Joshua Palen

JOSHUA PALEN by

Clifford M. Buck and William L. Talbot

In the Dutchess County Surrogates Office in File Box 769 there are two papers having to do with the settlement of the estate of Joshua Palen. There is a petition by his three brothers: Richard of Princetown, Schenectady County, N. Y.; Henry of Greenfield, Saratoga County; Elisha of Dover. They state that Joshua had gone into the Northwest Fur Company about 12 years before and hadn't been heard from for nine years and therefore was presumed to be dead. They wished to settle his estate which amounted to about $35.00. The administrators were Tunis VanKleeck, Henry Riley and Charles Butler. Dated April 29, 1814.

The records of the Dutch Reformed Church of Poughkeepsie show that Hendrick Palen and Hannah Weldon had a son Joshua born Sept. 3, 1783 and baptised Sept. 21, 1783 with sponsors Aert VandeBogert and Catherin.

This might have ended the matter, but in 1967 I had a letter from William L. Talbot who was working on the history of Keokuk, Iowa, inquiring about one Joshua Palen who had been with the Northwest Fur Company, had married an Indian girl and was an early settler of Keokuk and had had some "half-breed" children.

There follows Mr. Talbot's article:

JOSHUA PALEN

In the Keokuk, Iowa, Oakland Cemetery is a white marble spire monument about five feet tall on which is inscribed "Sacred to the memory of Joshua Palen, born in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1786, died at Keokuk, Iowa, June 18, 1833." An early Lee County, Iowa, history states that Joshua was of medium stature and "what would be termed as a 'chunky' man inclined to corpulency." He was fond of dress and wore ruffled shirts and sported a gold watch. It was said that he owned three slaves who sued for their freedom and obtained the same after Palen died of cholera in 1833. His daughter Sophia was a half-breed who married a pioneer settler in Keokuk by the name of Henry J. Campbell.

From research it is believed that Joshua Palen was baptized in the Dutch Reformed Church at Poughkeepsie, New York, on September 21, 1783, and this record states that he was born on September 3 that same year. While the year 1783 is not the same year as that carved on his tombstone, it is presumed this is the same man, since his will, which was cleared through probate on April 29, 1814, indicates he was a fur trader working for the North West Company. It is possible that the year of birth on his tombstone may be 1783, since the marble monument has deteriorated considerably. Apparently once Joshua Palen entered into the fur trade he severed completely his family connections and never again returned or con-

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tacted his family in Pbughkeepsie. In 1814 his family thought him dead and sought to take over his property.

Through research among remaining records of the fur trade, which were kept by the American Fur Company and the United States government, some information can be found about Paien's activities. At present there is no information about his venture with the North West Company, which is where he began the career that would lead him to the western frontier. Palen's brothers professed they had no knowledge of Joshua's whereabouts in 1814, nor where he was located with the North West Company over ten years before that time. Most likely, however, he may have been in the northern part of New York state or Canada very close to Montreal, where the headquarters of the North West Company was located.

After the Treaty of Ghent, which concluded the War of 1812, John Jacob Astor, a prominent New Yorker, decided to take advantage of the western fur trade through his American Fur Company. By the new treaty British and Canadian traders were barred from carrying on their commerce south of the United States boundary, and this apparently prompted Palen to join his American associates heading into the western wilderness. One of the earliest fur trade records about him is a pass he obtained from the Mackinac Indian Agency on August 6, 1817. This pass was issued by the agent at Mackinac, W. H. Puthuff. The pass states that Joshua Palen, a, citizen of the United States was allowed to proceed from Mackinac to Prairie du Chein with forty-six pieces of merchandise, that was the property of John Dowsman, and five voyageurs. The pass also stated that he was an employee of the Dowsman's and lived at Prairie du Chein. The Dowsman's were prominent French fur traders at Prairie du Chein who eventually worked for the American Fur Company. It is not known just how long Palen stayed in the Prairie du Chein area, but a few years later his name appears as a clerk in Russell Farnham's American Fur Company outfit to whom Astor had assigned the territory between Dubuque, Iowa, and St. Louis, Missouri, on the Mississippi River and west on the Missouri River to present day St. Joseph, Missouri.

When Keokuk, Iowa, was established, on July 4, 1829, Joshua Palen was considered a resident of the new-born community. There are a few records in the American Fur Company papers at St. Louis, Missouri, which were signed by him and indicated that he must have been one of Farnham's most trusted employees. Keokuk considers that Palen was one of the founders of this community and one of the streets in the original city of Keokuk is named for him. When the town plat for Keokuk was filed in 1837, however, Dr. Isaac Galland, who named the streets, spelled his name wrong by adding the letter "a" and making it Palean even though the "a" remains silent. There are a few descendants of Joshua Palen still living in the Keokuk area through his daughter Sophia's marriage. Roy Campbell and his daughter Frances Orr now living at St. Francisville, Missouri, about twelve miles from Keokuk, are direct descendants of Joshua Palen who began his life in Dutchess County at Poughkeepsie.

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