A picturesque and romantic figure, closely identified with the opening of the Grand River Valley, is that of Madame LaFramboise, fur trader of the north, authorized agent of the Astors and a potent factor in maintaining peace between the Indians and the Whites in the early days.

Born, Madeline Marcotte in the Superior country about 1779, her childhood was spent among her mother’s people (descendants of Returning Cloud, celebrated Ottawa chieftain) from whom she adopted both customs and costumes and was, in every sense, an Indian.

By the Jesuit Fathers, pioneer missionaries of the Northwest Territory, her mother was prevailed upon to allow the child, (then about nine,) to receive some religious and other training.

The faith the priests had in her proved justified, for she became a remarkable woman; a skill linguist and a famous beauty. She always retained her full tribal garb although speaking French with Parisian purity. She was both entertaining and refined. In her person were combined the pagan grace of the Indian with the loveliness of the French, a fusion well nigh irresistible.

So thought young Joseph La Framboise, who, in the exercise of his calling as a fur-trader, met and won the fascinating half-breed.

In 1796 they were married by the Jesuits and departed into the wilderness of western Michigan, on the long journey which was their honeymoon.

Joseph had been placed in sole charge of his company’s interests in that section and the young people chose, as their Winter headquarters, a site just west of Lowell. Here they built a thirty-foot cabin of logs which they chinked with bark and clay.

Joseph’s shrewdness and his wife’s intimate knowledge of the Indian nature combined to make them the most successful traders of their day. Their post near Lowell soon became the rendezvous of the tribes who even held their council fires there.

Both being faithful Roman Catholics, Joseph and Madeline were particularly devoted to the Angelus and whether out in the Indian country, timed by a watch, or in town, warned by the ringing of the three times three, they paid it reverent heed. These acts of piety deeply impressed the savage onlookers, many of whom they converted.

During the sojourns of Monsieur and Madame La Framboise in the vicinity of Lowell and when starting up the lake in the Spring, laden with furs, headed for the central fur depot, they shared the life of the primitive Indian villages that were their resting places.

Thus had their life progressed regularly for a period of years when suddenly a tragic blow befell them. In the early fall of 1809 when La Framboise was returning to the Grand River Valley with his wife and infant son, all went well until they reached a Pottawattomie village on the bluffs beyond Muskegon.

Although the members of this tribe were their sworn brothers—during the evening one young brave, mad for liquor, persistently and insultingly demanded fire-water from La Framboise, who, unflinchingly and just as persistently refused. Brooding sullenly over the rebuff, Nequat watched the Frenchman retire to his wig-wam for the night; then, stealing in upon him as he knelt at prayer, plunged a knife deep in his breast and—vanished.

Aid from the village arrived too late, La Framboise had expired.

Madame La Framboise faced her future courageously with the characteristic stoicism of her race, journeying on to her Winter home bearing the remains of her slain husband.

At Grand Haven she buried him. Then, alone, and stricken, proceeded to her post near Lowell where she spent a long Winter season trading with her own people and trying to forget.

Soon after came a delegation of Pottawattomies with the murderer, Nequat, asking Madam how he should be killed to expiate his crime. Instead, she forgave him and asked that her Indian frieds do the same. Later his body was found in the forest with his own dagger in his breast.

Madam LaFramboise continued her trading with the Grand river Indians until 1821 when he sold her interests to Rix Robinson and retired to her home at Mackinac Island, where she spent a useful and religious life until April 4, 1846, and was buried there under the altar of St. Anne’s church. Recently a tablet was erected to her memory, marking the locality of her Lowell trading post.