Alexis Bailly

Alexis Bailly (December 14, 1798 – June 3, 1861) was an American politician and fur trader.

Early life Bailly was born in Saint Joseph, Upper Canada, to one of the "mixed-blood" families that was active in the North American fur trade. His father, Joseph Bailly, came from a French Canadian family. His mother, Angelique McGulpin (Bead-Way-Way or Mecopemequa) was a daughter of Maketoquit (Black Cloud), the chief of a large band of Grand River Ottawa. Alexis was one of three children. When his parents divorced, his older brother Francis remained with Maketoquit's band, while his younger sister Sophia was adopted by fur trader Magdelaine Laframboise, a close friend of the family. Alexis was sent to boarding school in Montreal.

Fur trade From 1823 to 1835, with a brief hiatus in 1831, Bailly traded for the American Fur Company, working with Jean Joseph Rolette. One of his earliest jobs with the company was to drive a herd of cattle to the Red River Settlement. In 1834, as founder John Jacob Astor prepared to retire, the company was reorganized as a partnership with Ramsay Crooks as president and senior partner. Bailly was known as an "energetic and competent trader, whose string of posts along the upper Mississippi and up the Minnesota Valley had grossed some $20,000"

Bailly moved to Wabasha, Minnesota in 1842, where he continued to work as a fur trader until 1848. He served as a county commissioner and justice of the peace for Wabasha County from 1854 to 1857. Bailly died at his home in Wabasha on June 3, 1861 at the age of 62.