.   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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