As mentioned yesterday, we are reading about... The First Part White Family In Eau Claire The fact seems to be well established that a French fur-trader, Louis Demarie, in 1832, built a house on the west bank of the Chippewa, about opposite the mouth of the Eau Claire. Demarie and his wife were both interesting characters. They brought five sons and three daughters with them and intended establishing a trading post with the Indians. They were stopped near the mouth of the Eau Claire by some members of the Sioux tribe who demanded $300 consideration for a location on either stream and the privilege of trading with them. This was, doubtless, the cause of their selecting a spot a little in the rear of the west bank of the Chippewa as the site for a log cabin which they erected nearly opposite the mouth of the Eau Claire to serve as a house and store. They remained in their new dwelling one winter and returned to Prairie du Chien. The next two winters were spent higher up the Chippewa and in 1838 they settled at the Falls as fur traders. Demarie was 85 years old in 1881. Louis Demarie is said to have started the tradition or superstition, "If a goose can stand on the ice of Half Moon on November 11, it will stand upon mud by Christmas. If it can swim on the lake on November 11, a severe winter may be expected." Margaret Demarie married Mr. Lamb, the first settler at Dunville. Rosalie married Arthur McCann and after McCann was shot by Sawyer married George P. Warren. Another of the girls, a half sister, Mary, married H. S. Allen after a courtship which began when the girl lived in Chippewa Falls. The family provisions ran low and Mary and Rosalie, in the spring of 1838, were sent on horseback to Menomonie, the nearest store, to replenish the larder. Allen, who ran the store in Menomonie, fell in love with Mary. They were married and lived for a while in Menomonie and later moved to Chippewa Falls. Hiram S. Allen was born in Chelsea, Vermont in 1806. In 1834 he poled a keel boat up the Menomonie River and remained in the vicinity engaged in logging and manufacturing of lumber until 1846 when he moved to Chippewa Falls and engaged in the same business. He entered the first land there, laid out the town, built the first grist mill, flouring mill, and started the first farm. Senate bill #35, 1849, gave Allen permission to construct a boom in the Chippewa River at the head of the falls, to be built in such a way as not to obstruct the passage of rafts. Hiram and Mary had nine children; three sons and three daughters survived Hiram who died in 1886. The schools, banks and businesses closed for his funeral. Randall, in his "History of the Chippewa Valley" says that Batisette, son of Louis Demarie was shot dead in a drunken quarrel by Frank Donaldson from Missouri. In the vault of the Eau Claire library is an old picture from the collection of the Old Settlers showing two men and two women beside a tent and labeled, "The old man sitting beside the wigwam is Batiste DeMarie, son of Louis DeMarie who built the first house in the limits of what is now Eau Claire. He worked on the river and in the pineries in the Chippewa Valley and served as a soldier in the Civil War, and in his later years lived in Court de Oreilles Indian Reservation where this picture was taken in 1905. He died Christmas, 1906." -- Nance mailto:nsampson@spacestar.net