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• 07.26.10
  Droid X and Isaac Ketchum
  St. Joseph County MI (2)

  Today's ride was the first with my new Droid X phone. At Mendon, I stopped at this park on the St. Joseph River to eat an ice cream and look up some information about the Rev. Isaac S. Ketchum, who had been the Indian agent who pressured the Potawatomi people to agree to be deported from Michigan, as they had agreed a few years earlier in the 1833 Treaty of Chicago. Ketchum's meetings with the Potawatomi were probably held across the river at the Marantette trading post -- about one third of a mile by crow ...
  
  
• 09.01.09
  Marantette sign
  St. Joseph County MI (0)

  Just south of Mendon, on the south side of the St. Joseph River, is a sign pointing to the Marantette Farms. It also happens to be pointing toward the house that Patrick Marantette built in the 1830s. Every now and then I stop to take a photo. This one is from July 15, 2006. Today's Kalamazoo Gazette has an article about the sign, along with a very nice photo: "Mendon farm sign honors late father and brother." The sign just got a new paint job. I remember the first time I saw it, on a ride ...
  
  
• 08.08.09
  Old trails in Coldwater Township
  Branch County MI (4)

  (July 26, con't.) When I visit the Oak Grove Cemetery I sometimes like to get a few photos from the old bridge across the Coldwater River, too. This bridge is now blocked off for vehicles but it's not hard to climb over the guardrails to walk on it. And a footpath is still left open for pedestrians. I always assumed the old bridge is pretty close to where the original Chicago Road crossed the river. Today I examined the plat maps, and determined that the crossing was at this very location at least since ...
  
  
• 12.21.07
  Marantette’s government-paid lawyer
  2001, St. Joseph County MI, To Fulton County - 2001 (2)

  I like to stop in Centreville, the county seat of St. Joseph County, Michigan. It's usually a good place for a lunch break, and it's the right distance from home for one. In 2006 there was a sandwich shop on Main Street that I stopped at a few times. When I'm completely self-contained, I can make myself a cup of coffee at a picnic bench on the courthouse lawn, as I did on this ride in summer 2001. I hope the sandwich shop is still there. I didn't make so much as one ride to Centreville ...
  
  
• 11.07.07
  Sauk Trail
  Branch County MI (0)

  The main route between Detroit and Chicago is now I-94, which is not suitable for bicycling. Before I-94 was built, US-12 served that role. It runs further south than I-94, a little closer to Michigan's border with Indiana. Except that when it was the main east-west road, it was US-112. It was renumbered when I-94 was built. But here is a remnant of the old road when from when it was US-112. This photo is taken from the west side of the Coldwater River, the side of the river where Marantette's trading post had been. The road ...
  
  

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