.
The oldest white man
and the first white settler within the territory now included in Sawyer
county, Wis., was born in Berchier, Canada, Province of Quebec, nearly
one hundred years ago.
Both his parents were born
and passed their lives in the same place. His father was a farmer
and the subject of this sketch lived and worked until he was sixteen years
of age when he was employed by a fur company to come to Lake Superior to
pack furs at the rate of one hundred twenty-five dollars per year.
Mr. Belille with about two hundred others, made the trip up the St. Lawrence
and through the lakes in two birch-bark canoes. These canoes were
much larger than any of that kind in use at the present time.
Their head-quarters were
at Le Pointe. He remained at that place three years. He says
that all they had to eat was a pint of shelled corn given to them twice
a day and a small piece of tallow to boil with the corn. When there
was a shortage of corn they were given salted fish. We have been
unable to learn how long Mr. Belille was in the employ of this fur company
and that is why we are unable to give his exact age.
Married an Indian by the
name of Esther Crane and at once moved to Wisconsin and settled at what
is now the city of Chippewa Falls. Lived there three years when he
moved on to his farm near the mouth of the Court Oreilles river on the
Chippewa River.
At this time and for many
years his supplies were secured from Chippewa Falls and taken to his home
in a birch-bark canoe.
Mr. Belille lives in a house
which he claims to have built about sixty years ago. It was made
of whipsawed lumber. In 1857 his wife died and in 1860 he married
another Indian by the name of Maggie Amsiewsay.
Mr. Belille has never been
officially connected with the schools, but the first school in the county
was known as the Belille school and at different times he has had two son-in-law,
one grand-son, and the husbands of three of his grand-daughters on the
board of school directors.
Mr. Belille died August
3, 1900.
He is the father of nineteen
children. The names of those by his first wife, now living are:
Esther (Mrs. Wm. Waite), Quawish (Mrs. Ondag) lives at Trading Post in
this county; Alex lives at Trading Post; Mana dis (Mrs. Peter Cornelia);
Maggie (Mrs. Joseph Vosser), lives at Flambeau, Wis. Those by his
second wife, now living are: Josephine (Mrs. Geo. Willett), Frank
lives on his father's homestead, Sec. 2-37-7.
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