Another adventurous French forest trader, who quartered on Chequamegon Bay, was Le Sueur, who, in 1693, built a fort upon Madelaine Island. During the old Fox War the valleys of the Fox and the Wisconsin were closed to Frenchmen by the enraged Indians. This, the most popular route between the Great Lakes and the great river, being now unavailable, it became necessary to keep open Duluth's old routes from Lake Superior over to the Upper Mississippi. This was why Le Sueur was sent to Chequamegon Bay, to overawe the Indians of that region. He thought that his fort would be safer from attack upon the island, than upon the mainland. As La Pointe had now come to be the general name of this entire neighborhood, the island fort bore the same name as the old headquarters on land. It is well to remember that the history of Madelaine Island, the La Pointe of to-day, dates from Le Sueur; that the old La Pointe of Radisson, Allouez, Marquette, and probably Duluth, was on the mainland several miles to the southwest. In connection with the La Pointe fort protecting the northern approach to Duluth's trading routes, Le Sueur erected another stockade to guard the southern end, the location of this latter being on an island in the Mississippi, near the present Red Wing, Minnesota. The fort in the Mississippi soon became "the center of commerce for the Western parts"; and the station at La Pointe also soon rose to importance, for the Chippewas, who had drifted far inland with the growing scarcity of game, were led by the presence of traders to return to Chequamegon Bay, and mass themselves in a large village on the southwest shore. Although Le Sueur was not many years in command at the bay, we catch frequent glimpses thereafter of fur trade stations here, French, English, and American in turn, most of them doubtless being on Madelaine Island. We know, for instance, that there was a French trader at La Pointe in 1717; also, that the year following, a French officer was sent there, with a few soldiers, to patch up and garrison the old stockade. Whether a garrisoned fort was kept up at the bay, from that time till the downfall of New France (1763), we cannot say; but it seems probable, for the geographical position was one of great importance in the development of the fur trade. We first hear of copper in the vicinity, in 1730, when an Indian brought a nugget to the La Pointe post; but the whereabouts of the mine was concealed by the savages, because of their superstitions relative to mineral deposits. The commandant of La Pointe, at this time, was La Ronde, the chief fur trader in the Lake Superior country. He and his son, who was his partner, built for their trade a sailing vessel of forty tons burden, without doubt the first one of the kind upon the great lake. We find evidences of the La Rondes, father and son, down as late as 1744; a curious old map of that year gives the name of "Isle de la Ronde" to what we now know as Madelaine.