Joseph LaFramboise, born in 1765, built the first trading post in the Lowell area about 1796 on the north bank west of the Flat River, where a large Odawa population of about 500 lived, and from there and other posts in a fur chain stretching from the Kalamazoo River to Grand Traverse Bay, he traded goods from Mackinac Island for beaver, otter, mink, ermine, muskrat, and fox pelts trapped and tanned by Native people. One of six brothers from Trois Riviere, Quebec, and a business partner of Charles Langlade of Michilimackinac, Joseph traded in West Michigan and Wisconsin as early as the 1780s, with his Lowell-area log post serving as the headquarters of his network because the Flat River was then the richest furring river in Michigan, and each spring he returned to Mackinac Island with furs gathered over the winter. In 1794 he married Magdelaine Marcotte, whose Odawa family connections along the Grand River strengthened his trading ties and gave her status among Mackinac Island traders. Magdelaine LaFramboise, born in 1780 to Jean Baptiste Marcotte and Marie Neskesh, daughter of Odawa Chief Returning Cloud, moved as a child from Fort St. Joseph to Mackinac when the British abandoned that fort to the United States, then later lived in the Odawa village at the mouth of the Grand River. She and Joseph had two children, Josette and Joseph Jr. After Joseph was killed in 1806 while returning by batons from Mackinac Island with his family and voyageurs, Magdelaine obtained a trader's license, took over the fur trade, visited outposts, supported heart works and engages, and earned a reputation as an exceptional trader. After the War of 1812, she did business with John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company, and in 1818 company records showed annual earnings of between $5,000 and $10,000, far above the $1,000 a good trader of the time was pleased to make. When she retired to Mackinac Island in 1821, her trading rights passed to Rix Robinson. Deeply religious and energetic, she taught catechism to local children, ran a boarding house for Odawa children so they could attend school, helped the poor, paid the salaries of Mackinac priests, and gave land for St. Anne's Church, asking only that she and her daughter be buried under its high altar. She died in 1846 at age sixty-six.