Jean Baptiste Beaubien

A marker of the site of the home of Jean Baptiste Beaubien.

Jean Baptiste Beaubien was the second permanent non-indigenous resident of Chicago, Illinois.^[1][2]

Biography

Jean Baptiste Beaubien was born in Detroit, Michigan.^[3] He first traded with William Bailly on the Grand River in modern-day Michigan. Bailly provided Beaubien with a basic education. By 1800, Beaubien had his own trading house in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.^[4]

Beaubien first visited Fort Dearborn in 1804. He returned after the Fort Dearborn Massacre to purchase a house or cabin south of the fort ruins. Beaubien travelled to trading houses in Milwaukee and Green Bay, Wisconsin, but always returned to his Chicago home. He purchased a new house in 1817 and used his former residence as a barn. In fall 1818, Beaubien was named the Chicago agent of the American Fur Company and he built a small trading post near the house. Beaubien acquired the former U.S. Factoryhouse, originally a part of the second Fort Dearborn, from the American Fur Company in 1823 for $500.^[4]

When the Black Hawk War broke out in 1832, Beaubien raised a company of about twenty-five men and was named its captain. The company worked alongside a group of Pottawatomie scouts raised by John Kinzie. Beaubien was elected the first colonel of the Cook County militia when it was founded in 1834; it was later known as the 60th Illinois Militia Regiment. Around 1840, he left Chicago for a farm on the Des Plaines River. Command of the militia was transferred to lieutenant colonel Seth Johnson.^[4]

Beaubien first married Mah-naw-bun-no-quah, an Odawa women; they had two sons: Charles Henry and Madore. In 1812, he wed Josette LaFramboise; they had a son (Alexander). Beaubien was the president of the Chicago Debating Society for the winter of 1831-32.^[4] He died in Naperville, Illinois, in 1863.

References