least one of their children, Lucy Baldwin; the McClure siblings; and the LaMotte family.  The lives of all these folks, and doubtless others, were woven tightly together.

1885    Minnesota State Census Data

The 1885 Minnesota State Census (online subscription available through www.kinsource.com) provides additional clues:

What we seem to see here is the following:  Nellie Lang, age 16, was living with the Stockton's, perhaps as their domestic servant.  In three houses clustered near each other lived Peter (Pierre) & Maggie (Louise) McClure and their baby daughter, along with Maggie's brother Nelson Goburn; eight doors away lived Peter's brother Theodore McClure and his wife Lucy Baldwin McClure; and two houses down from Theodore & Lucy lived Bailey & Marguerite, who were finally living alone after all those years of helping to raise other people's children. 

By this time Jennie Lang, age 18, has become Jennie Lang Sullivan, and was living with her Maine-born husband Cornelius Sullivan and her mother Nellie Kinsman Lang Blowe.  The three of them were living four doors down from Nellie's daughter Louise Blow, who was living with, and perhaps being raised by Edward & Adalaide "Le Perdo," which Mike is almost positive is actually Edward & Adelaide Thibodeau (see the mysteries of edward thibodeau).

Why was little Louise Blow living with the Thibodeaus and not with her mother Nellie and half-sister Jennie?  Several possible reasons come to mind:  (1) Nellie needed to work and couldn't stay home and raise a 10 year-old by herself; (2) the evidence suggests that Edward & Adelaide had tried to have kids but couldn't, because soon they would adopt their only daughter, Lillian, born in 1884; thus they were looking to help shelter and raise a child; (3) the listing has an arbitrary quality:  Louise happened to be living temporarily at the Thibodeau's when the census-taker came around, and so she was listed as residing there.

There's a fourth possibility:  that Cornelius would not stand for his mother-in-law's child living with himself and his new wife.  Richard Reiser's descriptions of Cornelius suggest how pig-headed and Irish-ethnocentric he could be.  By this time the ethnic conflict between the Irish and French-Canadians in Northeast Minneapolis had really heated up.  Perhaps Cornelius drew a line in the sand and insisted that he would have no French-Canadians living under his roof.

And a fifth:  a hidden conflict between Nellie and her two daughters Nellie (Jr.) & Louise.  Maybe they just didn't get along -- though it would appear wholly out of character for Nellie to abandon any of her three children.  Extreme poverty, we suspect, was the real culprit here.  It's also true that by Nellie's third marriage in 1916, two of her three children were apparently estranged from her (see the press clipping from the iowa city news).  Maybe by that time her daughters had abandoned her?  Unknown. 

The bottom line is, we don't know why little Louise was listed with the Thibodeau's in 1885 and not with her mother, or, the other reasons behind these particular living arrangements.

It does seem, however, that the mid 1880s marks a kind of watershed in the relations between the families of Bailey & Marguerite Baldwin, on the one hand, and of Nellie & Jennie & Cornelius Sullivan, on the other hand.  Soon Jennie & Cornelius would start having kids of their own, beginning with Mary (Aunt Maime) Sullivan in 1886 and continuing through the mid-1890s.  In 1900, grandma Nellie was still living with her daughter Jennie and son-in-law Cornelius Sullivan, only now with a houseful of her Sullivan grandkids. 

After the mid-1880s, it seems, the Bleau-Baldwin and Lang-Sullivan families basically drifted apart.  Exactly how, why, and to what extent remains a mystery.

1880-1900   Baldwin-Perry Families, Northeast Minneapolis

During this same period, William C. Baldwin and Elizabeth Perry married and started a family.  All of Bailey & Marguerite's descendents descend from this line (including EagleEye Woman Jeane Morneau DeCoursey).  Portions of their family history is described in greater detail in the page devoted to bailey t. baldwin probate file, 1905. 

Lucy Baldwin McClure Doyle

First-born child of Bailey T. & Marguerite Baldwin, Lucy never had children.  Instead she evidently spent much of her time caring for her ailing father, either living with him or very nearby.  She also married twice:  first to Theodore McClure (by 1880 and until at least 1885), and then to James Doyle (by 1900 until her death in 1910).

What happened to Theodore McClure?  Recall that he, too, is an Ojibwe-Métis displaced from the Red River Valley in the Métis diaspora.  Did he die?  Or did he and Lucy divorce?

The evidence suggests that they divorced, or, that Theodore deserted her. migrated to Washington State, married a woman named Ida Lemay, and lied about his previous marriage, as seen in these census pages from 1900 ( ) and 1910 ( ).  All the personal data here (including birth year, place of birth, and parents' places of birth) fit our Theodore McClure.

By 1900 Lucy was married to one James Doyle (b. 1861 PA, parents b. Ireland), as seen in the census page showing Bailey T. Baldwin at 716 Lincoln Street in Northeast Minneapolis ( ).  She remained married to James Doyle until her death.

Significantly, Bailey left most of his modest estate to her, excluding from his will his other two children, William C. Baldwin and Mary Baldwin McRay. 

Our guess is that Lucy Baldwin McClure Doyle was an exceptionally generous and giving person, and she deserved every cent that Bailey bequeathed to her.  As seen below, she died of kidney disease in July 1910 at age 58, and was buried at Hillside Cemetery near her mother and father -- the only one of Bailey & Marguerite's children to partake of that honor. 

Return to Lucy Baldwin on People Page

Mary Baldwin McRay

The youngest of Bailey & Marguerite's children, Mary Baldwin McRay seems to have led a very difficult life, perhaps as symbolized by the dramatic circumstances of her birth as described in vivid detail in the modern leather-stocking tale.

It is our supposition that over time Mary Baldwin McRay grew estranged from her father, her sister, and perhaps her mother.  Census data from 1900 hint that she lived among the poorest and most marginalized segment of Northeast Minneapolis's working class population.  These data, which show her and her husband Samuel being evicted from one dwelling and residing at another, might be taken as emblematic of the hardships she suffered (       ).

Excluded from her father's will, to which she filed an objection (which the court ignored), she died of bronchial pneumonia in St Peter's State Hospital in St Peter, Minnesota, a widow, in February 1934, at 71 years of age.  In the 1930s St Peter's housed the criminally insane, though given her cause of death, Mary might have been quarantined there for tuberculosis.  

(1880 census:  .   1910 census:   .)

There's a real story in here somewhere. 

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Tuesday, April 3, 1900   Death Notice for Margaret Baldwin, Minneapolis Tribune

This is a sad thing -- not only the death of Marguerite, which certainly broke Bailey's heart and made his final four years excruciatingly painful, but also the lack of attention paid to Margaret's death by the Minneapolis Tribune -- the latter neglect demonstrating mainly the fickleness and short memory of mass media:  a two-line, one day notice of the death of Marguerite Bleau dit Rossignal Bottineau Baldwin.  This after profiling her extraordinary life only nine months earlier in the "Modern Leather-Stocking Tale." 

The second item here reads:

This is the only notice that appears in the Tribune.  A careful search revealed no obituary and nothing else.

The 1900 census ( ) shows Bailey T. Baldwin, 80 years old, still living on Lincoln St., with his daughter Lucy and her husband James Doyle.  Margaret has been dead for 65 days.

1900 Census   Blue and Bottineau Families, White Earth Reservation, MN, 25 & 27 June, 1900   (        )

Moving north to White Earth Indian Reservation, we find for the year 1900 the following listings:

Felix Blue, above, has to be our Felix Bleau dit Rossignal -- the pension he's getting is from his Civil War service, as amply documented in these pages. 

We also see another Louis Bleau / Blue, born in 1888, the son of Aiken Bleau dit Rossignal, who should not be confused with our Louis Bleau, born in 1852, Aiken's younger brother and Nellie's second husband, stabbed to death at a holiday dance on the day after Christmas 1874.

The Charles Bottineau here is Charles Mijigisi Bottineau, son of Margaret Bleau dit Rossignal Bottineau Baldwin and her first husband Basil Bottineau.

The listing also demonstrates that the Blue and Bottineau families remained close through the 1900s -- their next-door neighbor status hints that they continued to form a kind of extended kin network.

The Mystery of Etienne Blue

Etienne Bleau dit Rossignal (a.k.a. Stephen Blue) was one of the Bleau dit Rossignal brothers, as demonstrated in the evidence on the half-breed scrip page, and in the following data: 

Here is Etienne / Aiken / Stephen Blue / Blow / Bleau / Blu / Rossignal / Rushenall in Minneapolis in 1880  ( ). 

In his Civil War Pension File, and in history books on the Civil War, he is listed as Ecan Ressenblue, who served with distinction in Company H of the Minnesota Volunteer Infantry.

The following two documents show that Etienne Blue was granted land by the US government in 1902; that he died in 1903; and that he was a Civil War veteran.  For more on the topic, see the page Solving the Mystery of Ekan Blow.

3 Dec 1902   Etienne Blue, Indian Fee Patent Land Grant, U.S. Land Office, Minnesota

18 Sept 1903    Etienne Rossignal Bleau, Civil War Veteran, Private, U.S. Army, Death and Burial, White Earth MN

December 19, 1904    Death of Bailey T. Baldwin.

Bailey T. Baldwin didn't really have a death certificate -- the year of his death being the year before the State of Minnesota required it -- but we do learn from his index card at Hillside Cemetery in Minneapolis that he died on December 19, 1904 (a date confirmed in his Civil War pension papers, and his "death card" at the Minnesota Historical Society), and that he was buried the following spring, on April 25, 1905, in the plot next to his beloved Marguerite. 

May your spirits rest in peace.

     (see hillside blues)

July 24, 1910    Death of Lucy Baldwin McClure Doyle  ( )

For more on the effort to find Lucy's final resting place near her mother & father, see hillside blues.

29 Oct 1915    Louis Blue, Land Grant from U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 45,550 sq ft, White Earth Indian Reservation, Minnesota   (  )  

This Louis Blue was listed as the 12 year-old son of Etenne Blue in the 1900 census, above.  He's thus the nephew of Felix & Aiken & Louis & Margaret and the other Bleau dit Rossignal siblings (not to be confused with our Louis Bleau), though as best as I can reckon, of these and other Bleau dit Rossignal siblings, in 1915 Felix is the only one still alive.  (Thanks to Ruthanne Fresonke for providing a copy of this document)

1920 Census   Felix Blue, Richwood Twp, Becker Co MN 

Felix Blue, head, age 73, widow, b. 1847 in MN, father b. Canada, mother tongue French; mother b. Minnesota; living with one servant and unrelated lodgers

This is doubtless our Felix, who would die six years later, on 20 May 1926, in Becker County, Minnesota, and be buried in Calvary Cemetery, White Earth, MN -- same as his brother Aiken.

1920 Census    Charles Bottineau, Red Lake Falls City, Red Lake Co MN

Chas Bottineau, boarder, age 70 (b. 1850), single, born MN, father b. ND, mother b. NY

This is probably one of Pierre Bottineau's multitudinous children.   If he were Margaret Baldwin's son he'd be 82 years old.  Unknown.

III.  Correspondence

A.  Correspondence with Jane Bucknall, descendent of Antoine Blue (Antoine Bleau dit Rossignal, b. 1827) and Catherine Roussin (Rossignal, married surname) [bucknall@pacbell.net]

15 Sept 2006

Hello - I am a little confused - My Great-grandmother was Charlotte Blue Rossignol daughter of Antoine and Catherine Roussin. On this web it says Antoine's siblings are Aiken, Felix, and Marguerite who married Mr. Bailey Baldwin. Also, it tells of the others - Aiken and Felix and their marriages and list parents as Antoine Bleau and Marguerite Bourbon. Who are they - are they Antoine (married to Catherine) Antoine's parents as the time frame is different. Charlotte was born 1848 and her siblings are Antoine, Isabelle, Frank/Francois - so who is who?  I love the story and how I think Marguerite's in my family she would be mygrgrgr aunt. I hope I have the facts right -please let me know as I am interested in Charlotte blue Bleau - My name is Jane Bucknall and I live in Sacramento, California. My email is bucknall@pacbell.net. Thanks

16 Sept 2006

Hi - in regard to the message I just sent I really have not got more info on Charlotte. Just her parents Antoine and Catherine Roussin. She is buried in North Dakota at Belcourt Indian reservation and died 1905. I found where she received scrip 1878 for the Pembina annuity roll and the web you gave me has way different info on her - has Catherine Roussin's name is different although info on Eliza Davis Gouin is right. I do not understand the Indian names and such and know mention of Charlotte being Antoine and Catherine's child I can't decipher in Indian - let me know about this -Jane

17 Sept 2006

Hey Michael - It is hard to read what you sent could you please send me the census showing Charlotte at age 11 and her siblings - I have the parents right just not the siblings I guess.  I had her siblings as Isabelle, Antoine - etc. You may be right but what are the Indian names on that website that you gave me it mentions them but all Indian names - also I have a  census for 1880 for Charlotte and Jerome Davis and family taken at the White Earth Reservation - also Jim Bowman in Canada has Salomon, etc listed as Charlottes family but she is not in there 1850 census Pembina, Minn. Her birth varies from 1848 to 1851 so she may not be born yet. what do you think  -Jane

---

[ In response to these queries, Mike found and sent Jane these three census pages from 1850 ( ) 1860 ( ), and 1870 ( ), which show the following:

1850 Census:  Pembina Co MN.  Antoine Rashnold (corruption of "Rossignal"), age 25; Catherine Rashnold, age 23; Antoine Rashnold, age 2; Charlotte Rashnold, age 1 1860 Census:  Polk Co MN, Red River Junction:  Antoine Belair (corruption of "Bleau"), age 34; Catherine Belair, age 34; and children Antoine (age 12), Charlotte (age 11), Mary (8), Eustace (6), Delia (5), Solomen (3), and Joseph (1) 1870 Census:  Renville Co, Hawk River:  Antoine Blow (age 45), Catherine Blow (age 44), and children Antoine (age 28), Charlotte, (21), Bastake (18), Clemence (16), Solomon (12), Joseph (7), Andre (4), and Margaret (10)

[ This helped us to appreciate how the Bleau dit Rossignal's have living descendents keenly interested in understanding their roots and knowing more about their ancestors.  It also helped us to understand that Antoine Bleau dit Rossignal (b. 1827) was Marguerite's younger brother who stayed behind in the Pembina / Red River Valley area after Marguerite made her epic 600-mile foot journey from St Paul to Pembina and back in the fall of 1847 to fetch her family, as described in the modern leather-stocking tale ]

---

17 Sept 2006

Thanks for that Mike. Charlotte married Jerome Davis who was known as Mung-ge-Sheegan and Jerome's father William was known as Kug-Kay-Dway. I got this from Jim bowman researcher in Canada. Jerome's Grandfather also was Charles Henault and I got info on the Henaults which is very interesting. My grandmother Eliza Davis Gouin (Charlotte's daughter) was married to Joseph Gouin whose Mother was Suzanne Piche. The Piches are an interesting bunch and most of them are buried at Saint Francis Xavier outside of Winnipeg. I have someone I found through that church who is going to get me pictures of the graves as I have pictures of Charlotte and Jerome's as they are buried St. Anthony's graveyard at Belcourt reservation north Dakota. I knew nothing of her from my Dad as we never knew we were Indian until my sis and I were teens. it was not discussed and my Dad George Gouin - son of Eliza and Joseph Gouin kind of wanted to tell us but my mom was Norwegian and did not like to talk about dad's side of the family. Both my Grandma-Eliza and Charlotte were dead before I was born. My parents are also dead now but I feel I want to know all the details and I missed out on alot. I can share this with my family as I feel Charlotte wanted me to know of her. Charlotte died 1905 and Jerome 1906. I wish I had a photo of them - let me know if I can do anything for you - I have access to the Mormon Genealogy here and I am learning alot there and it is free when you get on Ancestry.com. They are so nice there and there is a lady dealing in Indian history that I would like to take a class from. Take care - keep me posted as I guess Margaret Rossignol would have been Charlotte's Aunt-making her my great great Aunt and Eiken and the rest Great great uncles - what great stories and I love them all.

22 Sept 2006

Thanks again for helping me know more about Charlotte. Jerome and she moved from Minnesota to North Dakota in the late 1800's and I have a census for 1900 on the Turtle Mountain Reservation. . . .

Gravestones of Charolette Blue Davis (1849-1905) and her husband Jerome Davis (ca. 1845-1906), Belcourt Indian Reservation, North Dakota; photos courtesy of Jane Bucknall

 

Photo of Eliza Gouin, daughter of Charlotte Blue Davis & Jerome Davis, date and place unknown (ca. 1920), courtesy of Eliza's granddaughter Jane Bucknall

 

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B.  Correspondence via Ruthanne Fresonke on the Blue Family, Sept 2006

Rita Blue's grandmother was Ida (Gurneau) Blue married to a Joseph Blue.  Joseph's siblings were Andrew, Matthew, and Melinda (Blue) May.  Melinda was last known still living up at Red Lake Reservation.  Rita Arvilla and Shirlene are Ruby's (Rita's niece) father's siblings who are biological Blue's, her (Rita's) father was adopted by Joseph & Ida Blue.

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C.  Paintings of Margaret Baldwin (Kas-Kas-Ka-Na-Gee) and her father Antoine Bleau in the State Capitol Building, St Paul MN, ca. 1950s-60s

     According to Ruthanne Fresonke  (Sept 2006),

"There is also the mystery of what happened to Margaret and her father's paintings that were on display years ago at the Minnesota Capital building?  The last time I was at the capital with Grandma Fresonke, we had asked where they had gone?  Their only reply (seemingly not interested in our inquiry), was that 'since we assumed the last living family member was passed on, due to no inquiries about the paintings over so many years, they were either put into storage, returned to the tribe, or?  The last time Bob (my late husband) had seen the paintings, was when he was a teenager or younger.

"Paintings' description from Grandma Fresonke (her mother was the daughter of Frank Baldwin):  Kas-Kas-Ka-Na-Gee in her youth, wearing a buckskin leather dress designed in the fashion of the Chippewa.  She, according to grandma, was wearing on her person the peace medal of her father, possibly on her forehead?  She once said it was on the father's forehead attached to his headdress?  She gets confused, but I had heard this story so many times over the years.  All the older children remember both paintings when they were young.  They remember the medal, just not exactly where it was.

"Antoine Blue painting:  Him in his native dress, with the medal also maybe?  Grandma said he was a chief, signer of one of the treaties, and that's why he had the Peace Medal.  According to grandma, it was the land area of St Paul that was theirs and included the Fort Snelling lands."

Further Comments, Oct 2006

"Regarding painting of Margaret Baldwin (Kas-kas-ka-na-gee).  In 2006, Denise Fresonke (daughter of Irene Baldwin LesCault) said that the painting hung when you first walked into the main area of the Capital (on the right side?) of the wall. She said the painting was commissioned by the Capital and that the last time she talked with them (1980s) they had sold the painting but she did not know to whom."

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D.  Documents on François Blue (b. 1862) and Isabelle Blue, Children of Antoine Bleau dit Rossignal (b. 1827) & Catherine Roussin (b. 1827)

   In Oct 2006, Mike received the following email from Terry [last name withheld]:

     Terry continued by sending a boatload of documents from the Charles D. Denny Papers at the "Edmonton Archives" in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and some from the Glenbow Archives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.  Basically these documents have to do with Margaret Bleau dit Rossignal Baldwin's nephew François and niece Isabelle -- the children of Margaret's brother Antoine (b. 1827).  They confirm, among other things, that Antoine Bleau dit Rossignal (b. 1827) married Catherine Roussin, and that they had many children, including François, Isabelle, Charlotte, and Solomon.  (It should be noted that Mike's theory is that the surname of Catherine "Roussin" is a corruption of "Rossignal," and that her original birth surname was something else.)

     Evidently François and his sister Isabelle Blue migrated to Alberta as youth, where they married and put down roots, and where their descendents still reside.  Neither "François" nor "Isabelle" appear in the 1870 census with their other siblings (see above).  They were probably already in Canada.

     These migrations were part of what we call the "Red River Métis diaspora," captured graphically in the following map:

The Red River Métis diaspora; from www.metisstudies.ca.edu

     The documents on François & Isabelle Blue and their families that Terry kindly sent us appear below (click on images for larger views):

Doc 1	Doc 2	Doc 3	Doc 4	Doc 5
Doc 6	Doc 7	Doc 8	Doc 9	Doc 10
Doc 11	Doc 12	Doc 13	Doc 14	Doc 15
Doc 16	Doc 17	Doc 18	Doc 19	Doc 20
Doc 21	Doc 22	Doc 23	Doc 24

(If anyone out there wishes to summarize and interpret these documents, Mike would be delighted to receive it . . .)

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E.  The Baldwin's of Madison County, Alabama

Thanks to Ruthanne Fresonke (Oct 2006) for the following information on the possible ancestry of Bailey T. Baldwin:

Madison County, Alabama, Marriage License, Grooms Index 1809-1899 (c) = persons of color or colored Groom     Bride      Date     Record Black, Levy     Baldwin, Sally     17 Dec 1811     Vol. 1 p. 054 Kerksey, Bryant H.     Baldwin, Lucinda     10 Apr 1819     Vol. 2 p. 267 Saxon, John     Baldwin, Polly     12 Apr 1824     Vol. 3 p. 291 Source:  http://co.madison.al.us/mcrc/groomsAB.html  Madison County Records Center, Huntsville Alabama

F.  The LaMotte, Perry, & Other Families Buried in St Genevieve Cemetery, Main Street, Centerville, Anoka County MN

     Note from Jeane Morneau DeCoursey (Oct 2006):

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