Clermont, Alexis 1808 - 1898 | Wisconsin Historical Society

Historical Essay

Clermont, Alexis 1808 - 1898

Clermont, Alexis 1808 - 1898 | Wisconsin Historical Society

river boat pilot, overland mail carrier, b. St. Ignace, Mich. He moved to Green Bay in 1820. After serving at Fort Howard during the Black Hawk War (1832), he was employed by Pierre Grignon (q.v.) to carry the mail on foot over the 240 miles between Green Bay and Chicago. He made his last trip on this route in 1836. He also carried the mail between Green Bay and Portage. He was surveyor and guide under Captain T. J. Cram in drawing the Wisconsin-Michigan boundary (1840), and he was also a Durham boat and steamboat pilot and captain on various Wisconsin rivers. He spent the last years of his life in De Pere. In 1892 he again walked the old mail route to Chicago as a stunt. Coils. State Hist. Soc. Wis., 15 (1900); Proc. State Hist. Soc. Wis., I898 (1899).

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]