Louis Jolliet was a French-Canadian explorer known for his discoveries in North America. Jolliet and Jesuit Father Jacques Marquette, a Catholic priest and missionary, were the first non-Natives to explore and map the Mississippi River in 1673. Jolliet was born in 1645 in a French settlement near Quebec City; when he was seven years old, his father died. Jolliet's stepfather owned land on the Ile d'Orleans, an island in the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec, home to First Nations. Jolliet spent much time on Ile d'Orleans, so it was that he began speaking Indigenous languages of the Americas at a young age. Besides French, he learned English and Spanish. During his childhood, Quebec was the center of the French fur trade; the Natives were part of day-to-day life in Quebec, Joliet grew up knowing a lot about them. Jolliet entered a Jesuit school in Quebec as a child and focused on philosophical and religious studies, aiming for priesthood, he studied music, becoming a skilled harpsichordist and church organist.

He received minor orders in 1662 but abandoned his plans to become a priest, leaving the seminary in 1667 to pursue fur trading instead.. While Hernando de Soto was the first European to make official note of the Mississippi River by discovering its southern entrance in 1541, Jolliet and Marquette were the first to locate its upper reaches, travel most of its length, about 130 years later. De Soto had named the river Rio del Espiritu Santo, but tribes along its length called it variations "Mississippi", meaning "Great River" in the Algonquian languages. On May 17, 1673, Jolliet and Marquette departed from St. Ignace, Michigan with two canoes and five other voyageurs of French-Indian ancestry; the group sailed to Green Bay. They paddled upstream on the Fox River to the site now known as Portage, Wisconsin. There, they portaged a distance of less than two miles through marsh and oak forest to the Wisconsin River. Europeans built a trading post at that shortest convenient portage between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins.

On June 17, the canoeists ventured onto the Mississippi River near present-day Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. The Jolliet-Marquette expedition traveled down the Mississippi to within 435 miles of the Gulf of Mexico, they turned back north at the mouth of the Arkansas River. By this point, they had encountered natives carrying European goods and worried about a possible hostile encounter with explorers or colonists from Spain; the voyageurs followed the Mississippi back to the mouth of the Illinois River, which friendly natives told them was a shorter route back to the Great Lakes. Following the Illinois river upstream, they turned up its tributary the Des Plaines River near modern-day Joliet, Illinois, they continued up the Des Plaines River and portaged their canoes and gear at the Chicago Portage. They followed the Chicago River downstream until they reached Lake Michigan near the location of modern-day Chicago. Father Marquette stayed at the mission of St. Francis Xavier at the southern end of Green Bay, which they reached in August.

Joliet returned to Quebec to relate the news of their discoveries. Jolliet married Claire-Francoise Byssot de la Valtrie. Like Jolliet, she was Canadian born, a daughter of Francois Byssot de la Riviere and his wife Marie Couillard. Claire Francoise was a sister of Louise Byssot de la Valtrie, wife of Seraphin de Margane, Seigneur de la Valtrie. In 1680, Jolliet was granted the Island of Antwhere where he maintained soldiers. In 1693, he was appointed "Royal Hydrographer", on April 30, 1697, he was granted a seigneury southwest of Quebec City which he named Jolliest. In 1694, he sailed from the Gulf of St. Lawrence north along the coast of Labrador as far north as Zoar, a voyage of five and a half months, he recorded details of the country, the Inuit and their customs. His journal is the earliest known detailed survey of the Labrador coast from the Strait of Belle Isle to Zoar. In May 1700, Louis Jolliet left for Anticosti Island, he disappears from the historical record. There is no listing of his death or burial place, the sole record of his fate is the notation that a mass for his soul was said in Quebec on September 15, 1700.

Jolliet's main legacy is most tangible in the Midwestern United States and Quebec through geographical names, including the cities of Joliet, Illinois. The several variations in the spelling of the name "Jolliet" reflect spelling that occurred at times when illiteracy or poor literacy was common and spelling was unstandardized. Jolliet's descendants live throughout the United States; the Louis Jolliet developed by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, was named in his honor. The Jolliet Squadron of cadets at the Royal Military College Saint-Jean in the Province of Quebec was named in his honor. Joliet Junior College in Joliet, Illinois, is named after the explorer, as are numerous high schools in North America. A cruise ship sailing out of Quebec City is named in his honour. French colonization of the Americas This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed.. "Louis Joliet". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton. Jolliet 1645-1700 Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online

For other men with the same name, see: William Drayton. William Drayton was an American politician and writer who grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, he was the son of Sr. who served as justice of the Province of East Florida. Drayton served as a United States Representative to Congress. Following the Nullification Crisis, as a unionist Drayton decided to move his family to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1833, he lived there the rest of his life. He was appointed as president of the Second Bank of the United States; the son of William Drayton, Sr. and his wife, William was born in St. Augustine, where his father served from 1765 to 1780 as the chief justice for the Province of East Florida. In 1780 the judge lost his position due to accusations of sympathy with rebels in the American Revolutionary War, he had bought property and plantations in Florida, including what became called Drayton Island. The Drayton sons were sent to England to complete their educations. Afterward, with his older brother Jacob, William studied law in Charleston.

Both became lawyers. About 1804 William Drayton married a cousin once removed, they had four children: Emma Gadsden Thomas Fenwick, became a Confederate Army general Percival, became a career US Naval officer William Sidney, became a US Naval officer and shipping businessmanAfter Anna's death, in 1817 Drayton married Maria Heyward. Two of their five children survived to adulthood. Maria Heyward Drayton was close to her young stepchildren.: William Heyward, became a lawyer in Philadelphia. Henry Edward, became a doctor in Philadelphia; the two younger Drayton brothers married Sarah Coleman, respectively. Thomas Drayton, a West Point graduate, stayed in South Carolina when the family moved north and bought a plantation at Hilton Head, he resigned from the US Army to join Confederate forces after secession. He and his brother Percival "commanded opposing forces" in the battle of Port Royal, South Carolina, when Union forces captured the forts. William Drayton served in the War of 1812. In a November 12, 1816 letter to president-elect James Monroe, Andrew Jackson recommended, that Drayton, a Federalist who had shown loyalty to the Madison administration and the union through his military service, be appointed Secretary of War to heal the breach between the Federalist Party, now moribund on the national level, the Republicans.

Colonel Drayton was elected in 1824 to represent South Carolina's first district in the U. S. Congress, served from 1825 to 1833 with repeated re-election. A unionist during the nullification controversy, in 1833 he moved his family to Philadelphia. While a unionist, Drayton continued to support slavery. In Philadelphia he wrote and published The South Vindicated from the Treason and Fanaticism of the Abolitionists, a pro-slavery tract. Drayton was appointed as president of the Second Bank of the United States, his papers are held by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The author Edgar Allan Poe dedicated his collection Tales of the Arabesque to him. Biographic sketch at U. S. Congress website Drayton Family Papers, including correspondence from 1783–1896, Historical Society of Pennsylvania William Drayton at Find a Grave

The Bozzuto Group is a real estate company. Bozzuto has four main divisions—Bozzuto Management Company, Bozzuto Construction Company, Bozzuto Development Company, Bozzuto Homes Inc; the company has developed and built more than 45,000 homes and apartments. It manages more than 70,000 apartments and 2.2 million square feet of retail space along the East Coast between Miami and Boston, in the Northeast and Chicago. Its headquarters are in Maryland, it was subsidized by Prince George's County, Maryland in 2013. Tom S. Bozzuto and his three partners John Slidell, Rick Mostyn, the late Bernie Lubcher founded the company in 1988. In 2013, Tom's son Toby Bozzuto took over as President. In 2014 he received the developer of the year award from the Maryland Building Industry Association. According to the Washington Post, the company has developed more than 50,000 homes and apartments since its inception. Bozzuto has been recognized by many regional organizations. For five consecutive years, from 2015 to 2019, Bozzuto has been named Top Property Management Company for Online Reputation by Multifamily Executive Magazine and J Turner Research.

In 2016, the National Association of Home Builders named Bozzuto Multifamily Development Firm of the Year at their Pillars of Industry Awards. Bozzuto Construction Company was ranked 17th out of the National Multifamily Housing Council’s 2017 25 Largest General Contractors. Bozzuto is celebrated for their workplace culture earning awards like The Washington Post’s Top Workplaces, the Washington Business Journal’s Best Places to Work and Baltimore Sun’s Top Workplace, they have several offices in the Washington D. C. and Northern Virginia area. Official website