Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut
| Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut | |
|---|---|
| Dulhut; Du Luth; DuLuth | |
| Born | c. 1639 Saint-Germain-Laval, Forez, France |
| Died | 1710-02-25 Montreal |
| Years in Thunder Bay | 1684–1685 (posts founded) |
| Occupation | Soldier, explorer, fur trader |
Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut (c. 1639 – 25 February 1710), who signed himself "Dulhut", was a French soldier, explorer, and fur trader. In 1684 and 1685 he had trading posts built at Kaministiquia (present-day Thunder Bay) and on Lake Nipigon, and placed them under the command of his younger brother Claude Greysolon de La Tourette. The city of Duluth, Minnesota, is named after him.[1]
Some later accounts describe him as the first non-Indigenous resident of the Thunder Bay area, and date a post at the mouth of the Kaministiquia River to 1679.[2] The Dictionary of Canadian Biography dates the building of the two posts to 1684–85, not 1679, and does not place him at the river mouth in 1679.[1] Claude Allouez had already visited the Christian Nipissings at Lake Nipigon in 1667.[3]
Life
He was born about 1639 at Saint-Germain-Laval, near Lyons. After military service in France, including the battle of Seneffe in 1674, he settled in Montreal. He had already made two voyages to New France before 1674. On 1 September 1678 he left Montreal secretly with seven French followers, wintered at Sault Ste Marie, and on 2 July 1679 raised the arms of France in the great village of the Nadouesioux (at Mille Lacs). A general peace meeting of the nations he had visited was held on Lake Superior in September 1679. In 1680 he secured the release of the Recollet priest Louis Hennepin and two other men of Cavelier de La Salle, who had been taken by the Sioux. Accused by Intendant Jacques Duchesneau of illegal trading, he returned to the colony in March 1681 and then went to France to defend himself. He was cleared, but was not given the seigneury or further exploring licence he had asked for.[1]
He came back to Canada in the autumn of 1682. Early in 1683, with a three-year commission from Governor Joseph-Antoine Le Febvre de La Barre, he returned west with a convoy of 15 canoes, both to keep peace among the western nations and to keep northern nations from taking their furs to the English on Hudson Bay. In 1684–85 the posts at Lake Nipigon (Fort La Tourette) and at Kaministiquia were built and put under La Tourette. Hudson's Bay Company officials claimed in 1686 that Dulhut had cost them £20,000 in lost trade.[1][4]
He later built Fort Saint-Joseph at the Detroit, and served in the Iroquois campaigns of the 1680s and 1690s. He died in Montreal on 25 February 1710, of gout, and was buried in the Recollet chapel.[1]
Plaque and later tradition
A plaque was unveiled on 13 August 1960 by John Booth; it says he built the first French post near the Kaministiquia delta in 1679.[5] M. J. L. Black's story "Tales Through the Ages from the Banks of the Kaministiquia" says that by legend he landed at the foot of McTavish Street on the Kaministiquia in 1678 and set up a trading station.[6] Those 1678–79 dates are recorded here as tradition and as the wording of the plaque; the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, as above, dates the posts to 1684–85.
Further reading
- Antoine d'Eschambault, "La vie aventureuse de Daniel Greysolon, sieur Dulhut", translated by F. Brent Scollie as "The Adventurous Life of Daniel Greysolon, Sieur Dulhut".
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Yves F. Zoltvany, "Greysolon Dulhut (Du Lhut, Du Luth), Daniel," Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 2 (University of Toronto/Université Laval, 1969; rev. 1982).
- ↑ Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut. Wikipedia. Retrieved 27 October 2026.
- ↑ Léon Pouliot, "Allouez, Claude," Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 1 (University of Toronto/Université Laval, 1966).
- ↑ Yves F. Zoltvany, "Greysolon de La Tourette, Claude," Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 2 (University of Toronto/Université Laval, 1969).
- ↑ "Unveiling of Historic Plaques", Papers to 1967, Centennial issue (Thunder Bay Historical Society, 1967), p. 34. Archived: datum.locker.
- ↑ M. J. L. Black, "Tales Through the Ages from the Banks of the Kaministiquia", Papers of the Thunder Bay Historical Society, 1921 (Thunder Bay Historical Society, Twelfth Annual Report), pp. 8–11 (scan pp. 12–15). archive.org.