The Louis Chevalier Claim

In 1823 Louis Chevalier, a French-Canadian trader, was granted five hundred arpents (640 acres) of land by the United States government. This land, located on the AuSable River, extends northwesterly in a long, narrow, French ribbon-farm manner. It still appears on maps of AuSable Township. From around 1820 to the mid-1830s, Chevalier bartered trade goods for furs, fish and game brought in by Chippewa and white trappers, hunters and fishermen in this locality. He conducted his trade near this site from a hand-hewn log blockhouse. Although he left the area in 1833, ruins of the structure were still visible in 1867. Chevalier’s trading post is regarded by many as the first business of consequence in Iosco County.