Joseph TREPANIA (TREPANIER)
Biography

The date of birth of 25 Mar 1826 is from the baptism records in Maskinongé, Québec.
His parents Paul Trepanier and Marguerite Valliere were married in St-Joseph de Maskinongé, Québec on 15 Aug 1825, and Joseph was born the following March.
From Contributor Gilles Caron (48516724)
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He was married to Margaret DeMarie (Che-ma-get) about 1851, in Chippewa Falls, WI.

-As transcribed from the "COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF THE UPPER LAKES REGION"
by J. H. Beers & Co., Chicago, IL, 1905; pages 88 - 89

Joseph Trepania (deceased) for many years a resident of Spring Brook, Washburn county, was born at Three Rivers, Quebec, about 1815. His parents were Canadians, of French descent, and he was brought up in Canada where he received a limited education.

About the year 1843 Joseph Trepania came to Wisconsin, and for a short time was located at Prairie du Chien. He then went to Chippewa Falls, which at that time contained but one log house, where he was employed by Gilbert Brothers, Colton & Moses, and the Union Lumber Co., as overseer of their drives on the Chippewa and Yellow rivers. He continued in the employ of these and other firms for about fifteen years, receiving as much as fifteen dollars a day for his services. He then bought a farm above Chippewa Falls, and while developing this land also carried on an Indian trading store. These enterprises he conducted successfully until 1880, when he moved to Rice Lake, Barron county, where he bought, cleared and cultivated a farm of 200 acres. Although successful at farming, his preference was for lumbering, and in 1881 he disposed of the Rice Lake farm and came to Spring Brook, the railroad having been built through that year. Taking up a homestead, which is now the townsite of Spring Brook, he at once engaged in logging, building on his own responsibility two dams on Devil's Creek, in the Sawyer County Reservation, in order to raise the water sufficiently to float out the logs. He met with great success in this business, in which he has actively engaged until compelled by age to retire.

Mr. Trepania married in 1851 or 1852, Margaret De Marie, daughter of Louis De Marie, one of the early French traders, who built the first house in Chippewa Falls. To this union were born two children, namely: Mary, now Mrs. Ferguson, of Spring Brook; and Alfred, of the same place, who is mentioned below. Before her marriage Mrs. Trepania and a girl companion had an exciting adventure in being fired upon by a band of hostile Sioux, while crossing the Chippewa river in a canoe.

Mr. Trepania was a Republican in politics, and a representative man of the locality. During his residence at Chippewa Falls, he served several terms as supervisor. He died in 1899 and is buried on the Reservation in Sawyer county, in a spot selected by himself. Mrs. Trepania is living with her son in Spring Brook.

Louis DeMarie, father of Mrs. Trepania, was a native of Montreal, and when a young man entered the employ of the Hudson Bay Co., trading through the Northwest region as far as Manitoba and the Rocky Mountains. While at Grand Forks, N. Dak., he married Angelina Collins, a half breed Cree woman, and they had a family of five daughters and three sons. Of them the only survivor is Baptiste, who is living on the Reservation. Mr. DeMarie finally settled in the Chippewa country, where he died about 1860. Mrs. DeMarie lived to be 103 years of age, dying in 1893 at Chippewa Falls.

Winton, Ward and Kay Brown Winton, ed. "History of Washburn County Vol. II." 1980
"Grandfather Joe lived, at different times, with two Indian women on the Reservation. By one he had Angeline, who latter married Frank Setter's father. By the other Indian woman he had a girl named Sophie. By my grandmother, Margaret DeMarie (who insisted on a church wedding!) he had a son, Alfred, and my mother, Mary. By a previous marriage to another Frenchman by the name of George Mishler, my grandmother Margaret DeMarie had two boys, Louis and John Mishler. Joe took the two children by his Indian wives, the two Mishler children, and his own two, by Margaret, and brought them all up as his own family." (p. 490-491)

"Grandpa Joe Trepania died in the old log stopping place in 1900. At Joe's own request, Frank Setter, the son of his Indian daughter, Angeline, buried him in the Indian Catholic Cemetery at Lac Courte Oreilles, and had his name and birth and death years inscribed on a marble monument." (491)

Born in Quebec, Canada; died in Springbrook, Washburn, WI; occupation lumberman and farmer; wife Margrett; "Wisconsin, Deaths and Burials, 1835-1968," index, FamilySearch (familysearch.org/ pal:/ MM9.1.1/ XLS3-674 : accessed 03 Nov 2013), Margrett Trepania in entry for Joseph Trepania, 1815.

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