We welcome the Navarre Cabin to our museum campus!
On May 15, 2024, it was slowly and carefully relocated from Leeper Park East following a one-mile route approved by the City of South Bend and designed by Lykowski Construction, Inc., the professional contractor moving the historic structure.
The move of the log cabin to a 0.75-acre site on the museum’s campus brings to fruition a decade-long vision to interpret pioneer history in a more historically accurate context. Central to the experience is the Navarre Cabin, the oldest structure in St. Joseph County. Plans for educational offerings surrounding the Navarre Cabin in its new home include interpretive signage focusing on the early settlers and native people of the region during Navarre’s time. Informative programs, both for schools and the public, will provide information about local and European goods typical of the Fur Trade, foodways of pioneer times, how the early settlers tended health needs, and ways the growing community cared for livestock.
The History Museum anticipates the creation of a surrounding homestead, featuring outbuildings and green space. Nearby could be a trading post, a garden, granary, and smokehouse. A stable and blacksmith shop are also under consideration. Plans for a wigwam could help demonstrate how pioneers and native people interacted.
The story of the Navarre Cabin begins with the man who built it. Pierre Freischutz Navarre was the first person of European descent to settle in St. Joseph County. Navarre’s arrival played a significant role in the history of St. Joseph County, and his presence paved the way for the founding of the city of South Bend. Born in 1787 in Detroit, Michigan, he was an educated man of French ancestry, who came to the area in 1820 as an agent of John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company, which strongly influenced the history of the Midwestern frontier. Navarre married a Potawatomi woman named Keshewaquay, who adopted the name Angelique. Along with their seven children, they lived in the cabin on the north side of the St. Joseph River, near what is now 123 W. North Shore Drive. In 1835, Navarre’s family were forcibly removed to Kansas along the Trail of Death, along with many other local native people.
One of three historic homes in The History Museum’s collection, the Navarre Cabin holds a distinguished place in St. Joseph County, Indiana. Built circa 1820, the cabin is the oldest structure in the community, home of the county’s first pioneer settler. In 1895, The History Museum acquired the cabin, rescuing it from demolition. The museum moved the cabin in 1904 to the southeast corner of Leeper Park East so that it could be better used to teach the history of the area’s pioneers. Relocated two more times to accommodate expansion of the North Pumping Station, in 1954 the cabin was moved to its current site in Leeper Park East. In 2005, the Navarre Cabin was completely restored by The History Museum.
