Fort Jesup State Historic Site  



Fort Jesup State Historic Site

submitted by Linda Boorom 8/27/06

The following are some excerpts from several e-mails I received in 2005 from Linda Freeman, Interpretive Ranger, Fort Jesup State Historic Site & are included here with her permission.
Ann Remsey (sic), consort of Major George Birch & Elizabeth Clair, consort of Major L. G. DeRussy were both Boerums & daughters of Martin Boerum & jane Fox. See the Boerum-Yarrington Bible Record for more information.



Dear Linda
I am the Interpretive Ranger at Ft. Jesup State Historic Site, Louisiana.  I have been researching the deaths of soldiers, officers, their wives and others who died at this post from 1822 to 1846.  Some documentation below.  I was thoroughly surprised to learn that Ann and Elizabeth were sisters. I would like to know if Ann Remsen Boerum Birch was ever exhumed and moved by family.  I can not find her buried in the Alexandria National Cemetery in Pineville, LA where they relocated Elizabeth Clair.  If not, she remains across the street in the Fort Jesup Cemetery where officers and wives were buried.  However, her stone slab appears to be gone.  This is an ongoing project and when finished we hope to acquire a monument of some description for those who died here.

Major George Birch was a "noble" officer according to Charles Martin Gray in his autobiography "An Old Soldier's Story."

I would appreciate any information you could provide.
 

Recorded Deaths of Soldiers Stationed at Ft. Jesup
1822 - 1846
Linda Freeman, Interpretive Ranger  - Fort Jesup SHS
Cornial Cox, Interpretive Ranger - Los Adaes SHS
Scott Dubose - Friend of Fort Jesup
1 December 2004

The cemetery of a community often furnishes much material for historical narrative and the burying ground at Fort Jesup is eminently worthy of notice. The cemetery is not large, but is one of the best kept and preserved in this section of the state, and contains probably the oldest marked grave in Sabine Parish.  This grave was made nine years before the fort was built, and a stone slab contains the inscription:
"Viatoria (sic), daughter of Alen [Allen] and Viatoria (sic) Phillips: born March 15, 1815; died April 19, 1815."

During the "military days" slabs were erected to the memory of the following:
"Ann Remsey, consort of Major George Birch, U.S.A.; died October 25, 1829; aged 48 years." Note: Not buried Alexandria National Cemetery.
Correct name per Linda Boorom website is Remsen Boerum. She is the sister of Elizabeth Clair Boerum.

"Elizabeth Clair, consort of Major L. G. DeRussy; died August 30, 1836; aged 44 years." Note: Exhumed and reburied at Alexandria National Cemetery.

"Gordon H. Irvine, died May 11, 1837; aged 26 years." Note: Not buried Alexandria National Cemetery - remains across the street at Ft. Jesup Cemetery.  He was not in the military but somehow associated with it.  It is interesting to note that Lt. Thomas Cutts was married to Hannah H. Irvine, both of Washington [City] D.C.

"Lieut. Thomas Cutts, 3rd Regiment U.S. Infantry; died September 2, 1838; aged 31 years.  Erected by officers of the regiment." (This regiment won fame with General Taylor in the Mexican War.)

Note: Buried Alexandria National Cemetery but information is incorrect: ????
Cutts, Thomas, d. 12/23/1913, 1ST LT 3RD US INF, Plot: OFFIC1349, *
Alexandria National Cemetery
http://www.interment.net/data/us/la/rapides/alexnat/index_c.htm.
 

Among the leading citizens of Sabine whose remains repose there are: Samuel Jackson McCurdy, Rev. J. M. Franklin, Riley Stoker, W.W. McNeely, Leslie Barbee, W. R. Chance, Mabra P. Hawkins, J. H. White, W. H. Peters, Dr. J. R. Franklin, William E. McNeely, William H. Barbee, and William Amos Ponder, who was also prominent in the history of Natchitoches Parish.

The burying place for the private soldiers is in the vicinity, but no efforts have been made to care for the graves.  Relatives have come, at various times, and removed the remains of soldiers from this neglected cemetery, which should have received some attention by the government.

In 1903, the military reservation was opened for settlement under the provisions of the federal homestead laws, fifty years after the fort had been abandoned.

The parts that have been played in our parish life by the people of Fort Jesup are noted in other chapters, and it is sufficient to state here that they have ever been representative of all that makes for good government and good society.

Belisle, John G.  Fort Jesup and the Frontier, Sabine Parish LA.  The Sabine
Banner Press, 1913: 79-89.

The tombs in the old Fort Jesup cemetery contain something of the record of these days.  According to Belisle the oldest marked tomb, erected seven years before the Fort was build, bears the following inscription: "Viatoria, daughter of Alen and Viatoria Phillips; born March 15, 1815; died April 19, 1815.  Of the tragedies of the day of military occupation, we have the following: Ann Ramsey, consort of Major George Birch, U.S.A.; died October 25, 1829; aged 48 years."  "Elizabeth Clair, consort of Major L. G. DeRussy; died August 30, 1836, aged 44 years."  This was the first wife of this distinguished officer, who was later to become a Colonel of Engineers in the Confederate Army, and constructor of Fort DeRussy, on Red River, near Marksville. He was a member of a distinguished military family, whose brother became General DeRussy of the Federal Army, for whom Fort DeRussy in Hawaii is named.  Colonel DeRussy married the second time Mrs. Russell, widow of Dr. Samuel P. Russell, whose home was at Grand Ecore, in Natchitoches Parish, and he lies buried in the ancient Russell cemetery near the great bluff at Grand Ecore upon which the Russell homestead stood.  His tomb is covered by a slab, after the manner of those in eastern churchyards, bearing the following inscription: "L. G. DeRussy, born Dec. 23, 1795; Dec. 16, 1864. (Hardin 56)

An officer's tomb at Fort Jesup, since removed, bore the following inscription:  "Lieut. Thomas Cutts, 3rd Regiment U. S. Infantry; died September 2, 1838; aged 31 years.  Erected by officers of the regiment."  (Hardin 56)

The enlisted men were buried in a military cemetery west of the building area of the Fort, near the site of the later sawmill.  Through the effort of Mr. J. W. Taylor, in 1907, all of the bodies, which could be located were disinterred, by authority of an Act of Congress, and transported to the National Cemetery at Pineville, Louisiana. (Hardin 57)

Hardin, J. Fair.  Northwestern Louisiana.  [Complete Citation].

Another grave contains the remains of 25 Unknown Soldiers from Post and Private Cemeteries near Fort Jesup, Louisiana.

Halt, Dean W.  American Military Cemeteries.  Get Complete Citation.
 

A surgeon's report about this time [December 1837] showed that ten soldiers had died at Jesup during the preceding year.  Hardin's Northwestern Louisiana on page 192 says that the post cemetery was west of the post buildings "near the site of the later sawmill."  In 1907, all the bodies of soldiers which could be located there were removed to the National Cemetery at Pineville, Louisiana.  The body of Major L. G. DeRussy's first wife who died at Fort Jesup in 1836 was one of those moved.

Casey, Powell A.  Encyclopedia of Forts, Posts, Named Camps, and Other Military Installations in Louisiana, 1700-1981.  Baton Rouge: Claitor's Publishing Division, 1983: 96.

August 1836

(73) One died.

Elizabeth Clair, consort of Major L. G. DeRussy; died August 30, 1836; aged 44 years. Belisle

Derusey, Elizabeth Clair, d. 08/30/1836, Orig Bur Old Ft Jesup La Private Monument At Grave Plot: 1351, *

Alexandria National Cemetery
http://www.interment.net/data/us/la/rapides/alexnat/index_d.htm.

Per letter from Mrs. Deborah DeRussy Caraway dated November 12, 1985, family name for Elizabeth Clair is Boerum.

Respectfully,
Linda Freeman, Interpretive Ranger
Fort Jesup State Historic Site
32 Geoghagan Rd
Many, LA 71449
 

http://www.lastateparks.com/fortjes/Ftjesup.htm
 

***

Another note.  Major/Col. DeRussy was exhumed from the Russell Cemetery at Natchitoches and moved to Ft. DeRussy at Marksville, LA
***

54
Birch family. Papers, (1808-1823) 1888.
(ca. 50 items.)
A miscellaneous collection of papers of the descendants of William Birch. Included is a diary, 1809-1825, of his son George Birch, career Army officer from 1808 to his death in 1837, describing the British assault upon Sackett's Harbor, Lake Ontario, 1813; army operations, Indian relations, and the purchases of land and slaves in the Louisiana Territory, 1816-1823. Also included are George Birch's commissions and other memorabilia, as well as photographs and certificates of his grandsons Thomas Russell Birch and Carlton Birch while officers in the Pennsylvania Volunteers during the Civil War.
Gift of William R. Birch, 1888.
 
http://www2.hsp.org/collections/manuscripts/0001.htm







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