SOURCE: Commemorative biographical record of the west shore of Green Bay, Wisconsin 
Microfilm of original published: Chicago : J.H. Beers, 1896. 718 p. : ports.
LDS Microfilm #0924759     Pages 672 - 674

CHARLES LASELLE, a prosperous farmer of Florence township, Florence county, is one of the early pioneers of northern Wisconsin, and the oldest pioneer of Florence county, having settled where he now resides, at the junction of the Popple and Pine rivers, in the spring of 1868.

Our subject was born in Swanton, Franklin Co., Vt., July 10, 1832, and is a son of John P. and Caroline (Gove) Laselle also natives of Franklin county, Vt., the former of whom was a farmer by occupation.  He married Caroline Gove, and they had three children, of whom two are still living-Charles, the subject of this sketch, and Frances, who is married and resides in Wausau, Marathon Co., Wis.  Mrs. Caroline Laselle died in Vermont in 1841, and Mr. Laselle was again married, in that State, this time to Eliza Flint.   In 1849 they came west to Wisconsin, settling in Waushara county, near Hancock, and there John P. Laselle opened up a farm, on which he made a permanent home.  He died in Plainfield; Waushara Co., Wis., in 1889; his wife Eliza had preceded him, having passed away at Hancock, in the same county, in 1884. They had three children, namely: William, who now resides in Plainfield, Wis.; Zachariah T., a farmer on the old homestead in Hancock township, Waushara county, and Alice, now Mrs. Bardwell, of Plainfield.

Charles Laselle received his education in the schools of Vermont, residing there until 1847, when he came to Wisconsin, locating in what is now Langlade county, then a part of Oconto county, near Eagle River, and engaged in working in the woods, which vocation he followed three years.  The nearest town was Wausau. In 1850 he went to Forest county, then a part of Oconto county, where he engaged in hunting and fishing, and commenced trading with the Indians at Rice Lake. He was the only white man in that locality, and remained there until his removal to Florence county, of which he was the first white settler.  As above stated, he located on his present farm, at the junction of the Popple and Pine rivers, in 1868.  A partner, named A. Palmer, accompanied him to Florence county, engaging in trapping, and died here on the Pine river in 1871, having been hurt by falling with a canoe.   Mr. Laselle conveyed the remains a hundred miles by dog sleigh and team to Embarrass, Waupaca Co., Wis., where there were friends of the deceased, and buried him.  Left alone by the death of Mr. Palmer, Charles Laselle followed trapping and hunting for years.   In 1871, the year of his partner's death, he took up a homestead of 160 acres, his present farm, on which there were no improvements, and he has since cleared over forty acres of the land, cutting the road out from his farm to Florence in the winter of 1879.  First, he erected a log cabin, in which he lived until, in 1882, he built his residence, a story and a half frame, 18 x 26 feet.  In 1886 he erected a good frame-barn, 30 x 40 feet.

In July, 1881, at Marinette, Marinette Co., Wis., Charles Laselle was united in marriage with Mary E. Carpenter, who was born in Winnebago county, Wis., and they have four children; whose names and ages at this writing (1895) are as follows: John thirteen; Olive, eleven; Alice, nine; Jesse, four. Mrs. Laselle was first married to Martin Weber. The father of Mrs. Charles Laselle, J. D. Carpenter, was born in New York, and was an early pioneer of Winnebago county, now residing in Clintonville, Waupaca county.  He was a Union soldier in the war of the Rebellion, being a member of a Wisconsin regiment.

Mr. Laselle is engaged in general farming, and to some extent in stock raising.  He was in this part of the country before the railroad by more than thirty years, came by boat on the Wisconsin river and on the Pine river, brought provisions and supplies to his post winters and summers by dog-team and by boat, and established himself here when Florence was a part of Oconto.  No one in northern Wisconsin is better known than Charles Laselle.  His name is familiar in every household as the hardy pioneer who for twenty-five years lived in the northern country, only seeing a white man now and then, when some lumbermen called at his trading post.  His companions for many years were the Indians, and his gun, dog and dog-sleigh.  Mr. Laselle votes with the Republican party, takes an interest in politics and in educational matters, and is a member of the school board.