Former Rotary president writes book on famous French trader
Former president and district governor of Rotary and founder of Medical Equipment and Supplies Aboard (MESA) Robert Kuck shared with St. Marys Rotarians about a book he is writing about on the life of a fur French-candian trader.
And this fur trader is a significant local figure in the history of West Central Ohio as Kuck’s book chronicles the life of Pierre Louis de Lorimier, who is the first resident of modern-day Fort Loramie.
Kuck wanted to write a story about Lorimier after he read Allan Eckert’s “The Frontiersmen,” which tells the story about the early history of Ohio and the historical events that happened, with one of them being the trading post in Fort Loramie.
“I one day I decided to take a metal detector and go over there to see if anything remained,” Kuck added. “And lo and behold the first day there, I found the location of that trading post and found a wealth of different objects that I cleaned up, identified and stored away.
“I said, ‘Someday, I am going to be retired and when I do, I want to write the story about this man and research who he was.’”
Lorimier came to the area in 1769 as one of its earliest European settlers in the area. He was formerly a citizen of France who lived in Canada and became an English citizen after the Treaty of Paris in 1763.
The son, half-brother and grandson of famous French military officers. Lorimier was 20 years old when he opened a new trading post about a half-mile north of current-day Fort Loramie and was a significant location for trading. The Fort Loramie Business Men’s Association and American Legion installed a marker near the site that can still be seen today.
“It was the top of the Miami [River] watershed so from Fort Loramie you could go south was Piquailine [modern-day Piqua] and the Great Miami River which will take to you the Ohio River and from there you can go east or west or cross over into Kentucky,” Kuck explained. “If you were traveling up the Miami River and you came to Fort Loramie and you wanted to go west, you would go to the St. Marys River where you would go west to the Miami [Tribe] town of Kekionga, which is Fort Wayne. And if you wanted to go east and north then you would portage over to Wapakoneta and catch the Auglaize River.
“So that portage was very important for traders and trappers, explorers and military people.”
Lorimier, a supporter of the British, saw his business grow over the years before the Revolutionary War when In February 1778, Lorimier, along with Chief Blackfish of the Shawnee, led a raid on Boonesborough, Kentucky, which resulted in capturing Kentucky frontiersman Daniel Boone before Boon escaped in June.
As a result of Lorimier taking part in Boone’s capture, Kuck said Gen. George Rogers Clark, Col. Benjamin Logan and a delegation burned Lorimer’s post to the ground in 1782. The extent Lorimier lost that day is equivalent to $20,000 in today’s money.
“He had a tough time making a decision on what to do after that,” Kuck added. “He had creditors that were after him and he sent a petition to the British to pay him for his losses but they never honored it.”
The site remained abandoned until 1795 when Anthony Wayne ordered the American military to construct a blockhouse with additional buildings used for storage. He named the site Fort Loramie. The fort was occupied as a military establishment until 1812 when it was abandoned as a garrison.
As for Lorimier, Kuck said he eventually moved west to Missouri with a band of Shawnees in 1787 to find the modern-day Cape Gi
rardeau where he became an established trader and community leader. He met with Meriweather Lewis of the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1803.
“There’s a rich history Lorimier has and I’m trying to depict this in this book,” Kuck added. “It is really hard to find source material on him because he was living in Ohio where there were no courthouses, no churches, he was living only around various Indians tribes and encampments.
“So there was no one here to write his story or a newspaper to record his events in which he was involved.”
Kuck said Lorimier’s son was the first graduating class to West Point, which helped Kuck in his research of Lorimier, but there are still certain parts of his life that need to be plugged in, forcing Kuck to write his story as a novel to help fill in gaps. Kuck said he is nearly done with writing the book and is looking to get it published as early as spring and as late as the end of the summer.
“I’ve tried to do it with research about what was going on in other trade sites at the time to retain the historicity of his story,” Luck said. “In addition, I have gone to Quebec to find information up there about him and his family, I’ve hired archivists to search records in Canada and I have been out to Cape Girardeau, Missouri to work on the same subject out there. Lastly, I have gone out to Oklahoma to meet with the Shawnee Indians so all of this research is taking a lot of time, but it has also been fascinating and very interesting.”