The trader line, person by person

Five men carry the valley's trade era in the reached record; their posts stood on the river and the portage, not on this township's ground. William Burnett — the line's head: "the first successful trader to occupy the St. Joseph River Valley" in the county history's styling as carried by Genealogy Trails; his ledgers survive in Notre Dame's Indiana History Collection. Alexis Coquillard — the post on the river's west bank from 1823, the American Fur Company, the mills, the cemetery gift with Taylor, the 1840 removal appointment, death in 1855 (the wealth file's trade article carries him whole). Francis Comparet — Coquillard's partner, of the Fort Wayne associate post; the carriers vary on the marriage that bound the partnership (his daughter, in one telling; his sister, in another) and the variance prints without a choice, exactly as the wealth file carries it. Patrick Marantette — the trader of the Mendel/Dowagiac side whose papers (Notre Dame Archives, 1833–1879) are this valley's trade archive: correspondence with Lewis Cass, with Coquillard, with Father Edward Sorin — and the documentary seat of the 1840 removal (the next-but-one article). Lathrop Minor Taylor — the third ledger in the Notre Dame collection, Coquillard's partner in the City Cemetery gift, the line's South Bend end. The residue stands named: no trader's post, cabin, or licensed stand is placed on Union Township's ground by any carrier reached — the township's trade-era fact is transit (the corridor, the portage road) rather than a seat, and any future placement would have to come from the ledgers themselves, read as accounts.

Principal sources: the banked Sources lk-src-notre-dame; this section's wealth file (the trade article); the Notre Dame Archives' Marantette Papers finding aid; Genealogy Trails' county history for the Burnett styling at its strength.