Chequamegon Bay, of Lake Superior, has had a long and an interesting
history. Nearly two and a half centuries ago, in the early winter months
of 1659, two adventurous French traders, Radisson and Groseilliers,
built a little palisade here, to protect the stock of goods which they
exchanged with the Indians for furs. This was on the southwestern shore
of the bay, a few miles west of the present city of Ashland, and in the
neighborhood of Whittlesey's Creek.
These men did not tarry long at Chequamegon Bay. For the most part, they
merely kept their stock of goods hid in a _cache_ there, while for some
ten months they traveled through the woods, far and wide, in search of
trade with the dusky natives. But they made the region known to
Frenchmen in the settlements at Quebec and Montreal, as a favorite
meeting-place for many tribes of Indians who came to the bay to fish.
The first Jesuit mission on Lake Superior was conducted by Father Rene
Menard, at Keweenaw Bay; but he lost his life in the forest in 1661. In
1665 the Jesuits determined to reopen their mission on the great lake,
and for that purpose sent Father Claude Allouez. Having heard of the
advantages of Chequamegon Bay, Allouez proceeded thither, and erected
his little chapel in an Indian village upon the mainland, not far from
Radisson's old palisade, and possibly at the mouth of Vanderventer's
Creek. He called his mission La Pointe.
Conversions were few at La Pointe, and Allouez soon longed for a broader
field. He was relieved in 1669 by Father Jacques Marquette, a young and
earnest priest. But it was not long before the Sioux of Minnesota
quarreled with the Indians of Chequamegon Bay; and the latter, with
Marquette, were driven eastward as far as Mackinac.
Although the missionaries had deserted La Pointe, fur traders soon came
to be numerous there. One of the most prominent of these was Daniel
Grayson Duluth, for whom the modern lake city of Minnesota was named.
For several years he had a small palisaded fort upon Chequamegon Bay,
and, with a lively crew of well-armed boatmen, roamed all over the
surrounding country, north, west, and south of Lake Superior, trading
with far-away bands of savages. He had two favorite routes between the
Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. One was by way of the narrow and
turbulent Bois Brule, then much choked by fallen trees and beaver dams;
a portage trail of a mile and a half from its headwaters to those of the
St. Croix River; and thence, through foaming rapids, and deep, cool
lakes, down into the Father of Waters. The other, an easier, but longer
way, was up the rugged St. Louis River, which separates Wisconsin from
Minnesota on the northwest, over into the Sand Lake country, and thence,
through watery labyrinths, into feeders of the Mississippi.
Another adventurous French forest trader, who quartered on Chequamegon
Bay, was Le Sueur, who, in 1693, built a fort upon Madelaine Island.
During the old Fox War the valleys of the Fox and the Wisconsin were
closed to Frenchmen by the enraged Indians. This, the most popular route
between the Great Lakes and the great river, being now unavailable, it
became necessary to keep open Duluth's old routes from Lake Superior
over to the Upper Mississippi. This was why Le Sueur was sent to
Chequamegon Bay, to overawe the Indians of that region. He thought that
his fort would be safer from attack upon the island, than upon the
mainland. As La Pointe had now come to be the general name of this
entire neighborhood, the island fort bore the same name as the old
headquarters on land. It is well to remember that the history of
Madelaine Island, the La Pointe of to-day, dates from Le Sueur; that
the old La Pointe of Radisson, Allouez, Marquette, and probably Duluth,
was on the mainland several miles to the southwest.
In connection with the La Pointe fort protecting the northern approach
to Duluth's trading routes, Le Sueur erected another stockade to guard
the southern end, the location of this latter being on an island in the
Mississippi, near the present Red Wing, Minnesota. The fort in the
Mississippi soon became "the center of commerce for the Western parts";
and the station at La Pointe also soon rose to importance, for the
Chippewas, who had drifted far inland with the growing scarcity of game,
were led by the presence of traders to return to Chequamegon Bay, and
mass themselves in a large village on the southwest shore.
Although Le Sueur was not many years in command at the bay, we catch
frequent glimpses thereafter of fur trade stations here, French,
English, and American in turn, most of them doubtless being on Madelaine
Island. We know, for instance, that there was a French trader at La
Pointe in 1717; also, that the year following, a French officer was sent
there, with a few soldiers, to patch up and garrison the old stockade.
Whether a garrisoned fort was kept up at the bay, from that time till
the downfall of New France (1763), we cannot say; but it seems probable,
for the geographical position was one of great importance in the
development of the fur trade.
We first hear of copper in the vicinity, in 1730, when an Indian brought
a nugget to the La Pointe post; but the whereabouts of the mine was
concealed by the savages, because of their superstitions relative to
mineral deposits.
The commandant of La Pointe, at this time, was La Ronde, the chief fur
trader in the Lake Superior country. He and his son, who was his
partner, built for their trade a sailing vessel of forty tons burden,
without doubt the first one of the kind upon the great lake. We find
evidences of the La Rondes, father and son, down as late as 1744; a
curious old map of that year gives the name of "Isle de la Ronde" to
what we now know as Madelaine.
We find nothing more of importance concerning Chequamegon Bay until
about 1756, when Beaubassin was the French officer in charge of the
fort. The English colonists were harassing the French along the St.
Lawrence River; and Beaubassin, with hundreds of other officers of
wilderness forts, was ordered down with his Indian allies to the
settlements of Montreal, Three Rivers, and Quebec, to defend New France.
The Chippewas, with other Wisconsin tribes, actuated by extravagant
promises of presents, booty, and scalps, eagerly flocked to the banner
of France, and in painted swarms appeared in fighting array on the banks
of the St. Lawrence. But they helped the British more than the French,
for they would not fight, yet with large appetites ate up the provisions
of their allies.
The garrison being withdrawn from La Pointe, Madelaine Island became a
camping-ground for unlicensed traders, who had freedom to plunder the
country at their will, for New France, tottering to her fall, could no
longer police the upper lakes. In the autumn of 1760 one of these
parties encamped upon the island. By the time winter had set in upon
them, all had left for their wintering grounds in the forests of the far
West and Northwest, save a clerk named Joseph, who remained in charge of
the goods and what local trade there was. With him were his wife, his
small son, and a manservant. Traditions differ as to the cause of the
servant's action; some have it, a desire for plunder; others, his
detection in a series of petty thefts, which Joseph threatened to
report. However that may be, the servant murdered first the clerk, then
the wife, and in a few days, stung by the child's piteous cries, killed
him also. When the spring came, and the traders returned to Chequamegon,
they inquired for Joseph and his family. The servant's reply was at
first unsatisfactory; but when pushed for an explanation, he confessed
to his terrible deed. The story goes, that in horror the traders
dismantled the old French fort, now overgrown with underbrush, as a
thing accursed, sunk the cannon in a neighboring pool, and so destroyed
the palisade that to-day certain mysterious grassy mounds alone remain
to testify of the tragedy. They carried their prisoner with them on
their return voyage to Montreal, but he is said to have escaped to the
Huron Indians, among whom he boasted of his act, only to be killed by
them as too cruel to be a companion even for savages.
Five years later a great English trader, Alexander Henry, who had
obtained the exclusive trade on Lake Superior, wintered on the mainland
opposite Madelaine Island. His partner was Jean Baptiste Cadotte, a
thrifty Frenchman, who for many years thereafter was one of the most
prominent characters on the upper lakes. Soon after this, a Scotch
trader named John Johnston established himself on the island, and
married a comely Chippewa maiden, whose father was chief of the native
village situated four miles across the water, on the site of the
Bayfield of to-day.
About the beginning of the nineteenth century, Michel, a son of old Jean
Baptiste Cadotte, took up his abode on the island; and from that time to
the present there has been a continuous settlement there, which bears
the name La Pointe. Michel, himself the child of a Chippewa mother, but
educated at Montreal, married Equaysayway, the daughter of White Crane,
the village chief on the island, and became a person of much importance
thereabout. For over a quarter of a century this island nabob lived at
his ease; here he cultivated a little farm, commanded a variable but
far-reaching fur trade, first as agent of the Northwest Company, and,
later, of the American Fur Company, and reared a large family. His sons
were educated at Montreal, and become the heads of families of traders,
interpreters, and _voyageurs_.
To this little paradise of the Cadottes there came (in 1818) two sturdy,
fairly educated young men from Massachusetts, Lyman Marcus Warren, and
his younger brother, Truman Warren. Engaging in the fur trade, these two
brothers, of old Puritan stock, married two half-breed daughters of
Michel Cadotte. In time they bought out Michel's interests, and managed
the American Fur Company's stations at many far-distant places, such as
Lac Flambeau, Lac Court Oreilles, and the St. Croix. The Warrens were
the last of the great La Pointe fur traders, Truman dying in 1825, and
Lyman twenty-two years later.
Lyman Warren, although possessed of a Catholic wife, was a Presbyterian.
Not since the days of Marquette had there been an ordained minister at
La Pointe, and the Catholics were not just then ready to reenter the
long-neglected field. Warren was eager to have religious instruction on
the island, for both Indians and whites; and in 1831 succeeded in
inducing the American Home Missionary Society to send hither, from
Mackinac, the Rev. Sherman Hall and wife, as missionary and teacher.
These were the first Protestant missionaries upon the shores of Lake
Superior. For many years their modest little church building at La
Pointe was the center of a considerable and prosperous mission, both
island and mainland, which did much to improve the condition of the
Chippewa tribe. In later years the mission was moved to Odanah.
Four years after the coming of the Halls, there arrived at the island
village a worthy Austrian priest, Father (afterward Bishop) Baraga. In a
small log chapel by the side of the Indian graveyard, this new mission
of the older faith throve apace. Baraga visited Europe to beg money for
the cause, and in a few years constructed a new chapel; this is
sometimes shown to summer tourists as the original chapel of Marquette,
but no part of the ancient mainland chapel went into its construction.
Baraga was a man of unusual attainments, and spent his life in laboring
for the betterment of the Indians of the Lake Superior country, with a
self-sacrificing zeal which is rare in the records of any church. At
present, the Franciscan friars, with headquarters at Bayfield, on the
mainland, are in charge of the island mission.
La Pointe has lost many of its old-time characteristics. No longer is it
the refuge of squalid Indian tribes; no longer is it a center of the fur
trade, with gayly clothed _coureurs de bois_, with traders and their
dusky brides, with rollicking _voyageurs_ taking no heed of the morrow.
With the killing of the game, and the opening of the Lake Superior
country to the occupation of farmers and miners and manufacturers, its
forest trade has departed; the Protestant mission has followed the
majority of the Indian islanders to mainland reservations; and the
revived mission of the Mother Church has also been quartered upon the
bay shore.