Madison Wisconsin State Journal June 9, 1865

The Green Bay Advocate mentions the death of an old resident as follows :
Mrs. Marinette Farnsworth, whose death is announced in another column, at the age of 70 years, was born in this county, and has always resided here or near the mouth of the Menomonee river, where a village was named after her. She was an active and industrious woman, respected by all who knew her, and her death will be regretted by a large array of friends in this part of this State. Mrs. F. was the mother of John B. Jacobs and George P. Farnsworth .



Both the city and county are named in honor of a woman who established a fur trading post on the banks of the Menominee River. Marie Antoinette Chevalier was born at Post Lake in what is now Langlade County Wisconsin in 1784, to the Canadian Bartland Chevalier, and the daughter of Menominee Chief Wauba-Shish. Bartland Chevalier moved to Green Bay in 1800 and went into partnership with John Jacobs, a French Canadian whom Marinette later married. They had three children. When the fur trading business slumped during the War of 1812 Jacobs started a school. In 1823 he moved to the present site of the City of Marinette and went into partnership with William Farnsworth at a trading post established by the American Fur Company. Within a few years John Jacobs went to Canada and never returned, and Marinette married Farnsworth. They had two sons and a daughter. By 1831 Farnsworth too had left, to settle in Sheboygan. Marinette remained and developed the trading post into a large trading center. She was called "Queen Marinette," and became well known for her business ability. She died in 1865. Her son, John B. Jacobs, platted the town.

Queen Marinette (as she was known in the North woods of Wisconsin), it was that her Indian brothers and sisters had trouble saying Marie Antoinette and it sounded more like Marinette when they said her name, so as years past she became known as Marinette. She was a mixed blood Native American and French decent. She was born in Wisconsin the daughter of Bartholomew Chevalier and Louise, the later being the daughter of a Indian Chief called WauBaSish (The Big Marten).
Marinette became a important figure, not only in the fur trade, but also for her charitable work for the people of the area. Her home became the center for activity for both Indians and whites alike in the wild northern Marinette, Wisconsin area,(which was named in her honor). By the time she died, she was known as Queen Marinette. Given that women rarely occupied positions of prominence in the commercial world of the nineteenth century, Marinette was one of the most remarkable figures in the early history of the Great Lakes region.

In the early 1800's Queen Marinette and Jean Baptist Jacobs, a french Canadian fur trader, ran a trading post on the Menominee River in what now is known as the city of Marinette, to this union three children were born Mary Polly, Elizabeth and John Baptist Jr. Her first husband left for Canada and never returned and she then taken with William Farnsworth, which three children were born, Joseph, George and Jane. This husband also deserted her and she ran the trading post with her son.
It is her history that the city and county of Marinette Wisconsin took its name from.
Queen Marinette died in Green Bay in 1865.
She was originally buried in Allouez Catholic Cemetery near Green Bay, but was relocated in 1987 and placed in a sarcophagus in Forest Home Cemetery in Marinette

There is a detailed book about her life called Queen Marinette: Spirit of Survival on the Great Lakes Frontier by Beverly Hayward Johnson.