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Dubuque Genealogy Coordinator

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Logo by Ginger Cisewski

Early History of Dubuque County, Iowa
Pre 1700 to Discovery (1740's)

"OLD MISS," the "Father of Waters," stretches 2,470 miles from its source in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, to the Gulf of Mexico, touching 10 states along its journey. Discovered in 1541 by Hernando DeSota, Fr. Marquette and Louis Joliet were the first white men to traverse the river in 1673. The French fur trade sprang up in the 18th century with outposts along the river's banks.

JOLIET AND MARQUETTE: Having heard of a great river to the west, the Governor of Canada, wishing to extend the domain of his King, requested Louis Joliet and Fr. Marquette to locate the river and determine if it flowed into the Gulf of Mexico. In 1673 with several other Canadians, they came from Green Bay down the Wisconsin River into the Mississippi River. They floated past the site of Dubuque to the mouth of the Illinois River which they ascended, but not before learning that the river did, indeed, flow into the Gulf.

On the eve of the French and Indian War in 1754, unrest in the colonies was already beginning and Benjamin Franklin presented the Albany Plan of Union in an attempt to tie the seven northern colonies together. After the war in 1763, at the Treaty of Paris, all of the eastern watershed of the Mississippi River was ceded to England, and the western portion went to Spain in return for the losses she suffered by aiding France. English fur traders began infiltrating the area around Prairie du Chien, just upriver from the present city of Dubuque, the same year. According to a famous French legend, Jean Marie Cardinal, who piloted a scout boat up the Mississippi River to spy on the British in the upper Mississippi Valley in 1780, was one of those rumored to have trapped in the Dubuque area and to have conferred with Julien Dubuque for whom the city is named.

In May of 1780, Captain Hesse left Prairie du Chien with 1,500 Indians led by Sioux chief, Wabasha, Matchekewis of the Chippewa as well as Sac, Fox and Menominee chiefs; three hundred regular troops and 140 English and Canadian traders and their men. The raiders left Prairie du Chien May 2nd and arrived directly north of St. Louis on May 25th. The time lapse of twenty-three days illustrates the difficulty involved in moving so many men by canoe, since the travel time up the river according to Jean Baptiste Faribault, one of Julien Dubuque's business associates, was confirmed when he said, "Fifteen days was considered a good average trip up the Mississippi from St. Louis to Prairie du Chien." He was referring to the type of keep boat in use at the time.

JULIEN DUBUQUE: A native of Canada, sturdy, dark-skinned and short, a man of considerable culture and charm, came to these shores at the age of 24. He soon earned the respect of the Sac and Fox Indians at their village of 20 wickiups and a lodge on the south shore of the mouth of Catfish Creek. He proceeded to clear the land in the valley for farming, built storage sheds, a horse mill, a smelting furnace and a home on the north shore below the bluff. Old men and women mined lead, the braves trapped furs, and twice annually Julien Dubuque took these goods to St. Louis, returned with gifts for the Indians. He is reported to have earned $25,000 annually from these endeavors.

Spain ruled the Mississippi Valley at this time. Dubuque requested a grant of land from the Spanish Governor at New Orleans, and was rewarded with a 21-mile stretch along the river and 10 miles inland. Shrewdly, he dubbed this tract "The Mines of Spain", a sobriquet still in use. Following the Louisiana Purchase, President Jefferson sent Lt. Zebulon Pike to explore the Mississippi to its source. In doing so, he stopped and conferred with Dubuque in 1805. At the time of his death in 1810, the Indians accorded Dubuque a chief's burial and built a crude stone and wooden hut over his grave. In 1897 local citizens erected the present medieval tower in his honor. When his bones were exhumed, alongside was a body thought to be that of Chief Peosta who had asked to be buried with his friend. A few feet away, according to Indian custom was the body of a woman, presumably, Potosa, daughter of Peosta and legendary wife of Julien Dubuque. Today the Julien Dubuque Monument and the state-owned natural preserve known as the Mines of Spain remain as lasting tributes to the founder of the community.

By government decree the Indians were removed and land west of the river opened for settlement on June 1, 1833, when hundreds of people, including future notables, came to engage in lead mining and other ventures.