MENOMINEE RANGE MEMORIES 6: EARLY …

1 MENOMINEE RANGE MEMORIES 6: EARLY TRADING. POSTS AND HALF-WAY HOUSES FROM MENOMINEE . NORTH. By William J. Cummings, MENOMINEE RANGE Historical Foundation Historian Several EARLY trading posts and stopping places are indicated on this map, including (3). Chappee Rapids, (7) Kitson's [John G. Kittson], (8) De Coto's [Joseph De Coto] and (10). Battise's [possibly Baptiste Premeau]. This map, published in Michigan History, Volume 47, Number 4 (December, 1963), accompanied an article containing excerpts from Alanson Forman Lyon's diary entitled A Trip Up the MENOMINEE River in 1854.. [Michigan History]. 1. MENOMINEE RANGE MEMORIES 6: EARLY TRADING. POSTS AND HALF-WAY HOUSES FROM MENOMINEE . NORTH. By William J. Cummings, MENOMINEE RANGE Historical Foundation Historian Trading posts were the first vestiges of to a home with civilization, and his post civilization in the frontier area of the Upper sometimes presented the appearance of a Peninsula and northeastern Wisconsin.

2 Well garrisoned fort, and at other times he The MENOMINEE River was the principal was left almost solitary and alone to defend waterway and route to follow northward it if hostile Indians approached. from Lake Michigan. His post was solidly built of logs with In the Centennial History of MENOMINEE palisades made of heavy timbers set in the County by the Hon. Eleazer Stillman ground around it.. Ingalls, published in 1876, mention is made Chappee built his first trading post on of a number of individuals who traded with the Wisconsin side of the MENOMINEE the Indians along the MENOMINEE River. River, carrying on his trade with the Indians Louis Chappieu/Chappee for many years, until dispossessed by Trading post at Chappee's Rapids on William Farnsworth and Charles Brush, who the MENOMINEE River wanted the site for a sawmill. According to Ingalls, The first white After being dispossessed of his man who came to MENOMINEE to stay was property, Chappee crossed the MENOMINEE Chappee [Louis Chappieu or Chappee, an River and built a new trading post near the Indian trader and French Canadian foot of Chappee's Rapids which were voyageur], who came here [ MENOMINEE ] as named after him about five miles up the an agent for the [British-] American Fur river from the village of MENOMINEE .

3 He Company and established a [trading] post surrounded this post with palisades in the in 1796 [on the Wisconsin side of the same manner as he did the first one, and MENOMINEE River]. remained there trading with the Indians until At that time many thousand Indians he died in 1852. visited the MENOMINEE river every season, According to Ingalls, Chappee took to while at the north and about the himself a squaw, with whom he lived, and headquarters of the river, and towards Lake raised children, as was the custom with the Superior, the Chippewas had numerous traders in those days, but to whom he was villages which were accessible by birch never married.. canoes. There was an abundance of The first recorded inhabitants of the beaver, otter, mink, muskrat, martin and MENOMINEE River Basin were a small fishers, bear, deer, and less valuable game, Algonquin tribe known as the wild rice throughout the country, and this post people. Journals of seventeenth and EARLY became an important trading point.

4 Eighteenth century explorers describe a Chappee was a French-Canadian tribe of forty to eighty men living in a single voyageur, with sufficient education to keep village at the mouth of the MENOMINEE what books were necessary for an Indian River. By the EARLY 1820's, the MENOMINEE trading post , and was apparently the right numbered about 500 men, and were man for the place. He was stirring and scattered throughout a dozen villages in active, and had sufficient courage and Wisconsin. Between 1670 and the EARLY nerve for any emergency that might arise. 1800's, various explorers, fur traders and He had a large number of men, picked up missionaries visited the area as they from that class of Canadian voyageurs who passed by on the water routes of Green preferred a life in the solitude of the forests Bay and the MENOMINEE River. 2. MENOMINEE RANGE MEMORIES 6: EARLY TRADING. POSTS AND HALF-WAY HOUSES FROM MENOMINEE . NORTH. By William J. Cummings, MENOMINEE RANGE Historical Foundation Historian The first known white settler on the Jacobs went to Canada on a trading trip MENOMINEE River was Stanislaus Louis and never returned.

5 Marie married Chappieu, Chappu, or Chappee, a French- Farnsworth. They were the parents of two Canadian fur trader who operated a log sons and a daughter. trading post at the site of Marinette, By 1831 Farnsworth left the area to Wisconsin, between 1794 and 1824. settle in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Marie Chappee, born in 1766 in Canada, remained and developed the trading post established a trading post on the Wisconsin into a large trading center. An influential side of the mouth of the MENOMINEE River M tis woman, she was known for her in about 1794. [Later the MENOMINEE River business sense, fairness and influence in Manufacturing Company office, opposite the region, having ties to both the Queen Marinette's house, occupied this MENOMINEE Indian and European site.] Chappee traded with the Indians for communities. [The M tis people are furs for many years, eventually becoming Indigenous North Americans of mixed race. an agent for John Jacob Astor's American M tis are recognized by the government of Fur Company.]

6 Canada as one of the official Aboriginal In about 1822 another fur trader, William peoples.] She came to be known as Farnsworth, arrived at the mouth of the Queen Marinette.. MENOMINEE River. The following year John After her death in 1865, Queen Jacobs, also a fur trader, moved to the area Marinette was buried in Allouez. In 1987. with his wife, Marie Antoinette Chevalier. her descendants had her reinterred in a Marie, born in 1793 at post Lake, sarcophagus at the Forest Home Langlade County, Wisconsin, was the Mausoleum in Marinette. Her original daughter of Bertrand Chevalier, a British tombstone is on display at the museum on trader of French Canadian ancestry, who Stephenson Island in Marinette. was involved with an EARLY trading post in Within a few years of Farnsworth's Green Bay, Wisconsin. Her mother was arrival at the mouth of the MENOMINEE Lucy, the daughter of a MENOMINEE chief River, he had usurped Chappee's position named Wauba-Shish (Great Marten). as the area's fur trader, forcibly ejecting When Marie's father moved his family to Chappee from his trading post with the help Green Bay in 1800, he went into of nearby MENOMINEE Indians.

7 Farnsworth partnership with John Jacobs, who later had won favor with the Indians when he married Marie, and they had three children interceded after Chappee had three together. When the fur trading business MENOMINEE braves jailed at Fort Howard slumped during the War of 1812, Jacobs after a fight in which Chappee's thumb was started a school. bitten off. Farnsworth was able to obtain In 1823 John and Marie Jacobs moved their release. In gratitude the tribe gave to the settlement which became known as Farnsworth a land grant which included Marinette, the town later being plotted by Chappee's trading post . their son John B. Jacobs in 1855. Chappee moved five miles upriver and Jacobs went into partnership with established a trading post at what is still William Farnsworth at a trading post called Chappee's Rapids. Chappee died established by the American Fur Company. and was buried there in 1856. A Wisconsin Within a few years Marie's husband John historical marker exists on this site on 3.

8 MENOMINEE RANGE MEMORIES 6: EARLY TRADING. POSTS AND HALF-WAY HOUSES FROM MENOMINEE . NORTH. By William J. Cummings, MENOMINEE RANGE Historical Foundation Historian County Road 581 near Wallace, Kittson had great influence over the MENOMINEE County, Michigan. Indians and was at all times a friend to their A monument on his grave site reads: interests, according to Ingalls. Louis Chappee, 1766-1856 S. Chaput, a The Indians always spoke of Mr. noble Frenchman and soldier, explorer Kittson as the writer,' a name they gave trader and trapper on the MENOMINEE River. him on account of his doing all the writing He sleeps here among us his red brothers, for them in their various transactions with on the bank of the beautiful MENOMINEE the Government.. River. John George Kittson was born January 12, 1812, in Sorel, Pierre-De Saurel Regional County Municipality, Quebec, Canada. Kittson was the son of a British Army officer who had immigrated to Canada and settled near Montreal.

9 An extremely intelligent man with the temperament and strength to adapt well to pioneer life, Kittson arrived in the Marinette- MENOMINEE area in 1826 as a representative for the American Fur Company. He located a trading post at Wausaukee Bend on the MENOMINEE River. As well as being a beautiful area, the site was also on a main Indian trail which led from central Wisconsin to a natural ford John G. Kittson'sTrading post across the MENOMINEE River at Wausaukee Bend above Grand Rapids Wausaukee, and continued north to the on the MENOMINEE River Lake Superior region. John G. Kittson was the next white man Kittson played a prominent role in to take up permanent residence in the general matters from the time he arrived in MENOMINEE area, arriving in 1826 as a clerk the area until his death. for the American Fur Company under Agriculture in Marinette County began Chappee. He was the son of a British when Kittson, the fourth white man to locate officer who was or had been stationed in on the MENOMINEE River, cleared and Canada, according to Ingalls.

10 Worked the first farm in the county, located Kittson, described as a very intelligent at the site of his first trading post at and stirring man, was actively engaged in Wausaukee Bend. the fur trade or in farming all of his life. He Another farm at Chappee Rapids, near cleared and opened the first farms in the old trading post where he resided for MENOMINEE County, one at Wausaukee many years before the great Peshtigo fire of Bend above Grand Rapids and the other at October 8, 1871, was also established just Chappee's Rapids, near the old trading above the trading post of Stanislaus post , where he resided for many years prior Chappu [Louis Chappee/Chaput], the first to the great woods fire [Peshtigo Fire] in known white settler in the area. On this October, 1871. He died in 1872. farm Kittson taught the MENOMINEE Indians 4. MENOMINEE RANGE MEMORIES 6: EARLY TRADING. POSTS AND HALF-WAY HOUSES FROM MENOMINEE . NORTH. By William J. Cummings, MENOMINEE RANGE Historical Foundation Historian improved ways of farming and ran a very October 8, 1871.