William Farnsworth, Sheboygan’s own Dan Boone

Of all the colorful characters that walked across the pages of Sheboygan’s early history, none left larger footprints in the sands of time than William Farnsworth.

Farnsworth, considered by most to be the founder of Sheboygan, led a life that, in every respect, equaled the daring and bravado of Daniel Boone.

Most of Sheboygan’s early settlers were New Englanders. William Farnsworth was no exception; he was born in Vermont on Sept. 26, 1796.

Even as a young boy, Farnsworth showed he had an adventuresome personality. When the young lad was barely a teenager, he left home and settled in Montreal, Canada.

In 1822, he was hired as a clerk by the then-famous American Fur Company and was paid the pitiful sum of $220 per year. The young man was assigned to the Fond du Lac/Superior territory. But sitting at a desk all day long, entering long columns of figures into ledgers was not the young Farnsworth’s style. His employer was owned and run in a tyrannical manner by the multi-millionaire John Jacob Astor. Before long, the young adventurer began chafing under the company’s strict rules. Following several rather pointed disagreements with his employer, the young clerk was fired.

Now free, the young man set out to seek his fortune in the wilderness that would become Wisconsin.

The adventurous young man purchased a stock of goods to trade, loaded it into a canoe and set out into the wilderness. After traveling for several weeks, Farnsworth picked out a site to put up a trading post on the Menominee River near present-day Marinette. The site he picked out was ideal, except for one small detail … not far away was an established trading post – owned and operated by the all-powerful American Fur Company.

A response from the fur company was not long in coming. Soon after Farnsworth began business, a group of menacing Menominee braves appeared at his doorstep, apparently on behalf of his rival. Farnsworth’s assistant, a young man he had hired to help out, immediately took refuge in a far corner of the cabin.

The leader of the group, a fierce-looking warrior, stepped forward and ordered Farnsworth to leave the area at once, taking all his goods with him. If he refused, he would be killed and everything he owned would be destroyed. The brave then exclaimed that he was the bravest of the brave and he had no fear of the white man or his guns.

Farnsworth although a somewhat small man was very broad shouldered and of a stocky build. He in turn told the Indian leader that amongst white men he was the bravest of the brave. Farnsworth seized a keg of gunpowder from his stock, pulled out the plug from the keg and stuck a lighted candle in the hole assuring them that he had no fear of death.

Farnsworth’s clerk cowering in the corner turned pale, feeling certain that his employer had gone totally mad. The Indians, who had a good understanding of what an exploding keg of gunpowder could do, began looking at each other nervously. One by one the tribesmen began to slip out the door, apparently having decided it was best to exhibit their bravery some place else.

As a side note to this story, in later years it was alleged that while indeed it was a gunpowder keg, it was an empty keg!

The all-powerful American Fur Company was not finished with their upstart rival yet! The operator of the company’s trading post was ordered to contact Farnsworth, buy out all his goods and order him from the area. But the canny interloper had other ideas.

When the representative from the fur company came to see him, Farnsworth suggested they sit down, have a drink and talk about it. After many drinks had passed back and forth, the fur company representative was totally drunk. Instead of turning his goods over to the fur company, the newcomer moved his business into the fur company’s trading post and Farnsworth ended up in possession of all their goods.

It seems that the fur company representative was married to a beautiful half-white half-Indian woman named Marie Antoinette Chevalier. After several months had passed, Farnsworth convinced her that he was the better of the two men she was now living with, and she agreed. She and her husband divorced and Farnsworth took her as his wife. Not only did he relieve the fur company of all their goods, he also relieved the trading post operator of his wife.

In 1835, Farnsworth and his wife moved to the Sheboygan area and established a trading post and a sawmill at the first rapids in the Sheboygan River – just west of present-day Taylor Drive at Indiana Avenue.

(To be continued…)

Today’s Snippet: Farnsworth and his Indian wife had three children, one of them a son whom they named Joe. Joe chose to follow the Indian ways of his mother and for many years lived in and around Sheboygan, known simply as Indian Joe.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for a future column, please feel free to contact me at (920) 458-2974 or e-mail wangemann@yahoo.com.

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