Bonners Ferry herald. [volume] (Bonners Ferry, Idaho) 1904-current, 1916-02-18
NOT FRENCH DAUPHIN
CLAIM OF ELEAZAR WILLIAMS
HAS BEEN DIsPRoVED.
Romantic Story That for Time Had
Many Believers is Now Almost
Universally Acknowledged
to Be Fiction.

to Be Fiction.
Full of romance though the history |
of Wisconsin is, it contains no story |
more strange or fanciful than that of
Eleazar Williams, the mysterious mis-
sionary of the Green Bay Indians. who,
some threescore years ago startled
Americans by his claim to being the
lost dauphin of France. To Green
Bay, the historic fur-trade center,
once the seat of the French regime in
Wisconsin, this tale adds new touch
of color and picturesqueness.
The one event of the French Reign
of Terror that created the profound
est impression upon the popular mind
of the time was the execution of the
Bourbon monarch, Louis XVI, and his
unhappy queen, Marie Antoinette. The
son of the royal pair, the dauphin of
France, then a lad of eight, was
spared the guillotine, but was held for
two years a lonely prisoner in the
tower of the Temple. In 1875, accord
ing to history, he died there. the re-
suit of i'll treatment and neglect on
the part of inhuman jailers. Even at
the time of his death, however, rumors
were current that he had escaped. Ad-
herents of the Bourbons, it was said,
had spirited the young prince away,
and had substituted in his place a
child of humble origin, which had suf-
fered martyrdom in silence until re-
lieved by death.
IN 1S49 Eleazar Williams, then a
man of over sixty years of age, an
nounced from the wilds OF northern
Wisconsin that he was the lost dau-
phin that he was Louis XVII, that he
was the hereditary king of the French.
The story that he told was a marvel
GUS one. The friends who had rescued
him from the Temple had carried him
to North America, where they had left
him in charge of a worthy Indian fam
lily of the st. Regis tribe of Canada.
At first his mind had been a blank,
the result OF ill usage, but later he
had happily recovered his faculties.
In 1S41, Prince de Joinville, son of the
reigning French king, Louis Philippe,
while on a trip through the new world,
had secretly visited him, and attempt
ed to bride him, with a promise of a
splendid establishment, to abdicate
the crown of France. This he had
scornfully rejected, for though in
poverty and in exile, he would not
sacrifice his honor"
Williams story, published broad
cast in the United States and France
vas believed by thousands. Sympa
thetic journalists in all parts of North
America took it up, and several we'll
known volumes were written with il
as a background. More critical stu
dents, however, denounced the entire
tale as fiction.
Williams actual life, though il
reality romantic enough, was fal
from identifying him with the roya
throne of France. He was of mixed
) white and Indian blood his grand
. mother having been carried captive
as a child from the famous Deerfield
Massachusetts, massacre, to Canada
. where she had later married amoni
her captors. Her grandson, the sub
iect of our sketch, had served tn
, Americans as a spy during the war o
1872 and afterward lived among hi
tribesmen, first as a Catholic, then a
| a Congregationalist, and later as al
Episcopalian missionary. Coming t
| Wisconsin in 1921, he was instru
| mental in bringing to the region abou
Green Bay, from New York, number
| of Oneida, Stockbridge, Brothertowi
! and Munsee Indians. He apparentl
dreamed of establishing in the NORTH
4 west new Christianized confederac,
4 with himself as it's dictator. He wa
an intelligent and ambitious chara'
ter but eccentric, untruthful and sci
conferred. Above all, he was an il
! veterate poseur.
4 When, in 1S4S, this interesting il
4 dividual set up his claim to the thron
4 Of France, his circumstantial stor,
i his physical resemblance to the Bou
/ bon family, and the scars and brit
marks which he exhibited upon h
] body convinced many of his sincerit
Those who knew him best, howeye
~ either laughed him to scorn or indi
nantly repudiated him. Even his L
O. dian mother, whom he denied, d
d nounced him as a bad and untruthf
le man. Needless to say, he never a
il cended the French throne, and in 1876
lie died in poverty and neglect. Mar
le of his sermons and papers are pr
n served in the collections of the Wi