15 Facts About Louis Campau

Louis Campau, spelled Louis Campeau, was an important figure in the early settlement of Saginaw and Grand Rapids - two important Michigan cities in which he had established trading posts.

Louis Campau was born in 1791 in Detroit, which at the time was functionally part of the Province of Quebec.

Louis Campau was a member of the prominent Campau family who were of French heritage.

Louis Campau began working the fur trade as a boy for his father, Louis Campau, Sr.

Louis Campau established the first trading post at what is today Saginaw, Michigan, as early as 1815.

Louis Campau played a key role in negotiating the Treaty of Saginaw in 1819.

Shortly after, Isaac McCoy, a Baptist minister, established a mission station in what was to become Grand Rapids, Louis Campau arrived in the area at the suggestion of William Brewster, a fur trader with American Fur Company, who was his competitor.

Louis Campau became known as the official founder of Grand Rapids.

In 1826, Louis Campau built his cabin, trading post, and blacksmith shop on the east bank of the Grand River near the rapids, where he found that the area Native Americans were "friendly and peaceable".

Louis Campau traveled to Detroit and returned a year later with his wife and $5,000 of trade goods to trade with the Odawa and Ojibwa for fur.

Louis Campau surveyed and platted the village following Native American trails.

Louis Campau had formatted his village streets with a row of 16 abutting row houses on Pearl Street that bordered Lyon's village, which made travel through the two villages cumbersome.

Louis Campau, who was described as short-tempered, and Lyon disagreed about the naming of the town when it was platted.

Louis Campau was involved in the Treaty of Denver in 1855, and he received a sizeable payout for the negotiations.

Much of it went to "white friends", like Louis Campau; $500 went to the chiefs and $100 to headmen.