Gabriel Franchere - I0042 - Individual Information

Gabriel Franchere (I0042)

Name:
Gabriel Franchere

Gender: Male

Birth: 3 November 1786 Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Death: 3 April 1863 St. Paul, MN

Personal Facts and Details

	Events of close relatives
Birth	3 November 1786 3426 Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Marriage	24 April 1815 (Age 28) Sophie Routhier (Routier?) - Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Death	3 April 1863 (Age 76) St. Paul, MN
Burial	Cavalry Cemetery, St. Paul, MN

Notes

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Note

From Ev Osten's 1976 family tree:
Respectable Latin grammar school education (wrote well in both French and English.) Less than average height. "In the hope of making my fortune, and with agreat curiosity to see new lands - -" at age 24, in 1820, he engaged as a clerk in John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company. He sailed in the Tonquin around Cape Horn and assisted in the founding of Astoria - the Astorians lost 60 lives incl capt. & crew massacred by Indians. Gabriel journeyed home overland by canoe 4/4 1814 - 9/1 1814 to his family who had given him up for dead. In 1815 he married Sophie Routhier. His book Voyage to the North West Coast of America was published in French (1820) and English (1854). Passages from the book were read in the U.S. Senate May 25 1846 when the Oregon boundary dispute with Britain ("54°40' or fight") was before congress; he wint to Washington to confer with senators Benton, Webster, and Clay over Oregon. He was Astor's agent in Montreal, and owned Auberge Le Vieux Saint-Gabriel, North America's oldest inn (it is still in operation today) The inn has a Saloon Francheres "named in honor of the man who figured so prominentlyin the history of an eralier Montreal." Served as harbor master of Montreal. 1834 American Fur Co's agent in Sault Ste Marie. Received Astor medal (now in MN Historical Society.) 1853 revisted Montreal and treated as noted author. Second wife, a widow, Charlotte S. (Osborn) Prince; step-son, John S. Prince, Mayor of St. Paul, MN. Canada honored Gabe by naming a mountain, town, and bay in Alberta after him. (on his canoe route home) WWII supply ship named Gabriel Franchere. His portrait is one of a number of illustrious citizens hanging in the gallery of the Chateau de Ramezay in Montreal. see Adventure at Astoria 1810-1814 translated and edited by Hoyt C. Franchere, and The Voyageur by Grace Lee Nute.

Excerpt from the Pigs Eye Notepad - an online historical encyclopedia of St. Paul, MN
(souce: Williams, J. Fletcher. A History of the City of Saint Paul to 1875. St. Paul, Minnesota Historical Society, ©1983. (Out of Print) ):
FRANCHERE, GABRIEL - Canadian by birth, Franchere was a pioneer of the Northwest. As the primary representative and recruiter for the American Fur Company in the region that included Minnesota, he was responsible for recruiting many of the people who ultimately became St. Paul's earliest citizens. Franchere died in 1863 in a railway accident.

CLEWETT, JAMES REUBEN - Born in England in 1810, he came to America in 1829, lived in Canada for a couple of years, then in 1831, he was hired by Gabriel Franchere of the American Fur Company, to come to Minnesota as voyageur and clerk. Speaking not a word of French, and nobody around him speaking any English, he was soon compelled to learn both French and Sioux. He was, however, the only person who could read or write, he maintained all the journals and books for the company at many of the trading posts in the Minnesota area. In 1839, he moved to St. Paul, living with Abraham Perry, and marrying Perry's daughter, Rose Anne, in the first Christian marriage in St. Paul. Soon afterward, he purchased the claim of the mysterious "Johnson" at lower landing, then selling it to Norman Kittson and purchasing the property of Joseph Labisiniere on Jackson Street Hill, where they lived until 1851, when they moved to White Bear, MN.

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