Hoosier Dusty Files - December 25, 1799 - Christmas (Noel) Dagenet Born

A Year of Indiana History - 2016
A Year of Indiana History - 2016

December 25, 1799 - Christmas (Noel) Dagenet Born
Visitors to Lafayette, Indiana will find the following historical marker placed to honor Christmas Dagnet.
Title of Marker:
Christmas (Noel) Dagenet
Location:
West side of Lafayette Road/CR 600 W, 0.25 mile north of Armiesburg. (Parke County, Indiana)
Installed by:
Installed: 2004 Indiana Historical Bureau and The Dagenett Family
Marker ID #:
61.2004.1
Marker Text:
Side one:
Born December 25, 1799 near Terre Haute; baptised by Father Rivet, missionary at Vincennes. Son of French fur trader Ambrose Dagenet and Mechinquamesha, sister of Wea chief Jacco. Served Wea nation and U.S. government at Treaty of St. Mary's signed 1818. Married to Mary Ann Isaacs 1819 by Isaac McCoy at his Baptist Indian mission near here.
Side two:
Recommended by William Clark to work for U.S. government as Interpreter, receiving $400 per year, June 1824 through 1827. He selected land here to fulfill grant in Treaty of St. Mary's; land recorded 1824. Family moved west 1847. Dagenet employed in the last removal of Miamis from Indiana beginning 1846. He died before April 10 in 1848.
Brief History
The Indiana Historical Bureau has more extensive information about Christmas (Noel) Dagenet at this link:
A Summary
The IHB uses the spelling of Dagenet's name that appears on his will dated January 24 1848. ]; H. W. Beckwith, author of the History of Vigo and Parke Counties indicates he met with Dagenet's widow, Mary Ann Dagenet Baptiste at Paola, Kansas in 1878 for details regarding his life. This information does not always agree with primary source documents.
The son of French fur trader Ambrose Dagenet and his wife Jacco, the sister of the Wea Tribe's chief, Dagenet served as interpreter at the negotiations during the Treaty of Miami signed in 1818. He married Mary Ann Isaacs on February 16, 1819.  Isaac McCoy married the couple at his Baptist Mission near Armiesburg in Parke County.
William Clark, famous for the William and Clark Expedition that began near the Falls of the Ohio, recommended Dagenet to serve as an interpreter. He served as such from 1824 through 1827 for $400 per year.
He chose his land from the area that the Wea did not cede, as per the 1818 Treaty of Miami.
Treaty of St. Mary's
The lands acquired from the Miami tribe by the terms of the Treaty with the Miami, 1818 (Treaty of St. Mary's), are referred to as the "New Purchase." Jonathan Jennings, Lewis Cass, and Benjamin Parke acting as representatives of the United States signed a treaty with the Miami nation on October 6, 1818. As per terms of the treaty, the Miami has ceded a vast area in central Indiana to the United States. The treaty excepted except a seven-mile square reserve located at the mouth of Raccoon Creek. The United States agreed to pay the Miami tribe fifteen thousand dollars a year, erect a gristmill and one sawmill. They would also provide a blacksmith and pay one hundred sixty bushels of salt a year to the tribe. Dagenet moved with the last 350 members of the Mississinewa in 1846, as per the terms of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. They voyaged to Westport, in the Missouri Territory, by steamboat. Dagenet died sometime before April 1848.

Indiana possesses a rich history that is fun to read and learn. This Hoosier Dusty Files is in an easy to read “this day in history format” and includes articles from the author's A Year in Indiana History series. Visitors may read the articles as they appear or purchase the book:
A Year of Indiana History - 2016
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