Solomon Juneau 1793 - 1856
Founder of Milwaukee, Wisconsin
FRONTIER VALENTINES: Living proof that love can and did abide.
By: John Gurda
(Reprinted with permission from the Milwaukiee Journal Setinel: Author John Gurda)
Their romance began in the wilderness. He was a French Canadian voyageur who had been knocking around the Great Lakes region for almost a decade. She was a fur trader's daughter, French and Menomonee by ancestry, who had probably never set foot outside Wisconsin. When they met, Milwaukee was not even a dot on the map, but Solomon Juneau Josette Vieau became the community's first Valentines. Josette's father, Jacque Vieau, had been trading with local Indians since 1795, when he opened a small post overlooking the Menomonee Valley in today's Mitchell Park. Vieau and his wife, Madeline, had at least 12 children, and their brood spent part of each year in Milwaukee. Josette was one of the oldest.
A newcomer entered the household in 1818, when Vieau brought Solomon Juneau to Milwaukee as his clerk. After what must have been a closely watched courtship, given the family's cramped quarters, Solomon and Josette were married in 1820. He was 27 - practically middle-aged, at the time - and she was 17.
The newlyweds spent their first years together at other Vieau posts in southern
Wisconsin, but they were back in Milwaukee by 1825. Solomon went into business for himself, opening a trading post at the present intersection of Water Street and Wisconsin Avenue. Perched on the first dependably dry ground above the mouth of the Milwaukee River, it soon became the busiest in the region.
Although they left a trail of love letters, the Juneaus were by all accounts devoted to each other. The most tangible sign of their bond was Josette's 17 pregnanciews. Thirteen of her children survived infancy, materially increasing the population of the frontier outpost.
The Juneau family's lives changed dramatically in the 1830's when eastern speculators arrived with dreams of building a city on the swamp that covered central Milwaukee. Solomom quickly moved from furs to real estate as his stock in trade. In partnership with Morgan Martin, a well-connected Green Bay lawyer, he became the impresario of Milwaukee's East Side, serving as promoter, postmaster and developer.
Mrs. Juneau kept a lower profile, but she was a full participant in local affairs. In addition to raising her own kids, she acted as hostess, nurse and midwife for the growing number of women in the settlement, virtually none of whom spoke the French she used at home.
Josette was also Milwaukee's guardian angel on one momorable occasion in 1835. While her husband was away on business, she patrolled the primitive streets all night to ward off a threatening Indian uprising.
Although they had little in common with the Yankees who were swarming over Milwaukee, the Juneaus were popular figures in the settlement. Morgan Martin remembered Josette as "a most amiable and excellent woman." Another contemporary praised her "calm and stoical self-possession" and "great, hearty and beautiful goodness."
Solomon himself was described as "one of Nature's noblemen" and "unsefish, confiding, open-hearted, genial, honest and polite" individual who deserved remembrance as a "primal civic hero."
In 1846, when Milwaukee received city charter, voters paid Juneau the compliment of electing him their first mayor.
(In one of the more interesting passages from his inaugural address, the old trader foreshadowed John Norquist's opposition to gambling, Indian and otherwise. Juneau pledged that he would use every means possible "to secure the youth of the City from the wiles and devices of the gambler.")
The adulation of their new neighbors must have been gratifying, but the Juneaus, after so many years in the wilderness, eventually grew tired of the city springing up around them. In 1848, they moved out to Dodge County and founded a settlement called Theresa, in honor of Solomon's mother.
Solomon opened a grist mill and general store there for aspiring farmers, both Yankee and German, who were settling in the vicinity, but he also continued to do business with bands of Indians who still roamed the territory.
The Juneau's rural idyll ended in 1855, when Josette died at the age of 52. Although he stayed in business, Solomon was reportedly devastated by the loss. He died less than a year later, during a visit to the Menomonee reservation in northern Wisconsin.
A simple stone marks the couple's grave in Calvary Cemetery today. It is seldom visited, except by history buffs and the occasional relative, but February is the appropriate month to remember Milwaukee's first Valentines.
In a time notable devoid of hearts and flowers, Solomon and Josette offered
living proof that love can abide.
Milwaukee Can't Forget Little Theresa
by Dennis McCann
(Reprinted with permission from the Milwaukee Sentinal. Author: Dennis McCann)
In some ways the little village of Theresa in Dodge County could be thought of as Milwaukee's stepsister.
I don't know how to explain the material side of the matter, but it is a well known fact that Milwaukee and Theresa were both founded by none other than Mr. Solomon Juneau, whose onetime residence in Theresa is still standing.
You could look it up, it a Sunday ride to march country sounds appealing. It's
on S. Milwaukee Street - isn't that just the right address - and if you should
go this month you might just be on time for the Theresa Historical Society's
50th anniversary ice cream social. (In the column business we call that a scoop.) Sorry. But it would only be right for some Milwaukeeans to be on hand.
Juneau, a French trader, had purchased and platted land in what would become the city of Milwaukee when he became attracted to land along the Rock River.
It was an area he visited often on his fur buying trips between Milwaukee
and Green Bay and so in 1833 he established a trading post there and named it
after his mother, Theresa.
(The official village history, for obvious reasons, does not include this description of Theresa's early days as a center for gamblers, "skin game" artists and drunks, as the book "Romance of Wisconsin Place Names" does, but any little frontier town with three breweries, a distillery, 12 saloons, bowling alleys and pool halls will get that reputation. Theresa is not like that any more and I only mention it for historical purposes, not in any prurient sense.)
In 1847, Juneau built a home there, using it as a summer residence at first until he moved his family - he and his wife, the granddaughter of a Menomonee Indian Chief, had had 17 children.
He might not have been the Father of Early Wisconsin, but he was the father of much of it - from Milwaukee to Theresa, where he had several businesses in addition to the trading post.
The relocation lasted only a few years, though his wife died in 1855 and Juneau a year later.
He was initially buried in Keshena, on the Menomonee Indian reservation amid much native pomp and circumstance, but his body was later brought back to Milwaukee for burial.
The home in Theresa survived, though, thanks to historically minded resident named Joseph Gottwald, who purchased it in 1922 when it was in danger of being torn down.
The house now stands about 200 feet from its original location but has been
preserved through the years and still has some of the original Juneau family
furnishings, including his hand-made mouse trap bearing the initials "S.J.1814."
The house is opened the last Sunday of each month from May through September, including the ice cream social from 1 to 4:30 the last Sunday in
August.
Theresa is less than one hour from downtown Milwaukee. Take Highway 41 north to Highway 175.
Theresa is also the home of Widmer's Cheese Cellars begun by Swiss immigrant John O. Widmer more than 80 years ago and still in family hands.
If you want to make a day of it, the Theresa Marsh is nearby and the sprawling Horicon Marsh lies just 10 miles west of Theresa.
By: John Gurda
(Reprinted with permission from the Milwaukiee Journal Setinel: Author John Gurda)
Their romance began in the wilderness. He was a French Canadian voyageur who had been knocking around the Great Lakes region for almost a decade. She was a fur trader's daughter, French and Menomonee by ancestry, who had probably never set foot outside Wisconsin. When they met, Milwaukee was not even a dot on the map, but Solomon Juneau Josette Vieau became the community's first Valentines. Josette's father, Jacque Vieau, had been trading with local Indians since 1795, when he opened a small post overlooking the Menomonee Valley in today's Mitchell Park. Vieau and his wife, Madeline, had at least 12 children, and their brood spent part of each year in Milwaukee. Josette was one of the oldest.
A newcomer entered the household in 1818, when Vieau brought Solomon Juneau to Milwaukee as his clerk. After what must have been a closely watched courtship, given the family's cramped quarters, Solomon and Josette were married in 1820. He was 27 - practically middle-aged, at the time - and she was 17.
The newlyweds spent their first years together at other Vieau posts in southern
Wisconsin, but they were back in Milwaukee by 1825. Solomon went into business for himself, opening a trading post at the present intersection of Water Street and Wisconsin Avenue. Perched on the first dependably dry ground above the mouth of the Milwaukee River, it soon became the busiest in the region.
Although they left a trail of love letters, the Juneaus were by all accounts devoted to each other. The most tangible sign of their bond was Josette's 17 pregnanciews. Thirteen of her children survived infancy, materially increasing the population of the frontier outpost.
The Juneau family's lives changed dramatically in the 1830's when eastern speculators arrived with dreams of building a city on the swamp that covered central Milwaukee. Solomom quickly moved from furs to real estate as his stock in trade. In partnership with Morgan Martin, a well-connected Green Bay lawyer, he became the impresario of Milwaukee's East Side, serving as promoter, postmaster and developer.
Mrs. Juneau kept a lower profile, but she was a full participant in local affairs. In addition to raising her own kids, she acted as hostess, nurse and midwife for the growing number of women in the settlement, virtually none of whom spoke the French she used at home.
Josette was also Milwaukee's guardian angel on one momorable occasion in 1835. While her husband was away on business, she patrolled the primitive streets all night to ward off a threatening Indian uprising.
Although they had little in common with the Yankees who were swarming over Milwaukee, the Juneaus were popular figures in the settlement. Morgan Martin remembered Josette as "a most amiable and excellent woman." Another contemporary praised her "calm and stoical self-possession" and "great, hearty and beautiful goodness."
Solomon himself was described as "one of Nature's noblemen" and "unsefish, confiding, open-hearted, genial, honest and polite" individual who deserved remembrance as a "primal civic hero."
In 1846, when Milwaukee received city charter, voters paid Juneau the compliment of electing him their first mayor.
(In one of the more interesting passages from his inaugural address, the old trader foreshadowed John Norquist's opposition to gambling, Indian and otherwise. Juneau pledged that he would use every means possible "to secure the youth of the City from the wiles and devices of the gambler.")
The adulation of their new neighbors must have been gratifying, but the Juneaus, after so many years in the wilderness, eventually grew tired of the city springing up around them. In 1848, they moved out to Dodge County and founded a settlement called Theresa, in honor of Solomon's mother.
Solomon opened a grist mill and general store there for aspiring farmers, both Yankee and German, who were settling in the vicinity, but he also continued to do business with bands of Indians who still roamed the territory.
The Juneau's rural idyll ended in 1855, when Josette died at the age of 52. Although he stayed in business, Solomon was reportedly devastated by the loss. He died less than a year later, during a visit to the Menomonee reservation in northern Wisconsin.
A simple stone marks the couple's grave in Calvary Cemetery today. It is seldom visited, except by history buffs and the occasional relative, but February is the appropriate month to remember Milwaukee's first Valentines.
In a time notable devoid of hearts and flowers, Solomon and Josette offered
living proof that love can abide.
Milwaukee Can't Forget Little Theresa
by Dennis McCann
(Reprinted with permission from the Milwaukee Sentinal. Author: Dennis McCann)
In some ways the little village of Theresa in Dodge County could be thought of as Milwaukee's stepsister.
I don't know how to explain the material side of the matter, but it is a well known fact that Milwaukee and Theresa were both founded by none other than Mr. Solomon Juneau, whose onetime residence in Theresa is still standing.
You could look it up, it a Sunday ride to march country sounds appealing. It's
on S. Milwaukee Street - isn't that just the right address - and if you should
go this month you might just be on time for the Theresa Historical Society's
50th anniversary ice cream social. (In the column business we call that a scoop.) Sorry. But it would only be right for some Milwaukeeans to be on hand.
Juneau, a French trader, had purchased and platted land in what would become the city of Milwaukee when he became attracted to land along the Rock River.
It was an area he visited often on his fur buying trips between Milwaukee
and Green Bay and so in 1833 he established a trading post there and named it
after his mother, Theresa.
(The official village history, for obvious reasons, does not include this description of Theresa's early days as a center for gamblers, "skin game" artists and drunks, as the book "Romance of Wisconsin Place Names" does, but any little frontier town with three breweries, a distillery, 12 saloons, bowling alleys and pool halls will get that reputation. Theresa is not like that any more and I only mention it for historical purposes, not in any prurient sense.)
In 1847, Juneau built a home there, using it as a summer residence at first until he moved his family - he and his wife, the granddaughter of a Menomonee Indian Chief, had had 17 children.
He might not have been the Father of Early Wisconsin, but he was the father of much of it - from Milwaukee to Theresa, where he had several businesses in addition to the trading post.
The relocation lasted only a few years, though his wife died in 1855 and Juneau a year later.
He was initially buried in Keshena, on the Menomonee Indian reservation amid much native pomp and circumstance, but his body was later brought back to Milwaukee for burial.
The home in Theresa survived, though, thanks to historically minded resident named Joseph Gottwald, who purchased it in 1922 when it was in danger of being torn down.
The house now stands about 200 feet from its original location but has been
preserved through the years and still has some of the original Juneau family
furnishings, including his hand-made mouse trap bearing the initials "S.J.1814."
The house is opened the last Sunday of each month from May through September, including the ice cream social from 1 to 4:30 the last Sunday in
August.
Theresa is less than one hour from downtown Milwaukee. Take Highway 41 north to Highway 175.
Theresa is also the home of Widmer's Cheese Cellars begun by Swiss immigrant John O. Widmer more than 80 years ago and still in family hands.
If you want to make a day of it, the Theresa Marsh is nearby and the sprawling Horicon Marsh lies just 10 miles west of Theresa.