Switzerland and Midwest Connections: The Gratiot Family — Early Swiss Pioneers in the Midwest
Welcome to the History Blog featuring the connections between Switzerland and the Midwest. I am Joerg Oberschmied, Deputy Consul General in Chicago. My interest in history started at an early age and continues to this day. The views expressed are solely mine and I hope you enjoy these journeys through time.
Charles Gratiot the elder was a well-known figure in the history of St. Louis during the Spanish and early American periods. His oldest son Charles Jr. rose to become Chief Engineer of the United States Army and his other son Henry became an important figure in the Indian wars of the early 19th century. All three left their mark in the early history of the United States.
Charles Gratiot Sr.
Charles Gratiot was born in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1752, the only child of David and Marie Gratiot Bernard. His parents were Swiss born descendants of Huguenots, who fled religious persecution in France. A bright young lad, Charles was sent at age ten to his uncle in London where he became a mercantile apprentice. In 1769 he journeyed to Canada and from there to what was then known as Illinois Country, to trade with the local white and native population. Gratiot settled in St. Louis in 1781 and married Victoire Chouteau. The Gratiot’s eventually had thirteen children, of which four sons and five daughters survived infancy. His business grew prosperously and he became a leading citizen in the community. During the Revolutionary War, Gratiot lent personal assistance to George Rogers Clark, whose men often found themselves without food and clothing. At the time of the Louisiana Purchase, he was an interpreter for the incoming United States authorities and signed the official transfer documents in St. Louis. Growing business needs frequently took him away to France, Switzerland, England, and to Canada. Gratiot Sr. also engaged in farming, milling, distilling, tanning, salt making, mining, and land speculating. He later held a number of local offices, including judge of the court of common pleas, justice of the peace, clerk of the board of land commissioners, and member of the St. Louis Board of Trustees. He died in St. Louis in 1817.
General Charles Gratiot
Charles Gratiot Jr. the oldest of the four sons, was born in St. Louis in 1786, which at the time was a Spanish possession. The Spanish however did not colonize the city, which remained French speaking. Not quite 18 years of age, Charles Jr. was personally appointed by President Thomas Jefferson to West Point in 1804, from where he graduated as a second lieutenant in 1806. This was followed by his promotion to Captain in 1808. In the War of 1812, Gratiot served as General Harrison’s chief engineer and was engaged in the defense of Fort Meigs (in today’s Ohio) and in the attack on Fort Mackinac (today Michigan). He rebuilt Fort St. Joseph in Port Huron (Michigan), which was later renamed Fort Gratiot in his honor. The road leading to the fort from Detroit to Port Huron was named Gratiot Avenue. Gratiot was promoted to Brevet Brigadier General and Chief Engineer of the Army in 1828. He remained in charge of the Corps of Engineers until 1838, when he was dismissed by President van Buren for failing to repay funds entrusted to him by the government. His case was appealed twice to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Committee on the Judiciary wrote in 1852: “While thus honorably and usefully employed in the public serve for so many years, he was constantly confided in by his country, and never abused her confidence in the disbursement of immense sums of money, and lived honored and respected by all classes of man, with no taint of suspicion attaching to his name.” Charles Gratiot Jr. died in St. Louis in 1855. Gratiot County in Michigan is named after him.
Henry Gratiot
Henry Gratiot was born in St. Louis in 1789, the fifth child of Charles and Victoire. As an adult he pursued farming. In 1825, he moved with his wife Susan Hempstead and his brother Jean-Pierre Bunyon to what is today Galena, Illinois. They set up a successful mining, smelting and trading business, which they later moved across the border to Wisconsin, where in 1829 another brother, Paul Benjamin Gratiot, joined them. Henry and his wife befriended the local Winnebago tribe and he became an important figure in suppressing the uprising of 1827, in the treaties at Prairie du Chien (1829), and during the Black Hawk War of 1832. The difficulties and complexities of the times whilst acting as an Indian agent, are recorded by Gratiot in a letter to G.B. Porter in June of 1832. Porter was at the time the Governor of territorial Michigan (a large territory which comprised what later became the states of Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Dakotas). In the letter Gratiot requested funds to buy provisions for the Winnebago, who on account of a hostile Sauk tribe presence on their land, were unable to harvest their corn. He also noted in his report the outbreak of small pox among the Winnebago and his efforts to vaccinate them. (1) After the war, he disposed of his business interests and returned to farming. Following a visit to his brother Charles in Washington, Henry Gratiot died in Baltimore in 1836, aged 47, following a brief illness. The village of Gratiot in Wisconsin is named after him.
For more information you can visit the Missouri History Museum here: https://mohistory.org/society; and the Wisconsin Historical Society here: https://www.wisconsinhistory.org.
(1) Journal of American History, Volume 12, Issue 3, December 1925, Pages 392–412, edited by M.M. Quaife.
