Please Don't Quote Me By Caralee Aschenbrenner THE FRENCH — Spending months (the winter ones) in the wild wildernesses, enduring hardships and sacrifices practically unknown today except by choice, the trapper of two hundred fifty years ago who roamed the primitive forests, prairies, swamps, hills then westward to the mountains in search of animal pelts of all kinds, was a force unto himself, a supplier of goods in the most austere ways. Animal skins were a large part of the market then, however.

Besides his rations, supplies and a minimum of tools, he had to carry on his back (or a travois) a fully loaded stash of pelts weighing over eighty-five pounds. The short, sturdy Frenchman, the most of them, were individualistic of a special sort. They blazed a trail all others followed.

Frenchmen created the first villages in the watery world of the Midwest—along its “coasts,” the Great Lakes and the countless rivers that were part of the riches of the nation.

The very first explorers here were Frenchmen as early as 1673. Seven daring French-Canadians searching for a passage to the Far East through the Midwest and beyond, used the rivers as fluid highways from the Lakes to the Mississippi via portages and the Ouisconsin River, a major artery in the territory now known as Wisconsin. The muscular Illinois River was their route back to the Lakes. Those men, Louis Jolliet, a woodsman and map maker, with the chaplain, Father Jaques Marquette, and their laboring crewmen were the first “white men” to view the wonders of the then far west. Their report to “civilization” on their return to Canada excited many who trekked in their wake to create such outposts as Green Bay and Prairie du Chien on either side of Wisconsin, the forerunners of new trade.

In 1699 at the lower edge of southwest Illinois Territory an occurrence took place that was a turning point, a landmark occasion, an historical event that went unnoticed and unsung then and probably in centuries to follow. Only in a history book now and then is it listed. That year Williamsburg, Virginia, a colony became the “capitol” of British possessions in America while a thousand miles west a tiny mission was being built, the first in the wilderness at what is now Cahokia, Illinois.

The mission was built by Jesuit priests, twelve laborers and two blacksmiths, the priests to proselytize the natives. They were eventually joined by trappers and their families. Nearby was “Monk’s Mound,” a monolithic-like, huge pyramid that tribes had constructed over six thousand years of residency. Some tribes had become extinct, such as the Illini, but a substantial village remained to, hopefully, be converted to Christianity, the central reason for that early outpost ... It was the first settlement of “white men,” Europeans (Frenchmen) on the Midwestern frontier ... Here in Illinois. Kaskaskia, Prairie du Rocher also as old, still have examples of those earliest settlements and worth seeking out for their antiquity ... Residence, governmental offices, church.

No such activity occurred up here in the North part of the territory. Few Frenchmen “colonized” our area until the mid 1800’s, that is. But French trappers and traders did trek through here by the score and more. There’s just no record of the individual. No record of them exists unless you dig and delve through dusty, crumbling tomes and legers from nearly three hundred years of the trappers business kept by the all-powerful fur companies. The trappers, traders themselves left no record because almost to a man they were illiterate, could neither read nor write although they were shrewd and savvy, “knowing their business,” or they wouldn’t have survived. Their lives were solitary ones ... Seeing no human for months at a time especially a white man.

As the rapper penetrated the wildernesses, however, the French had the good sense to befriend the native American, whatever tribe was at hand. The Indian responded in kind for the most part. If they especially liked the trapper or wanderer they might give him “Three Looks.” Historian Royal Brunson Way in the “History of the Rock River Valley” tells this, “A look, that remarkable and elastic unit of land measure was defined as all the land which could be seen between a given standpoint and the farthest and individual’s range of vision. As that range was as varied as the eyesight of the individual viewers, a “look” did not mean much in the vocabulary of a white surveyor.”

There is mention, of course, about Joseph Ogeé who was a “half-breed,” now a politically incorrect word for a person whose parentage was of two differing ethnic groups, in his case, French and Indian. He had begun a ferry on the Rock River at a shallow ford in the late 1820’s but it was so undependable because of his intemperate habits John Dixon was able to buy it reasonably and be its long-time responsible proprietor to the progress and development of Northwest Illinois. Ogee’s name was spelled in different ways but it is thought it originally was the French, Augé, a common Gaulish surname in France.

A Frenchman is mentioned in the early history of Stephenson County, LaFayette, a short-time settler at Burr Oak grove, later Kellogg’s grove near Kent. Nothing is known of him, or at least we didn’t look! But there is a long time resident of the Rock River Valley in Pierre LaPorte who trapped from a double bend in the river near Beloit to the confluence of the Rock with the Mississippi, an expansive territory, for certain He lived mostly upstream from what is now Grand Detour, this from 1780 to 1810, indeed, a somewhat impressive career though he was constantly on the move. He is thought to have made a few trips as far as the Rocky Mountains.

When he was to sell his pelts he often sold them at the point now Chicago or if north, at Green Bay. His forty years in this area gave him some fame so a record of him as the “first white man” in the region is his title. Surprisingly, he left behind several descendants whose names are familiar in the Dixon/PawPaw neighborhoods: Edwards, Herrick, LaPorte, Nisbet and the late author, editor, Frank Stevens whose books on the Black Hawk War and Lee County are infallible sources of reference.

LaPorte is thought to have died about 1830 at his home at Ft. Frontenac, Canada, now Kingston, Ontario.

Although LaPorte was here for an extensive length of time, another Frenchman catches our attention because his was a permanent home for many years that near Grand Detour, a haven of trappers and hunters.

In 1823 Major Stephen Long and an military unit took remains in use today as most of Route 20. That trek was written about by participants and studied by later historians and can be found in many public libraries. Other stories, adventures, are told of LaSallier, too.

LaSallier, as much a guide as trapper, leaves behind no real accurate record but enough is known to ponder on. He is known to have married an Indian woman, probably Pottowatomie. Some sources strongly state that a daughter of theirs married the before-mentioned Ogeé. Brunson Way in his book says of LaSallier that if he were asked about his daughter, “It is doubtful whether he would ever take the pains to establish the fact!”

Some write that LaSallier moved into Stephen Mack’s cabin near Grand Detour in 1817 when the later entrepeneur of Winnebago County left but this cannot be confirmed. The cabin, however, which was LaSallier’s was thought to have been a double affair with a large cetery nearby that was subjected to an amateur “dig” in later years. A stone marker east of Dixon on Lost Nation Road commemorates LaSallier’s!!

There were small fur trading posts of the American Fur Company upstream from there on the Rock River, probably from 1813-14, 1826-33 but LaSallier had gone by the time of the latter dates, his cabin only charred remains, though some substance of it were clearly visible still by 1830 to 1835 when the first Lee County surveyor, Joseph Crawford, saw it many times. Some sources say the cabin had been put up in 1783 by LaSallier. We don’t have to know that certainty, only that the many was the first permanent in Lee County by many years ... A Canadian trapper or a French interpreter from Prairie du Chien, a figure of adventure in our past.

Thiebault or Thiebeau was a prominent trader from Green Bay. A Frenchmanof remarkable intelligence ... “Speaking English, French, three Indian languages. He worked the area around the Winnebago Indian village called, “the Turtle,” now present day Beloit. His territory included Lake Koshkonong, the source of the Rock River which aims then southwestward towards the Mississippi from there. Unfortunately, the whereabouts of Thiebeau are unknown. He mysteriously disappeared, it is thought, under the ice of Lake Koshonong and shortly thereafter his youngest wife (there were two) and his fourteen year old son of another marriage left the country!

Yes, the French ingredients in our melting pot in the Northwest of Illinois is rich in variety and energy. Our first “nationality” to be pointed out was last year with the Norwegians, their first settlement in the U.S. at Norway, Illinois. Now it’s the French element in Illinois, in fact the first of any culture.

You would suppose that with the passing of the fur trappers and traders, that it would be the end of the French inclusion but it is not, by far. In 1853 several industrious Frenchmen arrived in Lee County, mostly in Brooklyn and Viola townships, notably, Benjamin Leepy, a shoemaker who, seeing the excellent agricultural prospects, took to farming. Two years later in 1855, a sixteen member colony also migrated from France handing in new York but coming directly to Lee County ... Franklin Grove, Amboy and etc. They applied their hardworking tenets to their new neighborhoods and added greatly to the progress and development of their place.

They had distinctive French surnames such as Jeanblanc, Aubert, Gehant, Py, Antoine, Breschon, Tondreau, Montovan (the French-speaking Swiss) and Favre which family pronounces it as it should be ... Favor, ... Not Farve!! These families inter-married and married into their neighborhoods and many remain to give special favor to our great Northwest of Illinois two hundred years after the first French or just one hundred fifty.

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