Creoles Of St. Louis

by Paul Edmond Beckwith

Overview

A genealogy of the descendants of Rene Auguste Chouteau of Bearn, France, who came to New Orleans in the 18th century. Founders and settlers of St. Louis, Missouri including Sarpy, Conde, Benoist, Labbadie, Gratiot, Saucier, Kiesereau, Cere, Papin, Pratte and other prominent families. Fur trappers history.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940158733765
Publisher:	BrookesNook
Publication date:	08/08/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	274 KB

About the Author

Biography

Paul Edmond Beckwith was born in St Louis, Missouri, on 22 September 1848. He was a son of Frederick Williams Beckwith and Tullia Clemencia Paul.

His accounts of his own life were not fully consistent. In The Beckwiths he said that he ran away from home in August 1861, apparently after studying at St. Louis University (this although he would have been shy of his 13th birthday), and joined the U.S. Army under General Fremont; was sent back home to St. Louis after one month; then was sent to Europe and placed at the Jesuit college at Feldkirch in the Austrian Vorarlberg near Lac Constance. According to this account, after learning German he entered the university at Bonn (then in Prussia) where he studied civil and mining engineering, and in 1867 he went to Rome and enlisted in the Papal Army known as the Pontifical Zouaves, "participating in the battles of Monte Rotondo and Mentana where the Zouaves so signally defeated the Italians under General Garibaldi," before returning to the U.S. in 1869.

In his book The Creoles of St. Louis, he said that he studied at Bardstown College, St Louis University and the University of Bonn. In 1866-7 he served in the Pontifical Zouaves, a volunteer military force organized for the defense of the Papal States. He was a United States Indian agent in 1875-6. He worked as a mining engineer in Colorado from 1877 to 1886, when he went to work for the U.S. government. In The Beckwiths, he stated that he went into government work due to failing health.

In his government job he was an assistant curator in the history division of the United States National Museum (later known as the Smithsonian Institution).