Paenteur, John Martin, Pvt., – Co. A, 1st IL Cavalry Regiment Vol.

Company A, 1st Illinois Cavalry Regiment Volunteers

G.A.R. Stillwater Post #7, Stillwater, Oklahoma

A jaunty little Frenchman, John Martin Paenteur, arrived in the United States of America in 1852at the threshold of his adulthood – seventeen years. John, who had a fresh complexion, sandy brown hair and beguiling blue eyes, was all of five feet six inches tall. He was known as a character and a teller of tall tales. In his old age, he delighted in astonishing his great grandchildren with the idea that he had twice traipsed on foot all the way to California from Missouri or Oklahoma and returned in the same manner. He also declared that he was well over one hundred years old – they believed him! My uncle vividly remembered sitting with his siblings and cousins in their grandparents’ yard in Stillwater, Oklahoma listening to their great grandfather rivet them with incredible tales.

Paenteur is a difficult name to research. Through the rearrangement of vowels or changes in them altogether, the name can mutate into a myriad of combinations. In John’s pension application file alone, his name is spelled twenty-four different ways. I was finally able to obtain his pension application file number and a few months later received a voluminous file on my elusive great, great grandfather.

John was born August 5, 1834 in Vergaville, a commune (township) in the Moselle department in Lorraine in north-eastern France. An area known for an abundance of beautiful lakes, forests and mountains, Moselle is also acclaimed for exceptional fishing and wonderfully refreshing wine.

Arrival location and the early whereabouts of John in his new homeland are not known at this time. He married Frances Poirot (also born in France) in Saint Louis County, Missouri. Their first child, Eliza, was born there on Saint Patrick’s Day in 1857 about five years after John’s arrival in the United States.   Soon after, a son, Martin Alexander, was born in Saint Louis also. In 1861 a son, Louis, was born in Illinois. This was the same year that John became a naturalized citizen. His fourth and last known child was my great grandmother, Mary Louisa Paenteur, born in Saint Louis, Saint Clair County, Illinois on October 3, 1863. The family eventually settled in Murphysboro, Jackson County, Illinois where Frances’ parents and siblings made their homes.

John enrolled in the Union Army on the thirty-first day of March 1862 at Saint Louis, Missouri.

He was a Recruit in Company A, 1st Regiment Illinois Cavalry Volunteers. The family’s residence at the time of John’s enlistment was Cahokia, East Saint Louis, Saint Clair County, Illinois. His occupation was listed as a gardener, although later in life he was referred to as a farmer.

Following a major defeat at Lexington, Missouri on September 20, 1861, the 1st Regiment was reorganized at Benton barracks in June of 1862 shortly after John enrolled. The Regiment remained at Benton Barracks a month or more when it was moved westward and was engaged for a time in guarding supply trains and supply depots at Rolla, Houston, Westplains and other locales. In the re-organization of the Regiment there were one or two vacancies in nearly if not all the companies; some of the officers having been promoted or assigned to other regiments while others had resigned. In attempting to fill these vacancies a great dissatisfaction arose throughout the entire Regiment which culminated in an order from the war department disbanding and mustering out of the service the officers and men, which took place at Benton Barracks July 14, 1862. Therefore, Private John Paenteur was honorably discharged from the Union Army along with the rest of his Regiment in the middle of July in 1862.

John’s wife, Frances Poirot Paenteur, died about 1877 when she was nearly forty years old. The loss of his wife seems to have led him to a lifetime of turmoil. It appears that he married at least five additional times and roved from state to state in the mid-west area of the country.

The 1880 census revealed that he was married to an Irish woman, Mary, four years his junior. They lived in Portage, Saint Charles County, Missouri with John’s son, Martin Alexander and Mary’s children: Mary, Charles, James and Joseph O’Brien. On July 13, 1880, John’s son, Martin married Mary’s daughter Mary A. O’Brien. He was listed as twenty-one and she was nineteen.

John was able to obtain two general affidavits that attested to his physical ailments related to his service in the war. The first was given by William Mackey aged fifty-four to M. S. Minard, Notary Public in Washington State in the county of Chehalis on June 5, 1897. Mr. Mackey stated: “That I well knew comrade John Paenteur who sometime in the spring of 1862 came into Company A, 1st Regt. Of Ils Cavalry Volunteers at Batton Barracks, St. Louis, Mo. I also well recollect that in a short time thereafter we went to Rolla Mo camped there a few days during which time for three days and three nights we stood on guard without relief during all of which time it was raining a steady cold rain, this was two or three miles south of Rolla on the West Plains road. I plainly remember that after this exposure, John Paentuer was very sick and that the doctor called it rheumatism. Also that after being sick for a number of days in Rolla he was sent in a box car to St. Louis where he was for sometime in the Barracks, sick and was discharged from the Barracks honorable being pronounced unfit for further service in the field. All of which I state on my own personal knowledge except as to what occurred after his John Paenteur’s removal to the St. Louis Barracks, which I state upon information and belief.”

The second was given by John McNulta aged fifty-two years who was a resident of Bloomington, McClean Co., Ill. to a Notary Public in the State of Illinois, County of Cook on July 18, 1889. Captain McNulta swore to the Notary: “That he was captain of Co. “A” 1st Ill. Cavalry in the late war and knew said applicant and remembers him well and distinctly as the “Frenchman” of the company believes that his name is spelled correctly but does not remember it. He also remembers that said soldier was an active able bodied young man for some time after his enlistment – and that he had rheumatism contracted in the line of duty as a soldier and was laid up in camp with it in south west Missouri near Rolla in the spring or summer of 1862.

That said soldier was with affiant a great deal in scouting and was a good soldier with great vigor and courage and the missing him from such duties made an impression of affiant’s memory of the fact and the cause which was either rheumatism or scurvy according to the best recollection said soldier was afflicted with said disease when he was mustered out in July 1862. That I have no interest in said case and am not concerned in its prosecution and am in no way related to said applicant for pension.” It is interesting to note the spelling of the surname in this affidavit “in the matter of the claim of John Le Penter.”

A questionnaire filled out by John on November 15, 1897 stated that he was living in Cayuga, Seneca Nation, Indian Territory. He declared that he was no longer married but that he had been married to Catherine Pakmen who died January 19, 1895. He did not list any other previous wives on this form.

In his Civil War pension application file, John made mention of a marriage to Nancy S. in 1901. The 1910 census established that John was living in Quincy, Adams County Illinois with a wife twenty-five years his junior named Mamey. There was a previously unknown son listed on this census as belonging to John and Mamey (suggested by the location of son’s mother’s birthplace), however, since John and Mamey had been married for nine years and this son, Cadogan was twenty-nine, it seems unlikely that he was a son of this union. Cadogan’s age does not correspond with John’s known sons. In his sworn statement in his pension application file only the original four children are acknowledged. Exhaustive searches have been made for this additional son and nothing has been unearthed. My belief is that Cadogan, surname unknown, was Mamey’s son from a previous relationship.

The Illinois Soldiers and Sailors Home in Quincy, Adams County, Illinois became John’s on-and-off again home beginning on July 26, 1901 and ending on August 9, 1919. Upon entrance to the home, Dr. W. H. Essick examined him and declared that he suffered from rheumatism, disease of the heart and general debility rendering him unfit for any labor. On July 16, 1902 John was discharged on furlough and readmitted on October 2, 1903. He was again furloughed on December 3, 1904 and returned May 22, 1908. He once again departed on furlough March 9, 1909. John was readmitted to the Home on August 1, 1910. John was then dropped from the rolls on September 21, 1911. He was readmitted February 8, 1913. John took yet another furlough on August 12, 1914 and returned January 12, 1918. John’s last known departure from the Soldiers and Sailors home was on August 9, 1919.

John stated in a 1920 document that he had been married twice, first to Frances P. Paenteur who died about 1877 and second to Nancy who died in 1914. He seemed to have trouble keeping track of all of his wives at this point.

The end of John’s ninety-two year life occurred on August 30, 1926 at his youngest daughter’s home in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Dr. L. A. Cleverdon last attended him on August 23, 1926.   Funeral services were held at Saint Francis Xavier’s Catholic Church and burial was at Fairlawn Cemetery in Stillwater. At the time of John’s passing he was a member of the Stillwater, Oklahoma GAR Post #7.

An application for final expenses submitted by John’s daughter, Mary Louisa, in 1926 stated that John had been married four times. Mary Louisa said that there were no divorces and that all of his wives pre-deceased him. Even though he lived with Mary Louisa at the time of his death with no wife present, records at the cemetery indicate that he was married to a woman named Minny Hussy. Other than Catholic birth and baptism records for John’s children where his “lawful” wife, Frances, is mentioned, I have not been able to locate any marriage records.

John’s frequent furloughs from the Soldiers and Sailors Home cause me to suspect that they correspond with times that he had a new “significant other” in his life. “This hypothesis corresponds with the spirit of my last interview with my late uncle, on May 10, 1994.

Cheryl L. White, March 20, 2015

All materials contained in this article are protected by copyright laws, and may not be reproduced, republished, distributed, transmitted, displayed, broadcast or otherwise exploited in any manner without the express prior written permission of Cheryl L. White.