Early Settlers
After the warming climate melted the glaciers, archeologists say small bands of Paleo-Indians (20-40 people) may have traveled back and forth through Monroe as they searched for large animals to hunt (barren-ground caribou) and gathered food from plants. 13 Archeologists and historians say it is impossible to determine
specific Native American tribal identities from this period forward until sometime
after French explorer Rene Robert Cavalier Sieur de LaSalle opened the region of
New France (an area today that includes much of Eastern Canada, Michigan, and
land extending south to the Louisiana) to French missionaries and fur trappers
(beaver pelts) after his expedition of 1679. That year LaSalle sailed east-to- west
across Lake Erie aboard the first sailing vessel on the Great Lakes, the Griffon.
Because of the area’s abundance of food and easy transport found along the
River Raisin and Lake Erie, there probably were people who used Monroe as
either a crossroads, camp site, or village for many hundreds of years before the
first European explorers visited the area. But so far the earliest documented
presence in Monroe that archaeologists have found are artifacts they have
unearthed at the northwest corner of North Dixie Highway and East Elm Avenue
under the first of several excavations commissioned by the City of Monroe that
took place 1999-2003. Those objects document Native American Indian
presence circa 1550-1650 A.D.
The geologic sculpting that left behind Lake Erie also shaped the founding of
Monroe. Much of the western end of Lake Erie was marshland, which made the
land subject to flooding and an area to be avoided for building a settlement. A
prior history of Monroe states “The presence of the marsh barrier between the
City and Lake Erie was probably the single greatest influence upon Monroe’s
development.” 14 In 1784 American forces Colonel and Frenchman Francois
(Francis) Navarre was the first known European to come to Monroe. On June 3,
1785 Potawatomi Native American Indian chiefs signed a deed giving Colonel
Navarre land on the south bank of the River Raisin. Navarre’s homestead was
located where the present day Sawyer Homestead stands. Sometime shortly
after that date, French colonizers built a settlement called Frenchtown on the
north bank of the River Raisin just a couple hundred yards northeast of the
present Winchester Street Bridge. 17
Even today the French influence is still evident in the way property is legally
described in Monroe. In most townships throughout Michigan, property location is identified by one-square mile by one-square mile parcels of land known as
Sections. However, in Monroe, property is described by what is known as French
Claims (aka Private Claims). French Claims are narrow parcels of land that
extend inland north and south from the banks of the River Raisin. In some cases
these narrow plots of land could extend nearly 1.5-miles inland from the
riverbank. The French Claims allowed French settlers to have access to the River
Raisin, were used for home sites, and offered narrow strips of land for gardening,
hunting, and afforded some protection from enemies because homes were
spaced somewhat close.