Joseph Creely (?-?) and Thérèse Godeau (1745?-1766?)

Joseph Creely Parents

Born: ?, in Kaskaskia, Randolph, Illinois.¹

Married: Thérèse Godeau, 16 November 1763 in Kaskaskia, Randolph, Illinois.¹ Second marriage

Died: ?

Thérèse Godeau

Born: 1745 or 1746.²

Died: ?

Buried: 4 January 1766 in Kaskaskia, Randolph, Illinois.²

Children

No children.

Notes on Joseph Creely

Bought land from Louis Pillet on 7 May 1774.³
Signed with a mark a letter of complaint from the Kaskaskia citizens to the American magistrates on 8 December 1779. In the letter the citizens protested the burdens that Kaskaskia alone shouldered of feeding the American troops. The winter appears to have been harsh and supplies short, even without the soldiers eating some of the stores.⁴
By 1783 he had professed himself a citizen of Virginia (which at that time claimed the land that is now Illinois)⁵ and was living in Prairie du Rocher.⁶
May have been recorded in the 1787 Kaskaskia census.⁷

Notes on Thérèse Godeau

Daughter of Michel Godeau and Marie-Thérèse Huchette.¹ Her father was the surgeon sent to Kaskaskia by the government in fall of 1751.⁸
Variant surname: Godo.

Sources

1. Beauregard, Marthe F. La population des forts français d'Amérique, v. 2, p. 85.

2. Beauregard, v. 2, p. 189. This is her burial record, which states she was 20-years-old when she died, meaning that she was most likely born in 1745.

3. Raymond Hammes manuscripts, II, 603.

4. Alvord, Clarence Walworth. Kaskaskia Records, 1778-1790, p. 136-139.

5. Mason, Edward G. Early Chicago and Illinois, p. 198.

6. Mason, p. 203.

7. Alvord, p. 414. Joseph Creely is probably entry #11, although it could have been his nephew, Jean Baptiste Creely.

8. Belting, p. 88.