Update 4: The Value of Reaching Out!

Working on a project like this can yield surprising results. For this update, I want to share a couple stories from the past six weeks that showcase the benefits of publicizing a research project while it is still ongoing. If you cast a wide net, sometimes you’ll catch a few fish!

Donation of Gervais Family Artifacts

One day a couple months back, Curt Loschy, executive director of the Little Canada Historical Society, got a phone call. It was Benjamin Gervais, Jr.—not the one who was born at Red River in 1835, but a descendant of his from a branch of the family on the West Coast that still honors the name of Little Canada founder Benjamin Gervais.

Benjamin Gervais, Jr., during a visit to France. 

Benjamin had heard about my research and wanted to tell Curt about some old heirlooms that were still in the family. Not only that, but he was interested in donating them! Ben is himself getting long in the tooth, and he wanted to ensure the artifacts found a permanent home. Where better than Little Canada, where the Gervais family made their biggest impact?

The artifacts include a cuckoo clock made by Benjamin Gervais, Jr. (the original one), two violins played by Ben Jr., and two blankets in the style of classic Hudson’s Bay Company trade blankets. The violins and blankets are currently in the hands of expert appraisers to help us pin down dates and places of manufacture. The provenance from Benjamin, Jr. (the living one) is as good as it gets, but more detail will help LCHS interpret the objects when they’re on display at the historical society.

Thank you, Benjamin!

If anyone else out there thinks you might have old Gervais or Laurence family artifacts or photographs, please let me know! You certainly don’t have to part with them.

Laurence Family Generosity in Winnipeg

In February, LCHS hosted a special event for members of the Gervais and Laurence families. To promote that event, I reached out to every match on Ancestry.com who shares Gervais or Laurence DNA with my mother. Descendants now live everywhere, from New England to British Columbia to Texas. A number of cousins wrote back, but one distant cousin—J.L. Carriere—was especially friendly. Although he couldn’t make it down from Manitoba for the event, he was excited when he learned about my upcoming research trip to Winnipeg.

J.L. and his family are Métis. He grew up in the Métis community of Saint-Laurent on the shores of Lake Manitoba, where Michif and French are still the common languages. J.L. now teaches at a French immersion school in Winnipeg. In so many generous ways, he and his partner Renée offered me the opportunity to learn about the lives of distant Laurence family cousins from a branch that stayed north of the border.

• They offered me a free place to stay, cooked dinners for me, and showed me around town. Among other things, I experienced my first Manitoba social.

• I met J.L.'s parents in Saint-Laurent. His father took me and a few others out onto the lake in a classic 1957 Bombardier to demonstrate the tools and techniques he uses to do commercial ice fishing each winter. (Photos below.) We returned to a delicious lunch of fresh Pickerel chowder prepared by J.L.'s mother.

• One evening, we had dinner with J.L.’s uncle and aunt. His aunt is a journalist and presenter for CBC Radio One Winnipeg. She passed my business card to a producer, and within hours I appeared on a popular morning show. You can listen to the interview here.

• In the archive, I met another scholar who, being a stereotypically kind Canadian, offered me a free room when I visit the national archives in Ottawa in June.

Invitation to meet the mayors of Berthierville and Ste-Genevieve-de-Berthier in Quebec

A few months ago, I mailed letters to local historical organizations in the villages where Benjamin and Genevieve grew up. Several of them have gotten back to me. I’m especially excited about the opportunity to meet the mayors of Berthierville and Ste-Genevieve-de-Berthier. They promised to welcome me to town and introduce me to the local history buffs.

It should be clear from the first two sections of this post that there can be surprising value in encounters like this. Who knows what I will learn from local historians!

New Discoveries in Winnipeg

Here is a brief summary of what I learned in Winnipeg. Please remember, this was my second research trip to Winnipeg archives. I answered my core questions during my first visit. I used this trip to answer peripheral questions and to make sure I had seen every undigitized source that might be somehow relevant. I spent two days at the Centre du Patrimoine and three days in the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives. Among other things, I found:

• Solid evidence that Benjamin’s brother Jean-Baptiste (b: 1790) is NOT the Jean-Baptiste Gervais who settled in Red River and married Madeleine Bonneau. (Most online family trees are incorrect.)

  • This creates a new question about what happened to Benjamin’s brother after 1818.

• An promissory note written by Genevieve’s sister Julie Laurence to the colony surgeon in August 1823. The note suggests two things:

  • First, that Julie acted independently while her husband was absent.

  • Second, that there might indeed be something to the accusation of infanticide that was later levied against Julie. This promissory note is dated almost exactly to time the event is supposed to have taken place. Although the note does not specify what services were performed, it is possible—if not probable—that this note represents payment to the surgeon for performing an abortion.

• The rest of the Red River Account Books, which show how deeply in debt Genevieve’s mother became during the earliest years at Red River.

  • Although Angelique tried to take advantage of a sort of debt amnesty in 1831, it hardly made a dent in the amount she owed. She died owing more than £81 to the Hudson’s Bay Company. That’s roughly ten years of agricultural surplus on her land (assuming perfect harvests) or about three full-year’s wages as a voyageur. It was impossible for a widow on three acres ever to pay it off.

  
  

  

  The credit side of Angelique Larance's account page in the year 1831 shows a 10 percent remittence of her debt. She earned the remittence by paying off some of her debt with surplus wheat. Eight bushels of wheat at five shillings per bushel equalled 40 shillings, or 2 pounds to her credit. The remittence then knocked a further £9.4.4 (9 pounds, 4 shillings, 4 pence) off the debt, reducing it to £81.4.4. She never paid off another pence in her lifetime.

• A cool map drawn by a man who accompanied the Gervaises on their Red River cart journey from Red River to St. Paul in 1837 and who later worked closely with Genevieve’s brother on the cart trails.

  • It represents the mental map of travelers and traders from Red River, people who had probably never seen the Earth represented as a globe.

In this hand-drawn 1844 map by Peter Garrioch, north points to the top right corner.

• Annual accounts of Red River Settlement governor Alexander MacDonnell.

  • Knowing MacDonnell’s salary in 1818 and 1819 is important for understanding which man Lord Selkirk intended to be in charge of the colony, MacDonnell or former de Meuron captain Frederick Matthey. Selkirk offered Matthey £300 per year, while MacDonnell earned only £200.

• Location of the home of Genevieve’s brother Charles into the 1870s.

  • Charles was an influential farmer and free-trader in the colony. Pinpointing his land helps me understand his proximity to other important figures such as Peter Hayden and Louis Riel.

  • How do I know the location? Bishop Taché bought most of the land in what is now northern St. Boniface for the Catholic Church—everything except for the lot belonging to Josephte Desjardins dit Desjarlais, the widow of Charles Larence. The lot was numbered and can be linked back to a survey in the mid 1830s.

• Additional clues about Benjamin’s business associates and efforts by HBC and colony leaders to stamp out the free-trade movement of which he was part.

The day I returned from Winnipeg, I was treated an email from Switzerland. Archivists had found divorce proceedings for Genevieve’s sister Julie. It was an acrimonious separation that dragged on for more than a year. (I am still trying to get copies of the full record, which fills approximately 150 pages in the Matrimonial Register of Neuchâtel.)

• Although the divorce occurred ten years after Julie left Red River, the long record should provide key insights into the relationship between Julie and her husband, a relationship wherein Julie’s class and gender influenced both the trajectory of colony leadership and Genevieve’s future prospects. The divorce is the only time we get to hear from Julie herself. It will also allow me to write a brief denouement to Julie’s story, since her actions explain much of Genevieve’s life between 1817 and 1824.

• Viz., Julie is the reason Genevieve moved to Red River. Julie is the reason Genevieve and Benjamin got land on Point Douglas. Julie’s behavior was partly responsible for the decision of her wealthy husband (who was also Genevieve’s patron) to give up on Red River and return to Europe in 1824. His departure closed the door on any hope that proximity to wealth and power might elevate Genevieve out of poverty.

  
  

What's Next?

French Heritage Corridor Conference in St. Louis

I am excited to attend the French Heritage Corridor Conference. The story of Benjamin and Genevieve is just one small part of a much larger history of French migration and settlement in North America. I am eager to connect with other scholars from the U.S., Canada, and France who are doing related research into the story of America's French, Creole, and Métis inhabitants.

While I am in St. Louis, I will have one short day to spend in an archive. My goal—really just a hope—is to find direct evidence of trade between the early Red River ox cart traders and middling St. Louis merchants in the period of approximately 1837 to 1850.

These traders, who included Genevieve’s brother Charles as well as fellow traveler and soon-to-be in-law Joseph Gobin, gathered up buffalo robes, other furs, and excess produce, and sought a market farther south. While in later years, the trade was primarily with St. Paul, before 1850 St. Paul was too small to matter. Markets were farther downriver at Galena and St. Louis.

There are clues in later historical works that a handful of St. Louis merchant firms became interested in capturing this trade from the north. However, as far as I can tell, no one has ever found any contemporary evidence to confirm it.

There is certainly no surviving evidence from the north end. The Red River traders operated under the nose of the official Hudson’s Bay Company monopoly in British territory. Therefore, there are no account books or promissory notes. Even if these mostly illiterate traders could write them, such documents would have been evidence of criminal activity. If any evidence exists, it will be in St. Louis. I know the names to look for: Garrioch, McDermott, Hayden, Larance, Gobin, and others. My hope is that I can find one of them listed in an account book of some small-time merchant in the city, such as Smith Bros. & Co., or their agent, a Mr. Frost.

Of course, I might find nothing. The merchants themselves were up against stiff competition. In U.S. territory, this trade impinged upon the de facto monopoly of the American Fur Company, owned after 1842 by Pierre Chouteau, Jr., in St. Louis and operated in Minnesota by Henry Sibley. While the Chouteau family later donated many of the company’s business records to the Missouri Historical Society, many smaller merchants simply went out of business, their records now lost or destroyed. Fingers crossed!

Fundraising

With all the political and economic uncertainty out there, I understand why people have tightened their financial belts. That said, we are falling behind our fundraising goal for the year.

Please share this project with anyone and everyone who might be interested. Word of mouth is often the best way to support projects like this. As this post shows, the value of my research exends beyond the resulting book. It builds international relationships and can turn up artifacts that will help the Little Canada Historical Society teach local history for decades into the future. Finally, a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who has already contributed!