Family History
Importance of Lyman Warren to the Ojibwe Indians Early life in Chippewa Falls/Trading Post

In this section I will be using the Warren Papers and along with a few other primary sources to take a look and recount the steps that Lyman Warren and his family made on their trip from the east coast to an uninhabited area in Wisconsin known as Chippewa City. Through his papers we will be able to see why he came to the area and who he met when he finally settled in Chippewa City.

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Lyman Marquis Warren was born in 1794 to the parents of Lyman Warren and Mercy Whipple. In 1818 Lyman Warren and his brother Truman Warren headed west to explore the vast amount of uninhabited land. They found employment at a trading post that was run by Michael Cadotte. Michael Cadotte’s trading post was located at La Pointe, which was in the Lake Superior region. This post was under the control of the American Fur Company, but was run by Michael Cadotte.
Michael Cadotte was a fur trader in Wisconsin and had been trading with the Chippewa Indians for a long time. In 1821 Lyman Warren married Michael Cadotte’s daughter, Mary Cadotte, at Mackinaw. Mary was seven-eighths Ojibwe and spoke only Ojibwe language, making their four children part Ojibwe Indians. Because he had married into the Ojibwe tribe this gave him an opportunity to learn more about their culture and also to work with them. This helped Lyman with his relationships with the Ojibwe people and it also gained him respect and helped build positives relationships, not only with the Ojibwe people, but with everyone that eventually came to visit his trading post.

Importance of Lyman Warren to the Ojibwe Indians Early life in Chippewa Falls/Trading Post back to top

In 1838 Lyman Warren was named sub agent, black smith, and farmer of the 1825 Treaty with the Chippewa Indians. The 1825 Treaty with the Chippewa Indians called for farms and a blacksmith shop to be set up on the Chippewa River. Lyman Warren was chosen to fulfill the requirements of the 1825 Treaty and would set up his trading post five miles north of Chippewa Falls at a placed called Chippewa City.

Lyman moved into the uninhabited Chippewa Valley and saw an opportunity to be able to use the resources of the river and vast majority of forests to make a living with his family by working at his trading post. He was one of the first white people to actually settle in the Chippewa Falls area. Here Mr. Warren would create a very strong bond between the Chippewa Indians and himself. Mr. Warren traded with the Ojibwe and other fur traders in the area for many years.

The journal entries on the left are from George and William Warren. They show that the Warren's did indeed trade goods with the Ojibwe Indians on a weekly basis. Because the Warren's got along with the Native Americans so well that in turn brought more people to the area because he was able to keep his trading post running.

This was one of the first posts in the Chippewa Valley and one of the first known long term relationships with the Ojibwe people. Along with the trading post Lyman Warren would move on to be one of the men responsible for building the first sawmill at Chippewa Falls along with Jean Brunet which in turn brought in lots of people and would lead to the building of many more saw mills along the Chippewa River.
The Warren family had very strong ties with the Ojibwe Indians. They lived with the Ojibwes and were able to speak their language fluently. William, the son of Lyman, grew up with Indians and had learned to speak their language at a very young age. He was very much liked by the Indians and invited to be a guest at their lodge-fire circles. Here the Ojibway would tell stories of history and William in return would translate narratives from the Bible to them. Because Williams was so fluent with the Ojibway language he was selected as interpreter to translate the treaty of Fond du Lac in 1847. It even goes on to say “the Indians said he understood their language better than themselves.”(footnote) William Warren died on June 1, 1853 at the age of 28 from a violent hemorrhage. When news reached the Ojibway tribe they were deeply saddened by his pass because he was so well respected by them and trusted. Both Lyman and William had gained much respect from the Ojibwe Indians because of their close interactions they had on a day-to-day basis.

As you can see the first interaction between the Ojibwe people and fur traders in the Chippewa Valley was at the post Lyman Warren had built in Chippewa City. The founding of Chippewa Falls was based on the relationships that Lyman Warren and his family had made with the Ojibwe people at Chippewa City, because that in turn opened the door to more people coming to work at the sawmills. As more and more people moved in the Chippewa Falls area the relationships between the white people and the Ojibwa’s started to diminish because of their beliefs and differences. Though the relationships had some rough times over the course of the first few years Chippewa Falls was founded as a city, one cannot forget that the area was founded on friendly relations between Lyman Warren and the Ojibwe people. It was because of Lyman’s willingness and contributions to build a trading post and eventually the saw mill in Chippewa Falls that people saw an opportunity to move to Chippewa Falls and work.

Click for more pictures of the Warren's Post today.

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