Tales from the old-timer Wisconsin Place Names
Until the 1763 Treaty of Paris, all of Canada, Wisconsin and what is now Marinette County were part of New France. France lost the war, and lost all of Canada and all of her territory east of the Mississippi River, including what became the Northwest Territory, which included Wisconsin. At the time, the British believed that Canada would always be a French- speaking colony, but after the American Revolution, about 63,000 Loyalists, who had opposed the War of Independence, migrated across the border, as they feared persecution in the newly independent nation. The population of Canada had been about 65,000, and the influx of a nearly equal number of English speaking people made it a bilingual nation, as it remains today. The Province of Quebec is fiercely defensive about the French language, and even forbids businesses to show English language signs.
First came the Native Americans, then the French trappers and traders. The waterways were their highways, and their canoes and boats were the only practical way of moving substantial cargo, although there were networks of Indian trails going as far as the Copper Country in what is now called the Michigan Upper Peninsula. Some of our Marinette County town roads are believed to have been Indian trails, and County BB, with its many twists and turns, was probably one of them.
The names given to places by the Indians were functionally descriptive. They didn’t try, as modern developers do, for some sort of phony esthetics, like “Crestview” or “Cedar Ridge.” (Cedars don’t grow on ridges, anyhow. They like lower ground.) So the Indian names had meanings like “a place to cross the river” or “rocky hills.”
So we have, all the way up and down mighty Lake Michigan, these Indian place names - Chicago, Kenosha, Milwaukee, Sheboygan, Manitowoc, Pensaukee, Oconto, Peshtigo, and Escanaba at the head of Green Bay.
The French place names run from Prairie du Chien, Butte des Morts, La Crosse, De Pere, Roche a Cri, Lac du Flambeau, St. Croix Falls, Eau Claire and many others, nearly all of them also along waterways.
Here in Marinette County Indian place names include Menekaunee, meaning quite simply “the lodges” or “the village.” Wausaukee means “a far place,” and Peshtigo means “wild goose.” Pembine is a version of Pememe, meaning “wild berries,” and of course the Menominee River, named after the tribe inhabiting this area.
The French influence on names is very slight here, except for Marinette itself, named after a person, Marguerite Chevalier, who came to be called “Queen Marinette.” I think local historian Fred Burke was responsible for starting the false legend that she was named after Marie Antoinette, the French Queen who, when told the poor had no bread, is said to have dismissed the problem with “Let them eat cake!”
Marinette’s mother was an Indian woman named “Manon.” What would be more natural than to call the child “Little Manon” or, with the European trilled “R” coming out as, “Manonette?” The French diminutive becomes “Marinette” when Anglicized.
Two locations on the Menominee River, Ile le Grand, meaning “big island,” and Pont de Noch, an old cut off river meander near Bear Point, no doubt were named by the “Canooks.” Poch de Noch means pocket of the notch. Lake Noquebay describes its shape.
Then came lumbering and the flood of other nationalities, Germans, Polish, French Canadians, such as my paternal ancestors, and many easterners with English names, like Goodman, and many places were named after pioneers or industrialists.
Goodman is named after John Goodman, who founded the community in 1908, Isaac Stephenson, lumber tycoon and U.S. Senator gave his name to the Town of Stephenson and the nearby city in Michigan, Crivitz after a town in Germany, Coleman after a landowner in that area, Pound after Thadeus Pound, a former congressman and lieutenant governor, and Amberg, after William Amberg, pioneer quarryman. McAllister was a lumber camp boss.
And Athelstane? Go figure. My encyclopedia says he was a West Saxon King in the 10th Century, who was the first effective King of England, who established a code of laws to suppress theft and punish corruption.
The name of our state, Wisconsin, is of Indian derivation, and Father Marquette wrote it as Meskousing, meaning “red stone,” in 1673, but Father Hennepin wrote it as Misconsin and said it meant “strong current.” Early French maps spelled it Oui-scon-sin. The territory took the name of the river, and the state was formed in 1848 with its present spelling. Most accounts say the word came from the Chippewa Indians as Wes-kon-san, meaning gathering of the waters. This sounds best to me.
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