lead smelter, sub-Indian agent, b. St. Louis, Mo. With his younger brother, John P. B. Gratiot, he moved to the Upper Mississippi lead region in 1825, mining first along the Fever River in Illinois and, after 1826, at Gratiot's Grove just north of the Wisconsin border, where the brothers developed several smelting furnaces. Gratiot's influence over the Winnebago Indians made him an important figure in quelling the uprising of 1827, and in the treaties at Prairie du Chien (1829), and the Black Hawk War of 1832. After peace was effected in 1832 he turned to farming, but died four years later while on an eastern trip. His sister-in-law, ADELE GRATIOT, b. La Maillerage, France, migrated to the U.S. with her parents in 1815, and in 1819 married John P. B. Gratiot at St. Louis. In her reminiscences she relates with great charm the events at frontier Gratiot's Grove: mining activities, the Indian wars, and a visit by Mrs. Alexander Hamilton. She left Wisconsin with her husband in 1841, and for the remainder of her life lived in Missouri and Arkansas. Coils. State Hist. Soc. Wis., 10 (1888); J. Schafer, Wis. Lead Region (Madison, 1932); Commem. Biog. Record of the Cos. of Rock ... (Chicago, 1901); WPA MS.

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]