Читать книгу St. Louis - The Fourth City, Volume 1 - Walter Barlow Stevens - Страница 6

A man and two treaties made St. Louis.

The man was the founder. The treaties were the opportunity. The man was Laclede. His judgment determined the site in December, 1763.

In November, 1762, Louis XV. of France gave, on paper, Louisiana to the King of Spain. The undelivered gift was kept an international secret.

In February, 1763, Louis purchased peace by giving England what had been French possessions east of the Mississippi.

These were the two treaties. They afforded Laclede his opportunity to found a settlement instead of a trading post. They influenced the French villagers to leave the east side and to join Laclede at St. Louis.

The fifteenth Louis was weak in war. He was crafty in diplomacy. Affection for his "dear cousin," the King of Spain, had nothing to do with the gift of territory. By that gift England was kept east of the Mississippi.

While France, England, Spain and Portugal were changing the map of America, Pierre Laclede and Antoine Maxent and a few others who stood high with French authority at New Orleans were planning the enterprise out of which came the creation of St. Louis.

Laclede was thirty-one years old when he arrived in New Orleans. His older brother was an official of importance in one of the southern provinces of France. The ancestral acres of the Laclede family were in the valley of the Aspe. Laclede was a well-educated man. He had learned agriculture and milling in his youth. He left France in 1755 to seek his fortune in the New World.

Planting was tried. Hurricane and high water discouraged. With some capital brought from France, Laclede invested in business in New Orleans. The mercantile and shipping interests suffered severely from the war between England and France. Laclede volunteered for service in the inter-colonial war. He was assigned to duty on the staff of Colonel Antoine Maxent. Between the colonel and his staff officer developed esteem which led to life-long friendship and confidence. Maxent was much older. He had means and influence. Laclede's services strongly commended him to the colonial authorities.

In 1762 Maxent and Laclede were in position to ask favor of the government. Laclede, ambitious and hopeful, hungered for an opportunity. Maxent, with an older man's admiration for the younger's enthusiasm, was ready to risk. The colonel and the staff officer went to the acting governor-general with their proposition. They were received favorably. A grant was issued to them conferring the privilege of "exclusive trade with the savages of the Missouri and with all of the nations residing west of the Mississippi for the term of eight years."

A company was organized to operate the grant. The syndicate was called "Maxent. Laclede and Company." Occasional references in the archives mention "Antoine Maxent, Pierre Liguest Laclede and Company." Colonel Maxent was the financial manager. He raised most of the capital. Merchandise in quantities and suitable for the trade was ordered from abroad. The stock was such as the partners deemed "necessary to sustain on a large scale their commerce which they proposed to extend as much as possible." Upon Laclede devolved the practical work of organizing the expedition. By him the boats were secured and the force was recruited. The merchandise did not arrive as soon as expected. Winter and spring passed. When the boats were loaded the summer of 1763 had come. Laclede had hoped to start up the river in the spring. He got away from New Orleans the 3rd of August.

By one who traveled with it, the flotilla of Laclede was called "a considerable armament." Eight miles a day was the limit of progress. The boats were low hulls. They resembled somewhat the more rudely constructed barges of the present day. There were no cabins. The boats were without accommodations for the crew. Bales and barrels of goods for the trade, materials and tools for the post filled the hulls. About the center of each boat was a stubby, strong mast, well braced. Tied to the mast was a rope several hundred feet long. This was the cordelle. The loose end of the rope was ashore, in the hands of the cordeliers. In single file the cordeliers moved at a slow walk dragging the boat after them. The bank was the tow path. The river was the canal. The fifteen to thirty men were the motive power. In shallows, poles were used. When the wind blew up-stream, sails were spread.

Stops were frequent. In advance of the cordeliers were men with axes. The path must be cleared of fallen trees, of vines. The chasseurs de bois were part of Laclede's organization. They left the boats in the morning and hunted in the woods for game to supply the commissary. When one bank of the river was found to be utterly impassable for the cordeliers, the boats were tied to the bank until the ropes could be carried across to the other side. Thus the armament was shifted from side to side. When darkness came on, the boats were tied to the bank. A shelter tent was pitched for the family of Laclede. The men slept on the ground or on the cargoes. In later years, as commerce on the river increased, before the day of steamboats, the path of the cordeliers became beaten. When Laclede came up to the river, the cordeliers traveled a trail upon which were countless obstructions.

Through August, September and October, the expedition toiled along the river banks. November came before Ste. Genevieve was sighted. Full three months the journey had required. While Laclede was laboriously making his eight miles a day, news having vital bearing on his plans had reached the Illinois country. Laclede heard it at Ste. Genevieve. He faced a situation before which one less resolute would have faltered. France had ceded to England the country east of the Mississippi. That was the news. The war was over. The cession was the price which bought peace.

Laclede acted quickly. Ste. Genevieve had the growing lead industry behind it. Storage rooms for the goods with which the "armament" was loaded could not be found. Moreover, Laclede looked at the flat upon which the Ste. Genevieve of that day was built. Another and higher site was chosen a few years later. Laclede remembered his experience with high water near the lower coast. He "deemed the location insalubrious" for his business. So he said to Auguste Chouteau, the stepson not yet fourteen years old, upon whom he looked even then as his lieutenant. An officer came down from Fort Chartres. The expedition of Laclede had been heralded. Courtesies were due from one officer to another. The commandant at the fort sent his greeting to Laclede. He offered a storage place within the fort. At the same time he explained that he was expecting to evacuate upon the arrival of an English garrison. While he waited the facilities of the fort were offered to the expedition. Services that Maxent and Laclede had rendered the colonial government warranted this tender.

Laclede pushed on. Fort Chartres was six miles above Kaskaskia. The massive stone walls, eighteen feet high, were near to the landing. They enclosed four acres of ground. The storehouse, into which Laclede's boatmen carried the goods, was a stone building ninety feet long. Government house, barracks, coach house, guard house, bakery— all of the structures were of stone with doors of wood and iron. Cannon were in the embrasures covering approach from every direction. Fort Chartres had stood a third of a century. It was considered the strongest fortification in America. Seven years after Laclede made the fort his temporary stopping place, the wall nearest the river was undermined and slipped into the water. In 1772 Fort Chartres was abandoned.

Neyon de Villiers was the commandant of the Illinois, stationed at Fort Chartres. He was calling in the garrisons of outlying posts when Laclede arrived. Preparations to depart for New Orleans were under way. Commandant de Villiers contemplated more than a military movement. He considered it proper to advise the settlers to follow the French flag down the river. He thought to leave only the stone fort and the soil to the new authority.

Under the shadow and protection of Fort Chartres was a considerable settlement — St. Anne de Fort Chartres. A few miles away was Kaskaskia. To the north was Notre Dame de Kahokias. Villages and hamlets on the east side of the river had been growing slowly while the French flag floated over Fort Chartres from 1720 to 1763. And now Neyon de Villiers proposed a general exodus. He was the representative of France in the Illinois. His advice was impressive. Many French settlers were preparing to follow it. On the Missouri side there was no settlement north of Ste. Genevieve. Up to that time the east side had been favored by the pioneer immigration. But now, if Neyon de Villiers had his way, the skirmish line of civilization was to fall back from the country of the Illinois.

Laclede had learned patience as he waited costly months for his goods to come from abroad. He had faced hardships, such as he had never known previously, in his three months' voyage up the river. The crisis of his enterprise confronted him at Fort Chartres. The goods were stored. Some presents were made ready for the Indian tribes with whom Laclede intended to trade. Friendly relations were established with the officers at the fort. Acquaintance was cultivated with the habitants. Much information Laclede sought about the surrounding country. The goods were shown. The prospects of trade were discussed. The local sentiment was extremely discouraging. It was December. Ice was running in the river. Laclede declared himself. He would found "an establishment suitable to his commerce." No turning back for him! Ste. Genevieve would not do. When he stopped there he did not find storage room sufficient for one-fourth of his cargoes. Furthermore, he rejected it "because of its distance from the Missouri."

Of his courage and decision of character, Laclede gave the wondering habitants immediate illustration. With Auguste Chouteau he crossed to the west side of the Mississippi. Very thoroughly Laclede explored the country northward, all of the way to the mouth of the Missouri. It was not a due course. Topography was studied. Two natural conditions were taken into careful account,— the west bank of the river and the country some distance back from the bank.

Turning southward from the limestone bluff's near the mouth of the Missouri, Laclede and Auguste Chouteau passed through groves of oaks and across small prairies. They went some distance west of the river front. On the way northward Laclede looked for water power. The little river flowing through what is now Mill Creek Valley attracted his attention. He noted that it was fed by large springs. Coming southward, on the return, as he neared the slope leading downward to the ravine through which ran the little river, Laclede led the way to a considerable elevation. From that vantage point he looked over the tree tops to the river. This elevation became "the Hill" of St. Louis for a third of a century. Upon it, but graded down somewhat, stands today the courthouse. From this hill Laclede surveyed the locality in detail. He went down through the trees to the river. The distance from the hill to the water was about one thousand feet. It included two gentle descents and two plateaus about three hundred feet wide. Laclede saw with satisfaction that the plateaus, or terraces they might be termed, were heavily wooded. Here was building material at hand for the first house construction. At the eastern edge of the lower plateau, the explorers came to a sharp, rocky bluff. Precipice might better describe the topography. But the drop to the sandy beach was a short one. At most this precipice or bluff was thirty-five feet high. In places the distance was only twenty feet down to the sandy beach. Both to the north and to the south, as Laclede traversed the water front, he discovered that the rocky bluff sloped down gradually until it was lost in the alluvial low land.

In the rocky river bluff, which he examined arpent by arpent, Laclede found breaks or gullies through which the water line was easily reached from the first plateau or terrace. One of the depressions was at the foot of Walnut street as now located. The other, the most rugged of the two, was some distance north. From the edge of the rock-bound front, Laclede closely scanned the river movement. He saw that the current ran strong in shore; that the water deepened rapidly just off the strip of wet sand.

"He was delighted to see the situation," the boy Auguste remembered to write years afterwards of that eventful December day; "he did not hesitate a moment to form there the establishment that he proposed. Besides the beauty of the site, he found there all the advantages that one could desire, to found a settlement which might become very considerable hereafter."

As long as he lived, Auguste Chouteau recalled vividly the doings of that December day which determined the location of St. Louis. He told how Laclede, "after having examined all thoroughly, fixed upon the place where he wished to form his settlement."

The two approaches to the river's edge were compared. The one north of what is now the foot of Washington avenue had been worn by the steady flow of water from a spring. The depression at Walnut street was wider. Laclede followed the gully down to the water. He pointed out to Auguste Chouteau that this afforded the easiest route from the river to the plateau. He determined that there should be the boat landing. Then the founder went back through the gully to the first plateau and examined the ground. Trees of considerable size were growing on the terraces and slopes westward to a short distance beyond the hill. Thence, from the timber line, stretched "a grand prairie." This open, rolling ground Laclede commented upon with satisfaction. It offered the "common fields" waiting for the farmer.

Stopping on the lower plateau, near the head of the gully, Laclede "marked with his own hands some trees."

Where those trees were marked became the center of the trade and commerce of St. Louis, to continue more than one hundred years. With the expansion of the city this center moved slowly westward and northward. Today the financial and commercial heart of the Fourth City is within rifle shot of the place where Laclede marked the trees in December, 1763.

As he thus determined the site, the founder said to the all-observant boy beside him:

"You will come here as soon as navigation opens, and will cause this place to be cleared, in order to form a settlement after the plan that I shall give you."

Immediately following his decision on the site, Laclede returned as quickly as the journey would permit to Fort Chartres.

"He said, with enthusiasm, to Neyon de Villiers and to the officers, that he had found a situation where he was going to form a settlement which might become, hereafter, one of the finest cities of America— so many advantages were embraced in this site, by its locality and its central position, for forming settlements."

But more than he told to Neyon de Villiers, he said to the settlers. His courage in that critical period was splendid. His enthusiasm was infectious. Gradually it neutralized the spirit of exodus which at the time of Laclede's arrival was in a way to become a panic.

Neyon de Villiers was much more than commandant at Fort Chartres. His authority extended over the garrisons of Fort des Pees on the Illinois river, Fort Massiaque on the Ohio, and Fort Vincennes on the Wabash. From these posts, de Villiers ordered the soldiers to come to Fort Chartres. That was to be the rendezvous preparatory to the departure for New Orleans. The commandant even called in the little force at Fort des Causes, although it was west of the Mississippi. He summoned back the officer he had sent some time before to build a fort on the Osage. His orders called for evacuation of the east side and delivery to the English when they came. De Villiers was taking from the west side the protection of the lead mining industry against the Indians. His policy jeopardized all of the trading plans of Laclede.

As the troops assembled at Fort Chartres, Commandant de Villiers became more insistent that the settlers should abandon their homes and go with him.

With tact Laclede opposed the influence of the commandant over the French settlers. During the midwinter weeks he pushed preparations for his own settlement. He assembled tools and provisions. He recruited a picked force of thirty men, "nearly all mechanics." Among them were joiners, millers, blacksmiths and farmers, most of them young and unmarried — men who were inspired with the founder's hopefulness and who turned their backs upon de Villiers' warnings. While he prepared for the forming of his settlement Laclede talked with the French habitants at every opportunity. He advised them not to leave the country where many of them had lived for years. If they were unwilling to be under British authority, he offered to provide them with homes in his settlement.

A mild winter favored the founder. Early in February the channel partly cleared of ice. Navigation was possible. Into a boat were hastily loaded tools and provisions and some goods for barter. With the cordelle over their shoulders the thirty men bravely started along the river bank. To a boy of thirteen years and six months as he gave him charge of the thirty men and of "the first boat," Laclede said:

"You will proceed and land at the place where we marked the trees. You will commence to have the place cleared. Build a large shed to contain the provisions and the tools, and some small cabins to lodge the men. I give you two men on whom you can depend, who will aid you very much. I will rejoin you before long."

The start was made on the 10th of February. The distance was over sixty miles. Jagged edges of ice fringed the shore. Not so much as the trail of a tow path existed. Late on the 14th of February the toiling cordeliers reached the mouth of the gully at the head of which Laclede had marked the trees. They pulled the rope to the nearest tree and made fast. They did no more that day.

"The morning of the next day," wrote Auguste Chouteau, "I put the men to work. They commenced the shed which was built in a short time. The little cabins for the men were built in the vicinity."

Good reason Laclede had for sending Auguste Chouteau to the site as early as possible. The same reason prompted him to remain at Fort Chartres. All winter the founder stimulated interest in his settlement. He extolled the advantages of the location he had chosen. Neyon de Villiers saw his proposed depopulation checked. The pliant and the weak were disposed to go with the commandant and the soldiers. The determined and the adventurous showed increasing confidence in Laclede. De Villiers was resentful. Relations between the commandant and the founder became uncomfortable. Laclede maintained a courteous front but he lost no opportunity to firmly express his opinion counter to the commandant on the exodus policy. He did not leave Fort Chartres until spring was well advanced. Even then the trip he made to his settlement was a flying one. The conditions at the Fort and in the French villages still demanded his watchfulness. But some of the habitants on the east side were now ready to move to "Laclede's Settlement," as they called it. They wished to locate on the west side before the English came and de Villiers departed. To his settlement Laclede hastened. Further instructions were to be given to the boy leader and the thirty pioneers.

"In the early part of April Laclede arrived among us," wrote Auguste Chouteau. "He occupied himself with his settlement, fixed the place where he wished to build his house, laid a plan of the village which he wished to found and ordered me to follow the plan exactly, because he could not remain any longer with us. He was obliged to proceed to Fort Chartres to remove the goods that he had in the fort before the arrival of the English, who were expected every day to take possession of it. I followed to the best of my ability his plan, and used the utmost diligence to accelerate the building of the house."

The "plan" which was given to Auguste Chouteau is the basis of the map of St. Louis today. The Rue Principale of 1764 is the Main street of 1911. It was on the first plateau above the river. It paralleled the edge of the rocky bluff back some three hundred feet. On the west side of that street, near the approach through the gully to the river, Laclede located his house and the business headquarters of Maxent, Laclede and Company. He gave the directions for the cellar and for the assembling of material of which the house was to be built. And then he hurried back to the east side of the river.

About this time Madame Chouteau and the children were moved from Fort Chartres to Cahokia. The oldest of the children was Pierre, who was seven. The family remained at Cahokia until fall, awaiting the completion of the stone house.

Midsummer came before the critical situation at Fort Chartres was cleared up. Laclede had made two hurried trips to St. Louis. With great tact he avoided open antagonism. In June the commandant and the troops departed for New Orleans. The English had not arrived. St. Ange de Bellerive had come from Vincennes with his garrison. He was selected by de Villiers to remain at Fort Chartres to make the formal delivery of the post to the British who were expected daily. Here fortune favored Laclede, although he did not realize it at the time. To St. Ange, the commandant gave forty men, one captain and two lieutenants. A considerable number of the inhabitants of the two villages. Fort Chartres and Prairie du Rocher, followed the commandant. Neyon de Villiers promised to obtain for them free grants of land near New Orleans to compensate them for the sacrifice they were making. Ostensibly the commandant did all this persuading and promising to enable these people to settle in Lower Louisiana under the French government rather than to pass under the dominion of the English whom he called heretics.

Years afterwards Auguste Chouteau wrote the story of those last eventful weeks at Fort Chartres, as Laclede told it to him. He pointed out the reasons which had prompted the commandant. He showed how much the efforts of Laclede to counteract the course of de Villiers meant to the settlement of St. Louis. This is what Chouteau set down in his Narrative:

"The real motive of M. de Neyon was to take with him a numerous train and to descend the Mississippi in triumph, to make the government believe that all of these people followed him for the great esteem which they had for his person; thereby to gain the confidence of the authorities in order to obtain a place that he had in view. But when he learned on arriving in New Orleans that the country was ceded to Spain, he determined to return to Europe. He forgot all of the promises that be had made to these poor credulous people, who remained upon the strand without knowing where to lay their heads, and the government officials troubled themselves but little about them because they knew that the colony would soon change masters. 80 that these unfortunate people, who had abandoned the little property which they possessed in Illinois to go and live under the French government found themselves completely disappointed in their hopes. Some of them, in order to live, went with their families to Opelousas, others to Attakapas, where, however, they could not carry, on account of the want of facilities for transportation, the materials which they had brought down with them, and they were obliged to give them for almost nothing in order to procure a little maize and rice. Those, who having some means returned to Illinois, were very happy to find there M. de Laclede, who aided them in a great many ways, and observed to them that if they had been willing to follow his advice, as others had done, who had not wished to follow their evil destiny, they would not now be in the unpleasant situation in which they found themselves.

"M. de Laclede, penetrating the motive of M. de Neyon, did all in his power to hinder them from going down. lie did it without any interested view, but through humanity, telling them that the English government was not so terrible, that for his part he had a much more favorable opinion of it. However, if, in consequence of false prejudice, they did not wish to remain under this government, he would recommend them to go up to his new settlement. He would facilitate for them the means of getting there. As for their animals, it was very easy to conduct them by land, since the journey was only nineteen leagues by a good road. Several families accepted these offers and obtained immediately the wagons and the necessary harness to proceed to St. Louis. And there he aided them in settling and ordered me to assign them lands, according to the plan which he had made, which I did aa exactly as possible. "

Those who followed de Villiers in his fleet of twenty-one boats numbered eighty. They were for the most part from the immediate vicinity of the Fort.

In the spring of 1764 a few families moved to Laclede's settlement. After Neyon de Villiers had gone with most of the soldiers, the habitants who remained began preparations to join Laclede. Those who were farmers waited to make sure of their crops. Through the fall and early winter they were moving, family after family, to Laclede's St. Louis. The months went by and still the flag of France floated over Fort Chartres. But in the villages and hamlets of the eastern side the houses of posts, without doors or windows and in many cases without roofs, stood for the census of the families who had joined Laclede.

Not for the want of naming did the new community thrive as "Laclede's Settlement." The founder chose the name with the same prompt decision that marked his manner in the selection of the site. Upon his visit to the scene of activity in April, Laclede coupled with the selection of location for his house and with the plan of the settlement the formal designation of it.

"He named it St. Louis," wrote Auguste Chouteau, "in honor of Louis XV., whose subject he expected to remain a long time (he never imagined he was a subject of the king of Spain) and of the king's patron saint, Louis IX."

Historians generally who have had occasion to speak of the naming of St. Louis have said it was in honor of the crusader, the law giver, the good Louis. They were at least half right. Auguste Chouteau was the first historian of St. Louis. Only a few pages of his Narrative are extant. The most of it went into a fire through the fault of one who should have been most careful to preserve it. Twenty years Auguste Chouteau kept a journal. He intended it to be "a full account of the leading events of our early history." In a fit of ill temper, or indifference, so the tradition goes, the greater part of this journal was destroyed by an historical writer to whom it was loaned many years ago.

Louis XV. was the wicked Louis, the Louis who was under the influence of the noted DuBarry and Pompadour, the Louis who lived riotously, in whose reign were planted the seeds of popular hatred of royalty which fruited in the French Revolution.

It is history that Louis XV. was king of France when Laclede founded his settlement. Because of the change of sovereignty east of the river Laclede sought his site west of the river. By the secret treaty of 1762 France had ceded the territory west of the river to Spain. This, Laclede did not know. He was drawing to him the French habitants east of the river with the inducement that here they would live under the flag of France. He chose for his settlement a name that would appeal to them. He was where he was by virtue of a privilege granted from French authority at New Orleans. Perhaps for business reasons he felt that the name should in some degree recognize the source of his privilege. He "named it St. Louis in honor of Louis XV. and of the king's patron saint. Louis IX."

This act was not extraordinary. LaSalle, long before, had named two of his posts, St. Louis, and had recorded that he did so "in honor of Louis XIV.," then reigning. The attempt had been made to substitute for the Indian name Mississippi, the name of St. Louis to apply to the great river. Business reasons prompted Laclede's choice of name for the settlement. The founder cared little for royalty. He was no courtier. He was by instinct, if not by reasoning, a republican, as events subsequently showed.

Perhaps the most significant thing about Auguste Chouteau's reference to Louis XV. in the naming of St. Louis is the evidence it affords that the settlement was formed and obtained its first impetus on the mistaken belief that it was on French soil. Not until the 18th of April, 1764, did d'Abbadie, the French commander at New Orleans, write in his journal, "the rumors of the cession of this colony to Spain have the appearance of truth."

This is a song of the axmen who cleared the way for the future,

Sung for the glory of them who live not in song or story!

Glory of seer and of prophet, glory of dream and of vision

Live though we know not of it, potent in lives of all men,

Strong with the strength of the axmen who cleared the way for the future,

Seeking not praise for their labor, forgetting the deed in the doing;

Strong for their way's whole length, achieving and still pursuing,

Leaving each deed for the future, leaving the meed and the guerdon;

Dying, forgotten and fameless, rewarded with rest after labor,

Living in work well done, immortal but evermore nameless!

Stroke after stroke of the axmen, clearing the way for the future,

Fell on the oak till it trembled and crashed to the ground by the river;

So with a sound that echoed around the world of the future

Fell the first oak of the vast wild that stretched to the Western ocean;

Ho as the lot was cast from the lap of the whirling planet

Vanished the ages past in the future's dim commotion!

True was the stroke of the steel blade, true was the axman who held it,

Making a way as the oak fell for the new age following after;

Seeking for roof-tree and rafter to build for his children their cabin,

Builder be of a city, mother of states and of cities,

Mighty of stalwart grace of the myriad nameless builders,

Bred to the trade of the steel blade, bred to the grace that fails not,

Mighty where all else fails, availing where strength avails not —

Grace of the stroke repeated with the axman's sure precision,

Falling again on the place where the first stroke failed of its purpose;

Falling again and again with a patience never defeated!

— The Axmen of St. Louis, by William Vincent Byars.