Editing Wilmette, Illinois (section)

====The Ouilmette reservation====
The village is named in honor of Archange and [[Antoine Ouilmette]].<ref name=images/><ref name=bushnell/>

Archange Chevallier Ouilmette was born in approximately 1781 at Sugar Creek, [[Michigan]]. She was the daughter of Pierese Chevallier, a French [[fur trade]]r, and his Potawatomi wife, Chopa. She was among the earliest recorded residents of Chicago, having settled there prior to its official incorporation. In either 1796 or 1797 she married Antoine Ouilmette, a [[French-Canadian]] fur trader. Together they would ultimately have eight children (sons Louis, Joseph, Michael and Francis; daughters Elizabeth, Archange, Josett and Sophia), the last being born in 1808.

On July 29, 1829, as a condition of the [[Second Treaty of Prairie du Chien]], the U.S. government awarded {{convert|1,280|acre|km2}} of land in present-day Wilmette and [[Evanston, Illinois|Evanston]] to Archange Chevallier Ouilmette.<ref name=wbc>{{cite book |date=2001 |editor1-last=Schultz |editor1-first=Rime Lunin |editor2-last=Hast |editor2-first=Adele |title=Women Building Chicago 1790-1990 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iz8qAAAAYAAJ |location=[[Bloomington, Indiana|Bloomington]] and [[Indianapolis]], [[Indiana]] |publisher=[[Indiana University Press]] |pages=653–54 |isbn=978-0-253-33852-5 |access-date=November 20, 2020 |archive-date=February 1, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210201040327/https://books.google.com/books?id=iz8qAAAAYAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=grover>{{cite book|last=Grover|first=Frank R.|title=Antoine Ouilmette|year=1908|publisher=Evanston Historical Society|url=https://archive.org/details/antoineouilmette00grov|access-date=September 7, 2010}}</ref><ref name="shea">{{cite book |last1=Shea |first1=Robert | title=From No Man's Land, To Plaza del Lago |year=1987 |publisher=American References Publishing Corporation |location=919 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL. 60611}}</ref> The Ouilmettes moved into a cabin that they built on this reserved land.<ref name=images/><ref name=grover/><ref name="shea"/>

In the late 1830s Antoine Ouilmette was involved in litigation against Joseph Fountain of Evanston and others, whom he accused of trespassing and illegally harvesting timber from the Ouilmette family's reservation. Ouilmette lost the suit and paid a large bill in court costs. It was after this that the Ouilmette family decided to leave.<ref name=wbc/><ref name=grover/><ref name="shea"/> In 1838, the Ouilmette family moved to [[Council Bluffs, Iowa|Council Bluffs]], [[Iowa]], where many Potawatomi had previously relocated.<ref name=images/><ref name=wbc/><ref name="shea"/>  Archange Chevallier Ouilmette died there on November 25, 1840, and Antoine Ouilmette died there on December 1, 1841.<ref name="shea"/><ref>{{cite web|title=Ouilmette, Antoine Louis|url=http://www.earlychicago.com/encyclopedia.php?letter=O|work=Early Chicago|publisher=Early Chicago, Inc|access-date=July 17, 2010|archive-date=December 11, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101211152345/http://www.earlychicago.com/encyclopedia.php?letter=O|url-status=live}}</ref>

After Archange's and Antoine's deaths, seven of their children petitioned the federal government for permission to sell the land, as the treaty had stipulated that no part of land could be sold without permission from the President of the United States.<ref name=wbc/> All of the children, except for one, were living in Council Bluffs with no intention of moving back.<ref name=wbc/> They reasoned that they were living too far away to protect the land from illegal timber poaching.<ref name="shea"/> President [[James K. Polk]] approved the sale of the land, and in 1845 the entire reservation was collectively sold by the Ouilmette children, save for one sliver that Joseph Ouilmette sold individually at a later date.<ref name=wbc/><ref name="shea"/>