Here we continue the story of Jean Baptiste Janis, focusing on his petition to Congress in 1836.

Petition to Congress

In a previous section I explained that François Busseron lent nearly $12,000 to George Rogers Clark and was never repaid. That's one perspective. Alberts describes the situation from Clark's point of view—that of a dedicated commander who worked without pay and personally took on debt to purchase supplies for his regiment, assuming that, eventually, he would be paid back by the government which would eventually be formed. "Both Virginia and the United States, however, defaulted in payment" (Alberts, p. 62), and his property was confiscated in order to repay his creditors. Finally, in 1838—twenty years after his death—his heirs received a lump sum of $30,000 in return for his service to the country.

As mentioned previously, there appears to have been a movement in the 1830's for the United States to acknowledge its debt to those who had fought for its independence, for, at the same time that Clark's heirs received their compensation, the U.S. Congress debated and passed legislation giving my ancestor, Jean Baptiste Janis, a pension of $10 per month for his brief stints as a soldier in the Continental Army.

It was a busy year for Congress. A list of legislation passed for that year ranges from the important to the mundane, including: appropriations to continue war against the Creek and Seminole American Indians; authorization of a railroad through Massachusetts, and another act on building post-roads in Arkansas and Missouri; an act extending franking privileges (that is, free mail service) to Dolly Madison; an act to continue diplomatic ties to Spain; and a number of laws concerning patents.

Senate Bill S. 237 of 1836

In the Senate, Jean Baptiste's cause was taken up by his representative, Senator Lewis F. Linn of Missouri. Linn's Wikipedia page is pretty skimpy, but it does mention that as a medical doctor he successfully fought two cholera outbreaks in Ste. Geneviève. Since their lives overlapped in this tiny Missouri town, it is probable that Senator Linn knew Jean Baptiste Janis personally.

Here's the first page of Senate Bill 237, also known as S. 237, 24th Cong., 1st Session, 1836, "For the relief of Jean Baptiste Janis, senior, of Missouri."

The House Bill

On the House side, the petition to Congress was presented by Congressman John Reynolds of Illinois.

John Reynolds

Since Jean Baptiste Janis the Elder was living in Missouri at the time, it makes sense that Linn would sponsor the Senate version of the bill. By why did an Illinois representative have to support Jean Baptiste's cause in the House? And why would he?

There are two reasons. First, John Reynolds, as he reveals at the very end of his speech before Congress, knew Jean Baptiste personally. Second, over the course of his life Congressman Reynolds had become rather enchanted with the French Creole culture of Upper Louisiana.

In 1800, when he was 12, Reynolds' family moved to Kaskaskia, Illinois from their farm in Tennessee. Later he studied law and in 1812 he returned to Kaskaskia to begin his practice there. He married a Creole woman, and took a strong liking to their culture and lifestyle, more than once referring to them as "a happy people" in his biography. During this time he also learned French, which, according to his Wikipedia page, he considered "as being superior to all others for social intercourse". Ekberg quotes Reynolds speaking of the law-abiding tendencies of these early settlers, declaring that the only crime any French Creole ever committed in Illinois was that of keeping his grocery store open on Sunday.

By the time he died, Reynolds would fill the posts of governor of Illinois, associate justice on the state's Supreme Court, and representative in the Illinois Legislature. In addition, from 1834 to 1837 he joined the U.S. House of Representatives. His tenure there was limited to a single term, as he failed to retain the seat in the election of 1836. During his two-year stint there, however, he took up the cause of a 77-year-old Creole named Jean Baptiste Janis.

That Day in the House

In the spring of 1836, a House version of the Senate bill for Jean Baptiste's pension was drafted. That June, Congressman Reynolds was scheduled to bring it up for discussion before the U.S. House of Representatives.

It was Saturday, June 11, and the House was going through its routine of "the reading of the journal" when two newsmen—"one of the regular reporters for one of the city papers, and another who usually reports in the Senate for a distant paper"—got into some kind of squabble. One of the men was sitting at a desk, the other standing before it, and they were engaged in conversation when the reporter standing threw his hat at the man sitting behind the desk, then raised his cane and hit the man behind the desk two or three times.

We can imagine that the disturbance stopped all the regular business in the House, for the record shows the congressmen spent what remained of the morning debating what to do in the matter. Some argued that the House of Representatives had authority to hold in custody only the reporter who did the violence; others, apparently hearing that the man behind the desk had said something insulting to the other, thus prompting the disturbance, argued that the House had authority to hold both in custody. The House then proceeded, and finished, the reading of the journal, and then one member rose and spoke, refocusing the body's attention on the earlier disturbance and what they should do concerning the two men held by the Sergeant-at-arms. They decided to form a select committee to investigate exactly what had occurred. (Breach of Privilege)

Next the House decided that they would have the Sergeant-at-arms deliver the two reporters to the local police, but they resolved that their doing so should not be interpreted as in any way suggesting that the House had no authority to deal with the disturbance themselves. Finally, Representative Bell reminded the members that "the time of the House was so precious," and urged his colleagues to get on with their regular business, which is what they proceeded to do:

PENSION BILLS

The hour from 11 to 12 of this day having been specially set apart for the consideration of "pension bills," and that hour having elapsed, from the length of time occupied in reading and amending the journal,

Mr. WARDWELL moved to set apart the residue of this day for that purpose, which was agreed to.

The House then went into Committee of the Whole (Mr. CRAIG in the chair,) and first took up the following bill:

"A bill extending the provisions of the act entitled 'An act supplementary to the act for the relief of certain surviving officers and soldiers of the Revolution.'"

Mr. C. ALLAN moved to amend the bill by extending its provisions to all those who were engaged in the Indian wars from 1781 to 1795. (Pension Bills, p. 1)

There followed considerable debate as to whether three or six months of service in the Indian wars should be sufficient to have earned oneself a pension. Representative Mann of New York argued that awarding just three months' service would be a drain on the treasury. This prompted Congressman Boon to rise and speak at length. He said:

When I first came into Congress, some ten years since, the old Indian fighters who then stood at the bar of this House, and petitioned Congress to compensate them for services rendered in defence of their country, and for property taken and destroyed by the enemy, were then told that they might go home to live in penury and want the remaining remnant of their days, as there was a large national debt to pay, and an empty Treasury to meet it.

Now, sir, we are told that there is in the Treasury of the United States some forty or fifty millions of dollars, over and above the wants of the Government; and yet, justice is withheld by the Government from those who have fought the battles of their country, and who, from old age and other causes, are unable to make a comfortable support for themselves and their families. [...] Who, I ask, Mr. Chairman, braved the bloody tomahawk and scalping-knife of a savage foe, and gave rise to the settlement and value of your vast public domain, which now yields annually to your Treasury millions and millions of dollars? Sir, it was the citizen soldiers of the West. Sir, they are the sons and grandsons of the revolutionary heroes of the old thirteen States of the Union. And now that your Treasury is full to overflowing, shall a just reward for their patriotic services be longer withheld? I trust not, Mr. Chairman. (Pension Bills, p. 2)

Congressman Boon's rhetoric served its purpose, and the amendment was agreed to.

At this point another congressman moved to include widows of those engaged in the Indian wars, which was agreed to. Then Congressman Wardwell—who will reappear during the discussion of Jean Baptiste—moved to expand the number of those eligible for the pension to include "minute men" (the quotation marks are not mine, and nowhere does the record clarify exactly who fell into this category). After some debate this proposal was disagreed to.

The Debate

After all that had happened, Congress was finally able to turn its attention to the individual pensioners, which included Jean Baptiste.

The committee also considered about one hundred bills for the relief of individual pensioners; all of which were reported; and those to which no exception was taken were, in mass, ordered to be engrossed and read a third time on Monday.

(In the House, legislation must be "read" three times before it can be passed.)

The first petition concerned Leslie Combes, and it receives just one paragraph in the record. I don't know why the matter of Jean Baptiste Janis, which immediately follows, goes on for pages. Is it simply because Congressman Reynolds had much more to say than those who spoke on behalf of Leslie Combes? Or did Congressman Reynolds, a career politician, somehow signal that he wanted his remarks to go into the record?

In any case, Reynolds spoke at length, and here I provide a transcription of his remarks from the scanned images provided by the Library of Congress. The transcription is literal, which means, among other things, that I have kept the old-style spelling, punctuation and capitalization intact. I break up the text with comments and, for those who are skimming this page rather than carefully poring over its every word, a summary of the most important points.

JEAN BAPTISTE JANIS.

The bill for the relief of Jean Baptiste Janis was then taken up.

Mr. WARDWELL moved to strike out the enacting clause.

Mr. REYNOLDS rose and said:

Mr. Speaker: I do not intend at this late period of the session, and at this time on Saturday evening, to trouble the House with a long speech. I would be pleased if the Clerk will read the commission which Colonel Clark gave to the claimant, appointing him an ensign in a company commanded by Captain Francais Charleville, which commission is now in possession of the House. I would be also well pleased if the Clerk would read the report or statement of the claimant.

[These documents were not read, as their existence and validity were not doubted.]

Reynolds notes Jean Baptiste's commission with Colonel George Rogers Clark, and indicates that a copy is now in possession of the House. Recall that Jean Baptiste's affidavit, summarized above, stated that he had sent his copies to a number of government agencies. He must have been greatly relieved when they resurfaced in the right hands.

Mr. R. further said that it was a matter of history, recorded and known to the country, that Colonel George Rogers Clark, in the year 1778, marched a regiment to the Illinois country, and on that consideration his corps was called "the Illinois regiment," that on the 4th July, at night, 1778, he entered the town of Kaskaskia with his troops, and captured that place. At the same time there were other settlements and towns in the possession of the enemy near and in the same region of country which at that time was called "the Illinois country."

After taking possession of another village, (Copokia,) which is situated, as Kaskaskia is, near the Mississippi river, Colonel Clark made preparation to capture also from the enemy the military post Vincennes. This expedition was performed in the year 1779. This became necessary, or the conquests already made would not secure the citizens of Kentucky and elsewhere from the inroads made into their country by the Indians, who were inflamed against the Americans by the English. Vincennes was a post which was defended by the British soldiers to the amount Mr. R. could not then recollect; but it was a fort of some strength; and in which, as well as I recollect, Governor Hamilton commanded. In order to be able to succeed in the capture of this post, and thereby to insure peace and quiet to the citizens, Colonel Clark was compelled to enlist into the regiment under his command two companies more. One company was commanded by Captain Charleville, whom I mentioned before, and another commanded by Captain McCarty; one raised in Kaskaskia, and the other in Copokia, and both organized and composed a part of "the Illinois regiment," under the command of Colonel Clark.

Reynolds describes Clark's capture of Kaskaskia and "Copokia," which surely means Cahokia. The error must be one of transcription, as Reynolds' familiarity with that part of Illinois cannot be doubted. Reynolds also relates Clark's calling on the local French Creole men to join his regiment.

The claimant of this pension, Jean B. Janis, was, as I before stated, appointed an ensign in the company commanded by Captain Charleville.

These are all historic facts, which are on this occasion not questioned or doubted, and in fact are admitted.

It is also a fact that Colonel Clark commenced this campaign from Kaskaskia to Vincennes, in the winter or spring of the year 1779, at a time that it was extremely difficult and almost impossible, from the inclemency of the weather and the high stage of the water between those two points, to march his army from one post to the other. The distance is one hundred and sixty or seventy miles. The country at the time the march was performed was greatly inundated with water, and the rivers (the Wabash and others) were so high that the waters were from bluff to bluff in them, and in some instances two or three miles wide. The snow and the ice had not entirely left the ground; and add to this, that there were no baggage wagons, and, in fact, not much food, to attend the army. Yet, with all these privations, hardships, and difficulties, these brave soldiers, under the command not only of a brave but also a talented man, accomplished their march to Vincennes, and took that post from the enemy without the loss of a man.

In this campaign the claimant, Mr. Janis, performed service as an ensign in the company commanded by Captain Charleville, He went, and, like others, acted well his part in that campaign. There is not on record the history of a campaign that exhibited more talents in the plan, and required more interpidity and courage in the execution, than the campaign planned and executed by Colonel Clark in the capture of the British posts on the Mississippi and in the Illinois country.

Reynolds describes for his colleagues the story of the difficult march toward Vincennes through flooded plains and with little food, and, despite these hardships, the successful siege of the fort without a single casualty. He says the siege "required more interpidity and courage" than any other (the word interpidity appearing to be an obsolete form of intrepidity).

At that day there were very few people settled west of the mountains, and these few were infested and eternally annoyed by the Indians, excited to murder and bloodshed by the British enemy. It became necessary, therefore, in order to secure the peace and quiet of these settlements, to capture these British posts, by which the Indians were supplied with the munitions of war, and to remove back the Indians and the means of their support to such distance as they would not be able to disturb the white people. This was accomplished. More was accomplished, also; the country was taken and retained from the enemy, which now composes the best and the fairest portion of the Union.

In the treaty of 1783 with Great Britain, the capture and occupation of this country by the American arms is adverted to, and, no doubt, was taken into consideration at the time of making the treaty. This is the country that was captured from the enemy by the energy and bravery of Janis, and others, that now pours into the Treasury of the United States so much money from the sales of public lands. There are millions received from the sales of the very same lands which the "Illinois regiment," in which Janis acted as an officer, took from the enemy at a time that "tried men's souls." Yet the honorable chairman says, if a pension be given to Mr. Janis, it will form an exception, and violate the general rule and law on this subject. Be it so. I should consider it an honor to violate a rule that would deprive a man of a pension, made under circumstances such as these. The gentleman [Mr. WARDWELL] seems to represent this case as a person with gold weights, weighing out money by the cent, to a revolutionary soldier who performed so brave and noble a part in that struggle as did Mr. Janis.

(The paragraph break here is mine.)

a time that tried men's souls: A reference to the first sentence of Thomas Paine's The American Crisis. Also an indirect reference to George Washington, who famously had his officers read the essay to his troops the day before the Battle of Trenton. The reference is very apt, especially when the following sentence of the original work is considered regarding Jean Baptiste's petition: "These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

Reynolds argues that Clark's capture of the British posts in the Illinois Country served two purposes: it kept the Indians at bay and played a central role in the peace treaty finally made with the British to end the war, ceding this valuable land to the Americans. Historians have made the same point, arguing that, had Clark not taken and held the British posts, England might well have retained the territory during the negotiations.

Congressman Reynolds addresses arguments against the case of Jean Baptiste Janis, posed by Congressman Wardwell, the Chair. Apparently Wardwell had argued that to give Jean Baptiste a pension would prove an exception to the requirements previously laid down by laws on pensions, to which Reynolds declares it would be "an honor" to violate such a rule in this case. Later Reynolds will discuss the details of the rule that disqualified Jean Baptiste from a pension.

I find it interesting that Reynolds' rhetorical adversary is the same Congressman Wardwell who, at the beginning of these debates, motioned to extend pensions beyond veterans of the Indian wars to the so-called "minute men." In the case of Jean Baptiste, he pleads for financial austerity, while towards others he is more generous. Could it be that these minute men were composed of his own constituents?

Finally, notice the language Reynolds uses when referring to the Indians—infested, murder and bloodshed, and disturb the white people. No doubt this is how the Americans tended to think of the Native Americans—how else could they justify in their minds their own slaughter of an entire people? In a previous section of this speech, Reynold says, "This became necessary, or the conquests already made would not secure the citizens of Kentucky and elsewhere from the inroads made into their country by the Indians." Note that the complete lack of awareness of any irony in claiming that the Indians had been making "inroads" into the white men's country.

I will call to the recollection of the gentleman the privations and hardships on the march to capture Vincennes. Did Janis, when he was wading in the snow, ice, and water, to his neck, think of weighing out his energies and bravery with gold weights? Did he at that time think he was violating any rule, (and "his case would form an exception,") when he was fighting before the post of Vincennes? Nice conscientious scruples, and gold weights, were at that time not considered by Janis, and now should not be by us. We are now reaping the fruits of his and their labor; and I am, as one individual, in legislation or otherwise, proud to acknowledge it. We are now at our ease, happy in every respect, reclining in the shade of "the vine and fig tree," which was spoken into existence by the energies and talents of the revolutionary soldier. We are their happy children, and I hope we will have the gratitude to sustain, in reclining life, the few of our revolutionary fathers that remain among us. They cannot live among us only for a few years. The gentleman for whose benefit this bill is brought before Congress is far advanced in years, and cannot, by the course of nature, live long. I am informed he is about eighty years old. This bill, which only provides ten dollars per month during his natural life, will not beggar the Treasury, and will be an honorable acknowledgement of his revolutionary services. It will be a proud boon to his numerous and respectable descendants.

Reynolds again mentions the hardships of the march to Vincennes, and declares it unseemly that now, living in comfort with the war behind them, the members of Congress are willing to enjoy the benefits of Jean Baptiste's efforts without being willing to acknowledge his services.

to recline in the shade of the vine and the fig tree: that is, to live in peace and prosperity. This is a Biblical reference. (See Of Wars, Vines, and Fig Trees .) It could also perhaps be another indirect allusion to George Washington, who apparently was fond of the Biblical reference himself. (See Vine and Fig Tree.)

They cannot live among us only for a few years: Surely Reynolds means to say "They can live among us only for a few years more."

he is about eighty years old: In fact, those of you who have been paying attention know that Jean Baptiste was born in 1759, which made him 77 in 1836. I do not know whether he died before or after news of his victory in the U.S. Congress reached him.

The gentleman [Mr. W] says the case of Janis, if it becomes a law, will violate the existing law on the subject of revolutionary pensions. This is true, I presume. If the claim of Janis was embraced in the principles of the law now in existence, there would be no necessity of another act for his benefit. This claim would be allowed and paid under the provisions of the present law. The reason the old law does not embrace his case, is the foundation of the present application to Congress. The gentleman further says that, from all the information he can obtain, Mr. Janis served only thirty-six days; and as the law requires a service in all of six months in the Revolution to entitle a soldier to a pension, that, on that consideration, he is not entitled to a pension. Even to go with the gentleman into this rigid and strict rule, requiring proof of six months' service, it can be fairly presumed that, in the absence of evidence, Mr. Janis was six months in service. The gentleman would not require six months of continued fighting in a serugs battle, nor would he require six months' wading in snow, ice, and water, to entitle the soldier to a pension. The service which was so honorably performed by Colonel Clark in capturing these posts would require six months or more for its execution; and the fair presumption is, that Mr. Janis was employed in the service under Colonel Clark for six months or more during his conquest of the Illinois country.

The evidence spoken of by the gentleman [Mr. W.] cannot be correct. It would require more than thirty-six days for the army to march, at that season of the year, from Kaskaskia to Vincennes, and return. There were no bridges or ferries at the time, and the route was almost impassable from the snow, ice, and high waters in the rivers and other streams. In this calculation there would be no time left for preparation and organization for the campaign at Kaskaskia before they started, and no time left for the capture of the post, (Vincennes,) and for its occupation by the American forces. Every reasonable man will know it will require more than thirty-six days for the performance of this expedition. I do not want for Janis any thing that is not right and proper—he, himself, would not receive from Government or any individual any thing that was not strictly honorable and correct. He is a gentleman whose character for honesty and integrity stands above suspicion.

a serugs battle: a battle in which all on both sides are killed (definition given in the record itself)

In this passage Reynolds directly addresses the argument against giving Jean Baptiste a pension: that the law required six months of service, whereas the Battle of Vincennes took at most 36 days. The congressman from Illinois argues that, while the march and the siege themselves might have taken far less time, the preparation for the battle, and the occupation of the fort after the battle, would easily have required six months or more.

We know from his affidavit, discussed in another section above, that Jean Baptiste actually served three commissions totaling one year's service. It is possible that this sworn oath is the "printed statement" which Reynolds mentions next. If so, however, why doesn't the congressman discuss the full year's service? And why is he so coy about the question of whether the provenance of the printed statement was a committee or Jean Baptiste Janis himself?

I read a printed statement of his services, which lies on the Clerk's table; and I know not now if it were his own statements or a report of a committee—I would believe one as much as the other; I will vouch for his statements to be correct. I have known him and his character from my youth, and I know it to be good; and on this occasion I consider it my duty to state it, although he is not my constituent, but a resident of the State of Missouri.

It may be, Mr. Speaker, from the fact that I have been raised in the country where this service was performed, and on that consideration have heard so much about it, of its perils and hardships, that I have become so well convinced of the justice of the claim of Mr. Janis. It seems to me to be a claim of such propriety and justice that the House cannot hesitate to allow it. The gentleman need not fear that this case will open a door for similar cases. There are none in our country, as I know, similar to that of Mr. Janis; but if there were, it would be just and proper to allow them. I hope the House fully comprehend the merits and justice of this case, and knowing it, will allow it.

After some remarks from Messrs. WARDWELL, STORER, and ASHLEY, the bill was ordered to a third reading.

Reynolds closes his arguments by vouching for Jean Baptiste's character. Here we learn that he and Jean Baptiste have known each other since Reynolds was a child. Reynolds goes on to explain that, having grown up in Illinois, he has heard many times the story of the Battle of Vincennes. He admits that this may be why he is "so well convinced of the justice of the claim of Mr. Janis."

From Register of Debates in Congress, June 11, 1836, 4285-4289.

• Pages 4285 and 4286 at the Library of Congress.
• Pages 4287 and 4288 at the Library of Congress.
• Pages 4289 and 4290 at the Library of Congress.

Success?

The obvious question is—well, did Jean Baptiste get the pension or not?

Lankford says no:

Sadly, even Jean Baptiste Janis's attempt to gain a pension for his heroism at the capture of Vincennes turned out badly. He apparently applied in the twilight of his life, and he must have done it incorrectly—he probably just wrote a letter. In 1833 he received from the government agent a copy of the printed Revolutionary War pension rules with a note saying that if Janis wished to obtain a pension, he would have to submit a request by the rules. Three years later Janis was dead at 87, and the note was left among his effects. Sainte Geneviève Archives C 3636, Folder 401, WHM. See also the Lyman Draper Collection, the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison:18J92-93. (Lankford, p. 180)

First of all, Lankford does his math badly here: Jean Baptiste was 77 when he died, not 87. Elsewhere (quoted above) Lankford has his birth as 1759, and this is confirmed by the affidavit wherein he states he was 74 in 1833.

Concerning the question of whether Jean Baptiste got his pension, the Lankford article was published in 1995, and no doubt it was written a year or two before then. It turns out that Jean Baptiste did in fact win his pension. Which gives me the opportunity to rewrite history, at least a little bit.

Genealogically speaking, a major seismic event since Lankford's 1995 article has been the creation and growth of the Internet. Many private and government documents, previously buried in obscurity, have been given a new life as archives around the world make their holdings publicly available on the World Wide Web. Readers of this website have benefited from this renaissance: to cite but one example, this page begins with Jean Baptiste Janis's affidavit which, until very recently, was all but unknown to anyone other than a few very specialized scholars.

Although one can't help but be grateful for the sudden availability of all this information, one might still be disappointed to find that access to this treasure trove is often limited to those who have the wherewithal to pay for it. Yes, I'm aware that there are costs involved in the process of scanning all these documents and posting them online—you'll say that that's the way the world works. But I think a little more effort should have been made to make the information available to all. We are a democracy.

In any case, in my efforts to find whether my ancestor, Jean Baptiste Janis, ever received the pension that he petitioned Congress for, I decided to eschew Ancestry.com and other websites trying to make a profit off of U.S. government records that, rightly, already belong to me. Instead I searched the Internet, where I managed to find Library of Congress records in the process of being posted online. The results of my search immediately follow. The process of the search—the adventure of the search—that is, how I managed to find what I found—is in the next section after that.

The Law

We've seen both the Senate bill and the House debate on the act for Jean Baptiste's pension. As you'll recall, before a bill becomes law the two versions must be reconciled and then signed by the president. That must have been what happened, because here's the law itself.

Link to Image

For the (searchable) record, here's what the law concerning Jean Baptiste reads:

CHAP. CCCLXVII.—An Act for the relief of Jean Baptiste Janis, senior, of Missouri.

Be it enacted, &c., That the Secretary of War be, and he hereby is, directed to place the name of Jean Baptiste Janis, senior, of Missouri, on the roll of officers and soldiers under the act entitled "An act supplementary to 'the Act for the relief of certain surviving officers and soldiers of the revolution,' approved the seventh June, eighteen hundred and thirty-two," and to cause him to be paid in the same manner as the persons already inscribed on said roll, at the rate of ten dollars per month, from and after the fourth day of March, eighteen hundred and thirty-one.

APPROVED, July 2, 1836

The Nitty-Gritty Details

In this section I describe how I found the page in the Acts of Congress that formally lists the law concerning Jean Baptiste's pension. I fully admit that this discussion goes into an excessive amount of detail, and welcome those with too weak a constitution to skip it.

First of all, a not-so-brief aside about the different ways information can be presented online. One way is done by simply scanning a document, which is essentially taking a photograph of it. The result is an image. The advantage of images is that making them and posting them online is quick and easy. The disadvantage is that you can't search on the text an image contains. To use my own research as an example, if there's an image of the law concerning Jean Baptiste Janis somewhere on the Internet, I will not be able to find it by searching for "Jean Baptiste Janis" in Google. The image is nothing more than a photograph of the page the law is written on.

There are two ways to get the text out of an image. The first is by using OCR (optical character recognition) software. The result of OCR is a text file, often of low quality because the software frequently makes mistakes in distinguishing one character from another. For example, an image of the word little might be OCR'd as "1itt1e," where the letter "l" is replaced by the digit "1". So doing OCR on the Acts of Congress page concerning Jean Baptiste Janis might or might not result in good, searchable text—if the OCR thought the "B" in the word Baptiste was the digit "8," I'd be out of luck. That's the bad thing about OCR. The good thing about OCR is that it's almost as quick and easy as posting images online. The second way to get text out of an image is for a human being to look at the image and type out what it says—the result being a transcript of the image. This is what Will Graves and C. Leon Harris have done on their Southern Campaigns website. It takes a lot of effort, and I am very grateful to them.

To find whether Jean Baptiste succeeded with his petition to Congress, I started by doing Google searches like "jean baptiste janis" and "congress janis." I forget exactly which set of search terms led me to a badly OCR'd page at http://www.legisworks.org/sal/experiments/006_statutes_at_large.html. As you can see, the path includes a directory called "experiments," so I wouldn't be surprised if the link eventually went bad. Jean Baptiste appears to be mentioned a couple of times in the file, but the most important appearance of his name appears in this context:

CHAP. CCCXLVII.-.Iln .llc!for the relief Jean Baptiste Janis, senior, cf Missouri. July 2, 1836.

Be it enacted, qoc., That the Secretary of War be, and he hereby is,

directed to place the name of Jean Baptiste Janis, senior, of Missouri, To be plaeed

on the roll of officers and soldiers under the act entitled "An act sup- on penston roll.

plementary to 'the Act for the relief of certain surviving officers and

soldiers of the revolution,' approved the seventh June, eighteen hundred Act of June 'i,

and thirty-two," and to cause him to be paid in the same manner as the 1832, ch. 126.

persons already inscribed on said roll, at the rate of ten dollars per month, from and after the fourth day of March, eighteen hundred and thirty-one.

APPROVED, July 2, 1836.

On the one hand, the OCR here is almost impossible to read. On the other hand, it had been good enough for me to find it through Google, and legisworks.org is a volunteer, non-profit effort. So a big thanks to them for making searchable text available to all.

At the very top of the first page we see the title "Pnblic Statutts," which of course should be "Public Statutes." A little lower occurs the subtitle "PRIVATE ACTS OF CONGRESS." I realized a didn't know the difference between a public and a private act of Congress, so I had to do a little digging. Eventually I came to a summary of a book called Untapped Resources: Private Claims and Private Legislation in the Records of the U.S. Congress, by Charles E. Schamel. One of the author's main points is that the Congressional record could easily serve as a treasure-house for people doing genealogical and other kinds of research. The summary describes what private acts of Congress usually concern in this way:

The courts and agencies are bound to act under authority of public laws. Public laws must be applied universally and do not make exceptions for circumstances under which their application causes hardship to individuals. A large part of the private laws passed by Congress provide compensation to individuals or small groups that have been unfairly damaged by the actions of government applying policies or laws.

We see how the petition of Jean Baptiste Janis fits into this model. On a technicality, a previous law from 1833 left him ineligible for a pension for his wartime service. A private act of Congress could remedy this.

As grateful as I was for the searchable text provided by the good folks at legisworks.org, I wanted something of better quality to be the fruit of my research. So I started playing around with the URL—that is, the link http://www.legisworks.org/sal/experiments/006_statutes_at_large.html.

At http://www.legisworks.org/sal/experiments/ I found a directory of files, none of which appeared very interesting. So I shortened the path by one more directory, http://www.legisworks.org/sal/.

Scrolling down on this page I found the link whose text reads "24" on the line labeled "Volume 5 (1836-1845) (PLs: 24, 25, 26, 27, 28): Azhar Unwala." This link took me to the URL http://legisworks.org/congress/24/. That page shows the contents of the directory, including the a file called private-24.pdf. I opened that file and ... Eureka! Exactly what I was looking for. I downloaded this (in case these OCR experiments ever disappear from the Web), and have already presented to you the relevant page above.

I can hazard a guess as to how the creation of these files came about. Somebody named Sal worked at or for legisworks.org, and he was tasked with "digitizing" some of the private acts of Congress—that is, making the public records available on the Internet. A volunteer named Azhar Unwala began helping Sal. One of their goals was to post the images of the documents online (the easy part), but they also had the more difficult goal of making the text of the documents available online as well. They experimented with a free or, at least, very cheap OCR tool, putting the results into Sal's "experiments" directory. Probably they decided that the OCR was so bad it wasn't worth continuing. Although in one respect their efforts were a failure, in another respect their work allowed at least one person (me) to find exactly the information he was looking for.

Footnote: I don't know who Sal is, but I'll bet this Azhar Unwala is the same Azhar Unwala who wrote "The risks and rewards of digitizing the Middle East". (Just a few days after I found this article online, this link went bad. Hopefully the website where I found it will be up-and-running soon. If not, a Google search will probably find it elsewhere.)

Sources & References

Here are only some of the sources referenced on these pages. Generally speaking, for Internet resources I have provided links in the reference itself, and the links were good as of June, 2017. For the few exceptions—in the case where I have additional information on the source—I provide the external link below. Also, information on all non-Internet sources is detailed below.

Archival Records

I don't have much archival material related to Jean Baptiste Janis.

Southern Campaigns' Revolutionary War Pension Statements & Rosters is a website whose aim is to increase American awareness of the contribution of the South in the War for Independence. On this website, scholars Will Graves and C. Leon Harris have posted their transcriptions of the original documents archived in various libraries. It is only by chance that Jean Baptiste's records appear here: George Rogers Clark served in the Virginia militia, which meant that Jean Baptiste was technically part of the South's war effort, though it seems that all of his service lay north of the Ohio River. There are two mentions of Jean Baptiste in these records.

• Pension application of Jean Baptiste Janis, accessed June 2017. This page provides the transcription of a couple of pages of a 39-page ("f39VA") file on Jean Baptiste. The transcription includes two parts. The first part is the text of an affidavit taken under oath concerning his service, which appears to have been comprised of three non-consecutive stints: a six-month commission which included the siege on Vincennes; and two additional three-month commissions whose dates are unclear, since, as he puts it, due to "his old age it is impossible for him to give the month or years the different services were rendered but thinks it was in the years 1781 and 2." The second part of the transcription is the more interesting, and is quoted in whole on this page.
• Pension Application of François Charleville appears to be an affidavit taken under oath to assist in the pension application of his commanding officer during the Battle of Vincennes.

While doing my research for this brief history on Jean Baptiste Janis, I had an Email Exchange with Will Graves at the Southern Campaigns website.

Histories

Here are the sources which I found as I learned about the Battle of Vincennes.

• Lankford, George E. (1995). Almost 'Illinark': The French Presence in Northeast Arkansas. In Jeannie M. Whayne, Cultural Encounters: Indians and Europeans in Arkansas (pp. 88-111). Fayetteville, Arkansas: University of Arkansas Press. Some excerpts from the article can be found in Google Books. You'll also find a PDF copy in Hard-to-Find Sources.

• "Vincennes: Siege of Fort Vincennes / Siege of Fort Sackville,", the Civil War Trust, accessed June 2017. I find this description of the battle to be the most digestible of the sources listed here: it's short yet clearly written, and has a very useful map. As for why it's on the website of the Civil War Trust, I couldn't say.

• "Siege of Fort Vincennes," Wikipedia, accessed June 2017. This article is typical Wikipedia—serviceable, with some nice illustrations, but not always a pleasure to read.

• Lampman, Charles R. "Battle of Vincennes: Victory for G. W. Clark," Revolutionary War Archives, accessed June 2017. This page is fairly informative, but it does tend toward the hyperbolic and needs proofreading. Also, the website appears to be a little unstable, so I don't know how long it will stay up.

• Alberts, Robert C. (1975). George Rogers Clark and the Winning of the Old Northwest. National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. Available online in June 2017, this document is very thorough and has some excellent maps. When you click on the link you will start a download of the .pdf file, which is about 65 pages long.

• "Fort Sackville," George Rogers Clark National Historic Park, National Park Service, accessed June 2017. The site of the Battle of Vincennes, Fort Sackville, is now part of the George Rogers Clark National Historic Park. This page provides a brief description of the fort and its history.

These other sources contain interesting historical or genealogical information.

• Ekberg, Carl J., "Colonial Illinois: The Lost Colony", Illinois History Teacher, Illinois Periodicals Online, accessed June 2017. This article—possibly taken from Ekberg's French Roots in the Illinois Country: The Mississippi Frontier in Colonial Times—discusses the cultural differences between the French Creoles in the Illinois Country and the American pioneers who came after them.

• Belting, Natalia Maree (1945), Kaskaskia Under the French Regime, University of Illinois Press. This short monograph is full of cultural and genealogical detail, and is an excellent starting point for learning more about French Creole society during the 1700s. At one point there was a .pdf version online, but I've lost the link. Fortunately, however, you'll find a copy in Hard-to-Find Sources.

• Reynolds, John (1879), Reynolds' History of Illinois: My Own Times: Embracing Also the History of My Life. In the early pages of his biography Reynolds has much to say about the Creoles living in Illinois in the days of Jean Baptiste Janis. At least two searchable versions of the book can be found online: at Living History of Illinois and the Google Books version.

• Who Do You Think You Are?, Season 6, Episode 8. It appears my family is related to pop singer Melissa Etheridge via Jean Baptiste Janis. There's a TV show called Who Do You Think you Are?, in which, apparently, celebrities react with astonishment or anguish over the results of the hard genealogical research done for them. (Thus taking all the adventure out of their genealogy.) YouTube has a number of versions of the episode, for those who are interested. I appreciate the careful notes of genealogist Janis Sellers on the episode—though I feel obliged to mention she's a bit of a show-off when it comes to her French. Sellers' page has a lot of genealogical information worth exploring.

U.S. Legislation

It's my impression that the Library of Congress is in the process of reorganizing, if not improving, its online resources concerning early U.S. legislation. In other words, I've provided links to where I found what I have found, but I'm not optimistic that you'll have any luck trying to retrace my steps.

In case the links I provide do go bad, or in case you are interested in doing your own research on U.S. legislation, a good starting place is the Library of Congress's American Memory page.