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Early History

The first settlement of Wisconsin may be dated [back] as far back as 1670 when Green Bay was first occupied by French fur traders, thirteen years before Philidelphia was founded by William Penn, and two years before the first settlement of Charleston South Carolina. Three years after these enterprising and enthusiastic Frenchmen had established themselves at the Bay of Puans, now Green Bay, (1673) Father Joseph Marquette accompanied by Joliet went up the Neenah (Fox) river-crossed the portage-and descending the Wisconsin discovered the Mississippi on the 17th of June.

The Legislature has very properly named a county on the Neenah in memory of the first white man who ever saw the "Father of Waters" in this part of its course. It was six years after this discovery was made before La Salk made his voyage up the lakes in the first vessel (the Griffin) built above the Falls of Niagara, and who claimed the honor of having first discovered the Miss.

An interesting account of this voyahe was published by Louis Hennepin in Paris, and is preserved in the first volume of Transactions of the

* Marquette was not the first discoverer of the Mississippi- that honor belongs to Hernando de Soto who crossed it in 1541- See Bancroft, His. U,S. i p. 57

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