Noël Le Vasseur, regarded as the father of Bourbonnais, was a voyageur, fur trader, and the first permanent settler of Bourbonnais Grove. He and his wife Watch-e-kee arrived here in 1832. He bought large tracts of land from the Potawatomi Indians and encouraged hundreds of French-Canadian families to emigrate from Quebec Province to Bourbonnais Grove, forming the nucleus of the village’s population. The LeVasseur home, the first brick building in the county, stood 75 yards northeast of this site, and bricks from that house were later salvaged after it was demolished in 1885.