BIOGRAPHY OF MAJ. PHILIP FOUKE, I

H.11 PHILIP FOUKE , I ( - )

At this point we know nothing of Philip’s birth [now thought to be Shepherdstown, Jefferson Co., W. Virginia] or parentage [now known to be "Old " Michal and Sophia FOUKE]. He was probably born around Middleway, Jefferson County, Virginia (now West Virginia) in the 1770s or 1780s. He left there around 1800 for Kaskaskia [now Illinois] in the Northwest Territory. In 1803 he married Julia Ann Gibson (H.112) at Kaskaskia. They had six children but the order of birth is not yet confirmed. Five were girls and there was one boy. The girls included Minerva Fouke (Orr), born 1808; Sophie Fouke; Lavinia Fouke (Coghlan) (I.16), born 1811; Elvira Fouke (Johnson), born 1813, whose son Charles Henry Johnson was the Lieutenant Governor of Missouri from 1872-74; Lucretia Fouke (Rapier) (IA. 8), The [only] son was Philip Bond Fouke (IB. 5).

A deed dated November 19, 1807, indicates that Philip, then living in the township of Springfield, Randolph County (then part of the Indiana Territory, now southern Illinois), paid $900 to John and Medusa Grosvenor for a plot of land in Kaskaskia measuring 333 feet wide by 360 feet deep. The property was bounded by a street on the north running at right angles to the Kaskaskia River (this was prior to the devastating Mississippi River floods of a few decades later that altered the course of the Mississippi and the junction between the Mississippi and Kaskaskia Rivers and completely inundated the town of Kaskaskia), by a pond to the east, by the lot of Jacques Degagne on the south and by the lot of Robert Morrison on the south. Philip was a prominent citizen of old Kaskaskia. He was the cosigner of at least two petitions to President Thomas Jefferson in March, 1808. On April 28, 1809, he was appointed Justice of the Peace of Kaskaskia by the governor of [the] Indiana Territory, Nathaniel Pope. On January 2, 1810, he was appointed by the governor as a captain of the militia of Randolph County. He was replaced on May 20, 1811, but then reappointed on July 2, 1811, as captain of [the] first regiment of [the] militia. This service ended February 25, 1812. On February 27, 1813, the governor appointed Philip as the Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Randolph County. Shortly thereafter, Shadrach Bond of Illinois Territory recommended that Philip be made Marshall of Illinois Territory on March 2, 1813. The recommendation was made once more in July, 1813, to Secretary of State James Monroe. President James Madison made the official appointment on August 1, 1813, and the Senate confirmed his appointment. This position he occupied for several years. Letters written by Philip requesting reimbursement for his services have been preserved in the Territorial Papers of the United States by Clarence Carter. On one occasion in 1818, Philip had to go all the way to Prairie du Chien (now in Wisconsin) in order to arrest one Michael Brisbois for treason. Little is known of Philip’s subsequent career.

Philip is listed in the 1810, 1820, and 1830 censuses for Illinois but is not mentioned in the 1840 census although his wife [Julia Ann Gibson] is. It is probable that he died sometime before 1840. We do not know where he is buried [the great Mississippi flood disaster of 1899 which rerouted the flow of the Mississippi and the Kaskaskia Rivers and over-ran and demolished much of the town of Kaskaskia may have also destroyed his grave].

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