St. Louis - The Fourth City, Volume 1. Walter Barlow Stevens

he found "about sixteen deserted houses and a small church still standing, all having been deserted in 1765, the inhabitants crossing over to the French side (St. Louis), leaving only the captain of the militia, who was compelled to remain, having a grist mill and a saw mill which he could not dispose of." Prairie du Rocher and Fort Chartres village were communities much older than St. Louis, both of them having churches when Pitman reported upon them. The engineer described Fort Chartres as "generally considered the most convenient and best built fort in North America." It slipped into the treacherous river some years later. Even St. Genevieve which looked upon St. Louis as in no sense a rival in Laclede's time failed to vindicate the reputation of its founder. There came in 1784 an unlooked for stage of water which compelled the removal of the town to higher land.

      Ste. Genevieve disputed the supremacy of St. Louis. In the spring of 1765, the merchants of the older settlement ignored the exclusive privilege of Laclede. They went after the furs of the Missouri country just as they had done before St. Louis was founded. Joseph Calve started up the Missouri with a boat load of goods to trade to the Indians for furs. He was the clerk for two Ste. Genevieve traders, John Duchurut and Louis Viviat Laclede

      sent a posse of his employees after Calve. The boat was seized. The goods were unloaded and stored at St. Louis. Duchurut and Viviat made complaint to the superior council at New Orleans. The council concluded that the seizure of the Ste. Genevieve boat was unjustifiable. Laclede was directed to pay to the merchants the value of the goods but no damages for the detention or loss of the trade. The case was concluded in April, 1767, just two years after the seizure. Appraisers found the value to be 6,485 livres, 8 sols. This was about $1,297.

      Two of the thirty men who "came in the first boat with Chouteau" to St. Louis were millers. Their names were Joseph and Roger Taillon. Afterwards the name was spelled as pronounced and was given to Tayon avenue. The Taillons located on the little river. They built a dam across the valley about where Eighth street is. They erected a small wooden mill near what is today Cupples' Station. The plant was wholly inadequate. Laclede bought out the Taillons, obtaining a grant covering about 1,000 acres. He raised the dam and built a larger mill. All of this was done at a cost the founder could not well afford. The investment was not profitable but the people of St. Louis were in a year or two beyond the reproach of being "'short of bread."

      The tradition that Paincourt was a nickname of St. Louis, given in reproach, has been handed down through generations with seeming accuracy. It is not altogether consistent with the records of the old cathedral. When the first priest came to take formal charge of church interests at St. Louis he bore credentials naming him to be "cure of the parochial church of St. Louis of the Illinois, post of Paincourt, with all rights and dependencies.". There was a Paincourt in France.

      Among the earliest acts of Laclede were the locations of the common fields and the commons. The founder did not wait for the first season to pass before he designated the boundaries. By the united efforts of the settlers the two tracts were fenced and were in use the second summer. The common fields were enclosed in one great tract. The fence of the east side of the common fields was about where Fourth street is now. The southern boundary was near the line of Market street. These common fields extended westward to about Jefferson avenue and northward to about Cass avenue. Within the enclosure were apportioned long, narrow lots to be tilled by the farmers of the settlement. Crops were raised in 1765.

      The commons' enclosure was south and west of the settlement. This land had more forest growth than the common fields. It was well watered by springs. There the habitants kept cows and ponies in one large pasture.

      Beginning with the issue to Labusciere on April 27, 1766, the St. Ange government issued the title deeds to real estate as circumstances required. That these acts were not forbidden by higher authority at New Orleans seems to have been sufficient for the government of St. Louis. The exercise of this self-constituted right to distribute land went on through the years of 1766, 1767, 1768, 1769 and 1770. In all there were granted by the St. Ange government eighty-one of these titles. They were bestowed upon actual settlers and without price. Therein they form an interesting precedent to the homestead law of the United States which came years afterwards.

      In 1770 O'Reilly, who had suppressed the revolution at New Orleans, sent word to St. Louis that the issue of these titles by the St. Ange government must stop until Spanish authority could be established here. These titles issued by the St. Ange government were never disturbed, but were accepted as settling property rights both by Spain and by the United States.

      "Under the condition that this land shall be improved within one year and a day," the St. Ange government put into all of the title deeds issued. And thereby the principle of the homestead was further recognized. In each case the title was conceded "upon the demand" of the would be settler. The deed located the land "upon the Spanish part of Illinois." To that extent it recognized the cession of Louisiana to Spain. The French flag, as Aubry reported, was still flying over St. Louis. During the five years of the development and continuance of the land system which Laclede and St. Ange and their associates devised the French flag continued to fly. St. Ange called himself "captain commanding for the king" and Lefebvre identified himself in these deeds as "sub-delegate of the intendant of the governor of Louisiana and justice of the peace." They conceded the land in each instance "by virtue of the power given to us by the governor and intendant of Louisiana." Ulloa, the Spanish governor, arrived in New Orleans, March 5, 1766. He sent Rui to build the forts at the mouth of the Missouri in the summer of 1767 and Rui reached St. Louis August II, 1767. Ulloa was expelled November 1, 1768. The first deed was issued by the St. Ange government April 27, 1766. Twenty-six of the deeds were issued that year. The others were issued during the years following, the last being dated Feb. 7, 1770. Ulloa did not interfere with St. Louis. Presumably he sanctioned the acts of the St. Ange government but the official record of such approval is wanting.

      The issuing of titles by the St. Ange government went on while Rui was in St. Louis. At least one deed was issued to a member of the Rui expedition who decided that he wished to reside in St. Louis. The issuing of the deeds went on after the departure of Ulloa and Rui. It continued to the time O'Reilly gave notice to suspend.

      Laclede's course during the years of confusion at New Orleans was wise. He shared the feeling of resentment of the Frenchmen of Lower Louisiana when they found the door of their mother country closed. He did not essay the impossible by armed resistance when Rui came with the first Spanish troops in 1767. He made the Spaniard his guest. He preserved an attitude that obtained for St. Louis later the mildest from of Spanish rule. But Laclede sympathized with the movement to establish an American republic. He inspired in his community a sentiment for liberty from European domination which revealed its strength within less than a decade. When George Rogers Dark came in 1778 with his little band of Virginians to take Kaskaskia he drew from Laclede's settlement many of his recruits and his resources to make the campaign against Vincennes. He found in St. Louis and in the French traders and trappers the support of his plans which his own state denied him.

      "A trading post" St. Louis has been called by most of the historians. A trading post was what the syndicate of New Orleans merchants contemplated when they formed the company, and when Laclede started up the river with his "considerable armament." But when the flotilla reached Fort Chartres and the situation with respect to change of sovereignty was revealed, Laclede began the active, aggressive planning for a settlement, not a trading post. He laid out the plan of streets and blocks. He invited settlers. He verbally assigned them property the first summer of the existence of the community. Then came the organization of government as has been explained. Immediately thereafter was developed the land system, with permanent titles and property rights. This is not the history of a trading post.

      The platting of a townsite, the assigning of lots to settlers on condition of improvement, the giving of written titles — these were departures from what had been the usual methods. Communities had been established but the colonial government did not grant land to the ordinary settler. Land was for the gentry. The communal system prevailed. Around the post or fort gathered the community. There were set apart common fields for cultivation. Families were given ground to cultivate, were allowed ground on which to live, but not to own as individuals. That was the custom in the country of the Illinois. If a grant was made it was to some official or colonist