USA > Missouri > A history of Missouri from the earliest explorations and settlements until the admission of the state into the union, Volume I > Part 32
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Possessed of the idea that wealth was to be found in the bowels of the earth in Louisiana, rather than gathered from its surface by the dull and steady process of tillage, French officials always listened with credulity to the tales of every impostor who came to France from America. Thus a Canadian by the name of Mathew Sagan furnished the Count de Ponchartrain with a pretended memoir in which he claimed to have ascended the Missouri and discovered mines of gold in 1701. The minister ordered his services to be secured at a great expense, and instructed Governor Sauvole of Louisi- ana to have twenty-four pirogues built and one hundred Canadians placed with them under the orders of Sagan, to enable him to proceed up the Missouri and work the mines. But Sauvole, well informed
10 Gayarre's History of Louisiana, French Dominion, p. 156.
11 Martin's History of Louisiana, vol. i., p. 218.
12 Charlevoix's Travels, p. 292. (London Ed., 1763.) This Antonio was a slave in the galleys-and boasted that he had worked in the Mexican mines- thus attracting attention, and not only secured his liberty, but also a consider- able salary to work the supposed mines in Upper Louisiana.
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as to the character of the man, did not hurry the construction of the pirogues, although he gave orders to build them.13
Reports of the mineral wealth of the interior of Louisiana con- tinued to attract the attention of the people and statesmen of that period. Thus it is that the first direct authority exercised over territory in Missouri is evidenced in a grant of mines made by the French officers at Fort de Chartres. On the 14th of June, 1723, Pierre Duque de Boisbriant and Marc Antoine de La Loire des Ursins,14 Intendant, granted to Philip Francois Renault "a league and a half of ground in front upon the little 'Marameig,' and in the river 'Marameig' at the place of the first fork, which leads to the cabins called the 'cabanage de Renaudiére,' with a depth of six leagues, the river making the middle of the point of compass, and the small stream being perpendicular as far as the place where the Sieur Renault has his furnaces and thence straight to the place called the 'Great Mine.'" And again, in the same order, Renault also is granted "two leagues of ground at the mine called Mine de M. La Mothe, the front looking toward the northeast, the prairie of the said mine making the middle point of the two leagues." The grant on the Maramec was located on what was afterward called the "Negro Fork of the Marameig," in what is now Washington county. In Renault's time, this branch of the river was called the "Grand Fork of the Marameig." It unites with the Maramec about thirty miles above its junction with the Mississippi.
The "Cabanage de Renaudiére" refers to a distinct settlement, and from the language of the grant, it is clear that Renaudiére had worked mines here before the grant to Sieur Renault. Renaudiére, according to Charlevoix, was first sent by the Company of the Indies to work the mines, but on account of having no skilled men to build furnaces, he abandoned the work there. This is all we know of his operations in that locality. A Sieur la Renaudiére was with Bourg- mont with several servants, and apparently accompanied the expe- dition in an independent capacity as "ingenieur pour les mines," 15
13 As to Sagan, see Margry, vol. vi., pp. 95 et seq. But precisely in this region gold and silver have been found. May-be Sagan was not so much an impostor, after all.
14 Marc Antoine de La Loire des Ursins came to Louisiana as early as 1713, as Intendant of Crozat's affairs on the upper Mississippi. After he left Fort de Chartres he received a concession near Natchez, where he was killed by the Natchez Indians in the terrible massacre of the French in 1729.
15 6 Margry, Les Coureurs de Bois, p. 449. Concerning this Renaudiérc ,
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and no doubt was the same person who opened these mines granted to Sieur Renault. From the language of the grant to Renault it is also clear that the property known as Mine La Motte was known at the time by that name 16. All this tends to show that mining oper- ations were carried on, and that settlements of adventurers were in this district before official cognizance was taken of the fact.17
Philip Francois Renault, to whom these grants were made, was a native of Picardy, France, and was appointed director-general of the mining operations of the "Royal Company of the Indies." Renault, the son of Philip Renault, a noted iron founder at Consobre, near to Manbeuge, in France, was a man of fortune and enterprise, and a stockholder in the Royal Company. Under the patronage of the Company, another association, called the "Company of St. Philippe," was organized to prosecute the mining business in upper Louisiana and representing, more particularly, this company, Ren- ault sailed from France with two hundred miners and laborers and everything needful to carry on mining operations - even the bricks for his furnace were made in Paris with his name on them. One of these was discovered not many years ago by the surveyor, Cozzens, when making a survey of some land on Fourche à Renault in Wash- ington county, where one of Renault's earliest furnaces was con- structed.18 On his voyage, the ship touched San Domingo, then a French colony and a way-station for all vessels sailing to Louisiana. There he purchased five hundred negroes to work the mines he expected to find. Arrived at the mouth of the Mississippi, he ascended the river in canoes to the Illinois country. The negroes brought by Renault were the first introduced into Missouri, and the ancestors of the so-called French slaves of the Illinois country.19
Charlevoix says: "Neither he nor any of his company understood the construc- tion of furnaces. 'Twas surprising to see the easiness of the company in advancing large sums and the little precaution they took to be assured of the capacity of those they employed."-Charlevoix's Travels, p. 292. (London Ed., p. 1763.)
16 But at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, a statue was erected to Renault as the discoverer of "Mine la Motte." Name spelled "La Mothe" in the French grants.
17 Recently on Coldwater-one of the forks of the Saline-in the woods a sandstone enclosure was discovered which evidently was used to smelt lead in very primitive fashion.
18 I Billon's Annals of St. Louis, p. 299.
19 Reynolds' Illinois, p. 30,
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Renault, on his arrival, actively prospected the country for min- eral on both sides of the Mississippi. His residence was a short distance from Kaskaskia, near Fort de Chartres, then in process of construction. Very likely, he lived in the village known as St. Ann. 20 This village was the home of many ancient families of French pioneers, but together with the fort, once the seat of French power on the upper Mississippi, it has long since been swept away by the river. Renault received a number of other grants of land. One concession in Illinois was situated about five miles northeast of Fort de Chartres, where a village was built, honored with his own bap- tismal name, St. Philippe. He carried on his mining operations until 1742, and then returned to France. It is uncertain whether he left any heirs. At any rate, the title to his great grants has never been vigorously asserted. In 1812 John Baptiste Francois Menaud and Emily Josefa, asserting themselves to be heirs of Renault, set up a claim based on the title granted by Boisbriant and Des Ursins, but when the claim, although an ancient and valid grant to Renault, was rejected by the commissioners, nothing more was heard of these alleged heirs. It is said that the Renault heirs never appeared to make a claim for the concession St. Philippe, but the commissioners appointed to adjudicate the so-called Kaskaskia claims, pronounced the Renault concession of St. Philippe, embracing several thousand acres of land, good and valid. Mine La Motte was afterward confirmed by act of Congress to persons who claimed title under Renault, however their claim, in view of the circumstances detailed, may well be doubted. It is probable that when Renault left for France, the most active and enterprising miners took possession of the mine, and that this possession may have ripened in the course of years into title. But, according to Schoolcraft,21 the greater part of his workmen returned with him to France.22
Speaking of the extent of the mining operations of Renault, Austin says: "It is difficult to give any correct account of the produce of the
20 Roziers' History of the Valley of the Mississippi, p. 43.
21 Schoolcraft's View of Mines, Minerals, etc. p. 17 (New York, 1819).
22 At the late Louisiana Exposition in St. Louis, apparently based on no other fact than a similarity in name, a collection of persons named Renaud, Chenault, Reno, Renault, etc., absurdly met in convention and imagined that they were in some way descendants of this native of Picardy, unaware that some of the greatest lawyers and land speculators of the West, for over a hundred years, have been in vain trying to find his descendants, if he had any, in order to secure a claim to his grants, now worth many millions.
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different mines and 'diggings' for any given time, there being no data upon which a statement can be given. So that all that can be said on this subject is merely opinion arising from observation, and information derived from sources subject to misrepresentation ; and, inasmuch as some of the mines were opened and worked by M. Renault, seventy or eighty years ago, an account of their produce is extremely problematical; but if I were to judge from the extent of Renault's old workings, great quantities of minerals must have been produced, and from the number of old furnaces, large quantities of lead made." 23
The output of the old mines at La Motte, as well as Fourche à Renault and Mine à Breton, was first taken on pack-horses to Fort de Chartres; but after the foundation of Ste. Genevieve, almost opposite Fort de Chartres, it was taken to that town, and other points on the river. When carried by pack-horses, the lead, instead of being moulded into "pigs," was moulded into the shape of a collar and hung across the neck of the horse. On the ancient road leading from Mine La Motte to the river, lead moulded in this shape was found. At a later period, this metal was moved on two-wheeled French carts called charrettes. The lead not used in the country found its way down the Mississippi in keel or flatboats to New Orleans, after the foundation of that city,24 and was "from thence shipped for France."
It is certain that these mining operations at Mine La Motte on the headwaters of the St. Francois, on the Maramec at Fourche à Renault, and other ancient mining camps in that district, led to the establishment of a pioneer trace, or path, from Fort de Chartres, the seat of government, and home of Renault, to the mines in the interior of Missouri. This path developed into the wagon road leading from Ste. Genevieve west to these mines, and afterward to Mine à Breton, certainly the oldest wagon-road of Missouri. It follows a natural route, one affording the least obstacles; with little change, it has remained the public highway to the mines from the Mississippi since the settlement of the country.
Mine à Breton 25 was discovered about 1773, by Francois Azor,
23 Schoolcraft's Views of the Mines, etc,. p. 16.
24 2 American State Papers, Public Lands, p. 610.
25 For some reason this name is often spelled "Burton," although it must be quite apparent, upon reflection that Azor was never nicknamed "Burton" but "Breton," that is, a native of "Brittany," a province in the north of France, where he was born.
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alias Breton, "who, being on a hunt in that quarter, found the ore lying on the surface of the ground." Azor, alias Breton, was a native of the north of France, born in 1710. He was a soldier of the French army and under Marshal Saxe at the Battle of Fontenoy and at the storm of Bergen-op-Zoom. Afterward, he came to America, was first stationed at Fort de Chartres and participated in Brad- dock's defeat at Fort DuQuesne. Leaving the army, be became a hunter and miner. A man of robust and powerful constitution, he lived to the extraordinary age of III years, and died in 1821. When over one hundred years of age, he walked to church every Sunday 26 from the residence of the Micheaux family. Their home was two miles above the town of Ste. Genevieve, near what is now called "Little Rock " landing, and where at that time a ferry was maintained across the river. Breton received as compensation for his discovery a grant of only four arpens, but Moses Austin, in 1798, was granted a league square, or about seven thousand arpens of land, adjacent to Mine à Breton, embracing about one third of the mine, on condition that he erect a smelting furnace and establish a lead factory.27 In 1775, when the mine was probably discovered,28 miners from Mine à Renault, Old Mines, Mine La Motte, and other mining centers rushed to the new and rich discovery on Breton creek. Austin says that when he first knew the mines, in 1797, twenty French furnaces were in operation. In 1802 only one was in use; this was Austin's im- proved reverberatory furnace. Schoolcraft states that in 1799 the Spanish arsenals at New Orleans and Havanna drew considerable of their supplies for their navy from this source.29 In addition to these notable mines, a number of others were opened during the French and Spanish government, and small settlements sprung up near them.
Scattered along the Missouri, no doubt, French traders, trappers,
26 Rozier's History of the Mississippi Valley, p. 91 ; St. Louis Enquirer, Octo- ber 16, 1818. The Enquirer says: "He was certainly an old soldier at Fort de Chartres, when some of the people of the present day were little children at that place, " and again, "He is what we call a square-built man, of five feet eight inches high, full chest and forehead; his range of seeing and hearing somewhat impaired, but free from disease. Apparently able to hold out against time and worry for many years to come." Benton was at this time editorially connected with the Enquirer, and is supposed to have written this account of Breton
27 I American State Papers, p. 188.
28 Schoolcraft says: "The period of this discovery it would be difficult now to ascertain, Breton himself being unable to fix it. It has been known about forty years." Schoolcraft probably saw and talked to Breton in 1819
29 Schoolcraft's Lead Mines, etc., of Missouri, p. 19. (New York, 1819.)
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and hunters also resided during this period. We know that in 1745 the Marquis de Vaudreuil granted to Joseph Lefebvre d'Inglebert des Bruisseau the exclusive trading privilege on the Missouri and the streams falling into this river, for a period of five years, and that under this grant Des Bruisseau obligated himself to erect a fort on the Mis- souri, and to supply the garrison of the fort with the necessary means of subsistence, to pay the commandant an annual bounty of one hun- dred pistoles, and to transport free of charge the provisions and effects of this commandant. Des Bruisseau also agreed to supply the In- dians with the necessary merchandise, and to maintain peace among them. De Vaudreuil gave as reason for granting this monopoly that it would cut off the colonists from all kind of trade with the Indians, and thus force them to cultivate the soil. To make these set- tlers industrious, he also opposed the introduction of negro slaves into the Illinois country, because this would tend to make the inhabi- tants indolent. After receiving his trade monoply on the Missouri, Des Bruisseau came up to Fort de Chartres and there established him- self. It is said that he built some sort of a fort or trading post and formed a settlement on the Missouri; but where this fort, trading post, or settlement was situated is not now known, possibly at the mouth of the Osage, as a vague impression prevails that a fort once existed there. That a number of French, in 1744, lived on the Mis- souri appears from the census of Louisiana of that year, which shows that 200 white males then resided on the Missouri, and ten negro slaves of both sexes.30 In this enumeration, the residents of Ste. Genevieve were certainly not embraced, the village of Ste. Genevieve being considered a part of the Illinois country, from which the Mis- souri river district, both under the French and Spanish governments, always was considered politically separate, although the population of the Ste. Genevieve and adjacent country, prior to the treaty of Paris of 1762, by which the country east of the Mississippi was ceded to England, no doubt was very insignificant.
30 Gayarre's Louisiana - French Domination-vol. ii., p. 28.
CHAPTER X
Louisiana Ceded by France to Spain, 1762-Opposition to Cession and Delay in Transfer of Territory-De Ulloa First Spanish Governor, 1766-Ulloa Ordered to Leave the Country-Spanish Expedition Under Rui y Morales, from New Orleans, to Build Two Forts at Mouth of the Missouri, 1767- Rui Appointed Commandant of the Missouri Country-How Spanish Military Voyage Up the Mississippi Conducted-Instructions to Command- ant Concerning Building of Fort, Treatment of Indians, Relations with the English, Inducements to Married Men, Importation of Girls for Wives, Suppression of Saloons and Vice-Meetings, Rules for Indian Traders, &c. -Plan of Spanish Fort Erected at Mouth of the Missouri-Rui Succeeded by Don Pedro Piernas-Winter Journey of Piernas and His Men-Spanish Fort on Missouri Ordered Delivered to St. Ange-Spanish Government Stores Attached in "Paincourt" (St. Louis)-Alexander O'Reilly Captain- General of Louisiana, 1769-Piernas Appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Louisiana, 1770-Ste. Genevieve and St. Louis First Settlements in Upper Louisiana-Instructions of O'Reilly to Piernas Concerning Govern- ment of the Country, &c .- Varied Military Career of O'Reilly-Report of Piernas to O'Reilly Concerning the Country, Inhabitants, &c.
The territory west of the Mississippi was, by the secret treaty of Fontainebleau, ceded by France to Spain, December 3, 1762, and in a letter dated April 21, 1764, eighteen months after the treaty had been signed, the king of France officially so advised M. D'Abbadie, who was then the director-general of the province of Louisiana. The proclamation of this change of government provoked a violent outburst of indignation, principally in lower Louisiana and New Orleans; the cession was bitterly denounced, and active opposition to the change of government was organized. The few Canadian- French residing at that time in upper Louisiana gave the subject very little consideration.1 Spain, fearing armed resistance to her authority, resorted to amicable measures, and deferred taking pos- session of the new province. This delay strengthened the popular belief of the inhabitants of lower Louisiana that the cession to Spain was but a temporary political measure, and that at an early day the country would be retroceded to France. When eventually, on March
1 But Shepard says that when the French traders and trappers, who had just settled in St. Louis, heard of the transfer of the country to Spain it "threw a shade over the prospect of the future, and a year of bitter rage disturbed the quiet of the people of St. Louis, without a foe to fight or means to change their position." (History of St. Louis, p. 16.) But he cites no authority for his statement.
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5, 1766, after a delay exceeding three years, De Ulloa,2 the first Span- ish governor, appeared, although no opposition was made to his landing with his small escort of two companies, the French Superior Council declined to make him the formal transfer of the province which would be usual in such cases, and after several years, ordered him to leave the colony. Ulloa would not assume the responsibility of endeavoring "to take forcible possession," and on October 31, 1768, left Louisiana. But during this period of uncertainty, in March, 1767, he sent an expedition from New Orleans up the Mis- sissippi under the command of Captain Don Francesco Rui y Morales, to build two forts at the mouth of the Missouri. This was the first official act, under the new Spanish government, looking to the occupa- tion of upper Louisiana. In order that the object of the expedi- tion might not be divulged and the success of the enterprise thus jeopardized or frustrated by the English, secret instructions for Captain Rui were transmitted by Ulloa to the commandant of the Illinois, St. Ange, under separate cover, to be delivered to Rui on his arrival. Incidentally, it is manifest from this that from the first Ulloa recognized St. Ange as the commandant of the Spanish Illinois country, holding this position by virtue of his French commission, nor did he supersede or remove him. Ulloa, however, appointed Cap-
2. Don Antonio de Ulloa was born in Seville, Spain, January 12, 1716; entered the Spanish navy in 1733; was a man of scholarly attainments, and when a joint French and Spanish commission was organized to measure an arc of the meridian at the equator, to determine the configuration of the earth, scientific work undertaken at the instance of the French Academy of Science, Bouguer, La Condamine and Godin being the French members of the commission, Ulloa, then only nineteen years old, and another Spanish officer named George Juan, who had acquired celebrity as a mathematician, were appointed the Spanish members. They were employed in this work thirteen years. Quito was the scene of the arduous labors of this commission. In 1748 Ulloa as well as Juan published their observations at the expense of the king of Spain. On his return the ship in which he sailed was nearly captured by English privateers, and to avoid further danger, his ship sailed north and entered Louisbourg, in Nova Scotia, thinking that it was still in the possession of France, but the place had been captured by the English, and he was obliged to surrender, and was sent a prisoner to England. When his mission became known, the Royal Society of England, of which Martin Folkes was then president, secured his liberty and the restoration of his papers, and he was elected a member of the society. Returning to Spain, he was made captain of a frigate, afterward was advanced to the grade of commodore, and in 1762 made governor of Louisiana. As lieutenant-general of the navy in 1779, he was ordered to make a cruise in the latitude of the Azores, under sealed orders to capture eight English ships, but so absorbed was he in his astronomical studies that he forgot all about his sealed letters, and returned without accomplishing anything. Of course, he never was employed in active naval service again, but continued to be employed in naval scientific matters. He died on the island of Leon, July 3, 1795.
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tain Rui commandant of the Missouri country, that is to say, the territory along the Missouri and north of this river. This Spanish expedition sent from New Orleans consisted of two boats, or bateaux, carrying one second lieutenant, Don Francisco Gomez, two sergeants, six corporals, one drummer, and thirty five men, including two cadets, all belonging to the "Spanish Company," which had accompanied Ulloa to New Orleans and then quartered there. The soldiers were equally divided in the bateaux, each also having ten oarsmen in addition to the soldiers. The men were so divided that, including the corporals and drummers, each boat had thirty-one men for rowing, and that from five to seven men could always rest; "so that continuous shifts might be made on the river." That the labor would be fatiguing the instructions recognized, but it is observed that " this is one of the labors that the troops in the colonies must always undergo." The sergeant and two cadets only were exempted from this labor, but it is suggested that they ought also to labor at the oars at times as volunteers, "in order to enliven the others." Two French officers escorted the expedition, one of these, Don Guido du Fossat, as engineer, under whose supervision the forts were to be built. Al- though the name is not given, it is likely that Martin Duralde was the other French officer, who also acted as interpreter. Don Juan Baptiste Valleau was the surgeon. It was provided that the married soldiers and their families should make the journey in one boat, under com- mand of a sergeant, but not to separate on the voyage from the other boat. Detailed instructions were given by Ullao as to how this voy- age, which was evidently considered an enterprise of great magnitude and of first importance, should be conducted. The workmen and laborers who accompany the troops are required to carry with them sufficient rations or funds to support themselves on the voyage, and those having boats of their own are required to keep in company with the government boats during the whole trip. It is explicitly ordered that an early start must be made every morning, that desertion must be prevented, that the English posts at the Rio de Iberville and at Natchez must not be touched, but the boats to wave their flags and gallardetes as they pass, and that above Natchez all land- ings must be made on the right bank of the Mississippi. Every even- ing rations of bread, meat, and soup are ordered to be distributed to the soldiers, and they are "not to be allowed to take provisions at their discretion, as is customary among the French." No brandy is to
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