History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men, Part 10

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1358

USA > Missouri > St Louis County > St Louis City > History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men > Part 10

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1 It is only proper to give the other side of this Chauvin claim,-the side of the occupants whom it was sought to oust. The following statement of the case was published in 1853 :

"A grant was made to Madame Chauvin in May, 1784, of sixteen hundred arpens of land, about six miles west of St. Louis, on both sides of the River des Peres, or, in the words of the grant, 'said river running through it from north to south, to be improved within a year and a day.' In June, 1785, her grant was canceled for non user, and the land specifically granted to one Tayon. Tayon went to St. Charles, and Gov- ernor Trudeau granted to Madame Papin three thousand two hundred arpens, including the above sixteen hundred arpens. Tayon came back, told the Governor his grant had been invaded, but as he did not wish to disturb the occupant, would be satis- fied with a floating right for the sixteen hundred arpens ; he got this, and sold it to Mr. Chouteau, tbe brother of Mrs. Papin, and this float was afterwards located.

"J. F. Perry bought of Mrs. Chauvin, in Illinois, her right, and presented it to the old board of commissioners for confirma- tion. They rejected the claim. Subsequently it was presented again and confirmed, ' to be surveyed conformably to possession, and at the expense of the claimant.' This was in 1811; the survey was made and approved in 1832, and the very place of Madame Chauvin's possession pointed out to the surveyor and marked on the plat, and this survey took the eastern half of the Papin tract, showing that Tayon knew what he stated when be got his float. But the Papin survey was before this, confirmed earlier, and hence the Chauvin survey could not bold, although Gen. Ashley, then in Congress, tried to get it patented.

" It has slept since, sometimes in the hands of Elliott Lee, Jesse G. Lindell, Daniel D. Page, and others, until it turns up to belong to Joshua R. Stanford, of Illinois, who appointed A. H. Evans his agent to locate the claim.

" This ingenious man fixes his corner for the sixteen hundred arpens of land on the River des Peres, and there turns tbe claim upon its axis, and rolls it round so that its soutbeast

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SAINT LOUIS AS A CENTRE OF TRADE.

The holder of a New Madrid certificate having got an act of Congress passed authorizing him to locate it, actually attempted for that purpose to take posses- sion under this warrant of Duncan's Island and the water-front of St. Louis. Much of the city prop- erty and school property was squatted upon in the same way, with a network of claims and a regiment of claimants, so that in most cases, after years of costly litigation and delay, the authorities found it cheaper to compromise than to make good their com- plete title. The schools in this way, as fully described elsewhere, lost a great amount of valuable property.

Another thing which had an injurious effect on the value of property was the unsettled condition of the city's estate in the commons and common fields. It would be merc repetition to state here what has been so fully set forth in other chapters about these tracts of land and the disposition made of them. But the fact that the city held all this land, and would of course some day sell it, put St. Louis in the position of a powerful and favored competitor with every dealer in rcal cstate in the community. The city could sell on terms which no ordinary operator was able to offer. It could hold on as long as it pleased, sell all or as much as it pleased, give what times of payment it pleased, in short, could bull or bear the market at its option. No operator in real estate was either able or willing to lock horns with such a gigan- tic and powerful opponent, and as long as the city hield the commons it had the speculation in real property at its mercy.

corner shall settle in the Chouteau mill tract, just across the Widow Camp's lot, and then run off north and west for quan- tity, running over the Grand Prairie common field lots to a little north of the St. Charles road, and going west from about the Prairie House so as to overlay John Lay, and just escape the Côte Brilliante tract, and so avoid the place where Tayon said the land was, and where Jean F. Perry had it sur- veyed.

" This claim has heen rejected in every court where they have tried to introduce it, rejected by the surveyor-general here, rejected by the commissioner of the general land office at Washington, and is now tried to be pressed upon the Secretary of the Interior hy the employment of Col. Benton as its advo- cate. . Col. Benton is the member of Congress from this district, and we should like to know how much he is to receive for the effort to divest hundreds of owners of lands in the Grand Prairie.

" Mr. Geyer, in the performance of his duties as a lawyer, we have understood, was offered one-half of this claim if he would make it stiek anywhere save where Perry had located it, hut he could not do it. The influence of Col. Benton, representa- tive in Congress from this distriet, is invoked in the hope of getting a different decision from that which has heen rendered by the courts and the commissioner of the general land office in the case. We shall see how it works upon the secretary of the interior."

The commons embraced under various surveys about three thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven acres of land, lying (as described in 185º)

"south and southwest of the eity, and emhraces such locali- ties as the House of Refuge, the Lafayette Park, etc., but a inore accurate recital of its boundary lines may not he without interest. The southeastern boundary, then, hegins on the river- hank, about a half-mile below the 'Sugar Loaf,' or, to he more precise, at a point three to four hundred feet below the residence of Charles L. Tucker, Esq. ; thence it follows the river-bank to a point nearly opposite the Workhouse; thence, leaving the river, and heing bounded on the east hy lands of Messrs. Kay- ser, Kennett, and others, it proceeds northerly into the present First Ward of the city, following a straight line, through the property of Thomas Allen, Esq., Henry G. Soulard, Esq., and others, between Eighth and Ninth Streets, to its intersection with Hickory Street ; thence westwardly along Hickory Street to a point between Morton Street and St. Ange Avenue, about opposite the terminus of Fourteenth Street ; thence northwardly again to Chouteau Avenue; thence westwardly with Chouteau Avenue to its intersection with Grand Avenue; thence with Grand Avenue southwardly to the Stringtown road, and with the Stringtown road southwardly again to the vicinity of tracts held hy Messrs. Chartrand and Delore, a little below the house formerly kept by Peter Delore; and thence finally in an east- erly direction to the point of heginning on the river. These limits, it will he perceived, emhrace many of the most elevated plateaus, and withal one of the most charming districts in the suburbs of the city proper."

The common fields are described at the same date :

"There were a number of these common fields ahout St. Louis,-the Prairie des Noyer fields in the south, heginning at or near the present Grand Avenue, running westwardly for depth, and (hy way of some sort of definite location) intersect- ing what are now the suhurhan grounds of Henry Shaw, Esq .; the Cul de Sac common fields, a little north of Prairie des Noyer, and emhracing and extending north and south of the grounds of John S. McCune, Esq., Dr. Barret, the Rock Spring Cemetery, etc. ; then the St. Louis cominon fields, heginning eastwardly at Third Street, and extending from say the St. Charles road to a distance helow Olive Street; and finally the Grand Prairie fields still farther west."

Successive acts of Congress of June 13, 1812, and May, 1824, and of the Missouri Assembly in March, 1835, authorized their sale, with reservations for schools. It was put to vote at the latter date whether the commons should be sold, and whether a half, fourth, or tenth of the proceeds should go to schools. The ballot decided in favor of salc, and of appropri- ating one-tenth to the school fund.

The act provided a sub-division of the common into

. parcels of not less than one nor more than forty acres, besides which the buyers of common lots were not to pay the amounts which they had bid on the respective lots, but to pay an interest or rent of five per cent. a ycar on the amount of purchase-moncy for the period of ten years, after which, on paying the full amount bid, the purchasers were to receive their deeds. Buyers who preferred it were permitted to continue

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HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.

the payment of such rent for the space of fifty years, after which, and every fifty years thereafter, their lots would be revalued, and a rent of five per centum per annum paid on these revaluations. It will be con- ceded that the terms of payment under this rule were liberal and accommodating enough to the speculators in common grounds. Accordingly, under these terms, the common was advertised for sale in 1836, and very nearly all, if not quite all, the lots sold. It appears that the affair went off spiritedly, and the prices ranged from fifty to one hundred and fifty dollars per acre, the average being about one hundred dollars. On reflection, the buyers, with few exceptions, seemed to unite in the opinion that these prices were excessive, and that their common purchases were a common grand " take in." From the date of sale the Board of Aldermen was flooded with the petitions of the buyers for release from their purchases, and for a long while, and until the city had again secured the title to nearly the entire common, the authorities were engaged in forfeiting these first sales of 1836.

The question of selling the common was then allowed to sleep until about 1842, when only a few of the forfeited lots were resold. In 1854 the City Council, under further authority of the Legislature, passed another ordinance making new and different arrangements for the sale of the common. The ordi- nance appointed a " Board of City Common," with authority to sub-divide the common into lots twenty- five feet front by one hundred and twenty-five feet deep; to intersect it with streets and avenues of no less width than sixty feet, and alleys of twenty feet, and with power to sell from time to time at auction sale, on terms of one-sixth cash and the remainder in equal annual installments of one, two, three, four, and five years, the interest on the deferred payments to be six per centum per annum. Under this ordinance five sales took place, the first being in June, 1854, and the last in July, 1859. The amounts realized in these sales sum up as follows :

First sale, June, 1854, aggregate proceeds, $210,000

Second « Oct. 1854, 66

160,000

Third May, 1855, 66

145,000

Fourth "

Oct. 1856, 66

100,000

Fifth July, 1858,

55,000

making a total of $670,000. Of this amount one- tenth, or $67,000, was paid to the public schools, who in some instances took land instead of money, and from what remained, $453,000 went to the sinking fund, and $150,000 to the purchase or the improve- ment of public parks; this disposition of the pro- ceeds being directed by the ordinance which authorized the sales. To show how " circumstances alter cases,"

and how opinions and values change with time, in these latter sales of 1854, 1856, and 1858 there were sums paid for the purchase of single lots 25 feet front by 125 feet in depth which at the first sale of 1836 would have purchased twenty-seven and a half acres, or more than one acre to every foot front. Or, to change the comparison, if the sum of $1375 invested in 1856 for a single lot of 25 feet front had been judiciously invested at the sale of 1836, as it might have been in numerous parts of the common, it would in 1859 have been worth to the party investing from $144,000 to $150,000, but it was the good for- tune of the city, and the evil fortune of the buyers, that, as stated above, the original sales were nearly all forfeited.

The last sale took place Oct. 4, 1859, and a con- temporary report of it said that, ----

" The sale of common lots by the city, effected by Messrs. Papin & Brother last Tuesday, was a complete success. The lots advertised were all, or nearly all, sold, and the prices real- ized were satisfactory. Lots on Maramec Street, opposite Mr. John Withnell's, brought from $14 to $21 per foot, averaging over $17 per foot. On Kansas, Michigan, and other avenues which intersect block 80 the average was about $10 per foot. Block 80 itself realized about $48,000. Afterwards on Caron- delet road the lots brought from $12 to $16.50 per foot, on Michigan Avenue $8 to $15 per foot, and on the various other thoroughfares from $5 to $16 per foot. In all 306 lots were sold. The attendance was large, numbering from 250 to 300 bidders. The sale was prolonged until eight o'clock in the night, at which hour three lots were sold on Lafayette Avenue, opposite Chris. Stechlin's brewery, for $77.50 per foot. The aggregate amount of sales was 7684 feet front, producing $80,601."

It was after these sales had gotten under way that real estate values in St. Louis began to "jump," as will be seen by the following table :

ASSESSED VALUE OF REAL ESTATE IN ST. LOUIS.

For the year 1842.

$12,101,018

1850

29,676,649

1852

38,281,668

1853

39,397,186

1854

41,104,921 42,456,757

1855.

1856

60,689,625

1857

73,662,043

1858

82,160,449

1859

92,340,870

We do not, however, by any means wish to imply that the real estate interest was stagnant previous to this. On the contrary, there had been, as has already been shown, a steady and rapid rise in values all along. It has been satisfactory as regards St. Louis; it would be enormous in respect to any other commu- nity, Chicago excepted. A few salient facts culled from various sources will illustrate this.

Augustin Langlois conveyed to Albert Tison, Nov. 29, 1804, in the Carondelet portion of St. Louis, two

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SAINT LOUIS AS A CENTRE OF TRADE.

hundred arpens, "just as it is from top to bottom," for fifty-five dollars.

The first recorded conveyance of a lot within the limits of the old French village of St. Louis under the jurisdietion of the United States government was on Jan. 15, 1805, when Franeis Liberge, Jr., sold to Dominick Huge a lot two hundred and forty feet front on Second Street, between Market and Chestnut Strects, and one hundred and fifty feet deep westward. The price for this piece was stated in the deed to be four hundred dollars.

A tract of fifteen or sixteen aeres a little northwest of the old City Hotel, corner of Third and Vine Streets, was bought at an early day by a Mr. Earl, of Baltimore, for one hundred and fifty dollars. He did not consider it worth the taxes, and let it go.

In 1805, Joseph Lacroix sold to Louis Lemonde, for forty dollars, forty arpens, or nearly thirty-five acres, situated in the vicinity of the present Lindell and Laclede Hotels.

The first acquirement of the well-known Lueas estate was recorded on Dec. 14, 1807. The deed shows that Pre. Duchouquette sold " to John B. C. Lucas, first judge of the Territory of Louisiana, resid- ing in this town of St. Louis, a house built of logs stuck into ground, a barn built of cedar wood, the house being underwalled and covered with shingles, the whole lying and being situated on two sites of the ordinary size and dimensions in this town." The deed further reeites the location, which was on the north side of Chestnut Street, from Second to Third Street. The sale was " in consideration of six hun- dred dollars' worth of peltry, that is to say, two pounds and a half of shaved deerskin and marketable per dol- lar." Judge Lucas paid one-third of the six hundred dollars in cash, and gave a note for the balanec. Judge Lucas died in 1843, owning, according to inventory in the Probate Court, $57,688 of personal estate, five lots in the old town of St. Louis, all that portion of the then city from Fourth to Eighth Street, between Walnut and Market, fifty acres from Eleventh to Seventeenth Street, between Market and St. Charles Streets, and four hundred and eighty-eight acres in other parts of St. Louis County. The assessed value of the entire real estate in 1842 was $136,890 for city and $150,000 for country property.

The first assessment of property for taxation in the town of St. Louis of which there is any record was in 1811. The total assessed valuc of real and per- sonal property was $134,516; the rate of taxation was one-half of one per cent., and the amount of taxes paid was $672.58. The heaviest tax-payer within the town was Auguste Chouteau, and his

property was valued at $15,664. This Choutcau also owned about $61,000 worth of property in the county outside of the then town, but which in latter years became a part of the present city. Other large prop- erty-owners of that time, whose estates were not tlien in the city, but subsequently added, were Judge J. B. C. Lucas, valued at $10,555 ; John O'Fallon, $2450 ; William Clark, $19,930 ; William Christy, $16,000 ; and Henry Von Phul, $8175.

In 1816 a lot sixty-five feet front on Main Street, between Locust and Vine, and running through to Second Street, was bought for $1200. In December, 1850, a little more than one-third of the same lot sold for $56,000. Prior to this time it had yielded an im- mense rent for many years.

In other parts of the town of St. Louis at that time (1816) property was sold at merely a nominal figure, by the arpent or lot. There was scarcely any en- hancement in the value of property from that time until the years 1829 and 1830.

In the year 1829 we find that a lot on the corner of Morgan and Fifth was sold for three dollars and fifty cents per foot. In the year 1832 property on the corner of Fifth and Cerre Streets was sold for two dollars and fifty cents per foot. In the same year ninety-five feet on the northeast corner of Seventh and Spruce Streets was sold for one dollar and eighty cents per foot. It was worth from three hundred to four hundred dollars per foot in 1859. In the same year (1832) property on the corner of Fifth and Gra- tiot Streets was sold for two dollars per foot.

In the year 1835 property on the corner of Wash and Sixth Streets was sold for the sum of seven dol- lars and fifty cents per foot. In the same year a lot at the corner of Hickory and Seventh Streets was sold for one dollar per foot, and the whole of block 157 was sold for the sum of three hundred dollars. In the same year the lot on Broadway opposite Franklin Avenue, upon which Wimer's new building is now situated, was sold for ten dollars per foot.

In the year 1836 property on Seventh Street, be- tween Wash and Carr, was sold for six dollars per foot.

In the same year, property on Green Street, be- tween Tenth and Eleventh, sold for three dollars per foot; on Eleventh, between Green and Morgan Streets, for three dollars per foot ; on Austin Street, between Twelfth and Fourteenth, for about sixty cents average per foot ; on Market Street, between Third and Fourth Streets, at twenty dollars per foot; and on the corner of Clark Avenue and Seventh Street, for six dollars per foot.

In 1837 property on Twelfth Street, between

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HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.

Brooklyn and Howard Streets, was sold for five dol- lars per foot.

In 1841, at the northwest corner of Broadway and Jefferson Strects, at cight dollars per foot.

In the same year, on the corner of Chambers and Ninth Streets, for five dollars per foot.

Property on Olive Street, in the vicinity of Twelfth and Thirteenth Streets, sold as late as 1844 for from twelve to thirteen dollars per foot.

Take Stoddard's addition, for instance, which was sold in the fall of 1851. Property on the corner of Locust and Beaumont Streets was then sold for fifteen dollars per foot; on the corner of Washington Av- enue and Garrison Avenue for five dollars and scv- enty-four cents per foot ; on the corner of Franklin Avenue and Ewing Avenue for fifteen dollars per foot ; on the corner of Lucas Avenue and Ewing Avenue for ten dollars ; on the corner of Lucas and Leffing- well Avenues for the same price, and at the same ratio throughout the whole addition.

Eight years later this property was held at sixty to one hundred dollars per foot. On Chouteau Av- enue land worth twenty dollars in 1851 was held at above one hundred and fifty dollars in 1859. It was noted this latter year that there was a regular and systematic ratio of property value enhancement, and the reason assigned for this-undoubtedly the true reason, too-was that, unlike many cities, St. Louis had not grown to her proud position in a day or a year. Nor will she, like many of them, cease to en- large and prosper at the option of speculators. Man- ufactories and business of every kind and character have steadily increased and kept pace with this im- mense enhancement in the value of property. Build- ings have been constantly going up, yet not fast enough to accommodate the immense emigration con- stantly swelling the population. In fact, the city has never been so prosperous, and the future is even more promising than the past has been satisfactory. There is to-day more foreign capital in the city and State seeking investment in real estate, business, and manu- factories than there has ever been in any previous three years together. There is a larger margin for speculation in real property in St. Louis than there has ever been.

Real estate is enhancing in value more and more rapidly every year, and it must continue to do so until the vast territory stretching as far west as the Rocky Mountains shall be densely populated and pours its immense harvests annually into our markets. It is truc that it requires more money to invest largely than it did a few years ago, but the profits are greater in proportion to the investment than they ever were.

There is not a single city in the Union where rents yield such a percentage on the value of the property, and yet any number of houses in any locality could readily be rented, if they were finished, at the same profits.

Continuing these illustrations, we find it noted that " when Mr. Cozens made the survey, property on Lin- dell Avenue, west of Grand, could have been bought at from three to five dollars per front foot ; it is now worth in many places one hundred and fifty dollars. He has scen property on Fifth Street sell for two dol- lars and fifty cents and three dollars per foot,-two hundred and two hundred and fifty dollars a lot were high prices ; now the same property is valued at over fifteen hundred dollars per front foot. In the early '40's Henry Chouteau sold at auction two hundred fect front on Seventh Street, corner of Spruce, at fifty cents per front foot. In Stoddard's addition, along in the middle '50's, property sold at six and twelve dol- lars per front foot ; to-day the same property is worth from one hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars. Mr. Cozens laid out in 1861-62 the Camp Jackson tract, which took in from Garrison Avenue, or Thir- tieth Street to King's Highway, south of Olive, through which Pine and Chestnut Streets were pro- jected. At the first sale, about 1863, property in that tract brought from ten to fifteen dollars per front foot ; to-day it is worth from one hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars.

" In 1841, with Mr. Brown, Mr. Cozens laid out William Christy's western addition, from Fourteenth Street west to Jefferson Avenuc, and between St. Charles Street and Cass Avenue ; John Mullanphy's estate, north of Cass Avenue, from Broadway west to Jefferson Avenue ; a sub-division for L. A. Benoist, W. G. and G. W. Ewing, on the south side of Cass and east of Jefferson Avenue, property in which sold for from one to five dollars per front foot."

Here follow some newspaper clippings :

1843 .- " The value of tho real and personal property in the city of St. Louis reported by the late assessment is $11,721,- 425.91. The reports from the treasurer say it will be necessary to levy a tax of one per cent. on the assessment to meet the de- mands of the current year."

1844 .- " The total value of the taxable property of this city as assessed during the preseut year, and just approved by the board of aldermen, is $14,843,700. Last year the assessed value was about $11,000,000.

" It will be seen by an advortisement in this paper that Mr. Lucas designs to offer at public sale a large number of his lots, situated in the rear of the Planters' House, and in what must be the most fashionable and agreeablo part of the city. The location is between Market and Olive Streets, and extending from Thirteenth to Sixteenth Streets."

1845 .- " Add the three districts together, and the total num- ber of houses erected in 1844 in the corporate limits of St. Louis

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SAINT LOUIS AS A CENTRE OF TRADE.

may be set down at eleven hundred and forty-six. Of these many were churches, publie edifices, and costly private resi- dences. But great as the improvement was in 1844, unless some very unexpected reverse comes upon us, the amount to be expended in building in 1845 will quite equal it.

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History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men, Part 10

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898 Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts Number of Pages: 1358

Author: Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas), 1843-1898
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts
Number of Pages: 1358