HISTORY OF THE LUPIENT FAMILY

Contributed By: Sandra H. Coggeshall

FROM "LUPIEN" TO "LUPIENT"

The son, Theodore, added a "t" to the Lupien name and no family member has ever been able to determine why the "t" was added. There was much illiteracy on the frontier in these early years, and it was possible that some early census taker wrote the name as Lupient and the new spelling stuck. Theodore Lupient’s descendants have continued to spell the name Lupient. Thus, anyone with the Lupient surname is a descendant of Theodore Lupien and Therese Josephine Crely.

Theodore Lupient married in Prairie du Chien on Oct 22, 1838 to Madeleine Provost/Prevot (b. Feb 24, 1820 in Prairie du Chien). Madeleine, sometimes spelled Magdeleine, was the daughter of Francois Provost/Prevot (b. Oct 23, 1784 in Boucherville, Quebec) and Theotiste Pelletier dit Antaya (b. circa 1794/95, probably in St Louis.)

Francois Provost had emigrated from Boucherville, Quebec to Prairie du Chien sometime between 1800 and 1808. His parents were Francois Provost and Madeleine Sorelle dit LaPorte. His great-great-grandfather, Rene Provost (b. 1652 in Paris, France) had immigrated to "New France" in the early 1680s.

Theotiste’s parents were Pierre Pelletier dit Antaya (probably b. Feb 19, 1746 in Sorel, Quebec) and "Catherine," either a full or ½ blooded Fox Indian. Pierre has been credited as being one the first of 3 white settlers in the Prairie du Chien area.

Theodore worked as a farmer but was also employed in 1848 to help remove the Winnebago Indians from Wisconsin. According to early Wisconsin records, the contract to remove the Indians paid a fixed sum per Indian "removed." The exact "head money" is not known but was said to have been "a considerable sum." Theodore's ½-brother, Moses Paquette, was also hired for this job, although the two men worked independently of each other. The removal proved to be unsuccessful as most of the Indians eventually returned to their old "haunts" in Wisconsin.

Theodore was listed as being eligible for an Indian stipend through the Winnebago Treaty of 1829. This would denote that Theodore had Indian blood, but there was no apparent Indian blood in his ancestry. His stepfather, Pierre Paquette, was part Winnebago. Could Theodore have been listed as having Indian blood because of this connection as Pierre's stepson? This is a mystery yet to be solved.

Theodore and his family lived both in Prairie du Chien and Portage, Wisconsin but apparently moved to Necedah, Wisconsin circa 1860, near the time of Theodore’s death. Theodore died in 1860 or 1863 in Chicago where he was killed by a train when he was in the city on business. At that time, most trains in Chicago were at ground level and train injuries and deaths were very common. His wife, Madeleine married again to an August Martell.

Theodore Lupient and Madeleine Prevot had 5 children: Gabriel Adolphus, Therese R., Letitia Margaret, Emily Catherine, and Moses Louis.

[INDEX] [Page 1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]

Report Broken Links

ALHN HOME PAGE

This is a Clark County, WI Internet Library Project

-2-