“Queen Marinette” the Legendary figure the City of Marinette is named after.
Marinette Chevalier was born in 1793 in Post lake, Wisconsin. Her father was Bartholomew Chevalier a French-Canadian fur trader and her mother a native American Indian.
Queen Marinette moved with her parents to the Green Bay area in the early 1800’s. There she met and married her first husband, John B. Jacobs, a fur trader. With Jacobs she had 3 children.
In 1823 John B. Jacobs and Marinette still living in Green Bay partnered with a Mr. William Farnsworth and took over the Trading Post established by the American Fur Company near the mouth of the Menominee River in an area that at that time was known as the Menominee River District*1 (see Menominee River district section below.)
Soon after arriving in the Menominee district Jacobs would leave and return to Canada. Never to return again. Marinette then married Farnsworth and had 3 more children, 2 sons and a daughter. Farnsworth left Queen Marinette and the district in 1831 and resettled in the Sheboygan River area.
Queen Marinette remained and developed the business into a large trading center probably due to Marinette’s kinship with the Menominee people and to her skill as a trader. She often advised the Menominee on dealings with white settlers, lumber companies, and the U.S. government. Marinette also began to purchase much of the land that would later encompass much of the city at that time. Her residence pictured below was the first framed home on the Menominee river.
There are several versions of how she received the name Marinette. The most popular story stems from the fact that it was a contraction of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, who died the same year Marinette was born or that the name, Marie Antoinette was more easily pronounced Marinette, by her Native American sisters and brothers*2
The addition of Queen to Marinette’s name, came about because women in those times rarely occupied the position of prominence she held in the commercial world. At the time of Queen Marinette’s death in 1865 she was regarded as one of the most remarkable figures, male or female, in the early history of the Great Lakes region.
Menominee River District
The Menominee River District in the early 1800’s was the land comprising the areas on both sides of the Menominee river. This land included Menominee on the north side of the river, Marinette on the southern side and Menekaunee on the south side, at the river’s mouth.
The district at that time was part of what was called the Michigan Territory and remained as such until 1836. In 1836 the Menominee River became the boundary line between Michigan territory that would become the state of Michigan 1n 1837 and the Wisconsin territory that became a state in 1848.
*1 Fred Burke, Marinette Eagle Star Residents of District article 1950’s *2 July 15, 1876; Marinette Eagle-Star, Dec. 7, 1946; Wis. Mag. Hist., 5; Green Bay Hist. Bull., 5 (1929), pp. 7-13.Dictionary of Wisconsin biography
Marinette County Historical Society 