Joseph Bailly (7 April 1774 – 21 December 1835) was a fur trader and a member of an important French Canadian family that included his uncle, Charles-François Bailly de Messein.
Bailly was one of several Canadian from prominent families who were important in the western fur trade. In 1822, he established a trading post near present-day Porter, Indiana, making him the foremost pioneer of that area.
Early history and ancestors
Joseph Bailly was an early fur trader on the Great Lakes. He and his children had significant influence as the region transitioned from English colonialism to frontier expansion of the United States. He was born Honore Gratien Joseph Bailly de Messein on 7 April 1774 in Verchères, Quebec; a village which originated with a land grant to his great-great grandfather Francois Xavier Jarret, Sieur de Vercheres in 1672. It is located up the Saint Lawrence River from Montreal, on the opposite bank. Bailly was a sixth–generation French-Canadian, descending from Jehan Terriault and Perrine Brault, who were original colonists in Acadia in 1637. Bailly's great-grandfather Nicholas Antoine Coulon, Sieur de Villiers was a trader and Army officer who was killed by Fox Indians on the shore of Green Bay, Wisconsin in 1733. His uncle, Father Charles-Francois Bailly de Messein, spent more than twenty years as a Catholic missionary to the Mi'kmaq Indians of Nova Scotia, and was appointed coadjutor Bishop of Quebec in 1788. Following the family interest in the fur trade, Joseph Bailly received an advanced education in Montreal, and served a clerkship with the North West Company. In 1792, at the age of 18, he finished his education, and entered the fur trade at Michilimackinac. Although from a prominent family, they had little money. His father died in 1795, and Joseph became the main support of his mother, younger brother, and sister for several years.
Fur trader
In the winter of 1792-93, Bailly entered into extensive fur trading with Ottawa villages in central Michigan. From 1793 to 1810, his winter residence was a trading post located near an Ottawa village at the foot of the Maple River Rapids, in Lebanon Township, Clinton County. Bailly owned additional trading posts from 1793 to 1822 on Lake Muskego, Muskegon River, Michigan (now Muskegon, Michigan); from 1793 to 1810 in Chig-au-mish-kene village on Grand River (now Lyons, Michigan), from 1807 to 1815, in Parc aux Vaches village on St. Joseph River, (south of present-day Niles, Michigan); from 1807 - 1828 on the Calumet River, Indiana; and from 1807 - 1828 on the Kankakee River, Illinois.
First marriage and expansion of the business
Joseph married Angelique McGulpin (Bead-Way-Way or Mecopemequa) in 1794 in Maketoquit's village at the foot of Maple River rapids, Michigan. Angelique was born about 1780 in Chig-au-mish-kene village on Grand River, Michigan. She was a daughter of Maketoquit (Black Cloud), the chief of a large band of Grand River Ottawa. He located his main village in what became Essex Township of Shiawassee County, on the south side of the Maple River, but the band used a winter camp in Lebanon Township of Clinton County (now the village of Maple Rapids) for gathering maple sugar. Children of the marriage were Francis Bailly, born in 1795; Alexis Bailly; born in 1798; and Sophia Bailly, born in 1807. The marriage ended in divorce. Francis remained with Maketoquit's band and Alexis was sent to boarding school in Montreal. Sophia was adopted by a close friend of both parents, fur trader Magdelaine Laframboise, who summered on Mackinac Island and wintered on Grand River (now Lowell, Michigan).
Second marriage and beginning of a trade empire
Joseph Bailly entered into a financial partnership with Dominic Rousseau of Montreal which dominated the fur trade on the upper Great Lakes out of Mackinac Island and challenged the giant North West Company. Rousseau and Bailly maintained large warehouses on Mackinac and in Montreal; trading in numerous locations with several fleets of voyageurs.