Brisbois, Charles, d. 1847. Green Bay and Prairie du Chien papers, 1774-1895.
Title:
Green Bay and Prairie du Chien papers, 1774-1895.
Papers relating to the fur trade in Wisconsin and the Northwest collected by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin from a variety of sources and bound together in 1906, with some later additions. Included are papers of the Grignon, Lawe, and Porlier families; letter books of Hercules Dousman; papers of Morgan L. Martin concerning lands, politics, early Milwaukee, and the Fox-Wisconsin Improvement Company; accounts of Charles Brisbois; and records of the American Fur Company post at Prairie du Chien, Wis. The correspondence up to about 1830 is largely that of the Porlier and Lawe families. Among that of the former are family letters especially between Jacques Porlier and his son, Joseph Jacques; from William Dickson, 1819-1821; from Alexis Bailly; Joseph Brisbois; and Lewis Rouse. The Lawe papers include many drafts of John Lawe's own letters; letters received from relatives, from Stanislaus Chappu and George Surwick, traders at Oconto and Pensaukee for the Lawes; from Michael Dousman; and officials of the American Fur Company. After 1836 there are letters from Robert M. Eberts and Andrew J. Vieau, who successively associated with Lawe in operating a sawmill and gristmill at Two Rivers, Wis. Letters from Wilson P. Hunt of St. Louis deal with the estate and family affairs of Nicolas Boilvin. There are a number of letters written by Richard F. Cadle, and a few letters addressed to Amable Grignon, George Boyd, and James D. Doty. Beginning with 1829, the papers of Peter Bernard Grignon form a large part of the collection. They include correspondence dealing with his duties as clerk of the court; as contractor for the Chicago to Green Bay mail, 1836-1838; plans with Morgan L. Martin for establishing a mill on the upper Wisconsin; family letters; and miscellaneous material. Letters to Hercules L. Dousman of Prairie du Chien cover a ten-year period after 1845. Among them are a number of letters from Pierre Chouteau and Company of St. Louis; Nelson Dewey of Lancaster; George W. Jones of Dubuque; Samuel Crawford of Mineral Point; Ben C. Eastman of Platteville; John H. Kinzie of Chicago; and Henry M. Rice of St. Paul, dealing with politics, the fur trade, Indian affairs, lands, and legal matters. Letters received by Morgan L. Martin first appear in this collection in 1829, and after about 1835 form the bulk of the collection. They deal with his legal affairs; his interests in land investments, including lots in Milwaukee and the development of a number of village sites in eastern Wisconsin; Indian claims and annuity payments; affairs in Wisconsin during his terms as member of the Michigan and Wisconsin territorial legislatures, 1831-1835 and 1838-1844, and as delegate to Congress, 1845-1847; the Fox-Wisconsin Improvement Company; early Milwaukee, Wis. history; and Democratic Party politics, particularly in 1848 and other election years, including letters from Josiah A. Noonan, John Catlin, C. Latham Sholes, Benjamin H. Mooers, and others. Letters from members of the Martin family in the East, dealing with both family and business affairs, are found throughout the collection. Filed with the collection are volumes of records of the American Fur Company's post at Prairie du Chien, Wis., managed by Hercules L. Dousman, consisting of 21 volumes of account books with records of sales at the local store, to trading outfits on the upper Mississippi, at Fort Atkinson in Iowa, and to individual Indians; also invoices and inventories, and letter books kept by Dousman, 1850-1863.
ArchivalResource:
16.0 c.f. (17 archives boxes, 1 card file box, 2 flat boxes, and 49 volumes) and2 reels of microfilm (35mm)
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