A log cabin with a Vieau

A log cabin with a Vieau


Ed Pahule
6-10-09
Milwaukee History Examiner


Jacques Vieau's log cabin on the land that is now Mitchell Park
(courtesy Milwaukee County Historical Socity)

Solomon Juneau is often credited as being the first permanent white resident, and founder, of Milwaukee. He arrived in 1818 and set up shop on the east side of the Milwaukee River. Nevertheless, another white settler had been in the area since 1795, another French-Canadian fur trader by the name of Jacques Vieau.

Vieau worked as a voyageur for the Northern Fur Company and sometime around 1776 was sent to Mackinac Island to work at a trading post there. Throughout the years of the late 18th century, Vieau worked at several posts in the Michigan and Wisconsin area, gaining a good reputation as a clerk.

In 1795, he was promoted to the official company agent and sent back to Mackinac, ordered to establish trading posts long the west shore of Lake Michigan. He subsequently established posts near major Native American villages at Kewaunee, Twin Rivers, Manitowoc, Sheboygan, and Saukville. All these proved profitable and later became the basis for significant white settlements.

It was in August of 1796 that Vieau set up shop in Milwaukee, about a mile and half inland along the Menomonee River on the site currently occupied by Mitchell Park. Vieau erected two log buildings, his home and a storehouse. He stayed over the winter and in May set out for Mackinac with his supply of furs where he'd stay the summer, returning in August to replenish all his trading posts with fresh supplies.

In the year 1816, Vieau met Solomon Juneau in Mackinac. Juneau convinced Vieau to hire him and he accompanied Vieau to Green Bay. A few years later, in 1818, Vieau was hired as principal agent for the American Fur Company at Milwaukee. The post was located on the east side of the Milwaukee River.

Vieau worked at the outpost for one year before withdrawing as the principal agent. He convinced the American Fur Company to let Juneau take his place, while he returned to his old inland trading post.

In 1820, Juneau married Vieau's daughter. Vieau remained in Milwaukee for another year until he was hired by the United States government to take over the Chicago-based post of the American Fur Company because the current agent, James Kinzie, was selling whiskey to the Native Americans.

After the small pox epidemic of 1832-33 and the deaths of many of his Native American friends, Vieau left the area and returned to his farm in Green Bay. Ironically, it was also about this time that Milwaukee started to grow and Vieau's son-in-law, Juneau, being in the right place at the right time, reaped the benefits historically by being remembered as the city's founder, becoming its first postmaster, and, eventually, its first mayor, while Vieau is simply regarded, if remembered at all, as Solomon's father-in-law.

Today, Juneau has a nice avenue in a prominent part of downtown and a park overlooking Lake Michigan named after him while Vieau only has a one block street hidden away three blocks south of Mitchell Park and an elementary school named in his honor.

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