Monday, February 24, 1pm
With Mary Elise Antoine, author of Frenchtown Chronicles of Prairie du Chien: History and Folklore from Wisconsin’s Frontier
Discover life on the Midwestern frontier in this rare collection of stories from fur trading days by colorful chronicler Albert Coryer, the grandson of a fur trade voyageur-turned-farmer who collected history and folklore in the late 1800s and early 1990s in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. Coryer soaked up all the tales of bygone times from his parents, grandparents, and neighbors—old fur trade families, Native Americans, French Canadian farmers and descendants—who lived in the city’s Frenchtown area. In his journals, Coryer recorded their local oral traditions, narratives about early residents and landmarks, stories of interesting and funny events, details of ethnic customs, and folklore.
Mary Elise Antoine, author of Enslaved, Indentured, Free: Five Black Women on the Upper Mississippi, 1800-1850 and The War of 1812 in Wisconsin: The Battle for Prairie du Chien and co-author of Frenchtown Chronicles of Prairie du Chien: History and Folklore from Wisconsin's Frontier, is president of the Prairie du Chien Historical Society and former curator of Villa Louis. Her research focuses on the material culture and mix and confrontation of cultures on the upper Mississippi prior to Wisconsin statehood.