Allyre Bureau
- Occupation
- musician
- Origin
- Paris, France
- Sources
- Santerre, Foster, DMN 1906
Positions
- managing partner (gérant), SCEAT, Brussels — 1854-09-26 – 1859-10-31 (named) [sceat-statutes; cordillot] Cordillot dates the founding 14 Sept 1854; the act says 26 Sept. Died in office.
- administration and the store (with Cousin), Réunion, under receivership — 1858-01 – 1859-10 (named) [cordillot]
From the register of positions.
Biography
Allyre Bureau
Name
Canonical: Allyre Bureau
Also: Mr. Bureau (DMN 1906); "Bureau (M.)" (Savardan)
Birth: April 16, 1810, Cherbourg (Manche), France
Death: October 31, 1859, Kellum Springs, Texas -- cholera contracted at
Houston in October 1859 on a buying trip for the colony store; he died in
a few days on the road home, away from his family
Burial: unknown
Origin: Cherbourg; Ecole polytechnique (entered 1829), artillery officer,
resigned for literary work
Family
Wife: Zoe Bureau nee Rey (Cordillot's appendix); she reached Reunion
March 4, 1857 and took him to Austin two days later
Sons: worked the land with him in 1858-59; Gustave Bureau is in the
appendix
After his death the family, without resources, returned to France.
Occupation: journalist, publicist and musician. Santerre's list gives only
"musician." Fourierist contributor to Le Phalanstere, La Phalange and La
Democratie pacifique; unsuccessful candidate in the Cher, 1849.
Company role
First managing partner (gerant) of the SCEAT at its Brussels founding,
with Guillon and Godin-Lemaire seconding him. Cordillot dates the
founding September 14, 1854; the statutes say September 26 (see TIMELINE
1854.09.26 -- unresolved).
Ship / arrival: embarked with his family September 25, 1856, sent out by
the management as the colony's situation deteriorated (he spoke
English). New Orleans December 4; Austin by stage December 19; his family
settled there while he went to San Antonio to see Considerant, then
planning to liquidate Reunion for a new attempt in the Uvalde canyons.
Reached Reunion January 17, 1857, at fifteen below zero.
Colony role
- January 28, 1857: posted the notice declaring the Societe de Reunion
dissolved and its affairs taken over by the Societe generale -- the act
on the ground (TIMELINE 1857.01.28); then collapsed into prostration
- February 3, 1857: a consultative commission (Capy, Cretien, Loupot,
Savardan, Guillemet's expense control) was set up to support him
- March 6, 1857: left for Austin with his wife; Cousin, holding his
delegated powers, ran the colony
- May 25, 1857: recovered, three weeks with Considerant at San Antonio,
visited the Uvalde canyons; November, Austin-Houston trip
- Early January 1858: returned to settle at Reunion, where he had bought
three lots, bringing all his furniture from Paris including a piano;
resumed the administration with Cousin; family arrived in April
- 1858-59: farmed with his sons, animated the colony's musical and
cultural life, administered the store -- the last vestige of the
collective centre -- travelling two or three times a year to Houston
to buy for it
Sources
Cordillot, "Bureau Allyre," Au Texas (2003)
Dictionnaire biographique du fourierisme notice (doc/text/biographies/
bureau_allyre_504.md, FR and EN)
Gabrielle Rey, Le fourieriste Allyre Bureau, 1810-1859 (Aix, 1962)
Savardan, Un naufrage au Texas (1858), for the January 1857 sequence
Santerre, White Cliffs of Dallas (1955), colonist list
TIMELINE.md: 1857.01.17, 1857.01.28, 1859.??
Notes
Bureau is the company's own man on the ground -- the gerant, not a
colonist -- and the one who signed the colony's death notice. That he
then came back, bought lots, brought his piano, and died running the
store makes him the clearest case of the corporate structure failing
while its people stayed. Cordillot's detail that the receivership's
sell-off ran only after his 1859 death (see TIMELINE 1858.??) is what
makes his return matter for the land record.