Chappee Rapids

Stanislaus Chaput, a French-Canadian fur trader sometimes called Louis Chappee, became the first settler at the mouth of the Menominee River in the early 1800s. He fought, along with most of the Green Bay traders, in the British attack on Fort Mackinac during the War of 1812. After the war he traded extensively in the northern Wisconsin region, working for John Lawe, Green Bay fur magnate. Forcibly deposed from his old location in 1824 by rival traders William Farnsworth and Charles Brush, Chaput moved a few miles upstream and built a fortified trading post at the foot of the rapids. Until Chaput’s death in the 1850s the post at the rapids was a center of trade for the surrounding villages of Menominee Indians.