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

of the agitation was that in a little over two years after the incorporation of the town, the board of trustees let a contract for the building of a market house on Centre Square. This market house was not much more than a large shed, under which produce might be exposed for sale. It stood on the same block as that occupied in part for many years by the Merchants' Exchange.

      One of the progressive steps taken by the town organization was the passage of an ordinance providing for wharfage dues. Every boat of five tons capacity was required to pay a fee of $2.00 for landing.

      A little more than a year after St. Louis became a town there occurred an event which caused more general sorrow than any other in the history of the settlement, since the death of the founder, Laclede. It is tradition that during 1808 and 1809 Governor Meriwether Lewis had been subject to mental depression. His friends endeavored to arouse his spirits. They could not understand why he should be depressed. There were no apparent causes for these attacks of melancholy. It was true that the governor complained rather bitterly of the tardiness with which the government at Washington met the obligations incurred in connection with the expedition of Lewis and Clark. But such complaints were general in the community. St. Louis was a long way from Washington. There were others in the community who felt that government business did not receive the prompt attention it should. Friends of Meriwether Lewis looked after him carefully, showing him attention and in many ways endeavoring to cheer him. The governor announced his intention to proceed to Washington. He was encouraged to do so by those about him who thought the change of a journey might be beneficial to his mental condition. Then came the news of the death of the governor by a pistol supposed to have been fired by himself. The town of St. Louis mourned.

      Not all of those who flocked here when St. Louis was a town were intending settlers. The observant and inquiring traveler was a frequent arrival. The town began to get into print. Nearly all that was written added to the good fame. Christian Schultz wrote two volumes about "travels on an inland voyage, performed in the years 1807 and 1809, including a tour of nearly 6,000 miles." He arrived in St. Louis on the 22nd of November, 1807. He came by land from Ste. Genevieve, taking the road on the Illinois side of the river, by way of Prairie du Rocher. He said that before arriving opposite St. Louis he rode "fifteen miles over one of the richest and most beautiful tracts I have ever seen. It is called the American bottom and is a prairie of such extent as to weary the eye in tracing its boundaries." Schultz crossed the Mississippi at the Cahokia ferry and rode three miles to "the metropolis of Louisiana." He gave his impressions with evident intention to be accurate. It is to be borne in mind that the time of this visit was only three years after the American flag had been raised. Subsequent to that period, the fur trade was reorganized, extended to the westward and northward and greatly expanded:

       St. Louis is beautifully situated on an elevated bank on the west side of the river. It contains about two hundred houses, which, from the whiteness of a considerable number of them, as they are rough-cast and whitewashed, appear to great advantage as you approach the town. It is likewise a French settlement, established in the year 1764; the inhabitants are chiefly Roman Catholics, and have a chapel and a confessor. A small number of American families have of late years settled in this town, and have had so much influence as to give a decided American tone to the fashions of the place; but as their numbers are too few to erect a church of their own, they have, by way of amusement, made arrangement with the father confessor, to give them a little lecture in his chapel every Sunday evening.

       I observed two or three big bouses in the town, which are said to have cost from twenty to sixty thousand dollars, but they have nothing either of beauty or taste in their appearance to recommend them, being simply big, heavy, and unsightly structures. In this country, however, where fashion and taste differ so materially from fashion and taste with us, they are considered as something not only grand, but even elegant.

       St. Louis has for many years past been the center of the fur trade in this country; but this branch of business I am informed, is now rapidly declining, in consequence of the game becoming scarce.

       This town has been strongly fortified by the Spanish government, having two forts, two blockhouses, four stone towers, and one half moon. These encircle the whole town on the land side, and are within gunshot of each other. Some little care is still taken of forts and barracks occupied by the garrison which is stationed at this place, but the towers and blockhouses are entirely neglected, and, for want of repairs, already tumbling to pieces.

      The comment on the weather would indicate that the traveler encountered a cold snap unusual for the last of November. He had one very uncomfortable experience. Setting out alone to visit the lead mines at Potosi he lost the way in the hills of the Meramec river, shivered all night and came back to St. Louis:

       St. Louis is situated in lat. 38.18. N., long. 89.36. W. from which you would be inclined to believe the climate somewhat warmer than that of New York, in lat. 40.40; but I certainly do not think I ever experienced in that city colder weather, at this season of the year, than I bare felt in St Louis for these few days past. I made this remark to some gentlemen who have lived here for four or five years past, but who formerly resided in Philadelphia; and they were of opinion that the winters generally were equally severe, but did not but so long.

      The fame of feminine St. Louis had reached Christian Schultz before he saw the town. He investigated and was satisfied; he found the ladies "eminently entitled" to their reputation:

       The ladies of St. Louis I had heard generally celebrated through all the lower country for their beauty, modesty, and agreeable manners, as well as for their taste and the splendor of their dress. I was, therefore, very happy in having an opportunity of accepting an invitation to one of their balls, on the first Sunday evening after my arrival, having previously attended the chapel, for the express purpose of being able to form some kind of judgment with respect to their claims; and I must confess, that they appeared to be eminently entitled to all that I had heard in their favor.

      St. Louis, the town, was not without its musical organization, although the association was without name and quite limited in number of performers. There were two musicians. They were inseparable. One of them was an old man with white hair. He was about five feet in height and very fat. He took life comfortably and had an inexhaustible fund of humor. He moved about very slowly and for this reason was commonly known as Monsieur Tardiff. The companion of Monsieur Tardiff was a negro, very tall and gaunt. He looked so much like a deer that he was called Chevreuil. The two musicians afforded the most striking contrast possible in physical appearance. They entertained with their instruments and amused with their looks.

      The pioneer paid amusement was announced about 1812. This was a series of sleight-of-hand performances by John Eugene Leistendorfer. Among the "tricks" — for that was what the Gazette frankly called them — which the magician promised were these:

       Any person of the company may cut off the head of a living chicken and then he will immediately restore it to life with its bead on.

       He will cause a shawl or handkerchief to be cut in two pieces. One of the halves will be burnt, the other cut into small pieces, and he will return it entire.

       A new way of proving good whiskey, by putting a penknife or any other light article in a tumbler; and in pouring the whiskey on it, if there is any water in the whiskey, the penknife will move only; but if the whiskey is good, the penknife will jump itself out of the water.

       He will catch between his teeth a ball discharged from a pistol, actually loaded and fired by one of the visitors, and after having performed a great many more tricks, too long to be enumerated, be will conclude by eating live coals of fire.

      The Gazette explained that the magician was "the same Colonel Leistendorfer who served under General Eaton in the capacity of guide, adjutant, inspector general and chief engineer in passing the desert of Lybia." The Gazette vouched for the colonel with the statement that "certificates from several gentlemen