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June 2004 -- Vol 5, No. 6
In
this month's COUSINS:
(To return to the top, click on the decorative bars)
WHAT'S
NEW
”What?!?” you exclaim. “Another issue so
soon?”
Life takes some odds turns.
A few years ago, I got to know a fellow named Donald Waite
through a book he wrote, entitled “The Langley Story Illustrated”. I got
turned on to this book because it mentioned my great great grandfather
Etienne Pepin, to whit, “Yale found 2,000 acres of choice farmlands
southeast of the fort capable of producing enormous crops. These fields
became known as the Hudson's Bay Company Farm or the Great Langley
Prairie. Etienne Pepin plowed the first furrow on the farm.” In talking,
Don asked if I would put his out-of-print book on my website, because he
wanted to publish a revised edition and perhaps folks with more/additional
information and/or corrections would find us.
Yup, he said, “Us.”
Well, a couple days ago, Don emailed to say he was ready to
start working on the revised edition of “The Langley Story Illustrated”.
I’m excited. Not just because it will be a publishing credit, but also
because a number of early Langley families came out of eastern Canada,
some through their employment with the Hudson’s Bay Company and/or the
North West Company, others as settlers when the area got trapped out.
If any of you are interested in who some of those pioneer
families of Langley were, check out
http://www.fortlangley.ca/langley/langley.html
If you can add or correct any info, pass it along. You will
receive full credit for any info you offer.
THIS MONTH'S FEATURE: Louis-Etienne
PEPIN, his parents siblings, siblings-in-law, and parents.
Last month we looked at Louis-Etienne PEPIN and his wife
Jeanne Marie Jennette MCCLURE and their children.
This month we recap this family.
Louis PÉPIN, son of Jean PÉPIN and Marguerite MOREAU, born 25 July 1702, in
St. Joseph baptized 26 July 1702 in Charlesbourg, Québec
Married, 30 October 1724, in Québec City, Québec
Madeleine MARTIN dit dit Jolicoeur dit LaChance, daugher of Nicolas MARTIN dit
Jolicoeur and Marie Angélique BACON, baptised 28 June 1700, Québec City,
Québec; buried 14 August 1774, Québec City, Québec
Together, Louis and Marie-Angélique had 6 children
| 1. |
Louis PÉPIN, born
and baptised 7 September 1725, Québec City, Québec; buried 22 March
1731 |
| 2. |
Madeleine PÉPIN,
baptised 15 August 1727; married 15 January 1748 Jacques DUCHESNEAU,
Québec City |
| 3. |
Marie-Thérèse
PÉPIN, born 27 Nov 1729; baptised 28 Nov 1729; married 22 September
1755 François GRAVEL, Québec City |
| 4. |
Louis PÉPIN,
baptised 27 March 1734 |
| 5. |
Louis-Etienne
PÉPIN, baptised 28 June 1737; buried 9 December 1813, Yamaska county,
Québec; married 25 May 1761 Jeanne Marie Jennette MCCLURE,
Hospital Chapel, Québec City, Québec |
If you can
add/subtract/change any of this, send it on via email.
RESEARCH AIDS
I
subscribe to the RootsWeb Review, and in a recent one there was some good
info in it that I thought I’d share.
Tombstone Recording Customs
By Richard E. Elden
The tombstone recording custom was obviously prompted by the conversion of
the calendar from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, which occurred
throughout the Western world between 1582 for many Roman Catholic
countries and 1752 for English countries. For details see:
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/astronomy/GregorianCalendar.html
In 1582, 4 October was followed by 15 October, and in 1752, 2 September
was followed by 14 September. Therefore, one can compare birth dates
knowing the calendar system used in each country and the death date in
and age in years, months and days.
Previously published in RootsWeb Review: Vol. 7, No. 21, 26 May 2004.
* * *
Tombstone Recordings
By Karyl Hubbard
I was told by a respected local historian once that the reason for putting
age at death rather than year of birth was because life is fleeting and
every day was counted as precious. Even more so a century or two ago, when
45 was a ripe old age. Makes sense to me.
I hope Bill is using one of the excellent "birthdate calculators"
available, such as Ben Buckner's at:
http://web2.airmail.net/bhende19/b-date.htm
Previously published in RootsWeb Review: Vol. 7, No. 21, 26 May 2004.
BOOK CORNER
It is my
delight and privilege to present to you, O Best Beloved, the straight
scoop on Cousin Elise’s most recent book “Marie Grandin – Sent by the
King”. What follows is the copy submitted to Amazon.com; what will be
appearing on Amazon’s website –in a week or so– will be some what shorter.
Mary Grandin – Sent by the King
written by Elise Dallemagne-Cookson
ISBN 1413407528 (hardback)
ISBN 141340751X (softback).
Description:
Travel back into the wild frontier of 17th century Canada in an exciting
tale of love, adventure, and war. Elise Dallemagne-Cookson's "Marie
Grandin - Sent by the King" is the fascinating story of a brave young
woman who was among the first French settlers to colonize North America.
This book is the life story of Marie Grandin and the part she and her
husband, Jean Baudet, played in the establishment of the New World. She
was among the famous young women known as "Les Filles du Roi" - daughters
of the King - sent by King Louis XIV of France to help colonize his
possessions in North America. Follow her every adventure as she pioneers
the settlement of Lotbiniere in Quebec, participates in La Salle's
exploration of the Mississippi, dramatically rescues her daughter from the
Mohawks, and
witnesses Governor Frontenac's struggle for peace with the Iroquois
Confederacy. Vibrant with accurate detail, Marie Grandin recounts the
adventurous lives and struggles of the pioneers in the primeval forest
wilderness of 17th century Canada.
Based on the fascinating chronicles of her own ancestors, author Elise
Dallemagne-Cookson, a direct descendant of Marie Grandin, tells Marie's
story against a backdrop that is one of the most fascinating chapters in
North American history.
Publisher's Comments:
Here's what noted historians have to say:
John Tebbel, author of "The Battle for North America," observes that, "In
her fifth book, a sweeping historical novel, Elise Dallemagne-Cookson
takes us into the world of French Canada, where explorers, adventurers,
churchmen, and settlers live in a world of constant struggle, destined not
to end until England emerges triumphant in the Seven Years' War. We see
all this through the eyes of Marie Grandin, whose tangled life begins in
1668 in Orleans, France, where a talented young girl flees a broken
romance to go to Canada. There she finds love, war, Indians,
adventurers, and friends like La Salle, the great explorer of the American
interior, and Count Frontenac, among many others. It's a tale of high
adventure and romance, told against a backdrop that is one of the most
fascinating chapters in North American history. And Marie herself is an
unforgettable heroine."
Carl Waldman, author of the "Atlas of the North American Indian," says: "Dallemagne-Cookson
took me to another world and I feel I have a much stronger sense of early
Canada and historical events...along with Marie Grandin and other
historical figures. The author rose to the challenge of giving the reader
a sense of what life really might have been like back then. The
characters are intriguing and compelling."
Joyce Ryker-Bryson Ray, editor of the Governmental Research Dept. of the
University of Oregon, says: "....interesting and educational. The women
who were "Sent by the King" were extraordinarily brave and strong. They
left homes and country to explore and civilize an unknown world; and the
journey lasted a lifetime. The author's autobiographical books qualify
her to write of such brave women. She followed in her ancestors'
footsteps and led a life of adventure and danger from the United States to
Africa, Europe, the South Pacific, and South America."
Author's Comments:
"Why did you want to write this book?" is the question I am often asked.
This is not easy to understand unless one knows something of my
background. My grandfather, nine generations ago, was Jean Baudet, who
came from France to Quebec in 1664 and married Marie Grandin in 1670. She
was among those few selected young women who were sent to Canada over a
period of ten years (1663-1673) by the court of King Louis XIV. They
later became known to history as "Les Filles du Roi" - the King's
Daughters. The purpose of the King's program was to provide wives for the
settlers of his colony in the
New World, where bachelors outnumbered the women twelve to one.
While growing up in Peekskill, New York, I was often told tales of these
courageous women who had managed to survive in the perilous environment
and hostile climate of Canada 350 years ago. They came from all levels of
French society, including some noblewomen who, for one reason or another,
were willing to abandon the security of life in France for an uncertain
one in the wilds of the primeval forests of the New World. These tales
did not make much of an impression on me until I, too, found myself thrust
into danger and obliged to live the life of a pioneer. First as the wife
of a planter in the Belgian Congo, where I lived through the bloody period
of history that followed that country's independence in 1960. And then as
a dairy farmer in Argentina during the period immediately preceding the
"dirty war" when military coup followed military coup.
Life was truly primitive on the pampas of Argentina 40 years ago. I often
thought about Marie Grandin. She and others like her had hazarded a
dangerous sea voyage to live in an unknown part of the world without much
hope of ever seeing their homeland again. I often found myself praying
for her help, begging her to send me the courage I needed to carry on.
When I finally left Argentina, I promised myself that one day I would
research her life and times and perhaps write a book about her.
Author's Bio:
Elise Dallemagne-Cookson's previous works include two novels and two
memoirs based on her life in Africa, North and South America, Europe, and
the South Seas. She began her career as a film publicist in Spain and
then as an independent film producer in Hollywood and New York before
being sent to the Belgian Congo on a Foreign Service assignment. There
she married a Belgian riverboat captain, explorer, and rancher. Following
the Congo's independence, she and her husband immigrated to Argentina,
where they established a dairy farm. Upon her return to the U.S., she
worked with venture capitalists and European banks on Wall Street for nine
years before moving to Cherry Valley, New York, where she initiated a
foreign language program in the public school system and established
sister schools in France and Spain for her students before beginning her
writing career.
Table of
Contents:
AUTHOR'S NOTE
PART I 1668-1670
1. FRANCE
2. THE VOYAGE
3. QUEBEC
4. SILLERY
5. SETTLING IN
PART II 1670-1676
6. THE LONG WINTER
7. CHRISTMAS
8. MARIE-LOUISE
9. ADVENTURE
10. FRONTENAC
PART III 1677 - 1679
11. LOTBINIERE
12. THE GRAND ENTERPRISE BEGINS
13. THE PHANTOM SHIP
14. RESCUE
PART IV 1680 - 1715
15. DESPERATE JOURNEYS
16. LAHONTAN
17. WAR
18. PEACE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS
Lahontan's Map of Canada
Conference Between M. de la Barre and Chief Big Mouth
Attack on Quebec
1688 Map of French Territory in North America
Inside Flap
Copy:
The year is 1668 in Orleans, France. Following the death of her father
and an unhappy love affair at the court of Louis XIV, Marie Grandin, age
19, asks to be sent to Canada, where her father had always dreamed of
going. She intends to participate in the King's program to send reputable
young women from good families to La Nouvelle France, where bachelors far
outnumber marriageable girls.
The 3-month voyage is horrendous; many die at sea, but Marie survives, and
when she arrives in Quebec, she meets Jean Baudet, age 20, an established
farmer and adventurer. However, she cannot reconcile herself to marriage
so soon. But when she is caught in a violent storm on the St. Lawrence
River, Jean saves her life and soon she agrees to marry him.
Thus begins a long life of adventure and struggle for Marie Grandin in the
harsh and hostile climate of 17th Century Canada. She pioneers the
settlement of Lotbiniere, participates in La Salle's search for the
Mississippi, Governor Frontenac's struggle for peace with the Iroquois,
the defense of Quebec against the English, and the rescue of her daughter,
kidnapped by the Mohawks. Finally, she is witness to the historic peace
treaty of 1701 between the Iroquois and all the Indian nations in French
territory from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Alleghenies
to the Rocky Mountains.
Marie Grandin, as one of the founding mothers of the New World - women who
later became know as Les Filles du Roi (Daughters of the King) - figures
prominently in the history of Canada. This is her story as conceptualized
by the author, one of her innumerable descendents.
Fair-use Citations from Reviews:
Source: Newsletter Les Filles du Roi et Soldats du Carignan Volume
VIII, Issue I May, 2004
"....Dallemagne-Cookson has skillfully blended historical research with
imaginative story telling...bringing life to early Canada through the eyes
of her ancestor..."
Excerpt / first chapter FRANCE, Page 23
Following the stranger's directions, Marie was soon in a shadowy
alley not far from the Central Plaza. Stopping before a small oak door,
she boldly seized the heavy, ornate bronze knocker and let it fall three
times. An elderly Ursuline nun slid back the peephole in the door
and peered at her through the grill. The nun was surprised, for she had
been expecting a vendor. This was the tradesmen's entrance to the
convent.
"Who are you?" she asked. "What do you want?"
"I'm Marie Grandin from Saint-Euverte parish in Orleans," she timidly
replied. "I'm here to see my aunt, Mere Cecile of the Crucifix."
"I'm sorry but she is not here. She has long since gone to join our
community in Rome."
Marie lowered her eyes, looking down at the cobblestones. And
waited. "I see," she murmured.
The nun hesitated a moment. "I'm Mere Marguerite," she said,
wondering what she should do with this unexpected visitor. "I knew your
aunt. But for a short time only. Won't you stop in for a bit, though?"
Marie looked about the kitchen and whispered, "I have really come to
ask
you if I could work for you. Wouldn't you have something for me to do?"
She spoke so softly that Mere Marguerite had to ask, "Speak up,
please. I can't hear you."
Raising her voice, opening her eyes wide, she looked directly into
those of the nun and told her, "I have left home and I need your help."
Flames from the enormous kitchen hearth reflected in Marie's dark
eyes and sparks of light ignited their depths. Mere Marguerite realized
that this was no ordinary country girl.
To learn more about Elise and her other books, please see
http://www.dallemagne-cookson.com/index.html
If you would like to get your own copy of Marie Grandin-Sent by the King,
you may do so at either
http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.asp?bookid=18884
or
http://tinyurl.com/3eooa (Amazon.com)
RAMBLINGS
FROM THE EDITOR
So, now, you’re
asking yourself does an URL of
http://tinyurl.com/3eooa get one to Amazon.com?
Good question.
I don’t know. It just does.
On one of the many mailing lists I subscribe to –Chat About Fort Nisqually
to be exact— we were having trouble accessing a page one of the other listers
was trying to share. I think you’ve probably seen the type: the URL is like
three lines long and some mail readers make only the first of those lines a
link. The URL that goes to Elise’s page on Amazon.com in reality, looks like
this:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/103-2508237-5399038?tag=genealogy073&keyword=elise%2Bdallemagne-cookson&mode=books
Now some of you will get this as a functional link, some of you won’t.
It will depends upon your mail reader, program version, and screen resolution.
So, on the ChatAboutFortNisqually list, I had just posted to say it had
taken me three-cut-and-pastings to successfully access the link, and my friend
Barb posts the URL for Tiny URL, with an admonishment to “Use the technology
people!”
Thus if you go to
http://tinyurl.com and put
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search/103-2508237-5399038?tag=genealogy073&keyword=elise%2Bdallemagne-cookson&mode=books
into the box marked “Enter a long url to make a tiny”, and click the button, you
will get
http://tinyurl.com/3eooa which will take you to the page at Amazon.com that
has all 5 of Elise’s books: Marie Grandin –Sent by the King, The Ombu Tree,
The Red-Eye Fever, The Bearded Lion Who Roars: “Simba Mandefu Mabe”, and The
Film Maker: A Novel.
This is a really cool thing. Something I must remember to tell my friend
Don Waite. That and the advantage we have now with The Langley Story
Illustrated is that when he published the first edition some 25 years ago, there
was no Xlibris.com, no Amazon.com, no ANYTHING.com And so very much of the
work can be done via email.
Example: the email I got from Don Waite a few days ago. One of the first
things he asked was if I had the new info in .doc file. “Not exactly,” I told
him. “But I’m working on it.” He wanted me to email it to him. Most of the
new info I have is in the form of emails I have received over the last three or
four years. What isn’t email, has been added to the online version. I have no
hardcopy. And, no, you are absolutely correct in that having no hardcopy is
probably not a sensible thing.
With a deep sigh, a cup of hot green tea, and a tall glass of water, I
tackled my overflowing email Inbox, figuring it wouldn’t take too long to sort
things out. I started at a little past 11 this morning and finished up about
12:30. A.M. Almost 13 hours after I started.
Okay, so I started with 3200 email messages.
I had left them in the inbox, in the vain hope that I would be reminded to
deal with them. I should know me better than that. My father and his Stuckey
kin (his mom’s folks) are/were known for their habit of filing important papers
in grocery bags in the garage – a predilection I inherited. Lacking a
garage, I kept mine in any space large enough to stuff the bag. Then came
the plastic grocery bag with handles. O! what a boon! Not only were they
easier to move around and less prone to tearing, one could ties the handles to
keep the stuff in the bag from falling out.
Then they changed the formula of the bags so that after a few months the
plastic breaks down. There’s no visible clue, just one day you pick up the bag
and *BLAM*, it looses all structural integrity and the entire contents of the
bag is now on the floor and your feet.
The inbox of my email program became my new and improved grocery bag.
Like using real time grocery bags, every so often I’d go looking for something
and come across stuff I had completely forgotten about, thinking, “oh YEAH” and
less than a minute later it would fall out of my head until I went looking for
something else (thus the reason I have peppered the website with “If you don’t
hear from me, please please email a gentle nudge”). It’s not that I willfully
forget. It’s more a combination of the 70s having been very very good to me,
spending the 80s in a bottle, and that I spent 11 years driving taxi cabs with
flaky exhaust systems. Oh, and I got dropped on my head a couple times, too.
It’s a testament to those sturdy Pépin genes that I am not sitting in a corner
drooling happily to myself, wearing one of those designer I-Love-Me jackets with
wrap around sleeves.
Today, I created file folders, and carefully filed the bulk of the messages
in my inbox, each to their own file folder . . . stuff relating to Dad’s side of
the family in Pepin and Stuckey folders (Daddy’s mother was born a Stuckey, her
dad, Bill, being from Bristol, England); stuff about Mom’s side of the family
into a folder named, creatively enough, “Mom’s side of the Family”; living
history stuff into any of a half dozen folders; historical HBC stuff in folders
pertaining to which ever fort it is most closely associated with—
Pardon…?
What was that loud thump, you ask?
It was the sound of one or both my two brothers falling over in a dead
faint; we grew up in the same house. They know how close a relationship I had
with Mr. Organization. About once a year one could actually see the floor,
usually right after I began hearing mysterious rustling noises late at night.
However, with everything I have going on I simply must get organized.
Yes, I hear some of you out there, saying, “Yeah, right. She’s said that
before.” But I figure if I can quit smoking cold turkey, getting organized
shouldn’t be too hard.
I‘ve got 294 Pepin related messages, 158 about Fort Langley, and over 1000
that are historic re-enactment related. Oh and 51 pieces of humor, many of
which are of mature subject matter. Now all that remains is to sort the Fort
Langley info into a cohesive mass and start printing, in a and amongst getting
ready for an event down at Fort Vancouver over the weekend on June 19 and 20.
Fort Vancouver isn’t too very far from Vancouver, Washington. This year
they are trying to revive their Brigade Days celebration. Historically, Fort
Vancouver, built in 1825, was the headquarters of what was then called the
Columbia Department of the HBC, an area of 700,000 square miles (1,800,000
square kilometers) that stretched from Russian Alaska to Mexican California, and
from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. If you’re in the neighborhood,
drop by. I’ll be there as the irrepressible Mary Huston. For more info, see
their web site at
http://www.nps.gov/fova/ and click on special events.
NEWSLETTER INFORMATION
If you are reading this online because you no longer receive it via
email, and you would like to receive via email again, drop me an email.
If you are reading this online because you asked to receive via email
and it hasn’t happened yet, drop me an email.
If you have family you want to share this with but they don't have a
computer, please feel free to print it out and share it with them. If
you have family with a computer and/or Internet access who you think might
be interested in the newsletter, drop'em an e-mail and let'em know about it;
feel free to pass along my e-mail address.
Back issues of COUSINS can be found at:
http://www.fortlangley.ca/pepin/cousins.html
This URL will take you to the COUSINS Front Desk.
Or, you can click on any of the red lions that appear on the Pepin pages and
Site Directory.
For a hard copy of the newsletter, send an
email to lisa@fortlangley.ca, and
if for any reason you wish to change the way you receive the newsletter --
or if you no longer wish to receive COUSINS -- drop me an e-mail at lisa@fortlangley.ca
and tell me. If you just wanted
to chat, drop me an email.
COUSINS
comes out once a month --
more or less
This month's was finished 2 June 2004, 4:11 PM PDST
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