Belgian Settlement History

First Belgian to visit Wisconsin, Father Louis Hennepin sails the Great Lakes with Robert LaSalle aboard the Griffin. Very few, if any Belgians follow him for almost 200 years.

Ten small farmers and their families leave the Brabant province in Belgium for the New World; they are the first of more than 15,000 that will arrive in Northeast Wisconsin before the start of the Civil War. The settlers, motivated by crop failures and industrial decline in their homeland, are drawn to land in Wisconsin at the government price of $1.25 per acre. The settlers follow Father Daems, a French speaking Belgian priest, to the Bay Settlement area ten miles northeast of Green Bay. They settle in deep, primeval forest naming the first Belgian settlement “Aux Premiers Belge” – the First Belgians.

More settlers arrive and find vast wilderness. Land is cleared; shelter and furniture is built. Potawatomi Indians teach the settlers to tap trees for maple syrup, hunt animals, cook and preserve meat and tan hides. Heavy bags of grain must be taken long distances on foot to the grist mills and the flour brought home, avoiding wild animals along the way.

First Kermiss (“Churchmass”) is held in Rosiere. The Kermiss is a three day harvest celebration starting with a Mass of Thanksgiving and followed by music, dancing, singing, card-playing and traditional Belgian food and drink. A Kermiss is held in each Belgian community – a tradition that continues to the present day.

The first Chapel is built at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion where the Virgin Mary is believed to have appeared to a young Belgian woman, Adele Brice. Sister Adele will devote her life to teaching children and inspiring the faithful in the Belgian settlement. In 2010, the apparition is decreed worthy of belief by the Catholic Church, one of only two dozen such sites in the world and the only one in the United States.

The Civil War begins. Belgian settlers respond and as men leave to fight the war, women join the men who were not called to the war to work the farms. Women are seen driving teams to harvest or plow the fields.

The first convent and school are built at National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion. Sister Adele’s work serving the children of the settlement area will continue for almost 100 years.

After the Civil War ends, there is a period of prosperity as large tracts of primitive forests are felled, creating employment in saw, planing, lumber, shingle and grist mills. Settlers can afford threshing machines, reapers and other farm implements so they enlarge their farms, increase their stock and build more substantial homes of lumber instead of logs. They also build better schoolhouses, churches and parsonages.

The Great Fire (Peshtigo Fire) also burns an area 10 miles by 60 miles in the Belgian Settlement, destroying farms, homes and woods. More than 200 people are burned to death and over 5,000 are made homeless and destitute. The fire destroys large sections of the forest, facilitating a transition to a more agricultural economy. The Belgian population in Green Bay grows following the Great Fire as some Belgians abandon their plan to farm and move to the city to find employment. Many prominent organizations in Green Bay are established by Belgian settlers. In the Belgian settlements, rebuilding after the Great Fire gives rise to a distinctive architecture – two-story homes with brick or dolomite veneer, arched-brick lintels and a bulls-eye window (full or half) under the roof peak. Materials are reminiscent of the Belgian homeland in addition to providing fire resistance.

Mitchell Joannes, born near Brussels, Belgium, joins his brothers and becomes president of Joannes Brothers Company, a wholesale grocery business serving Wisconsin and northern Michigan which will later become Super Valu’s Green Bay Division. He is recognized as one of Green Bay’s most enterprising and public spirited citizens.

St. Mary of the Snows parish rebuilds the church that was destroyed by fire the previous year. This building is now home to the Belgian Heritage Center. Green Bay Bishop Messmer requests that the Norbertine Abbey in Berne, Holland send priests to help serve the Belgian community. Father Bernard Pennings is one of the first priests to arrive and serves five years at St. Mary of the Snows, Namur. He will go on to serve at St. Joseph’s in DePere and found St. Norbert College and the Norbertine Order of Priests in DePere.

Under Fr Pennings’ leadership, materials from a nearby farmhouse are used to build a school with living quarters for the Sisters of St. Francis of the Holy Cross at St. Mary of the Snows. Parishioners paid for the building by contributing sacks of grain according to their means. The Sisters taught at St. Mary’s parochial school and at the local public school.

Dr. Julius Bellin, born of Belgian immigrant parents in 1870, converts a small house in Green Bay into what will become Bellin Health System.

Earl “Curly” Lambeau, whose grandparents came to Wisconsin from Belgium, founds the Green Bay Packers.