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Pierre Menard
Pierre Menard (7 October 1766 – 13 June 1844) was a fur trader and U.S. political figure. Pierre Menard was born at St. Antoine-sur-Richelieu, near Montreal, Canada, third in a family of ten children. His father was Jean Baptiste Ménard, a French soldier in the regiment of Guyenne. Resident in the Illinois Country by the end of the 18th century, Menard became a successful businessman. He served in the legislature of the Indiana Territory, and then presided over the Illinois Territory Council. He was elected the first Lieutenant Governor of the State of Illinois in 1818. Biography Early life After a short period of formal schooling in Montreal, Pierre, at about age fifteen, signed on with a trading expedition to the vast Illinois Country. By the early 1790s Menard had established a solid trading business of his own; his Kaskaskia business ledgers first recorded transactions, beginning in the spring of 1791. He was granted a St. Clair County commercial license in ...
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Louisiana (New France)
Louisiana (french: La Louisiane; ''La Louisiane Française'') or French Louisiana was an administrative district of New France. Under French control from 1682 to 1769 and 1801 (nominally) to 1803, the area was named in honor of King Louis XIV, by French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle. It originally covered an expansive territory that included most of the drainage basin of the Mississippi River and stretched from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and from the Appalachian Mountains to the Rocky Mountains. Louisiana included two regions, now known as Upper Louisiana (), which began north of the Arkansas River, and ''Lower Louisiana'' (). The U.S. state of Louisiana is named for the historical region, although it is only a small part of the vast lands claimed by France.La Louisiane française 1682-1803
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Fort Raymond
Fort Raymond or alternatively Manuel's Fort or Fort Manuel, was an outpost established by fur trader Manuel Lisa and was named after his son.Morris, Larry E. ''The Perilous West''. Lanham, MD: Row & Littlefield Publishing. 2013, p. 20. The post was located at the confluence of the Bighorn River, Bighorn and the Yellowstone Rivers.Henry Marie Brackenridge, Brackenridge, Henry Marie''Views of Louisiana.''Baltimore: Schaeffer & Maund. 1817, p. 143. Upon its foundation it was the first trading post maintained by European descendants in the modern state of Montana. It would be the first of several posts by Lisa over his time in the developing regional fur trade. Among those hired by Lisa for the expedition were several members of the Corps of Discovery at Fort Raymond, notably George Drouillard, John Colter and Peter M. Weiser, who were stationed at Fort Raymond. Work began on the station in November 1807 with the initial buildings being "temporary shelters and a trading house with two r ...
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North Dakota
North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the Native Americans in the United States, indigenous Dakota people, Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south, and Montana to the west. It is believed to host the geographic center of North America, Rugby, North Dakota, Rugby, and is home to the tallest man-made structure in the Western Hemisphere, the KVLY-TV mast. North Dakota is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 19th largest state, but with a population of less than 780,000 2020 United States census, as of 2020, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by population, 4th least populous and List of U.S. states by population density, 4th most sparsely populated. The capital is Bismarck, North Dakota, Bismarck while the largest city is Fargo, North Dakota, Fargo, which accounts for nearly a fifth of the s ...
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Fort Mandan
Fort Mandan was the name of the encampment which the Lewis and Clark Expedition built for wintering over in 1804–1805. The encampment was located on the Missouri River approximately from the site of present-day Washburn, North Dakota, which developed later. The precise location is not known for certain. It is believed now to be under the water of the river. A replica of the fort has been constructed near the original site. Construction and conditions The fort was built of cottonwood lumber cut from the riverbanks. It was triangular in shape, with high walls on all sides, an interior open space between structures, and a gate facing the Missouri River, by which the party would normally travel. Storage rooms provided a safe place to keep supplies. Lewis and Clark shared a room. The men of the Corps of Discovery started the fort on November 2, 1804. They wintered there until April 6, 1805. According to the journals, they built the fort slightly downriver from the five village ...
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Beaver
Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers are the second-largest living rodents after the capybaras. They have stout bodies with large heads, long chisel-like incisors, brown or gray fur, hand-like front feet, webbed back feet and flat, scaly tails. The two species differ in the shape of the skull and tail and fur color. Beavers can be found in a number of freshwater habitats, such as rivers, streams, lakes and ponds. They are herbivorous, consuming tree bark, aquatic plants, grasses and sedges. Beavers build dams and lodges using tree branches, vegetation, rocks and mud; they chew down trees for building material. Dams impound water and lodges serve as shelters. Their infrastructure creates wetlands used by many other species, and because of their effect on other organisms in the ...
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Missouri Fur Company
The Missouri Fur Company (also known as the St. Louis Missouri Fur Company or the Manuel Lisa Trading Company) was one of the earliest fur trading companies in St. Louis, Missouri. Dissolved and reorganized several times, it operated under various names from 1809 until its final dissolution in 1830. It was created by a group of fur traders and merchants from St. Louis and Kaskaskia, Illinois, including Manuel Lisa and members of the Chouteau family.Chittenden, 137. Its expeditions explored the upper Missouri River and traded with a variety of Native American tribes, and it acted as the prototype for fur trading companies along the Missouri River until the 1820s.Wishart, 42. Creation of the company Members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition brought back tales of the riches of the upper Missouri River when they returned to St. Louis in 1806. They reported the region's abundance of beaver at a time when demand for fur was high, fueled by the fashion of beaver hats. A recent arri ...
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Vandalia, Illinois
Vandalia is a city in and the county seat of Fayette County, Illinois, United States. At the 2020 Census, the population was 7,458. Vandalia is northeast of St. Louis, on the Kaskaskia River. It served as the state capital of Illinois from 1819 until 1839, when the seat of state government moved to the current capital of Springfield. Vandalia was for years the western terminus of the National Road. From 1836 onward, Vandalia is the home of the Vandalia State House State Historic Site. History Vandalia was founded in 1819 as a new capital city for Illinois. The previous capital, Kaskaskia, was unsuitable because it was under the constant threat of flooding. The townsite, located in Bond County at the time, was hastily prepared for the 1820 meeting of the Illinois General Assembly. In 1821, Fayette County was created, including Vandalia. The history of the name Vandalia is uncertain. Different theories can be found in almost all of the books written about Vandalia over t ...
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Illinois General Assembly
The Illinois General Assembly is the legislature of the U.S. state of Illinois. It has two chambers, the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate. The General Assembly was created by the first state constitution adopted in 1818. , the current General Assembly is the 102nd. Under the Illinois Constitution, since 1983 the Senate has had 59 members and the House has had 118 members. In both chambers, all members are elected from single-member districts. Each Senate district is divided into two adjacent House districts. The General Assembly meets in the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois. Its session laws are generally adopted by majority vote in both houses, and upon gaining the assent of the Governor of Illinois. They are published in the official ''Laws of Illinois''. Two future presidents of the United States, Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama, began their political careers in the Illinois General Assembly–– in the Illinois House of Represe ...
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Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it flows generally south for to the Mississippi River Delta in the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains all or parts of 32 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian mountains. The main stem is entirely within the United States; the total drainage basin is , of which only about one percent is in Canada. The Mississippi ranks as the thirteenth-largest river by discharge in the world. The river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Native Americans have lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries for thousands of years. Most were hunter-ga ...
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French Language
French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French ( Francien) largely supplanted. French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the ( Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to France's past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian Creole. A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is an official language in 29 countries across multiple continents, most of which are members of the ''Organisation internationale de la Francophonie'' ...
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