Fond du Lac County Revenue and Competitors

French traders, Jacob Franks of Green Bay, and Franks' clerk, Jacques Poltier, visted Fond du Lac as early as 1787 establishing a trading post at the forks of the Fond du Lac river. The name Fond du Lac is a French term meaning 'farthest end of the lake'. Fond du lac County, through the first third of the nineteenth century, was part of the Winnebago Indian nation. However in November, 1835, a number of prominent men of the Green Bay area, lead by James Duane Doty, joined themselves into an organization known as the Fond du Lac Company, for the purpose of buying and selling land shares at the foot of Lake Winnebago, which at the time resided in the county of Brown, Wisconsin Territory. By January 1836, the company had accumulated 3,705 acres of land, selling 300 land shares at $100 each, all of which currently lie within the city of Fond du Lac. Doty had an interest in the transportation possibilities of Lake Winnebago and the construction of a canal to the Rock River at the Horicon marsh and another to Sheboygan on Lake Michigan.