MONROE COUNTY. 209 



Below tliis spot, and about where the largest pear trees stand, was a glade 

 of perhaps 100 rods in extent. Across the river, between the two bridges, 

 was another. Lower down, on the north side, on the swell of ground wliich 

 the railroad bridge bisects, was another. In which of these glades the first 

 party made their camp, tradition has not informed us; but that the party 

 carried back to ''the straits," such an account of the beauties of La Eiviere 

 au Raisin that other parties coveted the sight, I have no doubt. Even "the 

 straits," in the plentitude of their beauty, could scarcely rival this little 

 nook where nature had made a very "Acadie." 



No wonder, then, that when the young Navarre, (grandson of Francis 

 Navarre, one of the early settlers of Detroit) at the age of twenty, began to 

 seek a place to build his home, looked with longing eyes to the Raisin, and 

 thought to possess one of the glades on its banks for his dwelling place. 

 The land was then in the possession of the Pottawattomie Indians. From the 

 time when old Francis Navarre was scrivener at the picketed post at '' the 

 straits," till his grandson began to put on the garb of manhood, the Navarre 

 family had great influence with the Indians. Negotiations were begun, by 

 which young Navarre was to have the title to all the south bank, from the 

 present position of the mill-dam down to a point below the Canada South- 

 ern raih'oad; and subsequently he had a deed for the most of it, signed by 

 five chiefs. His son, Robert F. Navarre, now (1874) eighty-four years of 

 age, born under the pear trees, is now living two miles nearly south of them, 

 and says his father has repeatedly shown him where the posts stood which 

 anarked the boundaries of this Indian purchase. 



Here, then, Navarre came in 1780 and built his first cabin on the banks 

 of the stream. Here, then, he planted his pear trees in the same year. He 

 brought seven sprouts, the size of his finger, in his hands on horseback from 

 "the straits." These sprouts came from the two old trees on his father's 

 and grandfather's claim, which were (as I have stated before) sprouts from 

 the old pioneer pear tree, that stood within the pickets, and which may have 

 grown from one of the three seeds brought across the ocean in a French- 

 man's vest pocket. From these seven pear trees have descended all, or nearly 

 all, of the French pear trees of the county. Others were obtained at 

 Detroit, but their quality not proving equal to Navarre's, were considered of 

 not much ace )unt, and a ready market was found for these at three dollars 

 each sprout. 



Of the seven pear trees set out in 1780, three are now (1874) living. Since 

 I settled in Monroe, nineteen years ago, two have died. They died, as many 

 a strong man now dies, suddenly, and without apparent cause. The season 

 before their death, it was estimated that one bore over forty bushels of pears. 

 They have always been prolific bearers, every year laden with their golden 

 harvest. The largest now standing is twelve feet six inches in circumference 

 six inches from the ground ; ten feet seven inches one foot from the ground ; 

 and at its smallest part ten feet in circumference. Four and one-half feet 

 from the ground the trunk separates into two branches, at which point it is 

 eleven feet one inch around. The two limbs aggregate thirteen feet eight 

 inches. Nine years ago I measured the same tree. At its smallest part it 

 measured nine feet six inches, and the limbs aggregated twelve feet six inches, 

 showing a growth in nine years of six inches girth of the body, and one foot 

 two inches of the limbs. The tallest now standing is sixty- seven feet, or, to 

 ■ be exact, sixty-six feet ten inches in height. 



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