16th Century Jesuit And His Missionary Zeal In Wisconsin

As early as the mid-1600s Madeline Island was visited by Europeans -

the first known were Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Medard Chouart Des Groseilliers - who came seeking the furs that fueled the economy of fledgling New France. The island and surrounding Chequamegon Bay region quickly became a major trade center for the French and resident Ojibwe Indians.

Father Claude Jean Allouez, the Jesuit missionary, spent several years on the island, where he built the first Christian chapel in Wisconsin.

More traders followed, first French but later British, and in 1816 John Jacob Astor's American Fur Co. established a presence on Madeline. Later, commercial fishermen from Scandinavian countries operated from Madeline and surrounding ports and lumbering prospered as well until the forests were played out.

Link to full article (here)

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This from New Advent

Allouez laboured among the Indians for thirty-two years. He was sixty-nine years old when he died, worn out by his heroic labours. He preached the Gospel to twenty different tribes, and is said to have baptized 10,000 neophytes with his own hand.

He took charge of, and put on a firm basis the famous Kaskaskian mission, which death had compelled Marquette to relinquish. None of the missionaries of his time dared more or travelled over a wider territory than Allouez.

He even reached the western end of Lake Superior. His life was one alternation of triumphs and defeats. At times he had to prevent the Indians from adoring him as a god; at others they were about to sacrifice him to their deities. Link (here)

Painting is of a Kaskaskia Indian