Desloge family

New article name goes here is known as a great industrialist, philanthropic, religious and naturalist family spanning 200 years in America and is one of the oldest French families in Missouri and St. Louis. This is a great industrialist family including international commerce, sugar refining, oil drilling, fur trading, mineral mining, mercantile, manufacturing, railroads, real estate and river boats - having started the venture with creaky ships of the seas in the 1500’s, high-seas adventures on sleek navy ships, flatboats, pirogues, stage coaches, horses and Conestoga wagon trains with oxen. This is a story of the American Dream and of a generous family with their wealth. Hospitals are named for the Desloges and large tracts of natural beauty donated for public parks reflect their commitment to the poor and the betterment of mankind.

History

Firmin Rene Desloge and his uncle Jean Ferdinand Rozier left family in France, these two men cut great opportunity directly from the new American wilderness. While both men were in fact French by birth and remained French in heart, these pioneers in the new continental frontier became, in time, Americans with guts. Author and academic Carl Eckberg coined the phrase, “French Aristocrats at the American West”, inclusive of which is this Desloge family. Ferdinand Rozier had arrived in America in 1806 in partnership with John James Audubon. This partnership was funded entirely by this Desloge ancestry (Jean Claude Rozier) in France.ref>Arthur, Stanley Clisy. Audubon: An Intimate Life of the American Woodsman, 1937</ref>

French Nobility

Jean Robert Desloge, was a ship captain and nobleman; Firmin Desloge’s great-grand father Jean Mosneron, a nobleman of Bretignolles, Luzon, living in Nantes; and Firmin’s second great grand-father, through Jean Robert Desloge, was nobleman Gildas Alexiz Pitault. Firmin’s father, Joseph Giles Desloge, was appointed Mayor of Morlaix, a position of honor granted by the French First Empire. Same with his brother, Joseph. Firmin’s grand-father Francois Claude Rozier was Mayor of Kernegan from August 1789 and Judge of the Tribunal of Commerce from Jan. 23, 1793. His great grand-father Francois Rozier was a lawyer in the Parliament of Paris, Bailiff of the Forte’, Sancerre, Ingra and other jurisdictions of the Bailiwick of Orleans; and Firmin’s second great grand-father Michel Rozier was an officer of the Mint and Marshall of the Minters of the Orleans Mint. Firmin’s uncle Jean-Baptiste Sollier de la Quillerie, who married to his father’s sister Marie-Marguerite, was a member of the French king’s gendarme. Firmin’s brother Joseph’s grand-daughter Anna (from Apolphe) married Count de Tinguey.

Geography

The Desloge family industries include lead mining, distillery, smelting, railroads, fur trading, manufacturing and mercantile, mining and railroad enterprises just fifty miles southwest of St. Louis was part of the impact French families had on young America - crucial to the phenomenon of westward expansion on the American Frontier and “characterized as much by family connections, private enterprise and negotiation as by conquest.” (Jay Gitlin)

Commerce & Industry

The Desloge family businesses in lead and mercantile in Missouri date from 1824, and including the Missouri Lead Mining and Smelting Company in 1874 and the Desloge Lead Company in 1876, inclusively one of the largest and oldest lead mining companies in America. Firmin Rene Desloge built his own then modern smelting furnace circa 1824 as an extension of his Potosi, Missouri mercantile business. His son, Firmin Desloge II expanded mining operations and expanded management to Bonne Terre, Missouri; a charter was requested and granted to the Missouri Lead and Smelting Company on June 5, 1874. The corporate name was later changed to “The Desloge Lead Company” on February 21, 1876. Three shafts were sunk during 1876 and 1877 and a new mill was built. The interests of this corporation were consolidated with those of the St. Joseph Lead Company in 1887 and were a part of the holdings of what is probably the greatest lead mining and smelting company in the world. A fire in March 1886 destroyed the concentrating mill plant and did great damage to the entire surface plant of the Desloge Lead Company. Rather than rebuild, the Desloge Lead Company was sold to St. Joe. In 1887, the land was cleared and company houses for his staff were constructed just west of the present day railroad tracks. at the location which became known as Deslogetown, present day Desloge, Missouri. A new company was formed known as The Desloge Consolidated Lead Company. The massive Desloge plant ran under his operation until 1929 when it was sold to the St. Joe Lead Company for $18,000,000.[14][15] In 2010 dollars, this is equal to approximately $360,000,000 (an amount commensurate with the market value of Bank of Nova Scotia, Bank of Montreal, Air Canada, Grubb & Ellis or Kodak. “With the absorption of the Desloge concern by the St. Joseph Lead Company, one of the oldest mining companies of the district goes out of existence as a company.

Firmin Desloge II also built the first railroads to penetrate the disseminated lead field of St. Francois County, Missouri to benefit the needs of the Desloge and St. Joe mines: The Desloge Railway, The Mississippi River and Bonne Terre Rail Road and then The Valley Railroad. Firmin Desloge II was also involved with the development of the Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad (aka, Iron Mountain Railroad) from St. Louis, Missouri to Texarkana, Arkansas. The St. Joseph Lead Company built a narrow gauge railroad thirteen and one-half miles long, reaching from the mines to Summit in Washington County, a point on the St. Louis and Iron Mountain Railroad. The cost was divided between the two companies, the St. Joe paying two-thirds and the Desloge Company paying one-third.

Louis Desloge (from Jules Desloge) too had the Desloge manufacturing bug and founded Watlow Electric in 1922 to manufacture electric heating elements for the shoe industry. The company name Watlow is selected referring to "low-watt" heaters to replace steam heat. In 2011 Watlow, still a Desloge family business, employs 2,000 employees working in 13 manufacturing facilities in the United States, Mexico, Europe and Asia and have sales offices in 16 countries and a global distributor network.

Joseph Desloge founded Killark Electric in 1913. He designed an industry-specialty electric fuse which as is known today, Killark (Kill the Arc) became the name of the company. Joseph Desloge also owned Minerva Oil, (a confusing misnomer as it was primarily mining zinc and fluorspar); and founded Louisiana Manufacturing Company and Atlas Manufacturing Company. Joseph Desloge’s son Joseph, Jr. was also successful mining Uranium in Utah which he and his partner sold to General Electric; and in natural gas exploration in Lycomin County, Pennsylvania.

Louis Fusz married Firmin Desloge’s daughter Josephine, and the Fusz family played several key roles in the ownership and management of the Desloge Consolidated Lead Company. Louis Fusz was president of Regina Flour Mill Co., and of Desloge Consolidated Lead Co. The Fusz name in St. Louis today is automobiles. In 2011, after 58 years, the Lou Fusz Automotive Network consists of 16 car dealerships.

Theodore (Ted) Desloge, Jr was a partner in and President of Park 'N Fly established in 1967 as the first off-airport parking company, a much needed alternative for business travelers needing a service-oriented airport parking option, today the nation's leading off-airport parking company. Ted has also been Director of Valley Forge Corp. and Mississippi Valley Bankshares, Inc.; and founder of Janna Medical Systems.

Christpher Desloge in 2011 is Chairman of the Board of Madaket Growth, a holding company for businesses in commercial and residential real estate brokerage, internet websites and business consulting.

Rick Desloge is a noted business and media journalist with the St. Louis Business Journal

Philanthropy

In February 1930, the St. Louis University received a $1 million bequest from the estate of Firmin Vincent Desloge ($13 million in 2010 dollars). Another donation was received from the Desloge family of $100,000 ($1.3 million in 2010 dollars) from Mr. Desloge’s wife, Lydia Desloge, and was designated to build a chapel next to the hospital. This Firmin Desloge Hospital had as its mission to serve those most in need. Theodore and Linda Desloge - the great grandson of the Firmin Desloge whose name adorns the Desloge Hospital at St. Louis University – in 2008 donated a sum for a new outpatient center in St. Louis County. Known formally as the Mr. and Mrs. Theodore P. Desloge Jr. Outpatient Center of St. Lukes Hospital.

Firmin Desloge II, who died in 1930, willed his original 47 acres of his hand-dug pits of the original lead mining operations and the deeply rutted wagon tracks on a property in Washington County, MO. The family then donated this land for a park, today named Firmin Desloge Park, and dedicated it to the mining families in the area.

Noted naturalist, Joseph Desloge, Sr donated the land for the Johnson Shut-Ins Missouri State Park in 1955, one of the most visited state parks in Missouri; and through his Minerva Oil Company donated land for Sunset Park in north St. Louis County on the Missouri River; then Joseph Desloge’s children also sold to St. Louis County - for to next to nothing - Pelican Island (2300 acres) in the middle of the Missouri River as a nature preserve. He also subsidized numerous conservations and library publication projects through the Joseph Desloge Fund.

Loriel Desloge Hogan established several vast New Hampshire lowland and mountain lands as permanent conservation easements.

Genealogy

On the new world continent, through Loriel Johnson who married William Livingston Desloge, The Desloge family’s direct ancestry includes two members of the Mayflower, Stephen Hopkins and William Brewster, two members of the Puritan Pilgrim Massachusetts Bay Winthrop Fleet in 1630, Norman Rockwell and being at Jamestown in 1609. Through Lydia Davis who married Firmin Desloge II, this ancestry includes being present at colonial Williamsburg, signature to documents of Virginia independence from England along with George Washington, present with Patrick Henry’s “Give Me Liberty” speech, and friendships as vestrymen with Thomas Jefferson. The Desloge family ancestors were fighting against their own British one hundred years before the American Revolution at Bacon’s Rebellion. Not just being at Philadelphia at its founding, this ancestry, flowing from Rebecca Plummer Desloge who married Firmin Desloge II includes one of the signatures as witness to William Penn’s signature granting him Pennsylvania.

The Desloge family’s ancestry, through maternal, grand maternal and great-grand maternal lines, is descendant of many European royalty including Charlemagne The Great, Emperor Claudius, William the Conqueror, “Old King Cole”, Longshanks (who participated in the Crusades), Kings of England, Scotland and Italy, a Roman Senator and more to before the time of Christ. Through Rebecca Plummer who married Firmin Desloge III, and specifically her ancestry of Bringhusts and Claypoole, the Desloge family is also of holy origins. Religiously, this family includes the founding members of the Puritans in New England, Quakers in Pennsylvania, and the Anglican Church in Virginia.

References

Southeast Missouri Mining and Milling. Doe Run Company. 2004

Potosi (Missouri) Historical Society

External links

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mostfran/mine_history/leadbelt_history.html

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mostfran/mine_history/stjoe_desloge_lead.htm

http://www.carrollscorner.net/DeslogeFamily.htm

http://www.slu.edu/sluhistory/desloge.html