Lefebure, Jean F., New Orleans, Louisiana, to Archbishop Anthony Blanc, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1857 December 5

A father of a family and refugee from Kansas, Lefebure appeals to Blanc. Having lived since 1853 in Indian Territory a short distance from the mission of St. Mary's among the Pottowatimees, Lefebure was chased from his modest cottage by a party of Americans and put out on the prairie with his wife and 4 small children. Wandering from place to place and being of a weak constitution he could not compete with more robust workers. He decided to seek help from his family in Belgium. 7000 francs was owed him by his sister-in-law, a lace manufacturer in Ghent, who paid him in merchandise. Thinking it would be a good thing to use his time while awaiting his wife's confinement in New York, he arrived there in the midst of the business crisis and saw that there was no market for what would have been snatched at a few weeks before. Advised to go to New Orleans he arrived 3 days ago and found the merchants even more ill-disposed than in New York. He thinks that if the rich ladies knew the position of the merchants they would put him in a position to reclaim his cottage in Kansas. Blanc's recommendation could rescue Lefebure and allow him to realize the sum necessary to rejoin his wife in New York. :: VI-1-m A.L.S. French 4pp. 12mo.