USA > Missouri > A History of Northeast Missouri, Volume I > Part 74
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The first white child was born in this settlement in 1800. She was Bridget Saucier, the daughter of the commandant. She married Stephen De Lille and some of their descendants still live in the county.
The soil of this part of the county is mostly an exceedingly rich and productive sandy loam, with occasionally a black "gumbo," which is also wonderfully productive. The cereals all grow to perfection, pro- ducing from fifty to one hundred bushels of corn and from twenty to forty bushels of wheat of fine quality, with all the variety of vegetables that can be grown in the temperate zone. The beautiful valley between the two great rivers is almost equal to the valley of the Nile and the region is emphatically the farmers' paradise. These lands are now worth one hundred dollars per acre and upward. The rivers sometimes overflow and a crop is lost.
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HISTORY OF NORTHEAST MISSOURI
THE PROVINCE OF ST. CHARLES
The Province of St. Charles, up to 1790, consisted of these villages : St. Charles and Portage des Sioux, and one near the mouth of the Mis- souri inhabited by Canadian French and Indians. They lived in close proximity and in comparative peace. But few Anglo-Saxons had as yet crossed over the Missouri and such as had ventured from the United States were primitive backwoods men, or men who had left their country for their country's good.
We are indebted to the writings of Major Stoddard, Mr. William Bryan and Joseph H. Alexander for many facts in this sketch. The nearest authentic account of the first settlement in Missouri, proper, places it at Ste. Genevieve in 1735. Nearly fifty years before this time a party of French explorers had passed down the Mississippi river from St. Anthony's Falls and had reported Upper Louisiana, which had been named for Louis XIV., king of France, as a most wonderfully fertile country.
The acquisition of the Louisianas and the formal possession taken of them by the United States in 1804, at once opened to free navigation the great rivers, and abolished the heavy tariffs that had been imposed on Kentucky and Tennessee by the Spanish government. It started the flow of immigration from these and other Southern states of the Union to the new Eldorado-a country like Canaan, flowing with milk and honey. St. Charles was the gateway to this land of promise, and for forty years, a constantly increasing tide of immigration flowed through it, from the two above named states and others farther south, and the beautiful and rich land has blossomed like the famed gardens of the Hesperides. The enforcement of religious belief by an oath was an- nulled forever in the land and freedom of speech and religious freedom forever established and guaranteed under the constitution of all future generations. A new era had dawned on the country and the Anglo- American manners and customs took possession of the land. It was astonishing to see how quickly the new blood revivified the whole body politie, and how rapidly sped the onward march to prosperity and push in business.
LEWIS AND CLARK
On a bright May morning in 1804, the renowned Lewis and Clark expedition reached St. Charles. on its first day's march, and created the first sensation of patriotic ardor the village ever experienced. This was the first body of soldiers wearing the United States uniform that ever set foot on the western shore of the Missouri river. The results of this expedition are known to the world, and gave rise to the well- known axiom "Show me," and they did. The settlers from the East came like a swarm of locusts and were received with no small degree of suspicion by the earlier settlers, as most ferocious monsters, and doubt- less the personal aspect of some of them justified their suspicions.
5 1 The advent of Daniel Boone into the country, which took place in 1798, may be stated as the opening wedge to the influx of a new civiliza- tion, and as the advance guard of Anglo-Saxon supremacy in the new West. No people have ever been able to scotch the way of the Anglo- Saxon as a civilizer and enforcer of civil and religious liberty since the days when King John signed the Magna Charta, that synonym of the world's freedom. The amalgamation of the early French settler, the Anglo-Americans and the later German immigrant has produced, after the second generation, a homogenous American citizen, the champion of civil and religious liberty.
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LINDENWOOD COLLEGE, ST. CHARLES
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SCHOOLS IN ST. CHARLES
The town of St. Charles is distinguished for its educational efforts. It is the seat of three of the earliest educational institutions in the state: St. Charles College, founded about 1825 by Mrs. Catherine Col- lier and her son, George Collier; Lindenwood Seminary, founded about the same time by Mr. and Mrs. Joseph C. Sibley; and the Sacred Heart Convent, established a few years earlier in 1818. These three institu- tions have done good work in educating the girls and boys of the state. Some of the ablest men of the state were educated at St. Charles College, and it is still doing a noble work in substantial and Christian education. The same may be said of the two other institutions. The ravages of time have wrought many changes in the old town. The old college buildings are gone and have been succeeded by new and more modern structures. Her old church buildings have gone the same road.
THE OLD WINDMILL
So with the first mills that furnished the pioneers with their daily bread. Perhaps not a trace of the little water mill remains on the friendly little branch at the south end of the town, a mill built by Pierre Chouteau in 1789, who received a grant of land for the same. And what of that fabulous fortification," the round house? The writer, when a boy at St. Charles College, often explored that wonderful fort. Its diameter was eighteen feet, its height about twenty-four feet. Its port-holes were about ten feet from the ground-four on the east front and four on the west front. These holes were about ten inches square and two of the ancient oaken joists which once supported a floor to its second story were still in place. It was on top of the hill, half a mile from the nearest water. What a situation for wise men to build a fort! The writer, when a schoolboy in St. Charles, knew well the oldest settlers in town. Maj. Wm. Morrison, who had lived in the village all his life, stated to him that the structure had been erected about 1785, by Francis Duquette for a windmill and in it was ground all the bread-stuff used by the village from his earliest recollection. This was in 1850, and the major was then about seventy-five years of age. Neither by record or tradition is it shown that the early French settlers built a fort or stockade as a defense against the redman. There was a stockade built in the town between the foot of what is now Clay street, and the river, in 1808. It inclosed about two acres and extended along the river so as to furnish water in case of a siege. It was built of split logs set endwise in the ground. It was erected by the early American settlers. At about the same time a fort was built at a large natural pool of water near where Cottleville now is, and ten miles west of St. Charles. It was called Coonz's Fort. Another fort ten miles west of that on the Boon's Lick trail was called Pond Fort, as there were several large ponds of water there.
TOPOGRAPHY OF THE COUNTY
This county, as laid out in the final division of the state into counties, is an almost exact representation of the letter "Y" of the English alpha- bet. While it presents in its outlines an unusual spectacle, its location in the world is not devoid of beauty and romance. It lies between the junction of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers, and is the natural gateway to the great Northwest, and from the fact that it was the pioneer county of north Missouri, it takes precedence in any historical account of the great Northwest. It is bounded on the east and south
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by the Missouri river from its mouth to the Warren county line; along its entire western border parallel with the fifth principal meridian on a township line to Big creek; it is divided from Lincoln county on the north by Big creek, Cuivre river and the Mississippi, whose clear waters are lost in the turbid rushing stream from the west, whose waters nearly bisect it and it loses its name in an inferior stream.
The county is well watered by an abundance of smaller streams; in addition to the two great rivers, it has Peruque creek traversing it on its northern border from west to east for about thirty miles, and emptying into the Mississippi twenty miles above its junction with the Missouri. Through its center meanders Dardenne creek nearly bisecting the county. It also flows into the Mississippi about ten miles above West Alton. From West Alton to its western border the county is about fifty miles long. In width, it varies from a few miles to about thirty on the western border. Femme Osage creek enters on the west and runs across the southwest corner, emptying into the Missouri river near Hamburg. Sam's creek and Ballou creek pass from southwest to northeast. All these streams have fertile bottom lands along their courses. The county and its adjacent islands in the two great rivers has about 540 square miles, approximating 345,600 acres of rich land, almost all of which is arable.
About one-third of the county consists of rich alluvial soils brought down by the streams in past ages, and to the tillage of the farmer, they respond with almost Egyptian fertility. The high lands of the other two-thirds of the county are mostly beautifully undulating landscape, much of it in a high state of cultivation, yielding to the husbandman an ample remuneration for his labors. Some of the highlands are hilly. The prairies are beautiful.
There are several large prairies in the county, the Point Prairie, Dardenne, Mississippi, Howell, Thornhill, Allen and Dog Prairie. These sections of the county, in their primitive state, clothed in summer with tall grass and wild flowers, were beautiful beyond expression. One-half of the county, when first opened to the Anglo-American settler, was heavily timbered with many species of valuable timber, such as black walnut, white walnut or butternut, cotton-wood, white and sugar maple, pecan, and all the varieties of oak. These have now practically disap- peared. The lands had to be cleared for the plow, and much valuable timber was, in earlier days, burned on the ground to get rid of it. The wild prairie grasses were wonderfully succulent and nutritious and the wild deer and buffalo thrived and kept fat all through the winter. A hundred years ago every species of game abounded. Fish of many varieties were found in the streams and lakes. The river cat, growing to large size, sometimes weighing as much as 175 pounds; the buffalo, pike, bass, croppie and sun perch. Wild turkeys, wild geese and every variety of water fowl abounded. And very soon the honey bee, that precursor of civilization, filled the woods with its luscious sweets. This area is now (1912) divided into about three thousand farms producing annually millions of bushels of wheat, corn and oats, and every variety of vegetable in profusion, known to the temperate zone.
There is a low stony ledge of bluffs extending along the north side of the Missouri from St. Charles to the western boundary of the county showing, in many places, the erosions of a flowing stream, before a channel had been formed by the rushing waters in past aeons. These ledges will furnish an inexhaustible supply of the finest building stone for all time. Every part of the county is abundantly supplied with fine blue and yellow limestone, admirably adapted to all building pur- poses. A number of fine farm houses have been built of it throughout the county and there are also some very fine stone churches.
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The early settlers utilized this fine limestone, manufacturing from it the finest lime for home consumption, by breaking up the stone and placing it in log heaps and burning. There are traces of many minerals to be found but nowhere in sufficient quantities to be valuable. There are also some traces of fine clays, such as kaolin, etc.
Coal has been found and was at one time pretty extensively mined near the town of St. Charles, but the strata were too thin and its depth too great to justify working the leads at the present rates of labor. Quite a number of deep wells have been sunk in the county in search of oil, but none have been successful. Robt. D. Silver, representative in the general assembly, has gone down some three thousand feet without result, except that he encountered a flowing stream that discharges many hundred barrels of fine mineral water per hour.
The soil of the low lands is a dark loam, intermixed with humus underlaid with sand, generally, and with an occasional streak of black gumbo; all of which is wonderfully productive. The high lands are of a lighter soil, with humus in smaller quantities. These soils are from five to ten inches deep, underlaid by clay, with sometimes hardpan; beneath this is the bed or "county rock," found at varying depths.
DANIEL BOONE
A history of St. Charles county would be incomplete without a sketch of Daniel Boone, the most wonderful character of his time. There is some doubt as to the place of his birth, and from two men we have the statement that he first saw the light in the state of Virginia, and that while a lad, his father moved across the state line into North Carolina, One of these men was William Logan, whose wife was a relative of Mrs. Boone, and who came to Missouri in 1816 from Boonesborough, Kentucky. He was a personal friend of Boone. He died in 1852 in his. seventy-fifth year. The other was the late Morgan Bryan, a nephew of Mrs. Boone, who died about the same time that Mr. Logan did, and at about the same age. They lived near Marthasville, in Warren county, Missouri. In 1849, these men assisted in conferring upon the writer the degrees of Free-masonry, in Douglas Lodge No. 54, A. F. & A. M. According to the testimony of these two old men, Daniel Boone was born 'in the colony of Virginia, July 14, 1732, the same year in which George Washington was born. While he was a lad, his father moved across the Dan river into the province of North Carolina, where he received some little education. While a schoolboy he met and learned to love Rebecca Bryan, who afterwards became his wife. He finished his literary course by thrashing the teacher. Rebecca Bryan's parents were Irish. And Boone married her in Buncombe county, North Carolina, about the year 1756 or 1757; so says Mr. John Jones, his great-grandson, who is a friend and contemporary of the writer. There were born to Colonel Boone, nine children, viz: James, Israel, Su- sanna, Jemima, Daniel M., Lavinia, Rebecca, Jesse and Nathan. James, in his sixteenth year, was killed by the Indians. Israel was killed at the Battle of Blue Lick, Kentucky, August, 1782, aged twenty-four years. Susanna married William Hays and their descendants still live in the county. She died in her fortieth year. Jemima married Flanders Cal- laway, and lived near where Marthasville now stands. Her daughter, Rebecca, married Doctor Jones, who came from Kentucky in 1814, settling near Marthasville. He was assassinated in his yard in 1842, supposedly by a man called "Billy Whiskers," who was tried on strong circum- stantial evidence; but he was so ably defended by Judge Edward Bates that the jury acquitted him. Mrs. Callaway died in 1829.
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While the Boone family lived in the fort at Boonesborough, Ken- tucky, she and two other young girls, Betty and Frances Callaway, daughters of Col. Richard Callaway, were captured by the Indians. These venturesome girls had bravely crossed in a canoe, to the opposite bank of the Kentucky river in search of wild flowers. The Indians were swiftly pursued by Boone, Callaway, his son Flanders (whom she after- wards married), and five other men. They were overtaken the next day and dispersed or killed, and the girls were restored to their friends, having suffered no ill effects at the hands of the savages. The Indians generally treated humanely their female captives.
Daniel M. married a Miss Lewis of Missouri. He settled in Darst Bottom in 1795, and moved to what is now Montgomery county in 1816. He held many important offices under the government and during the Indian wars was made colonel of the state, militia. He surveyed and laid out the state road from St. Charles through Howard county, now known as the Boon's Lick road. It was the great thoroughfare for the mighty tide of immigration then setting in from the East. He also made the surveys for the government, of St. Charles, Warren, Lincoln, and Montgomery counties. He was a man of irreproachable character and sterling integrity, resembling very much his father in personal appear- ance and deportment. He died in 1839, in his seventy-second year. Lavinia married Joseph Scholl and died in Kentucky. The youngest daughter married Philip Goe and she also died in Kentucky. Jesse married Cloe Van Bibber. He settled in Missouri in 1819. He had a good education and was an able and influential man. He died in St. Louis in 1821 while serving his state as an honored member of the first legislature. Nathan Boone, the youngest son, came to the county in 1800. He married Olive Van Bibber, sister of Jesse Boone's wife. He was a surveyor and did much government work. At the commencement of the War of 1812, he enlisted a company of rangers, and was com- missioned captain by President Monroe. He was patriotic and, like his father, showed military skill, and rendered the country good service in those piping times. In 1832, he was commissioned captain in the United States army by General Jackson, then president; and during President Polk's administration, he was promoted to major of dragoons. In 1850, he was again promoted to lieutenant-colonel, though he was seventy-two years of age. He received his commission from President Fillmore. He died peacefully on October 16, 1856, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. Like his other brothers, he served his country well.
Col. Daniel Boone came to St. Charles county in 1797 and settled in Darst's Bottom. He had lost his valuable lands in Kentucky, by neglecting to have his deeds recorded and through the chicanery of land sharks. He had, at the solicitation of his son, Daniel M., and because of a flattering offer from Delassus, lieutenant-governor of the Louisianas, undertaken to form a settlement in the territory. Daniel had preceded him to the territory, and with others had sent Boone won- derful accounts of its fertility and the great abundance of game-two attractions which he could not resist, and he determined to again face the dangers and hardships of subduing the wild Indian and opening the wil- derness to the habitation of his countrymen. In June, 1800, the governor of Louisiana appointed him commandant of Syndic-judge of Femme Osage district, twenty-five miles west from St. Charles. He retained his command with perfect satisfaction to all parties, rendering, righteons judgments in all cases which came before him, until the county passed into the hands of the United States in 1804. Colonel Boone received from the Spanish governor, Delassus, a grant of one thousand arpents of land in the Femme Osage district. Subsequently another grant of ten thou-
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sand arpents was made him by the same government on a contract which he filled so far as his part of it went; i. e., to introduce into the territory one hundred families. But owing to his neglect in having the contract signed by the governor-general at New Orleans, it proved void, and again the old and too honest pioneer was robbed of a princely domain. His beloved wife-his life-long helpmate and sharer of all his dangers, tribu- lations and adventures in subduing the wilderness, died on the 18th of March, 1813. They had shared their sorrows and joys, labors and dangers together, for more than fifty years. He laid her to rest on a beautiful knoll near Marthasville, overlooking the rushing waters of the Missouri river, on the farm of his favorite son-in-law, Flanders Callaway, where very soon he followed her.
Daniel Boone was devoted to his wife and soon after her death .
he marked off his own resting place by her side and had his coffin made. The last two years of his eventful life he spent with his daughter, Mrs. Flanders Callaway, and her husband, who lived on Tuque creek near the
WHERE DANIEL BOONE DIED
place of Mrs. Boone's burial. Around them lived many of his kin and people who had followed him from Kentucky. His health was cared for in his last days by his grandson-in-law, Doctor Jones, the second regu- lar physician who settled in the county, Doctor Millington being the first American doctor. He died of acute indigestion on September 26, 1820, in his eighty-eighth year. In 1835 Capt. John Wyatt erected two stone slabs over the two graves. These had been prepared some time before by a stone-cutter. He was directed to the graves by a great niece of Boone, a daughter of Jonathan Bryan. Selecting the graves from among many other unmarked ones was guesswork, and Kentucky may now be honoring the remains of some other worthy couple. Dr. Sylvanus Griswold, son of Harry Griswold, of Marthasville, always thought so. The funeral was preached by the Rev. James Craig, a son-in-law of Maj. Nathan Boone. The constitutional convention was in session in St. Louis and appropriate resolutions were presented by Ben Emmons and adopted by the convention.
The citizens of Kentucky in 1845, in a convention held at Frankfort, resolved that the proper place for the bodies of the old pioneers was amid the scenes of his earliest and greatest achievements-the Bloody Ground of Kentucky. The consent of his living relatives having been
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obtained, in the summer of 1845, a deputation of citizens consisting of John J. Crittenden, Wm. Boone and a Mr. Swaggart came to the state on the steamer "Daniel Boone," and conveyed the remains back to Kentucky, where they were re-interred at a beautiful place near Frankfort.
THE DISTRICT OF ST. CHARLES
The district of St. Charles, as first laid out under the Spanish gov- ernment, embraced an immense territory. The lower part of it directly between the two great rivers may aptly be termed the "Mesopotamia" of the New World. In 1803 the United States took possession of this territory and organized a temporary government. Gen. Wm. Henry Harrison was at that time governor of the territory of Indiana, and under his jurisdiction came Upper Louisiana. He at once appointed Francis Saucier, Arend Rutgers, Daniel Morgan Boone, Francis Du- quette and Robert Spencer, Esqs., as the judges of a court of common pleas, in and for the district of St. Charles, any three of whom to con- stitute a quorum to hold court. The first term of this court was held on Main street where the old courthouse stood and where the United States postoffice now stands.
The first term of this court, and the first of like juridiction held west of the Missouri river, was convened in January, 1805. Francis Saucier was chief justice; Daniel Morgan Boone, Francis Duquette and Robert Spencer were associate justices; Maj. Rufus Easton was attorney-gen- eral; Mackey Wherry acted as sheriff; Edward Hempstead as clerk, and Antoine Renal as coroner. It was held in the house of Antoine Renal.
The names of the first grand jury ever convened also deserve to be perpetuated. They were as follows: Arend Rutgers, David Darst, John Weldon, Jonathan Bryan, John McMicke, Henry Orowe, Elisha Good- rich, James Flaugherty, Jn, Peter Journey, Antoine Jarris, St. Paul Lecroix, Joseph Piche, Pierre Troge and James Green-all good men, and true. Arend Rutgers was foreman.
The first assessment in the St. Charles district was made by the sheriff, Mackey Wherry. His returns show that the population of the district at that time was 705. There were 275 heads of families, and ninety-five taxable single men. The amount of taxes collected was $501.80.
This form of government continued in force till 1812, when the Missouri territory was regularly organized by an act of congress. Prior to this time there had been no representative government by the people. All the officers had been appointed by the Indiana governor, and were under his supervision.
In 1812, congress passed an act organizing the district of Missouri into a territory, partially curtailing its boundaries, and empowering the people to elect members to a territorial legislature to enact laws for their own government. A governor for the territory was appointed by President Monroe. The legislature convened on the 12th day of December, 1812, in the town of St. Louis, and the following organized counties sent delegates : St. Louis, St. Genevieve, Cape Girardeau, New Madrid and St. Charles. St. Charles county was represented by John Pitman and Robert Spencer.
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