Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut
French explorer
Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut (c. 1639 – 25 February 1710) was a French soldier and explorer who is the first European known to have visited the area where the city of Duluth, Minnesota, United States, is now located and the head of Lake Superior in Minnesota. His name is sometimes anglicized as "DuLuth", and he is the namesake of Duluth, Minnesota, as well as Duluth, Georgia. Daniel Greysolon signed himself "Dulhut" on surviving manuscripts.
Early life
He was born about 1639 in Saint-Germain-Laval, near Saint-Étienne (then in Forez), France, and first visited New France in 1674.
Exploration
In September 1678, Dulhut left Montreal for Lake Superior, spending the winter near Sault Sainte Marie and reaching the western end of the lake in the fall of the following year, where he concluded peace talks between the Anishinaabe (Saulteur) and Dakota (Sioux) peoples. On 2 July 1679, DuLhut planted the flag of France "in the great village of the Nadouecioux, called Izatys", a Dakota Mdewakanton town on what is now called Mille Lacs Lake. In June 1680, Duluth heard of the capture of a Catholic priest by the name of "Louis Henpin" (Louis Hennepin) who had been captured by other "Nadouecioux" (Sioux), among whom Duluth was living. After receiving word of his capture, Duluth set out at once to find the Franciscan priest and demand his release. Duluth bartered for the priest's freedom, but in so doing he broke laws banning trading with Natives without government approval, which ultimately led to troubles back in Montreal.
“Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut” enters the record as french explorer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Daniel, Greysolon and Sieur can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3014132. VIAF identifies the subject as 6214836. The Library of Congress control number is n79099249. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1639, 1710, 1674 and 1678.
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This entry incorporates text from “Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.