3. Leeper Park - Navarre Cabin_COA 2023-1106A

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27 Appendix C Notes on Ownership Though the Pierre Navarre Cabin is said to have been donated to the Northern Indiana Historical Society in 1895, unfortunately the Society did not begin keeping records on donations until the 1920s, when a large backlog of records were entered into the Society’s accession books. We were able to locate several references to the NIHS’s ownership in local publications between 1895 and 1910. These include: Timothy Howard’s A History of St. Joseph County, Volume 1, dated 1907 “The log house built by Navarre in 1820, which was the first fur trading station in St. Joseph county, and where this pioneer and his household, half white and half Indiana, so long resided, has been preserved to this day. It was presented by the proprietors of Navarre Place to the Northern Indiana Historical Society, and by the society removed to Leeper park, where it is cared for by the city of South Bend as its most venerable historic relic.” (p. 131) Charles H. Bartlett’s Navarre Place booklet, dated ca. 1895 (may be slightly later) “Navarre Place derives its name from the fact that in this locality was the home of Pierre Frieschutz Navarre, the white man whose presence here as long ago as 1820 marks the very beginning of the annals of our city. His residence, a substantial and well preserved log house, has survived to this day and has been given to the Northern Indiana Historical Society.” (p. 3) “Pierre Navarre’s Log Cabin.” South Bend Tribune, June 28, 1902 “The laying out of the grounds on North Michigan Street where the water works pumping station is situated into a public park has revived the project of preserving that interesting relic, the log cabin home of South Bend’s first white settler, which is now doing menial duty as a stable in the Leeper brick yard. The christening of the new park with the name of Leeper makes it all the more an appropriate place for this historic structure, and there is little doubt but the board of public works would give it a conspicuous location and that its removal could be accomplished with very little expense. The Historical society agitated the subject several years ago and the late Hon. D. R. Leeper, then a prominent member, promised to help along the movement by furnishing the building as a gift to the society.”