Rocque Family - Wabasha MN & Prairie du Chien WI

[mink]

Hi, lwhitman! Are you from or in Prairie du Chien, one of my favorite places on the planet and the site of much of my research? I wish I could answer your question but, if PdC is involved, the records you refer to are probably those from St. Gabriel's Church, which were transferred to La Crosse--so now one has to go there to see them. Have you? But, even online the name is spelled variously and with or without the "la". I don't know...if your ancestors were married in 1856 at St. Gabrie'ls, the officiant would have been Father Lucien Galtier, a bona fide Frenchman who was not about to write Jean Baptiste with a "G". Where did you see the marriage information?

[lwhitman]

Mink: I live not too far from Prairie du Chien and visit several times a year. The marriage information came from records at the Crawford County Courthouse in Prairie. I have set aside a few days in April to go to La Crosse (based on your earlier post) to check out the St. Gabriel's Church records. I'll let you know what I find! Thanks for your help.

[mink]

I think that would be a good idea as then you could see how the marriage was recorded by a French priest [even when Father Galtier was away on a leave of absence only other French priests subbed for him--I know all their names] and hopefully the names of the parents of the couple would be included. By 1856 there were many others living in PdC besides those of French background and a mistake in recording at the courthouse is possible--although one would think the name "Jean" would have been more likely understood as "John" and not envisioned as anything starting with a "G". Do you happen to know where Jean Baptiste was born?

[madrock]

lwhitman: Do you have Hansen's "Origins of the Roc/Rock Family? If not, I will type out the brief info on Jean Baptiste Roc, b. ca. 1805, bp. 30 April 1817 at Prairie du Chien, age 12.

[lwhitman]

Mink, I believe Joseph LaRocque who was born around 1826 (date varies in censuses) was born in Dubuque, Iowa. I don't know about Jean Baptiste.

MadRock, I do have a copy of "The Genealogist" with Hansen's article. Thank you for the offer!

To add to the mystery, I have a detailed obituary for the 1826 Joseph, written in the early 1920's. It provides extensive historical information on his father (but no name), on the Grimard/Gremore family and on the region in general in the late 1700's/early 1800's. I have no idea how accurate it is! I tried to uploaded it for you to see, but the system requires a code. I will type it in later today.

[hermin1]

lwhitman:first you should enroll in a free membership with Photobucket.com,or the other one that is on this website.
You need to have the article saved on your hard drive as a picture(.jpg or .jpeg)file. then you go to one of the two websites above, and sign in. then select Upload. then find your file that you wan tto upload and selct open. it will be uploaded to your "saccount" at that websaite. then with Photobucket, you select the image, give it a title, then click on the bottom of the page where it shows the link. then come back here to Oyate,find the Lineal descendents... and select it. then come back here to this page, to the Post Reply box, and click in that box. then select "paste" in the browser Edit menu,and it will paste your image in the box.
If it is too difficult for you, you can send a copy of it to me at my Email, and I will post it for you: [e-mail].

[mink]

According to this site and Mary Martel

freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~louislarocque/metis.htm

the Jean Baptiste born in 1805 first saw the light of day at Prairie du Chien. Of course, there was no church at PdC at that time and no resident priest, but Jean Baptiste may have been baptised by Father Joseph Dunand who stopped there around 1817. I do not know off the top of my head if any records of Father Dunand are also at La Crosse, but I can look it up. Even if I don't find anything, it will be worth asking about when you get to the diocese archives there.

[mink]

It didn't take me long to find the answer on a Rootsweb page:

"The first entries of St. Gabriel’s parish appear in the records under date of April, 1817, so that the original congregation must have been established at that time or during that year. It was undoubtedly Rev. Father Dunand, the French priest previously referred to, who was the means of bringing together and establishing this congregation. These records also show that on the 6th of May, 1817, a cemetery connected with St. Gabriel’s was blessed by the same priest. Father Francis V. Badin succeeded Father Dunand, and Father Mazzuchelli, who was the next priest, laid the cornerstone of a new church in 1836."

This person must have checked the La Crosse archives to be able to narrow down the date to April in 1817. It is also correct that what became known as the "Old French Cemetery" was blessed by Father Dunand but it was not associated with St. Gabriel's then--because St. Gabriel's did not exist. Father Badin also stopped at PdC but it was another "traveling priest", Father Samuel Mazzuchelli who first tried to organize the community into building a stone church. At last he was able to do so and it was probably Mazzuchelli who chose the name "St. Gabriel Archangel". However, the cornerstone was not laid until 1839 in the presence of Mathias Loras, Bishop of Dubuque, himself. Western Wisconsin was under his jurisdiction at the time.

[hermin1]

this link tells of the Catholic priests who came to prairie du chien:
files.usgwarchives.net/wi/crawford/history/other/pioneerp45gms.txt

[lwhitman]

I decided to go ahead and type in the obit.
------------------------------------------------

Prairie Pioneer, Born in Dubuque, Dies
Prairie du Chien, Wis., Dec. 13. – Special: Joseph La Rocque, Sr., a pioneer resident of Prairie du Chien, whose parents came here when this was only a trading post, had gone through nearly a century of life when he was called into eternity early last Thursday morning.

He was born in Dubuque, May 2, 1826, and in 1828 his parents moved to Prairie du Chien when this section was practically a wilderness and the entire white population of the state less than 12,000, but there were Indians everywhere. In childhood his playmates were mostly Indian children for his father, who was interpreter for the Sioux away back in 1778, first came into the country for the British and was with them when Wabash made his attack on St. Louis in 1780. During the war of 1812 the deceased’s father was a lieutenant in the British Indian department of war, so that Joseph La Roque was not only well informed on Indian traditions but he was probably as well acquainted with the early day trials and customs as any of the settlers of his day and for more than four score years and ten.

On September 16, 1856, he was married to Miss Elizabeth Gremore, or Grimard, as they were called in the early days, the fifth child of Peter Grimard, by Leander Le Clere who was a noted Justice of the Peace at that time. Three children were born to them, two of whom preceded him to the grave, and Joseph La Rocque Jr., of this city, is the only survivor.

During the civil war he carried a musket for a year and was honorably discharged. For the past 12 years he made is home with his son at 314 E. Bolvin St.

------------------------------------------------
The spelling is as it appears in the obit, so even in the obit there are 2 different spellings for La Rocque/La Roque. Their house on Bolvin was a block east of the Villa Louis. I have some pictures of their house and the island; some of the pictures show one of the many floods that consumed the island.

[mink]

Hmm...this part does not bode well for all the records of Father Dunand:

"This was Father Dunand's only visit. He stayed thirty days.
The dates of the first six baptisms are lost. A man who
examined the baptismal records in 1917 says the first and
second leaves stuck together and could not be separated.
They are no longer in the book. The first date now appearing
on the baptismal record—-April 23—shows that the fourteenth
person baptized was Caroline, daughter of Stephen Hempstead
and Louise Lefebre. The last record is number 135—a son of
J. B. Mayrand, baptized May 13, 1817. The first marriage was
April 29 between Denis Courtois and Marie Blondeau; and the
last marriage was on May 16, when the contracting parties
were Theodore Lupien and Therese Crely."

On the other hand, since Father Dunand was a traveling priest, all the persons he recorded may not even have resided at Prairie du Chien. I do not recognize all those surnames as belonging to PdC. Anyway, whitman, it is worth going on to the records of Father Badin if you don't find Jean Baptiste having been baptised by Dunand because Dunand wasn't at PdC that long and he may have missed baptising some people. What would be helpful is that the priests usually listed the parents of the baptised in their records and also the god-parents. What I wonder is--where was Jean Baptiste buried? I don't find him in the French Cemetery, St. Gabriel's churchyard or its successor, Calvary--although that does not mean he's not buried in PdC as some markers are no longer legible or there may not have been one in the first place.

Also, just reprising, on page 2 of this thread there is my list of the volunteers of 1827, mostly all men from Prairie du Chien, including a "Baptiste Rock", which I feel sure is your Jean Baptiste--and Mad Rock has him still residing in PdC in 1830 according to the list of voters.

[mink]

Whoa--no! If this part of the obit is correct--and I don't know why it wouldn't be....

"In childhood his playmates were mostly Indian children for his father, who was interpreter for the Sioux away back in 1778, first came into the country for the British and was with them when Wabash made his attack on St. Louis in 1780. During the war of 1812 the deceased’s father was a lieutenant in the British Indian department of war"

I don't see how it's going to be possible that Joseph's father was a Jean Baptiste born in 1805!

[mink]

lwhitman, even though Joseph is called "Sr." in the obituary, I am starting to suspect his father was also called Joseph and that the one was called "Senior"only because there was still yet another Joseph Larocque living in PdC at the time of the obit, the son of the deceased. All this rang a bell and so I looked up an article I had about Jean Baptiste Faribault, the famous Minnesota fur trader. Here is what I found in the article--and you can read it online at this URL:

umbrigade.tripod.com/articles/jean-baptiste_spy.html


"But Faribault and U.S. interpreter Joseph La Rocque seemed to have been appearing British but were actually risking their lives to gather information at Prairie to aid Boilvin.31 Letters exchanged in 1813 with Boilvin at St. Louis deputized La Rocque, as the acting U.S. Indian agent. A letter dated March 12, 1813, from La Rocque at Prairie to Boilvin at St. Louis mentions "Faribeau" as his trusted reader. But British documents from this era list La Rocque as a British interpreter.32 The letters Faribault translated from Red Wing for La Rocque state that his previous letters have all been confiscated, that the Menominee have pillaged Boilvin's property, and that all the traders are British sympathizers are conspiring raise all Indian nations to war against the U.S. forces.33
In April 1813, Boilvin writes to Dickson, now stationed at a Green Bay British army post, that an American fort would soon be established at Prairie du Chien.34 The Secretary of War had finally permitted Gen. Howard, at Belle Fontaine (St. Louis) to establish a U.S. Army fortification, as Boilvin had requested four years earlier."

What do you think now?

[hermin1]

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ID: I61886389
Name: Elizabeth GRIMARD
Given Name: Elizabeth
Surname: Grimard
Sex: F
Birth: October 4, 1840 in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin
Death: May 3, 1907 in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin
Note:
Birth and Death recorded in St. Gabriel's parish records
Baptized Oct. 4, 1840, St. Gabriel's, Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin
Married Joseph LaRoque on Sept. 16, 1856 in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin





Father: Pierre GRIMARD b: August 11, 1796 in St. Anne, La Perade, Montreal, Quebec
Mother: Elizabeth COURTOIS b: December 18, 1806 in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin




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[hermin1]

I have Jean Baptiste Roc age 12 yrs. baptized Prairie du chien apr. 30,1817
Catherine Roc age 13 yrs. bapt. same place Apr. 30,1817
Marie Roc age 16 yrs. baptized same place, Apr. 30,1817. By Fr. Dunand. These were the children of Joseph Rocque and a Sioux woman.
__________
children of Augustin and sioux woman, baptized by Fr. Dunand were:
Louis bap. May 4,1817 Age 4 yrs.
Augustin bapt. may 5, 1817 age 10 yrs.
Francois age 6 yrs, bapt. May 5,1817
Angelique age 18mos. bapt. may 5,1817
Catherine age 8 yrs., bapt. May 5,1817
all the above were baptized by Fr. Dunand at Prairie du Chien.

Ref. Prairie Du Chien's Earliest church Records, 1817. James L. Hansen. Minn. Geneal. Journ. : 4, pp.329-342
Mr. Hansen mentioned that the above original records were all in French. the originals are kept at St. Gabriel's church,that Wisconsin State Historical Soc. has a photostatic copy, and there
is a transcript of these early records in the papers of Scanlon, the historian for Prairie du chien.

[hermin1]

thisis from the Obituary for Joseph la Rocque(or rocque?) that Lwhitman posted earlier:
On September 16, 1856, he was married to Miss Elizabeth Gremore, or Grimard, as they were called in the early days, the fifth child of Peter Grimard, by Leander Le Clere who was a noted Justice of the Peace at that time. Three children were born to them, two of whom preceded him to the grave, and Joseph La Rocque Jr., of this city, is the only survivor.


Read more: oyate1.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=requesthere&thread=2358&page=8#ixzz1pUzhNub2

[mink]

Regardless of what James Hansen wrote, the old records of St. Gabriel's are NOT there any longer, Hermin. They are in La Crosse, the seat of the diocese in which St. Gabriel's is included. I am a current scholar of the early church fathers of the Midwest. Hansen is not up to date in this regard.

[hermin1]

i agree with you mink, that Jean Baptiste born 1805 could not have been his father, based on his age when he was baptized in 1817 by Fr. Dunand.
correction: However, in 1826,jean Baptiste would have been 21 yrs old. So, I would not rule out Jean Baptiste asJoseph's father.


i found some church Records at Machilimackinac, that are in St. Anne's(Detroit,Mich) church records, for persons with laroche or larocque surname :
Jean Baptiste bapt. Nov. 1820 Arbre Croche(sp.),
Augustin bap. Jan. 1824 Arbre Croche
Antoine bapt. 1 Jan 1812
Rosalie Bapt. 7 Apr. 1813
it doesn't list their ages either.
who do these belong too,I wonder?
Augustin wed Aokenakoue 1 Feb. 1827.
_________
I apologize for putting these in this thread. They are in St. Annes Records, but are from the Index for Outlying parishes. I have asked my colleague to see what he can find on these laRocques or laRoches.please disregard this posting.

[lwhitman]

I think this genealogy business is one of the most frustrating and rewarding of endeavors. :-) I have so much information on different LaRocques/Rocs/etc. pre-dating my 1826 Joseph, but I can't seem to pull it together into a definitive lineage. Information - both existing or missing - from the obit (no father's name), census data (no Jean Baptiste), marriage certificates (who is "GB" and did Jean Baptiste marry?), and an ABUNDANCE of great anecdotal data and documentation on LaRocques/Rocs just leaves me confused. I feel as though the "famous" Sioux interpreter Joseph fits in, but I still feel like there may be a missing link between him and my 1826 Joseph. It may be the 1805 Jean Baptiste, but then I don't understand the "GB" on the marriage certificate or the lack of evidence of his presence in PdC, other than Hansen's reference to him voting in PdC in the early 1800's. Sigh. I know you understand my frustration; all genealogists do!

[mink]

I am not a genealogist but an historian so I can tell you, for starters, that there were not that many people at Prairie du Chien even in 1826 when your Joseph was born. You have two choices as I see it--to credit the obit or Mary Martel and/or Hansen. Let's put it this way--the first LaRocque had to arrive in Prairie du Chien from somewhere and he was surely the interpreter, Joseph LaRocque. I think it's pretty good information as even Mary Martel says he was the first. Martel:

" Laroque-Larock-Rock-Roc-LaRock-Laroche: Variety of names. The founder of the farnily at Prairie du Chien, Wis., carne probably as early as 1787. His sons, Augustine and Joseph, and a daughter were born in Prairie du Chien. He was a party to the Sion Boilvin, 1812 he was sub-agent and interpreter before the war ended. joseph Laroque married a Sioux wornan,"

So there--the interpreter's name, connected to Nicholas Boilvin, was Joseph and he married the native woman. According to Mad Rock, this Joseph lived between the dates 1746-1817 and was born in Varennes, Canada. His wife's name was La Bleu, the daughter of the first Wabasha. Their eldest son [apparently] was also named Joseph.

" their chudren: 1. Joseph, 2. Louise (Mrs. Jean Marie Tyera), 3. Augustine."

So there is another generation, number 2, with three children. The one called Augustine was apprently born in 1787 and died in 1856.

"Augustine had a son Joseph (cal1ed Roc) who maried a Sioux woman, early records at St. Gabriels, Prairie du Chien, Wis.”

Now it jumps to generation number 3. The son referred to must be the Joseph Roc, 1811-1875, who married Madeleine Robinson, a woman who lived with her Sioux mother and her tribe all of her young years until her marriage to Joseph Roc/Rocque/ LaRoque. But Joseph and Madeleine were not married until 1837, so the children that Martel mentions next cannot have been theirs. Evidently, then, she must be referring to generation number 2, the children of Joseph [2] —or perhaps even the first Joseph, the interpreter. According to Mad Rock, Joseph 2 had six children by two wives—although he may really be referring to Joseph 1. We will have to clarify this with him.

“Their children were: 1 Marie, born 1801; 2. Catherine, born 1804; 3. Jean Bapt., born 1805.”

This was all the same family so far, but NOW comes a man who is apparent a DIFFERENT Augustine LaRocque—because he has no son named Joseph. Perhaps he is one of the Mackinac LaRocques. Anyway, from the following, the connection of this particular Augustine to Prairie du Chien appears rather tenuous:

Correction! It is still the same family, regardless. Please see page 10 of this thread for clarificarion“

Augustine Laroque rnarried a Sioux woman -their children: 1. Augustine, 1807; 2. Catherine, 1809; 3. Francis, 1811; 4. Louis, 1813; Anglic 1815; 6. Theresa, 1820. At one tirne Augustine Laroque rnoved to Clayton County, Iowa.”

Now comes the son of this Augustine, Francis, and his family:

“ Francis Laroque manied Genevieve Codd in 1841, they were rnarried by L. M. Warren, Justice of the Peace, he was related to Cadottes and traded with the Chippewas, his parent do not appear. She rnay have been a daughter of Jean Codot who owned a lot in main Village of Prairie du Chien. This couple had children: Sophia. 1841; Jean Baptiste, about 1840, records are at Eau Claire. Wis. Francis Laroque, cousin to the above, married Madaline Robertson, 1842. She was baptised February 12, 1842. They had Jean Bpts, born in 1842,, I believe at Eau claire, Wis. Mary Griffin frorn Ireland (Court House and St. Gabriels records). A Charles LaRoque operated the Rock Hotel in 1861. Adel B Laroque lived in Lynxville, Wis., in 1873.”

Next comes a rather disjointed statement:

“Joseph Laroque, son Jean Bpts., married Elizabeth Gremore.”

It doesn't seem very likely Martel is referring to the Jean Baptiste, born about 1840, scion of the OTHER LaRocques, so she must be harking back to that Jean Baptiste, born in 1805, who is either the son of the original Joseph LaRocque—or his son. The obituary claims the first Joseph but, if the subject of the obituary was not born until 1826, it doesn't seem likely because the interpreter died in 1817 according to Mad Rock's information. So maybe it's Joseph 2 ….and by the time of the writing of the obituary the last living Joseph LaRocque had mixed up his history a bit. Not difficult to understand why he would with all those guys having had the same names. I hope this helps, lwhitman, to clarify the situation a bit more for you.