352 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



104th year. He told me those pear trees were raised from the seed ; that three 

 seeds were bronglit from France in a French emigre's vest pocket. '•Three- 

 seeds," I asked, — "are you sure that was the number?"' He replied that it was 

 so reported to him. I thought it plausible, that all these generations of pear 

 trees might have sprung from those three seeds; for, it will be recollected, 

 that in the genealogy of nearly every old family in America, three brothers 

 invariably came over the ocean together, and why not believe this of our pear 

 trees? At least there was nothing inconsistent with this theory, except, as 

 often happens to well digested theories, the facts in the case. 



The truth is that the pioneer pear trees of Monroe came from the banks of 

 Detroit River. 



FEANCIS KAVARRE. 



About the year that Wolfe scaled the heights of Abraham, and on the ram- 

 parts of Quebec gave his life for old England and her colonies in America,. 

 and by such sacrifice redeemed the continent from the sway of France, about 

 the year 1759, was born on the banks of Detroit river one Francis Navarre. 

 He was the grandson of a Francis Navarre who had been a soldier in the 

 French army stationed at Quebec, where he served out his time, when that 

 place was a French fort, some forty years before Montcalm lost it. Old Fran- 

 cis Navarre, led by the spirit of adventure, and the companionship of many 

 comrades of like sentiments, coasted along the lakes in his dug-out canoe, till 

 he came to the straits, "/)'^/roj.7,''' as they called them; but we have so 

 anglicized the name that it has lost its original significance. There he found 

 a fnr-trading station, a French military post, a missionary center and a few 

 settlers, — old soldiers who had taken up lands and turned their spears into 

 pruning hooks. 



Francis Navarre was an educated man and at one time was the scrivener 

 for this little colony on the outposts of civilization. At the time he came to 

 the straits, a single pear tree, which in 1805 was said to be 100 years old, 

 stood within the pickets with which the town was surrounded, where now 

 commerce and capital thrive and the hum of a busy industry makes vocal the 

 impulse of teeming thousands; and there it stood till it fell before the 

 rapacious growth of the metropolis. 



TWENTY YEARS ONWARD. 



From this tree Francis Navarre, when he had selected his claim fronting the 

 straits, transplanted two sprouts in his yard; and when this grandson first saw 

 the light they had grown to be a foot in diameter. 



Twenty years passed away, and with them had grown up a race of sturdy 

 young Frenchmen who in their turn were to found new homes. They had 

 much of the same spirit of their ancestors, the same vivacity, the same fond- 

 ness for the dance, and the same light-hearted, chivalric nature. " The Straits" 

 were occupied on both sides — what is now Canada and what is Michigan. The 

 farms with their whitewashed houses along the river, stretched in narrow 

 strips miles away into the wilderness, as may now be seen along the St. Law- 

 rence. To be away from the river, — to have a home out of sight of its " glit- 

 tering sheen," was not to be thought of. Still a new generation was to be pro- 

 vided for. Where was it to go ? 



THE FRENCH "VOYAGEURS." 



In the three-quarters of a century that had elapsed since the settlement of 

 Detroit, we can easily conceive that these French " voyageurs" who had coasted 



