Charles Oakes Ermatinger, born in Montreal in 1776, was a fur trader, merchant, farmer, militia officer, and Justice of the Peace who entered the fur trade as a clerk for the North West Company, became a partner in the firm, and settled in Sault Ste. Marie in 1808 as an independent trader. During the War of 1812, he took part in the British capture of Michilimackinac. He married Mananowe (Charlotte), daughter of the prominent Ojibway chief Katawebeda, and they raised thirteen children in the grand fieldstone house built in 1813-1814. The Ermatinger Old Stone House became a centre of social life for communities on both sides of the river before Ermatinger retired with his family to a farm at Longue-Pointe, Quebec. In later years the house served as the home of an Anglican missionary, a hotel, the residence of Sault Ste. Marie's first sheriff, a YWCA, meeting hall, boarding house, social club, court house, and apartment building, and after its purchase by the City of Sault Ste. Marie in 1964, it was restored to its original elegance.