Support The Fort

Dr. Joseph L. Peyser, 79, French and Education professor emeritus at Indiana University-South Bend and an expert on Fort St. Joseph, the forerunner to modern-day Niles, Michigan, died December 27, 2004 in the arms of his loving wife of 56 years, Julia Peyser. A 31-year resident of South Bend, Dr. Peyser was full professor of French at Indiana University-South Bend, having joined the university in 1973 as Dean of Faculties and Chairman, Department of Foreign Languages.

In 1977, Dr. Peyser embarked on a fascinating journey into the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century experience of the French in North America, which became the crown jewel of his life's interests and work. He began by translating French-language documents for the Niles (Michigan) Historical Commission relating to Fort St. Joseph, which led to the publication of Letters from New France: The Upper Country 1686-1783(University of Illinois Press, 1992). Dr. Peyser's work with people wishing to locate the site of Fort St. Joseph and to interpret it's history to the public neither started nor ended with the book. He wrote grant applications, translated more than one thousand previously undiscovered documents, helped to interpret the site's history, and encouraged the Support the Fort group to persist in their commitment to find the original site of the fort. Built in 1691, Fort St. Joseph stood for 90 years and was the only site in Michigan ruled by four countries. At various times, France, England, the United States and Spain controlled the outpost, used mostly for trading furs.

Time removed any hint of the fort's location, spawning arguments that it perhaps had never existed or that, if it did, it was on the west bank of the St. Joseph River. It was a "lost" map in the National Archives in Paris, France that Dr. Peyser discovered and translated that detailed the exact location of the fort...on the easat bank of the river. His discovery prompted a team of archaeologists from Kalamazoo-based Western Michigan University to search the east bank and discover conslusive evidence of the fort's remains. That site is currently being excavated and documented by a team of WMU archaeologists.

Joseph Peyser at Fort St. Joseph rock on Bond St.

The documents he uncovered and translated were written in Old French, which is significantly differentl from today's French. These letters revealed what life was like in 17th and 18th century Michigan and Canada and were from all walks of life, from French government and royalty, businessmen and blacksmiths, to emancipated women engaged in commercial lawsuits, and fur- trading voyageurs that plied the rivers and forests of Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana. Contrary to common perception, he documented that these voyageurs were, in many cases, quite literate, filing regular reports from the field and sending them back to the court of Louis XIV.

"Some of the documents were extremely difficult. In some cases, the handwriting is this big," Dr. Peyser said in an April 2003 interview with the South Bend Tribune, holding his forefinger and thumb one-sixteenth of an inch apart. "The letters don't look like today's writing at all, and the grammar has changed since the 17th century. The use of tenses is different, and there were many obsolete words, I really expanded my vocabulary."

The documents and Peyser's translations revealed that military personnel from the fort had used connecting waterways to take part in battles hundreds of miles away. They revealed, too, that the son of an early Fort St. Joseph commander led a contingent of French troops and Indian allies against a suprise attack launched by a young George Washington in 1754 at Fort Necessity in Pennsylvania.

His son states "my father believed in the importance of bringing history to life and the need to ground the present and future in the understanding of the past. His research was a labor of love." Dr. Peyser recalled how he felt in 2002, when he stood near the remains of a hearth once used to warm a building at the fort. "When I stood on that floor, in front of that hearth, I said, 'This is what they saw.' I felt a litle of what they felt," he said. "It was clearly one of the biggest thrills of my professional life."

In 1993 Peyser and R. David Edmunds published The Fox Wars: The Mesquakie Challenge to new France(University of Oklahoma Press). Ironically, this book also corrected the historical placement of a major Fox Indian battle near Peoria, Illinois through the discovery of a map drawn by the commander of the French troops, a map also "lost" in the National Archives, Paris. In recognition of the book's merit, the French Colonial Historical Society presented them with the Alf Heggoy Book Prize in 1994.

In 1991 Professor peyser began to work on the French Michilimackinac Translation Project. he collected thousands of pages of photocopies and hundreds of reels of microfilm of French documents, located in archives in France and Canada, pertaining to michilimackinac and the French experience in the Great lakes region. More importantly, he translated many of these documents into English. Mackinac State historic parks and michigan State University Press published two volumes of documents translated and annotated by Peyser: Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre: Officer, Gentleman, Entrepreneur (1996) and On the Eve of the Conquest: The Chevalier de Raymond's Critique of New France in 1754(1997). In 1994, Peyser and Mackinac State Historic Parks received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to fund the translations that appeared in On the Eve of the Conquest. Subsequent grants from the Florence Gould Foundation and Mackinac Associates provided financial support for the project. At the time of his death, a third volume of documents translated by Peyser, titled Edge of Empire Michilimackinac, 1671-1716, is nearly ready for publication. José António Brandão, Western Michigan University, is the co-editor of this volume.

A man of many talents and interests, Peyser attained the rank of Eagle Scout as a boy, earning every merit badge the Boy Scouts of America offered at the time. As a teen he used to take one hundred mile bicycle rides from New York City where he grew up before the advent of multi-speed bikes. He loved to play chess, bridge, and hike in the woods, and was an avid football and boxing fan. He also enjoyed drawing cityscapes and portraits that are exhibited in his home. His daughter, Jan Peyser, also fondly recalls her father carving toys out of wood for her and her brother, including a doll house and an old medieval fort. His son recalls camping overnight in the fully-functional igloos that his father built in the family backyard during winters on Long island in the 1950's.

"He was a man who believed in grabbing hold of life and living it according to his own rules," said his son. "He always said to define yourself by your own interests and skill, not by others or your job." Offered lucrative positions in his father's optometry business and his uncle's accounting business while in college, Dr. Peyser turned them down to pursue his intellectual love, French. But his career didn't start cleanly. In 1949 he could not find a teaching job, so he packed up wife and five-month old son (against everyone's counsel) and moved to France where he was the first American to lecture in French at the University of Nancy. After a year of teaching and travel throughout Europe, he returned with his family to continue what would become a long and distinguished career. The day before he died he spent several hours talking with his close French friends of fifty-five years, friendships established during that first trip in 1949.

He graduated with a B.A. in French from Duke University in 1947, earned an M.A. in French from Columbia University in 1949, received a Certificat d'études supérieures, French literature from the Université de Nancy, France in 1950, and received an Ed. D. in Educational Administration from New York University in 1965.

His teaching career spanned a half-century. He first served as an assistant d'anglais in Ecole Normal d'Instituteurs, Nancy, France in 1949-1950. Peyser was a teacher of French, Spanish, Russian, English, and social studies at high schools in Uniondale and Monroe, New York, before holding professorial positions at Hofstra University, New York University, and Long Island University. In 1968, he bacame professor of French at Dowling College, a position he held until his appointment as professor of French at Indiana University South Bend in 1973.

In addtion to his professorships, Dr. Peyser held important administrative positions: Assistant Dean and Dean of the School of Education, Hofstra University, 1964-1968; Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty, 1968-1973, Dowling College; Dean of Faculties, 1973-1975, and Chairman, Department of Foreign Languages, 1987-1989, Indiana University South Bend. He served in the U.S. Navy as Ensign and Lieutenant JG during World War II and in the U.S. Naval Reserve from 1946-1959 after his honorable discharge from the Navy

Many students, colleagues, and others will remember Joe Peyser as a man who made a difference in their lives through his teaching and public service. He encouraged people to challenge themselves and society, and to reach for lofty goals. In the early 1950's for example, he was Chairman of the Foreign Language department at Uniondale High School, New York. He chose to have Chinese and Russian taught, in addition to several other languages. With the Cold War and McCarthy era at its height, he was questioned by the School Board about why they should include the languages of these enemies of the United States. he replied that in these times it was absolutely critical for us to understand the enemies and thier motivations by understanding their languages and cultures. Unable to find a Russian teacher at the time, he took a university course in the language and a year later began teaching high school students...staying a year ahead of then while he continued his own study.

Dr. Peyser and his wife believed in the global equality of all people. Following his retirement in 1994 Drs Joseph and Julia Peyser endowed two scholarships - one for graduate students and one for undergraduates at Indiana University South Bend for study abroad. These awards are intended to help qualified and financially deserving students enrich their educations by studying and living in a foreign country to further their understanding of the language and culture.

Joe Peyser and Julia Boxer met on a blind date in 1947 - not theirs - they were the younger siblings attending as chaperones to their older brother's and sister's date at the beach. While their brother and sister did not follow up, they did - for fifty-six loving years of marriage. He is survived...and cherished...by his wife Julia; sister Jeanne Kaunitz; son Randy Peyser; daughter Jan Peyser-Gleason; and three grandchildren, Lisa Stamm, Ben Peyser and Jason Stamm.

Picture of Joseph and Julia together.

SupportTheFort.Net

Site Navigation