Jean Baptiste Lepage (1761 - abt. 1809)

Born 20 Aug 1761 in Kaskaskia, Pays-d'en-Haut, Nouvelle-France

Died about 1809 at about age 47 in Fort Raymond. Louisiana Territory

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Biography

Jean Baptiste Lepage has French origins.

Jean Baptiste Lepage

• Surname variants include: Lepage, LePage, Lepaige, Page, Paget
• Born: Aug 20, 1761 Kaskaskia, Pays-d'en-Haut, Nouvelle-France
• Died: Approximately 1809 Area of: Fort Raymond. Louisiana Territory, United States
• Probate: July 25, 1810 (St Louis)

Parents:

• Father: Prisque Lepage or (Page, Paget) (1717 - 1764) He may have died in 1764 by Indians during the French and Indian War.
• Mother: Marie Francoise Dufresne: Birth: ABT 1730 in , of Illinois Territory.^[1] or Marie Michel ( Francoise or Franchise )^[2]

Spouse:

• Unknown name

Children:

• Clement,
• Jean Baptiste,
• Joseph,
• Claude
• Daughter^[3]

Excerpt by Joshua DeBonis

" Jean Baptiste LePage was born on August 20, 1761 to Prisque and Marie Michel LePage [or Lepage] in Kaskaskia^[4]

In the fall of 1804, he was living in Mitutanka (Mandan Village); it is possible Sheheke or Jessaume ( French Fur Traders) knew him well and told the two captains about him.

On November 2, the Corps began construction of Fort Mandan. At the same time Jessaume and his wife moved into the Corps camp, and the two captains hired LePage^[5]

Clark noted LePage was a well-travel trapper and trader, having explored the Black Hills and Missouri River and its tributaries as far west as present-day Wyoming and Montana^[6]

LePage traveled down the Missouri River with the Corps, and was discharged with the rest of the men in the fall of 1806 in St. Louis. Like Drouillard, Weiser, Potts, Windsor, and Colter, LePage joined Manuel Lisa's Missouri Fur Company, and in 1807, he helped erect the company's Fort Raymond at the confluence of the Yellowstone and Bighorn rivers.

According to genealogical records, LePage married, and had at least five children; he died in 1809, possibly on the Montana/North Dakota border ^[7][8]

Lewis and Clark Expedition Article (Excerpt)

" Jean-Baptiste Lepage moved from obscurity into the annals of American history because of bad behavior—not his, but that of Private John Newman. Newman was a member of the Corps of Discovery until he was found guilty by a court martial of "repeated expressions of a highly criminal and mutinous nature," punished by 75 lashes, and expelled from the party in October 1804.

On 2 November 1804, when the Expedition was at the location of their soon-to-be built Fort Mandan near the Mandan villages, Lepage was hired to replace Newman as a member of the permanent party.

Lepage was a French-Canadian trapper, born on 20 August 1761 in Kaskaskia, in present Illinois.

Prior to the Expedition, he had lived among the Mandan and had explored the Black Hills of present South Dakota and the Little Missouri River. Lepage was thus most likely one of the first European-Americans to travel in that part of the country, and the Captains were glad to have gained a member with such experience. He may have provided some information that Captain William Clark used in preparing a map during the Fort Mandan winter. At the age of 43, Lepage was the oldest member of the Expedition.

Consequential Error

While the Expedition was enduring one of its greatest challenges, crossing the Bitterroot Mountains in 1805, Lepage somehow lost control of his packhorse, and it wandered away. Captain Meriwether Lewis sent Lepage to find the horse, but he returned without it. Lewis noted the seriousness of this error by writing that the horse carried his own winter clothing as well as valuable trade goods. Lewis sent two experienced woodsmen to find the horse, but their success or failure was unrecorded. This incident may have stuck in Lewis' mind, for after the Expedition Lewis wrote to Henry Dearborn on 15 January 1807, describing Lepage as of "no particular merit."

Frequent Hunter And Gatherer

While the Corps of Discovery was hunkered down for the winter at Fort Clatsop, Lepage was a frequent hunting companion of George Drouillard. They sought elk, their most reliable if not favorite source of meat, deer, and waterfowl. On their journey eastward in 1806, Lepage was among those who traded with the Nez Perce for roots. He was also sent, along with John Shields, to recover two lost horses.

Indebted Trader

Shortly after the Expedition ended in the fall of 1806, Lepage sold his land warrant to John Ordway and presumably spent the winter in St. Louis with his wife and five children. He signed a promissory note to Auguste Chouteau on 25 April 1807, possibly to pay for supplies so that he could join the trapping expedition of Manuel Lisa. Lisa's group, which included other veterans of the Expedition (George Drouillard, John Potts, Peter Weiser, and Richard Windsor), traveled up the Missouri and established Fort Raymond, where the Bighorn River flows into the Yellowstone. Lepage was apparently at Fort Raymond when former Expedition member John Colter arrived at the Fort after his harrowing flight from the Blackfeet.

At Fort Raymond, John Colter and Reuben Lewis (brother of Meriwether Lewis) signed a legal document addressed to the heirs of Lepage's estate. Lepage apparently died in the area by the end of 1809. At the time of his death, Lepage was in debt to Manuel Lisa, the latter serving as an executor of Lepage's estate.

Neither Lepage nor his heirs received his expedition pay from Meriwether Lewis, who corresponded with Secretary of War Henry Dearborn for permission to give some of it to the expelled John Newman. Before his own death, Lewis listed the debt to Lepage as still outstanding. Apparently, Lepage's widow did not know of it, because she sold some of her husband's clothing to pay his debts."^[9]

Sources

1. ↑ [(https://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/trees/157659/I127830/prisque-paget/individual)]
2. ↑ [(Kaskaskia Under the French Regime By Natalia Maree Belting page 91)]
3. ↑ [(The Fate of the Corps: What Became of the Lewis and Clark Explorers After ... By Larry E. Morris page 195)]
4. ↑ [( [Morris, Fate of the Corps, 195].)]
5. ↑ [( [Jackson, Letters, 368, 377-378; Jenkinson, A Vast and Open Plain, 106-107].)]
6. ↑ [( [Jenkinson, 106-107; Morris, 77].)]
7. ↑ [([Morris, 78, 195].)]
8. ↑ [(http://meriwether.pbworks.com/w/page/37572314/LePage%2C%20Jean%20Baptiste)]
9. ↑ [( 8 Sources: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Project:Lewis_and_Clark_Expedition)]

See Also

• French Roots in the Illinois Country: The Mississippi Frontier in Colonial Times By Carl J. Ekberg
• Family Tree:ancestry.com ;family-tree/person/tree/52893659/person/392212528494/facts?_phsrc=AVI8&_phstart=successSource