History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men, Part 114

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 114

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The temples of justice, however, and the instru- ments of punishment in those primitive days were just as poor and mean as can be conceived, and very little calculated to draw the crowds which they had no capacity to accommodate. The machinery of jus- tice seems to have advanced in complications and magnificence in proportion as the public interest in her mysterious, awful ways has diminished and grown cold. This is the way civilization works, perhaps. We do not say that early St. Louis contented itself with the corn-crib court-house and the goods-box jail seen by Mr. Darby in his early rides upon the circuit ; yet in 1811, as Brackenridge describes, there was no jail but the martello tower of the old Spanish fort, and no court-house but the stone barrack in that fort, where vermin must have been plenty, or a dining-room in a tavern by the river-side. The record-office and records did not keep much better

1513

BENCH AND BAR.

state, nor were the court forms ceremonious or intri- cate, except in the matter of pleas and replications and practice, where the Indiana forms, which had been introduced, were, like the farmer's worm fonce, so twisted in and out that he could not tell which side he was on for the life of him. These forms cost the simple and ingenuous French habitans of St. Louis many a dollar and many an arpent.

There may, perhaps, have been a litigious propen- sity among the primitive St. Louisans in respect of suits upon personal issues. The number of slander and scandal cases during the Spanish régime is no- ticeable, and makes the supposition thrown out quite probable. The early judges under the American régime probably thought it needful to be severe in order to maintain their dignity, at least they were severe in many cases. The newspaper court reporter of the present day had no existence then, luckily for him, but the courts appear to have resented in a very uppish manner not only criticism, but every other sort of reference to their proceedings and man- ners, and there are several cases on record-the chief of them noticed in other parts of this work-in which criticism and comment were punished severely as constituting contempt. It usually happens that these blows of the courts, no matter whom they are aimed against, light upon the best and most amiable citizens, and this has been the case in St. Louis from the time of Joseph Charless, the first printer, to that of Samuel T. Glover, who in 1865, as we have seen, was fined five hundred dollars for contempt in resist- ing an unjust statute that impaired his most precious rights as a citizen.

As a rule, however, the chief and characteristic trait of the courts of St. Louis has been the great individuality and force of ability of the bench and bar, the important character and intricate nature of the issues joined, and the simplicity of the court's methods and surroundings. The extreme economy of the ad- ministration in primitive times has already been suf- ficiently spoken of. This proceeded in part from the simple surroundings with which judge, jury, and bar contented themselves on all occasions, from the low salaries allowed, and from the doubling up of many offices and functions in one person. Thus the clerk of the Circuit Court of St. Louis County was also always ex officio recorder of deeds, and usually prothonotary or register of wills and clerk of the Probate Court like- wise. An odd instance of this consolidation of offices in one person is to be observed in the case of Dr. David Waldo, of whom some mention has already been made in this chapter. Said Mr. John F. Darby, " He was clerk of the Circuit Court of Gasconade

County and ex officio recorder of deeds for the county ; he was also clerk of the County Court of Gasconade County, justice of the peace, acting as coroner and as deputy sheriff, it is said, as well as postmaster. He held a commission also as major in the militia, and was a practicing physician. The duties of all these offices David Waldo attended to personally, and dis- charged with signal and distinguished ability. The county of Gasconade at the time took in an immense territory, including within its boundaries the scope of country now included in the counties of Osage, Maries, Phelps, Pulaski, Wright, and Texas, and on that account it was called by many of the inhabitants ' The State of Gasconade, David Waldo, Governor.' In speaking of the doctor, even to his face, very few of them saluted him as mister, doctor, or major ; they all called him ' Dave.'"

The court-room. in which this factotum exercised every quality and degree of civil function consisted of one large hewed log house, with one room, a kitchen, and some log stables, so that all had to eat and sleep in the same room, and after the table for breakfast or dinner, as the case might be, had been cleared away, the judge would take a seat on one side of the room in one of the old-fashioned split-bottomed chairs and hold court.

It is to be observed of Waldo, moreover, that he was a gentleman, a scholar, and a man of many superior qualities, and that he did all these things for the peo- ple among whom he lived and not for himself, differing therein entirely from that Iowa family not so many years back, of whom the tradition runs that, profiting by sundry convenient laws of the new State, they moved out into the open prairie, and there, all by themselves, after taking up no end of government land, went through all the motions of erecting a new county, held an election, county, township, and State, electing themselves to all the offices, secured the benefit of the school-house, school, court-house, road, and other county funds, and then issued county bonds at a rate to make the Egyptian Khedive stare, selling them for what they would bring and pocketing the proceeds. Dr. Waldo's method of serving the public was much more genuine and cheaper than the modern method, and the public service was benefited in proportion.

As the officers, so the judges, with one or two cx- ceptions. And well was it for early St. Louis and Missouri that they possessed an honest and capable judiciary in the face of so much and so many tempta- tions, for otherwise corruption and villany would have stalked abroad.

As we have said, the court's surroundings in St. Louis were a little less rude than in Gasconade, yet

1514

HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.

primitive enough in all conscience. The first court- house, in the tavern under the bank, where Emilien Yosti waited upon his boatmen customers, the second, in the old fort on the hill, have already been spoken of sufficiently in several parts of this book, nor is there need to say much of the third, that on the west side of Third Street, between Spruce and Almond Streets, a little one-story house of frame, fronting on Third Street. Here, within these lowly precincts, McNair ruled upon the bench, Benton took his attor- ney's oath ; herc sat Lucas, here pleaded Barton and .Easton and Pettibone, and many another of the goodly names enrolled in the preceding pages among the pio- neers. The catalogue of buildings need not be ex- tended further. So frugal did the people continue to be that even as late as 1827, when population was growing rapidly and the streets were being paved, the city could only spare eighteen thousand dollars to build a new court-house, and the structure was erected com- plete within the estimates,-two miracles in one !

There is nothing more to be said upon this subject except that the bench and bar of St. Louis continue to maintain their pristine vigor and intelligence, illus- trating the records of the future, not by extinguishing but by intensifying the lights of the past upon them, making

" Experience the arch wherethrough

Gleams that untraveled world, whose margin fades

Forever and forever where they go."

The Bar Association of St. Louis .- On the eve- ning of the 16th of March, 1874, a meeting of the members of the St. Louis bar was held in Circuit Court Room No. 2 for the purpose of " considering the propriety and feasibility of forming a Bar Associ- ation in the city of St. Louis." Col. Thomas T. Gantt was made temporary chairman, and E. W. Pat- tison was chosen secretary. Alexander Martin stated at length the objects and purposes of the proposed association, and on his motion a committee consisting of five members of the bar was appointed by the chair to draft a suitable constitution and by-laws and sub- mit the same at an adjourned mecting of the bar. The committee consisted of Alexander Martin, Henry Hitchcock, R. E. Rombauer, George M. Stewart, and Given Campbell. The next meeting was held on the 23d of March, 1874, at which a constitution and by- laws were submitted and adopted substantially as presented, and the final organization and incorpora- tion effected. The incorporators were :

John R. Shepley, E. B. Adams, Henry Hitchcock, G. A. Finkelnburg, Shepard Barclay, Arba N. Crane, Edmund T. Allen, Edward T. Farish, Thomas Thoroughman, E. W. Pat- tison, Alex. Davis, Amos M. Thayer, Nathaniel Holmes,

Alex. Martin, H. T. Kent, E. C. Kehr, John R. Warfield, C. S. Hayden, A. M. Gardner, John W. Dryden, E. B. Sherzer, George M. Stewart, R. H. Spencer, William Patrick, Charles T. Daniel, W. F. Boyle, Joseph Shippen, R. E. Rom- bauer, Edward W. Tittman, H. D. Wood, J. N. Litton, E. P. McCarty, D. W. Paul, T. A. Post, J. B. Woodward, Samuel T. Glover, William H. Bliss, H. A. Hanessler, J. S. Fullerton, J. S. Garland, Hugo Muench, Preston Player, Leonard Wilcox, M. Dwight Collier, Robert W. Good, George W. Lubke, Leo Tarlton, Charles G. Singleton, W. H. Holmes, W. H. Lackland, R. Schulenburg, J. F. Maury, Wm. H. Clopton, Lucien Eaton, Braxton Bragg, Jr., J. F. Conroy, J. Q. A. Fritchey, H. C. Hart, Jr., Henry M. Post, David Goldsmith, William C. Marshall, D. D. Duncan, John C. Orrick, William B. Thompson, H. L. War- ren, J. S. Laurie, John E. Jones, Silas B. Jones, J. A. Seddon, Jr., J. O. Broadhead, A. M. Sullivan, J. T. Tatum, J. D. S. Dryden, Samuel Erskine, Nathaniel Meyers, John H. Rankin, Charles C. Whittlesey, George W. Cline, M. J. Sullivan, F. T. Martin, M. D. Lewis, G. D. Reynolds, John W. Noble, B. L. Hickman, E. S. Tittman, J. P. Vastine, S. S. Boyd, Francis Minor, Given Campbell, M. R. Cullen, T. A. Russell, George B. Kellogg, A. W. Slayback, Thomas G. Allen, C. O. Bishop, Chester Harding, Jr., J. D. Foulon, F. J. Donovan, Francis Garvey, William J. Richmond, G. H. Shields, J. W. Ellis, Henry M. Bryan, J. D. Johnson, James Taussig, R. S. Mc- Donald, Simon Obermeyer, J. K. Tiffany, Samuel Simmons, A. R. Taylor, Sherard Clemens, A. W. Mead, J. F. O'Rourke, G. Pollard, F. C. Sharp, D. Tiffany, F. N. Judson, Leo Rassieur, P. Donohue, Melville Smith, W. C. Jamison, Theo. Hunt, T. C. Fletcher, W. C. Jones, T. T. Gantt, H. E. Mills, V. W. Knapp, George W. Taussig, J. B. Nicholson, Clinton Rowell, John M. Krum, W. C. Bragg, John G. Chandler, J. G. Lodge, F. Wis- lizenus, L. Bell, M. L. Gray, A. D. Anderson, and Julius E. Withrow.

The association continued to meet in court-room No. 2 until the 2d of November following, when it was removed to the life insurance building on the northwest corner of Sixth and Locust Streets. On the 21st of April, 1876, it returned to the court- house and occupied a room on the second floor, now used by the fire-alarm telegraph, and just opposite the office of the clerk of the Court of Appeals. It remained there until the 5th of January, 1880, when it was again removed to its present commodious quarters on the ground-floor in the Market Street wing of the court-house, near the office of the re- corder of deeds. Since its organization the presidents and the date of their election have been :

1874, John R. Shepley; 1875, James O. Broadhead; 1876, Samuel M. Breckinridge; 1877, John M. Krumn; 1878, George W. Cline ; 1879, Alexander Martin ; 1880-81, Henry Hitchcock ; 1882, Edward C. Kehr. The first board of officers were John R. Shepley, president; G. A. Finkelnburg, A. N. Crane, E. T. Farish, vice-presidents; E. W. Pattison, secretary ; A. M. Thayer, treasurer ; Alexander Martin, Edward C. Kehr, Charles S. Hayden, executive committee. The present board is com- posed of Edward C. Kehr, president ; Edmund T. Allen, James Taussig, S. M. Breckinridge, vice-presidents ; James E. With- row, secretary ; Eugene C. Tittman, treasurer; G. A. Finkeln- burg, Alexander Martin, John W. Dryden, executive com- mittee.

1515

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.

The object of the association is to "maintain the honor and dignity of the profession of the law, to cultivate social intercourse among its members, and for the promotion of legal science, of the administra- tion of justice." It has accomplished great good in elevating the tone of the legal profession in St. Louis.

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.1

THE earliest physicians in St. Louis were the army surgeons stationed at the military posts under the French and Spanish régimes, who in many instances settled in the community and identified themselves with its interests and life. As they were usually men of superior education and good social position, they es- tablished a standard of medical practice which has ever since been maintained, and laid the foundations of a code of medical ethics which has caused the profes- sion in St. Louis to occupy a foremost place in the medical world.2 The first physician whose name is found in the early archives is

Dr. André Auguste Condé, a native of Aunis, in France, who was post-surgeon in the French service at Fort Chartres prior to the cession to England, and crossed the river with the few soldiers brought over by Capt. St. Ange de Bellerive, after placing the British Capt. Stirling in possession of the other side, Oct. 20, 1765. Dr. Condé had married Marie Anne Bardet de Laferne, July 16, 1763, whom, with his infant daughter Marianne, he brought over with him to the new post. He received from Governor St. Ange, June 2, 1766, a concession, the fifth recorded in the " Livres Terriens,"-the " land-grant books," -- of two lots together in the village, fronting two hun- dred and forty feet on Second Street, by one hundred and fifty deep, being the east half of the block next south of the Catholic Church block (now No. 58). On this lot he built for his residence a house of up-

right posts, with a barn and other conveniences, where he resided for some ten years, until his death, Nov. 28, 1776.

Dr. Condé was a gentleman of fine education, and a prominent man in the village in his day. He had an extensive professional practice, as well on the west as on the east side of the river, being for a time alone in his profession at this point. Having died intestate, the Governor appointed his relative, Louis Dubreuil, merchant, guardian to his two minor daughters, the oldest, Marianne, mentioned above, the second, Con- stance, born in St. Louis in 1768. An inventory of his estate, taken a few days after his death, includes the names (numbering two hundred and thirty-three) of all those indebted to him on both sides of the river for professional services rendered, comprising nearly all the inhabitants of the two places, and might almost serve for a directory had such a thing then been needed. His widow married a second hus- band, Gaspard Roubien, also a European, Sept. 19, 1777. They subsequently removed to St. Charles, where they both died.

Condé's eldest daughter, Marianne, was married to Charles Sanguinet, Sr., Aug. 1, 1779, and the second, Constance, first to Bonaventura Collell, a Spanish offi- cer, in the year 1788, and secondly to Patricio Lee, in 1797. Each of these ladies left a numerous pro- geny. The Sanguinets of St. Louis comprise the Benoists, the wife of the Hon. John Hogan, former member of Congress, William H. Cozens, etc., and the Lees of St. Charles, Mrs. Stephen and Mrs. Thomas Rector, the Rousseaus, Benjamin O'Fallon, and others.

Dr. Jean Baptiste Valleau was the second physician who settled at St. Louis. A native of France, in the Spanish service, he came to St. Louis late in the year 1767 as surgeon of the company sent up by Count Ulloa from New Orleans, under the command of Capt. Rios, to receive possession of the place. That they had come up expecting to remain, at least for a time, is evident, as immediately after his arrival in the place he made application for a lot in the village upon which to build a house for his family, which he had left in La Rochelle, France. Accordingly, he received a concession (No. 43) from St. Ange, dated Jan. 2, 1768, of the northeast quarter of the present Block No. 61, being one hundred and twenty feet on the west side of Second Street by one hundred and fifty feet deep west up the hill on the south side of Pine. After he received the grant of his lot, it was sonie little time before he could find any one to build his house, owing to the scarcity of workmen in that early day of the village. He then entered into the follow- ing agreement :

1 For the preparation of the greater part of this chapter the author is indebted to Dr. E. M. Nelson, editor of the St. Louis Courier of Medicine, who, we think it will be conceded, has dis- charged his task with great care and with painstaking and discriminating accuracy. The author is also under obligation to Dr. Nelson for many other kindnesses in the compilation of this work. A number of the biographical sketches contained in this chapter were prepared by him, and those contributed by other persons are indicated by foot-notes.

" The portion of this chapter relating to the physicians of St. Louis in the early French and Spanish days was prepared by Mr. Frederic L. Billon.

1516

HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.

" I, Peter Tousignau, under my customary mark of a cross, not knowing how to sign my name, in presence of Mr. Labus- cière, acknowledge that I bind myself to build for Mr. Valleau, surgeon in the Spanish service, a house of posts in the ground, eighteen feet long by fourteen wide on the outside, and roofed with shingles, with a stone chimney, and a partition in the centre of small square posts, with one outside door and another in the partition, two windows with shutters, well floored and ceiled with hewed cottonwood plank well jointed. The whole is to be completed by the 15th July next, subject to inspection, to be built on the lot of Mr. Valleau, adjoining Mr. Calvé's.

" In consideration of the sum of sixty silver dollars, which Mr. Valleau binds himself to pay to said Tousignau as soon as the house is completed, and to furnish all the iron and nails necessary for said house, but nothing else, the posts of the house to be round, of red oak.

"Thus covenanted and agreed in good faith between us, at St. Louis, April 23, 1768.

" TOUSIGNAU'S M MARK. VALLEAU. LABUSCIÈRE, witness."

In due time his house was completed and he in pos- session, shortly after which the quarter block south of and adjoining his was ordered to be sold by the Gov- ernor (the owner, one Calvé, having left in the night to avoid his creditors), and was purchased by Valleau, with a small house of posts some sixteen feet square on it, for six hundred livres (about one hundred and twenty dollars), Sept. 26, 1768, Valleau then owning the east half of said block (now 11). Shortly afterwards having been much exposed to the effects of a hot sun in a new and to him dele- terious climate, in riding back and forth between St. Louis and Bellefontaine, on the Missouri, where Rios' men were engaged in building a fort, he fell ill, and died at the close of November, 1768, at the house of Joseplı Denoyer, nearly opposite his own, within a year of his arrival in the country. On finding his end approaching, in conformity with a custom almost uni- formly followed by devout Catholics at that day, he executed his will on Nov. 23, 1768. He was but one of numerous others who fell victims to the unhealth- ful influences incident to all newly-settled countries in certain latitudes, particularly on water-courses. So universally was it the custom at that day in colonies for a sick person to execute his will, commending his soul to his Maker, that a man who died without having done so was deemed to have neglected one of his most important religious duties. It mattered little whether lie possessed much or no property whatever to dispose of, the will appeared to be an essential to entitle him to burial with all the solemnities of the holy church in consecrated ground.

This will was as follows :

" WILL OF JOHN B. VALLEAU, SURGEON.

" Before the royal notary in the Illinois, province of Louisi- ana, in presence of the hereafter-named witnesses, was person- ally present Mr. John B. Valleau, a senior surgeon of His Cath- olic Majesty in the Illinois, being now at the post of St. Louis,

in the French part of the Illinois, lying sick in bed, in the house of Denoyers, but sound of mind, memory, and under- standing, as appears to the undersigned notary and witnesses, who, considering there is nothing more certain than death, nor nothing so uncertain as its hour, fearing to be overtaken by it without having disposed of the few goods which God has given him, the said John B. Valleau has made and dictated to the notary, in the presence of the undersigned witnesses, his last will and testament in the following manner :

" First, as a Christian and a Catholic, he commends his soul to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, beseeching His divine bounty, by the merits of His passion, and by the intercession of the Holy Virgin, of Holy St. John, his guardian, and of all the spirits of the celestial court, to receive it among the blessed.

"The said testator wishes and ordains that his debts should be paid and the injuries occasioned by him, if there be any, shall be relieved by his executor hereinafter named.

" He declares, wishes, and ordains that Duralde, employed in the Spanish service, residing in this post of St. Louis, whom he appoints his executor, shall take possession of all his effects, situated in this colony of the Illinois and at New Orleans, either personal or real property, goods, effects, money, or anything belonging to the said testator at the day of his death, in what- ever part of this colony they may be situated, without any res- ervation, appointing the said Duralde as the executor of this will, and praying him to undertake the charge as a last proof of friendship.

" The said Duralde shall make a good and exact inventory of the property belonging to said testator, shall make the sale thereof, and the money arising therefrom shall be sent by him to Madame Valleau or to her children, residing at La Rochelle, in the house of Madame Chotet, Main Street, revoking all other wills and codicils which I might have made before this present will, to which I adhere as being my last will.

" Thus made, dictated, and declared by the said testator, by the said notary and witnesses, and to him read and re-read, he declaring to have well understood it, and wishing the said last will to be executed according to its tenor.

" Done in the room in which the said testator keeps his bed, the year one thousand seven hundred and sixty-eight, the twenty-third of November, about six o'clock P.M., in the pres- ence of De Rive (Rios), civil and military Governor of the Missouri portion of the country, at present in this post of St. Louis, and of Joseph Papin, trader of this same place, wit- nesses summoned for the purpose, and who have with the notary and the testator signed these presents after the same was read conformable to the ordinance.

" VALLEAU.

" FRANCISCO RIVE (RIOS).

" JOSEPH PAPIN.

" LABUSCIÈRE, Notary."

It does not appear that any inventory of his per- sonal property was taken, as no mention of it is to be found in the archives, nor of any sale, but they may have been sent to New Orleans, as was sometimes the case at that early day in our history. But his executor, Martin Duralde, proceeded without delay to dispose of his two lots, which was done at public sale on Sun- day, Dec. 11, 1768.

Dr. Valleau's is the first will on record. He had brought up with him from New Orleans a box of one gross packs of playing cards, to assist him in getting through the long and tedious winter months of this

1517

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.

then out of the way part of the world. After his death, Duralde, his executor, not finding sale for them except at great loss, kept the box in his store for two or three years, when, finding they were almost ruined by water leaking from his roof just over the place where he kept them, he received permission from the Governor to dispose of them at auction.

Dr. Antoine Reynal appears from the archives to have becu the third surgeon in St. Louis, from about the year 1776. In the year 1777 he purchased from one Jean Huge the west half of the block on the. east side of Third Street, from Market to Chestnut Streets, with a log house at the south end, fronting on Market Strect, opposite the Catholic graveyard. The north end of this lot, at the southeast corner of Chest- nut and Third Streets, is now occupied by the Mis- souri Republican building. Dr. Reynal lived here for about twenty-three years, and sold the property to Eugenio Alvarez in November, 1799. He subse- quently removed to St. Charles, where he died.

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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 114

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