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Term: Vieau, Jacques 1757 - 1852

Definition:

fur trader, b. near Montreal, Canada. He moved to Mackinac Island perhaps as early as 1776, where he became a clerk for the North West Fur Co., trading at La Pointe and Green Bay. In 1795 he was appointed agent for the company with orders to establish trading posts along the west coast of Lake Michigan, and, traveling southward by Mackinaw boat, he opened posts at Kewaunee, Manitowoc, and Sheboygan. At Milwaukee he built a log cabin and warehouse along the bluff where the Green Bay trail crossed the Menomonee River. For a number of years Vieau wintered at Milwaukee, returning each spring to Mackinac and spending his summers on his claim on the Fox River, near Fort Howard. About 1818 he disposed of his Milwaukee post, by that time operated for the American Fur Co., to his son-in-law, Solomon Juneau (q.v.), and after a few more years of trading retired to his home near Green Bay. Colls. State Hist. Soc. Wis., 11 (1888); 15 (1900); K. K. Kennan, J. Vieau . . . (n.p. [1926?]).

View a related article at Wisconsin Magazine of History Archives.

View the narrative of Andrew Vieau, son of Jacques, at Wisconsin Historical Collections.