Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut

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 is now located and the headwaters of the Mississippi River near Grand Rapids. 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.

He was born, in 1639, in Saint-Germain-Laval, near Saint-Étienne, France, and first visited New France in 1674.

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 doing so he broke laws banning trading with Natives without government approval which ultimately led to troubles back in Montreal. Lured by native stories of the Western or Vermilion Sea (likely the Great Salt Lake in Utah), Duluth reached the Mississippi River via the Saint Croix River in 1680 and then headed back to Fort de Buade, where he heard that jealous Quebec merchants and the intendant Jacques Duchesneau de la Doussinière et d'Ambault were slandering him. He was forced to return to Montreal and then France in 1681 to defend himself against false accusations of treason, returning the following year.

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