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

little attention to the early history of the settlement. His conclusion about the status of St. Ange de Bellerive was this:

      "By the acclaim of the inhabitants, he was then appointed governor of Upper Louisiana, of which that town (St. Louis) was then regarded as the capital."

      "Very liberal arrangements," this writer said, "were made by Captain St. Ange de Bellerive for dividing the lands about St. Louis in favor of the settlers. Allotments with title were inscribed in the 'Livre Terrien,' while choice of quantity and location seemed to have been fairly apportioned. New colonists began to arrive and St. Louis grew apace. Under a mild and patriarchal form of government, simplicity of habits, and happy social relations seemed to warrant a peaceful existence, and a prosperous future for the thrifty settlers."

      Elihu H. Shepard, in his early history of St. Louis, described the installation of government, with St. Ange de Bellerive as executive, in these words:

      "By their unanimous desire he was vested with the authority of commandant-general, with full power to grant lands and to do all other acts consistent with that office as though he held it by royal authority."

      Scharff, the historian, said that St. Ange, in January, 1766, "assumed by general consent the position of lieutenant-governor."

      In Reavis' "History of the Future Great City of the World," published in 1876, the chapter on the settlement of St. Louis, said to have been the work of David H. MacAdam, a student of St. Louis history, contained the following:

       St. Ange, on arriving in St. Louis, at once assumed supreme control of affairs, contrary to the Treaty of Paris. There was indeed no person who could have conferred upon him this authority, but there was none to dispute it. Nearly all of the settlers of St. Louis and other posts in the Valley of the Mississippi were of French nationality or accustomed to the rule of France. In Lower Louisiana the promulgation of the terms of the treaty was received with intense dissatisfaction, which was also the case at St. Louis, when the intelligence was subsequently announced there. The authority of Spain could not at that time be practically enforced and the inhabitants of St. Louis not only submitted to the authority of St. Ange, but appear to have welcomed his arrival with satisfaction. He proved a mild and politic governor, fostering the growth and development of the new settlement and ingratiating himself with the people.

      Wilson Primm, a descendant of one of the "first thirty" who came with Auguste Chouteau, wrote as early as 1831 on the settlement of St. Louis. He delivered a lecture before the St. Louis Lyceum which was printed in the Illinois Monthly Magazine in 1832. Therein he wrote that the inhabitants "submitted to the authority of St. Ange without murmur for they had always been accustomed to the mild and liberal policy of the French power." He shed no light upon the controversy as to the character of government at St. Louis from 1764 to 1770.

      William F. Switzler, in his "History of Missouri," published in 1876, held to the tradition of some form of popular government at St. Louis before the coming of the Spanish. He said:

       After the surrender, in 1765, of Fort Chart res to Captain Sterling by Louis St. Ange de Bellerive, the latter moved his small garrison of troops to St. Louis, the recognized capital of Upper Louisiana. Regarding him as a gentleman of great personal worth, and an officer of sound discretion and justice, the people of St. Louis, in some form of expression, designated him as their governing head. Whence the authority thus to distinguish him, his tenure of office, and duties are unknown; certain it is, however, their confidence was not misplaced, for he administered the responsible trust with wisdom and success. There can also be no doubt that he acted with the approbation of M. Aubry, commandant-general of New Orleans, and that officer delegated to him the authority to make grants of the royal domain, hoping for the retrocession of the country to France, when the grants would be legalized by confirmation.

      In an historical review which appeared in the Missouri Republican January 10, 1854, the statement was made that St. Ange "came here in 1765, and was immediately invested with civil and military power over Upper Louisiana, though, of course, without a shadow of right— beyond the acclaim of the in habitants. To such an extent did he exercise the authority thus assumed by, him, that he made numerous grants of land, which were suffered to stand by his Spanish successor and have since been confirmed by the United States."

      Billon, the indefatigable collector of data, says in his "Annals of St. Louis in Its Early Days under the French and Spanish Dominations:"

       Captain St. Ange, with the unanimous approbation of the inhabitants, was vested with the functions of temporary governor, but not choosing to assume the sole responsibility of making concessions to individuals of lots and lands, now the possession of their new sovereign, Lefebvre, who had been judge on the other side, was associated with him for that purpose in the temporary civil government of the place, and Joseph Labusciere, a man of legal knowledge, who had filled the position of King's attorney was assigned to the position of acting secretary and executed all the official writings of the temporary government.

      General Firmin Rozier, of Ste. Genevieve, in his history of the Mississippi. Valley, says:

       The French officers who took charge of Upper Louisiana from 1765 to 1779, were regular officers then of the Illinois country under the French allies; hence their authority was recognized willingly by the inhabitants of the west side of the Mississippi.

      From Ste. Genevieve also came one of the most interesting contributions on the character of the St. Ange government. It appeared in a biography of Dr. Lewis Fields Linn issued in 1857. Mrs. E. A. Linn and N. Sargent were the authors. Dr. Linn was a half-brother of General Henry Dodge, afterwards senator from Wisconsin. He settled in his youth at Ste. Genevieve, about 1815. He was one of the three commissioners selected by President Jackson to settle the French claims which had come down from colonial times. In 1833 Dr. Linn became a United States senator from Missouri by appointment to the vacancy caused by the death of Colonel Alexander Buckner. He was elected senator by the Missouri legislature three times and died shortly after the third election. Mrs. Linn was a talented woman, a sister of James Relfe, of Washington county, Missouri, who was a member of congress. Dr. and Mrs. Linn were married in 1818. Except for the period when his duties as commissioner to settle the claims of the early French settlers required his residence in St. Louis, Dr. Linn lived in Ste. Genevieve. He was in his day considered the best informed man on Missouri history. Mrs. Linn prefaced her book with the statement that it had been prepared in obedience to what seemed a call from those, the pioneers of the great valley of the Mississippi and their descendants, between whom and Dr. Linn there was during his lifetime, a long subsisting association, a mutual interchange of good offices, which from the beginning became more and more intimate and cordial, until the ties that thus bound them together were severed by the hand of death." Reviewing the explorations and the first settlements of the Mississippi Valley, Mrs. Linn told of the coming of Laclede and of the founding of St. Louis. She emphasized the relation of those events to the transfer of the country east of the Mississippi by the treaty of Paris to the British. She described how the French habitants "evinced great repugnance to dwell under the rule of the arrogant islanders" and "crossed the river in great numbers, joining their relatives on the western bank." She continued her narrative:

       They did more; with their western brethren they set up a government of their own, the spontaneous act of all, and St. Ange de Bellerive was the lint governor in America elevated by the living voice of the people, under no commission or charter from any foreign king or government, and without aid or hindrance from any previously contrived machinery. He had been the commandant of the French at Fort Chart res; he crossed the river in 1765; whereupon he was invested with civil and military command over the "Upper Louisiana," and this power be

       most beneficently exercised and held with a firm and able hand, though legally he had no right to its sway, save the acclaim of the people. He was "every inch a governor," and no act of his will ever militate against the advocates of popular sovereignty. His name is in benediction; his very name, — if one who has scarce a pretension to the most imperfect