Ohio History Journal

LEE AND MARGARET SOLTOW

 

A Settlement That Failed: The French

in Early Gallipolis, an Enlightening

Letter, and an Explanation

 

Settlement by the French in Gallipolis, Ohio, began in 1790 with

great hope and optimism but ended in relative failure not more than a

decade later. By 1792, the 400 to 500 settlers had experienced dis-

ease, famine, harsh weather, and assaults by Indians; a more particu-

lar problem for them was their inability to obtain titles to the land on

which they had settled. Their dilemma may have been compound-

ed by the fact that the group was unable to adapt itself to the frontier

environment. Most writers on the subject of the French 500 make ref-

erence to the fact that the settlers were accustomed to urban living.

For instance, C.F. Volney classified them as belonging to the "better

sort of middle class" and speaks of "men brought up in the ease and

indolence of Paris." F.A. Michaux charged that not a "tenth part

was fit for the toils they were destined to endure."1

The settlement's population had dwindled to about 300 by 1796,

and there were relatively few French by 1800. In the Gallia District

tax list of Washington County for 1800, there were 43 names of French

among the total of 68, but no distinction is made between residents

and non-residents.² The 1806 tax list for Gallia County includes 16

French among its 145; supposedly all were residents, though this is

not absolutely clear.³ Of the 367 names in the list for 1810, there are

 

 

 

 

 

Lee Soltow is Professor of Economics at Ohio University. Margaret Soltow, his wife,

has worked with him for many years as researcher and editor.

 

1. C.F. Volney, A View of the Soil and Climate of the United States of America,

trans. C. B. Brown (New York and London, 1968), 323, 327; "Francois Andre Michaux's

Travels West of the Allegheny Mountains, 1802," Early Western Travels, 1748- 1846, ed.

Reuben Thwaites (Cleveland, 1904), 185.

2. "A Return of Lands made by Robert Safford, Commissioner for the District of

Gallipolis in the County of Washington, July 1, 1800," found in the archives of the

Ohio Historical Society, Series 62, Box 4, folder 29.

3. Esther Powell, Early Ohio Tax Records (Akron, 1971), 126.

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French in Early Gallipolis                                              47

 

25 French names that can be associated with settlers up to 1795.⁴ It is

difficult to ascertain the fate of the so-called 500; apparently some of

them returned to France, and others moved to various established

French locations on this continent, including Canada, New Orleans,

Illinois, or to French and Spanish Missouri;5 a number of them

moved to other parts of Ohio, notably to the French Grant in Green

Township of Scioto County.⁶

An Ohioan who is proud of his heritage can not help but be sad-

dened by this blot on the record of otherwise successful immigration

and settlement in the state. It is particularly difficult for a resident of

southeastern Ohio even to accept such a possibility when he reflects

on his surroundings of wooded hills and gentle streams, 200 years

ago the source of ample supplies of game, fish, and timber. In a coun-

try then so sparsely settled,⁷ there were abundant supplies of land,

and there was great promise in the area of commerce as increasing

numbers of people traveled the Ohio River between Pittsburgh and

Cincinnati or to points further west.

There must have been some peculiarity, some weakness in the case

of the settlement by the French 500 that led to their failure in a land

endowed with so many natural resources. First, one can allege that

not having land titles was a major stumbling block for these particular

settlers; yet, many settlers in other parts of the country lived on the

land in spite of titles still not cleared by the times of their deaths.⁸

From the standpoint of the Indian problem, it may be true that the

 

 

 

4. Ibid., 127-29.

5. Louis Houck, The Spanish Regime in Missouri, II (Chicago, 1909), 247, 392-402.

6. Nelson W. Evans, A History of Scioto County, Ohio, together with a Pioneer Rec-

ord of Southern Ohio (Portsmouth, Ohio, 1903), 712. Evans cites Keyes' report that

only 20 of the 100 who drew lots in the French Grant settled there.

7. In 1793, Moravian Missionary to the Indians, Mr. Heckenwelder, estimated that

there were 3220 persons north of the Ohio River. These included 350 in the Marietta

area; 80 at Belle Pre; 300 at Gallipolis, besides a garrison of 40 soldiers; 50 at Baker's

station; 1100 at Columbia at the mouth of the Little Miami; 900 in Cincinnati, besides

the army; 30 at South Bend; 250 at North Bend; 60 soldiers at Fort Steuben; 40 at

Clarksville; 50 at Freeman's, Dunlaps, and another station back of Cincinnati; and 70

settlers at several stations between Pittsburgh and the Muskingum. The population

would not have been greater than this in 1790. See The Territorial Papers of the United

States, ed. and comp. Clarence Edwin Carter, Vol. III, The Territory Northwest of the

River Ohio, 1787-1803 (Washington, D.C., 1934), 470.

8. Volney, View, 326; F.A. Michaux's "Travels" in Early Western Travels, 183-84;

"Andre Michaux's Travels into Kentucky, 1793-96," in Early Western Travels, 34-35;

American State Papers, Class 8, Vol. 1, 3rd Congress, 1st Session, March 24, 1794, 29;

William G. Sibley, The French Five Hundred (Gallipolis, 1933), 79-80; Works Progress

Administration, Gallipolis (Gallipolis, 1940), 20; Beverley W. Bond, Jr., The Founda-

tions of Ohio (Columbus, 1941), vol. 1, 304-05.

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48                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

settlers came to the region five years too early. Protection from savage

attacks by the Indians was not insured until after the Treaty of Green-

ville, signed on August 3, 1795.⁹ Finally, we must consider the major

charge against the French 500, namely, that they were ill-equipped to

endure the hardships imposed by life on the American frontier and

that they had come to America to escape the rigors of the French

Revolution in 1789. Beverley Bond, a prominent authority on early

Ohio, has stated flatly that "It would scarcely have been possible to

have found a group of settlers less fitted for the hardships of frontier

life than these French emigres." The group included several nobles,

army officers, shipowners, and lawyers; there also were artisans who

crafted such luxury items as sun dials, compasses, and carved man-

tels.10 Other authors expanded the list to include a watchmaker, a

number of physicians, jewelers, a few mechanics, "servants to the

exiled nobility," prosperous bourgeois, soldiers, farmers, gardeners,

wood-carvers, wig-makers, and "Some were indentured servants, en-

gaged to clear the forest and farm the fields: at the end of three

years' service they would receive fifty acres and a house and a cow."

In an effort to support the theory of the unsuitability of the French

500 to life on the American frontier, Daniel J. Ryan charges that "The

hardihood of the pioneers who came into the territory of the North-

west from New England, Pennsylvania and Virginia, was a capital

stock in all their enterprises which the more delicate and impractical

French never possessed."11

How can one judge if the socially prominent and the artisans in-

volved in the manufacture of luxury goods represented more than a

few of the French 500? How many of them had a rural orientation?

More to the point, how many of the settlers were able to adapt them-

selves to frontier conditions? In a new settlement, it was not necessary

for every man to be a farmer, nor for all farmers to work the farm 365

days a year. But did the "better class" hold itself aloof from manual

labor? Answers to such questions are difficult to establish. Some in-

formation of that nature comes from travel accounts, and some from

personal letters.

 

 

 

 

9. Randolph Chandler Downes, Frontier Ohio, 1788-1803 (Columbus, 1935), 48, 54.

For a personal view on the Indian menace, see "Memoir of Antoine Laforge," Ohio Ar-

chaeological and Historical Publications, 24 (1917), 43 to 51. He also records the popu-

lation of the settlement at 200 in 1792; see p. 49.

10. Bond, Foundations, 304.

11. Daniel J. Ryan, "The Scioto Company and its Purchase," Ohio Archaeological

and Historical Publications, 3(1891), (2nd. ed., 1895, 109-139), 109.

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French in Early Gallipolis                                    49

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50                                                    OHIO HISTORY

 

In the hope of increasing our understanding about living condi-

tions for the French 500, I offer a translation of extracts from a letter

written by a French woman, a Mrs. Marest, living in Gallipolis, to an-

other woman, addressed as Citizen Leuba, living in Paris, dated

1795. This translation, by Marie-Claire Wrage, a French-born resi-

dent of southeastern Ohio, does not deviate from the content of the

extract itself-that is, its inconsistencies are preserved. It should also

be pointed out that the French text is only a copy of parts of the origi-

nal letter; anyone who does historical research realizes that errors

creep into copies of any kind.

First, some background information might be useful in under-

standing this letter. There is no record of a Marest family in any of the

published lists of names which could have included members of the

French 500. The closest is Maret, Marret, or Marraet,¹² but the

Marest of the letter will be used throughout this paper to avoid possi-

ble confusion. The letter-writer speaks of each settler's owning 207

acres, later given as 217 acres; this refers to the French Grant in

Green Township, Scioto County, a 1795 donation, by Act of Congress,

to alleviate their suffering.¹³ The French buyers in Paris thought

that they had bought land, with clear titles of ownership, from the

agents of the Scioto Company which had acted on behalf of the

American parent company. Three intractable problems were a result.

First, the settlement in Gallipolis was actually located on Ohio Com-

pany land, not on that claimed by the Scioto Company; incomplete or

non-existent land surveys caused this misunderstanding. Second,

the agents in Paris were guilty of misrepresenting the documents as

"titles" when in fact they were only the right to purchase; neither

the Ohio Company nor the Scioto Company owned land at that

point. Congress would issue titles only for land which had been paid

for. The Ohio Company finally managed to finance part of its claim

and gain title, but this could never come to pass for the Scioto ven-

ture. The third problem was that one William Playfair, Paris agent for

the company, absconded with about a million francs to London,

 

 

 

12. John L. Vance, "The French Settlement and Settlers of Gallipolis," Ohio Ar-

chaeological and Historical Publications, 3(1891), (2nd. ed., 1895), 57-59; Powell, Tax

Records, 126-29; "Gallipolis District" tax list for 1800; Index to Ohio Tax Lists, 1800-

1810, eds. Ronald V. Jackson, Gary R. Teeples, and David Schaefermeyer, (Bountiful,

Utah, 1977), various pages; Ohio 1810 Tax Duplicate, ed. and comp., Gerald M. Petty,

(Columbus, 1976), various pages.

13. Debates and Proceedings, 3rd Congress (Washington, D.C., 1849) Appendix,

1531; William E. Peters, Ohio Lands and Their History, 3rd. ed. (Athens, Ohio, 1930),

199-201.

• 5
 

French in Early Gallipolis                                              51

 

which meant that the settlers' investments were lost, and the promo-

ters of the Scioto Company in this country ended in debtors' prison.

Ultimately, negotiations with the Ohio Company meant that certain

of the settlers were able to buy their properties in Gallipolis for about

$1.25 an acre.¹⁴

Seventeen ninety-five, then, was not the worst of times for those

who had remained in Gallipolis. Perhaps these "survivors" repre-

sented those most able to adapt to frontier conditions; perhaps they

were only those who could not afford to move elsewhere where they

would have had to buy land. We do know that there was no mass

movement to the French Grant, some 40 miles to the west of Gallipo-

lis, along the Ohio River; this land was available without cost except

for the expense involved in relocation-time, effort, and perhaps a

small amount of money.

In any case, Mrs. Marest's descriptions are sufficient for us to de-

velop some sense of the hopes and doubts about her experiences-

the moderate, practical tastes and desires of this sensitive woman.

Using her letter as evidence, the "better class" hypothesis can be

tested to some extent: were the requirements of this French settler

frivolous; or, on the other hand, was she responsible in her observa-

tions and reasonable in her requests, and, was she essentially not

 

 

 

 

14. Major E. C. Dawes, "The Beginning of the Ohio Company and the Scioto Pur-

chase," Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications, 4(1895), 14-29. Dawes states:

"In December, 1795, the shareholders of the Ohio Company held a meeting in Mariet-

ta to make a final division of its lands and other property. The citizens of Gallipolis

presented to them a petition asking that a town site be given to the settlers. This was

refused, but fractional sections, twenty-eight and thirty-four in town three, range four-

teen, including all improvements, were sold to them at $1.25 per acre." Page 29. A

translation of the enticing description of Ohio which the purchasers read in Paris can

be found in "Contemporary Description of Ohio in 1788," Ohio Archaeological and

Historical Publications, 3(1891) (2nd. ed., 1895), 82-100; explanatory notes follow. In

addition to the article by Daniel J. Ryan, more information about the Ohio and Scioto

Company dealings can be found in Theodore T. Belote, The Scioto Speculation and the

French Settlement at Gallipolis (1907, reprint, New York, 1971); Randolph C. Downes,

Frontier Ohio, 1788-1803 (Columbus, 1935); S.P. Hildreth, Pioneer History: Being an

Account of the First Examinations of the Ohio Valley, and the Early Settlement of the

Northwest Territory (1848, abridged edition, Athens, Ohio, 1968). (It would be better

to use the unabridged version, if available.) Also see Aaron M. Sakolski, Land Tenure

and Land Taxation in America (New York, 1957), 88-91;  , The Great American

Land Bubble (New York and London, 1966), 99-109; Walter Havighurst, Wilderness for

Sale (New York, 1956), 149-161; more general information can be found in Malcolm J.

Rohrbough, The Land Office Business, The Settlement and Administration of American

Public Lands, 1789-1837 (New York, 1968); Archer B. Hulbert, "Andrew Craigie and

the Scioto Associates," Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society new series, 23

(Oct., 1913), 222-36.

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52                                                         OHIO HISTORY

 

much, or significantly different from the average frontier woman at

that time?

Following the letter, I shall attempt to describe more fully some of

the conditions prevailing in this part of Ohio; statistics on acreage

ownership and housing conditions in 1798 in counties bordering the

Ohio River provide a supplement to the statistical description given

by Mrs. Marest. With the exception of footnote notations, the follow-

ing translation precisely follows the original French text. It is in the

collections of the Eleutherian Mills Historical Library, Greenville,

Delaware, item W 2-5654.

 

Extracts from a letter written in Gallipolis on September 24th 1795 by

Mrs. Marest to Citizen Leuba15 in Paris.

 

Note: Gallipolis is a newly built town on the banks of the Ohio,

across from the mouth of the Great Kanawha River, in the territory

north west of the Ohio River, United States of America.16

You must have received news of us through Mr. Monnot, who is

supposed to come back to America. We haven't heard anything from

him yet, about which we are sorry. That means one fewer worthy cit-

izen in the Colony. Besides, they have distributed land to the in-

habitants of Gallipolis and, since he isn't here anymore, he won't be

able to have any. It's too bad for him the distribution is over, if he

really intends to come back here.17

 

 

 

15. Charles D. Hazen, The French Revolution, vol. 2 (New York, 1932), 694. This au-

thor describes a law passed in Paris on September 17, 1793, the Law of Suspects; it

lists six classes of persons subject to immediate arrest-one of which was persons not

eligible for the certificate of "good" citizen. The titles of "Citizen" and "Citizenesse"

are found in the "Memoir of Antoine Laforge." The abbreviations of C. and Cne.,

were the designations used in Paris in 1797, as noted in footnote 1, page 47.

16. This note obviously was not written by Mrs. Marest. The original location of the

settlement was to have been opposite the mouth of the Great Kanawha River, but be-

cause the land was subject to flooding, the site of Gallipolis was moved downstream

about four miles to where the embankment was high enough to avoid that threat. See

Sibley, Five Hundred, 35.

17. Monnot is not among the names of those who received Gallipolis town lots on

January 20, 1791. See Vance, "The French Settlement," 56-59; this does not mean that

he was not in Gallipolis on that date, however. He signed the petition to Congress for

relief, dated December 22, 1792; see Territorial Papers, 425. He missed eligibility for

land in the first French Grant by not being in Gallipolis on November 1, 1795, but qual-

ified for land in the so-called Little French Grant under an act of Congress passed June

25, 1798. His name appears on a tax list from 1800 as owning 150 acres of second-rate

and 2346 acres of third-rate land. He paid tax in Gallia County in 1806, 1808. See "Re-

turn . .. Gallipolis District . .. 1800," Powell, Early Ohio Tax Records. On page 126, the

name appears as Monnet in 1806, and on page 128 as Mounot for the year 1810. His giv-

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French in Early Gallipolis                                      53

Each colonist here owns 207 acres of land on the banks of the Ohio. We owe this present to the Congress,18 you probably know that the Scioto Company went bankrupt. There are three of us; my husband Marest and our two sons,19 Joseph and Pierre Marest, each owning 217 acres, which amounts to 651 acres for the family. The land-surveyors are presently at work measuring the lots.20 Until now, we have been living on the lands of the Shareholders of the Ohio Company, which leads us to hope that we will get the lands we are occupying. To get this letter to you, since I am already worried     en name was Stephen. Also see Albion Dyer, First Ownership of Ohio Lands (Baltimore, 1969), 85. 18. Dyer, First Ownership, 85. 19. The name of Charles Vaux Maret appears on the Gallipolis town lot list for Janu- ary 20, 1791; see Vance, "French Settlement," 57. Signers of the petition in 1792 in- cluded C. Marret an P. Marret; see Territorial Papers, 425. The list of names of Gallipo- lis proprietors, prepared by Mr. Gervais in 1795, included "Marais," no given name; ibid., 505. Recipients in the French Grant, resident in Gallipolis on November 1, 1795, included, for Lot No. 9, Peter Marret, Sr.; for Lot No. 57, Basil Joseph Marret; and for Lot No. 68, Peter Marret, Jr. See Dyer, First Ownership, 84. It would seem that these last three were the names of Mrs. Marest's husband and two sons. 20. Evans reports that the land for the Grant was surveyed on April 9, 1796, by Absalom Martin. Except for the 4,000 acres awarded to Mr. Gervais who had labored on behalf of the petitioners, the lots were 217.39 acres each. Here, Evans states that not more than ten settled on the Grant. See History of Scioto County, 368.

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54                                                          OHIO HISTORY

 

about the one I entrusted to Mr. Monnot, I am taking advantage of

the trip of a trusty young man named Joitot,21 a friend of mine, who is

going back to France to visit his family; he will present you with a

beautiful Bison skin as a gift from us.

The country where we are has an abundance of all kinds of game:

wild turkeys especially are so numerous that Joseph, by himself,

since the beginning of July, that is to say in less than three months,

has killed more than 200. The turkeys weigh 16 to 18 pounds, some

as much as 30 pounds. Joseph and Pierre do a lot of fishing, which

brings variety to our menus. For besides turkeys, there are, as meat,

lots of deer, bears, buffaloes and doves. But since the streams are

teeming with fish, we prefer that catch, as it is much easier. Joseph

and Pierre have caught 12 fish in a single day. Each of these fish

weighed 16 or 18 pounds; some fifty-pounders were caught, and even

one 88-pounder; all that is caught by angling, and one becomes good

at it easily when there is hope of such total success.²²

We hear from our eldest, my dear Marest. He probably has been

affected by the fire at the Cape.²³ He was at the time in the offices of

the Administration.

Felicite is very well established, married to a 26-year-old man, who

comes from a good family, very clever and well educated.²⁴ Before

 

 

21. This name appears as Joitteau in the 1792 list of petitioners; see Territorial Pa-

pers, 425. Lewis Joiteau received Lot No. 38 in the French Grant; see Dyer, First Own-

ership. 84.

22. Milton B. Trautman, The Fishes of Ohio (Columbus, Ohio, 1981), 167, 174, 177,

256-57, 250, 472, 491. Possibilities for these fish include the lake sturgeon, paddlefish,

alligator gar, and the Ohio muskellunge which was known as pike and was regarded as

the "king of fish of the western waters," according to a quotation Trautman attributes

to S.P. Hildreth. In addition, blue catfish, channel catfish, and flathead catfish are in

the realm of possibility. Fish found in the Kanawha River were the black perch, salm-

on pike, grennel, blue cat, fine flavored buffalo fish, and a species of sturgeon. See Jo-

seph Martin, A New and Comprehensive Gazeteer of Virginia and the District of Colum-

bia (Charlottesville, 1835), 375 and 379.

23. A "fire at the Cape" would have had to be something generally known both in

France and in the United States. My guess is that the eldest Marest son had a govern-

ment job in Santo Domingo; in 1792, conflicts over political rights between whites, mu-

lattoes and Negroes resulted in a fire at Le Cap Francois, and was the reason for the em-

igration of many thousands to the United States or to Europe. See Frances S. Childs,

French Refugee Life in the United States, 1790-1800 (Baltimore, 1940), 10-13.

24. The name of Francis D'Hebecourt appears often in the Gallipolis stories. Helene

(Selter) Foure, in Gallipolis Ohio, Histoire de l'etablissement de cinq cents Francais dans

la vallee de l'Ohio a la fin du XVIIIe siecle (Paris, 1939), 64-65, presents a biographical

note about the apparently wealthy man. His marriage to Felicite took place the 16th of

September, 1795, she states, as did the marriage between Madeleine Francoise Maret

and Jean-Pierre Bureau. D'Hebecourt served as the first postmaster in Gallipolis,

among other things. In the 1800 tax list, it is stated that he owned 1100 acres of land

and paid $4.98 in tax. Another biographical sketch appears in Evans, Scioto County,

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French in Early Gallipolis                                               55

 

the revolution, he was an officer in the Queen's regiment, where his

father was a captain. The family is from Epernay, in Champagne,

their name D'Hebecourt. Felicite's husband is a commander in our mi-

litia. He receives forty dollars a month.²⁵ The dollar is worth just a

little less than 50 sols tournois and 3 deniers.²⁶ As for my husband

Marest, he is a soldier, as are his two sons, and between the three of

them, they make twenty dollars a month. Besides that, my husband

is a baker, so we live a respectable and comfortable life.

None of us has been ill since we left France.

The climate here is not bad at all for us, although it is very cold in

the winter and very hot in the summer.

Poverty doesn't exist here.

 

 

 

Also see Territorial Papers, 619.

25. In a letter dated November 26th, 1790, the territorial governor, St. Clair, wrote

to the Secretary of War, "I am persuaded that some protection will be necessary for

them [settlers] as well against the savages as at least to support civil authority, which

will be established in the settlement forming near the Kanawha, as soon as possible,

and in all the others, as they take place." The St. Clair Papers, and the Life and Public

Services of Arthur St. Clair, arranged and annotated by William Henry Smith, vol. 2

(Cincinnati, 1882), 195.

Under the Ordinance of July 13, 1787, Chapter 1, provision was made for a militia

that was to be formed: "All male inhabitants between the age of sixteen and fifty,

shall be liable to and perform military duty, and be formed into corps in the following

manner. Sixty four rank and file shall form a company. ... to each company, one cap-

tain, one lieutenant, one ensign, four serjeants [sic], four corporals, one drummer and

one fifer. . . . And whereas in the infant state of a country, defense and protection are

absolutely essential." See The Laws of the Northwest Territory 1788-1800, ed. Theodore

C. Pease, Law Series, Vol. 1 (Springfield, Ill., 1925), 1.

A further provision would have applied to Gallipolis: "And whereas in the present

state of the territory it is necessary that guards be established; the commander in

chief, and the commanding officers of counties, and of smaller districts shall make

such detachments for guards and other military duty as the public exigencies may in

his, or their opinion require." Ibid., 2.

There is a specific reference to D'Hebecourt by a traveler who stopped in Gallipolis

on November 10, 1795, Thomas Chapman: "This was a Military Station for 100 Sol-

diers during the Indian War, but the number is reduced now to 5, under the Com-

mand of Captain Derihecour, a Frenchman," quoted by John F. McDermott, "Galli-

polis as Travelers Saw It, 1792-1811," The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical

Quarterly, 48 (1939), 294. This article gives easy access to views of travelers at that time.

Edward Naret remembered that "a full company of the colonists was formed and

taken into active service under the territorial laws." See his History of the French Set-

tlers at Gallipolis, Ohio, in 1790 (Cincinnati, no date [1890?], 22.

26. John J. McCusker, Money and Exchange in Europe and America, 1600-1775

(Chapel Hill, 1978), 88; Joseph Lippincott, A Collection of Tables (Philadelphia, 1792),

41; and Documentary History of Banking and Currency in the United States, ed. Her-

man Kroos (New York, 1969), 155. One ecu de change was equal to three livre tournois

or to 60 sols tournois or to 720 denier tournois. In 1789, 1 livre was the equivalent of 181/2

cents; 1 sou, slightly less than one cent, and 1 ecu was worth 55.5 cents. A sol was the

same thing as a sou. A denier had almost no value, at 1/2 of a cent.

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56                                                 OHIO HISTORY

 

Sugar is 2 shillings a pound, coffee and chocolate three shillings.

Bread is 2 sols 6 deniers a pound. But at the height of summer, there

are short periods of drought when the mills can't grind, and then

bread goes up to 4 sols a pound.

Deer meat is worth 1 sol 6 deniers a pound. Bear meat is between 2

and 3 sols a pound. Medium-sized turkeys go for 12 sols and 9 sols,

and the smaller ones, which weigh only 4 or 5 pounds, go for 6 sols

apiece. Meat at the butcher's is 3 sols a pound. Pork is the same.

Wine isn't common, yet it can be obtained everywhere easily if you

are willing to pay. What you get is wine from Madeira. It costs about

half a dollar a bottle, about a petit ecu. French brandy is worth the

same price. Whisky or apple brandy is 12 sols a bottle. Peach bran-

dy, which is excellent, is worth 24 sols tournois or 2 shillings.

Some of our colonists make wine and sell it for 4 shillings a gallon (a

gallon contains 4 bottles Paris-size).²⁷

We don't need to be afraid of the savages any more, peace was

signed with them last month.²⁸

Good cheese is worth 9 sols a pound. Butter 12. Eggs right now are

1 sol apiece, and 8 deniers in the summer. A hen is worth 12 sols,

chicken 9 sols, ducks 4 sols 4 deniers. Hens lay eggs all year round ex-

cept for moulting season, and they set 3 or 4 times a year. A six-

month-old pullet begins to lay eggs and it broods right away, and

sometimes a nine-month-old pullet has had two broods.

Clothes are expensive here, but it doesn't bother us, because peo-

ple dress informally here.

Felicite is as tall as I am, but of a much bigger build. She is a good-

looking woman with a pretty face. You wouldn't recognize her; she

swims like a fish, she speaks English well. She may have the pleas-

ure of seeing you again soon, since her husband is still thinking of go-

ing back to France to see his family, and since they own property

there, they may stay.

As for my other children, Joseph, Pierre, Madeline, Marianne and

Eulalie, they have but one desire, to stay here, and my daughters of-

ten wish their cousins would come over too. As for good Maro-

 

 

 

 

27. It took only a short time for the French to discover that wine could be made

from wild grapes. They also had some success in cultivating grapes. The most efficient

way to market their crops of apples and peaches was to convert them to brandy. Refer-

ences to this subject appear in almost all of the articles about Gallipolis.

28. This is in reference to the Treaty of Greenville, signed on August 3, 1795. The cir-

cumstances leading to it are treated in Frontier Ohio, 48-54. The text of the treaty can

be found in Territorial Papers, 525-35.

• 11
 

French in Early Gallipolis                                               57

 

steau,²⁹ be sure to tell him that laborers are scarce here; they earn

half a dollar or 50 sols. Because it's easy to find work here, it's possi-

ble for a laborer to set money aside; but the lazy ones, let me tell you,

they would be even less well-off here than in France.

Our crops are corn, wheat, melons, cucumbers in abundance,

pumpkins, turnips, potatoes. One has trouble growing onions, but

parsnips, carrots, beans, peas, leeks and cabbages do very well.³⁰

Hard cider isn't expensive. Peach trees bear a lot of fruit, and fruit

trees grow so fast that a peach stone planted in the ground will pro-

duce a tree in four years, which bears fruit as early as that 4th year.

Peaches are most useful: they are made into brandy and a kind of

wine; they are dried for the winter and, cooked with a little maple

sugar, they make excellent stewed fruit.

Could you possibly have the following sent to me in a small crate

(but as cheap as possible): manna, emetic, some hipecanuana in a

small bottle, also in small bottles 3 or 4 ounces of jalap, in a leather

pouch 2 curved combs, 2 ivory ones, 2 ordinary snuff-boxes at 2 sols

apiece, some senna, some Epsom salts, some rhubarb, some german-

der, 50 sols worth of veronica.

You will be a tremendous help to me because in America medicine

is very rare, very expensive and, on top of all that, not very good. It

will be good if you can add some miramionnes unguent, or any dis-

solving unguent . . .31

 

 

 

29. It is obvious that Marosteau's identity can not be established within the context

of the letter. In doing the research for this article, I did not find this name in any other

connection.

30. The Scioto Company hired General Putnam and a company of men to build the

log cabins for the settlers, and, for a few months, hunters to supply them with fresh

game. There was a company store which supplied their other needs; evidently, after

the first two winters, the settlers became more self-sufficient. See Belote, Scioto Specu-

lation, 55; this author states that the French knew little about gardening, but visitors

to Gallipolis found them to be proficient at raising vegetables and fruit. McDermott

quotes these observations in "As Travelers Saw It," 286, 291, 296.

31. Besides bleeding, induction of vomiting and purging were used to treat most dis-

eases in the eighteenth century. Manna was used as a children's laxative; emetic (or

tartar emetic) was used to cause vomiting; jalap, epsom salts, senna, and rhubarb were

either chemical or botanic purgatives; germander was used for swollen glands and in-

termittent fevers; veronica was used as a diuretic, expectorant, and tonic as well as in

nephritic complaints and in diseases of the skin and wounds; unguents were used for

diseases of the skin. It is possible that the specific unguent Mrs. Marest asked for was

made by a religious order, disbanded during the French Revolution, but restored in

1797. See N.J.B.G. Guibourt, Histoire Naturelle des Drogues Simples, 7ed., vol. 2 (Par-

is, 1876), 523; Finley Ellingwood, American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharm-

acognosy (Chicago, 1919), 152, for the uses of hypericum: sore muscles, tenderness of

spinal column, etc. This is the closest I can come to the elusive "hipecanuana." Harold

B. Gill, The Apothecary in Colonial Virginia (Charlottesville, 1972), 47; Horatio C.

• 12
 

58                                                         OHIO HISTORY

 

Frontier Phenomena in Gallipolis and in Areas Contiguous to

Ohio

 

Both facts and legends about the French settlers in Gallipolis are

promoted in numerous books and articles dealing directly or indi-

rectly with the French Five Hundred, the Scioto Company, the

Northwest Territory, county histories, tax lists, and the like. Reports

on the numbers of settlers vary from 500 to 600 families, down to the

most-often used and convenient number, 500 persons. Perhaps we

should rely on the estimates given in the December 22, 1792. "Peti-

tion to Congress," which stated that "Out of a thousand or twelve

hundred persons, who seduced by the advantageous Offers of the

Scioto Company emigrated into America, Four hundred only arrived

at Gallipolis, and yet that Number is now reduced to Two hundred

and fifty Individuals.^"32 Some authors lead us to believe that the

group arrived, intact, in Gallipolis on October 17, 1790. Other reports

state that parts of the group had wintered in Pennsylvania and in

Marietta, arriving in spring of the next year. A few stragglers left

France after the departure of the main group, but the time of their ar-

rival is not so specifically stated. There are reports of slippage from all

groups from the time of their arrival in this country. It is not the pur-

pose of this article to rehash the old debates, but to look at evidence

available to us to see if there are any bits of information which can

serve as additional background in understanding why the settlement

failed to thrive. It seems to be an overstatement to say that the settle-

ment failed.

 

 

 

 

Wood, Jr., The Dispensatory of the United States of America, 21st ed. (Philadelphia

and London, 1926), 1141, 1501, 1521; Atlantic Merchant-Apothecary, Letters of Joseph

Cruttenden 1710-1717, ed. I.K. Steele (Toronto and Buffalo, 1977), Letter 97, note I and

Letter 101, note 1; Larotusse du XXe Siecle, public sous la direction de Paul Auge, vol. 4

(Paris, 1931), 896. Background information on the treatment of diseases can be found in

Howard Dittrick, "The Equipment, Instruments and Drugs of Pioneer Physicians in

Ohio." The Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, 38 (1939), 198-218; and in

Lester Snow King, The Medical World of the Eighteenth Century (Chicago, 1958), 124,

128, 129, 131, 314. Snow states that there was a constant struggle against fevers during

that century and that treatment was essentially symptomatic, "to expel the morbid

matter." Also common was arthritis, treated with elixir of guaiac, wine of antimony,

tincture of opium, calomel, scilla, jalap, and powered rhubarb.

It appears that Mrs. Marest had medical skills, short of blood-letting, roughly

equivalent to those of the physicians. There were physicians among the settlers; Dr.

Jesse Bennet established a practice at Point Pleasant in 1797, reported (erroneously?) to

be "the only physician within a radius of 50 miles." See Otis K. Rice, The Allegheny

Frontier, West Virginia Beginnings, 1730-1830 (Lexington. 1970), 201.

32. Territorial Papers, 247.

• 13
 

French in Early Gallipolis                                   59

 

Because the main group consisted of some families as well as men

indentured by the Scioto Company itself or by individuals who

could afford the luxury of paying for the labor necessary to settle on

virgin land, the ratio of females to males in the settlement's population

probably was quite low. Why should this be a matter of interest?

The normative behavior was for men to establish households, and

to hope for a family of children who could contribute to the family's

labor pool. But how rare a person was the eligible adult female in

Gallipolis, and did a shortage of women contribute to the demise of

the settlement? In stories about the town's families we read that mar-

riages did take place there from the earliest days, and marriages are

recorded in Washington County records almost from the begin-

ning.³³ This is evidence that there were at least a few unattached

women; as deaths changed the nature of family groups, widows and

widowers formed new families, in information obtained from bio-

graphical sketches. But in the face of no concrete data, we must con-

sider some ratios of females to males among adults 26 years old and

over in other parts of the country, gleaned from the Federal Census of

1800. For the entire country, this ratio was .95; for Connecticut, 1.09;

New York, .91; Maryland, .91; Massachusetts, 1.11; and for Virginia,

.93. In general, agriculture was the basis of the economy in these

long-established states, some without and some with slave popula-

tions. (Slaves were prohibited in the Northwest Territory.)³⁴

For less-developed areas more entirely dependent on agriculture,

but where it is less likely that there was excess product beyond the

family's needs (if, indeed, such product could have been marketed),

this ratio was about .70 in Ohio and .75 in Washington County, in-

cluding the Gallipolis District. For Kanawha County, which includ-

ed the area immediately across from Gallipolis, the ratio was only .78.

One cannot define a frontier area simply by referring to a low female/

male ratio, but one visitor in June, 1794, did observe that there were

about "ninety or ninety-five men and forty to forty-five women" in

the settlement.³⁵ It should be noted that by this date, the popula-

tion of the settlement had continued to decline. In 1793, it was re-

ported that in Gallipolis there were "about 300 souls, besides a garri-

 

 

33. Ohio Marriages, extracted from the Old Northwest Genealogical Quarterly, ed.

Marjorie Smith (Thompson, Ill., no date), various pages; Washington County Marriage

Records, 1789-1865, Microfilm GR 1546, Ohio Historical Society.

34. Laws of the Northwest Territory, Ordinance of 1787, Chapter C, Article VI, p. 130,

stipulates that "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said

territory."

35. McDermott, "As Travelers Saw It," 291.

• 14
 

60                                                OHIO HISTORY

 

son of 40 soldiers."³⁶ While the evidence from various accounts is in

conflict, observers were unanimous in the opinion that the decline

was greater than should have been expected. But this does not mean

there was no natural replenishment. Two visiting priests in November

of 1793 were reported as having baptized forty children.³⁷

Just where was the slippage in the population of Gallipolis? (Alas,

the question, for what reason, remains unanswerable for most specific

cases.) In the absence of formal census lists, we can substitute four

lists of the settlers that are preserved in secondary sources; compari-

sons of them might provide a bit of insight. These lists are: (I-) dated

January 20, 1791, "A numeral list of the town lots of Gallipolis, with

their original disposition."³⁸ It includes about 123 males and 4 wom-

en; lack of clarity in spelling and many repetitions add to the con-

fusion. (II-) dated December 22, 1792, "Petition of the French in-

habitants of Gallipolis praying the interposition of Government in

confirming the titles to certain Lands purchased of William Duer

Agent for the Sciota [sic] Company."³⁹ This is a list of about 100 sur-

names only. (III-) dated February 25, 1795, "List of Gallipolis Propri-

etors . . . as far as Mr. Gervais can . . . recollect,"⁴⁰ not very useful

because Gervais could account for only 42 of 125 inhabitants or pur-

chasers, and his account of acreage is 16,570 acres, rather short of

the 25,000 the French paid for. (IV-) "A List of the French inhabi-

tants and Actual Settlers of the Town of Gallipolis; being males above

eighteen years of age or widows, who were . . . within the said Town

of Gallipolis on the First day of November 1795."⁴¹ This list shows

92 names, plus eight others who were absent that day but who quali-

fied, under an act of Congress in 1798, for land in the so-called "Lit-

tle French Grant."

In comparing the lists we note a predominance of male names and

that many who were in the town in 1791 or 1792 did not wait until

1795 for their wish to be fulfilled-title to land, albeit not the land on

which they had originally settled. By name-matching, one deduces

that many of those who left in the first three years or so had not been

among the original investors. The fourth list includes male children

of the original settlers because they had reached the age of eight-

een and thus qualified for a grant. There were 46 matches or near-

 

 

36. Territorial Papers, 470.

37. McDermott, "As Travelers Saw It," 290.

38. Vance, "French Settlement," 57-59.

39. Territorial Papers, 424-25.

40. Ibid., 505-06.

41. Dyer, First Ownership, 84-85.

• 15
 

French in Early Gallipolis                                         61

 

matches between lists one and four, and 56 between lists two and

four, which proves very little except that the exodus was not a mass

movement at one point in time; such an exercise shows who left, but

again, does not provide us with reasons for their leaving. And it

leaves unanswered the matter of the numbers of deaths, and when

they died, among the settlers.

In the face of little factual evidence about Gallipolis, we must con-

sider conditions prevailing along the Ohio River at that time as a

proxy for the Gallia District experience. We turn to the Federal inven-

tory of real estate belonging to individuals in the United States in

1798, taken in connection with America's first tax on real estate, to es-

tablish a subsitute data set. (The inventory had not included the

area of Ohio because it was not yet a state. An estimated population of

3220 persons, besides the troops, on the north side of the Ohio River

in 1793 gives some idea of the sparcity in population,⁴² though it was

increasing rapidly in the period between 1793 and 1798. In the Sec-

ond Federal Census of 1800, Washington County's population totaled

5127, while that of Ohio had grown to 45,365.) The data for the nine

counties along Ohio's borders in 1798 make it possible to formulate

some inferences about economic conditions generaly prevailing in the

region.

These nine border counties in 1798 were in the states of Pennsylva-

nia, West Virginia (belonged to Virginia until after 1863), and Ken-

tucky; data for them are given in Table 1. We see that the number of

privately-owned (private) acres was indeed bountiful; however, al-

lowance should be made for the fact that the average was greatly in-

flated because of speculators and other non-resident ownership. Be-

cause of the terrain, rivers were the principal means of transportation

for both settlers and Indians; vulnerability to attack was the greatest

reason for the sparse population until after the Greenville Treaty in

1795.⁴³

 

 

 

42. Territorial Papers, 470. Laws of the Northwest Territory, Chapter C, p. 129, states

that "whenever any of the said states shall have sixty thousand free inhabitants

therein, such state shall be admitted by its delegates into the Congress of the United

States, on an equal footing with the original states in all respects whatsoever."

43. Mason County was formed in 1804 from part of Kanawha; the latter county's

ever-changing area contributed to the formation of eleven new counties in the state be-

tween 1804 and 1856. It was inevitable that Washington County, Ohio (in which

Gallipolis was located in 1790, until the formation of Gallia County in 1803), suffer the

fate of subdivision, too. In 1788, Governor St. Clair laid out the area of the first county

in the Northwest Territory as the land between the border of Pennsylvania and west

to the Scioto River, and north from the Ohio River to Lake Erie, followed by Hamilton

in 1790, and Jefferson and Adams in 1797. See Handy Book of Genealogists, ed. George

• 16
 

62                                                        OHIO HISTORY

 

 

TABLE 1

NINE COUNTIES BORDERING OHIO IN 1798;

ACREAGE AND HOUSING CONDITIONS

 

Private  Price per acre Number of houses in each of 5 value classes

acres per Land   Land

male 21                                  and    $15- $100-           $500- $1,000- $3,000-

and                                     housing                            499               1,000  3,000  6,000

older

Pennsylvania

Allegheny                   42                $4.27         $5.17          1,288            347               80                 46      7

Washington                85                4.70            5.03             2,549            669               26                 14

Greene                           139              2.90            3.04             926               171          1

West Virginia

Brooke                          98                3.07            3.33             n.s.                117

Ohio                              786              .58                  .62            n.s                 78                 3      4

Wood                            2,054          .34                  .35            n.s.                75                 4

Kanawha                      6,133          .29                  .29            n.s.                17

Kentucky

Mason                           861              .90                  .93            1,165            169               37     14      2

Harrison                       569              1.19           1.21             1,156            69                 5

Source: Lee Soltow, "America's First Progressive Tax," National Tax

Journal 30:1 (Mar., 1977), 53-58. Descriptions of data appear in Na-

tional Archives and Records Service, United States Direct Tax of

1798: Tax Lists for the State of Pennsylvania (Pamphlet accompanying

Microcopy No. 372), Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office,

1963; Annals of Congress, Vol. 9, 5th Cong., 3rd Sess., Acts of July 4

and 14, Appendix pages 3757-86. Also see Timothy Pitkin, A Statistic-

al View of the Commerce of the United States (1816: reprint, New

York, 1967), 377-78. Further details are given in my article, "Housing

Characteristics on the Pennsylvania Frontier: Mifflin County Dwelling

Values in 1798," Pennsylvania History, 46 (Jan., 1980), 57-70 and

"Land Speculation in West Virginia in the Early Federal Period:

Randolph County as a Specific Case," West Virginia History, 44

(Winter, 1983), 111-34.

 

The data in the table show that the per-acre value of land was

greater where the average holdings were smaller in size. Does this

mean that the land was less fertile, and thus smaller in value (29¢) in

the area of Gallipolis/Kanawha? In general, the data probably are in-

 

 

B. Everton, Sr. (Logan, Utah, 1971), 246-48, and 175-79; Malcolm J. Rohrbough, The

Trans-Appalachian Frontier, People, Societies, and Institutions, 1775-1850 (New York,

1978), 73; and Rice, Allegheny Frontier, 69-70.

• 17
 

French in Early Gallipolis                                            63

 

dicative of the degree of settlement more than anything else, though

it is recognized that land in Kanawha County is not the best,⁴⁴ and

observers at the time stated that Gallipolis land was far from desira-

ble.⁴⁵ Certainly it fell short of the Garden of Eden image promised in

the prospectus the purchasers had read in Paris. Investors in the

Ohio Company also erred in selecting land along the Ohio River.

While it was accessible for people traveling on the river, the more fer-

tile land in Ohio did not lie within the area of the company's hold-

ings. Another problem the land companies faced was that they had

control over huge quantities of land and could not be selective.⁴⁶

It is well known that surveyors on the frontier often selected prime

land for themselves. One such surveyor was George Washington who

had claimed certain fertile sites along the Kanawha River and other

places, reportedly worth more than $200,000.⁴⁷ In 1807, Fortescue

Cuming made a tour down the Ohio River and noted that the banks

of the Ohio River in the area of Gallipolis were thinly settled.

I cannot account for the right shore not being settled, as it is part of the Ohio

Company's purchase; but the reason on the Virginia side is, that the heirs of

General Washington to whom that valuable tract descended on his death,

ask for it no less than ten dollars per acre, so that it will probably remain in its

savage state as long as land can be purchased cheaper in its neighborhood

· . . Point Pleasant . . . does not thrive on account of the adjacent country not

settling so fast as the opposite side in the state of Ohio, where lands can be

bought in small tracts for farms, by real settlers, at a reasonable rate, where-

as the Virginia lands belonging mostly to wealthy and great landholders, are

held at four or five times the Ohio price.... The town Gallipolis does not

thrive."48

 

 

 

 

44. Martin, Gazeteer, 388. It is reported that the land surface of Mason County, cre-

ated in 1804, was "much broken, but much of the soil is of good quality." These early

reports were far from scientific in their soil evaluations.

45. McDermott, "As Travelers Saw It," quotes from General Collot, a 1794 visitor:

"The town is situated in a platform covered with stagnant waters, which renders this

spot extremely unhealthy; and the quality of the land is bad, being light and sandy."

Page 291.

46. Fortescue Cuming, Sketches of a Tour to the Western Country, ed. Reuben G.

Thwaites, Vol. IV in the series, Early Western Travels: 1784-1846 (Cleveland, 1904),

124. Cuming states that "The greatest part of the Ohio Company land was broken and

hilly, and the hills mostly poor, compared with those farther to the westward. The

Company had chosen land not more than 20 to 30 miles from the Ohio, thinking that

its proximity would add to its value, but once Ohio started to be settled, the rich level

interior lands were preferred for settlement."

47. George W. Atkinson, History of Kanawha County (Charleston, W.Va., 1876),

200-01.

48. Cuming, Sketches, 132, 142, 147-149.

• 18
 

64                                                   OHIO HISTORY

 

The year was 1807, and Cuming found that bricks were being made

in Gallipolis for a courthouse; that only about 20 French families re-

mained; and that many had "fallen victims to the climate." Further

down the river, he found rich bottom land on both sides, and that

the settlers from New England seemed "to be the most economical

and industrious."⁴⁹

Cuming later traveled by land from his 1000-acre Ohio holding, 6

miles from Maysville, Kentucky. He found that his land was "sur-

rounded by fine farms, some settled for ten years . . . in quality and

situation not exceeded by any in this fine country," and that the

land north of Chillicothe was "as fine soil as anywhere in America,

partly cultivated and part in native forest.^"50 This is in confirmation

of the evidence presented in Table 1-that one had to move north or

west of Gallipolis to obtain more valuable land.

The Gallipolis stories repeat, ad infinitum, the miseries of living in

the log huts constructed by the Scioto Company for the use of the

settlers upon their arrival. Surely the company had not intended for

the cabins to be permanent, but they were in use for many years; and

significantly better housing was not possible until a later time. But

what quality of house was reasonable for the area? Although the

1798 inventory of housing values does at least provide a clue to living

conditions in the general area at that time, it is difficult, if not impos-

sible, to pinpoint the average value of a house because the numbers

of houses under $100 in value were not stated for the counties of

Virginia. Nevertheless, Kanawha County was the only one among the

nine counties not reporting a single house with a value of more than

$500, strongly indicating that either poor conditions prevailed in the

region or that the economy had not developed sufficiently to support

luxury housing. (One wonders about the famous estate of Harmon

Blennerhassett and where it would fit in the data of the table. He

had purchased his Ohio River island property in 1798 and lived in a

log house already on the site until the manor house was finished in

1800; it lay in the Wood County Tax District.)⁵1 There is nothing to

indicate that the citizens of Marietta lived in luxury, either.⁵² One

 

 

49. Ibid., 149-152.

50. Ibid., 201, 215. Cuming makes the observation that lands along the roads were

badly settled for the reason "that they belong to wealthy proprietors, who either

hold them at a very high price, or will not divide them into convenient sized farms."

See p. 212.

51. S.P. Hildreth, Memoirs of the Early Pioneer Settlers of Ohio (Cincinnati, 1852),

494. Blennerhassett bought 170 acres of the island for $4,500.

52. In his travels in 1807, Cuming noted that there were 97 houses in Marietta on the

left bank of the Muskingum and 30 on the opposite bank. The counts included a court

• 19
 

French in Early Gallipolis                                       65

 

can view Rufus Putnam's house in the Campus Martius Museum in

that city, but its impressiveness has to be tempered by the under-

standing that his house was not that of the average person on the

frontier.

As we continue to grope with the charge of failure for the Gallipolis

group, it would perhaps be informative to consider the fate of other

new French settlements in the United States at about the same time,

for purposes of comparison. In brief, estimates of the numbers of refu-

gees from the French Revolution vary widely, from 10,000 to 25,000.

(The majority came and left between federal census years and thus

escaped enumeration.) Most of the refugees settled mainly in the At-

lantic seaboard towns and presumably returned to their native coun-

ty when less hositle conditions prevailed there. Comparable to Galli-

polis were the inland colonies along the Black and Chenango Rivers

in New York, on the Susquehanna at Asylum, and at Fontaine Leval,

Maine. The New York settlers had held title to their lands, only to

have the right to ownership by non-citizens revoked by the New

York Legislature. Other common factors were poor land in out-of-the

way locations and a lack of success in colonization. By 1802, these

colonies all had ceased to function; that is not to say, however, that a

family or two had not left a few roots.⁵³ By comparison, Gallipolis

was a fair success, as evidenced by the lot of several of its settlers.

Let us consider some data from a Tax List of the Gallipolis Territory

of Washington County in 1800. The list shows 68 names, acreage

owned, classified by number of acres in each of three qualities, tax

paid, etc. Data for 43 of the owners who could be classified as be-

longing to the French group appear in Table 2. Remember that any of

them who owned land at that time in Gallipolis had purchased it

from the Ohio Company. The company did not make gifts of land to

the long suffering French! After all, Gallipolis was not their problem.

The evidence from the data is somewhat mixed in that it appears

that a few people owned large amounts of land and that more people

owned smaller amounts; the median holding for the 43 owners was

 

 

 

house, a market house, an academy, and a post office. Most of the houses were of

wood construction, but some were of brick, and there were some large houses. In

passing through Lancaster in 1809(?) he found 60 houses, a court house, 6 stores, and

9 taverns. He also made the generalization that the best houses in this country "are in-

habited by lawyers." See Sketches, 123, 222.

53. Childs, Refugee Life, 63-70. This author presents a list of French groups who

were aided by an act of Congress in 1794, amounting to about $5.00 per person; these

people had been regarded as destitute and lived along the eastern seaboard; see p.

89. Also see T. Wood Clarke, Emigres in the Wilderness (New York, 1941), 29-140.

• 20
 

66                                              OHIO HISTORY

 

TABLE 2

ACREAGE OWNED BY 43 FRENCH PERSONS IN THE DISTRICT

OF GALLIPOLIS IN WASHINGTON COUNTY, JULY 1, 1800

 

Total acreage     Number of         Total of         Number of

owners                 first-class                       owners

acreage

 

1,000 and up                               3                    100 and up                            3

500- 999                                  4                                                          10 - 99                   1

200- 499                                  16                  7 - 7.9                                    1

100 - 199                                5                    6 - 6.9                                    3

20- 99                                    4                                                          5 - 5.9                    2

10 - 19                                  3                    4 - 4.9                                    1

5-   9                                    7                                                          3-3.9                      4

3                                          1                    2 - 2.9                                    7

43                                                           1 - 1.9                    3

under 1                                       5

32

Median

acreage 221                   3.3

 

Source: Archives-Library Division, Ohio Historical Society, Newly-

classified Series 62, Box 4, folder 29.

 

221 acres. The 1800 tax list shows that the 25 non-French owners

had average holdings somewhat larger than was the case for the

French; but, again, a very few persons had large holdings so that

there was wide dispersion from the average. In the absence of census

lists to match with lists of taxpayers, we are left with the unanswera-

ble question of how many propertyless French still lived in the Galli-

polis District or in the rest of Ohio. Name matching between various

tax lists from later dates and the list of original inhabitants (1791) and

the list of persons eligible for land in the French Grant (1795) shows,

respectively, 30 and 40 names of persons who paid taxes in Ohio,

mainly in the period through 1810. After that date there is a much

smaller likelihood of matching because of the lapse of twenty years.

Another problem is knowing where the taxpayers actually lived: be-

cause their names were on tax duplicates for a certain county does not

mean that they were residents of that county.

The French Grant itself, 40 miles west of Gallipolis along the Ohio

• 21
 

French in Early Gallipolis                                    67

 

River, was of land without cost to the settler other than expenses and

the effort of actually moving and reestablishing himself. But this was

not attractive to very many; the number of families who relocated is

usually reported to be about ten. In 1903, Nelson W. Evans found

that there were five Gallipolis-French surnames through paternal

lines, and in his research for biographical information, he found 11

links to Gallipolis through maternal lines.⁵⁴

 

A Conclusion About Gallipolis

 

The evidence seems rather compelling that poor land in the Galli-

polis region in 1798 contributed to the lack of success for the colony.

Perhaps any group of that size would have moved elsewhere, consid-

ering all of the circumstances, had it been of French, English, Ger-

man, or American origin. It is difficult to substantiate the charge that

the French were indeed ill-equipped to cope with the difficulties of

their lives; in fact, many of the settlers had skills or occupations

which proved to be either the sole means of support or were useful as

a supplement to living from the land's produce. Most authorities on

frontier life concur in the opinion that the first few years of settlement

are unbearably difficult. It would seem that personal motivation was

a strong determinant-those who wanted to transplant the French

way of life to the banks of the Ohio were those who left for New

Madrid, Louisiana, or for France. For those who were successful in

adapting themselves to frontier conditions, the choices were to main-

tain an urban way of life, buy Gallipolis land from the Ohio Company,

or move to the French Grant in Scioto County. Being able to trace so

many of the French names in tax lists the first two decades after their

arrival leads to the conclusion that the settlement was not a dismal

failure. One needs to study attrition rates of other frontier settlements

at the time before being able to make an absolute judgment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

54. Evans, History, 368. In 1810 in Green Township, the location of the French

Grant, there were 507 persons, mainly "Yankees." It was very attractive to prospective

purchasers because the surveys had already been made. (Settling on unsurveyed land

could be a risky business, needless to say.) Ibid., 367.

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