We find nothing more of importance concerning Chequamegon Bay until about 1756, when Beaubassin was the French officer in charge of the fort. The English colonists were harassing the French along the St. Lawrence River; and Beaubassin, with hundreds of other officers of wilderness forts, was ordered down with his Indian allies to the settlements of Montreal, Three Rivers, and Quebec, to defend New France. The Chippewas, with other Wisconsin tribes, actuated by extravagant promises of presents, booty, and scalps, eagerly flocked to the banner of France, and in painted swarms appeared in fighting array on the banks of the St. Lawrence. But they helped the British more than the French, for they would not fight, yet with large appetites ate up the provisions of their allies. The garrison being withdrawn from La Pointe, Madelaine Island became a camping-ground for unlicensed traders, who had freedom to plunder the country at their will, for New France, tottering to her fall, could no longer police the upper lakes. In the autumn of 1760 one of these parties encamped upon the island. By the time winter had set in upon them, all had left for their wintering grounds in the forests of the far West and Northwest, save a clerk named Joseph, who remained in charge of the goods and what local trade there was. With him were his wife, his small son, and a manservant. Traditions differ as to the cause of the servant's action; some have it, a desire for plunder; others, his detection in a series of petty thefts, which Joseph threatened to report. However that may be, the servant murdered first the clerk, then the wife, and in a few days, stung by the child's piteous cries, killed him also. When the spring came, and the traders returned to Chequamegon, they inquired for Joseph and his family. The servant's reply was at first unsatisfactory; but when pushed for an explanation, he confessed to his terrible deed. The story goes, that in horror the traders dismantled the old French fort, now overgrown with underbrush, as a thing accursed, sunk the cannon in a neighboring pool, and so destroyed the palisade that to-day certain mysterious grassy mounds alone remain to testify of the tragedy. They carried their prisoner with them on their return voyage to Montreal, but he is said to have escaped to the Huron Indians, among whom he boasted of his act, only to be killed by them as too cruel to be a companion even for savages.