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LEFLEURS BLUFF
“The marker was located in 1943 at the intersection of Highway 80 and Highway 49. In 1976 the city of Jackson moved the marker to a tourist center at the intersection of Jefferson Street and Pascagoula Street. A replica cabin of the period was constructed on the site and called LeFleur’s Bluff Trading Post. In 1985 the cabin was moved to the Agriculture and Forestry Museum. In 1989 the marker was moved by private citizens at their own expense to its present location in LeFleur’s Bluff State Park in Jackson.
On the east side the marker reads: “This monument marks LeFleur’s Bluff where General Thomas Hinds, William Latimore, and Peter VanDorn, commissioners appointed by the Mississippi Legislature in 1821, met to locate a seat of government to be called and known by the name of Jackson in honor of General Andrew Jackson, commander of the American Forces at the Battle of New Orleans, January 8th, 1815, President of the United States, 1821-1832.”
On the north side it reads: “The conservation of history raises and ennobles a civilization. Dunbar Rowland”
On the south side it reads: “Here Louis LeFleur, a Frenchman, established a trading post during Indian occupancy on the high bluffs of the Pearl River which became known as LeFleur’s Bluff. He served with Pushmataha under General Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812, and aided in keeping the Choctaw Nation loyal to the United States. He married Rebecca Cravat, a Choctaw maiden.”
Erected in 1943 by the Ralph Humphreys Chapter DAR.
It should be noted that there exists no information to denote the exact site of LeFleur’s Bluff, other than its being on the Pearl River, near what is now Jackson. Elbert Hilliard, Director of the Department of Archives and History, has informed this writer that George Armistead, a Jackson land surveyor who is now deceased, used the original land surveys to conclude that the LeFleur’s Bluff site was located along Jefferson Street just north of the Wilson Bridge the crosses the Pearl River. Mr. Hilliard has also pointed out that other accounts place LeFleur’s Bluff at the site of the Old Capitol and at Rose’s Bluff further up the Pearl.”
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I would like to add that I found at the Eudora Welty Library a pamphlet from a Mississippi State Fair dating back to the 1920’s or 30’s that placed LeFluer’s little trading post at the corner of South State Street and Silas Brown (where there is now a parking lot). This position makes the most sense because the last of the irregular old bends of the Pearl River turns at the high bluff where Silas Brown Bridge crosses today. Silas Brown was an early settler in Jackson and also a doctor. HMD
