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Wolves Against the Moon
Gina says this is a great story about Michigan.
First published January 1, 1945
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
July 4, 2022
A historical fiction account of a French fur trapper named Joseph Bailey.
I live 5 miles from Bailey Town which now lies in the Indiana Dunes National Park. My children and grandchildren went to the elementary school still named after him.
Even though mostly fictional, the story was well researched. From Joseph’s days in Quebec, his office in Mackinaw Island, his trips down Lake Michigan and the awful Fort Dearborn massacre I was able to visualize him with his family.
I live 5 miles from Bailey Town which now lies in the Indiana Dunes National Park. My children and grandchildren went to the elementary school still named after him.
Even though mostly fictional, the story was well researched. From Joseph’s days in Quebec, his office in Mackinaw Island, his trips down Lake Michigan and the awful Fort Dearborn massacre I was able to visualize him with his family.
February 4, 2018
Julia Cooley Altrocchi's Wolves Against the Moon is a very well written and entertaining historical fiction novel covering the life of Joseph Bailly, an independent fur trader operating in the Upper Midwest - predominantly in Southern Michigan, Northern Indiana, and the Wabash River Valley of Indiana. Individuals interested in the early history and development of Chicago (Fort Dearborn), Northwest Indiana, and Michigan would enjoy reading this book.
From a timeline perspective, Altrocchi's story is very accurate as it relates to historical events (e.g., War of 1812, Fort Dearborn Massacre, events directly related to Bailly's family life). The only other significant source of material concerning the life of Joseph Bailly and his family was published in 1907 by Frances Rose Howe, Joseph Bailly's granddaughter. Howe's book was intended to be a family history, as well as a history of the Bailly residence in Porter County, Indiana, the first permanent white residence in that county.
Howe's work, titled The Story of a French Homestead in the Old Northwest, is unfortunately rife with errors and is essentially a revisionist history of her family. Howe relates that her Bailly family consisted of practically no Indian (i.e., Native American) blood, and she clearly distances her family from Native American interactions. Most of the focus on Native Americans in Howe's book concerns the Bailly family's missionary work to convert "the savages" to Roman Catholicism. Howe's insistence that she was not of Native American blood is further confirmed from several first-hand source materials. Letters Howe wrote to newspapers in Northwest Indiana during the very early 1900s provide one example.
To illustrate, published on the front page of the August 24, 1905, edition of the The Chesterton Tribune (Chesterton, Indiana), is a letter authored by Frances R. Howe claiming that she was not of Indian descent. The letter reads, in part:
I write these lines to inform you that I am not an Indian, neither was my mother an Indian. Such statements are lies, and you will be kind enough not to tell any lies about either my mother or myself. We are aristocracy, much higher in social conditions than yourself or any one else around here. My mother's family was French and noble, my father was a New England gentleman likewise of a very noble family. My mother's parents did missionary work here, and my grandmother used to dress something like a nun, her dress of the religious missionary society to which she together with many other French ladies belonged. It is true that about two hundred years ago some one of the family did marry an Indian, but that is very long ago, and people of good sense and education do not speak of our family in the way, my adopted daughter tells me you [Henry Friday] did.
You a not my social equal, and you have no business to pretend that you know anything about a family so far above your own.
Interestingly, while Altrocchi's novel accurately captures most of the events that took place in Joseph Bailly's life, she omitted a rather significant and important chunk of Joseph's life; namely, that Joseph had been married twice before marrying Marie LeFevre. Bailly's first wife was Monee, a member of the Ottawa tribe. This union resulted in the birth of at least four children (Joseph Phillippe, Michel, Philip, Alexis C.).
Joseph's second wife was fourteen year old Angelique McGulpin, a Grand River Ottawa who was also referred to Bead-Way-Way. This marriage, which is documented and took place in 1794, produced two children (Francois, Sophie Hortense). Joseph wedded seventeen year old Marie in 1810.
Monee and Angelique are occasionally overlooked by researchers of Joseph Bailly since they were considered by some Bailly family members as "set aside wives," not real wives, whose intended matrimonial use was to encourage smooth relationships with Native Americans for trade purposes.
Another very significant error in Altrocchi's historical novel concerns the dramatized death of Robert Bailly. While Altrocchi's story concerning Robert is full of suspense and intrigue, Robert did not die as a result of a dispute with his sister over the use of a children's sword.
Altrocchi leads the reader to believe that Lucille intentionally stabbed Robert in the chest with a sword, resulting in his demise. In fact, Robert died at the age of eleven at Carey Mission located in Niles, Berrien County, Michigan, as a result of contracting typhoid fever. This school was operated by Isaac McCoy, the Baptist missionary mentioned often in Altrocchi's story. Robert's remains were brought to Porter County and he was the first burial to take place in the Bailly Cemetery.
Altrocchi takes the reader to the year prior to Joseph Bailly's death. Joseph died of illness at his home in Porter County on December 21, 1835, and was buried in the family cemetery about one-half mile north of his home.
From a timeline perspective, Altrocchi's story is very accurate as it relates to historical events (e.g., War of 1812, Fort Dearborn Massacre, events directly related to Bailly's family life). The only other significant source of material concerning the life of Joseph Bailly and his family was published in 1907 by Frances Rose Howe, Joseph Bailly's granddaughter. Howe's book was intended to be a family history, as well as a history of the Bailly residence in Porter County, Indiana, the first permanent white residence in that county.
Howe's work, titled The Story of a French Homestead in the Old Northwest, is unfortunately rife with errors and is essentially a revisionist history of her family. Howe relates that her Bailly family consisted of practically no Indian (i.e., Native American) blood, and she clearly distances her family from Native American interactions. Most of the focus on Native Americans in Howe's book concerns the Bailly family's missionary work to convert "the savages" to Roman Catholicism. Howe's insistence that she was not of Native American blood is further confirmed from several first-hand source materials. Letters Howe wrote to newspapers in Northwest Indiana during the very early 1900s provide one example.
To illustrate, published on the front page of the August 24, 1905, edition of the The Chesterton Tribune (Chesterton, Indiana), is a letter authored by Frances R. Howe claiming that she was not of Indian descent. The letter reads, in part:
I write these lines to inform you that I am not an Indian, neither was my mother an Indian. Such statements are lies, and you will be kind enough not to tell any lies about either my mother or myself. We are aristocracy, much higher in social conditions than yourself or any one else around here. My mother's family was French and noble, my father was a New England gentleman likewise of a very noble family. My mother's parents did missionary work here, and my grandmother used to dress something like a nun, her dress of the religious missionary society to which she together with many other French ladies belonged. It is true that about two hundred years ago some one of the family did marry an Indian, but that is very long ago, and people of good sense and education do not speak of our family in the way, my adopted daughter tells me you [Henry Friday] did.
You a not my social equal, and you have no business to pretend that you know anything about a family so far above your own.
Interestingly, while Altrocchi's novel accurately captures most of the events that took place in Joseph Bailly's life, she omitted a rather significant and important chunk of Joseph's life; namely, that Joseph had been married twice before marrying Marie LeFevre. Bailly's first wife was Monee, a member of the Ottawa tribe. This union resulted in the birth of at least four children (Joseph Phillippe, Michel, Philip, Alexis C.).
Joseph's second wife was fourteen year old Angelique McGulpin, a Grand River Ottawa who was also referred to Bead-Way-Way. This marriage, which is documented and took place in 1794, produced two children (Francois, Sophie Hortense). Joseph wedded seventeen year old Marie in 1810.
Monee and Angelique are occasionally overlooked by researchers of Joseph Bailly since they were considered by some Bailly family members as "set aside wives," not real wives, whose intended matrimonial use was to encourage smooth relationships with Native Americans for trade purposes.
Another very significant error in Altrocchi's historical novel concerns the dramatized death of Robert Bailly. While Altrocchi's story concerning Robert is full of suspense and intrigue, Robert did not die as a result of a dispute with his sister over the use of a children's sword.
Altrocchi leads the reader to believe that Lucille intentionally stabbed Robert in the chest with a sword, resulting in his demise. In fact, Robert died at the age of eleven at Carey Mission located in Niles, Berrien County, Michigan, as a result of contracting typhoid fever. This school was operated by Isaac McCoy, the Baptist missionary mentioned often in Altrocchi's story. Robert's remains were brought to Porter County and he was the first burial to take place in the Bailly Cemetery.
Altrocchi takes the reader to the year prior to Joseph Bailly's death. Joseph died of illness at his home in Porter County on December 21, 1835, and was buried in the family cemetery about one-half mile north of his home.
November 3, 2020
There was plenty of high drama in this historical novel (written 1940). The names of many of the characters who passed through the pages were familiar to me from previous non-fiction accounts of the days of the fur trade in the upper Midwest, and the saga of the Native Americans who suffered so much at the hands of U.S. officials, the military and the Yankee settlers who flowed into ancestral homelands of the Pottawatomi, Ojibwe, Ho-Chunk, Sauk, Fox etc peoples. As with other fiction and non-fiction books written in earlier days, the portrayal of the Indians was flawed to say the least and it was hard to keep pushing through the pages to follow the life story of Joseph Bailly, a historic figure who played a significant role in the growth and then decline of the fur trade in the Michigan Territory.
February 19, 2017
This certainly fits the 20th. century notion of a "saga,' but, at times it got so lengthy with so much suffering and violence that it is a wonder that the Great Lakes states and those westward were ever settled. It is tragic to read what the native Americans suffered at the behest of our government, and the author's presentation of them and their culture is poetic and respectful while we suffer for them through the eyes of the main character Joseph Bailly (use the French pronunciation), a Quebecois fur trapper who became a US citizen. We endure through events of the War of 1812, many massacres, uprisings like the Black Hawk War, and we see for what reasons those formerly known as Indians had to oppose the white man and his greed for land. The beauty of this book is that it was first published in 1940, and the author showed her respect for a dying race while a young nation was showing promise. It is amazing, and it is based on true people who lived through that time, and displays travels through those regions of the French voyageurs from Quebec, to the Michigan and Indiana Territories along their sand-dune shores, into the place that would become Chicago, and, eventually, down the Mississippi to New Orleans. Noting the authors non-prejudiced regard for the Indians, it was amazing to read, although briefly, the author's depiction of the mistreatment and lack of regard for the African slaves who were owned by some residents of Detroit; her use of restraint shows her awareness of the mid-20th. century's misunderstanding of slavery, its follow-up, and its de-humanization. She didn't delve into it, but one who is reading this in the 21st. century is able to wish we had always been tolerant and caring for our fellow man. As a lover of Lake Michigan and its shores, I cherished the frequeint and lenghty journeys from one place to another -- so interesting and so well-researched.
June 24, 2008
I found this a facinating and well written book. Before Michigan becomes a state the French fur traders travel the lakes. This book starts before forts are built in Detroit, Fort Wayne, and Mackinaw, but after Father Marqurette maps the area called Michigan. The main character is arousing Frenchman everyone calls "Mona-mi" Joseph Bailey. As a young man he falls in love with a young "siren" of a Frenchwoman, Corine. This woman marries Joseph's business arch enemy, Monsieur Rastel, while living in Quebec Canada. He is sensible in the end and marries Marie a woman who is part Indian. The people who settle Detroit and the Chicago areas, are characters you will warm up to. As Marie and Joseph raise a family and help all peoples of the area the Rastels try to compete with Joseph's fur business every step of the way. The characters ring true for the era. A wonderful live history lesson of Michigan.
May 6, 2011
Good Reads lists this as "Mystery & Horror" which it is not. This book covers a swath of land reaching from Mackinaw Island down through Michigan and into the area where Chicago now sits. It is vintage historical fiction at its best.
June 4, 2012
Written in 1940 by a descendant of the great Northwest Territory trapper Joseph Bailly, this title gives Michiganders a lesson in our history. Fans of Allan Eckert will enjoy this entertaining narrative novel.
January 29, 2008
Very good story in the mode of Eckert, Churchill or Roberts, covering French Canada and Frontier AMerica
September 24, 2010
Slow beginning but very good once you get into it.
January 11, 2011
If you live in the Great Lakes states, this is your history. Read, learn and enjoy.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews