County Park, Hwy. E, 3 mi. S of Knowlton, Portage County 

In 1834 John Baptiste Du Bay established a trading post on the Wisconsin River one mile west of here, for the American Fur Company. His wife was Princess Madeline, daughter of Oshkosh, Chief of the Menominee Indians. According to tra­dition, Du Bay's father, John Lewis Du Bay, a French-Canadian voyageur, spent the winter of 1790 on the same site, which was known to the Chippewas as Nay-osh­ing meaning "the Point." Because of the underwater ledge, this was the first place north of Petenweil Rock where the river could be forded on foot and therefore became a strategic Indian crossing to the Black River hunting grounds to the west. In the 1860's stagecoaches operating between Stevens Point and Wausau took on passengers here. Lake Du Bay, created in 1942, covers the original site of the trad­ing post. A monument marks Du Bay's grave in Knowlton Cemetery 2 I/2 miles north of here.

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[Source: McBride, Sarah Davis. History Just Ahead (Madison:WHS, 1999).]