The traders before the post: the valley line, person by person

From LeClare, 1781, to the removal of 1840 — the mouth of the river, Bertrand, and the carrying place; no trader at the rapids village itself

The boundary, stated as the record gives it: The trading town of this valley is South Bend's ground, not Mishawaka's. The line is carried in this section because the rapids village — the Potawatomi village on the ground that became Mishawaka, whose record stands whole in the tribes leg — was the traders' upcountry customer: the furs that filled the posts at the river's mouth and at the carrying place came down out of country this village hunted and held. The line is printed person by person, at boundary size, from its scholarly spine: Bert Anson's study of Lathrop M. Taylor in the Indiana Magazine of History, and Timothy E. Howard's History of St. Joseph County (1907).

Antoine LeClare: Anson calls LeClare the first resident of the St. Joseph Valley: he settled a few miles upriver from Fort St. Joseph in 1781, soon after the fort's destruction — the line's first name, at the fort's own ground.

William Burnett, at the river's mouth: The valley's great independent trader was a New Jersey man who answered to no company. His entry into the valley is dated variously and the range stands whole: the Michigan historical marker for Burnett's Post has him establish his post between 1775 and 1782 and calls him the first permanent white resident of the St. Joseph, Michigan, area; a Ball State scholarly paper on the St. Joseph trade puts his entry between 1779 and 1782, his post just below the mouth of the St. Joseph the center of his operations until he disappeared or died during the War of 1812; Howard and Anson put a warehouse near the river's mouth about 1791, with Burnett known at St. Joseph as late as 1804. In 1782 he married Kakima — the name also rendered Kaukema and Cakimi — daughter of Chief Aniquiba and sister of Topenebee, principal chief of the St. Joseph Potawatomi; their seven children were educated at Detroit and all were involved in Potawatomi affairs. The post itself was an establishment: house, barn, storehouses, blacksmith shop, and bakery, with warehouses at the mouth of the St. Joseph on the old Fort Miami site, at Chicago, and on the Kankakee. Howard's record of him ends with a bookkeeper's line: the last entry in Burnett's day book is dated 19 July 1802.

Joseph Bertrand: Born at Mackinaw in 1780, Bertrand built in 1808 a log cabin and fur press on the west side of the St. Joseph near the Great Sauk Trail crossing, below Pokagon's branch, opposite the village that afterward took his name — Bertrand, the valley's upriver trading ground, a day's journey below the rapids village.

Pierre Frieschutz Navarre, at the carrying place: Navarre came from Monroe, Michigan, in 1820 as an agent of the American Fur Company, having traded through the country for years before. Howard calls him the first white man to make a permanent home in what is now St. Joseph County, and his post the first trading post on the St. Joseph within the county; his dwelling, the county's first house, stood on the east side of the river in what is now Navarre Place, South Bend. Anson's account has him remain about a year, sell his agency to Alexis Coquillard, and later return to South Bend. The WPA Indiana Guide of 1941 carries his ending: when the Potawatomi were removed in 1838 Navarre went with them, but returned, and died on 27 December 1864 at a daughter's home in South Bend. His cabin of 1820 was preserved afterward in Leeper Park.

Alexis Coquillard: Born at Detroit on 28 September 1795, Coquillard built his trading post on the St. Joseph in 1823 — Anson dates his American Fur Company post to 1824, and the variance stands — the "Big St. Joseph Station," in partnership with his father-in-law Francis Comparet, whose investment the WPA guide puts at some $75,000 for the Upper Lakes agency. He is generally regarded as the founder of South Bend; with Taylor he platted the town in March 1831. His ending in the trade is this article's ending, below.

Lathrop Minor Taylor: Taylor, the line's best-documented life, was born 4 February 1805 at Clinton, Oneida County, New York, and came to the valley in 1827 as a clerk for S. Hanna & Company of Fort Wayne, in charge of its trading post at the south bend of the St. Joseph. The Hanna and Taylor partnership ended in 1836; Anson puts the peak years of Taylor's own fur trade as late as 1851–1853. He was the second permanent white resident of South Bend and, with Coquillard, its co-founder, platting the town with him in March 1831.

No trader at the rapids village: Tested directly, the village itself returns a negative. Howard's trader sections seat the valley's posts at the river's mouth, at Bertrand, and at the carrying place that became South Bend — none at the rapids, none licensed to the village on this ground in any source read. The village traded down the river to other men's posts; no post stood here. The record class that would settle the question beyond the county histories is named for the settling of it: the federal Indian-trade license records and the American Fur Company's papers.

The line's end: The trader era of the St. Joseph valley ends with its greatest trader conducting the ending of the world that made him. In 1840 Alexis Coquillard conducted the Indiana removal of the Potawatomi — the valley's trader marching his own customers out of the valley — and the Burnett line closes in the same column's work: Abram Burnett, William Burnett's son, interpreted for a removal column of some five hundred crossing the Mississippi at Quincy toward Kansas. The removal itself stands whole in the tribes leg, with its accounts unharmonized; here it is printed only as what it was for the trade — the last trader's last office, and the end of the line.

Sources:

1. Bert Anson, "The Fur Trader: The Early Years of Lathrop M. Taylor," Indiana Magazine of History (Indiana University ScholarWorks) — LeClare as the valley's first resident, 1781; Navarre's year and sale of the agency to Coquillard; Coquillard's American Fur Company post dated 1824; Taylor's birth, 1827 arrival, the Hanna partnership to 1836, and the peak trade years 1851–53.
2. Timothy E. Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana (1907), trader sections — Burnett's warehouse at the river's mouth about 1791 and his day book's last entry, 19 July 1802; Bertrand's 1808 cabin and fur press; Navarre as the county's first permanent white resident and his post the county's first; the posts' seating at the mouth, Bertrand, and the carrying place, and none at the rapids.
3. Michigan historical marker, Burnett's Post, and the Ball State scholarly paper on the St. Joseph trade — Burnett's post dated 1775–1782 and 1779–1782 respectively, his marriage to Kakima in 1782 and her parentage, the seven children, the post's buildings and warehouses, and his disappearance or death in the War of 1812; the dating range printed whole.
4. WPA, Indiana: A Guide to the Hoosier State (1941) — Comparet's investment of some $75,000; Navarre's removal journey of 1838, his return, and his death on 27 December 1864; the History Museum, South Bend, for the same death date and Coquillard's birth on 28 September 1795 and the 1823 post.
5. The banked tribes fragment — Coquillard's conduct of the Indiana removal of 1840 and Abram Burnett's interpreting for the 1840 column at Quincy, pointed to and not retold; the village at the rapids and the removal stand whole there.