GEORGE ROGERS CLARK Selected Papers From The 1987 And 1988 George Rogers Clark Trans-Appalachian Frontier History Conferences

Few settlements in New France played a more pivotal role in the history of North America than the town of Vincennes. Situated on the Wabash River, it was an important link in the network of French trading posts serving the area that now includes the modern states of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. By the middle of the eighteenth century, it also had become one of the prizes in the Anglo-French imperial competition. At the conclusion of the Great War for the Empire, Vincennes, like the rest of the French trade network, passed into British hands in the Treaty of Paris of 1763. By the time Toussaint Dubois arrived in Vincennes around 1780, the town already had become part of the United States, thanks to the heroics of George Rogers Clark, who captured it in 1779 with the assistance of the French inhabitants.

It is my purpose in this paper to show that Toussaint Dubois, though a relative newcomer in the community, quickly became a civic leader of importance and founded a modest political dynasty that would endure through three generations. For well over a 100 years, Toussaint, his son Jesse K. Dubois, and his grandson, Fred T. Dubois, were actively engaged in public service. As the patriarch of a family devoted to politics, Toussaint set the example by his long career in Indiana and his close ties with the family of William Henry Harrison. Jesse K. Dubois, in turn, served with distinction in Illinois, where he held important state offices and counted Abraham Lincoln among his personal friends. Finally, Fred T. Dubois used these early personal and political connections with the Harrison and Lincoln families to advance his own career in Idaho and in the United States Senate.

The Dubois family probably came to the New World sometime in the 18th century, though the exact date and their point of origin in France remain obscure. Charles and Cecile Dubois settled a few miles southwest of Montreal in the town of Point Claire, where their four sons — Jean Baptiste, Francois, Toussaint and Joseph grew to manhood in a typical French-Canadian Catholic milieu. The third son, Toussaint, was born about 1750. As a young man, he developed the business skills and facility for trade with the Indians that were to be the hallmarks of his later career. His understanding of, and sympathy for, the Indian cultures were crucial to his success as a businessman. Later, they would be valuable assets in negotiating with the natives in times of great tension. In this way they formed a natural bridge between his business career and his public service. I shall examine briefly each of these facets of the life of Toussaint Dubois and show that his public service set a pattern for such endeavors and a legacy for future generations of the family.

The origins of Toussaint Dubois and the time of his arrival in Vincennes still are not entirely clear. One story passed down to the family and told to me originally by Fred Dubois' younger daughter, Margaret (she usually was called Toussaint by the way), says that he came to the United States with the French troops brought over by Lafayette at the time of the American Revolution. [1] This version also appears in George R. Wilson's History of Dubois County published in 1910. [2] The story has a natural appeal and makes a romantic beginning for the Dubois family in America. Thus far, however, I have been able neither to confirm nor to refute the story. It may well be true, but I have had no luck in trying to verify it. The story also was repeated in a letter I received from yet another descendant of Toussaint Dubois. [3]

Part of the confusion stems from a 1912 article by Helen L. Allen. She lists Toussaint as one of three sons of Jean Baptiste Dubois and his wife Euphrayse [sic] who had come to New France sometime before 1740. The couple, according to this account, brought their three sons, Francois, Joseph and Toussaint to Lower Canada. She speculates that Toussaint, and his brothers may have returned to France for a time and that at some later date Toussaint came back to the New World to engage in the Indian trade, a business that ultimately brought him to Vincennes. Unfortunately, this is sheer speculation for which no evidence is adduced. Moreover, Allen errs in identifying Toussaint's parents. The records from St. Francis Xavier Parish include a notation of Toussaint's marriage to his first wife in October 1788. The marriage register describes Toussaint as a "native of the town of Montreal in Canada, Diocese of Quebec, son of the late Charles Dubois and Cecile Courret." [4] Thus far, I have been unable to find any other reference to them in parish records from Canada. Several of the accounts report that Toussaint came from Lower Canada, but only one mentions a specific place. In an obituary of his son, Jesse K. Dubois, that appeared in the Springfield, Illinois, Daily State Journal, Toussaint is described as having come from Point Claire, Canada, a town approximately 15 miles southwest of Montreal on Montreal Island in the St. Lawrence River. [5] Nor is it clear just when Toussaint Dubois was born. The newspaper obituary just referred to says he was born "about 1750." Thus far, I have been able to locate only two other sources that list a birthdate for him. The Lineage Book of the Daughters of the American Revolution gives his birthdate as 1755, while Joseph H. V. Somes says Toussaint was born in 1764. The former is feasible, but the latter seems too late. Neither date is documented and I as yet have found no source to corroborate either. [6]

If there still is confusion concerning the time and place of his birth and the manner of his coming to the New World, there is also some difficulty in determining the date of his arrival in Vincennes and the route by which he came to the banks of the Wabash. The obituary notice already referred to says that he worked for the Hudson Bay Company and was stationed for a time in Green Bay, Wisconsin, before "being ordered to the head waters of the Mississippi River on account of his extraordinary capacity as an Indian trader. From thence he was transferred to Old Post, now Vincennes." This account goes on to say that Toussaint arrived in Vincennes about 1780. [7] Other records show that Toussaint Dubois was probably not in Vincennes before mid-1778. The famous account of the oath of Vincennes states that on July 20, 1778, the French inhabitants of Vincennes signed an oath of allegiance to the Republic of Virginia and the United States of America and formally renounced all fidelity to George III of Great Britain. They had been led to take the oath by the well-known missionary priest, Father Pierre Gibault, and his companion, Dr. Jean Baptiste Lafont, who had brought the oath with them as well as news of George Rogers Clark's occupation of Kaskaskia two weeks earlier. One hundred and eighty-two names appear on the oath of Vincennes plus a notation that four others have been torn out. This must have constituted almost all of the adult male inhabitants. Among the French inhabitants who signed the oath in the church that hot July day were Jean Babtiste Durboy and Babtiste Duboy (the latter was No. 162 on the list). This Baptiste Duboy who signed is probably the brother of Toussaint Dubois. The name of Toussaint Dubois does not appear among the signatures. It is possible that his is one of the names torn out, but I have found no evidence to suggest that. In any event, it seems highly unlikely that Toussaint Dubois, who was known for his hatred of the British and the Treaty of Paris of 1763 by which they had acquired control of the great American hinterland, would have passed up an opportunity to sign such an important document. [8]

Some years later a list was compiled of all the heads of families settled at Post Vincennes on or before 1783 and still resident there in 1790. These residents were entitled to donation lands promised them by the Congress of the United States under the new constitution. Thus their land titles would be validated. Among the names on the list is that of John Baptiste Dubois. Again the name of Toussaint Dubois is missing. This might be because he was not considered a head of a household and therefore not eligible. Or it may be that he had not yet arrived in the settlement. [9] If the latter is the case, then Toussaint Dubois came to Vincennes sometime between 1783 and 1788, for it was in the latter year that his marriage is recorded in the files of St. Francis Xavier Parish.

In the years that followed independence, the area that was to become Indiana was organized as part of the Northwest Territory by the famous act of 1787. While Indiana was still a territory and the little French settlement at Vincennes was a frontier outpost of the United States, Dubois was part of a small elite. But his standing in the community also rested on several other valuable assets — his military prowess, his personal friendship with William Henry Harrison, and his close association with the Catholic leadership of Vincennes. Dubois had cultivated the latter ever since his arrival from Canada. He was a close personal friend of Father Jean Francois Rivet until the latter's death, a fact borne out by Rivet's designation of Toussaint Dubois as one of the executors of his estate. Nor was his prestige limited to the white inhabitants, for he already was establishing a reputation as an astute businessman in the Indian trade. Through this trade Dubois had learned the natives' habits and gained their confidence and was able on many occasions to resolve disputes between them and the whites. Because both sides trusted him, Dubois could exercise considerable influence. This, coupled with his business acumen, his knowledge of men and affairs, his talent for diplomacy, and his humanitarian instincts made him a natural leader in Vincennes.

As already noted, not long after his arrival in Vincennes, Toussaint Dubois married his first wife, Janne Bonneau, on October 6, 1788. [10] His bride was the vivacious 16 year-old daughter of a well-to-do French family. This happy union produced a daughter and four sons — Susanne, Toussaint, Jr., Honore [Henry], Charles and Emanuel. [11] In the meantime, Dubois' business ventures prospered. His extensive trade connections with both whites and Indians brought him a comfortable income which he used to purchase lands adjacent to the town of Vincennes. Perhaps the most significant, and certainly the best-loved parcel of real estate he acquired, was a piece of land on the high bluffs on the west side of the Wabash in what is now Illinois. There he built the family home on what came to be known as the Dubois Hill.

But just as he seemed to be building the foundation of a successful and productive life, tragedy struck when his young wife died on November 15, 1800, at the age of 28, leaving Toussaint a widower with five children under the age of 12. The next day the entire village of Vincennes assisted at the funeral of Janne Bonneau Dubois. She was buried in the cemetery of St. Francis Xavier Church and such was the esteem for her that the pastor, Fr. Jean Francois Rivet, wrote an extended account of the proceedings in the parish records that included this tribute: " . . . Jeannette Bonneau, wife of Toussaint Dubois . . . a true Christian, mourned by the young and old people, being loved and esteemed by them, on account of her charity, her beneficence, her good disposition, and other precious traits of character.

"The whole village assisted at her funeral, and few were there who did not shed tears. The burial service was interrupted two or three times, a testimony to her virtue, which we make mention of in the parish records, thinking it a proper thing to do." [12] This lengthy statement was particularly unusual, especially for a woman in the eighteenth century.

Thus the year 1800 ended in sadness for Toussaint Dubois. In many ways it was a time of transition both for him and for Vincennes, for that year marked the beginning of territorial government in Indiana. It was also at about this time that Dubois formed a partnership with Pierre Menard that was to last for 16 years. Together they established stores in Vincennes, Kaskaskia and Cahokia. Associated with them in this commercial venture was Francis Vigo, another enterprising merchant of the area. In the next five years Dubois traveled across much of the interior of the United States, from St. Louis on the west to Philadelphia on the east, and as his mercantile and trading operations flourished, he acquired substantial land holdings in both Indiana and Illinois. [13]

At the same time he also was rebuilding his private life. In 1805, when he was about 50 years old, he wooed and won a new wife. Jane Baird, just 25, was a native of Kentucky who had moved with her family to the area that was later to become Bloomington, Indiana. [14] The union proved a happy one blessed with three sons — Thomas, James and Jesse Kilgore Dubois. The family, now including eight children, lived in a large house, the old "Family Mansion," located on Dubois Hill on the western shore of the Wabash River and just a short distance from the ferry serving travelers from Vincennes along the Cahokia and Kaskaskia traces. It was an imposing structure situated on bluffs high above the river and reflecting the affluence of its owner. Many of the decorative materials for the home had been brought up river by bateaux from New Orleans, but the exterior was of rough native stone. The second story of the edifice included dormer windows and supported a clapboard roof. But it was the interior of the home that revealed its owner's artistic taste in the arrangement of the rooms and their furnishings. The garden, bursting with a variety of flowers, reflected Mrs. Dubois' careful attention. [15] The house was the center of a 400-acre plantation. Among the servants were a small number of slaves. Though slavery had been prohibited in the area by the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, it continued on a modest scale in Vincennes. Those who had come into the area with slaves usually retained them until their death or freed them by their last will and testament. Somes in his history of Old Vincennes speaks of a convention held in the town in 1802 which called for the suspension of the article in the Ordinance of 1787 that forbade slavery. The argument as summarized by Somes anticipated the logic used in the great debates over slavery in the mid-nineteenth century that "Congress could not say whether slavery shall, or shall not, be allowed, and neither could the territory decide until it had become a State." [16] In the end, slavery was left undisturbed for the French settlers, who held both Indians and Blacks in bondage long after passage of the ordinance of 1787 and even after the adoption of the state constitution in 1816. [17]

It is not entirely clear how many slaves Toussaint Dubois owned. In 1802, he clearly had as many as four (two adults and two children) and possibly more. Parish records for that year record the baptisms of Pierre (age three) and Michel (age one), the sons of Jean and Marie, slaves of Toussaint Dubois. His will (written June 15, 1815) mentions two other slaves by name — a man servant, Gabriel, and his wife Ann — and also makes a general reference to other "negroes." Toussaint Dubois did not set them free in his will, perhaps because his young wife still had three sons under ten years of age. Instead, it provided that Gabriel and Ann would serve his wife until his youngest child, Jesse Kilgore Dubois, reached the age of 21. The will then provided "that if in the opinion of my wife (and the country permits) that the said people of color are able to make a comfortable living, they are to be free, if not, they are to be assisted out of my property during their lifetime . . . It is my desire that none of the negroes now in my family be sold so as to be obliged to serve out of the family unless for criminal conduct." [18]

In addition to the estate on the Dubois Hill, Toussaint Dubois also had property in what came to be Dubois County. This land was purchased from the United States and granted under a patent signed by President Jefferson on February 16, 1809. [19] The following year Toussaint Dubois also was serving as a member of the Board of Trustees of Vincennes University and assisting in fund raising for its first building, but these peaceful pursuits were to be rudely interrupted by threats of an Indian attack. Governor Harrison, aware of his friend's long experience in trading with the Indians and his understanding of their ways, pressed Toussaint Dubois into service as a confidential messenger to Prophet's Town to parley with the Prophet himself. [20] Their meeting took place in June 1810. Dubois sought information on Indian grievances, assured the Indians of the territorial government's desire for their friendship, but also warned them against maintaining a hostile attitude toward white settlements. Already that summer there had been raids in the northern part of Knox County and four horses had been stolen. But the Prophet repeated to Dubois the message he had given earlier emissaries — that the Indians had been cheated out of their lands in treaties signed by Governor Harrison and that he (the Prophet) had been ordered by the Great Spirit to take up residence near the mouth of the Tippecanoe River. Neither Dubois nor any of the other messengers could bring back any assurances of peace from their meetings with Tecumseh and the Prophet. Even a visit to Vincennes by Tecumseh did not secure the peace. Finally, Governor Harrison began to assemble an army of about 900 men to drive the Indians from Prophet's Town. Toussaint Dubois was made a captain in command of a company of spies and guides to serve from September 18 to November 12, 1811 . After guiding the army safely to the vicinity of the Prophet's Town, Dubois and an interpreter made a final effort to parley, but it was no use. The Indians attacked Harrison's army on the morning of November 7, 1811. After a fierce battle in which both sides took heavy casualties, Harrison's army prevailed, the Prophet's power was diminished, and the Indian menace ended for a while. [21]

The Battle of Tippecanoe had been a prelude to the War of 1812. On September 26 of that year Toussaint Dubois was commissioned major commandant of all the spies in Indiana. [22] He was able to leave his business affairs in the hands of his partner and son-in-law, William Jones, who had married Toussaint's eldest child, Susanne, around 1807. They had given Toussaint two grandchildren to brighten his later years — Marie Jeanne (baptized May 16, 1808) and Edouard (born November 13, 1809). By the war's end, they were joined by two sisters — Elizabeth (born February 9, 1813) and Susanne Ophelia (born July 17, 181 4). [23]

There are few surviving references to Dubois' service in the War of 1812. But one short notice from this period did appear in the Western Sun, the local Vincennes paper, in 1814. In it, Captain Toussaint Dubois informed the men who had served with him in the Tippecanoe campaign that he had received money to pay them. [24] But there is little notice of his role in the war. It is probable that his age (he was about 60) limited his activity.

Dubois continued to travel on behalf of his firm, however, and while returning from a business trip, he met a tragic death. The accident occurred on March 11, 1816, as Dubois and a Black servant were returning along the Buffalo Trace from a visit to Pierre Menard at their Kaskaskia store. As they attempted to cross the flood-swollen Little Wabash River in Clay County, Illinois, Dubois and his horse were dragged under and drowned. The Western Sun noted his passing in a tribute published a few days later, concluding that "in him the poor have lost a benefactor, his country, a friend. He was a kind husband, an indulgent father and an honest man." [25]

The political legacy of Toussaint Dubois was carried on by his son and grandson. His youngest child, Jesse K. Dubois, who was only five years old at the time of his father's death, went on to have a significant career in Illinois politics. He served as an official in the United States Land Office in Palestine, Illinois, as a member of the state legislature for 10 years, and then as a county judge. He was an early member of the Whig party and a strong opponent of the extension of slavery. At the urging of his friend Abraham Lincoln, the Republicans nominated Jesse K. Dubois as their candidate for auditor of public accounts in 1856. Following his election to that post, he moved his family to the state capital in Springfield. Re-elected in 1860 to a second four-year term, Jesse Dubois' political career ended in an unsuccessful campaign for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 1864. He retired to his home in Springfield and died in 1876 at the age of 65.

Fred T. Dubois was born on May 29, 1851, in Crawford County in southeastern Illinois to Jesse and Adelia Morris Dubois. He was the fifth of seven children and was only five years old when the family moved to Springfield to a large house just down the street from that of the Lincoln residence. Educated at Shurtleff Preparatory School in Alton and at Yale College where he graduated with his brother Jesse in 1872, Fred returned briefly to Illinois before securing a job in Idaho as a cowboy. Within two years he was able to make use of the family's political connections to win an appointment as United States marshal of Idaho Territory in 1882. Four years later in 1886, he was elected territorial delegate to Congress and in 1890 become Idaho's first full-term United States Senator. For the next 16 years, he championed Idaho's wool, lead, sugar, timber and silver interests, compiled a progressive record, opposed American expansion in the Philippines, and helped found the Silver Republican party. During his second term in the Senate, Fred Dubois became a Democrat. However, he supported a bipartisan effort to conserve the natural resources of the West by helping to write the National Reclamation Act of 1902 and by defending President Theodore Roosevelt's controversial plan to set aside vast new national forests. Unfortunately, it must be noted, these positive achievements were somewhat overshadowed in the press by Dubois' efforts to oust Senator Reed Smoot of Utah from the Senate. This fruitless campaign, which Dubois saw as a matter of principle, was rooted in his long confrontation with the Mormons over the issues of polygamy and church influence in Idaho politics. Though he went down to defeat in the 1907 legislature and was replaced by his friend William E. Borah, Dubois had compiled a fundamentally progressive record while in the Senate. In retirement, he continued to take a lively interest in public affairs, serving as the convention floor manager for Champ Clark's abortive bid for the 1912 Democratic nomination and intervening in the 1918 election under the auspices of the Nonpartisan League to secure the re-election of both of Idaho's United States senators. Fred Dubois died in Washington, D.C., on February 14, 1930, at the age of 78. [26]

Notes

1. Margaret Edna [Toussaint] Dubois, interview. Blackfoot, Idaho, August 1, 1962.

2. George R. Wilson History of Dubois County (Jasper, Indiana Printed by the author, c. 1910), p. 397. Wilson adds the following information based on a legal notice that appeared at one time in a French newspaper: "It is said his father was a French nobleman and that Captain [i.e. Toussainti Dubois] was disinherited by his father for leaving France and coming to America with General Lafayette." While adding additional romantic elements to the Dubois family saga, this account seems highly unlikely. Toussaint Dubois was already under contract to the fur trading firm of Myer, Michaels & Co. early in 1780, before the arrival of the main contingent of French forces in July of that year. I am indebted to Mildred A. Winter of Watonga, Oklahoma for supplying a copy of this contract.

3. Mildred A. Winter, Watonga, Oklahoma, letter to the author, July 17, 1987. Toussaint Dubois is not listed in Les Combattants Francais de la Guerre Americaine, 1778-83, U. S. Congress, Senate, 58th Cong., 2nd Sess., Senate Document No. 77, Washington: Imprimerie Nationale 1905. See also: Lee Kennett, The French Forces in America, 1780-1783, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, c. 1977.

4. St. Francis Xavier Parish Records, 1786-1795 & 1824-1830 (English translation), p. 18.

5. Springfield, Illinois, Daily State Journal, November 23, 1876. Records of St. Joachim Parish in Point Claire do not contain any reference to Toussaint Dubois. However, this may mean simply that he was baptized, married and buried elsewhere. It is not proof that he never lived in the parish. Moreover, the contract with the Myers, Michaels & Co. (see note 2 above) indicates that Toussaint Dubois was from Vaudreuil, a town in southern Quebec near the mouth of the Ottawa River, about twenty-four miles southwest of Montreal. This places him in the general area mentioned in the obituary notices cited above.

6. National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Lineage Book, Vol. 91 (1912); (Washington, D.C.: Press of Judd and Detweiler, Inc., 1927), p. 266. This date may not be accurate. This source lists Toussaint's parents as Jean Baptiste Dubois and Euphrania Dubois. This is obviously an error as the parish records cited above (n.4) givedif ferent information. See also Joseph Henry VanderBurgh Somes, Old Vincennes (New York: Graphic Books, 1962), p. 132.

7. See note 5 above.

8. James Alton James, ed., "George Rogers Clark Papers, 1771 - 1781," Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library, Vol. 8 (Springfield, Ill.: illinois State Historical Library, 1912), pp. 56-59. Clarence Walworth Alvord, "The Oath of Vincennes," Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society for the Year 1907 (Springfield, Ill.: Phillips Bros., State Printers, 1908), pp. 270-276.

9. History of Knox and Daviess Counties, Indiana (Chicago: The Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1886), pp. 110-112.

10. St. Francis Xavier Parish Records, 1786-1795 & 1824-1830 (English translation), p. 18. The couple were married by Father Pierre Gibault.

11. Susanne (born & baptized on July 17, 1789); Toussaint, Jr. (baptized on December 12, 1790); Honore (baptized on December 4, 1792); Charles (born on December 17, 1795); and Emanuel (born October 23, 1798). Ibid., pp. 25, 31, 39, 53. St. Francis Xavier Parish Records, 1796-1808 (English translation), p. 11.

12. St. Francis Xavier Parish Records, 1796-1808 (English translation), p. 19.

13. Allen, "Sketch of the Dubois Family," Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, 5 (April 1912), p. 55.

14. The Bairds represented another stream of settlement in the area, that of the Scots who migrated from Kentucky along the route known as the "Buffalo Trace" for the millions of bison that had forged the original trail. For a history of this trail, see George R. Wilson and Gayle Thornbrough, "The Buffalo Trace," Indiana Historical Society Publications, 15 (1946) No. 2, p. 176-279. Jane Baird was the daughter of Thomas Baird, 2nd and Esther Kilgore Baird who had migrated into Indiana from the Louisville, Kentucky area. For a genealogy of the Baird family, see Eliza H. Brevoort, Gleanings from the Wabash Valley (Vincennes, Indiana: Francis Vigo Chapter, D.A.R., 1954), pp. 42-59. There had been no Catholic priest in the village since the death of Fr. Rivet on 25 February 1804. As Jane Baird was a Presbyterian, a minister of that church presided at her wedding to Toussaint Dubois and their children were reared as Presbyterians.

15. Allen, "Sketch of the Dubois Family," Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, 5 (April 1912), p. 55. Combined History of Edwards, Lawrence, and Wabash Counties, Illinois, p. 70.

16. Somes, Old Vincennes, p. 130.

17. A local census taken in 1830 showed that out of a total population of 1,565 there were 768 white males, 639 white females, 63 free black males, 63 free black females, 12 male slaves and 20 female slaves. See Henry S. Cauthorn, A History of the City of Vincennes, Indiana From 1702 to 1901 (Terre Haute, Indiana: Published by Margaret C. Cauthorn, c. 1902), p. 44. See also: Paul Finkelman, "Slavery and the Northwest Ordinance, A Study in Ambiguity," Journal of the Early Republic, 6 (Winter 1986), pp. 343-370.

18. The baptisms are recorded in St. Francis Xavier Parish Records, 1796-1808, p. 17. The will is in the Toussaint Dubois MSS, Byron Lewis Historical Library, Vincennes University, and is reprinted in Wilson, History of Dubois County, pp. 410-411. The will was signed on June 15, 1815. Dubois' children from his first marriage ranged in age from 18 to 27 at the time of his death in March 1816.

19. The patent is reproduced in Allen, op. cit., p. 60. The land purchased was the Northeast quarter of section 3, township 1 south, range 5 west.

20. Harrison sent frequent messages to the Prophet's Town and to the most important villages of the Miamis, Delawares and Potawatomis. The chief messengers besides Toussaint Dubois were Francis Vigo, Joseph Barron, Pierre Laplante, John Conner, M. Brouillette and William Prince. See Wilson, History of Dubois County, p. 399.

21. The Indians left 38 dead on the field of battle. Harrison lost 37 killed and 151 wounded (25 of whom later died of their wounds). Two of Dubois' sons — Toussaint, Jr., and Henry — fought in the battle as privates in Captain Benjamin Parke's Light Dragoons. Wilson, History of Dubois County, pp. 402, 404.

22. "Executive Journal of Indiana Territory, 1800-1816," Indiana Historical Society Publications, 3 (1900), No. 3, 186.

23. Two other children were born to William and Susanne Jones after Toussaint's death — Marie (born October 12, 1817) and William Toussaint Jones (born October 10, 1819 and died April 13, 1820). See St. Francis Xavier Parish Records, 1796-1808, p. 49; St. Francis Xavier Parish Records, 1774-1786 & 1809-1831, pp. 54; 67. St. Francis Xavier Parish Records, 1814-1838, pp. 1, 10, 21, 25. William Jones preceded his infant son in death. William Toussaint Jones was baptized on November 31 [sic], 1819 [Oct. 31 ?]. His father is listed as deceased in the parish records as of the date of the baptism.

24. Wilson, History of Dubois County, p. 403.

25. Wilson, History of Dubois County, p. 412. Toussaint Dubois was interred in the French cemetery in Vincennes after Masonic burial rites as recorded in the minutes of the local Masonic lodge on March 28, 1816. I am indebted to Robert Stevens and Robert Holden for supplying a copy of these minutes. Unfortunately, many accounts include the erroneous information that Toussaint Dubois' body never was found.

26. For a fuller account of the careers of Jesse K. Dubois and Fred T. Dubois, see Leo W. Graff, Jr., The Senatorial Career of Fred T Dubois of Idaho, 1890-1907 (New York & London: Garland Press, 1988) and "Fred Thomas Dubois, 1851-1930," Register of the Fred T. Dubois Collection 1868-1930 (Pocatello, Idaho: Idaho State University Library, 1985), pp. 9-19.