The Blanchard River was named for Jean-Jacques Blanchard, a French tailor, trapper, and trader who worked with the Shawnees and came to this area in 1770. He and his Shawnee wife lived with the tribe for more than thirty years before he died in 1802. The river also had many names, including Sha-po-qua-te-sepe, or Tailor's River, as the Wyandot and Shawnees called it. It was once the easiest way to reach Riverside Park by steamboat, canoe, or small boat from the dock at South Main Street, and in 1908 it was immortalized in the Tell Taylor song "Down by the Old Mill Stream."