Note 27 — Front matter

(page page 28).—The father of Nicholas Boilvin was a resident of Quebec during the American Revolution. Upon the declaration of peace, Nicholas went to the Northwest, and engaged in the Indian trade. He obtained from the United States government the position of Indian agent, and in 1810 went to Prairie du Chien. In 1814, when the British attacked that post, Boilvin and his family, with other Americans, retired to a gunboat in the Mississippi River and fled to St. Louis. In addition to his Indian agency, Boilvin was a justice of the peace, his first commission being issued by the authorities of Illinois Territory in 1809. He died in the summer of 1827 on a Mississippi River keel-boat, while en route for St. Louis. At one time he furnished the war department with a Winnebago vocabulary.