Before I Continue With The Clarks---A Few Corbin Updates and a Couple of Maple Hill History Blogs

Dear Readers,

I hope this blog finds you well and enjoying a peaceful Sunday, whatever the weather might be like where you are.   We are having a fairly typical day of 70+ degree temperatures in Palm Springs.   I have done laundry, mixed enough humming bird food for the week, watered the outdoor cactus and potted plants, checked the guest room for brother Gary's arrival, made chicken vegetable soup---and having done all that, where do I find myself---at the keyboard writing a blog :)   I just can't help myself.   I love history and sharing history.

Before I dive into the history and genealogy of the Clark family, I want to share some updates on the Corbin family that I have received.   I also want to try and unravel the history of the Beaubien, Bourassa and Frigon families who were some of the earliest Maple Hill residents.    This is not a simple task.  

For instance, there were two distinct lines of the Beaubien family living in the area.   One was clearly French and Native American (mostly Ottawa and Pottawatomi) and the other was just French.   TwoFrench Beaubien brothers were born in Canada.  I appears one married a Native American and the other another French lady.    The two lines were fairly separate until they meet in Illinois and Kansas during the 1850s, 1860s and 1870s.    But more of that in a separate blog.

The Bourassa Family were definitively Native American and it is easily to document their ancestry since they were well-educated and highly placed within their tribes.   They arrive on the scene when the Pottawatomi Tribe was removed from the Great Lakes during the late 1830s and play prominent roles in Kansas, tribal and Maple Hill History during the 1840s through the early 1900s.    They in fact marry members of the Beaubien, Blanchet and Frigon Families which further complicates their genealogy.

Thanks to letters and documentation that survive in these families, we are going to be able to catch a glimpse of what pioneer life was like for these early families in Illinois and Kansas.   I find them particularly fascinating and I want to thank the survivors of William Chapman, a descendant of the Beaubien and Blanchet Families and his cousin, Janet Beaubien McCracken (granddaughter of Nell Beaubien Nichols) for their assistance and for sharing family photographs.  William Chapman and I exchanged correspondence and photographs several times during the 1970s and 1980s.   He passed away in 2009 and I will share his history and obituary later.  Nell Beaubien Nichols, in addition to literally being a Kansas pioneer, was also a pioneer in the field of women's journalism.   Over her long 40-year career, she attained both bachelors and masters degrees, wrote hundreds of published articles, and edited numerous cookbooks for a variety of publlishers, most notably The Farm Journal and Better Homes and Gardens.   Although she never spent a lot of time in Maple Hill after her youth, she is likely one of its most important native daughters.

I don't know exactly how many blogs it will take to reveal the family and community history of the Beaubien-Bourassa-Blanchet and Frigon Families, but I suspect six or eight.  I will try and make the text as readable as possible while remaining accurate to the materials.   It will not be a simple task but I'm going to do my best.
I hope if any reader has documentation for errors, you will share it with me.   Most of what I'm going to use comes directly from family members, from the Citizen Band Pottawatomi Library and Archive in Shawnee, Oklahoma and from Ancestry.com and other Internet sources.

Have a good day friends!







Nick Clark
Palm Springs, CA
January 12, 2014