edited and translated by
PHILLIP J. WOLFE and WARREN J. WOLFE
Prospects for the Gallipolis
Settlement:
French Diplomatic Dispatches
More than two centuries have passed
since Gallipolis, Ohio ("City of the
Gauls"), was founded by French
settlers. It was on October 17, 1790, that a
group of French immigrants first set
foot on the banks of the Ohio and found
some eighty log huts awaiting them. As
colonists of the Scioto Company,
they had arrived in Alexandria,
Virginia, and in other ports during the course
of the year 1790. Their exact number is
unknown, although they are often re-
ferred to as the "French Five
Hundred."1
Their story begins with the formation of
the Ohio Company and the Scioto
Company, established by Congress in 1787
to purchase and settle lands along
the Ohio River. The Scioto Company,
hoping to sell lands to Europeans, sent
Joel Barlow (1754-1812), a poet and Yale
graduate, to Paris the following
year. He took with him a booklet by the
Reverend Manasseh Cutler, of
Massachusetts, entitled A
Prospectusfor the Establishment of the Rivers Ohio
and Scioto in America, published in Salem in 1787, which described in glow-
ing terms the lands which were for sale;
Barlow had the work translated, and
the French version was published in
Paris in 1789.
Since Barlow was not very successful in
his recruitment efforts, he em-
ployed an Englishman, William Playfair,
as his assistant, and together they
organized a company known as the
"Societe du Scioto."2 The titles to the
Phillip J. Wolfe is Associate Professor
of Modern Languages at Allegheny College,
Meadville, Pennsylvania, and Warren J.
Wolfe is Professor Emeritus of Romance Languages at
Bowling Green State University, Bowling
Green, Ohio.
1. On the settlement of Gallipolis, one
should consult the recent publication written for the bi-
centennial anniversary of that city: Gallipolis,
Ohio: A Pictorial History, 1790-1990, by
Henrietta C. Evans, John E. Lester, and
Mary P. Wood (Charleston, West Virginia, 1990), espe-
cially ix-xiv, 1-15. For a more vivid
account of the lives of the Gallipolis settlers, one may read
The French Five Hundred, by William G. Sibley (Gallipolis, 1933; reprinted by
The Ohio
Historical Society in 1968).
2. Details of the transactions of the
Ohio and the Scioto Companies, as well as the French
Society of the Scioto, are to be found
in an article by Daniel J. Ryan, "The Scioto Company and
its Purchase," Ohio
Archaeological and Historical Publications, III (1891), (2nd ed., 1895),
109-
39. This publication, featuring
addresses and articles prepared at the time of the first centennial
celebrations, also contains an English
translation of the French edition of Cutler's pamphlet (pp.
82-108).
42 OHIO HISTORY
lands that they sold, at one French
crown per acre, were, in fact, simply the
option to purchase, but the French
believed them to be outright titles of
ownership. The titles were apparently
accepted without question, and, given
the unsettled conditions in France, many
emigrants prepared to leave.
The colonists did not learn of the
fraudulent titles until they arrived in
Alexandria. Some, doubtless, became
discouraged at that time and returned
to France; some moved on to other
regions of the United States. The major-
ity, however, remained in Alexandria
until the agents of the Scioto Company
arranged for their transportation to the
settlement on the Ohio River.
It is obvious that the French colonists
were hampered by not having clear
titles to their lands. Once at
Gallipolis, however, they soon discovered that
there were more immediate matters of
concern. There was the constant dan-
ger of Indian attacks on the settlement;
it was not until after the Treaty of
Greenville in 1795 that the settlers
could feel safe. Moreover, the winter of
1791 at Gallipolis was especially cold
and must have convinced some that
they should move on to a warmer climate,
such as that of New Orleans.
According to one of the French settlers,
in 1792, there were only 200 French
immigrants remaining in Gallipolis.3
The primary purpose of this article is
to suggest, by making use of French
diplomatic dispatches from January to
November 1790, still other reasons for
the relative lack of success in the
establishment of a permanent French set-
tlement. These dispatches, or letters,
are part of the diplomatic correspon-
dence in the archives of the French
foreign ministry in Paris (Correspondance
Politique, Etats-Unis, XXXV). The writer
of these letters was Louis-
Guillaume Otto (1754-1817), who had
first come to the United States in 1779
as secretary to Anne-Cesar, Chevalier de
la Luzerne (1741-1791), French
ambassador to the United States from
1779 to 1783. Born in Kark, in the
duchy of Baden, Otto studied at the
University of Strasbourg before entering
the French diplomatic service. He became
secretary of the French legation in
1785; from October 1789 until August
1791 he served as charge d'affaires.
In 1787 Otto married Elizabeth
Livingston, the daughter of Peter Van Brugh
Livingston, the distinguished New York
merchant and politician.
Unfortunately, she died the following
year; her funeral was attended by
members of the American government and
of Congress. Otto was well re-
ceived in the United States; he was
elected to the American Philosophical
Society in 1787. Esteemed by Thomas
Jefferson, who was Secretary of State
from 1790 to 1793, and by other officers
of the government in New York,
Otto was well able to obtain useful
information, which he could forward to
3. "Memoir of Antoine
Laforge," Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications, XXIV
(1917), 49.
Prospects for the Gallipolis
Settlement 43
his superiors in Versailles. In later
years, Otto served in posts in Berlin,
London, Munich, and was appointed French
Ambassador in Vienna.4
The four letters which follow have not
previously been published in their
entirety. We have chosen to translate
them for American readers. They are
addressed to the Count de Montmorin
(1745-1792), who was the French
Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1787 to
1791.
Letter 1
(no. 15, fol. 37r)
New York, January 21, 1790
received March 4
My Lord,
I have just seen a letter written from
Paris by a Mr. Barlow, an American
who asserts that, as a result of the
present upheavals, many Frenchmen are
about to leave the kingdom in order to
settle in the United States and, among
other things, that almost one hundred
families, led by the Chevalier
Duportail,5 are going to buy
a district in the interior of Virginia and settle
there. Although this report seems to me
exaggerated and related to an enthu-
siasm too common in America, which holds
that all European revolutions
help populate and enrich the United
States, I cannot help but believe this
news is well-founded up to a point. The
new principles spread throughout
France will probably make it unnecessary
to insist upon the application of
past ordinances against emigration,
because the right to change residence and
4. For additional information concerning
Otto, see the study by Margaret M. O'Dwyer, "A
French Diplomat's View of Congress,
1790," William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., XXI (July,
1964), 408-12. This article includes
translations of ten dispatches from Otto to Montmorin be-
tween January and August, 1790, but
these dispatches contain little in reference to the Gallipolis
settlement. Jefferson's evaluation of
Otto is to be found in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson,
XVIII, 528, Julian P. Boyd, ed.
(Princeton, 1971). Concerning Otto's marriage to Elizabeth
Livingston, and his subsequent marriage
to Fanny Crevecoeur, daughter of the French author and
diplomat, see St. John de Crevecoeur:
The Life Of an American Farmer, by Gay Wilson Allen
and Roger Asselineau (New York, 1987),
159-61. For Otto's diplomatic career, see the
Dictionnaire des diplomates de
Napoleon, by Henri-Robert Jacques
(Paris, 1990), 280-83.
5. "Chevalier Duportail" would
seem to be General Louis Lebegue de Presle Duportail (1743-
1802), one of the French officers who
served in America from 1777 to 1781, helping to fortify
Valley Forge and to organize the
American army engineers. Duportail returned to France in
1781, and was named War Minister in
1790. Having displeased both Royalists and
Revolutionaries, he resigned in 1791 and
sought refuge in the United States. There is no evi-
dence that General Duportail brought any
families to the United States, nor does he seem to have
arrived with the Scioto Company
colonists; he is listed, however, as a member of the "Societe
des 24," which was associated with
the Scioto Company. On January 16, 1790, Duportail pur-
chased from the Scioto Company 2,000
acres of land, for which he paid 12,000 livres (Archives
Nationales, Inventaire des papiers de
Duportail, emigre, T749). He resided near Philadelphia
from 1794 until 1802. See Elizabeth S.
Kite, Brigadier-General Louis Lebegue Duportail
(Baltimore, 1933), 7-9, and La
Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, Journal de Voyage en Amerique et
d'un sejour a Philadelphie
(Baltimore, 1940), 79.
44 OHIO HISTORY |
|
country is a precious attribute of liberty, but it might be useful to enlighten the immigrants about their true interests. Only two sorts of French citizens can be happy in America, farmers and tradesmen, and even these must have some knowledge of the language and customs of this country. And when one considers that these two classes must necessarily derive the greatest advan- tages from the Revolution which has taken place in the kingdom, it would be on their part the height of absurdity to seek a precarious existence in another hemisphere at the very moment when their own country offers them every- thing a citizen holds dearest and most sacred.6 As for those who, being well off, would like to come to America in order to enjoy an easier and quieter life and to fulfill visionary ideas of a perfect government, they will be cruelly de- ceived, for their former way of life will make the manners and customs of this country unbearable to them. It would be doing those who wish to emigrate a great service to show them the truth, namely that nowhere, not even in the United States, so famed for its prosperity, will they find a France.
6. It seems that Otto had not left the United States since 1785; he could hardly have been well informed of the true state of France in early 1790. It should also be kept in mind that the greatest excesses of the French Revolution had not yet taken place when Otto wrote this dispatch. Moderates could believe that a new period of liberty and freedom was about to begin. |
Prospects for the Gallipolis
Settlement
45
Several French immigrants have already
arrived in Boston, Philadelphia
and Virginia. I have seen a few here,
who have brought funds to set up es-
tablishments. They appear surprised not
to find the great advantages they had
expected, and they are almost ready to
go back. I have urged them to write
their friends to dissuade them from the
extravagant project of following their
example. A few letters of this sort,
strongly worded and published in our
newspapers, would have a greater effect
than laws and pamphlets. England
used these kinds of publications with
great effectiveness to limit emigrations.
An Irishman named Dobbyns has just sent
Congress a report imploring it to
grant him a certain expanse of land to
settle immigrants from his country,
whose passage he intends to pay. This
project is perfect for Irish peasants,
exhausted by all sorts of taxes,
speaking the same language as Americans,
and naturally inclined to roam the world
and to clear frontiers. The French
peasant is not in the same situation.
I remain, Sir, with profound respect
Your very humble and obedient servant
Otto
Letter 2
(no. 27, fol. 92r)
New York, May 11, 1790
received July 2
My Lord,
The rumor spread here about a society
formed in France with the goal of
creating an establishment on the Scioto,
about which I had the honor to in-
form you in my dispatch number 15, is
only too true. Nearly 100 persons
who had embarked at Le Havre to come to
this country, after having greatly
suffered aboard an English vessel
chartered by the Society, and which was on
the point of sinking, were met by an
American ship which brought them to
New York.7 Three hundred
others have arrived in Virginia and it is rumored
their number will come to around 12,000.
I have seen, Sir, the leaders of
those who have arrived here and
particularly a Mr. Boulogne,8 a young
7. According to Edward Naret, an early
Gallipolis settler, this ship, the "Recovery," was the
first to transport the French emigrants
bound for the Ohio. "While at sea she sprung a leak, and
passengers and crew worked day and night
at all the pumps that could be rigged. It was a most
valiant struggle for life, but all in
vain. The last ray of hope faded from them and the angry bil-
lows seemed to mock their despair, when
an English vessel hove in sight, came to, and took off
passengers and crew." Naret, History
of the French Settlement at Gallipolis, Ohio, in 1790, 6-7.
A letter, apparently written by one of
the passengers, provides further details: the "Recovery,"
with 86 passengers, commanded by a
Captain Gordon, left Le Havre February 10, 1790. The
English vessel that rescued passengers
and crew was the "Elizabeth," commanded by Captain
Fordyce; it reached New York on May 2.
See Lettre ecrite par un Francois emigrant sur les ter-
res de la compagnie de Scioto, a son
ami a Paris (1790), 1-2.
8. Charles-Felix Boue Boulogne was an
agent for the Scioto Company, chosen by Barlow to
accompany the first group of Scioto
colonists, but he was also active in the organization of the
46 OHIO
HISTORY
Parisian, educated and able to serve
usefully the Colony he is going to estab-
lish, but judging from the first
operation of the Society, which paid 6 pounds
an acre for land which Congress sells
for 20 sous, there must be a large num-
ber of dupes among the immigrants. Their
ideas are so exalted that this dis-
honesty, which I pointed out to them,
does not disturb them. They are
pleased in general with the accuracy of
the Society's representatives in
America, but I greatly doubt whether
they will say the same thing when they
arrive on the spot. Young Parisians,
interesting and witty, are not well-suited
to undergo the deprivations of a virtual
frontier life and to work at clearing
land. They bring with them all sorts of
tradesmen, among whom a very good
discipline has been established. The
Americans, who have never seen such
immigrants, are very pleased and welcome
them heartily. I do not believe,
Sir, that this craze for emigrating to a
country without resources can last un-
less a long series of unhappy events
makes it necessary. In any case, the emi-
gration of a few thousand inhabitants
cannot be considered a great loss for a
kingdom such as France. The most notable
of these immigrants have brought
me letters of introduction and have
asked me to present them to the President
of the United States.9 I have
managed to evade this request. My behavior
towards them is all the more restrained
as it appears to me that at a time such
as this a good citizen cannot leave his
country and request in a foreign land
the assistance of people employed by his
government. I limited myself to
calling on them and showing no worry
about the emigration which they in-
tend to encourage and increase through
their letters. While agreeing with the
principle that in a country as free as
France, every citizen had the right to
change his place of residence, I
observed only that it was astonishing that
they should seek, 1500 leagues from
their homes, amidst many dangers and
inconveniences, a freedom found at their
own doorstep. In reply, they
showed me high-sounding descriptions
given them of the beautiful country
surrounding the Ohio; I know their
accuracy and will abide by their own
judgment after they have spent a few
months there. Our conversation had no
Greene Colony of New York in 1792 and of
the Asylum Colony of Pennsylvania in 1793, ac-
cording to Frances Sergeant Childs, French
Refugee Life in the United States 1790-1800: An
American Chapter of the French
Revolution (Baltimore, 1940), 95-97,
99.
9. It is regrettable that Otto does not
identify "the most notable of these immigrants." They
must have included Count Jean Joseph de
Barth, who had reached Alexandria on May 3rd on the
ship the "Patriot," which
carried 218 passengers (Naret, History, 7). Count de Barth (1726-1793)
was a deputy to the National Assembly
from Alsace and an associate in the "Societe des 24."
After landing in Alexandria, he traveled
to New York in order to consult with Colonel William
Duer, president of the Scioto Company.
See the Gallipolis Papers, box 2, 169, in the Cincinnati
Historical Society. The immigrants
called on President Washington, but he was ill and unable to
receive them. However, on June 30, 1790,
Washington wrote a letter addressed to "Duchesne,
De Barth, Thiebaud, and their Associates
in the Scioto Settlement" to welcome them upon their
arrival in the country, "and to
assure you of all that countenance and protection from the general
government of the United States which
the Constitution and Laws will enable the Executive to
afford under existing
circumstances." Writings of Washington, vol. 31, 64-65.
Prospects for the Gallipolis
Settlement 47
further consequences, but since these
immigrants may stay for some time, I
will be careful to avoid them, without
however making it obvious.
You will allow me, Sir, to repeat here
that, unless peoples' disposition has
completely changed since my departure
from France, it seems impossible to
me that they can succeed in this new
colony, which may have the attraction of
novelty for a short while, but which
will soon fall into oblivion, either
through the dispersion or the return of
the settlers.
We have reason to believe, Sir, that the
ship which left Bordeaux in
December has sunk,10 because
we have had no news. This accident, together
with the slowness of these ships, is
responsible for the fact that for 4 months I
have had to entrust several dispatches
to merchant vessels, which probably
reached you very irregularly. It is true
that the affairs of this country are of so
little interest to European political
matters that this inconvenience is very
slight.
I remain with profound respect, Sir,
Your very humble and obedient servant
Otto
Letter 3
(no. 31, fol. 111)
New York, June 10, 1790
received September 25
Sir,
A group of Frenchmen deceived by lies
they had been told about the Scioto
is encamped about 39 miles from this
city. They had been promised that the
Indians would be 200 miles from their
colony, and that during the first year
they could use the Company's ovens and
houses. They are learning too late
that the Indians will be close by and
the ovens and houses 200 miles away.
They are asking to return to France, but
have no money to pay their passage.
They have sent a deputation to our
vice-consul requesting to return at the
King's expense, but the former eluded
their request, lacking authorization
from Court. It is clear, Sir, that for
the modest sum of 8,000 pounds one
could have returned 250 honest citizens
to their country, where they would
have gone throughout the kingdom
discrediting the senseless plan to seek
fortune in the American wilderness.
Frightened by the complaints of these
unhappy people, the Scioto Company is
doing all it can to calm them by im-
proving their supplies and support. It
has signed contracts to supply them
with bread during this year and part of
the next, since corn, which is the stan-
dard food of frontier dwellers in
America, would not be suitable for
Frenchmen. From New England it has sent
at its own expense a large number
10. The ships carrying the French
immigrants bound for the Scioto all seem to have departed
from Le Havre, so the vessel mentioned
here is probably unrelated to the Scioto Company.
48 OHIO HISTORY
of workers and carpenters skilled in
clearing the land.11 It has offered much
free land to poor Americans as incentive
to settle there and to serve as models
for the French for whom everything is
new in this wilderness. One of its
agents told me that the main aim of this
measure was to save the Company's
honor and convince the world that if the
French were not as successful as
Americans, it was their own fault.
Finally, it is offering to make great sacri-
fices to satisfy the immigrants, who are
constantly making efforts to leave. A
French captain who arrived yesterday
from St. Valery told me that, before
leaving France, he was besieged by
people who wanted to come to America
with him and that, scarcely arrived
here, he is again besieged by those who
want to leave. The Scioto Company is
right to fear losing its reputation in
France; it is consequently making all
possible concessions to attract twice
again the number of settlers. But I have
reason to believe, as I had the honor
of telling you before, Sir, that its
hopes will be in vain, and that after having
disgusted and ruined 500 or 600
credulous immigrants it will fall into obliv-
ion and that this scheme will be a
repetition on a small scale of the
Mississippi Company.12 One of
the Company's agents, a clever and specious
man, tried to add a new falsehood to the
other boasts that are made for these
lands, that relations will soon be
established between the Scioto Company
and the French in Louisiana which will
allow them to shake off the Spanish
yoke and recognize their former
homeland, so that the immigrants will soon
be again closely bound to their former
country and enjoy all the advantages of
French citizenship. Some have embraced
this extravagant idea without con-
sidering the huge distance which
separates this new colony from Louisiana.
What seems more certain, Sir, is that
the President of the United States favors
and secretly protects this new
establishment which will be opposite vast lands
he owns on the other bank of the Ohio
and whose value nearby settlements
will increase. He has ordered
congressional troops stationed in the Ohio to
accompany our immigrants and to take up
positions between them and the
Indians to guard them from any attack.
By feigning interest in the colony's
success, I obtained these details from a
man who enjoys the President's con-
fidence and who assured me that, after the
colony's establishment, General
Washington's lands will at least double
in value.
It is said here, Sir, that the National
Assembly will seek means of prevent-
ing emigration to the Scioto. If my
opinion were asked, I would say that the
11. Major John Burnham, an officer in
the American Revolution, was employed by the Scioto
Associates in March, 1790, to lead New
England woodsmen to build a settlement on the banks of
the Ohio. A group of thirty-six men
reached Wellsburg on May 29, and soon thereafter were
clearing the land and building the log
cabins which sheltered the first French immigrants on their
landing at Gallipolis on October 17,
1790. OAHP, III, 40-44.
12. The reference, of course, is to the
1717 financial scheme of John Law to colonize the
Mississippi through the sale of shares
in the Compagnie d'Occident. Its failure caused consider-
able financial distress in France.
Prospects for the Gallipolis
Settlement
49
present illusions will destroy
themselves and the best way to restrain them is
to allow them free rein. Some
malcontents are leaving, others are writing to
their friends to complain about their
lot. These reports will be more effective
than any ban on emigration.
I am with profound respect, Sir
Your very humble and obedient servant
Otto
Letter 4
(no. 43, fol. 194r)
New York, November 12, 1790
received March 18, 1791
My Lord,
M. de Malartic13 gave me the
letter of recommendation with which you
honored me on April 20 only on his
return from Scioto. I used this occasion
to gather new information on the French
colony's progress and to verify other
reports I had gathered. The clamor
raised by the immigrants on their arrival
here was so loud that the Company,
fearing the loss of its reputation in
Europe, made sacrifices which have been
very effective. It not only provides
them the means of reaching the Scioto,
but also furnishes them bread, meat
and brandy until they are able to have
their own harvest. It has sent to the
area about a hundred Americans to do the
first clearing and build houses. It
hires about fifty hunters to furnish
game, which is very abundant, and finally
it lodges and feeds the entire company
at its own expense, so that land bought
for 6 pounds an acre is really not too
expensive considering the colony's inci-
dental expenses. This company's
sacrifices are all the more surprising con-
sidering it has received from its agent
in France, Mr. Barlow, only the modest
sum of 6000 pounds, although this agent
has sold close to a million acres.
His slowness in sending money is
beginning to be of some concern here and
it is probable that the new immigrants
who may arrive will not be as well
treated as the others. Some people think
the company will necessarily soon
be bankrupt.14
13. Louis Hippolyte Joseph de Mauris,
Vicomte de Malartic (1769-1832). The Vicomte de
Malartic attended the Military School in
Paris in 1783, and was appointed ensign in the regiment
of the French Guard. With the
authorization of Versailles, he joined the Scioto immigrants
aboard the brig "Nautilus,"
which reached Alexandria on August 5, 1790. After the visit to New
York mentioned in Otto's dispatch,
Malartic must have returned to the Ohio, for, according to
Naret, "he distinguished himself as
volunteer aid of General St. Clair." He eventually returned to
France and joined the army of the French
emigres in Germany.
14. William Duer, president of the
Scioto Company, went bankrupt and was sentenced to
debtor's prison, where he died in 1799.
As for the sums sent from France by Joel Barlow, see the
letter from William Playfair to Duer,
dated November 20, 1790, read and approved by Barlow,
published in Sibley, The French Five
Hundred, 39-48.
50 OHIO HISTORY
When M. De Malartic left, the colony
numbered some seven hundred set-
tlers who, except for the rich, seemed
happy enough with their lot. They got
along well with settlers at Muskingum,15
who are their closest neighbors and
specially with Mr. Sinclair [St. Clair],
governor of the West. Several mar-
riages with women from Kentucky have
increased ties with this colony, and
as for the Indians, they have done
nothing worse than steal horses, which are
almost impossible to keep. For farming
they will probably use oxen, which
are harder to steal and of no interest
to the Indians. The descriptions of the
richness of the land were quite
accurate. The Ohio, which the French
Canadians called La Belle Riviere, is
entirely worthy of this name. Its shores
need only strong arms to become one of
the richest areas in America. In ad-
dition to an infinity of resources which
nature provides, sugar-maple trees,
which grow in abundance, supply a staple
which colonists could import from
the Antilles only at great expense. This tree is so common, and sugar
harvesting so easy, that our settlers,
like the Pennsylvania Quakers, have
already taken steps to ship their excess
production on the Mississippi. The
French capital is on the northern bank
of the Ohio opposite the mouth of the
great Kankara [Kanawha], a river which
facilitates communication with
Virginia. Although there are no judges
established in the colony, there are
several people who have acquired enough
influence to control their fellow
citizens and even punish them if need
be, but it is neither the richest nor the
most distinguished who enjoy this
prerogative; the nature of things and the
force of numbers seem to be drawing them
rapidly towards a completely
democratic constitution. M. de Marnesia
and others who had dreamed of
establishing a new Rome and obtaining
for themselves and for their families
the honors of the patrician class were
cruelly deceived.16 They are shunned
and avoided to the point that their
houses are empty despite the elegance of
their table and of their furniture,
which they are careful to show off. Two
arms and good health appear to be the
chief titles in that region, and it is more
than probable that these distinguished
persons, whom novelty or some other
reason drew to America, will soon become
homesick for their country, which
they cannot help but hold dear.
Furthermore, communications with this
colony are improving daily. It is only
fifteen days from New York, which
will make it easier for the malcontents
to return. It seems that emigration
from France has peaked; for several
months only isolated families have
arrived in America; they used to come by
the hundreds. This is not to say,
Sir, that poor and especially young
people cannot do very well in the Scioto,
15. Muskingum was the first name of the
village which was later called Marietta.
16. M. de Marnesia was among the leaders
of the Scioto immigrants. Claude-Francois-Adrien,
marquis de Lezay-Marnesia (1735-1800),
was elected from the Jura region as deputy to the
States-General; in the National Assembly
he joined the Tiers-Etat (the Commons). However, he
soon became discouraged and decided to
emigrate to America.
Prospects for the Gallipolis Settlement 51 |
|
but they must be farmers by profession, and it is precisely this class of men who will not want to leave France now. Among already settled colonists there are mainly all sorts of workers, servants, wigmakers, confectioners, musicians, all ill-suited to the sort of life they must embrace. Several have returned and taken up residence in American cities, where their talents are appreciated. 17 It is remarkable, Sir, that the surroundings of the Scioto colony bear so many French names and that our immigrants are, so to speak, in familiar terri- tory. Names such as Bourbon, Marie-Antoinette, Montmorin, la Luzerne, la Fayette and several others, each of which is a monument of the first colonists' gratitude to France, have been given to counties and cities. Our immigrants' main city is called Gallipolis. M. de Marnesia is planning another to be called Aiglelis, whose coat of arms will represent the American eagle holding a fleur-de-lis in one of its claws. I have been all the more careful, Sir, to gather information concerning the progress of this colony, as I thought that its development might cause concern
17. There was a project to transport the remaining Gallipolis settlers to Upper Louisiana, then under Spanish control, but nothing seems to have come of this plan. See Louis Houck, The Spanish Regime in Missouri, (Chicago, 1909), 359-72. |
52 OHIO HISTORY
in France and that it would be useful to
forewarn the administration of the
danger involved in limiting emigration,
which could only increase due to the
interest that a ban would cause. I am
more and more certain that my fellow-
citizens' illusions will vanish of
themselves and that the most unhappy of
them will be the first to return to
their homes where they will rejoin their
friends and experience pleasures that
they sought in vain in the New World.
Furthermore, it is improbable that the
Company can survive much longer,
given the dishonesty of its agents in
France.
I am with profound respect, sir,
Your very humble and obedient servant
Otto
The above dispatches show clearly enough
that Otto is convinced that the
French settlement at Gallipolis will
ultimately fail. He feels that those who
are arriving are not prepared for
frontier life: "young Parisians...are not well-
suited...to clearing land" (letter
2); the immigrants should be farmers by pro-
fession, whereas there are, among the
settlers, "wigmakers, confectioners,
musicians, all ill-suited to the sort of
life they must embrace"(letter 4). There
is the danger of Indian attacks:
"they had been promised that the Indians
would be two hundred miles from their
colony" (letter 3). Finally, the settlers
have been greatly deceived by the agents
of the Scioto Company through the
"high-sounding descriptions...of
the beautiful country surrounding the Ohio"
(letter 2) and the "dishonesty of
its agents in France" (letter 4).
While all these reasons are certainly
valid, it must be pointed out that other
settlements along the Ohio and elsewhere
faced much the same difficulties.
In an interesting study published in Ohio
History a few years ago, two other
plausible reasons for the settlement's
failure to thrive were proposed.18
Writing from the point of view of an
economist, the authors note that "the ra-
tio of females to males in the
settlement's population probably was quite low
... did a shortage of women contribute
to the demise of the settlement?" Or,
perhaps, the lack of fertile lands at
Gallipolis made it necessary to move on
further, to the "north or west of
Gallipolis to obtain more valuable land."
We would like to propose two additional
possibilities, based upon Otto's
dispatches. It is obvious that Otto did
not favor the establishment of this
French settlement. He evaded their
request for a meeting with the President
of the United States (letter 2), and
urged some of the immigrants to write to
their friends to dissuade them from
following their example: "a few letters of
18. Lee and Margaret Soltow, "A
Settlement that Failed: The French in Early Gallipolis, an
Enlightening Letter, and an
Explanation," Ohio History, 94 (Winter-Spring, 1985), 46-67.
Quotations are on 59 and 64.
Prospects for the Gallipolis
Settlement 53
this sort, strongly worded, and
published in our newspapers, would have a
greater effect than laws and
publications" (letter 1). Is it not possible that the
various publications that criticized the
emigration to the Scioto lands had the
effect, as Otto hoped, of dissuading
many potential settlers from crossing the
Atlantic? What happened to the 12,000
who, according to rumor (letter 2),
would soon be on their way?
It is certain that there were many such
letters and pamphlets, most of them
published anonymously in 1790. Bernard
Fay, in L'Esprit revolutionnaire en
France et aux Etats-Unis a la fin du
XVIII siecle (Paris, 1925), provides
an
incomplete list (p. 233); Henri Carre in
a lengthy article, "Les Emigres
francais en Amerique: 1789-1793," La
Revue de Paris, V (1898), 311-340,
summarizes additional satires. A good
example of one such letter has been
edited by Henry J. Yeager,
"Nouvelles du Scioto: The Story of a Fraud,"
Ohio History, 78(Autumn, 1969), 261-272. While these letters and
pamphlets do not explain why many of the
Gallipolis settlers moved away
from the Ohio Valley, their publication
must surely have discouraged those
who might otherwise have helped the
colony to grow.
Another phrase used by Otto is quite
significant: "the colony numbered
some seven hundred settlers who, except
for the rich, seemed happy enough
with their lot" (letter 4). Who
were the rich? Otto mentions M. de Marnesia
and others who "are shunned and
avoided to the point that their houses are
empty despite the elegance of their
table and of their furniture, which they are
careful to show off' (letter 4). Here
lies, in part, the explanation for the pam-
phlets written against emigration to the
Scioto lands: they were, frequently,
criticisms of the aristocrats seeking to
leave France.
In the accounts of the Gallipolis
settlement, one rarely finds a reference to
the "Societe des 24" (Company
of Twenty-Four), yet that organization must
have played an important role in
recruiting the settlers of Gallipolis.
Composed of twenty-four individuals,
nobles for the most part, each of whom
was to buy 1,000 acres of Scioto lands,
they are little known to American his-
torians, since most of them declined, or
were unable, to join the colonists for
the Ohio. Their plans were quite
distinct from those of the Gallipolis settlers.
The Company of Twenty-Four planned to
establish a city at the confluence of
the Ohio and Scioto rivers, roughly at
the location of present-day Portsmouth;
the city would be called, according to
Marnesia, Aiglelis (aigle = eagle, lis =
lily, a nice blending of two national
symbols). It would include a Catholic
church, a college, and a number of industries.
That the Company of Twenty-Four was
interested more in expansion than
in settlements is evident from a letter
of May 19, 1790, from Alexander
Hamilton, then Secretary of the
Treasury, to Arthur St. Clair, governor of the
Northwest Territory. It reads in part:
54 OHIO
HISTORY
This [letter] will be delivered to you
by Mr. De Bart who is at the head of a French
Colony going to make a settlement on the
Scioto ..... There is another colony under
Mr. De Boullogne, [sic] who have the
same destination. The particulars of their situa-
tion and the circumstances which
distinguish them will I presume be detailed to you
from some other quarter. I write this
letter at the request of the parties merely to mani-
fest to them a friendly disposition. I
am sure it cannot add to that which you will feel
of your own accord towards them. 19
The Company of Twenty-Four included
several persons already mentioned
by Otto: The Marquis de Lezay-Marnesia,
the Count de Barth, Duportail, de
Malartic, and Barlow, but also Du Val
d'Epremesnil (1745-1794), counselor
to the Parliament of Paris, deputy to
the National Assembly, and perhaps the
principal member of the Company. In
spite of urgings from Marnesia,
d'Epremesnil delayed his departure for
America until it was too late; he was
executed in 1794.20
The importance of the Company of
Twenty-Four lies in the fact that these
noblemen brought with them a number of
settlers. Marnesia, we are told,
brought sixty persons with him.21 Since
Marnesia is the only one of the
Twenty-Four who was an author, and who
wrote about his plans for the
colony, it is helpful to know more about
him. Accompanied by his son
Albert, Lezay-Marnesia left Le Havre on
May 26, 1790, on the "Nautilus,"
and reached Alexandria on August 5.
After deliberating, on August 10 and
12, with those members of the Company of
Twenty-Four who had arrived
earlier (De Barth and De Malartic, among
others), Marnesia and his son trav-
eled to New York, where they spoke with
Duer and, perhaps, with
Washington.22 From New York
they went to Fort Pitt and from there, by
boat, to Marietta. Rather than continue
on to Gallipolis, Marnesia and his son
chose to remain in Marietta for the
winter, apparently sending one of the set-
tlers ahead to the site of their future
city.23
19. The Papers of Alexander Hamilton,
VI, 421, Harold C. Syrett, ed. (New York, 1962).
20. Fortunately, there are numerous
documents and letters concerning d'Epremesnil's projects
for America in the Archives Nationales
in Paris (Papiers d'Epremesnil 158AP). These served as
the sources for the article by Henri
Carre previously mentioned.
21. Papiers d'Epremesnil cote 158AP,
carton 12, dossier 2, item 35; letter to M. Guerin,
October 4, 1790. Another letter, item
46, states that six hundred colonists were in Gallipolis as
of October 19, 1790, as well as two
hundred in Marietta.
22. Albert-Magdelaine-Claude de
Lezay-Marnesia (1772-1857), who was only 18 when he ac-
companied his father to America, wrote
his recollections late in his life (Mes Souvenirs, 1851).
According to Albert, his father brought
nearly one hundred colonists with him. He states that he
and his father were introduced to
Washington, Adams, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madison. That
portion of Mes Souvenirs which
relates to Albert's stay in the United States was translated and
published by Sylvia Harris, "Search
for Eden: An Eighteenth-Century Disaster-Memoires of
Count de Lezay-Marnesia," The
Franco-American Review, II (1937), 50-60. The minutes of the
meetings of the Company of Twenty-Four
that were held in Alexandria are in the Gallipolis
Papers, box 3, vol. 1, 253-55.
23. Papiers d'Epremesnil dossier 2, item
46, dated Marietta, December 7, 1790.
Prospects for the Gallipolis Settlement 55 |
|
It was while Marnesia was in Marietta that a dispute arose among the members of the Company of Twenty-Four. We learn of this from a letter written by Marnesia to the Reverend Dom Didier in Gallipolis. Didier was a Benedictine monk of St. Maur whom Marnesia had recruited for his new city. The letter is dated November 17, 1790; it is quite lengthy, so we have trans- lated only the essential passage.
It is, Sir, with the request that you keep my letter secret that I have the honor of writ- ing you. You will learn from Mr. de Rome and Mr. Tailleur that the Company of Twenty-Four is, if not completely destroyed, at least badly shaken. I have been obliged to resign from it, out of the concern which I feel for the interests of my fellow countrymen. A number of my former associates wished to sacrifice these interests completely.... Mssrs. de Barth, Thiebault ... and de Malartic have come to an understanding, and General Putnam, who refused to deal with me, chose to negotiate with them.... They will leave Monday to go choose their lands, but their means for establishing a settlement are very limited: they have only themselves and their farmers, in all 44 persons.24
24. Scioto Papers, box 2, New York Historical Society. As for Pierre-Joseph Didier, he appar- ently stayed in Gallipolis until 1799, but may have moved on to Saint Louis and New Orleans. |
56 OHIO
HISTORY
Marnesia concluded by asking Didier to
choose either to remain with him or
to join with De Barth and his friends.
This letter suggests a second reason for
the failure of the Gallipolis settle-
ment to thrive: misunderstandings among
the members of the Company of
Twenty-Four. If each member had between
ten and fifty farmers, who were
committed to follow them, this would
seriously diminish the population of
Gallipolis. We know that Marnesia took
some farmers with him when he re-
turned to Fort Pitt in 1791,25 and De
Barth seems to have served as an agent
for d'Epremesnil for a settlement in the
state of Maine.
In November, 1795, Congress did try to
rectify the errors of the Scioto
Company by approving the French Grant,
which gave the Gallipolis settlers
other lands, 40 miles to the west of the
village. But, by that time, many of the
colonists of October, 1790, had moved farther
west, gone back to the larger
cities of the Eastern states, or had
returned to their native France.
See "A Vanished Bishopric of
Ohio," Catholic Historical Journal, II (April 1916-January 1917),
195-204.
25. After returning to France in 1792,
Lezay-Marnesia attempted to publish three lengthy let-
ters concerning his American experience.
The publication was stopped by the censors, and the
letters were published only in 1801: Lettres
ecrites des rives de l'Ohio. The first of these three
letters has been translated and
published by Virginius C. Hall, "A Rare Book," Bulletin,
Historical and Philosophical Society
of Ohio, IV (December, 1946), 9-16.
Details of Lezay-
Marnesia's life and career are available
in a recent study by Elizabeth Bourget-Besnier, Une
Famillefrancaise sous la revolution
et l'empire. La Famille de Lezay-Marnesia (1985).
edited and translated by
PHILLIP J. WOLFE and WARREN J. WOLFE
Prospects for the Gallipolis
Settlement:
French Diplomatic Dispatches
More than two centuries have passed
since Gallipolis, Ohio ("City of the
Gauls"), was founded by French
settlers. It was on October 17, 1790, that a
group of French immigrants first set
foot on the banks of the Ohio and found
some eighty log huts awaiting them. As
colonists of the Scioto Company,
they had arrived in Alexandria,
Virginia, and in other ports during the course
of the year 1790. Their exact number is
unknown, although they are often re-
ferred to as the "French Five
Hundred."1
Their story begins with the formation of
the Ohio Company and the Scioto
Company, established by Congress in 1787
to purchase and settle lands along
the Ohio River. The Scioto Company,
hoping to sell lands to Europeans, sent
Joel Barlow (1754-1812), a poet and Yale
graduate, to Paris the following
year. He took with him a booklet by the
Reverend Manasseh Cutler, of
Massachusetts, entitled A
Prospectusfor the Establishment of the Rivers Ohio
and Scioto in America, published in Salem in 1787, which described in glow-
ing terms the lands which were for sale;
Barlow had the work translated, and
the French version was published in
Paris in 1789.
Since Barlow was not very successful in
his recruitment efforts, he em-
ployed an Englishman, William Playfair,
as his assistant, and together they
organized a company known as the
"Societe du Scioto."2 The titles to the
Phillip J. Wolfe is Associate Professor
of Modern Languages at Allegheny College,
Meadville, Pennsylvania, and Warren J.
Wolfe is Professor Emeritus of Romance Languages at
Bowling Green State University, Bowling
Green, Ohio.
1. On the settlement of Gallipolis, one
should consult the recent publication written for the bi-
centennial anniversary of that city: Gallipolis,
Ohio: A Pictorial History, 1790-1990, by
Henrietta C. Evans, John E. Lester, and
Mary P. Wood (Charleston, West Virginia, 1990), espe-
cially ix-xiv, 1-15. For a more vivid
account of the lives of the Gallipolis settlers, one may read
The French Five Hundred, by William G. Sibley (Gallipolis, 1933; reprinted by
The Ohio
Historical Society in 1968).
2. Details of the transactions of the
Ohio and the Scioto Companies, as well as the French
Society of the Scioto, are to be found
in an article by Daniel J. Ryan, "The Scioto Company and
its Purchase," Ohio
Archaeological and Historical Publications, III (1891), (2nd ed., 1895),
109-
39. This publication, featuring
addresses and articles prepared at the time of the first centennial
celebrations, also contains an English
translation of the French edition of Cutler's pamphlet (pp.
82-108).