Grignon, Jacques

Augustin Grignon (June 27, 1780 – October 2, 1860) was a fur trader and general entrepreneur in the Fox River Valley in territorial Wisconsin, surviving into its early years of statehood. He was the last in a line of French fur traders, and as the leading trader at the portage at Kaukauna on the important Fox-Wisconsin Waterway, knew many major figures from that era. Near the end of his life he gave an important account of the early history of Wisconsin. Augustin was born in Green Bay, the third of nine children of Pierre Grignon Sr., and Domitelle Langlade Grignon. (His father also had three children by an earlier marriage.) His maternal grandfather was Métis Charles Langlade, widely considered to be the "father of Wisconsin." He ran his father's store in Green Bay with his brother, Pierre Jr., from the time of his father's death in 1795 until 1805. In that year, at the age of 25, Augustin married Nancy McCrea, daughter of a Montreal fur trader and a Menominee woman - a relative of Chief Oshkosh. The newlyweds moved from Green Bay to property she inherited near Kaukauna. They bought more land, accumulating 1520 acres north of the rapids, and farmed and traded. Part of his business...