Description

"Perry County was organized in the year 1814, two years before the State of Indiana was admitted to the Union. It was named in honor of the Gallant Commodore Oliver H. Perry, whose fame is known to every school boy in the state."

"It contains about four hundred square miles of territory; and is bounded on the North by Dubois and Crawford Counties; East by Crawford County and the Ohio River; South by the Ohio River; and West by Spencer and Dubois Counties."

From The Cannelton Enquirer

Saturday, August 17, 1872

Source: http://www.perrycountyindiana.org/history/pchistory.html

Territorial Subdivisions

• General

  See Official Website

• Cities, Townships, ...

  • Townships (1914-1872)

    Troy, Deer Creek (suppressed), Tobin, Union, Oil, Clark, Leopold and Anderson.

  • Townships (now)

    • Cannelton

    • Leopold

    • Oil

    • Tell City

    • Tobin

    • Troy

Short History with Bibliography

• Perry County

  • Churches and cemeteries
  • See Perry County - History & Legends

• Leopold

  • The Mission of Leopold

    A quotation from this site:

    "The mission of Leopold was established in 1838 by the Reverend Julian Benoit, who resided in Derby at the time. A few months after building the Chapel in what is now Leopold, Father Benoit moved from Derby to the Chapel and from there ministered to the people in the area. In order to ensure growth of the area, Father Benoit, in the winter of 1840, wrote to friends in France, Germany and Belgium, asking that they induce emigrants coming to America to settle in this area where "good land could be got for $1.25 an acre, and where the priest speaks their language." In the spring of the same year, Father Benoit was sent to Fort Wayne and was replaced by the Reverend Augustine Bessonies. Much of the land was still covered with forests and the clearings were few. Father Bessonies bought forty acres of land to lay out a town and measured out one hundred lots. This was done in the year 1842. As many settlers were from Belgium, Father Bessonies named the town Leopold for the king of Belgium. He also built a log church which he called St. Augustine, after his own patron saint. Other structures were a log school house, a store, a black smith shop and a post office. Father Bessionies was appointed the first postmaster by James K. Polk. A second church was built soon after the Civil War. In 1897 the first mission was conducted by the Reverend F. X. Weniger, S. J., who preached in three languages: French, German and English."

  • St. Augustine's Church and Leopold, Indiana

    An other text, but with images, the original plan of the township, ...

Sources

• Census

  Census Online - Perry County (IN)

• Obituaries

  Browning Genealogy Database

  is a searchable database of Evansville, IN area obituaries, which includes Leopold, IN. Very good site, lots of very useful info, full text of the obituaries. Lots of Belgian descendants.

• Parish Registers

  • Leopold

    Saint Augustine's Catholic Church

    Baptism 1837-1895

Repositories

Societies

• Genealogical Societies

  • US GenWeb - Indiana GenWeb - Perry County

Migration / Emigration / Immigration

• Migration histories

  • Leopold, IN

    • Immigrant Families Who Came to Leopold from the Respective Belgium Villages of the Semois River Valley

Families and Family Histories

• Family Pages

  Andrew Peter Family page

  Andrew Peter felled the first tree in Leopold, IN. This page has some history and an extensive family tree.

  Frank and Rachel Waddle Genealogy page

  with lots of pictures and a little history. It has a nice (arial?) picture of Leopold, IN from the early 1900s and Marchal, Belva, and Goffinet family trees

  Leopold Connections Web Cards

  This is an extensive database of families from Leopold, Indiana,with trees submitted by many people. Each family shows up on a separate page, with links to the grandparents' and children's families. Has an alphabetical index and surname list.

Sciences

This web site is the collective work of the subscribers to the mail list BELGIUM-ROOTS-L founded June 1998 by Georges Picavet (see our members page and the copyrights page for more info) Q:\webbeta\rw_belgiumroots\usa\in\perry\index.html (br_usa_in) This Global file was last updated 18/01/2007 23:47:47 CET and uploaded Thursday, 18-Jan-2007 16:15:38 MST