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"Queen
Marinette"
1784-1865 |
Queen Marinette
(Note: this
mini-biography is a work in progress. I will continue to refine and
edit this text as I compile more information.)
Both the city and county are named in
honor of a remarkable woman who established a fur trading post on the
banks of the Menominee River. Marie Antoinette Chevalier was born at Post
Lake in what is now Langlade County in 1784, to the Canadian Bartland
Chevalier, and the daughter of Menominee Chief Wauba-Shish. Bartland Chevalier moved to Green Bay in 1800 and went into
partnership with John Jacobs, an English Canadian whom Marinette later
married. They had three children. When the fur trading business
slumped during the War of 1812 Jacobs started a school. In 1823 he
moved to the present site of the City of Marinette and went into
partnership with William Farnsworth at a trading post established by
the American Fur Company. Within a few years John Jacobs went to
Canada and never returned, and Marinette married Farnsworth. They had
two sons and a daughter. By 1831 Farnsworth too had left, to settle in
Sheboygan. Marinette remained and developed the trading post into a
large trading center. She was called "Queen Marinette," and
became well known for her business ability. She died in 1865. Her son,
John B. Jacobs, platted the town.
For more
information, see:
- Gard, Robert, and L.G. Soren. The
Romance of Wisconsin Place Names.
Minocqua, Wis.: 1988. (Out of print)
- Johnson, Beverly Hayward. Queen
Marinette: Spirit of Survival on the Great Lakes
Frontier. Amasa, MI: White Water
Associates, Inc., 1995.
- Rentmeester, Jeanne, and Les
Rentmeester. The
Wisconsin Creoles. Melbourne, Fla.:
Jeanne and Les Rentmeester, 1987.
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