History of Saint Louis City and County, from the earliest periods to the present day: including biographical sketches of representative men, Part 18

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 18

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1 Many of the citizens of St. Louis recollect when the east bank of the river opposite Oak Street was where the island now is, which was farther up the river and nearer the St. Louis shore. There was a village of some twenty small houses at and above where the dike joins the island, and a ferry of the French fashion (two canoes with a light platform over them) crossed the river from that village to the foot of Oak Street.

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THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.

When, therefore, they saw the mighty rivers bank- full in April they were not alarmed; and when on the 3d of May the great streams began to recede, all fear passed away with the decline in the volume of the waters. But thick clouds gathered, and deluges of water were poured out over the face of the wliolc country.1 Little brooks became swollen creeks, and small creeks great rivers, and little rivers great floods, all pouring into the mighty Missouri and Mississippi their vast contributions to the overwhelming waters that rose above the barriers which confined them and deluged the fairest part of the great West.

By the 10th of May the river began rising, and by the 16th the flood began to create alarm at St. Louis. The Republican of the 17th of May calls it " a tre- mendous flood," and adds,-

" The waters were coming down upon us from every quarter. The Mississippi is now as high as it has been known for many .years, and is still rising. Just above Oak Street it was last evening within six or eight feet of touching the curbstone. The cellars all above the wharf are filling with water. It was still rising last evening at the rate of twelve inches in twenty- four hours, and this notwithstanding an immense volume of water is pouring over the Illinois shore. The whole of the American Bottom, from Alton to Kaskaskia, will be, we fear, suhmerged. The people are deserting their homes in Illinois towns."

The river continued to rise throughout the 18th, 19th, and 20th, reaching the doors of the stores on Front Street north of Pine, and extending to the Pap house on the Illinois side, a distance of two and a half miles. The merchants on Front Street had all been compelled to move their stock of goods into the second stories. The waters came to a stand on the 21st, with prospects of a decline, which began rapidly on the 23d, and continued until the river was again within its banks on the 7th of June. But the flood from the Missouri was coming down. From the 3d to the 10th of June there was a continued succession of the most terrible rain-storms ever witnessed. These tremendous rains were general throughout the North- west. The Mississippi again commenced rising at St. Louis on the 8th of June. The rise was steady, though not alarmingly rapid. The upper Mississippi, Illinois, Missouri, Des Moines, Gasconade, Osage, Kaw, Platte, and all the tributaries were pouring out their floods.

Steadily, slowly, but inexorably the great floods from the prairies, hills, and mountains came sweeping down to the lower valleys. Before the 12th of the month the river was again breaking over the banks in places.

By the 15th the floods began to alarm the people of the valley, and " the great flood of 1844" had com- menced its devastations.

There were five hundred persons in St. Louis who were driven from their homes by this flood .?

At Bon Secour there were camped, all in open camps, one hundred and twenty-two persons. Several of these families left tlicir homes with from four to nine chil- dren, and with less than fifty pounds of flour and a small quantity of meat.

The water covered all of Illinoistown, rose above the first story of the houses, and reached within a few inches of the height attained in the freshets of 1823 and 1826. A considerable portion of the curbstones on Water Street were covered, and the water was run- ning into the lower stories of the houses of Battle Row, corner of Laurel Street.

All the rivers above were reported to be rising, but the principal rise was from the Missouri, said to be the June freshet from the mountains. The Missouri, the upper Mississippi, and the Illinois, and their trib- utaries were overflowing their banks and rising rapidly, spreading destruction and consternation among the in- habitants of the bottoms, whose losses were very great. Many of their farms were completely under water, and their crops were entirely destroyed, and their stock either carried off by the flood or scattered over the country.

The Illinois River was within six inches of the high- water mark of the great flood that occurred seventeen years before, and at Naples it had overflowed the bank and the streets were under water.

On June 17th the river was about six inches higher than the water-mark of the month before. North of Locust Street, on Front Street, and above Vine Street the water rose over the sidewalks and into many of the stores, forcing the merchants to carry their dam- ageable goods into the second stories, and to place the remainder on shelves and counters. On the 18th the steamer " Missouri Mail" brought the alarming news of a great rise in the Missouri, which on the 13th was rising at St. Joseph at the rate of seven feet in twenty- four hours.

The whole country between Weston and Glasgow was under water. Camden Bottom was covered to a depth of six to eight fcet. The officers of the " Mail"

1 It rained continually for ten days. According to the esti- mate made by Dr. B. B. Brown, the quantity of rainfall was nine inches, being a greater quantity than that of the whole of the year 1843.

2 " Nearly all the people of Brooklyn, Venice, Cahokia, and Six-Mile Prairie and other points along the river-banks are in the city. In the vicinity of Anderson's Mill, in the upper part of the city, there are upwards of fifty families and more than two hundred persons, many of whom are destitute, and all are without shelter, except such temporary covering as they have been able to erect."-Republican, June 24.

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HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.

spent nearly one entire day in relieving and saving those who were in danger, and the accounts they related were peculiarly distressing ; quite a number of persons were missing, many of whom were doubtless lost. Cattle in large numbers were seen floating down amidst the drift, their heads only visible. Many houses were also seen floating on the flood.

The editorial of the Republican of June 19th says,-

"We have taken some pains to ascertain with certainty the height of the present rise in the river compared with former freshets. We have been very unsuccessful. Within the memory of many of the oldest inhabitants there have been three extra- ordinary freshets,-one in 1811, one in 1823, and the last in 1826. If there were any others, we have not been able to learn the par- tieulars. The freshet of 1811 appears to have been the highest. That year the Ste. Genevieve common fields, and in faet the whole bottom, was covered with water. Boats passed with ease to and from Ste. Genevieve to Kaskaskia. There is a great dif- ferenee of opinion as to the height attained by the water in 1826. Some say it was higher than now; others insist that at present the water is higher than during that year."

On Thursday, the 20th, the Mississippi was from three to six miles wide, and in, many places nine. It covered all Front Street and the sidewalk ; it was over the boilers in Cathcart's mill, and the steamer " Lightner" was resting her bow against the front of Henry N. Davis' store at the corner of Front and Morgan Streets. The water was up along Battle Row nearly to the door-hatches. At J. & E. Walsh's store, corner of Vine and Front Streets, the water was up to within about fourteen inches of the locks on the doors. At the corner of Pine and Front Streets it was just up to the top of the sill of the door of Mr. Collins' warehouse. At Market Street it was between nine and ten inches below the sill of the east door of Coons & Gallagher's store. The lower part of the city, in the vicinity of Mill Creek, was all submerged. The water covered Second Street below the bridge. Mr. Stilcs and most of the people in that quarter, especially along Convent Street, removed, and the communication was main- tained by means of boats.

Several houses up in the direction of the dam were several feet under water. Of course all the low lands in Soulard's addition and St. George's were overflowed.

On the Illinois side everything was under water ; at Cahokia the inhabitants were forced to flee to the bluffs, and several houses in Illinoistown were moved from their foundations, and some overturned.

The " Indiana," which made fast at the door of the female academy, brought up from Kaskaskia the Sis- ters of Charity at the convent and the priests con- nected with the church at that place, and several fam- ilies and such furniture as they had saved. The town was from ten to twenty feet under water. Several

dwelling-houses that were most exposed to the cur- rent of the river, together with many barns, stables, and outhouses, were swept away.

The city engineer, about twelve o'clock on the 22d, ascertaincd that the water was over the city direc- trix, the curbstone on Front Street, east of the mar- ket-house, three feet four inches. This gave thirty- four feet nine inches plumb water above low-water mark. From half-past seven o'clock on Thursday morning until half-past scven Friday evening the rise was seventeen inches. This was an immense and un- paralleled rise, and can only be properly estimated when the whole width of the river is considered. In many places it was from ten to fifteen miles wide. In Second Street the water extended from Hazel to the junction of Second and Fifth.Streets, being in some places from four to five feet deep. The low land in front and all the low lands between Second and Third and Fifth Streets were several feet under water.

On June 22d the editor of the Republican

"took a trip across the river in the row-boat ' Ripple,' a boat which is owned and manned by a company of young gentle- men, amateur boatmen, and had a most pleasant time of it. We left the foot of Market Street and erossed to the ferry landing. From thence we passed over several streets of Illinoistown, and to ' Old Pap's house,' a mile and a half from the ferry landing. Thenee we rowed through a eorn-field and an oat-field to the railroad, passed along it some distance and through another field to the big lake near the Pittsburgh eoal-mines, a distance of about nine miles. On our return we erossed to the east side of Bloody Island, and passed round the head of the island. Everywhere we witnessed the destruction of whole erops, the year's subsistenee of the farmer and his family."

For the twenty-four hours of Sunday, June 23d, the water rose fourteen inches, and reached the climax of the flood, where it remained nearly stationary until the 28th, when it commenced receding. In order to relieve the needs of the destitute the City Council by ordinance placed one thousand dollars at the disposi- tion of the mayor and other officers. The number encamped was as follows: At Bon Secour, 122; at Mr. Cremer's, 45; at John Cohen's, 18; at John Sharp's, 5; at Carne's, 21; at Falling Spring, 31 ; at Edward Hebert's, 4; at Prairic du Pont, 41 ; at Jo- seph Boismenen's, 40; at the Grand Marias Pass, 40 families.

The water continued to recede with great rapidity. By the middle of July the river had reached an or- dinary stage. The weather became settled, the atmosphere void of moisture. July, August, and September proved very dry, and before the close of the season the river had reached an exceedingly low stage.1

1 The following interesting account of the great flood of 1844 was written in July of the same year by the late Dr. B. W. Brooks, of Jonesboro', Ill. :

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THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.

The long-continued and ruinous flood of 1851 did not begin to attract particular attention until " fearful accounts of the rise in the upper Mississippi," the river being over its banks in many places, reached the

" The Mississippi, being at a good boating stage of water, commeneed rising rapidly on the 18th day of May, 1844, and continued rising at the rate of from two feet to thirty inebes every twenty-four hours until the first day of June, at whiel time it was within eighteen inches of bigh-water mark in the years 1811 and 1826. It then commeneed falling gradually until the 10th of June, at which time it bad fallen some five or six feet, so as to leave all the farms free from water, which were previously about half covered with water generally, with the exception of Jacob Treese's farm and a few others. This rise was presumed to come out of the Mississippi River. On the 11th of June the Missouri flood came down, and the Mis- sissippi commenced rising again, and continued to rise at the rate of from one foot to eighteen inches every twenty-four hours until it inundated the entire bottom, covering every farm in it from eighteen to thirty feet, that being the depth of soundings on the road from Jonesboro' to Littleton's old ferry, and to Willard's ferry. Horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs were destroyed in vast numbers, notwithstanding every exertion was used by the benevolent and enterprising citizens through- out the county. Wood-boats, ferry-flats, canoes, and skiff's, and divers rafts or other crafts, made upon tbe spur of the moment, were employed in colleeting and boating the stoek and house- hold property of the alarmed and distressed citizens to the high lands. Many of the citizens living near the banks on the Illinois shore fled with their families in consternation to the Missouri shore, leaving all their horses, cattle, and house- hold effeets to their fate. This latter rise and overflow of the river continued until the 29th of June, when it came to a stand, the citizens baving in a great degree made an end of removing the effects of the suffering inhabitants to the neigh- boring hills. On the 1st of July the waters began greatly to reeede, and continued to fall until ... it became confined witbin the banks of the river. It is worthy of remark that about one-half of the houses in the Mississippi Bottom were removed from their foundations; all the fences wholly removed and washed away. All the warehouses on the bank fell into the river, and many dwelling-houses shared a like fate.

" This inundation was ten or twelve feet higher than that of 1811, or of 1826, and higher than ever known, except in 1785, when it rose thirty feet above the common level, and from the reports recorded in Beck's 'History of Illinois and Missouri,' it was the greatest flood known during the last one hundred and fifty years, at which period the Mississippi washed in a part of Fort Chartres. Mr. Cerré, the oldest French settler in St. Louis, says the inundation of the Mississippi and Missouri was not as high by some four or five feet in 1785 as it was this year, 1844, and all the old settlers of Kaskaskia agree in saying that the overflow of 1785 left one dry spot in the town of Kaskaskia, which was covered in 1844 with water five feet deep. The steamer 'Indiana' was chartered by the nuns to take the pupils of tbe nunnery to St. Louis, and received them on board at Col. Menard's door, and passed along the road to St. Louis, on which there was from six to fifteen feet of water, leaving the river far to the left the whole route. Some two hundred citizens went up from Kaskaskia on the 'Indiana,' and about three hundred found sbelter on the premises of Col. Menard, and many more spread their tents along the bluffs.

" Millions of dollars will not eover the loss sustained by this flood in the States of Illinois and Missouri. Some of the most

newspapers of St. Louis of May 29, 1851. Two days after the river began to rise rapidly at St. Louis, and by sundown of the 30th was fifteen feet eight inches below the high-water mark of 1844, as marked

valuable farms in those two States have been rendered worth- less for several years. The whole American Bottom from Alton to Cairo was submerged, containing seven hundred square miles of the finest land in the world. La Bute à Renard was the only point of land out of water in 1785 : so says the St. Louis Republican.

" Tbe great flood was occasioned by the swelling of the north- ern rivers which empty into the Missouri and upper Mississippi, and by the melting of the snow on the eastern declivity of the Rocky Mountains.

" The Spanish and Portuguese historians of De Soto's maraud- ing expedition tell us that in March, 1542, all the high grounds on the west side of the Mississippi, from the mouth of the Ohio to Red River, were submerged several feet. There is a doeu- quent in the clerk's office of Randolph County, Ill., at Kaskaskia, dated 1725, solieiting a grant of lots and lands from the erown of France, and urging as a reason the 'great flood' of tbe preceding year, 1724, which overflowed the village, destroyed the houses, and drove the inhabitants to the bluffs.

" The bottom lands along the Mississippi from Alton to Cairo, at the mouth of the Ohio, average five miles in width. Sinee the Mississippi was first discovered by Europeans, the waters had passed over all the low grounds from bluff to bluff several times. In 1785 this bottom was covered, and small boats passed from St. Louis to Kaskaskia over the land. In 1811, at the annual June rise of the Missouri, a part of the American Bottom and the common fields of Ste. Genevieve were inundated. In 1826 the river inundated the town of Illinois, opposite St. Louis, and also the lowlands along the American Bottom, but not as bigh by ten feet as this flood of 1844. The flood at St. Louis attained its greatest height on the 24th of June, 1844, and was thirty-eight feet seven inches above low-water mark at that eity."

William L. Murfree, Sr., gives a graphic description of the flood of 1844 in Scribner's Magazine : "The shallowest water, for indefinite miles in any direction, was two feet deep, the nearest land ' the hills of tbe Arkansaw,' tbirty miles away. Tbe mules were quartered on the upper floor of tbe gin-bouse ; the cattle had all been drowned long ago; planter, negro, and overseer were confined to their respective domiciles; the grist- inill was under water, and there was no means of preparing corn for culinary purposes except a wooden hominy inortar. The hog-and-hominy diet (so highly extolled by some people who have never lived on it) was adopted of necessity, tbe former being represented by mess-pork salter than tongue ean tell. There were no visitors, except now and then a sociable snake, which, no doubt, bored by swimming around indefinitely in the overflow, and eraving even human companionship, would glide up on the gallery of some of the houses. There was no means of locomotion except the skiff and the humble but ever serviceable 'dugout,' nowhere to go, and nobody within a day's journey otherwise or more comfortably situated. Tbe only sense of sympathy from without was had from remote and infrequent glimpses of the gallant steamer 'J. M. White,' which, leaping from point to point, made better time from New Orleans to St. Louis than was ever made before or for many years after. That year nineteen plantations out of twenty failed to produce a single pound of cotton or a single bushel of corn, and when the flood was over and the swamp Noahs came out of their respective arks, they were, to say the least, malcontent."

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HISTORY OF SAINT LOUIS.

on the column in front of the Centre Market, and eight feet and one-half inch below the city directrix, or the curbstone at the corner of Market Street and the Levee. The top of the stonework of the dike is two feet lower than the city directrix. A large portion of the east side of Duncan's Island, and seven houses, and a portion of the dike erected by the city between the island and the Illinois shore, were washed away. About one million feet of lumber from the upper part of the city was also washed away. Through almost all of June the river continued to rise, until June 23d it had risen four feet nine and a half inches below the high-water mark of 1844; from this date the waters commenced to decline.

The desolation which visited the States watered by the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Wabash, the Illinois, and their tributaries was beyond all calculation.

In 1854 the river was very high, the water almost entirely submerging the Levee at St. Louis. Great damage was done, especially in the lower portion of the course of the river. The destruction of property was immense in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana.

In 1858 the water rose to a point within about two and a half feet of the flood of 1844. Many towns were inundated, and vast destruction of property was effected. The water broke over the levee at Cairo, Ill., and completely submerged that city. The water in the Ohio was also very high. The planters in the delta and the farmers throughout the low country suffered immense losses.

In 1863 the river rose very high, and the flood swept away much property. The water came into the stores on the Levee at St. Louis. This was the last great flood until 1881, though the water rose quite high in 1867, and again in 1871 and 1875. But these floods did little damage in the upper valley. In Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana great destruction was wrought in 1867, 1871, and 1875.

The flood of 1881 began in May, and on the 4th of that month, from the foot of Anna Street, on the St. Louis side, the only limit for the water was the bluff, three miles to the east. East Carondelet, as the little village opposite Carondelet is called, was flooded by the breaking of the dike at the head of the island, and the inhabitants took their children in their arms and sought safety on the high grounds. Many of them crossed in the ferry-boat and found quarters in Carondelet. Over a hundred persons were thus rendered homeless. From the arsenal, steamboats could be seen through the willows which were once on the bank of the river, plying in the overflow. The width of the river at that point was estimated at three miles.

The country surrounding the little town of Venice, opposite the north wharf, was inundated. Night- fall found East St. Louis still exempt from inundation, but the situation there was extremely critical, and the alarm among the inhabitants was general. At 2.35 o'clock, May 3d, the steamboats lying along the East St. Louis side of the river set up a combined whistling, which conveyed to people on the St. Louis side of the river the impression that the town of East St. Louis was in danger of being swept away, but whistling was the signal agreed on whenever the break should occur in the Madison County dike. Fortunately the alarm, though far from causeless, did not lierald such great disaster. A break had occurred in the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad embank- ment, and a great volume of water poured through it, threatening to sweep down on East St. Louis and send the inhabitants ficeing for their lives. The water had two courses to take,-one up Cahokia Creek, where it would do no great damage immedi- ately, the other down the creek, where it would drown out East St. Louis. When the possibility of the embankment's breaking had been canvasscd before- hand, there was scarcely any one who did not supposc that the water would come down the creek, but, strangely enough, it took the other course, and the Ohio and Mississippi embankment for the time kept it away from East St. Louis.

The greatest actual damage which occurred in one place was the loss of the bridge, valued at twenty thousand dollars, across Cahokia Creek.

On May 5th the river had risen half a foot within twenty-four hours, and was above the high-water mark of 1876, and still rising. East St. Louis was in greater danger than ever.

The water on the 4th came near taking in com- pletely what little of the levee-front it had left the day before. From Biddle Street to Locust sidewalks were only to be seen in spots. From Washington Avenue to Locust the water was running over the pavement and against the lintels of the houses. From Spruce Street to Chouteau Avenue there was no pas- sage for pedestrians, and as early as six o'clock in the afternoon a skiff tied to the awning-post in front of 607 South Levee was floating over the sidewalk in a foot of water. Between East St. Louis and Fish Lake thou- sands of acres of wheat were under water. In East Carondelet there were some sixteen houses above water, each of which was crowded with those whose homes were submerged.

The floods on the Mississippi of which more par- ticular accounts have been given were selected because of the exceptionally high stage of the water, but almost

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THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.

every year witnesses very high water, and the annual loss of property is very great. These constantly occur- ring stages of high water, in which the flood wave, overleaping the banks, spreads over the adjacent country, have caused the construction of artificial banks along the tops of those created by the stream itself, and as these new banks have been extended along both banks of the river, they have assumed a regular system of protection, which is known as the levee system. This system, though located on the river below St. Louis, is yet of very great importance to the trade and commerce of a city whose situation naturally makes it the great commercial capital of the river-drained country. It was to find "means of obviating the disasters incident" to these floods, and " to prevent the overflow of these low grounds, or swamp lands generally, covering, as is supposed, nearly forty thousand square miles,1 that the investigations made by Charles Ellet, Jr., were undertaken.

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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 18

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