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the said settlement was abandoned; and further the deponent saith not.

(Signed)

LOUIS LAMALATY.

Sworn to, the 16th September, 1805, before me,

(Signed)

JOHN SIBLEY,

Justice of the Peace.

I, the subscriber, being duly sworn as the interpreter of the French language, do hereby certify that the foregoing declaration of Louis Lamalaty, Esq. is truly interpreted and translated. JOHN HORN.

(Signed)

NATCHITOCHES, SEPT. 16, 1805.

PERSONALLY appeared before me, John Sibley, one of the justices of the peace for the said county of Natchitoches, Mary Louisa Brevell, widow of Antoine Grillette, deceased, who being duly sworn, deposeth and saith, that after she married Mr. Grillette, she went with him to the ancient Caddo village, where she remained about eighteen months. At that time there were a few French inhabitants who were settled and lived there, and a French commandant who was Mr. Grappe, and, as near as she recollects, four soldiers; that the French inhabitants cultivated every thing that was common for the French inhabitants to cultivate in other parts of Louisiana, and that she does not recollect the exact number of years that has elapsed since she was there, but believes it was at least ten years before the government of Spain took place in Louisiana, and that she always understood, by her parents, she was there when a child, but she was too young to have remembrance of it. And further the deponent saith not.

(Signed)

her

MARY LOUISA BREVELL.

mark.

Sworn to before me, at Natchitoches, aforesaid, the day

and year aforesaid.

(Signed)

JOHN SIBLEY,

Justice of the Peace.

I, the subscriber, being duly sworn as interpreter of the French language, do hereby certify that the above deposition of Mary Louisa Brevell is truly interpreted.

(Signed)

I. HORN.

NATCHITOCHES, SEPT. 16, 1805. PERSONALLY appeared before me, John Sibley, one of the justices of the peace for the county of Natchitoches, John Baptiste Grappe, an inhabitant of Campte, in said county, and likewise one of the justices of the peace for the same, aged forty-two years, who being duly sworn, deposeth and saith, that thirty-five or thirty-six years ago, he went with his father from Natchitoches to the ancient Caddo village, where he remained about four months; at that time there were no families or soldiers living there, but the houses of the French families who had lived there but a few years before, together with the fort and the flag staff and the barracks, or houses occupied by the soldiers, were all standing entire, and that his father told him which of the fields and houses his family had occupied for a number of years; and likewise he remembers to have seen in the fort the ambusiers and platform where the cannon were placed. And that he recollects his father used to call the distance from Natchitoches to said place by water about the same as from Natchitoches to New Orleans,(viz.) about one hundred and seventy leagues. And further, that he well recollects some French families, particularly a Mr. Verge and a Mr. de Coto, living at the Yattasse point, so called, and that he always understood they had lived there for many years before Louisiana was ceded to Spain, and that the same place has always continued to be occupied by some French inhabitants, and is situate on the western division of Red river, about twenty-five leagues above Natchitoches, and is now part of what is called the Bayou Pierre settlement, under the jurisdiction of the Spanish government in the province of Taxus. And that he has been several times at a place, called the bank of the Sabine river, at a prairie, and towards the

Dout, on the east

head of said river, where there was an appearance of some works having been erected by the French as a trading establishment, and where his father, and many Indians, had told him the French flag had been hoisted, and the arms of the king of France buried. And farther the deponent saith not. BTE. GRAPPE.

(Signed)

Sworn before me at Natchitoches, the 16th day of September, 1805. JOHN SIBLEY, Justice Peace.

(Signed)

I, the subscriber, being duly sworn as an interpreter of the French language, do hereby certify that the foregoing deposition of John Baptiste Grappe, Esq. is truly interpreted and translated. J. HORN.

(Signed)

NATCHITOCHES, SEPT. 22, 1805. PERSONALLY appeared before me, John Sibley, one of the justices of the peace for the county of Natchitoches, Francis Grappe, of Campte, in said county, aged fifty-seven, who being duly sworn, deposeth and saith, That to the best of his knowledge and belief, he was born near the ancient Caddo village on the Red river, which, by the course of the river, he believes to be upwards of five hundred miles above Natchitoches, where his parents then lived, and had lived, he believes, a number of years before he was born, and where they continued to live until he was sixteen or seventeen years of age. As long ago as he can remember be recollects a Mr. Francois Hervey, a French gentleman, who lived there, and who he understood was the first white man that settled there, and that his father settled there about two years after, but he always understood there had been a company of French traders settled for a number of years about forty miles higher up the river, and that Mr. Hervey was one of them, but they were broke up before he was born; it was always called the Company, and that during the whole time he lived at the ancient Caddo village there were three settled families, besides a number of single persons and a detachment of soldiers, and that the number of soldiers assigned by the French government for

that post was always fifteen, but he never knew the number complete, and that his father was commandant of the place for many years, and was succeeded by a Mr. Closo, who continued to be commandant till it was abandoned after the cession of Louisiana to Spain, and that his father, by order of the then governour of Louisiana, built a small fort there, in which were two small pieces of cannon, and in which was a flag staff, on which the French flag was occasionally hoisted. He believes the whole time that that place was occupied by the French as a military post and a settlement of families, was about thirty years, and that the inhabitants pursued the same agriculture that was then common in other parts of the French settlement of Louisiana, viz. corn, tobacco, indigo, cotton and garden vegetables, with some wheat, which grew well, but having no way of manufacturing flour, there was but little wheat raised, though there were a pair of excellent European mill stones and mill irons there, but were not in use in his time; the stones he himself brought down in the year 1778, and they were carried to Oppelousas; he understood they had been car ried to the Caddo country by the Company, as it was called; and that he has knowledge of a French trading establishment being at the place called the Dout, on the Sabine river, near where the Mandaco Indians now live, and that it was an ancient establishment, and a place of great trade and resort at the time his father's family lived at the Caddos, and that he has several times been at the place; the French flag used to be hoisted there; and there are the remains of the buildings and works now to be scen; and that the Dout is about 150 miles north west from Natchitoches; and that there was at the same time a similar trading establishment and a number of settled French families at the Yattasse Point, on the south west division of Red river, about twenty-five leagues above Natchitoches, on what is now called the Bayou Pierre settlement, which is now under the jurisdiction of Spain, and which place is now, and ever has continued to be, occupied by French inhabitants, and that some of whom have ancient French

grants or titles for their lands, and that Mr. Verge, who lived there for many years, before Louisiana was ceded to Spain, had the exclusive Indian trade granted him by the French governour of Louisiana of the Troiscannes, or, Tauacanos, the Keyekies, Yattasses, and several other tribes that then lived on the river Sabine, and southward and westward of it, in what is now called the province of Taxus. (Signed) FRANCOIS GRAPPE.

Sworn to before me the 30th September, 1805.

(Signed) JOHN SIBLEY, J. P.: The subscriber, being duly sworn interpreter of the French language, doth hereby certify, that the foregoing declaration of Francois Grappe is truly interpreted aud translated. JOHN HORN.

(Signed)

MESSAGE

FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, TO THE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE STATES.

SENATE

UNITED

THE enclosed documents, relating to my message of the 6th instant, not being ready at that date, I thought it better not to detain the message, but to communicate these papers afterwards as supplementary to those then sent. They are not of a nature to be deemed confidential.

TH: JEFFERSON.

December 10, 1805.

DOCUMENTS, &c.

[COPY.]

NATCHITOCHES, OCT. 2, 1805.

PERSONALLY appeared before me, John Sibley, one of the justices of the peace for the county of Natchitoches, Gaspard Bodin, Lewis Bodin and Andrew Chamar, all of Natchitoches aforesaid, who being duly sworn, deposed * VOL. 1.

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