Jacques Vieau

Jacques Vieau, Sr. was a French pioneer who came to Milwaukee with Jean Babtiste Mirandeau, however; he does not share the honors as first permanent settler, because in the early years he spent only his summers in Milwaukee, wintering in Green Bay.



The 28 year old Vieau, his wife and three children landed here Aug. 19, 1795, with a Mackinaw boatload of trading goods. The wife was Angelique Le Roi, who was the niece of an Menomonie chief, and was three-eighths Indian, five-eighths French.

He built a log warehouse and home on a knoll on the south shore of the Menominee river, in what is now Mitchell park. A bronze tablet placed by the old Settler's club and a replica of Vieau's cabin erected by the park board in 1910 may still be seen there. This point is also approximately where the Green Bay-Chicago trail crossed the river.

Early in Vieau's career, he operated a chain of posts in Wisconsin for the Northwest Fur Co., a British concern, but it appears that he had become the agent for John Jacob Astor's American Fur Co., before his young clerk, Solomon Juneau, came here in 1818.

That the Vieaus were not full time Milwaukeeans is evident; only six of their 13 children were born here. The pretty Josette, who was to marry her father's ambitious young clerk when she was only 15, was born in Sheboygan in April, 1805.

Vieau sold out his business to Juneau and left Milwaukee in 1819, but returned two years ater to manage another post for the American Fur Co., after the discharge of William Kinzie, their agent here, for selling liquor to the Indians. In 1836 Vieau retired to a farm near Green Bay.

The name of Vieau continued prominent in Milwaukee, however, for his son, Jacques, Jr., became the proprietor of the famous—at times, notorious—Triangle or Courage Inn, built in 1835 at the northeast corner of East Water Street and East Huron Street (now North Water Street and East Clybourn Street).