Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable

While the birthplace of Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable remains in dispute, his mark on early American history does not. He initially settled in Peoria in the early 1770s and was married in the Catholic Church in Cahokia in 1788. Du Sable was an able and successful trader with many American and Spanish trading partners. With the commencement of the American Revolutionary War, those relationships would cause him to be arrested by the British in 1779 who confiscated all of his trade good. Du Sable’s most well-known and largest historical achievement is the founding of the City of Chicago. He later sold his merchant business interest at Chicago and ultimately moved to St. Charles, Missouri where he operated a ferry across the Missouri River. He died and was buried in St. Charles in 1818.