SIMON DAZIO (24230)

Simon Dazio was born in Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, in the late 1700s. He came to Canada as a soldier with the de Meuron regiment in the British army.(1) After the regiment was disbanded in 1816, Dazio was one of the ex-soldiers recruited by Lord Selkirk to accompany him to Red River. Any men who wished to join the colony were promised grants of land.  They arrived at the settlement in 1817 and Simon Dazio was listed as a Meuron Settler on an 1818 list, single man.(2)

In 1821, Simon married one of the Swiss settlers, Marie Juliane Peltier, at Fort Gibraltar.(3) They had one son, also named Simon. Dazio was shown on an 1822-1823 plan of RR lots. His death is not recorded, but Marie re-married in 1824 to Joseph Freck, another de Meuron.(4)

After the disastrous flood of 1826, the family left Red River for the United States, where they settled in Jo Daviess County, Illinois. The name Dazio was lost in translation and Simon Jr became known as Simon Tatchio. He married in 1847 and had a family of five children.(5)

(1) De Meuron’s Regiment was the oldest of the three Swiss Regiments in British pay. The other two regiments were de Roll’s Regiment raised in 1794 and the de Watteville Regiment raised in 1797.

(2) Selkirk Papers, pp. 5237-5238

(3) HBCA Red River Settlement records – Extracts from registers of baptisms, marriages and burials E.4/1b folio 200. She is not found on the list of Swiss immigrants, so must have been in the company of another family. Only heads of households were listed by name.

(4) Joseph Freck is not on the 1818 list of Meuron settlers at RR, but he is on the 1822-23 plan of RR lots.

(5) Information on the family in the US has been supplied by a descendant of Simon Dazio who has done extensive research on the Swiss and de Meuron settlers and their descendants.