Fort La Framboise

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Fort La Framboise.

Joseph La Framboise backed by Joseph Rolette at Prairie du Chien, in an American Fur

company venture, came overland in the late fall of 1817, and built a house of driftwood'dry wood' according to tradition on the Missouri River at the mouth of the Bad River

This was the initial settlement in that community, the oldest continuous community inSouth Dakota.

Excerpts from The Monthly South Dakotan, March 1901, No. 11, Third Year, pp. 353-

358, "Joseph La Framboise, First Settler, by Doane Robinson (in the Watertown, South

Dakota Library collection):

"In 1817 Joseph La Framboise was sent by the American Fur Company from

Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin to establish a fur trading post on the Missouri. He

proceeded across the country and established a small fort, which he built fromdead logs which he found lodged on the end of a sand bar at the mouth of Teton,

or Bad River. He called the post Fort Teton. With the assistance of some SiouxIndians, and two half-breed Frenchman, he had packed a supply of goods, chiefly

knives, beads and some cloth from Prairie du Chien. The settlement by him thenestablished has continued to the present time and has evolved into the thriving

village of Fort Pierre. I have been unable to determine the exact date of this

settlement, but his son Joseph Jr. says it was late in the fall and the river wasfrozen when he arrived there. After the first stock the post was supplied from St.

Louis, by way of the Missouri. How long La Framboise remained at Fort Teton I

am unable to determine from the evidence now at hand, though he was still therein 1819, but before 1822 he had returned to Prairie du Chien and was, but Joseph

Rolette, manager for the American Fur Company, entrusted with a new enterprise

into the Dakota country. This time it came out to the Sioux River at the big bendwhere Flandreau now is. He procured his goods from Prairie du Chien and tradedat Flandreau for five years, and then moved his stock across the Cteau to the

headwaters of the Des Moines.

Joseph La Framboise, who thus became identified with the earliest settlement in

South Dakota, was born at Michilimackinac Island, but the date of his birth I have

not yet been able to learn, though it must have been late in the 18th century. Hisfather, Joseph (Francis), was a man of education, refinement and great piety. His

mother was a half Ottawa Indian, but a woman of strong character and great

ability. Her maiden name was Madeline Marcotte. In 1802 the parents were

trading at Milwaukee, but in 1809 their chief post was at Grand Haven, Michigan.That winter, 1809-1810, the father was killed by a Winnebago Indian, while with

his family in a tepee; he was on his knees and engaged in prayer. After her

husband's death Madame La Framboise continued the business and became one ofthe most competent and trusted managers of the American Fur Company, having

in charge the great depot at Mackinac. As an instance of the forceful character of

this remarkable woman it is noticed that after she was fifty years of age she taughtherself to read and write and before her death became really proficient in French


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literature. Her highly accomplished daughter, Josette, sister of the frontiersman of

Dakota, in 1817 married Capt. Benj. K. Pierce, and officer of the U.S. army, and abrother of President Franklin Pierce.

Of the subject of this sketch, the son Joseph, who built Fort Teton, the collections

of the Wisconsin Historical Society, which deal copiously with his parents, givevery little information. We learn that he possessed a college education, having

graduated at a very precocious age. That through all the years of his sojourn in thewestern wilderness he kept with him a small but choice collection of books which

he read diligently. Catlin speaks of him as a gracious host and a delightful

companion. In 1835 Catlin had met La Framboise at Prairie du Chien, where thelatter had given him a very graphic description of the pipestone quarry and made a

map of it for the artist. [Quoting Catlin] 'La Framboise has some good Indian

blood in his veins, and from his mode of life as well as from a natural passion that

seems to belong to the French adventurers in these wild regions, he has a greatrelish for songs and stories of which he gives us many, and furnishes us one of the

most amusing and gentlemanly companions that could possibly be found.'

Soon after location on the Des Moines in what is now Murray County, Minnesota

in 1828, Mr. La Framboise married a girl of the Dakota tribe, a daughter of

Walking Day, one of the head men. In 1829, she bore him a son who was namedJoseph. The wife soon after died, and in course of time La Framboise married a

daughter of Sleepy Eye, who was a brother of Walking Day's and upon the death

of this woman within a few years he married another daughter of Sleepy Eye's.

She, too, died young, and in 1845 he married Jane Dickson, the wedding being thefirst in Nicollet County, Minnesota. By Jane Dickson he reared several children.

He died in 1854 at his home where he finally settled in 1839, at West Newton,

Minnesota. The eldest son, Joseph, grew up with his Indian relatives, and is atypical Sioux Indian. He rendered the whites inestimable service in the days of the

great massacre. At this time, in his 71st year, he resides near Veblin, Marshall

County, South Dakota, where I visited him in August last. He is illiterate butintelligent, and has a vivid recollection of his youth and possesses many traditions

of the family history which he had learned from his father. He lives on the side of

a Cteau where a wooded ravine makes down to the prairie and on either bank,

and at a distance of half a mile separating them; he has a home, for he has twowives and a large family by each of them. I was not then informed of the

prominence of his relatives of the previous generation, and I was rather startled

when with manifest pride he declared, 'I am a cousin of the president's" and I sethim down for a boastful old liar, but when I later learned the story of Josette La

Framboise as above related, I found that according to Indian reckoning he was

justified in the boast. Of the white children of Joseph La Framboise, I have onlybeen able to learn that a son William lives, or recently did live on the old

homestead at West Newton, and that two daughters married brothers named

Blake, and live in the Fort Ridgeley neighborhood.


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7.Midwest Pioneers: Collections of the State Historical Society ofWisconsin, Volume 14, Reminiscences of Mrs. Elizabeth Therese

Baird[460], pg. 43.

died in "Western Country."

8. The Monthly South Dakotan, March 1901, No. 11, Third Year, pg. 353-358, "Joseph LaFramboise, First Settler (in Watertown, SD Library

collection) [966].

"He died in 1854 at his home where he finally settled in 1839, at West

Newton, MN."

9. www.FamilySearch.org LDS[1042].David A. Armour, biographical sketch, FHL SLC US/CAN 971.D3 dv.3.

10.Midwest Pioneers: Collections of the State Historical Society ofWisconsin, Volume 14, Reminiscences of Mrs. Elizabeth Therese

Baird[460], pg. 40.

11.Ibid., pg. 43.12.Ibid., pg. 43.13.Ibid., pg. 43.14.The Monthly South Dakotan, March 1901, No. 11, Third Year, pg. 353-

358, "Joseph LaFramboise, First Settler (in Watertown, SD Library

collection) [966].15."Therese Schindler" by John E. McDowell, Wisconsin Magazine of

History, Vol. 61, No. 2, Winter 1977-1978, pg. 125-143, State Historical

Society of WI[9].

16.The Monthly South Dakotan, March 1901, No. 11, Third Year, pg. 353-358, "Joseph LaFramboise, First Settler (in Watertown, SD Library

collection) [966].

17.Ibid.18.Ibid.19.Ibid.20.Ibid.21.Ibid.22.Ibid.23.Ibid.24.Ibid.25.Ibid.26.Ibid.


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27.Ibid.

Compiled by Lawrence Barkwell

Coordinator of Metis Heritage and History Research

Louis Riel Institute

Documents

Fort La Framboise