Jean
Baptiste Bossier was the subject of a portrait (above) by John James Audubon
done on April 28, 1821 in New Orleans. The portrait is owned by the
Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Missouri and has frequently been featured
in Audubon collections and catalogues. But until now there has been little
biographical material on Bossier to accompany the portrait. The following is an
attempt to fill that gap. [1]
Bossier was
the scion of a family of French Creoles who were among the very first settlers
in the Louisiana Colony in 1719. The founding ancestor was Jean Baptiste Bossier dit Le Brun
(1676-1745), a native of Casselsagrat, Tarn-et-Garon, France. He was already in
his forties when he joined Bernard La Harp's expedition in 1718 to explore
concessions in the newly established Louisiana Colony. After arrival in
Louisiana the La Harpe expedition was rerouted by Governor Beinville to explore
the upper reaches of the Red River for trade purposes. La Harp selected five
volunteers and pushed north along the River into present day Arkansas and
founded Ft. Charlotta in present day Fulton, Arkansas. On the return trip,
Bossier remained at Ft. Jean Baptiste de Nachitoches on the Red River created
in 1714 to protect the undefined border with Spanish Texas. [2]
Map of southern France,1724, and
Guyenne Region, 1785, showing Castel Sacrat, modern Castelsagrat.
Bossier was
granted two parcels of land on the east bank of the Red River in Natchitoches,
possibly in compensation for rebuilding of the original fort further inland in
1732. By that time he had acquired land in St. Charles Parish near New Orleans
and was raising a family there. He had married Anne Chaigneau Rousseau, a
Natchitoches widow with two children in about 1728. They had three boys in the
years following. Bossier appears to have moved back and forth from his family
home in St. Charles and his Natchitoches property. No doubt he farmed land on
both sites, but the Company of the Indies also licensed him to make bricks,
tiles and earthen pots at his St. Charles site. These two locations became
ancestral homes for later generations of Bossiers. [3]
The third
Bossier child, Francois Paul
(1734-1780), married Rosalye Barre, a
planter's daughter from the German Coast (St. Charles Parish) area in 1755.
They had nine children born both on the German Coast and in Nachitoches.
Shortly before Francois Bossier's death in 1780 the family moved to Opelousas,
a village midway between the two Bossier home sites. He began a vacherie of cattle ranching and farmed as
well. [4]
Shortly
after his death, his third child, Jean Baptiste (1763-1787),
General Bossier's father, married Marie Jeanne St. Gemme Bauvis
(1768 -1798) from St. Charles on the German Coast. General Bossier (1783-1842)
was born there shortly thereafter. During the next year, Jean Baptise's name
began to appear in the church records in Natchitoches, indicating a move there.
By 1786 his second child, Marie Pelagie, is baptized in the Natchitoches parish
church of St. Francis of Assisi. Bossier's occupation is described in one
record as a gold and silver smith, a similar description given a younger
brother several years later. But in 1787 he is serving as entrepreneur (general contractor) for the
building of a new church in the town. His sudden death in November of that year
left his estate with tangled financial affairs as both suppliers sought
reimbursement and the estate billed the parish committee for expenses
undertaken. [5]
Young Jean
Baptiste and his sister Marie Pelagie appear to have moved with their mother
back to St. Charles Parish where her St. Gemme Bauvis family still lived. With
the financial complications of her husband's early and sudden death, Marie
Bossier must have felt more secure closer to her home. It is doubtful that the
family suffered privations since both she and her husband had inherited at the
death of their respective fathers in the early 1780s. Madame Bossier died in
1798 in St. Charles, leaving young Jean Baptiste Bossier and his sister still
adolescents of fifteen and twelve years old. They both may well have been in
school at the time. [6]
When and
how Bossier migrated north to Missouri is uncertain. Clearly he is in Ste.
Genevieve, Missouri by the time of his marriage in 1808. Why he chose this
small frontier town is less uncertain. Most of his mother's St. Gemme Bauvis
relatives were living there and were leading merchants. He must have seen the
economic possibilities of an opening frontier area that was already strong in
agriculture and had promise of a burgeoning mining industry. It would have
coincided with the recent changeover of the old Louisiana Colony to the status
of American statehood. Perhaps Missouri seemed more adaptable to American ways
than the old Creole culture of Lower Louisiana. Yet he was to maintain strong
family and commercial ties with the land of his birth. [7]
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St. Gemme Beauvais House in St.
Genevieve, MO |
After the Louisiana
Purchase in 1803, the Creole Bossiers continued an active commercial and public
life. While they continued locally to serve in various public capacities,
several Bossier relatives served with distinction at the state level. Placide
Bossier (1794-1839), a nephew of the General, signed the first State
Constitution in 1811. Another nephew, Pierre Evariste Bossier (1797-1844),
became a prominent plantation owner in the Nachitoches area and went on to
serve ten years as State Senator and then United States Representative for
Louisiana. Bossier Parish was formed from the northern portion of Nachitoches
Parish in 1844 and named for him. [8]
Bossier
arrived in Ste. Genevieve as it changed its legal --as well as its cultural--
status after 1803. Its standing as a French colonial town was beginning to fade
as Americans brought English and free enterprise to its local mercantile
elites. Among those elites were the St. Gemme Bauvis family with interests in
agriculture, mining and fur trading. For years they had prospered on the
Illinois side of the Mississippi and had moved to avoid British rule after the
French and Indian War (1757-1763) had ceded the east bank to England. Also,
Ste. Genevieve was becoming a strong mining center with rich mineral deposits west
of the town. This served as a catalyst to the existing agrarian and fur trade
economy of the region. [9]
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The Bossier House in St.
Genevieve, MO |
Bossier
brought to this transition period a strong bias toward French Creole traditions
and ways, but soon showed himself able to maneuver in the growing American
business culture. He met Martha
Moreau (1787-1860), the oldest of three children of a wealthy widow. The
younger sister, Catherine, had
recently married Jean Baptiste Valle
and that alliance was the occasion for a partition the estate. Whether her
connections and inheritance was the sole basis of Bossier's initial success is
unknown. He may well have brought his own inheritance to the marriage.
Certainly he brought business acumen and a broad classical education. [10]
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Cecile Choquette Moreau
(1749-1825) |
Bossier's
initial career was in fur trading. He opened a fur trading post in Ste.
Genevieve shortly after arriving there. The nature of this enterprise is unclear.
He certainly was active in the purchase of fur trade goods in the 1820s, but
his post may have also served as a general merchandise store. He was active in
real estate for most of his life and owned properties in three counties at the
time of his death. Whether these properties served agricultural purposes or
were mainly as investments in mineral deposits is uncertain. His later dealings
in lead with his son-in-law suggest they may have been mining related. [11]
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The Old Bossier Store in St.
Genevieve, MO |
Like his
Bossier relatives in Louisiana, General Bossier was active in public as well as
commercial life. He was early elected to serve in the first Missouri
Territorial Legislature in 1812, one of the few French named persons to do so. He
also was a Justice of the Ste. Genevieve County Court in the 1820s. He was
active in other community affairs, especially related to the Catholic Parish.
He served in the War of 1812 in the Missouri militia as a captain. Whether he
attained a rank higher than that in later militia service is unclear, but a
portrait in the 1830s shown him dressed in a colonel's uniform (see below). The
title of "General" used commonly by his contemporaries may have been
an honorary appellation conferred on distinguished public figures. [12]
Portrait of Jean Baptiste Bossier
done in the 1830's
There was
an incident in 1835 suggestive of Bossier's ranking in the community. It
originated with John Jacob Astor, the financier and owner of the American Fur
Company. Otto II, the young King of Greece, arrived in the United States as an
Astor guest. To show the young king the American frontier where the pelts of
the Company's came from, Astor sent him to St. Louis and then on to Ste.
Genevieve. A selected group of French speaking gentlemen were designated to
entertain Otto. Bossier, apparently, assumed a leading role that included
riding, shooting and cards. It was the high point of King Otto's American stay.
The commentator on the visit remarked about the manners and education of these
Creole gentlemen that put the King at his ease. [13]
Bossier's
family life with Martha was blessed with ten children. The births unfortunately
led to many early childhood deaths, and only Carmelite (1814-1896) and Elvina
(1824-1873) survived to adulthood. Being from a prominent family meant husbands
of (almost) equal standing. Carmelite
was the first to marry in 1832. She chose Simon A. Guignon (1806-1891), a
doctor's son who began a commercial career just out of school in Fredericktown
in 1824, a mining boomtown of the area. Guignon opened a successful merchandise
store probably with his brother-in-law, Evariste Pratte, who had a controlling
interest in Mine La Motte close to town. General Bossier moved to Fredericktown
shortly after the marriage in 1834 and joined his new son-in-law in selling
lead products on the Eastern market through a brokerage firm in Philadelphia.
He also may have opened a store of his own in town after the move. [14]
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Marie Carmelite Bossier
(1814-1896) in 1836 |
Simon Amable Guignon (1806-1891)
in 1836 |
His second
daughter, Elvina, married Conrad C. Ziegler (1815-1863) who practiced law with
John Scott in Ste. Genevieve. Scott was a prominent attorney and a political
figure who represented Missouri's controversial admission to the Union in 1821.
By 1840 when he married Elvina Bossier, Ziegler was ready to forsake law for
developing mining interests. Among other companies that he helped create, he
served as manager for the Iron Mountain Mining Company incorporated in 1843. He
pushed for a railroad from the mining district to St. Louis for years. During
his term as State Senator from 1854-58 he realized his dream when in the Iron
Mountain Railroad Company was created in 1857. His fortunes and health both
seriously declined in the late 1850s and he died at 48 as an invalid in 1863.
[15]
Bossier's
move to Fredericktown in 1834 indicated a major commitment to the mining
industry. How the Panic of 1837 effected Bossier's fortune is uncertain. When
he died in 1842--somewhat suddenly it seems--his estate could not cover the
debts without selling some of his real estate holdings. Nevertheless, there are
many indications that neither his wife nor family suffered deprivation. Indeed,
both daughters at the time were wealthy in their own right. [16]
The Civil
War made a difference in fortune for many in Missouri, not least the old Creole
families of Ste. Genevieve. Because southeast Missouri was rich in minerals, a
prime war materiel, the Union and Confederacy both sought to control it. Young
General Grant led his troops against a Confederate Army at Fredericktown in
October 1861. After a Union victory, the federal troops entered the town and
sacked the homes and businesses of "Southern sympathizers." The
Guignons were among those targeted. They decided to move back to Ste. Genevieve
and never returned to Fredericktown or to the affluence of its boom times. The
Guignon grandchildren were the only descendants that General and Martha Bossier
had. [17]
Bossier had
made the move from an established world of French Creole culture to a raw and
changing one of the American frontier. He retained much of his prior life and
ways but also showed flexibility in mastering the new mercantilism of the
frontier. Like many French names in American history, his was lost to those
more prominent in the enduring contests between Americans and their
adversaries, the British, the Native Americans, and eventually the
slaveholders. This is regrettable because it masks the achievements of the
original French pioneers on which were built the modern States of Louisiana and
Missouri.
--Last
updated August 2001
End
Notes
Introduction:
Much of the following is drawn from my earlier monograph on Bossier: Patrick D.
McAnany, "General Jean Baptiste Bossier and Descendants: A Family of
Portraits," July 2001.
[1] Two
examples the portrait without any significant biography are: Stanley Clisby
Arthur, An Intimate Life of an American Woodsman, New Orleans:
Harmonson, 1937, p. 181 on Audubon; and Henry Adams and Margaret Stenz, American
Drawings and Watercolors From the Kansas City Region, Kansas City,
Missouri: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1992.
[2] For
genealogical details on the original Bossiers, see Audie Barnhill Smith, The
Bossier Families of Louisiana on file in the Louisiana State Archives at
Baton Rouge. For details of the La Harp expedition, see, Glenn R. Conrad, ed.
La Harp, Historical Journal of the Establishment of the French in Louisiana,
Lafayette. Louisiana: University of Southern Louisiana History Series No. 3,
1971. On Bossier in Natchitoches, see Louis Raphael Nardini, Sr., My
Historic Nathcitoches, Louisiana and Its Environment, Nathcitoches,
Louisiana: Nardini Publishing, 1963.
[3] For
parish records in St. Charles Parish, see Glenn R. Conrad, ed. St. Charles:
Abstracts of Civil Records of St. Charles Parish 1700-1803, Layfayette,
Louisiana: University of Southern Louisiana History Series, 1974.
For similar
records for Nathcitoches, see Elizabeth Shown Mills, ed., Natchitoches
1729-1803, New Orleans: Polyanthos, 1977.
[4] For
details, see Smith above note [2].
[5] For details,
see Smith above note [2], Conrad and Mills, above note [3]. The details of the
ill-fated church building are contained in the Melrose Collection in the Watson
Library, Northwestern State University of Louisiana, Nathcitoches, LA.
[6] For
details, see Conrad above note [3] and Smith above note [2]. Apart from
statements about Bossier being well educated, I have not found where and how he
was educated. There is a suggestion that several Bossiers attended Georgetown
College in Washington, D.C., founded in 1789. I think it more likely that Jean
Baptiste went to France for his education, following the tradition of French
Creoles of St. Domingue.
[7] For
details on Ste. Genevieve prior to the Louisiana Purchase, see Carl J. Ekberg, Colonial
Ste. Genevieve: An Adventure on the Mississippi Frontier, Tucson, AZ:
Patrice Press, 2nd ed. 1995.
[8] For
details on these Bossiers, see Donna Rachel Mills, ed. Biographical and
Historical Memories of Nathcitoches, Tuscoloosa, AL: Mills Historical
Press, 1985.
[9] See
Ekberg above note [7]; for the St. Gemme Bauvis family in Kaskaskia, Illinois,
see Charles Walworth Alvord, The Illinois County 1673-1818, Chicago:
Loyola Press, 1965.
[10] For
background on the Moreau Family and the French network they represented, see
Ekberg above note [7]. For details on the Moreau Family assets, see
"Inventory of Property of Widow Moro, June 7, 1806," File 1, Mathias
Ziegler Papers, Archives of Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, MO.
[11] For
details on the Fur Trading Post which still exists, see Gregory M. Franzwa, The
Story of Old Ste. Genevieve, St. Louis, MO: Patrice Press, 1967.
For details
on Bossier's business dealings, see McAnany above Introduction to End Notes.
[12] For
details on his political and military service, see Louis Houck, History of
Missouri, vol. 1, Chicago: R.R. Donnelly, 1908. For his County Court
office, see Guignon Papers, owned by author and cited in McAnany above
Introduction to End Notes.
[13] For
details, see John Darby, Personal Recollections, St. Louis, MO: S.I.
Janes, 1880.
[14] For
details, see McAnany above Introduction to End Notes.
[15] The
Guignon Papers referred to above note [13] contain over 200 documents relating
to Conrad Ziegler's legal and commercial activity. There is no biography for
Ziegler.
[16]
Bossier's estate was probated on November 15, 1842 with Martha Bossier as
administratrix. For details of the estate, see Madison County Probate
Records, Reel C 11836 Madison County Library, Fredericktown, MO
[17] For a description
of the military action, see William E. Parrish, A History of Missouri,
vol. 3, Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1989. For a personal
account of the Guignons, see Maude E. Guignon, "Reminiscences,"
typewritten history of the Guignon families, c. 1960.
Last
Updated 2001
