by Margaret Ruth Clair Mullen
Of those 18 children, at least one made many notable contributions to the society of his day. Joseph, second oldest son born 7 March, 1791,(d. 1870 in Richland County, Wisconsin), followed in his adoptive grandparents' shoes and became a doctor, however one “became” a doctor in those days. A veteran of
the War of 1812, Joseph and his wife, Martha Cogswell, left Pennsylvania and traveled to Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and remained a few months only, as he felt it was an unhealthy land. Leaving there they moved on to Medina County, Ohio, where he commenced the practice of medicine, and also having purchased 80 acres of land, he carried on a pioneer farming operation. In 1836 Joseph sold out and again started west, and this time settled in Fulton County, Indiana, where the Sippys were again pioneers. In time they were joined by many of their families, including Lucretia and her second husband, Samuel Lane.
I am the daughter of that little boy John Wallace. I am mother of three children. I am grandmother of three sons of my daughter, and these three little boys are three of how many of the great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren of that one young Gascone deserter and one young Oneida Indian girl.
by
The story of Fifth Great Grandparents Joseph and Lucretia Tremeau,
written by the Great Niece of Great Grandmother Estella Louise Clair.
Joseph Tremeau changed his name to Joe Sippy after desertion from the French Navy.
This story is particularly interesting for several reasons:
The life of Joe Sippy is also documented in an out-of-print book not currently available in digital format:
Joseph Tremeau changed his name to Joe Sippy after desertion from the French Navy.
This story is particularly interesting for several reasons:
- It is stated that Joe Sippy was actually present at the surrender of Cornwallis to Washington.
- His father was French, his mother Italian.
- Lucretia, his wife, was an Oneida Indian.
- Margaret's grandfather, George Wallace Clair, worked in Cranetown, Wisconsin, a town named for the Crane family. His sister, Estella, would later marry Francis Duane Crane.
The life of Joe Sippy is also documented in an out-of-print book not currently available in digital format:
The American Revolution had been under way for two years, and in February of 1778 the French made a secret treaty recognizing the Colonists’ independence. When the British learned of this their ambassador to France was immediately recalled, and a month later preparations for war were being pushed in both countries. In April of that year a French fleet of twelve ships of the line and eight frigates under Vice Admiral the Comte d'Estaing sailed from Toulon for America to assist the Continental Army.
What had so far amounted to a civil war now became a struggle between England and the Continental powers. Public opinion in England hardened against the Colonies, now allied with England's traditional enemies (for Spain and Holland were*soon involved), and the war became a struggle for survival.
From Washington's point of view the entry of France into the war was a godsend. Up to that time he had been completely frustrated by British control of the waters off the American coast. Now there was a chance that the British forces might be pinned against the coast between a French fleet at sea and strong allied armies on land. The possibilities which became a reality at Yorktown were born when the first French fleet sailed for America.
Among the ships under the Comte d'Estaigne that left Toulon for America was the LeBlanche, a ship of the line carrying 74 guns, and among the crew was a 14-year-old Gascone, Joseph Tremeau, who joined the fleet at LeCroisic. Joseph's father was Stephen, a farm worker; his mother, of Italian descent by the name of Scipio (who persisted in referring to her son as “Guiseppe”, the Italian counter-part of Joseph). It can only be speculated as to what the reason was for this lad to leave his home, travel so many miles across the turmoil of France in the 1770's to LeCroisic, and join d'Estaign's fleet.
Perhaps because it had been from Bordeaux, Joseph's birthplace, that in the year 1777 the 19-year-old Marquis de LaFayette, young and wealthy aristocrat with a desire for adventure, had against the wishes of the king taken his ship to volunteer his services to the Continental Army in their fight for freedom. This was some years prior to the French Revolution when the peasantry was in very dire circumstances. It was the time of Marie Antoinette and the greed and oppression of those in power that led to the revolt of the peasants. The American Revolution, and LaFayette's part in it, could have stirred the ardor and imagination of many young Frenchmen, including Joseph Tremeau.
Sad to say, Joseph's commander, the Comte d'Estaign, turned out to be a somewhat ineffective admiral. His late arrival (a full week after General Howe had left the Delaware Cape, where he could have been quite effectively trapped), his indecision and inadequate maneuvers kept d'Estaign from any decisive victories and resulted in a very bitter and disgusted American force. He spent the first summer (1778) along the American coast, and the winter months in the West Indies. In the fall of 1779 after a devastatingly unsuccessful attempt to take Savannah, Georgia from the British, d'Estaign, himself wounded, left with a squadron for France. Two squadrons of the fleet, one under deGrasse and the other under LaMotte-Picquet, returned to the West Indies.
Although Joseph Tremeau's ship, LaBlanche, was in the fleet commanded by d'Estaign when it left France in 1778, it apparently was transferred to DeGrasse's fleet or squadron when d'Estaign returned to France. DeGrasse was the commander of the fleet that blockaded Chesapeake Bay in September and October of 1781, and puts our young Frenchman in that setting at the age of seventeen years and bears out the family history of his early years in America and his part in the Revolution. Supporting this early family history is an excerpt from a letter written by a son of Joseph's dated July 30, 1894, to a brother:
"Father in France was born in a place tha caled Burdo (sic). Rochambeau was the name of his commander.
When father left France his name was Joseph Tremo (sic). When Lafyet started back Father did not want to go back.
...gave himself the name of Sippy after his mother's maden name, done this as he suppo tha mite save him up for a trater. This was the idea, frade of being shot."
When father left France his name was Joseph Tremo (sic). When Lafyet started back Father did not want to go back.
...gave himself the name of Sippy after his mother's maden name, done this as he suppo tha mite save him up for a trater. This was the idea, frade of being shot."
(It has also been said the name change derived from his being called Guiseppe by his French-Italian comrades, and that the name was bastardized to Joe Sippy by his American compatriots, leading to an easy assumption of the name Joseph Sippy when he did not desire to return to France).
In any event, it is obvious then that Joseph was present at the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown on 19 October 1781, and obviously he had no desire to return to France. Thus ended the Tremeaus in America; thus began the Sippys.
Living in Fredericksburg prior to the Revolution had been Dr. John Johnston (Johnson) and his wife and their adopted daughter, Lucretia, an Oneida Indian girl. His wife had always worked side by side with the doctor, and upon the doctor's death she continued to put her practical experience to use, and to all intents and purposes took over not only her husband's practice, but his title as well.
Some way or other young Joseph Tremeau came in contact with "Dr." Johnston and her daughter Lucretia (family history says he had been wounded, which could well have been, and that he had been treated by the woman doctor and tended by the Indian daughter). In any event, when the war ended he had reached the age of 22 years, and was to be found in the area Of Havre de Grace where the French troops had massed to return to France. It was to Havre deGrace that 17-year-old Lucretia Johnson came 200 miles by horseback to marry her young Frenchman. The ceremony was actually performed on February 20, 1787, in Berkely County, Virginia, by Reverend Hugh Vance, a Presbyterian minister who had been ordained on August 21, 1771. He had served as pastor to three congregations, for 20, years crossing and recrossing North Mountain on horseback.
After their marriage Joseph and Lucretia set up housekeeping near Harper's Ferry, for it was here on March 27, 1787, that their first son, John, was born, traditionally named for his maternal grandfather. In rapid succession more Sippys came into the world - 18 in all - John, Elizabeth, Mary, Joseph, Joanne, Mary (Polly), Rebecca, William, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Thomas near Harpers’ Ferry between 1787 and 1804; and Eli, Nicholas, Stephen, Louisa, Levi and Lucinda in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, between 1805 and 1817, where Joe Sippy and his mother-in-law had obtained 494 acres of Bounty Land.
In this year of 1980, 175 years after Joseph and Lucretia set out for Beaver County, Pennsylvania, it is hard to comprehend the difficulties they must have encountered and surmounted in the 180-mile-long trip between Harper's Ferry, Virginia, and Beaver County, with 11 children, 2 horses, a cow, and all their earthly belongings. One year earlier, in 1803, Ohio had just become the 17th state of the Union. Thomas Jefferson was then President of the United States. It was on May 14, 1804, that the Lewis and Clark expedition left St. Louis. And the first railroad would not be built for another 20 years.
Joe Sippy died there in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, on January 22, 1819, at the age of 55, just eight days after the signing of his last will and testament.
Lucretia lived on to finish rearing his extraordinary brood of children, and to marry a widowed neighbor, Samuel Lane, and to move first to Medina County, Ohio, and then on to Fulton County, Indiana, where she died on 15 October 1857, at age 88. “In old age she had become very childish and it is related that she would sit on the floor and play with her grandchildren, quarreling with them for the possession of some toy, yet she lost but little of her youthful strength and vigor." She left behind her 16 of her 18 children, 117 grandchildren, and 92 great grandchildren.
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| Lucretia Sippy |
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| Dr. Joseph Sippy |
the War of 1812, Joseph and his wife, Martha Cogswell, left Pennsylvania and traveled to Cuyahoga County, Ohio, and remained a few months only, as he felt it was an unhealthy land. Leaving there they moved on to Medina County, Ohio, where he commenced the practice of medicine, and also having purchased 80 acres of land, he carried on a pioneer farming operation. In 1836 Joseph sold out and again started west, and this time settled in Fulton County, Indiana, where the Sippys were again pioneers. In time they were joined by many of their families, including Lucretia and her second husband, Samuel Lane.
During the time of the "underground railroad", when the fugitive slave law was in its full and severest operation, the Doctor kept one of the stations. At the head of the route was a man by the name of George W. Julian, along with his Quaker friends. There was another station at Wabash, one at Gilead, and Dr. Sippy at Akron (Indiana). "There was a trail from Gilead to Akron through the woods, and the abolitionists would start about eleven o'clock at night with the negroes, land them at Sippy's, and return before morning.” Stephen, Jacob and Isaac, all brothers of Dr. Joseph, lived in that area also, certainly knew of their brother's participation in the underground railroad, and could very well have been involved in this segment of history along with him.
To get a picture of all the Sippy offspring it will be necessary to go back in time to Joseph, the father, and his death in 1819. At that time the older children had already begun to spread out - John, the oldest, was in St. Clair County, Illinois, near St. Louis, Missouri; Elizabeth was married to Christopher Shaffer and remained in Beaver County, Pennsylvania; Joseph of course was already in Medina, County, Ohio, with his wife Martha; Joanna had married William Wittenberger and remained in Beaver County, as had Mary after her marriage to Abraham Reagles; William had probably died as there is no further reference to him; Abraham was in Madison County, Illinois, and the rest of the children, eleven in all, were still home.
Ten years later, in 1830, John Sippy is in Madison County, Illinois, married, with three children; the Shaffers remained in Beaver County, with 5 sons and a daughter; Dr. Joseph Sippy and wife Martha are at that time in Medina County, Ohio, and have one son and 8 daughters. The Wittenbergers and their seven sons. Rebecca was married to a man named Sample; Abraham had married Sarah Smedley and lived in Madison County, Illinois, near Venice, with a family of five children. Isaac had married Mercy Ball; Jacob had married Martha Lane (whose father was probably his stepfather), and they had three little girls. Thomas and his wife had two young boys and lived in Beaver County; Nicholas had just recently married Abigail McGill, and Stephen was in Medina County, Ohio. And Abraham and Mary Reagles Were probably living near Raymilton, Pennsylvania, in Venango County, just east of Mercer County. They would have had thirteen children, nine boys and four girls.
When Lucretia and her new husband, Samuel Lane, left for Medina County, Ohio to join Dr. Joseph Sippy and the other Sippy sons who had settled out there, they were accompanied by the few remaining younger children of Lucretia. Abraham and Mary Reagles must have been a part of the Caravan, for it was in Medina County, Ohio that one of those 117 grandchildren, Lucretia, daughter of Abraham and Mary, met the French-Canadian who was to become her husband. Joseph Drinkwine had been born in Cayuga County, New York, the son of Pierre Bouvin, whose name had undergone a very literal Americanization to Peter Drinkwine. Peter had come down from Montreal prior to 1820, for it was in that year that he had become naturalized in Cayuga County, thereby bestowing American citizenship on his son Joseph.
Abraham and Mary Reagles followed the same travel pattern as the rest of the Reagles and Sippys. Dr. Joseph Sippy seems to have led the way, first to Cuyahoga county, Ohio, and then to Medina County. From there he traveled to Fulton County, Indiana, as did his mother and her second husband, brothers Stephen, Jacob and Isaac. Just so the Reagles, Abraham and his sons Stephen, William, Abel, Ezra, Joheil, daughter Lucretia and her husband Joseph Drinkwine and children. The Reagles and Drinkwines followed the Sippys to Wisconsin, and on the 29th day of January, 1853, a deed was executed by Stephen Reagles and Elizabeth, his wife, of the County of Walworth, State of Wisconsin, to Joseph P. Drinkwine. The deed in itself tells a story: For the magnificent sum of $20.00 Joseph P. Drinkwine purchased from his brother-in-law, Stephen, a parcel of land in Geneva Township, approximately five acres in size. Stephen Reagles reserved to himself "all the timber on the said premises excepting so much basswood timber as may be necessary to build a log house eighteen feet by twenty-two feet and of proper height and to have till June l, 1853 to get the same off."
Joseph and Lucretia evidently were not too happy with the site they had purchased for their new home, for three months later, on April 7, 1853, they turned around and sold the land to a man by the name of Arnold Mann. They did turn a profit of $5.00 on the sale, however, and the sale obviously was contingent upon the terms of their original purchase of the land from Stephen, for the deed specifically stated that it reserves all the oak timber thereon, and extended to the new purchaser the original terms of the deed to Drinkwine, that he had till June to take the basswood needed for the cabin. Basswood was desired for home-building for it is a fine-grained wood that cuts cleanly and easily, and has a pleasing fragrance. Oak not only would have been too hard to work with in building a cabin, but in those times it was undoubtedly in demand for casks, and tools, and farm wagons and things of that sort that had to withstand rugged usage.
Then on May 11, 1857, one of the 92 great grandchildren ef Lucretia and Joseph Sippy, Mary Margaret Drinkwine, married one John George Clair at Sugar Creek, Walworth County, Wisconsin. Later records, and family history, say this man Clair had come from Bavaria, but "Clair" as such is not a German name, and to all intents and purposes John George Clair dropped from nowhere into a marriage ceremony in a place called Sugar Creek. The application for his marriage license stated that he had been born in Germany; that he was a farmer; that his parents were John G. Clair and Mary Clair. Somewhere, at some time between Bavaria in 1829 and Sugar Creek, Walworth County, Wisconsin in 1857, John George Clair met and eventually married Mary Margaret Drinkwine.
In the 1860 Census John George and Mary Margaret Clair are found with one child in Rock Creek, Dunn County, Wisconsin; and oddly enough, in that same census, same county, is listed a Fritz Clair, age 25 (John was 31 at that time), born in Germany. John George's brother? He and Mary Margaret did name their first son Frederick
The first son of John George and Mary Margaret was named George Wallace, and by the time George was in his teens the Clairs were in the Town of Emerald in St. Croix County, Wisconsin. George went to work at Cranetown, a lumbering settlement on Beaver Creek amid the maple-covered hills of St. Croix and Dunn Counties. There were more than 3009 acres of choice timber land in eastern St. Croix County alone, to say nothing of neighboring Dunn County, and this area of Cranetown was right on the border of the two counties. Every settlement, Downing, Hersey, Wilson, Glenwood City, Woodville, was surrounded by dense forests, and it is said that the men who walked the 20 miles or so to Menomonie for supplies would mark the trees to locate the path through the "big woods". The saw mills were going full blast in the 1880's, and George Clair was a sawyer. A farmer in the inclusive Town of Springfield was William Wallace Hartshorn whose red-haired daughter caught the eye of the young mill-worker. Lillie Mae was only sixteen when they were married, and babies Claribel and John Wallace soon joined them in the frame farmhouse George had built for his bride there at Cranetown. But during a cold and wet spring George developed a hacking cough and a fever that would not break, and soon the pneumonia-ridden young man left his lovely little wife who, at the age of 21 found herself a widow with two children to raise, and no assets except the homestead which could he described as about 20 acres cleared and poorly fenced...culled timber left standing...a small frame house thereon. That said cleared land is worn out and so run down in its present condition, is about worthless as no one will buy or lease land that is run down. Her inheritance was valueed at $600, and sold for $700. That was her "nest-egg" that enabled Lillie Mae to practice with a dressmaker in Chippewa Falls, Wisonsin, until she was adept enough with the needle to support herself and her two young children, Claribel, and John Wallace.
I am the daughter of that little boy John Wallace. I am mother of three children. I am grandmother of three sons of my daughter, and these three little boys are three of how many of the great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren of that one young Gascone deserter and one young Oneida Indian girl.