Collected and posted by RITA
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This was the idea of Gloria Olson who uses it for her own family research!
Coordinated and posted by Rita
WHEN and WHENCE THEY CAME
Oconto County Settlement Time Line
Turning the pages of time.
Here you will find the years that families migrated and settle in the county, along with a brief history including any related background information as well as the contributing family researcher's name and e-mail link. Various historic events are included to give a better understanding of any particular point in time.
If you have family information to add, PLEASE e-mail Rita.
| 7522
BC * |
Earliest known human inhabitants buried their dead, hunted small game, fished, and collected wild foods, using bark and skin containers. Tools were bone, shell and stone. |
| 5556
BC* |
Copper Culture people were settled in the eastern part of today's Oconto County. Their cemetery is now Copper Culture State Park. Copper was used for tooling weapons, hunting equipment, jewelry, and in an extensive system of intertribal trade that includes thousands of miles. |
| 1668 | Negotiations between the Potawatomie and Menominee averted an almost certain war. French-Indian fur trader, Nicolas Perrot mediated settlement of the crisis. His partner was Tousignant Baudry. |
| 1669 | Father Claude Allouez founded the first mission in northeastern Wisconsin at the present day city of Oconto and named it St. Francis Xavier Mission. An estimated 600 Native Americans lived in the nearby village of "Oak-a-toe" now Oconto. |
| 1687 | Native Americans, resistant to the increased travel of the French through their lands, burn the mission church in DePere and the Oconto Mission was abandoned. |
| 1745 | Augustin DeLanglade, with young son Charles (later proclaimed "Father of Wisconsin"), of Canadian French and Indian heritage, visit and bargain with the Oconto Village Menominee on fur trade. |
| 1750 | A general peace is made between the Canadian French and Tribes of La Baye after the Fox Indian Wars. |
| 1761 | The English, under Ensign James Gorrell, occupy the Baye Post (Fort Howard now in Brown County) and the Menominee of the Oconto Village send small squads to assess the demeanor of the new occupants. The gifts and more honorable business agreements, than previously made with the French, earned acceptance by the tribe. |
| 1762 | Ensign Gorrell and his men quickly leave their fort by canoe and bateaux for Montreal, Canada, after a massacre took place at the fort Mackinac. The group was attacked by Michigan Indians entroute, who were persuaded by friendly Oconto Menominee Indian guides to let them pass safely. |
| 1787 | Oconto County area becomes a territory of the newly established United States of America in the Ordinance of 1787 as part of the Northwest Territories. |
| 1812 | The LANGLADE and GRIGNON French - Indian families were well established residents who fought on the side of the English against the United States. |
| 1813 | CHAPPIERE (French - Indian), FARNSWORTH (Scotish - Irish - Indian), CHEVALLIER (French - Indian) These mixed blood families were well established independant fur traders with numerous posts in the region later to become Oconto County. |
| 1814 | Canadian, French, English and Indian troups reluctantly quit forts and primitive outposts in Wisconsin and Michigan. |
| 1815 | RANKIN - The Rankin family, of English and Indian bloodlines, lived at and ran both fur trading posts on the Peshtigo and Oconto Rivers. |
| 1816 | The first US Flag is raised claiming what is now the Oconto County area for the United States, by Fort Howard troups. |
| 1820* | The American Fur Trading Company of John Jacob Astor began operation of a trading post near the mouth of the Oconto River. |
| 1826 | LAW - RANKIN Judge John Law, of English and Jewish heritage, Probate Judge from Green Bay, marries local resident Therese Rankin. They bought an island in the Peshtigo River where they settled. |
| 1827 | ARNDT John Penn Arndt builds the first dam, sawmill, beginning the first settlement in Oconto County was established at today's Pensaukee. He was the first to have a written land deed. |
| 1827 | Local Menominee Indian Chiefs, OASKASH (The Claw), OK-KO-ME-CHUM (Great Wave), and STHAI-KE-TOK (Scare-all) contracted with John Arndt for the lumbering and milling rights in exchange for the grinding of their flour, milled lumber to meet their needs (they did not live in frame houses at the time), and $15 dollars per year. |
| 1831 | The first full course journey for maping and description of the Oconto River is undertaken and prepared by Indian Agent Samuel Stambough. He called the river "Gillispie" rather than Oconto. |
| 1838 | MECHAQUETTE (Covered by Clouds) - Susie (Elizabeth) Mechaquette, born in Oneida on the Stockbridge Indian Reservation in 1831, moves to the Oconto Indian Village. She witnesses the transitions of the area from Indian land, through fur trading, lumbering and logging, to white ownership, sawmilling, farming and city status. She lives and works on Susie's Hill until her death in 1940 at 109 years of age. |
| 1840 | Government Surveyors Ellison and Gliddings survey the present city of Oconto in July and August while mapping the west shore of Lake Michigan's Green Bay. The river name is spelled "Oconto", La Baye is renamed Green Bay on their maps. |
| 1841 | TOURTILOTTE Expert hunters and canoemen, brothers Abel, Abram, and Henry came from New England by way of Ohio, eventually settling in the county. The family is considered to originally be of Canadian French and Indian bloodlines. |
| 1844 | JONES Colonel David Jones, with sons Tarleton and Huff, from Wellsburg VA, built the first successfull dam and mill at the site of today's city of Oconto at "Susie's Hill" near the large Menominee Village. Earlier attempts had washed out, including the first in 1842 by George Lurwick. The Jones family manufactured the first wood for general sale. The Jones family eventually settled nearby in 1847, after living several years in the comfort of Fort Howard near Green Bay. |
| 1846 | LINDSEY Thomas Lindsey and family came to the mouth of the Oconto River from Milwaukee by boat as the first permanent settlers in the city of Oconto. They built an "over-night place" for travelers. Thomas Lindsay family, first permanent settlers of City of Oconto. Lived at first in a tent. Followed shortly after by HARTS & Richard BERRY. |
| 1846 | VOLK John and Almira Volk come up the Oconto River as far as the falls by boat as their possessions could not be taken along the Indian trails, the only land routes of the time. They traveled from Chicago to settle and build a saw mill at Oconto Falls. |
| 1847 | WINDROSS John Windross and and his wife settle in Oak Orchard, building a "stopping-off" place for the growing number of travelers and settlers. |
| 1848 | SHAAL The large Schaal family came to the United States from Germany in 1848. They settled on a farm just west of Oconto Falls. Herb Dower |
| 1848 | Significant to the family researcher when reviewing document information: The United States Federal Government will not accept mixed race designations and Menominee mixed blood families must declare themselves either "Indian" or "White". A cash settlement is given to those individuals of any age who declare White, and they forefit any benefits of Indian status. Those who declare Indian status must sell their land and live on the reservation. This ruling creates significant changes in family data on all legal, civil, and religious family documentation of the time, as either "White" or "Indian" heritage is no longer recognized. |
| 1848 | Wisconsin gains statehood status |
| 1849 | COUILLARD - Thomas Howard Couillard, Sr. and all his children and their families, along with Lavina Couillard, Married to Benjarmin Woodman with her family migrated to Milwaukee. Thomas Howard Jr. continued on the Oconto Falls area & returned to Milwaukee in late 1849 early 1850. The Couillard migrated to an area on the Oconto River later called Couillardville from Milwaukee.The first Couillard in New England's Penobscot River was John Couillard who was there by 1719. Gloria Olson |
| 1849 | PECOR - COURCHAINE Peter Pecore came from New England and married the daughter of the local Menominee Indian Chief, Angelique Courchaine. Together they founded "Frenchtown", now a part of the city of Oconto. |
| 1850 | COUILLARD -The first Couillard in New England was there in 1719, he eventually settled in the Penobscot River area of Maine. Jacob Couillard, son of Thomas Howard Sr., moved by ox drawn covered wagon to Oconto County. Gloria Olson |
| 1851 | Oconto County is formed from the northern part of Brown County. It extends the entire western length of the Green Bay and Lake Michigan to Michigan's Upper Penninsula boarder. Oconto Mills is chosen as the county seat. .It was the largest county in the state and had 5,000 square miles of unbroken widerness. |
| 1851 | GROSSE Gustavus A. Grosse and his four sons camped on the river bank where the family cemetery now stands near Little Suamico, along the Little Suamico River. Gustavus , his wife Caroline Wilhelmina, and sons John, William, George, and Charles left Germany in 1849 for Green Bay. They were the first permanent settlers to the area. Jane Neverman |
| 1851 | ELDRED Anson Eldred, a lumberman, came from Michigan to Wisconsin, building dams, starting mills, and lumber concern patnerships in Oconto County. He is founder of Stiles, which is said to be named after his son. |
| 1852 | HART Captain Edwin Hart arrives with his wife and eight children in Oconto County. He had bought a sailing ship to carry the family possessions and provisions to open a trading post. Upon reaching the mouth og the Oconto River, they found it was impossible to go upstream to their home as the river was completely choked with the sawdust dumped into it by the three lumbermills of the time. He built the first permanent home, as the only dwellings of the time were crude shacks near the mills. |
| 1852 | BEYER George Beyer had traveled from Germany with his parents to the US some years earlier. In this year, the industrious young man came to Oconto County. |
| 1852 | DAVIS Joseph L. DAVIS emigrated
from Wales and settled in
Oconto. |
| 1852 | COUILLARD - Thomas Howard Couillard, Jr., and we assume Sr., joined Jacob in the Couillardville area of Town of Oconto. We know the balance of the Thomas Howard Sr. family was sti |