Jos. A. Cyr, Captain

Cyr-Sire in Tanguay's Dictionnaire Genealogique

Cyr - Syre - Sire
in Dictionnaire généalogique
des familles canadiennes
by Mgr Cyprien Tanguay, vol 7
Montréal 1890

Voy. = Voyez - see/look at

1791 census of San Luis (St Louis), #30
Jacinto Sansir =

Jacinto St Sire =
Hyacinthe St Cyr
St Louis 1793 september 3
Mrs. C. Poepping Collection, St Louis

In French Cyr and Sire are pronounced exactly the same way. So you find two types of spelling depending on the writer. In the old days Sire or Sirre were more frequent, today it is mostly Cyr.
So you could write Cyr dit Sire
if you like.
- Marcel W. Landry
2jan2012

more on  Cyr/Sire name origin

looking for info re. JAS's sister ...
Eliza Sire (Jacques + Marie)
m Francis Geauty
son Edward
Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe,
French West Indies
¿ is Joseph A. Cyr, father of Mary Louise Cyr,
the same as Joseph Aimé Sire, Missouri riverboat captain ?

the circumstantial evidence ...              

1798 april 28 Jacques Cyr & Marie-Anne Alvarez married,1
La Rochelle, Charente-Maritime, France
1799 february 19
1799 february 17		Joseph Aimè Cyr born at La Rochelle, Lower Charante, France
Joseph Aime Sire, son of Jacques Sire and Marianne Alvarez2
1814 age 15, emigrated to Philadelphia USA3
helped by Vital M. Gareschè, of Gareschè & Rasazies.4
[cannot find Rasazie/s anywhere apart from this reference]
(Gareschè's parents (patrilineally Huguenot) had been residents of La Rochelle, France. Gareschè later moved to St Louis in 1839, became a member of the City Council & president of the Board of Public Schools.)
1821 age 22, clerk at Brand and Detandebaratz, merchants5
25 south Main n.e. corner south A, St Louis, Missouri
came to St. Louis in 1821, where he entered the Chouteau-Sarpy Fur Co.6
1822age 23, beginning of employment with Messrs. Chouteau & Co.7
1823 octoberage 24, voyageur/hunter with Antoine Citoleux [dit Langevin] (commander) & Jean Eymas, from Fort Kiowa on the Missouri to the Little Missouri, Missouri Fur Company post, "among the various Sioux divisions, the Saones (under Sire and Brazeau); Citoleux dictated his will to Sire who transcribed it.8
1823-4 age 24, Sire at Little Missouri [western North Dakota], replaced by Pascal9
±1825 Mary Louise Cyr born to mother Enseiny [unknown origin],
father Joseph A. Cyr (from 1857 marriage record, see below)
1826 age 27, date referenced as when J.A. Sire "came to St Louis"2 and when "he determined to go West"4
1827 june 27 age 28, married Virginy Labbadie10, only child of Silvestre Labbadie11
worked at father-in-law's saw mill, north St Louis12
1828 august age 29, son Jules born
1828 september 22   wife Virginie died, age 20, after childbirth
1828 october 23 newborn son Jules died
"After the death of his wife and child, Mr. Sire continued to reside with her parents until the disposal of the mill in the 1836, when Mr. Sire changed his business, and became a partner in the fur company of Pierre Chouteau, Sarpy & Co."12
1830 the store formerly occupied by Menard & Sire, on Main street, four doors south of the Market / collections.mohistory.org/archive/ [haven't found any other Sire in St Louis - this is a first. no Menard in 1845 city directory. but there was a Menard Street. -tpk]
1834 age 35, Joshua Pilcher recommends Joseph LaBarge, who has wintered with him at the post, for a clerkship on the upper Missouri. [development of a future steamboat captain - from staffing a post over winter, to clerk, like Sire. -tpk]
1836 saw mill sold13
1836 age 37, joined fur company of Pierre Chouteau, Sarpy & Co.14, chief transportation officer15 [quite a jump from saw mill to steam boats ... or maybe not. maybe he was into lumber procurement & had to travel upriver to find wood to float down to feed the saw mill]
1837 november 21 Sire summoned to testify in the court case of Andrew [a boy of color, illegally held in slavery, permitted to sue as a poor person for the recovery of his freedom] vs John B Sarpy, County of St Louis16
1840 age 41, steamboat Omega at Galena for St. Peters, Minnesota, spring of 1840, Captain Joseph Sire, Pilot Joseph La Barge; owned by the American Fur Co.; went into the Missouri River trade.17
1841-46 steamboat captain on the Missouri River from St Louis to Fort Union, Dakota Territory, Captain Joseph A. Sire master, and Captain Joseph La Barge pilot.18
1841, 1842 captained the steamboat Trapper [Trapper has brought smallpox upriver in 183719]
1842 purchased land in Mendota MN20
owned 10% of P. Chouteau Jr & Co.30
1843 captained the steamboat Omega, june 1: carried naturalist Audubon as passenger21;
ran illegal whiskey to the tribes on his steamboats (10 may)22
1844 captained the steamboat Nimrod23
1845, 1846 captained the steamboat General Brooke24
Washington DC - "Some of our friends, the 'traders,' were in the city, of whom I remember Col. Geo. W. Ewing and Capt. Joseph A. Sire. The Indians were in debt to these gentlemen, and if a treaty was to be made, it was well enough for the rights of all to be looked after; and the Chiefs were very much gratified to have their friends present, although the sapient Indian bureau regarded the merchants who had credited the members of the tribe as little better than thieves and robbers."25
Sire Joseph A, (P. Choteau, Jr., & Co.), boards at S Labadie's26
1847 age 48, retired. LaBarge became master of the Martha27
guardian of Ferdinand Louis Gareschè, a minor heir of Vital M. Gareschè, deceased28 [Sire's first patron in Philadelphia; both men's parents from La Rochelle, France]
1849 june 28 witness to transfer of Fort Laramie from Pierre Chouteau Jr & Co. to US Army, with Pierre Chouteau Jr, John B Sarpy, John F A Sandford; recorded june 185129
owned 17.33% of P. Chouteau Jr & Co.30
1849 october trip to Minnesota as partner and field representative in Pierre Chouteau Jr & Company to review trade with Winnebago, Chippewa & Sioux31
1851 june Capt. Joseph A. Sire was also taken on board [the steamer Duroc [sic: Durack] at Bellevue.32
1852 may 8 age 53, Pierre Chouteau Jr's agent in St Louis
P. Chouteau Jr & Co. dissolved30
1852 june 29 married Mrs. Rebecca W Chouteau, widow of Augustus R Chouteau, by Joseph Boyle, minister, First Methodist Church33
1852 july 12 one of 63 pall-bearers of Henry Clay34
1854 july 15 age 55, died, without children;
owned 26% interest in the American Fur Company; 35
his widow Rebecca West Sefton Chouteau Sire was the sole heir.
Catholic burial36
1857 august 13 "Mary Louise Cyr daughter of Joseph A Cyr & of Enseiny," married "Charles Primeau, son of Paul Primeau & Pelagie Bissonette," officiated by P.J. De Smet SJ, St Francis Xavier Church, St Louis, Missouri
1857 daughter of Joseph A. Cyr
  • "the daughter of Capt. Asier" - Daily Globe, St Paul MN 1888
  • "her mother being a Sioux and her father a captain" - Frank Fiske, Standing Rock photographer 1947
  • "(CYRS) per Joe Forte" per Genevieve Forte, per Emma Primeau's notes.
  • Mary Louise Seers b 1822 - South Dakota Historical Collections 1966
  • from a paper note ca.1940 in TPKelly's papers ...
    Chahompela + Capt. _____ Sears Capt. _____ Sears
  • eldest son of Charles Primeau & Mary Louise Cyr named Joseph (b 1851).
    (Charles' father was Paul Charles, grandfather was Joseph.)

sources
1 Famille: Jacques Cyr/Marie-Anne Alvarez (F17757), Généalogie & histoire Landry, administré par Marcel Walter Landry
Sire Jacques à Marie-Anne Marthe Alvares 9 floral year 6 [French Republican Calendar = 28 april 1798] numero 103.
- Archives departementales de la Charente-Maritime, La Rochelle, Collection du greffe, Etat civil, Tables Naissances Mariages Divorces Adoptions 1793 - 1802
my thanks to Marcel Landry for the information.
2 Mary B Cunningham & Jeanne C Blythe, The founding family of St. Louis 1977 referenced on rootsweb
3 ibidem (born 1799 + age 15 = 1814)
4 John Thomas Scharf, History of Saint Louis City and County, from the Earliest Periods to the Present Day: including Biographical Sketches of Representative Men. volume 2, Philadelphia 1883 p1250-2
5 Frederic L. Billon, Annals of St. Louis in its Territorial Days From 1804 to 1821, St. Louis 1888 (archive.org's OCR incorrectly transcribed the 'n' in Brand as 'u'); for incidence of (James) Brand & (Martial) Detandebaratz, see Missouri Judicial Index Database
6 Paul Edmond Beckwith, Creoles of St. Louis: a genealogy of the descendants of Rene Auguste Chouteau of Bearn, France, who came to New Orleans in the 18th century (1893) p12
7 Asa Whitney, A project for a railroad to the Pacific, 1849 Appendix p61, "statement relative to the Missouri and navigation on on that stream, was given to me by Captain Joseph A. Sire a year ago" [dated New York, January 5, 1848], "says he has been in the employment of Messrs. Chouteau & Co., and navigated boats on the Missouri River for 25 years;" [1848 - 1 = 1847; 1847 - 25 = 1822]
8 John C. Luttig, clerk of the Missouri Fur Company, Journal of a fur-trading expedition on the upper Missouri 1812-1813, edited by Stella M Drumm 1920 St Louis, p156, biography of Antoine Citoleux dit Langevin. Antoine Citoleur and Pierre Primeau served together as engagés in La Compagny des Fourures du Missoury dans une Adventure conduit par Manuel Lisa dans deux Barge partits l'une le 2 May et l'autre le 6, 1812, listed immediately after Citoleux's biography.
"Ant. Citolen" one of five men "killed in a perogue sent with goods by Bernard Pratte & Co. to the Arickaras and Mandans", reported by Richd. T. Holliday, letter from White Wood River, 16 february 1824, Public Documents, Congressional edition, United States 18th Congress, 1st Session 1824 Senate Committee on Indian Affairs [71] Indian depredations on the Missouri p3-4
9 1824 february 20 letter from Jos. Brazeau, on the Little Missouri, Village of the Burnt [Brulés/Sicangu], to John P Cabanne, H. Smith, Lt & A.D.C., in Public Documents, Congressional edition, United States 18th Congress, 1st Session 1824 Committee on Indian Affairs [71] Indian depredations on the Missouri p5
"Pascal has arrived here, and replaces Sire at Little Missouri." [- Pascal? "Sire & Brazeau at the Saones." Pascal Cerrè at the Poncas? Pescay at the Yanktons?] LeRoy R Hafen, Mountain men and fur traders of the Far West: eighteen biographical sketches, Nebraska 1982 p31
10 St. Louis Marriages (1754-1835), Dave Lossos
11 Descendants of Marie Therese Bourgeois, Dave Lossos
12 Frederic Louis Billon, Annals of St. Louis in its territorial days, from 1804 to 1821; being a continuation of the author's previous work, the Annals of the French and Spanish period, p179-180
13 Scharf (ibidem), History of Saint Louis City and County: from the earliest periods ..., Volume 1, St Louis 1883 p195 (note also "Lime-burners, Paul Primeau ...")
14 this space reserved for footnote 14
15 this space reserved for footnote 15
16 Digital Library on American Slavery 1837, 1839
17 George Byron Merrick, Old Times of the Upper Mississippi, Cleveland 1909 p284
18 Captain Joseph A. Sire, For wood and water: steamboating on the Missouri River from Saint Louis to Fort Union, Dakota Territory 1841-1846 : a collection of journals, presented by Mark H. Bettis, Missouri 2000
19 The American Fur Company's steamboat, Trapper, brought smallpox up the river in 1837. - Blackfeet Nation, Our History
20 Erling Jorstad, Personal politics in the origin of Minnesota's Democratic party, Minnesota History Magazine p260
21 John James Audubon, Missouri River Journals, Minnesota History Magazine p260
22 Hiram Martin Chittenden, History of early steamboat navigation on the Missouri river: life and adventures of Joseph La Barge, Pioneer Navigator and Indian Trader, vol.1, New York 1903 p146, "The Virtous Sire"; and Chittenden, The American fur trade of the Far West, chapter 5 "Smuggling liquor up the Missouri" pp678-683
23 John E. Sunder, The Fur Trade on the Upper Missouri 1840-1865 Oklahoma 1993 pp73-4
24 John E. Sunder, The Fur Trade on the Upper Missouri 1840-1865 Oklahoma 1993 p79
25 Richard Smith Elliott, Notes taken in sixty years, St Louis 1883 chap.30 pp92, 166, 191, 193 ("the daughter of Peerish Le Claire ... a three-quarter Indian girl, who had been at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in St. Louis to be educated, and was returning home under the particular care of Capt. Sire. Handsome and graceful, and the daughter of a Chief, she was of course treated with politeness; but being unfortunately subject to epileptic attacks, ... Miss Le Claire's revival ..."), 202
26 Green's 1845 St. Louis City Directory p160
27 T. S. Bowdern SJ, Joseph LaBarge Steamboat Captain in Missouri Historical Review, Columbia vol62 Summer 1968 pgs 449-469
28 General Assembly of the State of Missouri, An Act to authorize the sale of real estate belonging to the heirs of Vital M. Garesche in Laws of Missouri passed at the General Assembly, Approved 25 january 1847 p309
29 Fort Laramie and the Forty-Niners, Section 4 1949, Rocky Mountain Nature Association, website 2003
30 Chouteau and others v. Barlow, Surviving Executor, etc. US Supreme Court 110 U.S. 238 (3 S.Ct. 620, 28 L.Ed. 132) Decided: January 28, 1884
31 Erling Jorstad, Personal politics in the origin of Minnesota's Democratic party, Minnesota History Magazine p263. see also Norma L. Wark, Papers of Henry Hastings Sibley: Fur Trader, Politician, General Guide to the Microfilm Edition 2008
32 Galveston Weekly News, Texas, vol.8, no.14, ed.1, Tuesday, 15 July 1851 p4, upper left corner, Weekly News. / From the Rockey Mountains. / The St Louis Republican, of the 21st ult., ...
33 Missouri Marriage Records, 1805-2002 Record for Mrs Rebecca W Chouteau, St Louis 1854 p74 ancestry.com; John Thomas Scharf, History of Saint Louis City and County: from the earliest periods ... 1883 St Louis p1687
34 John Thomas Scharf, History of Saint Louis City and County: from the earliest periods ... vol.2 St Louis 1883 p1831
35 John E. Sunder, The Fur Trade on the Upper Missouri 1840-1865, Oklahoma 1993 p161
36 Joseph A Sire Enterrement (Burial) 18 july 1854 Catholique, St-Louis, Missouri, Early U.S. French Catholic Church Records (Drouin Collection), St-Louis; Sépultures . 1853-1870 . 247 ancestry.com; buried Calvary Catholic cemetery, St Louis with first wife Virginia L
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research by tom kunesh
© 27 december 2011