LOOKING AT LORIMIER: PART I; ENIGMATIC COUNTY FOUNDER STILL CASTS LONG SHADOW

"Fascinating, mysterious, and important," Louis Lorimier is credited with being the true founder of Cape Girardeau County.

Yet today Lorimier has faded into the murkiness of legend. His name is kept alive in Cape County merely with a street and a pair of cemeteries named in his honor in the city of Cape Girardeau. A painting and a wooden sculpture can also be found to pay tribute to him as the founder of Cape Girardeau.

Yet nothing in Jackson or northern Cape County is left to pay tribute to the man. The county itself supposedly bears the name of Jean Girardot, an even more enigmatic figure. Some have even suggested that Girardot actually deserted the French marines at Fort de Chartres before opening a trading post near current day Cape Rock Park. No record exists of how long the ensign operated his post or whether he lived there year-round. Whatever the situation, Girardot seems to have been long gone by the time the Spanish took over the area in 1767.

Although his contributions to the birth of Cape County were imminently greater than Girardot's, Lorimier's deeds and accomplishments are themselves remembered by only a handful of local historians. These individuals, in fact, cannot agree on Lorimier's motives or character. Facts, however, show that Lorimier's value to the Cape Girardeau area, and to Spain and the United States, far outweigh any questions about the man's integrity.

Far from being a man without a country, Louis Lorimier was a man with four countries. He seemed to serve each one (France, England, Spain and the United States) fervently and loyally before feeling compelled to move on to the next. Whether Lorimier was literate and whether he should be remembered as a man of honor and civility or as a pragmatic and ruthless soldier of fortune has been debated by scholars.

What is not debatable, though, is that Louis Lorimier's skills in dealing with the Shawnee and Delaware (Loup) Indians and other American Indians were instrumental in the city and county of Cape Girardeau being established on their present location and for their early survival and growth. He and his Indians also played an important role preserving the Spanish empire in North America during the turbulent 1790s, populating a vulnerable stretch of river front land and serving as scouts and as a militia.

Many of the French Creoles1 in the Mississippi Valley had good relationships with local Indian tribes and Louis Lorimier was certainly no exception. "He understood their customs, knew their prejudices, was a perfect master of their languages and possessed their unbounded confidence," Louis Houck recorded. Houck, one of Southeast Missouri's earliest historians, had hundreds of pieces of correspondence between Spanish governors, lieutenant governors and commandants (including Lorimier) translated, as well as Lorimier's personal journal during the period of the threatened Genet invasion (1793-1795).2 Unfortunately, all of Houck's historic documents were destroyed in a fire, Nov. 17, 1918.

Lorimier's years as a Spanish and American subject have been fairly well documented; his early life, however, remains somewhat in shadows. Born in Lachine, on the Isle of Montreal, in 1748, Lorimier was grandson of Captain Guillaume de Lorimier, who emigrated from France in 1695, and son of Claude-Nicolas Lorimier3, a soldier and a trader who was named Chevalier de Sault St. Louis in 1759.

In 1769, after making periodic trading trips for several years, Claude and Louis Lorimier moved to the Ohio Valley region. There they began a permanent trading operation. Claude was not a part of the operation long, dying in 1770. About a year later, Louis sat up a trading post on the Pickawillamy Creek, near the Maumee and Miami Rivers. He operated in the middle of Shawnee Indian land.

Robert I. Burch, in a 1940 master's thesis on Lorimier, credited Claude and Louis Lorimier's experience in trading with the Shawnee, as well as Louis' marriage to a Shawnee woman, Charlotte Pemanpieh Bougainsville Lorimier, as the secrets to their success there. "Pierre (Claude) Lorimier must have previously traded with the Shawnees to have been so completely accepted by that tribe and allowed to settle in their midst," he suggested. "Louis Lorimier further strengthened his control of the tribe" by his marriage.

Nicolas de Finiels, another Frenchman in service to King Carlos IV of Spain, offered an intriguing explanation for Lorimier's ability to work with the Indian tribes. Finiels, a cartographer who traveled through Spanish Louisiana in 1797 to rate the feasibility of defending each Spanish outpost, called Lorimier "son of a white man and a Shawnee woman," and added that he "alternately adopts European and Indian customs and who appears, along with his son, sometimes in European garb and sometimes in the dress of these children of nature."

No other sources have suggested that Lorimier, himself, was part Indian, although Carl J. Ekberg and William E. Foley, who translated and reprinted Finiels' An Account of Upper Louisiana in 1989, noted in a footnote that Finiels' otherwise uncorroborated statement seems very plausible.

"Finiels' remark in this passage that Lorimier was of mixed Indian blood makes sense," they wrote. "Cyprien Tanguay's monumental Dictionnaire genealogique des familles canadiennes, 7 vols., contains no record for the baptism of a Louis Lorimier, which suggests that his mother was an Indian woman."

Finiels' assertion suggested that Claude Lorimier either married or had an affair with a full-blooded or half-breed Shawnee in Canada. If so, the nucleus of a French trader husband and Shawnee wife was already extant when the clan moved to the Ohio Valley region. Louis' ensuing marriage only strengthened the existing sense of kinship. However, other sources indicate that Claude's wife (and Louis' mother) was Marie-Louise Lepallieur dit Laferte. This, and the fact that no other contemporaries mentioned such mixed ancestory, makes Finiels' suggestion seem somewhat unlikely.

Finiels wrote his account six years after his visit with the Lorimier family and could conceivably have confused Lorimier's background with that of his wife, the highly esteemed Charlotte Lorimier (1758-1808). It could be argued that Charlotte was the most important and most intriguing of the Indians connected with Cape County. Always credited as being a key part of her husband's success and praised for her inward and outward beauty, she was allegedly a daughter of Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1729-1811), a major figure in the latter half of the 18th century.4

Whether this brilliant officer and nobleman was actually Charlotte's father has not been conclusively proven. Whatever her blood, though, Charlotte Lorimier apparently had a queenly bearing and seemed to be revered by many. Louis and Charlotte made a striking couple, even in their middle age. Felix E. Snider, author of Cape Girardeau: Biography of a City, called Charlotte "a woman of beautiful form and voluptuous beauty," who had "hair like a raven's wing."

Houck and Merriweather Lewis both mentioned Louis having long, straight black hair which he tied in a long queue and supposedly used to whip his horse. Captain Lewis, meanwhile, found both Charlotte and the Lorimiers' oldest daughter Marie Louise quite attractive during a visit with the Lorimier family during the famous Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1803. Charlotte is poetically eulogized on one of the oldest surviving tombstones in Old Lormier Cemetery as "the noblest matron of the Shawnee race."

About the time of his marriage, Lorimier and two of his brothers began seeing considerable action fighting with bands of Indians and Tories against American settlers during the American Revolution. According to his war memoire, Lorimier took up arms in 1777 "to gain glory in the service of my prince" [King George III], taking part in nine raids -- including one in 1778 that resulted in the capture of American folk hero Daniel Boone. Lorimier accompanied some 80 Shawnee warriors led by Blackfish, capturing 27 prisoners, including Boone, Feb. 7, 1778 at the salt licks on the Licking River. Lorimier's Memoire is the only known report from participants in the raid. (His report was generally borne out by Boone's.)

Lorimier's days as a successful Ohio River trader ended shortly before the war did. Lorimier traveled to Detroit to take care of business matters Nov. 10, 1782, leaving his store in the care of a Sieur Largeau.5

That very evening some 100 of General George Rogers Clark's men, led by Benjamin Logan, suddenly encircled the store. According to memoires of Logan's men, Largeau (whom they mistook for Lorimier), wearing a night shirt, poked his head out the front door, holding a candle to see what the trouble was. He barely slipped out the back door and "escaped from amidst them almost naked through the aid of darkness," in Lorimier's words.

Lorimier lost a black slave woman and between $14,000 and $70,000 worth of goods, according to Stevens' tabulations. Today Lorimier's name -- although butchered by eighteenth century English pronunciation and spelling -- is still attached to the location. The town of Fort Loramie, Ohio and nearby Lake Loramie both commemorate Lorimier and his trading post.

While Lorimier's Memoire provided a valuable historical document, it apparently failed in its actual purpose. Lorimier penned the seven-page document as a request for compensation for war losses suffered as a Tory. No evidence has been found that the British crown compensated him a single shilling. He lived in Indian villages for a time and borrowed heavily to try to reestablish himself in the trading business. Harassment from creditors seems to have been the top reason for Lorimier to look to the west side of the Mississippi River and to the Spanish empire.

Maintaining its huge holdings in the Western Hemisphere was always taxing on Spain. Experienced Spanish officers and political leaders were few and far between. A Frenchman with any industry, leadership skills or education, therefore, could generally find employment and opportunity within the Spanish colonial hierarchy. Spanish officials like Esteban Miro in New Orleans, governor general of Louisiana, and Francisco Cruzat and Manuel Perez, commandants (or lieutenant governors) of Upper Louisiana, stationed in St. Louis, no doubt were familiar with Lorimier's reputation following the war.

They were willing to give him an opportunity to migrate to Spanish Louisiana and help bolster the territory against possible invasion in 1787. Lorimier had lived and traded among the Shawnee and Delaware (Loup) tribes long enough that he seemed to have the influence to convince them to cross the Mississippi in 1788. They settled near him in the Ste. Genevieve district, near the salt springs of the Saline Creek.

The Indians, too, were apparently ready to escape the east side of the river, where the Osage and Anglo-Americans were becoming more of a problem. Burch felt that Lorimier and his Indian followers "found that comparative peace and chance to begin again that they sought" in Spanish Louisiana. In 1793 and 1795 respectively Lorimier received Spanish land grants for what is now Cape Girardeau County, signed by Governor General Hector Baron de Carondolet and Lieutenant Governor Zenon Trudeau.

In an agreement signed by Trudeau in April, 1793, Lorimier was "entrusted with the duty of maintaining order among the Indians and of bringing as many as possible over to this side [of the Mississippi], by posting them so conveniently as may be to our settlements." About 1,200 Shawnee and 600 Delaware eventually settled along Apple Creek and other area creeks. Three main Indian villages were established between Cape Girardeau and Ste. Genevieve two occupied by Shawnee and one by Delaware.

The Spanish government used Lorimier and his Indians as a buffer between the Spanish colonists and the hostile Osage, as well as between the colonists and the restless Anglo-Americans east of the river. "Through his influence and control over these Indian nations he was of great service to the Spanish government in the defense of Louisiana," wrote Abraham P. Nasitir, perhaps the leading scholar on Spanish Louisiana.

Spanish authorities asked Lorimier to keep an eye on the Delaware tribe which was less trusted than the peaceful Shawnee. Likewise, Ste. Genevieve Commandant Francois Valle asked him to "choose from among the Indians intelligent persons" to keep an eye on the Americans.

During the 1790s, Spanish Louisiana was rife with rumors of invasion, insurrection and intrigue. Spanish towns were threatened by "Indian incursions, American immigration, and fantastical French Revolutionary schemes," in the words of period scholar, Dr. Carl J. Ekberg. Although Lorimier did not collect any American scalps as he had during the American Revolution, he was kept busy throughout the decade as an Indian agent, spy, interpreter and recruiter of colonists. For this work he was awarded a whopping 30,000 arpents of land (approximately 20,000 acres), adjoining his previous 9,000 aprent tract.

There seems little doubt that many more years would have passed without much settlement taking place in what is now Cape Girardeau County, had Lorimier and his Indians not been available to the Spanish authorities. Spain was nervous and desperate to hold onto its vast American holdings throughout this unsettling decade. Lorimier's skillful work with the Indians and willingness to help in the reconnaissance and defense of the Spanish empire certainly put him in good standing with the Spanish authorities and helped to bring about the land grants that led to the formation of Cape Girardeau County.

"I have known him to neglect all his business to execute a commission which would cause him rather expense than profit," Lt. Gov. Charles DeHault DeLassus wrote shortly before Spain ceded the Louisiana Territory to the United States. He also added that Lorimier's persuasion of tribes on more than one occasion to turn guilty tribe members over to Spanish authorities for trial was "incontestable proof of his talent with the Indians."

"There was a definite need for settlers who could be trusted to colonize and defend their province against the rising threat of American penetration," Burch wrote. "The area between New Madrid and Ste. Genevieve was especially vulnerable."

First Lorimier and his Indians provided a buffer zone and "listening post" for enemy activity on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers; later, Lorimier's second land grant (1795) led to the beginning of Anglo immigration into the area.

Under his energetic leadership, the district began to look like a true American countryside. Other small communities, like Byrd's Creek and Randall's Creek, also sprang up. The persuasive Lorimier and his description of the rich soil, water and lumber and ideal location of the district lured not only American farmers, but German and Swiss-German settlers across the river.6

Next week Part II looks at the growth of Cape Girardeau County under Lorimier's leadership, as well as the debates over Lorimier's literacy and character.

NOTES

1. The term "Creole" during this period merely referred to any person of French ancestry, born in North America. There was no other racial context intended. The term "mulatto" was used for those of mixed French (or other white) and African-American or French and Indian blood.

2. Following the French Revolution, some sects of the new French government favored reclaiming the Louisiana Territory. Citizen Genet was appointed French minister to the United States in 1793 and began concocting a daring plan to invade Louisiana. A lack of money and U.S. interest, as well as Genet's own lacking as a diplomat led it the plan's quick collapse. (Ekberg, pp. 71-75)

3. Robert I. Burch, in a 1940 master's thesis on Lorimier, called Louis Lorimier's father Pierre. Most sources call him Claude. Paul L. Stevens addressed the issue in his commentary in Louis Lorimier in the American Revolution, 1777-1782: A Memoire by an Ohio Indian Trader and British Partisan, which he also translated. He noted that Louis Lorimier was baptized "Pierre-Louis de Lorimier," and over the years used both "Louis Lorimier" and "Pierre L. Lorimier" as his name. This, Stevens said, "caused some early historians mistakenly to report him as being two individuals, Pierre (or Peter) Lorimier usually being identified as the father of Louis Lorimier."

4. Aid-de-camp to General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm during the French and Indian War, Bougainville joined the French Navy in 1763 and became the first Frenchman to circumnavigate the globe (1766-1769). Upon completing the voyage (taking a number of leading scientists along) with only seven casualties, he published his journal of the trip, Voyage autor du monde in 1771 (translated as A Voyage Round the World in 1772).

Later secretary to King Louis XV and commodore, in charge of the French fleet in support of the American Revolution, he was also a senator, count, and member of the Legion of Honour under Napoleon. The plant genus Bougainvillea is named for him. (Britannica.com and Encyclopedia Britannica (1999-2000), s.v. "Bougainville, Louis-Antoine de.")

5. It is not known whether this was Louis Largeau, who served as Lorimier's personal secretary in the 1790s or possibly Louis Largeau's father.

6. Among the German-speaking settlers were Joseph Neyswanger and Major George Frederick Bollinger. These settlers all came from North Carolina, building "a solid and compact German settlement on the Whitewater River," according to Houck. Bollinger made the largest contribution to the district, building Bollinger Mill at what is now Burfordville.