Early times and events in Wisconsin

              1816] Lockwood's Narrative 125
Joseph Rolette, in eoniUection with the Indian trade,, carried on farming, after the fashion of the country, pretty extensively. Michael Brisbois, besides being a trader, carried on the business of baking, and farming tO' some eixtent, receiving of the inhabi¬ tants 100 pounds of flo'ur and giving in rcitum^ tickets, for fifty loaves of breiad, and these tickets made a convenient change to buy trifles of the Indians with. None of the inhabitants^ pre¬ tended to make their own breiad, but depended entirely upon the baker-house. Jean Baptiste Farribault did something in the line of Indian trade', and carried on a small farm, but soon after left the Prairie to reside on the St. Peters Biver."^
Among the other inhabitants of i:iotoriety at that time, was a Mrs. Menard, of mixed African and white blood. She came from some one of the French villages below, and was then mar¬ ried to Charles.' Menard, a Canadian of French extraction. She had beien married twice previously, first tO' a man by the na,me of Du Chouquette, by whom she had two sons, one of whom was in the employ of Mr. Astor in that unfortunate expedition of his sent in 1810' by sea and across the continent tO' the mouth of the Columbia Eiver, now Ohregon Tbrritory. Her next husband was named Gagnier, by whom she had three- sons and three daughters. After Gagnieris death she married Charles Menard, by whom she had three s.ons and twof daughters. She was generally called by the inhabitants Aunt Mary Ann, an,d was a person of conse¬ quence among them, being midwife, and the only person pre¬ tending to a knowledge of the healing art. Until a fort was erected at Prairie du Chien, and a surgeon arrived there with the troops, she was sent for by the sick, and attended them as regularly as a physician, and charged fees therefor, giving them, aS' she ex¬ pressed it, '^device and yarb drink." She was. an excellent nurse, and even after there were reg:ular surgeons of the army stationed at Fort Crawford, Mary Ann continued to practice among the in-
* We learn from the Annals of the Minnesota Historical Society, that as early as 1805, Farribault encamped opposite Mendota, Minnesota, trading with the Indians; and, in 1822, he formed one of the constituent mem¬ bers of the Columbia Fur Company, of Minnesota. From the American State Papers, he appears to have removed to the St. Peters, in 1819.— L. C. D.