Blanchet
The neighborhood known as Blanchet lies along one of the curves eliminated when U.S. 25 was built through Grant County in the late 1920s. Unlike it neighbors, Blanchet never reached the status of a village like Keefer to the west nor of a town like Corinth to the south. Blanchet had no stores or other businesses, no church until the 1870s, no name until the Southern Railroad was built, and no school until after Long Ridge was organized March 20, 1890.
The first two Blanchets to visit Grant County were the sons of H. N. D. Blanchet, a Frenchman from Battle Hill, New Jersey. Mr. Blanchet had bought a part of the Phillips and Young Patent in 1841 and then sent his son, Hyacinth (H. L. D.) to see about the land. Later he deeded 2500 acres of land to H. L. D., who married and brought his bride to his new house on the Old Lexington Pike. H. L. D. and his wife had no children, but his brother Henry, who had also built a house in Grant County, became the ancestor of Grant County Blanchets, Clinkscales and Stanleys.
Three years after H. L. D. built his home in 1847, the Victor Bouscarens, another French-speaking family, migrated from Guadeloupe and built a six-room log house near the Blanchets. The newcomers had left Guadeloupe as the result of an earthquake that damaged their home and their sugar cane plantation.
Victor Bouscaren, however, had not chosen to move to Kentucky until M. de Bovis, his friend and neighbor in Guadeloupe, offered to give him 400 acres of land in southern Grant County. Victor Bouscaren accepted the "gift", but evidently had to pay for the land later. According to an oral account by Bouscaren descendant, M. de Bouvis had been the victim of a "land shark" in New York City. In 1851, the year after the Bouscarens arrived to live on the land, a French-speaking lawyer Skaggs visited the family to untangle the legal problems for a clear title. The numerous deeds in the Grant County Courthouse also indicate that a problem had existed.
Victor Bouscaren's neighbors in addition to H. L. D. Blanchet, whom he already knew, were the Francis Simon family to the west on Ragtown Road; the Jacob Musselmans and the G. C. Brachts to the northeast. The Musselmans sheltered Victor Bouscaren's wife Lise and their children for two weeks until their log house was completed. Mrs. Bracht served as midwife for Lise Bouscaren when a son war born in 1851 and again when the last son arrived in 1854. Eliza Simon, whose husband was from Bordeaux, France, came on horseback from near Simon's Creek to help in time of sickness.
Seemingly, the Bouscaren family from Guadeloupe never recovered from their financial difficulties, although they tried various projects. Victor built a sawmill, planted an orchard, tapped the sugar maples, took advantage of the fame in the fores, and sometimes returned to Guadeloupe to earn additional money, but he did not prosper. In 1854, Lisa Bouscaren's father, desperate for a solution to their plight, sent an appeal to Napoleon III for a scholarship for the oldest son, Louis Frederic Gustave. The appeal was based on the fact that Victor Bouscaren's brother had died while defending Napoleon III, the new emperor, and had died childless. The request was granted, and the fourteen year old lad was sent to Paris, France to be educated for eight long years, In 1862, Gustave Bouscaren graduated with a with a high rating and a "diploma in civil engineering."
When he returned to his home in souther Grant County, he learned of the hardships and stress caused by the Civil War. His family had been harassed because of their dark skinned West Indian servants; one servant had been hanged from a limb of a tree in the front yard.
After learning the English language, Gustave began working in Cincinnati, Ohio, then in other states, building railroad and bridges. Ten year later, he was appointed the chief engineer of construction for the new Cincinnati Southern Railroad to be built from Cincinnati to Chattanooga.
In 1877, Gustave Bouscaren built the bridge across the Ohio River from Ludlow to Cincinnati and was also the chief engineer of construction for High Bridge across the Kentucky River in Jessamine County - the highest bridge in the world at that time.
In 1871, the year after Victor Bouscaren died of cholera in Guadeloupe, his son offered to donate land and lumber from the family farm to build the first Catholic Church in Grant County, provided money could be raised for the labor. Gustave's two sisters accepted the challenge; riding on horseback, they started raising the funds on March 19, 1871, the Feast Day of St. Joseph. The made their first call on their neighbor, Hyacinth Blanchet, a staunch Catholic. Mr. Blanchet was not optimistic about the project, but offered to match whatever they collected that day. The two girls returned in the evening with $900 in cash and pledges and also promises of labor from both Catholic and Protestant families.
St. Joseph Church was built on one and one-third acres of land which included ample space for a cemetery. The first grave was that of sixteen year old Gabrielle Bouscaren who had died in May 1854 and was buried on the hillside near the family dwelling. Her remains were removed to the church cemetery and place in what would become the Bouscaren row facing the Dungan-Hannah Road.
History
of Grant County,
John B. Conrad,
Editor
Published by the
Grant County Historical
Society
Williamstown,
Kentucky.
Article
by H. L. Ogden