Solomon Juneau, Milwaukee’s Founding Father

Solomon Juneau, Milwaukee’s first mayor,scores pretty high as far as founding fathers go. Born in 1793 in Repentigny, QuebecProvince, Canada, a smallfarming community near Montreal, Juneau signed up as avoyageur at the age of 15 or 16. Voyageurs were crew members hired to mancanoes that carried trade goods and supplies to wilderness posts where theywere exchanged for furs. It was common employment for most boys in that area.It required a tremendous amount of strength and stamina to maneuver a40-foot-long canoe capable of carrying 4 tons of cargo and eight men. Accordingto Milwaukeehistorian John Gurda, the classic Canadian route into the interior covered 900miles and took a month to complete.

While his early careeris nearly impossible to reconstruct, the Wisconsin Historical Society believes Juneau was on Mackinac Island(at the time, Michilimackinac) in 1816 when he found employment as a clerk forJacques Vieau. Vieau was a trader working for the American Fur Co. who had hisheadquarters at Green Bay and a string oftrading posts along the western shoreof Lake Michigan, including one poston the Menomonee Riverat the present site of Milwaukee.

In 1818, Juneau came to Milwaukee asVieau’s clerk and protégé, and stayed with Vieau’s large family in theircramped log cabin located above the Menomonee Valley in today’sMitchell Park. It is believed Vieau had at least 12 children, including adaughter named Josette who was of French and Menominee ancestry. She was 17when she and Juneaumarried in 1820. Juneau and his bride moved outto one of Vieau’s trading posts in southern Wisconsinafter their marriage, but returned to Milwaukeein 1825, where Juneau,like his father-in-law, worked for American Fur. Solomon opened a trading postat the present intersection of Water Street and Wisconsin Avenue above the mouth of the Milwaukee River, and it quickly became the busiestin the region.

Juneau developed a strong relationship withhis tribal trading partners, and had a reputation as "one of Nature'snoblemen." He spoke Potawatomi and Menominee fluently, and learned tospeak English the same year he became an American citizen, in 1831.

In the 1830s,speculators from out east arrived with intentions of building a city on theswamp that covered central Milwaukee.Juneau adaptedto the changing game, transitioning from furs to real estate. In 1833 he formeda partnership with Morgan Martin, an influential Green Baylawyer, to develop a village on the east side of the Milwaukee River.In 1835, Juneau claimed a pre-emptive right tothe land he had been living on seasonally (Green Bay was the trader’s permanentresidence until the mid-’30s), divided his holding into lots and began to sellthem to settlers. That year, Juneau erected atwo-story house and a store, and became Milwaukee’sfirst postmaster. The next year, he and Martin built Milwaukee County(formed the year before) its first courthouse on the north end of what is now Cathedral Square.In the same year, they constructed the Milwaukee(or Bellevue) House, a four-story hotel on thecorner of Wisconsinand Broadway. Juneaubegan publication of The MilwaukeeSentinel in 1837, the same year the village government was organized, andhe became trustee and village president.

In 1846, Juneau was elected the first mayor of Milwaukee, but chose not to run for a secondterm. He had generously contributed to any cause that might forward the town’sgrowth (including donating land for St. Peter's Catholic Church, St. John'sCathedral, the first government lighthouse, and the Milwaukee Female Seminary),and was no longer a wealthy man. He devoted himself to repairing his personalfortune and, in 1848, moved to Dodge County and founded asettlement named Theresa (after his mother), where he had established a tradingpost as early as 1833. Juneauopened both a general store and a gristmill, and continued to trade withAmerican Indians.

Josette died in 1855,and Juneau wasreportedly devastated by the loss. Less than a year later, while on a trip tothe Menominee Reservation in northern Wisconsin,Juneau died ofwhat is believed to be acute appendicitis. There was great sorrow among theAmerican Indians, and the chiefs summoned all the braves to attend Juneau’s funeral service,including the burial behind the Menominee Council House. Juneau’schildren retrieved their father’s body and brought it back to Milwaukee, where he was honored with thelargest funeral its citizens had witnessed up to that point. According to “SolomonJuneau: Milwaukee’s First Mayor” by Marion Lawson, the grieving Menomineefollowed Juneau’s body as far as Shawano, then “returned to plant an evergreenin the empty grave so that Juneau’s spirit might remain with them always.”Solomon and Josette Juneau are buried in CalvaryCemetery in Milwaukee,and a statue stands in his honor in JuneauPark overlooking Lake Michigan.