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<DIV>On Wed, 2 May 2001 <A
href="mailto:ddr11@COLUMBIA.EDU">ddr11@COLUMBIA.EDU</A> writes:</DIV>
<DIV><BR>> <A
href="http://www.doi.gov/bia/bar/cowlant.htm">http://www.doi.gov/bia/bar/cowlant.htm</A><BR>>
This is a very extensive document, filled with priceless <BR>>
information. To paraphrase Jack Nisbet without permission,</DIV>
<DIV>> it's good to see people acknowledging the presence of metis
</DIV>
<DIV>> in Washington State.<BR>> [. . . ]<BR>> [There are also
several mentions of Simon Plamondon in this <BR>> document]</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I thank you for posting this. I have no doubts of its priceless
content.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Many former Hudson's Bay Company employees settled in the Cowlitz -- my own
great great grandfather contemplated it when his daughter married at Fort
Vancouver in 1849 to a fellow named Simon Gill who may have been related to
Simon Plamondon; I say "may" because I'm still building a genealogical data base
of the HBC/Fort Langley employees and have not yet gone back beyond great
great grand uncle Simon Gill's parents, Thomas Gill and Catherine Basin.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Thanks to BC historian Bruce Watson, I have a break down of Fort
Langley's 109 employees:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>French-Canadian........30%</DIV>
<DIV>Hawaiians....................28%
</DIV>
<DIV>Mixed descent (Metis)..7%</DIV>
<DIV>Scottish</DIV>
<DIV>.............Orcadians*....... 9%</DIV>
<DIV>.............Highlanders........ 8%</DIV>
<DIV>.............Lowlanders....... 5%</DIV>
<DIV>Iroquois ......................... 5%</DIV>
<DIV>English** ....................... 7%</DIV>
<DIV>Other ............................. 2%</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>* From the Orkney Islands</DIV>
<DIV>** Includes English from both Great Britain and British North America</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>And from the footnotes of the Fort Langley Journal:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Simon Plamondon, Oliver Bouchard, Pierre Charles, and François Faniant from
Sorrel, Québec, Dominique Faron from Montréal, and Anawiskum Macdonald retired
in the Cowlitz Valley. Amable Arquoitte from Montréal, Louis Boisvert, and
Joseph Cornoyer from Sorrel retired in the Willamette Valley. Jame Baker
appears in the 1840's Clackamas county census. Laurent Suavé from
Vandreuil managed a dairy on the island that still bears his name at the
junction of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Of the above, Plamondon, Bouchard, Faniant, Faron, Boisvert, Cornoyer,
Suavé, and Arquoitte were Canadians; Charles was Abenaquois; Macdonald was York
Factory Indian; and Baker was from the Orkney Islands.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I am doing joint research with the descendants of Plamondon, Bouchard,
Charles, and Arqouitte, plus several others who share Fort Langley employee
ancestors, some of us we live in Washington state, some in Oregon, some in
BC, and a scatter across the continent. (Then there's the group in
Hawaii seeking the descendants of the Kanakas who left the Islands in the employ
of HBC who never returned.) As this research unfolds it is beginning to
look like the Canadiens at Fort Langley were all related to each other in one
way or another; something I read somewhere said that this happened more often
than not. One or two related men would sign on to the fur trade and then
later some how get word back home that "things were good" and other male
relatives would go sign on to the same fur company and manage to wind up at the
same post.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>One of the favorite recruiting areas was around Sorel because its
mostly Metis residents were The Best in the boat paddling trade. It was
little like trying to herd cats, but if you wanted to get there, and get
there FAST, you hired Metis. Many did not swim; a
non-swimming voyageur lost less cargo because they didn't tip as many
canoes. Sorel was part of the area dealt with in a seven volume
genealogical dictionary that covers from the founding of New France in 1608 up
through the 1700s; big families + small population base = lotsa
relatives. Most if not all of the guys who settled in the Cowlitz and the
Willamette were from families listed in this set.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Scholars of the fur trade period comment frequently about how the Canadiens
were "unmindful" of class restrictions. As the men took Native wives and
had families, new ties of kinship were created. The children of one
family would marry children of other families, and the men were godfathers to
each others children. One example of the latter is my great great
grandfather Etienne Pepin -- a Canadien and a Tradesman -- who had a
"servant" be godfather to his youngest child; the godfather -- Pierre Urno (aka
Renaud) -- was not only Canadien, he was also a relative.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>As for Simon Plamondon, well . . . the brief bio on him in The Fort Langley
Journals says he was among the first Hudson's Bay Company employees to farm
on Cowlitz Prairie, where he settled in 1837 with his second wife Emilie Bercier
(his 1st was a daughter of Scanewah, the 3rd Harriet Pelletier, a niece
of Roman catholic priest F.N. Blanchet). Simon lived to be 100 years
old, and I think Morag Maclachlan sums it up quite nicely in her closing
paragraph on Simon where she says:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>"Simon Plamondon's life spanned a period of enormous change. This
illiterate Canadien Voyageur was one of many who spanned the continent and made
possible the profitable fur trade. He served as a labourer and carpenter
at various forts. When the early settlers arrived, his experience was
highly valued until the cities began to grow and his skills were no longer
admired or needed. The story of his life reveals much about the clash
between the fur and settlement frontiers."</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Thus, with all this said, I contend that here *had* to be *some* common
language used amongst the fur trading forts in what is now Oregon, Washington,
and British Columbia, because with the ethnic diversity of the fur fort
employees and the linguistic diversity of the local folks, how else would they
have communicated? Hawaiian Peeopeeoh and his Kwantlen wife Catherine
appeared to have had no difficulty, and the FL Journals indicate that the
employees who got along with each other THE best were the Hawaiians and the
French-Canadians/Metis. Why not the Chinook Trade Jargon?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>So, now, I'm off to go look at <A
href="http://www.doi.gov/bia/bar/cowlant.htm">http://www.doi.gov/bia/bar/cowlant.htm</A> to
see how many relatives I can find. :)</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Lisa Peppan<BR>Edmonds, WA,
USA
ICQ #4894690<BR>Family Genealogy -- <A
href="http://members.tripod.com/~LisaPeppan/index.html">http://members.tripod.com/~LisaPeppan/index.html</A><BR>The
Children of Fort Langley -- <A
href="http://members.tripod.com/~LisaPeppan/FtLangleyChildren.html">http://members.tripod.com/~LisaPeppan/FtLangleyChildren.html</A><BR></DIV>
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