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

out his plans, but his son, Stephen Fuller Austin, took up the duty of destiny and headed the colony. His activity in promoting united action among the American pioneers in Texas got him into prison on a charge of treason against Mexico. But he persisted with the same aggressiveness that made his father a thorn to Spanish authority at St. Louis. When Texas became a state of the American Union Stephen Fuller Austin, who was a boy of twelve when his father at Mine-a-Breton led the hallooing "Viva Gifferson!" was enrolled among the patriots and honored with the name of the capital of the Lone Star state.

      CHAPTER IV. WHEN ST. LOUIS WAS A TOWN

      Since the first organization of this government, we have exhibited to the American people a spectacle novel and peculiar — an American republic on the confines of the Federal Union, exercising all the powers of sovereign government, with no actual political connection with the United States and nothing to bind us to them but a reverence for the same principles and a habitual attachment to them and their government— Governor McNair's First Message.

      History which describes the St. Louis of 1804 as a little settlement of French traders, trappers and boatmen is not accurate as to numbers or character. It does not tell the whole truth. Between the hill and the river the population which the American captain found, when he came to raise the flag in March, 1804, was about 1,000. But north to the Missouri and south to the Meramec and west to Creve Coeur and beyond were land-hungry Americans who had been coming for a decade. They were St. Louisans. They were to be considered.

      When the last of the Spanish governors, Delassus, took the census, in 1799, he reported 681 white people, fifty free mulattoes, six free negroes, and 268 slaves in the settlement of St. Louis. But, beyond the palisades and the stone towers, within what are now the city limits and St. Louis county, were living 1203 white settlers, nearly twice the white population of the settlement under the hill; many of them were Americans. From that year, for three decades, the population outside increased more rapidly than did the population inside of the confined settlement along the river bank.

      Captain Stoddard asked Governor Delassus for a list of the officials under him. He discovered that the syndics of the rural districts about St. Louis were, in several places, neither French nor Spanish but American. As he proceeded with his inquiries, the captain was somewhat surprised at the number of Americans he found residing in the vicinity of St. Louis. He estimated and reported that at least three-fifths of the country population was American and that in the settlement of St. Louis four-fifths was French and Canadian.

      The people living beyond Barn street, which is now Third street, were St. Louisans in their political, business, social, and religious relations. They participated in the making of St. Louis. They were influential in the development of St. Louis— settlement, town and city. From the Atlantic states, from Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, from Germany, England and Ireland came, in advance of the flag, these pioneers. In the village of Carondelet were between forty and fifty families, chiefly Canadians. St Ferdinand, which is now Florissant, was a considerable community of such promise that it was mentioned as a rival of St. Louis for the location of the seat of justice not long after the American flag was raised. John Mullanphy, first millionaire of St. Louis, in good faith proposed to pay the cost of the erection of a suitable court house if the removal was made from St. Louis to St. Ferdinand. The mere suggestion was a revelation of the importance of suburban St. Louis at that time. In the northwestern part of what is now St. Louis county was a community called St. Andrews, which, tradition has it, was once larger than St. Louis. It was an agricultural community of Americans who had come from the states to St. Louis and had been given lands by the Spanish governors. The Missouri river encroached upon St. Andrews. Many of the people who first settled there moved to St. Louis after the American flag was raised. They established themselves in business and in the professions here.

      Eminently wise was the American policy in St. Louis. Make little if any change in the forms of government, President Jefferson instructed his American captain. Stoddard was level headed. He remained in St. Louis as acting governor from the 10th of March to the 30th of September of that first year. The weeks and the months of American occupation slipped by without trouble. Stoddard studied the people. A New Englander, he was tactful and observant. About the habitants he formed some impressions which he wrote out in the form of "Notes," for the information of the people of the United States:

       They mostly limit their desires to vegetables, soups and coffee. They are great smokers of tobacco, and no doubt this gives a yellow tinge to their skins. Ardent spirits are seldom used except by the most laborious classes of society. They even dislike white wines because they possess too much spirit. Clarets and other light red wines are common among them; and those who can afford it are not sparing of this beverage. Great economy is displayed in their family meals. This is not the effect of a parsimonious disposition, nor always of the want of adequate means. It results from a conviction of what their constitutions require. They readily sacrifice what may be termed luxury for the preservation of health, and it is seldom they contract diseases from intemperate excesses. Naturally volatile in their dispositions, they sometimes precipitate themselves from one extreme to another. Hence it is that in making entertainment for their friends, especially for strangers of distinction, they study to render them sumptuous. Their tables are covered with a great variety of dishes; almost every sort of food, dressed in all manner of ways, is exhibited in profusion. The master of the house, out of respect for his guests, frequently waits on them himself. On such occasions no trouble or expense is spared in procuring the best wines and other liquors the country affords. Their desserts are no less plentiful and there is no want of delicacy in their quality or variety. Many of these entertainments cost from $250 to $400.

      The American captain did not find St. Louis the "land of steady habits" he had known in his youth. He did, however, discover in the habitants a distinctive character which in his judgment was admirable:

       Perhaps the levities displayed and the amusements pursued on Sunday may be considered by some to border on licentiousness. They attend mass in the morning with great devotion, but after the exercises of the church are over they usually collect in parties and pass away their time in social and merry intercourse. They play at billiards and other games, and to balls and assemblies the Sundays are particularly devoted. To those educated in regular and pious protestant habits such parties and amusements appear unseasonable, strange and odious, if not prophetic of some signal curse on the workers of iniquity. It must, however, be confessed that the French people, in these days, avoid all intemperate and immoral excesses, and conduct themselves with apparent decorum. They are of opinion that there is true and undented religion in their amusements, much more, indeed, than they can see in certain night conferences and obscure meetings in various parts among the tombs. When questioned relative to their gaiety on Sundays, they will answer that men were made for happiness, and that the more they are able to enjoy themselves the more acceptable they are to their Creator. They are of opinion that a sullen countenance, attention to gloomy subjects, a set form of speech, and a stiff behavior are more indicative of hypocrisy than of religion; and they say they have often remarked that those who practice these singularities on Sunday will most assuredly cheat and defraud their neighbors during the remainder of the week. Such are the religious sentiments of a people void of superstition; of a people prone to hospitality, urbanity of manners and innocent recreation, and who present their daily orisons at the throne of Grace with as much confidence of success as the most devout Puritan in Christendom.

      The American captain and the new Americans of St. Louis and vicinity were not long in arriving at mutual respect. Representatives of the several districts of Louisiana met in St. Louis to prepare statements to Congress. When they adjourned in September, 1804, they expressed to Captain Stoddard "their unfeigned acknowledgments for your judicious attentive and exemplary dispensation of justice within this Territory during your administration, and the readiness which you have always shown to contribute to the public good." The address, which was signed by Charles Gratiot, president, and P. Provenchere, secretary, concluded quaintly: "May Louisiana ever feel the same Regret in parting from its chief Magistrate — and may genuine Philanthropy, solid Parts unblemished Disinterestedness continue