“Queen Marinette” the Legendary figure the City of Marinette is named after.

                                                                         

Marinette 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 (the district was the land comprising the areas that would later become the separate cities of Marinette and Menominee.)1*

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.

Marinette remained and developed the business into a large trading center and 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.

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 in the early history of the Great Lakes region.

The story of how Marinette’s name came about has several versions The most popular story stems from the fact that she was born on the same day and named after the last Queen of France, Marie Antoinette. More easily pronounced Marinette by her Native American sisters and brothers.

1* Fred Burke, Marinette Eagle Star Residents of District article 1950’s

View these Displays and much more on your next visit to Marinette Counties Historical Museum!