Monday, August 3, 2009

Trading Post


Constantine Street divides into two streets, Constantine Street and South Constantine Street, with a triangular shaped grass and tree covered area between them, for about two-thirds of the block between South Street and Millard Street. (Google Maps gets this wrong--that's South Constantine to the left in the photo, and Constantine to the right.) It looks like a divided street, but is actually two streets.

The streets run along a bluff above the St. Joseph River, which is directly to the east (left, in the photo.)

At the northern pointy tip of the center area, there is a historical marker. It says:

Herabouts stood the old French trading post kept by Cassoway and Gibson, when the first white settlers came to Three Rivers in 1829. This post was probably established before the revolutionary War. The French traded with the Indians of the St. Joseph River as early as 1690.

At the bottom of the plaque it says "This tablet was erected by the Abiel Fellows Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, September 30, 1911."

Sue Stillman identifies the old trading post as being "at the confluence of the rivers".