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

first season fully redeemed expectations of the fur trade. The percentage of profit was realized. This prosperity had its complications. The whole community was fascinated with the fur trade. Too many merchants! Too few farmers! From Ste. Genevieve and from other settlements the food supply was drawn. Within three years, Laclede's settlement became known from Montreal to New Orleans as Paincourt which, tradition has it, meant "short loaf." The settlement was short of bread of its own making. Laclede remedied the situation, but the nickname was in use for many years. The English made it Pencur and Pancur. Even in their official reports of the period they so designated the settlement.

      Situations more serious than bread shortage presented themselves. Revolution was breeding in New Orleans. Rather than accept Spanish authority, the French habitants there proposed to declare a republic. With Laclede had joined their fortunes the Papins and the Chauvins from Fort Chartres. These were near kinsfolk of the leaders of the revolutionary movement in Lower Louisiana. While commercial fortune smiled on the founder, political uncertainty involved the future of St. Louis. Upon Laclede's mind had grown stronger, as the months went by, the ambition to establish firmly "a settlement which might become very considerable hereafter." The founder of St. Louis came of a creative family. His father and his brother held offices in their province in Southern France which called for constructive talents. They had charge of the forests. They looked after the pastoral interests of their section. They conducted engineering works. Pierre Laclede of Bedous came well by the public spirit which inspired him during the period in which St. Louis was obtaining permanence — 1764-70. With that inspiration the secret treaty giving Louisiana to Spain was vitally related.

      The first attempt to enforce Spanish authority at New Orleans was made. At the same time a considerable expedition was undertaken to build forts at the mouth of the Missouri river, above St. Louis. More than that, the instructions to the Spanish government provided for establishing around these forts a colony to absorb St. Louis. Forts and colony were to be the seat of military power, the center of population and of trade for the possessions of Spain from the Mississippi westward.

      The cradle of St. Louis was "Laclede's house." In the original plan which he handed to Auguste Chouteau, the founder laid out a public square. He called it Place d'Armes. This square was on the river front, at the first landing. It was bounded on the south, the west and the north by three narrow streets. These streets are today Walnut, Main and Market. Immediately west of the Place d'Armes, upon a square of like dimensions, the founder located the headquarters of Maxent, Laclede and Company. There he built the warehouse for the goods and for the furs. There he constructed the stone building with the high basement and full front gallery which for years was called "Laclede's house." The building was used for office purposes. It served as home for the family of Laclede until another house a block north was built for a dwelling. The square west of Laclede's house was set apart for the church and the burying ground. It is today the site of the old cathedral.

      The three squares, extending from the river front westward to Third street composed the nucleus. The settlement grew northward and southward slowly along the narrow streets, somewhat narrower than they are now, paralleling the river.

      In Laclede's house St. Louis was nursed. Government was established, not too elaborate, not theoretical, but sufficient to the needs of a community which did not know whether it was under a colonial flag or was to be part of a new nation. When, in 1770, conditions became settled there was nothing that Laclede and his associates had done which required undoing. The community had faced and overcome successive crises.

      This narrative does not deal with events at Fort Chartres or New Orleans except in so far as they have direct and important bearing upon St. Louis. Conditions under which St. Ange remained at Fort Chartres, circumstances under which he "established himself" at St. Louis have essential relation to what followed. Civil government was inaugurated. Upon what authority? Land titles of the Fourth City trace back to that beginning. Was it self-government? Was consent of the governed, plain and simple, the basis of the law and order established in this community? If so, a chapter in American history is to be written. The principle of Americanism was born in St. Louis.

      The man from Bedous in the Pyrenees is entitled to recognition which has not been accorded him.

      Many years ago the late Sylvester Waterhouse, of the faculty of Washington University, gave no little study to the establishment of government at St Louis. Documents of importance to the question, which have since come to light, were not then available. Nevertheless Professor Waterhouse reached definite conclusions. He said:

       Under the stress of a felt necessity, and without the sanction of Spanish authority, the people unanimously vested in St. Ange the powers of self-government until the arrival of his legally appointed successor. It was reasonably presumed that Spain would promptly imitate the example of England in taking possession of its newly acquired territory. It was not at all anticipated that years would elapse before the assertion of the Spanish right of sovereignty.

       It is a singular incident in the history of St. Louis, that its first form of government, though instituted in a period of rigid imperialism, was distinctly republican in character. The authority under which de Bellorive ruled was conferred by popular action. In its methods of creation this self -constituted government was purely democratic. The King of France could not legally appoint the lieutenant-governor of a province that had ceased to be a part of the French empire. Still less could the vice-regent in New Orleans do an act which his sovereign was not empowered to perform. But though the governor-general could not confirm the action of the St Louis colonists with the full sanction of law, he yet sustained the popular choice by his personal approval — the appointment of officers whose purely ministerial functions did not involve the grant of lands vested in the director-general of Louisiana, until Spain assumed control of its possessions. In the exercise of this right, Governor Aubry completed the organization of the evil government of St. Louis by the appointment of two judges, an attorney general and a notary.

      Richard Edwards, painstaking in his searching for historical truth about St. Louis, was in doubt about the conditions under which St. Ange removed to St. Louis. In 1859, after a careful examination of all records accessible to him, Mr. Edwards wrote:

       Whether this advent of Louis St. Ange de Bellerive was authorized by M. Aubry, the commandant-general at New Orleans, or whether it is to be attributed to a voluntary act on his part can never, with certainty, be decided; we have only the light of surrounding circumstances from which to form an opinion, and we are inclined to the belief that be had received orders from his superior in New Orleans to remove to St. Louis; for the inhabitants at that time, both of Upper and Lower Louisiana, bad come to the firm conclusion of resisting, to the last extremity any attempt of the Spaniards to enforce their authority in New Orleans or on the west banks of the Mississippi. These hostile intentions, so manifest at the time, probably induced the commandant-general to give St. Ange de Bellerive instructions to remove to St. Louis with the few troops remaining in his charge after the evacuation of Fort de Chart roe. This, of course is only a conjecture, but we would think it was inconsistent with the character of a royal officer 's fame, on his own authority to remove to any post with the troops under his command. He was an officer under the king, and had no room to act, except in obedience to the dictates of his superiors.

      But Mr. Edwards concluded that consent of the governed entered into the new government which was established at St. Louis. He wrote: "St. Ange de Bellerive was most popular, both as an officer and a man, and according to the general wish of the inhabitants, he was placed at the head of affairs, and exercised all the functions of a commandant-general."

      Two judges, a procurer-general and a notary were appointed to complete the organization of government at St. Louis. Edwards said: "This was done most probably by the commandant-general of New Orleans." He added: "All that Aubry, the commandant-general, of New Orleans could do, he probably did by the appointment of these officers. That it was by his approbation that St. Ange de Bellerive accepted of the authority which the people vested in him, there is no doubt."

      John Canon O'Hanlon, who came to St. Louis in 1843 and studied at the Lazarist seminary for the priesthood, devoted