Rocque Family - Wabasha MN & Prairie du Chien WI

[hermin1]

Mink: I goofed again,i meant to write Pascal at age 45.today just ain't been my day.
Anyway, Pascal or Peter had a brother Charles Menard born 22 Feb. 1807 Prairie du Chien, and baptized in 1817 by Father Dunand.
Pascal and mary had other children.I forgot to list them, they are in the 1880 US Census I posted above:
Peter age 17
Mary age 14
Charles and Pascal's parents were Charles Menard and Marianne LeBuche
As I said,I am not running on all fours today, I meant the 1800's in re. to those Mortality Schedules.
Charles,bro. of Pascal(Peter) is listed in the 1836 Wis. Terr. Census with family of 6 and living in Crawford county.
I could not find a baptismal record for Pascal(Peter) in the 1817 Church Records of Fr. Dunand(Prairie Du chien's Earliest church Records by JL Hansen. Minn. Geneal. Journ. Vol. 4)
I couldn't find Pascal( peter) or his spouse Mary laRocque in any censuses prior to 1860.

[hermin1]

Link to information on charles menard of prairie du chien's wife mary.
www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/002016.asp

[hermin1]

minK;
here's some more on Marie or Mary laRocque, who arried peter/Pascal menard of pr. du chien,WI:
her mother was mrs. Josephine or Josette La rocque and her father is unknown. her stepfather was Basile Grignard, Josephines second husband.
Marie's siblings were Joe larocque,Madeline LaRocque,and Andrew LaRocque
oh dear, the rocques are piling up here. just kidding.
boy itreally wasn't my day yesterday.
The stepfather was Basil Gagnier. I am so sorry.

[mink]

They are piling up. We are building the Rocque Pyramid! I had read about a "widow Larocque", named Josette, who had married a Basile but I think his name was "Gagnier" or "Gagne", this last being an alternate spelling. So this was Mary's mother. I wonder if one of Mary's brothers could not be lwhitman's Joe Larocque?? I have no idea who the first husband of Josette was--possibly Baptiste Roc, the one who is in the voter list ca. 1830 but then not attested again? I think I know how to find out when Basile and Josette were married. Then at least we would have a maximum date for her widowhood.

Addendum: Unfortunately, I did not find the marriage date--but there is a lot of information here, such as...

archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/NISHNAWBE/1999-01/0917452926

Basil married first to Ellen GRIGNON May 25, 1828 --proof at
Register of Deeds, P.D.C., Wis. Their children we have nothing on. Basil GAGNIER's second marriage was to Mrs. Josephine (Josetta) LaROQUE. Basil died October 15, 1878 , and his wife Josetta almost two weks later on October 29, 1878--proof for this was found in the early records at St. Gabriel's in
Prairie du Chien, Wis. Both were buried in the cemetery there. He was known as the snake bite doctor. To this Basil and Josetta three children were born: Pascal, Helen and Norbert. Pascal was accidentlly shot and killed at the age of 15 years., etc, etc....."

Also [and all this is from Mary Martell]:

"Baptismal records as follows: Norbert GAGNIER, son of Bazel (Basil) GAGNIER and Marie LAROCK, born March 8, 1843, and was baptized March 17, 1843, sponsors were Pascal MENARD and Marie LAROCK. "

I think someone meant to write that Norbert was the son of Josette Larock and that her daughter, Marie, from a previous marriage, was the godmother. If Norbert was born in 1843, it was probably not too long after the marriage of his parents. However, it looks like Josette already had children that were grown or in their teens.

"Marriage record: Norbert GAGNIER, son of Basil GAGNIER and Josetta LaROCK and Marie Eloise, daughter of Anthony VALEE and Mary MORIN, were married February 4, 1862, witnessed by
Anthony VALEE and Joseph BOISRERT (BOISERT).."

" Here are the children of Mary Ann LaBUCHE-DUCHOUQUETTE-GAGNIER and Charles MENARD: Charles, Jr., married Frances HERBERT, 1828; Louis married Angelic COURVILLE; Pascel married Marie LaROQUE (half sister of Norbert GAGNIER)"

[mink]

Apr 7, 2012 12:54:47 GMT -5 hermin1 said:

minK;
here's some more on Marie or Mary laRocque, who arried peter/Pascal menard of pr. du chien,WI:
her mother was mrs. Josephine or Josette La rocque and unknown. her stepfather was Basile Grignard, Josephines second husband.
Marie's siblings were Joe larocque,Madeline LaRocque,and Andrew LaRocque
oh dear, the rocques are piling up here. just kidding.

Could you please give your reference for the info?

[mink]

Also, I am becoming suspicious that the cemetery records I have been relying upon

files.usgwarchives.org/wi/crawford/cemeteries/stgabriels.txt

are perhaps not complete. I could find no mention of the Gagniers [nor under the name of "Gagne"] in the St, Gabriel's chuchyard or at Calvary Cemetery, also associated with St. Gabriel's--even though Mary Martell wrote this couple should be interred in a Catholic cemetery at Prairie du Chien. That could indicate that Joseph Larocque Sr. and his wife, Elizabeth, may be there--regardless of not being on the lists. They didn't just vaporize! lwhitman should check the records of St. Gabriel's. They may be more reliable as to who is buried there.

Also, it occurred to me that, since I could not find a Larocque in the 1850 census at Prairie du Chien, that perhaps I could find the stepchildren of Basile Gagnier living with him [Joseph Larocque was not married until 1857 and after that he and his wife do appear on the censuses] but, wouldn't you know, I can't find anybody named Gagnier by any spelling I could think of in the census of 1850, either!

[mink]

Ha! This evening I discovered one of the best mixed-blood genealogical sites I have come across yet--with marvelous footnotes indicating the best sources for research:

members.shaw.ca/hal2001/p68.htm

Perusing the site, I noticed this interesting commentary:

"1. The Wabasha Herald of January 24, 1878 had a small article that read: "Henry, Joseph and Cyprian Buisson last week opened the grave of their father Joseph Buisson and removed the remains to Riverview Cemetery. Mr. Buisson died in 1857, and was buried on the top of the bluff above the Baker stone quarry. Augustine Roque, a son of Joseph Roque, and Bernard LaChapelle who committed suicide were also buried on the same bluff and very near Mr. Buisson's grave. The Messrs. Buisson had some trouble at first in identifying their father's remains, having opened two graves, but one evidently was that of LaChapelle as the skull showed the mark of the bullet that ended his life, and Mr. Buisson's bones were recognized by the …[unreadable]"

NOTE: In 2008 we did not find him in the Riverside, but in fact there are records and a gravestone at St Felix. So the conclusion is that he was burried on the hill in 1857 and mover to Riverside in 1878 and then subsequetly moved to St Felix. wlf, 2008."

My comment: There is no stone for Augustin Rocque at St. Felix so he must be presumed
to be still on that bluff. Why Bernard Lachapelle, brother of Theophilius Lachapelle, who really did commit suicide, was buried there is rather mysterious.

[lwhitman]

Hi again,

I found Joseph LaRock listed in two 1840 censuses in Crawford County. One site is just a list - genealogytrails.com/wis/crawford/1840census.html - and shows him in Crawford County but not PdC. The other site is the 1840 census for the region's lead mine districts - jodaviess.ilgenweb.net/census/1840CR.htm. This second site lists a "Joset LaRock" in PdC. I believe "Joset" was a misprint either in the record or in the transcription. The miner's census also shows a female in the household between the ages of 30-39. I wonder at what age boys would have been listed as "Head of Household"?

Both lists also show P. Gremor - Peter Grimard (Gremore and Grimard are the same). Peter's daughter, Elizabeth, married the ~1827 Joseph LaRocque in 1857.

[mink]

I don't think it's a misprint because the "Joset" has no males in the household. This can easily be Josette Larocque just prior to her marriage to Basile Gagnier, which should have taken place some time between 1840 and 1843 when their son< Norbert, was born. However, there should be some young males in the household of the widow in 1840--according to Hermin and I hope she will supply some better understanding of how she learned the names of Josette's first set of children when she comes back here.

I can't answer your question about "head of household" but, if you go back in the thread, you will see why I think your Joseph Larocque, Sr. wasn't born before the early 1830's--so should have been just a kid in 1840 and living with parents or parent. He cannot have been the Joseph Larock in the Miner's District, IMO.

Anyway, you checked all the censuses that are available for 1840--the LDS site just has that Miner's District one, too, but here's something odd. In the 1830 census for PdC

kent.migenweb.net/census/1830/crawford.html

there is an Augustin Rock [Larocque] Sr.--who, according to all other information, should have been settled at Wabasha, MN by then! So who is this man???

I wouldn't even bother looking at Josette, as I know you indicated the mother of Joseph Sr. on his marriage record was Elizabeth, but that may be an error, as I said, because that seems to me to be too many Elizabeths--although obviously I may be wrong. His bride's name was Elizabeth and so was the name of *her* mother. See what I mean?

I know exactly where Boilvin Street is where the family lived--at the south end of the island. I would ask you a favor, though--if you have any old photos of PdC please share them as I would love to see them. You can always open a free account with a site like Photobucket and make a link to them there. Actually, I can't see how people ever lived on St. Feriole, being so vulnerable to flooding every spring--and I have seen some photos of that, old and newer. Pretty bad. BTW, next time you make a link, paste it into a line by itself like I did above, or it will not show up in blue or work when someone clicks on it.

Addendum: Just to refresh your memory, lwhitman, I wrote:

"Lacking the baptismal record so far and going by the censuses, it is starting to seem unlikely that Joseph Larocque was born before 1830. Indeed, his age was given as 89 on the 1920 census, mandating a birth in 1832."

On the 1920 census, Joe Sr. was living with Joe, Jr.--just as the obit claimed he did in his last years. Also, I did a little checking on baptismal records and I am getting the sense you may have difficulty finding one for Joseph Larocque. I feel he was born too late to have been baptized by Fr. Badin and that leaves only Fr. Mazzuchelli for the time frame but...unfortunately,...there is this in an old paper by Peter Scanlan, histrian of PdC:

“The only records of baptisms performed by Father Mazzuchelli are a few that were copied from the record of St. Michael's Church, Galena, into that of St. Gabriel's. There are a few marriage records also. As the records of Galena were
destroyed by fire, it may be that those of Prairie du Chien
for this period were also lost."

But, as I have caught Scanlan in a couple of errors before, this may not necessarily be so.

[hermin1]

Apr 7, 2012 18:26:03 GMT -5 @mink said:

Apr 7, 2012 12:54:47 GMT -5 hermin1 said:

minK;
here's some more on Marie or Mary laRocque, who arried peter/Pascal menard of pr. du chien,WI:
her mother was mrs. Josephine or Josette La rocque and unknown. her stepfather was Basile Grignard, Josephines second husband.
Marie's siblings were Joe larocque,Madeline LaRocque,and Andrew LaRocque
oh dear, the rocques are piling up here. just kidding.

Could you please give your reference for the info?

_____________________
here is where I found it:

archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/NISHNAWBE/1999-01/0917452926

[hermin1]

Apr 7, 2012 22:29:09 GMT -5 @mink said:

Ha! This evening I discovered one of the best mixed-blood genealogical sites I have come across yet--with marvelous footnotes indicating the best sources for research:

members.shaw.ca/hal2001/p68.htm

Perusing the site, I noticed this interesting commentary:

"1. The Wabasha Herald of January 24, 1878 had a small article that read: "Henry, Joseph and Cyprian Buisson last week opened the grave of their father Joseph Buisson and removed the remains to Riverview Cemetery. Mr. Buisson died in 1857, and was buried on the top of the bluff above the Baker stone quarry. Augustine Roque, a son of Joseph Roque, and Bernard LaChapelle who committed suicide were also buried on the same bluff and very near Mr. Buisson's grave. The Messrs. Buisson had some trouble at first in identifying their father's remains, having opened two graves, but one evidently was that of LaChapelle as the skull showed the mark of the bullet that ended his life, and Mr. Buisson's bones were recognized by the …[unreadable]"

NOTE: In 2008 we did not find him in the Riverside, but in fact there are records and a gravestone at St Felix. So the conclusion is that he was burried on the hill in 1857 and mover to Riverside in 1878 and then subsequetly moved to St Felix. wlf, 2008."

My comment: There is no stone for Augustin Rocque at St. Felix so he must be presumed
to be still on that bluff. Why Bernard Lachapelle, brother of Theophilius Lachapelle, who really did commit suicide, was buried there is rather mysterious.

______________
Could it be because Chapelle committed suicide and that was taboo with the Catholics?

[hermin1]

Mink, the person at that website I found re. basil Gagnier only looked at the church Register for St. Gabriel's?could the graves of the Gagniers, Basile and Josette/Josephine be without headstones?

[hermin1]

Apr 8, 2012 9:19:31 GMT -5 @mink said:

I don't think it's a misprint because the "Joset" has no males in the household. This can easily be Josette Larocque just prior to her marriage to Basile Gagnier, which should have taken place some time between 1840 and 1843 when their son< Norbert, was born. However, there should be some young males in the household of the widow in 1840--according to Hermin and I hope she will supply some better understanding of how she learned the names of Josette's first set of children when she comes back here.

I can't answer your question about "head of household" but, if you go back in the thread, you will see why I think your Joseph Larocque, Sr. wasn't born before the early 1830's--so should have been just a kid in 1840 and living with parents or parent. He cannot have been the Joseph Larock in the Miner's District, IMO.

Anyway, you checked all the censuses that are available for 1840--the LDS site just has that Miner's District one, too, but here's something odd. In the 1830 census for PdC

kent.migenweb.net/census/1830/crawford.html

there is an Augustin Rock [Larocque] Sr.--who, according to all other information, should have been settled at Wabasha, MN by then! So who is this man???

I wouldn't even bother looking at Josette, as I know you indicated the mother of Joseph Sr. on his marriage record was Elizabeth, but that may be an error, as I said, because that seems to me to be too many Elizabeths--although obviously I may be wrong. His bride's name was Elizabeth and so was the name of *her* mother. See what I mean?

I know exactly where Boilvin Street is where the family lived--at the south end of the island. I would ask you a favor, though--if you have any old photos of PdC please share them as I would love to see them. You can always open a free account with a site like Photobucket and make a link to them there. Actually, I can't see how people ever lived on St. Feriole, being so vulnerable to flooding every spring--and I have seen some photos of that, old and newer. Pretty bad. BTW, next time you make a link, paste it into a line by itself like I did above, or it will not show up in blue or work when someone clicks on it.

Addendum: Just to refresh your memory, lwhitman, I wrote:

"Lacking the baptismal record so far and going by the censuses, it is starting to seem unlikely that Joseph Larocque was born before 1830. Indeed, his age was given as 89 on the 1920 census, mandating a birth in 1832."

On the 1920 census, Joe Sr. was living with Joe, Jr.--just as the obit claimed he did in his last years. Also, I did a little checking on baptismal records and I am getting the sense you may have difficulty finding one for Joseph Larocque. I feel he was born to late to have been baptized by Fr. Badin and that leaves only Fr. Mazzuchelli for the time frame but...unfortunately,...there is this in an old paper by Peter Scanlan, histrian of PdC:

“The only records of baptisms performed by Father Mazzuchelli are a few that were copied from the record of St. Michael's Church, Galena, into that of St. Gabriel's. There are a few marriage records also. As the records of Galena were
destroyed by fire, it may be that those of Prairie du Chien
for this period were also lost."

But, as I have caught Scanlan in a couple of errors before, this may not necessarily be so.

______________
You may havelooked in the wrong place?
if Joseph was born in dubuque County, and baptised there,wouldn't the record be at Dubuque or even even soewhere in Minnesota?Scratch this. It was a dumb question.

[hermin1]

the other possibilityis that when Joseph wasborn @1826,that the baptism was done at the home,because there was no priest available, or they didn't think Joseph would survive?
Two of my siblings were baptized that way ,they were born at home, and the baptisms were done there without a priest, because they weren't expected to live long.My father said that the godparents lived nearby ,so they came to the house and the baptisms were done by the godfathers.I don't know what the Catholics would have done,butthat iswhat is allowed in the Eastern Orthodox church.

[mink]

Hermin, I also gave the same link but missed the information about the first family of Josette there. As the site gives all the data in one great glob, I'll copy the relevant part:

"Norbert GAGNIER had half brothers and sisters,
namely Joe, Andrew, Madaline and Marie, they were the children of Mrs. Josette
LaROQUE before she married Basil GAGNIER. Madaline LaROQUE married an ABARE
(UBER) and lived at Red River of the North and Minnesota. Marie or Mary
LaROQUE married Pascal (Peter) MENARD, he died January 26, 1882."

I may have missed something else, but I don't see any mention of who Joseph and Andrew married--and am worried they didn't live to manhood. However, they may well have and Andrew may be the "A. B. Larocque" I found living in PdC in the 1870's. And there was the Joseph Larocque of PdC who served as a soldier in the Civil War. So, thanks.

As to your other comments--it's true what you say about the Catholic attitude toward suicide but I was mainly wondering how Bernard Lachapelle ended up in Wabasha. Well--why not? It's not that far from PdC where he was born. As for being baptised in Dubuque County at the same time Joseph Larocque should have been born--it still boils down to Father Mazzuchelli, the traveling priest. He was the only priest who visited Dubuque County then, too. There were no resident priests in any of these Midwestern places yet. Those who came were sent from St. Louis, MO, which did have a bishop. Dubuque, itself, was not established as a diocese until around 1836-1837 and then Fr. Mazzuchelli became affiliated with it--as its only priest for awhile--if you don't count the bishop, Mathias Loras.

[hermin1]

I missed that info re. who Mrs. Josephine laRocque's firstspouse wastoo. I spent 4 hours last night searching for heron google. then I remembered that in one of those censues that listed Marie or Mary(larocque) ,wife of Pascal(peter) Menard, she was listed as born Red River north.
thoe early censues are in the Hudson Bay Company's archives,and You have topay to access them.

[hermin1]

Igoogled Catholic Missionaries on the Missippi river. here is a neat link.
iagenweb.org/dubuque/religious/Catholic_missionaries.htm

[mink]

Don't you hate that when it happens? LOL But here's something that might be of interest to anyone wondering why these people with French surnames seemed to mostly marry other people with like surnames--unless they were Native Americans. The truth is these people did not speak English! Certainly, there were some people in PdC by the 1840s, say, who were not of French background--but the French people did not associate with them. Certainly, some of the men who were in business [not the farmers] had to know some English, but the women didn't know it. Not in the 19th Century. I am in communication with a very bright fellow who is only 80 and grew up in PdC. He is French on both sides as far back as he can discover and told me that when he was a boy, the French of PdC kept to themselves and at all gatherings and festivities French was still the language. It was not until sometime in the 1950's that the young people began to abandon French--and they all knew English, of course, because they went to public high school. And went to the movies. There was a priest, a professor, living in St. Paul who wanted to interview some old people of PdC in the early part of the 20th Century for history purposes. Peter Scanlan told him that, if he didn't know French, he had better bring someone who did. The old people were not much good with English.

[hermin1]

Apr 8, 2012 9:19:31 GMT -5 @mink said:

I don't think it's a misprint because the "Joset" has no males in the household. This can easily be Josette Larocque just prior to her marriage to Basile Gagnier, which should have taken place some time between 1840 and 1843 when their son< Norbert, was born. However, there should be some young males in the household of the widow in 1840--according to Hermin and I hope she will supply some better understanding of how she learned the names of Josette's first set of children when she comes back here.

I can't answer your question about "head of household" but, if you go back in the thread, you will see why I think your Joseph Larocque, Sr. wasn't born before the early 1830's--so should have been just a kid in 1840 and living with parents or parent. He cannot have been the Joseph Larock in the Miner's District, IMO.

Anyway, you checked all the censuses that are available for 1840--the LDS site just has that Miner's District one, too, but here's something odd. In the 1830 census for PdC

kent.migenweb.net/census/1830/crawford.html

there is an Augustin Rock [Larocque] Sr.--who, according to all other information, should have been settled at Wabasha, MN by then! So who is this man???

I wouldn't even bother looking at Josette, as I know you indicated the mother of Joseph Sr. on his marriage record was Elizabeth, but that may be an error, as I said, because that seems to me to be too many Elizabeths--although obviously I may be wrong. His bride's name was Elizabeth and so was the name of *her* mother. See what I mean?

I know exactly where Boilvin Street is where the family lived--at the south end of the island. I would ask you a favor, though--if you have any old photos of PdC please share them as I would love to see them. You can always open a free account with a site like Photobucket and make a link to them there. Actually, I can't see how people ever lived on St. Feriole, being so vulnerable to flooding every spring--and I have seen some photos of that, old and newer. Pretty bad. BTW, next time you make a link, paste it into a line by itself like I did above, or it will not show up in blue or work when someone clicks on it.

Addendum: Just to refresh your memory, lwhitman, I wrote:

"Lacking the baptismal record so far and going by the censuses, it is starting to seem unlikely that Joseph Larocque was born before 1830. Indeed, his age was given as 89 on the 1920 census, mandating a birth in 1832."

On the 1920 census, Joe Sr. was living with Joe, Jr.--just as the obit claimed he did in his last years. Also, I did a little checking on baptismal records and I am getting the sense you may have difficulty finding one for Joseph Larocque. I feel he was born too late to have been baptized by Fr. Badin and that leaves only Fr. Mazzuchelli for the time frame but...unfortunately,...there is this in an old paper by Peter Scanlan, histrian of PdC:

“The only records of baptisms performed by Father Mazzuchelli are a few that were copied from the record of St. Michael's Church, Galena, into that of St. Gabriel's. There are a few marriage records also. As the records of Galena were
destroyed by fire, it may be that those of Prairie du Chien
for this period were also lost."

But, as I have caught Scanlan in a couple of errors before, this may not necessarily be so.

_____________
that Augustin Rock,Sr. could very well be Joseph (I)'s son. Remember, Augustin was working for the American Fur Company until @1833 before he became an independent trader at Wabasha.

[hermin1]

here in Sioux City, we still have Greeks who still speak only greek,but theyare up in years.
greek was theprimary Language in our house. My mom"butchered" what little she learned of english.an example, she called my sister's husband "a Crounch"(her rendetion of the word grouch) . My dad read wrote and understood english,but would only speak Greekat home,and where he worked.