Joe? Peter? John? Charles?

I previously described how the Groslouis brothers were eventually credited as the discoverers of gold at Whiskey Run. However, which of the brothers were actually in the discovery party?

The possibilities:

• Walling (1884) named Joe
• Packwood (1919) named Joe and Peter¹
• Tully (1922) named Peter and Charles
• Reinhart (1962) named John and Peter
• Local Historians (1973-present) named John and Peter

Since 1884, each of the brothers have been linked to the discovery at least once. To try to understand why recent historians have credited only John and Peter, I began researching the brothers’ family history. Although I was unable to find answers for all my questions about them, I’ve found enough information to inform a hypothesis about which of them discovered the beach gold.

The Groslouis brothers’ story begins with their father, Charles, whose story I summarize below. (If you’re interested in further details of his life, I’ve included an annotated bibliography at the end of this post.)

Ultimately, the Groslouis family history belongs to their descendants and the French-Canadian community. Therefore, I am limiting my description and analysis to two generations to consider which of the brothers discovered the beach gold, and to explore why they were at the beach north of the Coquille River in the early 1850s.

Born into the fur trade

The Groslouis brothers were born into a community of French Canadian fur traders. Their father, Charles, left Quebec, Canada, on his first fur trade expedition in 1817. His work led him to the Columbia District and his stay at Spokane House (located south of Fort Colville and east of Fort Okanogan on the map below).

By 1820, Charles had taken a wife, unnamed in church records but described as a woman from the “Flathead” or “Pend d’Oreille” country.² The couple—and their growing family—served in a series of fur trade expeditions along with other French Canadian families.

The family arrived at Fort Vancouver, where the Hudson’s Bay Company was headquartered. There, in 1830, Charles filed his will, in which he named five children: Ursule, Henrietta, Pierre, Joseph, and [Jean] Baptiste. His sixth child, Charles (II) would be born two years later.

Charles died of “the fever” while on an fur brigade led by John Work. His death was recorded September 17, 1833, in the expedition journal, transcribed below:

C. Groslui died; We were deterred from raising camp on account of C. Groslui dieing (sic) just as the people were catching the horses. —This poor man has left a widow & 6 children to lament his loss & all ill with the fever except one child….

Little is known about Charles beyond fur trade records. Nevertheless, twenty years after his death, his migration into the Oregon Territory set the stage for his sons to enter the annals of Southern Oregon history.

In the next post, I will profile the children of Charles Groslouis (and his unnamed wife), presenting family history data which underlies my hypothesis about which of the brothers were in the discovery party.

1. Packwood also named “Andrew” as another member of the discovery party; since Andrew’s not one of the Groslouis brothers, he’s not discussed above. ↩︎
2. Various researchers have speculated on names for Charles’s wife, but I didn’t find sufficient evidence to choose one name over another. ↩︎

Charles Groslouis: Chronological Annotated Bibliography

Charles Groslouis Baptismal record: 16 August 1794. Quebec, Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1968. Ancestry.com 2008. IMAGE 143. Accessed Dec 30, 2023.

Quebec > Notre-Dame > 1793-1794 Record of baptism of Charles, son of Francois Gros Louis and Madelaine Verret:

Société historique de Saint-Boniface. “Groslui, Charles.” Voyageurs. Le Centre du patrimoine, n.d. https://archivesshsb.mb.ca/link/voyageurs22954. Accessed Dec 30, 2023. [Page offers translation from French to English.]

Archival record copied from Northwest Company archives reveals that Charles Groslui, St-Ambroise-de-la-Jeune-Lorette [Loretteville], Quebec, contracted (as a winterer) with North West Company (NWC ) in Montreal on January 28, 1817, for 3 years in upper Canada (the Great Lakes region).

Jackson, John C. Children of the Fur Trade: Forgotten Métis of the Pacific Northwest. 1st Oregon State University Press ed. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2007, p. 209 (entry 125).

Includes transcribed roster from Spokane District Report, 1822-23 (HBCA B208/e/1, 4-5), listing “The men who accompanied Mr. McDonald this spring” [presumably older Columbia Freemen]. Entry 29 is Charles Groslui (p. 209).

Groliu, Charles. Hudson’s Bay Company Archives, Winnipeg. https://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/archives/_assets/docs/hbca/biographical/g/groliu_charles.pdf accessed 05 Dec 2023.

Data entry from Hudson’s Bay Company Archive (a private archive) that began creating biographical records in the 1980s based upon original HBC records and info from other publications, such as Munnick’s compilation of Catholic Church Records. The record shows that Charles joined HBC in 1824.

Watson, Bruce McIntyre. Lives Lived West of the Divide: A Biographical Dictionary of Fur Traders Working West of the Rockies, 1793-1858, 2010, p. 424. Accessed December 23, 2023, at https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~goudied/genealogy/PDF/Goudie/Lives_Lived_Entire-Bruce-McIntyre-Watson.pdf .

Watson’s well-sourced biography based on original fur trade documents and scholarly texts. Watson notes that Charles crossed the Rockies with Joseph LaRocque’s party. While in the Columbia District, Charles transferred to the Hudson’s Bay Company when it merged with the NWC in 1821. Below is Watson’s complete biographical entry:

Elliott, T. C. “Journal of Alexander Ross—Snake Country Expedition, 1824.” The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society 14, no. 4 (1913): 366–85, esp. 370. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20609944.

Transcribed journal with editorial notes by Elliot. The journal entry for 10 Feb 1824 lists “Charles Gros Louis” as one of the Free Men Trappers, Snake Country, who joined the Hudson’s Bay Company expedition.

Ogden, Peter Skene and Glyndwr Williams. Peter Skene Ogden’s Snake Country Journals, 1824-26. London, UK: Hudson’s Bay Record Society, 1950. http://archive.org/details/ogdensnake. Page 2 of 1824/25 Journal, Image 86. [Note: Internet Archive mistakenly labels the journal as 1827-28 and 1828-29.]

Transcribed journal with editorial notes by E.E. Rich. Charles “Grosliu” is listed as one of the freemen and servants; Charles brought with him one gun, seven horses, and seven traps.

Grosluis, Charles. Dec 17, 1830. Last Will and Testament. Hudson’s Bay Company Archives, Winnipeg. https://pam.minisisinc.com/DIGITALOBJECTS/Access/HBCA%20Microfilm/427/1_A36-7.pdf  [Images 5 and 6]. Accessed 05 Dec 2023

Digital copy of the will (handwritten by someone other than Charles) specifies that his monies, properties, and effects are to be equally divided among his “five reported children”: Ursule, Harriet, Pierre, Joseph, & [Jean] Baptiste. Joint executors: John McLoughlin and Peter Skene Ogden. Witnesses: John Work and Francois Payette.

Maloney, Alice Bay, and John Work. “Fur Brigade to the Bonaventura: John Work’s California Expedition of 1832-33 for the Hudson’s Bay Company.” California Historical Society Quarterly 22, no. 3 (1943): 193–222. https://doi.org/10.2307/251557930, pp. 217, 220.

Maloney, Alice Bay, and John Work. “Fur Brigade to the Bonaventura: John Work’s California Expedition of 1832-33 for the Hudson’s Bay Company (Continued).” California Historical Society Quarterly 22, no. 4 (1943): 323–48. https://doi.org/10.2307/25155808.

Maloney, Alice Bay, and John Work. “Fur Brigade to the Bonaventura: John Work’s California Expedition of 1832-33 for the Hudson’s Bay Company (Continued).” California Historical Society Quarterly 23, no. 1 (1944): 19–40. https://doi.org/10.2307/25155825, p. 21.

Maloney, Alice Bay, and John Work. “Fur Brigade to the Bonaventura: John Work’s California Expedition of 1832-33 for the Hudson’s Bay Company (Concluded).” California Historical Society Quarterly 23, no. 2 (1944): 123–46. https://doi.org/10.2307/25155841, pp. 137-139.

Maloney presents John Work’s journal in a four-part series; three parts of the series have journal entries that name “Charles Grolui” (specific page numbers included above).

French Canadian Genealogical Research

Munnick, Harriet Duncan. 1986. Catholic Church Records of the Pacific Northwest: Roseburg Register and Missions (1853-1911), Portland Register (1852-1871). 1st ed. Binford & Mort Pub.

Munnick, Harriet Duncan. 1972. Catholic Church Records of the Pacific Northwest: Vancouver, Volumes I and II, and Stellamaris Mission. With Internet Archive. St. Paul, Ore.: French Prairie Press. http://archive.org/details/catholicchurchre0000unse_d5s3.

Munnick compiled seven volumes of Mikell Warner’s translated church records (from French to English). Two volumes: The Vancouver Register (1838-1856) and Stellamaris Register (1848-1860), include at least one entry for each of the Groslouis children. Their baptism entries note that Charles Groslouis and his wife are deceased.

Morin, Gail. 2021. Fur Trade Families of the Pacific Northwest Volume 3, Flett-LaFlamme. Independently published.

This compilation of primary and secondary sources provides a comprehensive genealogy for the Groslouis family which mostly correlates with other data. However, it appears that Morin confused Charles (I) with both his son and a grandson—also named Charles. Charles (I) died in 1833, so entries in church records after that date cannot be about him, except when noting him as a decedent. Likewise, Charles (I) could not have been counted in the 1850 Oregon Territory Census, nor could he have been married three times after 1833. It’s possible that the three marriages listed for him refer to the same woman who was described differently in various church records.