A Summer Day in Green Bay 1820

“Fort Howard dans La Grande Baye Verte” American Fort Howard along the Fox River which empties into Green Bay.

“.. free from religious restraint, noted for their love of sport and lavish entertaining, where the fiddle led a merry dance in which young and old joined.”

In 1820, Green Bay, recently handed over to the Americans after nearly a half century of Laissez Faire British rule which in turn had succeeded a century of French rule, was called La Baye Verte or simply, La Baye. The arrival of a handful of American soldiers in 1816 and the construction of Fort Howard marked the beginning of a new era. The long dominant fur trading lifestyle of its permanent and seasonal inhabitants was in decline. For the moment, La Baye remained a settlement with a French speaking Metis population sprinkled with a few British fur traders and newly arrived agents from John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Trading Company. Bands of Menominee, Potawatomi and Ho Chunk moved freely up and down the Fox River often camping in number near the growing settlement at the mouth of the great river - America’s true northwest passage. Green Bay was a loose line of small log cabins and bark shacks dotting each side of the fox river from the river's outlet to the rapids at present day De Pere. The east shore would soon be the site of a few clapboard homes and cabins built by American Fur Company employees and the elite Langlade, Porlier and Grignon families; all of them Metis - a French speaking and nominally Roman Catholic community descended from French Canadian and Native American ancestors. American speculators and seekers of fortune would soon arrive in greater number and begin the task of laying the groundwork for expanded commerce in Green Bay and in the establishment of communities along the powerful Fox River, but for a wonderful, brief moment it would remain, "...a delightful and congenial comingling."

Posted 21st October 2008 by flasputnik