Joseph Bailly - Third Marriage Theory

Third Marriage Theory

Joseph's marriage to Angelique McGulpin, born circa 1790 at Mackinac is usually considered to be his first marriage. The marriage is confirmed through Mackinac County marriage records for Mackinac. These records imply that this was not a marriage of an Indian to a Frenchman, but of a mixed-blood to a Frenchman, since marriages with Indians were not recorded. Research also shows that Angelique was the daughter of Patrick McGulpin, a Scottish trader at Mackinac, and not the daughter of a native. Only their daughter, Sophie is confirmed through baptismal records at Mackinac to be the child of Angelique and Joseph. She was born early in 1807. Their son Francois would remain among his mother's people the Ottawa as a Medicine Man.

The information stated above as the background of Angelique is ascribed to several researchers to be Bailly's first wife. According to tradition, fur traders would take native wives, whom they would 'set-aside' when the arrangement was no longer convenient. Being an Indian woman, there probably was never a church marriage. Preliminary research into this first wife has identified her as an Ottawa Woman of the Grand River Ottawa, named Monee. Without a sanctioned marriage, the church allowed a new marriage, to Angelique McGulpin. The evidence for his marriage to Angelique comes from his "third" marriage in 1810. At that time, the church (according to Joseph's daughter) refused to allow a divorce from his 'first', i.e., 1st church; wife. Therefore, Joseph married Marie in a civil ceremony

Records show that his six children born from 1799 to 1803 were born in camps along the east of Lake Michigan. Angelique, would have been age 9 to 13. Since the youngest, Francois, stayed in the Ottawa villages as a medicine man (doctor), it is unlikely that Angelique was the 'first wife'. Yet most Indian wives were not considered wives. The reference by Joseph's daughter, therefore, would most likely refer to a metis (mixed blood) or French wife, married in the Church. Therefore, it is concluded by some researchers that Joseph had three wives.

Joseph's third wife was Marie LeFevre. She was born at Riviera des Raisins to LeFevre de Gascon and a French & Indian woman, about 1783. When her father died in 1790, the family was driven away from the Detroit area as half-breeds. They returned to her mothers Ottawa people at L'Abre Croche. Here, she was married to an Ottawa Medicine man named de la Vigne. After having two daughters, she left him because of his spirit worship. Having been raised in the Catholic Church, she sought to rejoin this religion. By 1810, she was at Mackinac, where she met Joseph Bailly. At this time, because of their common religious concerns, they were married in a civil ceremony. Their six children and Alexis would become the living memory of the Bailly family