Search Inside
|
Bourbonnais
Author(s): Vic Johnson, Bourbonnais Grove Historical Society
ISBN: 9780738540962
# of Pages: 128
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
On Sale Date: 09/25/2006
|
 Price:
$19.99
|
|
Click for other books located in " Illinois"
|
Book Description:
The village name Bourbonnais is attributed to Fran§ois Bourbonnais. He was a 19th-century French Canadian fur trader who maintained a post in a grove of trees along the east bank of the Kankakee River. This location became known as Bourbonnais Grove. Noel LeVasseur, a former American Fur Company employee, bought two sections of land in the grove in 1834 and established a settlement of immigrant French Canadians. At first, the village was called variously La Point, La Ville, and Vasseurville. A post office named Bourbonnais Grove opened in 1838. The village was known as Bourbonnais Grove until 1875, when it was incorporated as Bourbonnais. By the 1860s, Bourbonnais Grove had 1,719 inhabitants, a blacksmith shop, livery stable, hotel, and a new church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Nativity and built of native limestone. The images in this book depicting life in Bourbonnais have been gathered from local private and museum collections.
Author Bio: Vic Johnson is a life member and past president of the Bourbonnais Grove Historical Society and the current editor of Le Journal du Village, the society’s newsletter. Between 1990 and 2002, Johnson contributed 535 articles to the Kankakee Sunday Journal’s “Up ’til Now” column. He is the author of two books on Kankakee County history.
|
