Green Bay and Prairie du Chien papers, 1774-1895.

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Green Bay and Prairie du Chien papers, 1774-1895.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/613414673

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.

16.0 c.f. (17 archives boxes, 1 card file box, 2 flat boxes, and 49 volumes) and2 reels of microfilm (35mm)

Wisconsin Historical Society Archives

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 7804404

Wisconsin Historical Society Archives

Related Entities

There are 36 Entities related to this resource.

Brisbois, Charles, -1847

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w61853bh (person)

Fox-Wisconsin Improvement Company.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6n66n2t (corporateBody)

Rice, Henry M. (Henry Mower), 1816-1894

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6930vhq (person)

Surwick, George.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6356fbm (person)

Chappu, Stanislaus.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6tf7qp2 (person)

Mooers, Benjamin H.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6bs6mn3 (person)

Dousman, Hercules L. (Hercules Louis), 1800-1868

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w69896xc (person)

Wealthy Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, fur trader and regional investor. Born on Mackinac Island in 1800 and educated in New Jersey, Dousman worked at a New York mercantile house as a clerk and with his father at Mackinac before coming in 1826 to Prairie du Chien. There Dousman worked as an agent of the American Fur Company in partnership with Joseph Rolette (whose widow, Jane Fisher Rolette, Dousman married in 1844). In 1834, Dousman, Rolette, and H.H. Sibley became stock...

Dickson, William.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w66v06g2 (person)

Sholes, Christopher Latham, 1819-1890

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6k665st (person)

Eberts, Robert M.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6wt6pd3 (person)

Dousman, Michael, 1771-1854.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w63b7grh (person)

Boyd, George, 1779?-1846.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6t7410m (person)

Porlier, Joseph Jacques, 1796-1839.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6pw4fpv (person)

Pierre Chouteau Jr. and Co.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6xm6ggr (corporateBody)

Porlier, Jacques, 1765-1839.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6cv61b1 (person)

Hunt, Wilson Price, 1783?-1842

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6tb3d0t (person)

American fur trader and explorer. From the description of Financial notes, 1809-1811. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122553031 From the guide to the Wilson Price Hunt financial notes, 1809-1811, (L. Tom Perry Special Collections) Trader. From the description of Letter of Wilson Price Hunt, 1831. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 79451089 Fur trader, postmaster in St. Louis, Missouri, and agent for John Jacob Astor in charge of Astoria, Oregon. ...

Vieau, Andrew Jacques, 1818-1888.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w68068x0 (person)

Boilvin, Nicolas, 1761-1827.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6b00sjm (person)

Martin, M. L. (Morgan Lewis), 1805-1887

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6s199f8 (person)

Crawford, Samuel C.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6gx532h (person)

The ship was under the command of Capt. Frank Worth of San Francisco. E. M. Greenbeat was the 2nd officer of the vessel and was in charge of one of the boats that took the crew to shore. William Hanlon was one of two crew members who remained on the ship and were successful in having it towed to Esquimalt Bay, where it sank. Accounts of the vessel's sinking may also be found in the San Francisco Chronicle of Tuesday, February 12, 1884 (p. 5) and February 13, 1884 (p. 4). From the des...

American Fur Company

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6vt5fzp (corporateBody)

Fur trading company in the American West. From the description of Papers, 1835-1840. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122497429 Chartered by John Astor in 1808. Astor withdrew his interest in 1834 and in 1864 the company was sold to the North Western Fur Company. From the description of American Fur Company records, 1803-1849. (Detroit Public Library). WorldCat record id: 56975212 No information is available on Livingstone, except as noted above. Franchere...

Grignon, Amable, 1795-1845.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6fn2q70 (person)

Dewey, Nelson, 1813-1889.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6n310r0 (person)

Rouse, Lewis

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w62c6r7r (person)

Chouteau, Pierre, 1789-1865

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6dn4xb8 (person)

Resident of St. Louis, Missouri. From the description of Promissory note, 1825. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122487045 Resident of Missouri. From the description of Statement, 1829. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122623211 Resident of Saint Clair County, Illinois. From the description of Statement, 1817. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122609507 Pierre Chouteau, a member of a St. Louis fur trading family, was born in St. Louis, Miss...

Bailey, Alexis.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w69h3f60 (person)

Grignon, Peter Bernard.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6pp71km (person)

Noonan, Josiah A., 1813-1882.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6b29c7q (person)

Eastman, Ben C., 1812-1856

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6rz10k9 (person)

Jones, George Wallace, 1804-1896

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6ks7p0z (person)

George Wallace Jones (1804-1896), born in Vincennes, Indiana, was a prominent jurist and politician in the upper mid-west region of the United States. He graduated from Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky in 1825. After being admitted to the bar, Jones moved to Michigan Territory where he worked as a miner and storekeeper; served in the Black Hawk War; and was a judge of the county court. He served as congressman from Michigan (1835-1837) and as one of the state of Iowa's first U. S. ...

Doty, James Duane, 1799-1865

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6cc0xvd (person)

James Duane Doty (1799-1865) was a lawyer, judge, and government official. He represented Wisconsin in Congress between 1838 and 1841, and again between 1849 and 1853. He was governor of Wisconsin Territory between 1841 and 1844, and served as the governor of Utah Territory between 1863 and 1865. From the description of James Duane Doty letter, 1861 November 22. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 367719059 From the guide to the James Duane Doty letter, 1861 November 22, (L. Tom ...

Catlin, John, 1803-1874

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w65m7tc3 (person)

Cadle, Richard Fish, 1796-1857

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6ms434w (person)

Lawe, John, 1780-1846

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6pg37j2 (person)

Brisbois, Joseph.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w69672gf (person)

Kinzie, John Harris, 1803-1865.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6kw5gd4 (person)

John H. Kinzie, Indian agent and trader, was the son of Chicago pioneer John Kinzie. Before settling in Chicago in 1834, Kinzie served as private secretary to Lewis Cass, territorial governor of Michigan. Later he was an Indian subagent (Prairie du Chien Agency) at Fort Winnebago, Wisc. from 1828-1833. From the description of Life of the honbl. Hoo-wan-nee-kaw or Little Elk, [1912]. (Newberry Library). WorldCat record id: 37824736 ...