Jean Joseph de Barth

Count Jean-Joseph de Barth (1726–1793) was an Alsatian member of the French National Assembly,[2] counselor to Louis XVI of France,[3] and préteur royal and bailiff of Munster,[4] who led the "French 500" [3] fleeing the French Revolution to America's Ohio Valley, where they founded Gallipolis on the Ohio River in 1790.[2][5]

Jean Joseph de Barth
Born1726[1]
Haguenau, Alsace, France[1]
Died24 September 1793 [1]
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.[1]
Spouse(s)Marie Therese de Rohmer [1]
ChildrenFrançoise de Barth, François Joseph Meinard de Barth de Bourogne; Marie-Antoinette (Mother Edmond-Paul) de Barth; Rev. Adolphus Louis de Barth; John Baptiste de Barth Walbach; Suzanne de Barth; Françoise de Barth (wife of Capt. Claude Joseph Guy Edouard Blondeau)[1]

De Barth was aided by Thomas Jefferson,[6] George Washington,[5] and Alexander Hamilton,[7] the first two hoping to sell their Ohio Valley lands to the Frenchman. De Barth showed his appreciation with gifts to Jefferson from France and the American frontier, including a French art book,[8] buffalo skin, and rather mysterious "tooth of a carnivorous elephant."[9]

De Barth and his followers were aristocrats and city merchants, not pioneer material, and struggled with land speculators, Indians, and the wilderness. The aging de Barth soon moved on, purchasing a manor at Springettsbury in Philadelphia. This unfortunately turned out to be an even more dangerous move; shortly thereafter he succumbed to the 1793 Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic, and his home became a hospital for the treatment of victims of yellow fever.[10] (Note: the records conflict on the manor location within the Springettsbury estate, one specifying the Bush Hill estate, while others contradict that.)

Jean Joseph de Barth was buried at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church (Philadelphia).[10]

The count's lands included 10,000 acres on the Elk River[11] in what is now West Virginia. This land passed to his son, General John Baptiste de Barth Walbach, for whom the town of Wallback, West Virginia and the Wallback Wildlife Management Area are named. Walbach, the oldest officer to ever serve in the U.S. Army, had in his long career commanded most American eastern seacoast forts and became adjutante general of the United States.

Another of de Barth's sons, Rev. Adolphus Louis de Barth, was vicar general and administrator of the diocese of Philadelphia, and established several early frontier Catholic churches. A daughter, Marie-Antoinette de Barth, became Mother Edmond-Paul, Abbotess of the Cistercian nuns of Notre-Dame-de-la-Misericorde at Koenigsbruck Abbey in the Forest of Haguenau.[12]

In 1795, the Alsatian home that the de Barth family fled to escape the guillotine was purchased by industrialist Andre Hartmann, and later was the beginning of the beautiful Albert Schweitzer Park.[13][14]

Notes
  1. Rowan, Eileen. "Count Jean-Joseph de Barth". Rootsweb Worldconnect.
  2. Smith, William Henry (1882). The St. Clair Papers: The Life and Public Services of Arthur St. Clair, Soldier of the Revolutionary War; President of the Continental Congress; and Governor of the North-western Territory; with His Correspondence and Other Papers. R. Clarke. p. 195. Retrieved 13 August 2016.
  3. "The French 500". Gallia County Genealogical Society.
  4. Levrault (1787). "Dictionnaire géographique, historique et politique de l'Alsace, Vol. 1". p. 239.
  5. "Prospects for the Gallipolis Settlement: French Diplomatic Dispatches". 1994. pp. 41–56. Archived from the original on 2016-10-12. Retrieved 2016-08-13.
  6. "From Thomas Jefferson to John Joseph de Barth, 17 March 1792". National Archives: Founders Online.
  7. "Alexander Hamilton to Arthur St. Clair, [19 May 1790]".
  8. "To Thomas Jefferson from John Joseph de Barth, 29 October 1792". National Archives: Founders Online.
  9. "To Thomas Jefferson from John Joseph de Barth, 3 [March] 1791". National Archives: Founders Online.
  10. Rosengarten, Joseph George (1890). The German Soldier in the Wars of the United States. J. B. Lippincott Company. pp. 160–165.
  11. "Political Mirror Virginia" (PDF). 1801.
  12. Des moniales face à la Révolution française: aux origines des Cisterciennes-Trappistines. 1989. p. 201. ISBN 9782701011820.
  13. "Les Hartmann". Société d'histoire du val et de la ville de Munster.
  14. "Munster Official Site: André Hartmann Park" (in French).

References

Cutler, William Parker (1888). "Life, Journals and Correspondence of Rev. Manasseh Cutler, L.L.D."

Moreau-Zanelli, Jocelyn (1994). Gallipolis: histoirie d'un mirage americain au XVIIIe siecle (in French).

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