 In the 18th century, the settlement became an important center of the fur trade, when it was a post for the British-owned North West Company, based in Montreal.The fur trader John Johnston, a Scots-Irish immigrant from Belfast, was considered the first European settler in 1790.He married a high-ranking Ojibwe woman named Ozhaguscodaywayquay, the daughter of a prominent chief, Waubojeeg.