USA > Missouri > A History of Missouri from the Earliest Explorations and Settlements Until the Admission of the state into the union, Volume III > Part 17
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" Ashe's Travels, vol. 3, p. 101. But this place is not mentioned by Lewis and Clark or Brackenridge.
? Brown's Gazeteer, p. 204.
' Lewis & Clark's Expedition, vol. I, p. 9, (Cous' Edition).
Bradbury's Travels, p. 16.
" Missouri "Gazette," Oct. 4, 1820.
143
PIKE
clothing was the coarse, plain manufacture of the family, but every- thing denoted that kind of comfort that was congenial to his habits and feelings, and evinced a busy, happy old age. His room was a part of a range of log cabins kept in order by his affectionate daugh- ters and granddaughters. Every member of the household ap- peared to take delight in administering to his comforts; he was sociable and communicative in replying to questions, but not intro- ducing incidents of his own history. He was intelligent, for he had treasured up the experience and observation of more than fourscore years"- not moody and unsociable as if desirous of shunning society and civilization. This was in 1818, two years before Boone's death.“
From this point on up the river the explorers, at that time, only occasionally met a French hunter or trader coming down the river in a pirogue or canoe loaded with furs. Of the fort Robidoux is said to have established two miles from the present town of Brunswick in 1800 no mention is made, but not far from the Nish-na-botna Ben- nett of St. Louis had a small fort and traded with the Indians for sev- eral years. It is noted in the record of this expedition that they also met a boat coming down the Osage with a letter from a person resid- ing among the Osages, in which it was stated that the notice advising the Osage Indians that the country had been ceded to the United States was burned by the Indians, and that they would not believe that the Americans were the owners of the country.7
After a wonderful trip across the mountains to the Pacific, the expedition returned to St. Louis September 6, 1806. During the two years' absence the settlements on the Missouri had been pushed some distance farther up the river, and when on the return trip they saw, near the Gasconade, some cows feeding on the banks of the river, "the whole party almost involuntarily raised a shout of joy at seeing this image of civilization and domestic life." 8
In 1805 an expedition under the command of Zebulon Mont- gomery Pike went up the Mississippi from St. Louis, starting August 9, 1805, and the official report gives us authentic facts as to the settlements on the river above the mouth of the Missouri. The expedition sailed on a keel-boat seventy feet long. The corps consisted of one sergeant, two corporals and seventeen privates.
· Life of Peck, p. 127.
' Lewis & Clark's Expedition, vol. I, p. 211, (Cous' Edition).
' Lewis & Clark's Expedition, vol. 3, p. 211, (Cous' Edition).
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144
HISTORY OF MISSOURI
On August 11th, Pike says that at Portage des Sioux "we dis- charged our guns at a target and scaled our blunderbusses."" Of this place he observes that as he walked through the village he found that it consisted of not more than twenty-one houses built of square logs.1º In his report he makes no note of any other settlement on the right bank of the river, but says that he passed a camp of Saukees consisting of three men with their families who were employed in spearing and scaffolding a fish about three feet in length and with a long flat snout,11 and that he met Mr. Robidoux and a Mr. Kettletas12 going down the river, near the mouth of the Ohaha (Salt river). However, on the 16th of August, he records that he arrived at the house of a Frenchman on the west side of the river, opposite Hurri- cane island, who had good cattle, but poorly cultivated ground on his little farm. This Frenchman's house, according to Cous, "was a germ of Hannibal." 13
On July 15, 1806, Pike sailed from Bellefontaine on his more celebrated expedition up the Missouri and Osage. He carried with him a delegation of Osages, who had visited Washington and also a number of women and children, who had been captured by the Pot- towatomies in a raid they made upon the Osage villages on the Osage - river and who had been redeemed by the government. He was accompanied by Lieutenant James B. Wilkinson, a son of General Wilkinson, three non-commissioned officers, sixteen privates, and one civilian, Dr. John H. Robinson. At St. Charles George Henry joined the party, but a man by the name of Kellerman deserted near Char- · boneau, a short distance above St. Charles. On his voyage up the river Pike also stopped at La Charette, which then still was the ex- treme western settlement. Here he was entertained by Mr. Chartron, the old Spanish syndic, and "every accommodation in his power was offered us.". From La Charette Pike went to the mouth of the Gasconade. Recent traces there that the Saukees, Foxes and Potto- watomies had crossed the Missouri and followed the Gasconade on a war-path to the Osage villages greatly excited his Osages. On the Gasconade Pike camped for several days, and while here five French voyageurs coming down from the Osage informed him that low water
" Pike's Expedition, vol. 1, p. 37, (Cous' Edition).
1º Pike's Expedition, vol. 1, p. 213, (Cous' Edition).
11 Ibid., page 5.
12 A William Kettletas was said to be an intimate of General Wilkinson, and was appointed Attorney-General by him. Is this the same person ?
13 Pike's Expedition, vol. I, p. 8, note 13, (Cous' Edition).
145
LOUTRE ISLAND
would make it impossible for him to go up that river. But he was not deterred and on July 28th, reaching that river began to ascend it. Not a single settlement then existed on this river from its mouth to the west. Chouteau had a trading post in the Osage villages and Manuel de Lisa also had a trading house there. Fort Carondelet which was built only ten years before had utterly disappeared, not a vestige remaining, "the spot being only marked by the superior growth of vegetation." Not far from this place De Lisa had his establishment. Baptiste Duchuquette then was there in his employ. Chouteau also had three or four engages there. Pike was received with great joy in the Osage villages and delivered the women and children to the assembled Osages. Here he also met Chouteau. Pike then proceeded west on his historic march.
In 1808 only two families lived on the Gasconade, and in 1810 only ten white families resided west of Loutre island.14 But in 1811, Brackenridge says that a captain of the militia residing on the Gas- conade claimed that he had two hundred and fifty men on his muster roll.15 A compact settlement then existed on Loutre island.16 Yet the first settlement on Loutre island was made only four years pre- vious, in 1807, the settlers being greatly harassed by the Indians. Loutre island embraced over one thousand acres, and among the first settlers there were the McLains and Talbots. A year after the settlement of Loutre island, Côte sans Dessein, near the mouth of the Osage, was established. When Brackenridge was there in 1811, this settlement was composed of thirteen French families and two or · three Indians. These settlers had handsome fields of corn, but spent the greater part of their time in hunting. Brackenridge observed as he went up the river that the people were all anxious to purchase merchandise, and from this fact alone he drew the conclusion that he was far removed from the settlements. When Bradbury passed on his trip to the upper Missouri he found a war party of "Ayauwais" (Iowas), Pottowatomies and Saukees, numbering fully three hundred warriors, at Côte sans Dessein, on their way to attack the Osages. Finding an Osage boy in the village, they . were "waiting in order to catch and scalp him." 17 Actual war, however, between the Osages and the "Ayauwais" and confederates
" Goebel's Laenger als ein Menschenleben in Missouri, p. 2, et seq.
" Brackenridge's Journal, p. 22.
" Ibid., p. 23.
17 Bradbury's Travels, p. 23.
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HISTORY OF MISSOURI
already existed, because only shortly before this time the Osages had killed seven of the "Ayauwais." 18
The last settlement, in 1811, on the Missouri river was the Boons- lick settlement. Brackenridge notes the farm of Braxton Cooper, and says that "Although the settlement was only one year old more than seventy-five families had taken up their abode there, mostly residing on or near the Missouri river." 19 In 1807, Nathan and Daniel M. Boone, sons of Daniel Boone, in company with three others, first came to this neighborhood to manufacture salt, and the locality was thereafter called the "Boonslick" country or settle- ment. The Boones, and their associates, did not remain or settle there. In 1808, Benjamin Cooper and family first settled in this region, but this settlement was regarded as an intrusion upon the Indian lands by the government, and he was ordered off to a point below the Gasconade. He then established himself at Loutre island. In 1810, he returned again to the Boonslick country, and with him came a number of others. The first blacksmiths in the Boonslick country, both in and out of the forts, were William Canole, Charles Canole and a man named Whitley." The first marriage celebrated was that of Robert Cooper and Elizabeth Carson, in 1810, at the residence of Lindsay Carson, the father of "Kit" Carson, the great scout. Carson emigrated to what is now Howard county in 1810 with his family, settling near Fort Kinkead. Long afterwards he apprenticed his son "Kit" to a man by the name of David Workman, living in the town of Franklin, to learn the saddler's trade; but labor became irksome to "Kit" and he ran off in 1826 and went to the Rocky mountains, where he remained until his death in 1869. Thomas Smith was the first shoemaker in the Boonslick country, and his wife, it is said, was an adept at making moccasins. Dr. Tighe was the pioneer physician. On the south side of the river in what is now Blackwater township in Cooper county, in 1808, it is said, William Christy and John G. Heath, Bailey, Allison and others, made salt, but did not settle.
Hannah Cole, and her nine children and Stephen Cole, with five children, were the first settlers in what is now Cooper county .. Stephen Cole settled about one and one-half miles east of Boonville on what is at present called the "old fort field." In 1811 and 1812
18 Ibid., p. 26.
1º Brackenridge's Journal, p. 34.
20 History of Howard county (1883), p. 161.
147
BRADBURY
Joseph Jolly, Joseph Yarnell, Gilliard Rupe, Mike Box, Delaney Bolin, William Savage, John Savage, Walter Burriss and David Burriss and families also settled south of the river in what is now Cooper county.21 Among other early settlers of that time must also be included Josiah Dickson - a Revolutionary soldier - who was still alive in Cooper county in 1832; aged eighty years.22
It is noted by Bradbury that the principal settlements on the Missouri were made where there was a growth of rushes (Equisetum hyemale)23 on the islands of the river, and that these served the same purpose there as the cane (the Arundinaria Macrosperma of Michaux) in Kentucky. Wherever cane was abundant in Kentucky the first settlements were made, and this was also the case in southeast Mis- souri. These rushes on the Missouri river afforded food for the cattle and stock, and in many places were so tall that it was painful and difficult to walk along in them even at a slow pace.24
Above the Boonslick settlement Brackenridge, in 1811, notes only one other farm, that of Mr. Audrain, who began to clear some land near Fort Osage.25 This fort, it should be observed, was established
21 Levin's and Drake's History of Cooper county.
22 Dickson enlisted in Colonel Neville's regiment, Captain Butler's company, Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, in 1775; marched to Pittsburg under Colonel Neville in 1776; under George Rogers Clark descended the Ohio; was detailed to guard powder and convey same to settlers in Kentucky; was taken prisoner with Joseph Rogers by the Shawnee Indians, and held twelve months by them; taken to Detroit, where he was held about six months; put in irons there and taken to Montreal because suspected that he would make an attempt to escape to Vincennes and relate movements of Governor Hamilton; remained a prisoner there until the close of the Revolutionary war. Draper's Collections (Clark's MSS.), vol. 18, p. 92. Other early settlers of Cooper county were William Gibson (1815) Jesse McFarland (1816) Joseph Stephens (1817), John Kelly (1818).
" Bradbury's Travels, p. 21.
" They "grew on the sandy margins of the Mississippi and on sandy islands, strong and thick. They are more nutritious, and better on which to winter animals than cane."- Reynolds' Pioneer History of Illinois, p. 195. He says that, in 1807, his father kept a large gang of horses on "Gaborit" (Cabaret) island, in the Mississippi above St. Louis, and that "they wintered well."
" This was James H. Audrain; he married a daughter of General Samuel Wells of Kentucky, in 1806; moved to Fort Wayne in Indiana, then in the Indian country; in 1807 returned to Kentucky; in 1809 came to St. Louis, and opened "Grove Tavern" in Cerre's large stone house; in 1810 moved to near Fort Osage; was in partnership there with his brother François, and they became bankrupts .- See Irwin vs. Wells, I Mo. Rep., p. 9. No doubt a member of the same family after whom Audrain county is named. His father or one of his relatives may have been a partner of Jean B. Tardiveau of New Madrid, heretofore noticed. Powers in his Narrative, refers to a Mr. Audrain who corre- sponded with Zenon Trudeau and thus became possessed of government secrets, or at least pretended to know secrets of an important character. Wilkinson's Memoirs, vol. 2, appendix.
148
HISTORY OF MISSOURI
by the government in 1808. In September of that year a company of the Ist United States Infantry, eighty-one men, commanded by Captain Clemson and Lieutenant Lorimier,26 went up the Missouri river in keel-boats, making about fifteen miles a day, reaching the point where the fort was to be established on the 2d of October, near the present town of Sibley. Here they encamped and were joined by General Clark with eighty mounted militia, who then detached Captain Boone with an interpreter, to the Osages, recommending them to abandon their old villages and settle near the fort which was to be established. The villages of the Osages were about one hun- dred and twenty miles from this point. The troops at once began to erect the fort, some two hundred men making a clearing in the forest on the spot selected for the establishment. The fort was three hun- dred and thirty miles by water above the mouth of the Missouri, and two hundred and twenty miles by land from St. Louis. The trip by land through the wilderness, according to Sibley, occupied the best part of fifteen days. The fort was situated on a high bluff seventy feet above highwater mark on the right bank of the Missouri at a place where the river was very narrow, and commanded a charming view of four or five miles up and down the stream. The ridges abounding in all kinds of wild fruits, ran back to the prairie about a mile distant. The soil was extremely fertile and the timber straight and very plen- tiful, consisting chiefly of black oak, with black walnut, linn, ash, white oak and many other varieties. The buildings erected for the establishment, Mr. Sibley says in his letter, were large, comfortable and convenient, and especially so the trading house. It was intended that this fort should become a place of general rendezvous for the Indians, and for these Mr. Sibley was appointed the agent.
In 1819 Fort Osage was still the extreme frontier settlement, and for a considerable distance below the fort the settlements were con- fined to the immediate banks of the Missouri river. Long described Fort Osage as a stockaded fort of irregular pentagonal form, with strong log pickets perforated with loopholes, and two blockhouses placed at opposite angles. He thought one of these flanked the curtain too obliquely to be of much service in defending it, and he considered the position of the fort was not so secure as it should be, because there were numerous ravines and declivities capable of covering an enemy within a short distance of it; on the other hand boats ascending and descending the river were exposed to its fire.
" Appointed by Jefferson to West Point in 1804; graduated in 1806.
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149
FORT OSAGE
When the fort was erected it was supposed that at least five thou- sand Indians would make a settlement around the fort, and during its construction about eighteen hundred Osages actually gathered there, but they made no permanent settlement. For a number of years Fort Osage was the most important western trading point in the United States; although during the war of 1812, for a year or two, the establishment was abandoned.27
During the Indian troubles and war of 1812 practically no exten- sion of settlements up the river was made, but after the close of the
27 Sibley, who was factor of the establishment for many years, writes Feb- ruary 12, 1811, telling us how pleasantly he passed his time there. He says, "Having brought my business into some system, it has become rather a pleasure than a toil to keep a kind of bachelor's hall and have my clerk, a clean young gentleman, boarding with me. Our fare is simple but good and wholesome, coffee and unbuttered toast for breakfast and frequently a change of milk and hominy, beef, pork and venison for dinner, and a dish of tea, milk and hominy for supper always. We breakfast at nine, dine at two, and sup irregularly, sometimes early and sometimes late. Frequently we are honored with an Osage chief or war captain to dine or sup with us, and very often are favored with a company of princesses and young ladies of rank, dressed out in all the finery of beads, red ribbons and vermillion, silver ornaments and scarlet blan- kets." George C. Sibley was born in Massachusetts in 1782. He was the son of Dr. John Sibley. With his father, who had served in the Revolutionary army, he moved to North Carolina and was reared in that state. In 1807 he was ap- pointed clerk in the new Indian store (factory) established by the United States at Fort Osage and went up with the troops when that fort was built. He resided there as Indian agent until the factory system was overthrown. He was appointed one of the commissioners to locate the Santa Fe road in 1824. While agent he first visited the Salt plains in 1811. Many early distinguished travelers, Bradbury, Brackenridge, Nuttall, Featherstonaugh and others were his friends and derived much information from him relative to the Indians. He made sev- eral reports in regard to Indian matters which have been published. He married Miss Mary Easton, a daughter of Col. Rufus Easton and retired to a farm near St. Charles where he died. He and his wife endowed Lindenwood Seminary, at St. Charles. But in defending the factory system, and under which the In- dian traders were excluded, and it was proposed to protect the Indians, he made enemies. Thus Thomas Hempstead writes Calhoun in 1822, as to Sibley : "Hav- ing just seen the printed documents in relation to the Indian trade submitted to the Senate by the Committee on Indian Affairs, I was much astonished to read the letter of Mr. G. C. Sibley, United States Factor at Ft. Osage, to Thomas Mc- Kinney, Superintendent of Indian Trade. The first is dated Ft. Osage, April 16, 1819, and the second May 16, 1820; the language he uses and the charges therein mentioned against the Missouri fur traders are unwarranted and unjust. At the date of the first letter the present Missouri Fur Company was not formed; it was shortly after, but the Missouri independent trade was chiefly in the hands of the late Mr. Manuel Lisa, of whom it may be truthfully said the government nor the inhabitants of the frontiers had not a better, superior or a more sincere and efficient friend with the Indians, and of several highly respectable citizens of St. Louis. Mr. M. Lisa was the founder of the present Missouri Fur Com- pany and I conceive that Mr. Sibley must refer to him as one 'of the merciless Indian traders.' I cannot express my astonishment at the bold insanity of this little pretended champion of Missouri when I recollect how insignificantly he acted during the late war, cooped up in good quarters with perhaps a company of United States troops to guard him and who never saw the smoke of a hostile gun during the war."
150
HISTORY OF MISSOURI
.
war emigration from the southern states into Missouri was very great. The roads between the Ohio and Mississippi through south- ern Illinois were filled with emigrants, bringing all their earthly possessions and slaves with them. Most of these emigrants were destined for the country along the Missouri river. An intelligent observer writes in January, 1815, "Swarms of immigrants are daily arriving here from Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky, and among these are several gentlemen of very considerable wealth and some of these are going to settle high up on the Missouri. At present lands can be bought very low but the price is rising fast. Three years ago I bought land for ten cents an acre for which I was offered eight dollars last summer. Property in St. Louis is rising very rapidly; perhaps there is no place in the western country that promises a more rapid increase or a more permanent growth."28 It is recorded in Niles' Register that at St. Louis from thirty to fifty wagons crossed the river daily, bringing on an average five hundred souls into the territory; that these immigrants principally came from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia, and states farther south, and carried a great number of slaves; and it is remarked that "these immigrants all took it for granted that Congress had no power to restrict the intro- duction of slavery into the territory."2º In 1818 and 1819 the inhab- itants of St. Clair and Randolph counties, in Illinois, complained in a petition to Congress of the rage for emigration to upper Louisiana.
Thus the country on both sides of the Missouri above the Osage was rapidly settled. The few white settlers living in what is now Cooper county, who during the war of 1812 had moved into the forts on the north side of the river, returned immediately after the war with many others, forming new and extensive settlements on the south side of the river. In January, 1814, these settlers petitioned Congress that the Indian title to the Boonslick country be extinguished, and this was done in the next year. In 1816 the country north and west of the Osage was erected into Howard county, and in 1817 the county seat was established at Franklin. The growth of Franklin was phenomenal. Within one year after the town was laid out it con- tained 150 houses, the price of lots rising from fifty to six hundred dollars within that time.30
Another expedition "from Pittsburgh to the Rocky mountains"
28 See Sibley Letters in Missouri Historical Society Archives.
" 17 Niles' Register, p. 288.
30 12 Niles' Register, p. 344.
151
TYWAPPITY
passed St. Louis in 1819-20, organized by order of Calhoun, Secre- tary of War, under the command of Major Stephen H. Long. This expedition left Pittsburgh early in April, 1819, and reached the mouth of the Ohio June Ist. Some observations made by Major Long as to the appearance of the country bordering on the Mississippi are now highly interesting. He says that at that time the Tywappity bottom, (called by him "Tyawapatia"), situated opposite the mouth of the Ohio and within the limits of the present counties of Scott and Mis- sissippi, was covered with very heavy timber, and that the "forests are dark and gloomy, swarming with innumerable mosquitoes."31 A small settlement then existed there. The woods were still full of deer, turkeys and beaver. In his course up the river, Long notes in this bottom several abandoned Indian encampments, and says that he saw in one of these camps pieces of honey-comb, and suspended from the limb of a small tree the lower jaw bone of a bear. Farther on he came to where a Shawnee Indian was in camp with his squaw and four children; the baby of this family lashed to a board set up against a tree. Here he bought some venison, but observes the Indians usually demand more money than do the white hunters for what they sell. This family, and other Indians he met afterward, belonged to the Apple creek band of Shawnees, and spoke a little English reluctantly. The squaws wore a great number of trinkets, such as silver arm bands and large ear-rings, and the boys had lead tied in their hair. On his trip up the river Long mentions the Chain of Rocks near what is now known as Gray's Point, but then known as Cape la Croix, or Ross' Point. He points out the fact that this is a very favorable location for a bridge across the river, and here, as if to verify his judgment, a railroad bridge during the last three years has been constructed. After passing this Chain of Rocks he says that he seems now released from "deep monotonous forests," and that he sails in view of broad hills "with a few scattered planta- tions and some small natural meadows." He mentions Cape Girar- deau which was then, in 1819, according to Darby, "one of the most flourishing settlements on the western waters," the staple of their trade being cotton, flour, tobacco, hemp and maple sugar." Long
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