Odd Wisconsin Archive The Search for Wisconsin's First Priest
That's the question that greeted Rev. A.A.A. Schmirler as he
paddled the rivers of northern Wisconsin during the summer of
1959. The historian-priest was not fishing, however, but
retracing the route of the first missionary to visit Wisconsin
almost exactly 300 years before. Father Schmirler was trying to
discover the exact location where Fr. Rene Menard died while
trying to reach refugee Indians on the headquarters of the Black
River in the summer of 1661. When Menard died, Iroquois warriors
hundreds of miles to the east had driven rival Indian nations
who were sympathetic to the French from New York, Ohio, Quebec,
and Michigan. The fleeing tribes, who included the Sauk, Fox,
Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Ottawa, Miami, Huron, and others, took
refuge in Wisconsin during the 1650s. Some who had lived close
to the French settlements had become Christian, and Fr. Menard
joined a flotilla of fur traders to rejoin his congregation in
the far western wilderness