About this record
Augustin Grignon was the last in a long line of French fur-traders that stretched back to Charles de Langlade, the first European to live in Wisconsin. From 1805-1835 he and his family controlled the crucial portage on the Fox River at present-day Kaukauna. He therefore knew every important person and was involved somehow in every important event that touched the Fox-Wisconsin waterway. Near the end of his life, Grignon recalled his own experiences and those of his forebears, from the French and Indian War and Pontiac's uprising to the invention of the railroad and the great waves of 19th-century European immigrants. This document is consequently one of the most important sources on the early history of Wisconsin.Citation
Grignon, Augustin. "Seventy-two years' recollections of Wisconsin." Wisconsin Historical Collections (Madison, Wis.: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1857), vol. 3: 195-295.