Monee's Namesake

“Princess Monee,” Maunee, or Marie? 

The remarkable woman our village was named after wasn’t actually a princess… She never lived here — and never visited her reservation in Raccoon Grove. Still, we can take pride in knowing that Monee carries the name of someone truly extraordinary: Marie LeFevre-Bailly.

Marie LeFevre was born in 1783 at a small fur-trading settlement called Frenchtown near Detroit Michigan. Her father was a trapper named Lefevre of Gascon and her mother was a native American of the Odawa whose family lived in Waganakisi near what is now Petosky Michigan.  Part Odawa and part French, this highly respected and traditionally skilled woman lived through rapidly changing times; she navigated the shifting control over the Northwest Territory and the detrimental effects of manifest destiny on Indigenous American peoples. She resolutely oversaw the family and homestead on the Little Calumet River for more than 30 years after the death of her husband, raising their children and grandchildren in an ever-foreign world.

When Marie was about seven years old, her father suddenly died. Marie’s mother was evicted from her house when her husband’s European relatives arrived at the Lefevre home, claiming all possessions and forcing them to move back to her family’s village. Here, Marie was raised in the Odawa culture where she became skilled in traditional practices and excelled in storytelling.

Marie married Joseph Bailly around 1810 and settled on Mackinac Island MI.  Bailly was an experienced French-Canadian fur-trader. They had five daughters: Esther, Rose, Eleanor, Frances and Hortense; and their only son, Robert.

It was common for the French who came to trade for the valuable beaver furs to marry indigenous women, as the matrilineal kinship ties were necessary to insure the rights to the best trading routes and partnerships. Native women were powerful partners in agriculture as well, as they were responsible for ensuring a surplus of crops each year to feed the absent voyageurs.

During the War of 1812, Fort Mackinac was captured by the British and Joseph Bailly was taken prisoner.  Following his release in 1814 he became an American citizen which allowed the family to again enter the fur trade and, in the summer of 1822, Joseph and Marie settled along the bank of the Little Calumet River in what is now the Indiana Dunes National Park.  The site was strategically located near two Native American trails, including the northern branch of the Sauk Trail which connected Detroit to Fort Dearborn.

For many years, their home was an important stopping point on the trail from Detroit to Fort Dearborn (Chicago) for new European arrivals.  Michigan Potawatomi stopped at the homestead on their annual migration southwest to their winter hunting grounds in what is now eastern Will County and the Kankakee River valley.

The 1833 Treaty of Chicago forced the Potawatomi to leave their ancestral homeland for land in Kansas. Some exceptions were awarded and Joseph Bailey negotiated land in Will County, Illinois, “ For the five daughters of Mo-nee, by her last husband, Joseph Bailey, two section, or 1280 acres. The center of this reservation was located at what is now the intersection of Egyptian Trail and Pauling Road.  The Illinois Central railroad, named the nearby train stop “Monee” after Marie in the early 1850s.  Marie was called Mau-nee because there is no “r” sound in the Algonquin language, making Marie Bailly the accepted namesake of Monee, Illinois.

On December 21, 1835, Joseph Bailly died and after a period of financial turmoil because of the existing laws limiting women’s inheritance rights, Marie was able to gain control of the family’s real estate holdings in Illinois and Indiana. In 1851 Marie sold the Racoon Grove property to William Butler Ogden, a personal friend of Joseph’s and the first mayor of Chicago, for about $5.00 an acre. He immediately subdivided the land and resold it.

Marie continued to live at the Homestead in Indiana until 1866 without ever visiting the town that bears her name. The Bailly Homestead is now a part of the Indiana Dunes National Park and is being restored to the period when Marie and Joseph lived there and were an important part of the history of the westward expansion.

Marie was an expert negotiator. She had to be to survive in two worlds, that of the French and the Indigenous. She was born into tumultuous times where the French, British, and Americans all had conflicting interests in the area. She had to navigate a host of conflicts, warfare and land cessions and their effects, throughout her lifetime.  Marie was a survivor.  She saw her world change from one of respect for her indigenous culture to one of derision. She lived to an advanced age and endured much hardship and sorrow, but remained kind, thoughtful of others, and charitable. She remained true to her native culture through her entire lifetime.

After many years of living in the shadows of myth and legend, we are proud to bring forward the true history of an amazing woman.