History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/4/Antoine Le Claire
ANTOINE LE CLAIRE was born at St. Joseph, Michigan, in 1797. His father was a French trader and his mother was the daughter of a chief of the Pottawattamie Indians. He was conversant with many Indian dialects and acted as interpreter for Colonel Davenport in his intercourse with the Indians, while stationed at Fort Armstrong. In 1820 Le Claire married the granddaughter of a Sac chief. In the treaty of 1832 between the Sac and Fox Indians and the United States, in which Le Claire was the interpreter, a grant of two sections of land was made to him by these tribes. One section is now embraced in the limits of Davenport and the other was where the town of Le Claire has been built. The Pottawattamies gave him two sections of land now embraced in the city of Moline. Mr. Le Claire was one of the founders of the cities of Davenport and Le Claire and a liberal promoter of many public enterprises in the two places in early days. He died at Davenport in September 1861.