Charles Chouteau Gratiot (August 29, 1786 – May 18, 1855) was born in St. Louis, Spanish Upper Louisiana Territory, now the present-day State of Missouri. He was the son of Charles Gratiot, Sr., a fur trader in the Illinois country during the American Revolution, and Victoire Chouteau, who was from an important mercantile family. His father became a wealthy merchant, during the early years of St. Louis.[1][2][3]
After 1796, Charles was raised in the large stone house purchased by his father in St. Louis, near the Mississippi River.[4] He made a career out of being a U.S. Army military engineer, becoming the Chief Engineer of the United States Corps of Engineers, and supervised construction of a number of important projects. He was dismissed by William Henry Harrison, which led to a protracted controversy.
He served as Chief Engineer, 1817–1818, in Michigan Territory followed by assignment as the superintending engineer, 1819–1828, for the construction of defenses at Hampton Roads, Virginia.[6][A][9]
Chief of Engineers
On May 24, 1828, Gratiot was appointed colonel of engineers, brevet brigadier general, and Chief Engineer.[5][6][8] For ten years he administered an expanding program of river, harbor, road, and fortification construction. He also engaged in a lengthy dispute with War Department officials over benefits, and in 1838 PresidentMartin Van Buren dismissed him for failing to repay government funds that had been entrusted to him.[5][6][7][9]
Gratiot became a party to lengthy litigation against the United States government, which was appealed twice to the U.S. Supreme Court.[10][11] It is said that the General of the Army, Alexander Macomb, was of the opinion that PresidentMartin Van Buren's actions were too harsh.[7]
Family
He married Ann Belin on April 22, 1819.[12] They had two children:
Fort Gratiot, Michigan, was named after Gratiot, who oversaw its reconstruction in 1814 to guard the mouth of the St. Clair River at Lake Huron.[5] Fort Gratiot Park is located there.[13][14]
Gratiot Avenue, an early roadway between Detroit and Port Huron, Michigan, was named for the fort near Port Huron, which was in turn named for Gratiot.[15] Construction started in Detroit in 1829, and the roadway was completed in the same year to Mount Clemens. The rest was finished in 1833. Sections of the roadway are designated as state highways M-3 or M-19, and before I-94 was built, Gratiot Avenue was the main link between the two cities.[16]
Gratiot County, Michigan is named for Gratiot.[20] It was described by the Territorial Legislature in 1831. By 1837, the Territory had been admitted to the Union as a state; in 1855 the State Legislature authorized the organization of Gratiot County—the death year of the county's namesake.[20][21]
^"He was superintending engineer of the construction of the defenses of Hampton Roads, 1819–1829. He became chief engineer of the army in May, 1828 and was brevetted brigadier. On the pretext of discrepancies in Gratiot's accounts, he was dismissed from the army in 1838. Thereafter, he worked as a clerk in the General Land Office in Washington. Lee was much shaken by Gratiot's dismissal and studied the matter closely. He came to the conclusion that Gratiot was an honest man, the victim of a cabal. See George W. Cullum, Biographical Register of the Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (New York, 1868, 2 vols.), 1, 99–100. See also Douglas S. Freeman, R. E. Lee: A Biography (New York, 1934–1935, 4 vols.), 1, 157–158."[8]
^Foley, William E. (October 7, 1999). Christensen, Lawrence O.; Foley, William E.; Kremer, Gary R.; Winn, Kenneth H. (eds.). Charles Gratiot (1752–1817) (Hardcover). Vol. I (First ed.). Columbia: University of Missouri Press. ISBN978-0826212221. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
^Barnett, LeRoy (2004). A Drive Down Memory Lane: The Named State and Federal Highways of Michigan. Allegan Forest, Michigan: Priscilla Press. pp. 95–96. ISBN1-88616-7-24-9.
^ abSmith, Mildred L. (1987). General Charles Gratiot: Acres and Avenues Bear His Name. Gratiot County Historical and Genealogical Society.
^Tucker, Willard D. (1913). Gratiot County, Michigan: Historical, Biographical, Statistical. Chronicling the Events of the First Sixty Years of the County's Existence as the Abode of White Men; with County, Township, City and Village Matters Fully Detailed and with Miscellaneous Events of Importance Duly and Suitably Treated; by One who Has Been a Resident of the County Nearly Half a Century. Saginaw, Michigan: Press of Seemann & Peters. p. 25. OCLC497670.
