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202 CHAPTER 12 The End of Their Era Isadore and Michel remained in business in St.Joseph as partners until Isadore died during the summer of 1852. In the probate records of Buchanan County, Missouri, Isadore is listed as having died intestate, with Michel, also referred to as Mitchel or Mitchell in some documents, appears as “the surviving partner of Michel Robidoux & Co.” To secure the settlement of debts owned by brother Isadore, Michel as the administrator of the estate and Joseph and Felix Robidoux posted a bond of $26,000.1 Michel remained in St. Joseph. He maintained until his death an ongoing business relationship with Major Andrew Drips and the trade area around Fort Laramie. It is believed he died in April 1858 at age sixty, survived by his wife, Susan, the sister of Joseph’s wife, Angelique. Francois retained St. Joseph as a base of operation, in some business association with his brothers during the 1850s. Having built no real financial security, and by 1850 having given up all his property and connections in St. Louis, he continued to work the trade routes on the plains between St. Joseph and Scott’s Bluff, either as a guide for emigrants or trading with Indians. Buchanan County Records indicate probate administration for Francois Robidoux was issued in April 1856 and that he died intestate. No St. Joseph newspaper carried an obituary or death notice, and there is no known grave site. Possibly he died at Scott’s Bluff or somewhere on the plains between there and St. Joseph. In Mount Olivet Cemetery in St. Joseph, at the base of the monument to his brother Joseph, there is a marker for him, stating that he died on the Great Plains in 1857. In St. Joseph, Joseph Robidoux saw the zenith of his empire come and go. Son Jules assumed the operation of the storefront mercantile business and civic activity. Joseph had made large sums of money from the Indian and fur trades and from real estate, but he proved a soft touch for, as Kurz described them, “his 60 papooses, his seven white children, and several brothers in rags and tatters ,” who “continually consume his substance,” as well as business associates who professed friendship, got loans, but never repaid them. Gambling proved his greatest vice, and he was well known throughout the community as always open to a good card game. Apparently his skill, particularly bluffing, for a time, The End of Their Era 203 proved formidable. But in Joseph’s case, as with most gamblers, luck and guile were balanced with an amount of losing, leading to financial wreckage. Kurz spent much time in St. Joseph and knew of Joseph’s gambling skills. He recounted a popular story: As I have said already, he had a passion for card playing. As he went every spring to St. Louis, and, indeed to New York, for the purpose of selling furs and also of bringing back a new stock of Indian goods he had, on the steamers, plenty of opportunity for gambling. The game usually played is one in which that player wins who risks the highest stake; whether he actually holds the highest cards in his hand is immaterial. The game is called poker. On one of the old man’s trips up the Missouri he met with an experienced partner; they were strangers to each other. Robidoux, rather poorly dressed as was his habit, did not impress his opponent in the game as one to be feared, so after they had been playing for quite a while, the latter, with the intention of springing a surprise, put up a considerable sum. Old Robidoux, however, instead of showing concern, called to the waiter; “Bring that old trunk of mine here! Here are one thousand dollars in cash; I bet’em all.” The stranger could not increase the amount; consequently, not withstanding the fact that he held the better cards, he lost the game and was obliged to give up his high stake of 700 or 800 dollars.2 Joseph remained a promoter of his town throughout much of the decade of the 1850s, especially in regard to the coming of the railroad. Work proceeded slowly while members of the Missouri delegation in Congress tried to get federal support for the project. When railroad officials agreed to build a spur line to the town of Palmyra, Missouri, fifteen miles north of Hannibal, planning, if not actual work, accelerated. Once completed, St. Joseph...

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