Hercules L. Dousman - Early Life and Trading Activities

Early Life and Trading Activities

Dousman was born on Mackinac Island, Michigan, the son of Michael Dousman, a prominent fur trader on the island. Hercules went on to be educated in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and then worked as a clerk in a New York City store. Later he returned to Mackinac Island, where he was employed by the American Fur Company. In 1826, the company sent Dousman to the frontier settlement of Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, where he worked as an assistant to the company's local agent Joseph Rolette.

In Prairie du Chien, Dousman proved his abilities as a trader, quickly rising in the company's ranks. By 1834 he had acquired an interest in the company's Western Outfit, and in 1840 he became an equal partner in the business together with Joseph Rolette and Henry Hastings Sibley. Then in 1842 the American Fur Company declared bankruptcy, and in order to continue in the trade Dousman entered into a joint venture with Rolette, Sibley, and Pierre Chouteau to organize a new company which would take its place on the upper Mississippi. Only a few months later, Rolette died in debt to the new company, and most of his estate was seized by the remaining partners, including Dousman. With this and other revenue, Dousman's wealth began to rise, and it only grew as Dousman began to invest in lumber mills in northern Wisconsin and real estate in some of the states growing population centers.

As Dousman began building his investments during the 1830s, he also began a long affair with a Prairie du Chien woman named Margaret Campbell. Together they had three children: Emily, George, and a third unnamed child who died at birth in 1838. Campbell also died at that time. Dousman would eventually marry Jane Fisher Rolette, the soon-to-be widow of his partner in the trade, Joseph Rolette.