St. Louis, the fourth city, 1764-1911

BANCROFT

BRARY

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

ST. LOUIS

The Fourth City

1764-1911

By WALTER B. STEVENS

"lie said he had found a situation where he was going to form a
settlement which might become one of the finest cities of America." —
Laclede's prophecy, from the narrative of the settlement of St. Louis
by Auguste Chouteau.

ILLUSTRATED
VOL. II

St. Louis Chicago

THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING CO.
1911

svsv

COPYRIGHT, 1911

BY
THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY

MADAME CHOUTEAU LA MERE DE ST. LOUIS
(Marie Therese Bourgeois)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER XVII.

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION 417

Doctor Conde's Ethics and Debtors — High Standards Maintained 146 Years — Surgeon
Valleau's Estate — A Hospital and a Government Physician in 1801 — The First Scientist
of St. Louis — Free Vaccination for the Poor — The Saugrain Family — Father Didier's
Homely Remedies — The First Mayor's Appeal for Sanitary Precautions — Bathing Advo-
cated as Protection Against Sickness — Miraculous Surgery by Dr. Farrar — Patent Medi-
cines Came with the American Flag — The First Drug Store and the First Medical Student
— Beaumont 's Book of Worldwide Fame — Some St. Louis Doctors Who Prospered Notably
— Medical Lectures at Kemper College — Heroism in the Cholera Epidemics — A Graphic
Description of Dr. McDowell — The Colleges and Their Rivalry Before the Civil War —
Strange Fancies About Disposition of the Dead — Dr Charles Alexander Pope, the Perfect
Gentleman — Philanthropies of the Profession — Distinguished Writers and Specialists —
John Thompson Hodgen, the Beloved — Dr. Moses M. Fallen on Duty to the Woman in
Travail — Eleven Medical Colleges at One Time — Graduates Who Won National Reputa-
tions— Progressiveness of Medical Education — Washington University Reorganization —
The Hospitals — Homeopathy in St. Louis — The Dental Profession — "Extracting, Clean-
ing, Plugging and Strengthening" in 1809 — The Barnard Hospital.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE PRODUCTIVE COMMERCE 439

A Century of Manufacturing — The Earliest Mills — Oxen and Water the Power Before
Steam — Chouteau's Pond and Roy's Tower — "The First Batch" of Crackers —
Grimsley's Saddle Factory — Tobacco Industry in 1817 — The Catlins, the Liggetts and
the Drummonds — How Sam Gaty Turned a Shaft — Early Workers in Metals — A St. Louis
Made Steamboat in 1842 — What ' ' Westward Ho ! " Meant to the Four Schaeffers— The
Garrisons, Builders of Engines — Days of Mechanic Princes — A St. Louis Stove the Sur-
prise of the Fair — An Industry Founded by the Bridges — Stove Manufacture Revolu-
tionized by Giles F. Filley — Great Expectations of Vineyards — The Brewing of Beer —
Forty Breweries Before the War — Cotton Manufacturing Experiments — Stephen A.
Douglas on St. Louis Opportunities — ' ' The Largest Beef and Pork Packers in the
Union" — Francis Whittaker, the Ames Brothers and John J. Roe — Cheapness of Food
Encouraged Early Industries — Audubon on This Land of Plenty — An Expert's Forecast
in 1881 — Steamboat Profits Turned Into Industries — Competition in Wooden- ware Dis-
tanced— Flour and Furniture — First Among Cities in Many Specialties — Amazing Growth
of Shoe Manufacturing — The Wise Policy of Many Young Partners.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE DISTRIBUTIVE COMMERCE 463

A St. Louis Merchant of 1790 — When Catfish Was Circulating Medium — Soulard 's Trade
Review of 1805 — Dressed Deerskins the Leading Article of Commerce — "Incalculable
Riches Along the Missouri" — Prices of Staples in 1815 — The First Bookstore — "Heavy
Groceries" — Henry Von Phul, the Oldest Merchant — Collier's Luck — The "Dry Grocery"
of Greeley & Gale — The Jaccards — How Jacob S. Merrell Won Success — Robert M.
Funkhouser's Start in a Notable Career — The Orthweins' Grain Experiments — St. Louis
Commerce in 1851 — Era of Elevators — Senter and the Cotton Trade — Pioneer Incorpora-
tion— Edward C. Simmons and His Pocket Knife — The First Illustrated Trade Catalogue
— Isaac Wyman Morton's Activities — When Samuel Cupples Came to St. Louis — Evolu-
tion of Cupples Station — Shopping Districts of Four Generations — The Branch House
Policy — Chamber of Commerce and Merchant's Exchange — High Standards of Business
Honor — A Wonderful Record of Cheerful Giving — Master Mechanics of St. Louis in 1839
— Arbitration Substituted for Litigation in 1856 — The Board of Trade Which Preceded
the Business Men's League — The City's Importance Not Measured by Local Statistics —
What St. Louis Men and Money Have Done in the Southwest.

3

YKMUM.i i iiM;
iv TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER XX.

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 489

Pastors and Citizens — Long and Notable Careers of Truman M. Post and James H.
Brookes — How Montgomery Schuyler Faced the War Issue — Archbishop Kenrick's Busy
Days — Thomas Morrison 's Sixty Years of Religious Heroism — The First Mass Under the
Trees — The First Church — Civic Proclamations on the Door — Church and State Under
the Spanish Governors — The First Protestant Preacher— How Trudeau Winked at Baptist
Meetings — The Pioneer of Presbyterian ism — Rev. Salmon Giddings' Ride of 1,200 Miles
—Contributors to the First Presbyterian Meeting House — Coming of Bishop Dubourg —
Cathedral Treasures of 1821 — Rosati, First Bishop of St. Louis — When Rev. Mr. Potts
was "the Rage" — Mormons in St. Louis — Hero of the Cholera of 1835 — Baptism of
Sixteen Hollanders — The Religious Life as Charles Dickens Saw It — Close Association
of Kenrick and Ryan — The Walthers and the Lutherans — Religious Journalism — Bishop
Tuttle's Missionary Experience — New Churches of 1900-10 — The New Cathedral — An
Imposing Ceremonial — The Issue of Sabbath Observance — Father Matthew 's Visit to St.
Louis — ' ' The Great Controversy ' ' — Rise of the Y. M. C. A. — Evolution of the Provident
Association — The Character of St. Louis Philanthropy.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE GROWING OF ST. Louis 523

Laclede's Landing Place — Market Street the Dividing Line — Law of the City's Develop-
ment— Francis P. Blair's Prophecy in 1872 — Earliest Land Titles — Improvement Within
a Year and a Day the Condition — Deed of Mill Creek Valley — Auction Sales at the Church
Door on Sunday — The Livre Terrien — St. Ange's Land System Accepted by Spanish
Governors — Inchoate Titles in 1804 — Rights of Settlers Confirmed by Congress — Houses
of Posts — Southern Exposure vs. East Piazza — The Universal Gallery of Colonial Times —
American Mistakes in Architecture — "Laclede's House" — Stone Mansions — Wooden
Pegs for Nails — Suburban Estates Below Chouteau Avenue — The Founder's Plan of
Streets — A Place Public on the River Front — The Towpath Custom — After the Fire of
1849 — Sales Based on Laclede's Assignments — The First Addition — "The Hill" —
Enterprise of James H. Lucas — Jeremiah Conner's Plan for Washington Avenue — St.
Louis as Flagg Saw it in 1836 — George R. Taylor's Skyscraper — Yeatman's Row — The
American Street — Newman 's Folly — Quality Row — Henry Clay 's St. Louis Speculation —
Stoddard Addition — Conception of Grand Avenue — The Lindells — Henry Shaw's Garden
— Growth of the Park System — The Financial Street— Separation of City and County —
Local Nomenclature.

CHAPTER XXII.

IN THE LIFE OF THE NATION 561

St. Louis and the American Revolution — George Rogers Clark 's Tribute — Francis Vigo 's
Part in the Taking of Vincennes — Patriotic Father Gibault — The Republican Spirit of
St. Louis — Bishop Robertson's Historical Researches — The British Attack of 1780 — The
Haldimand-Sinclair Correspondence — Pascal Cerre's Recollections — Revelations from
Canadian Archives — Beausoleil's Midwinter Expedition to Michigan — Jefferson's Secret
Investigation at St. Louis Before the Cession — Lucas Chosen for a Delicate Mission —
Aaron Burr 's Advances Repulsed by St. Louisans — Deciding Vote in Election of President
Adams — To the Everglades — St. Louis' Help for William Henry Harrison — In the Mexi-
can War — Wonderful Deeds of the Laclede Rangers — Zachary Taylor 's Newspaper Nomi-
nation— The Dred Scott Case — St. Louisans in the Civil War — An Army of Home Guards
Besides 15,310 Volunteers in the Field — Price's Vanguard Within Present City Limits —
Careers of Lyon and Frost — A Dream of Border Neutrality — Camp Jackson — ' ' The Last
Man and the Last Dollar" for the Union — St. Louis Radicals at the White House — Recol-
lections of Enos Clarke — The Twentieth Century Club — Genesis of the Liberal Republican
Movement — Gratz Brown's Leadership — The Mistake of 1872.

CHAPTER XXIII.

ST. LOUISANS IN THE PUBLIC EYE 593

Laclede's Settlement as Pitman Saw it About 1766 — Exploited by Charles Gratiot — The
First St. Louis Millionaire — John Mullanphy, Shrewd, Eccentric and Philanthropic —
Battle of New Orleans and a Cotton Corner — A Political Center in 1820 — John Shack-
ford's River Improvement Plan — Characteristics and Sayings of Benton — A Tribute to
Edward Hempstead — How Death Came to the Old Roman — Bacon, the Financial Leader
in 3854 — General E. D. Baker's Humble Boyhood — Benton 's Dying Protest Against Anti-
Slavery Agitation — Lincoln's St. Louis Newspaper Alliance — Edward Bates in National
Politics — Grant, Sherman, Schofield and Sigel — Captain Grant 's Application to be County
Engineer — Francis P. Blair, Jr. — The Famous Broadhead Letter — Blair to Frost on Camp
Jackson — St. Louisans in the Cabinets of Harrison, Cleveland, McKinley, Roosevelt and
Taft — Career of Ethan Allen Hitchcock— Growth of Richard Bartholdt to International
Stature — The National Prosperity Association of 1908 — Benjamin F. Yoakum's Timely
Suggestion— E. C. Simmons ' Call Upon President Roosevelt — A Movement Which Swept
the Country — St. Louis "the Nerve Center of the United States."

TABLE OF CONTENTS v

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE EDUCATIONAL LIFE 613

Maria Josepha Rigauche, Schoolmistress and Heroine — Trudeau, Schoolmaster and Patriot
— The Song of 1780 — George Tompkins ' Debating Society — Riddick 's Ride to Washington
to Save the School Lands — Mother Duchesne and the Sacred Heart Academy — Bishop
Dubourg's College of 1820 — Coming of Father Quickenborne and the Band of Jesuits —
Inception of St. Louis University — Educational Work of Father DeSmet Among the
Indians— Captain Elihu Hotchkiss Shepard's "Boys"— The First Public School in 1838
— Wyman's Cadets — The Original High School — Beginning of the Kindergarten — Stal-
wart German Support of Free Education — Evolution of Manual Training — Woodward and
His Ideas Borrowed by Other Nations — Samuel Cupples on Negro Education — When
Wayman Crow Wrote the Washington University Charter — The Non-Sectarian Spirit
Boldly Emphasized — Edward Everett at the Inauguration — Dr. Post's Forecast of the
University's Success — Education as Self Made Men Idealized It — Secret of Robert S.
Brookings' Success — Life Work of William Greenleaf Eliot — Gifts of the "Mechanic
Princes" — Fifty Years of Development.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE CULTURE OF ST. Louis 637

Auguste Chouteau's Scientific Theories — The Story of the Prehistoric Footprints — Dr.
Saugrain's Laboratory — Sulphur Springs, Near the River des Peres — John Bradbury's
Animal Stories — Varied Vocations of Dr. Shewe — Lilliput on the Meramec — An Explora-
tion for a Lost Race — Discovery of Gold in the Illinois Bluffs — Les Mamelles, Near St.
Charles — Movement to Preserve "the Big Mound" — Early Mound Theories Disputed by
Modern Science — The Barkis Club — Henry Shaw 's Reminiscences — The Eden of St. Louis
— Wyman's Museum — Dr. Engelmann's Meteorological Record — Adventurous Career of
Adolph Wislizenus — The St. Louis Philosophic Movement — William T. Harris, Henry C.
Brockmeyer and Denton J. Snider — Foreign Guests and St. Louis Hospitality — Jubilee of
Archbishop Kenrick — Origin of Mercantile Library — The Public Library — Houdon's
Washington in Lafayette Park — The St. Louis Fair — Lottery Privileges and a Moral
Uplift — When Jenny Lind Came — Seventy Years of Musical Interest — Old Salt Theater —
Playhouses Before the Civil War — Sol Smith's Epitaph — Ben DeBar — The Reign of the
Veiled Prophet — A Third of a Century of Popular Pageants.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE MEN OF ST. Louis 665

Early Blending of Population — Weimar's Painting of "The Landing" — St. Louis the
Converging Point of Migration — First Families of St. Louis — Ortes, the Companion of
Laclede — Four Sarpy Brothers — The Papins — Spanish Officers Who Became St. Louisans
— The Yostis and the Vigos — Founder of the House of Soulard — William Bissette 's Gen-
erous Will — Why Guipn Wouldn 't Wear a Uniform — Personal Honor of a Century Ago —
Americans Who Came Before the Flag — The Easton Family — Major William Christy and
His Seven Daughters — The Father of North St. Louis — Coming of the McKnights .and
Bradys — Refugees of the French Revolution — Connecticut's Notable Contribution — Erin
Benevolent Society of 1818 — The Farrars — The Gratiots — Missouri Lodge in 1815 — The
Billons — The Morrisons — St. Louis Sociologically in 1835 — German Immigration — The
Blow Family — Emigres from the West Indies — Friendships Kossuth Renewed in St. Louis
— When One-third of the Population Was of German Birth — Census Returns Analyzed —
' ' Most American of Cities ' ' — The Marylanders — Army and Navy Influences — The Group
of Octogenarians in 1895 — Moral Fibre of St. Louisans Tested in Several Generations.

CHAPTER XXVII.

ST. Louis WOMANHOOD 707

Madame Marie Therese Chouteau — La Mere de St. Louis — The Laclede Family — Heroic
Qualities Developed in the Convent-bred Girl — The Whole Settlement Mothered — Madame
Chouteau's Business Capacity — A Thousand Descendants — The Three Daughters and
Their Thirty-two Children — Seven Daughters of the First Madame Sanguinet — Courtesy
and Respect for Women Early Enforced — Marriage Contracts Under the Spanish Gover-
nors— Social Life in 1810 — The Four Daughters of Ichabod Camp of Connecticut — Meet-
ing of Manuel Liza and Mary Hempstead Keeney — "The Lone Woman" Who Became
Madame Berthold — Kind Treatment of Servants — Organized Charity in 1824 — "Enter-
tainment by Joseph Charless ' ' — The Five Coalter Sisters — Ruf us Easton 's Seven Daugh-
ters— The Silk Culture Craze of 1839 — Mrs. Anne Lucas Hunt's Philanthropies — A
Woman 's Influence in the Creation of a Great Estate — The Interesting Mullanphy Family
— Loveliest of Her Sex in 1812 — Virginia Brides of St. Louis Pioneers — Heroic Charac-
ters of the Civil War Period — The Sneed Sisters as Educators — St. Louis Newspaper
Women — The Wednesday Club and Public Recreation — A Traveler's Tribute to St. Louis
Business Women — A Scholar 's Estimate of St. Louis Domestic Life.

vi TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTEE XXVIII.

THE USEFUL CITIZEN 737

Laclede's Sound Judgment — The Crisis of Organization — A Plan of Settlement Which
Endured — St. Ange and the Government He Headed — The First Labor Issue in the Com-
munity— Thornton Grimsley, the Wise Man of the Hour — How St. Louis Dealt with a
Cholera Epidemic — Masterful Treatment of Know Nothing Eiots — John O'Fallon, Apostle
of Civic Spirit — O. D. Filley and the Committee of Public Safety — The Feverish Winter
and Spring of 1861 — Formation of the Union Eegiments — A Secret Mission to Jefferson
Davis — Cannon with Which to Bombard the Arsenal — Arrival of "Tamaroa Marble" —
Lyon's Council of War — A Divided Committee — The March on Camp Jackson — City's
Baptism of Blood — Eioting Suppressed by Mayor Daniel G. Taylor — The Panic of Sunday
— Harney Eelieved and Lyon Promoted — Moral Courage of William G. Eliot — The Pro-
test Against Assessment of Southern Sympathizers — Sudden and Peremptory Instructions
from Washington — Western Sanitary Commission — James E. Yeatman's Great Work of
Belief — Author of the Plan of the Freedmen 's Bureau — Mr. Yeatman Asked to Solve
"the Cotton and Negro Questions" — The Safety Committee of 1877 — Dictation to State
and City by Workingmen's Associations — The Great Eailroad Strike — Settled Without
Loss of Life in St. Louis — The Police Eeserves — Business Men's League and Civic Fed-
eration— The Eight Years of the World's Fair Mayor.

CHAPTEE XXIX.

THE WORLD 's FAIR 765

Centennial of the Louisiana Purchase — Pierre Chouteau's Suggestion — Initial Action by
the Missouri Historical Society — The Committee of Fifty — ' ' Design and Form of Cele-
bration" Long Considered — "Some Form of Exposition" Eecommended — Convention of
State and Territorial Delegates — Preliminary Organization of Two Hundred — Capital
Stock, City Bonds and Government Appropriation — Louisiana Purchase Exposition Com-
pany Formed — Heavy Financial Obligations Assumed — The Clean Work Done at Wash-
ington— Stockholders Classified — William H. Thompson, "the Hitching Post" — Unpre-
cedented Becord of Collections — High Ideals of the Exposition Management — President
McKinley's Proclamation — Eadical Departure in Exposition Organization — President
and Four Directors of Divisions — Man of the World 's Fair Hour — The Devoted Executive
Committee — Foreign Participation That Broke Precedents — Bepresenation from Forty-
three States and Five Territories — Processes Bather Than Products, the Plan and Scope —
New Wants Born to Millions — The Educational Motive — Admissions, 19,694,855 — A Besi-
dent Population of 20,000 — Analysis of the Attendance — Exposition Life — The 428 Con-
ventions— Eevenues and Expenditures — World's Fair and the Press — The University
Belationship — Material Gains of St. Louis — Jefferson Monument.

CHAPTEB XXX.

CENTENNIAL WEEK 801

The Century of Incorporation — Seven Days of Celebration — Organization and Prepara-
tion— Policy of the Executive Committee — The Coliseum Dressed — A Court of Honor —
Decorations and Illumination — Music Day and Night — Historical Tablets — Planning the
Pageants — The Torpedo Flotilla — Church Day — Archbishop Glennon on the City's Indi-
viduality— The 444 Beligious Organizations — Dr. Niccolls' Historical Sermon— Sunday
Schools at the Coliseum — The Parishes on Art Hill — Welcome to 400 Mayors — The Civic
League Luncheon — Flight of the Sphericals — Welcome Mass Meeting — Centennial Water
Pageant — Beception on 'Change and Luncheon by Merchants — Veiled Prophet, Pageant
and Ball — Municipal Parade — Corner Stone Ceremonies — Police Beview — The Dirigibles
in Forest Park — Three Miles of Industries on Floats — First Flight of Curtiss — Ball of
All Nations — Historic Floats — March of the Educational Brigades — Twilight Flight by
Curtiss — German-American Entertainment — Automobile Parade — Dedication of Fair-
ground— Curtiss at Forest Park — Get-together Banquet — Eeview of Centennial Week —
Visitors Numbered 150,000 — A Statue of Laclede, the Founder.

CHAPTER XVII.
THE MEDICAL PROFESSION

Doctor Conde's Ethics and Debtors — High Standards Maintained 146 Tears — Surgeon Val-
leau's Estate — A Hospital and a Government Physician in 1801 — The First Scientist of
St. Louis — Free Vaccination for the Poor — The Saugrain Family — Father Didier's
Homely Remedies — The First Mayor's Appeal for Sanitary Precautions — Bathing Advo-
cated as Protection Against Sickness — Miraculous Surgery by Dr. Farrar — Patent Medi-
cines Came with the American Flag — The First Drug Store and the First Medical Student
• — Beaumont 's Book of Worldwide Fame — Some St. Louis Doctors Who Prospered Notably
— Medical Lectures at Kemper College — Heroism in the Cholera Epidemics — A Graphic
Description of Dr. McDowell — The Colleges and Their Rivalry Before the Civil War —
Strange Fancies About Disposition of the Dead — Dr. Charles Alexander Pope, the Perfect
Gentleman — Philanthropies of the Profession — Distinguished Writers and Specialists —
John Thompson Hodgen, the Beloved — Dr. Moses M. Fallen on Duty to the Woman in
Travail — Eleven Medical Colleges at One Time — Graduates Who Won National Reputations
— Progressiveness of Medical Education — Washington University Reorganization — The
Hospitals — Homeopathy in St. Louis — The Dental Profession — "Extracting, Cleaning,
Plugging and Strengthening" in 1809 — The Barnard Hospital.

Doctor Saugrain gives notice of the first vaccine matter brought to St. Louis. Indigent
persons vaccinated gratuitously. — Missouri Gazette, March 26, 1809.

Science and humanity have gone hand-in-hand with the medical profession
of St. Louis. When the first doctor died, it was found that 232 people owed
him for services. The doctor was Andre Auguste Conde. He came to St.
Louis from Fort Chartres the year after Laclede founded the settlement. He
established a high standard of ethics and the doctors of St. Louis have lived
up to it 146 years. Frederic L. Billon, the authority on St. Louis antiquities,
concluded, after some investigation, that Conde's list of debtors was almost a
directory of the families of St. Louis and Cahokia for the ten years the good
doctor lived here.

The second doctor that came to St. Louis was Jean Baptiste Valleau.
He was French but was in the Spanish service, being surgeon of the force which
Ulloa sent to build forts at the mouth of the Missouri in 1768. Dr. Valleau,
evidently, intended to stay; he applied to St. Ange to assign him a lot and
entered into a contract for the building of a house. The site given him was
on Second and Pine streets where the Gay building was erected long after-
wards. Dr. Valleau furnished the iron and nails. Tousignau, the carpenter,
agreed to supply the posts and do all of the work on a house eighteen feet long
by fourteen feet wide for $60. In the performance of his professional duties
Valleau made frequent trips to Bellefontaine on the Missouri where the Span-
iards were building the forts. Exposure to the hot sun brought on sickness.
Within a year after his coming, Dr. Valleau made his will and died. One
of the principal assets of his estate was a box of playing cards, a gross of
packs. Martin Duralde, the executor, had considerable trouble in disposing of
the cards. The number of packs depressed the market. He waited two or

417
1 I VOL. II.

418 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

three years and held an auction. In the history of St. Louis Dr. Valleau's will
is the first recorded. The village was four and a half years old when he died.

After Valleau came Doctors Antoine Reynal, Bernard Gibkins, Claudio
Mercier and Joachim Gingembre. These were residents for varying periods
under the Spanish governors. When Doctor Mercier died, he freed his slave
and gave $100 to the poor.

In 1801, responding to several successive appeals, the Spanish authority
at New Orleans, concluded that St. Louis had attained the importance justi-
fying a hospital and a government physician. Morales wrote to Delassus:

In accordance with what the Marquis of Casa Calvo agreed with my predecessor
regarding a hospital and physician for the town of San Luis de Illinois, it is determined
that a physician shall be appointed and that he shall have a salary of $30 a month. The
appointment shall be given to Don Antonio Saugrain. A comfortable room shall be
arranged in the quarters designed for a hospital. This accountant's office is to supply every-
thing necessary for twelve beds and from this capital (New Orleans) all of the medicines
that will be required will be sent. Don Antonio Saugrain will not get his salary until you
have appointed him. He must keep account of all of the medicines used annually and the
statement must be sent to this office written in Spanish. The medicines will be used only
by the troop and marine of the king who may enter the hospital. If other people should be
admitted to the hospital they must pay for the medicines at the existing prices in the market.

To St. Louis, in 1800, came a physician and scientist who was to leave
his impression on the community. Dr. Antoine Francois Saugrain may be
called the father of the medical profession of St. Louis and the profession
may feel honored thereby. He came to the United States on the advice of
Benjamin Franklin when the latter was minister to France. The young
Frenchman, born in Versailles, highly educated and with developed taste
for scientific investigation impressed Mr. Franklin as the kind of a man to
make a valuable American. His first experience in this country was rather
disheartening. After living nine years with the unfortunate French colony
of Gallipolis on the Ohio river, Dr. Saugrain floated down the Ohio and made
his way to St. Louis four years before the American occupation. With the
Saugrains came the Michauds of Gallipolis. Dr. Saugrain had married Genevieve
Rosalie Michaud, eldest of the daughters of John Michaud. Two little girls,
Rosalie and Eliza Saugrain, made the journey. They became the wives of Henry
Von Phul and James Kennerly, the merchants. Other daughters of Dr. Saugrain
married Major Thomas O'Neil, of the United States army, and John W. Reel,
the St. Louis merchant. Descendants of the Saugrains and Michauds are
numerous in this generation of St. Louisans.

Possibly the reason that the medical profession had attracted so little
attention up to the coming of the Saugrains was because of the good health
which the community enjoyed. The eldest daughter of the doctor remembered
that when the family first came to St. Louis there were few cases of sickness.
When Dr. Saugrain came, he discovered that the habitants were accustomed
to go to Father Didier, the priest, when they felt bad. Father Didier would
fix up teas from herbs and give simple remedies, without professing to be
educated in medicine. Dr. Saugrain was a botanist. He depended largely
upon vegetable compounds and upon brews from herbs which he grew in a
wonderful garden that surrounded his house, or gathered in the wild state.

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION 419

The first case of smallpox appeared in St. Louis the year after Dr. Sau-
grain came. With it came a problem that appealed to the scientific mind.
The virtue of vaccination was accepted by Dr. Saugrain. As soon as he could
supply himself with the material, Dr. Saugrain began a campaign of educa-
tion. He published cards in the Gazette explaining the preventive. He in-
formed "such physicians and other intelligent persons as reside beyond the
limits of his accustomed practice that he will with much pleasure upon appli-
cation furnish them with vaccine infection." But especially noteworthy, and
characteristic of the medical profession in St. Louis in all its history, was
the philanthropic position taken by Dr. Saugrain toward those so unfortunate as
to be unable to protect themselves. "Persons in indigent circumstances," he
wrote to the Gazette, "paupers and Indians will be vaccinated and attended
gratis."

From the days when St. Louis chose a doctor for the first mayor of the
new city, the medical profession has done for St. Louis far more than to pre-
scribe for physical ails. That first mayor, Dr. William Carr Lane, in his
inaugural message, 1823, said: "Health is a primary object, and there is
much more danger of disease originating at home than of its seeds coming
from abroad. I recommend the appointment of a board of health to be selected
from the body of citizens, with ample powers to search out and remove nui-
sances, and to do whatever else may conduce to general health. This place
has of late acquired a character for unhealthfulness which it did not formerly
bear and does not deserve. I am credibly informed that it is not many. years
since a fever of high grade was rarely, if ever seen. To what is the distressing
change attributable? May we not say principally to the insufficiency of our
police regulations? What is the present condition of yards, drains, etc.? May
we not dread the festering heat of next summer? If this early warning had
been heeded, St. Louis might have escaped or minimized the series of terrible
cholera epidemics which began in the next decade.

Progress in sanitary conveniences was shown by the newspaper announce-
ment in 1829 that "the new bathing establishment of Mr. J. Sparks & Co. has
about thirty-five visitors, and of that number not one has experienced an hour's
sickness since the bathing commenced ; we should, for the benefit of the city, be
glad there were more encouragement, and, as the season is partly over, tickets
have been reduced to one dollar the season."

The distinction of being the first American physician and surgeon to es-
tablish himself permanently west of the Mississippi belongs to Bernard Gaines
Farrar. Born in Virginia and reared in Kentucky, young Dr. Farrar, on the
advice of his brother-in-law, Judge Coburn, came to St. Louis to live two years
after the American occupation. He was just of age. Dr. Charles Alexander
Pope described Farrar as a man of most tender sensibilities, so tender-hearted
that he seemed to suffer with his patients. And yet, before he had been in St.
Louis three years, Dr. Farrar performed a surgical operation which for a gen-
eration was a subject of marvel in the settlements and along the trails of the
Mississippi valley. The patient was young Shannon, who had made the journey
to the mouth of the Columbia with Lewis and Clark. Going with a second gov-
ernment expedition to find the sources of the Missouri, Shannon was shot by

420 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Blackfoot Indians. He was brought down the river to St. Louis, arriving in
very bad condition. Dr. Farrar amputated the leg at the thigh. Shannon re-
covered, went to school, became a highly educated man and served on the bench
in Kentucky. He never failed to give Dr. Farrar the credit of saving his life.
The St. Louis surgeon went on performing what in those days were surgical
miracles. Older members of the St. Louis profession always believed that
Farrar antedated Sansom in the performance of a very delicate operation on
the bladder, although Sansom, by reason of making publication first, is given
the credit in medical history. Dr. Farrar died of the cholera in the epidemic
of 1849. He was the man universally regarded as the dean of the medical pro-
fession of St. Louis in that day. It was said of Dr. Farrar that he was the
physician and surgeon most devoted to the duties of his profession ; that he took'
very little recreation ; that he did not indulge in the sports of fishing and hunting
which were common. Dr. Charles A. Pope pronounced before the medical
association a eulogy in which he declared that the acts of benevolence and the
charity performed by Dr. Farrar at the time when there was no hospital or
asylum in the city were "unparalleled."

"Patent medicines" followed the American flag into St. Louis. They
were here when Colonel Charless began to publish the Gazette. Within a month
after the inaugural number, the Gazette was advertising cough drops, balsam of
honey, British oil, bilious pills, essence of peppermint. Four years later, Dr.
Robert Simpson, a young Marylander who had come to St. Louis as assistant
surgeon in the army, opened the first drug store in St. Louis, associating with
himself Dr. Quarles. Dr. Simpson became postmaster and in the fifty years of
his life in St. Louis had a varied experience. He went into local politics and
held the offices of collector and of sheriff. In his more active years it was said
of him that he knew personally everybody living in St. Louis and most of the
people in the county. He engaged in mercantile life, was cashier of the first
savings bank, the Boatmen's, was chosen comptroller of the city several times
and went to the Legislature.

The first medical student west of the Mississippi was Meredith Martin.
He was a young Kentuckian who came to St. Louis and read medical books
in the office of Dr. Farrar in 1828. There was no medical school here. After
he had read the books, Martin went to Philadelphia and took a degree. He
came back to St. Louis to practice and had a strenuous beginning. Almost im-
mediately he was given a commission to go to the Indian Territory and vaccinate
the Indians. This was a work of months. Dr. Martin returned to St. Louis to
find the city passing through its first terrible visitation of cholera. He lived to
be one of the oldest physicians in St. Louis and was three times elected president
of the St. Louis Medical society.

A highly educated son of Maryland who joined the medical profession in
St. Louis, a representative of one of the families of Revolutionary patriots,
was Dr. Stephen W. Adreon. He came in 1832. After some years of practice
he, like many other members of his profession, took an interest in civic matters
and served as a member of the city council under three mayors, Kennett, King
and Filley. As president of the board of health, Dr. Adreon had much to do
with the development of that department of the municipal government. He

DR. CHARLES W. STEVENS

A DOCTOR'S OFFICE IN 1909

DR. JOHN B. JOHNSON

McDOWELL'S COLLEGE
At the outbreak of the Civil war

DR. PHILIP WEIGEL DR. B. G. FARRAR

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION 421

was also, toward the close of his active career, health officer and one of the
managers of the House of Refuge.

Connection with the army brought to St. Louis notable members of the
medical profession. The most distinguished of these, probably, was a surgeon
of Connecticut birth. Dr. William Beaumont had been a surgeon in the regular
army about twenty years when, after being stationed for some time at Jefferson
Barracks and the arsenal, he resigned and made his home in St. Louis. That
was about 1832. While he was living here Dr. Beaumont brought out a book
which gave him worldwide fame. He called it "Physiology of Digestion and
Experiments on the Gastric Juice." That wasn't a title to arouse much curiosity
among laymen, but when the story got into circulation, interest was not confined
to the profession. During the time that Dr. Beaumont was at an army post on
the Canadian frontier he was called upon to attend Alexis St. Martin, a boatman.
Martin had been shot in such a manner as to leave a hole in his stomach. The
wound healed, but the hole did not close. Dr. Beaumont carried on a long
series of experiments. He observed the operation of digestion under many
conditions. St. Martin ate solids and drank liquids under the doctor's direc-
tions. The doctor looked into the stomach, watched and timed the progress.
He was able to give from actual observation the effects produced by various kinds
of foods and drinks upon the stomach.

Some of these young physicians who settled in St. Louis combined sound
business qualifications with professional standing. Dr. Alexander Marshall,
who was born eight miles from Edinburgh, Scotland, made a careful tour of
observation of American cities before he decided upon St. Louis in 1840 as his
permanent location. He had $600 when he came here and gave himself six
months to live on that while making acquaintances. But before the half year
of probation was up, Dr. Marshall had not only become self-supporting on his
practice, but had added $600 to his nestegg. He continued to practice in St.
Louis and accumulated an estate of $300,000.

Henry Van Studdiford was intended for the ministry by his New Jersey
relatives, but his natural bent and education took him into the profession of
medicine. He came to St. Louis in 1839, invested the surplus earnings from his
practice in real estate. He did this so judiciously that he became one of the
wealthiest members of his profession in this city. He married a daughter of
Colonel Martin Thomas, the army officer who established and commanded the
St. Louis arsenal.

The first medical lecture delivered west of the Mississippi was by Dr.
John S. Moore, from North Carolina. On the basis of a fine classical education
he started for Philadelphia, at that early day the center of medical education in
the United States, to complete his studies and "get a diploma." Meeting Dr.
McDowell, he was induced to stop in Cincinnati, and became a member of the
first class of the Cincinnati Medical college, graduating in 1832. As the youngest
member of the faculty of the medical department of Kemper college, with
which medical education began in St. Louis, Dr. Moore delivered that first
lecture.

Charles W. Stevens was a member of the Kemper college medical faculty.
He was one of the first graduates of that institution. Coming west from his

422 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

New York home to be a civil engineer and surveyor, when he was about of
age, Stevens found that profession unpromising and took up the study of medi-
cine. Diseases of the nervous system became his specialty and he was superin-
tendent and physician of the St. Louis Insane Asylum. Kemper college was
located where the asylum was afterwards built. Dr. Stevens went to his charge
of the city's wards on the same hilltop in southwest St. Louis where he had
studied medicine and had lectured a quarter of a century before. The first class
of young doctors graduated at Kemper included Dr. E. S. Frazier, a young Ken-
tuckian, who married a sister of Dr. John S. Moore and joined the profession in
St. Louis.

Dr. Edwin Bathurst Smith, a Virginian, member of an old family of that
state, before he came to St. Louis had been one of the founders of the Louis-
iana Medical college. He had been the first physician to give yellow fever pa-
tients cold drinks to allay the fever. He went through the first cholera epidemic
of this country, that of 1832, and won high reputation as an authority. After
settling in St. Louis he devoted the most of his attention to the sciences and was
one of a coterie which half a century ago gave St. Louis worldwide fame in
scientific matters.

The cholera epidemics developed heroic qualities in the medical profes-
sion of St. Louis. Dr. Hardage Lane, a cousin of the first mayor of St. Louis,
Dr. William Carr Lane, devoted himself day and night to cholera patients in
1849, until he was overcome with physical exhaustion, dying after a brief illness.

In the fall of 1838 Dr. Joseph N. McDowell began to lecture to the students
of Kemper college. His subject was the history of man. He illustrated his
talks with skulls of the different races. The lectures were fascinating. Students
wanted more. Dr. McDowell built a medical college, not the great pile of
masonry which looked like a massive fort ; that came later. The first McDowell
college was a small brick building. There the young men of St. Louis flocked
to him for medical education. Architecturally, McDowell's college was as
original as the founder. A large stove in the amphitheater of his first college
building gave Dr. McDowell the suggestion of an octagon building. This plan
was carried out as far as means would permit. The octagon building was to be
eight stories in height. It was started with foundations eight feet thick but
never reached the height designed. In the center was a column of masonry
which was to form the peak of the roof. In this massive column Dr. McDowell
intended to have niches in which to place the copper cases containing the bodies
of members of his family.

From the Christian Brothers' academy, northward toward the city was open
space. It extended toward Mill Creek and the famous mill. The creek ran
under a culvert where Seventh street crossed. This open space Dr. McDowell
appropriated for his patriotic celebrations. He encouraged his devoted medical
students to make much of Washington's Birthday and of the Fourth of July.
Several cannon were included in the equipment of McDowell's Medical college.
They had been obtained originally for moral effect at a time when popular
prejudice was easily inflamed against dissecting rooms. And when a national
holiday came around, the head of the institution took evident satisfaction in
showing the community that he and his constituency knew how to shoot them.

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION 423

The cannon were not mounted upon wheeled carriages but that did not deter
Dr. McDowell. Wearing a three-cornered hat of the continentals, with feathers
bristling from it, having a large cavalry sabre strapped to his waist, McDowell
would lead his students carrying the cannon to the vacant space. The guns were
placed on sawbucks for support. Dr. McDowell superintended the loading and
firing. In loud and emphatic language he gave his orders, encouraging much
cheering and telling his followers to "make Rome howl." That was one of
the doctor's favorite forms of appeal. J

Those days of patriotic outburst by Dr. McDowell and the medical students
were observed in very different spirit by the Christian Brothers and their pupils.
Brother Jasper was in charge of the playground. The coming of the medical
body was the signal for Brother Jasper to assemble the students of the academy
and to marshal them to a place of safety. The Brothers, viewing the reckless
manner in which Dr. McDowell conducted the salutes in honor of the day, had
no doubt there would sometime be an explosion, with loss of life or limb. There
was strong suspicion that the evident apprehension of the Brothers stimulated
Dr. McDowell to louder and more violent language and to greater demonstrations
on his holidays. The more marked the disturbance of the Brothers became, the
greater seemed the satisfaction of the doctor. And yet it was not malevolence,
for Dr. McDowell would speak well of his neighbors. One day returning from
the celebration on the vacant space, the doctor thrust his head in at an open
window of the academy and loudly declared with unquotable emphasis that if
he had a boy young enough to go to school he would send him to the Brothers.

Dr. Warren B. Outten, the surgeon, was a boy student at the Christian
Brothers' academy, as it was called in the decade of 1850-60. His recollection
of the militant head of McDowell's Medical college remained vivid through all
of the years that followed:

He was a tall, slim man, with clean cut features and cleanly shaven face. His hair
was gray and combed straight back from his forehead after the manner of Calhoun. Dr.
McDowell was to each and every student of the academy a marked and wonderful character.
His intensity and tendency toward profanity, his high pitched voice, his swaggering and
independent bearing made him always interesting, awesome and peculiar. I can well re-
member how the brothers viewed him. To them he was a vice regnant deputy of His Satanic
Majesty. Brother Valgen, who was master of dormitory for fifty years, a man of mild,
timid character, if he could see Dr. McDowell a square off, would cross himself and hunt
for cover.

Great reputation locally as an orator, had Dr. McDowell. His language
was always picturesque and often lurid. His commencement addresses drew to
his college large audiences. The late Dr. Montrose A. Fallen could describe
graphically one of these commencement days at McDowell's college, for he was
present although a student of another institution. The manner and words of
McDowell made a lasting impression on Fallen's memory. On that commence-
ment day, Dr. McDowell came down the center aisle of the amphitheater, carry-
ing his violin and bow. When he reached the amphitheater table he turned and
facing the expectant throng began to play. After several tunes, he laid down
the violin and spoke in his high pitched voice:

Now, gentlemen, we have been together five long months. Doubtless, some of these
months have been very happy months, and doubtless some have been very perplexing ones.

424 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Such is the eternal fate of workers and students. But now, gentlemen, the saddest of all
sad words must be uttered, namely, farewell! Here retrospection takes her sway, either glad-
dened or saddened, as idiosyncrasies hold the mind. We have wandered in the labyrinthian
way of anatomy. We have floated in the ethereal atmosphere of physiology. We have waded
knee deep, nay, neck deep, into a sea of theory and practice; ground, filtered, pounded and
inspected elements of materia medica, and slowly pounded in the endless crucible of chem-
istry. As we say farewell! it is needless for me to say that I hope God may, in His infinite
mercy, bless you as you deserve. But remember that labor omnia vincit. No man under
God's blue sky need hope that success can, or will come without labor, for God has ordained
that all of us must earn our living by the sweat of our brow. Nature only recognizes the
laborer, and eternally damns the rich man, by satiety and disease.

Doubtless one of your number, in this class, will come back to the great city of St.
Louis with the snow of many winters upon his hair and walking upon three legs instead
of two, as Sphinx has it. As he wanders here and there upon its streets amidst the crowded
and eager throng, noting the wondrous improvement here and the change there, suddenly,
gentlemen, it will occur to him to ask of one of the eager passers-by, "Where is Dr.
McDowell?" "Dr. McDowell? Dr. McDowell?" he will say, "what Dr. McDowell f"
"Why," he will tell him, "Dr. McDowell, the surgeon?" "Oh, yes, Dr. McDowell, the
surgeon. Why! He lies buried close to Belief ontaine. "

Slowly, gentlemen, he will wend his way thither, and there amidst the rank weeds, he
will find a plain marble slab inscribed, "J. McDowell, Surgeon." While he stands there
contemplating the rare virtues and eccentricities of this old man, suddenly, gentlemen, the
spirit of Dr. McDowell will arise on ethereal wings and bless him, aye! thrice bless him.
Then, suddenly, gentlemen, this spirit will take a swoop and as he passes McDowell's college
he will drop a parting tear. But, gentlemen, when he gets to Pope's college, he will spit
upon it. Yes, I say, he will spit upon it.

Into his peroration Dr. McDowell would throw almost frenzied emphasis.
When he concluded there would be a hurricane of cheers and yells. Dr. Fallen
was a student at Pope's college, but, as did many of the students of the rival
institution, he went to hear Dr. McDowell's address to his graduates.

Very strange were the ideas Dr. McDowell had about the disposition of
the dead. When Dr. McDowell thought he was going to die, he called to his
bedside Dr. Charles W. Stevens and Dr. Drake McDowell, his son. He exacted
from them a solemn promise that they would place his body in a copper receptacle
and fill the space with alcohol. The receptacle, they were to suspend in Mam-
moth Cave, Kentucky. Permission to do this, the doctor claimed he had already
obtained. This eccentric demand was not a great surprise to Dr. Stevens. Com-
ing to McDowell's college to study medicine, Stevens had learned quickly some-
thing of his preceptor's strange fancies. A child of Dr. McDowell died a few
days after Stevens entered the college. The coffin was lined with metal. The
body was placed in the coffin. All space remaining was filled with alcohol and
the coffin was sealed tightly. A year or so later, the body of the child was re-
moved from the coffin, and placed in a large copper case. This was Dr. Mc-
Dowell's method of treating the bodies of his children. No religious service of
any kind was performed. The copper cases were carried at night attended by a
procession formed by the medical students and friends of the family. Each
person carried a torch. The place of disposition was a vault in the rear of the
residence. The thought of a natural cave as a final resting place was a favorite
one. Dr. McDowell bought a cave near Hannibal. He had a wall built across
the opening and placed in it an iron door. The vase or case containing one of
the children in alcohol was taken from St. Louis to this cave and suspended

DR. THOMAS O'REILLY

DR. JOHN P. BRYSON

MISSOURI MEDICAL COLLEGE AND CHRISTIAN BROTHERS' COLLEGE ON
EIGHTH STREET BEFORE THE WAR

THE MEDICAL PROEESSION

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION 425

from the roof. Vandals broke open the iron door and the vault became ac-
cessible to the curious public. Dr. McDowell gave up the notion and made no
further use of the cave. He purchased a knoll or mound across the river, not
far from Cahokia, in view with a glass from the cupola of the college. There
he constructed a vault in which he placed the body of his wife. Years after-
ward Dr. McDowell and his wife were buried in Bellefontaine.

McDowell wore his hair in an iron gray mane thrown back and falling
almost to the shoulder. He had great natural power as an orator, but he culti-
vated rather familiarity than dignity. Standing at the front of the courthouse
to address a public gathering he was greeted by some one in the crowd as "old
sawbones." "Yes," he answered back, in his high pitched voice, "I am 'old
sawbones' and look out that I don't saw your bones."

Dr. McDowell was a fascinating lecturer. He had stories to illustrate
every assertion. His students were in the habit of saying that Dr. McDowell
could tell a story to go with every bone, muscle, nerve and vessel of the human
body. Dr. McDowell was not a successful business man. The college passed
through financial straits. The doctor held St. Louis University responsible for
his money troubles because the faculty permitted another medical college to be
organized under the auspices of the University. He lectured against the Jesuits.
And then he professed to feel that he and his college were in danger of attack.
Wearing a brass breastplate made according to his own design and carrying arms,
Dr. McDowell turned his medical college into a fortress. He bought 1,400
condemned muskets from the United States government, paying $2.50 apiece
for them. These he stored in the basement of the college. From old brass,
which he bought, and from the college bell Dr. McDowell had cast for him six
cannon. He talked of recruiting from his students a force to march across the
plains and capture some Mexican territory. When the Civil war came Dr. Mc-
Dowell went south and gave his cannon to the Confederacy. He died in 1868.

Altogether unlike McDowell was that other dominant figure of early medical
education in St. Louis, Charles Alexander Pope. In leisure hours, Dr. Warren
B. Outten attained marked facility with the brush. He painted a portrait of
Dr. Pope, under whom he had been a student when Pope's college was known
throughout the country. Dr. Outten has given a pen picture of Dr. Pope. He
describes him as "a very handsome man, about five feet, nine inches tall, hav-
ing a well shaped head with dark blue eyes, well turned eyebrows, an expression
of thoughtful gentleness about the eyes. It was a face such as to win anyone
on first sight. Dr. Pope had a general appearance of elegance and culture. His
voice was quick, incisive and agreeable in tone. His movements were quick and
graceful. Dr. Pope was unconsciously polite and courteous. He was in my
estimation, in every respect, a most perfect gentleman. He never descended to
anything little, petty or mean. No one ever heard a vulgar or profane word
come from his lips, nor did he ever utter abuse or gossip about a professional
confrere. Always eager to commend and always full of good advice and en-
couragement, he made the world around him better for his having been in it."

From such a picture of Dr. Pope it is not difficult to understand the
strong and lasting impression he made upon his profession in St. Louis. Dr.
Pope was from Alabama. He had studied under Drake at Cincinnati, had

426 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, had spent several years in
medical schools in France, in England and in Ireland, coming to St. Louis in
1842. Within a year he entered the faculty of the St. Louis Medical college
as professor of anatomy. In 1846, Dr. Pope married Caroline O'Fallon, the
daughter of John O'Fallon. Proud of his brilliant son-in-law, John O'Fallon
built on Seventh and Spruce streets the medical college which in its architecture
and appointments was without equal in the United States, outside of New York
and Philadelphia. Around him Dr. Pope drew a faculty of great strength. In
1854 he was elected president of the American Medical association.

Coming back to St. Louis from Europe in 1870, Dr. Pope received a re-
ception such as has been given to few citizens after an absence. To the faculty,
newly organized, of the St. Louis College of Physicians and Surgeons, at a
banquet, Dr. Pope made an address in March, 1870. Four months later, this
man of splendid faculties, with a record of inestimable usefulness to his pro-
fession in St. Louis, was dead by his own hand. It was one of St. Louis'
mysteries.

Pope's College survives, with its strenuous traditions and its honorable
record in the history of medical education of St. Louis. It has been, in its
lifetime, the medical department of two universities. It has stood alone as the
St. Louis Medical college. Uniting with the Missouri Medical college, it was
merged in the Washington University medical department.

The decade 1840-50 gave to the medical profession of St. Louis notable
characters. These men were not only strong personalities but they brought
to their practice and to the educational work in which they engaged the ad-
vantages of study and observation far beyond the ordinary. And this in-
heritance of knowledge and thought they passed down to the thousands of
young men who came to the medical schools of St. Louis. To these physicians
and surgeons, coming from other countries and from various states, St. Louis
owes much for her foremost position among cities in the philanthropy which
has to do with physical ails.

S. Gratz Moses, born in Philadelphia, had enjoyed classical education and
medical training before he went to Europe as physician to Joseph Bonaparte,
the eldest brother of Napoleon. His connection with the Bonaparte family
brought him into friendly relations with the great men of his profession in
Paris. Returning to this country, Dr. Moses came to St. Louis in 1841. The
next year he, with half a dozen young men in his profession, started something
that was new in this city and one of the first of its class in the United States.
That institution was a dispensary for treatment of those unable to employ phy-
sicians. Mrs. Vital M. Garesche suggested this dispensary and worked zealously
for its establishment. The support came from churches and private subscrip-
tions. The Mullanphy family gave generously toward this as they did toward
other movements to relieve the unfortunate. At that time the Unitarian church
was on Fourth and Pine streets. With his spirit of cooperation in all public
spirited enterprise, Rev. Dr. William G. Eliot gave rooms to the dispensary
office in the basement of his church. Associated with Dr. Moses in this work
were Dr. William M. McPheeters, Dr. J. B. Johnson, Dr. Charles A. Pope,
Dr. J. L. Clark, Dr. George Johnson and others. These men carried on the

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION 427

dispensary for seven years until the city assumed this as a municipal function
and opened a public dispensary.

Those were primitive times. It is said that the only one of these practi-
tioners in the early forties who rode in a buggy to visit his patients was Dr.
Clark. The others rode horseback. Dr. John B. Johnson was of Massachusetts
birth and of Harvard education. He came from the position of house surgeon
of the Massachusetts General hospital to enter practice at St. Louis. A man of
splendid appearance and fine manners, Dr. Johnson obtained almost imme-
diately a professional standing among the leading families. One of his earliest
friends was Theron Barnum, who kept the City hotel in the days when the lead-
ing hotelkeeper of St. Louis ranked close to the mayor in public estimation. It
was said of Dr. Johnson that for many years he did not send a bill for services,
relying upon his patients to come around and settle when they felt so disposed.

Dr. Moses M. Fallen, the head of the Fallen family in St. Louis, was
a Virginian by birth, educated at the University of Virginia. He practiced in
Vicksburg several years before coming to St. Louis in 1842. He was a student
of the sciences as well as a physician and was one of the coterie which gave high
character to the St. Louis Academy of Science in its early days.

From Prague, in Bohemia, came to St. Louis, in 1845, a highly educated
specialist in the person of Dr. Simon Pollak. He had already given study to
the branch of medicine which was to place him among the leaders in ophthal-
mology. Joining the coterie of physicians and surgeons who had established
the dispensary, Dr. Pollak pioneered the way for what has become one of the
city's most beneficial institutions. In 1852, Dr. Pollak started the movement
which by private subscriptions founded the Missouri Institution for the Educa-
tion of the Blind. This was supported five years by the contributions of citizens
and was then made a State institution.

In 1845, according to the Medical and Surgical Journal published here,
St. Louis had 146 "persons who are endeavoring to obtain a livelihood by the
practice of the healing art in this city, which includes the homeopathists, botanies,
Thompsonians, etc." The population was 40,000. There was a doctor of some
kind for 274 people. The Journal stated that about one-third of these doctors
enjoyed lucrative practice and that many of the others were leaving and set-
tling in surrounding towns.

Distinguished among the writers on medical subjects in this country was
Dr. R. S. Holmes, a native of Pittsburg, who left the position of army surgeon
to make his home in St. Louis about 1849. Dr. Holmes not only contributed
a great deal that attracted attention in medical literature but he became widely
known as a magazine and newspaper contributor. He popularized subjects more
or less connected with his profession. He wrote on "Beauty," "Use of the Hair
Among the Ancients," and like topics. He contributed "Sketches of American
Character." His great work in his profession was his study and treatment of
malignant, climatic fevers. He led in the use of large doses of quinine to over-
come malaria. Visiting Europe he brought home to St. Louis the finest micro-
scope that had been seen here and entered upon minute researches with the
powerful lens.

428 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

The medical profession of St. Louis early became composite as to nationality
and as to education. One of the German patriots of 1848 who became promi-
nent in the medical profession of St. Louis was Dr. G. Fischer. Edward Mont-
gomery from near Belfast, Ireland, settled in St. Louis in 1849 to practice
medicine. He became widely known as a writer on medical subjects. About
the same time, three other young men established themselves as physicians in
St. Louis, coming from widely separated parts of the world. Louis Ch. Bois-
liniere was from the Island of Guadeloupe, descended from one of the oldest
families of that West Indian paradise. He had been educated in France, had
traveled extensively in South America and had been for some time a guest of
Henry Clay and other eminent Kentuckians before he chose St. Louis as his
permanent home. Under the auspices of the Sisters of Charity Dr. Boisliniere
took prominent part in giving St. Louis the honor of establishing the first lying-in
hospital and foundling asylum in the United States. He was the first physician
to hold the office of coroner in St. Louis. That was in 1858. Dr. Boisliniere's
recreation was singing. He delighted in classical music and those who heard
him in the rendition of church masses never forgot the fervor with which he
sang. Dr. F. Ernst. Baumgarten began to practice in St. Louis contempo-
raneously with Dr. Boisliniere. He was from the kingdom of Hanover and
had edited a surgical journal in German before he came to St. Louis. He
became one of the founders of the German Medical society of St. Louis, a
very strong professional organization. The third of these young doctors was
Thomas O'Reilly, who came from County Cavan, Ireland, with the best medical
education that Dublin could give him. All of his life in St. Louis he was devoted
to the political advancement of his native island.

The Hotel for Invalids was the name chosen for a private hospital started
in the Paul house at Second and Walnut streets in the summer of 1848. The
institution was short lived.

Strikingly unlike his preceptor, McDowell, was John Thompson Hodgen.
who was born in a rugged part of Kentucky near the birthplace of Abraham
Lincoln. After he graduated under McDowell, Dr. Hodgen became first demon-
strator and then professor in the institution. When the war came and Mc-
Dowell's college was turned into a military prison, Hodgen was chosen sur-
geon-general for the Western Sanitary commission. Later he was surgeon-
general for the state of Missouri. He tried to keep alive the old medical school
but finally joined the faculty of the St. Louis Medical college. The American
Medical association drew upon the St. Louis profession repeatedly to fill the
office of president. One of those drafted was Dr. Hodgen.

The beloved surgeon of St. Louis in 1870-80 was John T. Hodgen. He
used but few words. He accepted no familiarity. Addressed as "Doc," he
would respond, "If you want me to answer you politely, don't call me 'Doc/
There is no such word. Call me 'Doctor' and there will be no trouble, but I
will not answer to the call of 'Doc.' " And no man once receiving this rebuke
required another warning. Dr. Hodgen could put an astonishing effect into his
few words. His assertions uttered before his students were remembered and
quoted for years afterwards. One who studied under him, said : "He could say
'I don't know,' in such a manner as to convey the idea that there was a pro-
fundity of knowledge back of it."

DR. EDWIN B. SMITH

DR. HENRY VAN STUDDIFORD

DR. CHARLES A. POPE

DR. RICHARD F. BARRETT DR. S. GRATZ MOSES

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION 429

Men of strong sympathy, fine sensibilities and great charity have ennobled
the medical profession of St. Louis. It is told of Dr. Hodgen that in driving
up to the residence of a patient, where the case was desperate, he would some-
times say to the one with him : "Look out and see if crape is on the door. I am
afraid to look." If crape was on the door the doctor drove on quickly; if not,
Dr. Hodgen was out of the buggy in a hurry and with a bright face, his lips
forming for a pleasant little whistle showing the pleasure he felt, he went into
the house.

Students of Dr. Moses M. Fallen, a member of an old Virginia family,
who came to St. Louis in 1842, were given an impression of professional obliga-
tion which was far more than scientific. Dr. Fallen held the professorship of
obstetrics for more than twenty years. He taught thousands of students "that
the doctor when at the bedside of the woman in labor almost meets his God,
and that duty, the stern daughter of God, must be evoked every moment and
hour in her travail. Give your strength to the laboring mother. Fill her with
hope; it may be light diet but it will be very stimulating; it awakens courage.
If the doctor ever is at the service of any one he must be at the absolute service
of the lying-in woman. Be thoughtful of her in her agony of pain. Encourage-
ment is everything. It well becomes God's most exalted creature. To relieve
distress is not only human but it is Godlike ; and thrice blessed is that man who
relieves a single maternal pain." That was the character of Dr. Fallen's teaching
as one of his pupils, Dr. Warren B. Outten, described it long years after his
own graduation.

The medical profession of St. Louis before the Civil war drew upon Ken-
tucky born men for some of its strongest characters. Besides Joseph Nash
McDowell and M. L. Linton, John T. Hodgen, E. H. Gregory and E. S. Frazier
were from Kentucky stock. Dr. Moses L. Linton came from Kentucky in
k 1842. A graduate of Transylvania University, perfected in his profession by
study abroad, he had a short time before moving to St. Louis announced his
conversion to the Roman Catholic faith. Then had ensued a sharp controversy
between Rev. Robert Grundy, a distinguished Presbyterian minister, and Dr.
Linton, running through a series of pamphlets and attracting a great deal of
attention. Dr. Linton wrote with much spirit and in an attractive style. The
high standard of medical education in St. Louis owes a great deal to that
farmer's son in Kentucky. Dr. Linton took a course in Europe at a time when
few American doctors did that. He was associated in his studies abroad part of
the time with Dr. Charles A. Pope. That association had much to do with Dr.
Linton's decision to settle in St. Louis, where he was invited to take a chair
in the faculty of the medical department of St. Louis University. The St.
Louis Medical Journal, established in 1843, owed its beginning to Dr. Linton
more than to any one else. Dr. McPheeters was associated with Dr. Linton in
the editorial management of the Journal. "Outlines of Pathology" was the
title of one of the first medical books published by an author west of the Mis-
sissippi. In that book Dr. Linton gave to the profession what served for students
in the way of general instruction many years.

Between 1850 and 1860 St. Louis began to produce her own professors.
One of the first of these was Dr. T. L. Papin, a descendant of the founder of

430 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

the settlement. In 1852 he became a member of the faculty in the Missouri
Medical college. The greater part of his career he was a teacher of medicine.
St. John's Hospital owed its origin to Dr. Papin and the connection of the
medical college with the hospital was largely brought about by him. The
Nidelets, James C. and Sylvester, were descended from the Pratte family. They
completed their education in St. Louis and entered the medical profession here.
The father of the Nidelets was of San Domingo birth, but of French descent.
He was Stephen F. Nidelet. He came to this country while a boy and became
a merchant of Philadelphia. While on a visit to St. Louis he made the ac-
quaintance of Celeste E. Pratte, a daughter of General Bernard Pratte and a
belle of the decade of 1820-1830. Marriage followed. Some years afterwards
the Nidelets removed from Philadelphia to St. Louis and made this their home.

Dr. E. H. Gregory, born, bred and educated in Kentucky, joined the pro-
fession at St. Louis in 1852. He became the surgeon-in-chief of the Sisters'
Hospital. That was the first hospital west of the Mississippi. Sister Francis
Xavier, with three other members of the order of Sisters of Charity, which
had been founded at Emmitsburg, Maryland, in 1809, came to St. Louis in 1828
and started the hospital in a modest way on a strip of ground 100 feet wide
running from Fourth to Third street along the south side of Spruce. The lot
was a donation for the purpose by John Mullanphy, who set a fine pace for
philanthropy in St. Louis soon after the American flag was hoisted. The first
building was small. It left room for an orchard and a garden. The institution
grew until crowding commerce prompted removal, July, 1874, to a large block
of ground on Montgomery street east of Grand avenue. Around him Dr.
Gregory gathered a staff composed of such specialists as N. B. Carson, Paul Y.
Tupper, S. Pollak, W. C. Glasgow, L. L. McCabe.

The German patriots, who added elements of great influence to the popula-
tion of St. Louis, included some characters born to make war on the existing
order whether in politics or in the professions. One of these was Dr. Adam
Hammer. He was a man of medium height, slender, sallow. Below a high
round forehead were a long sharp thin nose and a pointed chin, emphasized
by chin whiskers. Dr. Hammer had keen black eyes. Members of the pro-
fession said Dr. Hammer looked like the pictures of Harvey, who discovered
the circulation of the blood. Hammer had been well educated in German uni-
versities. He came here with considerable reputation as a surgeon. He had
performed some wonderful operations. So long as he resided in St. Louis
he was the chief figure in frequent professional disputes. At the meetings of
the Medical society, Dr. Hammer could be depended upon to start something
before the evening was over. These scenes at last became so disagreeable to
the other members that the presence of the reporters was dispensed with. Dr.
Hammer was for a time the dean of the Humboldt Medical college, which was
located opposite the city hospital. Afterwards he was offered a chair in the
faculty of the Missouri Medical college. It was something of a relief to the pro-
fession in St. Louis when Dr. Hammer, after dividing his time between this
country and Germany, decided to take up his permanent residence in the
fatherland.

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION 431

To the third generation of a family of medical practitioners in St. Louis
belonged Dr. John Charles Lebrecht. His father was Dr. John Lebrecht. The
grandfather on the maternal side was Dr. Valentine Ludwig. John M. Young-
blood was of Tennessee birth. He was southern in type but like many other
St. Louisans who came from Southern states, especially Tennessee and Ken-
tucky, he took the Union side. When he went back to his native state during
the war, he was the surgeon of a Missouri regiment of United States volunteers.
After the war Dr. Youngblood's practice included free service to a great many
poor people. When he died in 1879 there was presented the touching scene of
his office thronged with men, women and children who had been befriended
by him.

The grandfather of Dr. Mordecai Yarnall, although of old Quaker stock,
fought under Commodore Perry and helped to gain the victory on Lake Erie.
For his gallantry New York and Pennsylvania gave Lieutenant Yarnell medals
and Virginia bestowed upon him a sword. After service in the Confederate
army with Stonewall Jackson, Mordecai Yarnall came to St. Louis and joined
the medical profession. Dr. Adolphus Schlossstein came to St. Louis in 1867,
with not only the classical education of the gymnasium, but after having taken
courses at several universities ; he was fresh from study in the hospitals and
practice as a surgeon in the German army. He practiced his profession and at
the same time became interested with his brother, George Schlossstein, in the
manufacture of window glass. The Schlossstein family was of Bavarian descent.

In the decade of 1880-1890 a new generation took up the traditions and
carried forward the prestige of the medical profession of St. Louis. Medi-
cal education for which St. Louis had won widespread fame was still farther
advanced. The St. Louis Post-Graduate School of Medicine, the first institu-
tion of the kind in the country, was established. Its purpose was to encourage
the graduate to go on with his study and researches. A moving spirit in this
development was Herman Tuholske, who had come from his home in Berlin,
with a classical education in the gymnasium to enter upon professional life in
St. Louis not long after the Civil war. Graduating from the Missouri Medical
college, Dr. Tuholske perfected himself by study in the schools of London and
the European capitals. He attracted much attention by the reforms he insti-
tuted as the physician in charge of the St. Louis dispensary. He went through
epidemics with credit for his personal courage and professional skill. When
he began to agitate the movement for advance in the standard of medical edu-
cation in St. Louis he was joined by such men as Robinson, Michel, Steele,
Hardaway, Glasgow, Spencer, Fischell and Engelmann. In response to this
St. Louis movement the State of Missouri required three years' attendance upon
lectures for license to practice.

St. Louis had at one time eleven medical colleges. Going east in 1893
to address the alumni of a medical college, the then chancellor of Washing-
ton University, Dr. W. S. Chaplin, gave this testimony to the progressiveness
of medical education in St. Louis:

Some thirty years ago the faculty of one of these medical schools formed an organ-
ization which was a hard and fast agreement that they would turn over every dollar of
profit to a fund, put it out of their control entirely and devote that fund to furthering medi-

432 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

cal education. As a result of this they built one of the very best educational buildings I
know of. It has large laboratories; it has splendid lecture rooms. It has every feature of
the most modern methods of teaching. And that has been built and equipped out of the
self-sacrifice of members of the medical profession. I believe it is a lone example of such
self-sacrifice. I know of no other profession that can boast of such an example; nor do I
know of any other school in the medical profession that can show it.

Upon Dr. John Green, the chancellor bestowed, in large measure, the credit
or the movement.

The St. Louis College of Physicians and Surgeons came into existence
in 1879. The movement was of considerable strength and resulted in the erection
of a modern college building. The Beaumont Medical college cultivated close
relations with hospitals, the Alexian, St. Mary's and the Missouri Pacific. It
had its origin with a group of younger members of the profession, desiring to
spread the benefits of hospital experience. Marion-Sims Medical college was
Upstarted in 1890 and the Rebecca hospital was established in connection with it.
The Barnes Medical college was inaugurated with a board of trustees including
some of the most prominent citizens of St. Louis. For this institution was
erected a handsome five-story building on Garrison avenue and Chestnut street,
very complete in appointments. The medical colleges of St. Louis have for
several years graduated from 600 to 750 students annually.

Alfred Heacock, who came from Pennsylvania, after a few years' prac-
tice in Ohio and Indiana, lived to be the oldest practitioner in St. Louis. When
he was eighty years of age, the St. Louis Medical society made him a member
for life without payment of dues. In earlier years before the days of railroads,
Dr. Heacock crossed the Mississippi by the upper ferry and attended patients
in the American bottom and as far east as Collinsville, making the travel on
horseback.

At a meeting of the Alumni Association of the Missouri Medical college,
Professor C. O. Curtman, in 1895, introduced the X-ray discovery to the medical
profession of St. Louis.

The surgeon-general who developed the Marine Hospital Service into its
latter day importance was born in St. Louis. General Walter Wyman, son of
Professor Edward Wyman, graduated at Amherst and at the St. Louis Medical
college. He entered the Marine Hospital service as an assistant surgeon in
charge of the St. Louis Marine hospital in 1876 and almost immediately began
to attract more than local attention by his efforts to improve the conditions of
the deck hands of western rivers. Congress was prompted by the movement
which General Wyman fostered to pass a law for the better treatment of deck-
hands. Then came the enlargement of the Marine Hospital service to meet the
problems of epidemics with government authority — first cholera, then yellow
fever and plague. To General Wyman's fearlessness and intelligence the country
has owed its escape from threatened visitations of contagious diseases. The
surgeon-general's successful conduct of the service encouraged Congress to
transfer, step by step, to this department the various government functions re-
lating to the public health. The quarantine system grew into its effective status
under General Wyman's investigations and recommendations. With the Spanish-
American war, the service came into greatly increased responsibilities. It was
extended over Cuba and Porto Rico. General Wyman aimed at control of the

DR. GEORGE J. BERN AYS

DR. L. H. LAIDLEY

DR. W. M. McPHEETERS

DR. A. C. BERN AYS DR. JOHN T. HODGEN

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION 433

yellow fever situation in the West Indies and he achieved it. He promoted the
establishment of a great sanitarium for the treatment of consumptives on the
plains of New Mexico. The extension of American influence in the Pacific
brought the study of leprosy, and of the bubonic plague within his jurisdiction.
The greatest public health officer in the world today is a St. Louisan, born
and bred.

The first successful operation of the Caesarean section performed in St.
Louis or Missouri is credited to Dr. A. C. Bernays. This was in 1889. Dr.
Bernays was a young man, in the thirties. He was the first American to receive
at Heidelberg the degree of Doctor of Medicine "Summa cum laude." He be-
came famous internationally for the originality of his surgical operations, many
of which were classed as daring by the profession. His surgical experiences he
published in a series of pamphlets bearing the title, "Chips from a Surgeon's
Workshop."

"The students' friend," Dr. Robert Luedeking was called. He was a
native St. Louisan. When he died in 1908, at the age of fifty-five, he had
honored his profession and his city. The title bestowed upon him had been
earned by his devotion to the cause of medical education. Dr. Luedeking
received the very best of advantages at Heidelberg. He endeavored to advance
the standards in his teaching which began with a professorship in the St. Louis
Medical college and was concluded with several years of invaluable service as
dean of the medical department of Washington University. Dr. Luedeking was
more than an instructor, he was the adviser and helper of the young men who
came to St. Louis to prepare themselves for the profession. Through Dr.
Luedeking's efforts and influence, Adolphus Busch was inspired to lend his aid
to the material increase of facilities for instruction in St. Louis — facilities which
placed this city with the best of centers of medical education.

The most notable forward stride in medical education was taken by St.
Louis in 1910. Washington University, through the president, Robert S. Brook-
ings, and the chancellor, David F. Houston, announced the reorganization of
the Medical Department in connection with a group of new hospitals. The
plans contemplated expenditure of $5,000,000 for grounds, buildings and en-
dowments. The initial impetus to this movement was given by contributions
amounting to more than $2,000,000 by W. K. Bixby, Adolphus Busch, Edward
Mallinckrodt and Robert S. Brookings. The inspiration of the plans was suc-
cinctly stated in this paragraph from the formal announcement by the Corpora-
tion of Washington University : t

The greatest natural resource that any community has consists of its men and women,
and there is no resource which so much needs conservation or whose conservation has been
so much neglected in its larger aspects. It is difficult to see how any other educational de-
partment can so directly and profoundly influence the welfare of a great community as an
effective medical department; and while other departments, such as agriculture, college and
educational divisions have been fairly well developed, medical departments everywhere, not
only in the West, but throughout the nation, have been comparatively neglected.

In May, 1911, the sites had been secured; the architects' plans for the
buildings were ready. Chancellor Houston made this definite announcement :

St. Louis is to have a new, thoroughly efficient, modern general hospital, a new chil-
dren 's hospital and a great, modern medical school. This is no dream ; it is a reality. The

2- VOL. II.

434 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

school is in operation, with its reorganized staff and largely increased facilities. All
obstacles to the prosecution of the hospital plans have been removed, and the erection of
buildings will be begun as soon as the details have been perfected. The three institutions
will work in the closest affiliation and, as far as service goes, will be one.

The three institutions will occupy adjoining tracts of land beautifully located at the
east end of Forest Park, east and west of Euclid avenue, south of the Wabash railroad. The
tract has a double front on Forest Park, and it would be difficult to find a more convenient
or beautiful location in St. Louis. The site is sufficiently removed from the smoke of the
city, yet sufficiently near the mass of population to make access easy.

On the tract will be erected the Robert A. Barnes Memorial General Hospital, with a
building for a training school for nurses, the new building for the St. Louis Children's Hos-
pital and an entirely equipped home for Washington University Medical School, consisting
of a clinical building in close proximity to the hospitals, a pathological laboratory building,
a laboratory building for biological chemistry, physiology, pharmacology and preventive
medicine, a building for the anatomical department and a power plant for common service.

The Robert A. Barnes Memorial Hospital, facing south, will at the outset contain
approximately 300 beds, with all the most modern arrangements not only for administrative
service, but for scientific efficiency. The building and equipment will cost about a million
dollars, and the hospital will begin work with at least a million dollars of endowment.
It will be of modern, fireproof construction and will be as perfect for its purpose as the best
architect and the best hospital expert in America can make it.

The St. Louis Children's Hospital, of adequate size and of equally modern construc-
tion, will be located on the southwestern corner of the tract, fronting on Forest Park, with
a southwestern exposure. When completed it will be filled with patients at the time remain-
ing in the present Children's Hospital, which is now working in affiliation with the Wash-
ington University Medical School.

The clinical and laboratory buildings of Washington University Medical School, with'
their equipment, will cost in the neighborhood of $1,000,000, and to them, when they are
completed, will be transferred the laboratories and the recently greatly extended equipment
contained in the present university medical buildings.

The buildings of the three affiliated institutions, with their equipment, will therefore
represent an investment of more than two and a quarter millions of dollars, and the operating
expenses of the three will represent the income of a capital in excess of three million dollars.

The Academy of Medical and Surgical Sciences was one of the forms that
the motive to raise the standard of the profession of medicine took. This asso-
ciation was formed in 1895 by Drs. James M. Hall, Wellington Adams, Emory
Lamphear and others.

The coming of the Alexian Brotherhood to St. Louis was just fifty years
ago. Five members of this order arrived here in 1869 to establish a monastery
and a hospital. The institution has grown to possess buildings which cost
$250,000, in which 1,500 patients are cared for yearly.

Dr. John T. Temple, a Virginian by birth, a graduate in medicine of the
University of Maryland, introduced the practice of Homeopathy in St. Louis
in 1844. He participated in the founding of the Homeopathic Medical college
of Missouri in 1857. Dr. J. T. Vastine came from Pennsylvania in 1849. His
son, Dr. Charles Vastine, succeeded him. A homeopathic physician who early
achieved general acquaintance in St. Louis was Dr. Thomas Griswold Comstock.
He was descended from one of the Mayflower families which settled in Con-
necticut. Dr. Comstock studied and graduated in 1849 at the St. Louis Medical
college. In 1851 he went to Philadelphia and studied Homeopathy. He prac-
ticed a short time in St. Louis and then went to Europe, where he spent several
years in the medical schools of the continent. Returning to St. Louis in 1857

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION 435

Dr. Comstock, while classed as a homeopathic physician, was an independent
practitioner. He was early recognized as one of the most learned and best read
men in the medical profession of the city. He was perhaps the most proficient
linguist here for years. The Comstock residence, on Fourteenth and Washing-
ton avenue, contained some of the choicest works of art as well as one of the
finest private libraries in St. Louis. Riding behind one of the best carriage
teams of the city was Dr. Comstock's recreation.

Dr. Augustus H. Schott was an infant in arms when his parents left Han-
over, Germany, in 1851, to come to America. He was educated at Shurtleff
college and at the Homeopathic Medical College of Missouri. After several
years' practice at Alton he came to St. Louis and soon after took a professor-
ship in the Homeopathic Medical college. Dr. E. C. Franklin came from
Dubuque, Iowa, in 1857, and soon after joined the coterie engaged in carrying
on the Homeopathic college. About the same time Dr. William Tod Helmuth
came from Philadelphia. Helmuth, a dozen years later, went from St. Louis
to become famous as a surgeon in New York. Franklin joined the faculty of
the Homeopathic medical department of the University of Michigan. Dr. George
S. Walker was of Pennsylvania birth. He did not become a homeopathic prac-
titioner until eight years after he made his residence in St. Louis in 1852.

The Eclectic school of medicine in 1873 founded the American Medical
college. The leaders in the movement were George C. Pitzer, John W. Thrail-
kill, Jacob S. Merrell, Albert Merrell and W. V. Rutledge. The college grad-
uated about 1,000 students.

Dentists began to announce their presence in St. Louis within two years
after the first newspaper was published. One of them advertised in 1809 that
he was prepared to do "extracting, cleaning, plugging and strengthening the
teeth." With the coming of Dr. Isaiah Forbes in 1837 the dental profession
took on a new character. The year after he came Dr. Forbes constructed upon
plans of his own a dental chair which was a great improvement on those in
use. A dental society was formed. A dental journal was published. St. Louis
dentists advanced new ideas and invented new methods. Dr. John S. Clark of
St. Louis was one of the first, if not the first, in the country to use rolled
cylinders of gold foil for filling teeth.

One of the most noted fathers of the dental profession in St. Louis was
Henry J. McKellops, a New Yorker, who came here in 1840. He was a page
in the Missouri Legislature and with the money thus earned attended the State
University at Columbia. He became famous in his profession all over the world
as the introducer of that instrument of torture — the mallet — to pound into
solidity the fillings. That was over fifty years ago. At the time, the profession
was not organized. Dr. McKellops led in a movement which established na-
tional, state and local associations of dentists throughout the country. In his
years of travel and investigation he assembled what was regarded as the most
complete dental library in the world.

The Morrisons, brothers, became noted among dentists in 1870-80. Dr.
James Morrison invented a dental chair of iron with a wonderful range of
motions, which came into quite general use. He devoted a great deal of at-
tention to a dental engine. William N. Morrison contributed to the science
of dentistry some valuable ideas in crown work.

436 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

The Missouri Dental college was organized in 1866. It required the stu-
dents to take certain regular courses of study in a medical college in addition
to the dental course. Other dental colleges adopted this St. Louis idea. Dr.
Forbes was the first president of the dental college. Down to the present
day the dental profession of St. Louis has maintained the progressive spirit
and the high standards which characterized these pioneers. In 1909 the Amer-
ican Dental association, the organization representing the profession throughout
the country, looked to St. Louis for a president — electing to that high position
Dr. Burton Lee Thorpe, not only a practitioner of repute but a contributor of
national reputation to the literature of the profession.

Cancer is an ailment people do not like to talk about. In the winter of
1905 a St. Louis physician who was shut in with the grippe received a visit
from two fellow practitioners. Conversation rather curiously drifted to the
depressing topic of cancer. All three doctors were men with wide experience.
They knew that cancer was one of the diseases which the usual hospital manage-
ment does not welcome and for which facilities of treatment are not possessed
by many institutions. They told experiences with cases where cancer patients
were poor and where neglect in the earlier stages had meant a lingering death.
The three doctors agreed that there was nothing St. Louis needed more, with
its variety of eleemosynary institutions, than a free cancer hospital. When
the case of grippe reached the convalescent stage, these doctors got together
a small group of public spirited men and women in the parlors of Mrs. J. M.
Franciscus. They went over the ground. They offered all of the medical service
free, providing the laity would do the rest.

The next step, in February, 1905, was a little gathering in the offices of
the Third National Bank. Those present were Charles H. Huttig, who became
president of the organization formed, W. J. Kinsella, J. M. Franciscus, John
Schroers, Doctors W. E. Fischel, H. G. Mudd, M. F. Engman, and George
Gellhorn.

Then followed a canvass to see if five years of experiment would be justi-
fied. Some people gave cash contributions and others pledged themselves to
annual payments for five years. It was agreed that "if a five years' test of our
plans proves them impracticable, or at least not productive of the results de-
sired, we should then be willing to close the establishment."

In 1910 the patients in the rented building were moved into a building
owned by the association and equipped with facilities not only for treatment,
but for research work upon skin and cancer diseases.

There is no other skin and cancer hospital in the United States which in
laboratory, in wards, in operating rooms, in provision for clinics can compare
with the St. Louis institution. Grounds and building and equipment represent
$175,000. The management has undertaken to provide an endowment of $500,-
ooo for maintenance and, in 1911, had raised more than one-third of the amount.

The temporary quarters for the five years' experiment provided beds for
only a limited number of patients. Such was the pressure that some had to
be accommodated with cots. The permanent hospital takes care of more than
twice the number who could be accommodated in the temporary hospital. Dur-
ing* the five years of trial no patient was permitted to pay anything. The

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION 437

doctors redeemed at par their promises to give service absolutely free. They
agreed to continue to serve in the new hospital at the same rate, and the man-
agement proclaims that the rule of no pay from patients will be adhered to.
Grounds and building were the gift of one man — George D. Barnard. The
new hospital is known as "the George D. Barnard Free Skin and Cancer
Hospital."

No institution in the world is better prepared than the new Barnard hospital
to do pathological work. Even during the experimental or temporary period
of five years the hospital accomplished results which attracted attention not
only in this country but abroad. Notably has this been the case in the acetone
treatment, which originated with a member of the staff of the St. Louis in-
stitution. This treatment is now generally accepted by the medical profession
in the United States and in other countries as the best method of treating a
certain class of cases.

When representatives of the Barnard Hospital went abroad they were wel-
comed and shown great consideration by such men as Dr. Basham of the
London Cancer Hospital, which is the largest institution of the kind, and by
Professor Czerny, who has given up a professorship of surgery at Heidelberg
to devote himself to cancer research, endowing the hospital for cancer treat-
ment at Heidelberg with $100,000. At Berlin the representatives of the Barnard
Hospital were shown special courtesies and their work commented upon. One
of the new ideas which has been tried with remarkable results in the St. Louis
institution is the "fulguration" treatment. This consists in the application of
a direct spark of electricity upon the surface of the cancer. The apparatus for
the application was obtained in Europe by Doctor Frank J. Lutz, and was
presented by him to the x-ray department of the Barnard Hospital.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE PRODUCTIVE COMMERCE

A Century of Manufacturing — The Earliest Mills — Oxen and Water the Power Before
Steam — Chouteau's Pond and Boy's Tower — "The First Batch" of Crackers —
Grimsley's Saddle Factory — Tobacco Industry in 1817 — The Catlins, the Liggetts and
the Drummonds — How Sam Gaty Turned a Shaft — Early Workers in Metals — A St. Louis
Made Steamboat in 1842 — What "Westward Ho!" Meant to the Four Schaeffers — The
Garrisons, Builders of Engines — Days of Mechanic Princes — A St. Louis Stove the Sur-
prise of the Fair — An Industry Founded by the Bridges — Stove Manufacture Revolution-
ized by Giles F. Filley — Great Expectations of Vineyards — The Brewing of Beer — Forty
Breweries Before the War — Cotton Manufacturing Experiments — Stephen A. Douglas on
St. Louis Opportunities — ' ' The Largest Beef and Pork Packers in the Union ' ' — Francis
Whittaker, the Ames Brothers and John J. Eoe — Cheapness of Food Encouraged Early
Industries — Audubon on This Land of Plenty — An Expert's Forecast in 1881 — Steamboat
Profits Turned Into Industries — Competition in Wooden-ware Distanced — Flour and
Furniture — First Among Cities in Many Specialties — Amazing Growth of Shoe Manufac-
turing— The Wise Policy of Many Young Partners.

"The culture of hemp has occupied the attention of our farmers, and a rope-walk will
shortly be erected in this town. Thus we have commenced the manufacture of such articles
as will attract thousands of dollars to our territory ; thus we will progress in freeing John
Bull and Jack Ass of the trouble of manufacturing for us." — Missouri Gazette, March, 1809.

A century ago the first newspaper, when not nine months old, began to urge
the importance of home manufactures upon St. Louis. "Manifest destiny" was
a favorite theme with writers, but the men who made St. Louis never overlooked
the importance of supplementing natural advantages with enterprise. In the
early days the supremacy of the settlement, town and city depended upon dis-
tributive commerce. St. Louis was a distributing center. Fortunes were made
and the city waxed rich and powerful through the bringing of all kinds of manu-
factured products and their distribution to great and growing sections of the
country. But the permanence of St. Louis' prosperity, the enduring growth
of traffic, came with a new character. As productive commerce became more
and more important St. Louis was builded for the generations to come.

In its issue of January 31, 1811, the Missouri Gazette announced: "An
event not viewed as of public importance itself may yet be highly interesting
from the reflections to which it gives rise. An English gentleman, Mr. Bridge,
of considerable capital, arrived here on Tuesday evening last, with his family,
for the purpose of establishing himself in this place. We understand he has
brought with him the machinery of a cotton factory and two merino rams.
Such an immigrant is an important acquisition to the country."

The water power mill on Chouteau's pond ran without competition for years.
A saw mill was established at the foot of Ashley street, on the ground overlook-
ing the river. It was the first saw mill west of the Mississippi. In connection
with it the owner, Sylvester Labbadie, operated a grist mill. The power was a
tread mill on which patient oxen walked slowly, by their weight making the
wheel go around. The age of steam had not arrived for St. Louis. Manuel

439

440 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Lisa, at a later period, ventured some of his profits, made at fur trading, in a
mill on the river bank. Slowly but surely St. Louisans of the old and new
stock felt their way into the industrial field.

When St. Louis became a town the north boundary was described as "be-
ginning at Antoine Roy's mill, on the bank of the Mississippi." Years after-
wards the landmark was called "Roy's tower." Tradition had it that the tower
was built as part of the fortification of St. Louis. The great, circular, stone
tower stood on the river bank, above high water, at a point between Morgan
and Ashley streets. The tradition that the tower was built for military purposes
seems to rest on the similarity to Spanish construction of that character. Truth
of history seems to be that the tower was inspired by industrial activity in St.
Louis. Antoine Roy was one of the pioneer millers. He operated by wind
power. His was probably the first wind-mill built in St. Louis. The great arms
projected from the stone tower in such a manner as to catch the full strength of
the wind blowing up the river. St. Louis had two other mills at that time —
Auguste Chouteau's and Gregoire Sarpy's — but they were run by water. An-
toine Roy was one of the well-to-do citizens of St. Louis. His name appears on
the first tax list made after the American flag was raised. The valuation put
upon his holdings was $3,000. The tower was still standing in the days of the
daguerreotype, forty years after it was first listed by an American assessor. It
was one of the most interesting relics of St. Louis when the picture was taken,
about 1847. Antoine Roy was also known as Roi. He was twice married, first
to Felicite Vasquez and later to Mary Louise Papin.

In 1815, the nth of November, Christian Smith informed the people of St.
Louis that on the next evening "the first batch" of crackers and biscuits would
be "drawn" from his "bake shop," and the citizens were "invited to send and
make trial." The town had been incorporated about six years when the trustees
passed an ordinance that "no loaf of bread shall be vended at a price greater
than twelve and one-half cents."

The Grimsleys were Virginia people, a large family of them. Nimrod
Grimsley, the head of the Kentucky branch, moved to that state. Thornton
Grimsley was not born until after the family settled in Kentucky. He came out
to St. Louis in charge of a stock of goods while he was still apprenticed to a
saddlery manufacturer at home. That was in 1816, when Thornton Grimsley
was eighteen years of age. When he reached the age of twenty-one and the end
of his apprenticeship he took six months of schooling with the proceeds of extra
work done by him during his apprenticeship. At the end of that time he became
the representative of his employer in charge of the St. Louis branch, and three
years later he went into business here for himself. Recognizing the demand
which must come in the southwest for what he knew most about, Grimsley
opened a small saddlery shop. He invented the dragoon saddle. The govern-
ment adopted the Grimsley saddle, and for many years would have no other.
Grimsley's saddle factory became one of the institutions of the west. It did
more government work than any other factory in the country. Thornton
Grimsley was of striking appearance. He was of large frame and wore side
whiskers at a time when that style was exceptional. In the brilliant militia uni-
forms of the period his figure was imposing. There was rarely a great celebra-

WILLIAM SCHOTTEN

THE OLD ROY TOWER AND LEVEE IN 1850
From a Daguerreotype, Missouri "Historical Society

THE PRODUCTIVE COMMERCE 441

tion in St. Louis during the second quarter of the century, with which Thornton
Grimsley was not associated as grand marshal.

James Richardson, who came from Virginia much earlier than Grimsley's
arrival, and settled north of the city, was a saddler. He constructed a side
saddle and presented it to one of the Spanish governors for his wife. The
governor was so well pleased that he gave Richardson a grant of a thousand
arpents of land.

The French habitants of St. Louis raised tobacco in their common fields.
Tobacco was manufactured in only crude forms until after the American oc-
cupation. In 1817 Richards & Quarles had "a tobacco manufactory" on the
cross street nearly opposite the postoffice. About 1840 the newspapers spoke
of tobacco as "another item of our trade which is swelling every year into much
greater importance." Missouri was raising 9,000 hogsheads of tobacco in 1841
and sending all but 500 hogsheads to St. Louis. As a tobacco market St. Louis
grew until the receipts in 1876 reached 29,204 hogsheads.

The Catlin family had much to do with the development of the tobacco in-
dustry. The first of the St. Louis Catlins came from Connecticut and brought
with him a valuable knowledge about the manufacture. He was Dan Catlin. He
established in North St. Louis a factory which was one of the most important
local industries of its day, 1840. Dan Catlin had two sons, Daniel and Ephron,
both children when the family moved from Litchfield. Daniel Catlin grew into
the management of the tobacco manufacturing, and taught other St. Louis manu-
facturers how much there is in putting products with attractive brands on the
market. The Catlin tobacco company expanded into an institution giving em-
ployment to more than 400 people. Ephron Catlin, three years younger than
Daniel, chose the drug business in preference to tobacco manufacturing. The
brothers, both men of splendid physiques, were conspicuous in a community
where stalwart young manhood was not exceptional. They married sisters,
Misses Justina and Camilla Kayser, daughters of Henry Kayser, one of the fore-
most civil engineers of the west.

Christopher Foulks came from New Jersey about 1820, with a knowledge of
tobacco manufacture. He became one of the pioneers in that industry. Joseph
Liggett was a Londonderry man who settled in St. Louis and married Elizabeth
Foulks, daughter of the pioneer tobacco manufacturer. The son, John Edmund
Liggett, was born in St. Louis in 1826. He was one of the pupils of David H.
Armstrong in the first public school of St. Louis, and afterwards attended Kern-
per college in the southwestern part of the city. At eighteen, John E. Liggett
left school to go into the tobacco factory of Foulks and Shaw. The head of the
house was his grandfather. The junior partner was his stepfather. When the
grandfather retired, the grandson became a partner, and the firm was Hiram
Shaw & Company. A brother, W. C. L. Liggett, bought out Mr. Shaw, and the
new style was J. E. Liggett and Brother. Henry Dausman bought out the
brother after five years. The tobacco manufacturing went on, growing under
Liggett and Dausman. In 1873 George S. Meyers bought out Dausman. Hiram
Shaw Liggett, son of John E. Liggett, grew into the business. Through four
generations the plant grew into one of the great industries not alone of St. Louis
but of the country. A vast fortune was built up with the profits of carefully con-

442 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

ducted manufacturing. In the family through the generations was always a de-
votion to the cause of education which found expression in princely gifts to
institutions.

Before the Civil war St. Louis was selling manufactured tobacco in every
state and territory of the United States. The Lewis brothers, who started in
Glasgow, Missouri, in 1837, had ten years later removed to St. Louis, and devel-
oped greatly their business, keeping a branch at Glasgow. They manufactured
annually millions of pounds of fine cut and plug. They exported to Europe as
well as supplied a home market, which included all of this country. Twenty
years after the war St. Louis had become the second largest tobacco manufactur-
ing center, being surpassed only by Jersey City. In 1908 St. Louis was maintain-
ing the position it had held for years as "the place where more tobacco is manu-
factured annually than in any other place in the world." That year of depression
in some industries showed an increase in the products of St. Louis tobacco fac-
tories to 75,750,000 pounds, as compared with the 65,980,000 pounds of 1907.
The product of the six tobacco manufacturing establishments of St. Louis in
1907 was valued at $21,127,654. In 1910 the volume of the" tobacco business
of St. Louis was reported by the Business Men's league to. be $50,000,000.

The Drummonds were of Scotch ancestry. James Drummond was born in
Scotland. He was a soldier in the Revolution. His son Harrison moved west
from Virginia and settled on a farm in St. Charles county. James T. Drummond
was born in St. Louis in 1834. His brother, John Newton Drummond, was born
on the St. Charles county farm two years later. While they were young men,
the Drummonds became interested in tobacco manufacture. John Newton Drum-
mond left the farm to work in a factory. James T. Drummond, after teaching
school and after being a traveling salesman for his father-in-law, James Tatum,
put his savings into a small tobacco factory at Alton about the beginning of the
Civil war. His brother joined him. After the removal to St. Louis, the business
grew to immense proportions.

Sam Gaty was an orphan eleven years old when, taking an old shot gun
which had been his father's, he left the people with whom he had been placed,
made his way to Louisville and bound himself as an apprentice in a foundry.
When he had learned the trade, with a companion named Morton, he came to
St. Louis. That was in 1828. Martin Thomas had the foundry of the city and
James Newell was the expert blacksmith. McQueen was managing the foundry.
Gaty and Morton asked for work. McQueen refused to hire them, saying he
must have competent men and was going to get them from New York. The
steamboat Jubilee, fortunately for Sam Gaty, broke a shaft about that time. To
make a new one seemed to be beyond the mechanical resources of St. Louis.
Newell, the blacksmith, heard about the trouble. He suggested that Gaty might
be able to turn out a steamboat shaft. McQueen was incredulous, but he sent
for the youth from Louisville. Gaty said he could make a shaft. "How will you
do it?" asked McQueen. "That is my business," replied Gaty. He was given
the opportunity and turned out the shaft, the first one manufactured in St. Louis.
Later Sam Gaty made the first steam engine built in St. Louis or west of the
Mississippi. His fortune after that was a matter of industry and persistent at-
tention to business.

AUGUST GAST

THOMAS R. PULL1S

SA.MUKL GATY

FRENCH RAYBURX GILES F. FILLEY

MECHANIC PRINCES OF ST. LOUIS

THE PRODUCTIVE COMMERCE 443

The way in which Gaty prepared for his shaft-making excited great interest
in St. Louis. There wasn't a geared lathe in the place. Hunting up two cog-
wheels of different sizes, Gaty bolted the larger to the face plate of the lathe
and the smaller one he put on the center shaft. He arranged his machinery in
such an efficient manner that he turned the new shaft in a day and a half. There
was a brief controversy over the price of the job. McQueen asked Gaty before
he began how much he was going to charge. "One-half of your whole price,"
said Gaty. McQueen demurred. Gaty, recalling the way in which he had been
refused work, said, "Get your skilled workmen from the east to do it." McQueen
thought it over and told Gaty to go ahead.

On the reputation acquired in the steamboat shaft incident, Gaty started a
foundry. The three partners had a capital of $250. The money was absorbed
before the business was well established. Mr. Gaty took a place by the day at
$1.25. He went into partnership with his employer and built up one of the largest
of the early industries of St. Louis. In his old age he was very wealthy, his
success being ascribed to the fact that he stuck to the business and had never
risked anything in speculation. In 1840 Mr. Gaty married Miss Elizabeth Bur-
bridge. He was the father of thirteen children.

Philip Kingsland learned the manufacture of iron in his father's shop at
Pittsburg. He was put through an apprenticeship which was not only thorough
but showed him no favors because he was the son of the proprietor. In 1835, at
the age of twenty-six, he came to St. Louis and started a foundry and machine
shop. His brother George joined him. The Kingslands later engaged in the
manufacture of agricultural machinery.

The 160 foundry and machine shops of St. Louis in 1910 showed a gain
of twenty-five per cent in product since 1905. They were employing 7,000 people
and the output was valued at $15,000,000. They were making all kinds of tools
and engines and iron work for building. They were sending their product to
the Orient and all parts of South America.

A steamboat — hull, engines, tackle and all of St. Louis make — came to the
wharf on the 25th of April, 1842. Citizens began to talk of a manufacturing city.
Hundreds of boats were built here after that. Not one of them made the public
impression that the St. Louis Oak did when she steamed down from Captain
Irvine's boatyard.

To the Kentuckians who flocked to Missouri about 1830 this city owes the
origin and the rise of its hemp market. Anjl with the raw material came the
manufacture of rope and gunny cloth and allied products. In 1853 the 63,450
bales of hemp received here were worth $300,000. McClelland, Scruggs & Co.
and Douglass & Bier joined with others in the manufacture of rope and hackled
hemp under a new patent, and utilized from 2,000 to 3,000 tons of the raw mate-
rial yearly. Near the shot tower on north levee John L. Elaine conducted large
rope works. Just below Park avenue Johnson, Bartley & Lytle had a large rope
manufactory. R. B. Bowler came from Cincinnati and organized the St. Louis
Rope and Bagging company. St. Louis came to the front in manufacture of
wire rope and aerial tramways in a phenomenal manner, sending the product
to all parts of the North and South American continents. The output of these
plants, including rope and cable of fibre with metal, in 1910 was $6,000,000.

444 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

St. Louis became a great market for flaxseed and a center for the manu-
facture of oil. This was a development promoted by the white lead industry.
As Henry T. Blow increased the manufacture of white lead, he encouraged the
production of flaxseed and castor beans by importing the seed and the beans and
making distribution to farmers who would plant.

Long before the first railroad was built westward St. Louis received by
wagon haul of forty miles shipments of gunpowder. The place of manufacture
was Gallagher's Mill in Franklin county. John Stanton, for whom a town was
named later, was the pioneer manufacturer. He utilized the nitrous earth found
in the caves of the foothills of the Ozarks.

Ellis N. Leeds, the son of a New Jersey farmer, laid many thousands of brick
in the first ten years he had lived in St. Louis. The journeyman became a direc-
tor of the Merchants bank, of the St. Louis Gas Light company, of the Chel-
tenham Brick company, of the Vulcan Iron company, and retired a capitalist
after thirty years of active business life.

Nicholas Schaeffer with his three brothers walked over the Alleghany Moun-
tains on his way to St. Louis. The young men and their mother came to
America in 1832. They bought a horse and wagon at Baltimore and started to
drive to Cincinnati. At Hagerstown the horse was stolen. The mother was
given a place to ride in a freight wagon. The sons walked to the Ohio river at
Wheeling. Nicholas Schaeffer mixed mortar for seventy-five cents a day, worked
in a tannery at fifteen dollars a month, was steward in a hotel, tried flat boating
before he came to St. Louis in 1839 and made the beginning of what was to
be for forty years the largest soap and candle manufactory in the west. He
came from Alsace, then in France, now a German province.

Gerard B. Allen was the son of a manufacturer in Cork, Ireland. He came
to St. Louis a young man in 1837 and engaged in contracting and building.
From manufacturing lumber he went into iron and established the Fulton Iron
Works.

The Garrisons were New Yorkers, sons of Oliver Garrison who ran some
of the earliest packets long before railroad days between New York city and
West Point on the Hudson. Daniel R. Garrison, with some knowledge of steam
engine construction gained in shops at Buffalo and Pittsburg, came to St.
Louis in 1835 and was put in charge of the drafting for the Kingsland, Light-
ner & Co. foundry and engine works. He was just of age. In 1840 Daniel R.
Garrison and his brother Oliver began to manufacture St. Louis steam engines.
With the rush to the gold diggings Daniel R. Garrison went to California.
Oliver Garrison remained in St. Louis building steam engines and shipping
them to his brother. Of the first lot of three engines Daniel R. Garrison
sold one to the Hudson Bay company. He went to Oregon to deliver it. The
main couplings were lost overboard. There was no time to send back to St.
Louis for new parts. Daniel R. Garrison, with Indian guides, went 100 miles
into the Willamette wilderness, dug some iron ore, built a temporary furnace,
smelted the ore and made new couplings. This is said to have been the first
manufacture of iron on the Pacific coast. The engine which Daniel R. Gar-
rison built for the boat is said to have been used on the first steamboat con-
structed on Pacific waters. The Garrisons retired with fortunes from the

ALBERT HARIG

TOBIAS SPENGLER

THE BELCHER SUGAR REFINERY
BUILDERS OF INDUSTRIAL ST. LOUIS

THE PRODUCTIVE COMMERCE 445

foundry business. Daniel R. Garrison took up railroad building and manage-
ment first with the Ohio and Mississippi, now the Baltimore and Ohio, in
the fifties, and then with the Missouri Pacific during the war. After the war
the Garrisons took up and for ten years carried on the great iron manufactur-
ing industry, the Vulcan and Jupiter works, at the south end of Carondelet.

The original Plymouth Rock stock sent its representatives to the upbuild-
ing of St. Louis. Warren A. Souther and E. E. Souther, who established a
house dealing in iron, about the Civil war period, descended from Nathaniel
Souther, the first secretary of the Plymouth colony. A branch of this numer-
ous New England family settled in Alton in 1842. From Alton the Southers
came to St. Louis. Out of the iron business established by the Southers grew
the Souther Iron company and later the Missouri Bolt and Nut company.

One of the chief surprises of a fair held in 1842 was "a St. Louis manu-
factured stove." This was the initial effort of the Empire Stove Works es-
tablished by the Bridges. Hudson E. Bridge and his brother began the man-
ufacture of stoves in a modest plant up town. By 1848 they were occupying
half a block at Main and Almond. Six years later they had spread to the
levee. They were melting ten tons of iron a day and turning out 11,000 stoves
a year. That was in 1854. The Empire was one of four stove-making es-
tablishments in St. Louis at the time.

The Excelsior Stove Works of Giles F. Filley & Co. had been in opera-
tion since 1850. This establishment had finished 20,000 in the third year of
operation, using 4,000 tons of iron. These stoves had been shipped to all parts
of St. Louis trade territory. They had given the stove manufacturing center
of the country, Albany, its fatal shock. A fireproof pattern safe assured the
community that the Excelsior Works had come to stay. This safe was like
no other in the United States. It had massive brick walls without windows,
three stories, an iron roof with an iron shutter which could be opened to let
in the light and air. There the patterns of the many varieties of stoves were
kept secure from fire.

In 1910 St. Louis was manufacturing twice as many stoves as any other
city in the United States. The product that year was 847,000 stoves, which
sold for $8,800,000.

A scientific discovery which revolutionized stove manufacture is credited
to Giles Franklin Filley. It was of the useful, homely character which might
be properly associated with Mr. Filley 's middle name. The discovery came
about through Mr. Filley's experiments to find something better than the close
iron door which covered the feedhole to his iron furnace. The iron of the
door became so hot when the cupola was fired that it soon burned out. The
workmen couldn't stand in front of it. Mr. Filley tried a wire screen cov-
ering. Rather to his surprise this held the heat within the furnace, did not
become so hot as the iron door and lessened the amount of fuel necessary
for smelting. It was a saving of expense in the operation of the cupola fur-
nace. At that time the stove manufacturers of the country claimed great
improvement in the construction of oven doors which were close-fitting on
cookstoves. They went so far as to make double doors with non-conducting
material between the plates. The object was to keep all of the heat in the

446 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

oven. Having observed the efficiency of the wire screen over the cupola door,
Mr. Filley tried a gauze wire door to the cooking stove. He discovered it
gave a more even temperature; that baking and roasting could be done with
less fuel. But perhaps more than all, the cooking with the gauze wire door
did not burn and destroy the savory odors.

For a full generation after the cooking stove became general in St. Louis
homes, lament was loud and universal that things did not taste as well as they
did when done in the old way. The local scientists wrestled wfth the problem.
John H. Tice, who was known locally as the philosopher of Cheltenham, stated
the indictment against the cooking stove:

Those whose remembrance runs back half a century, when cooking stoves began to come
into use, will recall the fact that their sainted mothers, while lavish in praises of the handiness,
convenience and general performance of the innovation, uniformly made one objection to it,
namely, that in baking and roasting it did not come up to the old standard. All persons
who have passed the meridian of life recall with zest the fine and delicious flavor of the
tender beef, pork, lamb, turkey, etc., roasted before the open fire, and hence their own
experience can bear testimony to the maternal objection.

The gauze doors determined that it was far better that the ovens should
not be airtight for baking; that excessive heat meant annihilation of the dis-
tinctive odors of meats and other things. The local scientists agreed that 212
degrees was about the proper standard to accomplish the best oven results
and that Giles F. Filley's gauze wire doors operated to maintain such a stan-
dard with a saving of wood or coal. A higher range of heat, it was agreed
injured the baking.

Hitchcock & Co., in the southern part of the city, also made stoves, and
by way of variety turned out 3,000 plows a year. The south as well as the
west, before the Civil war, was looking to St. Louis for agricultural ma-
chinery.

The immediate vicinity of St. Louis became famous for its fruit. Pom-
ology had its professors seventy years ago. In 1837 the wife of Peregrine
Tippet, a Marylander, who called his farm in St. Louis county Cedar Grove,
planted apple seeds. She was Susanna Lee, the mother of Mrs. Martrom D.
Lewis. From that seed planting came the apple popular several generations
ago as "Aunt Susan's Favorite." Norman J. Colman, after much investiga-
tion, decided that no part of the United States offered such encouragement
to fruit growing as the vicinity of St. Louis. When the Civil war came Mr.
Colman had the greater part of what is now known as the Cabanne section
covered with a young nursery. He had planned to supply young trees for the
starting of thousands of orchards in Missouri and Southern Illinois. The
war paralyzed the industry. Mr. Colman was the first Secretary of Agricul-
ture.

As early as 1835-40 several St. Louisans became deeply interested in the
subject of wine growing. One of them was Kenneth McKenzie. He made a
trip to Europe for the purpose of getting information as to vineyards and as
to wine making.

Amadee Berthold brought over from France while he was there a cutting
of a celebrated grape. He placed it in a tin pan with earth. At that time a
certain allotment of water was made to each passenger crossing the ocean.

ELLIS N. LEEDS

PHILIP KINGSLAND

HUDSON E. BRIDGE

JAMES A. WRIGHT GERARD B. ALLEN

MECHANIC PRINCES OF ST. LOUIS

THE PRODUCTIVE COMMERCE 447

Mr. Berthold cut down his allotment until he actually went thirsty in order
that he might use the water to nourish the cutting. That vine, for it had
rooted when Mr. Berthold reached St. Louis, was planted back of the Ber-
thold mansion on Fifth and Pine streets. It grew to very large size and
bore enormously.

Thomas Allen, afterwards the railroad builder, took up grape culture
and established a vineyard on the Russell place, near where the McKinley
high school is located. Mr. Allen had made for him a gray blouse, such
as was worn in the vineyards of Germany. He donned this blouse, and at-
tended -to his grapes daily. He wrote charmingly of the opportunities St.
Louis presented for horticulture. In a St. Louis newspaper of September 29,
1846, appeared this acknowledgment: "Thomas Allen of Crystal Springs
farm, in the southern part of the city, has presented us with ten varieties of
peaches raised this season on his grounds. Mr. Allen has a heavy crop of
apples, of which there are thirty varieties; also a large crop of grapes, of
which he has twenty varieties."

There were great expectations from 1845 to 1860 that St. Louis would
become one of the principal wine markets of the United States. Extensive
vineyards were planted. Much careful study was given to grape culture and
wine making. One of the experts who passed upon the condition here was a
minister, Rev. Mr. Peabody. He claimed that in climate and soil the ad-
vantages of the vicinity of St. Louis were superior to any part of the United
States, east of the Rocky Mountains. An estimate gave 15,000,000 acres in
Missouri tributary to St. Louis suitable for vineyards.

Alexander Kayser was one of those who anticipated great development
for the wine industry of St. Louis and vicinity. In 1848 he offered three
premiums of $100 each for "the best specimens of Missouri wines, the vintage
of three consecutive years." The competitors numbered twenty-seven for the
third year. The premium went to Jacob Romel of Hermann on "a wine of
pure Catawba grapes."

Gustave Edward Meissner joined the viticulturists of St. Louis. He was
a relative of the Roeblings, the famous bridge builders of New York, and
before coming to St. Louis had given a great deal of study and investigation
to grape growing. Finding the vicinity of St. Louis ideal in respect to soil
and climate for viticulture, Mr. Meissner made this his home. He acquired
an island in the Mississippi a few miles below the city, called Meissner's Island.
There he established a vineyard of 600 acres. At one time his vines were
producing 100 varieties of grapes.

A fact that encouraged the St. Louis wine-makers was the discovery
of six fine varieties of grapes that seemed to be native to the soil of Missouri,
and proof against disease. These early experiments produced wines which ex-
perts pronounced excellent in flavor and keeping quality. The grapes grown in
the vicinity of St. Louis were declared to yield a "must full of body and having
saccharine enough to prevent acetic fermentation."

But notwithstanding all of the natural encouragement for grape growing
and wine making the St. Louis market in 1853 received of native wine only
nine casks, seven barrels and eight boxes. A hundred years before Cahokia

448 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

and Kaskaskia across the river were making more wine than that. The wine
product of St. Louis in 1870 was $800,000.

The brewing of lager beer in St. Louis began in 1840. Adam Lemp came
to this country from Germany. Two years after settling in St. Louis he started
a small establishment on Second street between Walnut and Elm. Twenty
years later "Lemp's" had become one of the institutions of the city. Upon
Second street was a large public hall where people gathered and drank their
"lager," as they called it. In the rear of the hall were the manufacturing de-
partments and the vaults where the beer "lagered."

St. Louisans commenced drinking beer in 1810. St. Vrain opened a
brewery north of the city and put it in charge of a German brewer named Hab.
He made two kinds, strong and table beer. Strong beer he sold for ten dol-
lars a barrel, and table beer for five dollars a barrel. These prices were cash.
If produce was taken, St. Vrain charged twelve dollars a barrel. About the
same time Jacob Philipson made beer which was retailed "at twelve and one-
half cents a quart at the stores of Sylvester Labbadie and Michel Tesson, and
at various other convenient places." Ezra English made malt beer and stored
it in English cave, where Benton Park is now. Then the firm of English &
McHose was formed to manufacture beer on a large scale for that day. The
rising tide of German immigration made lager beer familiar to St. Louisans
before 1850.

In 1860 the Mississippi Handels-Zeitung gave a list of forty breweries
in operation in St. Louis, making 23,000 barrels of beer a year, with a capital
of $600,000. The magnitude of the business seemed amazing to the American
newspapers. The statistician of the Missouri Republican figured that the con-
sumption in St. Louis was 658 glasses for every person in the course of a year.
The product of twenty-seven St. Louis breweries in 1910 was $25,000,000, giv-
ing St. Louis second place among the beer exporting centers of the United
States. The employes numbered 5,373 and the wages paid to them amounted
to $4,416,000. The supplies purchased, most of them in St. Louis, during the
year amounted to $15,000,000. The factories and shops furnishing these sup-
plies gave employment to 20,000 people, whose wages aggregated $13,000,000.

In 1854 St. Louis had "a cotton factory, the thread of which had almost
superseded all other yarns in the St. Louis market." This industry had not
only survived the fire of 1849, but had grown from a little shop near Main
and Chestnut to one of the largest plants in the city. It was located on Me-
nard, Soulard and Lafayette streets. It was working up from 1,500 to 1,800
bales of cotton a year and turning out 400,000 pounds of cotton yarn, 90,000
pounds of carpet warp, 40,000 pounds of candlewick, 60,000 pounds of cotton
twine, 740,000 yards of cotton sheeting, and 120,000 pounds of cotton batting.

Why St. Louis did not become a cotton manufacturing center has never
been made clear. The first spinning mill west of the Mississippi was started
here in 1844. It had 800 spindles. A new building was erected. The number
of spindles was increased to 1,600. The mill ran steadily and with apparent
success until 1857, when it was entirely destroyed by fire. Adolphus Meier
inaugurated the industry. He had come from Bremen with a fine education
and some capital in 1837. His father was a man of high standing as a lawyer

M. M. BUCK

J. K. CUMMINGS

ALVAH MANSUR

LUCAS PLACE IN 1859
RESIDENCE OF WILLIAM M. MORRISON

BUILDERS OF INDUSTRIAL ST. LOUIS

THE PRODUCTIVE COMMERCE 449

and held the office of secretary of the Supreme court. After seven years in
other business in St. Louis, Mr. Meier and his relatives established the cotton-
mill. When the mill burned, a charter was obtained from the state and the St.
Louis cotton factory was built, Mr. Meier becoming the president. Most of
the stock was taken by his firm.

Adolphus Meier was one of the pioneers of manufacturing in St. Louis.
He did much more than start the first cotton factory west of the Mississippi.
He inspired extensive and expensive experiments to make coke from soft coal
in the Belleville district. He established the Meier iron works of East Caron-
delet. He assisted in building at St. Louis the largest tobacco warehouse in
the United States. The Peper cotton press was equipped with hydraulic,
presses, in part the invention of Edwin D. Meier, the son of Adolphus Meier.
This revolutionized the handling of cotton bales. Christian Peper backed the
working out of this problem liberally. There was almost no manufacturing
problem to which Adolphus Meier did not lend his aid. The fact that his in-
vestments were not always profitable did not dishearten him. One thing Mr.
Meier did for manufacturing in St. Louis was of great consequence. He made
evident to those who came after that fuel could be laid down cheaper at St.
Louis than at any other manufacturing center in the country. A part of this
demonstration Mr. Meier brought about by the construction of a turnpike in
Illinois from the mines to the bank of the river opposite St. Louis. This was
done in 1848. It made possible the transportation of coal to St. Louis through
the winter and spring months in which, previously, the supply had run short,
with the result that prices soared. Later Mr. Meier headed a company which
built and operated the Illinois & St. Louis railroad for the purpose of carrying
coal to St. Louis.

In a little shop on Walnut street, across from the Cathedral, William
Schotten ground out spices with a hand mill. That was in 1847. Under thirty
years of age, he had come from Nuess, near Duesseldorf. St. Louis was a
Mecca for the Germans coming to America in that period. Schotten came
because others of his countrymen were en route here. The little factory he
established was a beginning. The founder with his own hands turned the
crank of the mill. Then he went out and made the rounds of the grocers,
selling his stock. Before he died in 1874 he saw his business grown to $200,-
ooo a year. In 1897, the house he had established celebrated a semi-centennial
anniversary when the annual business amounted to a volume of which the
founder had never dreamed.

The development of the sugar refining industry of St. Louis in 1850-60
was enormous. In 1851 the refined sugars shipped away from St. Louis had
reached 21,893 barrels, according to the government report. Within four years
after that time the amount of sugar refined and shipped from St. Louis was
over 100,000 barrels. In three months of 1854 the sales of sugar, molasses and
syrups at the St. Louis refinery were over $800,000. In 1850-5 St. Louis im-
ported five times as much sugar as Cincinnati did. St. Louis refined sugars
were famous. In 1853 St. Louis imported 50,774 hogsheads, 13,993 barrels
and 40,217 boxes and bags. The refining of sugar was one of the principal
industries. Of the entire Louisiana sugar crop St. Louis received more than

3- VOL. II.

450 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

went to all of the Atlantic ports from Maine to Florida. This was the sugar
manufacturing and distributing point for the interior of the country.

One manufacturing industry meant others. As the refining of sugar grew
in magnitude cooperage became important in St. Louis. The cooper shop
was an adjunct of the Belcher refinery. It employed 125 men and occupied
a large stone building. In 1853 this shop turned out -121, ooo pieces, chiefly
barrels and half barrels, to carry the sugars and syrups refined and manufac-
tured by the refinery. This product required 2,000,000 staves, lumber for
headings and 800,000 hoop poles and twenty tons of hoop iron. The city that
year had a coopers' society with 600 members. So rapidly did the business
of the refinery develop that a considerable proportion of the cooperage work
was given to outside shops. There were times when the coopers of St. Louis
working ten hours a day could not keep up with the demand for barrels and
other pieces of cooperage.

The first type foundry in St. Louis was established by A. P. Ladew,
the son of an Albany, New York, merchant, who came here in 1838. August
Cast landed in St. Louis in 1852, without a penny in his pocket. Leopold Cast
brought over with him a press and a limited lithographic outfit. The Casts
were natives of Lippe-Detmold, Germany. They had learned the trade of
lithography in Germany. They started a little shop on Fourth street where
the Southern hotel is. In 1854 St. Louis had a type foundry and St. Louis
papers were printed with St. Louis type which sold at New York prices. An
entire newspaper outfit could be furnished in St. Louis in twenty-four hours.
The city had six lithographic, printing and engraving establishments, four steel
and copper engraving and three wood engraving. There were six book bind-
eries and eight book and job offices. The art preservative was worthily and
strongly represented. Much of the reputation of St. Louis gained as a center of
type manufacturing, the city owes to a German who came from Dresden. He
had served a six years' apprenticeship with a great printing and publishing
house in his native city; he had worked in the foremost type making shops of
Prague, Munich and Frankfort-on-the-Main ; he spent some time in England ;
he came to this country and studied in Boston. In 1874 Carl S. Schraubstatter
came to St. Louis and with James A. St. John established a type foundry which
became famous throughout the country for the excellence of the product.

When the St. Louis Ice Company was organized in September, 1854, the
capital consisted of 1,000 shares of $25 each. The plan of organization con-
tained the following provision: "No one person to be allowed more thai*
eight shares." This met with great popularity. In six days all of the stock was
subscribed. When the stockholders organized they chose for trustees such
prominent citizens as Asa Wilgus, Kenneth McKenzie, William M. McPher-
son, John J. Anderson, William W. Greene, W. Patrick, Edward Brooks, John
McNeil, T. E. Courtenay, L. Dorsheimer, John B. Carson, George Knapp and
B. F. Stout. The company located an ice house on the Levee between Plum
And Cedar streets.

Stephen A. Douglas came to St. Louis shortly before the presidential
campaign of 1860. He emphasized in an impressive way the opportunities for
manufacturing development presented to St. Louis:

J. T. DRUMMOND FRANCIS WHITTAKER W. H. WOODWARD

A. W. FAGIN HENRY AMES

J. E. LIGGETT

WILLIS J. POWELL JOSEPH SCHLANGE JOSEPH UHRIG

BUILDERS OF INDUSTRIAL ST. LOUIS

THE PRODUCTIVE COMMERCE 451

I have said that I am glad to be here in your great state, and I am not impolite when
I say you are unappreciative of your powers here at this place. I have considered your
natural resources; with you nature has been more than lavish, she has been profligate. Dear,
precious dame! Take your southern line of counties, there you grow as beautiful cotton as
any section of this world; traverse your southeastern counties and you meet that prodigy in
the world of mineralogy, — the Iron Mountain married to the Pilot Knob, about the base of
each of which may be grown any cereal of the states of the great northwest, or any one of
our broad, outspread western territories. In your central counties you produce hemp and
tobacco together with these same cereals. Along your eastern border traverses the great Father
of Waters like a silver belt about a maiden's waist. From west to east through your northern
half the great Missouri pushes her way. In every section of your state you have coal, iron,
lead and various minerals of finest quality. Indeed, fellow citizens, your resources are such
that Missourians might arm a half million of men and wall themselves within the borders of
their own state and withstand the siege of all the armies of this present world, in gradations
of three years each between armistices, and never a Missouri soldier stretch his hand across
that wall for a drink of water!

About 1855 glass works went into operation at St. Louis. The industry
was established at Broadway and Monroe streets by G. W. Scolly & Co. The
sand was found a few miles from the city. The lead was here. The pearlash
was obtainable from asheries on the Upper Mississippi. Only the clay for
pots to stand the intense and prolonged heat was wanting. About that time
Charles Semple in digging a well on his farm a few miles out on the Natural
Bridge road found just the clay that was required. This clay was made into
pots and put to the severest tests at the glass works and stood them. The
products of the works began at once to cut into the glass trade of Boston at
St. Louis. St. Louis glass was added to St. Louis flour, St. Louis sugar, St.
Louis yarn, St. Louis machinery.

The fair fame of St. Louis has made the name of the city a household
word for widely varied reasons. In the earlier years of his career Denton
J. Snider, then a member of the faculty of the St. Louis high school, during
a lecture before a parlor audience, made the assertion that the name of
William T. Harris was known to more people than the name of any other St.
Louisan. Dr. Harris had developed his theories of education along lines which
made the public school system of St. Louis the object of interest and study
by educators everywhere. He had established the school of speculative phil-
osophy which was stimulating the minds of thinkers in many countries. Pro-
fessor Snider made his assertion positively and for a few moments it seemed
as if it would be accepted by all who heard him without challenge. Then
James A. Waterworth, not long over from County Down, Ireland, of wide
mercantile acquaintance abroad, engaged in the insurance business of St. Louis,
a reader and a writer in practical fields, questioned the accuracy of Professor
Snider's opinion. Admitting all that had been told respecting Dr. Harris, Mr.
Waterworth said he thought there was another St. Louisan whose name was
known to more people in this and other countries. Mr. Snider called for the
name. " Whittaker," said Mr. Waterworth, stoutly. "I believe more people
know the name of the St. Louisan associated with the sugar cured ham than
have heard of Dr. Harris."

The first Sunday that Francis Whittaker spent in St. Louis he went to
the Presbyterian church to hear Dr. Potts. After the service he walked out
to the high ground west of Jefferson avenue, and turning about looked long

452 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

and thoughtfully at the St. Louis of 1848. He had come west with letters
that made it possible to choose his location. A brother, Dr. John H. Whit-
taker, was president of the New York Medical college. Before he left the
grove of trees on the ridge, Mr. Whittaker decided that St. Louis was to be
his American home. He had come from County Leitrim, Ireland, where his
father, of good birth, had held the office of sheriff. Practical knowledge of
two kinds of business, widely separated, had prepared Mr. Whittaker for his
St. Louis career. There was an apprenticeship served to a packer in Sligo.
After that had come several years of experience in a bank. Mr. Whittaker
became a pork packer. In the early years of the enterprise he was his own
foreman and when work pressed he took his place at the "cutter's table."
When he reached home in the evening often his hands were too tired for the
knife and fork. Direct shipments to Europe were advocated by Mr. Whittaker
with great earnestness as long as he lived. Their importance to the develop-
ment of St. Louis were in his opinion very great.

In 1858 St. Louis claimed confidently "the largest beef and pork packers
in the Union." The Ames family moved west from Oneida county, New York.
Nathan Ames and his two sons, Henry and Edgar, were pioneer pork packers
in Cincinnati long before "the Queen City of the West" had gained the sobri-
quet of "Porkopolis." They went there in 1828, but in 1841 they decided that
St. Louis was a coming center of commerce, more encouraging than Cincin-
nati. Henry Ames added to knowledge of pork packing a thorough acquaint-
ance with the river transportation business.

Almost the only industry of St. Louis which the Civil war did not mate-
rially injure was pork packing. It was in the hands of a group of men devoted
to the Union. When St. Louis began to organize an army, before there was
commissary or other preparations to take care of volunteers, these pork pack-
ers supplied food to the "Home Guards." Later, when the troops were mus-
tered in faster than the business departments of the army could be organized,
these packers supplied food in great quantities, trusting to the government
to straighten out the irregularities and to meet the bills. Several firms pursued
this policy of doing all that was asked in emergencies and trusting to the gov-
ernment. They gave credit to the government to the extent of hundreds of
thousands of dollars. The patriotic course had its reward, although that was
hardly foreseen. The War Department patronized the firms which had acted
promptly and liberally in 1861. When the war ended the packing industry of
St. Louis was flourishing. These firms were Francis Whittaker & Co., Henry
and Edgar Ames & Co., and John J. Roe & Co.

The Ames Brothers came to St. Louis with their father, Nathan Ames, in
1841. Two centuries back the Ameses were an old colonial family of Massa-
chusetts. Henry Ames was eight years the older. The brothers were unlike
physically and mentally, but between them existed an affection of extraord-
inary character. Henry Ames was a broad shouldered, square faced man.
Edgar Ames was not so heavily built. His face was that of the student and
thinker. The lineaments of Henry Ames were those of the intense business
man. When paralysis made it impossible for Henry Ames to walk he was
carried daily to his counting room, and, sitting in his chair, directed the busi-

THE PRODUCTIVE COMMERCE 453

ness. Edgar Ames suffered from gradual paralysis for some years before
his brother was affected. The physicians suggested rattlesnake poison as a
medicine to check the disease. Henry Ames insisted that the effects of the
poison be tried upon him and that the doctors study the result in his case
before they experimented \uth his brother Edgar. He had his way and took
six doses, although warned that his condition was entirely different from
that of his brother, and that while the poison might be of benefit or harmless to
the younger man it might operate badly with him. The poison did make Henry
Ames very sick. A variety of business enterprises besides the pork packing
industry claimed the attention of Henry Ames. Edgar Ames was fond of
books and art. He did much for St. Louis in that direction, but he looked for-
ward to the accumulation of a fortune which would enable him to do a great
deal more. Some one asked Edgar Ames why he continued to work so hard.
His reply was, "I work to make money to beautify our city." While he was
looking forward to the time when he could carry out the plans which he had
in mind but was not ready to make public, death came suddenly. Henry Ames
and Edgar Ames died within a year of each other. Edgar Ames was only forty-
three.

One of the cheeriest of the business magnates of St. Louis in the before-
the-war period was the remaining member of this group of packers. John J.
Roe settled here about the same time that the Ames family did. He was one
of the Ohio river steamboatmen who came to St. Louis to trade, and who de-
cided that residence in St. Louis offered the best opportunities. The devotion
of John J. Roe to the Union cause was perhaps more remarkable than the patri-
otic impulses of Whittaker and the Ames brothers. Mr. Roe had been a slave-
holder, but from conscientious belief that the peculiar institution was not right
he had freed his negroes. He was of New York birth. His parents migrated
to the Ohio river where, at Rising Sun, his father operated a ferry. Roe was a
genius as a trader. He rose in steamboating to the position of captain with a
share in the profits. He was so successful that in two years he had become sole
owner of the boat. In 1840 he landed at St. Louis with a boat load of mer-
chandise on a trading expedition to the Upper Missouri. The prospects of the
city so impressed Mr. Roe that he remained here and started a commission
house. This grew into the pork packing business of Hewitt, Roe & Kerche-
val. James Hewitt & Co. of New York had branches in the West. A few years
after Mr. Roe started in St. Louis, the community saw his proverbial good
humor tested. A fire swept away the pork packing house. Mr. Roe settled with
everybody, kept his cheerfulness and began to build his fortune over again. He
had more partners, probably, than any other business man in St. Louis in that
day. He went into all kinds of business enterprises. He had investments in
steamboats. He was a director in steam railroads and in street railroads, in
banks and in insurance companies. And all of the time he was calling acquaint-
ances by their first names, doing helpful acts, bolstering somebody's credit, giving
instructions in his business and seeing anybody who wanted to see him. Thirty
years afterwards St. Louis produced another business man with like capacity
for handling multifarious enterprises and with similar friendliness of manner
toward everybody — David R. Francis. "Captain Roe," those best acquainted

454 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

said, was one of the last of St. Louis "captains." There came a day when
the stockholders who were building the Eads bridge were pessimistic; they
tired of the assessments and talked of stopping the work. John J. Roe came
forward with $100,000 cash to continue the construction. He went to New
York, called the large stockholders together, and in thirty minutes there had
been subscribed $1,200,000.

On Lafayette avenue, on Compton Hill, Captain Roe laid put one of the
show places of St. Louis with ten acres of ground, where he hoped to spend his
declining years. But he went ahead at full steam down town. He met one man
and asked him why he looked so blue. "I have two thousand barrels of pork to
deliver tomorrow," was the reply. "The railroad people say they cannot reach
here for three days. Pork has advanced three dollars a barrel." "I'll loan them
to you," said Captain Roe, and he wrote the order for delivery. He was passing
a young man on the street when he turned back and asked: "You said some
weeks ago you wanted to get a bookkeeper's position; have you succeeded?"
"No, Captain," was the reply. "Well," said Captain Roe, "go up to Mr. Blank's
and tell him that you are the young man I spoke about several days ago. If the
place suits you he will give it to you." "The bank does not seem to like this
paper," a business man said as he met Captain Roe near the cashier's desk in
one of the financial institutions of the city. "Why, what is the matter with
it?" asked Captain Roe. "If they don't want it I'll take it." The cashier
reconsidered. An agent of the packing house who was going out to buy to
the extent of $500,000, came into the presence of the head for his instructions.
"All you have to do is to take care of your money and see that you get all the
property you pay for," said Captain Roe, and the agent passed out. He was
in his sixty-first year and was attending a meeting of one of the many cor-
porations in which he was interested one day of February, 1870, when his
voice suddenly failed, the smile faded, the head dropped to one side and Captain
Roe was dead.

The meat packing houses of St. Louis increased their product over fifty
per cent from 1905 to 1910, selling in the latter year $26,601,000 worth of
meats.

One of John Hogan's "Thoughts About St. Louis" in 1854 suggested this
advantage of St. Louis as a center of productive commerce:

First, perhaps chiefest, among the requisites for large manufacturing establishments,
is an abundant supply of food of all kinds, and at fair living prices. To manufacture ex-
tensively in all the various branches of mechanism entering into commerce requires an
immense number of hands. To supply these and their families and all dependent upon them,
with food convenient for them, absorbs at the best a large amount of the entire proceeds of
their labor. Now, one of the immutable laws of trade is, that where the demand is greater
than the supply, the price of the article is enhanced. If, then, there is a large concentration
of operatives, who from their vocations are necessarily consumers, and not producers of food,
unless they are employed nearest to the greatest and most abundant supply, they will find
enhanced prices, and, by consequence the pro rata of wages over the amount expended for
food is proportionally decreased. But is there any place in the United States where there
is a greater concentration of food at fair, we may say first hand prices, than at St. Louis?
I doubt whether, as an original and supply-produce point, St. Louis has its equal anywhere.

Audubon, the naturalist, during his visit to St. Louis in 1843, was impressed
with the abundance of food supplies from the country immediately adjacent
to the city. He wrote to James Hall:

CHARLES G. STIFEL IGNATZ UHRIG LOUIS SCHLOSSTEJN

EDGAR AMES JOHN J. ROE JOSEPH GARNEAU

GEORGE P. PLANT JOSEPH SCHNAIDER JULIUS WINKELMEYER

BUILDERS OE INDUSTRIAL ST. LOUIS

THE PRODUCTIVE COMMERCE 455

The markets here abound with all the good things of the land and of nature's creation.
To give you an idea of this read the following items: Grouse, two for a York shilling; three
chickens for the same; turkeys, wild or tame, twenty-five cents; flour, two dollars a barrel;
butter, six pence for the best — fresh and really good; beef, three to four cents; veal, the
same; pork, two cents; venison hams, large and dried, fifteen cents each; potatoes, ten cents
a bushel; ducks, three for a shilling; wild geese, ten cents each; canvas back ducks, a shilling
a pair; vegetables for the asking, as it were.

In a land of such plenty the naturalist felt that hotel rates were too high.
He added to his letter:

And only think, in the midst of this abundance and cheapness, we are paying at the
rate of nine dollars a week at our hotel, the Glasgow, and at the Planters we were asked ten
dollars. We are at the Glasgow hotel, and will leave it the day after tomorrow, as it is too
good for our purses. We intended to have gone twenty miles in Illinois to Edwardsville,
but have changed our plans and will go northwest to Florissant, where we are assured game
is plenty and the living quite cheap.

A once promising industry of St. Louis was the building of locomotives.
In 1854 a force of 200 men worked in a plant which embraced a pattern-maker's
shop, an iron foundry, a brass foundry, a smith's shop, a boilermaker's shop, a
sheet iron worker's shop, a coppersmith's shop, a carpenter's shop, a finishing
shop and a paint shop. The plant occupied a frontage of 500 feet on South
Third street; it turned out all of the parts of locomotives and put them together'
in working form. Palm and Robinson were the locomotive builders. They
turned out the first St. Louis-built locomotive on July I, 1853, and delivered it
to the Pacific railroad. They continued to build locomotives at the rate of
about one every five weeks. These were twenty-two ton locomotives. The
material to construct one of them, with tender, consisted of 24,500 pounds of
cast iron, 9,200 pounds of plate and sheet iron, 12,000 pounds of rolled bar
iron, 7,500 pounds of hammered iron, 1,400 pounds of steel, 4,200 pounds of
copper and 500 pounds of tin, zinc and brass. A considerable part of the metal
which went into these St. Louis-made locomotives came from Missouri mines.

Wilhelm Palm was a highly educated young German fresh from the
University of Berlin when he came to St. Louis. For a short time he was
assistant editor of the Anzeiger. His experiment in locomotive building at
St. Louis was so successful that he retired with a comfortable fortune. It is
tradition that the first ten locomotives for the Ohio and Mississippi railroad
were constructed in St. Louis, transported by ferry to the Illinois side and
put in service on the rails.

Eberhard Anheuser came to JSt. Louis in 1845 an^ went into the business
of soap manufacturing. He did not become interested in the manufacture of
beer until 1860, when he acquired an interest in the Bavarian brewery. William
Anheuser, who was a boy of ten when the family left Brunswick, Germany,
continued in the business his father had established in St. Louis — soap manu-
facturing.

In 1860, St. Louis had 1,126 manufacturing industries with $12,733,948
capital, giving employment to 11,737 people and producing $27,000,000 in value.
This city fell below Boston, Cincinnati, Newark, New York, Philadelphia,
Providence, Pittsburg in manufactures.

Twenty years later, in 1880, St. Louis had come up to 2,886 manufactur-
ing industries, employing $45,385,000 capital and 39,724 people. The products

456 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

had been increased to $104,383,587 in value. St. Louis was surpassed in 1880
only by Brooklyn, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Pittsburg. These
interesting comparisons were compiled from government census figures and
were given in one of the most effective studies of St. Louis from the business
point of view in a paper presented before the Round Table in 1882 by Charles
W. Knapp.

In 1910 the manufactured products of St. Louis industries reached a
valuation of $327,676,000, a gain from $193,691,595 in 1900 as shown by the
census. The capital invested in manufacturing at St. Louis in 1910 was $234,-
199,358. The number of people employed in these manufacturing industries
was 125,087.

Two brothers, whose grandfather came from Switzerland to Pennsylvania,
brought to St. Louis thorough knowledge of leather manufacture. Both had
been apprentices in tanneries. They were Chauncey Forward Shultz and John
A. J. Shultz. One was born in Pennsylvania ; the other in Maryland. Chauncey
F. Shultz came to St. Louis shortly before the civil war. His brother came
in 1864. Together these brothers established and developed the Shultz Belting
company. The younger brother invented processes which gave to the St. Louis
industry wide repute. He manufactured a new kind of rawhide belt which
was considered a notable improvement. He introduced rawhide lace leather,
the first made in the world. He patented the woven leather belt. In 1908
he was chosen president of the Missouri Manufacturers' association.

The manufacture of clothing on a large scale in St. Louis was one of the
industries which became important just after the close of the civil war. Edward
Martin, after several years' experience in Cincinnati, came to St. Louis to en-
gage in this business. He associated with him his brothers Claude and John.
The Martins were sons of a well-to-do freeholder in County Tyrone, Ireland.

Thirty years ago J. D. Hayes, of Detroit, was one of the best known
experts in trade and transportation problems. He wrote to Joseph Nimmo, the
government statistician, April 7, 1881, this notable forecast on the probabilities
of manufacturing development at St. Louis:

For hundreds of thousands of years before the present race of people were known, the
Mississippi and Missouri rivers formed their junction near the place where St. Louis now
stands, — those rivers being navigable for so many hundreds of miles in each direction, draining
a country rich in agricultural lands, as well as very abundantly supplied with iron, coal and
other minerals, together with the great variety of different kinds of valuable timber suitable
for manufacturing, all of which could be brought to that point by the natural flow of water,
thence onward down to the Gulf of Mexico to reach open and unobstructed navigation all
the year round to all parts of the world. This vast region of country along those rivers is
capable of sustaining a population of three hundred millions of people, without having more
inhabitants to the square mile than some parts of Europe. With such a country, and such
natural resources to and from, such a central point would not fail to attract the dullest mind
to its future prospects long before the steamboats and railroads had entered into competition
in rates with the currents of the rivers in their onward course to the ocean. Therefore, from
the beginning to the present time and for all coming time, railroads and steamboats must
compete with the currents of those rivers for the traffic of St. Louis; therefore, manufactories
at that point enjoy benefits which are in some respects a protection as against interior towns
or cities having to pay local or non-competing rates. The St. Louis rates affect the rates on
all productions far back into the country each side of the river, as far back as to where the
local rates into St. Louis and the through rate from St. Louis added together equal the east-
bound rate by rail from the interior cities and towns.

THE PRODUCTIVE COMMERCE 457

The public are educated to call this natural advantage "discrimination in rates in favor
of St. Louis ' ' which is true so far as the other places are concerned, but it is a " discrimina-
tion" made by God himself in the formation of the world, therefore beyond the power of
railroad managers to change. The manufacturer can with some degree of certainty put his
money, energy and material together at that point, looking to the future wants of the vast
number of people that are in the west and the millions upon millions that will be there, and
go forward with manufacturing enterprises without limit, feeling secure in the ability to
compete with any other part of the world.

In the little model shop of Edward Burroughs on Pine street, the son
William S. Burroughs, began about 1881 to work out his idea of an adding
machine. The Burroughs, father and son, were from New York. Their shop
was full of castings and wheels and strange looking things. It was frequented
by St. Louis inventors who wanted their ideas put into mechanical form. Wil-
liam S. Burroughs turned out a machine which would do surprising performances
in mathematics. Then he began to apply the principles to a contrivance that
would set down and add columns of figures. The first lot of fifty counting
machines would not stand wear and tear. Fifty of these machines went into
the junk heap. More substantial material was employed. In nine years Bur-
roughs produced the machine which would stand the tests and the company
formed to manufacture the machines began to turn out large numbers for
commercial uses. The adder became almost as common as the typewriter in
banks and other business houses.

Several of the most beneficial industries of St. Louis owed impetus if not
origin to profits of the steamboat business. In the upper part of St. Louis
county was "the Virginia settlement" of the Tylers and Colemans. James
Dozier and his father-in-law, John Dudgeon, coming from Lexington, Ky., in
1828, joined this settlement. In 1844, Captain Dozier became one of a coterie
of Missouri river commanders, among them Roe, Throckmorton, Kaiser, La-
Barge and Eaton. He retired in ten years with a comfortable fortune and
established himself in a country home at Dozier's Landing, St. Charles county.
Immediately after the war Captain Dozier invested in the bakery business in
St. Louis and founded the Dozier- Weyl Cracker company. In 1880 St. Louis
was a cracker and bread center, with 215 bakeries, great and small, turning
out products valued at $2,000,000 a year. In 1910 St. Louis had 354 bakeries,
turning out products to the value of $7,000,000 annually.

The wooden-ware and willow-ware industry and trade were among the
early business triumphs of St. Louis. There was quite a trade in wooden-ware
during the decade of 1830-40, but it was carried on under the same roofs with
hardware. In the summer of 1851 Samuel Cupples came from Cincinnati,
bringing a stock of wooden-ware and willow-ware, with which he opened a store
in that line distinctively on Locust street near the Levee. Just twenty years
later St. Louis ruled the world in this trade. A statement of conditions in
1883 contained the following:

In St. Louis the wooden-ware and willow-ware trade has obtained the ascendancy over
that of any other city in America or Europe. Prices for every other city on the continent are
fixed here. In the manufacture of these wares a capital approaching in the aggregate
$3,000,000 is utilized and upwards of 1,000 hands are employed. One St. Louis firm sells
more annually than the combined trade of any other four houses in the same line in the world,
and more than the aggregate sales of all of the houses in this line of business west of the

458 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Alleghanies. St. Louis is absolutely beyond competition in this line, having the largest manu-
factory of this character in the world. Not only are these goods, chiefly derived from home
manufactories, shipped to every considerable city and town in America, but there is a con-
siderable export to Cuba, South America and to Australia.

At the time the above was written, twenty-five years ago, St. Louis had
a five-story paper bag factory that was eating up ten tons of paper daily. There
were three oak-ware factories turning out more product than any other estab-
lishment of the kind in the country. There was a broom factory using more
broomcorn than all of the hand broom factories in the west. It turned out
600 dozens of complete brooms daily. The largest manufactory of axe handles,
hoe handles and other kinds of handles in the world was here in St. Louis.

St. Louis wooden-ware houses in 1910 did business to the amount of
$18,000,000. The leading house issued a polyglot catalogue costing $10,000.
Nearly one-half of the business of the United States in numerous articles of
household use classed as wooden-ware was manufactured and jobbed by St.
Louis houses. The pioneer St. Louis house in this line was the largest in the
country.

The first St. Louis flouring mill equipped with improved machinery and
with steam power was at the foot of Florida street. It was conducted by
Edward Walsh. That was in 1827. Just twenty years later St. Louis had four-
teen large mills. And in 1850 there were twenty-two mills grinding 12,000
bushels of wheat into 2,800 barrels of flour daily. The jolly millers were a
power in the business of the city. When they organized their Millers' associa-
tion, the directors included Gabriel Chouteau, John Walsh, Joseph Powell, C. L.
Tucker, Dennis Marks, Dr. Tibbetts, James Waugh and T. A. Buckland.

A milling business of $1,500,000 before the civil war was the industry
which Aaron W. Fagin created. The Fagins were Ohio people, having come
in the pioneer days from New Jersey. Aaron W. Fagin left the trading busi-
ness on the Ohio river to settle in St. Louis. In 1849 he built the United
States mill and began shipping to all parts of the country. The mill was a
mammoth establishment for that day. Every barrel of flour which went out
showed on the head a hand holding four aces — hard to beat.

Previous to 1880 St. Louis was the first city of the country in the manu-
facture of flour. E. O. Stanard, George P. Plant, George Bain, Alexander H.
Smith, J. B. Kehlor were feeding bread eaters on three continents. Shortly
after 1870 George Bain tried 30,000 barrels on England and went there to
introduce it. In 1879 St. Louis shipped 619,000 barrels of flour to Europe and
South America. George H. Morgan told the Merchants' Exchange in 1882
that St. Louis millers had $35,000,000 invested and were turning out 12,000
barrels of flour a day.

St. Louis millers recognized early the tendency to localize manufacture.
In 1882 they owned and carried on large mills at a dozen points in Illinois
and Missouri. Stanard, Tiedeman, Fath, Ewald, Kaufmann, the Kehlors, Maun-
tell, Borgess, Reuss had mills outside of St. Louis which were producing 750,000
barrels of flour a year, a product properly a part of the trade of St. Louis.

In 1882 the flour of St. Louis manufacture reached 1,850,000 barrels and.
the receipts from outside of the city 2,003,000 barrels. That year St. Louis
sent 623,000 barrels to foreign countries, 970,000 barrels to the eastern part

E. ANHEUSER

ISAAC COOK

GEORGE J. FRITZ

JOSEPH PETERS

WILLIAM F. NOLKER

J. W. LAMBERT

WILLIAM GLASGOW, JR. SAMUEL WAINWRIGHT WILLIAM J. LEMP

BUILDERS OF INDUSTRIAL ST. LOUIS

THE PRODUCTIVE COMMERCE 459

of the United States and 1,660,000 barrels to the south. Besides these ship-
ments 350,000 barrels were sent direct from mills outside of St. Louis but
owned in St. Louis.

The centennial of the furniture industry might have been celebrated last
year. In July 1810 Heslep and Taylor informed the public that they had "just
arrived from Pennsylvania with an extensive assortment of materials necessary
for elegant and plain chairs. They will gild, varnish, japan and paint their
work agreeable to the fancy of those who wish to encourage the business in
this place."

Three years later Philip Matile, from Switzerland, opened a shop to do
more elaborate woodwork. In 1819 came Laveille and Morton bringing flat-
boat loads of lumber with their wood-working tools stowed on top.

Not until the decades from 1840 to 1860 did furniture manufacture take
its place as one of the great industries of the city. In 1847 Paris H. Mason
and Russell Scarritt began to make furniture on Washington avenue near
Second street. Conrades and Logeman established their business in 1854 and
the next year Joseph Peters was making a specialty of bureaus and cabinet
work. John H. Crane began in 1855 and so did William Mitchell, although
his shop did not become the Mitchell company until 1870. Martin Lammert
opened in 1860. The interesting and the significant fact about these furniture
makers is the identification of most of their names with the industry to this
day. Joseph Peters was a native of Prussia and learned the trade of cabinet
making before he came to St. Louis. He worked nine years at the trade in
St. Louis before he could get enough capital to open a small shop. In 1908
St. Louis had fifty furniture factories making $5,867,000 in products, giving
employment to 7,100 people. St. Louis was exporting furniture to Europe.

The fourth city in population and in manufacturing, St. Louis ranks first
in some specialties of productive commerce. Here are the largest shoe house,
the largest tobacco factory, the largest brewery in the United States. Here
are produced more street cars, stoves and ranges, more American made chemicals
than in any other manufacturing center of this country.

In 1905, according to the census experts of the government, St. Louis had
obtained first place in the manufacture of carriages, buggies and wagons. The
107 factories engaged in that industry turned out during 1910 vehicles which
sold for $10,000,000.

To the notable industries of St. Louis in the first decade of the twentieth
century were added electrical products. Incandescent lamps, insulated wire
and a great variety of electrical manufactures made up a jobbing volume of
$20,000,000 in 1910.

The car building industry of St. Louis is equivalent to the support of a
city of 50,000 people. Eight plants in 1910 were employing 10,000 men. They
were building every kind of street car and steam car, which ranged from the
freight costing $700 to the private palace costing $40,000. They were drawing
supplies of mahogany, Oregon fir and other material from great distances and
were shipping cars to other countries, one order of $1,000,000 going to the
Argentine Republic. The railway equipment turned out by the factories of
St. Louis in 1910 amounted to $70,000,000.

460 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

The clay products of St. Louis factories — pipe, pottery, fire brick, terra
cotta and tiling — amounted in 1910 to $6,000,000, leading every other clay manu-
facturing center of the United States by fifty per cent. This class of industries
gave employment to 3,000 people.

Manufacture of clothing became one of the thriving St. Louis industries
between 1900 and 1910. It increased forty-seven per cent in the latter half
of the decade. In 1910 the 108 factories employed 8,000 people and had an
output of $14,573,000.

In 1910 the shoe factories numbered thirty-two, with seven others in nearby
towns, owned by St. Louis manufacturers. These thirty-nine factories employed
20,000 people and made shoes to the number of 26,306,735 pairs, valued at
$46,249,161.

Two developments in the productive commerce of St. Louis have been
strikingly similar in the successful results. They started thirty years apart.
Conditions which confronted them were of like discouraging character. The
foresight and superb courage of a handful of men in each of these movements
meant a great deal to the industrial progress of this city. The Filleys and the
Bridges in the decade of 1840-1850 inaugurated the manufacture of stoves
against the opinion of the business community, creating an industry which has
grown to nineteen establishments turning out annually products to the value
of $7,500,000. Thirty years later the Browns, the Hamiltons, the Desnoyers
and a little group of men began a demonstration of the advantages St. Louis
offered for manufacture of boots and shoes. They faced the same adverse
opinion which failed to deter the pioneer stove-makers. This industry grew
until there were thirty-two shoe manufacturing concerns in St. Louis turning
out 100,000 pairs of shoes a day, with an annual product of over $25,000,000.
The Browns were from New York state. In the decade 1870-80 they sold
shoes in the St. Louis territory. To George Warren Brown came the inspira-
tion that shoes for this trade could be made in St. Louis. The house for which
George Warren Brown traveled sought to dissuade him from manufacturing
by an offer of share of profits in the jobbing. The young man was barely
twenty-five when he took his $7,000 of savings, and with $5,000 added for
capital started in a loft on St. Charles street the modest beginning of the industry
which has proven so much for the advantages of St. Louis as a center of pro-
ductive commerce. When George Warren Brown went on the road to place
the St. Louis manufactured goods, the merchants looked at the samples, gave
orders and frankly told the shoe manufacturer they were patronizing him on
personal grounds and not with the expectation that his stock would be up to
sample. Success came quickly. Hamilton, Brown and company, leading whole-
sale dealers in the boots and shoes of eastern make, began to manufacture.
Others followed. This industry drew to it young men of business judgment
and energy rather than large investments of capital. It developed upon brains
rather than upon cash. It created for St. Louis a coterie of energetic public
spirited citizens. It has done a great deal more for the city than is represented
in the addition it has made to the volume of productive commerce. As the
business grew into the form of corporations, the ambitious and the worthy were
encouraged to become shareholders. The Browns, with the recollection of their

THE PRODUCTIVE COMMERCE 461

own experiences, led in this. One of the most successful of the shoe companies
consists of a hundred partners. This single line of manufacture has developed
for St. Louis half a thousand business men whose activities and whose influence
are widely felt for the common good.

CHAPTER XIX.
THE DISTRIBUTIVE COMMERCE

A St. Louis Merchant of 1790 — When Catfish Was Circulating Medium — Soulard's Trade
Review of 1805 — Dressed Deerslins the Leading Article of Commerce — "Incalculable
Riches Along the Missoiiri" — Prices of Staples in 1815 — The First Boolcstore — "Heavy
Groceries" — Henry Von Phul, the Oldest Merchant — Collier's Luck — The "Dry Grocery"
of Greeley fy Gale — The Jaccards — How Jacob S. Merrell Won Success — Robert M.
Funkhouser's Start in a Notable Career — The Orthweins' Grain Experiments — St. Louis
Commerce in 1851 — Era of Elevators — Senter and the Cotton Trade — Pioneer Incorpora-
tion— Edivard C. Simmons and His Pocket Knife — The First Illustrated Trade Catalogue —
Isaac Wyman Morton's Activities — When Samuel Cupples Came to St. Louis — Evolution
of Cupples Station — Shopping Districts of Four Generations — The Branch House Policy —
Chamber of Commerce and Merchants' Exchange — High Standards of Business Honor — A
Wonderful Record of Cheerful Giving— Master Mechanics of St. Louis in 1839 — Arbitra-
tion Substituted for Litigation in 1856 — The Board of Trade Which Preceded the Business
Men's League — The City's Importance Not Measured by Local Statistics — What St. Louis
Men and Money Have Done in the Southwest.

Those old-time workers may have been a little too conservative, sometimes timid, — "old
fogies," you would call them nowadays, — but they were scrupulously honest in their dealings,
strict constructionists in their regard for contracts, men of untarnished integrity in meeting
their engagements, and it is to their practice and example that the present high commercial
credit of St. Louis, both at home and abroad, is greatly due. However strong and promising the
present may be, I cannot, as your oldest member, say a better word than this, — that we should
hold fast to the early traditions of the Chamber of Commerce, and maintain that high regard
for honorable dealings which has characterized the past, so that to be a recognized member of
the St. Louis Merchants' Exchange may always and everywhere be a passport to respect and
confidence. Consider through what trials and difficulties we have thus far advanced. No city
has suffered greater reverses by fire, pestilence and flood, by financial crises, by internal dissen-
sions and civil war ; and yet we have passed through all, chiefly by the sturdy strength and
steadfastness of our business men. — Wayman Crow, 1875.

More flippantly than accurately, a writer on the colonial commerce of the
settlement said a St. Louis merchant in 1790 was "a man who, in the corner
of his cabin, had a large chest which contained a few pounds of powder and
shot, a few knives and hatchets, a little red paint, two or three rifles, some
hunting shirts of buckskin, a few tin cups and iron pots, and perhaps a little
tea, coffee, sugar and spice."

Bills of exchange which passed from hand to hand in the colonial period
were not always based upon shaved deerskins and other furs, although that
kind of circulating medium was most common. Occasionally financial transac-
tions took a form of which the following is an illustration :

"Bon pour six livre de Barbue, a St. Louis, ce 25Sbre, 1799. —

"ANTOINE ROY."

Turned into English this French copy of an original paper which meant
value would read:

"Good for six pounds of catfish, at St. Louis, the 25th September, 1799. —

"ANTOINE ROY."

St. Louis was a fine fish market in the days of the fur traders. Catfish,
buffalo fish and the more delicate silver fish were caught and marketed by resi-

463

464 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

dents of the settlement who followed that as a business. Antoine Roy dealt
in fish and issued orders on himself as the equivalent of money.

In 1805 was made what may be considered the first review of the trade
and commerce of St. Louis. It was prepared by Antoine Soulard, who held
the office of surveyor of Upper Louisiana. It was dated "At St. Louis of the
Illinois, March, 1805." Mr. Soulard's report showed the year's trade at St.
Louis amounted to $77,971. The items were skins, hides, tallow and fat and
bears' grease. The largest item was dressed deer skins, of which St. Louis
handled 96,000, valued at $28,000. The next item of trade was beaver pelts,
of which St. Louis handled 12,000 pounds, valued at $14,737. Mr. Soulard
said :

This table, which is made as correct as possible on an average of fifteen years, gives
the amount of $77,971. The goods carried up the Missouri and exchanged for this peltry
would amount to $61,250, reckoning the charges to be a one-fourth part of the worth of the
articles. From this it follows that the trade favors an annual profit of $16,721 or a profit
of 27 per cent.

Mr. Soulard proceeds with an argument intending to show the possibilities
of improving St. Louis' trade and commerce. He says :

If the Missouri trade, badly regulated and without encouragement, gives annually such
a profit there can be no doubt of its increase if encouraged by the government. It must be
observed that the prices fixed in the table are those current at the Illinois. If the London
prices were taken and deducted from the charges the profits would appear much greater. If
the Missouri river of the savages and having but a single branch of trade favors such great
returns in proportion to the capital employed in it, what might we not expect from investment
by companies with large funds aided by a numerous population and devoting themselves to
other kinds of traffic? Some of these, I am bold to say, may be undertaken with a certainty
of success when we consider the riches offered by its banks of which in this note I have
endeavored to sketch an outline.

Antoine Soulard had been surveyor of Upper Louisiana for several years
and had' traveled about considerably. He was greatly impressed with "The
Incalculable Riches Along the Banks of the Missouri." As early as March,
1805, he enumerated the kinds of wood and the uses to which they might be
put. He spoke of the knowledge which the Indians had of trees and of forest
plants, and, in the course of his statements, he said:

They derive from certain plants with great care and system that product which renders
them insensible to the most vehement fire. I have seen them take hold of redhot irons and
burning coals without suffering any inconvenience.

In 1816 the prices on staple articles of the market which prevailed in St.
Louis were as follows:

Beef, on foot, per cwt $ 4.00 Flour, horse-mill, S. fine, per cwt. . . .$ 6.00

Butter, per Ib 25 Grain — Wheat, per bu 1.00

Bees wax, per Ib 25 Bye, per bu 62^

Candles, per Ib 25 Barley, per bu 75

Cheese, per Ib 25 Corn, per bu 37

Cheese, common, per Ib I2y2 Oats, per bu 37

Boards, none in market 00 Gunpowder, per Ib 1.00

Cider, none in market 00 Hams, per Ib 12

Coffee, per Ib 50 Hides, per piece 2.75

Cotton, per Ib 40 Hogs' lard, per Ib 12

Cotton yarn, No. 10 1.25 Bears' lard, per gal 1.50

Feathers, per Ib 50 Honey, per gal 1.00

Flour, per bbl., S. fine, in demand . . . 16.00 .

STEPHEN RIDGELY

JOHN H. LOUDERMAN

THE OLD CHOUTEAU MILL
After 1852 in use as a stone saw mill

BUILDERS OF INDUSTRIAL ST. LOUIS

THE DISTRIBUTIVE COMMERCE 465

The price of a load of wood on the little carts was "six bits" or seventy-five
cents. The Americans started and preserved a tradition that one of these honest
vendors of wood was offered a dollar for his load and that he cried 'out "Seex
beets ! seex beets ! No more, no less !"

The first regular bookstore was opened on Main street by Daniel Hough
and Thomas Essex about 1820. Mr. Hough was from New Hampshire, edu-
cated at Dartmouth. In 1820 St. Louis was importing goods, annually valued
at "upwards of $2,000,000." The Indian trade was considered to be worth
$600,000.

"Heavy groceries" constituted a distinct branch of the trade of St. Louis
for many years. The Colliers, the Lacklands, the Glasgows were dealers in
heavy groceries. They would be called importers now. They brought to St.
Louis sugar by the boat load, coffee, tea and a few other staples in enormous
quantities, selling them at small margin as desired by jobbers. The business
experience of Henry Von Phul, who lived to be the oldest merchant in St. Louis
and died in his pist year, dated back to the first decade of the century, when
he was employed by James Hart at Lexington, Ky. Mr. Hart was the brother-
in-law of Henry Clay, and the son of the man for whom Thomas H. Benton
was named. Young Von Phul began his commercial career by taking charge
of keel boats loaded with flour, lead and provisions. He floated down stream,
stopping at the principal towns on the Mississippi river, trading his products
for cotton. He continued this until he reached New Orleans, where he sold
the cotton and other products that had not been traded, as well as the keel
boats. He then returned on horseback to Lexington, where he made up another
shipment and repeated the voyage and the trading. This was the business
Mr. Von Phul followed until he came to St. Louis in 1811. The head of the
Von Phul family was born in Philadelphia. His mother was a Graff, coming
from Lancaster. Henry Von Phul arrived in St. Louis to find the horsemen
organizing under Colonel Nathan Boone to fight in the war against England.
He joined the command. After the war of 1812 Henry Von Phul married the
daughter of Doctor Antoine F. Saugrain and began his career as' a merchant
on Main street. To him were born fifteen children. Through sixty-three years
Henry Von Phul was a business man in St. Louis. He saw the first steamboat
land. He invested in steamboats. He conducted for many years one of the
largest commercial houses in the Mississippi valley. His credit was such that
many western banks kept their St. Louis balances with him. In 1872, at the
age of eighty-eight, Mr. Von Phul, after passing safely through crisis after
crisis, was involved through endorsements of the obligations of Von Phul
Brothers of New Orleans. Against the earnest advice of his counsel, this
sturdy old captain of industry paid every dollar of the debts for which he was
responsible legally or morally with interest at eight per cent. This action swept
away what was a great fortune for those days. Two years later Henry Von
Phul died almost poor, leaving a record which is part of the glory of St. Louis
commercial integrity.

"Collier's luck" was a common expression in St. Louis business circles
during the thirty years of one man's activities. George Collier had many and
widely varied interests. He had more partners in his time, probably, than any

4- VOL. II.

466 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

other St. Louisan. In the selection of these associates he showed remarkable
judgment. Largely for that reason everything he went into turned out well.
The Colliers, John and George, were Marylanders by birth. Their father had
owned a farm and had been engaged in the coasting trade, and died when the
boys were young. Their mother, a woman of force, sent them to Wylie's
academy, a business school of high standing in Philadelphia. John Collier came
west in 1816 and George Collier followed two years later. Beginning with a
small mercantile trade, they expanded their business until they were selling
"heavy groceries" throughout St. Louis territory. John Collier died in 1821
and George Collier continued the store taking into partnership Peter Powell,
another young man from Maryland. In 1830 George Collier retired from the
store with considerable capital. He entered upon what was an entirely new
field for St. Louis and upon what meant a great deal to a number of St. Louisans.
Selecting young men who showed ability and energy, Mr. Collier furnished
the capital for venture after venture. His favorite investments for ten or
twelve years were in steamboats. But his methods were entirely original with
him. Having made up his mind favorably as to the qualifications of the young
man, Mr. Collier sent him around to the Ohio river to build a steamboat. The
trade to be served was carefully considered. The boat was planned for that
special trade. Mr. Collier supplied the credit. The silent partner remained in
Pittsburg, actively superintending the construction. When the boat was com-
pleted the partner became the captain, steamed to St. Louis and entered upon
the trade selected and received a share of the profits. If there were no profits ;
if the boat was not suited for the trade; if the plans proved to have been ill
advised, Mr. Collier quickly disposed of the boat. It was one of his rules to
get out of an unprofitable venture as quickly as the turn could be made. But
the capitalist was seldom mistaken in his estimate of his silent partner or in his
judgment of the kind of a boat that would pay on any particular river. He
entered boats for transportation business in all directions from St. Louis. At
times he had as many as half a score on the rivers. Men who became capitalists
themselves, laid the foundation of their fortunes by operating boats in which
George Collier gave them an interest. Sullivan Blood, the early president of
the Boatmen's bank, John Simonds who became the partner in the private bank-
ing house of Lucas & Simonds, N. J. Eaton who resigned his commission in
the United States army, and Rufus J. Lackland were among the silent partners
of George Collier.

Mr. Collier bought and shipped lead in great quantities. He invested in
lead mines at Galena. When Henry T. Blow was struggling with the infant
white lead industry of St. Louis, Mr. Collier became the largest individual
subscriber to the Collier White Lead works. For some years he carried on a
banking business, having as a partner William G. Pettus. Mr. Collier and
Mr. Pettus married sisters, the Misses Morrison. In 1840 Mr. Collier retired
from the banking business, Mr. Pettus continuing it. Two years later he formed
the firm of Collier & Morrison which launched his brother-in-law into mercantile
life. In 1847 George Collier retired and the house became William M. Morri-
son & Co., the silent partners being the young men, Rufus J. Lackland and
Alfred Chadwick. At every new business step Mr. Collier extended a helping

EUGENE JACCARD
The pioneer in the retail movement to Fifth street

JOHN KENNARD RICHARD M. SCRUGGS

FORMER REPRESENTATIVE MERCHANTS OF ST. LOUIS

THE DISTRIBUTIVE COMMERCE 467

hand to some young man. He came to be looked upon as an adviser to all
financial St. Louis. The second wife of George Collier was Miss Sarah A. Bell.
The two daughters of Mr. Collier married brothers — Henry and Ethan Allen
Hitchcock. A grandson of George Collier was elected to the St. Louis circuit
bench in 1908.

When Carlos S. Greeley started a wholesale grocery in St. Louis he put
in no stock of liquor. The news traveled quickly up and down the Levee and
Main street, that two young men from the east were going to try this experi-
ment. The trade generally looked on with amusement. Predictions were made
that the new firm would not last. Greeley was under thirty when with Mr.
Sanborn he opened the store on the Levee in 1838. The elimination of "wet
groceries" wasn't altogether a novelty to Mr. Greeley. When the young man
left his native New Hampshire he had about $100 made in "swapping steers"
and other property which had come into his possession. He found employment
in the retail grocery of Moses Pettingill at Brockport, New York. Mr. Pettin-
gill was running a grocery without liquor and making money. Afterwards he
became one of the most successful pioneer merchants of Peoria. Greeley
bought out his employer and continued the policy of selling no whiskey. When
he came to St. Louis he had this experience and a capital of about $5,000.
His first partner was Mr. Sanborn who had been with him in the Brockport
store. Mr. Gale, a Salisbury, New Hampshire, friend of Mr. Greeley, bought
out Mr. Sanborn. The "dry grocery" house of Greeley & Gale made money
from the beginning. It grew into one of the institutions of the city. The profits
helped to build the Kansas Pacific railroad, the line from Sedalia to Warsaw,
the St. Louis and Illinois railroad; they were represented in the capital of the
National Bank of Commerce and the Boatmen's; they helped to establish the
Belcher Sugar refinery, the St. Louis Cotton Factory, the Crystal City Plate
Glass company. They contributed generously to Drury College, to Lindenwood
Seminary, to the Mercantile Library, to Washington University.

The Jaccards were Swiss. Louis Jaccard came first, in 1829. His nephew \
Eugene Jaccard followed in 1837. The association of the name with the jewelry \
business in St. Louis eighty years ago began with the elder Jaccard working as
a journeyman for nine dollars a week. D. Constant Jaccard, another member
of the family, a cousin of Louis and Eugene, came from St. Croix to St. Louis
in 1848, leaving Switzerland because of the political disturbances. He founded
the house of Mermod, Jaccard & King.

It was said of Augustus F. Shapleigh, who was the father of the wholesale
hardware trade of St. Louis, that he never asked an extension on a loan and
never let a just bill be presented a second time for payment. The sales of the
hardware jobbers of St. Louis are more than the combined sales of all the
hardware jobbers of New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore.

One of the merchants who suffered in the great fire was Adolphus Meier.
Three years before, Mr. Meier had come from his home in Germany and had
established himself in the hardware business with his brother-in-law John C.
Rust.. At six o'clock in the morning he saw the roof of his store fall in. At
eight o'clock he had drawn the plans for a new store and had placed the con-
tracts for the brick work and lumber.

468 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

The founder of the Merrell Drug company, Jacob Spencer Merrell, at the
age of fifteen paid his father $150 for his time. He worked his way westward;
on the Erie canal from his New York birthplace. He took deck passage on
a Lake Erie boat. He cut cordwood, on what is now part of Toledo. He
worked in a Lexington, Ky., grocery for ten dollars a month, hired a horse
and traveled through the mountains buying furs. When he sold his furs in
Cincinnati he saw a little drug factory for sale and bought it on credit. The
rest was steady progress. When Mr. Merrell came to St. Louis in 1853, he
had the capital to establish himself in a strong position. When the American
Medical college was established, Mr. Merrell was one of the founders.

The Funkhouser family was of patriotic descent, moving from Virginia to
Kentucky and then to Illinois. An ancestor vwas Colonel Cross, of fame in
the Revolutionary war. Robert M. Funkhouser, the head of the family in
St. Louis, reached Alton in the spring of 1840 with a capital of fifty dollars.
He found the town full of young men looking for openings, went down to the
river and took the first boat for St. Louis. The second evening after he reached
this city he went into an auction sale, which in the early years was a popular
form of evening amusement. The auctioneer was selling looking glasses at
what appeared to the young school teacher to be very cheap. Mr. Funkhouser
bought four dozen and the next day went through the city offering looking
glasses for sale at retail. He was so vigorous in his business methods that he
attracted the attention of a merchant, T. R. Selms, who engaged him on the
spot as clerk at a salary of $250 a year with board thrown in. Mr. Funkhouser
married the daughter of his first employer, became a merchant on his own
account, a bank director, a savings association director and president of the
Chamber of Commerce.

When John Kennard, Sr., grew old he placed the affairs of the house
in the hands of his sons. He had been a devoted and consistent Methodist
all his life, but he deemed it proper that the last days should be spent in quiet
preparation for the end. Once the pastor, Rev. J. H. Linn, of Centenary, spoke
to him; he found that Mr. Kennard had kept in view this sentiment, that a
business man should close his earthly affairs in time so that the departure might
not come to him unprepared. "I have my time now," Mr. Kennard said, "at
discretion. I cannot help but be employed— that is my nature and my habit.
But I have full confidence in my sons ; I have committed these worldly matters
into their hands — wholly into their hands."

James H. Brookmire, born in the suburbs of Philadelphia, began in St.
Louis as a shipping clerk, in 1855, for his uncles the Hamills who were whole-
sale grocers on the Levee. He was noted for the thoroughness with which
he studied the business, even perfecting himself in the chemistry of the prin-
cipal products sold in his trade. He invented several things which came into
general use by the trade.

The Orthweins came from Wuertemberg in 1854. They lived for a time
in Logan county, Illinois. Charles F. Orthwein as a boy received advice and
encouragement from Abraham Lincoln. He was a clerk in a country store
before coming to St. Louis, just previous to the Civil war. As early as 1866,
before he was thirty years old, Charles F. Orthwein startled St. Louis by

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THE DISTRIBUTIVE COMMERCE 469

chartering a steamboat and five barges to go up the river and load with grain.
He was the early advocate of moving grain in bulk down the river. His proposi-
tion, which he urged with great force, was, that the economical exportation of
grain must be down the river; that railroads must turn over their grain at St.
Louis for the river route. To show what could be done Mr. Orthwein shipped
12,000 bushels of wheat by way of New Orleans to New York, where it arrived
in perfect condition. This was the answer to the theory that grain sent out in
bulk by water would suffer from temperature and moisture. Mr. Orthwein
repeated his experiments until St. Louis grain men were convinced that grain
could be exported in this way without heating. But the handicap was the want
of a deep channel at the mouth of the Mississippi. Then St. Louis got behind
Captain Eads and pushed for the jetties. The grain export trade of St. Louis
by way of New Orleans went up to 15,000,000 bushels annually about 1880.
William D. Orthwein, two years younger than Charles F., joined his brother
in the grain business at St. Louis in 1862. He later took up milling in addition
to the handling of grain. For fourteen years the house of Orthwein Brothers,
with branches in several cities, was very powerful in the grain handling of the
southwest. In one period the Orthweins exported 12,000,000 bushels of corn
annually to Europe.

Of old New England, stock, the parents of Frank Orville Sawyer moved
west from Exeter, New Hampshire, to Cincinnati. Mr. Sawyer was educated
at Woodward College, Cincinnati. He came to St. Louis before the Civil war
and founded the Sawyer Paper company.

How rapidly St. Louis extended her trade is shown in a statement of busi-
ness made by six dry goods houses in 1853. These houses reported:

Sales in 1845 $1,119,657

Sales in 1853 4,074,782

In eight years their increase of annual business was $2,955,724. But this
was by no means an indication of the volume of St. Louis trade in the one line.
There were at that time over twenty wholesale dry goods houses in this city.
In 1855 St. Louis had fifty-two houses in the wholesale grocery business, selling
goods annually to the value of $22,000,000. In 1881 the number of wholesale
grocery houses was the same, fifty-two, with sales, exclusive of sugar and coffee
and rice, reaching $30,000,000 a year. In 1908 the business done was $69,-
000,000.

In 1856 a missionary went east to inform the benighted on the Atlantic
seaboard about St. Louis and the west. The mission was supported by the
chamber of commerce, now the merchants' exchange. The lectures which
Richard Smith Elliott was to deliver, according to the resolution of the chamber
of commerce, embraced "facts in regard to the physical geography, natural
resources, economic relations, and progress in wealth, morals and refinement of
our part of the country." To his Boston audience in the state house Mr.
Elliott described St. Louis as "a city of 125,000 people, with churches, schools,
hotels, steamboats, newspapers and other institutions of civilized life." He said:

Our paved and macadamized streets would more than reach from Boston to Worcester.
There are eighteen miles of public street sewers. The wharf stretches one mile and a quarter
on the Mississippi, is several hundred feet wide, and, during the season of navigation ia

470 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

crowded with the products of every clime and soil. In 1855 there were 600,000 barrels of flour
manufactured in St. Louis and over 400,000 received from other places, making a million
of barrels, equaling the flour trade of Philadelphia. About 140,000 bags of coffee were
received in 1855, enough to make a string of coffee bags more than fifty miles in length. The
hemp, tobacco, pork, lard, wheat, bale-rope, flour, coffee, sugar and salt passing through the
hands of St. Louis merchants in 1855 would, allowing the actual space occupied by each
article, reach in one grand line from St. Louis to Boston. In 1840 St. Louis had 16,000 people;
in 1855, she had 125,000. She added in fifteen years 109,000 to her population.

The growth of distribution from St. Louis as a manufacturing and com-
mercial center was rapid. Shipments of produce and manufactures from this
port by river to places on the interior waters of the United States are given in
government reports. For the year ending June 30, 1851, these local shipments
were:

Flour, bbls 648,520 Whiskey, bbls 29,916

Flour, sacks 2,156 Lard, bbls 47,450

Wheat, sacks 112,600 Lard, kegs 19,730

Oats, sacks 415,624 Lard, tons 421

Barley, sacks — 17,487 Beef, tcs 5,111

Pork, hhds 108 Beef, bbls 4,538

Pork, tcs 5,012 Bacon, casks 24,432

Pork, bbls 122,948 Hemp, bales : 57,160

Lard, tcs 14,290 Hides 38,490

Lead, pigs 472,438 Nails, kegs 38,776

Lead bars, Ibs 78,600 Glass, boxes 6,418

Tobacco, hhds 9,210 Salt, bbls 76,753

Tobacco, boxes 5,011 Cotton yarn, bags 6,180

Eefined sugar, bbls 21,892 Wrought iron —

Sugar, hhds 21,905 Manufactures, tons 15,345

Sugar, bbls 11,548 Castings, tons 30,840

Molasses, bbls 40,510

In 1860 the grain dealers of St. Louis began to hold meetings and to assert
that the time had come for this market to handle grain in bulk instead of con-
fining themselves to sacks. Henry and Edgar Ames and Albert Pearce offered
to build an elevator. The necessary bill for a location on the river front went
through the council but was vetoed by the mayor. The innovation was opposed.
Not until 1864 was consent obtained to build the first elevator at the foot of
Biddle street where the electric power plant is now located. Not until the
elevator got into the management of a board of which John Jackson was presi-
dent and Dennis P. Slattery was the secretary did it become profitable to its
owners. John Jackson was from County Down, Ireland, of Scotch-Irish parent-
age. He had been a successful merchant in salt and other heavy groceries
before he devoted his attention to the development of the grain trade of St.
Louis.

The Larimores, N. G. and J. W., brothers, were boys when their parents
moved to St. Louis county from Kentucky in 1884. They were brought up
on a farm of 1,000 acres which their father bought for ten and twelve dollars
an acre and developed into "the model farm." As that it took the premium
offered by the St. Louis Fair association in 1864 and was known far and
wide. The Larimores left the model farm and came to St. Louis to enter the
grain trade. In company with G. G. Schoolfield and D. H. Silver the Larimore

AARON W. FAGTX GEORGE PARTRIDGE

COMMANDERS OF COMMERCE

THE WHOLESALE DISTRICT OF 1909
Washington avenue, west of Eighth street

THE DISTRIBUTIVE COMMERCE 471

brothers built a great warehouse at Fifth and Chouteau avenue and joined in
the movement to educate St. Louis in the handling of bulk grain. The ware-
house was divided into many bins. In those days the St. Louis millers wouldn't
buy wheat by grade but insisted on having each carload put in a separate bin.
Dealing in bulk grain was an evolution. When the Larimores began to put
their profits in elevators, about 1873, tney received a great deal of discouraging
advice. They made money, bought wheat land in North Dakota by the thou-
sands of acres in advance of the building of Hill's Great Northern and founded
the town of Larimore. N. G. Larimore married the youngest daughter of
Levi Ashbrook, one of the pioneer pork packers of St. Louis. J. W. Larimore
married Bettie R. Carlisle, of a widely known Methodist family, long identified
with the Methodist Orphans' home and other philanthropic effort.

With confidence the men who participated in the trial of bulk shipment
of grain by river look for the renaissance. In their judgment the experiment
was successful. It demonstrated the theory. The practice did not become
permanent because of limitations on the route. With a deep and permanent
channel, grain will again go by river. The secretary of the merchants' ex-
change, George H. Morgan, looking backward on forty-four years' experience
and forward to the promise of the deep waterway, said:

At the close of the Civil war the members of the merchants' exchange took up with
renewed energy the task of restoring to the commerce of the city the grain trade of the
west, which had been diverted to more northern markets, and of renewing the trade relations
which had previously existed with the south. In the annual report of the exchange pub-
lished in 1865, the right hand of fellowship and commerce was extended to all former business
acquaintances in the following words:

' ' And now that the strife is over, f orget-
"ting all dissensions of the past, they ex-
pend the right hand of friendship to those
"who so lately opposed them, and invite
"them to come back and renew those kind re-
"lations which before existed."

For the proper extension of the grain trade additional facilities were needed. The
custom of shipping in sacks, which had hitherto prevailed, was too expensive and cumbersome,
and the handling of grain in bulk, which had already been inaugurated in competing mar-
kets, was imperatively necessary if St. Louis was to compete for the grain trade of the
Mississippi Valley.

To meet this need members of the exchange erected the St. Louis Grain Elevator on
the levee at the foot of Ashley street, and in the fall of 1865 it opened for business and
demonstrated that grain could be profitably handled in bulk.

To move the grain in bulk a barge line was formed to carry the freight to New Orleans,
where a transfer elevator was built to transfer the grain from the barges to the ocean
vessels.

There was some movement of bulk grain via the water route by individuals for New
Orleans and for Atlantic ports, but it was found that there were doubts in the minds of
shippers as to the safety of the gulf route, on account of climatic conditions, whether grain
would keep in as good condition as by the more northern routes.

It was decided in the early part of 1869 that experimental shipments of grain to
Europe should be made to test the question and an organisation was effected under the name
of the St. Louis Grain Association, with a capital stock of $100,000. The exchange in its
corporate capacity took $20,000 of the stock and the balance was taken by firms and indi-
viduals. Shipments of 470,000 bushels of wheat were made to Europe during the first year
and while the venture was not successful from a pecuniary point of view, the practicability

472 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

and safety of the gulf route was firmly established. The export movement was slow in starting
but gradually grew in favor, and in the year 1880 over 15,000,000 bushels were exported by
St. Louie houses.

From this initial step the grain movement via Gulf ports has grown to large proportions,
and a large portion of the grain trade of the West now moves on longitudinal lines to the
Gulf ports.

In 1906 there was exported from New Orleans and Galveston 49,721,960 bushels of
wheat, corn and oats.

To the Merchants' Exchange of St. Louis is due the credit of demonstrating the desir-
ability and safety of an outlet to the markets of the world by the Gulf route, resulting in
an immense saving in freight rates on the surplus . products of the great west, to the great
benefit of the farmer and the grain dealer.

While this movement has now ceased via St. Louis on account of the uncertainties of
river navigation and other transportation conditions west of the Missouri river, it is con-
fidently believed that when the river is so improved by the general government that a depth
of not less than six feet from St. Paul to St. Louis and of not less than twelve feet from
St. Louis to New Orleans is secured, and the route from the lakes to the Mississippi river
is finished, via the Illinois river, the volume of traffic seeking the cheaper outlet by water
routes will become very large and the pristine glory of the mighty Mississippi will be renewed.

The St. Louis Fair was much more than encouragement to agriculture.
It was an annual exposition of the industries of St. Louis. It was made an
occasion to stimulate thought and energies in a variety of directions for the
city's good. In 1868 the Excelsior Insurance company offered a premium of
$100 to be awarded at the Fair "for the best plan of construction of iron barges
and vessels suited to carry grain in bulk on the Mississippi river and tributaries."
Logan D. Dameron and the Fair Association each contributed the same amount
toward the premium.

The year before the war closed William Marshall Senter, the son of a
Lexington, Tennessee, farmer came to St. Louis to work out his theory that this
city might handle a large cotton trade. He was the central figure in a very
interesting trade evolution. St. Louis was handling about 30,000 bales a year.
Mr. Senter, with others who joined him, formed a cotton association in 1870.
In 1873 the cotton exchange was organized. J. W. Paramore joined the coterie
who were bound to make St. Louis a great cotton market. He was the son
of a Mansfield, Ohio, farmer, the tenth of eleven children in the family. He
served in the war as colonel of the Third Ohio cavalry, for a considerable period
commanding a brigade. With some experience in railroad building after the
war, he came to St. Louis. A compress and warehouse were built, the largest
and most convenient in the world at the time, it was said. The capacity was
500,000 bales. The plant occupied eighty acres of ground. It compressed 3,000
bales a day. The cotton handled under the stimulus given the trade by Senter,
Paramore and their associates increased from about 30,000 bales a year to over
400,000 bales about 1880. To hold and develop this cotton trade of St. Louis
Colonel Paramore planned a great system of narrow gauge railroads. The
routes were chosen with special reference to the cotton growing sections of the
southwest. The roads as planned were to cost about half as much as standard
gauge and to cost for operation about one-third of the gross earnings. Turning
over the management of the .compress to Mr. Senter, Colonel Paramore in 1881
began to build these narrow gauge roads under the name of the Cotton Belt,
starting from a landing in Missouri on the Mississippi river. He was able

THE DISTRIBUTIVE COMMERCE 473

to show that cotton was shipped from Texas and Arkansas to Europe by way
of St. Louis cheaper than by way of the gulf ports. Two conditions contributed
to this result. They were reasonable transportation charges to St. Louis;
economy in the handling of the staple.

When the handling of cotton reached its zenith the St. Louis Compress
company had $1,250,000 capital employed. The buildings contained thirty acres
of floor space to and from which a network of railroad tracks made connection.
The company employed from 300 to 800 men. In 1879-80 the number of bales
compressed here was 275,000.

The Factors' and Brokers' Compress company with capacity for 55,000
bales a year, with buildings and tracks at Columbus and Lafayette streets, was
formed in 1874 by R. B. Whittemore, Oliver Garrison, H. M. Mandeville and
others.

To grasp quickly new conditions has saved prestige to St. Louis in ways
of transportation, character of industries and methods of trade. When the
shipments of cotton through St. Louis were greatest the cotton factors here
began to prepare for the coming localization of the compressing and ware-
housing. William M. Senter, James L. Sloss, J. D. Goldman, A. C. Stewart and
other St. Louisans organized and put in operation the Texarkana Cotton Com-
press company to handle the staple which could not under the natural laws of
trade be brought to this city. As the cotton receipts at St. Louis diminished
under the influences of new railroads and better seaport connections, St. Louis
factors established warehouses and compresses in centers of production on the
most economical routes. In this way St. Louis preserved her interests in the
cotton trade although the actual cotton did not come here.

The first commercial or jobbing house in the United States to incorporate
was a St. Louis firm. A manufacturer promptly refused an order for $200
worth of goods from this house although the order was given on a cash basis.
The manufacturer reasoned, curiously enough as it seems now, that incorpora-
tion by a mercantile house meant a purpose to avoid personal liability. The
St. Louis house which pioneered the incorporation movement on the ist of
January, 1874, was the Simmons Hardware company. The experiment was
considered by not a few to be suspicious; it might pave the way to dishonest
failure. The truth was that incorporation was trade evolution. It meant many
partners. It led to profit sharing. Perhaps no one development did more to
advance the trade interests of St. Louis than the incorporation of the mercantile
houses, for the Simmons idea spread rapidly to all branches of wholesale busi-
ness in this center. The beginning of the Simmons Hardware company as a
corporation seems humble now. The cash capital of the company was only
$200,000. Some of the men who had proven their worth to the house and
were at the heads of departments borrowed money to buy their stock. One of
.these was James E. Smith, in 1909 the president of the Business Men's League.

In a recent address Mr. E. C. Simmons drew attention to the number of
men occupying high positions in St. Louis business circles, who had come up
from subordinate positions as clerks or salesmen. He mentioned R. H. Stock-
ton, J. E. Pilcher, C. D. Smiley, J. E. Smith, H. M. Meier, C. N. Markle and

474 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

"as a pronounced example Saunders Norvell," who had served business appren-
ticeship with his house. He said:

All of these men prospered and have taken a front rank among commercial men. To
these names should also be added that of my late, and always deeply lamented partner — Mr.
Isaac W. Morton, who was bookkeeper and then a salesman for us before he became a
partner of the firm and afterwards an officer of the corporation. I have named those gentle-
men for two reasons; first, because it makes me happy to have it said that so many men
profited and succeeded in such large measure by association with our house; and second,
because I want to impress it on your minds that those men were all salesmen, and that their
success in life is due to the fact that they were good salesmen.

Take the case of one of the gentlemen whose name I have mentioned as having pros-
pered by reason of being connected with our house — Mr. E. H. Stockton; he was a natural
born salesman of the first class; he sold a world of cutlery, chiefly pocket knives and razors,
to druggists, and I never found out how he did it until after he had left us, as he never
gave away his plans or methods to anybody.

It was this: He learned all about tooth brushes — how they were made, what bones
for the handles — where the bristles came from, how bleached, how glued in, etc., etc., in fact
all there was known about tooth brushes. Then he would go into a drug store, leaving his
cutlery samples by the door, ask for the proprietor, and if in, he would say, "I want to buy
a tooth brush ; ' ' then he would talk tooth brushes so intelligently that he would get the
merchant interested by telling him a lot of things he didn't know before; then he would
buy a tooth brush — thus putting himself in the attitude of a customer. Then his real work
would begin, for he would draw from his pocket a sample razor or pocket knife, and say,
"I've got something here I want to show you — you haven't anything like it, and it's a great
seller," and from this he would get a start, and then bring up his samples, and end up with
a fine cutlery order. This is what I call brains in salesmanship.

While E. C. Simmons, as president of the National Prosperity Association
was handling, in the summer of 1908, an enormous mail from all parts of the
country he opened one letter which read :

"You may be right from your standpoint, because you are a rich man and
have never known what it was to want money; but we poor devils who try
to climb the ladder of prosperity have a different point of view."

"The man who wrote that letter," said Mr. Simmons, with reminiscent look,
"perhaps did not know that I commenced my career as poor as the proverbial
Job's turkey — making the fire, sweeping out, dusting the shelves. My life has
been one of intemperate hard work. For twenty-five years of my life, I worked
sixteen hours a day — without one single week's intermission or vacation. Often
when footsore and weary I walked long distances, because I had not the price
of carfare. I opened the store at six o'clock on winter mornings and five o'clock
on summer mornings, although I was only required to open at seven in winter
and six in summer."

It is tradition that Edward C. Simmons, while a child in Frederick, Mary-
land, was never so well contented as when he had a pocket knife in his fingers.
He came to St. Louis, a small boy, and went to school on Sixth street, between
Locust and St. Charles. He is best remembered by his fellow students, as the
youth who wanted to see and to examine every other boy's knife. Possibly
he came well by the proclivity for his father, Zachariah T. Simmons, though
of Pennsylvania nativity, was of descent from the land of steady habits and
whittling.

In 1855, the day before New Year's, when he was sixteen years old, the
high school student went into the wholesale hardware store of Childs, Pratt

ADOLPHUS MEIER

ALOXZO CHILD

HENRY VON PIll'L

WILLIAM L. EWING
At the age of fifty

COMMANDERS OF COMMERCE

THE DISTRIBUTIVE COMMERCE 475

& Co., and asked Mr. Pratt: "Don't you want a boy?" Mr. Pratt inquired
kindly : "What can you do, my lad ?" "I can do as much as any boy of my
age. Where shall I hang my coat ?" Mr. Pratt laughed as He closed the bargain
with: "Well, my boy, if you work as well as you talk we can use you. Come
down the day after New Year's and go to work."

That was the beginning of E. C. Simmons' more than half century identifica-
tion with the trade of St. Louis. The boy with the pocket knife was father
to the man with the hardware store. The day came when Mr. Simmons startled
a manufacturer so that he talked about it for years, by buying 4,000 dozen
assorted pocket knives in thirty minutes.

More than his admiration for the pocket knife, more than his quickness
of speech, a crisis which came in his apprenticeship had to do with the future
of Edward C. Simmons as a merchant. The boy was assigned to one of the
partners in the house to get out orders from the stock. One day Jake Smith
came down the river from Topeka. He bought a lot of goods. When the
order reached young Simmons he saw that the prices entered on the order were
higher than those on the samples in the stock room. He carried the book to
the man who had sold the goods and showed him the increases. "You mind
your own business and get out that order. I know what I am doing," was
the answer he got. The boy went home and that night he lay awake thinking
about the trick and wondering if he wasn't in some way responsible for a share
in it. The next morning he went to the salesman and said: "I am afraid you
did not understand me. This is wrong. Don't you see you are doing a wrong,
charging a man more than the marked prices ?" The salesman replied : "My
boy, let me teach you a lesson. This man lives in Topeka, sixty-six miles west
of Kansas City. The goods go by boat to Kansas City and then have to be
hauled by ox teams to Topeka. We will never see this man again and therefore
we must make all we can out of him now. So run along, my boy, and finish
up the order." And the boy stood still, saying, "But it's wrong. It's wrong,"
until the salesman threatened to have him discharged.

When the next season's trade opened, Jake Smith came down on one of
the first boats after the ice went out of the Missouri. He was in a rage when
he found the man who had overcharged him on the gdods. The boy heard
the tirade. The salesman listened quietly and said: "Jake, you are all wrong,
and I am the best friend you've got. I'll prove it to you before we get through."
"Well, do it," said Smith. Then the salesman said: "You were going into a
new country, weren't you?" "Yes." "Into a new market where no prices had
been established ?" "Yes." "You knew nothing about prices, did you ?" " No."
"Naturally you would base your selling prices on your cost and mark your
goods accordingly, wouldn't you?" "Yes." "Then I said to myself, I must help
this friend to establish good high market prices. If I sell him cheap he will
establish low selling prices. No, I won't do him that injury. I will charge
good stiff prices and he will go to Topeka, and when he has the market so
established he will come back here again and I will sell him a bill of goods so
cheap that it will make his eyes water, and he can take them to Topeka and
sell them at the high prices I have been the means of helping him to establish.
And now I am prepared to sell you a bill of goods so cheap as to make the two

476 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

average up to your satisfaction." Jake Smith shook the hand of the salesman
warmly and thanked him and gave the order for another bill of goods. When
the customer had gone out the salesman proceeded to give the boy a lesson on
the art of selling hardware. The boy revolted, gave up his position and found
employment with a new house, Wilson, Levering & Waters, just starting on
Main street. His first employers failed. Six years after the Jake Smith in-
cident, Edward C. Simmons was a partner in the business which was done on
the square.

Isaac Wyman Morton's part in the trade development of St. Louis was
something besides a third of a century of general activity. Mr. Morton created
the first elaborate and illustrated trade catalogue issued by a St. Louis house.
Eighteen months — days, evenings and holidays — he devoted to the work. There
was no model to copy for Mr. Morton was entering a comparatively new field.
Mr. Morton prepared the huge volume in detail, — the descriptions, the classifica-
tion, the indexing and the paging. He superintended the engraving of the
pictures. In those days, thirty years ago, the making of cuts had not reached
the present standards. This illustrated hardware catalogue came out in 1880.
It was a revolution in selling methods. The cost, $30,000, staggered some of
the other stockholders of the Simmons Hardware company. But that first year
the catalogue was in use the sales of the house increased over $1,000,000. Mr.
Morton's industry gave to the trade what it had not had and that was a catalogue
which became the model for similar publications in various lines. The author
had just passed thirty years of age when he began this catalogue. He had come
from his birthplace, Quincy, Illinois, to St. Louis, when he was nine years old.
His parents were Massachusetts people. With Wyman Institute and Washington
University education. Mr. Morton, at seventeen was successively collector, book-
keeper and teller in the Second National bank, only to conclude in 1865 that more
active business life would suit him better. He became clerk, salesman, partner,
"friend and companion" to Edward C. Simmons.

The founder of Cupples Station, that great aid to the commerce of St.
Louis, looked back upon an object lesson at the beginning of his experience
in St. Louis. When Samuel Cupples in 1851 landed at the wharf he found
congestion confronting him. The wholesale grocers filled Front street with
their heavy stocks. The commission merchants were in the next rank crowd-
ing Commercial alley. In Main street were the dealers in hats, shoes, boots
and dry goods. And that was the business part of St. Louis. Mr. Cupples
unloaded his stock of woodenware on the Levee about the foot of Locust street
and set about finding a store. It seemed almost impossible to secure a place
without going beyond the business limits. Along the Levee the steamboats were
crowded so close that they moored at right angles with the current of the river
and sometimes the boats lay two and three deep at the wharfboats. The second
day after unloading his stock Mr. Cupples still in search of a storeroom went
down to see that everything was safe. As he stood there looking at his freight,
a man with a stick came along and stopped. He was the harbormaster.

"Who owns these buckets and tubs?" he called out in a loud tone.

Mr. Cupples mildly identified himself as the owner and explained that
he was looking for a store.

CUPPLES STATION

CHOUTEAU MILL POND

This picture taken looking northwest from about the center of the Cupples station district:

building on right is the front of Collier White Lead Works. Chouteau

Mansion in the center stood on present site of Four Courts.

THE DISTRIBUTIVE COMMERCE 477

"Move them away," ordered the autocrat of the St. Louis terminal of
1851. "If they are not moved by twelve o'clock tomorrow, I'll have them moved
and charge you storage."

Samuel M. Dodd led a movement of the wholesale business westward
from Main street to get more room. Dodd, Brown & Co. located on Fifth and
St. Charles streets in 1871 when such a breaking away from the old center of
jobbing trade seemed hazardous.

Cupples Station was an evolution. At Seventh and Poplar streets the
city had a market house which had outlived its usefulness. The property was
for sale. The house of Cupples & Co. was on Second street. "We needed a
warehouse," said Samuel Cupples. "Robert and I thought the market house
was in a location convenient to the railroad and would suit our purposes. We
bought it. Then we bought another back of it. The idea of having ware-
houses with railroad tracks beside them grew on the benefits that accrued."
That is the history of Cupples Station which has been worth millions of dollars
to St. Louis trade in the heavy lines. The saving in the years of Cupples
Station's growth held old and gained new trade territory for St. Louis. In
1911 Cupples Station had developed into a collection of nearly fifty large
buildings. There were forty firms housed in these buildings. They were
sharing in the advantages of the track and elevator service and were carrying on
a trade of $100,000,000 a year. The main group of buildings was constructed
in 1891. The forty-three buildings in 1911 represented an investment of $6,000,-
ooo. As a center of wholesale trade Cupples Station had no rival in the country.

Stability has been a marked characteristic of mercantile St. Louis. It
has applied to retail as well as to wholesale trade. The structure had two
cornerstones — one-price and plain-dealing. In 1849 a young Virginian journeyed
through the west looking for the most promising opportunity to open a store.
A boy of fifteen, he had begun as clerk in a store at Lynchburg. He had risen
to be the cashier of a dry goods establishment in Richmond. Going south he had
held a position in the branch office at Huntsville of a New Orleans cotton
house. In company with M. V. L. McClelland, Richard M. Scruggs traveled
from one city to another studying the advantages offered. An uncle of Mr. Mc-
Clelland volunteered the capital to start. To the young men, St. Louis, with its
50,000 population, seemed most promising. The firm of McClelland, Scruggs
& Company began business in 1850 at Fourth and St. Charles streets. The city
limits were at Eighteenth street. In 1888 the business was moved to Fifth and
Locust streets and in 1907 to Tenth and Olive streets.

William L. Vandervoort came into the St. Louis firm in 1860. He was a
merchant by the blood. His great uncle, Peter L. Vandervoort, brought the
first camel's hair shawls, four of them, to this country. He conducted the first
"one-price" dry goods store in the United States. That store was where the
shadow of Trinity church now falls. The first four shawls were sold to the four
wealthiest ladies in New York city. The Vandervoorts were merchants a
hundred years before William L. Vandervoort began at the bottom in a Balti-
more store at one dollar a week and table board. A bad season cut the salary
to fifty cents a week. The twelve-year-old clerk tried another store and con-
gratulated himself on a salary of two dollars a week and full board. He swept

478 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

the store at five o'clock in the morning and put up the shutters at ten o'clock at
night. He carried the parcels. In 1860 Mr. Vandervoort had his choice between
partnership with McClelland and Scruggs at St. Louis and one of the most re-
sponsible positions in the house of "the merchant prince of America," Alexander
T. Stewart. He chose the St. Louis connection.

The great grandmothers of the generation of 1911 shopped on Market
street. From the Levee to Third street was the retail district. Ubsdell, Pierson
& Co., of New York, established a St. Louis dry goods store at Third and Mar-
ket streets. The fire of 1849 swept the retail district. Merchants opened new
stores on Fourth street. The property owners on Market street rebuilt hastily,
but not well. The merchants refused to move back. Fourth street became the
shopping center. The Ubsdell, Pierson & Co: branch had located temporarily on
Fourth and Olive, where the Merchants-Laclede bank now is. It was removed
in 1857 to Fourth between Vine and St. Charles streets, and remained there
until 1880. William Barr and James Duncan were the managers. During the
war Mr. Barr, Mr. Duncan and Joseph Franklin bought out the New York
partners. In 1870 Mr. Duncan retired. Twenty-eight years ago, following the
westward trend, the firm removed to Sixth and Olive. This was the genesis
of "Barr's," an institution which within the current year will celebrate its
sixtieth anniversary of continuous retail business in St. Louis.

Perhaps "the branch house" policy is the latest and most significant de-
velopment in the trade evolution of St. Louis. The jobber is establishing
branches and is districting his territory. This has come about largely within
the past half decade. It seems to be a natural change, meaning a great deal to
the future of St. Louis trade. It holds out encouragement for extension of
trade territory, with this as the directing center of distribution. A retail mer-
chant in South Dakota who came to the World's Fair in 1904 called upon E. C.
Simmons. He was asked why his orders for hardware were not as large as
they had been a few years before. His answer was:

"Well, when you had a strike and your business here in St. Louis was badly
interrupted, I commenced buying some goods in Sioux City. I found that I
got them in two or three days after giving the order instead of waiting ten days
or two weeks to receive them from St. Louis or Chicago. And I also found
that by ordering little lots I could do my business on less capital if I bought
near home."

"But haven't we a much better assortment than Sioux City has?" urged
Mr. Simmons.

"Yes," said the South Dakota merchant, "but those people have all I
need."

"Are not our prices much lower?" again urged the St. Louis merchant.

"Yes," said the visitor, "but I make a rattling good profit on the goods I
buy from them." And then he came back with this counter argument. "When
I commenced I had $10,000 in my business, but I have since taken out half of it
and bought me a nice farm home in the suburbs of our little city. I do as
much business on my $5,000 by purchasing near home in little lots as I did be-
fore on $10,000 capital when I bought in St. Louis and Chicago. What ar«
gument have you to meet that?"

D. A. JANUARY

D. B. GALE

A. F. SHAPLEIGH

C. F. G. MEYER S. M. EDGELL

ARCHITECTS OF ST. LOUIS COMMERCE

THE DISTRIBUTIVE COMMERCE 479

Mr. Simmons said he hadn't any. If the trade wouldn't come to St. Louis
— St. Louis would have to go to the trade. And thereupon the Simmons Hard-
ware company adopted the policy of establishing branch houses beyond the
circuit of immediate St. Louis territory to hold and to extend the more remote
districts. The policy of branch houses is not limited to one line of St. Louis
trade.

On a dull summer day of 1836 twenty-five young business men organized
the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce. The meeting place was the office of the
Missouri Insurance company on Main street, between Olive and Pine streets.
That was the center of business. The primary purpose was to agree upon
certain regulations which the members would observe in their business. One
of the first transactions was to adopt a tariff of commissions to be charged on
sales of produce and lead, on purchases and shipments of produce, on pay-
ment of freight bills, on advances to customers, on placing insurance, and
on adjustment of losses. The chamber also fixed the schedule of fees for arbi-
tration of business disputes and the rates of service for agents of steamboats.
In short, the young men determined that business in these lines should be
organized. They founded what is today the oldest commercial trading organiza-
tion in the United States. One of the most active of the twenty-five was
George K. McGunnegle, who was at that time a member of the legislature. At
the next session McGunnegle put through a bill incorporating the chamber and
giving it a charter. The idea was so novel that the legislature conferred power
upon the organization to do anything it pleased which was not "contrary to
the laws of the land." The only other restriction imposed was that the property
which might be acquired should "not exceed at any time the sum of $20,000."
In the very beginning the chamber of commerce took on the character of a
public spirited movement. The membership soon overflowed the insurance office.
The meeting place was changed to the office of the Missouri Republican, on
Main street near Pine. The next move was to the basement of the Unitarian
church, on Fourth and Pine streets. The meetings were held at night. The
organization was expanding. Its discussions were interesting.

Out of the chamber of commerce with its meetings to consider subjects
germane to business interests of the city and out of the merchants' exchange
and newsroom where papers were kept on file and to which business men re-
sorted for conversation developed the idea "on 'change." The newspapers
began to agitate this as the next step toward commercial organization in St.
Louis. "We think," wrote Editor Chambers, "the idea a good one. If a certain
hour is established for 'change, say twelve to one o'clock in the day, every mer-
chant having business to do with another would know when and where he
could be found." The suggestion met with such favor that in the spring of 1839
Rene Paul faced a large gathering of representative business men when he
moved that Henry S. Cox be chosen chairman and William G. Pettus be made
secretary of a meeting called to consider the matter. The meeting was held in
the merchants' exchange and newsroom, as it had come to be known to all
business St. Louis. The sense of those present expressed in the resolutions
which A. B. Chambers offered was that an exchange building be erected.

480 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

John D. Daggett, Rene Paul, Nathaniel Paschall, Adam B. Chambers,
John B. Camden, William Glasgow and Edward Tracy were the committee of
seven chosen to take charge of the movement.

The next year occurred an incident illustrative of the standard of com-
mercial honor which characterized the commercial community of St. Louis
at that time. Edward Tracy had been president of the chamber of commerce
from its beginning. Becoming financially embarrassed, he tendered his resigna-
tion. The members declined to accept the resignation, there being nothing that
in any way was discreditable to the president. Mr. Tracy insisted that the in-
terests of the chamber would be best served by a change. Henry Von Phul
had been the vice president of the chamber. He was chosen president by ac-
clamation, but declined to serve. The chamber then elected Wayman Crow,
who continued to hold the office until 1849.

A third of a century after he had been elected president of the chamber
of commerce, Wayman Crow, in June, 1874, stood beside the cornerstone of
the new chamber of commerce building on Third street. As his mind went back
to the early days, to this act of Edward Tracy and to like evidences of nice
sense of mercantile honor, Mr. Crow said:

But having been in business here for more than forty years, I cannot recall to mind
an individual now in commercial life who was engaged in mercantile pursuits at the time
of my coming. You will pardon me then, I am sure — seeing that I belong to the past more
than to the present — if my thoughts revert to those early days and rest for a moment with
the men who were my trusted colaborers, and with those who immediately preceded us in our
work. At least you will permit me to bear witness to the high character, the commercial
honor, the personal faithfulness of those who were the early founders of our prosperity, and
who gave the tone and standard — not yet lost, and never, as we confidently hope, to be lost —
to the daily business life of St. Louis. Those old-time workers may have been a little too
conservative, sometimes timid — "old fogies" you would call them nowadays — but they were
scrupulously honest in their dealings, strict eonstructionists in their regard for contracts, men
of untarnished integrity in meeting their engagements, and it is to their practice and
example that the present high commercial credit of St. Louis, both at home and abroad, is
greatly due. ' '

The movement for an exchange building did not progress. At one time
the papers had it that a lot at Third and Chestnut had been purchased and at
another time that a lot on Fifth street had been secured. In 1848 the exchange
rooms on Main and Olive were opened. A secretary, Edward Barry, was ap-
pointed. Papers were kept on file. Telegrams giving the state of the markets
were received. The next year the merchants' exchange was formally established
by the chamber of commerce. This plan meant two organizations. Members
of the exchange had all privileges except voting. The chamber of commerce
controlled both bodies. The 'change hour was observed from n a. m. to 12
m. The rooms were opened at that time to everybody, but only members could
buy and sell.

About the time that the merchants' exchange was started, the millers
were looking for a shelter. They had been for years in the habit of going to
the levee in the morning, examining the sacks of grain unloaded from the boats
and then waiting in the dust and mud for hours until the sellers arrived to
make trades. James Waugh and T. A. Buckland were especially vigorous in
complaining about the exposure from which they had suffered from trying to

JACOB S. MERRELL

DAVID NICHOLSON" C. S GREELEY

ARCHITECTS OE ST. LOUIS COMMERCE

THE DISTRIBUTIVE COMMERCE 481

buy grain on the levee. A meeting was called. Rooms were rented near Locust
and the levee and the millers' exchange began to do business, inviting those
who had grain or any kind of produce to bring in and display their samples.
Upon two pine counters, in twenty-four tin pans, began the selling of grain and
flour by sample in St. Louis. And this was the inauguration of the sample
method of trading on 'change for the United States. It dates back to the decade
of 1840-50. The merchants' exchange, which was only two blocks away, sent an
invitation to the millers' exchange to bring their flour and grain samples and do
the trading there. The invitation was accepted.

In 1850-60 the commercial organization developed great strength. The
chamber of commerce in 1851 was presided over by William M. Morrison. In
1852 the body sent delegates headed by Joseph Stettinius to a "commercial con-
vention" at Baltimore.

The movement for a building took on new life in 1855. Henry T. Blow,
R. J. Lackland, Charles P. Chouteau, A. L. Shapleigh and Thomas E. Tutt
were made a committee to get a charter for an exchange building company.
Messrs. Edward J. Gay and Robert Barth, representing owners of property on
the east side of Main between Market and Walnut streets, proposed to put up
a building, the second floor of which should be occupied exclusively by the mer-
chants' exchange at a rental of $2,500 a year for ten years. This plan was
carried out. A company put up the building on the site which Pierre Laclede
had reserved for a plaza and which the village, town and city of St. Louis had
used for a market place through several generations. The central point of the
little settlement of 1764 became the commercial heart of the city in 1857. The
structure was known as the chamber of commerce building. The ground floor
was occupied by stores. The exchange hall was 101 feet long by 80 feet wide.
From the floor to the apex of the dome was 63 feet. St. Louis had a celebrated
fresco artist at that time, L. D. Pomerede, who decorated the interior of the
dome with paintings representing the four quarters of the globe. This exchange
hall, which was, probably, the finest commercial hall in the country of its day,
was constructed under the immediate direction of Oliver A. Hart, for the St.
Louis merchants' exchange company, chartered for the purpose of erecting the
building.

The Civil war brought a severe test of the vitality of commercial organiza-
tion in St. Louis. Over the annual election in January, 1862, the members
divided. Those who withdrew held a meeting with Stephen M. Edgell as
chairman and Clinton B. Fisk secretary. They called themselves "the union
merchants' exchange of St. Louis." The new body took rooms in a building
on Third street just south of the postofrice. Within a year the union mer-
chants' exchange was back in the possession of the old quarters on Main, be-
tween Market and Walnut streets. The new exchange organized with Henry
J. Moore as president. At the next annual meeting in January, 1863, George
Partridge was elected president. In March following the body incorporated.
The obligation which the members of the union merchants' exchange took was
the result of a movement to commit the business community to the strongest
possible expression of allegiance to the government. In 1875 the name was
changed from union merchants' exchange to Merchants' Exchange of St. Louis.

•5- VOL. ii.

482

ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

In 1871, under the presidency of Gerard B. Allen, the westward movement
became strong. Propositions were received from James H. Lucas and others
to build a new chamber of commerce at Third and Chestnut ; from P. B. Gerhart
to build at Third and Locust; from John A. Scudder, Catherine Ames and
William H. Scudder to build at Sixth street and Washington avenue, where the
destruction of the old Lindell hotel had left a vacancy. The Third and Chestnut
street proposition was accepted. A canvass of the membership showed that,
at the time, 773 of the business houses represented on 'change were located
south of Olive street, and 492 north of Olive. The St. Louis Chamber of Com-
merce Association to construct the building, was formed with Rufus J. Lack-
land, president; Gerard B. Allen and George Knapp, vice presidents. In July,
1873, work was commenced. In June, 1874, the cornerstone was laid with
masonic and military ceremonies, Web M. Samuel, president of the exchange,
delivering the address.

Before the Civil war the great commercial body of St. Louis kept a good
president as long as he would serve. Many years the duties were performed
in succession by Edward Tracy, Wayman Crow and William Morrison. Be-
ginning with 1862 the custom of one-term presidents was inaugurated and ad-
hered to. The presidents and vice presidents of the Merchants' Exchange for
forty-seven years constitute a roll of commercial honor:

Year. President

1862 Henry J. Moore.

1863 George Partridge.

1864 Thomas Bicheson.

1865 Barton Able.

1866 E. O. Stanard.

1867 C. L. Tucker.

1868 John J. Eoe.

1869 Geo. P. Plant.

1870 Wm. J. Lewis.

1871 Gerard B. Allen.

1872 E. P. Tansey.

1873 Wm. H Scudder.

1874 Web M. Samuel.

1875 D. P. Rowland.

1876 Nathan Cole.

1877 John A. Scudder.

1878 Geo. Bain.

1879 John Wahl.

1880 Alex. H. Smith.

1881 Michael McBnnis.

1882 Chas. E. Slayback.

1883 J. C. Ewald.

1884 D. E. Francis.

1885 Henry C. Haarstick.

1886 S. W. Cobb.

1887 Frank Gaiennie.

1888 Chas. F. Orthwein.

1889 Chas. A. Cox.

1890 John W. Kauffman.

1891 Marcus Bernheimer.

1892 Isaac M. Mason.

Vice Presidents.
C. S. Greeley.

C. S. Greeley.
Barton Able.
E. O. Stanard.
Alex. H. Smith.
Edgar Ames.
Geo. P. Plant.
H. A. Homeyer.
G. G. Waggaman.
E. P. Tansey.
Wm. H. Scudder.
S. M. Edgell.

L. L. Ashbrook.
John P. Meyer.
John Wahl.
N. Schaeffer.
H. C. Haarstiek.
Michael McEnnis.
Chas. E. Slayback.
John Jackson.
Chas. F. Orthwein.

D. E. Francis.
John P. Reiser.
S. W. Cobb.

Chas. H. Teichmann.
Louis Fusz.
J. H. Teasdale.
Hugh Eogers.
Marcus Bernheimer.
Geo. H. Plant.
Wm. T. Anderson.

Vice Presidents.
A. W. Fagin.
A. W. Fagin.

C. L. Tucker.
H. A. Homeyer.

D. G. Taylor.
D. G. Taylor.
H. A. Homeyer.
Nathan Cole.
H. C. Yaeger.
Geo. Bain.

C. H. Teichmann.
Web M. Samuel.
John F. Tolle.
Wm. M. Senter.

F. B. Davidson.
Geo. Bain.
Craig Alexander.
W. J. Lemp.

J. C. Ewald.
A. T. Harlow.
Frank Gaiennie.

D. P. Grier.

C. W. Barstow.

D. P. Slattery.
J. Will Boyd.
Thomas Booth.
Chas. A. Cox.
Alex. Euston.

G. M. Flanigan.
S. E. Francis.
Wallace Delafield.

THE DISTRIBUTIVE COMMERCE

483

Year. President.

1893 W. T. Anderson.

f A. T. Harlow.

{ Wm. G. Boyd.

1895 Thos. Booth.

1896 C. H. Spencer.

1897 H. F. Langenberg.

1898 Chris. Sharp.

1899 Wm. P. Kennett.

1900 Oscar L. Whitelaw.

1901 Wm. T. Haarstick.

1902 Geo. J. Tansey.

1903 T. R. Ballard.

1904 H. H. Wernse.

1905 Otto L. Teichmann.

1906 Manley G. Richmond.

1907 George H. Plant.

1908 Edward Devoy.

1909 Edward E. Scharff.

1910 Manning W. Cochrane.

1911 James W. Garneau.

Viee-Presidents.
Roger P. Annan.

Wm. G. Boyd.

Geo. H. Small.
C. Marquard Forster.
Amedee B. Cole.
Chris. Sharp.
Henry H. Wernse.
Oscar L. Whitelaw.
Wm. T. Haarstick.
Geo. J. Tansey.
T. R. Ballard.
Wm. A. Gardner.
Otto L. Teichmann.
Manley G. Richmond.
William H. Danforth.
Edward Devoy.
Edward E. Scharff.
Manning W. Cochrane.
Nat. L. Moffitt.
C. Bernet.

Vice-Presidents.
L. C. Doggett.

J E. A. Pomeroy.

Geo D. Barnard.
Clark H. Sampson.
Wm. P. Kennett.
Oscar L. Whitelaw.
Daniel E. Smith.
Frank E. Kauffman.
T. R. Ballard.
Wm A. Gardner.
Charles H. Huttig.
M. G. Richmond.
John E. Geraghty.
Edward Devoy.
Edward E. Scharff.
Manning W. Cochrane.
Nat. L. Moffitt.
C. Bernet.
John L. Mesmore.

A wonderful record of cheerful giving the Merchants' Exchange has made.
In two generations the amounts raised by popular subscriptions on 'change for
emergency relief have been nearly $1,000,000. From Portland, Maine, to San
Francisco, from Chicago to Galveston, this body of St. Louis business men has
extended the generous hand. To suffering fellowmen in Ireland and Germany
these men of the daily mart loosened the purse strings. Flood and drought,
yellow fever and fire, cyclone and earthquake, tidal wave and cloudburst — no
matter what the occasion — the responses from the members of the Merchants'
Exchange have come promptly and liberally. In the long and honorable history
of the commercial body the contributions to benevolence make a bright page:

1866 For sufferers by fire at Portland, Me $ 2,686.00

For destitute in Georgia and Alabama 1B,780.00

1867 For destitute in Southern states 28,283.66

For sufferers by yellow fever at New Orleans 8,391.50

1871 For sufferers by fire at Chicago 150,000.00

1874 For families of firemen killed at fire, April 4th 2,997.25

For sufferers by cyclone at Collinsville, 111 210.00

1880 For suffering poor in Ireland 7,029.54

For sufferers by cyclone at Marshfield, Mo 9,102.45

For sufferers by cyclone at Savoy, Tex 220.00

1882 For sufferers by overflow of Mississippi River 8,971.55

For sufferers by cyclone at Brownsville, Mo 426.00

1883 For sufferers by overflow in Germany 3,760.00

For sufferers by overflow at Shawneetown, 111 756.69

For sufferers by overflow in American bottom 1,263.00

1885 For the poor of St. Louis, "Minnie Palmer Xmas Boxes" 282.88

1886 For relief of sufferers by drought in Texas 7,508.00

For relief of sufferers by earthquake at Charleston, S. C 1,532.35

For relief of sufferers by cyclone at Sabine Pass, Tex 10.00

1888 For relief of sufferers by cyclone at Mt. Vernon, 111 6,332.25

For relief of- -sufferers by yellow fever at Jacksonville, Fla 8,341.00

484 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

1889 For relief of sufferers by flood at Johnstown, Pa 14,479.20

1890 For orphan asylum at Houston, Tex., sale of bale of cotton 585 00

1891 For Confederate Orphans' Home of Missouri (cake sold) 157.00

1892 For relief of sufferers by overflow of Mississippi Eiver 54,010.22

1893 For relief of sufferers by cyclone at Ked Bud, 111 849.00

Belief of sufferers by cyclone at Cisco, Tex 927.00

Belief of sufferers by cyclone at Hope, Ark 129.00

Belief of sufferers by storm on Gulf Coast 982.50

1895 Belief of sufferers by drought in Nebraska 3,720.75

1896 Tornado, St. Louis, May 27th 267,440.49

Tornado, Denison, Tex 1,503.00

1897 Flood relief, overflow, Lower Mississippi 7,224.00

Yellow fever in Mississippi '. 1,284.00

1898 Overflow at Shawneetown, 111 *. 2,336.75

Cloudburst at Steelville, Mo 704.00

Bale of cotton sold for benefit United States Hospital fund 630.00

Game of baseball for benefit of Fresh Air fund 196.00

Yellow fever in South 1,673.75

1899 Tornado at Kirksville, Mo 3,582.35

Texas flood relief, Brazos Biver 3,831.00

1900 Texas relief, tidal wave at Galveston and vicinity 39,063.30

1902 Belief of families of firemen who lost their lives at fire of February 4th 26,014.86

Belief of drought sufferers in Southwestern Missouri 4,771.25

1904 Overflow, Mississippi Biver 35,046.00

1906 San Francisco earthquake 42,822.00

1909 Cyclone at Brinkley, Ark 1,855.00

Total $899,613.00

As early as 1839, "the master-mechanics of St. Louis," as they called them-
selves, organized the Mechanics' Exchange. This was not a labor movement
but an organization of the producing industries of the city for mutual good.
The plan was formed and presented from a body composed of one representa-
tive of each branch of manufacture or skilled trade. The list of these represen-
tatives is a good index to the industries of St. Louis in 1839. It includes men
who became prominent in the life of the city and whose descendants are in
some instances following the same industries as developed under new conditions,
in St. Louis today:

Joseph C. Laveille, carpenter. Daniel D. Page, baker.

Asa Wilgus, painter. Isaac Chadwick, plasterer.

Samuel Gaty, founder Thomas Andrews, coppersmith.

George Trask, cabinetmaker. John M. Paulding, hatter.

James Barry, chandler. James Love, blacksmith.

Joseph Laiden, chairmaker. John Young, saddler.

William Shipp, silversmith. Wooster Goodyear, cordwainer.

B. Townsend, wire and sieve maker. B. Todd, burr millstone maker.

Thomas Gambal, cooper. Francis Baborg, tanner.

S. C. Coleman, turner. N. Paschall, printer.

John G. Shelton, tailor. B. L. Turnbull, bookbinder.

Charles Coates, stonecutter. David Shepard, bricklayer.

Anthony Bennett, stonemason. L A. Letcher, brickmaker.

William Thomas, shipbuilder. Samuel Hawkins, gunsmith.

Samuel Shawk, locksmith. A. Oakford, combmaker.

N. Tiernal, wheelwright. J- B. Gerard, carriagemaker.

Moses Stout, planemaker. James Eobinson, upholsterer.
J. Bemis, machinist.

D. C. JACCARD

CLARK H. SAMPSON

WILLIAM L. VANDERVOORT A. E. FAUST

TYPES OF BUSINESS LIFE SIXCE THE WAR

485

In 1852 the Mechanics' and Manufacturers' Exchange and Library Asso-
ciation was organized. The St. Louisans who took the active part in this move-
ment were Thornton Grimsley, Charles H. Peck, P. Wonderly, J. C. Edgar,
R. Keyser and John Goodin.

In 1856 the Mechanics' Exchange with rooms on Chestnut street between
Third and Fourth streets was one of the strong institutions of the city. Anthony.
Ittner, Thomas Rich, A. Cook, W. Stamps, James Garvin, C. Lynch, J. Locke,
James Luthy were some of the leading members. The laudable objects were
"the encouragement, development and promotion of the mechanical and manu-
facturing interests of the city and the arbitration of all errors and misunder-
standings between its members and those having business with them." The
first president was N. M. Ludlow. To carry out the policy of settlement of
disputes by arbitration the exchange formed a strong committee of appeal.
The members of this committee were Charles H. Peck, Samuel Robbins, W. F.
Cozzens, John Evill, W. G. Clark, L. D. Baker and W. H. Markham, all promi-
nent men in the city. In 1908 Mr. Clark celebrated his ninetieth birthday at
the home of his daughter, Mrs. James B. Hill.

With an address by Henry T. Blow and under Adolphus Meier as presi-
dent the St. Louis Board of Trade entered upon its mission of business organ-
ization in October, 1867. The motive of the board of trade was similar to
that which in later years operated through the Business Men's League to the
great commercial and industrial advantage of the city. But at that time benefits
of business organizations were not so well recognized. The board of trade held
many meetings. It considered subjects in which the interests of St. Louis were
concerned. Wayman Crow, Isidor Bush, E. C. Simmons, E. A. Hitchcock,
Isaac M. Mason were among the active members in the period of the board's
greatest usefulness. Chauncey I. Filley was for some time the energetic presi-
dent.

The Boatmen's Exchange was an institution of such promise that in 1868
Charles P. Chouteau erected for the accommodation of the body a handsome
stone front building at Levee and Vine streets, costing $80,000. The building
was the most imposing architecturally on the river front.

With Gerard B. Allen as president and Thomas Richeson as vice president
the St. Louis Manufacturers' Association was started in 1874. Adolphus Meier
and Giles F. Filley were especially active in promoting the organization.

In 1875 Anthony Ittner, W. W. Polk, Joseph K. Bent and others chartered
another Mechanics' Exchange. Fine quarters were opened in the Hunt build-
ing on Fourth street opposite the Planters' House. Mr. Bent was of Massachu-
setts birth. He was for forty years a contractor and builder in St. Louis, operat-
ing part of the time his own planing mill and taking some of the largest contracts
in carpenter work. He did the carpenter work of the Merchants' Exchange, of
Barr's, of the First Presbyterian church on Lucas place. He had the contract
for the construction of the Third National bank building which was occupied
by the bank up to 1908.

The St. Louis Coal Exchange was opened in 1879 for the mutual pro-
tection of shippers and dealers. The president was Alexander Hamilton and
the treasurer was C. E. Gartside.

486 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Out of a strike among the furniture workers of the city grew an organi-
zation of manufacturers which became the St. Louis Furniture Exchange. The
first officers were Daniel Aude, D. S. Home and J. H. Koppelman.

The growth of St. Louis, financial, commercial and industrial, is not meas-
ured by the city's tonnage, clearings, sales and products. It goes far beyond
these local returns, flattering as they are. St. Louis is financing, producing and
trading in many places away from home. That is the latest evolution of busi-
ness growth. Notably St. Louis has been reaching out into the southwest. The
relationship has come to mean more than the holding of natural trade territory.
President Breckinridge Jones, of the Mississippi Valley Trust company, at the
close of 1908, in the Manufacturers' Record, pointed out what St. Louis men
and St. Louis capital have been doing in the field :

In 1903, out of a total of over 5,000 miles of railroad constructed in the United
States, 2,302 miles were built in the southwest; that is, in the states of Missouri, Arkansas,
Louisiana, Oklahoma, Indian Territory and Texas. In 1904 the total railroad building
in the United States amounted to 3,822.26 miles; in 1905 to 4,358.2 miles, and in 1906
to 5,623 miles, of which, in each year, at least 40 per cent was in the states above named.
About the same percentage of mileage is being constructed in the southwest now. In all
of this development St. Louis capital has been heavily interested. Among other recent
roads made possible by St. Louis capital are the following: Arkansas Southern, running
from Eldorado, Ark., to Alexandria, La., Blackwell, Enid & Southwestern, extending from
Blackwell, Okla., to Vernon, Texas; Denver, Enid & Gulf running from Guthrie, Okla., to
Belvidere, Kan.; St. Louis, Brownsville & Mexico, constructed from Brownsville, Texas,
toward San Antonio, Texas; St. Louis, El Keno & Western, extending from Guthrie west,
and Missouri & Arkansas, running from Eureka Springs, Arkansas, east.

The Mexican Central, running from El Paso through the Eepublic of Mexico, while
not in the territory called the southwest in this article, still is in territory tributary, and
should be mentioned, for St. Louis loaned quite a good deal of money to help its com-
pletion.

Along the lines of railway made possible by St. Louis capital, sites became villages,
villages towns and towns cities almost before the echo of the first locomotive's whistle had
died out across the plains. Indian reservations became things of the past, and fruit was
grown which rivaled the products of Florida and California. The new cities, so overgrown
as to be backward in the frontier dress, needed help. Water works, gas and electric lights,
street railways, telephones and other such conveniences were necessary but the communities
were not strong enough to stand the inaugural expense. St. Louis had faith in their
future, and readily gave her assistance, taking pleasure in playing the part of an elder
sister intensely interested in the welfare of the younger children.

As an indication of the volume of business St. Louis has with the southwest, the fol-
lowing figures are instructive: The total number of tons of freight shipped out of St.
Louis in 1907 was 18,374,916; of this, 10,537,291 tons, or 57 per cent was for the south-
west. The total number of tons of freight shipped into St. Louis the same year was
29,445,669; of this, 15,146,725 tons, or 51 per cent, was from the southwest.

This section has always looked to the financial institutions of St. Louis, and has never
found them unwilling to do all in their power. Every bank in Arkansas keeps an account
with some St. Louis bank or trust company, and this can also be said of nearly every bank
in the other southwestern states. The great service that St. Louis performs with out-of-
town banks, mostly located in the southwest, is shown by the fact that between January 2
and October 31 of this year, a period of ten months, the St. Louis banks and trust com-
panies shipped $104,412,729 in currency, gold and silver to their correspondents for the
purpose of handling and moving crops and for other industrial and commercial purposes.
During this same period they received $67,681,979 in cash, making a total of $172,094,704,
which represents what St. Louis is doing as a financial center.

487

In 1910 the St. Louis wholesale dry goods houses sold goods to the value
of more than $70,000,000. They received and distributed the output of ninety-
two factories, most of them in St. Louis or in the immediate vicinity. The
marked feature in the evolution of the dry goods business of St. Louis was the
increasing dependence of St. Louis houses upon the products of St. Louis fac-
tories making shirts, hose, underwear and other kinds of wearing apparel.
Through this combination of productive and distributive commerce St. Louis
merchants were able to obtain large government contracts in competitive bids
in the New York market.

The sales of St. Louis manufacturers and jobbers of drugs in 1910 were
$28,000,000, of which amount more than one-half was of local manufacture,
including chemicals, patent medicines, ammonia, soaps, perfumes and toilet
articles.

In distributive commerce St. Louis has higher rank than the fourth city
when certain lines are considered. This is the largest dry goods market west of
the Alleghanies; the largest hardwood lumber market in America; the largest
horse and mule market in the world ; the second largest millinery market in this
country; the largest inland coffee distributing point; the largest distributor of
shoes. St. Louis has the largest hardware house, the largest woodenware house,
the largest drug house in the United States.

CHAPTER XX.
THE RELIGIOUS LIFE

Pastors and Citizens — Long and Notable Careers of Truman M. Post and James H. Brookes —
How Montgomery Schuyler Faced the War Issue — Archbishop Kenrick's Busy Days —
Thomas Morrison's Sixty Years of Religious Heroism — The First Mass Under the Trees
— The First Church — Civic Proclamations on the Door — Clmrch and State Under the
Spanish Governors — The First Protestant Preacher — How Trudeau Winked at Baptist
Meetings — The Pioneer of Presbyterianism — Rev. Salmon Giddings' Ride of 1,200 Miles —
Contributors to the First Presbyterian Meeting House — Coming of Bishop Dubourg —
Cathedral Treasures of 1821 — Rosati, First Bishop of St. Louis — When Rev. Mr. Potts
was "the Rage" — Mormons in St. Louis — Hero of the Cholera of 1835 — Baptism of
Sixteen Hollanders — The Religious Life as Charles Dickens Saw It — Close Association
of Kenrick and Ryan — The Walthers and the Lutherans — Religious Journalism — Bishop
Tuttle's Missionary Experience — New Churches of igoo-io — The New Cathedral — An
Imposing Ceremonial — The Issue of Sabbath Observance — Father Matthew's Visit to St.
Louis — "The Great Controversy" — Rise of the Y. M. C. A. — Evolution of the Provident
Association — The Character of St. Louis Philanthropy.

Seventy years is a long time in the life of an individual. It marks the scriptural limit of
our earthly pilgrimage. Men say of one who reaches it, "He has passed his prime ; his best days
are over." For him, morning with its hopes and noontide with its labors are gone. For him,
there remain the sunset and the gloom and the pensive memories of bygone days. The earthly
hopes that come to him are as passing birds that light on the trees of autumn to sing their
songs among the sere and falling leaves, and then fly away. But while the individual dies, the
race lives on, ever renewing itself. Generation succeeds generation ; instead of the fathers
are the children, made wiser and enriched by the dowry of the past. Upon this church seventy
years have not left any marks of decrepitude, or weakness of any kind. We cross the line with
undiminished numbers, with unbroken harmony among us, with our organizations for Christian
work multiplied, with our material resources enlarged, and, above all, still steadfast in the
faith that gave such vitality in the past. The onward movement of the church of the living
God is the mid-current of human history. The eternal purpose of God is in it, and it is not
limited by time. Age and decay can never destroy it. — Rev. Dr. Samuel J. Niccolls, Second
Presbyterian Anniversary, 1908.

Pastors for life St. Louis has had in numbers and in characters extraordi-
nary. Church leaders and teachers who are permanently located, who acquire
personal interest in all that concerns other citizens, who have home ties, who
thrill with local pride, contribute far more to the religious life of the com-
munity than is implied in pulpit ministrations. St. Louis has had the benefit
of clergy of the lifelong kind.

Strong personalities have been developed in the religious as well as in
the professional, in the business and in the political life of St. Louis. Truman
M. Post was the son of a Middlebury, Vermont, lawyer. Highly educated, he
came to St. Louis in 1833 to enter he law office of Hamilon R. Gamble. A
visit to Jacksonville led to a connection, as instructor, with Illinois college. At
the same time Mr. Post occupied the pulpit of a new Congregational church in
Jacksonville. He declined to be "licensed" to preach because that implied some
spiritual authority over both preacher and people. He went into the ministry
on a "recommendation." The Third Presbyterian church heard of the eloquent
young professor of Illinois college and sent for him. This congregation was an
offshoot of the First Presbyterian, formed in 1842. It worshipped on Sixth

489

490 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

street between Franklin avenue and Wash street. Mr. Post replied to the in-
vitation that he considered the holding of human beings as property to be in
violation of the foundation principles of the Christian religion; that he must be
guaranteed liberty of opinion and freedom of speech on the subject of slavery.
Ten years before that time a Presbyterian minister, Elijah P. Lovejoy, had
been threatened for what he printed about slavery in the St. Louis Observer,
had removed to Alton and had been slain by a mob.

Mr. Post asked that his views on slavery be read to the Third Presbyterian
church and that another vote be taken on the call extended to him. The church
listened to the letter and unanimously renewed the invitation. Mr. Post came
to St. Louis under an arrangement to remain four years. In 1852, by a formal
vote of sixty-seven members, the Third Presbyterian became a Congregational
church. In this manner the seal of approval was put upon the principles of
personal liberty and of personal responsibility advocated by the pastor. Mr.
Post became Dr. Post through the action of Middlebury college. From that
year the First Congregational church was a center of anti-slavery sentiment
on moral grounds. The society moved from Sixth street to Tenth and Locust
streets before the war and in 1879 to Delmar near Grand avenue. Dr. Post's
active pulpit career in St. Louis was thirty-four years. During the fourteen
years from 1847 to 1861, this man of profound historical study, of philosophic
mind, of sturdy sense of duty, of captivating speech, was influential far beyond
the doors of his church for the abolition of slavery and for the maintenance of
the Union.

A pulpit career remarkable for length and steadfastness was the period of
thirty-nine years through which James H. Brookes preached. This career began
with the Second Presbyterian church when it was on Broadway and Locust
in 1855, and ended in the Compton avenue church. Year after year Dr. Brookes
ministered to the same congregation with unfailing vigor and freshness. He
preached from the Bible, of which he was a devoted student. He edited for
twenty-three years a monthly publication called "The Truth," and found time to
write half a dozen books, the results of his Bible study.

Forty-two years Montgomery Schuyler was a well-doing citizen of St. Louis
as well as a conspicuous, constructive clergyman. He was preeminently one of
the St. Louis clergymen whose activities were not limited to their churches.
His influence was marked upon public morals and upon public spirit. The list
of good works of these men is long and varied. No history of the city could
omit some mention of the profession in its relation to the better development of
St. Louis, apart from the growth of the church. When Montgomery Schuyler
died the diocese recorded that he was "a typical priest of the church and a
faithful member of the Gospel of Jesus Christ." Giving up the practice of law
because he had acquitted a man he felt sure was guilty of murder, Montgomery
Schuyler speculated in a Michigan real estate boom; he operated a saw mill;
he interested himself in a stage line between Detroit and the village of Chicago ;
he was a successful merchant. None of these occupations brought satisfaction.
Montgomery Schuyler turned to the Episcopal priesthood when he was well
toward thirty years of age. The supreme test of this man's character came with
the outbreak of the Civil war. Christ church, on Fifth and Chestnut, had been

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 491

sold. The congregation was worshiping in Mercantile Library hall. Included
in the membership were many, perhaps a majority, who sympathized with the
south. Of the old Schuyler stock of New York, with Revolutionary traditions
of the family binding him, the rector was a Union man. When the hostilities
began Dr. Schuyler talked of resigning. He made no concealment of his politi-
cal sentiments, although he preached no political sermons. His southern mem-
bers would not listen to any change of rectors. Montgomery Schuyler stayed
on. His patriotism found expression in association with Yeatman, Eliot and the
rest of that noble band which became glorious as the Western Sanitary commis-
sion. The rector of Christ church was made chaplain to all of the army hospitals
at St. Louis. To the inherited Dutch courage and determination which yielded
nothing of principle, he joined a wealth of sympathy, ways that were winning
and gentleness of manner. It was Montgomery Schuyler's ambition to establish
a downtown church. Old Trinity of New York was his ideal. With this in
view the location at Thirteenth and Locust was chosen. It was part of his life
plan to found a mission which should remain in the business section. Mont-
gomery Schuyler ministered to rich and poor. His monument is Schuyler Me-
morial house.

Notwithstanding the rule of the Methodist church requiring frequent pulpit
changes, several ministers of that denomination became identified with St. Louis
by long residence and exercised much influence upon the life and development
of the city. A thorough St; Louisan was Rev. Dr. Joseph Boyle, born in Balti-
more. He came to this city in 1842 in charge of the First Methodist church.
St. Louis was practically his home for thirty years, until his death. He was a
delegate to the general conference at Louisville in 1844 when the Methodists
divided into the Methodist Episcopal church and the Methodist Episcopal Church
South. Dr. Boyle labored to bring about reconciliation of the wings. The
immediate cause of the division was the proposition advanced that Bishop
Andrew of Georgia be asked to suspend the exercise of his duties so long as a
certain impediment existed. The impediment was the fact that his wife owned
slaves. Dr. Boyle was presiding elder of the St. Louis district in 1860, 1868 and
1869. He preached in the First church three periods ; in Centenary, two.

For many years Archbishop Kenrick lived at the residence attached to the
old Cathedral on Walnut street. One of the priests, Father O'Hanlon, who was
there in the late forties, left this pen picture:

"I well recollect, the archbishop was the earliest riser in the house, he was satis-
fied with a few hours' rest; and especially during the summer mornings, he was often
up at four and rarely, if ever, in bed after five o'clock. Soon afterwards he was sys-
tematically out on the veranda, pacing noiselessly in slippers, that he might not dis-
turb others who were sleeping, while he was engaged devoutly reciting the greater part of
the divine office, so that he might be prepared for the multiplied daily duties and labors,
which were sure to occupy his attention afterwards; he went each morning into the con-
fessional about six o'clock, and at half past six he commenced his celebration of mass in
the cathedral. But nothing could be more admirable than his punctuality in the distribu-
tion of time, and the priests all noticed his early morning duties succeeded each other
regularly as the clock told the hour. The only difference observable was during the cold
and short winter days, when he was obliged to keep his room and read by the lighted lamp
until the day had nearly dawned, and when he was ready to enter the cathedral.
He breakfasted at an early hour and then he usually withdrew to the library which was

492 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

retired from a parlor and reception room. Some snatches of time he managed to take for
reading and writing; but soon a succession of visitors began to arrive, and while he specially
desired to see those who had real business to transact, he received others with a patience
and courtesy which often must have been greatly tested if not strained. ' O Dear ! ' he
would sometimes pleasantly remark to his priests at the table, 'how some people can never
learn to shorten their unnecessary visits ? ' While he often observed that the more he found
persons disposed to indulge in talk, the less was he prepared to receive either correct in-
formation or practical suggestions on those affairs which interested and engaged his at-
tention. The most distinguished citizens and strangers, Catholic or Protestant, were often
to be seen in his ante-room waiting their turn for an interview, and always more than de
lighted when the opportunity was afforded them.

"It was a truly pleasant reunion to have our archbishop present at our early dinnei
and at our evening meal. Notwithstanding his habitual reserve, regarding matters of
confidential secrecy, and of business transactions which were under consideration, he was
communicative enough on other topics, always giving a tone to and leading conversation on
subjects of public interest and importance, or relating anecdotes which were novel and in-
structive, while he promoted hilarity and good humor by the introduction of sly jokes, and
a refinement of wit, which the French and German priests could not always well under-
stand in the English idiom until they had time for reflection and explanation. Some-
times he conversed with them in their respective languages, which he spoke with remarkable
fluency and correctness. He often preached both in French and German, as circumstances
of church congregation required. I heard from himself that the celebrated and gifted
Irish poet, James Clarence Mangan, gave him the first German lessons in Dublin; and he
always had the most unbounded admiration for the genius, and also compassion and con-
sideration for the weakness of his former tutor, whose latter years were clouded with
timorousness or melancholy, and who, notwithstanding his occasional inebriety, was a most
gentle and lovable character. The extent of the archbishop's charities could never be known
from himself; however, I suspect the unfortunate poet knew well where to find a benefactor
in his former distinguished pupil, nor would aid be refused if prudence did not suggest the
propriety of not ministering to gratifications which tend to make some men their greatest
enemies. ' '

The quality of religious heroism came out strong and not infrequently
among the laymen of the city. Thomas F. Webb opened a little Sunday school
with twenty scholars in a small frame house at Sixth and Carr streets in 1840.
After half a dozen years the owner of the land wanted it. The frame build-
ing was lifted on trucks and hauled to Fourteenth and Carr streets, where
Judge Carr offered a temporary location. As the school grew the building
was enlarged to accommodate 350. In 1848 Thomas Morrison became the
superintendent. For sixty years thereafter this man carried on a work peculiarly
his own with a degree of devotion which made his personality of more than
local interest. To get additional room he moved the school to a hall in the
Biddle market, and the Biddle market mission was cited a model for mission
work in other cities. The number of scholars increased to over 1,000. A
church, "the First Independent church of St. Louis," was started in 1864.
Mr. Morrison sold his home and added to it all of the money he could spare
to build on Sixteenth and Carr streets. After $37,000 had been spent the
place was sold under a mortgage. Carlos S. Greeley took the property, com-
pleted the church and presented it to the trustees of the mission. At that time,
in 1880, the Memorial Tabernacle, for that was the name Rev. Dr. Niccolls be-
stowed upon it, was pronounced the largest and finest building in the United
States for Sunday school purposes.

Signers of the agreement to build the first church in St. Louis, 1770, six years after the

founding. Autographs of Laclede and the Spanish Governor, Piernas, at the bottom.

(Courtesy Missouri Historical Society)

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 493

When Thomas Morrison died, in 1908, the scenes and the testimonies at
his bier, told eloquently what a place he had occupied in the life of the city.
Barefooted boys and bankers, men with dinner buckets and men who manage
great industries came. A laboring man said:

"I went to school to him in 1863. It was in the old mission over the Biddle Market.
I haven't made such a great success as the world goes, but I've lived a Christian life
and reared my children Christians, all on account of him."

James W. Bell, the banker, told of the esteem in which Thomas Morrison was held:

"In 1898, upon the fiftieth anniversay of the organization of this mission, Mr.
Morrison gave away 3,000 bibles, each with his autograph and a small American flag of
jilk pasted inside. I have one of those bibles now at home upon my center table and
prize it highly. There will never be another Thomas Morrison in St. Louis. He was
unique. He was the means of saving thousands of men and women. I was a steady
contributor to his mission for fifty years. We all loved to help him. When we saw him
come in we threw up our hands and said: 'How much, Tom?' '

In the newspaper accounts of the funeral of Thomas Morrison were de-
scribed these scenes:

In the procession of mourners were three generations of one family, a grandmother,
her daughter and little grandson. The grandmother was a pupil in the Biddle Mission
Sunday School sixty years ago. Her daughter was a pupil there thirty years ago, and
her little boy is a member of the same Sunday School now, all reared in the love of God
through the influence of this one man. The three generations went into the mission
together and stopped at the coffin. The mother lifted her little boy up so he could see
the face they all loved so much. As they went out the grandmother said:

"I wanted the child to carry in his memory the face of the man who did so much
for us. He was the means of our salvation."

In the crowd was an old Irish woman, a devout member of the Catholic church. After
she had looked at the face in the coffin, she said:

"He was a great and good man. I knew of his good works for forty years in this
district, and though he didn't die in the church I'd like to have seen him die in, he must
surely be in heaven."

A woman in a magnificent motor car rode up to the mission door at one o'clock and
alone climbed the dingy stairway to the mission room. Her tears fell upon the glass plate
covering the face and without speaking to anyone she walked out, got into her car and
went away.

"Some woman he saved. There are many of them," said a mourner.

Frederick Diebel, president of the National Storage and Warehouse company, told
that he had in his safe a large number of chattel mortgages upon furniture of poor fam-
ilies which were given him by Mr. Morrison. When a family of Mr. Morrison's ac-
quaintance had its furniture mortgaged and was about to lose it he would pay the mort-
gage and have it transferred to him and lock it in the safe so the family would be out
of debt and could not again mortgage its furniture. In this way he saved many a family
from its own improvidence.

John H. Both, secretary of the Adam Both Grocery company, told of the times when
he was in the mission.

"It was a mighty tough neighborhood here in the early days, and Mr. Morrison
had lots of trouble with gangs who broke up his benches, threw stones through the
windows and did other mischievous things. Once a gang of bad boys planned to break
up the Sunday school by starting a fight. Mr. Morrison learned of it, and he got a
stout rattan cane and hid it in the lobby. Then he instructed his teachers that when he
gave a certain signal they were all to start singing and keep on until he gave a signal
to stop. At the appointed time the disturbance started and Mr. Morrison sprang into
the midst of it, grabbed the ringleader by the collar, dragged him out into the lobby and
flogged him into submission with the rattan cane. Then be set the young man down and
talked to him and he and his gang were loyal members of the Sunday school from that
time. ' '

494 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

A big fellow who had listened to this story grinned when it was ended and said:
"I'm that fellow, I'm the ringleader he whipped and it was the making of me."
One of the ushers at the funeral was Joseph B. Farmer, vice president of the

Blanke-Wenneker Candy company. He was a member of the mission Sunday school

and was married in the mission. Once when Mr. Farmer went with his wife and daughter

to visit the mission Mr. Morrison met him with:
"Ah, here's another one of my boys."
A block away from the mission in the midst of the congested district there is a saloon,

the keeper of it said:

"I'd like to go to the funeral myself for if ever there was a good man it was Mr.

Morrison. I was in his Sunday school myself and I've given him many a dollar since to

help the poor. He was a good man. It didn't make a bit of difference who you were,

Mr. Morrison would never turn you down if you were in need."

The founder of St. Louis did not neglect religious ceremony in the early
days of the settlement. Across the river, at Cahokia, was Father Sebastian
L. Meurin, a man of zeal and courage, who had been a missionary at Vin-
cennes, and in the country of the Illinois, five years, when Laclede arrived.
Father Meurin was absent when Auguste Chouteau and the first thirty were
clearing ground and cutting trees for the cabins at Main and Walnut streets.
When he returned to Cahokia he took his canoe and crossed the river. He
called the settlers together, improvised an altar among the trees, celebrated mass
and blessed the site. Until St. Louis had attained the importance which en-
couraged the coming of a priest to make his residence here. Father Meurin visited
the settlement as often as he could and held religious services, either out-of-doors
or in tent. Many years later the bones of the good missionary who had stood
church sponsor for the village were brought to St. Louis, grown to be a great
city, and given honored burial.

Father Pierre Gibault, the patriot priest who espoused the cause of the
American colonies against England, came to St. Louis from Kaskaskia and re-
mained some time, perhaps eighteen months. But there were periods of weeks
and months when the villagers of St. Louis had no priest. Deaths occurred.
Rene Kiersereau, the "chantre," or singer of the church, performed the last
rites and recited the prayers.

The old cathedral register of St. Louis begins with 1766, when it is stated
Father Meurin administered baptism in a tent. After that the register records
the coming of Father Meurin from Cahokia twice a year or oftener to hold serv-
ices and perform the rites. That went on for six years. Then Father Gibault
occasionally came up from Kaskaskia and administered the sacraments. Father
Gibault was the patriot who espoused the American cause. About 1772 a
priest came to St. Louis to live. He was Father Valentin, a Capuchin friar.
The book which he opened for a record was, to translate the original, "to in-
scribe the baptisms of the parish of St. Louis, country of the Illinois, Province of
Louisiana, Bishopric of St. James of Cuba." Thus St. Louis, religiously speak-
ing was put on the map in 1772. Two years after he came the parish had pros-
pered to the extent that, in 1774, Father Valentin blessed a bell for church
purposes. The first church was built a little later. The families who partici-
pated in the building of the church numbered seventy-eight. In 1776, about
the middle of summer, the records show that the church was completed. It
stood a few feet east of the present site of the old cathedral. It was of posts

REV. DR. THOMAS M. FINNEY

THOMAS MORRISON

UNION PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Eleventh and Locust streets, in 1857

SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Fifth and Walnut streets, before the war

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 49o

planted upright, with overhanging roof, sixty feet long and thirty feet wide with
a porch five feet wide.

Father Valentin referred to himself in his documents as "priest of the
parish of St. Louis and its dependencies." There had not been much formality
about the coming of Father Valentin. But in 1776, in May, a couple of months
before the American Declaration of Independence, Father Bernard arrived with
elaborate credentials to take charge. He was designated as "cure of the paro-
chial church of St. Louis of the Illinois, post of Paincourt, with all rights and
dependencies." Up to this time St. Louis had been recognized only as a
missionary field. Now it was to become a regularly constituted parish. Father
Bernard presented these credentials to Governor Cruzat, who witnessed them
and filed them in the government archives of St. Louis. The front door of
the church became the public place for proclamations of various kinds, for
sales of property under official decree and for a variety of formal acts. At
the church door were carried out certain sentences. There Baptiste Menard
was compelled to stand at the close of devotions one Sunday and ask pardon
of God, the king and Mrs. Petit for what he had "said of Mrs. Petit, maliciously
and wrongfully, while under the influence of drink." Church and state were
closely united while St. Louis was a colony. Father Bernard gave place to
Father Ledru in 1789, and Father Didier came in 1793, planting an orchard
which became one of the institutions of St. Louis a decade later. Father Janin
succeeded Father Didier in 1800. The year before that the bishop at New
Orleans wrote to St. Louis of the steps which were to be taken to reach the
English and American settlers, to convert all immigrants to the Catholic religion.
The register from 1800 shows that besides the regularly stationed priests at
St. Louis mentioned, missionary priests were coming from time to time and
officiating in St. Louis. From the time of the American occupation, the records
of the cathedral show entries by several priests. In 1811 Father Savine came
and for half a dozen years was an influential member of the community.

The log church gave place to brick, a large structure located on Second
and Walnut streets. The building of this brick church was begun in 1818 and
the first service was held in it Christmas, 1819. It was time, for Father de
Andreis left the record that the log church "was falling into ruins." At that
time, in all of Upper Louisiana, the territory of Missouri, there were four
priests and seven chapels. The brick church preceded the cathedral.

Church and state were closely united in the days of the Spanish governors
of St. Louis. When it became necessary to fill a vacancy the bishop at New
Orleans wrote to Governor Delassus, in November, 1799.

"Don Pedro Janin, priest of this parish, has been appointed rector in San Luis de
Illinois on account of the death of Don Pedro Didier. I request you to kindly give him
all the attention and assistance possible so that he can discharge the duties of this posi-
tion to the best advantage and service of the Lord and King. He is a very good per-
son and deserves the attention of everybody in public office as well as of yourself as com-
inander. I hope you will attend to my request, praying that the Lord will keep you many
years. ' '

Governor Delassus received the priest and in due time replied to the
bishop :

496 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

"To his Grace, the Bishop: The Father Don Pedro Janin has arrived here. And due
fo your recommendation I will do all in my power to favor him and I shall be pleased
to serve him all I can, and I am sure I shall enjoy his company. I remain, asking your
blessing and praying the Lord to keep you many years."

Liberality of the Spanish authority at St. Louis extended to religion as
well as to government. When Americans came to settle in the village or in
the surrounding country the Spanish governor informed them officially that
the law required every resident to be "un bon Catholique." Then he proceeded
to put some very general questions as to spiritual opinions. He concluded
by declaring the answers were satisfactory, and that the newcomers were evi-
dently good Catholics and could remain. It is not of record that otherwise
desirable Americans were turned back from St. Louis because of their religious
convictions. John Clark, a Scotchman, was the first Baptist preacher and
probably the first Protestant preacher to hold services in the vicinity of St.
Louis. He and a man named Talbot started the denomination in St. Louis
county by immersing each other. Clark, for some years, lived on the Illinois
side, crossed over by night near St. Louis and held his meetings. The Spanish
governor waited until he thought the Baptist preacher had about completed
his round of visits among the American Protestant families and then sent
him word he must leave within three days or he would be imprisoned as the
teaching of the Protestant faith was in violation of the Spanish laws. The
Rev. John Clark would smile, hold a farewell service and go back to the Illinois
side, to repeat his missionary trip a little later. The liberality of Governor
Trudeau was put to a rather severe test when Abraham Musick called at govern-
ment house and boldly asked for a permit to hold Baptist meetings in his house
out in the county. The governor denied the petition and quoted the law. Then
looking significantly at the sturdy Kentuckian, he added:

I mean you must not put a bell on your house and call it a church or suffer any-
body to christen your children except the parish priest, but if your friends choose to
meet in your house to sing, pray and talk about religion, you will not be molested, pro-
vided you continue, as of course you are, a good Catholic.

The pioneer of Presbyterianism in St. Louis was a Connecticut man, Rev.
Salmon Giddings. Appointed a missionary, he rode horseback 1,200 miles,
in winter, arriving here in April, 1816. He organized the First Presbyterian
church in St. Louis with nine members. As his chief means of support Mr.
Giddings conducted a school for girls on Market street opposite the courthouse.
The missionary spirit prompted him to go among the newcomers in the vicinity
of St. Louis and to gather them into congregations. In this way he organized
twelve Presbyterian churches. He got together in his school room a number
of St. Louisans and organized a society to distribute Bibles. It is told of
one of the churches Salmon Giddings organized that the pastor who was in-
stalled over it, Charles S. Robinson, a Massachusetts man, was at one time
"entirely out of money and out of food for his family, but just when his need
was greatest he found a silver dollar imbedded in the earth, which sufficed
for all his wants until a more permanent supply came."

The First Presbyterian church, on Fourteenth and Lucas place was dedi-
cated in 1855, a funeral hymn was sung just after the sermon. In the midst
of the singing the body of Rev. Salmon Giddings, who had died twenty-seven-

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 497

years previously, was carried in and deposited in a vault below the pulpit. The
men who officiated as pallbearers were among the wealthiest and best known
men of St. Louis. John O'Fallon and Jesse 'Lindell, were two of them.

When the nine pioneers organized the First Presbyterian church in Novem-
ber, 1817, they drew up and signed an agreement or covenant to watch over
each other and to regulate their lives in a "spirit of Christian meekness," and
to maintain the worship of God in their homes. Stephen Hempstead, Sr., and
Thomas Osborne were chosen leaders. Church building has always been linked
with good citizenship -in St. Louis. Business men have aided such enterprises
on the broad principle that a city cannot have too many or too fine churches.
The congregation worshipped in the room where Mr. Giddings carried on the
school to support himself. When the time seemed favorable, financially, for
the building of the First Presbyterian church in St. Louis, the little congrega-
tion had the substantial sympathy of the whole community. A public meeting
was held to start the subscription paper. Alexander McNair, who became the
first governor of Missouri, was the chairman of that meeting. Thomas H.
Benton, afterwards the thirty years senator, was the secretary. When the
paper was passed around Catholic business men put down their subscriptions
freely. The largest contribution was $200, given by Matthew Kerr. In the
class of $50 subscribers were three of the most prominent members of the old
Cathedral parish. John Quincy Adams, who became President, sent a subscrip-
tion of $25. The site for the church, the west side of Fourth street, near
Washington avenue, was purchased for $327. When Salmon Giddings died
2,000 people, half of the population of St. Louis, attended the funeral.

The Second Baptist church became that number because the First Baptist
church, after a struggle of fourteen years, disbanded. The first church organ-
ized in 1818, but assumed a financial burden too heavy for the membership.
When John Mason Peck, from Connecticut, and James Eby Welch, from Ken-
tucky, the missionaries, came to St. Louis in 1817, they could find only seven
Baptists. They organized a church with eleven members. That year, 1818,
this little Baptist flock began to build the first Protestant church in St. Louis,
at Market and Third streets, about two blocks from the Catholic church, now
the old Cathedral. The Baptists planned a building which should serve for
worship, and bring in revenue. They called it a meeting house. The structure
was of brick, was forty feet wide, sixty feet long and three stories high. It
Was never fully completed. About $6,000 was expended. Mr. Welch, the
missionary, advanced $1,200 and John Jacoby, the treasurer, $600. St. Louis
became a city, and widened Market street, cutting a slice of twelve feet off the
side of the church. The Baptists claimed damages. The city replied that
a church was not known in law, and that church trustees could not recover
damages. About that time a hail storm broke all of the windows on the north
side. The mayor wouldn't permit repairs because that side of the church had
been condemned as public property. The church was sold for $1,200, and the
money was divided between Rev. Mr. Welch and the widow of Trustee Jacoby.
The first church disbanded, and the members went into a new organization,
which they called "the Second Baptist church of St. Louis," frankly saying
that they wanted to make a fresh start without carrying the debts of the other
organization.

6- VOL. II.

498 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

George W. Ogden, a Quaker merchant of New Bedford, Massachusetts,
visited St. Louis in 1821. He was greatly impressed with the site and its
surroundings. He wrote: "For its beauty in point of location and healthful-
ness, it can scarcely be surpassed by any place in the world, and may justly
be called 'the Great City of the West.' At this place they have five large,
elegant new brick meeting houses of public worship, comprising the different
denominations."

The existence of the diocese of St. Louis dates from July, 1826. But St.
Louis was the residence of a bishop many years earlier. Louis William Valen-
tine Dubourg was consecrated bishop of New Orleans in 1815. The ceremony
took place in Rome. Almost immediately Bishop Dubourg asked to have the
diocese divided and a new see of St. Louis created. The church documents of
that day refer to St. Louis as situated variously in Upper Louisiana, Louisiana
Superior and Alta Louisiana. Before action was taken on Bishop Dubourg's
petition, the proposition was withdrawn. From New Orleans came the infor-
mation, through church channels, that such a rebellious spirit prevailed among
those in control of the cathedral of New Orleans, it would not be safe for Bishop
Dubourg to take up his residence there. Investigation showed threats were
being made "that the bishop would be shot in the streets of New Orleans if he
dared set foot on its soil." In the church correspondence of that day New
Orleans was referred to as "Vera Nova Babilonia" — a new Babylon. In order
that Bishop Dubourg might reside within his diocese, the proposition to make
a see of St. Louis was withdrawn.

At Bordeaux, late in the fall of 1815, assembled the little party to accom-
pany Bishop Dubourg to St. Louis. At the head of it was Rev. Joseph Rosati,
who was chosen for the head of the seminary to be established. The authority
to make Joseph Rosati vicar general was carried by Bishop Dubourg. Father
Rosati was a native of Sora in Naples. He was educated in Rome, and when
the time came for his ordination, the ceremony took place in secret, because Na-
poleon, who had invaded Italy, had forbidden ordinations by the Congregation of
the Missions. In the party which set out from Bordeaux were four students
preparing for the priesthood, three of whom became prominent in the Catholic
life of St. Louis. They were Leo Deys, a Belgian ; Francis Dahmen, a German ;
Castuc Gonzales, a Spaniard, and John Tichitoli, an Italian. Among other mem-
bers of the party were French, Italians and Poles. At that early day the polyglot
character of the population of the new religious field was recognized and pro-
vided for.

The party came by way of Baltimore. It was not deemed wise or safe to
enter the Mississippi Valley by way of New Orleans. Crossing the mountains
and coming down the Ohio, the party stopped at Bardstown. Bishop Dubourg
arrived in the United States by way of Annapolis some months after the rest
of the party had come west. As soon as it was known the bishop was in the
country, Father Rosati came to St. Louis to prepare for the reception of the
first Catholic bishop who was to take up his residence here. Bishop Flaget, of
Bardstown, accompanied Father Rosati. Bishop Dubourg was no stranger to
New Orleans. He had gone from that city to Rome to be made a bishop. He
had brothers who were business men in New Orleans. But the extensive prop-

RT. REV. L. W. V. DUBOURG

RT. REV. JOSEPH ROSATI

REV. P. T. DE SMET, S. J.

BISHOP P. J. RYAN ARCHBISHOP KENRICK

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 499

erty of the cathedral there had passed into the hands of a corporation, three
priests in charge of the cathedral had been suspended, and the excitement was
very great. Not knowing how far the feeling might have spread, Bishop Di>
bourg did not come to the United States until inquiry had shown how he would
be received in St. Louis. And when he did come, Rosati and Bishop Flaget
came over in advance to be assured of a friendly reception for Bishop Dubourg.
They found some opposition to the reception of the bishop, but it melted away
quickly. Rosati was a man of wonderful tact and diplomacy.

Bishop Dubourg was a man of high culture. He brought to St. Louis,
before the town organization had given place to the city, a library of 8,000 vol-
umes. This collection was described "as the most complete, scientific and lit-
erary repertory of the western country, if not of the western world."

There is most excellent non-Catholic authority for the description of this
first Catholic bishop to take residence in St. Louis, as "a man endowed at once
with the elegance and politeness of the courtier ; the piety and zeal of the Apostle
and the learning of a Father of the Church."

In the first St. Louis directory, issued in 1821, was given this description
of the Catholic church as the result of Bishop Dubourg's efforts :

The cathedral of St. Louis can boast of having no rival in the United States for
the magnificence, the value and elegance of her sacred vases, ornaments and paintings,
and indeed few churches in Europe possess anything superior to it. It is a truly de-
lightful sight to an American of taste to find in one of the remotest towns of the Union
a church decorated with the original paintings of Kubens, Raphael, Guido, Paul Veronese,
and a number of others by the first modern masters of the Italian, French and Flemish
schools. The ancient and precious gold embroideries which the St. Louis cathedral possesses
would certainly decorate any museum in the world. All this is due to the liberality of
the Catholics of Europe, who presented these rich articles to Bishop Dubourg on his last
visit through France, Italy, Sicily and the Netherlands. Among the liberal benefactors
could be named many princes and princesses, but we will only insert the names of Louis
XVIII, the present king of France, and that of Baroness La Candale de Ghysegham, a
Flemish lady, to whose munificence the cathedral is particularly indebted.

A record of great activity in the Catholic church began with the coming
of Bishop Rosati to St. Louis. Here was a diocese with one bishop, three secular
priests, five Lazarist fathers, one Jesuit, fourteen ecclesiastical students, five
Jesuit scholastics and from 11,000 to 12,000 laity. Before the first year was out
Bishop Rosati at the Cathedral in St. Louis consecrated a bishop, Michael Por-
tier, for Alabama and the Floridas. For assistants he had no neighboring
bishops. He called in the chancellor of the little college of Jesuits, Father Quick-
enborne, and the venerable and lovable Father Donatianus Olivier. About this
time Bishop Rosati ordained the first priest born in Missouri, Rev. Joseph
Paquin. In March, 1827, Rosati was formally constituted first bishop of St.
Louis. The next year he ordained the first priest, who was a native St.
Louisan, Francis Regis Loisel.

There were no bishops in Mexico who could give ordination. In 1829,
Bishop Rosati began the ordination of priests for the dioceses of that country.
Mexican candidates by the score for the priesthood visited Bishop Rosati.
Ordination ceremonies in the cathedral were very frequent, beginning in 1829.

500 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

In his first report to Rome, on conditions as he found them on taking charge
of the new diocese, in 1825, Bishop Rosati described St. Louis as "an important
city, the most considerable of the whole state." He added:

French is spoken here by the old inhabitants; and English by the Americans and
Irish -who have established themselves here of late years. There is only one priest and
there ought to be at least two more. There are some difficulties. During the time that
Mgr. Dubourg resided here a subscription was made to build a church. The expenses
were very great, and the funds were found wanting as soon as they were counted to-
gether. This was occasioned by various circumstances, which debilitated commerce, and
diminished the number of new inhabitants who had subscribed. Four of the principal
citizens, who had been elected as administrators of the building, were obliged to pay a
debt of from $5,000 to $6,000 for which they had passed their bonds to the workmen. In
order to reimburse themselves they have obtained from the legislature the authorization
to sell the ground next to the church, together with the house which served for habitation
of the bishop and priest. The bondsmen threaten to proceed to the sale if the money
they have laid out is not paid back to them.

Those were pioneer days of things religious. In his report on the new dio-
cese, Bishop Rosati spoke of "Viede Poche, Carondelet, having about 100
French families, all very poor. When there were more priests than one in St.,
Louis, one of them went to the village Saturdays and Sundays to hear confes-
sions, to preach and to say mass. At the present it is vacant."

The see of St. Louis extended across the river and took in a number of
parishes. One of these was Prairie du Rocher, of which Bishop Rosati reported:
"There is a church and a priest. This is Rev. Father Olivier, a respectable old
man of seventy-five years, almost blind, and unable to render any service to the
parish. To him I have offered a room in the seminary. He is a saint, who has
labored for many years in the service of all the Catholics in these regions."

Five years after he had been elected bishop and three years after his con-
secration Bishop Rosati became by transfer the first bishop of the diocese of St.
Louis. Not until 1827 did this occur. Even when the country west of the Miss-
issippi was divided into two dioceses it was the plan of His Holiness Pope Leo
XII that Rosati should be bishop of New Orleans and that he should admin-
ister both dioceses for the time being. "Bishop Rosati did all in his power to be
excused from accepting the diocese of New Orleans, and succeeded in having
the decree rescinded." So reads the church record in manuscript. The church
in St. Louis has reason to be grateful that Rosati stood so firmly by his attach-
ment to this city. Dubourg had become oppressed and discouraged with con-
ditions at New Orleans. He went to Europe in the summer of 1826, presented
his resignation of the see of New Orleans, and it was accepted. Then Bishop
Rosati was given the see of St. Louis, but he was commanded to continue to
serve the diocese of New Orleans as administrator until the Holy See could pro-
vide otherwise. "Bishop of Teagre and Administrator of St. Louis and New
Orleans" was the title borne at first by Bishop Rosati.

On the first of August, 1831, occurred an event which told of the work
Rosati was doing. The corner stone of the new cathedral was laid on Walnut
street between Main and Second streets. This was the fourth Catholic church
built on the lot, beginning with the house of posts erected in 1776. In 1833
Bishop Rosati gave their first resident priests to Chicago and Kansas City. The
twenty-sixth of October, 1834, brought the consecration of the new cathedral

REV. DR. M. McANALLY

REV. S. B. McPHEETERS

FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
Tenth and Locust streets, I860

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 501

of St. Louis. Two bishops came to participate in the ceremonies — Flaget from
Bardstown and Purcell from Cincinnati. The second day afterwards occurred
the consecration of the bishop of Vincennes, Simon Brute. The laying of corner
stones for new Catholic churches was becoming frequent. Bishop Rosati that
year laid the corner stone for Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in Carondelet. That
same year of 1834 was memorable for another church event in St. Louis.
Bishop Rosati recorded: "Rev. Lutz said mass in St. Mary's chapel for the
Germans and preached in German to them, which in future will be done every
Sunday."

The next year, 1835, Rosati began to keep the annual counts of the con-
gregations. He sent to all of the priests instructions to prepare and forward
at the end of the year a census of their congregations. The first census of the
Catholic church in St. Louis showed 8,601 souls, 293 baptisms, 100 marriages,
97 funerals, 54 converts. Notable is the column of converts in these annual
census reports of Bishop Rosati. There went on among the residents of St.
Louis year after year the conversion of non-Catholics to Catholicism.

In 1829 the Episcopal people completed a neat building. They called it
Christ church. The location was the corner of Third and Chestnut streets,
where the Chamber of Commerce stands. This Christ church was the prede-
cessor of Christ church cathedral on Thirteenth and Locust streets.

James Stuart, a Scotchman, who visited St. Louis in 1830, and who wrote
a book after his return to his own country, said of the religious conditions at
that time:

I attended divine worship in the Presbyterian church on the day I reached St.
Louis. Having asked the landlord of the inn which was the best church to go to, he at
once replied, 'I go to no church but the Presbyterian minister is the rage. ' The Presby-
terian minister, Mr. Potts, delivered a very good sermon upon this text, 'The sting of
sin is death,' in a very neatly seated church in the upper part of the town. It was a
funeral sermon, in consequence of the death of Mr. Woods, an English gentleman from
London, one of the elders or deacons of the church. In the afternoon I went into the
meeting-house of people of color. They had one of themselves preaching sensibly, though
it appeared he was not a man of much education. The sermon was, in great measure,
composed of scriptural quotations, and was delivered impressively; but there was far less
manifestation of excitement than in a church of people of color, which I afterward at-
tended in New York.

Looking for the promised land, the Mormons came to St. Louis in 1831.
Joseph Smith had founded the church in New York state and had moved to
Kirtland, in Ohio. There he had a revelation that his apostles must go "speedily
to the place which is called St. Louis." Traveling in long trains of "mover
wagons" the Mormons crossed by ferry to the foot of Market street. Other
bodies came by boat down the Ohio and up the Mississippi, landing at St.
Louis. Some found homes in St. Louis and established a church. The others,
after resting, moved on to the western part of Missouri to try Independence, and
Far West and later Nauvoo, in Illinois, before they found rest in Salt Lake City.
Latter Day Saints these St. Louis Mormons called themselves. They parted
from the Salt Lake body, never accepting or practicing polygamy. They were
hard working, honest people, worshipping according to the dictates of their
consciences. For a living their elder dug coal in and near what is now Forest
Park. For a time after settling in St. Louis the Saints held service in a church

502 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

on Third street; then they rented a church on Fourth street. The organization
grew slowly in St. Louis as the years went by, until it numbered about 300. It
built a church on Elliott avenue.

"Tell my brethren of the Pittsburg conference that I died at my post," is
chiseled in the stone which marks a grave in the Wesleyan cemetery on the Olive

° if

street road. Three times the stone has been put in place. It quotes the dying
message of Rev. Thomas Drummond, an Englishman, who came to St. Louis
to take charge of the Methodist church on Fourth street and Washington avenue.
A year after his coming Mr. Drummond faced the cholera epidemic of 1835.
He was advised to leave the city, but refused and was stricken. From his death-
bed he sent the message to the conference with which he had been first asso-
ciated in this country. His body has been buried in three cemeteries, being
moved as the city grew. From Twenty-third and Franklin avenue, it was taken
to Grand and Laclede, and later to the cemetery on Olive street road.

Robert B. Fife, who was not a preacher but a student of the Bible and a
religious man with a short and simple creed, brought together in Shepard's school
opposite the court house, in 1837, a few people and started services for Chris-
tians. The meetings did not become regular until five years later. These Chris-
tians or Disciples of Christ grew strong in St. Louis. They formed a dozen
churches, established an orphans' home and built up a vigorous publishing
concern.

In the Second Baptist church of 1833 were represented the Cozzens, Stout,
Orme, Kerr and other prominent families of St. Louis. The new organization
proceeded slowly in the matter of another church structure. Meetings were held
in the school house of Elihu H. Shepard on Fourth street opposite the court
house. A lot on Morgan and Sixth was bought, but sold after a foundation had
been laid. The Episcopal church on Third and Chestnut was for sale at $12,000,
and the Baptists bought it. As early as 1839 the choir of the Second Baptist
church had become so well known that it ventured upon "a grand sacred con-
cert." The church had many pastors, Rev. John Mason Peck came over from
his seminary at Rock Spring to preach during several periods. The congrega-
tion overflowed the edifice on Third street and built a $40,000 church at Sixth
and Locust. An incident which was the talk of the whole city was the baptism
of sixteen Hollanders by Dr. Peck, in 1849. These Hollanders had been Presby-
terians. Foreign immigration to St. Louis was at its height when the Baptists
received the Hollanders. J. B. Jeter, Galusha Anderson and A. H. Burlingham
were among the divines of national reputation who held the pastorate of this
church. In 1877 came to the Second Baptist church a pastor who was to re-
main and to enter into the life of the city — Rev. W. W. Boyd. A New Yorker
by birth, he had gone into business life as superintendent of a cotton manufac-
turing plant in Maine. To do something for his operatives on Sunday, Superin-
tendent Boyd reopened a little abandoned Baptist church in the village, carried
on a Sunday school for the children and read Spurgeon's sermons to the grown-
ups. The effect upon the superintendent was more startling than upon the mill
people. Mr. Boyd began to preach, went to Harvard to get more education,
took special honors in philosophy, studied theology and was ordained to the
ministry. Four years later he came to St. Louis to enter upon a pastorate of

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 503

nearly one-third of a century. When E)r. Boyd came to St. Louis the Second
Baptist church had moved westward to the site on Beaumont and Locust streets,
selected by William M. McPherson, E. G. Obear, D. B. Gale, Thomas Pratt and
Nathan Cole. Only the chapel had been completed. Under the inspiration of
Dr. Boyd's eloquence, the main structure was completed at a cost of more than
$250,000. That remained the home of the congregation until the removal to the
new church on Kings Highway and Washington avenue in 1908.

In the decades between 1840 and 1860, one of the most popular authors with
young folks was the Rev. Cicero Stephens Hawks, D. D., bishop of Missouri.
He came of English and Irish ancestors and was born at Newbern, North Caro-
lina. He entered the ministry after a university education, and after the study
of law in New York city. He came to St. Louis in 1843 to become rector of
Christ church, and the next year was elected unanimously as bishop. Possibly
that which most endeared the bishop to the St. Louis people of his generation
was his heroic conduct during the Asiatic cholera epidemic. When others left
the city for places of refuge Bishop Hawks remained and devoted himself to the
care and consolation of the sick. His writings included several volumes of a
series called "Uncle Phelps Conversations for the Young." He also wrote
"Friday Christian." He was the editor of "The Boys' and Girls' Library," and
of the "Library for Our Young Country Women." Two brothers of the bishop
became very prominent ministers in the Episcopal church, one of them in New
York city, the other in Georgia.

The beginning of St. George's Episcopal church was a sermon preached
by Rev. Dr. E. Carter Hutchinson in the Benton school on Sixth street, near
Locust.

Among the most entertaining and vigorous of St. Louis preachers was
Rev. E. C. Hutchinson. He took for his text one Sunday morning: "David
was a man after God's own heart." He described the career of David, his duel
with Goliath and his other exploits wholly to his credit. It seemed as if the
eloquent rector did not mean to refer to the discreditable event in his hero's
career, but he did. Just before the close pi the sermon the preacher said : "In
the matter of Uriah, the Hittite, David must stand on the same platform with
other sinners."

The Rev. S. S. Gassaway, while rector of St. George's, was killed by the
explosion of a boiler on the Alton packet, Kate Kearney, just as the boat was
leaving the St. Louis levee.

The impressions which the religious life of St. Louis made upon Charles
Dickens during his visit in 1842, he described in these notes:

The Eoman Catholic religion, introduced here by the early French settlers, pre-
vails extensively. Among the public institutions are a Jesuit college, a convent for "the
ladies of the Sacred Heart," and a large church attached to the college, which was in
course of erection at the time of my visit, and was intended to be consecrated on the
2nd of December in the present year. The organ will be sent from Belgium. In addition
to these establishments there is a Eoman Catholic cathedral, dedicated to St. Francis
Xavier, and a hospital founded by the munificence of a deceased resident, who was a
member of that church. It also sends missionaries from hence among the Indian tribes.

The Unitarian church is represented in this remote place, as in most other parts of
America, by a gentleman of great worth and excellence. There are three free schools already
erected and in full operation in this city. A fourth is building and will soon be opened.

504 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

The reference of Mr. Dickens in the second note was to Rev. William G.
Eliot, who had a few years previously settled in St. Louis and was even then
giving vigorous attention to the subject of education.

The comprehensive character of the population of St. Louis found illus-
trations in the religious life of the community. Near Park avenue, in 1842,
the Lazarists had an ecclesiastical seminary. At the head of it was Vicar General
Joseph Paquin, born at Florissant, 1799, practically a native of St. Louis. The
professors were two Spanish, one Italian and one German "father. The teacher
of Greek and Latin was an Irishman. The students were Irish, French, Italian
and Americans. They received instruction in the modern languages from teach-
ers familiar with those languages from early youth. In the recreation hour,
after supper, Father Paquin encouraged the professors and students to tell their
recollections of their respective countries and to sing the songs of the various
nationalities, he leading with the French chansons of early St. Louis, taught him
in his boyhood.

In April, 1840, a large proportion of the population went out into the sub-
urbs to witness the laying of the corner stone of St. Xavier's Catholic church on
Ninth and Green streets, now Lucas avenue.

Of kindliest character were the relations between Bishop Rosati and the
clergy of the diocese of St. Louis. In 1840 the bishop went to Rome, expecting
to return shortly. He was asked by the Holy Father, Pope Gregory XVI., if
he would not take the charge of Apostolic Delegate to Hayti to conclude a con-
cordat between the Holy See and that country.

Bishop Rosati replied that he would not like to leave his diocese without
the services of a bishop for so long a time, but that if His Holiness would give
him a coadjutor to govern during the absence he would undertake the Haytian
charge.

Thereupon the Pope said: "Well! My dear Lord, if you know any good
priest whom you would wish for your coadjutor, just name him, and I will
appoint him right away."

"Most Holy Father," said Bishop Rosati, "if I could get the Very Reverend
Peter Richard Kenrick, the vicar general of the Right Reverend Francis Patrick
Kenrick, coadjutor of the bishop of Philadelphia, I would be satisfied."

"Very well," said His Holiness, "you shall have him."

One less thorough going in his mental method than Bishop Rosati would
perhaps have stopped with that. But the bishop of St. Louis was a man who
left nothing uncertain. He said to the Pope : "Your Holiness ! You had the
kindness some time ago to appoint the Very Reverend John Timon, C. M., as
my coadjutor, but he refused the office, and if Very Reverend Peter Richard
Kenrick would do the same thing, I would be frustrated, therefore I beg of you
to oblige him under obedience to take the office."

That the Pope acted on the suggestion was evident from a letter which
Right Reverend Francis Patrick Kenrick wrote from Philadelphia to Bishop
Rosati. "The positive wishes of His Holiness have, I believe, secured my
brother's full acquiescence."

Right Reverend Peter Richard Kenrick was consecrated Bishop in Phila-
delphia in 1841 by Bishop Rosati and came to St. Louis as coadjutor. Bishop

REV. WILLIAM POTTS
From a Daguerreotype taken in the '50s.

REV. ARTEMAS BULLARD

Pastor of First Presbyterian Church, who
was killed in the Gasconade disaster

CHURCH OF THE MESSIAH
Olive and Ninth streets, before the war

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Fourteenth and Lucas place, in 1860

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 505

Rosati went to Hayti, completed the diplomatic work, for which he was sent,
with his usual painstaking care, went to Rome, was taken ill and died.

Many years afterward, when he had become the head of the church, Leo
XIII. said to a high representative of the Catholic church in St. Louis:

I have known the first bishop of St. Louis. I traveled with him from Rome to
Paris. When he was on his way to Hayti to conclude the concordat, I was on my way
to Brussels as nuncio. I must say that I have never in my life met with a bishop whom
I considered such a holy man and whom I found so full of respect towards the Holy
Father.

When Rev. Artemas Bullard came to St. Louis to be pastor of the First
Presbyterian church in 1838 he thought the place of worship was too far from
the center of the city. The location was near Fourth street and Washington
avenue, but most of the worshipers lived east or south of the church. When
the new church was built, Dr. Bullard found conditions so changed that he
advised a location at Fourteenth street and Lucas place. There was much
opposition to the new site, many members claiming that this was a removal too
far to the west. In its day the First Presbyterian church, on Fourteenth street
and Lucas place, was regarded as having a very handsome exterior, and it was
commented upon favorably by many travelers. At that time there were few
buildings in the vicinity and the church edifice stood out bold and strong in all
of its architectural impressiveness. The First Presbyterian church regarded
as colonies or offshoots, the Second. Presbyterian church, and the Third Pres-
byterian church and the Pine street church, with which became identified for
many years Dr. Niccolls, Dr. Post, Dr. Brookes and Dr. Rutherford.

The First Presbyterian church, the most costly up to that time, was com-
pleted about the middle of the decade, 1850-1860. It was commonly called "Dr.
Bullard's church," long after the beloved pastor met his death in the Gasconade
disaster. Competition in church architecture, in those days, ran somewhat to
spires. The First church had "the tallest steeple in St. Louis" — 225 feet. When
the western city limits was extended from Seventh to Eighteenth street, in
1841, there was strong opposition. The argument was that the population did
not justify the enlargement; that streets were not opened. Thirteen years later,
while people were still speaking of "the new limits," this, most costly of the
churches, was built almost on the outer edge of the city.

Centenary Methodist church had a basement story wholly above ground. It
was on Fifth and Pine streets, the southwest corner. Beside it was a par-
sonage.

Rev. Dr. D. R. McAnally came from Tennessee. He had preached in the
south and had conducted a seminary a number of years before he came to St.
Louis to be editor of the St. Louis Christian Advocate and to conduct the Metho-
dist publishing house. Organizing a Methodist church in Carondelet, Dr.
McAnally preached there seventeen years. No appointment was made by the
conference, the church being left "to be supplied." In that way the rule of
itineracy was avoided. There was a militant strain in Dr. McAnally. The editor
sympathized with the south. He was arrested early in the Civil war and his
paper was suppressed. In July, 1861, he was tried by court martial, but the
verdict was never returned from Washington. The good doctor was put on
parole, forbidden to leave St. Louis county. As a vigorous writer he was

506 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

known and greatly admired by two generations of St. Louis Methodists. The
office of the Christian Advocate was on Pine street next to the church. Dr.
McAnally was the son of Charles McAnally, a Methodist minister. He began
his life work in the pulpit when he was nineteen years old. The Methodist Book
Concern of St. Louis was started with a capital of $1,800. Dr. McAnally built
up the establishment until the books issued were in the hundreds of thousands.
The business was equal to some of the larger establishments in the east.

John Hogan of the County Cork was favored with so few educational op-
portunities that when, an immigrant boy, he went to work for a shoemaker in
Baltimore as an apprentice, the journeymen in the office taught him his letters.
Self educated, this boy became a Methodist ^minister of reputation through the
western country. He published a book called "Thoughts of St. Louis," which
was so well appreciated by the business interests of the city that a service of
silver was given to the author as a testimonial. Subsequently he was the author
of a "History of Methodism in the West" and "The Resources of Missouri."
There was a clearness of style and a freshness about his writings which made
him very popular with readers in 1850-1860. The Dollar savings institution, on
which was built the Exchange bank, was presided over for some time by John
Hogan. In 1858 Mr. Hogan became, by appointment of President Buchanan,
the postmaster of St. Louis. The wife of John Hogan was the daughter of
Joseph B. Gamier of St. Louis.

Union Presbyterian church on Locust street was unlike any other church
edifice in St. Louis. Architects of that period called it the "Lombardio style."
There were two towers at the corners, one was 104 feet, the other 160 feet in
height. This church was built by Henry D. Bacon, the banker. It cost him
$70,000. The finest organ in the west was installed. When the building was
ready for dedication, Mr. Bacon offered to deed the property to the trustees
for $30,000, making his contribution $40,000. The offer was accepted. The
$30,000 was subscribed in three days. The Union Presbyterian church was or-
ganized in 1850. The pastor was Rev. William Holmes, who became an edi-
torial writer on the Missouri Democrat.

The church architecture of St. Louis, before the Civil war, was something
of which the city could boast. The church of the Messiah, Dr. Eliot's, on Ninth
and Olive, where the Century building stands, cost $100,000. It was of massive
masonry. Seventy tons of iron were used in the metallic parts. The construc-
tion was not given out by contract, but was done under the direction of a com-
mittee. The spire, 167 feet high, was a model in proportions. The church
itself was considered one of the most beautiful in the country.

St. Louis churches kept pace with the population, rapid as the growth was
before the war. In 1830 the average number of residents, young and old, to
the churches was 2,000. In 1854 there were' sixty-five churches. The popula-
tion was estimated to average 1,900 to the church, although the government
census did not give that number of residents. The city was famed not only
for the congregations but for the costly character of the church architecture.
Business men responded with great liberality to all church calls. When Rev.
Dr. William G. Eliot was fairly settled in his church he went among the mem-
bers of his congregation and raised $60,000 for educational purposes.

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 507

The missionary activities first of Bishop Rosati and second of Archbishop
Kenrick, from 1830 to 1860, are part of the history of St. Louis. See after see
was created and the bishop to take charge was consecrated at St. Louis for the
new field. Diocese after diocese was cut off from what had been the original
diocese of St. Louis. From St. Louis priests went to the Indians far in ad-
vance of settlement. They were assigned to the posts of the fur traders. They
camped with the lead miners. They traveled through the west finding and bind-
ing anew to the church the families of scattered Catholics. They went with the
armies of railroad builders. And all of the time that the work went on in the
field, parish after parish was organized, and church after church was blessed
in the growing city of St. Louis. Rosati was a man of unlimited capacity for
detail. Kenrick was as methodical as a clock. He had time for everything.
Year in and year out he walked westward from the archbishop's house, taking
his exercise so regularly that people on the route had a saying that it was safe
to set the family clock by the archbishop's daily constitutional.

Out from the old Cathedral of St. Louis to become bishops or archbishops
went Neckere (New Orleans), Timon (Buffalo), Lefevre (Detroit), Odin
(New Orleans), Feehan (Chicago), Hennessy (Dubuque), Duggan (Chicago),
Hogan (St. Joseph), Ryan (Philadelphia).

Italy and France had been represented in the bishop resident at St. Louis.
Right Reverend Peter Richard Kenrick, who arrived in the winter of 1841-2,
was of Dublin birth and education. In Maynooth Seminary he went through
his higher studies. He was only thirty-six years old when he came to St. Louis
as Bishop Kenrick. One year he had given to the priesthood in his native Dub-
lin, and nine years he had passed in Philadelphia as president of the seminary,
rector of the cathedral and vicar general to his brother, Bishop Francis Patrick
Kenrick.

The year after his arrival Bishop Kenrick established and opened three
parish churches in St. Louis. These were St. Francis Xavier's, St. Mary's and
St. Aloysius. That year Chicago was made a see with Illinois for the diocese
and at the same time Little Rock became a see. In 1845 Bishop Kenrick opened
three more parish churches in St. Louis. These were St. Patrick's, St. Joseph's
and St. Vincent's.

In July, 1847, by papal bull the diocese of St. Louis became an archdiocese,
and Bishop Kenrick was appointed Archbishop of St. Louis. The spread of
the Catholic church, under the management of the head at St. Louis, justified the
recognition. The census of that year showed 50,000 souls, notwithstanding the
dioceses of Illinois and Arkansas had been created out of the diocese of St.
Louis. The missions and stations of that year were forty-two. In 1848, Pius
IX. decreed that Archbishop Kenrick should be invested with the pallium. The
ceremony was performed at Philadelphia by the elder brother, the archbishop of
Philadelphia, who just fifteen years previously had sent to Dublin the money
to pay the passage of the younger to this country.

Three more St. Louis parishes were added in 1849. They were Sts. Peter
and Paul, Holy Trinity and St. Michael's.

Two years later another diocese was created and another bishop was conse-
crated at St. Louis — John Baptist Miege. The jurisdiction of the archdiocese

508 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

of St. Louis was thereby confined to the state of Missouri. But the census
showed 58,135 Catholics in the state. Of these 27,215 were in St. Louis.

In 1854 the Bohemians of St. Louis began to build a church. When this
building, St. John of Nepomuk, was ready for occupancy the following year,
the pastor, Rev. Henry Lipowski was able to say this was the first Catholic
church for Bohemians built anywhere on earth outside of the kingdom of
Bohemia.

In 1859, Archbishop Kenrick laid the corner stone for the Church of the
Annunciation at Sixth and Lasalle streets. The parish priest was Patrick John
Ryan, who, three years later was to become the spiritual adviser of the Confed-
erate prisoners confined in Gratiot street prispn ; to become bishop and coadjutor
to the archbishop in 1872, and to become, in 1884, archbishop of Philadelphia.
St. Louis thus returned to the Quaker City the favor extended in the gift of
Kenrick nearly forty years before. The year that Kenrick came as bishop to
St. Louis, Ryan entered St. Patrick's College at Carlow in Ireland as an affili-
ated subject of the St Louis bishop. When his education was completed he
came direct to St. Louis, was ordained here to the priesthood and became rector
of the Cathedral.

The association of Kenrick and Ryan for thirty years in St. Louis was
extraordinary. Kenrick had marvelous capacity for organization and manage-
ment. Ryan was philosophical and eloquent. One was the complement of the
other. The relations were more than harmonious. Upon his bishop the arch-
bishop leaned more and more. The Catholic church in the archdiocese of St.
Louis prospered beyond comparison. The fame of Ryan, as a preacher and a
lecturer, became national. Both of these men maintained the friendliest rela-
tions with and commanded the highest respect of the non-Catholics of St. Louis.
When Archbishop Ryan was called to Philadelphia, St. Louisans, without re-
gard to religious affiliations, tendered him a most notable farewell reception.

The spirit of church extension which prevailed among the Catholic clergj
was exemplified in the case of Rev. James Henry, who became one of the best
known and most respected clergymen of St. Louis. As a young man Father
Henry was given authority to establish St. Lawrence O'Toole's parish and to
build a church at O'Fallon and Fourteenth streets. He made a beginning.
While the parish was growing and before it could afford a residence Father
Henry slept in a nook of the basement. His bed was just below the bell tower.
The bell rope was within reach of small boys. Many nights Father Henry got
up to discover that the alarms of fire were false. In St. Lawrence O'Toole's
church an altar was built to the memory of Thomas B. Hudson, who marched
to Mexico with the St. Louis troops.

A city of refuge for all creeds of religion as well as for all shades of
political opinion St. Louis became early in its evolution the typical American
community. Here was freedom of political opinion. Here men worshipped ac-
cording to the dictates of their conscience. One Sunday morning in March of
1839, good Bishop Kemper read in Christ church, then on Fifth and Chestnut
streets this notice:

A body of Lutherans, having been persecuted by the Saxon government because
they believed it their duty to adhere to the doctrines inculcated by their great leader

REV. JOHN HOGAN

BISHOP CICERO STEPHEN HAWKS

FIRST METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH
South Eighth street and Washington avenue, in 1859

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 509

and contained in the Augsburg Confession of Faith, have arrived here with the inten-
tion of settling in this or one of the neighboring states, and having been deprived of the
privilege of public worship for three months, they have earnestly and most respectfully
requested the use of our church that they may again unite in all the ordinances of
our holy religion. I have, therefore, with the entire approbation of the vestry, granted
the use of our church for this day from 2 p. m. until sunset to a denomination whose
early members were highly esteemed by the English reformers, and with whom our glorious
martyrs, Cranmer, Ridley and others, had much early intercourse.

That act of church hospitality was fraught with great consequences, ma-
terial as well as spiritual, to St. Louis. It added to St. Louis one of the most
desirable elements of population. It made this city not only nationally but in-
ternationally the capital of a powerful religious organization. A college, a
theological seminary, a publishing house, a hospital were established.

The steamboats Rienzi, Clyde, Knickerbocker and Selma on their first trips
up from New Orleans that spring of 1839 brought 700 Lutherans. The head
of the party was Martin Stephan, who had been a preacher at Dresden. On
the journey these Lutherans, who held tenaciously to the Unaltered Augsburg
Confession, named Stephan as their bishop. They had, under his leadership,
gone back to Lutheranism as Martin Luther taught it. These people brought
with them personal effects and $120,000. They intended to buy land and to
found colonies of their own. Part of them went on to Perry county, pur-
chased nearly 5,000 acres and established settlements. The others, who remained
in St. Louis, continued to worship for three years in Christ church, the vestry-
men of which extended the privilege.

Bishop Martin Stephan had not the self control to withstand the tempta-
tion of his position. He fell into evil ways, was tried and expelled from the
church. For a time it seemed as if the movement would end in disorganization.

Among those who had come out to establish this old faith in a new country
were two young preachers — Otto Hermann Walther and Carl Ferdinand Wil-
helm Walther. They were sons of a Lutheran pastor in Saxony, highly educated.
They had studied and prayed their way to what they believed to be sound
Lutheranism. Otto Hermann Walther was the pastor of the congregation which
worshipped in Christ church and which became Trinity, the first German Luth-
eran church in St. Louis.

In their distress and demoralization following the downfall of Bishop
Stephan, the Lutherans turned to Ferdinand Walther. The young preacher was
less than thirty years of age. He accepted the leadership. He restored material
order, but more than that he led the sorely tried colonists back to their spiritual
ideals. Hermann Walther died. Ferdinand Walther succeeded him here as
pastor of Trinity. St. Louis became the center of Lutheran teaching and Luth-
eran influence. For forty-eight years Ferdinand Walther was the dominant
figure in the movement. He had been ordained only the year before he joined
the colony and left Saxony. When the end of his work came in 1887, he was
seventy-six years of age. Church after church of the Lutheran faith was or-
ganized in St. Louis, until they numbered nearly a score. Concordia college
grew from its humble beginning in 1850 into one of the great educational in-
stitutions of the city.

510 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

As early as 1844 the St. Louis Lutherans supported Walther in making
their movement more than local. The Lutheraner was published semi-monthly.
It called upon Lutherans everywhere in the United States to come back to the
old faith. Lutherans had been coming to this country long before the colony
reached St. Louis. They were numerous in New York and Pennsylvania and
North Carolina. They had spread into Ohio and Tennessee, Indiana and Illi-
nois. But they had adopted much doctrine which, in the opinion of Walther
and his St. Louis following, was not sound. Die Lutheraner's appeals aroused
great interest east of the Mississippi. Much correspondence followed. There
were meetings and conferences. In 1847, at Chicago was organized a Lutheran
synod with a constitution drafted by Walther and with the St. Louis theologian
as president. It embraced many of the eastern Lutherans. Walther came back
to St. Louis and entered upon his great career as a teacher of pure Lutheran
theology. He prepared hundreds of pastors for churches. His theology went
direct to the Bible for substantiation. The leader of orthodox Lutheranism had
many controversies with other Lutherans. He courted these discussions. Upon
his suggestion, the Lutheran bodies of the United States held free conferences
to discuss their doctrinal differences. And after every one of these conferences
Lutherans got nearer together and Ferdinand Walther was more a leader of
Lutheran thought than before. He went to Europe to present his views. He
edited Lutheran periodicals which obtained wide circulation. The Lutheran
publishing house in St. Louis became a far famed institution.

Ferdinand Walther was an ardent lover of music all of his life. He was
a man of humor, which he masked with a serious face. He wrote his sermons
and committed them to memory so that he spoke without manuscript before
him. He was an orator of national fame. Lutheran churches of St. Louis with
but few exceptions have attached to them parochial schools, in which the chil-
dren of Lutherans are educated. Square miles of South St. Louis and North
St. Louis are occupied almost exclusively by these Lutherans. As a class they
are home owners and well to do people.

An English Evangelical Lutheran church was organized in 1867 with Rev.
Dr. M. Rhodes as pastor, developing into one of the strong religious organiza-
tions of St. Louis.

When Daniel Sylvester Tuttle was, in 1866, elected bishop of Montana,
with jurisdiction over Idaho and Utah, he was compelled to confess to the
committee sent to notify him that he was only twenty-nine years old. The
church law required a candidate to be thirty years old. Bishops Potter and
Whitehouse were the committee. They had picked out Mr. Tuttle, a man of
stalwart frame, as peculiarly well fitted for such missionary field as the three
frontier territories offered at that day. They were not willing to relinquish their
plan. So they said to Mr. Tuttle, "My brother, go home to Morris to your
work, continue in it quietly and steadily till after January 26, 1867, when you
will be thirty years old. After that you will doubtless receive from the pre-
siding bishop information to guide you in your next step." Thus it came about
that in 1867, with a little missionary band, Bishop Tuttle started for Montana,
within the bounds of which no Episcopal clergyman had set foot up to that
time. The bishop rode across the plains on a stage coach, every man carrying

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 511

a rifle and a revolver for protection against Indians. Tlje first thing he did
on reaching Salt Lake was to call upon Brigham Young, telling him for what he
had come. Ten days afterwards, the bishop confirmed eleven persons. He
went on to Montana and lived in a log cabin in the mining town of Virginia
City. That year a telegram came to the bishop in his cabin from Rev. Mont-
gomery Schuyler of St. Louis, reading: "Elected bishop of Missouri at Kirk-
wood, May 29th, on first ballot." Bishop Tuttle sent back his declination. His
sole companion in the cabin at Virginia City was his cat "Dick." Nineteen
years later a second telegram from Dr. Schuyler found Bishop Tuttle in a
mining camp of Utah and notified him that for the second time he had been
elected bishop of Missouri. This time acceptance was sent. Bishop Tuttle came
to St. Louis in 1886.

Religious journalism in the west owed a great deal to Rev. John W. Allen,
of Ohio birth, who came to St. Louis in 1873. Mr. Allen founded the St. Louis
Evangelist, which became the Mid-Continent. He was in charge of the mission-
ary work of the Presbyterians many years.

John Calvin Learned, a scholarly man, a student all of his life, served the
Church of the Unity a quarter of a century. He was born in Dublin, New
Hampshire. His influence was not confined to the pulpit. He taught ethics
and political economy in Washington University and developed one of the
strong literary organizations of St. Louis — the Unity Club.

Rev. Dr. James Wilderman Lee was born on a Georgia farm and educated
in a Methodist college of his native state. His "Footprints of the Man of
Galilee" and his "Romance of Palestine" gave him high standing in religious
literature.

Three of the greatest of American sees have drawn archbishops from the
clergy of St. Louis. At the Vatican they sometimes speak of St. Louis as "the
Rome of America." Not less to priests than to bishops and archbishops does
the city owe. Priests like Henry, McCaffery, Walsh stood for education and
for morality in great sections of the city as well as for religious teaching. The
crusade of Coffey against the wine-room was an act of best citizenship. Zieg-
ler's sturdy and unyielding battle to save his parish from invasion by the red
light won the admiration of all good people. When the high prelates came
from other cities and counties to attend the corner stone laying of the new
cathedral in 1908, they marveled at the work of Father Dunne among newsboys
and of Father Dempsey among homeless men.

These are the years of our Lord, in St. Louis. Along Lindell, Kings High-
way, Delmar and Union, the citizen walks and marvels. Dome, tower, column
and chimes give continuous impression. Such a period of church building the
city has never before known. Possibly the first decade of the century will show
greater expenditure for church construction in St. Louis than all of the 136
years preceding. This interesting and notable part of the building of St. Louis
is not confined to any creed. Every denomination can point to a new house of
worship, admirable in architecture, modern in appointments, a credit to the city.

In 1906-08 the Catholics of St. Louis completed or started construction
on twelve new churches in St. Louis. In 1908 they had four large churches
under construction — Visitation, Holy Ghost, St. Henry and St. Bernard. But

512 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

the great contribution to the church architecture of the city, that in which the
whole community had an interest, was the cathedral, with its foundation walls
above ground and awaiting the corner stone of Missouri granite. It is no de-
traction from the reverence and religious fervor of the Catholic, that the St.
Louisan forecasts with civic pride the completion of a cathedral which will
surpass any other in the country. And by the same sign it is none the less a
fitting subject for civic pride that this monumental creation of the architect
and the artist had as its inspiration the religious motive.

The sun sent slanting rays through banks of clouds into the faces of an
army with banners marching out Lindell avenue on Sunday, the i8th of Oc-
tober, 1908. Pageants of different kinds St. Louis had seen, but never before
one like that. Of military and of civic demonstrations there had been many.
But now moved with the precision and array of an army the men of the Catholic
churches. This mighty host gave new meaning to the 79 parishes of the city.

East and west of Newstead avenue spread a mass of humanity which
crowded sidewalks and lawns and encroached upon the broad asphalt until
only by strenuous effort of the police was a pathway kept open for the moving
column. Above the heads of the marchers and spectators hung from the long
arm of a great crane a massive block of granite with the words "Christo Vic-
tori." Over the foundations of the new cathedral, tier above tier, sat the hun-
dreds of frocked priests and seminarians. In front were grouped about the
Apostolic Delegate, Diomede Falconio, most reverend archbishops and the right
reverend bishops, in their purple robes. A full head above the other dignitaries,
erect of figure, his face alight with the spirit of the event, stood the young
metropolitan of St. Louis, John J. Glennon.

A striking feature in the celebration of the laying of the corner stone was
the interest shown by the entire community. Lindell boulevard, the great resi-
dence, church and club avenue of the city of St. Louis, from Grand avenue
to Kings Highway, a distance of nearly two miles, was filled with waving colors.
In response to the invitation of the central committee having charge of the
celebration the residents and the institutions on the avenue almost without ex-
ception hung out the American flag. The request of the committee was that
the colors of the country be displayed. Directly opposite the scene of the cere-
mony, American flags festooned the windows of the Lindell Avenue Methodist
church.

Among the seated guests upon the stand overlooking the corner stone were
men of all religious beliefs, responsive by their presence to the general sentiment
that the whole city had a living sympathetic interest and pride in the ceremony.

Nearly, if not quite one-half of the population of the city of St. Louis is
Roman Catholic. This population is divided into seventy-nine parishes, all of
which participated as units in the parade of the i8th of October, making the
largest demonstration in number ever seen in the city of St. Louis and one of
the largest in the history of the country. Besides numbers the procession was
of extraordinary character in the nationalities represented. There were:

Forty-four American parishes.

Twenty-one German parishes.

Four Polish parishes.

REV. P. G. ROBERT

REV. DR. JOSEPH BOYLE

CENTENARY METHODIST EPISCOPAL
SECOND BAPTIST CHURCH CHURCH

Sixth and Locust streets, before the Fifth and Pine streets, in 1859. Dr. McAnally's

war Christian Advocate Office on Pine street

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 513

One Slavak parish.

One colored parish.

One Croatian parish.

One Syro-Maronite parish.

Three Italian parishes.

Two Bohemian parishes.

One Greek-Ruthenien parish.

The rule adopted for the order of the procession in honor of the laying
of the corner stone of the cathedral gave the parishes position according to
the dates of the original formation. This brought to the head of the column
the first Catholic parish organization in St. Louis in 1770. The Old Cathedral
parish, as it is known, had been in continuous existence 138 years. It was or-
ganized six years after Laclede founded the settlement of St. Louis.

The Latin, . cut deep into the geological formation which is the founda-
tion of all terrestrial, dedicates the building to the Saviour and in the same sen-
tence honors the city. The sentiment is reverent and patriotic. It is happily
framed. When the archbishop approached the matter of the inscription, he
thought much about what sentiment should be embraced in it. 'To well known
Latin scholars he sent out his request for counsel. He told them that the
words should be few, that they should impress primarily the religious char-
acter of the edifice, the consecration to the Catholic faith. And then he added
that recognition of the patron and of the city should be included. And finally
the archbishop desired that the participation of the entire diocese in the build-
ing of this cathedral should be given imperishable tribute.

The Benedictines are famous for their learning and skill in the crypto-
gram. They were asked to suggest a form of inscription. The archbishop
did not stop with the Latinists of the United States. He gave some of the
scholars of Europe opportunity to compete. A St. Louis priest supplied the
text which, with slight alteration, was decided to express best the sentiments.
He used fewer than forty words, most of them very short. In the Latin, St.
Louis becomes "S. Ludovici."

The translation, following closely the concise Latin, is :

"To Christ the victor, and in honor of St. Louis, King of France, patron
of the bounteous city and archdiocese, this stone, inaugural of the metropoli-
tan church, erected by the bounty of the faithful of the whole diocese, was
placed on October 18, by the Most Reverend Delegate of the Holy See."

The inscription was the composition of Rev. F. G. Holweck, rector of St.
Francis de Sales church on the Gravois road in the southern part of the city.
Father Holweck is one of the foremost classical scholars in the country. He is
the censor librorum of this archdiocese. Catholic books intended for publication
here are submitted in manuscript to him because of his ability to detect errors.
Out of all of the forms suggested for this corner stone, Rector Holweck's ex-
pressed most perfectly the sentiments the archbishop desired.

The parade of the parishes preceded the laying of the corner stone. When
the head of the column led by the grand marshal, Amedee Valle Reyburn, a
descendant of one of the oldest families of St. Louis, reached the site of the
new cathedral, it was met by a procession of prelates and priests, the most

7- VOL. II.

514 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

notable ever seen in the Mississippi valley. The Apostolic Delegate, Most Rev-
erend Diomede Falconio, was escorted by the seven archbishops, thirty bishops
and seven hundred priests from the Sacred Heart convent, on Maryland avenue,
to the site of the cathedral, arriving there just as the procession of the parishes
came marching up from the other direction.

The procession of the parishes was three hours in passing the reviewing
stand upon which the distinguished prelates took their positions. When the
procession of the parishes had filed by, the laying and blessing of the corner
stone took place in accordance with the usual forms of the Catholic church. It
was preceded by the blessing of a great cross which had been erected for the
occasion. After the blessing of the cross Qame the blessing of the foundation
of the new structure, and then the procession of prelates and priests marched
back to the stone which was first blessed and then placed by the Apostolic
Delegate. The ceremony concluded with the drawing of the cross by the trowel
upon the side of the corner stone.

The Catholics of St. Louis had been preparing for this work of building a
grand cathedral a generation or more. Archbishop Kenrick, during his life-
time, conceived and made some preliminary plans looking to a cathedral. The
late Archbishop Kain, who succeeded Archbishop Kenrick, also devoted atten-
tion to the project and started the fund for it. It remained, however, for the
present archbishop of St. Louis, Most Rev. John J. Glennon, to take up pre-
liminaries and to bring the project to the actual construction. Archbishop
Glennon was made coadjutor bishop of St. Louis under Archbishop Kain's
administration during 1903, and the same year, on the death of Archbishop
Kain, Bishop Glennon became archbishop of St. Louis, being the youngest
prelate of that rank in the country.

It was well that the movement progressed slowly. An earlier beginning
might have been a mistake as to location. On the 28th of April, 1871, was
taken the formal step for the cathedral, the corner stone of which was laid
October 18, 1908. Archbishop Kenrick, Bishop Ryan and Vicar-General Muehl-
siepen were at the head of the movement. The men of means of that day
who participated in the incorporation of the St. Louis Cathedral Building
association were James H. Lucas, Henry S. Turner, Joseph O'Neil, John
Withnell, Nicholas Schaeffer, H. J. Spaunhorst, J. B. Ghio, Bernhard Crick-
hard, Julius S. Walsh, John Byrne, Jr., Bernard Slevin, Charles P. Chouteau,
Charles Slevin, James Magnire, Joseph Garneau. The site tentatively selected
was the block bounded by Twenty-second and Twenty-third streets, Pine and
Chestnut streets, now largely occupied by light manufacturing establishments.

The cathedral of St. Louis will be longer, wider and higher than the
Westminster of London. Definite time for the completion of this cathedral
has not been set. The archbishop of St. Louis, Most Rev. John J. Glennon,
lifted the first spade of soil on the first day of May, 1907. Eighteen months
brought the builders to the ceremony of corner stone laying. Not before
1915, probably, will the cathedral be ready for occupancy.

For the cathedral of St. Louis has been chosen the Byzantine style of
architecture. This means an exterior impressive for its magnitude, its strength,
its simplicity. It also means an interior of almost limitless opportunity for

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 515

sacred art, for mosaics, for statuary. The interior is so planned that the
preacher delivering a sermon can look into three thousand faces.

Sunday observance has been repeatedly an issue to which St. Louis news-
papers have given attention. The Whig party in St. Louis went to pieces
and the Native American idea became popular about 1846. A Sunday law
was passed by the common council. The city government was under control
of the Native American party. The new law prohibited the running of omni-
buses "on Sunday after the hour of 2 o'clock in the afternoon for the purpose
of carrying passengers from point to point." This ordinance applied to any
"omnibus or vehicle capable of containing more than four persons." The
ordinance upon omnibus service was denounced editorially.

Mayor O. D. Filley was elected by the Free Soil party shortly before the
war. In August, 1859, the people of St. Louis voted, 7,544 to 5,543, against
the sale of intoxicating liquors on Sunday. The Missouri Republican, com-
menting on the result said:

The triumphant vote by which the people of St. Louis declared their opposition to the
sale of intoxicating liquors on Sunday is a matter of sincere congratulation to all our
best citizens. It was not a party vote; it had nothing to do with party, but was the free
declaration of mind of all parties and nationalities against the excesses which have been
superinduced by a special law of the legislature passed two years ago in effect giving
unlimited license in the absence of a proper police to these houses being kept open on
Sunday * * * * Not only the beer gardens in the suburbs, to which men retire as
a place of pleasure and relaxation — on Sunday, but all the beer saloons and dancehouses
and five or six theaters have been opened on Sunday night on every prominent street in
the city. This is the evil that is mainly complained of by our citizens.

In defiance of the vote against the sale of intoxicating liquors on Sunday,
the common council passed an ordinance legalizing the keeping open of saloons
on Sunday until 9 o'clock in the morning and after 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
This action was severely condemned by the newspapers. It was rebuked in a
ringing message by Mayor Filley.

The nearest approach to a religious riot in St. Louis occurred in 1844,
at Ninth street and Washington avenue. The Native American movement
had reached large proportions. It had in some parts of the country taken the
form of mob violence against Catholic institutions. It gained considerable
strength in St. Louis, but did not assume the phase of religious intolerance,
being directed against foreign immigation on political grounds mainly Phila-
delphia was disgraced by the sacking of churches and by bloodshed. Several
other American cities passed through periods of serious disturbance. What
occurred in this city is given upon high Catholic authority, the language being
that of a member of the clergy who was in St. Louis at the time :

It so happened that the Jesuits had already built a fine church of St. Xavier, and
near it was their house of residence and a splendid college then chartered as a state
university, to which a college of medicine had been annexed. To the latter was attached
a dissecting house, and owing to some shameful neglect on the part of the professors or
students of medicine, human remains were left exposed in the yard adjoining and seen
through interstices of the wooden partition separating it from the public street. Soon a
crowd collected, and then imaginations or passions became strongly excited. Wild rumors
spread abroad that all the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition were being renewed in St.
Louis by the Jesuits, that men and women had been tortured and put to death. Cries
were raised in the streets and the mob began to arm for an onslaught on the college.

516 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

At this moment the brave Judge Bryan Mullanphy, and another brave Irishman named
John Conran collected a posse of Catholics and friendly Protestant citizens armed with
rifles. The American, Irish and German Catholics assembled in great force around the
Jesuits' college, prepared to defend it if necessary, even to the last extremity. The oppos-
ing bands met and determined upon a desperate struggle. However, Judge Mullanphy
went boldly forward and asked to be heard by the opposing mob, then sending forth wild
yells and imprecations. Having obtained a hearing with great difficulty, and speaking
with the coolness and deliberation his true courage and sense of duty inspired, the judge
gave a correct and brief explanation of the case, and he declared that every effort should
be made to detect and punish the delinquents, who had offered such an outrage to public
decency and to common humanity. The mob finally dispersed, and with them the party
of defenders. Terrible rumors prevailed all that day in St. Louis, that our Catholic
churches and houses would be burned or wrecked. Some faithful and brave Irishmen
had armed for defense of our seminary, and contrived to let us know through the chinks
of our planked enclosure that we were in some danger of attack. It was only on the day
following, we learned all of the particulars of excitement that had taken place in the
city. When the daily papers had published the details, popular indignation was quelled.
Only the natural expression of wounded feeling found vent in the various journals.

In the fall of 1850 came Father Matthew, the Irish apostle of temperance.
There had already been organized in St. Louis a Catholic Total Abstinence
society. The zealous president of it was Rev. John T. Higgenbotham, to whom
Father Matthew had administered the pledge in St. John's college, Waterford.
Father Matthew was made a guest of Archbishop Kenrick and began his work
in St. Louis. He preached in the principal churches. He delivered addresses
from platforms in public places. Following his sermons and his speeches,
Father Matthew administered personally the pledge to all who came forward
to take it. The occasion was made as impressive as possible. Every day the
Apostle as he was commonly called received in the parlor at the archbishop's
house. He had two secretaries. His callers included all classes from mer-
chants to roustabouts. One day a gigantic riverman staggered into the recep-
tion room, stretched himself out on the archbishop's sofa and dropped into a
drunken slumber. One of the priests suggested to Father Matthew that the
visitor was hardly a promising subject for his effort.

"My dear," replied the Apostle, in his mild serious manner, "I am quite
sure he will take the pledge so soon as he awakes and comes to consciousness,
for he will then be sober and ashamed of his past course of life when I speak
to him."

He would not permit the drunken man to be disturbed. Father Matthew
continued his temperance work in St. Louis until the beginning of winter. His
doings Were reported at length in the papers. When the Apostle left St. Louis
he was escorted to the boat by thousands of "total abstainers."

Two notable events of philanthropic character distinguished the year 1847.

From across the water came reports that Ireland and Scotland had sus-
tained almost total failure of crops. It was said that hundreds had died for
want of proper nourishment and that thousands more would perish unless
relief reached them. St. Louis acted promptly. The friends of Ireland met,
with Colonel John O'Fallon presiding. They chose a citizens' committee and
obtained contributions in money and food. About the same time citizens of
St. Louis who were of Scottish descent, organized under the leadership of

BISHOP C. F. ROBERTSON

THE CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL

CHRIST CHURCH

Thirteenth and Locust streets, as it

appeared in 1860

ST. PAUL'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH
Seventeenth and Olive streets,
before the war

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 517

Kenneth McKenzie, the fur trader. They raised a considerable sum of money,
which was forwarded to Scotland.

From conversions of non-Catholics, the Catholic church gained strength
in St. Louis before the war. As early as 1848 Archbishop Kenrick began a
notable undertaking. He had public announcement made that during Lent he
would deliver evening lectures. His subjects were such as Evidences of Chris-
tianity, Divine Revelation, Mysteries of Religion, Doctrines of the Church,
Ritual Observances and so on through an elaborate course of information on
the Catholic faith. About the same time that the archbishop announced his
lectures, a Catholic newspaper called the St. Louis Newsletter was started.
Father O'Hanlon was made the editor. The Newsletter was published weekly
and it made a feature of the archbishop's lectures. Not only was the public
given to understand that the lecture course would be open to anybody who
chose to come but a special effort was made to show non-Catholics that they
were welcome. Owners of pews threw them open to all comers. It soon
became apparent that a considerable proportion of the attendants upon these
lectures were non-Catholics. The cathedral was thronged, the attendance in-
cluding some of the most prominent people in the city. The editor of the
Newsletter of 1848 has left a record of this religious awakening in St. Louis:

It was scarcely possible to understand how the archbishop could find a moment's
time to prepare and arrange the heads of these discourses, much less to deliver them in
that orderly and logical manner in which they were molded; but they were indeed most
instructive to the priests, as to the laity present, for while each lecture evinced a pro-
found knowledge of the subject, it was enforced by reasoning and illustrations which
carried conviction to the minds of all dispassionate hearers. I found that the archbishop
was accustomed to jot down on a small sheet of paper the divisions of his sermon for
each evening, while he trusted to a well stored memory for the abundant matter hia
theological erudition had gleaned, and a measured fluency and accuracy of language
came to his aid without any apparent effort. I was fortunate to procure these notes after
they had been used, and soon the archbishop undertook to revise my reports, before they
were sent to the printer. I have reason to know these resumes served a very useful pur-
pose and they formed a feature of the Newsletter which was particularly interesting to
all its readers. The result of this course of instruction was to bring an additional num-
ber of non-Catholic visitors to the cathedral. As their interest and spirit of inquiry grew,
many of them desired interviews with the archbishop to receive further explanations and
instruction. Several well-disposed and distinguished persons were thus prepared for ad-
mission to the church. Whether conditionally or unconditionally administered, baptism
was received by many, and afterwards these became practical and fervent Catholics. Not
alone the archbishop but several of his priests engaged in the duty of catechising and
receiving converts of the greatest respectability and of a thoughtful intelligent class. As
in the Apostolic time, the Lord daily added to His church those who were to be saved.
So St. Louis began to acquire a distinction for Catholicity.

Archbishop Kenrick gave a great deal of attention to the Newsletter. He
not only contributed articles but advised as to editorial policy. He counseled
that while in its main feature it should be distinctively a Catholic newspaper,
yet it should maintain a high literary character through essays, reviews and
especially in well selected reprint. He used to recommend the use of scissors
and paste pot, saying to the editor, "Selected sense is much better than original
nonsense."

Thirty years after Archbishop Kenrick had inaugurated and carried out
a policy, if that word may be used, of interesting and impressing non-Catholics,

ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

another great preacher with remarkable power for awakening religious thought
came forward in the Catholic church of St. Louis. It is told of Patrick John
Ryan that when he was thirteen years old, in Naughton's school in the parish
of Rathmines, he was chosen as the spokesman to deliver a special address to
Daniel O'Connell, imprisoned in 1844 at Richmond, Bridewell. The boy was
the born orator. He had a taste for literary effort. His schoolmates selected
him to prepare the address and read it to the patriot.

Father Ryan was only a deacon when with a determination to become a
missionary priest in America, he reached St. Louis toward the close of 1852
and was sent to Carondelet. With him came Patrick A. Feehan, who became
bishop of Nashville and afterwards archbishop of Chicago. The two young
deacons were sent to the seminary to remain until of age for ordination to the
priesthood. Father Ryan became a bishop in 1872 but long before that he
was famed for his eloquence. After his ordination in 1854, he was attached
to the cathedral. He became best known as pastor of St. John's, where for
twenty years he preached regularly, his sermons drawing non-Catholics in large
numbers. It became the custom with strangers in the city over Sunday to
attend St. John's on Sixteenth and Chestnut to hear a sermon by Father Ryan.

Father Tom Burke, the Dominican of international fame as an orator,
came to St. Louis between 1870 and 1880 and remained some time. He was
on a lecture tour of the United States. While he was here Father Tom, for
that everybody called him, heard Bishop Ryan then but recently consecrated.
There was no jealousy of Father Ryan; the humility of the man forbade it,
but intense admiration for his power as a speaker. The St. Louis priests
asked Father Tom what he thought of their pulpit orator.

"Well, in good truth," replied Father Burke, "when I heard Lacordaire in
Paris, I thought the whole church could not produce his equal, but now that
I have heard your good and great assistant bishop, I do not hesitate to say
that as a pulpit orator he immeasurably surpasses that celebrated preacher of
our order."

After the manifold duties of bishop made it impossible to preach weekly
at St. John's, Father Ryan adopted the custom of occupying the pulpit on the
first Sunday of the month, unless he was too far away to get home. "Bishop
Ryan's Sunday" obtained a fixed place on the religious calendar of St. Louis.
On those Sundays St. John's was uncomfortably crowded.

The outside calls upon Bishop Ryan grew numerous and pressing. By
invitation, the eloquent prelate preached twice before the Missouri legislature.
He was very obliging. Twice he went to Columbia to address the students of
the University of Missouri. The Sanctity of the Church and Modern Skep-
ticism were two subjects upon which Bishop Ryan preached or lectured in
the leading cities of the country. The last traced popular opinion through
various phases with deductions in favor of Catholicism. In 1882, Bishop Ryan
delivered one of the most notable of his many lectures before an audience
which filled Mercantile Library hall. It was explanatory and conciliatory,
calculated to win consideration of the principles of Catholicism. The audience
included several pastors of Protestant churches.

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 519

From the days of his student life, Father Ryan had a liking for the press.
He wrote much for periodicals when other duties permitted. Out of Father
Ryan's eloquent preaching and the interest it aroused in Catholicism developed
one of the most notable features in the history of St. Louis journalism. Joseph
B. McCullagh, editor of the Globe-Democrat, printed in full one of the bishop's
addresses. Bishop Ryan had two kinds of sermons, the dogmatic and the
moral. Mr. McCullagh selected a dogmatic discourse, one that brought out
the salient and distinctive qualities of the Catholic faith. Then he opened the
columns of the paper to all creeds. For months "The Great Controversy" was
carried on in the Globe-Democrat, filling in the aggregate some hundreds of
columns.

Archbishop Kenrick rarely spoke of the experiences he had in the mis-
sionary work which made Catholicism so strong in St. Louis and vicinity during
the period of great immigration ten years before the Civil war. He had a
free colored servant, "William." In a vehicle, accompanied by William, the
archbishop drove through the country without regard to seasons or weather.
One day he insisted on fording a swollen creek in St. Charles county and went
under, having a narrow escape. But of these incidents he was reticent.

The archbishop's advice to young priests, probably, revealed the lesson of
his own experience. He was accustomed to say that when a profession is
embraced the first duty is to acquire all the knowledge necessary to discharge
it fully and conscientiously. Until that is done extraneous duty should be
avoided. "Therefore," he said, to young priests, "lose no day that you shall
not apply some part of it to the learning of dogmatic and moral theology as
also to the reading of commentaries on the Scriptures." The history of the
church and the lives of the saints, he recommended also, and he deemed it
highly important to have a favorite book of devotion to "nourish piety within
the soul." Careful preparation for preaching was recommended.

The extraordinary growth of Catholicism in St. Louis, the theological
strength of the clergy, the thousands of conversions of residents, not so much
from other churches as from the mass of the indifferent, are better understood
when the example and precepts of Peter Richard Kenrick are known.

"The archbishop's bank" was a financial institution of St. Louis for many
years, beginning about 1850. A German priest, Rev. Father Heim, originated
the idea. To accommodate the working people of his parish, Father Heim
received their savings on deposit and took care of the money. There was
distrust of banks by these people to such a degree as to discourage savings.
John Byrne, Jr., looked into the plan of Father Heim and advised Archbishop
Kenrick to extend it. An office was opened near the cathedral, books were
prepared and accounts were opened. Laboring people, especially those new
in the country, flocked in numbers to the bank and made their deposits, on
which interest was allowed. The money was loaned to priests and religious
orders to build and mortgages were taken, revenues being pledged for the
payment of interest on the mortgages and for their final redemption. The city
was growing. New parishes were being established. There was demand for
the money and the security was good. Archbishop Kenrick conducted his
banking business in no perfunctory manner. He was an actual manager. He

520 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

supervised all of the departments. He looked closely after the balancing of
the accounts with an expedition and accuracy which amazed those who had
known him previously as a wonderfully successful preacher. For a long time
the archbishop held title deeds to property given for new churches, schools
and institutions. He was charged with almost countless obligations. He called
to his assistance when the business became too burdensome the help of Joseph
O'Neil. Gradually the business of the archbishop was wound up in a most
satisfactory manner and modern methods took the place of "the archbishop's
bank."

Three times the Young Men's Christian association was started before
it secured a permanent and flourishing hold in St. Louis. In 1853, nine years
after the original Young Men's Christian association was founded in London,
a St. Louis association was started. Samuel Cupples and Henry Hitchcock
were officers. The Civil war caused this association to disband. After several
years another beginning was made by Rev. Shepard Wells and General Clinton
B. Fisk. This movement failed. In 1875 twelve young men met at the Union
Methodist church, then on Eleventh and Locust streets, and organized the
Y. M. C. A., which has grown to the present impressive strength. The officers
were H. C. Wright, Frank L. Johnson, Dr. L. H. Laidley, Charles C. Nichols,
and E. Anson More. The association occupied one rented room after another
down town, until in 1879 Mr. Moody conducted one of his revivals. The
evangelist appealed to the business men of St. Louis to provide the Young
Men's Christian association with a building. Stephen M. Edgell, Carlos S.
Greeley and John R. Lionberger headed a subscription which reached $40,000.
The Union Methodist church was bought for $37,500. In 1885 the association
occupied the former residence of John D. Perry on Pine and Twenty-ninth
streets and built a gymnasium. In 1892 the property on Eleventh and Locust
was sold for $125,000. A lot on Grand and Franklin avenues was bought for
$51,250 in 1894. On this a building which cost $200,000 was erected. The
business management of the association has been excelled only by its Christian
influence. In its third of a century the St. Louis Young Men's Christian Associa-
tion has had two general secretaries — Wralter C. Douglas and George T. Coxhead.
The latter has held the position twenty-three years. For many years the asso-
ciation had one presiding head — Thomas S. McPheeters. It has added branch
after branch to the central until the whole city is its field of operation. In
the northern and southern parts of the city the branches occupy their own
buildings and grounds. The railroad branch occupies a model Y. M. C. A.
building erected at a cost of $80,000, to which Miss Helen Gould was the
chief contributor. This branch was dedicated in October, 1907, with Miss
Gould in attendance. Queen Victoria knighted the man who first thought of
the Y. M. C. A. and put his thought into action. The honor roll of most
useful citizens contains the names of the men who have made the St. Louis
Young Men's Christian association.

In fifty years the St. Louis Provident Association has expended for the
relief of the poor of St. Louis $1,450,000, has investigated 175,000 cases.
About 1860 the most charitable man in St. Louis, by common consent, was
James E. Yeatman. He lived on Olive street in what was called Yeatman's

THE SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Type of church architecture, 1909

THE RELIGIOUS LIFE 521

row. The poor, Mr. Yeatman had always with him. One very bad night he
was called to the door and was told a tale of distress by a woman who repre-
sented that her child was desperately ill and that she had no means to buy
food or medicine. Mr. Yeatman took the address, gave some temporary help
and went back to his fire. He couldn't rest. He got his overcoat and started
out. Around the corner at Tenth and Locust streets lived Dr. Pope, the emi-
nent surgeon. He was just leaving the house to take his buggy for a visit
to a patient. Mr. Yeatman insisted that Dr. Pope go with him to see the sick
child. The doctor demurred and then yielded. The two good Samaritans
made their way to an alley above Franklin avenue and found the house. But
the supposed abode of distress was lighted and a sound of revelry came through
the cracks of door and window. Mr. Yeatman knocked. The door was opened.
There stood the woman holding a child. Behind her surrounding a table upon
which stood the beer bought with Mr. Yeatman's charity were three or four
lusty fellows.

"Where is that sick child?" asked Mr. Yeatman.

"Here she is," said the woman, indicating the one in her arms.

Dr. Pope looked at the little sleeper closely and said with some emphasis,
"I prescribe soap and water. Good night."

The next day Mr. Yeatman invited a few business men to meet him. That
was the genesis of the St. Louis Provident Association, which handles from
$35,000 to $50,000 a year, helping the poor to help themselves and protecting
charity from abuse.

Once in its history the St. Louis Provident Association faced a crisis which
threatened to close its doors. Philanthropy knows what a panic means. The
winter of 1893-4 drained the resources of the charity organizations. One day
Mr. Scruggs and Mr. Cupples found themselves facing an empty treasury
and the demands for relief almost without precedent. They sent for Adolphus
Busch and on a Sunday afternoon the three men sat in the parlor of Mr.
Cupples' home and discussed ways and means to keep the institution open.
The next day Mr. Busch came back. He brought $10,000. Half of it was his
individual gift. The remainder was from Mr. Lemp and other brewers. The
Provident Association did not suspend.

More than one hundred philanthropic organizations occupy the St. Louis
field. With very few exceptions they are conducted upon the cardinal principle
of helping the unfortunate to help themselves. The heart of St. Louis is
charitable but in the exercise of charity practical judgment goes with the
humane sentiment. That, in large measure, explains why St. Louis has no
slums, like the plague spots of the other large cities of the country. As he
rode about St. Louis in the fall of 1908, Archbishop Farley of New York
commented :

"In St. Louis the workingmen and poorer classes are much better taken
care of in their homes than similar classes in New York. This results in con-
tentment and prevents social troubles. I have seen no districts in St. Louis
that I could call squalid. In fact, there seems to be no real squalor in the city."

CHAPTER XXI.
THE GROWING OF ST. LOUIS

Laclede's Landing Place — Market Street the Dividing Line — Law of the City's Development —
Francis P. Blair's Prophecy in 1872 — Earliest Land Titles — Improvement Within a Year
and a Day the Condition — Deed of Mill Creek Valley — Auction Sales at the Church Door
on Sunday — The Livre Terrien — St. Ange's Land System Accepted by Spanish Governors
— Inchoate Titles in 1804 — Bights of Settlers Confirmed by Congress — Houses of Posts —
Southern Exposure vs. East Piazza — The Universal Gallery of Colonial Times — American
Mistakes in Architecture — "Laclede's House" — Stone Mansions — Wooden Pegs for Nails
— Suburban Estates Below Chouteau Avenue — The Founder's Plan of Streets — A Place
Public on the Biver Front — The Towpath Custom — After the Fire of 1849 — Sales Based
on Laclede 's Assignments — The First Addition — ' ' The Hill ' ' — Enterprise of James H.
Lucas — Jeremiah Conner's Plan for Washington Avenue — St. Louis as Flagg Saw it in
1836 — George B. Taylor's Skyscraper — Yeatman's Bow — The American Street — Newman's
Folly — Quality Row — Henry Clay's St. Louis Speculation — Stoddard Addition — Conception
of Grand Avenue — The Lindells — Henry Shaw's Garden — Growth of the Park System —
The Financial Street — Separation of City and County — Local Nomenclature.

I believe, my fellow citizens, that this project will be fully completed ; that this enterprise
will be realized ; that there will be a great park here ; that in a short space of time it will be
surrounded by elegant private residences, and that the talk about a narrow gauge railway to
reach it will be superseded by the actual fact of street railways reaching it. All of the great
cities of this country have outgrown anticipation. This has been the case with our own city,
and, in my judgment, and indeed in the judgment of others who have given this matter critical
attention, St. Louis will continue increasing in population and developing in size until it will
outgrow all the other cities in the country. — Francis P. Blair, Opening of Forest Park, 1872.

Laclede's hardy colonists, "the first thirty," poling their bateau along the
western bank of the Mississippi, made their landing and later their permanent
settlement about the foot of Market street. In 1911 Market street is still the
dividing line with half of the city north and half of the city south of it. Busi-
ness has spread naturally north and south. The residence section has moved
westward. This has been the law of the evolution of St. Louis through the
generations.

The river frontage of the city for twenty miles is given up to railroad
yards and heavy manufacturing plants. The overflow of manufacturing and
the crowding of traffic find relief either by crossing the river to the great
American bottom or by following certain natural valley routes north and south
of the main residence district. As the city grows the business district expands.
Year by year it encroaches upon the residence sections. To accommodate those
residents who must move and those who come to St. Louis to make new homes,
the succession of rising ridges and plateaus to the westward must be occupied.

The growth in population of the United States from 1890 to 1900 was 21
per cent. The growth of St. Louis in the same period was 27 per cent. The
growth of one western residence section of St. Louis between those years
was 239 per cent. This section is from Vandeventer avenue westward to and
along the north side of Forest Park. It is bounded on the north by Page
avenue. Within this residence section there were 14,286 people in 1890; there
were 48,492 in 1900; there were 55,843 in I9°3- Since the World's Fair in

523

524 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

1904, the development of this section has been even more astonishing than
before. Could he see Forest Park and its surroundings in 1909, Francis P.
Blair would marvel at the fulfillment of his own prophecy.

The first land titles were issued from Laclede's house. Two years since
the founding had barely passed before settlers were seeking deeds. The land
was Spain's, given away by Louis XV to his "dear cousin," Charles. But
Spain was having trouble to reconcile the republican Frenchmen of New Orleans
to the new authority. No Spanish officer had come to establish the new sover-
eignty over St. Louis. St. Ange de Bellerive was here. After delivering Fort
Chartres down the river on the east side to the English captain, Sterling, St.
Ange and his French soldiers had come ov.er to St. Louis. In January, 1766,
he began to exercise functions of government. Up to that time the word of
Laclede had been law. But Laclede had fur trading business to look after.
There were forms of authority, details of government, with which the founder
could not concern himself. St. Ange became de facto governor. Four years
the French officer maintained order, issued the deeds which confirmed the
verbal grants of land and acted as military commander of the post. Then
on the 2Oth of May, 1770, came Don Pedro Piernas, the first Spanish lieutenant-
governor. St. Ange retired. His acts were confirmed. In recognition of his
services he was offered a commission as captain in the Spanish army.

The first title to land in St. Louis was issued in April, 1766. It was for
a lot upon which to build a house. Several other titles, or concessions as
they were called, were granted. Then, in August of that year, the St. Ange
government enlarged its activities and deeded to Laclede a large tract in what
is now Mill Creek valley. The deed was in French. Translated it read:

We, Louis St. Ange de Bellerive, captain commanding for the King at the post of
St. Louis, upon the Spanish part of Illinois, and Joseph Lefebvre de Inglebert, sub-dele-
gate of the Intendant of Louisiana, and justice of the peace, in virtue of the power to us
given by the governor and intendant of Louisiana, and, upon the demand of- Mr. Laclede
Liguest, a settler of the post of St. Louis, have conceded and hereby do concede to him,
in fee simple, a tract of land situated on the prairie of the village of St. Louis, of eight
arpens, adjoining on one side the land taken by the settler named Tayon, and the frontage
extending upon the Little Eiver, with a depth of eighty arpens, according to lines which
shall be given by the person detailed to survey the land, which tract of eight arpens and
more if any is found towards Little Eiver the said Mr. Laclede, or his assigns shall enjoy
in fee simple, under the condition that this land shall be improved within one year and
a day, provided also the same shall remain liable to the public and other charges that
it may please his majesty to place thereon.

Given in St. Louis the llth of August, 1766.

(Signed) ST. ANGE,

LEFEBVRE,
LABUXIEEE.

Lefebvre, who joined in the making of the deed, had come from the east
side of the Mississippi with St. Ange a few months previously. He was a
lawyer, one of two in the settlement. The other was Labuxiere, who had
moved to St. Louis from the English side of the river. In April, 1766, a deed
was given to Labuxiere, or as sometimes written, Labusciere. The Labuxiere
deed was signed by St. Ange. It established title to a lot fronting 300 feet
on Rue Royale, now Main street and extending eastward 150 feet to the river
front.

RESIDENCE OF THOMAS F. RIDDICK, 1818

GREEN ERSKINE GEORGE R. TAYLOR

THE CITY'S EVOLUTION

THE GROWING OF ST. LOUIS 525

Quite naturally Labuxiere and Lefebvre, having taken up residence in the
new settlement, set about the practice of their profession. They found the
settlers occupying the ground which Laclede had allotted them. There were
no deeds. Transactions in realty were out of the question. As soon as St.
Ange was ready to act, Lefebvre and Labuxiere were prepared with the legal
forms. Laclede as founder of the settlement was entitled to early considera-
tion. He asked to have formally confirmed to him — what? His home on the
square between the Place d'Armes and the church lot? Not at all. Laclede's
engineering bent of mind had, immediately after locating St. Louis, grasped
the advantage of the mill site. The Little river, La Petite Riviere, the settlers
had named it, meandered more than three miles through what is now the
network of railroad tracks, the Mill Creek valley. It was a constant stream
of considerable head. Its source was Rock Spring. Two other great springs
fed it. Near what is now Seventh street, the topography favored a dam.
At small cost of labor a fall of ten or twelve feet could be created. Laclede
located on Little river a mill site. Soon after the land office of 1766 was ready
to do business, he secured the formal title to his property. Nowhere near the
settlement was there another water power.

The dam was built. The mill was running very early in the history of
St. Louis. It formed a considerable part of the estate which Laclede left at
his death in 1778. Auguste Chouteau was administrator of his stepfather's
property. In conformity with the custom of those days the mill was offered
to the highest bidder. Not once but three times, upon different dates, the
mill was publicly offered. The final report of the constable, or huissier, as
he was called, is an interesting document. It is a revelation of the methodical
official procedure which was observed at a time when St. Louis, in the view of
some historical writers, was only a temporary trading post. De Mers was the
constable. His report of the sale of the mill opens:

In the year 1779, on Sunday, the 20th of June, in virtue of the decree of Don Fer-
nando de Leyba, captain in the regiment of infantry of Louisiana, commander-in-chief
and lieutenant-governor of the western part of Illinois, dated the 19th day of the current
month, annexed at the bottom of the petition of Mr. Auguste Chouteau, who is the admin-
istrator of the estate of the late Mr. Laclede, dated on the same day, I, Francis De Mere,
constable (huissier), in the jurisdiction of Illinois, residing in St. Louis, purposely went
before the main door of ingress and egress of the parochial church of the said post of
St. Louis, at the end of the great mass, from which church people went out in great
number. There I have, with high and intelligible voice, declared and made known to the
public that I was to proceed forthwith (for the first adjudication) to the sale of a water
flour mill, moving and turning with two sets of stones with its building in wood and
machinery and tools, as the same exists at this day, situated near the village of St. Louis,
upon the creek called the Little river, belonging to the estate of the said late Mr. La-
clede, where all persons shall be admitted to bid, provided they give good and sufficient
securities who reside in this post, which persons shall pay the amount of the adjudication
in deer or beaver skins in good order at the St. Louis price, one-half within one year
from this day and one-half within one year later which will be the month of June, 1781.
By my repeated clamor, the public being assembled, the said mill and dependencies were
bidden for by the person named Moreau in the sum of 1,500 livres in peltries. After many
announcements often repeated, no person presenting himself to bid over, I have declared
that the second auction of the mill shall take place the next Sunday, the 27th day of the
current month, at the same time and place, when and where all persons shall be admitted

526 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

to bid under the conditions explained. I left with my witnesses who signed with me, the

undersigned constable in the year and day as above.

DE MEBS,
DIEGO BLANCO,
L. RICHABT.

In the same form the huissier reported the procedure of the 2/th of June
when Moreau again bid 1500 livres and a person named Cambas bid 1501
livres. The third and closing sale was on the next Sunday the 4th day of
July. The huissier's report announced the result:

The said mill and its dependencies were bidden for by Cambas to 1,500 livres, by
the person named Deschapine to 1,600 livres, by the said Moreau to 1,700 livres, by Cam-
bas to 1,800 livres, by Deschapine to 1,900 livres, and by Auguste Chouteau to 2,000 livres,
in peltries. After I had made many announcements, no person bidding any more, and
after I had waited until noon, the public going away, the Mr. Auguste Chouteau asked
for the deed of his bidding which was granted him. The said mill and dependencies
were adjudged to Mr. Chouteau by Mr. Fernando de Leyba, the aforesaid lieutenant-gov-
ernor, for the sum of 2,000 livres in deerskins which the said Mr. Chouteau has promised
to pay to the said estate, in conformity with the terms before explained, under the special
and general mortgage of all of his movable and immovable goods present and future.
Mr. Chouteau has offered as his security Mr. Sylvester Labbadie, merchant in this post,
who has voluntarily accepted the said security, and binds himself to pay the sum when
it becomes due in default of the said Mr. Chouteau, under the obligation of a mortgage
of all of his movable and immovable goods, a schedule of which he has submitted tr
this jurisdiction. The following persons have signed the original with us. Don Fernand*
de Leyba, lieutenant-governor, the constable De Mers and the assisting witnesses, Diego
Blanco, a sergeant in the troops of this garrison, and Louis Eichart, a soldier of said
garrison.

(Signed)

CHOUTEAU,
LABBADIE,
DE MEBS,

DON FERNANDO DE LEYBA.
Louis EICHART,
DIEGO BLANCO.

A copy conformable to the original at St. Louis, the said year and day.

(Signed)

FERNANDO DE LEYBA.

The arpen, or arpent as it was spelled in later times, was French measure-
ment of land. An arpent was the equivalent of three-fourths of an acre. The
original plot acquired by Laclede for his mill site was 640 arpents, or 480
acres. But this was increased by Laclede to noo acres. The founder of St.
Louis owned in Mill Creek valley a body of land nearly as large as Forest
Park. Back to this sale by De Mers at the church; back of that to the St.
Ange deed of August, 1766, is the chain of title to millions of dollars worth
of realty now occupied by Cupples station and the terminal tracks.

While he awaited the coming of the Spanish, St. Ange did a land office
business. In the four years that he performed the duties of commandant he
issued the titles of many grants to settlers. The record of these grants was
kept in the "Livre Terrien." Real estate men of later generations knew these
as the "provincial land books." When Piernas, the first Spanish lieutenant-
governor, came in 1770, he accepted in a general way the forms that St. Angft
had used and issued similar titles to grants* A little more elaboration of official

THE GROWING OF ST. LOUIS 527

signatures was about the only modification. Successors to Piernas perpetuated
the system of real estate record devised by Labusciere, notary, and approved
by St. Ange. This went on for thirty years until the time of Delassus. Six
books of the "Livre Terrien" series, each bound in leather, contained the
records of the grants. It does not appear that St. Ange, or the Spanish
governors, required any payment to the government for these grants. The
smaller concessions of land were homesteads. They confirmed to the settler
the right to the soil he had occupied and improved. The larger grants were
in consideration of some service rendered to the royal government.

But while St. Ange exercised authority to issue the titles to grants at St.
Louis, and while the successive governors continued to do the same, these
titles were not complete. Survey of the land granted was an essential step.
And furthermore it was a provision of Spanish law that the grant made by
the lieutenant-governor at St. Louis must go to the governor-general at New
Orleans for final confirmation.

The land-holding settlers at St. Louis were not wise in their generation.
They secured their forms of title from the lieutenant-governors. As soon as
Piernas came a "surveyor of the colony of Illinois" in the person of Martin
Duralde was named. The grants were surveyed. The property included in
the grants was definitely described. So far the provincial land books were in
order. The transfer of sovereignty to the United States found the great,
majority of the St. Louis landholders napping. Only eleven of them had com-
pleted their titles. During thirty-four years the habitants of St. Louis had
held their lands or had traded them without regard to final confirmation, save
in the few exceptions mentioned. The treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800 con-
veyed back to France the Province of Louisiana. It made no provision to
cover rights of property. It was a secret treaty. The habitants of St. Louis
went on trading in realty of defective title. Not until 1802 was the treaty
announced at Barcelona by proclamation. And then the King said he hoped
the French Republic "would protect the inhabitants in the peaceful possession
of their property, and that all grants of property, of whatever denomination,
made by my government, may be confirmed, though not confirmed by me."
Six months later, April 30, 1803, France, in ceding the Louisiana Territory
to the United States put into the treaty this clause :

The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the union of the
United States and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal
Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, immunities of citizens of the
United States, and in the meantime they shall be protected in the free enjoyment of their
liberty, property, and the religion which they profess.

"Inchoate" was the term which applied to the title of almost every piece
of property in the settlement when the American captain raised the flag over
St. Louis, March 10, 1804. The landholders awoke. Before the month was
out Congress had acted. The first legislation for the Louisiana Territory was
upon this chaos of property rights. The initial law for St. Louis and all of
the rest of the Purchase was approved by President Jefferson on March 26,
1804. It recognized the strength of the rudimentary titles. It sought to quiet
the fears of the habitants who were in actual possession of land without com-
plete titles. It was of general character, laying the basis for investigation and

528 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

adjustment of all claims. Before every Congress, for a quarter of a century,
were measures relating to land titles in St. Louis. Not until 1866 did the
legislation cease. Congress finally sent to the United States District court for
adjudication the few claims remaining unsettled.

So far as the earlier land records of St. Louis went, they seemed to have
been kept well. The trouble with them was in part indefiniteness of survey,
but more the general failure to complete the titles. Settlers occupied and
claimed their land. They recorded their holdings. Communication with New
Orleans where the governor-general lived was a matter of months of travel.
There were no mails. It is not difficult to understand why the grants were
not presented for final confirmation.

To the credit of the United States is the fact that the rights of the settlers
under the inchoate titles were respected scrupulously. To confirm all claims
that could be established was the policy prompting Congress. The first act,
passed in March, 1804, confirmed the grants made to actual settlers before,
December 20, 1803. This act limited holdings to one square mile. The next
act of Congress confirmed grants made prior to March 20, 1804. The next
year Congress provided that habitants having duly registered warrants from
French or Spanish authority for land upon which they were living should have
their titles confirmed to them. Congress went still farther. An act confirmed
their holdings to persons who had settled on land before December 20, 1803,
and were still in possession. Congress appointed a recorder of titles and
associated with him two commissioners. This commission took up the investi-
gation of claims and proceeded to apply the laws which Congress had passed.
The commission issued 1,342 confirmation certificates. Many claims were not
approved because the provisions of the laws did not meet the cases. The com-
missioners advised that the government be more liberal in its treatment of
claimants. Another law was enacted. This was in 1812, a few months after
the first commission had finished a three years' investigation. The second
examination conducted under the more liberal provisions resulted in 1,746 con-
firmations additional to the first lot. On 801 claims rejection was recommended.
In 1832 Congress provided for another commission to report upon claims still
existing. This commission reported and the report was confirmed. But dis-
satisfied claimants continued to agitate. They importuned at Washington.
Their assertions affected values at St. Louis. In 1866 Congress made a finality
of legislation on land titles in St. Louis by sending all remaining claims to the
Federal court. These claims were not numerous, but they echoed in the court
for many years.

Some mistakes were made in the earlier legislation by Congress. These
were corrected in subsequent acts. Honest intention of the American govern-
ment to give the founders and original landholders of St. Louis their property
rights was evident. In some cases these rights were but little more definite
than squatters might acquire. Congress after Congress took action. Com-
mission after commission investigated and reported. Some cases were in the
courts through generations. Justice at times seemed blind and slow. In the
end the equity of the first comers won out almost invariably. The title of
possession and occupancy proved more potent than technicality. The sanctity

RESIDENCE OF MAJOR WTLLIAM CHRISTY
Built of stone, 1818

JOSEPH K. BENT ROBERT W. POWELL

THE CITY'S EVOLUTION

THE GROWING OF ST. LOUIS 529

of the inchoate titles of the French and Spanish periods was upheld with all
the power of the United States authority. The realty of St. Louis rests upon
record as firm as the physical foundations of the city.

The St. Louisan of the first decade did not go far for his building material.
Upon his quarter or half or whole block of ground was growing the wood.
Laclede noted that fact when he marked the trees for Auguste Chouteau in
December, 1763. Along the river front and outcropping in many places else-
where was a ledge of limestone easily quarried. Architecture varied much,
according to means and taste. The post house was most popular. Early
settlers in St. Louis did not build many log houses after the plan of American
pioneers on the Atlantic seaboard. They chose trees of less diameter and set
them on end. For the better of this class of houses the post was hewed about
nine inches square. The cheaper houses were built, sides and ends, of round,
undressed posts set as closely as possible three feet deep in the ground. When
the house builder went to the trouble of hewing his posts, he sometimes set
them on a stone foundation above the earth. This preserved the post longer.
The flooring was of slabs. The ceiling was seldom over ten feet from the
floor. Almost every house in St. Louis had some kind of a porch, or gallery
as it was called, in front. The size of the gallery indicated the circumstances
of the habitant. Wooden houses were from twenty to thirty feet in length
and were divided into two or three rooms. The chimneys were of stone, built
often in the center of the house in such manner as to give fireplaces on both
sides.

Brackenridge, after close observation of the early architecture of St. Louis,
concluded that the French settlers were wise. He said:

In the building of these houses the logs instead of being laid horizontally, as ours,
are placed in a perpendicular position. The interstices are closed with earth or stone, aa
with us. This constitutes a more durable dwelling, and it retains its shape much longer.
The roof is extremely broad, extending out with a gradual slope for the purpose of afford-
ing a covering for the gallery. The houses are built in a very singular form, and, it is
said, copied from the West Indies. They do not exceed one story in height and those
of the more wealthy are surrounded with spacious galleries; some only on one or two
sides. These galleries are extremely useful; they render the house cool and agreeable in
summer, and afford a pleasant promenade in the heat of the day.

The case of S. E. vs. E. P. has been on trial with seven generations of
St. Louisans. The first house built in St. Louis had an E. P. In those days
the east piazza was not mentioned. But nearly every house erected in St.
Louis for forty years had a gallery. And, if possible, the gallery was on the
east side. Where the house did not front to the east, the house owner felt
that he lived at a disadvantage unless he had a gallery on the east side. The
gallery was the almost universal feature of home architecture. If the house
was of a single story and space was scant within the four walls, the roof pro-
jected forward and made a covering for the gallery. If the house was the
mansion of a fur trader grown opulent, it might have a gallery for the second
as well as for the first story. Be it ever so humble, there was no real home
without a gallery in St. Louis until after 1800. And nowhere in the archives
or the correspondence of the first two generations of St. Louis is there a
reference to a hot summer. "The year of the hard winter," — 1'annee du grand

8- VOL. II.

530 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

hiver — is recorded. That was in 1799. It was intensely cold. "The year of
the smallpox" — 1'annee de la picotte — was in 1801. It left its mark on the
community and was duly recorded. "The year of the flood" — 1'annee des
grandes eaux — was 1785. The great waters covered the American bottom on
the east side and extended to the bluffs. But there was no summer in the
forty so hot that the habitants thought to chronicle it. Suppose the temperature
rose higher than the average, the St. Louisan of 1764-99 lengthened his stay
on the gallery. If the night was sultry he sat late on the gallery until the
southern breeze crept up the river and swept along the gallery. Facing east,
open to the north and south, the gallery invited, coaxed a draft, if there was
a breath of air stirring.

Then came the American with his imitation of Boston, New York, Phila-
delphia and Baltimore residential architecture. He built flush to the street;
often in rows; with southern exposure if possible. Southern exposure was
the American's substitute for the gallery or the east piazza. It was the only
concession the newcomer made to the climate. The American sweltered for
his high-priced front foot and the St. Louis summer gained an evil reputation.

Writing from St. Louis about 1811, John Bradbury, the English naturalist,
described the climate as he had found it from experience extending through
several seasons:

The climate is very fine. The spring commences about the middle of March in the
neighborhood of St. Louis, at which time the willow, the elm, and maples are in flower.
The spring rains usually occur in May, after which month the weather continues fine,
almost without interruption, until September, when rain again occurs about the equinox,
after which it remains again fine, serene weather until near Christmas, when the winter
commences. About the beginning or middle of October the Indian summer begins, which
is immediately known by the change that takes place in the atmosphere, as it now be-
comes hazy, or what they term smoky. This gives to the sun a red appearance, and takes
away the glare of light, so that all the day, except a few hours about noon it may be
looked at with the naked eye without pain; the air is perfectly quiescent and all is still-
ness, as if nature, after her exertions during the summer, was now at rest. The winters
are sharp, but it may be remarked that less snow falls, and they are much more moder-
ate on the west than on the east side of the Alleghanies in similar latitudes).

St. Louis owed in some part its widespread reputation as a fiery furnace
in summer time to the newspaper treatment of the heated periods forty years
ago. One of the morning papers of Tuesday, August 27, 1872, thus opened its
account of the conditions of the preceding day:

The heat yesterday was terrific; it was fearful and its results absolutely appalling
to the sick and the infirm. The blazing atmosphere smote them and scorched them like
an avenging Nemesis. Even the strong man whose imprudence led him to invest himself
in physical exertion was stricken down and compelled to pay the debt of nature. There
were seventy deaths in the city that were reported, of which twenty-seven were from the
direct effects of prostration by heat or through the effects of heat and whisky. There
were thirteen cases of sunstroke reported in which the patients were not dead.

This account of the visitation was headed "A Terrible Scourge." The
newspapers impressed the dangers of 'the heated term in this language:

We warn all readers during this intensely hot weather to beware of whiskey and
beware of exertion. We advise everybody as they value their lives to seek a shade and
do just as little work as possible. We verily hope that the terrible scourge which is upon
us may speedily pass by.

THE GROWING OF ST. LOUIS 531

The gallery, under the modern name of piazza, has come back to St. Louis
home architecture. And it is placed upon the east side of the house wherever
practicable. The passing of the monotonous row is evident. The lungs of
the St. Louis before the American occupation are being restored in the parks
and playgrounds of 1909. In the case of E. P. vs. S. E. the verdict is for the
plaintiff.

Two stone buildings Laclede erected on his block. One was fifty feet
front by thirty feet deep. This was the business and store house of Maxent,
Laclede & Co. The other was sixty feet front by twenty-three feet deep.
It had a gallery across the front which faced east upon the Plaza. This was
familiarly known as "Laclede's House." It was the seat of government. The
ground surrounding was three hundred feet square.

"Laclede's House" had one principal story above a high basement. When
St. Ange marched in from Fort Chartres the soldiers were quartered tempo-
rarily in the basement. This ground floor was used also for storage purposes.
The main floor was divided into a central room and side rooms. There La-
clede had his office. There St. Ange ruled and after him the Spanish governors
until the roof began to leak and the wood work to show need of extensive
repair.

Laclede planned this house and selected the material for it. The other
stone houses, some smaller, followed closely the type Laclede had fashioned.
They had the basement story and the high gallery. They divided the main
floor into central and end rooms, making five or four or three according to
individual preference.

One of the most imposing stone residences was built in what was at the
time the extreme southwestern part of the settlement, about Elm street and
Broadway, for Rene Buet, who moved over from Cahokia. The house had a
frontage of forty feet; it stood on half a block of ground, one of Laclede's
early land grants. Buet was a single man of means. Michael Lami bought
the house and, with the Duchouquette family, lived there until his death in 1784.
The Duchouquette family lived in the house until 1800, when the place was
sold to Dr. Saugrain. The Saugrain family occupied the house nearly sixty
years. In Dr. Saugrain's time a botanical garden was maintained.

The habitants builded well with the material at hand. Among the an-
tiquities preserved in the Desloge family is a shingle from the old Pratte home-
stead in the lead country south of St. Louis. The cedar wood seems as sound
as the day it was roughly fashioned. It served its purpose in the roof "more
than a hundred years to the day." There wasn't a metallic nail in the old
mansion. The shingle was fastened in its place with a wooden pin. When the
house was demolished it was found to be so well put together that a charge
of dynamite under one corner was the most economical form of wrecking.
In this house lived a family of twenty-six children. Perhaps this was the
largest family of the colonial period of St. Louis and vicinity. Families of
ten children were not extraordinary during the first and second generations
in St. Louis. Charles Gratiot had that number; so did Gregoire Sarpy; so
did Joseph Robidou, whose son founded the present city of St. Joseph. Joseph
Marie Papin had fourteen children and Hyacinthe St. Cyr had fifteen.

532 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Dr. Robert Simpson, the second postmaster, who became an authority on
fishing for bass and croppie in Chouteau's Pond, described St. Louis as it
appeared to him when he came, an assistant surgeon of the army in 1809:

The town was all under the hill, and laid out in squares, and these squares were
divided into four lots so that each owner had room for a garden and some fruit trees.
There were no brick houses, but many of stone, some few frame, but mostly log buildings,
some cabin fashion and others in French style, large logs dressed on two sides set some
eight feet in the ground with shingle roofs. Just such a house was the one I purchased
in the fall of 1811 and in which I lived for a number of years. The shingles were thick,
and instead of nails were hung with pegs or straps across the rafters and made a very
good roof, but was rather musical in windy weather. .

In the colonial period St. Louis grew southward much faster than north-
ward. South of Chouteau avenue, along the river front, were the country seats,
the choice residence section of St. Louis, between 1780 and 1800. Shortly
after Gabriel Cerre moved over from Kaskaskia, he obtained a concession of
about sixty-four acres. His north line was Park avenue. Cerre was of Cana-
dian birth. He had been in business at Kaskaskia a quarter of a century before
he came to St. Louis. Here he continued as a merchant another quarter of
a century. In the winter he lived in his town house. When summer came he
moved to this country place, which was highly improved. Gabriel Cerre's
youngest daughter married Antoine Soulard, the civil engineer who had been
in the French navy and who was highly educated. Soulard became the official
surveyor under appointment by the Spanish governor of St. Louis soon after
his arrival. In the division of Gabriel Cerre's estate, the country place went
to the Soulards. When the city expanded below Chouteau avenue this country
seat of Gabriel Cerre, in part, was known as Soulard's addition.

Joseph Brazeau obtained a concession of eighty-five acres adjoining Gabriel
Cerre on the south. He built his residence near the river front and farmed
the land. There were no children in the family ; the condition of the Brazeaus
was exceptional for that period in the growing of St. Louis. When Joseph
Brazeau died, his widow, following his wishes, transferred this and other prop-
erty to John B. Duchouquette. The consideration was that she should receive
an annuity of $350 as long as she lived.' Duchouquette had married Marie
Brazeau, a niece of Joseph Brazeau. Marie Brazeau had three brothers and
four sisters, all of whom married. She bore six children, among whom the
Duchouquette place, as it had become known, was divided. Out of the Brazeau
or Duchouquette country place were made the Lesperance, Picotte, Papin and
Duchouquette additions to the city, Barton street was the southern boundary.

Benito Vasquez, who decided to retire from Spanish army life and spend
the rest of his days in St. Louis, was given the next place on the river front."
His concession was not so large. It was two arpents front on the river and
ran back to what is now Broadway. The place passed through several hands
and became the home of ex-Governor Delassus after his return to St. Louis
in 1816. In 1831 the buildings were remodeled into a powder mill. Benito
Vasquez received a second concession of forty-two acres adjoining his grant.
This property in time passed to the possession of Dr. William Carr Lane.
With the growth of the city along the river front, the years came when the
owners of the estates having water frontage saw the business advantage of

RESIDENCE OF PIERRE CHOUTEAU, JR., BEFORE
THE CIVIL WAR

JAMES STEWART

THEOPHILE PAPIN

RESIDENCE OF MRS. JULIA MAFFITT

Type of mansions on Lucas place in 1870-90

THE GROWING OF ST. LOUIS

THE GROWING OF ST. LOUIS 533

turning their acres of orchard and garden into lots. As early as 1836, Dr.
Lane, the first mayor, established the town of St. George, a community in-
dependent of St. Louis. St. George was between Lynch and Victor streets.
It had a river frontage and was bounded on the west by Carondelet avenue,
now Broadway. To-day St. George is a part of the manufacturing district
along the river south of Chouteau avenue.

The next of these river front country seats belonged to Eugene Poure,
who was better known from New Orleans to Prairie du Chien as Beausoleil.
His head reminded those who saw it of a "bright sun." Poure's widow sold
the place for $200. The ground was fenced. There was a house of posts.
John J. Matoid added a barn and sold for $600. John Rice Jones of Kaskaskia
greatly fancied the place and agreed to give Hubert Lacroix, the owner in
1796, the price of $1,000 cash, $1,000 in three years, 1,000 pounds of flour
and 500 pounds of bacon. The place had been improved with three houses,
a barn, a lime kiln, a bake house. After the cash payment Jones defaulted.
Lacroix asked to have the property appraised. Charles Gratiot and Charles
Sanguinet, two of the most prominent men of St. Louis in that day, were ap-
pointed. They concluded that "they could not conscientiously appraise the
property at more than $200." The next step was to sell at auction. The place
brought $201. Manuel Lisa bought on speculation. He sold his bargain to
Pat Cullen and Joseph Berry for 800 silver dollars or 800 pounds of good powder.
That was the year the Americans took possession. Cullen and Berry held the
place three years and sold to Silas Bent. The tract of fifty-six acres was im-
proved with a fine stone house and other buildings. It was the home of the
judge for twenty years, and was known to two generations as "the Bent place."
It adjoined the arsenal on the north.

On what are now the arsenal grounds and Lyon Park was for some
years in the early history of St. Louis an Indian village. Some Delawares and
Shawnees who wished to travel the white man's road lived there. Part of this
ground, fifty-seven acres, was embraced in a concession to Joseph Marie Papin
in 1787. It remained in the possession of the Papin family until the govern-
ment bought land and established the arsenal. Just below the arsenal stood for
nearly a century a small stone house. It was put there to perfect the title of
John Mullanphy, who bought forty acres for $500. The tract was in the vicinity
of President street. In early days the landing of the Cahokia ferry was located
there. Still further south was the Dubreuil place of twenty-seven acres, origin-
ally a concession by the Spanish governor to Sylvestre Sarpy. This tract changed
hands in 1838 for $680.

These country seats, with their white limestone, wide galleried mansions,
their gardens and orchards and well tilled fields along the river front from
Chouteau avenue to where the city workhouse is now gashing the palisades, were
the glory of St. Louis one hundred years ago. Almost from Chouteau avenue
to the arsenal the land along the river was originally "covered with heavy
timber," according to both Auguste and Pierre Chouteau. About where the
Anheuser-Busch brewery is the timber line gave way to an open space called
by the first settlers "Petite Prairie." The Peoria Indians under their chief,
Petit Dinde or Little Turkey, were allowed to build a village at the lower edge
of this forest, near the Little Prairie.

534 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Laclede's plan of St. Louis located three streets parallel with the river,
but on the plateau above it. There was no street immediately upon the river
front. The first of the streets was Rue Royale. As the reverence for royalty
diminished with the habitants, they called this street Rue Principale. Quite
naturally, with the Americanizing of St. Louis, the name was changed to Main
street. Houses fronted on the east side of Rue Royale and their back yards
extended to the edge of the limestone cliff, thirty-five feet above the sandy shore
of the river. The second parallel street was Rue de 1'Englise. It took its name
from the church. The first Americans called this Church street. Pennsylvanians
were strong in numbers and influence during the formative period following the
acquisition. They gave to the city the first mayor. They introduced the system
of numbering streets. Church street become Second street. Laclede's third par-
allel street was Rue des Granges, — the street of the barns. The Americans called
it Barn street. This name was appropriate, for the barns of many of the early
settlers were on this street, convenient to the pasture and common fields which
stretched away to the westward. Laclede did not lay off the settlement beyond
Barn street. When the Americans came, with their ideas of real estate specu-
lation, they turned Barn street into Third street and added Fourth, Fifth and
other streets as rapidly as the market would absorb the supply of town lots. In
the talk of the town Fourth street for years was called "American street."

When the time came to make up the official history of this early surveying
and platting and naming, Auguste Chouteau and others told interesting facts
bearing upon the colonial period of St. Louis. They testified before Theodore
Hunt, who had been appointed by the United States government to gather this
important evidence before the witnesses passed away. Auguste Chouteau, de-
scribing the plan of the settlement as Laclede gave it to him and as it was
carried out, said : "The main streets were laid out to be thirty-six feet wide
and all the cross streets were laid out to be thirty feet wide. The blocks were
generally laid out to be 240 feet fronting on main streets and running back 300
feet to other main streets." This was the French measure. The French foot
was nearly thirteen English inches.

The Civic League of 1911 regretted the utilitarianism which turned the
public square on the river front to commercial account. In his testimony of
1825 before Commissioner Hunt, Auguste Chouteau told that the first intention
had been to lay out a street on the edge of the limestone cliff overlooking the
river. This would have given St. Louis the esplanade which the Civic League,
145 years afterwards, thought would be an ideal water front. The question at
issue was whether the market square was inherited by the municipality, or was
to be considered government property, and as such to be classed as school land
under the Act of Congress. Auguste Chouteau stoutly maintained that this
square belonged to the inhabitants of St. Louis, not to the Spanish or any other
government. He gave a deposition on the subject. He said that "when he first
came and laid out the town under the direction of Laclede they established
the warehouse where the market house now stands. They intended then to have
a street fronting the Mississippi with lots running back 300 feet. After that the
plan was altered and a main street was laid out, leaving lots of about 150 feet
deep between it and the river. The town was laid out and surveyed by this

THE COUNTRY HOME OF PIERRE CHOUTEAU, SR.
IN HIS OLD AGE

JOSIAH H. OBEAR

CHARLES H. PECK

RESIDENCE OF CHARLES P. CHOUTEAU

About 1880, on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi river
THE GROWING OF ST. LOUIS

THE GROWING OF ST. LOUIS 535

deponent upon this plan. After this the warehouse was removed to the square
where he at present resides." (The west side of Main between Market and
Walnut.) "When the Spanish authorities came to this town, Piernas and
Perez, the lieutenant-governors, they granted the south part of the square to
Benito Vasquez and Bonaventure Collel. The balance was reserved for a Place
Public. To the knowledge of this deponent, Madame Loisel, the midwife of
the place, applied to Perez for a lot in this square. Mr. Perez told her it should
not be granted, but should be reserved for the use of the inhabitants. And it
has so remained from that time to this day. The deponent does hereby declare
that this square belongs to the inhabitants of the town of St. Louis for their
use as a public place. And if any persons should contend that it does not, but
that it belongs to the school lands, that he having been the first in possession
of the same will contend to his right for the same, he only relinquishing it for
the benefit of the mayor, aldermen and citizens of the town of St. Louis as a
Place Public."

Charles DeHault Delassus, the last of the Spanish governors, testified be-
fore Commissioner Hunt in substantiation of Auguste Chouteau, that this square
"was considered a public place of rendezvous, and so much so that while acting
as lieutenant-governor under the Spanish government, although he had power
to grant lots or land, he would not and could not have granted that place which
was used as the Place of Arms of the inhabitants of the town of St. Louis."

John Baptist Trudeau stated that when he came to St. Louis in 1774
he was told the whole square had been reserved for the use of the inhab-
itants. In 1825 he said he could say that to his knowledge this square of right
belonged to the inhabitants of the town of St. Louis.

As early as 1810, Henry N. Brackenridge expressed the regret which
this generation feels over the treatment of the river front:

It is to be lamented that no space has been left between the town and the river; for
the sake of the pleasure of the promenade, as well as for business and health, there should
have been no encroachment on the margin of the noble stream.

Edmund Flagg, coming a quarter of a century later, was impressed in
the same way:

Water street is well built up with a series of lofty limestone warehouses; but an
irretrievable error has been committed in arranging them at so short distance from the
water. On some accounts this proximity to the river may be convenient; but for the
sake of a broad arena for commerce; for the sake of a fresh and salubrious circulation of
air from the water; for the sake of scenic beauty, or a noble promenade for pleasure,
there should have been no encroachment upon the precincts of the "eternal river."

In the great fire of 1849 St. Louis had an experience similar to those
of other American cities visited in the same manner. The fire destroyed
twenty-three steamboats. It swept Front street from Locust to Market, with
the exception of two or three houses. It burned over some fifteen blocks in
the business district. The loss of the boats and their cargoes was $439,000.
The total value of property destroyed was over $3,000,000. Instead of par-
alyzing the community or retarding its progress the great fire proved, to quote
the words of one who suffered temporarily from it, "a benefit and a blessing
like the tree that gathers more vigor when cropped of its luxuriance." Not
only was St. Louis rebuilt with a better class of structures, but property holders

536 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

on Main street secured the widening of that principal business thoroughfare.
They met immediately after the fire and petitioned the Council to set back the
building lines at their own expense. This was done and the street was widened
to the limits it now has. St. Louis went ahead at a pace more rapid than it
had ever known before the fire. This has since been the experience of Chicago
and of Baltimore.

Unfortunately, one of the movements inaugurated to take advantage of
the fire and to improve the business front of the city was not carried out. It
was proposed that the city should buy the property between the levee and Com-
mercial street, from Vine street to Market street, and leave the space open for
future treatment as a part of the levee. It was argued that this would prevent
any fire that might start among the steamboats from spreading to the business
district. It was urged that the restriction of business buildings to the west
line of Commercial street, or Commercial alley, as it was afterwards more
commonly called, would avert the occasional damage caused by unusual rise
of the river. In brief, this movement to leave open the long strip of the city
front has been renewed several times since the fire, and in 1908 took the form
of a proposed riverside park. The movement failed just sixty years ago because
the city, crippled somewhat by the losses of the fire, did not feel able to pur-
chase the blocks which it was proposed should not be rebuilt. When the
steamboat business was at its height in that period, this levee property was
held at $1,000 a front foot. Luther M. Kennett, one of the most enterprising
of St. Louis mayors before the war, advocated earnestly the purchase by the
city of the strip from Locust to Walnut street east of Commercial alley. It
was found that the cost to the city would be between $1,500,000 and $2,000,000.
Afterwards this property declined to a fraction of the value of the flush steam-
boat times.

Baptiste Riviere came to St. Louis "in the first boat" with Auguste Chou-
teau. He was about twelve years old. His father drove the cart which brought
Madame Chouteau and the children a few weeks later from Kaskaskia to
Cahokia. When he was eighty years old Baptiste Riviere gave before Com-
missioner Hunt his recollections of the site and the suburbs of St. Louis.
"Immediately where the town stands," he said, "was heavy timber. But back
of the town it was generally prairie with some timber growing. But where
the timber did grow, it was entirely free of undergrowth. The grass grew
in great abundance everywhere and of the best quality." Riviere was one of
the principal witnesses before Theodore Hunt. His recollections were stated
in clear and positive terms. Auguste Chouteau gave this sworn certificate of
Riviere's character: "He has known Baptiste Riviere au Baccane for sixty
years, and said Baptiste Riviere has always sustained the character of an honest
man and a man of truth."

The settlement as Laclede drew the plan and Auguste Chouteau laid it
out was between the river and Third street. Franklin avenue, first called
Cherry street, on the north and Poplar street on the south were the other
boundaries. It was divided into forty-nine squares, of which fifteen were along
the river front, nineteen between Main and Second, and fifteen between Second
and Third streets.

THE GROWING OF ST. LOUIS 537

Pierre Chouteau, Sr., described to Theodore Hunt the custom of granting
barn lots. He said he was well acquainted with the grants made for barn
lots by the Spanish authorities and likewise with the grants made for barn lots
by the French authorities. The French granted many more barn lots than the
Spanish. It never was the custom to give more for a barn lot than 60 to 80
feet square.

Francis Duchouquette was one of the pioneer settlers whose testimony
helped to establish the fact that the government reserved the rights to the river
frontage. He told Theodore Hunt that "in the grants for town lots by the
Spanish authorities there was always understood to be a reservation between
the lots fronting the river for a tow for the boats. He said he had known that
when a fence or fences were put up so as to interfere with the tow or road
such fence or fences were pulled down by persons who found themselves
obstructed. This was always considered the custom of the country."

Auguste Chouteau testified that he was well acquainted with what was
the custom as to the grants for the lots fronting the Mississippi river in this
town. There was always left a space between the lots so situated and the
river for a tow or road. He never did know during the time the French or
Spanish governed this country of any lot being fenced to the river either to
high or low water mark.

Former Governor Delassus said: "No concession could be granted to
obstruct or impede the public ways. Concessions on navigable waters could
not extend farther near the edge of high water than 20 or 30 feet, which space
was reserved for the public use as a tow road or path."

Laclede crossed his three parallel streets with two or three east and west
thoroughfares and with several lanes. One of the streets was Rue de la Place.
It led from the river westward past La Place, the public square, past Laclede's
house, past the church and the graveyard and up to "the Hill." The plaza, or
public square, gave the street its name. When the Pennsylvanians applied the
Philadelphia plan, they bestowed upon Laclede's cross streets and lanes the
names of trees. Rue de la Place became Walnut street. On the north fronts
of La Place, of Laclede block, of the church and graveyard block, was another
principal east and west street — Rue de la Tour. It led up the hill to Fort San
Carlos, or St. Charles, the principal feature of which was the round tower.
The street of the tower — Rue de la Tour — was appropriate in its time. But
the Americans turned La Place to utility. They could not be content with their
practical minds to see an open square on the valuable river front where the
keel boats unloaded and where commerce centralized. They built a market
house on La Place. The tower at the fort was doomed. Rue de la Tour
became Market street.

Transactions in St. Louis realty did not wait on written titles. Laclede's
verbal grants, or assignments, were good enough for some investors. James
Denis was a joiner. He was given a lot on the southeast corner of Second and
Walnut streets. On the lot he built a house of posts. In January, 1766, which
was before the first written deed passed, Denis sold the house and lot to Antoine
Hubert, the merchant. The consideration was $220. This was probably the
first real estate transaction in the history of St. Louis. Denis estimated the

ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

value of the house at $200. The lot, which he had held about eighteen months
under Laclede's verbal assignment to him, was valued at $20. This transfer
o'f real estate in the new settlement was recorded with care by Labusciere.
who that very month began to keep the records of St. Louis. It is the first
transfer on the record. Denis was evidently a born real estate man. In March,
1766, which was also before the issue of written titles by the St. Ange govern-
ment, Denis made another sale. This second transaction was the transfer of a
lot sixty feet front. It joined the first one, fronting on Second street. Hubert
was again the investor. The lot was not improved. Hubert gave for it $20
and six quarts of rum. This was a notable advance in real estate values of
St. Louis.

Pierre Berger gave Francois Latour a mortgage in September, 1766. This
was the first instrument of the kind in St. Louis. It covered all that Pierre
had. It called for the delivery of a certain number of bundles of deerskin to
Francois within a specified time. If Pierre failed to make delivery his property
was to go to Francois. There were some financial transactions of those times
wherein the number of skins was given as the consideration. They were
between individuals usually. In trade and commerce the rule was to give the
skins a fixed value by the pound and thus establish their value as currency.
When Judge J. B. C. Lucas bought his first piece of real estate in St. Louis the
price was "six hundred dollars in deerskins."

The thoroughgoing, business character of Auguste Chouteau was shown
in the prompt action he took to get the title to the mill tract of nearly 1,200
acres confirmed by the United States government after 1804. He was so suc-
cessful that it is said "there has never been a single suit instituted about lands
derived from Auguste Chouteau or his legal representatives." The Laclede
grant, after the purchase at the church door, became known as the Auguste
Chouteau tract. It was confirmed by Spanish authority and was accepted by
the United States as binding. It escaped all disputes and controversies of
title. No land commission ever raised question as to the legality of the grant.
In 1832 most of the property still remained in the possession of the Auguste
Chouteau estate. It was divided among seven children. The subdivision was
in parcels of five acres as far west as Seventeenth street. Beyond Seventeenth
street the parcels were from ten to twenty acres. The extreme western part
of the tract was divided into parcels of sixty-five acres. Some sales of property
in the Auguste Chouteau tract were in considerable tracts. About 1840 Robert
Ranken purchased from Henri Chouteau sixty-four acres for $7,000. Later
Mr. Ranken secured another tract of sixty-four acres from Edward Chouteau
for $6,500. The land thus acquired remained in the possession of Mr. Ranken
and his heirs until it was valued at millions of dollars.

The Missouri Pacific Railroad company bought of the Auguste Chouteau
tract eleven acres, where the railroad shops stand, for $11,000. The company
also bought four blocks which are now covered with tracks between Seventh
and Eleventh streets, for $120,000.

The first addition to the town of St. Louis was made jointly by Auguste
Chouteau and J. B. C. Lucas about 1815. The Chouteau tract, acquired in
the settlement of the Laclede estate, came almost to Chestnut street on the

DOUBLE RESIDENCE AT SIXTH AND OLIVE STREETS
•About 1869, occupied by Mrs. Maffitt and C. P. Chouteau

C. G. GERHART

W. A. RUTLEDGE

ONE OF THE EARLY ROWS BUILT IN ST. LOUIS
Presented by Pierre Chouteau, Jr., to his daughter and son

THE GROWING OF ST. LOUIS 539

north. North of the Auguste Chouteau tract lay a long strip of land from
Fourth street westward and from St. Charles street southward, which J. B. C.
Lucas had acquired by purchase. Auguste Chouteau and J. B. C. Lucas
donated to the city of St. Louis the square on which the court house stands,
bounded by Fourth, Fifth, Market and Chestnut streets. They then laid out
their property to the westward as an addition to the city.

"The Hill" where the court house and the Planters House are was more
of an elevation than now appears. When Fourth street was graded, between
1830 and 1840, it was cut down four feet. Francois Gunell, the tradition is,
had the contract to grade. In the block on which the Planters stands was a
depression or a gully, thirty feet deep. J. B. C. Lucas, who owned the ground,
offered Gunell three cents a cubic yard to dump the dirt he was taking from
Fourth street into the hole. At the conclusion of the job the contractor brought
in a bill for $60 against Judge Lucas. At this point the story becomes almost
incredible. Judge Lucas offered to deed Gunell one-half of the ground to pay
the bill of $60. The contractor declined, saying he needed the money. In
1911, a lot twenty-seven feet front on Olive street, between Sixth and Seventh
streets, having a depth of 105 feet, was sold for $300,000, which was more
than $11,000 a front foot or $106 a square foot. ,,

When James H. Lucas and Mrs. Anne Lucas Hunt came into their inher-
itance on the death of Judge J. B. C. Lucas, the estate was in land. It amounted
in the values of that day to $45,000 or $50,000. The land was unimproved,
but it was burdened with no debts. James H. Lucas began to build. His first
improvement was on the Fourth street block opposite the Planters. Borrowing
$20,000 in Philadelphia, he erected a building on the northeast corner of Fourth
and Chestnut. Then he put two buildings about midway of the Fourth street
block. As he could command the means Mr. Lucas covered the Fourth street
front from Chestnut to Pine with renting property. That ground was cleared
and built over a second time after the death of Mr. Lucas. It is occupied now
by the third improvement — the Pierce building.

Mr. Lucas increased his estate by steadily improving the ground until
he was worth $7,000,000. Determination and patience were his marked
characteristics.

When James H. Lucas was supposed to' be worth at least $2,000,000 he
told a friend in conversation at the Planters one day that he frequently found
himself without enough ready money to go to market with. Mr. Lucas was a
quiet, self-contained man except in the presence of a few intimates. When
this reserve was thrown aside he could be very entertaining. Although he
accumulated a great fortune, he was much of the time a borrower. When
he had money he was ready to invest it in public enterprises. Most of the
gifts of Mr. Lucas for public purposes took the form of real estate. Mr.
Lucas gave to the city the lot at Sixth and Chestnut on which the stone jail
stood until the Four Courts was occupied. He gave the space known as
Twelfth street, building a long, narrow market house for public convenience
in the center of it, from Olive to Chestnut. The hay market was in the wide
space at one end and the coal market was at the other end. Mr. Lucas gave
the site on which the Planters was built. He gave the Historical society its

540 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

location. He gave Missouri park. He subscribed to every public enterprise
that was started. For a time the Planters bore the name of Lucas. Missouri
park was at first known as Lucas park. The select residence section west of
the park was called Lucas place. The market was known as Lucas market,
and the spacious Twelfth street was long known as Lucas Market place. In
1908 a member of the family with a tinge of bitterness in manner called atten-
tion to the fact that the name of "Lucas" had disappeared from all of these.

With what estimation his fellow citizens held James H. Lucas was seen
in the presentation of a marble bust to Mrs. Lucas by a voluntary association
of business men of the city. This bust was the work of J. Wilson McDonald,
and was given to Mrs. Lucas with some ceremony in May, 1870. In the
address of presentation this tribute was paid:

He has liberally contributed toward the erection of churches and charitable institu-
tions all over the city. He has donated property for public uses, laid out streets and ave-
nues, and improved, built up and adorned many portions of the city with elegant and
costly edifices. He has made the market which bears his name, and Lucas Place monu-
ments of his liberal, public spirit, enterprise and good taste. His name is inseparable with
the history of St. Louis. He has literally grown with her growth and in strength with
her strength.

In 1872, when he was 72 years of age, James H. Lucas made partial dis-
tribution of his estate. He gave to his wife and eight children property valued
at $2,000,000. The year before the distribution the taxes on the estate amounted
to $126,000. At that time Mr. Lucas owned 225 stores and dwellings and had
over 300 tenants. His income was $40,000 a month.

To an Irish bachelor, St. Louis is indebted for the artery of the wholesale
district. Jeremiah Connor was the second sheriff, succeeding James Rankin. He
lived in a one-story stone house on the west side of Second street about midway
between Pine and Olive. The house had two rooms and a porch; the lot ran
back to Price's orchard, which was on Third street. Connor lived alone. The
front room was his office. In the back room the sheriff slept. When the common
fields lying over "the Hill" were divided into long strips, an arpent front and
forty arpents deep, Connor secured two of the strips. This gave him a piece of
land 380 front on Fourth street and a mile and a half deep, to Jefferson avenue.
He laid it out with an east and west avenue eighty feet wide through the center,
with lots 150 feet deep on either side. In those days a street of that width
seemed extravagant. There was no other subdivision to compare with this in
liberality of street dedication. Connor had his own way. He gave nearly twenty-
five per cent of his real estate to public use. Lucas and Chouteau had laid off
the first addition to St. Louis on the south of Connor, and Christy had laid off
a strip on the north. The Irishman outdid them in the magnificence of his real
estate plan. He didn't live to see houses built on the first avenue of St. Louis.
He died in 1823.

The site of St. Louis University on Washington avenue between Ninth and
Eleventh streets was the gift of Jeremiah Connor. The early St. Louis sheriff
presented this ground through Bishop Dubourg. The time was 1820. In placing
the property in the hands of the Jesuit Fathers for educational purposes, the
bishop wrote a letter. He demonstrated, even at that early day, when St. Louis
had about 2,500 inhabitants, the remarkable judgment which the Catholic clergy

THE GROWING OF ST. LOUIS 541

of St. Louis have shown in forecasting the future of the city. The letter was
to Father Van Quickenborne at the head of the institution. The bishop wrote:

And it may well be, that if the town increases and spreads, as it now promises to
do, these two blocks will advance in value to the degree that in the end they will furnish
you the means wherewith to establish yourself more permanently and with larger and
better buildings at some other site, which in that future day becomes more desirable.

In 1886 the ground was sold by the university for $462,000. It is now the
heart of the wholesale district and worth several times that amount.

How much is a city block in .St. Louis?" That depends. Auguste Chouteau,
to whom Laclede gave the plan of the settlement, said the settlers who moved
over from the east side of the river in the spring of 1764, "commenced building
their cabins and entered their lines agreeably to the lines of the lots which I
had drawn following the plan which Monsieur Laclede had left with me." The
ideal of Laclede was a block 240 feet front on the streets parallel with the
river and running back 300 feet. He made the north and south streets 36 feet
wide and the cross streets 30 feet wide.

When the first Spanish governor, in 1770, yielded to the petition of the
residents for a survey of their lots, he appointed Martin Duralde "surveyor
of the colony of Illinois." Duralde said the way he surveyed the property hold-
ings in this settlement, then six years old, was as follows: "I caused to ac-
company me the proprietor and his nearest neighbors, to serve as witnesses
and to point out to me precisely the true situation of the concessions. I at-
tained my object and caused the land to be bounded in my presence, with stones
at the four corners."

Sixty years later errors in boundaries were corrected by corner stones which
Duralde set. Twenty years after that, Henry W. Williams, a marvelously pains-
taking and accurate investigator of titles, found chains of titles going back to
Laclede's verbal assignments and Duralde's stone corners without concession by
French or Spanish government and without confirmation by the United States.
They rested on possession for eighty-four years and were good.

How much is a city block in St. Louis? Lucas said it should be, not what
Laclede decreed, but 338 feet square. This was agreed to by Auguste Chouteau.
The two of them laid off the streets and blocks between Clark avenue and St.
Charles street on this basis. O'Connor, who got the narrow farm adjoining on
the north, did not believe in cross streets. When the streets were opened north
from St. Charles to Lucas avenue it was necessary to condemn. Then came the
jogs, or offsets, in the street lines. Christy and Carr decided that the ideal
block was 376 feet long. They used that as the unit in their additions. A little
farther north, in the vicinity of Cass avenue, the Mullanphys thought 270 feet
was a proper frontage for a block. Still farther out real estate owners adopted
500 feet for a block. Thus the city has spread with an arrangement of streets
which makes a map of St. Louis look little more symmetrical than a patchwork
quilt.

For many years St. Louis grew and spread by accretions, block by block,
street by street. Transportation and manufacturing interests preempted the
river front and the lower levels, avoiding the grades. Residence streets followed
the undulations of the higher ground. There was the minimum of method or

542 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

foresight in the making of. the city. A partial awakening came when Henry
Shaw established his world-famed Missouri Botanical Gardens and added thereto
Tower Grove Park, endowing them permanently for the benefit of the city.
Thirty-five years ago, in face of much opposition, St. Louis acquired 1,376 acres
of natural woodland in the then unimproved suburbs and created Forest Park,
one mile wide and two miles long, at that time the largest park save Fairmount,
Philadelphia, possessed by any city in the United States. Forest Park, with
its 10,220 feet length east and west, was added to the other considerations which
determined for generations the trend of the city's residence growth.

Notwithstanding the irregularities of growth, St. Louis made a pleasing
impression upon many of the early comers. Edmund Flagg, fresh from the
Atlantic seaboard, in 1836, to become a St. Louis editor, wrote of the city which
was like none other:

There is about it a cheerful village air, a certain rus in urbe, in which the grena-
dier preciseness of most of our cities is the antipodes. There are but few of those recti-
linear avenues cutting each other into broad squares of lofty granite blocks, so character-
istic of the older cities of the north and east, or of those cities of transmontane origin
so rapidly rising within the boundaries of the valley. There yet remains much in St.
Louis to remind one of its village days; and a stern eschewal of mathematical, angular
exactitude is everywhere beheld. Until within a few years there was no such thing as
a row of houses; all were disjoined and at a considerable distance from each other; and
every edifice, however central, could boast its humble stoop, its front door plat, bedecked
with shrubbery and flowers and protected from the inroads of intruding man or beast by
its own tall stockade. All this is now confined to the southern or French section of the
city; a right Eip Van Winkle-looking region, where each little steep-roofed cottage yet
presents its broa'd piazza, and the cozy settee before the door beneath the tree shade, with
the fleshy old burghers soberly luxuriating on an evening pipe, their dark-eyed, brunette
daughters at their side. There is a delightful air of "old-fashioned comfortableness" in all
this that reminds us of nothing we have seen in our own country, but much of the anti-
quated villages of which we have been told in the land beyond the waters. Among those
remnants of a former generation which are yet to be seen in St. Louis are the venerable
mansions of Auguste and Pierre Chouteau, who were among the founders of the city.
These extensive mansions stand upon the principal street, and originally occupied, with
their grounds, each of them an entire square, enclosed by lofty walls of heavy masonry,
with loopholes and watch towers for defense. The march of improvements has encroached
upon the premises of these ancient edifices somewhat; yet they are still inhabited by the
posterity of their builders, and remain, with their massive walls of stone, monuments of
an earlier era.

Who built the first brick house in St. Louis? When, in the decade of
1830-40, brick yards were doing a thriving business and everybody in St. Louis
wanted to live in a brick house, the local historians started a controversy about
the honor of building the first structure of this kind. Tradition had it that
Pierre Berthold, Sr., coming west from a trip, saw a bricklayer in Marietta, Ohio,
and persuaded him to come to St. Louis. This first bricklayer, who also was a
brickmaker, was John Lee. He turned out the brick, finding St. Louis clay ad-
mirably adapted for the purpose. He built a store on Main, between Chestnut
and Market streets, for Berthold and Chouteau. After that Mr. Lee had more
orders for brick houses than he could fill. He did well, raised a large family.
Among his descendants are some of the best known people of St. Louis.

Thomas Fiveash Riddick was president of the short-lived Bank of Mis
souri when he built the first brick house on south Fourth street. Riddick

BENT HOMESTEAD
On the river front, near the arsenal

*"t~

COUNTRY RESIDENCE OF PIERRE
CHOUTEAU, JR.

TURNER BUILDING

First skyscraper in St. Loitis

THE ALEXANDER McNAIR HOUSE
Property of the first Governor of Missouri

THE COUNTRY RESIDENCE OF

CHARLES GRATIOT
Southwest of Forest Park

THE GROWING OF ST. LOUIS

THE GROWING OF ST. LOUIS 543

didn't occupy the mansion long, Charles Milliken occupied the house, which was
considered one of the finest in St. Louis. Judge Luke E. Lawless bought it.
Edward Walsh occupied it. But the chief historic interest attaching to the
Riddick mansion is based on the use of it and of the whole square from Fourth
to Fifth, from Cerre to Poplar, under the name of Vauxhall Garden. For many
years that was the popular place for meetings and for celebrations. Vauxhall
Garden in its best days drew the best people of St. Louis. Later the character
of the resort changed ; the attendance was not select.

The builder of the first sky-scraper in St. Louis was a Virginian, a lawyer
by profession, George R. Taylor. He was a native of Alexandria, and began
practice there. In 1841 Mr. Taylor became convinced that John Adams was
mistaken in his prophecy that Alexandria would become one of the greatest
commercial ports of the world. He took down his shingle and moved to St.
Louis. He startled this community by building a six-story structure. Up
to that time St. Louis had been fairly well satisfied with two-story business
houses. The city was without a hotel which appealed to local pride. George
R. Taylor conceived, financed and completed Barnum's St. Louis hotel, al-
though two years was required for the construction, and the cost was $200,000.
After the fire of 1849 came the building of the Merchants Exchange on Main
street, the most imposing structure of its time. George R. Taylor managed that
public enterprise so skilfully that his fellow stockholders presented to him a
$1,000 set of silver. He failed in one of his public spirited movements, for
which failure every generation since has had occasion to feel regret. As a
member of the council, Mr. Taylor tried, after the fire, and before rebuilding
began, to have the city purchase the strip of ground between Commercial street
and the levee and add it to the river front of the city. He did succeed in getting
Main street widened.

The Green Mountain state contributed to St. Louis a family of hotel keepers,
the Barnums. Theron Barnum was the nephew of the man who made Barnum's
hotel in Baltimore "the best hotel in the United States" about 1825. He had
some experience keeping a hotel at the terminus of the Baltimore & Ohio Rail-
road when Ellicott's Mills was the transfer point between the railroad and the
stages. The wife of Theron Barnum was Mary L. Chadwick, of Connecticut.
They came to St. Louis in 1840 and took charge of the hotel on Third and
Vine streets and conducted it until 1852. Out of Theron Barnum's popular hotel
keeping came the movement in which George R. Taylor enlisted the help of
George Collier, Joshua B. Brant and J. T. Swearingen to build Barnum's hotel.
Theron Barnum made his hotel famous for a ragout. No distinguished visitor
came to St. Louis without hearing of the highly favored stew, the recipe for
which Barnum guarded jealously.

Yeatman's Row was one of the early introductions of Philadelphia resi-
dential architecture. It was "elegant," according to the account of a news-
paper in 1847. The row was 299 feet long, extending from Eleventh west on
Olive street. Mr. Yeatman's was the central section. Others who shared in the
row were Messrs. Franklin, Mead, Lucas, Cook, Garland, Sellew, Crinion and
Mayger.

544 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

"Made in St. Louis" was a popular sentimental consideration. When
the building of stores on "the American street," as some called Fourth street,
began, the constructors dwelt with pride on the fact that they were utilizing home
material. On one block William M. McPherson and John R. Shepley built
business houses of "Missouri marble." On the next block "Missouri iron" was
made conspicuous by the architectural plans.

"The Ten Buildings" occupied the east side of Fourth street from Lo-
cust to Vine. This was a uniform block divided into ten parts. The three
next to Locust were built by James H. Lucas, the next three by Anne Lucas
Hunt, the next two by William M. Morrison, and the two at the Vine street
end by the estate of George Collier. The row was four stories high, with what
the architect, William Rumboldt, informed that generation were tympanums at
the corners and in the center. When finished "The Ten Buildings" formed the
most notable triumph of business architecture in St. Louis. The row was con-
sidered finer than any single business structure west of New York city.

Diagonally across Fourth street from the Ten Buildings, filling the block
on the west side from St. Charles to Washington avenue, was erected about the
same time in the fifties "Verandah Row." It received the name from the
immense verandah above the second story, extending to the curb line.

The time was when the east side of Fifth street, or Broadway, as it is now,
had altogether the best of the west side in popularity. That was when Eugene
Jaccard, with his glittering array of jewels and precious metals moved into a
grand new building on the corner of Olive and Fifth, where the Commonwealth
Trust Company now is. Jaccard drew the trade and the travel to the east side.
Property on the west side was so slow that the Darby building, the site of which
is the sixteen-story Third National Bank building of today, went begging a long
time for tenants.

Probably the most imposing business structure in St. Louis before the war
was a great iron and marble building on Olive street between Second and Third.
It was planned and built by Socrates Newman. Born in St. Louis, Mr. New-
man, after trying politics and other employment, joined George C. Graham in
an iron foundry. The concern was enterprising. It turned out the first large water
mains laid in the streets of St. Louis. Having made some money, Mr. New-
man took a trip to Europe. Coming home with new ideas, he built what was
a wonderful office building for that period. The structure was so far ahead of
the city that the builder in after years frequently referred to it as "Newman's
Folly."

Chestnut street, between Second and Main, was the fashionable residence
section in 1830. Here was "Quality Row." In one of the two-story brick
houses of this continuous row lived Wilson P. Hunt, the postmaster. The post-
office was in a small wooden building at Second and Chestnut streets. Other oc-
cupants of the brick row were Henry Von Phul, the merchant; Henry L. Cox,
cashier of the United States Bank; J. W. Reel, the merchant, and Thornton
Grimsley, the inventor and manufacturer of the cavalry saddles. On Vine and
Second streets was located one of the institutions of the city at that time. It
was known as the "Arcade Baths."

BARNUM'S HOTEL
As it appeared before the Civil war

THOMAS WALSH

DAVID H. EVANS

RESIDENCE OE JOHN P. CABANNE
Built in 1819

THE CITY'S EVOLUTION

THE GROWING OF ST. LOUIS 545

A recollection of St. Louis as he knew it in 1830 was left by W. A. Lynch.
At that time Mr. Lynch lived on Second street near Walnut. He said :

Immediately opposite my residence was an old dilapidated French house, at one
time the residence of Gov. McNair and afterwards used as a courthouse. The Chou-
teau block north of Walnut street wall contained the old family mansion, with garden and
fruit trees, protected on the south and west sides by the old stone wall. The church
square was well enclosed with an old picket fence, so generally used by the early settlers
of St. Louis. The improvements consisted of a garden, some shrubbery, and flower plants
in the foreground, a one-story stone house in the southwest corner and the priest's house
in the southeast quarter of the block, occupied as a residence by Bishop Eosati. The
old wooden church had been removed and a large brick church had been erected on the
northeast corner of the grounds, originally designed for a fine church but it was never
finished, although used for divine services until the completion of the present cathedral.
The graveyard occupied the north half of the block and contained many graves marked
by tombstones and crosses, but the time for innovating improvements had arrived and
during the winter of 1830-31 the whole of the old graveyard was dug over and the re-
mains, with the exception of those which were claimed by friends, were placed in a pit and
now lie under the floor of the present cathedral. The others were interred in the new
cemetery located on the St. Charles road near the intersection of Franklin and Jefferson
avenues. The old brick church was rented and converted into a warehouse; a livery
etable was built on a portion of the ground and fire originated in the stable in the spring
of 1835, destroying the stable and contents, also the old brick church with its contents.

When Dr. Gabriel Tutt in 1835 moved from his home in Virginia he brought
with him his negro servants, his horses and his wagons. He camped for some
weeks on Charles Cabanne's farm, now one of the best residence districts of St.
Louis. Mr. Cabanne tried to induce Dr. Tutt to buy his farm. He offered the
land for $20 an acre. Dr. Tutt declined. He thought the farming land in Cooper
county was better, and settled near Boonville. The sons of Dr. Tutt, Thomas
E. Tutt and Gardner Dent Tutt, came back to St. Louis a generation later to
become prominent in the commercial and financial life of the city.

The three homes which Dwight Durkee, the merchant and banker, oc-
cupied illustrated the rapid trend of the residence section westward in one man's
lifetime. Mr. Durkee was of a Genesee county, New York, family. He came
to St. Louis previous to 1840. His first home was in a choice residence neighbor-
hood on Collins near Main street, half a dozen blocks north of his wholesale dry
goods store on Main and Market streets. He moved to Twelfth street and later
to Twenty-eighth street. His third home at the time he made it was considered
a country place. But he lived there long enough to see it the center of the
choicest residence section and then to become unfashionable. >

In the public buildings of St. Louis architecture and material have varied
widely. The court house, which was begun in 1839, and upon which $1,200,000
was expended, was planned to be semi-classic in the form of a Greek cross, with
a dome that was accepted as a model by architectural critics. Maine granite was
the material employed in the Federal building. Cream colored Joliet stone was
used with not admirable effect for the Four Courts, a building which in some
lines suggested the Louvre of Paris, with mansard wings and a cupola. The
building cost three-quarters of a million of dollars, and proved to be as shocking
as the court house was satisfactory in taste and utility. The city hall was
classed as Victorian Gothic in style, built of stone and at a cost of $2,000,000.
Built in the form of quadrangles, of red granite, in Tudor-Gothic style, the

9- VOL. II.

546 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

buildings of Washington University have been pronounced by visitors among
the most pleasing structures of St. Louis.

A reservoir on top of one of the mounds was the beginning of water works
for St. Louis. The mound selected was east of Broadway, not far from Ashley
street. It was adjoining the home of General Ashley, one of the show places
of St. Louis in 1830. About that year the movement for water works obtained
practical form. This reservoir held 230,000 gallons, which, according to con-
temporaneous comment, was "amply sufficient for the wants of the city of
that period." The water was pumped from the river into this reservoir a
distance of about four blocks. Before 1840 an increase in the capacity of the
reservoir was necessary. It was 60,000 gallons. The city had grown in ten
years from 6,000 to 16,000.

The next decade, from 1840 to 1850, sent the population up from 16,000
well toward the 100,000 mark. The water problem became serious. As a
temporary expedient, wooden walls were erected to increase the capacity of
the mound reservoir to 400,000 gallons. This was soon inadequate as to
capacity. Moreover, it lacked the pressure to distribute the water to all parts
of the city. A mile or more to the westward, north of Cass avenue, about
Twenty-second street, the city obtained a site and built a reservoir with walls
of masonry to hold 7,900,000 gallons. Almost before that was finished plans
were made for a reservoir to contain 32,000,000 gallons. The engines worked
night and day to meet the demand. In 1854 the city was using 3,500,000 gallons
a day. That year St. Louis had forty miles of water pipe. A new industry
had been born. Until about 1847 water pipe was brought to St. Louis from
iron works up the Cumberland or the Ohio river. John Stacker obtained the
first contract to supply the city with water pipe. In 1846 or 1847 the Garrisons
proposed to manufacture water pipe and were encouraged by an order from
the city. That was six-inch to ten-inch pipe. In 1849 Palm & Robinson
began to make twenty-inch pipe. Two years later Graham & Co. became water
pipe makers. Peter Brooks was highly complimented in the newspapers when
he had completed his addition to the water works in 1843. The addition was
described as "one hundred feet each way and twelve feet deep." It was con-
structed of planks and was "caulked and pitched" like the hull of a steamboat.

Mayor Krum proposed, in 1848, an aggressive policy of street paving.
He urged the council to grade and macadamize a large number of streets in
what today is the business part of the city. Twenty-five of the principal
physicians united in a protest against macadam. They said:

The undersigned, being requested to express their opinion as to the effects produced
on the public health by the dust which arises in such large quantities from the macadam-
ized streets in St. Louis in dry weather and fills the atmosphere, beg leave to state, —

First, that it is extremely deleterious to the eyes, producing inflammation of those
organs.

Second, that being inhaled into the air passages, it produces various diseases of those
parts, such as chronic laryngitis, bronchitis, consumption, etc.

Thirty feet for streets was considered ample so long as St. Louis was
east of Fourth street. When J. B. C. Lucas and Auguste Chouteau laid out
their additions westward from Fourth street they adopted sixty feet as the
standard for the east and west streets. The supervising architect of the

THE GROWING OF ST. LOUIS 547

Treasury, Mr. Mullett, came to St. Louis to see the site of the postoffice. He
was serious when he saw Olive and Locust, Eighth and Ninth streets. He
proposed to all of the property holders opposite the site to draw back their
building lines nine feet, the government to do the same with its building lines.
Mr. Mullett's suggestion was unanimously rejected with scorn. The custom
house was cut down so that its walls were set back from twenty to thirty feet
from the street lines. That is the way the spacious sidewalks in front of the
postoffice came about.

The narrowness of the streets of the business section of St. Louis did not
impress itself when they were occupied by residences. It was the custom upon
most of these streets, especially the cross streets, to set back the residences
behind a little grass plot. Then the street seemed wide enough.

Early in the decade of 1850-1860 the people of St. Louis awoke to the
drain upon the city treasury by street improvements. The municipality was
spending $40,000 a year in such betterments. To stop this the Legislature
passed an act providing that the original improvement of streets must be at
the expense of the property through which they are made.

North St. Louis was a town independent of St. Louis when laid out in
1816. William Christy, William Chambers and Thomas Wright were the
creators. They set apart a market place, a school location and church site.
The bounds of the town of North St. Louis were the river, Twelfth, Madison
and Montgomery streets. In 1841 North St. Louis was annexed.

South St. Louis was something more definite than geographical. The
name belonged legally and officially to an addition of the city dedicated in 1836
by between twenty and thirty property holders. The territory included was
from the hospital on the north to the workhouse on the south.

Highland was a village adjacent to St. Louis in 1848. The founder was
John R. Shepley. Highland lay between what are now Jefferson and Leffing-
well avenues, Laclede avenue and Eugenia street. Seven years after it was
laid out Highland was absorbed by St. Louis.

Fairview was an addition to the city in 1848. It was in the southwestern
suburbs between Rosati and Morton, Sidney and Victor streets.

In 1849 Lowell was laid out as a suburb. It extended from Bellefontaine
road to the river and from Grand avenue to what is now Adelaide avenue.
E. C. Hutchinson, Josephine Hall, Edward F. Pittman, Robert Hall and William
Garrett were among the founders. Lowell had an independent existence until
1876, when it became a part of St. Louis.

Evans Place was an addition of twelve blocks north of Page and between
Prairie and Taylor avenues. The Evans family with Montgomery Blair dedi-
cated the ground.

Fair Mount was a well elevated tract of twenty-five blocks in the north-
western part of the city. It was brought in as an addition in 1869. The
boundaries were King's Highway, Macklind avenue, Bischoff and Northrup
avenues.

Rock Point was an addition to the city by Stephen D. Barlow as executor
of the will of W. C. Carr. It was dedicated in 1853, having a front on the
river between Dorcas and Lynch streets and extending back to Carondelet
avenue, now Broadway.

548 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Rock Springs was an independent village in the western suburbs before
the war. It was laid out by John B. Sarpy in 1852 and brought into the city
in 1876.

Rose Hill was the name which the Gambles, D. C. and Hamilton, gave
to an addition they platted to the northward of Cabanne. The nineteen blocks
included were between Union avenue and Hodiamont and lay in a body south
of Easton avenue, or the St. Charles Rock road, as it was called when the
addition was established in 1871. The building up of Rose Hill, making it one
of the most populous sections of the city, has been a feature of the rapid
extension of the residence movement westward since the World's Fair.

Henry Clay came to St. Louis in 1846 to conduct a sale of real estate.
The land which he owned was known as "Clay's old orchard tract." It was
about 220 acres. The statesman subdivided it into tracts of from five to forty
acres and offered it for sale. He appeared at the court house door on the
day set and made a few remarks to the assembled citizens about the land. He
stated that he wished to reserve a single bid for himself. Several of the
choicest pieces were offered for bids. Mr. Clay's reserved bid was announced
to be $120 per acre. Nobody was willing to raise that bid. Mr. Clay then
offered the whole tract for $100 an acre. He was quite disappointed at the
lack of activity on the part of the crowd. Three years after Mr. Clay endeavored
to sell the land at $100 an acre, a considerable portion of it sold at an average
of $250 per acre and in 1853, seven years after Mr. Clay's visit, sixty acres of
this land sold at $450 an acre. In 1857, another piece of the tract sold at $1,050
an acre. In 1859, thirteen years after Mr. Clay's offer of the land, some of
it sold at $2,000 per acre. A part of Mr. Clay's tract is embraced in Calvary
cemetery.

The buying and selling of real estate became a distinctive vocation in
St. Louis about 1848. Previous to that time the real estate agent, save in
connection with other business, was not known. Leffingwell and Elliott opened
a real estate office. Contrary to expectation, they continued to do business.
Hiram W. Leffingwell was of Massachusetts birth. He taught school, studied
law, surveyed land and raised wheat before he came to St. Louis and dealt in
real estate. Although Mr. Leffingwell was probably the pioneer real estate
man in transactions of magnitude, John Byrne, Jr., began in a modest way
somewhat earlier. His office was in a little building on Chestnut street near
Fourth. It was established in 1840. Chestnut street has always been Real
Estate Row. In nearly seventy years, the business has moved due westward
along that street and over "the Hill" only a few blocks. John Byrne, Jr., was
a New York city boy. He came to St. Louis just after the panic of 1837 and
tried the dry goods business two years. Eugene Kelley kept a neighboring
store at the same time, but went back to New York and founded a great banking
house.

The first great auction sale of St. Louis realty was that of the Stoddard
addition. It realized $701,676. The prices for these Stoddard addition lots
were considered quite satisfactory. Ground at Locust and Beaumont brought
fifteen dollars a foot. The same price was paid for the corner of Franklin
and Ewing avenues. At Washington and Garrison avenues the successful bid
was five dollars and seventy- four cents a front foot. At Lucas and Ewing

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THE GROWING OF ST. LOUIS 549

avenues and at Lucas and Leffingwell avenues the highest bids were ten dollars
a foot. Within eight years, in 1859, tn^s same Stoddard addition property
went up to sixty and one hundred dollars a front foot.

When Stoddard addition was laid out Leffingwell and Elliott had a sharp
controversy with some of the owners of the land embraced in the large sub-
division. These owners wanted the maximum of front feet and the minimum
of depth. They stood for narrow streets and shallow lots. The real estate
men insisted on plotting for a large city with wide streets, deep lots and spacious
alleys. They had their way by the exercise of considerable persuasion. At
that time, September 10, 1851, Commodore Perry's victory on Lake Erie was
observed annually in St. Louis. One year a reproduction of the battle was
given on Chouteau's pond. The real estate men chose the anniversary for the
beginning of the three days' sale of auction lots in Stoddard addition.

Richard Smith Elliott, who came to St. Louis in 1843, described St. Louis
as it was in that year:

We spent the winter of 1843-4 in St. Louis and took boarding first in the then out-
skirts of the city, in the brick mansion owned by Mrs. John Perry, on the corner of Sixth
and Locust streets. Luther M. Kennett was building the first marble front ever in St.
Louis on the next lot north, but folks generally thought it was rather far away from
business, then mostly transacted on the Levee, Main and Second streets. From our win-
dows we could look westward to a clump of forest trees at Eighteenth and St. Charles
streets and could see the camp of some Indians on a friendly visit to Colonel Mitchell, the
superintendent. Beyond the Indian camp were farms. I had very little to do and often
strolled away up Sixth and Seventh streets where but few houses obstructed the view and
I sometimes went even as far as Chouteau's pond, and would look at the outside of the
old stone mill, in which ten years later I aided to start the first stone sawing by steam
in St. Louis, and would try to imagine what a nice cascade the water trickling over the
mill dam would make if there was only enough of it. Mr. Eenshaw's lone mansion was
at the corner of Ninth and Market, but there was little if any city growth beyond. On
Morgan street and Franklin avenue, I was told that I could get lots at seven or eight
dollars a foot. I did not think it worth while to regret that I had no money to buy with.

About 1850, St. Louis real estate men laid out what was designed to give
this city the finest drive in the world. The closely built residence section at
that time extended not far west of Seventh street. Leffingwell and Elliott were
civil engineers. They took the ridge which is now traversed by Grand avenue,
laid out a roadway along the crest from Carondelet to the river above Bremen,
a distance of between twelve and fourteen miles. The route was natural for
the purpose intended. It was without much change of elevation. Except for
the descent across Chouteau's pond, the proposed roadway occupied high and
commanding ground almost the entire route. The views from the proposed
roadway were very fine, both eastward and westward. The real estate men
went before the county court and asked for a condemnation of this roadway,
which they called Grand avenue, making it either 120 or 150 feet wide. The
members of the court were amazed. At that time the regulation width of a
roadway in and about St. Louis was forty feet. After a great deal of arguing,
the engineers and real estate men were able to obtain from the court favorable
action on eighty feet. This was the beginning of the Grand avenue of today.
If Leffingwell and Elliott and their associates had been successful they would
have established a magnificent boulevard instead of the avenue only fairly
adequate for the traffic of 1909.

550 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

"It will be the greatest street in America some day," Mr. Leffingwell used
to say in 1850, as he pointed to the boulevard 120 feet wide laid down on the
map which hung in his office. Mr. Lindell was one of the real estate owners
who became deeply interested in the proposed boulevard. He laid out an
addition near the Fair Grounds to conform to the plan. Thereupon Mr. Lef-
fingwell named the boulevard "Lindell avenue." But when the county court
reduced the width to eighty feet the name was changed to "Grand avenue."

The Lindells were from Maryland, Worcester county. The first of them
received a grant of land and came over from England long before the American
Revolution. His son, John, became famous as a successful farmer. Peter
Lindell, a grandson of the founder of the family in Maryland, left the farm
and became a trader on the Ohio river. Owning his own boat and stocking it
with goods, he made stops wherever there were settlers. In exchange for his
goods he took furs, pelts, hemp and tobacco. When the stock of goods was
exhausted, and the boat was loaded with products, Peter Lindell made a trip
to Pittsburg, and turned over his cargo for more goods and some money. In
two years the business had developed so well that Peter sent for his brother,
John Lindell, and later another brother, Jesse Lindell, was taken into the trading
syndicate. The Lindells became well known all along the Ohio. In 1811, Peter
Lindell gave up the floating trade and established himself as a merchant in
St. Louis, opening a store on Main street. In a short time he made a great
impression upon the community of 1,500 people by building three brick houses.
As he made money from his store, he put it into real estate.

Peter Lindell was a man of splendid physique. In company with Mr.
Collier he made a trip to the eastern cities. The two St. Louisans stopped for
the night at a roadside cabin near Shawneetown. As they went in Mr. Collier
was recognized by a desperado whom he had offended some time before. The
fellow declared his intention to kill Mr. Collier and started for his gun. Mr.
Lindell interfered, and with his fists administered such a thrashing that there
was no further trouble.

In 1826 Peter Lindell retired from mercantile life and devoted himself
to his real estate business. He lived many years a retired life, one of the
wealthiest men of the city, but known personally to few people. When his
brothers died he took upon himself the care of their families. In times of
financial stress he came to the rescue of more than one man seriously involved.
But his good acts of generosity were unostentatious. By the justice of fate,
long after his death, Peter Lindell's name was bestowed upon what has become
one of the grandest city thoroughfares in this country.

Leffingwell labored through two generations to make Grand avenue a
boulevard. He said this project promised one superiority over every similar
thoroughfare in any other city. About 1887 he described it in this way:

Following the boulevards of other places you find but two material points of rest —
the city at the point of departure, and at the far other end the public park as the point of
termination. It is reserved to Grand avenue alone to boast a succession of no fewer than
five public parks, all beautiful and some of them the finest in the country; of a bridge
promising a magnificence of architecture equal to its gigantic proportions; of a botanical
garden, the just pride of the entire west — and of water works and grounds which people
travel hundreds of miles to see. That such a multitude of parks and public places have

THE GROWING OF ST. LOUIS 551

fiinee been located along the line which I projected in the pioneer days of '46 is a strong
indorsement of the then selection, and, I may add, the most flattering compliment I ever
received for the work.

Soon after the Grand avenue project was started, about 1850, Henry
Shaw, carrying in one hand a bunch of roses, entered the real estate office of
Leffingwell and Elliott on Chestnut street. A decade before he had retired
from his hardware business and had taken up his residence for most of the
year on a farm three miles southwest of the city. Pointing with his cane to a
map of St. Louis and the boulevard which Mr. Leffingwell was proposing, Mr.
Shaw remarked in the most casual way that he was going to create and main-
tain a botanical garden free for visiting citizens and strangers. He indicated
the present location of the garden and added that he had in mind to lay out
and present a park extending from the garden to the boulevard. That was
the first announcement of the greatest gift of its kind made to any American
city. Over half a century elapsed. The park of 300 acres, with its wonderful
forestry, its statues in bronze of Shakespeare and Humboldt, its miles of drives
and walks, its flower beds, reached a degree of landscape development and
beauty such as no other part of the country could show. The botanical garden,
with its library and herbarium, its plant houses, became known the world over.
When the Universal Exposition of 1904 was held the daily record of visitors
to the garden, kept by the director, Dr. William Trelease, followed exactly the
increase and decrease of World's Fair attendance. There was the evidence
of the widespread fame which "Shaw's Garden" had attained.

As early as 1816, three citizens, William Chambers, William Christy and
Thomas Wright, set apart thirteen acres on the river front to become a park.
They did not convey a complete title, but gave the land to the city in trust to
be maintained as a park. Under trusteeship this land was to "remain a com-
mons forever." It was expected to be a benefit to those who bought lots in
the addition of Chambers, Christy and Wright. The city made some park
improvements, but tired of the trusteeship. Although the courts sustained the
city's control as against the heirs, the attempt to make a park out of Exchange
Square, as it was called, was abandoned.

At the time when General Ashley bought his place of eight acres extending
from Biddle to Bates street, the present Broadway, upon which he fronted, was
called Federal avenue. The general placed in the front yard a fine fountain, the
first seen in St. Louis.

Thornton Grimsley had so much to do with the selection of Lafayette Park,
under the suggestion of Mayor Darby, that the place for some years went by
the name of Grimsley's Folly. The conservative citizens of that day denounced
Mayor Darby and Alderman Grimsley because the park was so large and so far
from the settled part of the city. >j

The Fair Grounds tract was intended for a park over fifty years ago. At
the time Henry Shaw was laying out his arboretum on the south side, John
O'Fallon let it be known that he intended to donate sixty acres for a park in
the northern suburbs. This was the older portion of the Fair Grounds lying
west of Grand avenue and north of Natural Bridge road. Colonel O'Fallon
mentioned his purpose in 1854. But before the gift to the city was consum-

552 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

mated the Agricultural and Mechanical Association was organized. The tract
was deemed especially suitable for fair grounds and was transferred to the or-
ganization.

A park proposition which in 1866 met with favor and to which the city
council gave some consideration embraced twenty acres lying along Theresa
avenue and extending across the Mill Creek valley from Market street to Chou-
teau avenue. A measure to buy the land was advocated, but it failed. The
locality was a popular one when the city's growth was east of Beaumont street.
Overlooking the proposed park tract was a suburban resort known as the
Bellevue. Theophile Papin told in 1866 of having counted nearly twenty springs
feeding the Chouteau mill pond. He described them as "fine, abundant wholesome
fountains." With the expansion of the city westward and the draining of the
pond all but two or three of these springs dried up or became choked so that they
did not flow.

In 1871 Senator Henry J. Spaunhorst filed a bill before the Legislature for
the establishment of a park which was to extend westward from King's Highway,
covering much of the territory now embraced in Forest Park. This was to be
named St. Louis Park; it was to be surrounded by avenues 150 feet wide, to
be named respectively: East, West, North and South avenues.

The Forest Park movement became active in 1869 under the inspiration of
H. W. Leffingwell, "the old gray eagle" of the real estate fraternity. A bill
passed the Legislature in 1872. Just before that an acre and a quarter at the
southeast corner of Lindell avenue and Kings Highway was in the market for
$2,800. No buyer would have it. The passage of the park act started one of
the nearest approaches to a boom in the history of the real estate transactions
of St. Louis. Would-be investors came from New York, Chicago, Cincinnati
and Indianapolis to get in on the ground floor. They bargained for $1,800,000
jvprth of St. Louis property most of the proposed purchases being conditional
on the park bill going through. Real estate men were confident that the trans-
actions would reach $10,000,000 to $12,000,000 in the year. A court decision
adverse to the park act paralyzed the real estate market. Before the legal snarl
was straightened, the panic of 1873 came on. St. Louis at length obtained the
park, but the real estate harvest was^ spoiled by the delay.

In the 1,326 acres of Forest Park were twenty-nine parcels. They ranged
from 294 acres down to lots. Charles P. Chouteau and Julia Marfitt were the
owners of the 294 acres tract. Isabella DeMun owned another large tract. The
appraisers valued the entire 1,326 acres at $799,995. The appraisers were three
real estate men, perhaps the best known of their day in St. Louis, — Theophile
Papin, John G. Priest and Charles Green. The constitutionality of the act creat-
ing the park was tested in court. In the supreme court the act was sustained.
Untrained vision sees at a glance Forest Park is diversified. The variation of
altitudes is perhaps greater than can be found in any like area within the limits
of St. Louis. At one place in Forest Park the surface is only twenty-two feet
above the high water mark of 1844. This is in the valley of the Des Peres.
Another place within the park is 175 feet above that high water mark. To put
it differently, the altitudes of Forest Park vary over 150 feet.

OLIVER A. HART

THE OLD RUSSELL FARM
About Ninth street and Russell avenue, residence of Thomas Allen

MARCUS A. WOLFF

M. B. O'REILLY

THE GROWING OF ST. LOUIS 553

A preliminary opening of Forest Park took place on the 29th of June,
1872. Vehicles carried the guests of the commissioners from downtown to a
place under the trees a short distance from Kings Highway. In the current
account of the celebration it was said :

"The place was very attractive; the trees are of oak, hickory, ash, walnut,
elm, sassafras and sycamore, and the ground is rolling and smooth, with no
underbrush, while the golden waters of the Des Peres flow near, and crystal
springs gush boldly from the rocks." Speeches were made by Henry T. Blow,
Carl Schurz, Frank P. Blair, H. C. Brockmeyer, H. W. Leffingwell, Stilson
Hutchins and Nat C. Claiborne. Col. Claiborne gave Capt. Skinker, of Skinker
road, the credit for the final selection of the site by the legislature at Jeffer-
son City. He said :

Captain Skinker and Mr. Forsyth came up to Jefferson City. Mr. Gerhart came up
with a project for the northern park. Mr. Skinker seeing the park was likely to go north,
wrote a letter to Nicholas M. Bell, giving a highly poetic description of his location and
recommending it as admirably adapted to a park. That letter contained more poetry than
Byron, Moore and Milton ever dreamed of. When the bill for the park came up Mr.
Skinker was told of the effect produced by his poetic letter. The bill passed.

Kings Highway from Forest Park northward affords, in 1911, one of the
best illustrations of the city's Twentieth Century evolution. From the group
of hotels and apartment houses at the park entrance, the boulevard passes
several of the "Places" or private residence parks characteristic of St. Louis.
Westmoreland and Portland Places have monumental gateways on the west
side of Kings Highway and are half a mile in length bordered by mansions.
Maryland Place and Hortense Place with their spacious grounds, are on the
east. A couple of blocks north are several of the largest St. Louis churches,
each distinctive in architecture. The First Church of Christ (Scientist) is of
Renaissance design, set off with admirable landscape treatment. St. John's
Methodist South follows a Fifteenth Century style, with two impressive facades.
Temple Israel is a Greek temple of stone with columns and richly carved capitals.
The interior is of Caen stone. The Second Baptist, with its church and chapel,
two separate buildings and with the lofty campanile 215 feet high standing be-
tween them, is one of the most unique of St. Louis churches; it has a cloister
in front and a closed arcade in the rear. The court between the church and
chapel and between the arcade and cloister contains a pool and sunken garden.
Tuscan Temple, an imposing Masonic structure, following with conscientious
detail the Doric, completes this remarkable group of buildings.

Union avenue from Forest Park northward has become, in 1911, a mile of
St. Louis culture. The object lesson begins with the monumental entrances of
Westmoreland and Portland Places, their vistas eastward being long park strips
between double driveways bordered by mansions. Then comes the most recent
development in St. Louis architecture, — towering apartment houses. A few
steps beyond to the westward, are the great gateways of Kingsbury Place and
Washington Terrace, while eastward the Westminster and Washington boule-
vards seemingly narrow in the distance to lanes between the overhanging trees.
A block farther on is a group of churches of widely varied architecture and
creeds, — Christian, Unitarian and Congregational. In the midst of the group
is the quaint club house and gallery of the Artists' Guild, also the home of the

554 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Burns Club and of the Franklin Club. The Soldan High school has become
famous as the best type of its class in this country. Beside the Soldan, also front-
ing a full block on Union, is the William Clark, the latest type of the grammar
school class. The Cabanne Library is adjoining and opposite is St. Philomena,
the academy of one of the Catholic sisterhoods. Only a block off of Union, on
the west, are the Smith Academy and the Manual Training School of Wash-
ington University, and the Visitation Academy. The fine residences of Winder-
mere and Cabanne Places are sandwiched in among these institutions. More
apartment houses, a model police station and the great St. Ann Asylum occupy
the remaining two or three blocks of this notable mile of New St. Louis.

Possibly one reason why St. Louis made slow progress with park projects
in the early days was the good fortune enjoyed in respect to suburbs. No matter
where the building line has been in the almost century and a half, St. Louis has
been favored with beautiful suburbs. Flagg described what he found here in
1836:

The extent between the northern suburbs of St. Louis and its southern extremity
along the river curve is about six miles, and the city can be profitably extended about
the same distance into the interior. The prospect in this direction is boundless for miles
around, till the tree tops blend with the western horizon. The face of the country is
neither uniform nor broken, but undulates almost imperceptibly away, clothed in a dense
forest of blackjack oak, interspersed with thickets of the wild plum, the crab apple and
the hazel. Thirty years ago this broad plain was a treeless, shrubless waste, without a
solitary farmhouse to break the monotony. But the annual fires were stopped; a young
forest sprang into existence; and delightful villas and country-seats are now gleaming
from the dark foliage in all directions. To some of them are attached extensive grounds
adorned with groves, orchards, fishponds, and all the elegancies of opulence and culti-
vated taste; while in the distance are beheld the glittering spires of the city rising above
the treetops. At one of these, a retired beautiful spot, I have passed many a pleasant hour.
The sportsman may here be indulged to his heart's desire. The woods abound with game
of every species; the rabbit, prairie hen, wild turkey, and the deer; while the lakes which
flash from every dell and dingle, swarm with fish. Most of these sheets of water are
formed by immense springs issuing from sinkholes and are supposed to owe their origin
to the subsidence of the bed of porous limestone upon which the western valley is based.
Many of these springs intersect the region with rills and rivulets, and assist in forming
a beautiful sheet of water in the southern suburbs of the city. A dam and massive mill
of stone was erected here by one of the founders of the city; it is yet standing surrounded
by aged sycamores. The neighboring region is abrupt and broken, varied by a delightful
vicissitude of hill and vale. The borders of the lake are fringed with groves, while the
steep bluffs, which rise along the water and are reflected in its placid bosom, recall the
picture of Ben Venue and Loch Katrine. This beautiful lake and its vicinity is indeed
unsurpassed by any spot in the suburbs of St. Louis. At the calm, holy hour of Sabbath
sunset its quiet borders invite to meditation and retirement. The spot should be conse-
crated as the trysting place of love and friendship. Some fine structures are rising upon
the margin of the waters, and in a few years it will be rivalled in beauty by no other
section of the city.

During the first half century the two great landmarks of the city were
Chouteau's Pond and the Big Mound. They disappeared about the same time.
Newspapers chronicled "The Last of Chouteau's Pond" in 1870. The pond was
really a lake, covering over one hundred acres. The north shore was very irregu-
lar, extending from Seventh street and Clark avenue past the Collier White Lead
factory. Just east of the lead factory an arm reached northward to Olive street

J. G. LINDELL

PETER LINDELL

MANSION OF JAMES H. LUCAS

THE EAST PIAZZA

Popular type of St. Louis residence
of 1909

THE GROWING OF ST. LOUIS 555

between Tenth and Eleventh streets. Beyond the lead factory was a penin-
sular on which the Four Courts stands. This high ground projected into the
pond directly southward and was occupied by the old Henry Chouteau mansion.
The peninsular extended southward from Clark avenue to near Poplar street.
Beyond Twelfth street the shore line of the pond extended northwest and west
breaking into small arms. At its best the lake afforded a boating course of over
one mile. The southern bank of the pond was made prominent by the high
ground near I4th street. About Gratiot and Fourth streets the banks contracted
in the early period and formed a narrow, rocky gorge, through which the waters
flowed with considerable turbulence to the river. This was Mill creek. The
rise of the Little river which fed the pond was at Rock Springs on the Man-
chester road, four miles from the court house. As late as 1840 Chouteau's Pond
was a beautiful sheet of water, with high, grassy banks well shaded with forest
trees. The water was clear and full of fish. On the bank was a free bath house
for the boys. The groves around the grounds were favorite picnic resorts. In
1870 all that remained of the pond, long before partially drained, was a hole of
dirty, stagnant water, diminishing as the ashes and garbage of the city were
dumped on its edges.

About 1872, before the bridge was opened, a movement to widen Third
street gained headway. From Locust street south to Carondelet avenue the
proposition was to take twenty-five feet from the west side of Third. With
this in view, the Chamber of Commerce was set back from the building line.
Third street was to be the great banking and brokerage and commercial thor-
oughfare, extending from the bridge entrance to Chouteau avenue. The
financial institutions of the city were to be anchored there for all time. The
newspaper offices were expected to remain there. Five daily papers were
located in as many blocks on Third street at the time the movement was
inaugurated. The custom house and the telegraph offices were there. Of Third
street widened, the capitalists of the city entertained great expectations.

When a community reaches the metropolitan stage of development and
dignity, a financial artery becomes one of its essential and vital parts. The
stature of any body politic may lengthen. The muscles may bulge. The stride
may become bolder. The artery pulsates fuller and stronger, but it is fixed
in its place. Threadneedle street is where and what it was in the London of
generations ago. New York has never had but one Wall street. The Bourse
of Paris will be the Bourse of Paris fifty years hence. Philadelphia has given
Broad street a distinctive financial character which will continue. Chicago's
wealth is massed on LaSalle street. Boston has her State street.

It comes about that within a short radius, perhaps upon a few blocks of a
single street, the financial institutions of a city group themselves. Having
settled upon the locality these institutions remain through the years. The
business district expands. The residence sections in their successive annexa-
tions indulge in vagaries and surprises. Manufacturing suburbs come into
being and thrive. Skyscraping office buildings do not huddle together. Their
architectural nature is to scatter within certain bounds. The wholesale district
is a law unto itself and no man can predict whither it goeth twenty years hence.
But the financial aorta endures; it is a fixture in the community. It follows

556 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

no changing fashion or fancy of location. It is the organ of the municipal
life which is the stayer.

The gravitation of banks, trust companies and stocks and bonds houses
to Fourth and Fifth streets was one of the notable tendencies in the develop-
ment of St. Louis. It was quiet and slow but steady and telling. A street
known only by a numeral name has nothing of sentimental attraction. "Fourth
street" was prosaic and non-suggestive. Broadway was borrowed. But in
some mysterious way there have been drawn together within a few blocks north
and south of Olive street great banks and trust corporations and many stocks
and bonds houses, to say nothing of two scores of individual brokers.

Thirty years ago this character of Fourth street and Broadway was not
foreshadowed in any degree. There were banks on Second street and Third
street. Sixth street and Washington avenue had banks. Fourth street was
without banks, and Broadway had only one or two financial institutions. Fourth
street about 1870 was a street of quick financial activities. It abounded in
institutions which received deposits not subject to check and which did a rapid
business in discounts commonly called "rake offs." A certain state politician
of high degree, a member of the legislature, had occasion to tell an investigating
committee what disposition he had made of a roll of currency handed to him
contemporaneously with some important legislation. He testified that he put
the money in a bank. Pressed for particulars the statesman finally elaborated
his answer; he said he meant "a faro bank."

Lower Fourth street was the street of gambling houses. Upper Fourth
street was the retail shopping thoroughfare. Broadway was beginning to be
worthy of its name. The complete change of character in the street has had
its evolution within twenty years. Today the financial heart of the city centers
on Fourth street and Broadway, between the court house and Washington
avenue.

As a political subdivision St. Louis occupies a unique position among
American cities. Thirty-four years ago the city and county of St. Louis were
permitted by the state to separate. The city assumed all debts of the county
and was relieved of all county government. The western limits of the city
were made an arbitrary curved line with a general north and south direction.
If there was more curvature of this line on the west and of the river on the
east, St. Louis would be egg shaped. The river bends to the east and the
boundary line curves to the west, but river and line meet in north and south
points. The length of the city along the river is about twenty miles. The
greatest width is about six miles and this is midway between the north and
south ends or points.

Thirty-four years ago the limits of the city seemed to the wise men of
that generation to be ample. If those separatists looked forward in imagina-
tion to a city greater than they had provided for they did not allow it to check
their plans. Under a new charter St. Louis became a new political subdivision
of the state. The county of St. Louis set up its own government without debt,
establishing its county seat about two miles west of the new limits of St. Louis.
A period of thirty years has brought about unforeseen conditions. In 1876
Grand avenue, or Thirty-sixth street, was the limit of the residence section with
many square miles of unimproved ground east of it. West of Grand avenue

THE GROWING OF ST. LOUIS 557

to the city limits stretched farm lands. In 1911 St. Louis has in proportion to
the whole a smaller amount of unimproved ground within the present city
limits than it had east of Grand avenue when the separation took place.

To the south, to the southwest, to the west and to the northwest the home
building has passed over the arbitrary boundary of the city. Beyond that
boundary have come into existence a half hundred of communities which are
parts of the city of St. Louis in all the metropolitan utilities, but not politically.
They are in St. Louis county, but their residents do business in and belong to
the great city of St. Louis.

Through Happy Hollow meandered the water from Chouteau's pond after
it had gone over the dam or the wheel. Happy Hollow was a tree-bordered
ravine. It had its beginning west of the present Broadway and south of Spruce.
The course was southwesterly toward the river about the foot of Chouteau
avenue. To Happy Hollow the colored laundresses carried the family washing.
Among the sycamores they stretched the lines. In the early morning they
scrubbed. Toward nightfall they carried home the clothes, clean and dry.
Taking the children with them, they made blue Monday an outing. Happy
Hollow lingered a pleasant memory in local history after it ceased to be the
town laundry.

A locality which retained its unofficial designation longer than most of
jthe other sections was Kerry Patch. It was a strip of two or three blocks wide
jand extended from Biddle to Mullanphy street, along Seventeenth. Irish immi-
/grants coming in great numbers about 1842 found this locality unotcupied
/ commons. They built little houses without much regard to street lines and
/ made themselves homes. Kerry is a part of Ireland famed for beautiful scenery.
Ets application to "the Patch" was hardly appropriate, but it clung.

Where Twelfth and Pine streets intersect ran a deep gully. Its beginning
was about the present site of the Jefferson hotel. Curving through what is
now City Hall square, the gully was a landmark of such proportions that the
early settlers bestowed a name upon it. They called the gully "La Raceroe,"
because of its course, something like a great hook. The gully carried the flood
waters of a considerable section into Chouteau pond.

Between Market and St. Charles streets, from Tenth to Twentieth street,
was a well wooded section. It was called "Lucas' Grove."

Duncan's island, which came into existence long after St. Louis was
founded, received its name from Bob Duncan, who built a cabin and filed a
claim on it. At first it was a sand bar off Market street. The lower end grew
until it was above the water level. Bushes appeared. The sand became soil
which encouraged vegetable growth. David Adams, a noted hunter on the
plains, took up his residence on the island.

Wilson Primm was considered the best authority on the familiar nomen-
clature of St. Louis and its suburbs. Judge Primm's explanation of River
Des Peres was this:

A number of the religious order of Trappists or Monks from Canada had under the
authority of the Bishop at Quebec, Canada, settled at Cahokia in what is now known as
St. Clair county, Illinois. A few members of this order attracted by the beauty at the
mouth of this stream, commenced the formation of an establishment there; but through
fear of Indian depredation or fearful of sickness they abandoned the work which they

558 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

had begun. Henceforth the stream was known and called the Des Peres, the River of the
Fathers.

Bonhomme, which is the name of the road lying along the ridge of Uni-
versity City, Clayton and beyond, was derived, according to Judge Primrn, from
the nickname of Joseph Herbert. This man lived in what is part of St. Louis
county. He was easy going, honest, obliging and popular, so much so that the
French settlers bestowed upon him the name of "Bonhomme" Herbert, being
descriptive of his disposition. From the location of Herbert's place the Bon-
homme road, Bonhomme township and Bonhomme creek received their names.
Judge Primm thought in all probability the naming of the creek came first and
that it was so called in Herbert's honor La Riviere au Bonhomme, which was
anglicized into Bonhomme creek.

Creve Coeur, Judge Primm said, means a weight on the heart. It was
named, according to the tradition which Judge Primm preserved, by reason
of an expression made when Alexis and his wife moved out to the borders of
the lake. Alexis had been a bellringer at the Catholic church in St. Louis in
the colonial period. He took his wife to the new home on the shore of the lake.
When she came into St. Louis after a year's residence in the wilds to visit her
relatives they asked her how she liked her home. She replied in French that
it was a weight on her heart. She meant that she missed the ringing of the
church bells and felt doleful or depressed in the new surroundings. Some color
is given to the tradition by the fact that Alexis and his dissatisfied wife moved
back to St. Louis and Alexis resumed the old vocation of bellringer of the
church on Walnut street.

Judge Primm held to the theory that St. Louis obtained the name of Pain-
court from an old parish of that name in France. He said:

In early days this town was called "Paincourt," which in French literally means
a loaf of bread that is short, or insufficient in length or of insufficient weight. This ap-
pellation may have been given it by way of derision on account of the nicknames which
the St. Louisans gave to other towns, such as Misere to Ste. Genevieve, Viede Poche to Ca-
rondelet; but in reality it was the name of the parish in which the post of St. Louis was
situated, as shown by the official records of the Spanish government. In France there is
still a parish of that name.

Judge Primm in a description of the origin of the nickname applied to
Carondelet vigorously combatted the tradition that Viede Poche meant empty
pocket. He said that anyone who knew Carondelet under the Spanish govern-
ment, and even long after the change of sovereignty, understood that the
residents of that village were with rare exceptions the owners of land, were
industrious and well to do. After they had gathered their crops they hauled
fire wood to St. Louis and sold it to the early settlers. In the opinion of Judge
Primm the name of Viede Poche was bestowed on Carondelet because the inhab-
itants of that village were better sportsmen than the people of St. Louis. On
Sundays the St. Louisans were in the habit of going to Carondelet to race and
play cards in the afternoon. Either the Carondelet men had faster horses or
were better players, for the St. Louis visitors, Judge Primm said, generally
returned home with emptied pockets. This was so often the case that when a
St. Louisan was invited to visit Carondelet on Sunday afternoons he would
reply in French, using the word Viede Poche in the sense to make his answer:
"Of what use? It's a pocket emptier."

GEORGE I. BARNETT

J. E. KAIME

JOHN BYRNE. JR.

HOME OF GILES F. FILLEY
On Lucas place, before the Civil war

THE BRANT RESIDENCE

On Chouteau avenue. Headquarters in
war times, now a factory

THE GROWING OF ST. LOUIS 559

Old St. Louis is seen in a street car ride to Carondelet, the pioneer settle-
ment which was started only a few years after St. Louis and which maintained
its town and city individuality through three generations before it yielded to
annexation. Many of the buildings of Carondelet are from fifty to seventy-
five years old.

The tradition that the Indians gave the name of Meramec to the river
because it abounded in catfish, Judge Primm was inclined to believe on the
testimony given him by Captain Samuel Knight, who was his neighbor and a
farmer and fisherman. Captain Knight said to Judge Primm that in the fall
of the year 1820 while he was out deer hunting he wandered to the mouth of
the Meramec river. The water was so clear that objects at or near the bottom
were plainly discernible. There he saw great numbers of catfish, so many that
they actually dammed the river. These catfish, Captain Knight said, were lying
side by side as close to each other as the fingers of the hand, their heads in a
line, occupying the entire space from shore to shore; they were motionless;
they made no attempt to seize the small fish which swam near them. Captain
Knight said he mentioned this astonishing spectacle to Ben Fine, McGregor
Fine and John Home, who had lived for years near the mouth of the Meramec,
and that they informed him they had seen the same curious spectacle every
fall during their residence there. The name of the river has been given in
various forms of spelling in the history of St. Louis, but the way commonly
used is Meramec. Judge Primm said that this way was slightly inaccurate,
that the proper spelling should be M-a-r-a-m-e-c, which was the form used
during the Spanish regime.

560 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

THE CHOUTEAU HOUSE.

Touch not a stone! An early pioneer

Of Christian sway founded his dwelling here,

Almost alone.

Touch not a stone! Let the Great West command
A hoary relic of the early land;

That after generations may not say,
"All went for gold in our forefathers' day,
And of our infancy we nothing own. ' '
Touch not a stone!

Touch not a stone! Let the old pile decay,
A relic of the time now pass'd away,

Ye heirs who own

Lordly endowment of the ancient hall,
Till the last rafter crumbles from the wall,

And each old tree around the dwelling rots,
Yield not your heritage for "building lots."
Hold the old ruin for itself alone;
Touch not a stone!

Built by a foremost Western pioneer,
It stood upon St. Louis' bluff to cheer

New settlers on.

Now o'er it tow'r majestic spire and dome,
And lowly seems the forest trader 's home ;

All out of fashion, like a time-struck man,
Last of his age, his kindred and his clan,
Lingering still, a stranger and alone —
Touch not a stone!

Spare the old house! The ancient mansion spare,
For ages still to front the market square —

That may be shown,

How those old walls of good St. Louis rock,
In native strength, shall bear against the shock
Of centuries! There shall the curious see,
When like a fable shall' our story be,
How the Star City of the West has grown!
Touch not a stone!

— M. G. FIELD, New Orleans, Picayune, about 1835.

CHAPTER XXII.
IN THE LIFE OF THE NATION

St. Louis and the American Revolution — George Eogers Clark's Tribute — Francis Vigo's
Part in the Talcing of Vincennes — Patriotic Father Gibault — The Republican Spirit of
St. Louis — Bishop Robertson's Historical Researches — The British Attack of if 80 — The
Haldimand- Sinclair Correspondence — Pascal Cerre's Recollections — Revelations from
Canadian Archives — Beausoleil's Midwinter Expedition to Michigan — Jefferson's Secret
Investigation at St. Louis Before the Cession — Lucas Chosen for a Delicate Mission —
Aaron Burr 's Advances Repulsed by St. Louisans — Deciding Vote in Election of President
Adams — To the Everglades — St. Louis' Help for William Henry Harrison — In the Mexican
War — Wonderful Deeds of the Laclede Rangers — Zachary Taylor's Newspaper Nomina-
tion— The Dred Scott Case — St. Louisans in the Civil War — An Army of Home Guards
Besides 15,310 Volunteers in the Feld — Price's Vanguard Within Present City Limits —
Careers of Lyon and Frost — A Dream of Border Neutrality — Camp Jackson — f'The Last
Man and the Last Dollar ' ' for the Union — St. Louis Radicals at the White House — Recol-
lections of Enos Clarke — The Twentieth Century Club — Genesis of the Liberal Republican
Movement — Grats Brown's Leadership — The Mistake of 1872.

The difference between St. Louis and Chicago, Cincinnati and New Orleans, Is not only,
or mainly, that of larger and smaller, but that of origin, of history, of relative constituent
elements in the sources of pride and in the social and other problems to be met.
This city has a life, a history, an influence upon the Mississippi Valley all its own. — Bishop
C. F. Robertson.

"Our friends, the Spaniards are doing everything in their power to con-
vince me of their friendship," George Rogers Clark wrote from St. Louis in
July, 1778. Here the Hannibal of the west found money, gunpowder and
clothing secretly stored and awaiting delivery to help the American cause. The
wonderful exploits of George Rogers Clark and his 350 Virginians and Ken-
tuckians in 1778 and 1779 are thrilling chapters of American histories. Scarcely
mentioned in these histories is the fact that before he started on his campaign,
Clark sent two of his trusted lieutenants to St. Louis to sound sentiment toward
the American colonies and to determine in what degree the leading men of the
community could be depended upon for cooperation. After he received the
encouraging reports from St. Louis, George Rogers Clark started down the Ohio
to make his bloodless capture of the British post, Kaskaskia, July 4, 1778.

Very practical was the sympathy with which St. Louisans redeemed the
promises they had given to George Rogers Clark's advance agents. A St.*
Louisan, Francis Vigo, made the trip to Vincennes and brought back to Clark
the information he needed to make the expedition against that British post suc-
cessful. As Vigo was leaving Vincennes to return the British stopped him.
He asserted his right as a resident of St. Louis. A pledge that "on his way
to St. Louis he would do no act hostile to British interest" was required. Vigo
came back direct to St. Louis. He had barely landed when, having fulfilled the
pledge, he jumped back into his boat and went as fast as he could to Kaskaskia
with the news that the French were waiting to welcome the Americans and that
Vincennes could be taken. Clark made repeated visits to St. Louis before he

561
10-VOL. II.

562 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

started in February, 1779, across the Illinois prairies. He needed money and
provisions. St. Louis raised nearly $20,000 for the little American army. Father
Gibault, the priest who alternated between St. Louis and Kaskaskia, gave his
savings of years, — $1,000. When the expedition, with recruits from St. Louis
and Cahokia and Kaskaskia, marched away to the eastward, Father Gibault and
his Kaskaskia parishoners knelt and prayed for American success at Vincennes.
Fifteen months later the firing line of American independence ran along the stone,
brush and log ramparts of St. Louis.

The St. Louis of 1764-1780 came well by its Americanism. For two or
three generations, the governors-general at New Orleans had been writing home
to the French government about the growth of a republican spirit. The youth
who came out to New France with the intention of bettering their material
condition brought with them the theories and the arguments that were spreading
in France. Governors-general complained and warned that the tendencies threat-
ened to make trouble. Laclede came from the Pyrennees with companions at a
time when revolt against monarchy was in many minds. As he grasped the
opportunity to found his settlement he drew to him some of the lower Louisiana
people who had become imbued with republican ideas but more of Canadian and
Illinois parentage, to whom the ties with the mother country were traditional
rather than positively loyal. Had numbers made the revolution of Lafreniere
at New Orleans successful, there is no doubt the self-governing, self-develop-
ing community of St. Louis would have been found quickly in line and heartily
in spirit with the new nation. St. Louis in the first six years of its existence
progressed farther than any other community of the continent toward what were
to be American ideals.

The late Bishop C. F. Robertson, of the diocese of Missouri, became deeply
interested in what St. Louisans did to aid the American colonies during the
Revolution. He was especially impressed with the services rendered in 1778 by
Francis Vigo, of whom he wrote :

There had been resident in St. Louis for several years Colonel Francis Vigo, an
Italian by birth, but one who had been in the Spanish military service. He had, however,
left the army and was engaged in the Indian trade on the Missouri and its tributaries,
much respected in St. Louis, and enjoying the confidence of the governor in the highest
degree. A Spaniard in his allegiance, he was under no obligation to assist us, but, on the
other hand, as his country was at peace with Great Britain, any breach of neutrality
on his part towards that country would subject him to loss and vengeance. But in spite
of all this, from his attachment to Eepublican principles and sympathy with a people
struggling for their rights, Colonel Vigo overlooked all personal consequences, and so
soon as he had heard of Clark's arrival at Kaskaskia, he left St. Louis, crossed the line,
went down there and tendered his means and influence, both of which were gladly accepted.
Knowing Colonel Vigo's influence with the inhabitants of the country, and desirous of
gaining some information from Vincennes, from which he had not heard for some months,
Colonel Clark proposed to Vigo that he should go and learn the actual condition of things
at the post. Colonel Vigo immediately started with but one servant, but on approaching
Vincennes was captured by a party of Indians and brought to Governor Hamilton, who was
then in possession of the place. Being a Spaniard and non-combatant, he could not be con-
fined, but was only compelled to report himself every morning. He learned the condition
of the garrison, its means of defense, and the position of the town.

In the meantime, Hamilton was embarrassed by the detention of Vigo, and the French
inhabitants threatened to stop the supplies unless he was released. The governor consented,

IN THE LIFE OF THE NATION 563

on condition that Vigo should sign an article "not to do any act during the war injurious
to British interests." He refused to sign this, and the pledge was modified, "not to do
anything injurious to British interests on his way to St. Louis. ' ' Colonel Vigo put his
name to this, and the next day departed down the Wabash and the Ohio, and up the Mississippi,
with two voyagers accompanying him. He faithfully kept the very letter of his bond. On
his way to St. Louis he did ' ' nothing injurious to British interests. ' ' But he had no sooner
set foot on shore, and changed his clothes, than in the same pirogue he hastened to Kas-
kaskia and gave the information by means of which Clark was enabled to capture Hamilton
and the most important post of Vincennes.

A citizen of St. Louis had thus an influential part in bringing to success a result
than which few others have done more to shape all the fortunes of the west.

More than this, when Colonel Clark came to Kaskaskia, it was with great difficulty
that the French inhabitants could be persuaded to take the Continental paper which alone
Clark and his soldiers had with them for money. Peltries and French coins were the
only currency used by the simple inhabitants. It was not until Colonel Vigo, the adopted
citizen of St. Louis, went there and gave a guarantee on his property for the redemption
of this paper that Colonel Clark could, with difficulty, induce the unsophisticated French-
men to take the currency. Even then twenty dollars of this Continental currency had only
the purchasing power of one silver dollar. The douleur, as they called the dollar, meant
pain and grief to them.

It was only by such aid that Colonel Clark was enabled to maintain the posts which
he had conquered on the Wabash and the Mississippi until the close of the war, by which
he saved to the nation the vast territory lying between the Ohio and the Lakes.

Colonel Vigo, at the close of the war, had on hand more than twenty thousand
dollars of the worthless Continental money for which he had surrendered his property
and for which, to the end of his life, he never received one penny. He was given a draft
on Virginia, which was dishonored, and died almost a pauper, holding the same dishonored
draft in his possession. After his death the state of Virginia acknowledged the justice
of the claim, and furnished evidence to prove that it was one of the liabilities assumed
by the general government in consideration of the act of cession of the land to it by the
state.

Mention ought also to be made of Father Gibault, who lived at Vincennes, but who
had the curacy at Kaskaskia and who was there when Clark took possession of the place.
He it was who was influential in procuring the release of Colonel Vigo from his detention
at Vineennes, and who joined with him in contributing from his cattle and his tithes for
the maintenance of the American troops, without which aid they must either have sur-
rendered or abandoned their enterprise. Judge Law says, that next to Clark and Vigo the
United States are more indebted to Father Gibault for the accession of the states com-
prised in what was the original Northwestern Territory than to any other man.

American historians have given little or no international significance to
the British attack upon St. Louis. When they refer to it, they call it an attempted
Indian massacre. This is readily explained. Record evidence regarding the
attack, from the St. Louis side, is wanting. Recently more has been learned.
The source has been the Canadian archives. It abundantly verifies the hitherto
doubted assertions of Reynolds in his History of Illinois that the expedition was
planned and conducted by the British.

The commandant at St. Louis was Don Ferdinand de Leyba. He had
been in office less than two years when the attack occurred. He refused to
believe that there was any danger. Only a few days before he sold a considerable
portion of the powder on hand. When the alarm was given Don Ferdinand
hid in the government house. Such orders as he hastily issued were confusing
and harmful to the defenders. The Spanish garrison, under Cartabona remained
in the fort. When the fright was over the sturdy French settlers called Don

564 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Ferdinand a traitor. It is more probable that he was a weakling. On the 26th
of May the British and their Indian allies attacked. On the 27th of June Gov-
ernor Leyba died. He was buried the next day in the graveyard on Second
and Walnut streets. If he left an official report of the affair of the 26th of May,
it has never been discovered. By word-of-mouth the St. Louis narrative was
handed down. This included the rumor without details that Don Ferdinand
killed himself. The French settlers had won a great victory, one of far reach-
ing consequences. They did not know it. They realized that they had saved
their homes from savages. From this point of view they told their children
the story of "the great blow."

In local annals it became "L'anne du grande coup." More than a century
was to pass before "the year of the great blow" obtained its full historical
significance. In the Carolinas the tide had turned against the British. In
1778-9 George Rogers Clark had occupied Kaskaskia with his Virginians. He
had made friends with the Spanish officers and with the French settlers at St.
Louis. Francis Vigo, a Sardinian by birth, had brought to Clark the information
that Vincennes might be taken by a quick march across the prairies of Illinois.
Vigo with Charles Gratiot, the Swiss, and Gabriel Cerre had backed Clark
with money and credit. Frenchmen from St. Louis and Cahokia had enlisted
for the expedition with the handful of Virginians. The French women of Ca-
hokia had made the flags for the American allies to carry. Vincennes had fallen.
Its British commander, General Hamilton, "the hair buyer," they called him be-
cause he paid Indians for American scalps, had been sent a prisoner to Virginia.
These events in rapid succession preceded the attack of the Indians on St. Louis
—"the great blow"— of 1780.

This attack was attributed at the time to British influence, but historians
have been inclined to treat the affair as "a raid by the savages inhabiting the
northern lake country incited by guerillas, probably for plunder." Quite recently,
within the past four years, copies of important documents from the Canadian
archives, coming into possession of the Missouri Historical Society, have revealed
the facts about the expedition against St. Louis.

Pencour is the name given to St. Louis in all of these documents. Patt
Sinclair, as he signed himself, lieutenant-governor of Michilimackinac, organized
the expedition. He reported from time to time the progress and results to the
British general, Frederick Haldimand, in command at Quebec. From these
documents it is made apparent that the movement directed by Sinclair was to be
general against St. Louis, Kaskaskia, and other Illinois settlements. The re-
covery of Vincennes was even contemplated. Anticipating the easy capture of
St. Louis, Sinclair intended the column sent in that direction to proceed down
the river capturing and destroying the settlements as far down as possible.

How much Haldimand and Sinclair had staked on this expedition against
St. Louis the later correspondence between them showed. On the Atlantic
seaboard the British for a year and more had carried on their most active opera-
tions against the southern colonies. They held Savannah and had overrun part
of Georgia. Their armies were in the Carolinas. The policy was to move north-
ward from Georgia, making use of the slave conditions as an element of weak-
ness to the American patriots. The British leaders thought in this way to sub-

IN THE LIFE OF THE NATION 565

due colony after colony. Their plan to cut the colonial military strength into
parts by taking possession of the Hudson and a line of communication with
Canada had failed signally after the defeat at Saratoga.

With the British navy and land forces concentrating about Savannah and
Georgia, Haldimand and Sinclair counted upon a naval demonstration against
the mouth of the Mississippi and New Orleans, at the same time that their
forces of Canadians and Indians swept southward down the Mississippi and
the Illinois and over the prairies between the Mississippi and the Wabash. It
was a campaign well thought out. It enlisted more than the military element.
It appealed to the self-interest of the Canadian fur traders. The savagery and
rapacity of the Indians were inflamed.

Had the plans of Haldimand and Sinclair succeeded, had St. Louis fallen,
had the naval demonstration by the British fleet been made against New Orleans,
the war of the Revolution would have left the west bank of the Mississippi, the
whole Louisiana Territory, under the British flag.

But even while Sinclair was informing Haldimand of the details of intended
occupancy of St. Louis and other places on the west side of the Mississippi,
the expedition had failed, the three divisions were in full retreat. In the cor-
respondence Sinclair refers to cypher messages. He also mentions, significantly
the non-support of this expedition by the expected movement against New Or-
leans. Treachery among his own forces he gives as the cause of defeat.

Of the proposed "reduction of Pencour by surprise" Sinclair wrote con-
fidently to Haldimand in February. He was assembling the expedition. The
rendezvous was on the Upper Mississippi, at the mouth of the Wisconsin. Ca-
noes and corn were collected. The Minominies, the Puants, the Sacs and the
Rhenards were assembled. The force was not to start "until I send instruction
by Sergeant Phillips of the Eighth Regiment." Sinclair contemplated not only
the capture of St. Louis. He expected to hold it. He wrote :

The reduction of Pencour, by surprise, from the easy admission of Indians at that place,
and by assault from without, having for its defense as reported, only twenty men and twenty
brass cannons, will be less difficult than holding it afterwards. To gain both these ends, the
rich fur trade of the Missouri river, the injuries done to the traders who formerly attempted
to partake of it, and the large property they may expect in the place will contribute. The
Scious will go with all dispatch as low down as the Natches, and as many intermediate attacks
as possible shall be made.

In his next report, Sinclair told General Haldimand that the expedition
had started down the Mississippi. In that body were 750 men, "including traders,
servants and Indians."

Captain Langdale with a chosen band of Indians and Canadians will join a party
assembled at Chicago to make his attack by the Illinois river, and another party is sent to
watch the plains between the Wabash and the Mississippi.

I am now in treaty with the Ottawas about furnishing their quota to cut off the rebels
at Post St. Vincents (Vincennes), but as they are under the management of two chiefs, the
one a drunkard and the other an avaricious trader, I meet with difficulties in bringing it about.
Thirty Saginah warriors are here in readiness to join them, and the Island band can furnish
as many more.

Sinclair's announcement of the preliminary successes of his campaign re-
veals how St. Louis was cooperating with the American rebels:

566 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

During the time necessary for assembling the Indians at La Prairie du Chien, detachments
were made to watch the river to intercept craft coming up with provisions and to seize upon the
people working in the lead mines. Both one and the other were effected without any acci-
dent. Tnirty-six Minominies have brought to this post a large armed boat, loaded at Pen-
cour, in which were twelve men and rebel commissary. From the mines they had brought
seventeen Spanish and rebel prisoners, and stopped fifty tons of lead ore. The chiefs Machi-
quawish and Wabasha have kindled this spirit in the western Indians.

In a postscript, after the several parties were well on the way to St. Louis
and the Illinois country, Sinclair unfolds his plans for permanent possession:

Phillips, of the 8th Eegiment, who has my warrant to act as lieutenant during your Ex-
cellency's pleasure, will garrison the fort at the entrance of the Missouri. Captain Hesee
will remain at Pencour. Wabasha will attack Misere (Ste. Genevieve) and Kacasia (Kas-
kaskia) .

All the traders who will secure the posts on the Spanish side of the Mississippi during
the next winter have my promise for the exclusive trade of the Missouri during that time.
The two lower villages are to be laid under contributions for the support of their garri-
sons, and the two upper villages are to send cattle to be forwarded to this place to feed the
Indians on their return. Orders will be published at the Illinois for no person to go there, who
looks for receiving quarter — and the Indians have orders to give none to any without a British
pass. This requires every attention and support, being of utmost consequence.

Pascal Cerre's recollections of the attack represent fairly the impressions
the St. Louisans received at the time. They were not committed to paper until
1846. And then through the interest of the historian, L. C. Draper. They show
how little was known by the habitants of the plans leading up to the expedi-
tion. Cerre was seven years old at the time of which he speaks. His father
was Gabriel Cerre, a merchant of St. Louis, who had moved over from Kaskaskia
in 1779. The elder Cerre was one of the little group of St. Louisans who had
outfitted George Rogers Clark to make his capture of Vincennes. Pascal Cerre
told Draper that St. Louisans thought Jean Marie Ducharme got up the expedi-
tion against the settlement. The motive was revenge. Ducharme was a Canadian,
a fur trader. In 1779 he had stolen up the Missouri river. He had established
himself about twenty miles above Jefferson City, opposite what became known
as Ducharme's island. There the Spanish soldiers found him, took his furs and
goods away from him and sent him out of the country. Ducharme, as the
Canadian archives show, did go with the British expedition but stands accused
by Sinclair of "perfidy" and partial responsibility for the defeat. This is Pascal
Cerre's account of the approach and the fighting :

At a place fourteen miles above St. Louis they left their canoes, and as they approached
the object of their attack Ducharme divided his men into two detachments, one of which
he himself headed and came down on the east side of the river. The other detachment took
down on the west side of the river and posted themselves in ambush along the roads leading
from St. Louis to the other settlements.

At the first alarm, just about midday, and many of the people at their dinners, a man ran
through the town crying ' ' To arms ! To arms ! ' ' The people jumped from their tables
greatly alarmed. The alarm gun was shot from the tower to warn the people who were at
work out in the fields, and the women and children out after strawberries. Many of these
were shot by the Indians secreted in the bushes by the roadside as they were fleeing to the
town. Some of the Indians were quite near the town and killed one man between the big
mound and the town. One French cart filled with these poor people put on the whip to their
horses; seven of them were wounded as they passed the ambushed Indians, but they all got in.
The attack lasted only that afternoon. Cerre doubts if as many as sixty or seventy of the
people were killed, but is not certain about it.

Copyright, 1897, by Pierre Chouteau

FIRST GOVERNMENT HOUSE AT ST. LOUIS
With flag flying from the staff in front of it

IN THE LIFE OF THE NATION 567

Ducharme 's party, with some of 'their long and large bored muskets, fired over the river
and actually made some of their balls rattle on the roofs of the houses of St. Louis, but the
people did not attempt to return the fire ; they had to watch the other nearer and more danger-
ous foe.

Louis, a negro, who afterwards was the property of Gabriel Cerre, was among the num-
ber caught out of St. Louis. He was chased by an Indian with gun and tomahawk, who
rapidly gained on the negro. He, looking over his head and seeing the Indian very close to
him, with tomahawk raised, concluded there was but one chance for him, and that was to fall
prostrate upon the ground. He threw himself flat, and, as he had hoped, the Indian unable to
suddenly check his speed, stumbled over him, and in the fall dropped his gun; this Louis
quickly seized and before the Indian could recover himself Louis shot him and brought in the
gun as a trophy of victory.

The Canadian archives preserve a version of the attack on St. Louis by an
eye witness. This account written down as soon as the defeated expedition
returned to Mackinaw is titled "Information of a William Brown." Although
a prisoner of the British, Brown talked willingly. He owned up to having
served as a hunter for the British lieutenant-governor, Hamilton, before Vin-
cennes was taken by George Rogers Clark in 1778. Then he volunteered with
Clark to fight the Shawnees but deserted and went to Misere (Ste. Genevieve).
In March preceding the attack, Brown reached St. Louis, or Pencour as his state-
ment to Sinclair has it. Brown was taken prisoner by the British allies about
300 yards from the hastily constructed defenses of St. Louis. This is what he
told Sinclair:

About the latter end of March John Conn, a trader, went down the Mississippi with the
report of an attack against the Illinois by that route. Upon the arrival of Conn, the Spaniards
began to fortify Pencour. The report was afterwards confirmed by a French woman who
went down the Mississippi. The woman mentioned was the wife of Monsignor Honroe. The
post at the entrance of the Missouri was evacuated and the. fort blown up, all the outposts
called in, and the videttes of their cavalry (for all are mounted except the garrison) were
placed around the village of Pencour. Platform cannon with a parapet were placed over a
stone house. An intrenchment was thrown up and scouts sent out. Two days before the British
detachment appeared before Pencour, Colonel Clark (George Eogers Clark) and another rebel
colonel, we believe named Montgomery, arrived at Pencour, it was said, with a design to con-
cert an attack upon Michilimackinac, but whether with that design or to repel the expected
attack by the Mississippi it was agreed that one hundred from the west side and two hundred
from the east side should be equipped and in readiness to march when ordered. We believe
Clark and Montgomery to have been in the village of Cahokia when the Indians were beaten off.
Colonel Montgomery, or some rebel officer, was killed with a private of the rebel troops who wore
a bayonet marked 42nd Eegiment. They imagined that no others were killed at the Cahokias
as they filed off early to a rising ground lower down the river than the village, where all
of the rebels were concealed in a stone house and could not be drawn out. Indeed, few strata-
gems were used, owing to Canadian treachery.

In the Spanish intrenchment numbers were killed, as the Indians occupied a ground
which commanded the greatest part of it and made several feints to enter it in order to
draw the Spanish from such part of the works as afforded them cover. Thirty-three
scalps were taken on the west side and about twenty-four prisoners, blacks and white
people. Great numbers of cattle were killed on both sides of the river. The inhabitants
were very much spared by all of the Indians excepting the Winipigoes and Scioux. They
only scalped five or six who were not armed for the defense of the lines.

This is the story of eye witness Brown, as taken down for the British
official records of the expedition against St. Louis.

568 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Acknowledging Sinclair's bad news and accepting his version of the un-
successful "attacks upon Pencour and the Cahokias" General Haldimand wrote
from Quebec the loth of August, 1780:

It is very mortifying that the protection Monsieur Calve and others have received
should meet so perfidious and so ungrateful return. The circumstances of his and Monsieur
Ducharme's conduct, you are best acquainted with and to you I leave to dispose of them
as they deserve. If you have evident proof of their counteracting or retarding the opera-
tions committed to their direction, or in which they were to assist, I would have them
sent prisoners to Montreal.

"I am glad to find," continued Haldimand, "that although our attempts
proved unsuccessful, they were attended by no inconsiderable loss to the enemy."
The congratulation is over the following which appears in Sinclair's report:

The rebels lost an officer and three men killed at the Cahokias and five prisoners.
At Pencour sixty-eight were killed and eighteen black and white people made prisoners,
among them several good artificers. Many hundreds of cattle were destroyed and forty-
three scalps were brought in.

Thus St. Louis received a baptism of blood in the war for American inde-
pendence. Intimations that this British movement against St. Louis and the
Mississippi Valley were directed from London appear in the correspondence.
Sinclair speaks of "a copy of My Lord George Germain's letter" as having
relation to the expedition. He says "the Winnipigoes and the Scioux would
have stormed the Spanish line at St. Louis if the Sacks and the Outgamies
under their treacherous leader, Mons. Calve, had not fallen back so early."

Concluding his narrative of defeat, Sinclair adds: "A like disaster cannot
happen next year, and I can venture to assure your excellency that one thousand
Sioux without any admixture from neighboring tribes will be in the field in
April under Wabasha."

St. Louis did not wait for Sinclair's April campaign. On the second day
of January, 1781, Captain Beausoliel, with sixty-five St. Louisans and the same
number of Indian allies, left St. Louis to strike a return "coup." Beausoliel
was not the captain's real name. Eugene Poure he had been christened. But
he was a bold man, a born leader, who followed the dangerous vocation of
operating a bateau between New Orleans and St. Louis. A man who amounted
to something in those days, who was admired by his fellow citizens, was likely
to be known by a nickname. It came about that Eugene Poure as a tribute
to his popularity was called Captain Beausoleil. The home of the captain was
on Market street. By reason of his qualities of leadership, Poure had been
made commander of the militia company organized among the men of St.
Louis.

The expedition made its way up the Illinois valley, encountering severe
winter weather and suffering hardships. Some distance south of the present
Chicago, Poure led his command to the eastward, passed around the head of
Lake Michigan and reached the British post at St. Joseph. The attack was a
surprise. The capture was complete. The St. Louis expedition took what furs
and other property could be transported, raised the Spanish flag and marched
back to St. Louis, delivering the British flag to Governor Cruzat. The expe-
dition was well managed. Leaving St. Louis, Poure carried goods with which
he successfully bought his way through the Indian tribes encountered. The
route took the expedition near the present city of Danville, where years after-

IN THE LIFE OF THE NATION 569

wards bullets of Spanish manufacture were found by American settlers. Poure's
force turned northward near South Bend. The gifts made to the Indians not
only secured a peaceful journey, but insured the surprise of St. Joseph, which
was complete. The St. Louisans assaulted the fort and took the traders and
British soldiers prisoners. They found a considerable stock of furs, which
they divided with the Indians. The return was made to St. Louis in March.
Sinclair attempted no April campaign. The honors of both defense in 1780
and offense in 1781 were with the St. Louisans.

"I very early saw that Louisiana was indeed a speck in our horizon which
was to burst in a tornado," President Jefferson wrote to Dr. Priestly in January,
1804, after Lower Louisiana had been delivered at New Orleans. This expres-
sion is from a letter by Mr. Jefferson in the state papers relating to the purchase
of Louisiana Territory which were published by congress in connection with
the World's Fair of 1904. But these state papers do not make public all that
was going on during Mr. Jefferson's administration with reference to Louisiana
Territory. Four years before Bonaparte made up his mind to cede, Jefferson
sent a secret emissary to St. Louis. He desired to know the political sentiment
of the people, and especially the feeling toward the United States. The presi-
dent foresaw trouble if a foreign flag continued to float much longer on the
west bank of the Mississippi. The secret mission to St. Louis was part of Mr.
Jefferson's plan of preparation to acquire possession by force if necessary when
the time was ripe. The person selected for this delicate mission was John Baptiste
Charles Lucas. At a later date Lucas, in 1805, received from President Jeffer-
son, who remembered the valuable secret service rendered, the appointment of
commissioner of land claims and judge of the territorial court. He came to
St. Louis in September, bringing his family to make this his home. But about
1801 Judge Lucas made himself known to St. Louisans and to the Spanish
officials as Pantreaux. He had a boat, two or three boatmen, a small stock of
goods. Ostensibly he was a trader from up the Ohio, exchanging what he had
brought from Pittsburg for furs at St. Louis. In reality he was distributing
American ideas along the Rue Principale of St. Louis.

Perhaps Mr. Jefferson could not have found a better man to study the
conditions at St. Louis and other French settlements on the Mississippi. Lucas
could do more than observe. He was an ardent supporter of republican prin-
ciples. He not only spoke the language of the people he visited, but he could
talk to them of France. In Paris young Lucas, the law student, had a friend
in the son of the landlord at Passy where Benjamin Franklin and Adams lived
at the time of the American Revolution. He listened to the Americans and
he became an American at heart. Le Roy de Chaumont was the son of the
Passy landlord. He caught the American fever and decided to come to the
United States, buy cattle and live in western New York. John B. C. Lucas,
differing in political sentiment with his father, the king's attorney, of an old
Normandy family, came at the same time. That was in 1784. Albert Gallatin
had come out to America four years earlier, just after graduating from the
University of Geneva.

Somewhere the young Frenchman and the young Swiss began an acquaint-
ance which developed into lifelong friendship. There was only three years
difference in their ages. Gallatin settled near Pittsburg. Six miles out of

570 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

town Lucas bought a farm. He busied himself learning the language of the
country. Gallatin went to the Pennsylvania legislature and Lucas followed
him into public life. In 1795 Gallatin was elected to Congress and the same
year Lucas went to the legislature. At Washington Gallatin won the con-
fidence of Jefferson and became closely associated with him. Gallatin shared
Jefferson's interest in the critical situation on the Mississippi. Lucas visited
Washington and made a strong impression upon Jefferson. He undertook the
confidential journey to St. Louis and went from here to other places on the
river, going as far south as New Orleans. He made his confidential reports
to Mr. Jefferson. The president developed his policy toward the Mississippi
problem, utilizing the information Lucas supplied. In 1803, Lucas, with all
of the support the administration at Washington could give him for his valuable
services at St. Louis and along the Mississippi, was elected to Congress from
Pennsylvania. As soon as the acquisition of Louisiana was concluded, Mr.
Jefferson selected Lucas as the representative of the administration at St.
Louis, making him at the same time commissioner and territorial judge.

Judge Lucas was not a large man. As he grew in years his hair became
snow white; the fire remained in the jet black eyes. Judge Lucas had more
than the courage of his convictions. He asserted his opinions. He was a
very positive man. He never forgave Thomas H. Benton for the death of
his son, Charles Lucas. Long years afterwards, perhaps a score, Judge Lucas,
his daughter, Mrs. Anne Lucas Hunt, and James H. Lucas were guests at a
Planters House ball. The judge saw Mr. Benton some distance down the
room. An effort was made to prevent a meeting. Judge Lucas, with flashing
eyes, made his way through the throng to Mr. Benton, stopped in front of
him and looked at him. Then turning to James H. Lucas he said with delibera-
tion and in tones loud enough for many to hear:

"It is a consolation, my son, that whoever knows Mister Senator Benton,
knows him to be a rascal."

The senator did not reply. A few minutes later he left the ball room.

Aaron Burr found no encouragement in St. Louis for his southwestern
empire. He came here in September, 1805, having retired a few months before
from the vice presidency. General Wilkinson, commander of the United States
army, was acting as governor of Upper Louisiana with his residence at St.
Louis. He received Burr as his guest. To meet Burr the leading citizens of
St. Louis were invited to the governor's house. Wilkinson was very friendly
at that time with Burr, although a year later he turned against him and reported
to the administration at Washington what he claimed were the details of the
conspiracy. The rebuff to Burr at St. Louis was prompt and convincing. The
first St. Louisan invited to confer was Rufus Easton. Burr had known the
young Connecticut lawyer in Washington. He had interested himself personally
to have Mr. Easton appointed a judge of the new territory and had advised
him by letter to form the acquaintance of General Wilkinson, when he reached
St. Louis. That was in March of 1805. Four months later, coming down the
Ohio river after his visit to Blennerhassett, Burr wrote from Fort Massac to
Easton of his coming. At the conference in St. Louis he revealed enough of
the plot to draw from Easton an emphatic refusal to be connected with it.
Easton broke off friendly relations with Burr. Within a few days after the

IN THE LIFE OF THE NATION 571

conference Easton wrote to President Jefferson that "General Wilkinson has
put himself at the head of a party of a few individuals who are hostile to the
best interests of America." This was in October, 1805. At a still earlier
date, two months before his appointment as judge, Easton had communicated
to another Connecticut man, Gideon Granger, Jefferson's postmaster general,
his belief in the existence of a traitorous project to divide the Union. Easton
had spent a considerable part of 1804 at Vincennes and at St. Louis. At both
places there were reports current of the proposed movement to establish a
southwestern empire to include the Louisiana Territory and Mexico.

Burr did not remain long in St. Louis after Easton took such a positive
stand against him. He did not find any encouragement. Wilkinson, who thor-
oughly enjoyed ostentation, had an official barge, luxuriously equipped for
those days, with twelve rowers in uniform. Burr took the barge and went
down the river to Ste. Genevieve. Wilkinson began to show strong dislike for
Easton. He circulated charges of official misconduct. Easton went to Wash-
ington and had a personal interview with Mr. Jefferson. Subsequently he made
an official report of all he had learned about Burr's plot.

Burr came to St. Louis under the impression that he would find the French
habitants ready to throw off United States authority. He met with no en-
couragement of that impression. On the contrary he quickly discovered that
both the French residents and the American new comers were loyal to the
United States government. Burr went away from St. Louis to spread his
plans and to seek supporters along the Ohio and the lower Mississippi. From
St. Louis, the authorities at Washington received from time to time the warning
of Burr's movements. From St. Louis was sent the letter giving the informa-
tion that Burr expected to have Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Or-
leans Territory declare themselves on the I5th of November, 1806, independent
of the United States. St. Louis and Louisiana territory, of which it was the
capital, had rejected Burr's overtures and were not in the combination. On
this letter from St. Louis, United States officials at New Orleans proceeded
to take care of Burr. They arrested his agents. Burr was summoned before
a grand jury. The President issued a proclamation. The boats on the Ohio
which had been prepared for the expedition were seized. The movement
collapsed.

Missouri in 1824 — and that meant St. Louis in those days — made an
astonishing record. The single member of the House of Representatives from
the state was John Scott. He had been delegate from the Missouri Territory.
He had been elected and reelected to Congress. In the presidential campaign
of that year the candidates were Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Henry
Clay and Crawford. Sentiment in Missouri was divided between Clay and
Jackson. Clay carried the state. Clay electors were chosen. But when the
electoral college votes were cast, the result was Jackson 87 ; Adams 83 ; Clay 41 ;
Crawford 39. No one having received a majority the election of President
was thrown into the House of Representatives. There the voting was by states.
The ballot, if the states voted as the majorities or pluralities of the popular
election had been, would have given Adams 12; Jackson 7; Crawford 4; and
Clay i. The single representative from Missouri cast the vote of that state
for Adams, electing him President on the first ballot. Scott had been elected

572 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

not by a majority, but by a plurality. That John Scott cast the vote of Missouri
for Adams was the more remarkable in view of his place of nativity. He was
a Virginian by birth. Shortly after graduating from Princeton he came west
in 1804. His success in politics had been notable. Beginning as a delegate
from the territory, he was the sole representative of Missouri in the popular
branch of Congress up to 1826. The vote for Adams concluded Scott's political
career. He lived to be eighty years old, in 1861, but he never held office again.

A few days before Martin Van Buren was inaugurated in 1837, he talked
to Senator Benton about the trouble the Seminoles were giving in Florida.
Missouri's Indian problems had been settled so successfully and so easily that
public men at Washington had often marveled. The President-elect sought
an opinion from the senator as to what should be done with the Florida situa-
tion which was grave.

"If the Seminoles had Missourians to deal with their stay would be short
in Florida," the senator said.

Mr. Van Buren asked Mr. Benton if he thought Missourians could do better
in Florida than the regular army had done.

The senator said he certainly did think so, and told why. There the con-
versation ended. After the inauguration bustle had passed by President Van
Buren one day asked Senator Benton if it was practicable to get Missourians
to go to Florida and make a campaign against the Seminoles.

"The Missourians will go wherever their services are needed," was Senator
Benton's reply.

Thereupon the United States Government did the extraordinary thing of
calling upon the governor of Missouri for two regiments of mounted men to
go to Florida and fight the Seminoles. The governor issued the call, and the
rough riders and scouts of the Missouri valley headed by General Richard
Gentry, Colonel John W. Price and Major William H. Hughes, twelve or four-
teen hundred strong, came marching into St. Louis. They camped at Jefferson
Barracks. Benton made a speech. Men and horses required several steamboats
for transportation. They were taken to New Orleans, and thence to Tampa
Bay. On the gulf a storm drove some of the vessels aground. Many of the
horses were lost. The Missourians got ashore, and under the direction of
General Zachary Taylor marched into the Everglades. At Okee-cho-bee lake
they found the whole body of Seminoles under Sam Jones, Tiger Tail, Alli-
gator and Mycanopee. The Missourians fought on foot. They depended upon
the tactics and knowledge of Indian character which had never failed them.
Gentry, shot through the body, and fatally wounded, kept his feet for an hour
directing the movements of his men. The victory over the Seminoles was
complete, but the ranks of the Missourians were decimated. Early in the
following year, the object of the campaign having been accomplished, the Mis-
sourians returned to St. Louis.

St. Louis had the distinction of taking the lead in the movement to nomi-
nate William Henry Harrison. Long before the nominating convention was
held, the St. Louis Bulletin came out for Harrison. It was the only metro-
politan paper in the country taking this position. Nearly all of the Whig party
papers favored Henry Clay. What made the Bulletin more conspicuous in
the pre-convention campaign was the fact that the writer of the vigorous edi-

GABRIEL CERRE

CHARLES GRATIOT

THOMAS H. BENTOX FRANCIS P. BLAIR

ST. LOUISANS IN THE LIFE OF THE NATION

IN THE LIFE OF THE NATION 573

torials, which attracted attention the country over, was a Kentuckian — Samuel
Bullitt Churchill, born and brought up near Louisville. Churchill was a young
man who had come to St. Louis to practice law and had taken up journalism.
He was a personal friend and admirer of Henry Clay but declared for Harri-
son as the man who could win in 1840. Churchill was appointed postmaster
in St. Louis and went to the legislature. He was a conspicuous figure in the
politics of St. Louis for twenty years. In 1861 he opposed secession but held
to the belief of Frost and others that the border states should preserve
neutrality between the north and south and try to avert war. When the war
came Churchill returned to Kentucky to live.

What was known as "the Whig vigilance committee" had much to do with
the bringing about of the nomination of William Henry Harrison for President.
The St. Louis member of that committee was John Baptiste Sarpy. His home,
occupying a quarter of the block at Sixth and Olive streets, was the gathering
place when Whig leaders came to St. Louis.

Richard Smith Elliott, of St. Louis, while the editor of a Harrisburg
paper, gave the log cabin and hard cider campaign of the Whigs its winning
start in 1840. A Van Buren paper in Baltimore printed this about William
Henry Harrison:

Give him a barrel of hard cider and a pension of $2,000 a year, and, our word for it,
he will sit the remainder of his days in a log cabin by the side of a ''sea coal" fire and
study moral philosophy.

Elliott made a sketch of a log cabin with a coonskin tacked on the side,
a woodpile with the ax stuck in a log and the usual familiar accessories. He
employed a painter to transfer secretly the sketch to a transparency. On the
2Oth of January the Whigs ratified the nomination of Harrison which had been
made in the preceding month. The transparency was carried into the mass
meeting. It was received with unbounded enthusiasm. Harrison's log cabin
became the emblem of the campaign. The homely idea swept across the
country. In St. Louis the Whigs built a log cabin for Harrison headquarters
and maintained it to election day. Log cabins on wheels were hauled in the
processions. It was a singing campaign. St. Louis Whigs roared to the tune
of Highland Laddie:

Oh where, tell me where, was your Buckeye cabin made?
Oh where, tell me where, was your Buckeye cabin made?
'Twas built among the merry boys who wield the plow and spade,
Where the log cabins stand in the bonnie Buckeye shade.

A St. Louisan was a composer of Harrison campaign songs. He was
Alexis Mudd, member of one of the best known families of the city. Mr.
Mudd was a merchant at the time he wrote campaign songs. His best effort
was the "Log Cabin Raising," which was immensely popular. At the out-
break of the war, Alexis Mudd became major of "the Lyon regiment," as the
Nineteenth Missouri was called.

A favorite song in St. Louis during the Harrison campaign was "Old
Tippecanoe," which was sung to the tune of "Rosin the Bow," a rollicking air
of the frontier:

574 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

They called us rag barons and dandies,
And only a ruffled shirt crew;
But they see now the bone and the sinew,
All go for Old Tippecanoe.

CHORUS.

All go for Old Tippecanoe!

All go for Old Tippecanoe!

But they see now the bone and the sinew.

All go for Old Tippecanoe.

The enthusiasm with which St. Louisans went into the Mexican war was
irresistible. It ignored army orders. After the crack Legion had marched
down Olive street to take the big steamer Convoy for New Orleans, Lucas
Market place became the scene of more recruiting and mobilizing. Benton
wrote from Washington that the "Army of the West" was to be organized
to march overland to New Mexico. Then came the order to Stephan Watts
Kearny to get together at Leavenworth three hundred United States dragoons
and one thousand mounted volunteers, the rough riders of 1846. St. Louis was
not asked to furnish any part of the Army of the West. Thomas B. Hudson
and Richard S. Elliott, two young lawyers, began to organize a company of
one hundred mounted men. They called them the Laclede Rangers. As soon
as the ranks were full the Rangers were sworn in as a state organization,
uniformed and mounted. Samuel Treat, Charles Keemle, Joseph M. Field
and Peter W. Johnson took the officers down to "the Empire," on Third and
Pine streets and presented to them swords. No commissions had come, but
the Laclede Rangers marched on board the Pride of the West and started up
the Missouri to join Kearny. As the boat passed Jefferson City, the state
commissions for the officers were sent on board. When the St. Louisans
reached Leavenworth, there was no provision for their reception. General
Kearny ordered that quarters be provided and that the command be sworn
in at daylight. But no rations were issued. There was grumbling until Captain
Hudson made a speech. He talked of the patriotism which had prompted the
recruiting, of the rapid organization, of the trip up the river, of the acceptance
of the company by General Kearny as a part of the "Army of the West" and
he concluded:

Yes, we shall knock at the gates of Santa Fe, as Ethan Allen knocked at the gates
of Ticonderoga, and to the question "Who is there?" we shall reply, "Open these gates in
the name of the great Jehovah and the Laclede Bangers ! ' ' But suppose the fellows inside
should call out, ' ' Are you the same Laclede Bangers who went whining around Fort
Leavenworth in search of a supper ? ' '

The Rangers gave the captain a mighty shout, rolled in their blankets and
went to sleep supperless.

The Rangers from St. Louis made such an impression on General Kearny
that he made them a part of the regiment of dragoons. They were turned
over to a young lieutenant to be drilled and made fit for regular troopers,
graduates of the "school of the soldier." This lieutenant was Andrew Jackson
Smith, who became a major general in the Civil war, — "Old A. J." — settled
in St. Louis and held office in the city government for some years.

IN THE LIFE OF THE NATION 575

Colonel Robert Campbell's activities did not stop with the shipping of the
Laclede Rangers to Kearny. The recruiting and the drilling on the open
country around Lucas Market, as Twelfth street was to be known for half a
century, went on. There was no market. Mr. Lucas had built the long narrow
brick structure down the center of the wide space, but the city's growth had
not reached Twelfth street. The country was open all around the market house,
except for a row of dwellings in course of construction on Olive street.
St. Louis had sent her old and well drilled militia, the Legion and her Laclede
Rangers. The city now offered artillery. Two companies, each one hundred
strong, the first captained by Richard H. Weightman, and the second by Wal-
demar Fischer, were accepted, with Meriwether Lewis Clarke as major. The
artillerymen were made ready by the tireless Robert Campbell and sent up to
join Kearny. Thus it came about that the city was represented by three
hundred patriots in the famous marching and fighting of the Army of the
West.

From Leavenworth the Laclede Rangers and St. Louis artillerymen marched
to Sante Fe, thence to El Paso, to Chihuahua, to Saltillo and to Matamoras.
They went by river from St. Louis to Leavenworth. They returned from
Matamoras to St. Louis by the gulf and the Mississippi. Let the map be viewed
and the march of that little army be traced! Succeeding generations may well
be proud of the prowess of the St. Louisans who followed Mitchell and Clarke
and Hudson in 1846 and 1847.

St. Louisans were conspicuous individually as well as for numbers in the
"Army of the West." Henry S. Turner utilized his early army experience in
the capacity of adjutant to the commander, Kearny. Francis P. Blair, then
a young lawyer, sent west by his doctor for the benefit of the mountain air,
was a scout, prowling miles in advance of the column to report signs of Mexi-
cans or Indians. William Bent shared in this most dangerous duty. As the
army reached the Raton mountains, Captain Waldemar Fischer, the St. Louis
artilleryman, climbed the peak, to which the government gave his name.
Fischer's peak, it is on the maps.

The march across the plains to Sante Fe was only the beginning of the
wonderful deeds of the St. Louisans and their fellow Missourians. The Army
of the West proceeded to occupy a domain that is now two states and two
territories. Kearny, with a small force, went on to make sure of California.
Colonel D. D. Mitchell, the former fur trader and Indian agent of St. Louis,
was ordered to take a picked force of one hundred men and "open communica-
tion with Chihuahua, hundreds of miles to the southward in the enemy's coun-
try across the Rio Grande." Did he hesitate? Not an hour. With Mitchell
went Captain Hudson, Lieutenant LeBeaume and most of the Laclede Rangers.
Major Meriwether Lewis Clarke, Captain Richard H. Weightman, Clay Taylor
and one company of the St. Louis Artillery had gone with Doniphan to the
Navajo country. Mitchell and Doniphan joined forces just above El Paso.
They had an army of 900 men, St. Louis contributing about one-third of the
force. They fought the battle of Brazito, captured a cannon and marched on.
At Sacramento, just above Chihuahua, an army of Mexicans got in the way,
occupying a strong position, outnumbering the invaders five to one. What

ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

•^ i

did those St. Louis .artillerymen do but, ignoring all of the rules and science
of warfare, run their howitzers up within less than 200 feet of the Mexican
earthworks and fire away at pistol shot range! Mitchell and Hudson charged
at the head of the Laclede Rangers. The enemy fled, leaving seventeen cannons,
some of which were brought to St. Louis. The invaders entered Chihuahua
to discover that General Wool, whom they had expected to find there, was
700 or 800 miles away. Headed by Mitchell with his 100 picked St. Louisans;
the army of less than 900 marched over the tableland of Mexico toward Saltillo,
found General Taylor and asked for more fighting.

In the conquered province of New Mexico civil government was organized.
Charles Bent, of the St. Louis family which lived on a river front country estate
just above the arsenal, was governor. Stephan Lee, of St. Louis, the brother
of General Elliott Lee, was made sheriff; James White Leal, of St. Louis, a
Laclede Ranger, was made prosecuting attorney. The Pueblo Indians at Taos
rose in revolt and killed these three officials. Retribution was swift.

In a fight with the Indians, John Eldridge and Martin Wash of the Laclede
Rangers were compelled to use one horse. A shot struck Eldridge in the corner
of the eye, went into Wash's cheek and came out of his neck. When their
commanding officer came up these St. Louis boys were still fighting. Wash,
who was spitting blood said:

''Lieutenant, I be hanged if I don't think I'm shot somehow."

That was the kind of nerve the Laclede Rangers carried with them.

When time dragged for the garrison in the ancient city, the detachment of
the Laclede Rangers obtained the use of a hall and gave theatrical entertain-
ments. Bernard McSorley, who came back to St. Louis to become a builder
of sewers and a power in local politics, was the manager and the star. When
the St. Louisans put on Pizarro in Peru, McSorley was Pizarro. Edward W.
Shands played Elvira. Another Ranger, William Jamieson, was Cora. James
White Leal of the Rangers was the leader of the minstrel part of the perform-
ance which followed the tragedy.

Kearny's proclamation annexing New Mexico to the United States reached
St. Louis on the 28th of September, 1846. It declared "the intention to hold
this department (New Mexico), with its original boundaries on both sides of
the Del Norte as a part of the United States and under the name of the Terri-
tory of New Mexico.

There was considerable excitement in St. Louis over this wholesale acquisi-
tion of territory. The Missouri Republican said:

For a strict constructionist of the constitution, the President seems to us a gentle-
man of about as easy manners as any official we have ever met with, even in these days of
a "progressive locofocoism! "

The Rangers and other St. Louisans who had been left to hold New
Mexico while the other bodies pushed west to California and south to the
heart of Mexico marched back across the plains when the war was over. They
sang:

IN THE LIFE OF THE NATION 577

SOLO.

Listen to me! Listen to me!
What do you want to see, to seel

CHOEUS.

A woman under a bonnet,

A woman under a bonnet,

That's what we want to see, to see!

That's what we want to see!

One St. Louisan in the Army of the West was destined to be a conspicuous
figure in the country traversed. William Gilpin, Pennsylvanian by birth, Quaker
by inherited creed, was a major. He saw the plains and the mountains with
the eyes of a prophet. He told his comrades in arms they were passing through
"a great grazing region;" that it would become "the land of beef and wool."
He pointed to the Rockies, called them "the domes of the continent" and pre-
dicted discoveries of precious metals in them. There was loud amusement
over the major's predictions. But the territory of Colorado was created, be-
coming in 1876 the Centennial state. Gilpin was the first governor of Colorado.

On the i8th of May, 1847, tne St. Louis Daily New Era put up the name
of Zachary Taylor for President "subject to the decision of the people in
1848." In 1848 St. Louis inaugurated an active campaign which led to the
election of Zachary Taylor. Before the rest of the country had awakened fairly
to the suggestion, almost before General Taylor thought of himself as a can-
didate, St. Louis was holding mass meetings and declaring for old "Rough and
Ready."

Dred Scott and his family were emancipated in St. Louis but not until
the law of the land had been exhausted for them. St. Louis lawyers par-
ticipated without compensation in the proceedings. The decision of the United
States supreme court gave great impetus to the anti-slavery movement. Sur-
geon Emerson of the United States army, stationed at St. Louis, owned Dred
Scott and took him with him when he was transferred first to Rock Island
and later to Fort Snelling. Children were born. When Emerson came back
to St. Louis, Dred Scott sued for freedom of his family on the ground that
they had been living in a part of the United States where slavery was pro-
hibited. The St. Louis circuit court sustained this view but the state supreme
court reversed it. Then Dred Scott's family was sold to John F. A. Sanford,
whose residence at the time was in New York. This gave the opportunity to
try the case in the United States courts. The United States circuit court at
St. Louis decided against Dred Scott. The case went to the United States
supreme court and Chief Justice Roger B. Taney rendered the opinion that
slavery was not prohibited north of latitude 36 degrees and 30 minutes, as
Congress had declared, because the act was in violation of the constitution.
Chief Justice Taney defined slavery as the law, made so by the constitution
at the time of its adoption. Only a constitutional amendment could abolish
slavery.

No other community, north or south, approached St. Louis in the propor-
tion of citizenship under arms for the Civil war. When President Lincoln, on
the 1 5th of April, issued his first call for 75,000 men, St. Louis had organized
H-VOL. n.

578 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

ready to be mustered in five regiments of 5,500 men under Colonels Blair,
Boernstein, Sigel, Schuttner and Salomon. Five more regiments were organ-
ized and armed so that the morning report of June I showed 10,730 St. Louisans
under arms for the Union. The most of these troops were sworn in for three
months and then enlisted for three years or the war. The truth was that
the Union men of St. Louis began organizing into companies early in January.
Rifles and muskets were bought with money subscribed by citizens. A regi-
ment was armed secretly and was drilling on sawdust covered floors. The
sum of $20,000 was raised privately toward equipping the first four regiments.
Contributions came from New York, Boston, Hartford, Providence and other
eastern cities. A Union army was ready in St. Louis weeks before the firing
on Sumter.

The intensity of Union sentiment was shown in the action of a great
mass meeting which John Peckham called to order at the court house on the
25th of July, 1862. The crowd filled the rotunda, and the galleries and over-
flowed into Fourth street. The resolutions declared "that the preservation of
the Union is to St. Louis an interest greater than all other interests, and that we
will, regardless of all other interests, contribute in men and means the last
man and the last dollar of which our city is possessed, if necessary, to reinforce
our armies."

Up to December 31, 1863, the St. Louis volunteers who entered the service
for three years or the war numbered 15,310. Those who came from outside
of St. Louis county and enlisted here are not included. St. Louisans who
enlisted in organizations elsewhere are not included. The 15,310 St. Louisaris
enlisted in forty-three Missouri regiments which were organized in St. Louis,
in 1861, 1862 and 1863. They were United States volunteers. In addition
were the state militia organizations raised in St. Louis. A full regiment of
these St. Louis Militia men under Colonel John B. Gray guarded the military
prisons, protected bridges and performed other duties in and about St. Louis.
The Sappers and Miners Home Guards of St. Louis, of which J. D. Voerster
was the commander, built fortifications. Captain Henry Nagel raised and
commanded the Carondelet Home Guards. Another military organization of
St. Louis was the First Regiment of Enrolled Missouri Militia, with William
P. Fenn as colonel. There was also the St. Louis County Battalion of enrolled
militia, in which the Henleys, the Aubuchons, the Castellos and representatives
of scores of the pioneer families were enlisted. The St. Louis police were organ-
ized in military form and armed with guns, with J. E. D. Couzins as major
There were the Old Guard, of which N* H. Clark was captain; James Richard-
son and A. G. Edwards, lieutenants ; the Independent Cavalry Company, with
Frederick Walters as captain; the Corps of Detectives, with George J. Deagle.
the theatrical man, as captain. A full regiment was recruited under the patron-
age of the Merchants Exchange and was called the "Merchants' Regiment."
Clinton B. Fisk, secretary of the exchange, was the first colonel. This was
the first regiment mustered into service under the President's call of 1862,
It was recruited by the business men of St. Louis in a whirlwind of patriotic
enthusiasm. When Colonel Fisk was made a brigadier, William A. Pile became
the colonel.

Copyright, 1897, by Pierre Chouteau

TOWN HOUSE OF CHARLES GRATIOT

It was at the corner of Main and Chestnut streets

IN THE LIFE OF THE NATION 579

In 1864 St. Louis went on raising more regiments as if the army sent into
the field was not the city's full quota. The Fortieth Infantry, Missouri Volun-
teers, was made up of St. Louisans. Two companies were recruited largely
from printers and newspaper employes. George W. Gilson was captain of one
of them. Philip F. Coghlan was lieutenant of the other. Samuel A. Holmes
was colonel. Truman A. Post, son of Rev. Dr. Post was the regimental ad-
jutant. A second regiment, the Forty-first, was recruited at the same time,
with Joseph Weidemeyer as colonel. Henry J. Bischoff was one of the captains.

While many thousands of St. Louisans went out as United States volun-
teers, other thousands organized, drilled and were armed as Enrolled Missouri
Militia for defense of the city and for emergency duty. There was a period
in 1864 when all St. Louis business houses closed at 3 p. m. for the daily militia
drills. The test of this thorough organization came in September of that year.
Price invaded Missouri and marched toward St. Louis. The militia mobilized
in three brigades and went into camp at Carondelet, and at the head of Olive
street. A small detachment of Confederate cavalry captured the postoffice.
at Cheltenham, now a part of St. Louis, but then a suburb four miles out.
The main army changed its course and moved northwestward to Jefferson
City. The eight St. Louis regiments of enrolled militia which turned out for
this expected coming of Price's army numbered about 6,000 men. There were
under arms in St. Louis 15,000 men. These militia regiments were officered
by the most prominent citizens. Colonel John Knapp commanded the Eighth
Regiment, but when the three brigades were called into service he became chief
of staff to General Pike, commanding the division of enrolled militia. Ex-
Mayor John M. Krum was colonel of the Ninth; George E. Leighton, of the
Seventh; Tony Niederweisser, of the Sixth; C. D. Wolff, of the Fourth; M. W.
Warne, of the Sixteenth ; Charles L. Tucker, of the Seventeenth. Among the
regimental officers were Lieutenant-Colonel J. Grif. Prather, Surgeon Leopold
Meyer, Lieutenant-Colonel A. D. Sloan, Major Henry Senter, Adjutant Eben
Richards, Jr., Major William L. Catherwood, Quartermaster Charles C.
Whittlesey, Lieutenant-Colonel Oscar F. Lowe, Major O. B. Filley, Adjutant
William C. Wilson, Quartermasters George P. Plant and Chester H. Krum.
Some of the captains in this St. Louis army of defense of the city were George
H. Morgan, William B. Pratt, E. P. Rice, George Knapp, Daniel G. Taylor,
Henry Cleveland, Edward Morrison, Daniel M. Grissom, William McKee,
Hugh McDermott, William H. Crawford, William H. Stone, Gerard B. Allen,
Louis Espenschied. Among the lieutenants were William A. Northrop, Rich-
ard D. Compton, J. C. Dubuque, James Smith, James V. Fisher, B. D. Killian,
Edward Byrne.

The enrolled militia of St. Louis were in the field several weeks until
all apprehension of attack by the Confederates passed away. The Second and
Third brigades broke camp at the head of Olive street and marched out as
far as Laclede station on the Pacific railroad on the ist of October. That was
two days after the Confederate raid on Cheltenham.

St. Louisans participated in still another form of military organization.
Besides the eight or ten regiments of enrolled militia there were the "exempts
from the military service capable of defending their homes." As the Con-
federates approached the city the "exempts" were called upon to organize under

580 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

the direction of the mayor and they did so. While the enrolled militia went
to camp the exempts bore arms and performed duty in the city. They were
commanded by Colonel B. Gratz Brown.

The number of St. Louisans who bore arms for the Union is a matter
of official record. How many St. Louisans made their way south and enlisted
in the Confederate service can be estimated only. Enough joined Bowen at
Memphis in the early summer of 1861 to form a regiment. Several Confederate
organizations were composed largely of St. Louisans, among them Guibor's,
Wade's and Barrett's batteries. Captain Joseph Boyce and other well informed
Confederate veterans estimated the number of St. Louisans who went south
and entered the army at 5,000. Of this number not more than 1,000 returned.
In Captain Boyce's company, of Bowen's First Missouri Regiment, organized
at Memphis, were 114 St. Louisans, many of whom had served in the crack
St. Louis Grays. Of the 114, just ten came back to their homes. In character
rather than in number the St. Louisans who joined the Confederate army were
notable. They were young men in the professions or in business — lawyers,
doctors, bank officers, bookkeepers in some of the principal business houses,
steamboat clerks. Many of them were descendants of pioneer families of St.
Louis. In a club of twenty-six young professional men all but four went
south.

Joseph Scott Fullerton was one of the young St. Louis Democrats who
sided with the Union. He came of the old Fullerton family of Pennsylvania,
large landholders near Lancaster and Revolutionary patriots. The Fullertons
were giants. The great grandfather of the young St. Louisan was six feet,
two, and weighed 430 pounds. Joseph Scott Fullerton, of Ohio birth and
education, came to St Louis fresh from the Cincinnati Law school in 1858.
A commission was appointed from Washington to investigate claims of St.
Louis business men against the government incurred in the confusion of army
organization under Fremont. Fullerton was made secretary of it. He became
impatient to get into the fighting and tried to resign. Joseph Holt, afterward
attorney general, was a member of the commission. "Young man," he said,
"you will have opportunity enough. Be patient until this important task is
through. Even the shell of this rebellion is not cracked yet." Fullerton went
in a lieutenant, fought on twenty battlefields, came out a general and in 1867
was made postmaster of St. Louis. Years afterwards he acquired suburban
real estate and laid out Westminster Place.

One of the captains in Bowen's regiment at Camp Jackson was Given
Campbell, a young lawyer, bred in Kentucky and educated in the University
of Virginia. Mr. Campbell had begun to practice in St. Louis. He had a
desk in the office of Charles D. Drake, When Mr. Campbell came back to
St. Louis in 1865, after four years' service in the Confederacy, he discovered
that Judge Drake had formulated a "test oath" which barred him from the
practice of law. Mr. Campbell married a northern wife, the daughter of Robert
K. Woods, a descendant of the historic Berry family of Massachusetts ; he spent
several years in the South, coming back to St. Louis after the "Drake constitu-
tion" had become only a memory.

To leave St. Louis by train or boat or by other vehicle or afoot, during the
continuance of martial law, a passport was necessary. Between August 14

581

and November 20, 1861, there were issued 85,000 of these passes. On the
back of the first issues, was: "It is understood that the within named subscriber
accepts this pass on his word of honor that he is and will ever be loyal to the
United States; and if hereafter found in arms against the Union, or in any
way aiding the enemy, the penalty will be death."

When Captain George E. Leighton, succeeded General Justus McKinstry
as provost marshal, he changed this form to a pledge and omitted the death
penalty.

In April, 1862, Lieutenant-Colonel F. A. Dick, provost marshal, sent a
peremptory order to Edward Wyman, principal of the City University, to hoist
"the United States flag over his school building and keep the same floating daily
in a conspicuous position." The very next day another order was issued saying
the loyalty of Mr. Wyman and his assistants was "fully conceded" by General
Curtis.

This generation may marvel that the opposing principals in the Camp Jack-
son affair were Northern men. Daniel M. Frost, who commanded the St.
Louis militia in Camp Jackson, was of New York birth, while Nathaniel Lyon,
who is to be credited with the responsibility of the capture, was Connecticut
born. Both of these men were of West Point education. Both had seen
service in the United States army. Frost's grandfather was a Revolutionary
patriot and his father was in the War of 1812. Members of the Lyon family
were in the American Revolution. Both Lyon and Frost served in the war
with Mexico, earning commendation for their personal gallantry. Lyon and
Frost were together at West Point one year, Lyon graduating three years before
Frost. Frost had been out of the army eight years. He had married Miss
Graham, the granddaughter of John Mullanphy and the daughter of Major
Graham, a regular army officer and an aide of General William Henry Harrison
in the War of 1812.

Lyon continued in the army. He was at Jefferson Barracks after the-
Mexican war. He was in Kansas before the Civil war. In the summer of
1860 he wrote articles to the Manhattan, Kansas, Express favoring the election
of Lincoln. The parallel between Frost and Lyon is not quite ended. Both
believed that war between the sections was threatening. At that point they
parted company. Lyon believed in an aggressive policy by the north ; he was
for striking quick and hard. Frost was as deeply interested in the politics of
the day as was Lyon, but his view was different. He thought that while war
was threatened, it might be averted. For years he cherished the belief that
the border states might hold such a balance of power by observing neutrality
as to minimize if not prevent the conflict. Evidence to show that Frost was
at heart a secessionist is wanting. Frost advocated the organization of a strong
militia force. With B. Gratz Brown, in 1858, he drew the measure which was
the basis for the assembling of the state militia at Camp Jackson three years
later. He was brigadier general of the militia at St. Louis, not for the purpose
or with any idea of taking Missouri out of the Union, but in the hope that
he might personally contribute to preservation of peace between the north and
the south. Frost's planning for border neutrality failed utterly. Missouri
adopted his plan of organization but cut out the money provision necessary
to make it effective. Secessionists made the border neutrality policy a cloak

582 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

under which to forward their own designs. Aggressive northerners of the
Lyon type would have none of it. And so the capture of Camp Jackson came
about, a firebrand to St. Louis such as the firing on Sumter was to the north.

Three months to the day after the Camp Jackson affair, Lyon fought a
battle for which he was not prepared and threw his life away. Just before
he marched his St. Louis army out of Springfield to Wilson's Creek, he spoke
hopelessly: "Through the refusal of the government to properly reinforce me
I am compelled to abandon the country. If I leave it without engaging the
enemy the public will call me a coward. If I engage him I may be defeated,
and my command cut to pieces. I am too weak to hold Springfield and yet
the people will demand that I bring about a battle with the very enemy I cannot
keep a town against. How can this result otherwise than against us." Twice
wounded, Lyon headed a charge and was shot from his horse. By will he left
$30,000, nearly his whole estate, for the preservation of the Union. He was
the incarnation of courage. The temperament which prompted the capture of
Camp Jackson led to the fatal charge at Wilson's Creek. Lyon was buried
with honor in his native state, but the great events of his life belong to the
history of St. Louis. Here the monument to his memory was erected on a
part of the Arsenal grounds made into a park and named in his honor. By
private subscriptions and by public appropriation the money was raised. The
sculptor chosen to execute the medallion, Wilson McDonald, was a brother of
one of the Camp Jackson prisoners, Emmett McDonald.

General Frost went south and entered the Confederate service. He re-
signed later in 1863 and went to Canada, where his family, banished from St.
Louis, joined him. After the war he came back to St. Louis to live. During
the railroad riots in 1877 he rendered conspicuous service in the organization
of the citizen soldiery. A son of General Frost, R. Graham Frost, who was a
small boy at the time of the Civil war, was elected to Congress from one of the
St. Louis districts.

Governor Jackson was plotting the secession of Missouri. Some of the
officers in Camp Jackson were hoping to bring about an attack on the Arsenal.
No one who conversed with General Frost long after the war feeling had
passed could form the impression that in his mind the assemblage of state,
troops in Camp Jackson meant either secession or an attack on the Arsenal.
General Frost was always positive in his denials that there was to his knowl-
edge a Confederate flag in the camp; that the troops were enrolled with the
understanding they were to go into Confederate service; that the camp was
formed for an attack on the Arsenal.

The oath which all of the militia in Camp Jackson took was this :

You, each and every one of you, do solemnly swear that you will honestly and faith-
fully serve the State of Missouri against all her enemies; that you will do your utmost
to sustain the constitution and laws of the United States, and of this State, against all
riolenee of whatsoever kind or description. And you do further swear that you will well
and truly obey the legal orders of all officers properly placed over you when on duty.

A statement of his course previous to Camp Jackson and of his connec-
tion with that assemblage of the militia was authorized by General Frost late
in life. It was this:

IN THE LIFE OF THE NATION 583

He was not then, nor did he ever become, a secessionist in principle and he maintains
that the sole object of the military bill which he, in co-operation with B. Gratz Brown
and others, framed and pressed to a passage in the Missouri legislature was for the pur-
pose of providing in Missouri and other border states a military organization which should
be constituted to keep the peace within the states which, in case of civil war, were sure
to bear the brunt and suffer the spoliation of the sectional conflict impending. General
Frost now states that in pursuance of this object, not only was the law passed in the
Missouri legislature, but correspondence was held with General Buckner, in command of
the militia in Kentucky, who caused a like measure for that state to be passed and also
with authorities in other border states.

General Frost's view of the whole matter at this advanced stage of his life only
enables him to reaffirm that up to the time of his exchange as a prisoner of war and his
formal acceptance of a commission in the Confederate army he did not in any instance,
by word or deed, betray his allegiance to the laws of the State of Missouri or to the laws
of the United States.

John Knapp was second in command at Camp Jackson. The First Regi-
ment was composed of the regular militia — companies of long standing. The
Second Regiment was composed of one regular militia company and several
companies of Minute men, organized during the winter of 1860-61 and com-
posed of young men who sympathized with the south. To some extent these
companies of Minute men had been recruited from the Democratic marching
clubs of the campaign of 1860. There was no question as to the Unionism of
many, probably most, of the members of the First Regiment. Colonel John
Knapp had been long prominent in military affairs of St. Louis and Missouri.
Two days before the capture of Camp Jackson, Colonel Knapp, meeting some
of the regular army officers at the Barracks, had told them that on Saturday
he would break camp with the First Regiment, march to the armories and
dismiss the companies. This would have ended Camp Jackson.

Both Colonel George Knapp and Colonel John Knapp came well by their
military titles. They were for the supremacy of this government, not only in
theory but in practice ; not only in peace but in war. The year before he became
part proprietor of the Republican, when he was twenty-one years of age,
George Knapp entered the St. Louis Grays. He was one of the first St. Louis
officers who volunteered for service in the Mexican war. He went out as a
lieutenant in the St. Louis Legion and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel
after the return of the legion to St. Louis. The legion was equipped largely
from funds raised by voluntary contributions of St. Louis citizens and went
to the front very early in the war. Soon after the beginning of the Civil war
George Knapp recruited a military force in his newspaper office, called the
Missouri Republican Guard. This force he drilled and commanded, holding
it in readiness for service if an attack was made on St. Louis, as was repeatedly
threatened.

John Knapp was in the military service of the state more than twenty-
five years. He went to the Mexican war as a captain in the First Regiment
of Missouri Volunteers. The militia company of which he was one of the
lieutenants had voted not to volunteer for service in the Mexican war. There-
upon Lieutenant Knapp organized a new company, the Boone Infantry. He
was elected captain, and immediately tendered this company for service in the
war.

584 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

He commanded the First Regiment of Missouri Militia in the Southwest
expedition to the Kansas border in the winter of 1861. He was in command
of this regiment when Camp Jackson was taken by General Lyon on the loth
of May, 1861. Afterwards he was appointed colonel of the Eighth Regiment
of the Enrolled Missouri Militia, and later colonel of the Thirteenth Provisional
Regiment, and still later was an aid of Governor Hall and went with the brigade
of Missouri troops in pursuit of General Sterling Price when the Confederates
made the raid in 1864. He continued in the service until after the Civil war.
He was the best tactician in the volunteer service of his day. From the militia
companies composing the First Militia Regiment, of which John Knapp was
the commanding officer when hostilities began, the Union army received many
officers. For Governor Gamble, who succeeded Claib Jackson when the latter
left Jefferson City to join the Confederacy, Colonel John Knapp worked out
the plan of militia enrollment which protected Missouri and which created a
force to deal with guerrillas.

At 9 o'clock in the morning of the last day of September, 1863, President
Lincoln, accompanied by one of his secretaries, came into the great east room
of the White House and sat down.

"He bore the appearance of being much depressed, as if the whole matter
at issue in the conference which was impending was of great anxiety and
trouble to him," says one of the St. Louisans who sat awaiting the President's
coming.

These were seventy "Radical Union men of Missouri ;" they had accepted
that designation. They had been chosen at mass convention — "the largest mass
convention ever held in the state," their credentials said. That convention had
unqualifiedly indorsed the emancipation proclamation and the employment of
negro troops. It had declared its loyalty to the general government. It had
appointed these seventy Missourians to proceed to Washington and "to procure
a change in the governmental policy in reference to Missouri." The movement
had originated in St. Louis, and St. Louisans were at the head of it.

This action meant more than a city or a state movement. It was the
precipitation of a crisis at Washington. It was the voice of the radical anti-
slavery element of the whole country speaking through Missouri, demanding
that the government commit itself to the policy of the abolition of slavery and
to the policy of the use of negro troops against the Confederate armies. It was
the uprising of the element which thought the administration at Washington
had been too mild. President Lincoln understood that the coming of the
Missourians meant more than their local appeal. The Missourians understood,
too, the importance of their mission. On the way to Washington the seventy
had stopped in city after city, had been given enthusiastic reception by anti-
slavery leaders; they had been encouraged to make their appeal for a new
policy in Missouri insistent and to stand on the platform that the border States
must now wipe out slavery of loyal owners. Hence it was that immediately
upon their arrival in Washington the seventy Missourians coming from a slave
state put into their address to the President such an avowal as this :

We rejoice that in your proclamation of January 1, 1863, you laid the mighty hand
of the nation upon that gigantic enemy of American liberty, and we and our constituents

GEN. ALTON R. EASTON

GEN. W. S. HARNEY

CAPT. THEODORE HUNT

GEN. DANIEL BISSELL

GEN. NATHANIEL LYON

THE MILITARY LIFE

IN THE LIFE OF THE NATION 585

honor you for that wise and noble act. We and they hold that that proclamation did, in
law, by its own force, liberate every slave in the region it covered; that it is irrevocable,
and that from the moment of its issue the American people stood in an impregnable posi-
tion before the world and the rebellion received its death blow. If you, Mr. President,
felt that duty to your country demanded that you should unshackle the slaves of the rebel
states in an hour, we see no earthly reason why the people of Missouri should not, from
the same sense of duty, strike down with equal suddenness the traitorous and parricidal
institution in their midst.

Here was the essence of the Missouri movement which gave it national
interest, which prompted the grand chorus of approval, which led to the series
of indorsing ovations concluding with the mighty demonstration over the seventy
Radical Union men in Cooper Institute, New York City, with William Cullen
Bryant presiding. President Lincoln, pursuing the course which seemed to
him necessary to keep the united north with him, felt fully the critical char-
acter of the issue which the Missourians were raising.

Conditions and events wholly apart from what was going on in their state
added to the significance and importance of this conference between President
Lincoln and the radical Union men of Missouri. The week before the seventy
started from St. Louis for Washington that bloodiest battle of the war, Chicka-
mauga, had been fought, and the whole north was depressed by the narrow
escape of Rosecrans' army. When the Missourians arrived in Washington
Hooker's army was marching all night long over the Long Bridge out of Vir-
ginia and into Washington to take trains for the roundabout journey to Chat-
tanooga to re-enforce the penned-up troops, that they might not be forced
north of the Tennessee by Bragg. Meade's failure to follow up the success
at Gettysburg in July previous had given great dissatisfaction. In the cabinet
there was division over administration policies. The presidential campaign was
coming on in a few months. Perhaps at no other time since the beginning of
the war had President Lincoln faced more discouraging criticism and more
hostile opinion in the North.

The address reviewed the origin and the development of antagonism be-
tween the Gamble administration and the radical Union men. It charged
Gamble with the intention to preserve slavery in Missouri and asserted "the
radicals of Missouri desired and demanded the election of a new convention
for the purpose of ridding the state of slavery immediately." It dwelt at
length upon the "proslavery character" of Governor Gamble's policy and acts.

"From the antagonisms of the radicals to such a policy," the address
proceeded, "have arisen the conflicts which you, Mr. President, have been
pleased heretofore to term a 'factional quarrel.' With all respect we deny that
the radicals of Missouri have been or are, in any sense, a party to any such
quarrel. We are no factionists; but men earnestly intent upon doing our part
toward rescuing this great nation from the assaults which slavery is aiming at
its life."

With the Missourians affirming such a position, it is not difficult to under-
stand the wavet of sympathy from the anti-slavery element which spread over
the country, taking the form of indorsements by newspaper, speeches by leaders
of the anti-slavery people and enthusiastic public attentions to the delegation.

586 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

The climax of the address of the seventy radical Union men was the
prayer that Ben Butler be sent to succeed Schofield at St. Louis to restore peace
and order in Missouri.

We ask, further, Mr. President, that in the place of General Schofield a department
commander be assigned to the Department of Missouri whose sympathies will be with
Missouri's loyal and suffering people, and not with slavery and proslavery men. General
Schofield has disappointed our just expectations by identifying himself with our state
administration, and his policy as department commander has been, as we believe, shaped
to conform to Governor Gamble's proslavery and conservative views. He has subordinated
federal authority in Missouri to state rule. He has become a party to the enforcement
of conscription into the state service. He has countenanced, if not sustained, the orders
issued from the state headquarters, prohibiting enlistments from the enrolled militia into
the volunteer service of the United States. Officers acting under him have arbitrarily
arrested and imprisoned loyal citizens, without assigned cause, or for daring to censure
Governor Gamble's policy and acts. Other such officers have ordered loyal men to be
disarmed, and in some instances the order has been executed, while, under the pretense
of preventing an invasion of Missouri from Kansas, notorious and avowed disloyalists
have been armed. He has issued a military order prohibiting the liberty of speech and
of the press. An officer in charge of negro recruits that had been enlisted under lawful
authority, as we are informed and believe, was on the 20th inst. arrested in Missouri by
Brigadier General Guitar, acting under General Schofield 's orders, his commission, side-
arms and recruits taken from him, and he imprisoned and sent out of the state. And,
finally, we declare to you, Mr. President, that from the day of General Schofield 's accession
to the command of that department, matters have grown worse and worse in Missouri,
till now they are in a more terrible condition than they have been at any time since the
outbreak of the rebellion. This could not be if General Schofield had administered the
affairs of that department with proper vigor and with a resolute purpose to sustain loyalty
and suppress disloyalty. We, therefore, respectfully pray you to send another general to
command that department; and, if we do not overstep the bounds of propriety, we ask that
the commander sent there be Major General Benjamin F. Butler. We believe that his pres-
ence there would restore order and peace to Missouri in less than sixty days.

The closing paragraph of the address was well calculated to impress Mr.
Lincoln with the intensity of feeling inspiring the delegation. Perhaps in the
history of White House conferences such strong language was never before
used by a delegation in declaring the personal responsibility of the chief execu-
tive. TKe conclusion was in these words:

Whether the loyal hearts of Missouri shall be crushed is for you to say. If you
refuse our requests, we return to our homes only to witness, in consequence of that refusal,
a more active and relentless persecution of Union men, and to feel that while Maryland
can rejoice in the protection of the government of the Union, Missouri is still to be a
victim of proslavery conservatism, which blasts wherever it reigns. Does Missouri deserve
such a fate? What border slave state confronted the rebellion in its first spring as she didf
Remember, we pray you, who it was that in May, 1861, captured Camp Jackson and saved
the arsenal at St. Louis from the hands of traitors, and the Union cause in the Valley of
the Mississippi from incalculable disaster. Eemember the home guards, who sprung to arms
in Missouri when the government was without troops or means to defend itself there.
Remember the more than 50,000 volunteers that Missouri has sent forth to battle for the
Union. Remember that, although always a slave state, her unconditional loyalty to the
Union shines lustrously before the whole nation. Recall to memory these things, Mr.
President, and let them exert their just influence upon your mind. We ask only justice
and protection to our suffering people. If they are to suffer hereafter, as now, and in
time past, the world will remember that they are not responsible for the gloomy page in
Missouri's history, which may have to record the independent efforts of her harassed but
etill loyal men to defend themselves, their families and their homes against their disloyal
and murderous assailants.

IN THE LIFE OF THE NATION 587

The names of the seventy radical Union men of Missouri were signed to
this remarkable document. The signature of Charles D. Drake of St. Louis,
afterwards senator from Missouri, and still later chief justice of the Court
of Claims at Washington, came first as chairman. Two Missouri congressmen,
Ben Loan and J. W. McClurg, the latter afterwards governor, signed as vice
chairmen of the delegation. One of the secretaries was the late Emil Pree-
torius of the St. Louis Westliche Post. Three of the seventy signers are living
in 1911 and are well known in St. Louis — Enos Clarke, Charles P. Johnson
and David Murphy. They were among the youngest members of the delegation.
One of them, Charles P. Johnson, was chosen to speak at the Cooper Institute
demonstration given to indorse this Missouri movement for universal emancipa-
tion, and was introduced to the great audience by the poet and editor, William
Cullen Bryant. The forty-eight years gone by have not dimmed the recollection
of that journey to Washington and of the scene in the east room of the White
House by these three St. Louis participants, although time long ago tempered
the sentiment and dissipated the bitterness. With some reluctance Enos Clarke
spoke of this historic occasion, explaining that it is difficult for those who did
not live through those trying times in St. Louis, or Missouri, to comprehend
the conditions which prevailed:

"The feeling over our grievances had become intense. We represented the extreme
anti-slavery sentiment. We were the Eepublicans who had been in accord with Fremont's
position. Both sides to the controversy in Missouri had repeatedly presented their views
to President Lincoln, but this delegation of seventy was the most imposing and most formal
protest which had been made to the Gamble state administration and the national admin-
istration's policy in Missouri. The attention of the whole country, it seemed, had been
drawn to Missouri. Our delegation met with a series of ovations. When we reached Wash-
ington we were informed that Secretary Chase proposed to tender us a reception. We were
entertained by him the evening of the day we were received at the White House. ' '

"Who was the author of the address, Mr. Clarke?"

' ' The address was the result of several meetings we held after we reached Washington.
We were there nearly a week. Arriving on Saturday, we did not have our conference at
the White House until Wednesday. Every day we met in Willard's Hall, on F street, and
considered the address. Mr. Drake would read over a few paragraphs, and we would dis-
cuss them. At the close of the meeting Mr. Drake would say, 'I will call you together to-
morrow to further consider this matter.' In that way the address progressed to the
finish."

"How did the President receive you!"

"There was no special greeting. We went to the White House a few minutes before
nine, in accordance with the appointment which had been made, and took seats in the east
room. Promptly at nine the president came in, unattended save by one of his secretaries.
He did not shake hands, but sat down in such a position that he faced us. He seemed a
great ungainly, almost uncouth man. He walked with a kind of ambling gait. His face
bore the look of depression, of deep anxiety. Mr. Drake stepped forward as soon as the
President had taken his seat and began to read the address. He had a deep, sonorous voice
and he read slowly and in a most impressive manner. The reading occupied half an hour.
At the conclusion Mr. Drake said this statement of our grievances had been prepared and
signed by all of those present."

"Did the President seem to be much affected by the reading?"

"No. And at the conclusion he began to discuss the address in a manner that was
very disappointing to us. He took up one phrase after another and talked about them
without showing much interest. In fact, he seemed inclined to treat many of the matters
contained in the paper as of little importance. The things which we had felt to be so serious

588 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Mr. Lincoln treated as really unworthy of much consideration. That was the tone in which
he talked at first. He minimized what seemed to us most important."

' ' Did he indulge in any story telling or humorous comment ? ' '

"No. There was nothing that seemed like levity at that stage of the conference. On
the contrary, the President was almost impatient, as if he wished to get through with
something disagreeable. When he had expressed the opinion that things were not so
serious as we thought he began to ask questions, many of them. He elicited answers
from different members of the delegation. He started argument, parrying some of the
opinions expressed by us and advancing opinions contrary to the conclusions of our Com-
mittee of Seventy. This treatment of our grievances was carried so far that most of ui
felt a sense of deep chagrin. But after continuing in this line for some time the Presi-
dent's whole manner underwent change. It seemed as if he had been intent upon drawing
us out. When satisfied that he fully understood us and had measured the strength of our
purpose, the depth of our feeling, he took up the address as if new. He handled the
various grievances in a most serious manner He gave us the impression that he was dis-
posed to regard them with as much concern as we did. After a while the conversation be-
came colloquial between the President and the members of the delegation — more informal
and more sympathetic. The change of tone made us feel that we were going to get considera-
tion. ' '

"What inspired that assertion in the address that the President had spoken of the
trouble in Missouri as a 'factional quarrel?' "

"It was based on a letter President Lincoln had written to General Schofield some
time previously. A copy of that letter was before us when we drew up the address. Ap-
parently, for the purpose of informing General Schofield of his view of affairs in Missouri,
Mr. Lincoln had written to him in this way: 'I did not relieve General Curtis because
of my full conviction that he had done wrong by commission or omission. I did it because
of a conviction in my mind that the Union men of Missouri, constituting, when united, a
vast majority of the whole people, have entered into a pestilent factional quarrel among
themselves. General Curtis, perhaps not of choice, being the head of one faction and Gov-
ernor Gamble that of the other. After months of labor to reconcile the difficulty, it seemed
to grow worse and worse until I felt it my duty to break it up somehow, and, as I could
not remove Governor Gamble, I had to remove General Curtis.' This letter had found
its way to the public and was made the basis of what our address said by way of vindicatioi
of the Radical Union men."

"Did the President make any reference to that part of the address about the 'fac-
tional quarrel?' "

"Yes, he did. And it was about the only thing he said that had a touch of humor in
that long conversation. In the course of his reply to us he took up that grievance. 'Why,'
he said, 'you are a long way behind the times in complaining of what I said upon that point.
Governor Gamble was ahead of you. There came to me some time ago a letter complaining
because I had said that he was a party to a factional quarrel, and I answered that letter
without reading it.' The features of the president took on a whimsical look as he con-
tinued: 'Maybe you would like to know how I could answer it without reading it. Well,
I'll tell you. My private secretary told me such a letter had been received and I sat down
and wrote to Governor Gamble in about these words: I understand that a letter has been
received from you complaining that I said you were a party to a factional quarrel in Mis-
souri. I have not read that letter, and, what is more, I never will.' With that Mr.
Lincoln dismissed our grievance about having been called parties to a factional quarrel.
He left us to draw our own inference from what he said, as he had left Governor Gamble
to construe the letter without help."

' ' Did the conference progress to satisfactory conclusions after the President 's manner
changed!"

"We did not receive specific promises, but I think we felt much better toward the
close than we had felt in the first hour. The President spoke generally of his purposes
rather than with reference to conditions in Missouri. Toward the close of the conference
he went on to speak of his great office, of its burdens, of its responsibilities and duties.

GEN. FREDERICK DENT GRANT

In front of log house where he lived in
early childhood

THE LOG HOUSE THAT GRANT BUILT

IN THE LIFE OF THE NATION 589

Among other things he said that in the administration of the government he wanted to
be the President of the whole people and no section. He thought we, possibly, failed to
comprehend the enormous stress that rested upon him. ' It is my ambition and desire, '
he said with considerable feeling, 'to so administer the affairs of the government while I
remain President that if at the end I shall have lost every other friend on earth I shall
at least have one friend remaining and that one shall be down inside of me.' '

"How long did the conference continue?"

' ' Three hours. It was nearing noon when the President said what I have just quoted.
That seemed to be the signal to end the conference. Mr. Drake stepped forward and ad-
dressing the President, who was standing, said, with deliberation and emphasis: 'The
hour has come when we can no longer trespass upon your attention. Having submitted to
you in a formal way a statement of our grievances, we will take leave of you, asking the
privilege that each member of the delegation may take you by the hand. But, in taking
leave of you, Mr. President, let me say to you many of these gentlemen return to a border
state filled with disloyal sentiment. If upon their return there the military policies of your
administration shall subject them to risk of life in the defense of the government and their
blood shall be shed — let me tell you, Mr. President, that their blood shall be upon your gar-
ments and not upon ours. ' '

"How did the President receive that?"

"With great emotion. Tears trickled down his face, as we filed by shaking his hand."

"The Twentieth Century Club" was a St. Louis organization of more than
local influence soon after the war. The idea was adapted from the "Bird Club"
of Boston. Enos Clarke, then a young lawyer of Ohio nativity who had come
to St. Louis from New York early in the Civil war, was one of the founders of
the club. Carl Schurz was one of the leading spirits. The members numbered
less than a score. They met once a week at the Planters' House and dined
together. Very few guests were entertained. When a non-member looked
around the table, he quickly discovered that he was in the presence of the men
who shaped Republican action in Missouri. When the Republican party divided
in 1870, the Twentieth Century members were aligned with the Liberal Repub-
lican movement. They put forward B. Gratz Brown. They went to the Liberal
Republican convention and controlled it for Brown. Two years later this organ-
ization was potent in the movement to make the Liberal Republican policy national
and to oppose Grant. Members of the Twentieth Century Club participated in
the convention at Cincinnati which nominated Greeley and Brown.

Among the members of the Twentieth Century club were Carl Schurz,
Henry T. Blow, Enos Clarke, Emil Preetorius, B. Gratz Brown, William M.
Grosvenor, William Taussig, James Taussig, Charles P. Johnson, John McNeil,
G. A. Finkelnburg and Felix Coste.

The meetings were held Saturday afternoons, continuing into the evenings.
Carl Schurz, as a rule, presided. Perhaps no other coterie in the history of this
city exercised for a like period such influence upon political affairs. Grosvenor
was editor of the Missouri Democrat, now the Globe-Democrat. He afterwards
became an editorial writer on the New York Tribune. Preetorius controlled
the Westliche Post, then the most powerful German Republican paper in the
country. This insured newspaper support of policies to which the club com-
mitted itself. Blow had been in Congress and was soon to be minister to Brazil.
The Twentieth Century Club inaugurated the movement which made Schurz
United States senator. The Liberal Republican movement not only elected one
of the members, B. Gratz Brown, governor of Missouri, and made him the vice-

590 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

presidential nominee at Cincinnati in 1872, but it sent Mr. Finkelnburg to Con-
gress and made Charles P. Johnson become lieutenant-governor.

In a newspaper office was conceived the other end of the political move-
ment in which St. Louis had far reaching influence. Democratic co-operation
was essential to the success of the Liberal Republican plan. The office was the
Missouri Republican. The time was 1870. William Hyde and William H.
Swift, with the advice of that astute politician, Henry C. Brockmeyer, and with
the approval of George and John Knapp, committed the Democratic organization
to the passive policy. Conflict of political opinion in Missouri was over the test
oath and the disfranchisement of the Confederates. Republicans were divided.
From the Republican office was exercised the influence which prompted Aylett
H. Buckner, chairman of the Democratic state central committee, to call a meet-
ing in St. Louis. Swift was the secretary of the committee. Resolutions binding
the committee not to call a state convention that year, 1870, were carefully drawn
and kept secret until the meeting was held. There were members who opposed
the proposition and who favored the making of a straight fight. Before the
opposition could organize, General James Shields moved the adoption of the
resolutions and the Democratic party of Missouri was bound to make no nomi-
nations that year. There was no little protest but the compact with the Liberal
Republicans was carried out.

Newspaper enterprise had something to do with the success of the plan. It
was essential that the Republican convention, which was to divide, should be
handled with care. William H. Swift was sent to Jefferson City for the Missouri
Republican. His instructions were to spare no expense. It was of the greatest
importance that the Liberal Republican movement and the passive policy should
be given a good send off for the effect upon public sentiment in the state. "Hold-
ing the wire" was a newspaper feat made possible in those days by a rule of the
telegraph companies. In the time of few wires and few operators, the news-
paper which filed matter first had exclusive use of the facilities for transmission
until all of its matter had been sent. Telegraph officials exercised no discretion
as to character of copy. They broke in on press copy only to send commercial
messages. Swift found two wires working from Jefferson City to St. Louis. He
pre-empted them. On the hook over one instrument he hung the United States
statutes and on the hook over the other table he hung the statutes of Missouri.
Then he went about the collection and preparation of news of the convention.
When the operators were ready for press they started on the statutes. When
Mr. Swift came in with copy he slipped the sheets into the statutes so that they
would go next. When other correspondents attempted to send, they discovered
that they were barred so long as the Missouri Republican was willing to pay tolls
on the statutes. Thus the anxious St. Louis public, during the hours while the
split between the Republican factions at Jefferson City was widening, received
information through a channel which gave the passive policy the best of it. In
his extremity, Emil Preetorius appealed to George Knapp to let a dispatch go
through to the Westliche Post. And the colonel, chivalric as he was, issued the
order to Mr. Swift to oblige Mr. Preetorius. Swift refused. Colonel George
threatened discharge. Swift was firm. Holding the wire meant a bill of $1,500
to the Republican. When the correspondent got back to St. Louis and went down

IN THE LIFE OF THE NATION 591

to the office to turn in his expense account and to receive his discharge, George
Knapp handed him an honorarium of $500 and told him to take a vacation for
two weeks. "Pay no attention to what I said to you at Jefferson City," Colonel
Knapp said with a ghost of a smile.

Following the convention at Jefferson City, the following messages were

exchanged :

St. Louis, Sept. 2, 1870.
B. Gratz Brown,

Jefferson City.

The negroes of this state are free. White men only are now enslaved. The people
look to you and your friends to deliver them from this great wrong. Shall they look
in vain? J. B. Henderson.

Jefferson City, Sept. 2, 1870.
Hon. John B. Henderson,

St. Louis.

The confidence of the people of this state shall not be disappointed. I will carry out
this canvass to its ultimate consequence so that no freeman not convicted of crime shall
henceforth be deprived of an equal voice in our government. B. Gratz Brown.

B. Gratz Brown was born in Kentucky, educated at Yale and became a
resident of Missouri in 1850. Rather curiously he was very early identified with
the German immigration as a champion of that element in the population of St.
Louis. His early free soil sympathies probably had much to do with this leader-
ship of the freedom loving Germans. He had the distinction of making the first
speech in behalf of emancipation as a member of a southern legislature. It was
thought at the time that he delivered the speech at the peril of his life in Jefferson
City, and that he sacrificed all hope of a political future. He was denounced
and proscribed but the Germans rallied solidly to his support and sent him back
to the legislature before the war. Opposition and proscription only spurred
B. Gratz Brown to greater efforts along the lines of his convictions. With Fred
Muench and Emil Preetorius, Brown was very active in getting up the call for
the first Republican convention in a slave state. He became a United States
senator after serving in the army, largely through the sturdy support of the
Germans of St. Louis.

Encouraged by their complete success in Missouri, the Liberal Republicans
and the Democrats under inspiration from the St. Louis leaders attempted in
1872 the same policy on a national scale. The Liberal Republicans, with the
Twentieth Century coterie and the Westliche Post following, started the move-
ment. The Missouri Republican advocated a passive policy by the national Demo-
cratic organization. Opposition to Grant and to reconstruction measures fur-
nished the platform. For months St. Louis was the center of political interest
to the whole country.

The movement gained great headway among Liberal Republicans, and espe-
cially among the Germans throughout the country. A national convention was
called to meet in Cincinnati. The state convention at Jefferson City, which
elected delegates to this Liberal Republican convention at Cincinnati, was con-
ducted practically by representatives of the Westliche Post. Joseph B. McCul-
lagh reported the convention for the Missouri Democrat. He called it the "Bill
and Joe Convention." "Bill and Joe" were William M. Grosvenor and Joseph

592 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Pulitzer. The movement resulted in the Cincinnati convention and the nomina-
tions of Greeley and Brown. A fatal mistake was made by the Democratic
National Convention in failing to carry out the policy. The Baltimore Conven-
tion of the Democratic party in 1872 took positive action on the ticket, instead of
adopting the passive course, which had been pursued by the Democratic party
of Missouri so successfully two years before. The result of the action at Balti-
more was to antagonize the Liberal Republicans and many of the German voters.
The Greeley and Brown ticket failed of the support expected for it from elements
in the Republican party opposed to Grant and the reconstruction measures in
the south.

CHAPTER XXIII.
ST. LOUISANS IN THE PUBLIC EYE

Laclede's Settlement as Pitman Saw it About 1766 — Exploited by Charles Gratiot — The First
St. Louis Millionaire — John Mullanphy, Shrewd, Eccentric and Philanthropic — Battle of
New Orleans and a Cotton Corner — A Political Center in 1820 — John Shackford's River
Improvement Plan — Characteristics and Sayings of Benton — A Tribute to Edward Hemp-
stead — How Death Came to the Old Roman — Bacon, the Financial Leader in 1854 — Gen-
eral E. D. Baker's Humble Boyhood — Benton's Dying Protest Against Anti-Slavery
Agitation — Lincoln's St. Louis Newspaper Alliance — Edward Bates in National Politics —
Grant, Sherman, Schofield and Sigel — Captain Grant's Application to be County Engineer
— Francis P. Blair, Jr. — The Famous Broadhead Letter — Blair to Frost on Camp Jackson
— St. Louisans in the Cabinets of Harrison, Cleveland, McKinley, Roosevelt and Taft —
Career of Ethan Allen Hitchcock — Growth of Richard Bartholdt to International Stature — •
The National Prosperity Association of 1908 — Benjamin F. Yoakum's Timely Suggestion
— E. C. Simmons' Call Upon President Roosevelt — A Movement Which Swept the Country —
St. Louis "the Nerve Center of the United States."

Woe to the people that lets its historic memories die; recreant to honor, gratitude, ye4
to its own life, it perishes with them. — Rev. Dr. T. M. Post, Dedication, Blair Monument.

St. Louis came quickly within the world's vision. The third year after
Laclede marked the first tree to guide Auguste Chouteau, a British officer vis-
ited the settlement. Captain Philip Pitman was of the engineer corps. He was
sent west by General Gage in 1766. The year previously, Sterling and his High-
landers had arrived at Fort Chartres. The British government wished an expert
report on the territory east of the Mississippi acquired from France. Pitman
was selected by Gage to make it. Gage was in command of the military forces
of Great Britain in America, — the same Gage who in the middle of the next
decade precipitated the American Revolution by sending redcoats out of Boston
to seize munitions at Concord, bringing on the battle of Lexington.

Pitman came to the Mississippi Valley, — "the country of the Illinois" it
had been called. He devoted several months to his investigations. His journey-
ing was not limited to British territory. St. Louis was visited, then not quite
three years old. Pitman made his report to Gage in 1767. Three years later,
in 1770, the observations and impressions in narrative form, were given to the
world through a book published in London. Pitman mentioned St. Louis by
that title but once. That was when he wrote of "the village of St. Louis" being
"supplied with flour and provisions" from Ste. Genevieve. Elsewhere in record-
ing his view of the settlement Pitman designated St. Louis as "Paincourt."

Pitman described St. Louis as he found it in the early months of 1767 in
these words — the first mention of St. Louis in print:

This village is one league and a half above Kaoquias, on the west side of the Mis-
sissippi, being the present headquarters of the French in these parts. It was first established
in the year 1764 by a company of merchants, to whom Monsieur D'Abbadie had given an
exclusive grant for the commerce with the Indian nations on the Eiver Missoury; and for
the security and encouragement of this settlement the staff of French officers and the com-

593
12- VOL. II.

594 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

inissary were ordered to remove here, upon the rendering Fort Chartres to the English; and
great encouragement was given to the inhabitants to remove with them, most of whom did.
The company has built a large house and stores here, and there are about forty-five houses
and as many families. No fort or barracks are yet built. The French garrison consists
of a captain-commandant, two lieutenants, a fort major, one sergeant, one corporal and
twenty men.

Charles Gratiot traveled widely. Wherever he went he sounded the praises
of St. Louis. In 1804 he was in Frankfort. John Mullanphy was keeping the
principal store. He had come from Ireland twelve years before with a young
wife. He tried Philadelphia and Baltimore, doing very well in business but the
speculative spirit was strong in him and he had moved to Kentucky. Mul-
lanphy listened to Gratiot's vivid description of the opportunities the new
American town offered. The two men talked French. Mullanphy, in his young
manhood, had crossed to France and had served some years in the Irish brigade
of that country. The persuasion of Gratiot was effective. Mullanphy moved
to St. Louis. He opened a store on Second street. Shrewd in business, speaking
equally well the language of the old habitants and of the newcomers he pros-
pered.

"The St. Louis millionaire," Brackenridge called John Mullanphy. There
were other men of wealth during the decade after the American occupation but
Brackenridge picked Mullanphy for "the millionaire." He told how the million
came about. At the time of the war of 1812 Mullanphy was speculating in
cotton. He had on hand a considerable quantity at New Orleans. General
Jackson took this cotton to make the breastworks behind which he waited for
Packenham, the English general. Mullanphy went to "Old Hickory" and pro-
tested. "This is your cotton ?" said General Jackson. "Then no one has a better
right to defend it. Take a musket and stand in the ranks." When the war
was over, Mullanphy tore the breastworks to pieces, shipped his bales of cotton
to England and cleared a million dollars. That was the story Brackenridge told
preliminary to this:

One day he called to see me and invited me to dine with him. I found him in a
large brick house, perhaps the largest in the town, unfurnished and untenanted with the
exception of a back room of which he was the sole occupant. Here I found him seated
before a wood fire (coal was not in use at that time), while two catfish heads were broiling
on two chips of wood. "There," said he, "you see your dinner; that head is yours and
this is mine; we must each do the cooking." It was a Barmecide feast, and I determined
to humor it. We had some excellent bread and butter, and to make amends for the dishes,
drank exquisite Madeira out of tumblers. The dessert, I must add, was the most substantial
part of the entertainment. Going to his safe, he brought forth a bag of dollars and
placing it on the table, ' ' There, ' ' said he, " is a retaining fee if I should want your pro-
fessional se'rvices. "

Two years previous to his arrival in St. Louis Mullanphy built a brig at
Frankfort, on the Kentucky river, loaded the ship with products and sent it to
the Indies while the Mississippi river at its mouth was yet in the possession and
control of Spain. Everything in which Mr. Mullanphy engaged seemed to turn
out prosperously. He kept a book store several years prior to 1800 at Frankfort
and made money at it. John Mullanphy knew books; he became possessed
of the finest private library in St. Louis. It was said of him that he built more
houses and contributed more than any other citizen to the early building of St.
Louis. He was repeatedly a member of the board of aldermen.

ST. LOUISANS IN THE PUBLIC EYE 595

In the biography of General Andrew Jackson this version of Mr. Mullan-
phy and the cotton bales is given :

An additional number of bales was taken to defend the embrasures. A Frenchman
whose property had been thus without his consent seized, fearing of the injury it might
sustain, proceeded in person to General Jackson to reclaim it and demand its delivery.
The general, having heard his complaint and ascertaining from him that he was employed
in no military service, directed a musket be brought him and placing it in his hand ordered
him on the line, remarking at the same time, "that as he seemed to be a man possessed
of property he knew of none who had a better right to fight to defend it."

The error of the biographer in calling Mr. Mullanphy a Frenchman may
be easily explained by the fact that the Irishman had obtained a good knowledge
of the French language and might easily have passed for a Frenchman. The
most accurate version of the New Orleans experience was undoubtedly that
which Mr. Mullanphy gave to John F. Darby and which Mr. Darby made public:

After the battle was over, Mr. Mullanphy said he could hear people on all sides saying
they would look to the government for their cotton; and he knew it would take a long time
to get money out of the government. Great delay, much expense, and an act of Congress
would have been required. He went to General Jackson, and said if he would order the same
number of sound bales, not torn by cannon balls or damaged in any way, returned to him
as had been taken from him, he would give a release for all claims upon the government.
General Jackson directed his quartermaster to do this, and Mullanphy received the same
number of sound bales as had been taken from him. All the balance of the cotton used in the
breastworks was put up at auction and sold for a mere trifle.

No cotton could be sold for more than three or four cents a pound. After the battle
Mr. Mullanphy seemed to have a premonition that peace would be made soon. The maila
were carried to New Orleans at that time all of the way on horseback via Natchez. No
steamboats were running there at that date, and no mail coaches ran in that flat swampy
country. Mr. Mullanphy hired a couple of men to take a skiff and row him up the Mississippi
river to Natchez. They ate and slept in the skiff. No one knew the object of his visit; the
men with him knew nothing of his purpose, and were left in charge of the skiff on their
arrival at Natchez, with injunctions to stay in the boat all of the time, as he did not know
what minute he might want to return. He went up into the town of Natchez and sauntered
around, when late in the evening the post rider came riding at full speed, shouting, "Peace!
Peace!" having, it is said, got a fresh horse every ten miles to hasten the glad tidings and
prevent the further destruction of life. Mr. Mullanphy ran down to the river, jumped into
his skiff and ordered his men to row with all their might for New Orleans, as he had im-
portant business there to attend to. The men knew not what had occurred, and rowed all night
and all next day with the swift current of the Mississippi, reaching New Orleans in good
time. Mr. Mullanphy was the only man in the city who had the news of peace. He was self-
composed — showed no excitement. He began purchasing all the cotton he could buy or bargain
for. He had about two days' the start of the others. Late in the evening of the second day
from the large amount of cotton purchased by him, people began to talk and to suspect that
he had some secret information. The third day, in the morning, the whole town was re-
joicing; the news of peace had come, and cannon were announcing it, but Mr. Mullanphy
had the cotton. Mr. Mullanphy chartered a vessel and took the cotton, which he had pur-
chased at three or four cents a pound, to England, where he sold it, as was reported, at thirty
cents a pound. And a part of the specie and bullion brought back with him as the returns
from his cotton was sold by him to the government of the United States on which to base the
capital for the Bank of the United States.

John Mullanphy was very tenacious of his legal rights. He frequently
made use of the expression that he would spend $1,000 before he would be
cheated out of one dollar. The many houses which he constructed brought him
into disputes with mechanics and laborers, but he would insist on fighting in

596 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

court and would not accept compromises. Not infrequently a change of venue
in some of his litigation would take Mr. Mullanphy to St. Charles, for he made
it a practice to be present in court whenever he was interested in a case there.
Driving over from St. Louis to St. Charles he carried with him a box of his
own imported wine which he labeled "Tracts." He prided himself on importing
the best wine brought to St. Louis. After court at St. Charles Mr. Mullanphy
entertained in the hotel, drew on his supply of wine and narrated recollections
of Napoleon and of his military experience in the French army.

On one occasion Mr. Mullanphy repudiated the bill of Victor Hab who had
charged $7 for boring out a pump on a property owned by Mr. Mullanphy. The
case was kept in court and cost a great deal of money, Mr. Mullanphy refusing
to pay more than $5 and preferring to pay witness fees and costs rather than
acknowledge the justice of Victor Hab's bill.

Mr. Mullanphy was a very aggressive opponent of Free Masons. He used
to tell John F. Darby, his lawyer, that the Free Masons had beaten him out of
$50,000 by getting on juries and rendering verdicts against him. During a
certain trial, when the witness put his hand to the head and ran his fingers
through the hair, Mr. Mullanphy cried out: "Look! look! he is giving the jury
the sign; he is a Free Mason." He would advise young lawyers to be on their
guard against letting Free Masons on the jury. He professed to know the grips
and signs and exposed them ; he would say : "You are a young man and I want
to admonish you to look out for these fellows."

John Mullanphy's contributions to charity were the most notable in that
period of the city's life. He gave a large piece of ground for the Sister's hos-
pital, covering a block on Fourth street. He left a large site for the Sacred
Heart convent, on Fourth street opposite the French market. He founded a
convent in Florissant. A favorite custom with him was to place in the hands of
the only baker in St. Louis, Daniel D. Page, a considerable sum of money, some-
times as much as $300 or $400, with instructions to give loaves of bread to those
unable to buy and to let him know when the credit was exhausted.

The first and second delegates from Missouri Territory to congress were
Connecticut men from St. Louis — Edward Hempstead and Rufus Easton. The
first two United States senators for Missouri were North Carolina men both of
them from St. Louis. The first territorial legislature met here. St. Louis was
the political center of Missouri for many years after the American flag went up
at government house on Walnut street. When campaigns came on, leaders went
out from the metropolis to inform the country constituency upon the issues of
the day. During Andrew Jackson's first candidacy for President, one of the
speakers sent from St. Louis, a young lawyer, brought back from the interior
of the state a story of his experience which was told in political circles for many
years. This spellbinder of 1820-30 was addressing a meeting of pioneers in
the woods, some distance this side of what is now Jefferson City. He told of
Jackson's military services at New Orleans, in the Creek war and in Florida.
He dwelt upon the political principles of Jackson as appealing to the plain peo-
ple. It was, in those days quite the proper thing for auditors to ask questions
of a speaker. When Mr. Lincoln went east in 1859 to make his Cooper Union
speech and followed it with several addresses in New England, he would occa-

GHX. A. J. SMITH

COL. SAMUEL McREE

GEN. JOHN W. TURNKR

GEN. EMMETT McDONALD GEN. S. W. KEARNY

THE MILITARY LIFE

ST. LOUISANS IN THE PUBLIC EYE 597

sionally pause as if he expected a question or a comment from the audience.
At Exeter, after one of these pauses in which he had looked from side to side
as if waiting for something to be said, he began again with : "You people here
don't jaw back at a fellow as they do out west."

The St. Louis orator calculated on making his most effective points in
response to questions or interruptions. At the Jackson meeting, a settler broke in
with, "Wa'll now capting, mought I ax if Ginral Jacksing's a riglar Missourian,
an' what he did for the people of this here state?"

"A very fair question," replied the orator from St. Louis, with an air of
gratitude toward the settler. "General Jackson settled away far west in Mis-
souri, and there opened a store for the special accommodation of farmers who
were at the mercy of Yankee speculators charging big prices for their 'notions'
and taking in return three times the fair amount in 'prodooce.' It's well known
the honest general, when things were dearest, never charged more than a
picayune a pound for sugar and coffee."

The orator told when he returned to St. Louis that this statement aroused
great enthusiasm with shouts of "Hurrah for Jacksing!" "Bully for the ginral!"
"He'll carry Osage county, sure!"

The story lived beyond the campaign of 1824. It was told in Washington.
Long after Jackson had been twice President, St. Louisans visiting the east
were asked if it was true that Democrats in Missouri were "still voting for
Gineral Jacksing."

A most enthusiastic volunteer soldier was Thornton Grimsley, commonly
known as Colonel Grimsley. He held everything in the militia service from
orderly to division inspector. He raised the St. Louis volunteer command in
1832 for the Black Hawk War. Four years later General Jackson tendered to
Thornton Grimsley a captain's commission in the dragoons of the regular army,
but the honor was declined. When the Mexican war came in 1846, Colonel
Grimsley raised a St. Louis regiment of 800 men for the war. He was politically
in opposition to the governor of Missouri at that time ; the commission went to
another man.

John Shackford was a wholesale grocer on the St. Louis Levee. His
partner was his son-in-law, General Nathan Ranney. Grocery stocks were
brought down the Ohio. When steamboats came into use they had great trouble
in passing the falls at Louisville. In the earlier period of flat boats and keel
boats of lighter draft, the obstruction was not so serious. John Shackford
became an advocate of a canal around the falls. He took stock in a proposed
canal. Then he gave up his business in St. Louis and went to Louisville to push
the canal. The government had assisted by taking stock in the canal company.
Funds gave out. John Shackford went to Washington and induced the govern-
ment to give more aid. The canal was built. Navigation in the Ohio was made
easy. History gives the credit to John Shackford. The visit to Washington
brought about wide acquaintance with public men. John Shackford was made,
sergeant-at-arms of the senate and held that office till his death.

Mr. Benton seldom spoke of the duel with Lucas. One of the few occasions
was on New Year's day 1856, in Washington. Mr. Benton, who had then
become a representative, was receiving a call from Hon. Elihu B. Washburne

598 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

who was also a member of the Thirty-fourth Congress. The conversation had
turned upon the Hempstead family in St. Louis. Mr. Benton paused in the
midst of his reminiscences and said:

Sir, how we did things in those days! After being up with my dead friend all night,
I went to my office in the morning to refresh myself a little before going out to bury him
five miles from town. While sitting at my table writing, a man brought me a challenge to
fight a duel. I told the bearer instanter: "I accept, but I must now go and bury a dead
friend; that is my first duty. After that is discharged I will fight, tonight if possible, if not,
tomorrow morning at daybreak. I accept your challenge, sir, and Colonel Lawless will write
the acceptance and fix the terms for me." I was outraged, sir, that the challenge should
have been sent when I was burying a friend. I thought it might have been kept a few
days. But when it came I was ready for it.

Mr. Washburne was so impressed with the statement of Mr. Benton that
as soon as he returned to his boarding house he wrote it out. The friend to
whom Mr. Benton referred was Edward Hempstead, the first of the Hempsteads
to come to St. Louis. He took up his residence here in 1805. In August, 1817,
he had been out campaigning in behalf of John Scott whom he was supporting
for delegate to Congress. As he rode from St. Charles to St. Louis he was
thrown from his horse. The injury to the head which Mr. Hempstead received
did not seem serious but a few days later, during the argument of a case in
court, a fatal attack of congestion of the brain occurred suddenly. Of his
friend Mr. Benton said:

Missouri met an irreparable loss when Edward Hempstead died. No man could have
stood higher in public or private estimation, and had he lived he would have received
every honor that the state could bestow, and would certainly have been the first United
States senator. He lost his life in serving a friend, Mr. Scott. I was with him the night
of his death.

It is not at all improbable that much admiration and love of Benton was
because of the enemies he made. That is an element of success in political life
which some public men have understood and applied with marked results. Ben-
ton was such a politician. He not only did not placate but he lost no opportunity
to pillory his enemies.

"Citizens," he said, "I have been dogged all over the state by such men as
Claud Jones and Jim Burch. Pericles was once so dogged. He called a servant,
made him light a lamp, and show the man who had dogged him to his gate the
way home. But it could not be expected of me, citizens, that I should ask any
servant of mine, either white or black, or any free negro, to perform an office
of such humiliating degradation as to gallant home such men as Claud Jones and
Jim Burch; and that with a lamp, citizens, that passers by might see what kind
of company my servants kept."

"Citizens !" he said on another occasion, "when I went to Fayette, in Howard
county, the other day, to address the people, Claib Jackson, old Doctor Lowry,
and the whole faction had given out that I should not speak there. When the
time came to fulfill my appointment, I walked up into the college hall and com-
menced my address to the large assembly of people collected to hear me ; and I
had not spoken ten minutes before Claib Jackson, old Doctor Lowry, and the
whole faction marched in, and took seats as modestly as a parcel of disreputable
characters at a baptizing."

ST. LOUISANS IN THE PUBLIC EYE 599

The greatness of Benton was not dimmed in his closing hours. Only three
days before his death Mr. Benton sent for President Buchanan to exhort him to
preserve the Union. Taking the hand of the president, he said :

Buchanan, we are friends; we have differed on many points, as you well know, but I
always trusted in your integrity of purpose. I supported you in preference to Fremont,
because he headed a sectional party, whose success would have been the signal for disunion.
I have known you long, and I knew you would honestly endeavor to do right. I have that
faith in you now, but you must look to a higher power to support and guide you. We
will soon meet in another world; I am going now; you will soon follow. My peace with
God is made, my earthly affairs arranged; but I could not go without seeing you and thank-
ing you for your interest in my child.

Death came to the old Roman on the loth of April, 1858. Almost to the
last hour he was engaged in dictating the closing chapter of his great work. Two
days before he died Mr. Benton wrote the following note to "Samuel Houston,
Esq., Senator in Congress from the State of Texas," and "George W. Jones,
Esq., Representative in Congress from the State of Tennessee,'' viz. :

C STREET, WASHINGTON, April 8, 1858.

To you, as old Tennessee friends, I address myself, to say that in the event of my
death here I desire that there should not be any notice taken of it in Congress. There is
no rule of either house that will authorize the announcement of my death, and if there were
such a rule I should not wish it to be applied in my case, as being contrary to my feelinga
and convictions long entertained.

Your old Tennessee friend,

THOMAS H. BENTON.

The venerable Horatio King, postmaster general in Buchanan's cabinet and
"the first man in office to deny the right of a state to withdraw from the Union,"
wrote to the Washington Chronicle this account of Mr. Benton's fatal illness :

As early as in September, 1857, Colonel Benton had a severe attack of what he sup-
posed to be colic, when Dr. J. F. May, his physician, pronounced his disease (cancer of the
bowels) incurable, and so informed him. This Dr. May states in a letter, under date of
April 13, 1858, to Mr. William Carey Jones, the son-in-law of Mr. Benton. Dr. May proceeds:

"Before he was relieved, in the attack just spoken of, he had given up all hope of
life. He told me he was satisfied the hour of his dissolution was near at hand — that it
was impossible for him to recover — and that his only regrets at parting with the world
were in ' separating from his children, and in leaving his great wrork undone ; that death
had no terrors for him, for he had thought on that subject too long to feel any. ' ' '

In the intervals of his visits to him during the last week of his illness Dr. May said
he ascertained that he was in the habit of correcting proof-sheets, and "I recollect one
occasion (said he) when I did not suppose he could stand, he suddenly arose from his
bed, and, in the face of all remonstrance, walked to his table at some distance off, and
corrected and finished the conclusion of another work on which he was engaged. His un
conquerable will enabled him to do it, but when done he was so exhausted I had to takt>
the pen from his hand to give it the direction. As soon as he recovered from the immediate
danger of this attack he labored, as he had done for years before, constantly at his task,
rising at daylight, and writing incessantly, with the exception of the hour he usually de-
voted to his afternoon ride on his horse, which he seemed to think was a benefit to him,
and at this labor he continued from day to day until about a week before his death, when,
no longer able to rise from weakness he wrote in his bed, and when no longer able to do
that dictated his views to others."

Thus it may be truly said of him, he literally died in harness, battling steadily, from
day to day, with the most formidable malady that afflicts humanity, his intellect unclouded,
and his iron will sustaining him in the execution of his great national work to the last
moment of his existence.

600 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

The Rev. Dr. Byron Sunderland conducted the funeral of Mr. Benton held
in Washington before the departure for St. Louis. He said :

During the last week of Colonel Benton 'a life I had several interviews with him at
his own request. Our conversation was mainly on the subject of religion, and in regard
to his own views and exercises in the speedy prospect of death. In these conversations
he most emphatically and distinctly renounced all self-reliance, and cast himself entirely on
the mediation of the Lord Jesus Christ as the ground of his acceptance with God. His
own words were "God's mercy in Jesus Christ is my sole reliance."

The Bay State gave to St. Louis the man who for nearly a decade was
probably the leading financier between the Alleghanies and the Rocky Mountains.
In 1854 the exchanges of the banking house of Page & Bacon reached the enor-
mous total for that period of $80,000,000. Henry D. Bacon was from East
Granville, Massachusetts. Mr. Bacon was the son-in-law of Daniel D. Page,
who had made a very large fortune at St. Louis in flour. The firm went down
in 1855, but not until after it had shown a spirit of enterprise, which had accom-
plished a great deal for St. Louis. Page & Bacon advanced the money for the
building of the larger part of the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad to St. Louis.
Henry D. Bacon went west after the failure in St. Louis. On the Pacific coast
he built another fortune. The generation of St. Louisans who knew of his
good works in this city had almost passed away when in 1881 news came back
of the dedication of "The Bacon Art and Library Building," as part of the Uni-
versity of California. Besides giving largely toward the building Mr. Bacon
presented a collection of paintings and sculpture and a library of several thou-
sand volumes.

The battle of Ball's Bluff sent a shock through the north. For numbers
engaged it was insignificant. The time was the first year of the Civil war, before
great engagements had inured the people to the consequences of fighting. That
which made Ball's Bluff, the Virginia landmark, long remembered was the death
of Edward Dickinson Baker, at the head of a regiment which he had raised.
At the time of his death Baker was a United States senator from Oregon.
Thirty-five years before he was a boy driving a horse and cart in St. Louis. His
father had come from Lancaster in England, bringing a large family and little
means. The boy was put to work with the horse and cart, hauling dirt and
doing such express errands as could be found. One day he left the horse stand-
ing at the corner of Third and Market streets, and, while waiting for a job, went
into the circuit court then held in the building erected for the Baptist church.
Edward Bates was addressing a jury. He was a gentle, quiet mannered man.
When he arose to speak, he had a power which was peculiarly his own with an
audience. There was not the slightest tendency to bombast. There was no
effort to be impressive. Bates was a winning speaker. He charmed all who lis-
tened. The boy, uneducated and unformed in character, forgot his horse and
cart, remaining in the courtroom to the end of the speech. He went home and
told his father that was the end of cart driving for him. "I'm going to be a
lawyer," he said in reply to the question what he meant.

The boy picked up education in scraps. His father, who had been a school-
master, taught him as well as he could. Almost before he reached manhood,
young Baker got a school to teach in Illinois. He lost no opportunity to practice
public speaking. On Sundays he preached in the Baptist church. It is tradition

ST. LOUISANS IN THE PUBLIC EYE 601

that he picked up some medical knowledge and did a little at doctoring. But the
law was his goal. He read as opportunity permitted. In 1837 ne was elected
to the Illinois legislature and in 1840 he became a state senator. After that he
ranked with Lincoln and Douglas as a political speaker. There is a story of
ambition handed down from the Illinois campaign of 1840 in which Baker was
one of the leading participants. It is said that, referring to the fact his foreign
birth debarred him from aspiring to the presidency, he declared "it is a great
calamity and misfortune to me," and shed tears. Four years later an Illinois
district sent Baker to Congress. The Mexican war came on. Baker went in
command of an Illinois regiment. Then he settled in California when the dis-
covery of gold prompted the flood of immigration there. He moved to Oregon
and was elected a senator when that territory was admitted to the Union in 1860.
At the outbreak of the war, Baker went to Pennsylvania and, appealing to re-
turned gold seekers, raised a command which was called the "California Regi-
ment." In October, 1861, he fell on the battlefield. At that time the lawyer
whose speech in the court at St. Louis had captivated the English boy and had
furnished the inspiration of his career was a member of President Lincoln's
cabinet, — Attorney General Bates.

"I wish you to get the St. Louis Democrat — change its name and character
— for no useful paper can now ever be made of it. I will be in St. Louis in
April and assist you. The paper is given up to the slavery subject, agitating
state emancipation against my established and known policy."

Thus Thomas H. Benton wrote from Washington to one of his wealthy
and influential friends in St. Louis in 1857. Back of this letter of "the old
Roman" is a story of journalism and politics with Abraham Lincoln as one of the
principals. Between the law office in Springfield and the printing office in St.
Louis was growing a relationship which was of far reaching influence. Benton
realized that new forces were at work. He failed to measure them. Bentonism
was waning rapidly. A new master hand in the making of public sentiment was
in the field. Benton, in his third of a century of political success had never
minimized the importance of newspaper support. Lincoln had Benton's respect
for the power of the press and more than Benton's facility for making use of
it to form public sentiment as the political and newspaper evolution at St. Louis
showed.

Not all of Benton's remarkable letter on the subject of the Missouri Dem-
ocrat has been given. The demand that the paper be obtained and changed
was preceded by this:

"My friends told me that these persons would turn out for abolition in the
state as soon as the election was over but I would not believe them. For persons
calling themselves my friends to attack the whole policy of my life, which was
to keep slavery agitation out of the state, and get my support in the canvass by
keeping me ignorant of what they intended to do is the greatest outrage I have
experienced. Those who have done it have never communicated one word to
me in justification or explanation of their conduct ; for it is something they can
neither explain nor justify."

Benton's protest was of no avail. The next year, 1858, the Missouri Demo-
crat was openly fighting the battle of Lincoln against Douglas in Illinois, and

602 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

John Hay was the staff correspondent, attending and reporting for the Democrat
the joint debates. From that time to the nomination in 1860, the Missouri
Democrat was the consistent supporter of Mr. Lincoln, the circulation in Illinois
and the staff correspondence from Kansas making the paper of great influence.
Between Mr. Lincoln's law office in Springfield and the Missouri Democrat
editorial room in St. Louis, there was frequent communication through John
Hay.

The statesman of St. Louis in that period, the clearest-sighted of them all,
was Edward Bates. He had seen the Whig party go to pieces. He was in
thorough sympathy with the work of party construction which Lincoln was
doing in Illinois. He was not active in the Lincoln movement at St. Louis but
he was a wise adviser. There was but very little of the Republican party in
Missouri outside of St. Louis. And in the city the interest centered at the Mis-
souri Democrat office. When the time came to send a delegation to the Chicago
convention of 1860, the delegation went committed to Edward Bates, but, as
Mr. Bates explained, not with the expectation that he would be nominated. The
purpose was to hold the delegation away from an eastern candidate. Lincoln
was almost as much the candidate of the Missouri delegation as if instructions
had been given for him. After the nomination Mr. Bates wrote a letter to O. H.
Browning of Quincy. He not only declared for Mr. Lincoln but he pointed out
in his convincing way the strength of Mr. Lincoln as a candidate. He considered
Mr. Lincoln stronger than the platform.

"As to the platform," Judge Bates wrote, "I have little to say, because
whether good or bad, that will not constitute the ground of my support of Mr.
Lincoln."

I consider Mr. Lincoln a sound, safe, national man. He could not be sectional if he
tried. His birth, the habits of his life and his geographical position compel him to be
national. All his feelings and interests are identified with the great valley of the Missis-
sippi, near whose center he has spent his whole life. That valley is not a section, but con-
spicuously the body of the nation, and, large as it is, it is not capable of being divided
into sections, for the great river cannot be divided. It is one and indivisible and the north
and the south are alike necessary to its comfort and prosperity. Its people, too, in all
their interests and affections, are as broad and generous as the regions they inhabit. They
are emigrants, a mixed multitude, coming from every state in the Union, and from most
countries in Europe. They are unwilling, therefore, to submit to any one petty local stand-
ard. They love the nation as a whole, and they love all its parts, for they are bound to
them all, not only by a feeling of common interest and mutual dependence, but also by the
recollections of childhood and youth, by blood and friendship, and by all those social and
domestic charities which sweeten life, and make this world worth living in. The valley is
beginning to feel its power, and will soon be strong enough to dictate the law of the
land. Whenever that state of things shall come to pass, it will be most fortunate for the
nation to find the powers of the government lodged in the hands of men whose habits of
thought, whose position and surrounding circumstances constrain them to use those powers for
general and not sectional ends.

With such broad and statesmanlike views of the situation, Mr. Bates led up
to his personal and intimate estimate of Mr. Lincoln.

I have known Mr. Lincoln for more than twenty years, and therefore have a right
to speak of him with some confidence. As an individual he has earned a high reputa-
tion for truth, courage, candor, morals and amiability, so that as a man he is most trust-
worthy. And in this particular he is more entitled to our esteem than some other men,

MAJOR THOMAS BIDDLE
Principal in the fatal Pettis-Biddle Duel

HENRY S. TURNER

GEN. DAVID M. FROST

From a picture taken a short time

before the capture of Camp

Jackson

THE MILITARY LIFE

ST. LOUISANS IN THE PUBLIC EYE 603

his equals, who had far better opportunities and aids in early life. His talents and the
will to use them to the best advantage are unquestionable; and the proof is found in the
fact that, in every position in life, from his humble beginning to his present well earned
elevation, he has more than fulfilled the best hopes of his friends. And now in the full
vigor of his manhood and in the honest pride of having made himself what he is, he is
the peer of the first men of the nation, well able to sustain himself and advance his cause
against any adversary, and in any field where mind and knowledge are the weapons used.

In politics he has acted out the principles of his own moral and intellectual character.
He has not concealed his thoughts or hidden his light under a bushel. With the boldness of
'conscious rectitude and the frankness of downright honesty, he has not failed to avow hia
opinions of public officers upon all fitting occasions.

I give my opinion freely in favor of Mr. Lincoln and I hope that for the good of the
whole country he may be elected.

Edward Bates had declined a place in the cabinet of Mr. Fillmore a few
years before. He accepted the attorney generalship with Mr. Lincoln. The
selection of Mr. Bates and Mr. Montgomery Blair for cabinet positions was
almost equivalent to giving St. Louis two places. One of the early acts of the
President was the appointment of Mr. Foy, who had been the editorial writer on
the Democrat during the period of the close relationship with Mr. Lincoln, to
the postmastership of St. Louis.

Just before the Civil war, Ulysses S. Grant was selling wood in St. Louis;
William Tecumseh Sherman was managing the Fifth street railroad; John M.
Schofield was an instructor in Washington University. They rose to the rank
of lieutenant-general, commanding the United States army. Franz Sigel was
teaching school in St. Louis and Peter John Osterhaus had a little business across
the river. They became major generals of volunteers in the Union army.

An incident of hitherto unwritten war history was the action of a confer-
ence held in the office of the State Journal at St. Louis. The editor was Deacon
Tucker. His paper was looked upon as the organ of the Democrats who sympa-
thized most strongly with the south. Governor Claiborne Jackson came from
Jefferson City to attend the conference. David H. Armstrong, Basil Duke,
Robert M. Renick were among the St. Louisans present, while the interior of
the state was represented by half a dozen generals and colonels of the state
militia. The purpose of the conference was to select some one to command the
state troops. Governor Jackson proposed Captain U. S. Grant. Deacon Tucker
urged the selection of Sterling Price. At that time Price was a pronounced
Union man. He had presided over the state convention which declared against
secession. Governor Jackson continued to urge the reasons why he favored
Grant until Mr. Dent, the father-in-law of Captain Grant, strenuously opposed
the proposition. The choice fell upon Price. The day after the conference an
effort was made to find Grant, when it was discovered that he had gone to Illinois.
Shortly afterwards he offered his services to Governor Yates and was given a
regiment. Price clung to the hope that he could, with his state guards, preserve
the neutrality of Missouri ; that the United States troops would not go outside
of the arsenal and Jefferson Barracks against the protest of the state govern-
ment. Then came the capture of St. Louis militia in Camp Jackson. Price
joined his fortunes with the Confederacy.

Grant tried to establish himself permanently in St. Louis. He lived several
years in his own house. On the I5th of August, 1859, he filed his application

604 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

for the appointment of county engineer. Addressing his letter to the county
commissioners, he submitted the names of "a few citizens who have been kind
enough to recommend me for the office." He added, "I have made no effort
to get a large number of names nor the names of persons with whom I am
not personally acquainted." The petition bore the signatures of these:

THOMAS E. TUTT Isr. J. EATON

FEED OVERSTOLZ THORNTON GRIMSLEY

JOHN P. HELFENSTEIN SAM B. CHURCHILL

TAYLOR BLOW L. A. BEXOIST & Co.

JAMES M. HUGHES L. G. PARDEE

JOHN MITCHELL JAMES C. MOODEY

J. G. MCCLELLAN FELIX COSTE

CHARLES A. POPE BAUMAN & Co.

W. S. HlLLYER WM. L. PlTKIN

C. S. PUSKETT J. A. BARRETT

C. W. FORD K. MCKENZIE

A. J. EOBINSON GEORGE A. MOORE

DANIEL M. FROST E. A. BARNES

EGBERT M. EENICK G. W. FISHBACK

EGBERT J. HORN SB Y J. MCKNIGHT

THOMAS MARSHALL JOHN How

JOHN O'FALLON EDWARD WALSH
JOHN F. DARBY

Accompanying the application were the following high indorsements :

St. Louis, August 1, 1859. — Capt. U. S. Grant was a member of the class at the mili-
tary academy, West Point, which graduated in 1843. He always maintained a high stand-
ing and graduated with great credit, especially in mathematics, mechanics and engineer-
ing. From my personal knowledge of his capacity and acquirements, as well as his strict
integrity and unremitting industry, I consider him in an eminent degree qualified for the
office of county engineer. I. I. EEYNOLDS.

Professor Mechanics and Engineering, Washington University,

I was for three years in the corps of cadets at West Point with Capt. Grant and after-
ward served with him for some eight years in the army, and can fully indorse the fore-
going statements of Prof. Eeynolds. (Signed) D. M. FROST.

On the back of the application was indorsed, "1859, application of Captain
U. S. Grant to be appointed county engineer. Rejected."

During the Civil war this indorsement was changed to read, "Not ap-
pointed."

The county commissioners were John H. Lightner, Benjamin Farrar, Wil-
liam Taussig, -Alton R. Easton, and Peregrine Tippett. Mr. Easton and Mr.
Tippett voted for Grant. The others voted for Charles E. Salomon. With
grim satire General Grant, in his memoirs recalled this experience:

While a citizen of St. Louis and engaged in the real estate agency business, I was a
candidate for the office of county engineer, an office of respectability and emolument, which
would have been very acceptable to me at that time. The incumbent was appointed by
the County Court, which consisted of five members. My opponent had the advantage of
birth over me (he being a citizen by adoption), and carried off the prize.

The Grants never returned to St. Louis to live but the memories of the
children of the general clung to the early home. General Grant acquired the
estate of his father-in-law, White Haven, and maintained it for years. While
at the head of the army and while President he made several visits to the

ST. LOUISANS IN THE PUBLIC EYE 605

place. He looked forward to the time when he might retire and spend his
declining years there. During the World's Fair, General Frederick Dent
Grant spoke feelingly of the house in which, as a boy, he had lived. He visited
it in company with Cyrus F. Blanke and was photographed, sitting on his
horse, at the front door. Mrs. Nellie Grant Sartoris always showed strong
affection for St. Louis. When Nellie Grant's marriage occurred in the White
House, John N. Edwards wrote for the St. Louis Times a congratulation from
St. Louis which brought from Mrs. Grant a personal letter full of appreciation
for the remembrance of the Grants by their old time friends.

The year before Camp Jackson, in 1860, the militia of St. Louis wer
ordered into camp under the same provisions of law that applied to the forma-
tion of Camp Jackson. Among the militia companies which went into camp
in 1860 were Germans who, the next year, participated with Lyon in the
capture of Camp Jackson. Captain Stifel who commanded a regiment of
Lyon's force had a company of militia cavalry under Frost in the camp of
1860. Some of the German militia in the camp of 1860, it was found, had
difficulty in understanding the commands given in English. At Captain StifeFs
suggestion, Franz Sigel, then a St. Louis school teacher, was employed to
translate commands into German so that German militia could learn the tactics.
This was carried out. A few months later Sigel was in command of one of
the Lyon regiments which marched on Camp Jackson. His men sang through
years of war their song "Fight mit Sigel." A statue of Sigel stands in Forest
Park.

The Blairs were Kentuckians. Their father was an editor and a politician
in Lexington and afterwards in Washington when the Democratic administra-
tion maintained an organ in the Globe. On the mother's side the descent was
from Gist, the companion of Daniel Boone. When Francis P. Blair, Jr., a
young lawyer, just graduated from Transylvania joined his brother Mont-
gomery in St. Louis, in 1843, ne was so delicate in health, his physician sent
him to the Rocky Mountains to rough it with the trappers and traders. He
joined General Kearny's command as a lieutenant and served in the Mexican
war. When he came back to St. Louis in 1847 he was ready for stratagem
and fighting. A member of the legislature in 1852, a free soil representative
in Congress in 1856, a colonel of Union volunteers in 1861, a major general
before the war ended, a Democratic nominee for vice-president in 1868, a
United States senator, Frank Blair won a conspicuous place in the St. Louis
hall of fame. It is interesting to read in a biography of Blair written about
1857, and presumably approved if not written by him, his political position
given in these words:

He is no believer in the unholy and disgusting tenets advocated by Abolition fanati-
cism, but advocates the gradual abolution of slavery in the Union, and the colonization of the
slaves emancipated in Central America, which climate appears to be happily adapted to
their constitutional idiosyncracies.

Mrs. Francis P. Blair was Miss Apolline Alexander of the Woodward
county, Kentucky, Alexanders.

With a cloak drawn over his shoulders, his strongly marked features, deep
set eyes, long drooping moustache, Francis P. Blair was a man people on the
streets of St. Louis turned to look after.

606 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

In the presidential campaign of 1868, a former St. Louisan headed one
ticket — Grant and Col fax ! a St. Louisan held the second place on the other
side — Seymour and Blair. For that campaign Francis P. Blair furnished the
issue in what became historic as "the Broadhead letter."

WASHINGTON, June 20, 1868.
COLONEL JAMES O. BROADHEAD:

Dear Colonel: In reply to your inquiries I beg to say that I leave to you to determine,
on consultation with my friends from Missouri, whether my name shall be presented to
the Democratic convention, and to submit the following as what I consider the real and
only issue in this contest:

The reconstruction policy of the Radicals will be complete before the next election;
the states, so long excluded, will have been admitted; negro suffrage established, and the
carpet-baggers installed in their seats in Congress. There is no possibility of changing
the political character of the Senate, even if the Democrats should elect their President,
and a majority of the popular branch of Congress. We cannot, therefore, undo the radical
plan of reconstruction by Congressional action; the Senate will continue a bar to its repeal.
Must we submit to it? How can it be overthrown? It can be overthrown only by the
authority of the executive, who is sworn to maintain the Constitution, and who will fail
to do his duty if he allows the Constitution to perish under a series of Congressional en-
actments which are in palpable violation of its fundamental principles.

If the President, elected by the Democracy, enforces or permits others to enforce
the reconstruction acts, the Radicals, by the accession of twenty spurious senators and
fifty representatives will control both branches of Congress and his administration will be
as powerless as the present one of Mr. Johnson.

There is but one way to restore the government and the constitution, and that is for
the President-elect to declare these acts null and void, compel the army to undo its usurpa-
tion at the south, disperse the carpet-bag state governments, allow the white people to
organize their own governments and elect senators and representatives. The House of Rep-
resentatives will contain a majority of Democrats from the north, and they will admit the
representatives elected by the white people of the south, and with the cooperation of the
President it will not be difficult to compel the Senate to submit once more to the obliga-
tions of the Constitution. It will not be able to withstand the public judgment, if distinctly
invoked and clearly expressed, on this fundamental issue, and it is the sure way to avoid
all future strife to put the issue plainly to the country.

I repeat that this is the real and only question which we should allow to control us.
Shall we submit to the usurpations by which the government has been overthrown, or shall
we exert ourselves for its full and complete restoration? It is idle to talk of bonds, green-
backs, gold, the public faith and the public credit. What can a Democratic President do
in regard to any of these, with a Congress in both branches controlled by carpet-baggers and
their allies? He will be powerless to stop the supplies by which idle negroes are organ-
ized into political clubs — by which an army is maintained to protect these vagabonds in
their outrages upon the ballot. These, and things like these, eat up the revenues and re-
sources of the government and destroy credit — make the difference between gold and green-
backs. We must restore the Constitution before we can restore the finances, and to do this
we must have a President who will execute the will of the people by trampling into dust
the usurpations of Congress known as the reconstruction acts. I wish to stand before the
convention upon this issue, for it is one which embraces everything else that is of value
in its large and comprehensive results. It is the one thing that includes all that is worth a
contest, and without it there is nothing that gives dignity, honor, or value to the strug-
gle. Your friend, FRANK P. BLAIR.

"There is no item of that letter that I take back," Blair said afterwards, in
1871, when he was a candidate for United States senator from Missouri. His
action in regard to the taking of Camp Jackson was another matter upon which
Blair had no apologies to make. Blair and Frost were guests at a dinner in

ETHAN ALLEN HITCHCOCK

Ex-Secretary of the Interior

FREDERICK L. BILLON

HENRY CLAY
From a Daguerreotype taken in St. Louis about 1850

JOHN RICHARD BARRET
Better known as "Missouri Dick"

COL. THORNTON GRIMSLEY

ST. LOUISANS IN THE PUBLIC EYE 607

the Florissant valley some years after the close of the war. The Camp Jackson
incident was mentioned. Blair, addressing Frost, said: "If we had not taken
you, you would have taken us in two weeks more."

Ethan Allen Hitchcock was one of the most notable surprises of this
generation in public life. In November, 1896, a group of Missouri congress-
men en route to Washington stopped over at Canton. Mr. McKinley was
President-elect. Missouri Democrats had in 1894 gone a fishing. The con-
gressional delegation was largely Republican. These Representatives from
Missouri were on their way to Washington to serve the short session of what
was for most of them their only term in Congress. They stopped at Canton
to pay their respects to the President-elect. "Pay their respects" has covered
more political effort than any other phrase in the English language. The
party asked Mr. McKinley to choose a member for his cabinet from Missouri.
Mr. McKinley was kind. He talked pleasantly, as he always did, and encourag-
ingly as he did not always mean to do. But when the conversation became
definite the president-elect suddenly asked :

"How would Mr. Hitchcock do?"

The congressmen went on to Washington and immediately confided to a
newspaper correspondent that Mr. McKinley was "considering Henry Hitch-
cock for a place in the cabinet." And the correspondent promptly wired it to
his paper. The next day came reflection. Henry Hitchcock had been during
the Harrison administration very close to an appointment on the United States
Supreme bench — so close in fact that for some days the presidential mind
hesitated between the eminent St. Louis lawyer and another man. Decision
in favor of the latter had been made, it was understood, only for the reason
that he was a Federal judge and was from a Republican state. It did not seem
probable that Henry Hitchcock, whose tastes and qualifications so eminently
fitted him for the Supreme bench would be under consideration for a cabinet
appointment. The members of the Missouri group who had called at Canton
were seen and catechised. They were asked to repeat exactly what Mr. Mc-
Kinley said. They agreed that he had asked them:

"How would Mr. Hitchcock do?"

Did the President-elect say Mr. Henry Hitchcock? No; the congressmen
were quite sure he did not. Did he mention Mr. Hitchcock's first name at any
time during the conversation? No; they could not recall that he did. But
who else could he have had in mind but Henry Hitchcock? So questioned the
congressmen.

It was no special test of memory to recall that when Mr. McKinley as
chairman of the Ways and Means committee was framing his famous tariff bill
a few years before he had sought information and advice from Ethan A. Hitch-
cock upon certain schedules. Notably was this true about glass. It was
remembered that Mr. Hitchcock had spent some time in Washington helping
Mr. McKinley, and that Mr. McKinley had expressed strongly his admiration
of Mr. Hitchcock's clear-headed, business-like ways. Therefore the Washing-
ton dispatches a day later withdrew Henry Hitchcock from the cabinet pos-
sibility and substituted Ethan A. Hitchcock.

In the abundance of advice Mr. McKinley laid aside his earliest impres-
sions and intentions which were his best. He constructed a cabinet which fell

608 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

to pieces. Ethan A. Hitchcock went to Russia as ambassador only to be recalled
and put at the head of the Department of the Interior, when Cornelius N.
Bliss, after a few months trial of the duties, had given up in disgust.

Phenomenal is the word that describes the career of Mr. Hitchcock as a
cabinet minister. When he sat down to the cabinet table, toward the close of
his secretaryship, he saw only one face that was there at the time he began his
service. He was secretary of the interior to two Presidents as dissimilar as
any two men who have occupied the White House. He won the unreserved
confidence and unstinted commendation of both of them. He held one of the
hardest places to fill in the cabinet. He held it longer than any predecessor.

As secretary of the interior Mr. Hitchcock dealt with more varied internal
interests of the country than any other member of the cabinet. He had to do
directly with more committees of Congress. His was the department where
eternal vigilance is the price of safety from scandals.

For three years after Mr. Hitchcock entered upon his duties he had to face
two elements of antagonism and it was the wonder of all of Washington that
those elements did not crush him. One was covert opposition from a part of
the Republican party organization. The other was inimical surveillance from
certain senators and representatives who desired a more pliant, less scrupulous
secretary of the interior.

Doubtless Mr. Hitchcock himself would have deprecated the mention of
these antagonistic influences which operated in the early part of his career at
Washington. Possibly he did not know how far they went in the policy to
break him, how actively they sought to inspire unwarranted criticism of him,
how often they promoted the rumor that he was to leave the cabinet.

The estimation in which Mr. Hitchcock was held by Washington the latter
half of his career was in striking contrast with that which greeted him when
he entered the McKinley cabinet. At first he was either an unknown or an
undesired quantity, according to the passive or active point of view. Later he
was trusted and honored implicitly by President and Congress. When with
shattered health he left the cabinet, it was a distinct loss to the public service
of the country.

Three other St. Louisans filled the office of secretary of the interior with
honor — Carl Schurz, John W. Noble and David R. Francis. A St. Louisan,
Norman J. Colman, was the first secretary of agriculture. With the opening
of the administration of President Taft in 1909 St. Louis was still worthily
represented in the cabinet — Charles Nagel being secretary of commerce and
labor. The department of commerce was advocated by St. Louis in a move-
ment started fifteen years before the establishment. One of the strongest argu-
ments for this new department was an address by Nathan Frank.

Political climate is trying. Some men have that within them which draws
nourishment and stimulus from public life. They grow on it. They are not
many. One of the most notable cases of individual expansion and growth at
Washington in the present generation is Richard Bartholdt. He was connected
with a German afternoon newspaper in St. Louis. Previously he had news-
paper training as a reporter on a German paper in New York. He was sent
to Albany to do the legislature about the time Grover Cleveland was elected
governor. Then he drifted out to St. Louis and, in a short time, was sent to

ST. LOUISANS IN THE PUBLIC EYE 609

Congress. Mr. Bartholdt breathed the air of Washington with satisfaction.
He filled his lungs with the inspiration to do. His progress has been steady
until, in 1911, he ranks with the most effective men in the House. If some-
thing for constituents is to be accomplished no other representative can do
more. Further than this, Mr. Bartholdt has developed in national lines of
legislation force which gives him rank as a leader. He is the acknowledged
authority on questions relating to immigration. He has become the admitted
champion in Congress of international arbitration with a reputation for further-
ance of the cause which is international.

Benjamin F. Yoakum, coming up from a trip to Texas, in May, 1908,
thought earnestly on a situation which was without precedent. He had seen
for himself that the basis of good times — the agricultural interests — were all
right. He conferred with the presidents of the three parts of the great system,
— Davidson of the Frisco, Winchell of the Rock Island and Miller of the Eastern
Illinois. Every inquiry strengthened his opinion that the prevalent lethargy in
trade and traffic was without material justification; that the trouble was with
the country's mind rather than its body.

' Mr. Yoakum went to Festus J. Wade with his diagnosis. Wasn't it possible
to arouse the patient from the torpor? Should not the movement start in St.
Louis? Could not the man to head such a movement be found here?

Mr. Wade said "yes" to all three questions in one time, called over the
phone to E. C. Simmons a request to stop for a moment on his way up town to
his bank meeting. When Mr. Simmons came into the Mercantile Trust com-
pany, Mr. Wade told him what Mr. Yoakum thought and added the joint opinion
that it was quite possible to do some good if Mr. Simmons would "go to the
front."

"Now," argued Mr. Wade, "don't turn us down. Please take a day to
think it over. We believe there is something in it."

"I don't need to take a day to think about it," replied Mr. Simmons. "I can
tell you right now, the idea is good and I'm with you."

If there was a party of progressivists in this country Benjamin F. Yoakum
could qualify for the apostle of it. The mental habit of Festus J. Wade is of
the instantaneous exposure order. "The best known merchant in the United
States," E. C. Simmons has been truthfully called.

The next day the board room of the Mercantile Trust company was filled
with men representing almost every large business interest in the city. Mr. Sim-
mons sat at the head of the table. Down one side and up the other each man
expressed himself on the situation. Summarized their conclusions were:

Fundamentally \ve are all right. What we need most is to think right. The panic ought
to be over. It would be, but for lack of confidence. Is it possible by a strong energetic, in-
telligent campaign of sentiment to expedite normal business activity? Yes, but some of the
causes of timidity must be banished. Business men are entitled to the credit of ten years
of the greatest prosperity the country has known. Some business men are to blame for
the panic. Business men must find and apply the remedy for present troubles. We cannot
criticise the President of the United States for the exposure of vices and evils in business
methods. The American people have passed judgment that in some measure his charges
are true. Corrective laws have been passed by Congress; they are wise. Prosecutions which
the President caused to be instituted should proceed to finality. But demagogic agitation
should cease. Radical, hasty, experimental legislation, the country over, against railroads should
be condemned and checked, and the way to do it is through public sentiment.

13- VOL. II.

610 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

The business men of St. Louis organized "The National Prosperity Asso-
ciation" with E. C. Simmons at the head of it. Other members of the executive
committee were W. K. Bixby, vice chairman, James E. Smith, Murray Carleton,
Jackson Johnson, George A. Meyer, Festus J. Wade.

There was no precedent to guide. But the facts supported. Crop pros-
pects favored. The philosophy of the movement was sound. Two strongly
favoring factors contributed. In St. Louis the harmonious, effective organiza-
tion of business interests has been a progressive development of seventy years.
Perhaps in no other American city have the business men perfected organization
for general good so thoroughly and efficiently. The machinery, in the form of
the Business Men's League, was ready for immediate application to the pros-
perity movement. The other factor was the relationship which the business
houses of St. Louis sustain to their traveling salesmen. That relationship is
close, confidential, encouraging on the one side, loyal, enthusiastic and zealous
on the other. Every business man who attended the first meeting of the pros-
perity movement went to his office to prepare a letter in his own way to his corps
of traveling men. Within twenty-four hours every business house in the city,
having men on the road, had been asked to cooperate. And as rapidly as the
mails could carry the appeal from St. Louis wholesale houses west, north, south
and east, traveling men began to talk the encouragement which bottom facts
justified, The response was quick and emphatic.

i Then was opened the most extensive interchange of correspondence which
had been attempted among the business organizations of the country. There
are 100,000 of these associations. Many thousands of them had come into ex-
istence within five years. Never before were these organizations massed in a
common movement. Responses of appreciation, tenders of cooperation, inquiries
showing interest were almost innumerable. If the National Prosperity Associa-
tion of St. Louis accomplished no more, it taught the tremendous power which
the business organizations, united in a common purpose, possess.

The St. Louisans took the movement to the White House. To Mr. Sim-
mons and his delegation President Roosevelt gave his hearty indorsement of the
movement :

The business and commercial interests of this country to be prosperous in any enduring
sense must be administered honestly. With occasional exceptions they have been and are
now so administered. As you have well said, wherever there is evidence of dishonesty it must
be pursued relentlessly and punished; but having thus moved forward to a high plane of
business integrity, and on that plane built wisely, let no man seize the moment when we
have, as a nation, pilloried the real malefactors, to say that all American business men, or
even any considerable number of them, are malefactors. I welcome your work and shall
be glad to co-operate with you in any effort to establish prosperity on right and honest lines.

Its second month the National Prosperity Association opened with Re-em-
ployment Day and with orders for goods in anticipation of demand. The in-
dustries of St. Louis and vicinity added to their labor rolls between 17,000 and
20,000 people. The wholesale houses placed orders for $5,000,000 worth of
new stock. This was an application of works to go with faith which was novel
in business rules. It was taken up by other cities and Re-employment Days, one
after another, came in quick succession through the summer in different parts
of the country.

ST. LOUISANS IN THE PUBLIC EYE 611

To delegates and alternates and national committees of the great political
parties, the National Prosperity Association submitted its appeal that platforms
be framed and campaigns be conducted with consideration for the business in-
terests of the country. There is no record of a presidential year which caused
less disturbance of trade, less anxiety among business men.

Week after week through telling addresses of President Simmons and his
associates, through almost endless correspondence, through an encouraging
press, the movement of sentiment-making went on. The unemployed became
fewer, the idle cars on the sidetracks diminished, the swelling volume of trade
recorded the change.

The National Prosperity Association made no claim. It congratulated.
The movement was one of protest against doubters and pessimists. It sought
return of confidence by that which had brought on the distrust — public senti-
ment. Business activity returned, in spite of the political campaign, more rap-
idly than was ever before known after a panic. A business organization upon
the Atlantic seaboard, when the improvement became so apparent and permanent
that it could not be mistaken, sent this message to President Simmons and the
National Prosperity Association :

"You have shown the rest of us that St. Louis is the nerve-center of the
United States."

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE EDUCATIONAL LIFE.

Maria Josepha Rigauche, Schoolmistress and Heroine — Trudeau, Schoolmaster and Patriot —
The Song of 1780 — George Tomplcins' Debating Society — Eiddick's Ride to Washington
to Save the School Lands — Mother Duchesne and the Sacred Heart Academy — Bishop
Dubourg's College of 1820 — Coming of Father Quiclenborne and the Band of Jesuits —
Inception of St. Louis University — Educational WorTc of Father DeSmet Among the
Indians — Captain Elihu Hotchkiss Shepard's "Boys" — The First Public School in 1838 —
Wyman's Cadets — The Original High School — Beginning of the Kindergarten — Stalwart
German Support of Free Education — Evolution of Manual Training — Woodward and His
Ideas Borrowed by Other Nations — Samuel Cupples on Negro Education — When Wayman
Crow Wrote the Washington University Charter — The Non-Sectarian Spirit Boldy Empha-
sized— Edward Everett at the Inauguration — Dr. Post's Forecast of the University's
Success — Education as Self Made Men Idealised It — Secret of Robert S. Broolcings'
Success — Life Worlc of William Greenleaf Eliot — Gifts of the "Mechanic Princes" —
Fifty Years of Development.

Nothing could be more abhorrent to my feelings than to speak disparagingly of self-
taught men. I have neglected no fitting opportunity to eulogize them among the departed, or to
manifest sympathy and respect for them among the living. I know of no spectacle on earth,
pertaining to intellectual culture, more interesting than that of a noble mind struggling against
the obstacles thrown by adverse fortune in the way of its early improvement, no triumph
greater than that which so often rewards these heroic exertions. It is because I appreciate the
severity of the struggle, and deeply sympathize with those who have forced their way to
eminence, in the face of poverty, friendless obscurity, distance from all the facilities for im-
provement, and inability to command their time, that I would multiply the means of education
and bring them into as many districts of the country and as near the homes of as large a pro-
portion of the population as possible, in order to spare to the largest number of gifted minds
the bitter experience by which those who succeed in doing so are compelled to force their way
to distinction. — Edward Everett, Inauguration, Washington University, 1857.

Maria Josepha Rigauche was the first schoolmistress in St. Louis. She
was a heroine. She gave the whole settlement a lesson in courage. That was
one of the last days of May, 1780. At noon, a habitant ran along the Rue
Principale shouting "To arms! To arms!" The settlers left their dinner
tables and hurried into the street, every man carrying a weapon. They had
been expecting the alarm. A cannon boomed from the tower on the hill, where
the Southern hotel is now. It was the signal that the Indians were coming.
Out on the grand prairie, women and children were looking for early straw-
berries. Madam Rigauche put on the coat of her husband, Ignace. She but-
toned it to the chin. With a pistol in one hand and a knife in the other she
made her way down the street to the upper gate, calling on others to follow, and
took her place with the defenders. There she remained encouraging the men,
exposing herself to the fire and preparing to take part in the fight if the Indians
assaulted. The enemy came near enough to send their bullets into the settle-
ment, but they recoiled before the return fire and retreated. Madam Rigauche
went back to her school teaching. The story of her bravery was passed down
from generation to generation.

While Madam Rigauche taught the girls of old St. Louis, John B. Trudeau
was schoolmaster to the boys. Trudeau was a patriot and a poet. He per-

613

614 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

formed his part in relation to the affair of 1780 by composing a song which
held up to ridicule the Spanish officers. Trudeau taught his boys to sing this
song:

What did they in that moment, then?

Lacked they all, the souls of men?

What! Had ye not the great Leybaf

Where was the famous Cartabona?

Your major, where was he, as well;

The garrison, too, your force to swell f

The salvation of St. Louis that day was due to the heroic habitants, in-
cluding Madame Rigauche. The Spanish governor, major and garrison took
no part in the defense.

In a room on Market street, near Second, George Tompkins opened the
first English school. He was a young Virginian, coming to St. Louis in
1808. • His journey exhausted his resources. The school was planned to make
the living while Mr. Tompkins studied law. In time Mr. Tompkins became
Chief Justice Tompkins of the supreme court of Missouri. While he was
teaching school he organized a debating society which held open meetings and
afforded a great deal of entertainment to visitors. The members and active
participants included Bates, Barton, Lowry, Farrar, O'Fallon and most of the
young Americans who were establishing themselves in the professions.

"The most trifling settlement will contrive to have a schoolmaster who
can teach reading, writing and some arithmetic," a traveler in the Louisiana
Purchase wrote from St. Louis in 1811. The next year the Missouri territory
came into political existence with this declaration adopted by the territorial
body which met in St. Louis:

Eeligion and morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the
happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall be encouraged and pro-
vided from the public lands of the United States in the said territory in such manner as
Congress may deem expedient.

Thomas Fiveash Riddick was an enthusiast. When Third street was the
limit of settlement he told people St. Louis would some day have a million of
population. Thereat, the habitants smiled. Riddick's enthusiasm prompted him
to works. Coming from Virginia, a young man just past his majority, he was
made clerk of the land claims commission in 1806. His duties revealed to him
lots and strips and blocks of ground, in various shapes, which nobody owned.
Instead of capitalizing his information, forming a syndicate and acquiring these
pieces of real estate, Riddick was true to his inheritance. That was a high
sense of public duty. The Riddicks of Nansemond county for generations,
through the colonial period, through the Revolutionary years, through Virginia's
early statehood, had been patriots who made laws or fought in war as the con-
ditions demanded. Pro bono publico might have been the family motto.
Thomas Fiveash Riddick was true to the strain. He started the agitation to
have all of this unclaimed land in the suburbs of St. Louis "reserved for the
support of schools." The situation called for more than mere suggestion.
Speculators already had their plans to buy these scattered lands at public
sale. That generation was too busy taking care of itself to give serious con-
sideration to the next. Quietly Riddick got together the data, mounted his

THE EDUCATIONAL LIFE 615

horse and, in winter, rode away to Washington. Before Edward Hempstead,
the delegate for Missouri in Congress, Riddick laid the proposition. Hemp-
stead was Connecticut born and educated. He took up Riddick's idea and
coupled it with a general bill to confirm titles to portions of the common fields
and commons in accordance with rights established by residence or cultivation
before 1803. And he added a section that the lands "not rightfully owned by
any private individual, or held as commons" shall be "reserved for the support
of schools." Riddick remained in Washington until assured that this legis-
lation would pass. Then he mounted his horse and rode back to St. Louis.
All of this he did of his own motion and at his own expense. "Riddick's Ride,"
merits honorable mention in the history of the public schools of St. Louis.

Convent education to the earlier generations of St. Louis womanhood
meant more than book teaching. It was association with teachers who knew
all about the pioneer life. Five sisters of the Sacred Heart arrived in St. Louis
from France in August of 1818. They were the first of the order. Their
coming was the answer to an urgent appeal of Bishop Dubourg. The superior
was Phillipine Duchesne. With her were Sisters Octavie Berthold, Eugenie
Ande, Catharine Lamarre and Marguerite Manteau. A year's trial of teaching
at St. Charles failed to show that the school would be supporting. The sisters,
for economy, moved to a farm at Florissant. Mother Duchesne described the
moving :

Sister Octavie and two of our pupils next embarked. I was to close the march in the
evening with Sister Marguerite, the cows and the hens. But the cows were so indignant
at being tied up, and the heat was so great that we were obliged to put off our departure
to the cool hours of the morning. Then by dint of cabbages which we had taken for them
in the cart they were induced to proceed. I divided my attention between the reliquaries
and the hens. We crossed the Missouri opposite Florissant. On landing Marguerite and I
drew up our charges in a line — she the cows and I the hens — and fed them with motherly
solicitude. The Abbe Delacroix came on horseback to meet us. He led the way galloping
after our cows when, in their joy at being untied, they darted into the woods.

Upon the farm these sisters lived and toiled. They planted and raised
corn. They gathered their own firewood. They cared for their cows. The
bishop riding by at milking time, smiled and asked Sister Ande "if it was at
Napoleon's court she had learned to milk cows."

After a year on the farm, the house in Florissant was ready. Driving
their livestock before them the sisters moved one cold day in December with
snow knee-deep. Mother Duchesne wrote of that experience:

Having tried in vain to lead with a rope one of our cows, I hoped to make her follow
of her own inclination by filling my apron with maize, with which 1 tried to tempt
her on; but she preferred her liberty and ran about the fields and brushwood, where we
followed her, sinking into the snow, and tearing our habits and veils amidst the bushes.
At last we were obliged to let her have her will and make her way back to the farm. I
carried in my pocket our money and papers, but the strings broke and everything, including
a watch, fell into the snow. The wind having blown the snowr on my gloves, they were
frozen on my hands, and I could not take hold of anything. Eugenie had to help me pick
up my bag, and also my pocket, which I was obliged to carry under my arm.

Pioneering did not end with that first year on the farm. After the open-
ing of the school in Florissant, Mother Duchesne wrote : "There was a moment

616 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

this month when I had in my pocket only six sous and a half, and debts be-
sides."

"Bishop Dubourg's college" was the name commonly bestowed upon the
first institution for higher education established in St. Louis. The first build-
ing occupied was where the log church stood on the block Laclede reserved
for religious and burial purposes. When the college opened in 1820, the news-
papers announced this faculty:

Eev. Francis Niel, Curate of the Cathedral, President.

Eev. Leo Deys, Professor of Languages.

Eev. Andreas Ferrari, Professor of Ancient Languages.

Eev. Aristide Anduze, Professor of Mathematics.

Eev Michael G. Saulnier, Professor of Languages.

Mr. Samuel Smith, Professor of Languages.

Mr. Patrick Sullivan, Professor of Ancient Languages.

Mr. Francis C. Guyot, Professor of Writing and Drawing.

Mr. John Martin, Prefect of the Studies.

Two years earlier than this, Rev. Francis Niel with two other priests had
conducted "an academy for young gentlemen" in the house of Mrs. Alvarez.

In the desire of the Monroe administration to start an Indian school, St.
Louis University had its inception. John C. Calhoun was President Monroe's
secretary of war. Indian affairs came under his supervision. The President
and the secretary had hopes of beneficial results from education of Indian
boys. The secretary opened correspondence with Bishop Dubourg at St. Louis.
The result was the coming of Father Van Quickenborne and his party to estab-
lish the school at Florissant.

The little band of Jesuits who established St. Louis University walked to
St. Louis. Rev. Charles Van Quickenborne, as superior, headed the party.
He and his assistant, Rev. Peter J. Timmerman, rode part of the way in the
one-horse wagon which conveyed the light baggage. F. J. Van Assche, who
half a century later became known widely in St. Louis as "Good Father Van
Assche;" P. J. De Smet, the "Father De Smet" of international fame as arr
Indian missionary; J. A. Elet, F. L. Verreydt, P. J. Verhaegen, J. B. Smedts
and J. De Maillet were young men. They trudged across the Alleghanies to
Wheeling. Leaving "the floating monastery" as they called their flat boat, at
Shawneetown, they walked across the prairies of Illinois 140 miles, spreading
their blankets at night in house or barn as the opportunity offered.

Charles Van Quickenborne, Peter J. Verhaegen, John Elet and Peter J. De
Smet, the faculty, raised $4,000 and started St. Louis University on the Connor
lot. The first building was forty by fifty feet fronting on Green street. It
was opened for students in November, 1829. Within four months the uni-
versity had fifteen boarders and 115 day students. Two years later the build-
ing was enlarged with a wing. Two years after that a second wing was added.

In 1829 the St. Louis University was founded. Father De Smet, who
had been ordained two years before, was made a member of the faculty. He
went out to the Flatheads with the annual fur trade caravan in 1840. "In a
fortnight," he reported "all knew their prayers." He called them his "dear
Flatheads." Father De Smet was not a large man, physically, but he was
very strong. He could bend a five-franc piece, a silver coin about the size of

DAVID H. ARMSTRONG

PROFESSOR EDWARD WYMAN

ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY IN 1858
Ninth street and Washington avenue

THE EDUCATIONAL LIFE 617

the dollar, between his fingers. A copy of Father De Smet's map of the
Columbia river and Puget sound region is among the historical treasures of
St. Louis University. Father De Smet made the original. He carried it with a
letter of introduction from Bryan Mullanphy to President Polk. The inter-
national controversy with England over the northwestern boundary had aroused
the whole United States. The cry was "Fifty-four, Forty, or Fight." The
map was important evidence.

In 1836 the closing of the college of St. Achenil in France gave St. Louis
University the opportunity to purchase chemical and philosophical apparatus
of great value. A fourth building of the group housed this acquisition which
was the finest west of the Alleghanies. The institution took at once and has
always maintained high scientific rank. A museum of natural history was in-
stalled. In 1840, St. Xavier's, "the college church," as the community knew it,
was begun. Building after building was added until the two blocks of ground
became crowded. In 1854, carrying out the plan formed by President John
B. Druyts, the university erected at Ninth street and Washington avenue an
imposing structure with towers one of which was the observatory. This build-
ing afforded better room for the museum, the philosophical apparatus and
provided an exhibition hall.

If St. Louis was slow to put into operation the public school system,
there was some reason for it in the excellence of the private schools. Captain
Elihu Hotchkiss Shepard taught successfully two generations of St. Louis
youth. He was of Vermont birth, coming to St. Louis when he was twenty-
five years of age. His title was earned in the War of 1812. With a thorough
education, Captain Shepard arrived in St. Louis in 1820. He made teaching
not temporary employment to tide over until he could establish himself in
something else. He was the born schoolmaster. Teaching was his profession.
After he retired, he wrote a quaint autobiography. Judge Shepard Barclay is
a grandson of Captain Shepard. In his old age, Captain Shepard spoke with
pride of the boys he had taught in his schoolmaster days. He had seen three
of these boys sitting as judges of courts at one time — Judge Krum, of the cir-
cuit court; Judge Bates, presiding justice of the supreme court; and Wm. Fergu-
son, judge of the probate court. Three of Captain Shepard's boys had risen
to high rank in the military service and had become generals. They were General
Easton, of the quartermaster department, who, as Captain Shepard said, "had
never been accused of stealing one dollar ;" General Paul, wounded at the battle
of Gettysburg, and General Dent, brother-in-law of General Grant.

The act of Congress of 1812 set apart the vacant pieces of land such as
were "not rightfully claimed by individuals" or were "not reserved for military
purposes" and devoted them for purposes of public education. The land was
not valuable at the time it was granted. The amount of it was not known.
Nothing more was done until 1836 when the legislature incorporated the
board of public schools. This body leased much of the school lands on long
time at low rates. The income came in too slowly to provide public school
facilities as the population increased. To the voters was put the alternative
of tax and more schools or no tax and limited facilities. The people of St.
Louis voted a tax of "one-tenth of one per cent" for public schools.

618 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

In March, 1837, the legislature authorized the people of St. Louis to sell
the town commons, a tract of about 2,000 acres. The proceeds were to be
divided, nine-tenths be used for improvement of streets and one-tenth for
public schools. The school board met on the iQth of June, 1837, the members
being M. P. Leduc, A. Gamble, A. Kerr, John Finney and H. L. Hoffman.
There had been a school board organized in April, 1833, but it had taken until
1837 to accumulate the funds considered adequate to commence building school
houses.

In his inaugural message to the board of aldermen, the first mayor of St.
Louis, William Carr Lane, advocated public education. "I will hazard the
broad assertion," he said, "that a free school is more needed here than in any
town of the same magnitude in the Union." In 1838, the people of St. Louis
were said to have "better facilities for educating their children, agreeably to
their own taste, than the people of any other city in the United States." That
year public schools had been established and had become immediately popular.
Kemper College opened on the I5th of October under the direction of Rev.
P. R. Minard. It was given supervision by seventeen trustees, and had the
support of the Episcopal church. St. Louis University had increased its faculty
and was offering advantages in higher education not equaled in any other city
of the Mississippi Valley. The Convent of the Sacred Heart was affording un-
usual opportunities for young women.

Edward Wyman began his English and Classical High School in 1843
with one pupil, occupying a small room for which he paid eight dollars a month.
He built Wyman's hall on Market street opposite the court house for the
accommodation of his growing institution. Afterwards this became known as
the Odeon and was used for public entertainments. When the founding of
St. Louis was celebrated in 1847, tne spectacular feature of the procession was
the marching of the cadets from Wyman's High School. When the head of
the school went into other business in 1852 he had over 300 students, many
of them from outside of St. Louis. One of "Wyman's boys," was Edward
Lawrence Adreon, who went into the office of the city comptroller on a month's
trial and remained twenty years, eight of them as the city's chief financial of-
ficer. To three generations of St. Louis boys, Dr. Wyman was preceptor;
except during two periods when ill health compelled him to change temporarily
his vocation he taught boys for forty-five years. When he died he was con-
ducting Wyman's Institute. The zenith of this born master's career was when
he conducted the City University at Pine and Sixteenth streets. Three full
companies of cadets splendidly drilled carried the university banner through
the streets of St. Louis. The enrollment of the university reached 600 students
at a time when St. Louis had about one-third of the present population. The
master came to St. Louis from the home of his colonial and revolutionary an-
cestors at Charlestown, Mass. When he died in 1888 "Edward Wyman's
boys" numbered many thousands. They were in places of influence and import-
ance throughout the southwest. The preceptor knew and followed the career
of every boy. He taught more than books contained. He trained character.

Six teachers and two school houses composed the public school system
of St. Louis in 1842. One school was on Fourth, the other on Sixth street.

THE EDUCATIONAL LIFE 619

Salaries were not munificent. Three of the teachers were men. One of them
received $900 a year, the others $500 each. One of the young women, the
principal, was paid $500 a year. Her assistants received $400 each. The school
board in 1840-1850 was composed of two members from each ward. These
directors served without compensation. They had a superintendent and they
elected the teachers. In 1854, the 97,000 people were served with twenty-five
schools. The children attending were 3,881. They had seventy-two teachers.
The first school houses were small. But in 1854 the city took pride in the pos-
session of several three-story buildings "with ample provision for ventilation
and heated by furnaces properly constructed."

The high school on Fifteenth and Olive was in course of construction.
It was to be "an ornament to the city, a monument to its liberality and a perfect
adaptation to the purposes for which it is designed." It was located "near the
present western limits of the city." This high school was to be "for the use
of those scholars of the public schools who have demeaned themselves the best,
made most proficiency in the studies taught below and whose parents or guar-
dians may desire them to acquire the higher rudiments of education."

For what is called "higher education," this city owes mjich to the German
tide of immigration. That tide was more than numbers. It included an extraor-
dinary proportion of men who had been trained in the gymnasiums; who had
sat at the feet of the ablest professors in the universities.

The kindergarten in St. Louis had its origin when Robert J. Rombauer,
William D'Oench and Thomas Richeson recommended the acceptance of Miss
Susie Blow's proposition. The daughter of Henry T. Blow had become inter-
ested in kindergarten work. She offered to give her time to the supervision
if the school board would assign one teacher and set apart a room. The offer
was accepted and the "play school," as the school board called it, was started
in 1873 at the Des Peres -school with Miss Mary A. Timberlake as the paid
assistant to Miss Blowr^

The character of support which the Germans gave the public school system
was illustrated about 1888. Up to that time German was an important part
of the curriculum. When the language was dropped, friends of the system
looked with some apprehension for the effect. The president of the board
announced :

The unselfish devotion of our fellow citizens of German ancestry was signally illus-
trated in that the schools suffered no perceptible loss of attendance in any part of the
city, and the most urgent demands for new school accommodations continued from what
were known as distinctively German districts.

Forty years Professor Frank Louis Soldan was connected with the public
schools of St. Louis, one-third of the time occupying the highest position —
superintendent. When Professor Soldan died William T. Harris telegraphed
from Washington:

Dr. Soldan has been a tower of strength all these years for wise education. His death
is a great loss, not only to St. Louis but to the United States. Thousands who respect his
memory will mourn with you today.

In 1883 Sir William Mather came to this country to investigate industrial
education. The British government had suddenly become aroused to the un-
pleasant situation that her works, her great manufacturing establishments,

620 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

were under the supervision of men educated in France, Germany and Belgium.
This was a blow to British pride. It was a revelation of the inadequacy of the
British educational system. Sir William Mather was on a tour of inves-
tigation to discover the remedy which Great Britain might apply to the weakness
in her system. He came to the United States and visited the eastern educational
centers. He was soon told, "If you want to be thoroughly informed on the
development of industrial education in this country, go out to St. Louis and
see Doctor Woodward."

Sir William came to St. Louis and remained a week or more. What he
found in the manual training school of Washington University so impressed
the visitor that he was almost extravagant in his expressions of satisfaction and
admiration. He said that in St. Louis he recognized the most practical forms
of industrial education he had seen anywhere. After Sir William Mather
returned home there came a pressing call for Dr. Woodward to visit Manchester.
Dr. Woodward went, remained three or four months until he had started fairly
an institution on the plan of the St. Louis school. When the doctor sent back
to St. Louis the catalogue showing the plan and curriculum, Mr. Cupples wrote
him: "I recognize every word. The only change you have made is to substi-
tute 'Manchester' for 'Washington University.' "

The English are not slow to act when convinced. As a result of the
Manchester experiment, introduced by Calvin M. Woodward after the model
of the St. Louis school, Great Britain has appropriated a million pounds
sterling every year since 1888 for industrial education. A manual training
school for the Soudanese youth has been established at Khartoum by Sir William
Mather, as a department of Gordon College.

Sir William Mather made a second visit to St. Louis five years ago to
note the progress of St. Louis in educational lines. He was accompanied by
Mrs. Mather. Mr. Cupples and Dr. Woodward took the visitors to the Me-
Kinley and Yeatman high schools and showed them a thousand boys and girls
learning to use their hands as well as their heads, the boys in the manual
training, the girls in domestic science. There is nothing better in high school
architecture and equipment in the United States than St. Louis possesses. The*
English visitors had not seen the equal anywhere abroad. Then the party
went to the colored school and saw the boys and girls receiving the same prac-
tical instruction.

"I am surprised," exclaimed the lady. "Wasn't this a slave state? I am
surprised that you are doing so much for the negroes."

"Madam," said Mr. Cupples, "the only people who understand the negroes
and who know how to make good citizens of them are those who lived in the
former slave states."

Then Mrs. Mather insisted upon having some pictures of the colored school
children of St. Louis at their studies and especially engaged in the manual
training and domestic science work.

"When we go up to Khartoum," she said to Sir William, "I want to show
what these people are doing for the little Africans in St. Louis."

The introduction of colored teachers for colored schools was one of the
innovations which St. Louis tried with admirable results. It came about after
Samuel Cupples and Dr. Calvin M. Woodward had become active in the public

THE NORMAL SCHOOL

Seventeenth street and Christy avenue, before the war

CONCORDIA COLLEGE IN 1860
On Carondelet Road, South of the Arsenal

THE EDUCATIONAL LIFE 621

school board. For a number of years the teachers of the colored schools were
white. When a young white woman was assigned to teach a colored school
there followed an indignant protest from her friends. White teachers failed
to arouse the interest among their pupils necessary for best results. Mr. Cupples
was a trustee of the Lincoln Institute at Jefferson City, a seminary for colored
youth. He made inquiries as to the capabilities of the students who were being
educated at the institute and proposed the trial of colored teachers in the St.
Louis colored schools. Dr. Harris, Dr. Woodward and others favored the
experiment. At that time the enrollment of children in the colored schools
was about 2,000. Mr. Cupples, Dr. Harris and Dr. Woodward visited the
colored schools, invited the parents to a conference, had refreshments and
explained the purpose to better the educational facilities for the children. They
urged that they must have the cooperation of the parents to obtain the improve-
ment desired. Children must attend regularly, must not be kept out on Mondays
to go after the laundry and at other times to run errands, but must be present
five days in the week.

In a year the enrollment of the colored schools of St. Louis had doubled.
The improved conditions under colored teachers has been so marked and grati-
fying that it brought the public school board to the conclusion to build in 1909
a colored high school to cost $250,000, the best equipped high school for colored
pupils in the United States.

The educational theory upon which manual training has been encouraged
and developed in the public schools of St. Louis and in Washington University
is well stated in these words by the recognized authority, Professor Wood-
ward:

I do not believe it a good policy to keep a certain proportion of our youth relatively
ignorant that they may be willing to fill what is called the industrial demand. It is said
that boys from the mills and from the farms are needed there and should be so trained
that they will remain in the mills and on the farms, hence they must not be taught or
trained too much.

On this theory training shops and agricultural schools sometimes have been managed,
but I question the policy. We are told it is best. Best for whom, and best for what?
Best for citizenship or best for the consumer and the business? Would it be best for
your son or mine, and would it have been best for us when we were boys?

I was a farmer's son, and at sixteen I was a good and able farmer, but my high school
training enabled me to see over the fences, and I broke for pastures new. I believe in
giving every boy a glimpse of the world's activities and opportunities, and in allowing him to
make the most of himself, but at the same time he must be trained for usefulness of some
lort.

One word in regard to an industrial training which best fosters our industries. I am
decidedly of the opinion that they make a mistake who contract the range of one's educa-
tion, in order to confine him to a limited range of work. Managers of our industries
should realize that it is ultimately in the interest of their own business affairs to secure
workmen of greater efficiency and intellectual as well as manual skill.

I believe the system of education which is of the greatest benefit to the youth of a
community is also of the greatest benefit to the industries of a community, provided those
industries are wholesome and desirable. It is impossible to raise the grade of citizenship
all through the length and breadth of a community without increasing its value in every
domain of labor, whether manual or mental, or both.

It may not be really fashionable to be a skilled workman, but a skilled workman may
be a gentleman and a cultivated man. And when we look to the highest interests of the

622 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

community; when we look at the interests of the unschooled half of our boys, the most
effectual way of making them cultivated gentlemen is by first making them skillful work-
men. And it is high time that it should be understood in all our public schools, which aim
first and last at the development of character, that, as Newton said, "the thrifty mechanic
is the most moral of men ' ' and, as Franklin said, ' ' the best workmen are the best citizens. ' '

Sir William Mather went on record with a remarkable tribute to St. Louis
and Professor Woodward. He wrote that what he saw and learned on his
first visit to St. Louis prompted him to take up the cause of manual training,
or, as he called it, technical training, in England. In Parliament, Sir William
stood sponsor for the Technical Education bill. He led the discussion in com-
mittee and in the House and was largely responsible for the passage. When
success came he wrote to Dr. Woodward again, telling the result to show "how
far one little candle throws its beams." Like testimony to the- origin of the
manual training movement was given by Grasby in his interesting volume on
"Teaching in Three Continents — America, Europe and Australia." He found
the source of the movement in the St. Louis manual training school of Wash-
ington University. Professor Chamberlain of Los Angeles once said that no
educator ever comprehended so much of an educational creed in six words
as Professor Woodward did when he said in an after dinner speech at the
Vendome, Boston, 1885: "Put the whole boy to school."

A characteristic of St. Louis educational institutions in all forms has
been steady progress. At no time have St. Louis educators rested content
with accomplishment. The year 1911 found the universities and colleges put-
ting forth effort to increase their facilities while the public school board was
adding to the equipment new buildings which were unsurpassed anywhere in
the country. Washington University, in 1908, came under the chancellorship
of one of the foremost of the younger educators of the country, David Franklin
Houston. A short time previously, St. Louis University received a new head
in the person of one of the most talented Jesuits, Rev. John P. Frieden. The
high literary standard always maintained by St. Louis University was illustrated
in the spring of 1909 by the winning of three out of four prizes for English
composition, for which ten universities and colleges of the Mississippi Valley
competed. St. Louis University has entered upon a new era with an advisory
board, composed of professional and business men and with a decision to
increase its endowment. Washington University, in 1908, launched a movement
to increase its endowment $1,000,000. There is no relaxation from the strong
support which St. Louis has for generations given to higher education but
rather a raising of ideals.

By the light of a tallow candle, in his room at a boarding house of Jefferson
City, the session of 1853, Wayman Crow wrote the charter of Washington
University. He did it alone and of his own motion. He was a state senator.
From time to time he had heard Dr. Eliot and others talk of the need of an
institution above the high school for St. Louis. But no suggestion or request
had come to him to obtain this legislation.

The charter was very brief, not as long as a lawyer might have written.
But it went to the Supreme Court of the United States and was sustained
It gave the institution this distinctive character:

THE EDUCATIONAL LIFE 623

No instruction, either sectarian in religion or partisan in politics, shall be allowed in
any department of said university, and no sectarian or party test shall be allowed in the
election of professors, teachers or officers of said university, or in the admission of scholars
thereto, or for any purpose whatever.

The creators meant what this non-sectarian, non-political section said. They
provided for the strongest possible enforcement. In the very next section, the
charter provided that if any violation of the foregoing was reported an investi-
gation must be made. Any officer offending in the matter of political or sectarian
instruction must be removed and he would be, thereafter, ineligible to any office
in the university. If the board of directors failed to enforce the prohibition of
sectarian and political instruction, the St. Louis circuit court was made com-
petent to compel the board by mandamus to act.

Marshall S. Snow, coming up from Nashville, where he had been teaching,
stopped over in St. Louis with Frederick N. Judson, in 1870. Mr. Judson was
about to locate as a lawyer. Mr. Snow was willing to spend a few days en
route to his New England home for vacation. The two young men made the
acquaintance of Dr. Eliot. Almost before he realized it, Professor Snow
found himself engaged as a member of the faculty of Washington University.
He suggested that, possibly, Dr. Eliot might wish to make some inquiries about
him in Nashville, but Dr. Eliot assured him he was ready to close the matter if
the professor was. Then, when the arrangement had been closed, Dr. Eliot
remarked :

"May I ask what church you attend? I never ask that question until
after a member of the faculty has been engaged."

That was the non-sectarian spirit of Washington University in its practical
application. Upon two men in those early days Dr. Eliot leaned for what he
called "the intramural affairs" of the institution. These men were Snow and
Woodward. To Professor Snow the relationship with Washington University
recalled student memories of peculiar interest. Snow had been a student at
Exeter under Hoyt, the much loved preceptor, and Hoyt had come west to be
the first chancellor of Washington University, dying in the harness. During
two considerable periods of the university's history Dr. Snow was called upon
to perform the duties of chancellor in addition to the duties of his own pro-
fessorship.

At the inauguration of Washington University in 1857 Edward Everett
delivered an address, one of the most impressive, the most masterly of the
many which made him the acknowledged foremost orator of his day. He was
introduced to his St. Louis audience by Dr. Eliot. The meeting was held in
Mercantile Library hall, the largest auditorium in the city. Prefacing his
introduction, Dr. Eliot explained concisely why the name of "Washington Uni-
versity" had been chosen.

Under a happy coincidence, the charter had been approved on the 22nd of February,
1853, and the first meeting of the incorporators, at which the organization of the institution
was accomplished, was held on the 22nd of February, 1854. By this coincidence of birth,
the name of Washington University was suggested. It is also a name admirably adapted to
the plan proposed, namely, the establishment of an American university, upon the broad
foundation of republican and Christian principles free from the trammels of sect and party;
a university for the people, whom Washington served; to educate the rising generations in

624 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

that love of country and of our whole country which the Farewell Address of Washington
inculcates, and in that faithfulness to God and Truth which made Washington great.

Twenty-five years after the beginning Dr. Eliot in a reminiscent strain
recalled the circumstances of the selection of title:

Some of us may remember the meeting when the name to be adopted for our embryo
institution was under discussion, whether it should be seminary, or institute, or college, or
school, and the suggestion of university was made by Judge Treat, indicating fairly, not
what we were likely to be in our day, but the ultimate end, which was to be held con-
stantly in view. It seemed to me, at the time, to savor not a little of grandiloquence,
and, to say the truth, I have not entirely overcome that feeling yet; for university is a
great word, and the first American university, in full significance of the terms, is yet to be
established. But of late years I have begun to think that the way is opening before us,
and that the road, though very steep, may not be very long.

The distinctive character of Washington University was, perhaps, never
more forcibly stated than in the language of Rev. Dr. Truman M. Post. A
Congregationalist, the first professor appointed to the collegiate department of
the university, Dr. Post, at the inauguration, most happily stated wherein Wash-
ington University was a pioneer in a new educational era:

It seems to me also to augur, or at least to merit success for the institution inaug-
urated, that, while it is in especial sympathy with the masses, and aims to bless labor with
culture, and unite in happy combination the speculative and scientific with the great prac-
tical issues of popular education, it is also placed on a broad and liberal basis on which
men of different ecclesiastical or political schools can labor together. Such joint action
for a noble object is, through its unitive influence, a public benefit as well as an augury
of success.

But though the institution is by its character pledged to be unpartisan and unsec-
tarian, God forbid it should ever be unpatriotic or unchristian. And I am happy to
believe there is a common ground on which, though with different partisan and ecclesiastic
names and symbols, we can stand together in the great work of national education,
without compromising or discarding those great and vital truths and principles, religious
and political, which must constitute the ultimate warp and woof of all valuable culture
and character. The tendency among us unquestionably has been too much toward division
and subdivision in educational enterprises; until society is resolved into fragments so
minute that hardly any one is strong enough to establish for itself a respectable system
of institutions.

I am far from affirming that institutions distinctively ecclesiastic have not place and
position, and are not doing a great and good work in American society. But while
experiments are being made all around us, of institutions of that description, I am gratified
to see in our young city an effort of such promise to establish a university on a catholic
and general basis, on which fellow-citizens whose walk in life may be in other respects
somewhat different, can unite. I believe such an institution has at this epoch in our
history, a great, a good, a necessary work to do Should this enterprise succeed as it
promises, we may regard it as in some measure inaugurative of a new educational era
among us.

Perhaps only one time in its history has the non-sectarian character of
Washington University been distorted to furnish ground for adverse criticism.
In 1895 a number of ministers held a meeting and talked of starting a school
for girls because the influences of Washington University were not orthodox.
It was the opinion of some of these ministers that irreligious teachers were
employed; that young people were encouraged to break away from the beliefs
of their parents. A canvass of the faculties of the departments of the univer-
sity showed that nearly all of the teachers were members of churches and that
the denomination which had taken the lead in the adverse criticism of the

PROFESSOR SYLVESTER
WATERHOUSE

PROFESSOR B. T. BLEWETT

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
Washington avenue and Seventeenth street, in 1861

THE EDUCATIONAL LIFE 625

institution had nearly twice as many representatives as any other denomination
in the faculties. The distribution of professors and teachers of the university
among the churches at that time was: Presbyterian, 10; Unitarian, 9; Lutheran,
2; Methodist, 6; Episcopal, 10; Baptist, 4; Catholic, 2; Congregational, 17;
Swedenborgian, I ; not members of any church, 22. So far as was made public
the ministers held but one meeting to find fault with the university's non-
sectarian character. The movement met with no public sympathy and the
proposed church school for girls was not heard of again.

Edward Everett's oration at the inauguration of Washington University
in 1857 was a glowing, fascinating plea for educational advantages. But two
paragraphs went home with peculiar, individual interest to the creators of the
university. Around the orator, on the platform and in the front rows before
him, sat the men who had taken up Wayman Crow's charter and of their
thought and substance were making the institution. Four out of five of them
had never sat in a college class room. Most of them had never enjoyed school
training beyond the rudiments. To such men the thought could not have been
better expressed than in the words which Mr. Everett gave it:

Nothing could be more abhorrent to my feelings than to speak disparagingly of
self-taught men. I have neglected no fitting opportunity to eulogize them among the
departed, or to manifest sympathy and respect for them among the living. I know of no
spectacle on earth, pertaining to intellectual culture, more interesting than that of a noble
mind, struggling against the obstacles thrown by adverse fortune in the way of its early
improvement; no triumph more glorious than that which so often rewards these heroic
exertions. It is because I appreciate the severity of the struggle, and deeply sympathize
with those who have forced their way to eminence, in the face of poverty, friendless
obscurity, distance from all the facilities for improvement, and inability to command their
time, that I would multiply the means of education, and bring them into as many districts
of the country, and as near the homes of as large a portion of the population as possible,
in order to spare to the largest number of gifted minds the bitter experience by which
those who succeed in doing so are compelled to force their way to distinction.

This premised, I have four words to say concerning self-taught men. The first is,
that while a few minds of a very high order rise superior to the want of early oppor-
tunities, with the mass of men, that want, where it exists, can never be fully repaired.
In the next place, although it is given to a few very superior intellects to rise to eminence
without opportunities for early education, it by no means follows that, even in their cases,
such opportunities would not have been highly beneficial, in smoothing the arduous path
and leading to an earlier and more perfect development of the mental powers. Accord-
ingly we find in the third place, that highly intelligent men, who have felt the want of
early education themselves, are (without an exception, so far as my observation has gone)
the best friends of academic education, as if determined that others should enjoy the
advantages of which they were deprived. It would not be necessary to leave this platform
to find the most striking illustrations of the truth of this remark. Lastly, this epithet,
self-taught, is subject itself to great misconception. It is by no means to be supposed
because eminent men, in any department of science or art, passed their first years and
earned their first laurels without early opportunities of education, that they remained,
more than other men, destitute to the end of their lives of instruction from abroad. Far
otherwise; in all ordinary cases, the epithet in question applies only, with real significance,
to the early stages of a distinguished career. As soon as a gifted person, however desti-
tute of early culture, has possessed himself of the keys of science and literature, and
gained access to books, he is no longer self-taught, he is a regularly entered pupil in the
great high school of recorded knowledge, in which the wise and famous of every age
are the masters.

14-VOL. II.

626 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Original in its theory, Washington University at the very beginning at-
tempted the solution of the new problems in education. "The Practical de-
partment" was the first organized. That was the name which Dr. Eliot gave
to this branch at the inauguration of the university in 1857. St. Louisans
knew it as the O'Fallon Polytechnic Institute. John How, who was president
of the board having special charge of the Practical department, explained the
new field of education which his associates hoped to occupy and cultivate in St.
Louis :

Our desire is to establish here in St. Louis an institution that shall have all of the
advantages of the mechanics' institutes of our country, with those of the polytechnic
institutes of Berlin, Vienna, and other cities of Europe; to have a building where, besides
the library and reading rooms usually found in the mechanics' institutes, will be found a
place for the model of the inventor, with the engine to work it, and for a school of design.
The professors of the various branches of science treat of the mechanic arts, and there
are few of these arts which do not need for their successful prosecution a scientific
education.

Time has proven that the germ which John How, John O'Fallon, Samuel
Treat and their associates, more than half a century ago sought to develop, was
one of great possibilities for good. Financial stress, following the inauguration
of the university, Civil war, misjudgment in the construction of a building in
the wrong location were handicaps the idea encountered. The university . never
abandoned the theory but the practice of it did not begin to attain hoped for
results until Calvin M. Woodward took hold of it. Professor Woodward was
backed by a new generation of business men imbued with the same public spirit
as the John O'Fallons of the fifties. Foremost among these friends of engineer-
ing and manual or "hand-and-head" education has been Samuel Cupples. Other
notable contributors whose gifts enabled Professor Woodward to perfect his
manual training plans have been Edwin Harrison, Gottlieb Conzelman, Carlos
S. Greeley, Ralph and Timothy G. Sellew, William L. Huse, William Brown,
William Barr and Emiline F. Rea.

Far beyond the perhaps dim theory of those who started the polytechnic
idea in St. Louis, Professor Woodward carried his plans until the "Practical"
features of Washington University became of more than national renown. The
innovation was received with skepticism and even with some ridicule. Dr. Eliot
was prompted to say of those who opposed :

A carpenter's shop and blacksmith's forge seemed to them a singular appendage to
the college ' ' humanities ' ' and the schools of philosophy and advanced learning which
dignify the university career. It seems to have been forgotten that the word "university"
was itself borrowed from the "guilds" or trade associations which were known as univer-
sities two or three hundred years ago, as the ' ' university of bakers, ' ' of smiths, of watch-
makers, etc., in Eome and London. Already the prejudice is passing away, and it ia
recognized as a proper American-republic idea that skilled labor may command the same
respect with intellectual development, and that the two should, so far as possible, go hand
in hand.

As the experiment of manual training established beyond question its merits,
Dr. Eliot said:

"It is in fact only a more systematic development of the educational ideas
which lie at the foundation of our whole university enterprise."

THE EDUCATIONAL LIFE 627

"In a republic," he continued, "the head cannot say to the hand: I have
no need of thee; nor can the hand say it to the head. The dependence is
mutual, and the more frankly we recognize it the better for all concerned. If
we can bring educated brains to the work-bench, and at the same time respect
for skilled labor into the daily thoughts of the student, we shall be doing the
best work of an American university."

"Surely," Dr. Eliot concluded, "it is not beneath the dignity of a western
university, however high its standard, to inaugurate a new order of things
by elevating skilled labor to its due respect among educated men."

Coeducation came naturally as a principle of Washington University in
view of the relationship of the institution to the public school system of St.
Louis.

"Equal advantages and the survival of the fittest should everywhere be the
rule," was Dr. Eliot's theory and practice in respect to educational relationship
of the sexes.

The practice was illustrated in the full graduation of a woman as LL.B.
by the University Law School, the first instance in this country. As early as
1870. a St. Louis girl was a member of the freshman class of the college.

Always in view was kept the distinctive character of Washington Uni-
versity. The words in the charter and the expressions of the inaugural ad-
dresses were not uttered to be forgotten. Addressing the first graduating class
in 1872 the acting chancellor, Professor Chauvenet said:

With no party connections, no sectarian bias, no dependence upon the uncertain
patronage of state governments or legislatures, independent and self-sustaining, it standa
before the world simply as the advocate and promoter of sound learning, true science and
just moral culture. It may take years to develop its system in its full proportions, and to
produce those results by which alone the mass of the community will judge of its merits.
But they (the founders) are content to wait. They are content with having laid the
foundations of an institution which is destined to be a great beating heart of the Mis-
sissippi Valley, sending forth by its annual pulsations new arterial blood into the social
system.

In 1872 Dr. Eliot, who had been almost everything else to the university,
was induced to take the chancellorship. In his inaugural he presented the ideal
of the creators:

Washington University, in its ante-typal idea, prefigures an institution worthy of the
great name it bears; a name which is the symbol of Christian civilization and American
patriotism, and to which, therefore, no thought of sectarian narrowness or of party strife
can ever be attached; an institution of learning, at once conservative and progressive, with
foundations so broad that there is room for every department of human culture, and so
deep that neither praise nor blame shall shake its allegiance to truth. We would found a
university so strong in its faculty of instruction, so generous in its ideas, so thoroughly-
provided with all facilities of education, so hospitable to all comers, and so rich in its
benefactions conferred, that it should gather round itself a constituency of learning and
science, and give tone to the educational movement of the region in which we live. We
would found a university so widely acknowledged in its influence, that St. Louis and
Missouri should be honored throughout the world by its being established here; and the
best class of citizens from all parts of the land, the intelligent, the enterprising, the philan-
thropic, the skilled laborer and artist, men of wealth and men of intellect, the true bone
and sinew, the nerve-power and brain and controlling will of the republic, should be
attracted here to find a favored home.

628 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

A business study of the subject of education was what Robert S. Brook-
ings set about when he found himself at the head of the trustees of Washing-
ton University. Mr. Brookings was sixteen or seventeen years of age when he
came out from Maryland to enter business life in St. Louis. He joined his
brother who had preceded him in the house of Cupples & Marston. The
secret of Robert S. Brooking's success in business is said to have been his habit
of making a most thorough investigation and then of working intelligently.
Mr. Brookings, Mr. Cupples said, never went into anything until he had given
it an exhaustive inquiry. Satisfied as the result of his examination he went
ahead with perfect confidence. This business trait Mr. Brookings applied to his
investigation of educational matters. He made a study of the workings of
American universities so thorough and so complete that his knowledge and
conclusions have surprised many professional educators. Few men have such
complete information of the operations of the higher institutions of this country
as has Mr. Brookings, the result of his personal, tireless investigation. Upon
a great chart, the president of Washington University has before him at all
times the compiled information of what all of the large institutions are doing.

"A poor boy's college," President Brookings of the corporation recently
called Washington University. And he told in glowing words how Washing-
ton University had supplied the advantages of higher education to boys of
limited means from the high schools and from the Manual Training School
who wanted to go on and who have become eminent in their callings. It was
a story to stimulate the pride of all St. Louisans :

Washington University struggled along for nearly half a century, furnishing St. Louis
with practically every branch of higher education. Having neither building, equipment
nor funds enough for either a college or school of engineering, it managed to support
both, and as evidence of the earnest quality of the work done, witness the following service:

In our civic life I think no one will question the overwhelming importance of the
administration of our public schools. Superintendent Blewitt and his assistant, Mr Bryan,
are both Washington University men.

The next most important branch of public service is certainly the department of
public improvements. Glance through the army of engineers that have administered or
been connected with this department over a long period of years and you can scarcely lay
your hand on a man that did not receive his training at Washington University. Holman,
Flad, Burnett, O'Reilly and Adkins are all Washington University men. Probably the
most important branch of this service is the Water Department, as it requires the greatest
skill in nearly every branch of engineering. At the end of the term of the present Water
Commissioner, Mr. Adkins, this department will have been administered by three Wash-
ington University men (Holman, Flad and Adkins) for twenty-four consecutive years.
During this period the waterworks have been rebuilt and their capacity nearly quadrupled,
and in this work of reconstruction there were employed as division and assistant engineers
more than twenty graduates of Washington University. If the university had produced
only two men, John T. Wixford, who by chemical experiment discovered a method for
clarifying and purifying our water supply, and Commissioner Adkins, wrho solved the
engineering problem of applying it, the city would be largely its debtor.

A glance at the eleemosynary institutions shows that Doctor Runge, late Superin-
tendent of the Insane Asylum; Doctor Elbreeht, Superintendent of the Female Hospital,
and Doctor Kirchner, Superintendent of the City Hospital, are all Washington University
men. The Public Library, with its branches all over the city, has become no small factor
in our educational life owing to the preeminent efficiency of the Librarian, Mr. Crunden,
a graduate, who has served the city as librarian for more than thirty years.

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN 1885

WAYMAN CROW

WILLIAM GREENLEAF ELIOT

From a Daguerreotype taken before
Washington University was founded

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN 1909

THE EDUCATIONAL LIFE 629

In the little class of six which were graduated in 1870 was a man who fifteen years
later served the city as mayor; four years later the state as governor; and still six years
later the United States as secretary of the interior; and four years ago, as president of
the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, was the spirit of embodiment of that great enterprise.
He is now a director of Washington University. What has Washington University given
to the judiciary? More than one state has been furnished with a Supreme judge, while
between twenty-five and thirty graduates have occupied seats on the United States and state
circuit and district court benches.

In the everyday walks of life it would be impossible to gather together a group of
professional men of any strength in either medicine, dentistry, law or engineering without
being struck by the large proportion of Washington graduates. Two talented young
engineers, Eichard McCulloch, who has made an international reputation, and now practically
superintends and directs the city's vast street railway system, and Harvey Fleming, who is
chief engineer of the Chicago Street Railway company, are in the public eye at the moment.

For nearly half a century Washington graduated from the College and School of
Engineering an average of only about ten students per year. What impression have they
made on the outside world? Who is the most prominent civil engineer in the country?
Some would probably say George Pegram, chief engineer of the New York subway and
Brooklyn tunnel. Others, appreciating the skill of the bridge builder, would say Charles
W. Bryan, chief engineer and manager of the American Bridge Company, which is the
bridge department of the great steel corporation that is building bridges all over the world.
Both of them are Washington University graduates, as is also F. C. McMath, president
and chief engineer of the Canadian Bridge company, and William L. Breckenridge, chief
engineer of the Burlington Kailway system.

Those who read The New York Evening Post and The Nation are utterly ignorant
of the fact that Paul Elmer More, literary editor of both these papers, is a Washington
University graduate, as is Surgeon General Walter Wyman, of the United States Hospital
Marine Service, and Samuel T. Armstrong, president New York Academy of Medicine, author,
and superintendent of Bellevue and allied hospitals.

Go to the great mining camps of Colorado, and ask who is the most eminent mining
engineer in that State. Some will probably say Regis Chauvenet, former president of the
Colorado School of Mines. Others may say Seely Mudd, but it makes no difference to us,
as they are both Washington University men. When John Hayes Hammond, acknowledged
the most eminent living mining engineer, was leaving South Africa as a result of his con-
nection with the famous Jamison raid, he was asked by the owners of the vast properties
he had been managing to name the most capable man he knew as his successor. He named,
and was succeeded by Pope Yeatman, a Washington University graduate.

In addition to Washington 's public school service what has she done for that noblest
of all causes — education? Conceding to the Institute of Technology of Boston first place
among the technical schools of the country, the Worcester Polytechnic School is fre-
quently mentioned as the second. Washington gave them Engler for their president.
Rochester Ford, late president of the University of Arizona; Regis Chauvenet, former
president of the Colorado School of Mines; William G. Raymond, dean of the engineer-
ing department of the Iowa State University; Doctor G. V. Black, dean of the Northwestern
Dental School, at Chicago, probably the highest dental authority in the world; Wil-
liam S. Curtis, dean of our own law department; Professor McMillan, dean of the West-
ern Dental College of Kansas City; Professor Miller, dean of the North Pacific Dental
School of Portland, Oregon; Doctor McAlister, dean of the Missouri State University
Medical College, and a long list of eminent professors, is the record of the university's
contribution to education.

Practically every physician and surgeon of prominence in this city is a graduate of
the medical department of Washington.

It is perhaps surprising to many that Washington University, with so small a stu-
dent body, has made such an impression upon the life of the city and the nation. The
explanation is simple. It has always been a poor boys' college, drawing its students almost
entirely from the Manual Training School and the High School, more than a third of

630 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

whom, through scholarships, paid no tuition. They had no social conception of higher
education, of being a ' ' college man. ' ' They came for earnest training, and they received
it from a staff of professors, every man of whom was a master. Think of a small school
with a department of mathematics containing three such men as Woodward, Pritchett
and Engler; a strong faculty giving its entire attention to a few earnest boys. The result
was inevitable.

These boys went out into the world adequately equipped, and their record is the
university's most valuable endowment, an endowment more precious than funds. Emer-
son truly says : ' ' The best political economy is the care and culture of men. ' '

Washington University is "a poor boys' college" in a sense other than
that Robert S. Brookings had in mind when he, in terse, graphic sentences,
told of the alumni and their achievements. The university stands today, in
tKe majesty of its granite quadrangles, a monument to the honor and glory
of "poor boys" of St. Louis who began with their unskilled hands in the in-
dustries, who swept out stores, who succeeded without the advantages of liberal
education, who determined that any boy of St. Louis coming after them should
have the opportunity to start better equipped than they did.

Late one night Dr. Eliot was preparing to retire. He had taken off coat
and vest. A ring called him to the door. There stood James Smith holding a
bundle in his hand. Between the doctor and the merchant, who had been warm
friends for years, it was "William" and "James."

"Why, what is the matter, James? Is Persis sick?" asked Dr. Eliot.

"Persis" was Mrs. Smith. The young professors of Washington Uni-
versity called her "Aunt Persis."

"No," said Mr. Smith, "Persis is well. But Persis and I have been think-
ing and talking tonight about the university and its needs. . We have concluded
we ought to do something now. Here is this Boatmen's bank stock. I can't
sleep and Persis can't sleep until it is in your hands. So I have brought it over
to you."

"In that singular manner one early donation of thousands of dollars came
to Washington University.

For the first quarter of a century of its existence the largest individual
contributor to Washington University was James Smith. With his brother,
William H. Smith, and his brother-in-law John Cavender, James Smith came
from New Hampshire to St. Louis in 1833. The three young men started
the grocery house of Smith Brothers & Co. It is tradition that the partners
in the struggling period were not above doing any part of the work. They
handled the goods, waited on customers and kept their own books. The house
they founded became nearly twenty years later Partridge & Co. When James
Smith died childless, it was found that he had bequeathed one-half of his estate
to his wife and the remainder, except minor bequests, was left to William G.
Eliot without conditions or instructions. This was in accordance with an un-
derstanding that the greater part of the property should go to Washington
University. It was a fine illustration of one St. Louisan's absolute confidence
in another. Smith Academy perpetuated the memory of James Smith. William
Henry Smith, the brother of James Smith, was the founder of one of the
best endowed lecture courses, giving $27,000 for this purpose.

THE EDUCATIONAL LIFE 631

James Smith had the New England thrift in material things and the
New England hunger for education. Circumstances of his youth had prevented
him from satisfying that hunger. He lived and worked to make possible for
other young men what had been denied him. The Smiths lived on Olive street
near Seventeenth. One day Dr. Eliot called there and was met by Mrs. Smith.

"Persis, where is James?" the doctor asked.

"You'll find him in the cellarway blacking his boots," said Mrs. Smith.

Sure enough! There was James Smith, who was giving more than any
other man in St. Louis to place Washington University on its feet, putting a
polish on his boots.

"Why. James," exclaimed Dr. Eliot. "Why don't you let one of the
servants do that?"

"Well, William," replied the old son of New Hampshire, with a little
smile, "the servants are so wasteful with the blacking."

Wayman Crow was a giver to the university from the beginning. He
subscribed $10,000 in 1860. He gave $138,000 to establish the Art Museum.
He sustained the indefatigable Halsey C. Ives in the creation of the Art school.
He established a scholarship fund. He provided other funds for special pur-
poses. How often and how much he helped when emergencies arose during
the many years he was a director will, perhaps, never be known. The men who
were Mr. Crow's partners and successors in business gave. They had started,
as he had, from the ground, even below the first round of the mercantile ladder.
As early as 1860 William A. Hargadine and Phocion McCreery were two of
twenty who subscribed $192,500 to the support of the young university. Hugh
McKittrick, of the same house, began giving a little later, but with the same
sense of devotion to the institution. It was a frequent act of Dr. Eliot to hand
to the treasurer a check with the remark: "Mr. McKittrick has given me
$1,000."

Wayman Crow had at least one experience which convinced him that
college education does not spoil a young man for business. In 1857 he em-
ployed an Illinois youth, from Beloit College, as office boy. In eight years the
young man won his way, grade by grade, to a junior partnership in the great
house of Crow, McCreery & Co. He was David Davis Walker, born of English
and Maryland parents on a farm near Bloomington, named for David Davis,
the friend of Lincoln and the eminent jurist of United States Supreme Court
fame, whose home was in Bloomington. With Frank Ely and others, David
Davis Walker added, in 1880, to the group of wholesale houses the Ely & Walker
Dry Goods company.

From the so-called border states, neither north nor south, came some of the
men who became the most successful merchants in St. Louis. The Crows were
of North Irish origin; the Waymans were an English family; but Wayman
Crow was from Kentucky, the son of a Virginia father and a Maryland mother,
his name combining those of the two families. He was the youngest of twelve
brothers and sisters. His education was begun in a log cabin. When he was
twelve years old he was apprenticed to what was in 1820 "assorted dry goods,
grocers and hardware," at Hopkinsville. He slept on a cot in the store, carried
water from the spring, opened, swept and closed. For his services he received

632 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

"victuals and clothes." When his apprenticeship ended he was considered by
his employers to be worth $300 a year to them.

With his Kentucky experience, Wayman Crow, having for a partner his'
cousin, Joshua Tevis, started at St. Louis, in 1835, the dry goods house of
Crow & Tevis. Twelve months ago this house had been in continuous existence
three-fourths of a century. It has passed successfully through six national panic
periods. In 1857 Mr. Crow borrowed money at 2.^/2 per cent a month and pledged
his fortune to protect the firm's obligations. In an address to his creditors he
wrote :

To us our commercial honor is as dear as our lives; to preserve it we are prepared
to make any pecuniary sacrifice short of impairing our ability to pay ultimately every dol-
lar we owe.

Every year Wayman Crow postponed departure for his summer home in
order that he might attend the closing exercises of all of the departments of
the university. As he came out, after the distribution of the diplomas and the
other formalities, he would say to Dean Snow or to some other member of the
faculty :

"Well, professor, another baby spanked."

Regularly the trustees of the pioneer period attended the commencement
exercises. They could be depended upon for the lecture courses. Watching
over the finances, making up the deficits by no means fulfilled their obligation
or satisfied their interest. If now and then, one slept peacefully through a
Fiske lecture on American history, it did not deter him from attendance at
the next.

A red letter day in the calendar of Washington University has been the
22d of February. When that day in 1871 came around, Hudson E. Bridge
arose at a meeting of the board and announced a gift from himself of $130,000.
This was one of several complete financial surprises which have come in the
history of the university. Not a hint had Mr. Bridge given of his intention.
He divided the gift — $100,000 to endowment and $30,000 toward the polytechnic
or scientific department for building purposes.

Hudson E. Bridge left his New Hampshire home with $6 in his pocket.
To economize he walked to Troy. There he worked in a store until he had
saved enough to take him to Columbus. His early career in St. Louis was a
curious but marvelously successful combination of venture and caution. Mr.
Bridge pioneered the way in the stove manufacturing business by bringing the
plates from the Ohio river and putting them together in a little foundry attached
to the store with which he was connected. Old stove dealers in St. Louis said
the experiment was foolish and tried to discourage young Bridge. Foreman
and salesman by day and bookkeeper by night, Mr. Bridge went on making
stoves until he had proven his theory to be profitable. But while he was ven-
turesome in experiment of manufacturing, he would never borrow capital for
his growing business.

Some of these early friends of the university gave in large amounts,
evidently after careful deliberation. Others carried their interest in the uni-
versity as a continuous or current obligation. There was George Partridge,
who was "always giving." He was a sterling business man, but was never
classed as wealthy. Keeping in close touch with the university's needs, Mr.

RALPH SELLEW

CITY UNIVERSITY IN 1857
Sixteenth and Pine streets

THE EDUCATIONAL LIFE 633

Partridge would come around just at the time when Dr. Eliot felt the situation
becoming urgent and give his check. These timely gifts ran as high as $5,000.
In the aggregate, Mr. Partridge gave about $150,000 to Washington University.
One of his last gifts was a house and lot on Washington avenue, which the
university still owns.

When George Partridge came to St. Louis, about 1840, he formed a
company in the wholesale grocery business. One of the stipulations in the
articles of partnership was that the house should never sell any alcoholic liquor.
Mr. Partridge had built up a larger business in Boston, starting with a capital
of $13, and working at first for $50 a year and board. He had gone through
the panic of 1837 without breaking, but he had discovered that a wholesale
grocer in Boston at that time must sell liquor if he wanted to hold his own
in the trade. He sold out, came west, and kept groceries which did not include
"wet goods."

Looking backward, after Washington University had been firmly estab-
lished, Dr. Eliot said:

At that first meeting, when the seventeen incorporates were called together in a
private parlor, they had not a dollar in hand; there was little or no wealth among them;
their conjoined property would not have reached half a million in value; they had no
social or religious organization to back them; no definite plan of action; no reasonable
assurance of success. There was probably not an individual outside of their own number
who thought they would succeed, and the most sanguine among themselves were only half
convinced. But beginning with a grammar school on a small scale, they worked with just
enough faith to keep them alive, and by deserving success gradually gained it.

"Mechanic princes," Dr. Eliot once called a class of self-made St. Louisans.
When he looked around the room on the first board of directors, or trustees,
assembled to give life to Washington University, he saw only here and there
one who had received educational advantages. The most of them had been
"poor boys" who had gone from a few months in the log school house to learn
trades, to sweep out stores. Stephen Ridgely, whose memory is preserved in
the new library building of Washington University, taught the rest of the
country the use of "spirit gas." This was a preparation made from alcohol
by Mr. Ridgely. It was used in lamps with tin tubes two inches high, through
which ran long wicks. This St. Louis spirit light was a great improvement on
the lard oil which was used in lamps. It was popular until kerosene came into
use. Profits of the spirit lamp are represented to the amount of $60,000 in
the present library of the university.

The four sons of George Collier united in a gift of $25,000, which was
made an endowment bearing their father's name. In token of their esteem for
Professor Waterhouse, the endowment was made applicable to the chair of
Greek until such time as the university might require it for other purposes.
The Colliers chose Washington's birthday, the fifteenth anniversary of the
granting of the charter, as the date to make their gift.

Individuality entered into the condition governing some of the donations.
Professor Sylvester Waterhouse, who filled the chair of Greek for many years,
by strict economy and careful investment acquired considerable means. He,
gave $25,000 to the university to be held and invested until it had increased
to $1,000,000, when it would become available. The professor carefully esti-
mated that the gift would be multiplied by forty if principal and compound

634 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

interest were preserved one hundred years. The Waterhouse fund is now
$34,000 and growing.

With perhaps two exceptions, the financial support of Washington Uni-
versity has come through individuals or families from fortunes accumulated in
St. Louis. Mrs. Mary A. Hemenway was one of the exceptions. This excel-
lent Boston lady took deep interest in American history. She founded in her
city the famous Old South lecture course. Desiring to extend the interest in
the history of this country, Mrs. Hemenway gave to Washington University
$15,000 for a lecture course, stipulating that so long as he lived, Professor John
Fiske should deliver the lectures. During twenty years Professor Fiske came
to St. Louis almost annually to deliver these lectures. To found the Tileston
professorship of political economy as a memorial for her father, Mrs. Hem-
enway gave $25,000. Nathaniel Thayer, the Boston philanthropist, was the
other non-resident contributor, giving $25,000 in 1860. In recognition of this
substantial gift, "The Nathaniel Thayer Professorship of Mathematics and
Applied Mechanics" was created in 1870. Professor Calvin M. Woodward held
this position for forty years.

Twenty-five years after the inauguration, Dr. Eliot, speaking of the finan-
cial support given by the friends of the university, said:

In all the years since our beginning, an annual deficiency, varying from $2,000 to
$10,000, has been made up by gifts for that purpose. The men who have done this are the
true founders of the university, although their names have been scarcely known.

He told of one supporter of the institution, who, not having the principal
to give, regularly paid 7 per cent on $10,000. There were professional men
like John R. Shepley, who gave from current income almost as regularly as
the years rolled around. Henry Hitchcock presided over the law school. For a
long period he turned back into the university treasury the sum allowed him
for his services. And in addition when special funds were to be raised, he
gave generously. In 1871 the university faced a crisis before which even Dr.
Eliot quailed. He said: "There seemed to be a gulf of difficulties that we
could not pass. But from unexpected sources, unsolicited, there came, in the
three months that followed, gifts amounting in all to $215,000."

Two generations of St. Louisans gave Dr. Eliot the credit of being the
most useful citizen to raise money for the public good. But Dr. Eliot's ways
were not those of direct solicitation. They were more effective. They aroused
interest. They inspired the first step. They fostered the habit of giving.

"Gentlemen," Dr. Eliot would say to the board at the end of the year,
"I am sorry to tell you we have an alarming deficit. I don't know how we are
to meet it, but I trust Providence will provide some way."

Then those business men would go over the accounts methodically, arriving
at the exact financial situation., One after another of them would write a check.
The university would enter upon another year out of debt.

Late in his career, Dr. Eliot remarked that he had never asked any one
directly for money in behalf of Washington University. The look of question-
ing surprise which met this assertion the good doctor answered with a trace of
a smile and a story about a friend who held that it was sometimes "necessary
to economize truth." The doctor said he thought it was at least "very handy

JAMES SMITH

J. C. WAY

ST. LOUIS HIGH SCHOOL
Olive and Fifteenth streets, in 1860

THE EDUCATIONAL LIFE 635

sometimes to economize truth." And with that he let his declaration about rais-
ing money for the university rest.

At one annual meeting of the board, after congratulations on the fine
progress of the year, the doctor concluded:

And yet, to prove how the ghost of the impecuniousness will not ' ' down, ' ' the treas-
urer reports the usual skeleton in the closet, a deficiency of $5,000, upon which the usual
unguent of charity must be poured.

When, in 1883, St. Louisans had invested over $1,000,000 in Wash-
ington University, with seven departments, sixty-five professors and 1,200
students, Dr. Eliot put to the supporters the question : Will it pay ?

' ' I believe in getting money 'a worth for every dollar we spend, ' ' said he, ' ' whether
for ourselves or others. No man is justified in throwing it away in visionary schemes
of philanthropy, any more than in foolish speculation or extravagant living. But I be-
lieve that, tried by the strictest test of wise utilitarianism, the work you have in hand
is worth its full cost and will justify every sacrifice to be made. ' '

And then, in a few words, the prophetic chancellor pointed out what the
evolution of Washington University would mean to St. Louis and to the world :

It is to build up on the foundations already well laid a university which will be to
St. Louis and the western valley what the great universities of Europe and America have
been to their respective surroundings; to make our city the center of educational interests,
as it must be that of manufacturers and commerce; so that the civilization of science and
art and polite literature may keep even pace with the growth of wealth. Is not that worth
doing, at whatever cost?

It is to establish an American university from whose walls the bitterness of party
spirit shall forever be excluded, but in which love of country, loyalty and that allegiance
to law which alone can educate men to perfect liberty shall be taught as sacred duties;
in whose instructions the narrowness of sectarianism can have no place, but the principles
of Christian morality and reverential regard for truth as the voice of God shall be the
axioms held above all dispute; a group of colleges and schools, including all departments
of learning, from those which deal with pure abstractions and the most subtle scientific
research, to the most practical recognition of the living interests of daily life and the just
rewards of industry; providing all needful facilities for the highest and best education both
of men and women, to fit them for the best work they are naturally capable of doing. Can
we measure or rightly estimate the value of such an institution in a region like that in which
we live?

The generation of 1911 does not realize the boldness of the non-sectarian
position taken by the founders of Washington University. In that period state
universities, with perhaps a single exception, were little known. The leading
colleges of this country were under denominational control or patronage. This
Washington University movement was viewed as dangerous by many good
people. Public sentiment was apprehensive that non-sectarianism might mean
irreligion. The first graduating exercises were opened with prayer. Dr. Eliot
pronounced the invocation. The newspapers of St. Louis estimated that action
as perhaps the feature most interesting to their readers. Dr. Eliot was requested
to write out the prayer and he did so. The prayer was printed with the news-
paper comment that it expressed "the spirit of the institution." Dr. Eliot prayed
thus:

"May the principles upon which this university was founded be sacredly
regarded and inviolably kept. From these walls may all party spirit and sectional
strife be forever banished while the duties of patriotism and loyalty are faith-
fully and plainly taught. From these hallowed precincts may all disputes of

636 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

sectarian zeal be kept away, while the authority of the Divine Master is daily
acknowledged, and the laws of Christian morality and righteousness (rectitude
and holiness) are held supreme. May the teachers and scholars of this univer-
sity thus learn to walk at liberty, by keeping Thy precepts."

Washington University is the gift of individuals to the cause of educa-
tion. In the more than fifty years of its life, the institution has received nothing
from public funds, national, state or municipal. No money has come from de-
nominational sources. The givers have been numerous. There have been
several princely contributions to buildings and endowments, such as those of
Samuel Cupples, Adolphus Busch, Robert S. Brookings, William K. Bixby, the
Liggett family, the McMillan family, and Mrs. Graham. But the university
has received in the past two generations from several hundred St. Louisans do-
nations aggregating a great amount. The multitude of supporters has included
every creed and every nationality represented in the city's population. The
amounts have varied with the abilities of the contributors. But the long lists
attest a good will toward the university, a civic pride, a devotion to the highest
and best in education.

CHAPTER XXV.
THE CULTURE OF ST. LOUIS

tuguste Chouteau'* Scientific Theories — The Story of the Prehistoric Footprints — Dr. Sau-
grain's Laboratory — Sulphur Springs, Near the River des Peres — John Bradbury's Animal
Stories — Varied Vocations of Dr. Shewe — Lilliput on the Meramec — An Exploration for
a Lost Race — Discovery of Coal in the Illinois Bluffs — Les Mamelles, Near St. Charles —
Movement to Preserve "the Big Mound" — Early Mound Theories Disputed by Modern
Science — The Barkis Club— Henry Shaw's Reminiscences — The Eden of St. Louis —
Wyman's Museum — Dr. Engelmann's Meteorological Record — Adventurous Career of
Adolph Wislisenus — The St. Louis Philosophic Movement — William T. Harris, Henry C.
Brockmeyer and Denton J. Snider — Foreign Guests and St. Louis Hospitality— Jubilee of
Archbishop Kenrick — Origin of Mercantile Library — The Public Library — Houdon's
Washington in Lafayette Park — The St. Louis Fair — Lottery Privileges and a Moral
Uplift — When Jenny Lind Came — Seventy Tears of Musical Interest — Old Salt Theater —
Playhouses Before the Civil War — Sol Smith's Epitaph — Ben DeBar — The Reign of the
Veiled Prophet — A Third of a Century of Popular Pageants.

Shall we expect others to think well of a city of which we do not think well ourselves,
whose history we are willing to drop from themes of human interest, whose institutions for
cultivation and improvement we are unwilling to maintain? — George E. Leighton.

The boy of thirteen who felled the first tree on the site of St. Louis was a
student. Cultivation of the mind began with the founding. Those who came
afterwards and sought to solve nature's problems, of which St. Louis had many,
discovered that Auguste Chouteau was a scientist. Henry M. Brackenridge
said: "I made a visit to the elder Chouteau, a venerable looking man, with a
fine intellectual head, and was introduced to one of the largest private libraries
I had seen, Monsieur Chouteau offered me the free use of this library, of which
I gladly availed myself. Here I found several of the early writers of travels
and descriptions of Louisiana and Illinois, such as La Houton, Lafiteau, Hen-
nepin, Charlevoix."

The Duke of Saxe, one of the earliest of the European travelers to visit St.
Louis, was much impressed with Auguste Chouteau's theories:

The conversation with this aged man, who received us like a patriarch surrounded
by his descendants, was very interesting. He was of the opinion that the people from
whom the Indian antiquities have come down to us, either by pestilential disease or by an
all-destroying war, must have been blotted from the earth. He believed that Behring's
Straits were more practicable formerly than at present — at least they must have been
Asiatic hordes that came to America. How, otherwise, asked he, could the elephants,
since there have been none ever upon this continent, have reached the American bottom,
where their bones are now found? This bottom is a very rich body of land running
south opposite to St. Louis. Mounds and fortifications are found there. Here the ele-
phant bones are not scattered about, but found lying in a long row near each other, as if
they had been killed in a battle or at the assault of some fortification.

Scientific thought in St. Louis, according to the traditions, received its first
stimulus when Laclede and Auguste Chouteau selected the site. Flagg, the
newspaper man of 1836, recorded this tradition:

637

638 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

It is related that when the founder of the city first planted foot upon the shore, the
imprint of a human foot, naked and of gigantic dimensions, was found enstamped upon
the solid limestone rock and continued in regular succession as if of a man advancing
from the water's edge to the plateau above. By more superstitious people this circum-
stance would have been deemed an omen, and as such commemorated in the chronicles of
the city.

Mr. Flagg had the spirit of the scientific investigator. He made a study of
these footprints on the shore of St. Louis and developed his theory.

The impressions are, to all appearances, those of a man standing in an erect posture,
with the left foot a little advanced and the heels drawn in. By a close inspection it will
be perceived that these are not the impressions of feet accustomed to the European shoe;
the toes being much spread, and the foot flattened in the manner that is observed in per-
sons unaccustomed to the close shoe. The probability, therefore, of their having been im-
parted by some individual of a race of men who were strangers to the art of tanning
skins and at a period much anterior to that to which any traditions of the present race
of Indians reaches, derives additional weight from this peculiar shape of the feet. In
other respects the impressions are strikingly natural, exhibiting the muscular marks of
the foot with great preciseness and faithfulness to nature. The rock containing these
interesting impressions is a compact limestone of a grayish, blue color. This rock is
extensively used as a building material in St. Louis. Foundations of dwellings and the
military works erected by the French and Spaniards sixty years ago are still as solid and
unbroken as when first laid.

Major Long and his party of scientists, on the government expedition of
1819-20, devoted attention to the footprints. As early as that time the slab had
been quarried out and was considered a scientific treasure:

This stone wyas taken from the slope of the immediate bank of the Mississippi be-
low the range of the periodical floods. To us there seems nothing inexplicable or dif-
ficult to understand in its appearance. Nothing is more probable than that impressions of
human feet made upon that thin stratum of mud, which was deposited upon the shelvings
of the rocks, and left naked by the retiring of the waters, may, by the induration of the
mud, have been preserved, and at length have acquired the appearance of an impression
made immediately upon the limestone. This supposition will be somewhat confirmed, if
we examine the mud and slime deposited by the water of the Mississippi, which will be
found to consist of" such an intimate mixture of clay and lime, as under favorable circum-
stances would very readily become indurated. We are not confident that the impressions
above mentioned have originated in the manner here supposed, but we cannot by any
means adopt the opinions of some, who have considered them contemporaneous to those
casts of submarine animals, which occupy so great a part of the body of the limestone.
We have no hesitation in saying that, whatever those impressions may be, if they were
produced as they appear to have been, by the agency of human feet, they belong to a
period far more recent than that of the deposition of the limestone on whose surface they
are found.

In addition to impressions of the human foot, there were upon the stone
irregular tracings as if made by some person holding a stick. The local theory
was that these marks were made by a human being walking on a limestone
when it was in a plastic state. The stone passed into the possession of George
Rapp, founder of the society of Harmonites. Rapp was from Wurtemberg.
His sect believed in communism. The members practiced primitive Christianity
as Rapp conceived it to have been. Harmony, Pennsylvania, and New Harmony,
Indiana, had been established. Rapp moved about making converts. The "pre-
historic footprints" at St. Louis appealed to his imagination. Later generations
of scientists gave less consideration to the St. Louis footprints.

THE CULTURE OF ST. LOUIS 639

In the first decade of the century the leading scientist of St. Louis was Dr.
Saugrain. He was described as "a cheerful, sprightly little Frenchman, four
feet six, English measure; a chemist, natural philosopher and physician." The
few newspaper and literary St. Louisans of that day were fond of Dr. Sau-
grain, and visited him. One of them left this description of the first laboratory
in St. Louis:

The doctor had a small apartment which contained his chemical apparatus, and I
used to sit by him as often as I could, watching the curious operations of his blowpipe
and crucible. I loved the cheerful little man and he became very fond of me in tarn.
Many of my countrymen used to come and stare at his doings, which they were half in-
clined to think had too near a resemblance to the black art. The doctor's little phos-
phoric matches, igniting spontaneously when the glass tube was broken, and from which
he derived some emolument, were thought by some to be rather beyond mere human power.
His barometers and thermometers, with the scale neatly painted with the pen, and the
frames richly carved, were objects of wonder, and some of them are probably still extant
in the west. But what most astonished some of our visitors was a large peach in a glass
bottle, the neck of which could only admit a common cork; this was accomplished by tying
the bottle to the limb of a tree, with the peach when young inserted into it. His swans, which
swarm around basins of water, amused me more than any of the wonders exhibited by the
wonderful man.

The doctor was a great favorite with the Americans as well for his vivacity and
sweetness of temper which nothing could sour, as on account of a circumstance which
gave him high claims to the esteem of the backwoodsmen. He had shown himself, not-
withstanding his small stature and great good nature, a very hero in combat with the
Indians. He had descended the Ohio in company with two French philosophers who
were believers in the primitive innocence and goodness of the children of the forest. They
could not be persuaded that any danger was to be apprehended from the Indians; as they
had no intention to injure that people, they supposed of course that no harm could be
meditated on their part. Dr. Saugrain was not altogether so well convinced of their good
intentions, and accordingly kept his pistols loaded. Near the mouth of the Big Sandy, a
canoe with a party of warriors approached the boat; the philosophers invited them on
board by signs, when they came too willingly. The first thing they did on entering the
boat was to salute the two philosophers with the tomahawk; and they would have treated
the doctor in the same way, but that he used his pistols with good effect; killed two of
the savages, and then leaped into the water, diving like a dipper at the flash of the guns
of the others, and succeeded in swimming to shore with several severe wounds, the scars
of which were conspicuous.

An object of attention by the early scientists of St. Louis was Sulphur
Springs. This was in the valley of the River des Peres, not far from what be-
came Cheltenham. When John Bradbury, the English naturalist, decided to
make his home in St. Louis, he built his house near this spring. The members
of Long's expedition found Bradbury living there in 1819. They included men-
tion of the water in their report to the government. At that time horses and
cattle at pasture went a long distance to drink the sulphur water in preference
to any other. When thirty years later the Missouri Pacific began building west-
ward there was a station at Sulphur Springs. A wooden hotel was built and a
resort was maintained. The spring boiled up in the channel of the River des
Peres. When that stream became an open sewer, as the city extended west-
ward, the spring was polluted, and the use of its water was abandoned. John
Bradbury made expeditions with the fur traders and trappers. He brought
back to St. Louis marvelous stories about animals:

640 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

I will here state a few of what I certainly believe to be facts; some I know to be
so, and of others I have seen strong presumptive proofs. The opinion of the hunters
respecting the beaver go much beyond the statements of any author whom I have read.
They state that an old beaver which has escaped from a trap can scarcely ever afterwards
be caught, as traveling in situations where traps are usually placed, he carries a stick in
his mouth with which he probes the sides of the river, that the stick may be caught in
the trap and thus save himself. They say also of this animal that the young are educated
by the old ones. It is well known that in constructing their dams the first step the beaver
takes is to cut down a tree that shall fall across the stream intended to be dammed. The
hunters in the early part of our voyage informed me that they had often found trees near the
edge of a creek in part cut through and abandoned; and always observed that those trees
would not have fallen across the creek. By comparing the marks left on these trees with
others, they found them much smaller. They not only concluded they were made by
young beavers, but that the old ones, perceiving their error, had caused them to desist.
They promised to show me proofs of this, and during our voyage I saw several, and in
no instance would the trees thus abandoned have fallen across the • creek.

I myself witnessed an instance of a doe, when pursued, although not many seconds
out of sight, so effectually hide her fawn that we could not find it, although assisted by
a dog. I mentioned this fact to the hunters who assured me that no dog, or perhaps any
beast of prey, can follow a fawn by the scent. They showed me in a full grown deer a
gland and a tuft of red hair situated a little above the hind part of the forefoot, which
had a very strong smell of musk. This tuft they call the scent, and believe that the route
of the animal is betrayed by the effluvia proceeding from it. This tuft is mercifully with-
held until the animal has acquired strength. What a benevolent arrangement!

Of the trappers with whom he traveled, Bradbury said: "They can imi-
tate the cry or note of any animal found in the American wilds so exactly as to
deceive the animals themselves."

An eccentric character in the early coterie which represented the culture
of St. Louis was Dr. Shewe, as Brackenridge described him:

He had been a traveler all his life, having begun by making the tour of Europe as
tutor to the young Count Feltenstein; and was in Paris during the first scenes of the
French revolution. He used to show a mark on his leg occasioned by a shot at the taking
of the Bastile. He related many anecdotes of the great Frederick and of his generals,
which he had picked up at Berlin. Mr. Shewe officiated at the Dutch church as a preacher;
whether he was ever ordained I know not, but he certainly was not remarkable for hia
piety. I knew him afterwards as a mineralogist, as a miniature painter and as a keeper
of a huckster shop. The last was the occupation he loved best, for he had always before
him the two objects upon which his affections were finally concentrated — tobacco and
beer He used to express philosophically the same sentiment Avhich I have heard from Achilles
Murat in jest, that whiskey was the best part of the American government.

In his card which appeared in the Gazette, 1810, Dr. Shewe announced
that he would continue to give lessons in French, and that he had "a quantity
of candles molded from the best deer's tallow which he will sell cheap for cash."
One of Dr. Shewe's students in French was Thomas H. Benton.

Before they left St. Louis to go up the Missouri river scientific mem-
bers of the Long party made some local investigations. Mr. Say and Mr.
Peale went down the river to the mouth of the Meramec and up that stream
about fifteen miles. They had been told of the discovery of many graves
in that locality. The graves were said to contain skeletons of a diminutive
race. So much had the story impressed the neighborhood, that a town which
had been laid out bore the name of Lilliput. In one of the graves a skull without
teeth had been found. This had been made the basis for another local theory

THE BIG MOUND AT BROADWAY AND MOUND STREET
From a Daguerreotype taken in 1850

THE REMOVAL OF THE BIG MOUND
From a Daguerreotype taken before the Civil war

THE CULTURE OF ST. LOUIS 641

that these prehistoric residents of the Meramec had jaws like a turtle. The
scientists found that the graves were walled in neatly, and covered with flat
stones. They opened several and saw that the bones were of ordinary size,
seemingly having been buried after the flesh had been separated from them,
according to the custom of certain Indian tribes. The skull with the turtle-like
jaw was that of an old man who had lost his teeth. The scientists satisfied
themselves that there was nothing extraordinary in the contents of the graves.
As the narrative ran, they "sold their skiff, shouldered their guns, bones and
spade, and bent their weary steps toward St. Louis, distant sixteen miles,
where they arrived at n p. m., having had ample time, by the way, to in-
dulge in sundry reflections on that quality of the mind, either imbibed in the
nursery or generated by evil communications, which incites to the love of the
marvelous, and, by hyperbole, casts the veil of falsehood over the charming
features of simple nature."

Not all of the scientific investigations at St. Louis turned out as dis-
couragingly as the expedition to Lilliput. John Bradbury was well satisfied
with a trip inspired by the report of coal discovered:

In the year 1810 the grass on the prairie of the American bottom in the Illinois
territory took fire and kindled the dry stump of a tree, about five miles east of St. Louis.
This stump set fire to a fine bed of coal on which it stood, and the coal continued to burn
for several months, until the bottom fell in and extinguished it. This bed breaks out at
the bottom of the bluffs of the Mississippi, and is about five feet in thickness. I visited
the place, and by examining the indications found the same vein at the surface several
miles distant.

Brackenridge also reported upon this chance discovery of coal :
On the east side of the Mississippi, in the bluffs of the American bottom, a tree taking
fire some years ago, communicated it by one of its roots to the coal, which continued to
burn until the fire was at length smothered by the falling in of a large mass of the in-
cumbent earth. The appearance of fire is still visible for several rods around. About
two miles further up the bluffs a fine coal bank has been opened; the vein as thick as any
of those near Pittsburg.

John Bradbury explored the caverns in the vicinity of St. Louis and told
of the encouragement they offered to a new industry :

The abundance of nitre generated in the caves of this country is a circumstance which
ought not to pass unnoticed. These caves are always in the limestone rocks; and in
those which produce the nitre the bottom is covered with earth which is strongly impreg-
nated with it and visible in needle-like crystals. In order to obtain the nitre, the earth
is collected and lixiviated; the water after being saturated is boiled down and suffered to
stand until the crystals are formed. In this manner it is no uncommon thing for three
men to make one hundred pounds of saltpetre in one day. In the spring of 1810 James
McDonald and his two sons went to some caves on the Gasconade river to make saltpetre,
and in a few weeks returned with three thousand pounds weight to St. Louis.

A locality, in the vicinity of St. Louis, which was visited by the early
scientific explorers and which charmed all of them was across the Missouri
river and along the west bank of the Mississippi. Brackenridge, in a news-
paper letter, described the place graphically:

The tract called Les Mamelles, from the circumstance of several mounds bearing
the appearance of art projecting from the bluff some distance into the plain may be worth
describing as a specimen. It is about three miles from St. Charles; I visited it last sum-
mer. To those who have never seen any of these prairies, it is very difficult to convey

16- VOL. II.

642 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

any just idea of them. Perhaps the comparison to the green sea is the best. Ascending
the mounds I was elevated about one hundred feet above the plain; I had a view of an
immense plain below, and a distant prospect of hills. Every sense was delighted and
every faculty awakened. After gazing for an hour I still experienced an unsatiated de-
light, in contemplating the rich and magnificent scene. To the right the Missouri is con-
cealed by a wood of no great width, extending to the Mississippi the distance of ten
miles. Before me I could mark the course of the latter river, its banks without even a
fringe of wood; on the other side the hills of Illinois, faced with limestone in bold masses
of various hues and the summits crowned with trees; pursuing these hills to the north,
we see, at the distance of twenty miles, where the Illinois separates them in his course to
the Mississippi. To the left we behold the ocean of prairie with islets at intervals, the
whole extent perfectly level, covered with long waving grass, and at every moment chang-
ing color, from the shadows cast by the passing clouds. In some places there stands a
solitary tree of cottonwood or walnut, of enormous size, but from the distance diminished
to a shrub. A hundred thousand acres of the finest land are under the eye at once, and yet
on all this space there is but one little cultivated spot to be seen. The eyes at last satiated
with this beautiful scene, the mind in turn expatiates on the improvements of which it is
susceptible, and creative fancy adorns it with happy dwellings and richly cultivated fields.
The situation in the vicinity of these great rivers, the fertility of the soil, a garden spot,
must one day yield nourishment to a multitude of beings. The bluffs are abundantly supplied
with the purest water; those rivulets and rills which at present, unable to reach the father
of waters, lose themselves in lakes and marshes, will be guided by the hand of man into
channels fitted for their reception, and for his pleasure and felicity.

The scientists devoted a great deal of time to the Indian mounds of St.
Louis. They located twenty-seven along a line leading north of the city and
on what they called the second bank of the river. Each of these mounds was
measured with care. Several of them were from four feet to five feet in
height. The largest was thirty-four feet high. Some were round ; others square
or oblong. Some were arranged to form a partial enclosure. Several were in
a curve. On the Illinois side of the river, within five miles from the river
bank opposite St. Louis, the scientists found seventy-five of these mounds.
Long's expedition reported on them:

Tumuli and other remains of the labors of nations of Indians that inhabited this
region many ages since are remarkably numerous about St. Louis. Those tumuli imme-
diately north of the town, and within a short distance of it, are twenty-seven in number,
of various forms and magnitudes, arranged nearly in a line from north to south. The common
form is an oblong square, and they all stand on the second bank of the river. It seems prob-
able that these piles of earth were raised as cemeteries, or they may have supported altars
for religious ceremonies. We cannot conceive any usful purpose to which they can have
been applicable in war, unless as elevated stations from which to observe the motions
of an approaching enemy; but for this purpose a single mound would have been sufficient,
and the place chosen would probably have been different. We opened five of them, but
in only one were we fortunate in finding anything, and all that this contained was a solitary
tooth of a species of rat, together with the vertebrae and ribs of a serpent of moderate
size, and in good preservation. But whether the animal had been buried by the natives or had
perished there, after having found admittance through some hole, we could not determine.

Every St. Louisan of scientific bent liked to talk about the mounds. Every
tourist visited them and wrote of them as being the greatest of natural curios-
ities. Edmund Flagg found in them not only the field for investigation but the
opportunity for the preservation of a most attractive civic feature. He wrote:

They stand isolated, or distinct from each other, in groups; and the outline is gen-
erally that of a rectangular pyramid, truncated nearly one-half. The first collection orig-
inally consisted of ten tumuli arranged as three sides of a square area of about four

THE CULTURE OF ST. LOUIS 643

acres, and the open flank to the west was guarded by five other small circular earth-
heaps, isolated and forming the segment of a circle around the opening. This group is
now almost completely destroyed by the grading of streets and the erection of edifices,
and the eastern border may alone be traced. North of the first collection of tumuli is a
second, four or five in number, and forming two sides of a square. Among these is one
of a very beautiful form, consisting of three stages, and called the ' ' falling garden. ' ' Its
elevation above the level of the second plateau is about four feet, and the area is ample for a
dwelling or yard. From the second it descends to the first plateau along the river by
three regular gradations, the first with a descent of two feet, the second of ten, and
the lower one of five, each stage presenting a beautiful site for a house. For this pur-
pose, however, they can never be appropriated, as one of the principal streets of the city
is destined to pass directly through the spot, the grading for which has already com-
menced. The third group of mounds is situated a few hundred yards above the second,
and consists of about a dozen eminences. A series extends along the west side of the
street, through the grounds attached to a classic edifice of brick, which occupies the prin-
cipal one; while opposite rise several of a larger size, upon one of which is situated the
residence of General Ashley, and upon another the reservoir which supplies the city with
water, raised from the Mississippi by a steam force pump upon its banks. Both are beauti-
ful spots embowered in forest trees; and the former, from its size and structure, is sup-
posed to have been a citadel or place of defense. In excavating the earth of this mound,
large quantities of human remains, pottery, half-burned wood, were thrown up, furnish-
ing conclusive evidence, were any requisite further than regularity of outline and relative
position, of the artificial origin of these earth heaps. About six hundred yards above this
group, and linked with it by several inconsiderable mounds, is situated one completely
isolated, and larger than any yet described. It is upward of thirty feet in height, about
one hundred and fifty feet long, and upon the summit five feet wide. The form is oblong,
resembling an immense grave; and a broad terrace or apron, after a descent of a few
feet, spreads out itself on the side looking down upon the river. From the extensive view
of the surrounding region and of the Mississippi, commanded by the site of this mound, as
well as its altitude, it is supposed to have been intended as a vidette or watch tower by
its builders.

From the Big Mound, as it is called, a cordon of tumuli stretch away to the north-
west for several miles along the bluffs parallel with the river, a noble view of which they
command. They are most of them ten or twelve feet high; many clothed with forest trees,
and all of them supposed to be tombs. In removing two of them upon the grounds of
Colonel O 'Fallen, immense quantities of bones were exhumed. It is evident from these monu-
ments of a former generation that the natural advantages of the site upon which St. Louis
now stands were not unappreciated long before it was pressed by the European footsteps.

It is a circumstance which has often elicited remark from those, who as tourists have
visited St. Louis, that so little interest should be manifested by its citizens for those mys-
terious and venerable monuments of another race by which on every side it is environed.
When we consider the complete absence of everything in the character of a public square
or promenade in the city, one would suppose that individual taste and municipal authority
would not have failed to avail themselves of the moral interest attached to these mounds
and the beauty of their site, to have formed in their vicinity one of the most attractive spots in
the west. These ancient tumuli could, at no considerable expense, have been enclosed and
ornamented with shrubbery, and walks, and flowers, and thus preserved for coming genera-
tions. As it is, they are passing rapidly away; man and beast, as well as the elements, are
busy with them, and in a few years they will have disappeared. The practical utility of
which they are available appears the only circumstance which has attracted attention to them.
One has already become a public reservoir, and measures are in progress for applying the
larger mound to a similar use, the first being insufficient for the growth of the city.

Public sentiment in favor of preservation of the Big Mound became active
at one time. The movement contemplated the transfer of title to the city.
There were several owners. It was proposed to have transformed, into a

644 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

public garden or park, three or four blocks of ground, the central part of which
would be the Big Mound. Upon the Mound was to be constructed a pavilion.
A committee of public-spirited citizens undertook to secure the transfer of the
land to the city. A. B. Chambers, editor of the Missouri Republican, was one
of the foremost advocates of the plan. Mr. Benoist was the owner of a con-
siderable part of the ground desired. The committee waited upon him and
presented the arguments in favor of the Big Mound park. Mr. Benoist de-
clined to transfer his part to the city. The movement was abandoned.

After three generations of scientists had made much in the way of specu-
lation about the mounds of St. Louis and vicinity, there came geologists who
studied the soil and the rocks and advanced natural theories to account for
most of these landmarks. Away back, in the ages when the Mississippi Valley
was being formed, there was drift clay and loess, these later scientists said,
covering St. Louis and the valley roundabout so that the surface was from
fifty to sixty feet above the present level. Loess is almost anything ground
up tolerably fine. As the great rivers wore out their channels and diminished
in volume through the ages they left many elevations in and around St. Louis
"locally known as 'mounds,' the formation of which has generally been referred
to human agency." The quotation is from Worthen of the Illinois geological
survey, whose theory has been accepted widely by latter day geologists. Sup-
port to this theory is given in a thesis by Henri Hus upon whom Washington
University in 1908 conferred the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Worthen
said further of these mounds:

These elevations vary in height from ten to sixty feet and more above the level of
the surrounding bottom, and when carefully examined are found to consist of drift clay
and loess, remaining in situ just as they appear along the river bluffs, where similar mounda
have been formed in the same way by the removal of the surrounding strata by currents of
water. We had an opportunity of seeing a good section of the large mound in the upper
part of the city of St. Louis exposed by digging into the upper end of the mound for
material to be used in filling adjacent lots. It was found to consist of about fifteen feet of
common chocolate brown drift clay, the base of which was overlaid by thirty feet or more of
ash-colored marly sands of the loess, the line of separation between the two deposits remaining
as distinct and well defined as they usually are in good artificial sections of the railroad
cuts through these deposits.

The professor concluded, ruthlessly disposing of the theories and discus-
sions of the generations of scientists who had measured and dug into and
described these prehistoric landmarks :

Hence, we infer that these mounds are not artificial elevations raised by the aborig-
inal inhabitants of the country, as has been assumed by antiquarians generally, but on the
contrary they are simply outliers of loess and drift, that have remained as originally de-
posited, while the surrounding contemporaneous strata were swept away by denuding
forces. They are not found to occupy any fixed relative position in relation to each other,
or to have any regularity of size or elevation, and hence antiquarians appear to have
inferred that they were raised simply to serve as burial places for the dead. But the
simple fact that they were used for this purpose by the aborigines, which seems to be the
main argument relied on as proof of their artificial origin, seems to me entirely inadequate
to sustain such a conclusion, and they were perhaps only selected by them for this pur-
pose on account of their elevated position, for the same reason that they selected the highest
point of a bluff in preference to any lower point, to serve as the last resting place for the
earthly bodies of their relatives and friends. I have very little doubt that many of the so-

Excavating mastodon bones in the suburbs of St. Louis

Opening an Indian mound in Forest Park

Museum of mastodon relics excavated near St. Louis
SCIENTIFIC PROBLEMS OF ST. LOUIS

THE CULTURE OF ST. LOUIS 645

called Indian mounds, in this state at least, if carefully examined, would prove to be
only natural elevations produced by the causes above named.

The Barkis club was a before-the-war organization of thirteen members,
of intellectual attainments, who sought no publicity. Each member dined the
other twelve members once a year. Henry Shaw was the leading spirit if not
the organizer. Dr. Thomas O'Reilly was the last survivor. Henry Shaw wrote
an account of his arrival in St. Louis and of the impressions of the town,
for St. Louis then had not been incorporated as a city. He left New Orleans
the I4th of March, 1819, on a Philadelphia built steamboat, "The Maid of
Orleans." Although she met with no serious detention coming up, the boat did
not reach St. Louis until the 4th of May. Mr. Shaw wrote :

We were fourteen passengers in all. I knew them well. Among them were Firmin
Desloge, John Pilcher, Charles Sanguinet, Louis Benoist and others. At early morning
we came in view of the then village of St. Louis, rounding the sandbar that then pro-
truded far into the river and landed above. In passing, the town had a cheerful appear-
ance, some of the houses being elegantly built with verandahs in the Louisiana style. The ves-
sels at the landing were some half a dozen barges and Mackinaw boats. There were no buildings
on the river, but on top of the bank were gardens with fruit trees in blossom, forming a
pleasing contrast compared to the swampy land and moss covered trees of the lower Mississippi.
Few of the cross streets were then open to the river landing. Access to the part of the city on
the hillside was by narrow, winding pathways, some wide enough for the water carts used
to come to the river for that necessary element. The market was on the river shore afl
the termination of Market street. Opposite in a commanding position stood the stately residence
of Mr. Auguste Chouteau, one of the founders of St. Louis, then a venerable old gentleman.
His brother, Pierre Chouteau, Sr., lived higher up the street, his garden wall enclosing a
whole block. Besides the Chouteaus many old and respectable citizens had their residences on
Main street. Among these were Mr. Bernard Pratte, Sr., Mr. Cabanne, Mr. Gratiot, Mr.
Sarpy and Mr. Berthold. Mr. Soulard and Mr. Saugrain had their residences and gardens in
the lower part of the village. I have always had the greatest pleasure in recalling to mind
the kindness, courtesy and politeness of these old citizens, and from my knowledge of the
French language I was on terms of intimacy with many of them. There were some eight or
ten brick houses of modern style west of Main street. The principal one was the residence
of Governor William Clark, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, with council house attached.
Major William Christy lived a short distance above town. Mr. J. B. C. Lucas lived at
the outskirts, now Seventh street. Judge W. C. Carr had a fine residence on the prairie about
a mile west of the river. Joseph Charless, Sr., had a house and garden on Market street
opposite the present court house. The two last named had a fine taste for horticulture and
raised superior grapes and other fruits in their garden. The kindness of these gentlemen to
me, then comparatively a youth and a stranger, as also the other named American gentleman,
is remembered with the greatest pleasure.

"The Eden of St. Louis" was the name given to Shaw's Garden by Prof.
J. D. Butler, who visited the place and was the guest of Mr. Shaw in 1871.
At that early day was pointed out by an intelligent observer the great benefit
which Mr. Shaw's experiments might be to western forestry. Prof. Butler
advised those interested in tree planting throughout the west to look to Shaw's
arboretum "to learn how and what to plant." He spoke of the good influence
already evident upon the growth of St. Louis. He made a very interesting
statement obtained from Mr. Shaw himself upon the inception of the garden,
including the reason for the location at St. Louis. Prof. Butler said of Mr.
Shaw:

He first spent about six years in travel, penetrating into other countries and sur-
veying them laboriously but systematically. Meantime, however, he had begun to realize

646 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

the garden which from childhood had been- his ideal. He planted his paradise at St.
Louis, not merely because he there owned 800 acres of land, but because of the latitude,
the golden mean between heat and cold — the best in America for the most various and
vigorous vegetation.

When Edward Wyman established his school in 1843, he set about the
formation of a museum of natural history. This work was entrusted to a
naturalist of no mean ability, Mr. Bates. The collection was not confined to
this country. It was especially rich in ornithology. In 1850 this museum was
said to contain the finest department of ornithology in the United States. The
variety, rarity and arrangement attracted scientific attention widely. A paleon-
tologist and geologist of international reputation, Dr. Benjamin Franklin Shu-
mard, of a scientific family in Pennsylvania, came to St. Louis to live in 1853.
This city was his home while he carried on scientific exploration in the south-
west.

In February, 1909, was observed the centennial of a St. Louisan whose
work drew the attention and excited the admiration of the old and the new
world. George Engelmann came to St. Louis in 1834, and for a full half century
his explorations, his investigations, his papers, made this city respected as a
home of the sciences among men of learning far and wide.

Dr. Engelmann was versed in all of the natural sciences, but his favorite
study was botany. The work that he began and pursued in and about St. Louis
for many years was developed under the encouragement given by Henry Shaw
in his magnificent bequests, until today the St. Louis School of Botany, under
Director William Trelease, is recognized in Europe as well as in the United
States as one of the great institutions in that branch of study and research.

In 1843, George Engelmann, William Greenleaf Eliot, Adolph Wislizenus
and a few others met in the law office of Marie P. Leduc to form the Western
Academy of Science. These young men bought a piece of ground of several
acres near Eighth street and Chouteau avenue, started a botanical garden and
experimented in forestry. The organization was a pioneer in the scientific
field of the United States; it disbanded after a few years, but the members of
it went on individually with their scientific work. In 1856 the present Academy
of Science was organized, and Dr. Engelmann, one of the leading spirits in the
movement, became the president, holding the office fifteen years.

Engelmann studied at Heidelberg with Agassiz. When he graduated in
medicine he wrote a paper on plant monstrosities which showed such knowledge
of botany as to attract widespread attention. In that early period a graphic
writer named Duden was exploring the vicinity of St. Louis, and sending back
to Germany fascinating accounts of the climate, the soil and the natural resources.
He was the prompter of much of the early German immigration to St. Louis
and to the vicinity on both sides of the river. George Engelmann at 23 came
out to St. Louis to make a thorough investigation of conditions, acting as the
agent of many of his countrymen who contemplated coming if Duden had not
pictured the country too highly. Accompanied by a hunter who acted as
guide and helper, Dr. Engelmann was engaged most of the time for several
ye,ars in the scientific study of the region around St. Louis, carrying his in-
vestigations to Southern Illinois, to Southern Missouri and into Arkansas.

THE CULTURE OF ST. LOUIS 647

Besides reporting in a practical way on the country, he made scientific reports
on the botany and on the minerals. One of his explorations was a tour into
Arkansas, looking for a silver mine which a St. Louis company thought must
be somewhere in the Ozarks.

The reports which Dr. Engelmann made upon the resources of the Missis-
sippi Valley in the vicinity of St. Louis were considered so important that they
were made the principal features of a periodical called Westland, several num-
bers of which were published at Heidelberg, leading to the migration of many
educated Germans. Settling in St. Louis after his earlier explorations, Dr.
Engelmann practiced medicine, aided in the publication of the first German
newspaper, the Anzeiger, and joined in the establishment of a German high
school. That was several years before the first public school was opened in
St. Louis. And with all of these engagements Dr. Engelmann carried on his
scientific labors from time to time, leaving home on journeys of exploration.

He became famous on both sides of the ocean as the great American
authority on the cactus, the United States government publishing his report on
the subject. By reason of the exhaustive and critical character of his study, his
publications were accepted as the authorities in many lines of investigation.

St. Louisans, without regard to scientific attainments, took great interest
in a long series of meteorological records which Dr. Engelmann kept with
infinite patience and care. Dr. Enno Sander, coming to St. Louis in the fifties,
became an intimate friend of George Engelmann and his associate in the Academy
of Science. Speaking of Engelmann's position in the scientific history of this
country, Dr. Sander said:

He inaugurated as early as 1835 at St. Louis, with good and reliable instruments, a
series of meteorological observations which he continued scrupulously three times a day
during nearly fifty years. Such was his zeal that a short time before his death, Dr. En-
gelmann, himself, swept the snow from the walk leading to his instruments, and even
during his last days refused assistance in making his observations. His journal was kept
so thoroughly and faithfully that it has become the only reliable source of information
on the climatology of the Mississippi Valley for that period. Engelmann 's tables pre-
pared from these observations are now authentic records. The officers of the Smith-
sonian Institution at Washington early recognized the greatness of Engelmann as a scien-
tist and the officers and scientists of government exploring expeditions, fitting out at St.
Louis, came to him for advice and aid. Engelmann's instruments, always carefully and
faultlessly kept, gave the government scientists the opportunity to compare and regulate
their own. To Engelmann these scientists looked for counsel as to collection and preser-
vation of specimens. They came to him to help them determine and classify when they
encountered doubt. There are very few of those government exploring reports in which
the parts relating to botanical observations and the descriptions of plants were not writ-
ten by Dr. Engelmann.

To the credit of the medical profession it can be said that humanity always
went hand in hand with science. When Dr. George Engelmann had served
two generations of St. Louisans there came a ring at his doorbell one winter
night, with sleet falling. The call was an urgent one. The venerable physician
had retired. The son, Dr. George J. Engelmann, prepared to go, rather than
arouse his father. The latter had heard the call. He hurried into his clothes,
saying in reply to the younger's protests : "Am I already useless, to be cast
aside? I would rather die in harness than rust out." He accepted help down
the icy steps and was away to the patient.

648 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Associated with Dr. Engelmann in the earlier years of his career in St.
Louis was Adolph Wislizenus, who came from Germany in 1840, leaving behind
him the record of having been one of the students who seized Frankfort when
it was the capital of the German empire in 1833. Wislizenus was the son of a
clergyman. He escaped after the failure of the students' uprising, completed
his medical studies in Switzerland and France and arrived in St. Louis in 1839.
Scientific exploration lured him from practice and Dr. Wislizenus went out
from St. Louis with one of the fur trading expeditions, reaching Oregon. The
report of his observations brought him recognition among scientific men through-
out the country. Coming back to St. Louis, Dr. Wislizenus settled down to
practice with Dr. Engelmann, but after five years he was off again on scientific
exploration, this time to the southwest, and into northern Mexico. The war
clouds were darkening. The St. Louis scientist was taken prisoner at Chi-
huahua and conveyed to a remote place in the mountains. There he remained
until Doniphan and his adventurous Missourians came marching down as if
there was no such thing as an enemy's country, when he was released. Wis-
lizenus returned to St. Louis with the "conquistadores," as the conquering
heroes of that day were called. His scientific report upon Northern Mexico be-
came authority and has so remained until the present day.

In 1872 Captain Silas Bent delivered before a large audience in Mercantile
Library hall a presentation of his polar theory which attracted considerable
attention and discussion by scientific men all over the world. Captain Bent was
the discoverer of the Behring Straits current and he held to the theory of an
open Polar sea.

"The St. Louis Movement" had its beginning with Dr. W. T. Harris and
Henry C. Brockmeyer in 1857. Dr. Harris was a native of Connecticut, an
educator by profession. He came to St. Louis at the age of twenty-two and
became connected with the public schools, advancing through the positions of
assistant teacher, principal of a district school, and assistant superintendent
to superintendent.

Henry C. Brockmeyer was seven years older than Dr. Harris. He came
to this country from Prussia when he was sixteen, passed through St. Louis in
1848, and settled on a farm in the interior of the state. Coming to St. Louis
in 1857 to make this his home, Mr. Brockmeyer met Mr. Harris and the Philo-
sophical society was started.

To the leaders of the cult, the school of philosophy, established by William
T. Harris, was a serious, earnest movement. Some of the younger Americans
who attended from mixed motives found amusement in the discussions. The
Hegelian society, as it was called, about 1869, met in the old Tivoli, a very
respectable place and at the same time thoroughly Bohemian in that the visitor
could drink beer, listen to music, order a German meal and talk philosophy.
The Tivoli was on Fourth street opposite the Southern hotel. It was one of the
distinctive institutions of downtown St. Louis. There, weekly or oftener, the
Hegelians met to discuss the correlation and conservation of forces. Perhaps
no one was more fluent in the statement and support of the philosophical
propositions than Dr. John W. Waters, who was said to bear a striking resem-
blance, phrenologically, to Darwin. Dr. Adam Hammer, one of the most assert-
ive and combative members of the medical profession of his generation in St.

DR. GEORGE J. ENGELMANN

HENRY SHAW

DR. ENNO SANDER

THE BOTANICAL GARDEN AND HOME OF DR. SAUGRAIN
THE CULTURE OF ST. LOUIS

THE CULTURE OF ST. LOUIS 649

Louis, was a student of Hegel, Kant and Fichte. He seldom missed a meeting
of the Hegelians. One of the younger members of the coterie quoted Dr.
Waters as laying before the society a problem for discussion, with this prelude :

Here is a grain of corn; it was taken out of the body of a mummy. This body died
6,000 years ago. Death is a mighty and universal truth when only the mortal part
is left behind. Here bring ye reason to bear, reason which is mistress and queen of all
things. Now, gentlemen, is this grain of corn taken from this mummy's body dead or
alive f It is not alive, since there is no evidence of life, only form. It is not dead, for
if this grain of corn be planted in the earth where it gets heat, light and moisture, it ger-
minates again, and we have a new crop of corn. If it is neither dead nor alive, it is dor-
mant, and dormancy is neither life nor death, but a state of condition. Nothing exists
except what conditions make. Come! Let us place our problem! This grain of corn, — it
is not alive; that is A. It is not dead; that is B. But it is dormant; that is X, and X
is both and neither. Now then, state the problem! You cannot tell A from B, or B from
A, without the intervention of X which is both and neither, and 'tis condition which makes
it exist.

' ' Naturlich ! ' ' ejaculates Dr. Hammer, and the philosophical free-for-all is on.

"The St. Louis Movement" attracted a great deal of attention. It brought
here on visits Ralph Waldo Emerson, A. Bronson Alcott, Julia Ward Howe.
It meant to some who used the expression "a remarkable awakening of interest
in metaphysics." It was used by others to describe what they believed to be a
marked increase of intellectual activity in St. Louis. Possibly both views were
well founded. Dr. Harris, in response to an apparent demand from a circle
wider than the Philosophical society, began to publish the Journal of Speculative
Philosophy. With the love of wisdom on the part of the limited number,
the intellectual activity of the many St. Louisans increased so that it seemed
to justify in 1875 the publication of a magazine, which even in later days would
be called high class. The name of the magazine was The Western. The earliest
associates with Dr. Harris and Henry C. Brockmeyer in "The St. Louis Move-
ment" were Denton J. Snider, William C. Jones, Dr. Hall, Dr. Walters,
C. F. Childs, Professor Howison, Dr. Adam Hammer and Britton A. Hill.

About 1835 St. Louis entertained royalty in the person of King Otho of
Greece. The King was out for a good time. He did not make scientific
explorations like Prince Max. He did not record his observations like the
Duke of Saxe- Weimar. John Jacob Astor sent the King to St. Louis with a
request to Pierre Chouteau to show him attention. Mr. Astor and Mr. Chou-
teau were then leading spirits in the American Fur company. The King was
a blonde giant, over six feet in height, with a big moustache and some bad
table manners. Mr. Chouteau gave several dinner parties and St. Louis people
tried to entertain his royal highness. The load was rather heavy. King
Otho loafed about town, drank wine, played cards, shot at pigeons and rode
with anybody who was willing to give up time to his entertainment. Mr.
Astor's hospitality toward this visitor cost him about fifteen thousand dollars.

The visit of General Henri Gratien Comte Bertrand occurred about 1842.
The aid-major general of Napoleon, had shared the emperor's exile and had
been with him at his death on St. Helena. The typical St. Louis welcome was
bestowed. A deputation of citizens, in which the old French families were
well represented, went to the boat and presented to the general an address of
welcome. Then with the St. Louis Chasseurs, the Montgomery Guards and

650 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

the St. Louis Grays for an escort the committee and the guest proceeded to the
Planters'. At the hotel the United States army officers from Jefferson Barracks
took charge of the general and conveyed him to the Barracks for a banquet.
Later the general was the guest of a committee of citizens on an excursion up
the Mississippi to the mouth of the Missouri. Whenever he appeared in public
during his St. Louis visit, General Bertrand was received with cheers. He
was deeply moved by the enthusiasm of the St. Louis reception. At that time
many of the descendants of the old French families still spoke the language
and wherever he went General Bertrand was greeted in his own tongue. He
found in St. Louis a veteran of the Imperial army of Napoleon in the person of
Rev. Father Dahmen. Conscripted while a student in a seminary of Saxony.
Father Dahmen had served as a cavalryman in several campaigns. He had
returned to his studies, had become a superior in the order of Lazarists and
was in the seminary at St. Louis fitting young men for the priesthood. Father
Dahmen never lost his military bearing. He was one of the first priests to
preach in German in St. Louis.

The Grand Duke Alexis of Russia arrived on the 5th of January, 1872,
and was the guest of honor at a ball in the Southern hotel on the 8th.

In its day the Maffitt mansion on Lucas place contained a grand reception
room probably the largest of any residence in the city. This room, or hall,
was the scene of one of the most notable receptions in the history of the city.
The occasion was the jubilee of Archbishop Kenrick. To honor the occasion
Cardinal Gibbons came to St. Louis. Half a hundred bishops, several hundred
priests and two thousand of the prominent people of St. Louis, including all
creeds, came by invitation to extend their congratulations. Not the presence
of the dignitaries, not the throng alone made the affair notable. The details
were carried through in strict accordance with a carefully arranged programme.
There was no crowding, no confusion. Every guest was presented with cour-
teous dignity. At one end of the reception hall a low dais was placed. Upon
the platform Cardinal Gibbons and Archbishop Kenrick sat. The elevation
was just sufficient to bring them face to face and within easy hand-shaking
distance of the people. The guests were kept in line and passed along by the
masters of ceremonies William C. Maffitt, Theophile Papin, Jr., Pierre Chou-
teau and Frank D. Hirschberg. Each guest was announced by name distinctly
and given time to express to the archbishop congratulations.

The origin of Mercantile Library illustrated the public spirit of 1840-1850
James E. Yeatman gave Robert K. Woods and John C. Tevis the honor of
being the originators. "One afternoon in the fall of 1845," Mr. Yeatman said,
"while we were standing chatting at our doors on Main street, which were
adjoining, the subject of forming a mercantile library was first broached be-
tween Mr. Robert K. Woods and myself. Mr. Woods and I resolved to make
an effort at least by calling in. person upon some few active and enterprising
citizens who agreed to meet with us and discuss the matter, which they did one
night at the counting room of Tevis, Scott & Tevis on Main street. John C.
Tevis was a Philadelphian by birth and a man of liberal education and genial
manners and habits, and at that time a prosperous merchant. The first meeting
was held at night, December 30, 1845. There were eight persons present, —
A. B. Chambers, Peter Powell, Robert K. Woods, John F. Franklin, R. P.
Perry, William F. Scott, John Halsell and John C. Tevis."

THE CULTURE OF ST. LOUIS 651

Ira Divoll in 1860 suggested the St. Louis Public library. As superin-
tendent of public schools, Mr. Divoll found himself in possession of "forty-two
volumes of the annals of Congress and a collection of school and miscellaneous
books, amounting, altogether to about 100 volumes and worth perhaps $100."
Mr. Divoll's idea was to establish a public school library maintained by the
public school board. The war time was unfavorable for beginning. The prop-
osition was not acted upon until 1865 when an organization was formed
separate from the public school board but with close relationship. The first
board of trustees of the library was headed by Stephen D. Barlow, president
of the school board.

James Richardson was one of the earliest and most steadfast supporters
of the Public Library. A school teacher in his native State, New Hampshire,
he came to St. Louis in 1857 after twelve years of success in business at Pitts-
burg, and built up a wholesale drug house, then the largest in the West and
with but one exception the largest in the country. Associated with the develop-
ment of the public schools in the formative period. Mr. Richardson became
from the first, one of the most active supporters of the library. When he left
the school board he devoted himself to the upbuilding of the library, "which,"
he once said, "I regard as of more widespread influence than anything in St.
Louis except the public schools themselves." In 1881, Mr. Richardson's por-
trait by Eichbaum, was presented to the Public Library.

In 1867 a St. Louis business man had developed the appreciation of 'art
which prompted him to pay $10,000 for a single canvas. Erskine Nicol's
famous "Paying the Rent," which had taken next to highest honors in its class
at the Paris Exposition, was brought to this city and hung in the collection
of Franklin O. Day. Mr. Day was of Vermont birth. The family was origin-
ally from Wales, but was established in this country as early as 1634. With
$200 capital, Franklin O. Day came to St. Louis about 1840 and obtained em-
ployment in T. S. Rutherford's wholesale dry goods house. He was advanced
to partnership within three years and accumulated a fortune in the business.

The statue of George Washington which stands in Lafayette park was
located in an honorable position only after much discouragement. It was one
of six casts made by W. J. Hubbard, a Virginian, from the original marble at
Richmond. The sculptor was Houdon, of the highest rank in Europe. He
came to this country at the solicitation of Jefferson and Franklin, while they
were in Paris, to undertake the work. He was welcomed by Washington at
Mount Vernon and during his stay took a cast of the head of his host. In that
way he obtained a perfect likeness of Washington. Returning to France he
carved the statue in marble. The commission was given by the legislature of
Virginia in 1780, when Benjamin Harrison was governor of the state. The
act of the legislature stipulated that the statue of General Washington was to
be "of the finest marble and of the best workmanship." When the marble
statue was completed, Hubbard obtained permission from the Virginia legis-
lature to have a bronze statue cast from the original. He brought workmen
from Munich and made six casts. One of the six went to New Orleans, one
to Richmond, one to Montgomery, Ala., one to Charleston, S. C, and one to
New York. The sixth was brought to St. Louis by Mr. Hubbard in 1860 and
was exhibited in Spencer's art emporium on Fourth street. The artist had been

652 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

led to believe that the city council of St. Louis would purchase the statue, but
when he arrived the council had changed through a new election and refused
to make the purchase. The statue stood for a long time in the yard. It was
then removed to the Accommodation bank on Chestnut street. Mr. Hubbard
after remaining here some months became disappointed and went to New
York. His price for the statue was $10,000. Being embarrassed he borrowed
$1,500 on it from Erastus Wells, H. T. Blow and Dr. M. M. Fallen, giving a
note for ninety days. The note fell due, the statue was sold under the trustee-
ship and bought in by the holders of the deed. It passed into the possession
of the commissioners of Lafayette Park for $5,000. The difference between the
amount borrowed on the statue and the amount paid by the commissioners
was sent to the widow of the artist in Richmond. The Lafayette park com-
missioners thus secured the statue of Washington. This commission was com-
posed of Charles Gibson, W. H. Maurice and Chas. F. Meyer.

As early as 1822 St. Louis began to hold agricultural fairs. In 1841 there
was held an agricultural fair at the race track. A mechanics fair was con-
ducted in buildings near Fourth and Pine streets; that was the first exposition
in St. Louis. The agricultural fairs and the mechanical expositions were held
separately until their combination in the Agricultural and Mechanical Fair
Association in 1856. When the Prince of Wales was touring the United States
shortly before the Civil war, he spent a day at the Fair. It is a tradition that
the chairman of the reception committee desiring to call the attention of His
Royal Highness to a particularly fine specimen of horse flesh, slapped him on
the back and said genially :

"Prince! what do you think of that?"

When, in 1909, the Fair grounds became a public park, recollections in-
spired the following lines by Clark McAdams:

Don't you remember the old Fair Grounds 1

The arch above the gate.
The stalls and the merry-go-arounds,

And the windmills tall and straight
That spun around at a merry rate

When the autumn wind would blow
And the season was grown soft and late

In the long, long time ago?

The prize ring and the circling seats,

The sulky's flashing wheels,
And the gaited saddler's matchless feats

With the sunlight on his heels?
The music, whinnies, moos and squeals,

The judges stern and gray,
And the monkey cage with its mighty peals

Of joy on children's day?

Don't you remember the display

Of beauty and its wiles
In those old stalls, and that one day

A Prince basked in its smiles?
The showmen in their high silk tiles,

The barker and the clown,
And the planters following the styles

In roadsters up and down?

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w

w
re

w
n

r

THE CULTURE OF ST. LOUIS 653

The Thursdays when we all went out

And gamboled on the green,
And no gallant was there without

His girl in that gay scene?
The pumpkin, squash and the butterbean,

The big prize-winning cake,
The broad-backed hogs, and the silver sheen

Upon the sylvan lake!

ENVOY.

Ah me! The Prince sits on his throne,

The hallowed landmarks disappear,
And the beauty of a day is flown —

Where are the fairs of yesteryear?

Rural free delivery was given a successful trial at St. Louis in 1835 accord-
ing to a newspaper of that time. Ringrose D. Watson was a merchant on Main
street near Olive. His home was at Watson's Fruit Hill about seven miles
out. Monday mornings Mr. Watson came into town bringing with him a black
pony. If there was mail for other members of his family Mr. Watson fastened
the letters to the mane and turned the pony loose to make the run home where
a servant was waiting to take the mail.

In 1838 St. Louis began to urge Congress by memorials to build a post-
office. William Renshaw presided over a public meeting which adopted reso-
lutions. A dozen years went by before the governmeint acted. The site at
Third and Olive was purchased. George I. Barnett, a young Englishman, the
son of a clergyman who was a writer of considerable note, came to St. Louis
in 1839 and opened the first office of an educated architect. In 1850 he went
to Europe for professional study and observation. When he returned the new
postoffice was started on plans prepared by him. That first postoffice was
not finished until 1859. St. Louis outgrew it while it was building. In 1872
Erastus Wells, in Congress from St. Louis, was able to make such a good case
of the city's needs that a new postoffice was located on the block bounded by
Eighth and Ninth, Olive and Locust.

The present generation can hardly realize that there was a time when the
legislature of Missouri granted lottery charters. The motive was to raise
money for some public purpose. About 1831 the legislature authorized a
lottery to raise $10,000 toward the building of a hospital in St. Louis for the
Sisters of Charity. The commissioners provided for in the act sold the privi-
lege of conducting the lottery to James S. Thomas. Charges were made in the
newspapers that the management of this lottery meant great gains to the pur-
chaser and comparatively small revenue for the hospital. A committee was
chosen to look into the methods Mr. Thomas proposed to adopt. On the com-
mittee were such well known citizens as N. H. Ridgely, David H. Hill, George
K. McGunnegle, D. Hough, Augustus Kerr, John F. Darby and Bernard
Pratte, Sr. They made an elaborate report, the conclusion of which was:

Your committee then, after an attentive review of the subject, are of the opinion that
the charge made against this scheme, that it affords the manager an opportunity of realiz-
ing a great and unusual proportion of profit, is not sustained.

654 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Sentiment against the grant of lottery privileges by the legislature grew
so strong that the passage of such acts ceased. But lotteries continued to
operate openly under old charters. The business was gradually consolidated
into what was known as the Missouri State lottery. This institution had many
offices. Drawings were held regularly in a public hall. The winning numbers
were advertised in St. Louis papers.

The business was based on an old act of the legislature authorizing a
lottery to build a plank road from the town of New Franklin to the Missouri
river. New Franklin was near Boonville. It had passed almost out of exist-
ence. The plank road, a considerable part of it, had slipped into the Missouri
river. The Missouri Republican opened war on the Missouri State lottery. It
exposed the plank-road myth. It kept up the opposition until by legal and by
legislative action the end came not only to the Missouri State lottery but to all
open lottery business in this state. The fight was not one of days or weeks, but
of years. It required the making of public sentiment, for in 1871 not only
lottery offices were conducted as openly as cigar stores are now, but faro and
keno houses occupied the most prominent locations on lower Fourth street and
were places of common resort. Perhaps there has not been in all the history
of St. Louis a moral movement of such magnitude and complete success as this
one against lotteries. It led up to the supplemental movement successfully
conducted by Charles P. Johnson against gambling. This moral reform was
made effective at St. Louis several years before the general government at
Washington took up the movement and made it national by barring all lottery
business from the United States mails.

The coming of Jenny Lind made one of the notable days of St. Louis.
Early in the morning of the i/th of March, 1851, a group of prominent citizens
of St. Louis stood on the levee awaiting the arrival of the Lexington. In that
day and long afterwards, Duncan's island was a landmark on the river, off the
lower part of St. Louis. Steamboats were in view when they turned the head
of Duncan's island. When the Lexington was sighted, the committee of citizens
distinguished on the hurricane deck a tall, stout man, who was promptly iden-
tified as Phineas Taylor Barnum, the great showman of his generation. Beside
Mr. Barnum stood a little lady in a long cloak. This was Jenny Lind. When
the carriages reached the Planters house, a carpet had been spread down the
staircase and across the sidewalk to the curb. The hotel manager, Mr. Scollay,
appeared, bareheaded and bowing with old school graciousness. He opened
the door of the carriage and escorted the songstress to her rooms. Assembled
in the hotel to extend greeting, were city officials and representatives of the
newspapers.

Mr. Barnum was escorted a little later by Sol Smith and Mr. Balmer to
Wyman's hall, which had been selected for the concerts. Mr. Balmer explained
that a hall was deemed more appropriate for the concerts than a theater, which
might have been obtained. Mr. Barnum replied at once with the acumen of
the born showman: "Very true. Besides an overcrowded small hall, where
the late comers must be turned from the door is always better in its effect on
the public than a great hall with scattering, tell-tale vacant chairs."

Five concerts were given in St. Louis. The price of admission was five
dollars. A limited number of tickets for standing room only, behind the seats

WASHINGTON AVENUE, WEST FROM LAKE STREET

WESTMINSTER PLACE

THE CULTURE OF ST. LOUIS 655

in the balcony, was sold at four dollars. After the audience had been seated,
chairs were brought in and sold at five dollars. There was great demand for
seats. The choice was disposed of by auction. Every morning the auction
was held in the concert hall. An admission price of ten cents to attend the
auction was charged and the receipts from this admission were sent by Mr.
Barnum to Mayor Kennett, with the request to devote the money to charitable
purposes. The highest price paid for first choice the first night was $50.00.
The buyer was a man named Byron, who kept a saloon.

Wyman's hall was on Market between Fourth and Fifth streets. As early
as six o'clock people began to assemble in the street. By eight o'clock the
block was filled with spectators waiting to see the ticket holders arrive. The
programme of the opening night is reproduced :

PROGRAM.

PAET I.

Overture — Massaniello Auber

Aria — ' ' Sorgete ' ' (Mometto Secondo) Rossini

Signer Belletti.

Recitative — ' ' Care Compagne "

Aria — Come per me Sereno (Somnambula) Bellini

Mile. Jenny Lind.

Rondo Russe, on the violin De Beriot

Mr. Joseph Burke.

Duetto — ' ' Per Piacer all Signora" (II Turco in Italia) Rossini

Mile. Jenny Lind and Signer Belletti.

PART II.

Overture — Crown Diamonds Auber

Aria — Paventar (II flauto Magico) Mozart

Mile. Jenny Lind.

Cavatina — Largo al factotum (II Barbiere) Rossini

Signer Belletti.
Trio, for voice and two flutes, composed expressly for Mile. Jenny Lind (Camp

of Silesia) Meyerbeer

Mile. Jenny Lind.
Flutes, Messrs. Kyle and Siede.

Grand Wedding March from Midsummer Night 's Dream Mendelssohn

The Herdsman 's Song, commonly called ' ' The Echo Song "

Mile. Jenny Lind.
Conductor, Mr. Julius Benedict.

For the second night the sale of tickets was rather disappointing. Late
in the afternoon a representative of Mr. Barnum called at the newspaper offices
and music stores and distributed passes in large numbers for the evening per-
formance, stipulating that the ladies for whom they were intended must come
in evening dress. The result was one of the most fashionable and brilliant
audiences of the series. After the second night there was not even standing
room. Thus St. Louis was given an illustration of Barnum tactics. During
the season of the concerts, according to the newspapers of that time, so many
strangers came to St. Louis that the hotel accommodations were exhausted
and the steamboats at the levee converted their cabins into dormitories.

In front of Wyman's hall and across the street were several large trees.
Boys took possession of these before the first concert and did a thriving busi-

656 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

ness, charging five cents a person for the privilege of a seat in the trees. The
evenings were warm. Windows were open. The audience in the trees could
both hear and see. When Jenny Lind sang the bird song, the applause was
taken up in the street, and especially by those in the trees, who shouted re-
peatedly, "Encore," "encore." Jenny Lind looked through the windows, saw
the outside audience, nodded with a smile and repeated the song. The St.
Louis concerts yielded between $35,000 and $40,000. In the troupe was a flute
player named Siede. He created great enthusiasm among the St. Louis audi-
ence by his performance and by his manner. He possessed extraordinary
power of blowing continuously an unusual time without drawing his breath.
On the last day Mr. Barnum met Mayor Kennett, and referring to the contri-
bution from admission to the auction sales, said that Jenny Lind had been so
pleased with the reception she had received from St. Louis that the mayor
would hear from her again before her departure. The next day Mayor Ken-
nett received $2,000 from Jenny Lind and P. T. Barnum jointly, to be devoted
to charitable institutions, which were named. One half of the amount, $1,000,
was "for relief of distressed emigrants of every nation." Professor Waldauer
accompanied the troupe back to New York and then returned to St. Louis. As
he parted from Jenny Lind, the little lady handed him a check for $1,200 "to
pay the expenses of your journey back to St. Louis." During the stay in St.
Louis, social and musical honors were bestowed upon the songstress. A sere-
nade was given by the Polyhymnia society, the leader of which was Jacques
Ernest Miguel. Jenny Lind was so much pleased with this serenade that she
expressed a desire to hear the society in a concert. This was complied with,
the concert being given at Xaupi's hall on Market street. Jenny Lind during
her stay, visited several times at the home of Charles Balmer, who lived in
"Rose Cottage" on Fourth street between Cerre and Gratiot, then a fashionable
neighborhood.

Professor Waldauer described Jenny Lind's singing as heard in St. Louis
in this way: "Such was the purity and flute-like quality of her upper notes
that it was difficult to distinguish between the notes of the singer and those
of the flutes. The cadenzas with which she concluded her song were the most
wonderful climaxes ever heard on the stage. Apparently disregarding all limita-
tions, whether of written music or vocal possibility, she soared away like a
skylark, giving runs and passages of almost incredible scope and difficulty."
One of the best descriptions of the Swedish nightingale as she appeared in
St. Louis was written by Theophile Papin, Sr. He was, at that time, a young
newspaper man, attached to one of the St. Louis newspapers:

Her features were regular, and her expression in repose rather pensive, but she often
smiled in response to the encouragement of her audience, and then her face lighted up,
bespeaking, as it seemed, an unaffected, artless nature. She was essentially of the Ger-
man type, having rather a light complexion and auburn hair, dressed with inverted puffs
in a peculiar style of her own, made familiar to the readers of all the prints and maga-
zines of the day. There was nothing dashing in her deportment, but while singing she
was under constant inspiration. It appeared, however, more from the earnest effort to
perform her part well than from an appeal for applause. She never coquetted with her
audience. Her staple was the solid gold itself. The songstress, with her, must be valued
by the song, and nothing else. Throughout this concert, and through all the subsequent
entertainments, Jenny Lind was greeted at her every return to the stage by the rapturous

GEN. ETHAN ALLEN HITCHCOCK

JAMES RICHARDSON

THE MERCANTILE LIBRARY
Fifth and Locust streets, before the war

THE CULTURE OF ST. LOUIS 657

applause of her auditors. Notwithstanding that they had been well prepared in advance
for extraordinary vocalization, her performance exceeded all the previous promises of
her eulogists.

Seventy years ago musical education and musical interest in St. Louis
received the earliest impetus. And the names of those new comers who intro-
duced into the city of a few thousands this added charm of life are familiar
through their descendants to the present generation. When Wilhelm Robyn
came from Germany to St. Louis, in 1837, he expected to find a city with
developed musical taste. To his surprise the community of about 15,000 per-
sons afforded a scanty support to one music teacher, a Mr. Cramer. There
were very few pianos in St. Louis. The best that the first Professor Robyn
could find to do was the double bass at twelve dollars a week in an orchestra
which played at/ Ludlow's performances. The only church which had a choir
and gave special attention to music was the Cathedral. An Italian named Meri-
lano, whom Bishop Rosati had induced to come to America, played the organ.
Among the principal singers were two young lawyers, Britton Armstrong Hill
and Wilson Primm.

Robyn's coming aroused musical interest here. A musical society was
organized. Rene Paul took the presidency of it. Concerts were given. Wilson
Primm and Wilhelm Robyn played together — one, the violin; the other, the
piano. Primm didn't know a word of German and Robyn hadn't learned
English, but music was a universal language. St. Louis University added music
to the curriculum and appointed Robyn the teacher. Monthly recitals were
given. Music became the fashion. Robyn trained his pupils and gave the
masses of Haydn and Mozart.

Two years after Robyn's arrival, Charles Balmer came from Germany.
Robyn had organized a brass band, writing and arranging the scores. The
band gave a concert with local talent for the benefit of a new hall. Balmer,
the German, was the pianist. Carriere, graduated from the Paris conservatory,
played the flute. An Irishman named Farrell handled the violin. Martinez,
a Spaniard, picked the guitar. Theresa Weber was the soprano. Theresa and
her brother Henry were members of the famous musical Webers, of Germany.
They came to St. Louis about the same time that Balmer did. Theresa Weber
married Charles Balmer. Henry Weber became the partner of his brother-in-
law in the music publishing business. In 1840 Henry Weber started a singing
academy in St. Louis.

Three years after Balmer and the Webers, came another who was to be a
notable factor in the city's musical growth — Nicholas Le Brun, from France.
The Germans of St. Louis organized a military company. They had their
own band and at the head of it marched "Nick" Le Brun, then twenty-three
years old. The fame of Le Brun as a composer as well as a player spread
through the country. In his earlier years he traveled during the season with
circuses but he always came back to St. Louis. After he settled down, toward
1850, he was the great band leader of St. Louis.

Henry Robyn came in 1845 to Jom ms brother Wilhelm. He was not so
prominent personally but the musicians of the city yielded to him the palm
as the organist. He played in the Cathedral. The Institution for the Blind
wanted to encourage musical education. Henry Robyn invented a method for

16- VOL. II.

658 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

printing music so that the blind could read it by touch. The method was em-
ployed long after the inventor went down on the Pomerania.

The decade 1840-1850 saw great progress for St. Louis in musical matters.
Dr. Johann Georg Wesselhoeft, one of the leading German journalists in this
country, came to St. Louis in 1845 and organized the Polyhymnia, the most ambi-
tious musical movement the city had known. Henry Kayser was president. Dr.
George Engelmann, Dr. Adolph Wislizenus, Dr. S. Gratz Moses, and Emile
Karst were among the young members of the Polyhymnia. Inspired by the
enthusiasm of the Polyhymnia, Balmer got together the singers of the city
and produced the whole of "Creation" in a manner which made the perform-
ance the musical event of a generation.

Miguier, Fallon and Carriere were French musicians of high ability in
St. Louis during the decade before the war. Sobolewski became prominent
as a leader about the time the Philharmonic society was organized just before
the war. He was a very eccentric man but he brought together at one time in
united effort the best musical talent of all St. Louis. He wrote an opera
which Liszt praised warmly. He named the production "Courola," after one
of his ten children. Egmont Froehlich came from Germany to lead the Phil-
harmonic. The society went to pieces. The Arion and the Liederkranz became
the leading musical organizations among the Germans of St. Louis. Sobolewski
led the Arion for a time. Egmont Froehlich was connected with the Lieder-
kranz. The Musical Union was the American organization, with Dabney Carr
at the head of it.

The decade 1880-1890 developed many composers and musicians in St.
Louis. William H. Pommer came into more than local note as an author of
songs and comic operas. Waldemar Malmene, E. M. Bowman, E. R. Kroeger,
A. G. Robyn, the Kunkels, Wayman McCreery, Spiering, Waldauer, Anton,
Weil, Poppen, Bode, Poepping, Miss Lina Anton are some of the names en-
titled to mention in connection with the city's musical growth in the past quarter
of a century.

On the west side of Second street, perhaps 100 feet north of Olive, was
a building used for storage, known as "the Old Salt House." This structure
belonged to Scott and Rule. In 1827 James H. Caldwell leased it, added fifty
feet for a stage and transformed the interior into a playhouse. Thereafter, for
a decade, "the Old Salt Theater," as it was called, was the place of amusement
to St. Louisans. A very interesting event in St. Louis theatricals was the
appearance of Charles Keemle, the newspaper proprietor. At a benefit to be
given Mr. Ludlow, Colonel Keemle consented to take part in "The Poor Gentle-
man" for one night only.

In 1836 St. Louis attained the metropolitan dignity which is associated
with high class amusement. On the afternoon of May 24th the cornerstone
of the St. Louis theater, at the corner of Third and Olive streets, was laid
with ceremony. This theater cost $60,000. In design and finish it was con-
sidered one of the finest amusement houses outside of New York City. The
men who headed the enterprise were: N. M. Ludlow, E. H. Beebe, H. S. Cox,
Joseph E. Laveille, C. Keemle and Meriwether Lewis Clark. The opening
of the theater created great local enthusiasm. The patronage, however, was
not sufficient to maintain a playhouse of such elaborate character. This theater

BEN DE BAR

MRS. BEN DE BAR

(Florence Vallee)

THE CULTURE OF ST. LOUIS 659

stood where the postoffice was subsequently located, on the southeast corner
of Third and Olive streets. The lot was sixty feet front on Third street by
one hundred and sixty feet deep on Olive street. For it the syndicate paid,
in 1837, $3,000, which was considered an enormous price at that time. The
building was designed by George I. Barnett. The front was a copy from the
temple of the Erectheum at Athens. Six great columns supported the portico.
Over the front was a figure of Shakespeare. A parquet and three tiers of
galleries contained 1,500 seats. Before the work was undertaken subscriptions
amounting to $65,000 were obtained. When the charter was obtained and the
company was organized, a public meeting was held in the town hall. Books
were opened for popular subscription. The enterprise was an ambitious one
for a community of only 17,000 people. At the inaugural performance a
comedy was played. Then came a "tambour major jig." And then followed
the farce of "Simpson & Co." St. Louisans in 1840 went to the theater to be
amused. This opening performance was given the 3d of July. In those days
the summer season was much favored for theatrical entertainment. This
theater was built with very large windows on the southern side to catch the
prevailing air currents. As a prelude to the opening performance an address
which won the $100 prize in competition with eighteen or twenty efforts was
recited by Joseph M. Field. In the company which opened the theater were
the Fields and Sol. Smith.

At the laying of the corner stone of the Varieties Theater, on the i8th of
August, 1851, Sol Smith officiated as "the oldest man of the theatrical pro-
fession in St. Louis." Many roving characters have found St. Louis a good
place to settle down. Solomon F. Smith was one of them. He was born in
Norwich, N. Y., the first year of the century, the son of a fifer in the Revo-
lutionary war. While he clerked in an Albany store, he read Shakespeare
and was a supernumerary in the local theater. Then, for several years, he was
a wandering printer and an amateur actor. After a trial of the stage, pro-
fessionally, he began to read law. For thirty years he mixed newspaper, legal
and theatrical business, spending more and more of his time in St. Louis. In
1853 he settled permanently in St. Louis, practiced law and politics and was
an Unconditional Union member of the Missouri state convention of 1861.
From his own point of view Sol Smith was not very proud of his career in
his closing years but with his earlier profession he passed into history as one
of the famous comedians of his generation. Upon a plain slab in Bellefontaine
cemetery is engraved:

Sol Smith, Retired Actor.

1801-1869.

' ' Life '& but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. ' '

"All the world's a stage

And all the men and women merely players. ' '
Exit Sol.

Matilda Heron, the great Camille of fifty years ago, first appeared in that
character before a St. Louis audience. She played the part four weeks in 1856.

660 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Her benefit night brought together the largest attendance that had been seen
at a theatrical performance in St. Louis up to that time.

Benedict De Bar, for thirty years connected with the theatrical profession
in St. Louis as actor or manager, was the son of a bookkeeper in the Bank of
England. When he died his body lay in state in Masonic hall. The city
mourned for the Falstaff who had so often amused.

Another actor of the old days who considered himself a St. Louisan and
lived here until his death was Mark Smith, a son of Sol Smith. He played
"Tom Thumb" in St. Louis during the season of 1836, when he was eight years
old. When he was a little older, he was apprenticed to learn iron finishing
in a St. Louis foundry, but got back to the stage and became a comedian.

An entertainment that left an impression on this community was given by
a Miss Cushman in 1851. "Female pedestrianism," the bills announced. Miss
Cushman undertook to walk 500 miles in 500 hours, wearing pink bloomers and
a hat trimmed with cherry colored ribbon. The walking drew large crowds.

The Olympic Theater had its origin with Moses Flannigan of St. Louis,
who proposed to build what he called a "hippo theatron." The present loca-
tion on Fifth street, opposite the Southern, was chosen in 1865. The plans
were drawn for a theater in form but adapted for either circus ring or theatrical
stage performances. The opening of a new place of entertainment in St. Louis
was an occasion of considerable formality. The inaugural performance at
the Olympic on the 23d of April, 1866, was introduced with an address by
L. M. Shreve, the lawyer. Then followed the "grand equestrian entree" of
Levi & North's circus. After that came "single acts of equitation, fancy and
comic." The indoor circus did not appeal to St. Louisans. Flannigan bor-
rowed $30,000 from Dr. Gilbert R. Spaulding and David Bidwell, who were
managing a string of theaters. The Olympic passed into the possession of the
creditors and was made a variety theater in 1867. Two years later it was
established as a legitimate playhouse and has been held strictly to that field-
by Charles Spaulding, and nearly a lifetime was under the active management of
Patrick Short.

In tragic and heroic roles a St. Louisan won international fame. Charles
R. Pope was the son of an architect in Saxony, a friend of Goethe, one of the
Republicans of the Saxon Switzerland. The father's name was Roehr and
that was the boy's name after the family moved to this country in 1840 and
settled in Rochester. The father designed several of the public buildings and
churches of that city. The youth, like some of the best of the actors of that
early day, entered the theatrical profession by way of the printing office. When
he decided to go on the stage he took his mother's name — Pope — and kept it
all of his life. He was twenty-three years of age when he first appeared here
in 1855. After starring in this and other countries twenty years, he built
Pope's Theater, where the Century building i's on Ninth and Olive streets.
Pope and Julia Dean were schoolmates in Rochester. The father of Julia
Dean moved to St. Louis. The daughter grew up in St. Louis and became one
of the most famous of American actresses in her generation.

In 1878 the Veiled Prophet first appeared in St. Louis. The long series
of mystic pageants constitute an extraordinary test of the temperament of the
city. Before the war, seventy years or more ago, Mobile originated this kind

N. M. LUDLOW

ADELINA PATTI
As she appeared in St. Louis

CHARLES R. POPE

JULIA DEAN
DRAMATIC AND MUSICAL ST. LOUIS

THE CULTURE OF ST. LOUIS 661

of entertainment. New Orleans followed. St. Louis came next. Memphis
and Baltimore experimented in the field of mysterious organizations, masked
paraders and tableaux on wheels. But both Memphians and Orioles were
short lived. Kansas City and Omaha imported the idea at later dates with
the Priests of Pallas and Knights of Aksarben.

Two conditions seem vital to success — secrecy of organization, charm of
spectacle. But coupled with these must be a third essential, as necessary as
the others, and that is favoring temperament of the community. The Mystic
Krewe of New Orleans and the Veiled Prophet of St. Louis have been eminently
and continuously successful through long series of years, because they met the
two primary conditions and because they found in these two cities the dis-
tinctive temperament of population. The Cowbellion de Rakin of Mobile chose
New Year's eve as the calendar opportunity for its efforts to amuse. Comus,
Momus, Nereus and the Revelers of New Orleans discovered in the Mardi
Gras period an encouraging public sentiment. The Veiled Prophet selected as
the time of his annual coming the second night of what had been to St. Louisans
for a generation "fair week." Here the test of temperament was instantaneously
promising. The Veiled Prophet has missed no year since 1878.
»/ The Veiled Prophet, and all of his retinue, to the humblest member, are

shrouded in mystery. No member may reveal to those outside his own or
another's connection. In New Orleans, membership in the Mystic Krewe is
reached through membership in a well known social club as a preliminary
step. In St. Louis the Veiled Prophet receives the individual directly into his
following, rather than through another organization. This membership is
limited in number. Candidates are passed upon by a secret committee with
rigid scrutiny from two points of view. The personal quality and the business
or professional standing are seriously considered. One so fortunate as to find
himself duly enrolled is surprised to discover that, no matter what his calling
or his associations, as a follower of the Veiled Prophet he is in the midst of
his friends.

This policy of careful selection of members contributed not a little to the
powerful and enduring character of the organization. Followers of the Veiled
Prophet seldom resign. Membership passes from father to son. Vacancies on
the list are few from year to year and quickly filled. There is no organized
body of public purpose, membership in which is so highly prized. Neither
politics nor religion cuts any figure in the availability of the candidate. To
be accepted is no ordinary tribute to a man's standing in the community. A
measure of success in his calling, undoubted respectability, a degree of public
spirit — these are qualifications without which none enters.

Assigned to duty on the night of the pageant, the follower of the Veiled
Prophet sheds his personality with his raiment. He becomes a number. As
such he receives his costume. His instructions are given to him by his number.
His place in the pageant is indicated by number. His belongings are stored in
a locker which bears the corresponding number. His name is not spoken until
the service of the night is finished.

The issue of invitations to the Veiled Prophet ball is a matter of careful
detail. A policy as purposeful as that which hedges about the membership is
applied. The good of the order dominates in the discrimination which is exer-

662 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

cised in the secret censorship of the invitation list. The Veiled Prophet has
the memory of an Indian. And this applies to good or ill. The families of
those who have been loyal followers of the Veiled Prophet in their lifetimes
are remembered with the gratifying courtesy of the annual invitation.

Each member submits a limited list of friends for whom he desires in-
vitations. He enters the names and addresses upon a blank form. This form
in no way indicates to the uninitiated the purpose for which it is intended. It
indicates a quota of names. By the briefly worded direction it is to be sent
to a numbered postoffice box. Later, although he may have sent in his full list,
the member may receive notice that his quota permits one or more additional
nominations. This may mean that the member has duplicated a nomination
sent in previously by another member. It may mean that his list contained a
nomination decided by the secret censorship to be ineligible for an invitation
to the ball. No explanation is asked or offered. The Veiled Prophet's follow-
ing is established upon mutual confidence and loyalty. No decision of the secret
tribunal on invitations is questioned.

To the list of invitations no society test, in the common use of the term,
is applied. But the elect of the Veiled Prophet must be of good character.
The list from year to year shows a wide representation of the social life of the
city. It represents all good elements of society. It is rigidly exclusive of those
who are not in good repute. No business or professional circle dominates the
membership. No social set dictates the annual distribution of invitations and
souvenirs. The guests are representative of the city in the best sense.

In 1856 the St. Louis Fair was inaugurated. With the exception of the
Civil war period, when the buildings and grounds were occupied for a great
camp, the Fair was given each year, with growing prestige, until it became
known widely, drawing exhibitors and visitors from all parts of the Mississippi
Valley. To this Fair the citizens of St. Louis devoted the first week in October.
Thursday of that week was observed as a municipal holiday. Street illumina-
tions and festivities were added in 1870-1880 to the attractions of Fair week.
Early in 1878 the idea of a night pageant was suggested. October of that year
the experiment was tried. It more than stood the test of popular approval.
Tuesday night of Fair week was chosen for the event.

The St. Louis Fair flourished nearly half a century and then languished.
The city had outgrown an agricultural exhibition. A down town exposition
created by business men, headed by Samuel M. Kennard, was attended with
great success for a period of nearly twenty years. This absorbed the mechan-
ical features of the Fair. The last of the annual Fairs was held just before
the World's Fair of 1904. The Veiled Prophet's pageant survived the Fair.
It was given the year of the World's Fair and proved to be one of the most
attractive events.

When it is stated that each year the twenty or more floats presented by
the Veiled Prophet, together with the ball which follows, cost nearly $50,000,
an impression of the elaborate character of the event is received. During the
thirty years the subjects chosen for illustration have varied widely. The first
year the Creation was pictured in moving illuminated tableaux. Then came
The Progress of Civilization, The Four Seasons, A Day Dream of Woodland
Life, Around the World, Fairyland, The Return of Shakespeare, Arabian
Nights, American History, History of the Bible.

V

THE CULTURE OF ST. LOUIS 663

It will be observed that the underlying motive of these themes was some-
thing more than passing delight to the vision.

The Most Popular Authors, The History of the Louisiana Territory, The
Holidays, The Flight of Time, Visions of Childhood, Rulers of Nations, Lyric
Opera, Humor, Fairy Tales — these have been among the subjects illustrated.

The construction of the floats was a matter of elaborate detail. Work
upon the floats began early in the year and continued without interruption up
to the night of the parade. In the beginning it was necessary to import the
costumes from Paris. Later all of the construction work, not only upon the
floats but upon the costumes, was done in St. Louis. The Grand Oracle's robes
were of heavy satin, trimmed with gold, and lined with silk. Every article he
wore was the finest procurable and every article was made new each year.

The stranger, blase with the sights of the world, marvels at the popular
hold of the Veiled Prophet. He sees the population of a great city densely
massed along a route of five miles. He hears but few loud shouts of applause.
The long line of floats passes through hedges of humanity almost as mute as
the costumed figures in the tableaux.

The multitudes come. They wait patiently. They greet decorously the
Veiled Prophet at the head of his retinue. They stand absorbed until the last
float has passed. They melt away. Twelve months later they are back again,
with their cousins from out of town, to gaze on the mystic spectacle. No
diminution of the people's interest in the Veiled Prophet is discernible. On
the contrary the throngs on the streets grow with the years. The urgency of
requests for invitations increases.

The actual money cost of these pageants in St. Louis, from 1878 to 1911,
has been considerably more than $1,000,000. But dollars do not tell of the
time and thought given in the months of preparation each year. The Veiled
Prophet is not a repeater. Most certainly he is not a fakir in romance or
history. He exacts originality. He insists upon high ideals. A general theme
must be selected. The subject of each of the twenty or more tableaux must
be determined. It must be a consistent chapter in the general theme. Then
each tableau becomes a topic of concern, as to detail, personal as well as senti-
mental. And finally the living characters, as well as the inanimate figures, the
architecture and the decorations must be fitting.

In every detail of costume and movement historical accuracy must be
observed. The Veiled Prophet is critical in the extreme. As the years go by,
as the viewing multitudes become experienced, the Veiled Prophet grows more*
exacting. One year poetic license was given scope. History was sacrificed.
The theme was "The Old-Time Songs." In the illustration of "Comin' Thro'
the Rye," the Veiled Prophet sanctioned the common misinterpretation and
presented a field of rye, instead of the Scottish stream named Rye. The com-
ment of erudite critics upon the historical lapse grieved the Veiled Prophet
sorely. No liberties with history have been taken since that year.

St. Louis was a city of horse cars, of gas lamps, of 330,000 population,
when the Veiled Prophet bumped and creaked his first journey over a mile
and a half of macadamized and wooden paved streets. The route was from
Lucas Market place to the Chamber of Commerce. In 1911 the distance
traversed is three or four times as great. The floats roll along asphalt streets

664 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

which had neither pavement nor sidewalks in those early days. The electric
current from the trolley is the illuminant. It has taken the place of the oil
lamps, the flambeaux and the Roman candles which lighted the pageant for
twenty years. The Veiled Prophet has kept pace with the city's growth and
improvement.

The wheels of the floats are now iron and flanged like the street cars.
They roll smoothly on the tracks. The application of the trolley was the solu-
tion of a difficult electrical problem; first, to insure personal safety of the
Veiled Prophet and his retinue from dangerous shock; second, to guard against
destruction of floats from short circuiting. From year to year the electrical
application has been improved upon, until now the system includes an arrange-
ment of shades and reflectors which prevents the light from dazzling spectators
and concentrates it upon the tableaux.

The temperament of the community ! Without that favoring, the organiza-
tion and the preparation would be powerless to compel success. The Veiled
Prophet is not more popular with one element than with another among the
people of St. Louis. Wide-eyed and wondering, the ranks of faces of every
hue and nation which enter into the population of the city are raised with like
degree of interest when the Veiled Prophet passes. The mystic pageant tem-
perament pervades all St. Louis. It is lacking in most other cities of approxi-
mate latitude. It does not exist to any degree on the Atlantic coast or on the
Great Lakes. It is unknown beyond the Rocky Mountains. But here, in the
heart of the country, with the most thoroughly composite population, the most
typical Americans, the Veiled Prophet is at home.

CHAPTER XXVI.
THE MEN OF ST. LOUIS

Early Blending of Population — Weimar's Painting of "The Landing" — St. Louis the Con-
verging Point of Migration — First Families of St. Louis — Ortes, the Companion of
Laclede — Four Sarpy Brothers — The Papins — Spanish Officers Who Became St. Louisans —
The Tostis and the Vigos — Founder of the House of Soulard — William Bissette's Generous
Will — Why Guion Wouldn't Wear a Uniform — Personal Honor a Century Ago — Ameri-
cans Who Came Before the Flag — The Easton Family — Major William Christy and His
Seven Daughters — The Father of North St. Louis — Coming of the McKnights and Bradys
— Befugees of the French Revolution — Connecticut's Notable Contribution — Erin Benev-
olent Society of 1818 — The Farrars — The Gratiots — Missouri Lodge in 1815 — The Billons
— The Morrisons — St. Louis Sociologically in 1835 — German Immigration — The Blow
Family — Emigres from the West Indies — Friendships Kossuth Renewed in St. Louis —
When One-third of the Population Was of German Birth — Census Returns Analyzed —
"Most American of Cities" — The Marylanders — Army and Navy Influences — The Group
of Octogenarians in 1895 — Moral Fibre of St. Louisans Tested in Several Generations.

There never was so much talent, so much ability In all branches of life as was connected
with the building up of St. Louis. The merchants, the mechanics, the lawyers have left their
names on the pages of history. There were determination and purpose with them such as have
never been united in the same number of men in the building up of any other town. You may
say that St Louis was most fortunate after the acquisition of Louisiana. All proud spirits, the
men of ambition, men of spirit and determination nocked here. — John F. Darby.

"Municipal history, or state history, or national history," said George E.
Leighton, one of the most thoughtful citizens of St. Louis in his generation,
"is in its last analysis but the record of the men who have conceived and
executed projects that lift the city, or state, or nation over the years and push
it forward in the march of civilization."

Blending of the population of St. Louis began early. Creation of the
typical American has been progressive through the generations since "the first
thirty" landed. In the first thirty were those who had come from New Orleans
with the expedition, a few from Ste. Genevieve, several from Fort Chartres
and vicinity. As he passed through Cahokia on his way by the wagon road
to join Auguste Chouteau on the site, Laclede was joined by several families.

Gallic strains most virile entered into the earliest blending to populate
St. Louis. Laclede was of noble family, but of hardy vigorous stock developed
in the valleys of the Pyrenees. The first thirty were "mechanics of all trades."
They dragged their boat up the Mississippi and began the building of St. Louis
in the middle of February. What better proof of their physical qualities could
be given!

In the panels of the dome of the court house are historical paintings made
by Weimar. The east panel Mr. Weimar devoted to a sketch of the landing
of "the first thirty." He endeavored to be historically accurate. He consulted
with an aged Frenchman of Carondelet, named LaConte. This local authority
claimed that the boat which brought the party was in use for some years follow-
ing the arrival, and that he saw it frequently. The boat, he said, was known
as the one which brought Laclede's advance force. LaConte made a sketch

665

666 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

of the boat as he remembered it, and from the sketch Mr. Weimar painted the
boat in the picture. LaConte also gave a description of Laclede. Mr. Weimar
painted Laclede in the party on the boat, following the description given by
Mr. LaConte. The presence of Laclede was not historically accurate, as the
boat was in charge of Auguste Chouteau, who had been sent on by the founder
to begin the settlement. Weimar represented the boat as nearing the bank.
Large forest trees were growing almost at the edge of the water. The Indians-
were pictured as standing on the bank in welcoming attitudes. A spring of
water flowed out of the rocks near the landing place. The great unwieldy
craft was dragged up the ice-bordered river from Fort Chartres in five days.
The next morning these pioneers were out with their axes building St. Louis.
They spoke French. But most of them had never seen France. They traced
back their family descent to ancestors who had come from various provinces
of the mother country, some by way of the mouth of the Mississippi; more, to
the St. Lawrence.

One of the oldest members of the little party which, under the leadership
of Auguste Chouteau, dragged the boat along the Mississippi river shore from
Fort Chartres to the site which Laclede had selected for St. Louis was Joseph
Taillon. He was forty-nine years of age when he took his turn at the cordelle
rope in hauling the boat. He lived in St. Louis to be ninety-two years old
and to see the flag of the United States raised over the fort. Joseph Taillon
died one year before the incorporation of St. Louis. He was a Canadian by
birth, as was his wife, Marie Louise Bossett. There were eight children in
the Taillon family; four of them were daughters. Old Joseph Taillon lived
on Main and Market streets, which was in the next block to the government
headquarters. His popularity and standing are attested by the fact that he was
chosen one of the sindics, or village overseers, of St. Louis. Not long after
coming to St. Louis the spelling of the family name was changed from Taillon
to Tayon. The son of old Joseph Tayon, Charles, was a lieutenant in the militia
company. He became the first commandant at St. Charles.

The four daughters of Joseph Tayon married Jacques Chauvin, Etienne
Daigle, Paul Gregory Kiersereau and Louis Chevallier. A granddaughter of
Joseph Tayon, Pelagic Kiersereau, was the first wife of Pierre Chouteau, Sr.
The name of Tayon was given to one of the avenues of St. Louis a great many
years ago. There are several scores of descendants of Joseph Tayon of this
generation in St. Louis.

Nicholas Beaugenoti was a man well advanced in years when he came to
St. Louis with "the first thirty." His wife's name was Henrion. Both Nicholas
Beaugenou and his wife were born in Canada. They had seven children, of
whom five were daughters. These five daughters were: Maria Josepha, who
married Toussaint Hunaut, according to the archives, the first marriage cele-
bration in St. Louis ; Helen, who married James Brunei La Sabloniere ; Therese;
who married Joachim D'eau; Agnes Frances, who married Joseph Huge, and
Elizabeth, who married Alexis Loise. Nicholas Beaugenou's oldest son, named
after him, lived for sixty years in and about St. Louis. He was known in his
boyhood as Fifi. What is now called Fee Fee Creek, in the western part of
St. Louis county, took its title from Nicholas Beaugenou, Jr., whose favorite
occupation was riding about St. Louis county and trading farms.

THE MEN OF ST. LOUIS 667

One of the largest groups of descendants of the founders of St. Louis
now living in the city came from the Mainville-Chancellier family. Joseph
Mainville was one of "the first thirty" and with him came two youngsters,
Louis Chancellier and Joseph Chancellier, twelve and fourteen years of age
at that time. The Chancellier boys were brothers of Annie Chancellier, wife
of Joseph Mainville. Mainville was a carpenter. The family lived on Main
and Locust streets. Joseph Mainville had seven children, five of them daugh-
ters. All five of them married. One of them, Theresa, had two husbands,
Joseph Desautelle and Louis Lemonde. The second daughter had three hus-
bands— Pierre Gagnon, P. D. Joliboix and Charles Cardinal. Julie Mainville
married Joseph Hubert. Pelagic Mainville married Joseph Lagrave. Marie
Anne married Auguste Filteau.

The two Chancellier boys left families. Joseph married Elizabeth Becquet,
who was a daughter of John B. Becquet, the miller. There were three daugh-
ters born to Joseph Chancellier. After the death of the husband Mrs. Joseph
Chancellier married Antoine Gauthier, of St. Charles. Louis Chancellier mar-
ried Marie Louise Deschamps. He died leaving an infant son. His widow
followed the example of her sister-in-law and took a second husband, from
St. Charles, Joseph Beauchamp.

John B. Gamache was one of "the first thirty." He was a farmer and
lived in St. Louis and Carondelet until after the American transfer of the
Louisiana Purchase to American sovereignty. He left four children, three of
them sons, and was not only one of the founders of St. Louis, but the founder
of one of the best known families.

Rene Kiersereau was a middle-aged man. He was the leader of the
choruses which "the first thirty" sang as they dragged the boat up the river.
After the settlement was founded Rene Kiersereau became the church chorister
or "chantre," and when there was no priest in St. Louis he officiated at various
church ceremonies. Rene Kiersereau was a native of France. He married,
Marie M. Robillard. He had five children, four of them daughters. One of
the daughters married Louis Aubuchon, a large family preserving the name.
The other three Kiersereau girls married Francois Faustin, Pierre Choret and
Gabriel Latreille. Rene Kiersereau had two brothers, Paul and Gregory, who
settled in St. Louis, but they came shortly after "the first thirty."

Two Martigny brothers, John B. and Joseph L., came in with the first
boat. John Baptiste Martigny was born in Canada. His wife was a native
of Fort Chartres, Illinois. He became one of the solid citizens of St. Louis,
building a stone house at Main and Walnut, into which the Spanish governor
moved. John B. Martigny was better known as Captain Martigny. He com->
manded the militia organization of the settlement. He left no children, his
property going to Mrs. Martigny's niece, who was the wife of Hyacinthe St.
Cyr. Joseph Lemoine Martigny was an Indian trader. No record of any
descendant has been found.

Another Indian trader numbered among "the first thirty" was Jean Salle
Lajoie. He was a native of France and unmarried when he came to St. Loliis,
a member of "the first thirty." He married here Marie Rose Vidalpano, who
was a native of Taos, New Mexico. There was one daughter, Helen, who
married Benjamin Lerou, one of the first merchants. One of her two daugh-

668 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

ters, Marie Angelique, married Peter Primm, from Virginia, and from them
descended the Primm family. Another daughter, Helen Salle Lajoie, married
James Lafferty. The wife of Lajoie, or Jean Salle, as he was also known,
lived on Elm street between Fourth and Fifth streets, as late as 1830, attaining
the age of one hundred and seven years, according to Billon, the historian.

Gabriel Dodier was one of the two blacksmiths in "the first thirty." The
Dodier and the Becquet family were connected by marriage, Francoise Dodier
being the wife of John B. Becquet, the blacksmith. There were two John B.
Becquets, the second being John B. Becquet, the miller. The latter moved
to St. Genevieve. John B. Becquet, the blacksmith, built his home and shop
on Main and Myrtle streets and lived there thirty-two years.

Julien LeRoy was a young man. He had come with his wife, Marie Bar-
bara Saucier, from Mobile, Alabama, to Fort Chartres, Illinois, about nine
years before the founding of St. Louis. He became one of the most active
house builders in St. Louis, building and selling to those who came after the
founders. He had seven children, all sons but the second, Madelaine. The
daughter married Francis Hebert. The LeRoy family dropped the Le and
became known by the name of Roy. Descendants of Julien LeRoy are nu-
merous, especially in the southern part of the city.

John B. Riviere was one of the youngest of "the first thirty." He was
only twelve years of age at the time he came. He married Margaret Vial. A
few months later the father of John B. Riviere came, driving the cart which
conveyed Madame Chouteau and her children. Besides Antoine, the father,
and John B. Riviere, the son, there were several other members of the Riviere
family who settled in St. Louis and vicinity. They became prominent in the
early history of Florissant. Antoine Riviere died at Florissant at the age of
one hundred and ten.

As early as its first year, 1764, St. Louis was a converging point of migra-
tion seeking permanent homes. Generations of these pioneer people in America
had softened the speech, had added to the vocabulary, had supplemented the
customs. While branches of these families, at home in France, were thinking
the way to republican theories, the American offshoots were breathing free air
and practicing liberty by instinct. There was little that was Parisian, and
nothing of degeneracy, physical or mental, in the first families that settled
St. Louis.

About the time Pierre Laclede, in the family chateau of Bedous, was
dreaming his plans to found a colony in the New World, another family of
France, near Agen on the Garonne, was preparing to divide its energies between
the mother country and New France. There were six brothers and four sisters
in the house of Charles Sarpy. Five of the brothers came to America and
four of them were among the earliest residents and business men of St. Louis.
The oldest, the first John B. Sarpy in this country, was a merchant in New
Orleans when Laclede lived there. Two years after St. Louis was founded
this John B. Sarpy came here. He was a merchant in the settlement for twenty
years. Silvestre Delor Sarpy and Pierre Lestamp Sarpy came later. The head
of the Sarpy family, which became numerous and influential in the develop-
ment of St. Louis, was a fourth brother, Gregoire Berald Sarpy. He arrived
here, a young man of twenty-two, in 1786. He married a granddaughter of

THE MEN OF ST. LOUIS 669

the founder, Pelagic Labbadie. The eldest son of this union, John B. Sarpy,
was the man of great reserve force, the director of the internal affairs of the
fur house of Pierre Chouteau & Co. in 1830-1840. Berthold, died in 1831,
Pratte in 1837, John P. Cabanne in 1841. John B. Sarpy entered the house
when he was nineteen. As the elder partners passed away, and as Pierre Chou-
teau gave more and more attention to outside business, being absent from the
city, the responsibilities of the internal management devolved upon John B.
Sarpy. Unlike some of the other descendants of early French settlers, John B.
Sarpy took a deep interest in national politics. In 1824, St. Louisans cast their
first votes for presidential electors. Only 295 votes were recorded in St. Louis.
Of the voters only thirty-nine were of the French families. One of them was
John B. Sarpy. He was one of 125 St. Louisans who voted for Henry Clay.
For the Adams elector, St. Louis gave ninety-nine votes. The Jackson elector
received seventy-one votes.

One of the pioneer settlers had followed the fortunes of Laclede from
earliest manhood. John Baptiste Ortes was born in the province of Bearne,
near the Pyrenees. He was thirteen years younger than Laclede. The elder
brother of Laclede was a high official of the District of Bearne. When Pierre
Laclede came to Louisiana in 1755, John Baptiste Ortes, a boy of eighteen,
accompanied him. Ortes was with Laclede at the founding of St. Louis. He
had learned the trade of a carpenter. He married in St. Louis and lived here
until 1814. His wife, who was Elizabeth Barada, born in Vincennes, lived in
St. Louis until 1868, dying at the age of one hundred and four years. She was
brought to St. Louis by her parents in 1768. She lived here one hundred years.
A large picture of Madame Ortes hung in the old Southern hotel. Ortes, like
some other pioneer settlers, did not leave his name to posterity. His children
were daughters.

Three generations of Papins had lived in Canada when St. Louis was
founded. Joseph Papin was at Fort Chartres when Laclede came up the
Mississippi with the expedition. His son, Joseph Marie Papin, was in France
receiving his education. Joseph Papin arranged to join Laclede's settlement
of St. Louis, and went to France to bring out his son. The family was one
of the earliest to take residence at St. Louis. The son married the second
daughter of Laclede.

One of the Spanish officers who came to St. Louis with Governor Piernas
was Benito Vasquez. That was in 1770. Vasquez was so well satisfied with
St. Louis that he made the settlement his permanent residence. He married
a French wife, Julie Papin. In 1783 Baronet Vasquez was born of this union.
He was one of twelve children, six boys and six girls. When American sover-
eignty was established over the country west of the Mississippi, Baronet Vas-
quez was just of age. He was picked out as one of the young men of St. Louis
to receive recognition from the United States government. He was made an
ensign in the United States army and rose to the position of first lieutenant.
When General Pike made his expedition across the plains to the Rocky Moun-
tains, Baronet Vasquez accompanied him. Pike took a great liking to the
young Spanish-Frenchman who had become an American. In his report of
the expedition he refers to him frequently as "Barony." Antoine Bareda was
a cadet in the Spanish garrison. He sued his superior officer, Lieutenant

670 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Gomez, for calling him "an ass," left the army, became a citizen of St. Louis
and married into one of the French families. A member of the Spanish garri-
son, who became a man of importance in St. Louis, was Joseph Alvarez Hortiz.
He married into the Becquet family, acquired property, was the secretary to
Governors Trudeau and Delassus, and had charge of the public records at the
time of the American occupation. One of his daughters was Madame Landre-
ville. Another of these Spanish soldiers who married a French wife and re-
mained in St. Louis was Eugenio Alvarez.

The Yosti and Vigo families, of Italian origin, were akin. The former
family came to St. Louis in 1777. Both the Yostis and Vigos were strongly
sympathetic with the American movement for independence. Emilien Yosti,
a younger member of the family, owned and occupied the building on Main
and Walnut streets, where Spanish sovereignty ceased in 1804. He was a
member of the first grand jury organized after the occupation. In his home
the court of quarter sessions held the first meeting.

Antoine Chenie was one of the valuable citizens St. Louis obtained from
Canada. He came in 1795, bringing capital to engage in the fur trade, and a
spirit of enterprise which was important to the community. Soon after his
arrival Monsieur Chenie was surprised to learn that St. Louis had no bakery.
He sent back to Canada, engaged a good baker and set him up in business.
The shop ran without competition for some years, making money. It was
bought out by Daniel D. Page, who also made money. The Chenies settled
in Quebec a hundred years before St. Louis was founded. They belonged to
a family of high position in France. Antoine Chenie received a good education
at the College of Montreal before he came to St. Louis. He married Marie
Therese Papin, a granddaughter and namesake of Madame Chouteau.

Moses Austin came to Missouri from Connecticut, by way of Virginia. He
had operated lead mines at Wytheville. When he arrived, in 1799, the Spanish
governor at St. Louis conferred upon Mr. Austin the grant of one league
square of the Potosi lead field on condition that Mr. Austin erect a furnace
and apply other ideas, the result of his experience in Virginia, which were
new to the province. Mr. Austin erected the first ash furnace, and in three
years had obtained a monopoly of the smelting of the district. He showed
the French lead miners how to make sheet lead on a flat rock. He built a shot
tower in 1799 on the Mississippi river and made bullets for the Spanish arsenals
at New Orleans and Havana.

When Antoine Soulard came to St. Louis, by horseback to Pittsburg, and
then down the Ohio by keel boat about 1795, Upper Louisiana was very much
in need of some one with the scientific ability to lay out the grants which
Zenon Trudeau, the Spanish governor was issuing to encourage American
settlement. Soulard came of a military family in France. His father was
captain in the French Royal navy and lost an arm, shot off by a cannon ball
in a sea fight with the English. Antoine Soulard was a lieutenant in the Royal
army, and was compelled to flee to escape the guillotine when the revolution
came. He succeeded in reaching Marblehead by a sailing vessel, and hearing
that St. Louis people were mostly French, he started across the country for
this settlement. Governor Trudeau welcomed the refugee to his house. As

THE MEN OF ST. LOUIS 671

soon as he learned of Lieutenant Soulard's scientific knowledge he made him
surveyor general of Upper Louisiana. When Governor Delassus succeeded
Trudeau he continued Surveyor General Soulard in office. When the province
was transferred to the United States, in 1804, the American captain confirmed
Mr. Soulard in his position, and when General Harrison took charge of the
province he also retained the surveyor general. Mr. Soulard at length gave
up the position voluntarily and retired to his farm, which is now a thickly built
portion of the city from Park avenue to Lesperance street, and from the river
west to Carondelet avenue. The Soulard farm became famous for the finest
fruit orchard in St. Louis. Marriage to Julia Cerre, the daughter of Gabriel
Cerre, made Antoine Soulard the brother-in-law of Auguste Chouteau, who
had married Therese Cerre. Three sons of Antoine Soulard, who died in 1825,
were James G. Soulard, Henry G. Soulard and Benjamin A. Soulard.

John Lewis was one of the first of the Virginians who settled in St. Louis.
He came in 1797 and took a farm near the village. One of his daughters
married a son of Daniel Boone and another was Mrs. Corbin, who owned
"Stoddard addition."

One of the wealthiest of the first settlers was William Bissette. He was
of Canadian origin. Bissette had been in business at Fort Chartres several
years when Laclede came to found St. Louis. Such was his admiration for
Laclede that he chose him to distribute his estate to his nine brothers and
sisters. The old bachelor left five hundred livres to buy ornaments for the
little log church, which had been recently erected. He left several handsome
bequests. He gave a thousand livres to his clerk, Juan La Montague. He
directed that his business be allowed to go on for two years with La Montague
as a partner, receiving half of the profits "to give La Montague a chance to
establish himself in business."

Hyacinthe St. Cyr, a Canadian, and Helen Hebert, of Illinois, were married
in St. Louis in 1783. They had fifteen children. One of their daughters mar-
ried William Christy. Hyacinthe St. Cyr built houses and handled property.
He was one of the most active and enterprising inhabitants of the colonial
period.

The case of the Guion family illustrated the early commingling of strains
which made the St. Louis stock sturdy and independent. The founder of the
family was born on the Illinois side of the river half a century before St. Louis
was settled. He came to this side with Laclede to establish St. Louis. The
Guions were Scotch and French. One of the descendants was James Amabel
GuioH, for twenty years an official upholder of law and order, part of the time
as a police officer and part of the time as city jailer. He was chief of police.
When the ordinance requiring police officers to wear uniforms went into effect,
he resigned. He said it was un-American. He held that policemen were purely
civil officers and that only soldiers should be uniformed. This sturdy character
dealt vigorously with the disturbances of his period.

"Amongst their virtues, we may enumerate honesty and punctuality in
their dealings, hospitality to strangers, friendship and affection amongst rela-
tives and neighbors," wrote Brackenridge of these people who were Spaniards
one day, French the next day, and Americans the third day. The first settler

672 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

to put a lock on his smoke house in the country north of the settlement was an
American. The act was considered an affront to the neighborhood. There was
great indignation. Threats were made to remove the lock forcibly.

The high sense of personal honor and justice which characterized St.
Louisans in the early period of St. Louis was illustrated by an incident in the
family of Joseph Charless, the founder of the first newspaper. Joseph Charless,
the second, learned the trade of his father, that of printer, but did not follow it
He went into the wholesale drug business. When the elder Charless died, in
1834, he wanted to leave his estate to his namesake and trusted son, following
the old world custom. Joseph Charless, the second, persuaded his father, while
the latter was in his last illness, to make equal distribution of the property
interests to all of the heirs.

Perhaps the earliest realization of what financial panic meant came to St.
Louis, the town, in 1819. It brought out a good illustration of the official in-
tegrity which was standard in those days. Pierre Didier was treasurer of the
territory of Missouri. He had $20,000 of public money. The funds would not
be needed for six months. Pierre Chouteau and Bernard Pratte were Didier's
bondsmen. They went to the treasurer, told him they were hard up for cash
and wanted to borrow $1,000 apiece for ninety days. Didier seemed very
sympathetic, but said he didn't have the money. Pratte and Chouteau suggested
that the amounts might be taken from the territorial money.

"My friends," said Didier, "it is not my money. You cannot get him.
Here is my house and lot, my horse, my cow, and my bed. Take them and self
them at auction and relieve yourselves."

It seems that Pratte and Chouteau had gone to Didier to try him rather
than to get the loans. According to the story which was preserved by William
Grymes Pettus and deposited with the Historical society, the bondsmen wanted
to assure themselves that the territory funds, for which they had given security
were all right. They went away, Mr. Pettus said, "perfectly satisfied that Didier
was an honest man."

When the American flag went up at St. Louis, 1804, the population of the
town was about 1,000. In the immediately surrounding country were 2,000
people. Before these figures are dismissed as of little consequence, let it be
recalled that four years earlier, the United States had taken its second census.
The population of the entire territory, which is now Illinois, Indiana, Michigan
and Wisconsin, was only 4,875, in 1800. In the sixteen states and three terri-
tories of the Union were 5,305,366 people. By comparison St. Louis had a
place on the map more important than the number of inhabitants would indicate
to this generation. It was not an assemblage altogether alien which the Amer-
ican captain faced when he raised the flag. Americans had been settling in
St. Louis. Calvin Adams had brought his wife and boys from Connecticut.
His home was at Main and Plum streets. John Boly and his three sons and
three daughters were from Pennsylvania. John Gates, an American, had mar-
ried into the Morin family. William Sullivan had lived among the French
pioneers so long that General William Henry Harrison thought it good policy
to make him the constable and coroner under American authority. Sullivan
also kept the jail for several years and rose to the dignity of justice of the

JOHN K. RYCHLICKT

CHARLES P. CHOUTEAU

THE FIRST BENOIST RESIDENCE ON MAIN AND ELM STREETS

Built about 3700

FRANCIS W. THOMPSON HENRY T. MUDD

STRONG TYPES OF ST. LOUISANS

THE MEN OF ST. LOUIS 673

peace when Missouri became a full fledged territory of the United States. James
Ranken was another American resident under three flags. He was the first
sheriff. David Rohrer and John Biggs were Americans living in St. Louis in
1804.

When Governor William Henry Harrison and the Indiana judges visited
St. Louis in 1804 to frame laws for the new addition to the United States,
Rufus Easton came with them. He was a young lawyer in search of an opening.
Born in Connecticut he had studied law in Litchfield. With his license to
practice he had tried an interior town in New York. Forming the acquaintance
of DeWitt Clinton, he went to Washington and passed the winter of 1803-4.
There he met Vice-President Aaron Burr. Encouraged by the general interest
that the Louisiana Purchase aroused, Rufus Easton determined to go to New
Orleans and open a law office. He started by way of the Ohio, but stopping
over in Vincennes to familiarize himself with territorial laws and practice he
decided to make St. Louis instead of New Orleans his place of settlement.

There are few names connected officially with the history of St. Louis
in more ways than are those of Rufus Easton and Alton R. Easton, his son.
Rufus Easton was named by President Jefferson as one of the first judges.
He was next appointed United States attorney. He was elected and reelected
Delegate to Congress. He was the first postmaster of St. Louis and held the
position nine years, until he was tired of it. President Monroe made him United
States district attorney.

Alton R. Easton was one of the younger children of Rufus Easton. He
was sent to West Point. When he returned he studied medicine with Dr. Samuel
Merry. Later he held a position in what was then a government office of great
importance — receiver of public money. His military training led to the selection
of young Easton to command the crack local military company, the St. Louis
Grays. At the outset of the Mexican war the St. Louis Legion went into service
under Colonel Easton, who became, in succession, assistant treasurer of the
United States at St. Louis, a member of the county court, inspector general
of the state during the Civil war, assessor of internal revenue and pension agent.
The Easton family has the distinction of having given the name to one of the
most important thoroughfares of the city. Many streets were named to honor
pioneer citizens of prominence. Some of them, in the evolution of the city,
have not fulfilled expectations of importance.

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark came back from their marvelous
expedition to the mouth of the Columbia to make their homes in St. Louis.
Against ties of family in Virginia and Kentucky, in the balance opposed to
opportunities for political preferment at Washington and for military advance-
ment in the army they put the attractiveness of St. Louis as a place of residence
and the association with development of the Louisiana Territory. There is
nothing to show that either regretted the choice. Meriwether Lewis did not
leave posterity, but the descendants of Clark multiplied and many of them have
known no other home than St. Louis.

"Wise in council and swift in action" was the way Meriwether Lewis
described Major William Christy when he appointed him commander-in-chief
for the Territory of Louisiana and major-commandant of Louisiana Rangers

17- VOL. II.

674 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

in 1809. Major Christy was of Pennsylvania birth. His ancestors were Scotch.
His father was a captain under Braddock, and was with George Washington
in the retreat. William Christy served as an officer in frontier campaigns until
his health was shattered. He married Martha Thompson Taylor, of Kentucky,
who was related to two presidents of the United States, Madison and Taylor,
and moved to St. Louis in 1804. He was, during his thirty-three years resi-
dence in St. Louis, a conspicuous figure, six feet high, erect and soldierly in
figure, dignified in movement. He combed his hair straight back from the
forehead, after a fashion of his own, and it fell to the coat collar. Three of
the daughters of Major William Christy married officers of the United States
army, who became well known residents of St. Louis — Captain James H. Dean,
Major Thomas Wright and Major Taylor Berry. There were seven of these
Christy girls. Their descendants in St. Louis number hundreds. Major Christy
was the father of North St. Louis. He was the pioneer in the city's movement
up the river. His son-in-law, Major Thomas Wright, joined him in these ex-
tensive real-estate transactions. A partner was Colonel William Chambers, who
came from Kentucky. Major Christy was very patriotic. When he laid off
his real estate in North St. Louis he chose for many of the streets such names
as Madison, Monroe, Warren, Montgomery.

The .coming of the McKnights and the Bradys was an event of 1809.
John McKnight and Thomas Brady were the leading spirits in this lively crowd.
Of the McKnights there were John, Thomas, James, Robert and William. The
McKnights and the Bradys bought a boat at Pittsburg. They rowed down the
Ohio and up the Mississippi to St. Louis. The boat carried a stock of goods
as well as the two families. The store of McKnight & Brady was opened.
For a short time after the arrival the McKnights and Bradys were spoken
of as "the Irish crowd." Before the second year was out the McKnights and
Bradys were a power in the community. The second season after their arrival
they were able to buy a lot, sixty feet front, on the corner of Main and Pine
streets, in the business heart of the city. Here they did business successfully
until they were able to erect, in 1816, an imposing structure of brick, the first
in St. Louis, for a business house. There were stores downstairs, a hotel up-
stairs, where was held, in 1817, the first celebration west of the Mississippi of
Washington's Birthday. McKnight & Brady amassed enough money at trade
to go into real estate. They laid out what is now part of East St. Louis, and
called it Illinoistown. McKnight served on the grand jury. Brady presided
at the first meeting of Irishmen to organize the Erin Benevolent society. Thomas
Brady married a daughter of John Rice Jones, who became chief justice of
the Supreme court of Missouri. One of Thomas Brady's daughters married
Ferdinand Rozier, the second. The standing which the McKnights and Bradys
quickly obtained in the community was shown by the selection of Thomas Brady
to be one of the commissioners to receive subscriptions to the first bank estab-
lished under charter from the territorial legislature in 1813. John McKnight
was a commissioner to receive subscriptions to the second bank chartered, and
Thomas Brady was elected a member of the first board of directors of the
bank. St. Louis never had occasion to regret the coming of the McKnights and
Bradys. The McKnights were enterprising in many directions. Robert, one

THE MEN OF ST. LOUIS 675

of the four brothers, in 1817, went on a trading expedition to Santa Fe and
Chihuahua. This was at the same time that Jules DeMun and Auguste P.
Chouteau went out with a stock of goods to do business with the Mexicans.
The three young men from St. Louis were robbed of their goods and thrown
into jail. There they remained two years. Their treatment was made the basis
of a claim against Mexico by the United States. An indemnity of about one
hundred thousand dollars was paid by Mexico. Another of the McKnights,
John, a nephew of Robert, went out to Chihuahua in 1826 and accumulated a
fortune in trade there. When he returned to make his home near St. Louis
he brought with him ten thousand dollars which Governor Armijo had given
him to place to his credit. As the Mexican handed the money he declined a
receipt, saying "all that I want is your word." The McKnight road, one of
the thoroughfares in the western suburbs of St. Louis, was named in honor of
this family.

A city of refuge, in the best sense, St. Louis has been. Political troubles
in Europe have contributed many desirable citizens. A little boy, Jules De
Mun, was concealed in a cellar of Paris at the time of the French Revolution.
His father, member of a noble family, had been forced to fly to save himself
from the block. A faithful servant hid Jules and his brother Auguste, for a
time, then dressed them as the children of the poor and took them out of the
city. They passed near the guillotine. Jules began to cry. The older, Auguste,
shook him and warned him that they must not attract attention. The boys
joined their father in England and were brought to America. After the restora-
tion of the Bourbon dynasty, royal letters sent through the French ambassador
at Washington invited the return of the De Muns to France. The boys had
grown to manhood. They came to Missouri. Jules De Mun became a resident
of St. Louis. In 1811 he married Isabelle Gratiot. Born in San Domingo,
educated partly in France and partly in the United States, Jules De Mun took
rank as one of the most scholarly men in the city. In the latter part of his
life he was secretary and translator for the commissioners engaged in the
adjustment of the French and Spanish grants. He was register of the govern-
ment land office, and at the time of his death, in 1843, ne was filling* by election,
the office of recorder of deeds.

So far back runs the lineage of the Pratte family that it may be called
ancient, so far as St. Louis is concerned. The first Bernard Pratte in St. Louis
history was titled General Pratte. He was here and prominent in the life of
the settlement before the American acquisition. His mother was a native of
Missouri, born in Ste. Genevieve. General Bernard Pratte, in his youth, was
sent to Canada to be educated, because Ste. Genevieve was lacking in educa-
tional advantages. Such was the standing of General Pratte that after the
American acquisition he was made one of the territorial judges. Born under
another flag, a citizen of the United States only eight years, General Pratte
won his military title in the War of 1812. He headed an expedition which went
from St. Louis up the Mississippi to Fort Madison to resist British aggression.
He served in that war until peace was established. Such was the character
of General Bernard Pratte that President Monroe selected him, although he
was not a candidate, to be the receiver of public moneys at St. Louis when
that was one of the most important federal offices west of the Mississippi.

676 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

When the War of 1812 began, the Kentuckians who had settled in and
about St. Louis, were among the first to volunteer for service. They were
chips of old blocks who had fought in '76. A body of 1,500 horsemen was
raised in St. Louis, and in the settlements of St. Louis county and along the
Missouri river. Nathan Boone, son of Daniel, was the colonel of this command.
The horsemen decided to cross the Mississippi and join Governor Edwards.
They did so by riding their horses into the river and swimming across. John
Sappington led them. The Sappingtons came from Kentucky, a family eighteen
children strong, in 1806. In the colony, for such it may be called, were forty
families from Kentucky, but of those families the Sappington family was the
largest in number. After looking over St. Louis, which had been an American
city barely two years, the Kentuckians decided to locate outside, in what is
now the county of St. Louis. The Sappingtons bought 640 acres, for which,
it is tradition, they paid in whiskey, at the price of one gallon per acre. John
Sappington had eleven children.

Connecticut was no small contributor to the life of St. Louis. In 1811
Stephen Hempstead came with his family and relatives, a colony numbering
twenty. He was a patriot as well as a pioneer. A Revolutionary soldier, he
had been left for dead in Fort Griswold. While he farmed where Bellefontaine
cemetery is, Stephen Hempstead made it his "daily business to converse with
prominent and leading heads of families on the necessity there was of having
stated and regular worship in the place." In 1816, Salmon Giddings, another
Connecticut man, freshly ordained to preach and determined to be a missionary,
came riding on horseback 1,200 miles, to formally organize the first Protestant
church in St. Louis. Edward Hempstead had preceded his father, his brothers
and his sisters. He rode down to the ferry, on the Illinois side, before the first
summer's rains had dimmed the colors of the American flag raised over St.
Louis in 1804. Such was the impression the Hempsteads made on the com-
munity that when the time came to choose the first delegate to represent the
Territory in Congress, Edward Hempstead was elected. When he was an old
man, nearing the close of his career, Thomas H. Benton paid this tribute to
Stephen Hempstead, the patriarch:

Mr. Hempstead was a true and brave man, a man pure and without reproach, fear-
ing God and discharging every public and private duty with scrupulous exactness. He
united benevolence with true piety, and in him patriotism was sublimated to the highest
degree. In the words of Scripture he has been blessed in all his generation.

In 1818 there were enough Irishmen in St. Louis to organize. The Erin
Benevolent society was formed. The leading spirits were Jeremiah Connor,
who had been sheriff of St. Louis, the Rankens, John Mullanphy, James Mc-
Gunnegle, Joseph Charless, Thomas Brady. Two years later "the Erins" demon-
strated their strength. They celebrated St. Patrick's Day, 1820. That was
the first observance of the anniversary in St. Louis. The society paraded.
After the procession there was a dinner with toasts.

From night watchman to bank president the career of Sullivan Blood led.
At the age of 21, in 1817, Sullivan Blood came to St. Louis from the state of
his birth, Vermont. Of sturdy physique, he was just in time to be selected for
one of the watchmen. His services were so efficient that the town made him
captain of the watch, and he bore the title of Captain Blood the rest of his life.

THE MEN OF ST. LOUIS 677

He was a constable ten years, a deputy sheriff and then an alderman. In the
business of steamboating, commanding boats built for him, he made a reputa-
tion which prompted his selection as president of the Boatmen's Savings Institu-
tion.

The Farrars were Virginians, the founder of the family in this country
coming to Farrar's Island in the James river, a short distance below Richmond
in 1621. Three years after the acquisition, in 1808, the founder of the St. Louis
Farrars, a young doctor, just past his majority, settled in St. Louis. He became
allied with the Clarks, George Rogers, "the General," and William, "the Gov-
ernor," through marriage with their niece, Ann Clark Thruston. He had four
sons and one daughter. One of those sons followed in his father's professional
footsteps and left seven sons and two daughters.

The four sons of Charles Gratiot led lives of activity and prominence.
Charles Gratiot, the oldest and the namesake of his father, went to West Point
immediately after the American occupation of St. Louis. He graduated with
the honors which gave him a place in the corps of engineers. After he had
served in the War of 1812, he advanced through the grades to be engineer-in-
chief. He built Fort Gratiot on Lake Huron. His great work was the planning
of Fortress Monroe. He was engaged for years in superintending the con-
struction. The wife of General Gratiot was Miss Ann Belin, of Philadelphia.
One of the daughters of General Gratiot became the wife of Charles P. Chou-
teau, of St. Louis.

The second son of Charles Gratiot, Sr., was Colonel Henry Gratiot. He
lived for a time on a part of his father's great tract of land, known as the
Gratiot league square, a part of which is now Forest Park. Henry Gratiot
married Miss Susan Hempstead, one of the daughters of Captain Stephen
Hempstead, the Connecticut patriot. A daughter of Henry Gratiot, Adelle,
became the wife of Elihu B. Washburne, member of one of the famous families
of the United States. Mr. Washburne was a member of Congress from the
Galena district of Illinois. He was appointed secretary of state by President
Grant, but relinquished that position to become minister to France. During the
Franco-Prussian war, Minister Washburne remained alone of the foreign
ministers at his post, making the legation an asylum for refugees and earning
the gratitude of European governments. With him through that trying ordeal
the great granddaughter of Madame Marie Therese Chouteau performed her
part. The Washburns were a Maine family. Elihu B. added an "e" to his
name. One of his brothers was governor of Maine. Another was a United
States senator from Minnesota. A third commanded a squadron in the Civil
war. Elihu B. Washburne met Miss Adelle Gratiot while her father was en-
gaged in lead smelting at Gratiot Grove, fifteen miles from Galena.

John P. B. Gratiot and Paul B. Gratiot, the third and fourth sons of
Charles Gratiot were educated in Bardstown College, Kentucky. John went to
Gratiot Grove with his brother Henry and engaged in the lead smelting. The
youngest of the Gratiot brothers, Paul, went into the fur trade with Berthold
& Chouteau, and was sent to the Upper Missouri. When he returned he joined
his brothers at Gratiot Grove. John Gratiot married Miss Perdreauville, whose
parents left France after the abdication of Napoleon. His oldest daughter mar-

678 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

ried Edward Hempstead, who moved to Arkansas and became a prominent resi-
dent of that state, Hempstead county being named in his honor. John Gratiot
was a member of the Missouri legislature. At the time of his death he was
residing in St. Louis. Paul Gratiot married Miss Virginia Billon. After his
return from the Fevre river lead mines he lived in the vicinity of Forest Park.
Between 1850 and 1860 he was a member of the St. Louis County court.

Early records of Masonry in St. Louis illustrate how widely distributed
in respect to former residences were the new comers. Missouri lodge was
granted a charter by the Grand Lodge of Tennessee in 1815. This charter was
issued to Joshua Norvell, who had moved from Nashville to St. Louis, to take
charge of the Western Journal, Thomas Brady, a St. Louis merchant, who had
come from Ireland, and John A. Pilcher. Among the Masons in St. Louis
who joined the lodge, presenting credentials from lodges elsewhere, were Major
Thompson Douglass, from Maryland, paymaster U. S. A. ; Risdon H. Price,
eastern shore of Maryland, merchant; Nathaniel B. Tucker, Virginia, judge
of the Circuit court; Thomas H. Benton, Nashville, Tenn., lawyer; Captain
Peter Ferguson, Norfolk, Va., who became judge of probate; Dr. Edward S.
Gantt, surgeon, United States army; John Rice Jones, Ste. Genevieve, Mo.,
judge Supreme court; Captain Henry S. Geyer, Hagerstown, Md., lawyer; Ser-
geant Hall, Cincinnati, lawyer and editor; Jonathan Guest, Philadelphia, mer-
chant; William H. Hopkins, Philadelphia, merchant; William Renshaw, Sr.,
Baltimore, merchant; David B. Hoffman, New York, merchant; Abraham Beck,
Albany, N. Y., lawyer; Moses Scott, Ireland, justice of the peace; George H. C.
Melody, Albany, N. Y. ; Joseph C. Laveille, Harrisburg, Pa., architect ; Daniel
C. Boss, Pittsburg, merchant; William G. Pettus, Virginia, secretary of the
Missouri Constitutional convention.

When, in 1820, the Royal Arch Masons wanted to organize a St. Louis
chapter they needed nine petitioners. The town could supply only four. Two
were found in St. Charles and two more in Edwardsville. The ninth was
Clement C. Fletcher, who was in business at Herculaneum, having come from
Maryland two years before. For several years Mr. Fletcher rode thirty miles
across the Meramec and up the river to attend the monthly meetings of the
chapter. He was the father of Governor Thomas C. Fletcher.

The Billons came from Philadelphia. Frederic L. Billon was a boy of
seventeen when his father and he came west to seek a new home. The year
was 1818. The Billons came by stage coach from Philadelphia to Pittsburg,
down the Ohio by keel boat to Shawneetown, overland to Kaskaskia, up the
Mississippi by canoe to St. Louis. The journey required sixty days. That
was about the schedule of the period. After the father and son had found a
home and had arranged to start the business, which was dealing in watches
and clocks, the older went all of the way back to Philadelphia to bring out the
mother and other eight children. "Moving west" meant something in those
days. The father of this family was a Swiss, descended from a family of
watchmakers, the best in the world. The mother was of French descent, but
had lived in San Domingo and had been forced to leave her home as a refugee
at the time of the negro insurrection. The case of the Billon family is a good
illustration of the accessions to the population of St. Louis in the first generation

JOHN B. SARPY
At thirty-six years of age

SYLVESTER LABBADIE

JOHN B. SARPY

MAJOR WILLIAM CHRISTY

RUFUS KASTON
The first postmaster

STRONG TYPES OF ST. LOUISANS

THE MEN OF ST. LOUIS 679

of the last century. When his father died, Frederic L. Billon took up the
responsibilities of the head of a large family. He was then just of age, with
eight brothers and sisters younger. Not until these brothers and sisters were
grown and able to take care of themselves did Frederic L. Billon have a home
of his own. He went to Philadelphia and brought back his wife, Miss E. L.
Generelly. He lived to be considerably more than eighty years old. He was
alderman and comptroller of the city. He was the first railroad auditor of
St. Louis and later was treasurer of the Missouri Pacific. Twelve children were
born to him. When St. Louis attained the importance of the first uniformed
military company, the "St. Louis Grays," in 1819, Billon was one of the moving
spirits. He was made ensign. The service to his adopted city, which St. Louis
will remember as the most important rendered by Frederic L. Billon, was his
preservation of historical data. From the day of his coming to the end of his
long life, he was the local antiquarian. Records and information of every kind
pertaining to St. Louis and St. Louisans, Mr. Billon preserved. He was careful
and painstaking in this labor of love, with the accuracy that might be expected
of a mind which had inherited method from watchmaking ancestors.

One after another the Morrisons came out to St. Louis and vicinity. They
were Pennsylvanians, natives of Bucks county, north of Philadelphia. Back of
the Pennsylvania parentage was Irish ancestry. John Morrison, the father of
the Morrisons, was an Irish gentleman. An uncle of the Morrisons was Guy
Bryan, a wholesale dry goods merchant. He gave his nephews training, and
as his trade connections in St. Louis and vicinity offered opportunities he gave
the boys the benefit of them. William Morrison, the oldest of the brothers,
came out to Kaskaskia in 1795 and established stores there and in St. Louis
and Cahokia. St. Louis was still under the Spanish flag, and had not begun
to give promise of its future. William Morrison married a daughter of General
Daniel Bissell of the United States army, who lived in St. Louis for a long time.
A grandson of this William Morrison was William R. Morrison, member of
Congress for many years from the East St. Louis district, and the leader of his
party on the tariff question. Robert Morrison came west from the Philadel-
phia training school of his uncle in 1798. He married the talented Eliza Lowry,
sister of James Lowry Donaldson. The Lowrys were of a famous Scotch
family. They migrated from the north of Ireland to Baltimore. James Lowry
was given the name of Donaldson, by the Maryland Legislature, to enable him
to comply with the bequest under which he inherited an estate. When President
Jefferson was making up, with no little care, a commission to straighten out
land titles at St. Louis he chose James Lowry Donaldson for the recorder of
that commission. Donaldson came out bringing his sister. In 1807 he went
back to Baltimore, his sister remaining. The lady had met Robert Morrison
at a reception given by William Clark. Mrs. Morrison was the first literary
woman of St. Louis. She wrote about St. Louis and the new acquisition of
the United States in a manner which attracted wide attention. There was fight-
ing blood as well as literary culture in the Lowrys. James Lowry Donaldson
fell at the head of his regiment at the Battle of North Point, resisting the attack
of the British on Baltimore in 1814. Of the four sons of Robert Morrison, the
oldest went to West Point and died an army officer. The second and third

680 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

sons became judges in California, one of them chief justice. The youngest
served in the United States navy, entering as midshipman. He left the navy
and when the Mexican war came on he raised the first company of recruits in
Illinois and went out as lieutenant colonel of the Second Illinois, the regiment
which participated in an historic charge at Buena Vista. For his gallantry on
that occasion this Morrison was voted a sword by the legislature of Illinois.
He was James Lowry Donaldson Morrison, known to two generations of St.
Louisans as "Colonel Don Morrison." James Morrison, the third of the Bucks
county brothers, settled in St. Charles. His son was William M. Morrison,
and his daughters were Mrs. George Collier, Mrs. William G. Pettus, Mrs.
Francis Yosti and Mrs. Richard J. Lockwood, wives of men prominent in St.
Louis in their generation. The fourth of the Morrisons was Jesse. He came to
St. Louis in 1805. Afterwards he joined the St. Louis colony, engaged in
developing the lead industry at Galena. Samuel Morrison, the fifth of the
brothers, joined the fur traders. He was with Manuel Lisa, and spent some
time in the Rocky Mountains. Afterwards he came back to St. Louis and
settled in Illinois. The youngest of this famous brotherhood was Guy. He
worked in his brother's store and married the widow of Henry, the publisher
of the St. Louis Enquirer.

To the uprising of '98 St. Louis was indebted for several notable families.
John Chambers, well established as a publisher in Dublin, suffered for political
conscience sake. He was discovered to be a member of the order of United
Irishmen. With others he was locked up in Fort George, Scotland, and then
banished to the continent. The band of patriots reached New York about the
beginning of the century. John Chambers was a publisher in Wall street nearly
twenty years. His son Charles married Jane Mullanphy, and in 1819 came to
St. Louis. He raised a family of six daughters and four sons. B. M. Cham-
bers and Rev. Thomas B. Chambers were two of the sons. The daughters
became the wives of Commodore William Smith, U. S. navy; Captain Joseph
H. Lamotte, U. S. army ; Thomas B. Hudson, B. F. Thomas, George W.
Thatcher and James Larkin.

The Bogy family was of Scotch origin. Joseph Bogy, the father of Lewis
V. Bogy, who was United States senator, was born in Kaskaskia. The late
Senator Bogy's mother was in her youth Mary Vital. While the country west
of the Mississippi was still under Spanish domination, Joseph Bogy filled the
position of secretary to the governor. L. V. Bogy, the senator, who is identified
with the history of St. Louis, was one of seven children.

Besides the Leduc, who in early days held six offices at one time, there
was another family of Leducs, which came from France. Louis Leduc settled
in St. Louis about 1830. He lived for thirty-five years at the corner of Seventh
and Pine streets, where the Fullerton building is. Three Ranken brothers,
Hugh, Robert and David, were natives of Londonderry county, Ireland. Hugh
and Robert came to St. Louis together in the summer of 1819. They opened
a store on Main street. They had been in business in Philadelphia. David
Ranken remained in Philadelphia until 1850, when he removed to St. Louis.

The Simonds family came from Vermont in 1817. John Simonds. Jr., who
was not much more than a boy when the family arrived, obtained the position of

THE MEN OF ST. LOUIS 681

deputy constable. In 1826 he became a river captain. Subsequently he fol-
lowed the commission business, and in 1850-60 was one of the leading bankers
of St. Louis.

Charles Joseph Latrobe, in his book 'The Rambler in North America,"
made something of a sociological study of St. Louis as he found it in 1835.
He described a sharp contrast between the old inhabitants and the newcomers,
who at that time were largely from the New England and Middle states:

Since this part of the continent became subject of the flag of the United States,
the city of St. Louis, overrun by the speculative New Englanders, has begun to spread
over a large extent of ground on the bank of the river, and promises to become one of
the most flourishing cities of the west. A new town has in fact sprung up by the side
of the old one, with long, well-built streets and handsome rows of warehouses, constructed
of excellent gray limestone, quarried on the spot. The inhabitants, of French extraction,
are, however, still numerous, both in their part of the town and in the neighboring
villages; and it is amusing to a European to step aside from the hurry and bustle of
the upper streets, full of pale, scheming faces, depressed brows, and busy fingers, to the
quiet quarters of the lower division, where many a characteristic sight and sound may
be observed. Who can peep into the odd little coffee-houses with their homely billiard
tables — see those cozy balconies and settees — mark the prominent nose, rosy cheek, and
the contented air and civil demeanor of the males, and the intelligent eye and gossiping
tongue of the females — listen to the sound of the fiddle, or perchance the jingle of a harp-
sichord, or spinnet, from the window of the wealthier habitant, crisp and sharp like a
box of crickets — without thinking of scenes in the provinces of the mother country.

Of the young Germans whom Dr. Duden's enthusiastic description drew
to St. Louis, were Alexander and Henry Kayser and their sister, who became
Mrs. Bates. The Kaysers were from the Rhine. To Dr. Duden the banks of
Missouri, about Hermann, were the American Rhine. The father of the Kay-
sers was, during twenty-eight years, a magistrate of high repute under the
Duke of Nassau. The Kaysers came in 1833, bringing little but good educa-
tion, industry and high-mindedness. They farmed; they bought, they were
in the land office ; they had to do with the civil engineering of the growing city ;
they advanced rapidly in the estimation of their fellow citizens. Alexander
Kayser became a lawyer in 1841 ; a lieutenant in the Mexican war in 1847 > a
presidential elector in 1852. With Thomas Allen he took up grape culture
and offered prizes for the best products of Missouri wines. He allied himself
with one of the oldest families in St. Louis, marrying Eloise P. Morrison, a
granddaughter of General Daniel Bissell.

The Zepps were early comers. Their home, in Germany, was Sipenfeld.
They settled in St. Louis in 1834. Jacob Zepp, who was identified a lifetime
with the cooperage industry was two years of age when his parents came over.
John A. Brownlee, a native of New York, the son of the Rev. Mr. Brownlee,
one of the eminent Presbyterian ministers of the east, investigated the prospects
of Chicago in 1839, and after a year's experience there moved to St. Louis.
He began here as a dry goods clerk and became the head of the firm of Brown-
lee, Homer & Co. When the Merchants' bank, now the Merchants-Laclede
National, was organized in 1857, John A. Brownlee was chosen president. The
wife of Mr. Brownlee was a Miss Ridgely of Baltimore. Francis Adams Lane
was Missouri born, coming to St. Louis from Marion county when he was
eighteen to become a merchant. He made a fortune and retired in 1848. This
branch of the Lanes was of an old Virginia family, but derived the name from

682 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Presley Carr Lane, who was for thirty years president of the state senate of
Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Lanes were represented in St. Louis by
William Carr Lane, the first mayor, and by Francis Adams Lane, a successful
merchant.

From the little village of Cahokia, a few miles from St. Louis, John J.
Anderson came in 1827 to be an errand boy in Edward Ropier's store. The
father, Reuben Anderson, had moved west from Delaware during the War of
1812. He had charge of military stores at Fort Bellefontaine, and then took up
his residence at Cahokia. The father's death when the boy was nine years
old cut short the education. From errand boy, John J. Anderson advanced to
confidential clerk and to partnership. He established the banking house of John
J. Anderson & Co., and in 1857 built upon that the Bank of St. Louis. He
obtained the charter and was the president. In the fifties John J. Anderson
did some things which made him a man much talked about and admired. He
was chairman of the ways and means committee of the council when the city
appropriated $500,000 for the Missouri Pacific and the same amount for the
Ohio and Mississippi Railroad. He brought from Vermont the marble and
built the first marble building in St. Louis at a cost of $80,000. He was one
of the ten men who undertook the building of the old Southern hotel before the
war, to cost $800,000. James Timon came from Ireland. When he settled in
St. Louis in 1819 he had a family of two sons and six daughters. His eldest
son became a priest and was Bishop Timon of the Buffalo diocese. The other
son was a notary in St. Louis many years. The six daughters grew to woman-
hood and married.

The Alexander family of Philadelphia sent several representatives to grow
up with St. Louis. Joshua Henry Alexander was one of these. He began with
steamboating in 1841. He started the first omnibus line which carried travelers
by ferry between the hotels of St. Louis and the railroad terminals in East
St. Louis, and which Robert P. Tansey developed into the St. Louis Transfer
Company. Alexander was at one time comptroller of the city. Maurice W.
Alexander was another member of the old Philadelphia family ; he kept a drug
store in St. Louis so long and so reliably that it became a landmark.

A runaway apprentice boy unwilling to stand the ill treatment of a hard
master, B. W. Alexander came from Kentucky to St. Louis when he was nine-
teen. He had learned the trade of bricklayer and followed it three years.
With his savings he started one of the first livery stables in 1831, and followed
that business over twenty years. Then he became a commission merchant.
After that he was an insurance president, a director of the Missouri Pacific
railroad and a director in the Bank of St. Louis, and in the Boatmen's Savings
Institution.

The Suttons were two brothers, John L. and James C. Sutton, who came
from New Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1820. They established themselves in
the blacksmithing business and became known as first-class workmen. James
C. Sutton moved out on a large farm just beyond the edge of the city. He
raised a family of nine children.

Through the revolution of 1831, in Poland, the population of St. Louis
was the gainer. John K. Rychlicki was one of 600 who chose the United

THE MEN OF ST. LOUIS 683

States as the place of exile, and who were brought over to this country in three
Austrian frigates. He was the son of a landed proprietor, a graduate of the
University of Warsaw. He refused a high court appointment to join the Polish
patriots. When the revolution failed, Rychlicki and his companions sought
refuge in Austria, only to be compelled to move on at the demand of Russia.
In 1834 John K. Rychlicki came to St. Louis and entered upon the practice
of his profession as civil engineer. He lived in this city, a splendid represent-
ative of the Polish element in the community, fifty-four years.

Anti-Masonic agitation in other parts of the country found an echo in St.
Louis in the early thirties. Edward Bates was worshipful master of Missouri
Lodge, No. i. He had held that position most of the time from the formation
of the lodge in 1831. Included in the membership were a number of the Amer-
icans who had settled in St. Louis. Mr. Bates offered the following at a meet-
ing of the lodge:

Whereas, Under existing circumstances, and in view of the high excitement which
unhappily prevails in many parts of the United States on the subject of Freemasonry,
many good and virtuous persons have been led to doubt whether the beneficent effects
resulting from the exercise of our rules do more than counterbalance the evils inflicted
upon society by the passions and prejudices brought into action by our continuing to
act in an organized form; and while we feel an undiminished reverence for the excellent
principles inculcated by the order, and an unshaken belief in the many and great services
it has rendered mankind; nevertheless,

Eesolved, That immediately after the close this evening this lodge shall cease to
act as an organized body, and that its charter be surrendered and returned to the grand
lodge.

In October Missouri lodge passed out of existence. That year the excite-
ment over Freemasonry reached its height. The grand lodge changed its meet-
ing place from St. Louis to Columbia. Three years later the grand lodge
returned to St. Louis. In 1842, Missouri lodge was re-opened in St. Louis,
many of the old members returning to it.

One of the strongest leaders in the movement which established the Re-
publican party in the Mississippi Valley, was a Virginian, and his wife was the
daughter of one of the strongest southern sympathizers in St. Louis. Henry
T. Blow was a boy of thirteen years when his father, Captain Peter Blow,
moved to St. Louis in 1830 and became the proprietor of the Jefferson hotel.
The wife of Captain Peter Blow was Elizabeth Taylor of another old Virginia
family. Henry T. Blow had eleven brothers and sisters. From this family
came men and women prominent in St. Louis business and society for several
generations. Henry T. Blow entered the drug business, and that led him into
the investigation of white lead possibilities. He left the drug business to found
the Collier White Lead & Oil company, which proved immensely profitable. Mr.
Blow was president of the company during a period of great prosperity. His
wife was the daughter of Thornton Grimsley. Having amassed a fortune, Mr.
Blow became interested in the Iron Mountain railroad. He was more than a
business man. He figured as one of the most active participants in the Western
Academy of Art, becoming the president of that institution. To inspire com-
petition among the architects of St. Louis for something better than the city

684 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

and its suburbs then showed, Mr. Blow offered a premium of $200 for the
best plan of a suburban home to cost not exceeding $20,000.

Early sentiment of thrift among St. Louisans found expression in a public
meeting over which George K. McGunnegle presided in February, 1839. This
meeting of "merchants, traders and mechanics" was called at the merchants'
exchange rooms. Charles Keemle, the newspaper man, was active in the move-
ment. J. Smith Homans made an interesting talk on the advantages from the
individual and the civic point of view in a cultivation of saving habits. The
meeting declared that "there is a large number of persons in this city who have
no profitable means for investment of their surplus earnings." A committee
of five was appointed to investigate the practicability of a savings association.
Josiah Spaulding, Hamilton R. Gamble and Beverly Allen were invited to give
their fellow citizens legal opinion as to whether such an institution could be
started without a charter from the legislature. In addition to Mr. McGunnegle
and Mr. Homans, Asa Wilgus, J. W. Paulding and Wayman Crow were placed
on the committee to investigate the subject.

In 1797 the settlement of St. Louis entertained two distinguished visitors
in Louis Philippe and Due de Montpensier, brothers. Louis Philippe was the
Duke of Orleans when he was in St. Louis. He became king of France. His
downfall occurred in 1848. Louis Philippe fled to England and died there.
While on the throne he had said that the man he feared more than any other
in the kingdom was Etienne Cabet, the leader of the communists. Soon after
the flight of the king, Cabet, at the head of 10,000 communists, marched through
the streets of Paris to the seat of the provisional government. The conditions
were critical when President Lamartine went to meet Cabet, reached an under-
standing with him and saved the new government of France. Cabet left France
with a number of communists to found a colony. He settled at Nauvoo, the
old home of the Mormons, in Illinois. Differences arose. Cabet, with 200
followers, came to St. Louis, in 1853, and established the Icarian community
at Cheltenham, now part of the city. After he left France he was accused of
embezzlement, and conviction was declared in the absence of defense. Cabet
went back to France, secured a rehearing and was acquitted. He returned to
St. Louis and died suddenly from an apoplectic stroke in 1856. The community
disbanded. Twenty years afterwards, admirers of the Icarian doctrine erected
a monument at the grave. They inscribed upon the base of the obelisk, "La
Memoire de Cabet." At the foot of the grave they raised upon an iron triangle
a crown of thorns. Twenty years more went by bringing the encroachments
of the city upon the Old Picker cemetery. In 1908, there were those in St. Louis
who protected the grave of the communist, whom King Louis Philippe so feared.

Richard Dowling was the walking historian of St. Louis. He was born in
Ireland, but his parents came to St. Louis when the boy was ten years old. In
the three quarters of a century that he lived in St. Louis, he came
to know more people and to know more about those people than anybody else.
He forgot nothing, it seemed. Elihu H. Shepard, the schoolmaster and his-
torian, once said that Dowling, who had been one of his pupils, had "a larger
fund of information in regard to St. Louis and its inhabitants than any other
person in it."

SAMUEL J AMKS

WILLIAM R. McLURE

BENOIST RESIDENCE
Eighth and Pine streets, about 1850

THOMAS PRATT

STRONG TYPES OF

SAMUEL
ST. LOUIS A NS

LEATHE

THE MEN OF ST. LOUIS 685

The man who rebuilt St. Louis, after the great fire of 1849, was from Con-
necticut, a Norwich boy, Oliver A. Hart. He had served an apprenticeship to
the principal builders in Norwich. Soon after he came to St. Louis, in 1837,
he formed a partnership with Augustus Brewster. When the business district
was swept by fire, Mr. Hart, as an architect and builder, was in a position to
meet the demands for immediate reconstruction.

The best stump speaker of St. Louis, in 1850-60, was one of the most active
Presbyterians. Also a fighting man was General Nathan Ranney. A native of
Connecticut, he enlisted in the War of 1812, when he was only sixteen years old.
He did some brilliant work at the Battle of Plattsburg, heading a squad of twenty
men in the night, surprising a town where there was a large British force and
carrying away as prisoners three British officers of rank without the loss of a
single man in his squad. In 1819, Nathan Ranney began commercial life in St.
Louis. His military rank was attained when Governor Dunklin made him brig-
adier-general of the Missouri militia in 1836. For years General Ranney was
president of the board of public schools and of the Missouri Bible society. He
made a very notable and effective speech during the financial panic of 1857, when
he called together the business men of St. Louis and inspired confidence at a time
of great financial stress.

Speaking at the inauguration of Washington University, in 1857, of the
consultation at the first meeting held in 1853, under the charter which Wayman
Crow had obtained from the Legislature, Samuel Treat said one of the needs
for this institution in St. Louis, which was impressed upon the minds of all pres-
ent, was "the heterogeneous population, with all its diversified and seemingly
conflicting habits and casts of thought, out of which is to come an unknown
homogeneousness of life and society, leading to and defining a moral and mental
order, the ike of which, perhaps, has never yet been."

From the West Indies in 1848, came a notable infusion. Guadeloupe had
been all but ruined by an earthquake three years earlier. The colony was slowly
recovering when revolution occured in France. Louis Philippe fled. The re-
publican government demanded of the colonies recognition of its authority.
Agents of the new order declared slavery abolished in Guadeloupe. Industry
was paralyzed. Excesses were threatened. Old families, who represented the
best blood of France, faced emigration as the least of the evils. America was
the unanimous choice of these emigres from Guadeloupe. The first of them
sought St. Louis. Others followed until, in 1849, they formed an accession
strong in character. Among them were the de Laureal, Boisliniere, Tetard, Du
Pavilion, Cherot, Bourdon, de Pombiray, Bouvier, Gibert, Ladevaiz, Du Clos,
Peterson and Vouillaire families. Not a few of these emigres of Guadeloupe,
who sought St. Louis, were descendants of the old French nobility. They were
people of thorough education, deep religious conviction and charming refinement.
They brought into the population of St. Louis a strong strain physically. They
were people who showed ready adaptability. Edward de Laureal, who was,
perhaps, the leader of the movement, was an amateur painter of no little merit.
Several of the ladies of these Guadeloupe families became teachers in St. Louis.

St. Louis was the home of those who came to escape religious as well as
political intolerance. Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, on his visit, made this
interesting discovery as told by his secretary :

686 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Reality is sometimes as strange as fiction, and persons meet in life in a way which
astonishes in a novel. In the summer of 1848, the convent of the Jesuits in Vienna
was attacked by the people, led by the students, and the "patres" were expelled. Europe,
with the sole exception of England, was at this time not favorable to the Jesuits; but
England was sufficiently stocked with them, and so they went farther west until they
reached St. Louis; six remained here in the convent, and one of them now instructs the
republican youth of the Mound City. But the( students of Vienna were in their turn
expelled by the soldiers, and one of them who had played a part in the attack on the
convent was now also in St. Louis, engaged as printer in the German printing-house.

St. Louis, at that early period, had its growing colony of those who had
been conspicuous in political agitation at Vienna. The secretary of Kossuth
wrote :

We found here several of our former friends and acquaintances. Mr. Rombauer,
late director of the iron mines in the county Gomor, and then of the musket manu-
factory in Hungary, is now a farmer in Iowa. If ever the iron mines in Missouri shall
be developed, he will see a great field open for his activity. Mr. Bernays, formerly
attached to the French embassy at Vienna, keeps a store in Illinois. Mr. Boernstein, the
popular German author, the Paris correspondent of the Augsburgh Gazette, is the editor
of the most influential German paper in the west. They related to us all their adventures,
since we had lost sight of them — novels of real life. Mr. Rombauer had been in Cali-
fornia. Several of our countrymen thrive there, but he suffered from the climate and
returned to the backwoods of Iowa. In California he had met a pioneer seventy years old,
who proceeding from western Pennsylvania, had eighteen times sold his settlement; clear-
ing the woods, building a loghouse, and selling it as soon as he was overtaken by the
bulk of the emigration. And even, to California he went, not in order to remain, but
to sell his newly acquired property as soon as he could do so with profit. A Hungarian
private soldier found that California was the terrestrial paradise; he walked on gold and
slept on gold, he said. And yet he left the diggings as soon as he had made some money,
and bought a farm and four oxen, to live upon the produce of the soil.

In three years, 1848-50, the arrivals of Germans at St. Louis numbered
34,418. The failure of their revolutionary movement was the gain of this city
in highly desirable citizens. Enno Sander, of a good family, a graduate of the
University of Berlin, was one of the German "Liberals" who assembled at Baden
and declared themselves. Under the provisional government that was established
Dr. Sander became assistant minister of war. When the revolution failed and
the leaders were being condemned to death or to imprisonment, he made his
way to Switzerland, and later, in 1852, he reached St. Louis. The Missouri law
creating a state board of pharmacy where every druggist must show his ability
to practice, was of Dr. Sander's authorship. The St. Louis School of Pharm-
acy owed much to his inspiration. Franz Sigel, who became a major-general,
and whose equestrian statue is in Forest Park, was one of this St. Louis colony
of German revolutionary leaders. Sigel was a graduate of the military school
at Carlsruhe. When the revolution started in Baden, in 1848, he raised a corp
of 4,000 volunteers and fought two battles with the royal troops. He was de-
feated and escaped to Switzerland. The next year he went back to Baden.
After commanding the Army of the Neckar, he was made minister of war of the
provisional government and succeeded to the chief command of the revolution-
ary forces. After several battles he was again compelled to retreat, and took
refuge in Switzerland. In 1856 he came to St. Louis and became a teacher of
mathematics in the German Institute. That was his vocation until the Commit-

THE MEN OF ST. LOUIS 687

tee of Public Safety organized the Union guards in the winter of 1861, when he
was made colonel of one of four regiments first organized.

So strong in numbers and virile in character was the German infusion that
some philosophic minds contemplated the theory that the Teutonic element might
assimilate the Anglo-Saxon in St. Louis and Missouri. The writer of the book
on Kossuth's visit embodied in a suggestive way this idea :

With Mr. Cobb, the editor of an industrial and statistical monthly paper in St.
Louis, we had a long conversation on poetry, art and the future of America. He is a
great admirer of Goethe, and has the most sanguine expectations "as to the future of
his country, and especially of the west. He compared the citizens of the United States
with the Romans, who had organized the countries under their sway, who had civilized
the people, who had introduced art and literature amongst the barbarians, and had as-
similated the provinces to Eome. Mr. Pulszky remarked that the Germans had not yet
given up the idea that the west might become their inheritance, and that the power of
assimilating other races to themselves is perhaps not so strong in the Anglo-Saxons as
it is generally thought. The admirer of Goethe replied in good earnest, "it is not impossible
that the Germans may overrun us; the Goths and Vandals likewise defeated Rome when
it seemed most powerful."

From 1830 to 1850 the population was multiplied by ten. In the latter year
22,340, one-third of the inhabitants of St. Louis, were of German birth. Ten
years later, in 1860, St. Louis city and county had 50,510 people "born in Ger-
many." These figures do not include the American born children of German
parents. Two-thirds of a century St. Louis has been receiving a strong influx
of German immigration. In 1890 there were 66,000 of German birth. The re-
sult has not been the Germanizing of St. Louis, but an assimilation which has
given notable elements of strength to an American city. "The young man Ab-
salom" has given the minimum of concern to this community. No other large
city has shown a larger proportion of sons well worthy of their sires. Degen-
eracy, in descent, has been the very rare exception. Traditions, public sentiment,
family ideals, have contributed to the improvement generation by generation.
Sons of St. Louisans, grandsons of St. Louisans, great grandsons of St. Louis-
ans hold places in the foremost ranks of professions and vocations. In the pres-
ent generation there is no reaction from this admirable and hopeful character-
istic of the city. When David R. Francis had demonstrated his capacity for
business, before public life had engaged his faculties, he was strongly urged to
move from St. Louis to New York. Opportunities for business success on an
enlarged scale were presented to him. "No," he said, "I shall remain where I
am. I have six boys. St. Louis is a better place than New York to raise sons."
To many parents St. Louis has proven a good place for raising boys. Sons
worthy of their successful sires have grown up, taken their places in business
or the professions, and added the honor of the second generation to such family
names as Simmons, Fordyce, Scudder, Walker, McKittrick, Catlin, Davis, Car-
penter, Francis, Mallinckrodt, Gregg, Stanard, Pettus, Tower, West, Rumsey,
Lambert, McCluney, Niedringhaus, Wells, Capen, Allen. Bringing up the boy
in the way he should go was one of the tendencies the German strengthened.
The German St. Louisan made a home ; he raised his son to follow him in trade,
in profession, in industry. He did this so thoroughly, so generally, so impres-
sively that the example reached and affected all St. Louis. Witness the Meyers,
the Paulys, the Anheusers, the Lemps, the Preetoriuses, the Busches, the Schot-
tens.

688 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

A philosophical view of the composite population of St. Louis and its sur-
rounding territory was presented in 1875 by Judge Nathaniel Holmes:

It is the remarkable fact that the several successive streams of westward migration
of the white Aryan race from the primitive Paradise, in the neighborhood of the primeval
cities of Sogd and Balkh, in high Asia, long separated in times of migration, and for
the most part distinct in the European areas finally occupied by them, and which, in
the course of its grand march of twenty thousand years or more, have created nearly the
whole of the civilization, arts, sciences and literature of this globe, building seats of
fixed habitation and great cities, successively, in the rich valleys of the Ganges, the
Tiber and the Po, the Danube, the Khine, the Elbe, and the Seine and Thames, wander-
ing children of the same great family are now, in these latter times, brought together
again in their descendants and representatives, Semitic, Pelasgic, Celtic, Teutonic and
Slavonic, here in the newly discovered common land of promise, and are commingled
(especially in this great Valley of the Mississippi) into one common brotherhood of race,
language, law and liberty.

The census of 1880 was a great disappointment to the people of St. Louis.
To be informed by the government that the growth had been only 39,658 in ten
years was a shock. The previous decade, from 1860 to 1870 had shown, on the
face of the returns, a growth of 125,286. There was something wrong. A
movement by citizens to discover errors in the count of 1880, conducted by
Professor Calvin M. Woodward, showed some errors of omission, but not what
would account for the surprising comparison. A committee of citizens went to
Washington to protest against the injustice done to the city by the census of
1880. Carl Schurz was still secretary of the interior. The census office was
a part of that department. He received the committee. Barely waiting to hear
the protest voiced, the secretary said:

"Gentlemen ! I, too, am a citizen of St. Louis. I was very indignant when
I saw this report of our population. I have been investigating. See here !"

The secretary drew from his desk records of the St. Louis census of 1870.
When the committee had examined the evidence, there was nothing further to
be said by way of protest against the census of 1880.

From 1860 to 1880, twenty years, the population of St. Louis increased
164,944. That is what the honest counts show. The census of 1870 must be
discredited and ignored in any analysis of the growth of the population. Pos-
sibly a fair division of the growth by decades would allot two-fifths of the
164,944 to the ten years from 1860 to 1870 and three-fifths to the decade from
1870 to 1880. The next ten years, from 1880 to 1890, showed an increase of
101,248. From 1890 to 1900 the increase was 123,468. From 1900 to 1910 the
increase was 111,791.

Daniel M. Grissom made what must stand as the best study of St. Louis
population figures. He pointed out that in 1830, St. Louis, with a population of
4,977, stood forty-fourth among the cities of the United States. Ten years later
St. Louis was twentieth. In 1850 St. Louis was the sixth, and held that place
"'J in 1860. The year 1870, it has been explained, is unworthy of consideration for
population figures. In 1880 this city stood fifth, and continued to hold that rank
until the consolidation of New York and Brooklyn gave the fourth place to St.
Louis. In eighty years St. Louis has passed in population thirty-eight other
cities, and has been passed by but one city, Chicago. St. Louis has held the
present rank twenty years.

THE MEN OF ST. LOUIS 689

The growth in population as shown by the decennial census has been as
follows :

1800... 957

1810 1,400

1820 4,928

1830 5352

1840 16,469

1850 77,860

1860 185,578

1870
1880

1890 45I>770

1900 575,238

1910 687,029

Scharff, an eastern author of standing as a historian, twenty-five years ago
pointed out in a striking manner the convergence of the early explorations and
of the later migrations in the vicinity of St. Louis :

The French who went west from Quebec to Lake Superior, those who descended thfl
Wabash, the Illinois, the Kaskaskia and the Mississippi, and those who ascended the
latter stream from the Balize, all met and settled within forty or fifty miles of the city,
and the oldest settlement, Cahokia, is within sight of its tallest spires. So likewise thff
three chief lines of English settlement from New England across western New York tcT
the lakes, from Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia westward to the Ohio, and from
Virginia, and the Carolinas to Tennessee and Kentucky, all converged at St. Louis. It
is rather more than a coincidence that Coronado and DeSoto, the one starting on the
Pacific coast and the other on the Atlantic, would actually have crossed paths if they
had projected their outward marches two hundred miles farther, and their meeting point
would have been very near the site of St. Louis. It is rather more of a coincidence,
likewise, that the road of the trading pack and wagon of the New England emigrant, the
path of the Virginia ranger and Kentucky hunter, the devious way of the Canadian coureur
des bois and voyageur and the route of the trapper should all of them, have led to St.
Louis. In the ante-chamber of the representative of the French ancient regime, or the
Spanish hidalgo who might chance to be commandant at old St. Louis, but in no other
place on the continent, it would have been natural for Daniel Boone, "backwoodsman of
Kentucky," to meet and exchange adventures with the Yankee peddler from Connecticut,
the Jesuit priest from Minnesota, the Canadian half-breed trapper from the head waters
of the Missouri, and the sugar planter of Opelousas and Terrebonne. So races and
nationalities confront one another today in St. Louis and so likewise, in the remotest
past of America's connection with historic periods, we find that convergence of races and
nationalities toward the central point of the great Mississippi basin, which was to eventu-
ate in the founding of St. Louis and its establishment as the key city of the mightiest
river system upon the globe.

A remarkable gathering of St. Louis pioneers in business, and in the pro-
fessions, took place in June, 1858. John F. Darby, ex-mayor and ex-congress-
man, a man of means, occupied a residence where the new Third National bank
building is now, on Fifth and Olive streets. He gave a pioneers' dinner, his
guests being the men prominent in business and the professions, when he was
admitted to the bar, in 1827. Thirty-one years these thirty-one St. Louisans
had been engaged in the building of St. Louis :

18- VOL. II.

690 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

1 John O 'Fallen. 16 Edward Bates.

2 William Carr Lane. 17 Sullivan Blood.

3 Robert Simpson. 18 Pierre Chouteau, Jr.

4 Peter Ferguson. 19 Eobert Campbell.

5 Joseph Charless. 20 Edward Walsh.

6 Archibald Gamble. 21 George K. McGunnegle.

7 Thornton Grimsley. 22 Henry Von Phul.

8 Henry Shaw. 23 Louis A. Benoist.

9 John Finney. 24 Daniel D. Page.

10 William Finney. 25 Bernard Pratte.

11 Charles Keemle. 26 Hamilton E. Gamble.

12 John H. Gay. 27 Asa Wilgus.

13 John Simonds. 28 Augustine Kerr.

14 Samuel Willi. 29 Thomas Andrews.

15 Louis A. Labeaume. 30 Augustus H. Evans.

31 Nathaniel Paschall.

Mr. Darby missed no opportunity to impress upon the rising generation the
truth about the men who had made St. Louis what it was in his day:

One great cause of the rise, progress and growth of the city of St Louis may be
said to be the character of the men who were combined together in the building up of
this proud and prosperous metropolis. Take the men in all branches of business — the
merchants, the mechanics, the steamboatmen, the lawyers, the doctors, and in fact men
in every pursuit of life — and we must admit that there never was brought together such
a rare and rich combination of talent, genius and industry as were united in the city of
St. Louis some forty or fifty years ago. These men all seemed to be governed by the
noblest impulses of our nature, and directed by the strictest principles of honor, honesty,
uprightness and integrity that can control anfl influence the conduct and actions of men.
In fact every man's word was his bond, and could be implicitly relied upon. The
prominent men who gave, as it were, tone, direction, and management to affairs, were,
so to speak, the choice and picked men from almost every other state in the Union ; for they
had not only come from almost every other state but in many instances from almost every
county in almost every other state. Such were the men in whose hands were placed the
destinies, fortunes, and future grandeur of our noble city.

The period of greatest immigration was from 1840 to 1870. Had the per-
centage of increase continued after 1870, St. Louis would have had 2,000,000
population in 1890 and 3,500,000 population in 1900. In the year 1911 the city
would have been approaching 5,000,000 population. This was not to be expected.
The human tide had been at flood. In the nature of things it must ebb. In 1870
St. Louis contained 112,000 people born in foreign countries. They represented
more than forty geographical subdivisions of the world. Of the 200,000 resi-
dents who were natives of the United States, 80,000, almost one-half, had been
born outside of Missouri. Their places of nativity were distributed among thirty-
seven states and eight territories. Every state and every territory, except Alaska
and Arizona, had contributed natives to the population of St. Louis. New York
led, with 9,250 of her sons and daughters in St. Louis. Ohio had contributed,
6,800; Illinois, 6,700, and Pennsylvania 5,800 to St. Louis. These states were
represented by larger numbers than the other states. But the significant fact is
that while these three states had led in numbers, ihey had not contributed more
than their quotas in proportion to their own population. Other much smaller
states had furnished their proportionate numbers. Every New England state
had given liberally. Connecticut born residents of St. Louis were 628 ; the Mas-
sachusetts born, 2,542; the New Hampshire, 343; the Rhode Island, 150; the

REV. DR. TRUMAN MARCELLUS POST

Erom a picture taken at the time he was
Professor of History in Washington
University. Before the Civil war

JAMES SOULARD

THE BERTHOLD MANSION
Fifth and Pine streets

THE MEN OF ST. LOUIS 691

Maine, 712; the Vermont, 578. To summarize, the population of St. Louis, in
1870, included 5,000 men and women born in the New England states.

St. Louisans of New Jersey nativity numbered 955 ; of Maryland birth,
1,502; of Delaware, 56. It is a matter of some surprise to learn that, in 1870,
there were living in St. Louis 251 white and 30 colored people born in the Dis-
trict of Columbia.

Thirty-nine years ago St. Louis was classed by many persons as a southern
city. It is a fact that in 1870 the white natives of all of the southern states, resi-
dent in St. Louis, did not equal the New Yorkers of St. Louis adoption. There
were 2,235 Virginians and 3,706 Kentuckians in St. Louis. Louisiana came next
with 1,882, and Tennesee fourth with 1,439. Other southern states contributed:
Alabama, 462; Arkansas, 246; Florida, 56; Georgia, 340; Mississippi, 554; North
Carolina, 190; South Carolina, 150; Texas, 120; West Virginia, 45.

Indiana had sent to St. Louis 2,439; Michigan, 746; Wisconsin, 660. The
states west of the Mississippi, in 1870, had not many to spare, but all of them
had sent of their natives to swell the population of St. Louis. The Iowa born
were 1,424; Kansas, 278; Minnesota, 145; Nebraska, 58; Nevada, i; Oregon,
2. The territorial natives resident in St. Louis were not numerous, but were
well scattered : Colorado, 20 ; Dakota, 5 ; Indian Territory, 5 ; Montana, 9 ; New
Mexico, 27; Utah, 18; Washington, 4; Wyoming, i.

The widely scattered sources of the foreign immigration to St. Louis must
be noted. Not only were the sources many but the varying strength of these
numerous inflowing strains was remarkable. The Canada born numbered 1,841
in 1870; the England born, 5,366; the France, 2,788; the Bohemia, 2,652; the
Austria, 751; the Belgium, 254; the Denmark, 178; the Hungary, 126; the Italy,
785. The two great armies of immigrants in St. Louis were German and Irish.
The fourteen states of Germany were represented in St. Louis in 1870 by 50,640,
while those born in Ireland numbered 32,239. Natives of Africa, Asia, Aus-
tralia, Central America, Mexico, Cuba, Greece, Norway and the Pacific Islands
were residents of St. Louis.

"Most American of cities," St. Louis was pronounced by an observant
traveler recently. Three decades, from 1870 to 1900, constitute a period of
rapid assimilation of the contributions by countries and states to the population
of St. Louis. In 1900 the American born residents of St. Louis numbered 463,-
888. The foreign born population of St. Louis, in 1900, was 111,356, a few
hundreds less than the foreign born in 1870. St. Louis had Americanized with
great rapidity. The growth of the city in thirty years was of American birth.
Germany led in 1900 as in 1870. The Germany born dwellers in St. Louis in
1900 were 58,781, which was an increase of 8,000 over 1870. The Ireland born
were 19,420, a falling off of 13,000. The loss has been made up from other
sources. Russia, as a place of nativity, was hardly known in St. Louis in 1870.
The Russia born were 4,785 in 1900. The England born increased 500 ; the Can-
ada born, 1,300; Austria born, 1,800. The Polanders formed a new element in
the foreign born population numbering nearly 3,000 in 1900. Very few natives
of Switzerland were included in the population of St. Louis in 1870. In 1900
there were 2,752 Switzerland born. Another country with a much stronger rep-
resentation in 1900, was Sweden. The natives of Sweden were 1,116. The St.

692 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Louis population of 1900 included natives of Africa, the Atlantic Islands, Aus-
tralia, the Pacific Islands, Central America, India, Finland, as well as the better
known foreign lands.

Perhaps the handsomest of the young St. Louisans of his day was Sylvestre
Labbadie. He had been sent to France for his education. He brought back
with him the polish of the old world. As he grew in years, Mr. Labbadie could
not live up to the portrait which had been painted of him in his youth. One
day he saw little Virginia Sarpy looking at the portrait. He said to her:

"You are thinking what a pretty boy I was, and what an ugly old man I am."

"Yes, uncle," said the candid little Virginia.

"You shall have my portrait to remember me by," said the old man; and
the transfer was made.

Maryland had given to St. Louis long before the Civil war a remarkable
group of men in the persons of Peter and Jesse Lindell with their keen judg-
ment of future real estate values, Michael McEnnis with his bent toward manu-
facturing, John Kennard and Edward Bredell of mercantile fame, Thomas T.
Gantt of striking personality in the law, and Rufus J. Lackland and Robert A.
Barnes with native qualities which made them wonderfully successful in financial
affairs. Chester Harding was a pioneer in American portrait painting, who spent
much time in St. Louis. He was a born artist, self trained. In his youth he
was a chair maker. Before he died he was recognized as among the first if not
the very foremost of portrait painters of this country. One of his notable works
was the portrait of Governor William Clark. Another of Harding's historic
pictures was of Daniel Boone, whom he visited at the old Boone home near St.
Charles. When the artist entered he saw Boone lying on the floor toasting a
piece of venison fastened to the ramrod of his gun. When Dr. Robert Simpson
celebrated his eighty-eighth birthday in 1872, at the residence of his son-in-law,
Gen. A. J. Smith, he was the oldest American resident of St. Louis. A keel
boat brought him to this city on the first of April, 1809. He remembered that
he made his way up the Mississippi by means of poles, cordelle and sails, and
that he acted as bowman for the craft. Dr. Simpson was one of the original
anti-slavery men of St. Louis. When he was nominated, in 1819, for election
to the first constitutional convention of Missouri, he was on the anti-slavery
ticket, and with his associates was beaten. Three years later, in 1822, he went
to the legislature and presented the petition upon which St. Louis secured the
first city charter. Dr. Simpson was in many respects ahead of his times. He
presented in the legislature a bill for the protection of the rights of women and.
for the protection of homesteads. His views were rejected at that time, but the
doctor lived to see these same principles placed upon the statute books of many
states.

A group of seven Scotchmen came to this country and founded Dumfries
in Virginia. The location was at the head of navigation on a creek emptying
into the Potomac some distance below the home of George Washington. Dum-
fries was a commercial center, a port of no small importance one hundred and
fifty years ago. Richard Graham was a descendant of one of the Dumfries
founders. He was a major in the War of 1812, aide-de-camp on the staff of
William Henry Harrison. After the war the government made him Indian agent

THE MEN OF ST. LOUIS 693

at St. Louis. Deciding to make St. Louis his home, Major Graham bought a
country seat in the Florissant Valley. He had previously lived some time in
Kentucky, and had become a personal friend of Henry Clay. Mr. Clay chided
Major Graham for his preference of St. Louis over Kentucky. He suggested
that in view of the luxurious growth of brush on the farm, the major had better
give his place the name of Hazelwood. He wrote to the major addressing him
at ""Hazel wood." The major accepted the name not as Henry Clay intended it,
as a joke, but seriously. Hazelwood — the place is known to this day. Major
Graham married Catharine Mullanphy in 1825. His daughter, Lily Graham, was
the first wife of D. M. Frost, who, at the time of the marriage, was a lieutenant
in the United States army.

A granddaughter of Major Graham, by his first wife, Miss Fox of Kentucky,
was the wife of Judge Wickham. Born in Virginia, educated at Georgetown
University in Washington, a resident for some time in Kentucky, Major Gra-
ham became thoroughly contented with his St. Louis home. He wrote back to
brothers and friends in Virginia repeatedly that nothing could ever induce him
to give up his home in St. Louis county. He lived there until 1857.

The O'Neil family was from Roscrea, County Tipperary. Several brothers,
two sisters and a widowed mother came to this country in 1829. They settled at
Utica in the Mohawk Valley of New York state and remained there eight years.
Moving westward the family remained near Dayton a short time and then came
to St. Louis. One of the brothers was Joseph O'Neil. He founded and suc-
cessfully conducted the Citizens' Savings bank for many years. He managed,
with signal skill, the business affairs of the late Archbishop Kenrick at an earlier
period. He was one of the founders of Forest Park. So upright and scrupu-
lously honest in his dealings was Joseph O'Neil that a fellow countryman in a
spirit of levity gave him the name of "Holy Joe." The name was recognized as
having fitness, and clung to Mr. O'Neil all of his life. The Erskines were New
Hampshire people of Quaker descent. Greene Erskine before he came to St.
Louis, in 1832, had made a fortune in trade at St. Thomas in the West Indies,
where he had served in the Danish militia. Part of that fortune he had invested
in the founding and publishing of the Knickerbocker Magazine of New York
before he established himself in the grocery trade on the Levee in St. Louis.
The Uhrigs, for generations, were river men in Bavaria. They handled com-
merce on the Main. When Franz Joseph Uhrig came to America, in 1836, he
managed a ferry on the Susquehanna for eight dollars a month and board. He
worked his way to St. Louis in 1838, bought a flatboat and freighted cordwood
to the city from the Illinois river, where his brother Andrew had a farm. That
led to steamboating. Ignatz Uhrig, a young brother, came over from Lauder-
bach in 1839. The two Uhrigs left the river to engage in the brewery business,
and in 1852 bought from William Beaumont the corner of Washington and Jef-
ferson avenues, to be known for more than half a century as Uhrig's cave.

The Dyers are of Virginia descent with American patriots for ancestors.
Thomas Bickley Dyer came west with his parents from Goochland county in
1826. He married, in 1844, a daughter of Judge William C. Carr, from whom
Carr Place, a fashionable residence street in its day, took its name. A son is
William Carr Dyer, the educator. David Patterson Dyer, the Federal judge,

694 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

came, in 1841, from Henry county, Virginia, his parents settling in Lincoln
county. His father was a soldier in the War of 1812, and his grandfather was
in the Revolutionary army. David P. Dyer, a Douglas Democrat, raised a regi-
ment and served in the Civil war.

When the city of St. Louis extends its official limits and Clayton becomes
a ward, when the county courthouse has outlived its usefulness and gives place
to a municipal structure, there will be found in the cavity of the corner stone
an old Bible with this inscription:

In 1830 two young men, George Cornwall and Eichard Tunis, came to the State of
Missouri as merchants from Philadelphia. When George Cornwell left home his mother
gave him this morocco-bound Bible. He died in St. Louis in 1832, and before he died
he gave this Bible to his friend Eichard Tunis and he in turn gave it to John F. Darby,
who has had it in his possession forty-six years this 9th of May, 1878. John F. Darby
deposited with his own hands this Bible in the place for the reception of mementos in this
corner stone of the new court house of St. Louis county.

A group of men who became landholders in the county and whose descend-
ants are numerous in both the city and county of St. Louis migrated from Car-
oline county, Virginia, in 1830-40. There were three Tylers, William, Henry
and Zachary ; two Colemans, Massey and Daniel ; William Boxley. About the
same time arrived Rev. Robert G. Coleman with four sons, from Spottsylvania,
Virginia.

Army and navy have contributed to the population character of St. Louis.
The settlement had a garrison from the time St. Ange de Bellerive marched up
from Fort Chartres, in 1766. There came in 1770, and for thirty years there-
after the Spanish detachments. As they left the service many officers and sol-
diers, French and Spanish, married the daughters of the fur traders and became
habitants of the settlement.

A valuable strain of patriotic military spirit St. Louis gained through the
Paul family. The San Domingo insurrection of the negroes, in 1793, prompted
several French families to seek refuge in the United States, and ultimately to
find homes in St. Louis. The children of the Paul family were at school in
France when their father left San Domingo. They came to the United States
and lived in Baltimore for some time. Rene Paul came to St. Louis to go into
business with Bartholomew Berthold in 1809. He married Marie Therese Chou-
teau, the oldest daughter of Colonel Auguste Chouteau, the stepson of Laclede.
The oldest son of this marriage, Gabriel Rene, went to West Point. He served
in the Indian wars, in the Mexican war and in the Civil war, attaining the rank
of brigadier-general in the regular army. At Gettysburg, General Paul was left
for dead on the field. When the surgeons finally got to him, they discovered
signs of life and revived him. Blinded by the wounds received, General Paul
recovered and lived more than twenty years after the battle. The first wife of
General Paul was the daughter of Colonel Whistler, who commanded the regi-
ment with which he served when a lieutenant. Three daughters of General
Paul married into the army. The second son of Rene Paul commanded a com-
pany of the St. Louis Legion in the Mexican war. A brother-in-law of Rene
Paul fought with the Americans at the Battle of New Orleans. Daughters of
Rene Paul married Peter N. Ham, Charles Dubreuil and Frederick Beckwith.

THE MEN OF ST. LOUIS 695

In 1804 Bellefontaine, north of St. Louis a few miles, became the canton-
ment for a large force of United States troops. Wilkinson, the commanding
general of the army, was located there some months. Through this cantonment,
the Bissells becames identified with St. Louis. Six brothers, named Bissell, lived
in Connecticut. All of them fought in the Revolutionary war. One of their
descendants was Major Russell Bissell. When General Wilkinson came with
the troops to establish a garrison near St. Louis, Russell Bissell was with him.
Wilkinson made his headquarters in St. Louis. Major Bissell was placed in
command at Cantonment Bellefontaine, as they called it, the fort on the high
bluff overlooking the Missouri river. Major Bissell died at Fort Bellefontaine
in 1807, and was buried in the little garrison graveyard. His son Lewis Bissell
was a captain in the regular army, but after he left the service he came back
here and lived at Bissell's Point, near the reservoir in North St. Louis. After
Major Bissell came Colonel Hunt in command of Bellefontaine, and then an-
other Bissell, General Daniel, son of one of the Revolutionary Bissels of Con-
necticut. He built barracks. Cantonment Bellefontaine became Fort Bellefon-
taine. General Bissell went south to fight in the War of 1812. He never forgot
his liking for St. Louis. When he was mustered out, in 1821, he came back',
bought a large tract of beautiful rolling country, nine miles up the road to Fort
Bellefontaine, and lived there the rest of life. He had three daughters and one
son. One daughter married William Morrison; another, Risdon H. Price, and
the third Major Thompson Douglass of the United States army. James Bissell,
the son, went to school in Connecticut, came back to St. Louis and lived on the
home place. Few American families could show such a military record as the
Bissells of Middletown, Connecticut. The father and all of the sons were in the
Revolutionary army. Four of the sons continued in the regular army. Daniel
Bissell was a boy when he enlisted as private. He was a brigadier-general when
he left the regular army, in 1821, to make his home in the suburbs of St. Louis.

John Francis Hamtramck was a Prussian who joined the American army in
the Revolution and fought gallantly. He remained in the army after peace was
declared and obtained high rank. Upon the monument erected to him in Detroit
is the inscription : "The United States in him have lost a valuable officer, a good
citizen, and member of society; his loss to his country is incalculable, and his
friends will never forget the memory of Hamtramck." Colonel Hamtramck
has many descendants in St. Louis. He might be said to be the founder of a
military family in this country, so many of those descendants have given good
account of themselves in uniform. A son, who bore his father's name served
in the regular army and resided for some years in St. Louis. He commanded
a regiment in the Mexican war. One daughter married Captain Thomas J. Har-
rison while he was at Jefferson Barracks. Another daughter married Captain
Joseph Cross, a former army officer. A third daughter married Dr. Harvey
Lane, of Missouri. Two daughters of Mrs. Lane became the wives of Henry
G. Soulard and Julius Chenie, of St. Louis.

The July day, in 1826 that Captain Stephen Watts Kearny, brevet major,
led four companies of the First Regiment of Infantry up the river bluff to the
Rock Spring was the beginning of Jefferson Barracks. Kearny's men pitched their
tents near .the spring. John Quincy Adams was President of the United States.

696 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Kearny called the camp "Cantonment Adams." A couple of months afterwards,
on the seventeenth of September, 1826, Colonel Leaven worth, with the Third
Infantry, came down the river and formed a separate camp on the reservation.
Leavenworth took the name of "Camp Miller" in honor of Governor Miller, of
Missouri. But in a few weeks, on the twenty-third of October, the order was
issued from the War Department that the new post was to be called "Jefferson
Barracks" as a tribute to Thomas Jefferson, who had died the Fourth of July,
just six days before Kearny and his men occupied the grounds. General At-
kinson was the department commander, but occupied headquarters in St. Louis.
The immediate command at the Barracks devolved upon Leavenworth. As the
first step toward a permanent post the soldiers were set to work building log
houses, into which they moved before cold weather. Leavenworth was a born
soldier. Although he was stationed only a short time at Jefferson Barracks he
established the Infantry School of Instruction. This was the first army service
school for infantry in this country. From Jefferson Barracks, Leavenworth
went, in 1827, to establish the fort and post in Kansas, which bears his name.
Atkinson and Kearny remained to become identified with the history of St. Louis.
Lieut. Col. Philip St. George Cooke, in his scenes and adventures in the army,
left a pen picture of Jefferson Barracks life in the early days:

None of the actors in those scenes can fail to recur with some pleasure to the gaieties
of 1827-8 at Jefferson Barracks. One of the regiments was in cantonment on the south
side of the first hill ; a quarter of a mile farther on another, the 6th infantry, was encamped ;
on the crest of the next hill were extensive stone barracks in progress; and still lower
down, on its southern declivity, were encamped the 1st infantry; some staff and other
officers and their families were in huts in various detached situations. Two of the regi-
ments had a few months before arrived from a remote outpost. A day or two after
joining, I, with several friends, dined at the regimental mess of the 6th. It then was
a mess indeed — in numbers and spirit a delightful mess, such as few regiments now have.

The president was Capt. , with his splendid whiskers and moustache, dignified and

easy in his manners, he seemed a type of the old school. Capt. soon after became

in low health, and being of impatient temper, his spirits sank under it; his life was in
danger; and as a last resort Surgeon G. prescribed a singular mode of treatment — a novel

kind of excitement which was intrusted to Lieutenant E . He paraded daily around

the captain's tent with a long face, whistling the death march; and it so happened that

being first on the list, the captain's death would cause his promotion. But Capt. ,

taking this view of it, waxed wrathful, and swore he would not die for his tormentor's
sake; and the cure was made.

What would thirty young officers be at? Not much time was consumed in consider-
ing such a question; in all intervals of duty, we gladly resigned ourselves to the influences
of chance or impulse, and sufficient to the day were the pleasures thereof. None thought
of the morrow. To the many all was new, even the service itself — a new country and
manners, and there were some new beauties. On New Year's morn many were they who
found themselves at that log temple of hospitality, the mess house of the 1st, and paid
their devoirs to a half whiskey barrel in the middle of an immense table, foaming to the
top with egg-nog. The 6th regiment that day entertained all at the post at dinner,
and midnight found us still at the table. On the 8th of January, the 1st gave a splendid
ball in an unfinished barrack; a noble display of flags was above and around us, with
hundreds of bright muskets with a candle in the muzzle of each. Many from St. Louis were
there; and Louisville, too, had several beautiful representatives.

An army marriage of 1841, which gave St. Louis a notable citizen, was that
of Major Henry S. Turner and Julia M. Hunt, the daughter of Theodore Hunt
and Anne Lucas. Major Turner was of Virginia parentage, his mother having

GEN. NATHAN RANNEY

JAMES CLEMENS, JR.

WILLIAM G. PETTUS

Secretary of First Constitutional

Convention of Missouri

FRIEDRICH MUENCH

STRONG TYPES OF ST. LOUISANS

THE MEN OF ST. LOUIS 697

been a member of the Randolph family. Coming out of West Point, Lieutenant
Turner was chosen, with two other officers of the dragoons, to attend the royal
school of cavalry in France. At that time the French led all other nations in
the perfection of their cavalry service.

The young American officer came home after fifteen months' study. Lieu-
tenant Turner, with the help of one of the other officers, translated and adapted
the French tactics, with some modifications, for the cavalry branch of the United
States army. It became a standard authority. In the Mexican war, Lieutenant
Turner was made Major Turner for gallant service in three battles. He retired
from the army with the intention of leading the ideal life of a country gentle-
man in St. Louis county. After 1850 he was assistant treasurer of the United
States at St. Louis several years, and then became associated with James H.
Lucas in the banking business. He served in the Missouri legislature just before
the Civil war. He was one of the creators of the great St. Louis Fair.

Two officers of the army, who settled in St. Louis and became men of
affairs, were the McRees. They were sons of a Revolutionary officer, Major
Griffith John McRee, who settled in North Carolina after the independence of
the United States was acknowledged. The two sons, William and Samuel Mc-
Ree were educated at West Point. William McRee was in the War of 1812.
General Winfield Scott said of him that "he combined more genius and military
science with high courage than any other officer who participated in the War of
1812." William McRee came to St. Louis about 1830 and made this his home
until he died in the cholera epidemic of 1833. Samuel McRee remained in the
army until after the Mexican War, when he became a resident of St. Louis. He
owned considerable property near the crossing of the Manchester road and the
Missouri Pacific railroad. When this land was sold and built upon as a suburb
of St. Louis the neighborhood was called McRee City. Near by was a large
spring which emptied into Chouteau's Pond; this was McRee spring.

One of the military men who settled in St. Louis and became an excellent
citizen when he retired from the army, was Colonel Joshua B. Brant. A native
of Hampton County, Massachusetts, the son of John Brant, a Revolutionary
patriot, Joshua B. Brant entered the army at the opening of the War of 1812
with New York troops commanded by Captain H. W. Odell. He fought at
Fort George, at Forty Mile Creek, at Lundy's Lane. After the war he remained
in the army and advanced to the grade of lieutenant-colonel, taking part in Indian
wars. From 1823 to 1829 Colonel Brant's home, so far as a regular army officer
could have one, was in St. Louis. He entered business life in St. Louis in 1839,
when he left the army, and was the leading spirit in some of the largest building
operations here during the forties. The first wife of Colonel Brant was Eliza-
beth Love joy, of Stratford, Connecticut. The second wife was Sarah Benton,
a daughter of the brother of Thomas H. Benton.

The Civil war drew some of the best blood of St. Louis to both sides. But
when peace came St. Louis drew from both armies new citizens of force and
character. A cavalry officer in a North Carolina regiment, Dr. Joseph J. Law-
rence came to St. Louis not long after the close of the war and founded the
Medical Brief.

698 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

The capital of North Carolina sent to St. Louis two sons of Scotch-Irish
descent, who were to become eminent in their professions, Rev. Dr. Samuel
Brown McPheeters and Dr. William M. McPheeters, the physician. Samuel
Brown McPheeters and Francis P. Blair were classmates and roommates at the
University of North Carolina in 1841. Twenty years later the McPheeters
brothers and Blair were conspicuous personalities in St. Louis. Blair was in the
front of the movement to hold Missouri loyal. McPheeters, the physician, was
in sympathy with the south. He gave up extensive practice and the position of
surgeon at the Marine hospital to go with the Confederate army. McPheeters,
the divine, was of Union sympathy. He was holding a commission as chaplain
in the United States army, and strongly advised southern officers that it was
their duty to be loyal to the government. Returning to the pastorate of what
was then the Pine Street Presbyterian church, now the Grand avenue, Dr. Mc-
Pheeters became the central figure in an ecclesiastical controversy, the conditions
of which must seem almost incredible to this generation. He had taken the
oath of allegiance. While chaplain he had declared his intention to fight if the
Confederates attacked the fort where he was stationed. But in the General
Assembly of the Presbyterian church he took ground against action on "The
State of the Country," holding that the church was prohibited by its constitution
"to meddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth." The other side
of the controversy was taken by Rev. Dr. Robert J. Breckenridge. In the bitter-
ness Dr. McPheeters was called a traitor. The controversy was taken up in St.
Louis where the war feeling was very strong. Dr. McPheeters was ordered, by
the military authorities, to cease preaching and to leave Missouri in ten days.
Then came President Lincoln's famous order declaring that the government of
the United States could not attempt to run the churches. The order of banish-
ment was countermanded. The local presbytery became involved. By church
decree Dr. McPheeters was separated from the Pine street congregation. When
the war was over he was invited to return, but his health had broken under the
strain. He suffered martyrdom for belief in the spiritual independence of the
church. The McPheeters case was one of the St. Louis tragedies of the Civil
war. Dr. McPheeters came back to resume his practice. He had been a hero
in the cholera epidemic of 1849. He became a leader in moral movements and
was the first president of the society for the suppression of vice, formed to meet
the demoralization, which was part of St. Louis' inheritance from the war.

An intense Union man of southern birth and education was John D. Stev-
enson. He was not only a native of Virginia, but received his education in the
Old Dominion and in South Carolina. He practiced law in Virginia before com-
ing west in 1841. His wife was Miss Hannah Letcher, a first cousin of John
Letcher, the war governor of Virginia. But with such antecedents John D.
Stevenson put aside his law books and went into the Union army in the spring
of 1861 as colonel of the Seventh Missouri Infantry. As a member of the Mis-
souri legislature he had opposed, with all of his might, the efforts of Governor
Jackson to have Missouri join the southern Confederacy.

Five Wears, brothers, fought in the battle of King's Mountain and helped
to win one of the decisive patriot victories of the Revolution. From one of the five
Wears descended James Hutchinson Wear, the wholesale merchant, and David

THE MEN OF ST. LOUIS 699

Walker Wear, the lawyer, residents of St. Louis about the time of the Civil war.
The father of the Wears was a pioneer settler of Missouri, coming from Ten-
nessee. He founded the town of Otterville. James Hutchinson Wear founded
the Wear-Boogher Dry Goods company. Albert S. Aloe came from Edinburgh,
Scotland. By way of preparation to establish himself as an optician in St. Louis,
in 1862, he sailed before the mast around Cape Horn, and built a sugar mill in
South America. Weshpool, Wales, was the birthplace of David Harries Evans,
who was the first resident on Lindell boulevard, to contribute ground for the
widening and beautifying of that thoroughfare. Among the heirlooms which
Samuel H. Leathe treasured, in his St. Louis home, was the musket his grand-
father carried in the Battle of Lexington. Before he came to St. Louis to reside
permanently, this son of Massachusetts was successively a sailor, an explorer in
the Rocky Mountains, a horse trader in the south, a '49er in California, a mer-
chant in Boston. Such was the diversified experience which prepared him for
his part in the St. Louis firm of Pettus & Leathe, importers of works of art.

Descendants of Solomon Slayback, who was with Washington at Valley
Forge, came to Missouri by way of Cincinnati, where Dr. Abel Slayback was a
leading member of the medical profession early in the last century. Alexander
L. Slayback, a grandson of the Revolutionary patriot, was educated in Missouri
and settled in Lexington of this state. Three of his sons were residents of St.
Louis after the Civil war. Charles McLaran, the head of the McLaran family,
came from Baltimore. His father was a Revolutionary officer. His grandfather
was obliged to leave Scotland for engaging in the movement to put Charles on
the throne. As a member of the first board of police commissioners Colonel
McLaran participated in the organization of the metropolitan police system. The
family of which Henry B. Belt as an elder brother became the head was from
Virginia, but lived in Huntsville, Alabama, in 1815. There Henry B. Belt was
born. His father was interested in mineral prospecting. The family moved to
Missouri between 1820 and 1830. In the cholera epidemic at St. Louis of 1849,
the mother, a brother and two sisters were victims. Henry B. Belt as a youth
was a clerk in the sheriff's office many years. He was best known as a real-
estate dealer, forming with John G. Priest in 1853 the firm of Belt & Priest,
which continued in business twenty-seven years.

Nearing the end of the century, about 1895, grand old men gave strength of
character to St. Louis. They were eighty, but they were active. Their influence
in the community was impressive. It was felt in business and in all of the pro-
fessions. These octogenarians pursued their vocations regularly. The youngest
of them had been born as early as 1815. Others could date back their birthdays
to 1807 and 1809 and 1812. These men were long time St. Louisans. They had
seen the city's evolution. They had not relinquished their interest in or their hold
on the affairs of life. They constituted an element such as probably no other city
could show and such as St. Louis had not before known. There were other St.
Louisans full of years and honors, but they had retired and were enjoying well
earned repose from active duties. Life in St. Louis has always encouraged lon-
gevity. There has been no better place to grow old. Most men withdraw from
cares at three-score and ten. St. Louis has had its full quota of these. But in
addition, the citizenship of 1895 included these notable personalities who were

700 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

to be seen day after day engaged in business or professional work, not as vigor-
ously as in earlier life, perhaps, but still to be accounted as part of the city's
active life.

When Augustus F. Shapleigh entered the hardware business steel had not
come into use for pens. Daniel R. Garrison, the moving spirit in the construc-
tion of the first railroad leading east from St. Louis, was 34 years old before St.
Louis thought of such a thing as a railroad, and when the first public meeting
was held to agitate on the subject. He was past 40 before the locomotive reached
the Mississippi. Carlos S. Greeley established a wholesale grocery at St. Louis
when Chicago was simply Fort Dearborn. Dr. S. Gratz Moses was private phy-
sician to Joseph Bonaparte, ex-King of Spain, and eldest brother of Napoleon.
While he was a resident of Paris, in this capacity, he enjoyed confidential rela-
tions with the Murat family. This was between 1830 and 1840. Two of the
moving spirits in the establishment of the first public dispensary west of the Mis-
sissippi, in 1841, Drs. Moses and William M. McPheeters, were still in active
professional life. Giles F. Filley was on the electoral ticket for Fremont, in
Missouri, when Buchanan was elected president. John D. Perry had seen more
than sixty years of active business life in St. Louis.

Melvin L. Gray came down to his law office, shed his coat, rolled up the
top of a big desk crammed with legal papers and received his clients in July
days. He was a classmate of the poet, John G. Saxe. Dr. Louis Bauer emerged
from the consultation room of a down-town office with sprightly step and cigar
poised between his fingers. Dr. Bauer was a colleague of Bismarck in the Prus-
sian Parliament of 1848. Bismarck and Bauer, with one other, shared the dis-
tinction of being the youngest members of that body. Bismarck was then in
retirement. Dr. Bauer, eight months and fourteen days older, received his
patients, lectured regularly before medical classes and contributed copiously to
medical publications. Oliver A. Hart was at one time an architect and a builder
in St. Louis. Under his supervision four of the churches of the city were con-
structed. They were the finest of the period. Mr. Hart lived to see every one
of those churches, built to last a century, removed to give place to business
blocks, and he was still in active management of varied interests.

"Hard work," said Melvin L. Gray, in accounting for the fact that at 80 he
was finding it difficult to stop being a lawyer. Hard work, Mr. Gray believed,
had been conducive to long life and good health in his case. It had inspired
regularity of life anid good habits. Mr. Gray admitted that there was such a
thing as "the demon of overwork." At one time years ago he attempted to carry
too great a load. "The result was," he said, "I found myself breaking down. I
took a few months' rest, resumed practice and have kept it up. About a year
ago I began to wind up my business. I refused to take new cases, and I now
have but one on hand. I can't say that I have pursued any special rules of life.
I have lived regularly, and that is about all there is of it."

In the fifty-three years of steady practice at the St. Louis bar Mr. Gray
carried weighty responsibilities. He confined himself to civil practice. As
executor, administrator and guardian he had the handling of hundreds of estates,
some of them of large value, and not infrequently he was given charge of them
without bond. No one ever sustained any loss through Mr. Gray in a fiduciary

THE MEN OF ST. LOUIS 701

capacity. There were in 1895 but two men living whose practice at the St. Louis
bar antedated Mr. Gray's. Both of them had been retired several years. They
Were Samuel Knox and Judge Samuel Treat.

To fresh air more than to any other one thing Dr. Louis Bauer ascribed his
vigor and fine flow of spirits at eighty-one. "Neither summer nor winter," said
he, "do I sleep with closed windows. In the summer I have my bed-room win-
dows wide open. In the winter, no matter how cold it is, I leave a crack of one,
two or three inches. People warn you about draughts. You can't have fresh
air without draughts. I live on plain food. I take an occasional glass of wine
with a friend. Beer? Well, I take that less occasionally than the wine. As for
cigars, I have reduced my allowance. I average not more than three a day.
Moderation in all of these things is my rule, and so I am still able to receive my
patients, to give my lectures and to do my share toward the surgical literature
of the day."

Two other members of Dr. Bauer's profession had not neglected to "heal
themseves." Dr. Moses was a year older and Dr. McPheeters was a year
younger than Dr. Bauer. Neither of them had retired entirely from active
practice. Both of them were 50 years old when, because of their sympathies,
they were invited by the authorities to leave St. Louis and go south. They
spent their years of exile attending to the necessities of Confederate soldiers.
Dr. McPheeters came naturally by his southern affiliation. He was a North
Carolinian by birth. Dr. Moses' birthplace was in Philadelphia, and his ances-
tors were merchants. In 1895 it was over forty years since Dr. McPheeters
wrote a history of the great cholera year in St. Louis, which won him much fame ;
it was over fifty years since Dr. Moses, as city physician, helped devise the first
sewer system in St. Louis. But these two men were still practicing their pro-
fession.

Very few of these St. Louis octogenarians of 1895 were born with silver
spoons in their mouths. Giles F. Filley as a youth went into a tinner's shop and
learned that trade. Melvin L. Gray, a Vermonter, went south to Alabama and
taught school before he took up law studies. Augustus F. Shapleigh clerked in
a hardware store for $50 a year. He did it against his will, for he wanted to
follow the sea, as his father had done before him. Oliver A. Hart served as
apprentice in a carpenter shop in Norwich, Conn., and his start in St. Louis was
made as a builder. Carlos S. Greeley was clerk in a grocery. Henry L. Clark
left his home in Ireland when he was only seventeen years old to become a
sailor. Thomas B. Edgar learned carriage making and established a manufac-
tory in the city in 1835. Daniel R. Garrison put in four years of toil in a machine
shop.

An easy conscience is conducive to longevity. The St. Louis octogenarians
who still remained upon the active list in 1895 were without exception men of
strict integrity. Among them were some whose lives illustrated a sense of honor
that was extraordinary. Take the case of Giles F. Filley. At fifty-two years of,
age Mr. Filley found himself responsible for a debt of nearly $1,000,000. This
had come about solely through the appearance of his name as indorser on another
man's commercial paper. It was not a business venture on Mr. Filley's part.
It was an act of friendship. Mr. Filley was urged to take advantage of bank-

702 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

ruptcy and rid himself of the burden incurred through no moral responsibility.
He refused to see it that way. He assumed the paper he had indorsed, not only
the principal, but the interest, and at the age of sixty-six paid the last dollar.
The interest had added materially to the debt. The actual amount Mr. Filley
paid in sustaining this endorsement was $1,300,000. At the same time he car-
ried on and extended his manufacturing business.

These octogenarians believed that it was better to wear out than to rust out.
They had worked all of their lives and worked hard. Daniel R. Garrison's ex-
perience was interesting. Forty-five years before he had attempted to retire
and enjoy life. He had made what in those days was a handsome fortune. He
bought a fine home and with his brother Oliver proposed to settle down. Before
he passed a year in leisure he was back in business, and the greatest achievements
of his life had been since then. There was no railroad into St. Louis, east or
west, north or south, when Mr. Garrison resumed work. He took hold of and
finished the Ohio and Mississippi to East St. Louis, the snort of the iron horse
drowning the chorus of frogs on Bloody Island for the first time in 1858. After
that Mr. Garrison got behind the projected Missouri Pacific and pushed that
until it was completed to Kansas City. Not many people know that a change
of gauge to standard was made on the Missouri Pacific. Mr. Garrison planned
it and the rails were moved into place from St. Louis to Kansas City in sixteen
hours, a great feat for that time. The building of the Vulcan and Jupiter Iron
Works at Carondelet to turn out rails from Missouri iron for Missouri road-
beds was the next great project to which Mr. Garrison turned his attention, and
he was past sixty when he carried that through successfully.

Several others of the octogenarians were prominent in the early railroad
enterprises of St. Louis. Thomas B. Edgar and Oliver A. Hart were directors
of the Missouri Pacific during the pioneer period. Giles F. Filley, John D.
Perry and Carlos S. Greeley were directors in the Kansas Pacific. But W. D.
Griswold was longer and more closely identified with railroad construction than
any of them. Mr. Griswold left the practice of law to become a railroad builder.
He was a fellow-student of Melvin L. Gray at Middlebury College, and was pre-
pared for college by the Rev. Dr. T. M. Post, of St. Louis. He came west in
1835, and soon after formed a law partnership at Terre Haute with John P.
Ushur, who, during the war, was secretary of the interior. For a number of
years Mr. Griswold practiced in the circuits of Indiana and Illinois, meeting
frequently Abraham Lincoln. Some time before the war period, however, Mr.
Griswold became interested in railroad construction. There were few lines in
the west when he built the old Evansville and Crawfordsville. Then he took
hold of the Terre Haute, Alton and St. Louis, completed it and put it in a well
managed condition at a time when it was in danger of becoming a wreck. Still
later, Mr. Griswold took charge of the Ohio and Mississippi and brought order
out of chaos there. After giving many of the best years of his life to the devel-
opment of the railroad interests of St. Louis, Mr. Griswold turned his attention
to real estate, and was one of the first investors to foresee the transformation to
come between Grand avenue and Forest Park. He bought a tract of farm land
there for $1,000 an acre and lived to sell it for $5,000 an acre, and to see it
fashioned into one of the most elegant residence places in the country.

H
ffi
W

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THE MEN OF ST. LOUIS 703

Blood will tell in men as well as race horses. To "good stock" Daniel R.
Garrison attributed in considerable part his hale old age. His father was a New
Englander. His mother was of Holland descent and a member of one of the
Knickerbocker families of New York. The combination of New England energy
with the phlegmatic Holland nature was a fine one for results. It produced a
famous family of Garrison brothers, whose enterprise was only bounded by the
continent.

At eighty-six James M. Franciscus was as erect as a West Pointer and
walked with a quick, springy step. He was the athlete of all the octogenarians.
He took his bath the first thing in the morning, just as he had done for thirty-
five years. He used 1 5-pound dumb-bells before breakfast, as had been his cus-
tom for more than thirty years. He walked from one to two miles every day.
It was doubtful if in both mental and physical vigor, age considered, there was
in 1895 the equal of Mr. Franciscus in the United States. Daniel T. Jewett, the
lawyer, was two years the senior of Mr. Franciscus, and still active in his pro-
fession.

To exercise, plenty of it, more than to any other one thing, Mr. Franciscus
attributed his wonderful physical condition. A sedentary occupation is not con-
sidered the most favorable to long life. But this gentleman was a living exam-
ple of what an office man may realize if he supplements his indoor occupation
with plenty of outdoor exercise.

Mr. Franciscus was a native of Baltimore, where his father was in the
sugar refining business. He became a broker and then a banker, continuing in
that business. In his sixty-five years of continuous experience in financial affairs
Mr. Franciscus saw about every phase of banking tried in this country. The
opinion of such a man ought to go a good ways. He said:

"I think the present is the most perfect system. In the earlier period we
were doing business with state banks and there was no security for the circula-
tion, except the honest and faithful management of the banks. The currency
of one state was at a discount in another. Failures were occurring almost every
month or two. Since the national banking system was adopted there has never
been any loss sustained by one bank on the circulation of another."

Mr. Franciscus did not smoke. He did not use tobacco in any form. He
went to bed at 9 and got up at 6. At eighty-six he did not know what "the bur-
den of years" meant.

Another case in which office life had not undermined health was that of
Henry L. Clark, who had been secretary of the Wiggins Ferry company thirty-
two years. Mr. Clark gave up the active, roving life of a sailor to become a
bank teller in St. Louis about 1835. William Stobie, at eighty-three, retained
the management and direction of his mills.

These St. Louis octogenarians did not live to be eighty and active by
dodging responsibilities. They worked hard, but they did not survive by leading
treadmill lives. They took chances to the limit. Some of them found time to
try several occupations. Nearly all of them put money and mind into experi-
ments. Giles F. Filley once went out of the tin-making business to demon-
strate that stone china could be made with profit from the potter's clay found
under St. Louis. He imported skilled potters from England and carried on

704 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

the enterprises several years before he went into stove-making. Augustus F.
Shapleigh was in business in Philadelphia before he came to St. Louis. James
M. Franciscus conducted a brokerage and banking business in Baltimore, Louis-
ville and New Orleans before he decided that St. Louis was the most promising
of the four cities Daniel R. Garrison went into the manufacture of steam
engines in St. Louis in 1835, when such an enterprise had not been dreamed
of in the Mississippi Valley, and when the rush of the gold miners to California
occurred in 1849 Mr. Garrison followed it and sold products of St. Louis
manufacture at prices that made him a fortune. Oliver A. Hart built houses,
organized a fire insurance company, managed the first gas stock company in
St. Louis and went into the manufacture of iron and steel and the building of
railroads.

One of these octogenarians of 1895 put his impress upon the architecture
of St. Louis. Visitors to the city in the years following the Civil war com-
mented much upon the simplicity of the house fronts, business and private.
George I. Barnett came to this country from Nottingham, England. He was
the son of a Baptist minister. Although he was only 25 years old when he
settled in St. Louis, he was thoroughly grounded in the beliefs of the Italian
school. Being a very positive man, Mr. Barnett succeeded in impressing those
ideas upon the architecture of St. Louis to a marked degree. There were other
men in St. Louis who called themselves architects, but most of them were only
builders. Mr. Barnett pushed his theories aggressively. After ten years of
planning and building in accordance with his school, he went to Europe for
further architectural education, and came back unchanged in views. He fur-
nished the plans and superintended the erection of 2,50x3 buildings. Architects
with less positiveness of views copied his general style. Young architects came
out of his office. In time Mr. Barnett came to see a city, the architecture of
which was very much after his heart, an architecture which he was wont to
describe as "the truly legitimate." But he outlived his success. He survived
to see St. Louis countenance the colonial, the Queen Anne and every other
school.

The octogenarian who gave St. Louis a very vigorous push in a direction
the opposite of the Italian school was Aaron W. Fagin. Mr. Fagin began life
in Ten Mile creek, an estuary of the Ohio. He was another of the eighty-
year-old hard workers. He was a farmer and advanced from that to keeping
a country store. He traded on the river and made money enough to establish
himself in St. Louis in 1842. From that he launched into milling, and before
the war made a contract to deliver 50,000 barrels of flour in ninety days, a
transaction which was nine days' talk on 'change. Having amassed a fortune,
Mr. Fagin determined, about 1880, to set the pace for achitecture very different
from that which St. Louis had been following. He said there was too much
sameness of appearance and too much economy of material in the business
structures of the city. He declared his intention to have something original
and striking. He put up on Olive street a front 152 feet high, of granite and
plate glass. Into that front he worked thirty-eight polished red granite columns.
He constructed windows of ingenious variety in shape and size. While the
huge irregularly shaped granite blocks were being piled up to form the facade

THE MEN OF ST. LOUIS 705

of the Fagin building, St. Louis people stood in awe-stricken groups at a re-
spectful distance, expecting to see the whole thing come tumbling down like a
cob house. While St. Louis was marveling over this skyscraper and Mr. Barnett
was going around the block to avoid profaning his eyes with such illegitimate
architecture, Mr. Fagin, at the age of sixty-nine, started on a leisurely tour
around the world. When he returned he took upon himself the active manage-
ment of his big building, which had proven as solid as the foundation of
St. Louis.

The cloth had a narrow escape from missing representation among the
active octogenarians of St. Louis. The Rev. Dr. Montgomery Schuyler, who
at eighty-one performed the duties of dean of the Cathedral, intended to be
a lawyer. He read law books two years after he graduated from Union College,
and before he made up his mind that he preferred theology. The venerable
divine came of sturdy Dutch stock. His ancestors founded a Dutch colony on
the Hudson, near Albany.

These St. Louis octogenarians, active in 1895, were important factors in
the history of St. Louis.

Tracing the moral fiber of latter day St. Louisans back to the early genera-
tions was a topic that appealed to L. U. Reavis, who wrote much about the city
and its population:

An allusion to an incident in the history of the city may be permitted which illus-
trates the texture of those moral elements of character derived from the crude looms of
the early settlers of the trappers' village. In 1849 St. Louis was visited with the triple
furies of fire, flood and pestilence. The best portions of her business locations were
reduced to ashes; five thousand of her people died with a disease that bid defiance to
medical skill; her rivers rose and flooded her productive bottom lands. Euin stalked
through her streets and pervaded the country tributary to her commercial support. At
this trying moment, with that self-reliant and indomitable will which carried her founders
safely through the ordeals to which they were exposed, she met the responsibilities of
the trial with an independent spirit, a prowess of resistance and recuperative energies of
the highest type. Honorable as it is to our nature that sympathy finds a lodgment not
alone in individual bosoms, but in communities and nations, our citizens asked no aid
from this benevolent feeling to meet the exigencies of the hour. Not a dollar was re-
ceived or asked from contiguous or distant cities. The bravery and self-reliant char-
acteristics of the trapper shone out in the artisan, merchant and professional man of the
present, and an immediate effort was put in requisition to redeem losses and repair
devastations. Such an exhibition of unconquerable will, of inherent strength, is surely
a forcible prognostic, a grand prophecy of the ultimate destiny of our beloved metropolis.

When St. Louis was stricken by the cyclone of 1896, this moral fiber of
the community showed itsef in the message which Mayor Cyrus P. Walbridge
sent out to the world. St. Louis was grateful for the generous tenders of aid,
but could and would care for her stricken section. The prompt action was
wise. St. Louis was not destroyed as the first reports had it. The business
of the city was going on. All obligations of trade could be met. The mayor's
message corrected a world-wide impression which would have done the city
incalculable harm.

"The shamelessness of St. Louis" was an utterance of superficial observa-
tion by a stranger in 1902. The conscience of the community had been aroused.
The work of investigation and reform was under way. Revelations of official
impurity were shocking, but the city was showing its inherent goodness by vigor-

19-VOL. II.

706 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

ous prosecution of evil doers. A city which can and does do this is not "shame-
less." The conditions in St. Louis were not worse than those in other large
cities, but St. Louis exposed and punished the official grafting.

CHAPTER XXVII.

;

ST. LOUIS WOMANHOOD

Madame Marie Therese Chouteau — La Mere de St. Louis — The Laclede Family — Heroic Quali-
ties Developed in the Convent-bred Girl — The Whole Settlement Mothered — Madame
Chouteau 's Business Capacity — A Thousand Descendants — The Three Daughters and Their
Thirty-two Children — Seven Daughters of the First Madame Sanguinet — Courtesy and
Respect for Women Early Enforced — Marriage Contracts Under the Spanish Governors —
Social Life in 1810 — The Four Daughters of Ichabod Camp of Connecticut — Mating of
Manuel Lisa and Mary Hempstead Keeney — ' ' The Lone Woman ' ' Who Became Madame
Berthold — Kind Treatment of Servants — Organized Charity in 1824 — "Entertainment by
Joseph Charless" — The Five Coalter Sisters — Rufus Boston's Seven Daughters — The Silk
Culture Craze of 1839 — Mrs. Anne Lucas Hunt's Philanthropies — A Woman's Influence in
the Creation of a Great Estate — The Interesting Mullanphy Family — Loveliest of Her
Sex in 1812 — Virginia Brides of St. Louis Pioneers — Heroic Characters of the Civil War
Period — The Sneed Sisters as Educators — St. Louis Newspaper Women — The Wednesday
Club and Public Recreation — A Traveler's Tribute to St. Louis Business Women — A
Scholar's Estimate of St. Louis Domestic Life.

Forty years or more ago, within three blocks from where we are now seated, there stood
an old church, and in that church was conducted a Sunday School where, under the guidance
of my mother, I received my childhood training, — a mother whose unselfish life, whose trust in
God and uncompromising integrity have ever been my inspiration and standard. The mother
of long ago, whose influence I still feel within me, and my good wife, whose steadfast character
has ever upheld me, have been my strength and my guide during the eight years of official
life. If I have succeeded in doing good to my fellowmen, then the memory of the one and the
presence of the other should share in the great honor you have this night conferred upon me.
Rolla Wells, eight years mayor, at testimonial banquet, 1909.

"La mere de St. Louis," the mother of St. Louis! This was the title by
which the villagers knew Madame Chouteau. It was bestowed early in the
history of the settlement. Across the river, in a farm house at Cahokia, Madame
Chouteau and the little children were sheltered through the spring and summer
of 1764. They could see the gray walls of government house rising among the
trees. In September they were moved to the settlement. Madame Chouteau
was the first woman to enter upon residence in St. Louis. Naturally the title
of mother of St. Louis was given to her. It continued with her to the end of
her four-score years of eventful, honorable life.

Marie Therese Chouteau was born Bourgeois. Her parents belonged to
the court of Spain, — the father, a page to the king ; the mother, a maid of honor
to the queen. There was mutual attraction without deference to the wishes
or plans of the elders. The young people had their way, wedded and came
across the sea to New France. One of the epidemics then so prevalent in
the lower province made little Marie Therese an orphan. The fortune was
left in the care of a paternal uncle. Marie Therese was not beyond infancy
when her guardian placed her in the Ursuline convent at New Orleans.

In 1749, before the girl reached her majority, a marriage was arranged
for her by her uncle and guardian. Family tradition does not ascribe worthy,
motive for the encouragement of this marriage. Material interests were in-
volved. The happiness of the orphan was not of first consideration. If Marie

707

708 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Therese Bourgeois remained a ward until of age — the legal age was in that
time fourteen years — there must be an accounting of the estate left by her
father. If she married before she was of age, she could legally sign the paper
which would release her guardian from his responsibility. Material concern,
according to the family history, prompted a sacrifice of the child's happiness.
Marie Therese Bourgeois went from the Ursuline convent, the only home she
had known, to become the wife of Rene Auguste Chouteau.

The husband was much older; he had considerable means for those days.
The immature girl was high spirited. The union was unfortunate; it ended in
separation. Marie Therese Chouteau went back to the convent. A babe was
born in September, 1750. The boy was christened Auguste Chouteau. Marital
relationship was not resumed. The youthful mother regained her good spirits.
She was a child again. She played in the high-walled convent garden. One
day there came a terrifying shock. An ape, the ugly pet of the neighborhood,
clambered along the galleries from house to house until he came to the place
where the baby, Auguste, was sleeping. The ape took up the child carefully
and began to climb one of the columns to the roof.

A cry of alarm attracted the girl from her play. The sight of her child
in the arms of the ape awoke the maternal instinct. From that hour Marie
Therese Chouteau was a matured, resolute, serious woman. She started toward
the house. The ape stopped on the edge of the roof and was apparently about
to drop the baby, and to seek safety. Some one with presence of mind restrained
Marie Therese. Seeing that there was to be no pursuit, the ape sat down on
the roof, took the baby in its lap and, imitating the actions of a nurse, pulled
the pins from the clothing and put them in its mouth. Having undressed the
baby, as it had seen the nurse do, the ape restored the clothes, put back the pins,
carefully climbed down from the roof to the porch and put little Auguste in
the cradle. Then the ape climbed back along the railings to the place where it
belonged.

Before that day, Marie Therese had left the baby to the good sisters. She
had played with dolls. She had jumped the rope with the girls of the convent
school. After that day she put away childish things. But there was no sugges-
tion of return to the marital relationship with Rene Auguste Chouteau. The
civil record of the marriage stood. Several years the mother and her child
remained in the convent.

Pierre Laclede arrived in New Orleans in 1755. Not long afterwards he
made the acquaintance of Marie Therese Chouteau. The young French gentle^
man, from Bedous, was of excellent family connections. He had means. He
entered business life in the lower province. He was well received in official
and mercantile circles at New Orleans. A period of commercial depression
prevailed. Colonial war and Indian troubles disarranged trade. Laclede, hav-
ing had good education and military training, offered himself for service in
the government forces. He was accepted and was given a commission. Maxent
was colonel of the regiment. Leading men of the colony became warm friends
of Laclede. In the official records of 1757, Laclede was referred to as a "mer-
chant and officer of militia." He was in favor with the governor, Kelerec, the
highest representative of France, in Louisiana. That year, 1757, two years after

MADAME AUGUSTS CHOUTEAU
Born 1769, Marie Therese Cerre

MRS. MANUEL LISA
Wife of the fur trader

Copyright, 1897, by Pierre Chouteau

THE HOME OF MADAME CHOUTEAU, MOTHER OF ST. LOUIS

ST. LOUIS WOMANHOOD 709

his arrival at New Orleans, Pierre Laclede and Marie Therese Chouteau were
married. It was a union which representatives of church and state personally
sanctioned and heartily approved. In the eyes of all, Madame Chouteau became
the wife of Pierre Laclede and was so respected.

Pierre Chouteau, son of Pierre Laclede, was born in 1758. Three daugh-
ters were christened Chouteau. When Laclede mustered his "considerable arma-
ment," backed by powerful influence at New Orleans, and came up the Mis-s
sissippi, he brought his wife and children with him. Upon Auguste Chouteau,
the boy of thirteen, son of Rene Auguste Chouteau, Laclede bestowed all of
the confidence and affection a father could give to an eldest son The family
was harmonious and happy. With the earliest profits realized out of the fur
trading, Laclede provided for the future of his wife and children. He built
a house and secured the grant of the lot on Main and Chestnut streets to Madame
Chouteau and the children. He set apart for them a farm in the outskirts.
The property made over to the family was valued at about four thousand dollars,
a considerable sum in that period.

Laclede, his wife and his children were by universal recognition the first
family of St. Louis. Neither by tradition nor by record is there evidence that
the habitants regarded the difference in names as extraordinary. The family
occupied in church relations the same leading position accorded socially and
politically. As the daughters became of marriageable age, they were sought
by the three most prominent business men in the community.

Rene Auguste Chouteau died in New Orleans, 1776. He left some prop-
erty. Auguste and Pierre Chouteau gave to Pierre Laclede power of attorney
to look after their mother's interest in the estate, when he went down to New
Orleans.

Madame Chouteau was certainly not thirty years of age when she made the
three months' journey up the Mississippi. With her were three little children.
John Pierre was five. Victoria was three and little Pelagic was one year old.
This journey was the beginning of experiences which developed the heroic
qualities. After the winter at Fort Chartres or Kaskaskia, the mother and the
little ones were taken to Cahokia. They traveled in a charette. This was a
vehicle without springs and of two wheels. Upon the shafts and cross pieces,
which were attached to the axle, was a basket-like body. In this were con-
veyed Madame Chouteau and the children. The driver was Antoine Riviere,
who followed Laclede to St. Louis. He lived in St. Louis and its suburbs
until he was no years old. The year of the founding, the third daughter,
Marie Louise, was born to Laclede and Madame Chouteau. In September,
1764, Laclede's house, on the west side of Main street, between Walnut and
Market was ready. Mrs. Chouteau and the children were brought across the
river to St. Louis. Until 1768 this house was the home of Laclede's family
and at the same time headquarters of the government which Laclede and St.
Ange established. It also contained the office of Maxent, Laclede & Co. In
1768 Laclede completed a stone house on Main and Chestnut streets. To this
he moved the family. The home was deeded to Madame Chouteau and the
children. It was the home of "the mother of St. Louis" until her death in
1814.

710 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

"La mere de St. Louis," meant more than phrase of compliment. It stood
for much besides the fact of earliest residence. Madame Chouteau was in many
ways the motherly woman to all St. Louis. She was of positive, practical char-
acter, but mingled with the traditions of her business shrewdness are many
memories of good works. From the Chouteau home on Main and Chestnut
streets were carried through the settlement remedies for the sick and delicacies
for the convalescent. Strawberries ripened on the prairies of St. Louis in June
Grapes darkened and sweetened in the groves along the River des Peres in
September. As regularly as the seasons, fruits were preserved and wines were
made. A liberal portion of her household stock Madame Chouteau set aside
each year to meet the calls of sickness. To her that was not only for her chil-
dren and grandchildren, a numerous flock, but for any one in the village who
needed delicacies to tempt back the appetite.

There were periods of years during which St. Louis was without profes-
sional physicians. The mysteries of birth and death were never absent. Homely
remedies, unscientific surgery met the needs. To the emergencies Madame Chou-
teau responded. The gentle-born, convent-bred girl mothered the whole settle-
ment. Her ministrations were not all physical. A woman of not many words,
Madame Chouteau came to have great influence in the community. Her sons
and her daughters looked to her for advice in all matters. Her counsel was
sought upon questions which concerned the settlement. The Spanish governors
treated her with great deference. No priest, or dignitary of the church, visited
St. Louis without early paying his respects to Madame Chouteau.

The portrait of Madame Chouteau, which has been preserved by her de-
scendants represents her in the dress which belonged to the simple, every day
life of St. Louis womanhood before the American occupation. It was painted
at the instance of one of the sons. An artist had come to St. Louis. Both
Auguste and Pierre Chouteau wanted pictures of their mother to place in their
great stone mansions. They differed as to the mode in which the portrait
should be painted. One wished to have a picture of his mother as he knew her
best, in the garb of home, with the handkerchief about her head. "No," said
the other, "she must be painted as the grande dame." And so two portraits were
executed. The artist wrought his work on wood. Madame Chouteau was
pictured as the whole settlement knew her, "the mother of St. Louis." She was
also painted in the stately elegance of the first lady of St. Louis, wearing the
long gold earrings given to her mother by the Queen of Spain. The fate of
this second portrait is unknown to this generation. The one in the plain garb
was saved.

In 1847, the anniversary of the founding of St. Louis was celebrated.
The personality of chief historic interest that day was Pierre Chouteau, first
born of the union of Pierre Laclede and Marie Therese Chouteau. He was
very old but in full possession of his mental faculties. A part of the anniversary
day, Pierre Chouteau passed at the Berthold residence on Broadway and Pine
streets. An incident of the celebration was the appearance on the streets of
a carriage and occupants representing the time of Louis XV, when St. Louis
was founded. Seated in the carriage were two members of French families,,
one dressed as a marquis, the other as a marquise. Upon the front seat were

MRS. THEODORE HUNT
(Miss Anne Lucas)

MRS. ANNE LUCAS HUNT
(Miss Anne Lucas)

MISSES ADELE AND MARIE THERESE SOULARD

MISS LILY FREMONT

MRS. JESSIE BENTON FREMONT

(Miss Jessie Benton)
ST. LOUIS WOMANHOOD

ST. LOUIS WOMANHOOD 711

two children, also in costumes of the period of Louis XV. With the old resi-
dents and their descendants the appearance of this representation of Laclede's
time and station aroused much sentiment. Among those in the family group
at the Berthold mansion who saw the representation was Sylvestre Labbadie,
son of Sylvestre Labbadie who married Pelagic Chouteau, the second daughter
of Madame Chouteau and Pierre Laclede. Sylvestre Labbadie, the younger,
was sent to France in his boyhood and educated there. He brought back with
him love of the country of his ancestors strongly impressed upon him. He had
intense admiration for Napoleon. At the head of his bed, he kept a bust of
Napoleon, as long as he lived. Sylvestre Labbadie was more responsive than
the rest of the group to the representation of Laclede in the carriage. He was
deeply moved. Only under the influence of mastering emotion would he have
ventured upon what followed. As the carriage passed along the street, Mon-
sieur Labbadie turned to Pierre Chouteau and stretching out his hands, said in
an impassioned tone:

"Uncle ! I implore you. Give us our name."

Pierre Chouteau straightened himself and seemed to throw off the infirmity
of age. He raised his cane, as if almost tempted to strike, but used the gesture
not to harm but to emphasize. He said:

"No! The name you've borne must go to the end."

On the i6th of February, the day after the celebration, John F. Darby wrote
to Pierre Chouteau, sending him the banner with a letter closing: "Last evening
after you had retired from the festive board, Col. Grimsley in a most happy
and appropriate manner donated this banner to you, as a tribute due to the only
living being amidst the vast concourse of citizens assembled on that occasion,
who had ever seen the face of Laclede — one who has such a just claim upon
the affections and feelings of the whole people of the city of St. Louis. Upon
me as the presiding officer on that occasion, was impressed the pleasing duty
of carrying out the wishes of the donor by presenting to you this banner, which
I now do, on behalf of and in the name of Col. Grimsley, the grand marshal
of the celebration."

In his reply of the same date accepting the banner Pierre Chouteau wrote:
"Honors rendered to the dead we know cannot affect them — they are beyond the
reach of human hands — but it serves to excite the living to emulate their virtues
and their worth; and permit me on this occasion to say that Mr. Laclede, with
whom I was acquainted (although very young), was in every sense of the word
worthy of the honors now paid to his memory."

Madame Chouteau demonstrated her business capacity in a letter to Gov-
ernor Cruzat on the 2Qth of December, 1785. Her statement was a model of
brevity and clearness :

Marie Therese, widow Chouteau, takes the liberty of informing you, sir, that on the
27th at about eight o'clock in the evening, her negro man Baptiste discovered the runaway
Indian slaves, who had fled from the village some time ago, on the hill of Barns in the
rear of the village. He spoke to them, and by some pretext kept them there until he
came and apprised Mr. Papin, whose slave was one of them, that no time was to be lost,
if he desired to catch him, and told him where they were. Mr. Papin, without giving him
time to run and get permission from his mistress, gave him a bottle of rum and sent
him back to the place he left, by giving them drink to try to detain them until he, Papin,
could get the assistance necessary to come and arrest them. He got together a few with-

712 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

out loss of time, and arrived on the ground but a very short time after the negro Baptiste.
I do not know if the slaves made any movement to escape, but in a moment several shota
were fired by Mr. Papin 's party, which unfortunately killed the negro of your petitioner.
As Mr. Papin acted so very hastily and inconsiderately in this matter, not appearing
to reflect on the danger to which he exposed my negro man between his party and the
runaways, and was the occasion of his death, in sending him upon his dangerous expedi-
tion without my knowledge or permission, I ask your authority that I be paid for loss.
His services were invaluable to me, sir; his good qualities, his ability, his attachment to
the family, the care he continually took of my interests, not only in his own work, but
overlooking the others, so that I could safely trust him with the management of all my
slaves, in the flower of his age. No money can remunerate me for his loss. And as my
demand is based on the laws, which forbid the employment of a slave unless with the
knowledge and consent of the owner, you will compel the said Papin to pay me the sum
of $1,000, which, considering his great value to me, will be but small compensation for my
loss. VEUVE CHOUTEATJ.

The case loses nothing in interest by reason of the fact that Mr. Papin
was the son-in-law of Madame Chouteau. Six years previously he had married
Marie Louise, the youngest of the Chouteau girls, the one who was born the
year of the founding of St. Louis. Papin was the son of one of the fur traders
who came from Montreal to St Louis. He had pressed his wooing so ardently
that he won Marie Louise before she was of age. The daughter of the settle-
ment was a few months under fifteen when she was wedded.

A gift of facile composition runs in the Papin family. Some of the most
charming sketches of early St. Louis were from the pen of Theophile Papin,
a descendant of this Jean Marie Papin. The answer to Madame Chouteau's
complaint is a long one. "My mother-in-law's negro" is the phrase Mr. Papin
employs repeatedly in his account of the tragedy. The desperate character of
the runaways is mentioned. The plan to capture them is given the aspect of
public service. Mr. Papin sets forth his arrangements to surround the runaways
and enforce surrender.

"I sent my brother-in-law, Labbadie, who seconded me in these operations,
to inform the lieutenant governor of the steps taken."

And thus he draws into the case another member of the family, for Syl-
vestre Labbadie had married Pelagic Chouteau who came to St. Louis before
she was three years old. Mr. Papin describes in graphic language the assault
on the barn of his mother-in-law. The scene of the attack was where the cham-
ber of commerce now stands.

As time pressed I lost not a moment. After instructing all not to fire unless in
defense of his own person, I divided my band of soldiers and militia into two equal parts,
each to take a separate road so as to surround easily the spot where the criminals were.
Before reaching the place of the combat, after repeating the injunction not to fire, I
sprung into the quarry with a brave militiaman who would follow me, when we were im-
mediately assaulted, not only by our enemies in front, but by a general discharge of gun
shots on both sides by our own people.

Preserved, both of us, by a Providence who watched over our days, it was only the
unfortunate negro who received his death by a chance ball, without the satisfaction of wit-
nessing the glorious end of the action.

Mr. Papin closes his statement to the lieutenant governor with this well
worded argument:

After having exposed myself to the greatest danger for a matter of public concern,
acting only by express orders, would it be just that the whole burden should fall on me,

ST. LOUIS WOMANHOOD 713

and that I should be compelled to pay for the negro who volunteered himself and when
I had a right to command?

The governor was perplexed. Madame Chouteau's claim was based on
law. Mr. Papin's defense was plausible. The governor took testimony "for
a clear understanding of the matter," as he put it. The depositions failed to
show who fired the fatal shot. Governor Cruzat announced: "I pass it over
to the superior tribunal at the capital for examination and final decision." So
the case went down to New Orleans. Back it came with the ruling that the
owners of the runaway slaves in the capture of whom the negro was killed must
unite in paying Madame Chouteau. Three of the principal merchants of St.
Louis, Gabriel Cerre, Louis C. Dubreuil and Charles Sanguinet, were summoned
"to carefully consider and correctly appraise the qualities, intelligence and value
of Mrs. Chouteau's negro man, Baptiste." They unanimously appraised him
"at the value of six hundred silver dollars as a full compensation for his loss."
The amount was assessed against the two sons-in-law, J. M. Papin and Syl-
vestre Labbadie and four others. On the I5th of May, 1787, sixteen months
after she had presented her claim, Madame Chouteau received from Governor
Cruzat the six hundred silver dollars.

A story told of Madame Chouteau is that she received a present of a comb
of honey from a friend in Kaskaskia. At that time bees were not known in
St. Louis. Madame Chouteau, with her usual enterprise, made inquiries as to
the manner in which the honey was produced. She was told that the bees were
a kind of fly. Thereupon she sent a faithful negro man to Kaskaskia with a
small box in which to bring a pair of the bees that she might raise others and
produce honey. John Bradbury, the scientist heard this story in St. Louis in
1810. He says before 1797 bees were scarcely known west of the Mississippi
but in 1811 the wild swarms had spread as far west as six hundred miles up
the Missouri from St. Louis. The Indians had a theory that the bees preceded
white settlements and that wherever the bees were found, white settlers might
be expected shortly. Madame Chouteau was persistent. She did not rest satis-
fied until there were bees in her garden. She had the first hive in St. Louis.

The eldest daughter of Madame Chouteau, Victoire, bore thirteen children
to Charles Gratiot, the American patriot. Nine of the thirteen married and
left families. From three of the daughters of Victoire Chouteau Gratiot, came
the Cabanne, the Macklot and DeMun families. The second daughter of
Madame Chouteau, Pelagic, the wife of Sylvestre Labbadie, had one son and
four daughters. The youngest daughter of Madame Chouteau, Marie Louise,
who married Joseph M. Papin, was the mother of fourteen children, ten of
whom grew up and married. Beckwith traced a thousand descendants of
Madame Chouteau. When John Jacob Astor heard of the blindness and busi-
ness embarrassment of Pierre Chouteau, Jr., he said: "They'll never upset him,
sir; that man carries the equivalent of half a dozen strong banks in his head;
he cannot be downed."

A woman's tact eased the situation when the first Spanish governor came
to St. Louis. The settlement had done well under St. Ange. Self chosen gov-
ernment had been satisfactory. Moreover, these hardy fur traders were a long
way from New Orleans, and had grown independent. If they couldn't have
the French flag over them, they didn't care for any. But Don Pedro brought

714 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

with him a French wife who had all of the charm of her countrywomen. She
became popular at once. St. Louis womanhood accepted Spanish sovereignty.
The rest was easy for Governor Piernas.

Names of many families foremost in the colonial period of St. Louis dis-
appeared. And yet descendants of these pioneers are numerous in the present
generation. Two conditions account for this. Large families were raised by
the St. Louis pioneers but in many of them daughters were more numerous
than sons. Young men came from all parts of the United States to live in
St. Louis; they married into these pioneer families. Many sons of pioneers
went forth to engage in trade and commerce as the frontier was pushed west-
ward; they became the founders of other settlements. There was nothing
strange about the disappearance of the names. The blood of the pioneers of
St. Louis flows in many thousands of descendants who bear other honorable
names.

Both of the children of the first physician of St. Louis, Dr. Andre August
Conde were daughters. Both married in St. Louis. Marianne became the wife
of Charles Sanguinet. Constance married first a Spanish officer of the garrison,
and then Patricio Lee. In the first generation the name of Conde was lost.
But from the Sanguinet branch came a multitude of descendants. The union,
was a notable one. Charles Sanguinet was a native of Quebec. His father
was an educated man and held one of the highest civil positions of his day, that
of notary. Charles Sanguinet came to St. Louis in 1775 and four years later
the marriage with Mademoiselle Conde took place. Ten children were born,
seven of them daughters. One of the daughters married Francisco M. Benoist,
from whom descended the Benoists. Another became the wife of Joseph V.
Gamier, and her daughter married Hon. John Hogan, a member of Congress
from St. Louis. Eulalie Angelique Sanguinet became Mrs. Josiah Bright, leav-
ing a son and a daughter. Anne Caroline, the youngest of the Sanguinet girls
was Mrs. Horatio Cozens, leaving male descendants, one of whom was William
H. Cozens.

Joseph Mainville for years held civil office in St. Louis. He was one of
the syndics Coming on the first boat with Auguste Chouteau he secured a
home on Main and Locust streets. His family consisted of five daughters and
two sons. All of the daughters married in St. Louis.

Three years after the founding, Clement Delor de Treget, who had been
an officer in the French navy and who was possessed of means, came up the
Mississippi, expecting to join the settlement of Laclede. De Treget and his
wife were charmed with the scenery about five miles below the settlement. St.
Ange granted them the location that pleased them. A stone house was built.
This was the beginning of Carondelet although the name was not given until
several years later. De Treget had five children by his first wife and four by
the second. Seven of the nine were daughters. De Treget's oldest son Pierre
had eight children, four of them girls. He named his daughters Cecile, Adelle,
Odille and Selina.

In the family of Rene H. Kiersereau who led the chanting in the church
and in the absence of the priest officiated at funerals were four daughters and
one son, Gregory. This son, Gregory, No. 3 in the Kiersereau family, had four

MRS. ROSA K. WALKER
(Miss Rosa Kershaw)

Copyright, 1897, by Pierre Chouteau

THE BOUGEXOU HOME
Where first marriage in St. Louis was celebrated

ST. LOUIS WOMANHOOD 715

daughters and two sons. Three of the daughters and one son married Tayons.
The latter were among the first comers to St. Louis. They were millers, spelling
the name Taillon in the colonial period. Tayon avenue took its name from this
family.

Louis C. Dubreuil left a large family in which daughters were the large
majority. He lived in St. Louis thirty years, becoming one of the most wealthy
business men. Dubreuil and Sylvestre Labbadie came from the same part of
France. They were young men who joined the settlement soon after it was
established. They were alike successful in business. They lived near neighbors
and died not only in the same year but within a few weeks of each other. Of
the eleven Dubreuil children eight were daughters. Six of the daughters mar-
ried. Their husbands were St. Vrain, Lebeaume, Delaurier, Tharp, Hempstead
and Paul Liguest Chouteau.

A code of courtesy and respect, as well as one of morals, prevailed in
early St. Louis. In Catalan, which was the name of the village before it was
called Carondelet, a man spoke offensively of the wife of another habitant. He
used this language in the presence of several ladies. The case was reported
to the Spanish governor. The offender was sent for. He was asked for proofs
of what he had alleged. Confessing that he could not substantiate the charge,
he was given his choice of a retraction or such punishment as the governor
might see fit to inflict. Retraction was chosen. The man signed this humiliating
document :

I declare that it was wickedly and wrongfully that I made the statements that I did
to these ladies. It was while under the influence of liquor that I calumniated her honor
and reputation, having always known her, as I now know her, for a virtuous woman, with
nothing with which to reproach her integrity. I crave pardon from God, the king and the
lady, begging her to forgive me and promising to respect her on all occasions, beseeching
you to ask her to accept the present declaration which I am ready to make to the lady pub-
licly.

The governor declared that "considering the gravity of the offense the
written recantation is not adequate to the injury done the lady."

The order was that the offender "be conducted on the next Sunday to the
door of the parish church, at the close of mass, where he will publicly make
the necessary reparation, as stated in his written recantation. He will then
undergo an imprisonment of fifteen days as an example to others."

The French laws which defined the status of the married woman in that
period were explicit and comprehensive. They gave to her rights of property
and of person stronger than those conferred by the English laws. They pro-
vided for civil contracts preliminary to marriage. They preserved the identity
and independence of the wife. While the married woman changed her name
she could save by contract, and frequently did, the power to act singly in busi-
ness and property transactions. The married woman, no matter what her
years, became of legal age at once.

When William Tardy and Madame Joanna Henry decided to get married
they signed a contract. Then they went to the church. The contract set forth :

Four cows, two young steers, one heifer, three calves, sixty hogs, a furnished bed,
two iron pots, an oven, six crockery plates, two pewter dishes, two sad irons, a spinning
wheel, the above articles with all they produce in future, being by right Mrs. Henry's
property, are confirmed to her and her successors by this contract forever. And it is

716 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

declared hereby, that neither their marriage nor any other pretext gives any right to said
Tardy over the articles above mentioned. Mr. Tardy declared that he accepted all of the
above conditions.

If there was no ante-nuptial contract, the husband and wife held their
property in common. When one died, the other received half of the estate.
Children or other legal heirs of the deceased received the other half. Marriage
contracts were, if not the rule, quite frequent. The industrious Labusciere drew
many of them. Occasionally there was another kind of contract to be drafted.
It was the reverse of the marriage contract. The church could not divorce.
The Spanish governor could send the incongenial apart with an agreement which
disposed of the property.

Old Joe Verdun, the cabinet maker, married the widow Marianne Richelet.
They lived together twelve years, had five children and acquired property on
Main street near Myrtle. Then they went to Governor Cruzat with the declara-
tion that for the salvation of their souls they would have to separate. The
contract of separation set forth :

Not being able to sympathize together and wishing to put an end to their disagree-
ments, they have unanimously resolved of their own free will to contract by these presents
an act of separation, hoping by this means to insure the safety of their souls which each
appears to desire, not being able to do so on account of their continual quarrels in the
conjugal state.

Marianne Richelet, the agreement proceeds "shall remain in peaceable pos-
session and hold all the goods which they this day own; the said Verdun being
bound not to trouble her, withdrawing only the following articles : his gun, bed,
clothes, two axes and all implements of turner and cabinet maker, these being
indispensably necessary to him."

Marianne, the agreement stipulated, must pay all of the existing debts.
The closing paragraph of this remarkable document dealt with the offspring.

As regards the children, they being four in number, two males and two females, the
parties have agreed that they shall remain under the care and charge of their mother who
binds herself to take charge of them and raise them in honor and in the fear of God.

The madame, like some other excellent women in early St. Louis developed
a capacity for taking care of herself in a business way. She made trading trips
by river and acquired more than a living for herself and children. She was
known in the community as "La Verdun" and was treated with respect. One
of the daughters married into a family of high standing. Many descendants
of the Verduns are living in St. Louis.

"Neither song, nor story," wrote Richard Smith Elliott of St. Louis, "has
ever done justice to the women of the frontier. Their industry, patience, forti-
tude and endurance have been so wonderful as only to be accounted for by
the fact that they knew no better. Their manifestation of these qualities has
often put to shame — or ought to have done so — the men associated with their
lives. The great world knows little or nothing of the faithful sisterhood of
pioneer women; but their obscure lives were often full of what in men would
be called heroism; and we owe to them in a great degree the spread of empire,
westward, ever since the matrons and maids were first led into the wilderness
by Daniel Boone and his courageous comrades. There ought to be an obelisk
erected — taller than any on earth — and dedicated to the pioneer women of

MRS. R. J. LOCKWOOD
(Miss Angela Peale Robinson)

MISS MARY LOUISE DALTON

MRS. EMELINE F. REA
(Miss Emeline Frisbie)

MRS. MARGARET A. E. McLURE
(Miss Margaret A. E. Parkinson)

ST. LOUIS WOMANHOOD

ST. LOUIS WOMANHOOD 717

America, who ever since the landing of the Mayflower, have been the patient
and slightly rewarded servitors of civilization."

Henry M. Brackenridge wrote in 1810 of the pioneer families and social life
of St. Louis:

The women make faithful and affectionate wives, but will not be considered secondary
in the matrimonial association. The advice of the wife is taken on all important, as well
as on less weighty concerns and she generally decides. There was scarcely any distinction
of classes in the society. The wealthy and more intelligent would of course be considered
as more important personages, but there was no difference clearly marked. They all
associated, dressed alike and frequented the same ball room. They were in fact nearly all
connected by the ties of affinity or consanguinity; so extensive is this that I have seen the
carnival, from the death of a common relation, pass by cheerless and unheeded. The
number of persons excluded was exceedingly small. What an inducement to comport one's
self with propriety and circumspection! The same interest at stake, the same sentiments
that in other countries influence the first classes of society, were here felt by all its mem-
bers.

In their persons they are well formed, of an agreeable pleasant countenance, indicat-
ing cheerfulness and serenity. The dress of the females was generally simple and the
variations of fashion few; though they were dressed in much better taste than the other
sex. The 'American costume is generally introduced into the best families and among the
young girls and young men universally. I never saw anywhere greater elegance of dress
than at the balls in St. Louis. These people exhibit a striking difference when compared
with the unconquerable pertinacity of the Pennsylvania Germans who adhere so rigidly
to the customs, manners and language of their fathers. A few years have effected a greater
change with the inhabitants of this territory than has been brought about among the
Germans in fifty years. Their amusements were cards, billiards and dancing; this last, of
course, the favorite. The dances were cotillions, and sometimes the minuet. Children have
also their balls and are taught a decorum and propriety of behavior which is preserved
through life. They have a certain ease and freedom of address, and are taught the secret
of real politeness, — self-denial. Their language, everything considered, is more pure than
might be expected. Their manner of lengthening the sound of words, although languid
and without the animation which the French generally possess, is by no means disagreeable.
They have some new words and others are in use which in France have become obsolete.

Remarkable were these families of daughters of St. Louis pioneers, both
before and following the American occupation. Excellent wives and mothers
they made. The sons of pioneers went out to win the Great West. They made
up expedition after expedition of peaceable conquest. They established a hun-
dred settlements, now flourishing cities, from the Mississippi to the Pacific,
from St. Louis to Dubuque. Their sisters married the young men of the
northern and southern states and of the nations of Europe, who came to find
fortunes in St. Louis.

Of old Connecticut stock was the Camp family which settled in St. Louis
in 1786. The Camps were not the first Americans to become St. Louisans.
Philip True came from Virginia in 1781. By his second wife, who was of
Pennsylvania birth, he had nine children. Many descendants of this first Amer-
ican settler live in and about St. Louis. A tragedy preceded the coming of
the Camp family Rev. Dr. Ichabod Camp was born at Durham. His ancestors,
back more than a century, were notable in Connecticut history. They were
among the first settlers of Hartford and Mil ford. Ichabod Camp graduated
at Yale in 1743 when the college was a three-story wooden building with a
cupola. He went to England and spent several years in London, receiving his
license to preach from the Bishop of London. After his return to America he

718 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

had parishes in Connecticut and Virginia. Coming west with a family of daugh-
ters and with a retinue of slaves, Dr. Camp settled at Kaskaskia the year after
George Rogers Clark captured and occupied the town and fort. In the seven
years of his residence at Kaskaskia, Dr. Camp was the associate of Shadrach
Bond and other pioneer settlers who were the makers of the early history of
Illinois. In 1785 Dr. Camp's daughter Catherine married John B. Guion, of
Canadian birth. Because of unkind treatment she returned to her father's
house the next year. The husband followed and tried to compel the wife to
rejoin him. Dr. Camp met his son-in-law at the door and attempted to restrain
him. He was killed by a shot from Guion's pistol. A short time before the
tragedy Stella Camp had married Antoine Reilhe, a French gentleman of good
family who had taken up his residence in St. Louis. The widow and her daugh-
ters moved to St. Louis in May, 1786. Mrs. Camp was a Boston woman — Anne
Oliver.

The daughters married. Louise, the youngest, became the wife of Mackey
Wherry. In 1904 there were enough Wherrys to have a family day at the
World's Fair and in celebration of the gathering a tree was planted in Forest
Park near the Missouri building. At least three generations of Wherrys have
held the office of city register of St. Louis. After the death of Guion, Catherine
Camp married Israel Dodge, a Connecticut man, who came out to Missouri
with the Austins. Upon Mrs. Dodge her husband settled a house and grounds,
one thousand silver dollars, two slaves and a thousand arpents of land — about
eight hundred acres. Another of the Camp girls, Charlotte, married Moses
Bates. The oldest of this famous quartette of daughters, Estelle Camp Reilhe,
left a son and two daughters. One of the daughters, Margaret Reilhe, became
the wife of the first governor of Missouri, Alexander McNair, to whom she
bore ten children. As strange, though not as tragic as the event which brought
his wife's family to St. Louis, was the incident which made McNair a resident
of the same place. McNair was of Pennsylvania birth. He was at college in
Philadelphia when his father died. Returning home, a question arose between
him and his younger brother as to which should control the estate. The mother
agreed to leave it to a test of physical superiority. The younger won. Alex-
ander McNair went into the army, came west and settled in St. Louis the year
that the American flag was raised. Ichabod Camp's descendants in St. Louis
are numerous. The esteem in which his widow and daughters were held is
evidenced by the land records. To Mrs. Camp the Spanish governor granted a
lot 1 20 by 150 feet on which to locate a barn at Fourth and Almond streets.
To Mrs. Camp and her son-in-law Antoine Reilhe the same Spanish governor
granted a tract of 2,900 arpents on the River des Peres.

One of the most notable of the matings in early St. Louis was that of
Manuel Lisa and Mary Hempstead Keeney. Lisa had been a fur trader making
expeditions up the Missouri for nearly thirty years. He clung to his Spanish
and could speak a little French, but no English. Mary Hempstead had come
out from her Connecticut home with her father, Stephen Hempstead. She knew
no Spanish and very little French. Unable to communicate by language with
each other, Manuel Lisa and Mary Hempstead became engaged, were married
and lived most happily together. Years before, Lisa had married an Omaha

ST. LOUIS WOMANHOOD 719

Indian woman who had borne him two children. When he married Mary
Hempstead he decided to take her with him to Fort Lisa, his fur trading post,
just above the present city of Omaha. Word was sent in advance that the
Indian wife must be removed from the vicinity of the post. This was done,
but Mitain, the Omaha woman, came back and sent the child, a fine boy named
Raymond, to see his father. When, in the spring of 1820, Lisa prepared to
return to St. Louis with the season's packs, he sent for Mitain, the Indian wife,
told her their relations could never be renewed and asked that the boy be given
to him to take to St. Louis to be educated. The Indian wife grasped the boy,
ran to the river, got a canoe, rowed across and hid. The next day she returned ;
humbly presented the boy, saying she knew it would be better for him to go
to St. Louis. But she begged that she be allowed to go as a member of the
household, offering to put up with anything if she could be near to see her
children occasionally. Lisa refused. The woman became very angry. She told
Lisa their marriage had been for life; he had no right to turn her away. The
scene was distressing. Lisa returned to St. Louis, was stricken that summer
with a fatal malady and died at Sulphur Springs, a health resort south of
Forest Park, and now within the city limits. For the education of the two
Indian children he left $4,000.

By his neighbors in St. Louis Lisa was known as Manuel. He was called
Mr. Manuel. Those not familiar with Lisa's early history supposed that Manuel
was his surname. Mrs. Lisa became known to the community as Aunt Manuel.
She was a woman of beautiful temper, capable and much given to good works.
Upon the shaft in Bellefontaine which marks the resting place of Mrs. Manuel
Lisa is graven "Aunt Manuel."

"The Lone Woman" Pelagic Chouteau was called. Her mother died when
she was a child. Sons, a house full of them, were born to Pierre Chouteau,
the senior, or "the major," as he was commonly called ; Pelagic was the only
girl in the family. For this distinction the Indians bestowed on her the title of
"the lone woman." As she grew into young womanhood, Mile. Pelagic became
distinguished in another way. Among the many fair granddaughters of Madame
Chouteau, there was none more charming. Pelagic Chouteau reigned socially
in her father's great stone house. There Bartholomew Berthold, the young
Tyrolese officer, who was perhaps the most accomplished scholar of the day in
St. Louis, came awooing. The marriage took place in the winter of 1811.
Thenceforward she was Madame Berthold. The Berthold mansion for a gen-
eration was a social center, where the traveler carried away the best of im-
pressions of St. Louis hospitality. Then came more than forty years of widow-
hood.

The slave population of St. Louis was never large. Evils of slavery were
mitigated by the humane, gentle, even affectionate care which the wives of St.
Louis slave owners bestowed upon their dependents. The traveling companions
of Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, came to this city expecting to find material
for criticism. They wrote about a close view they had of the institution :

Today I visited a large American establishment belonging to Colonel O 'Fallen. The
place reminded me of a Hungarian house; a large solid stone building on a hill, in the
midst of a park with stately trees, surrounded by cottages. But here the likeness ceased;
the inmates were black slaves. As far as I saw, they are well fed and well clothed. When

720 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

we arrived at the door a negro woman opened it; it was the former nurse of Mrs. Pope,
the la'dy who accompanied me, the daughter of the proprietor. Black Lucy seemed de-
lighted to see her young mistress, and brought all her children and grandchildren to greet
her — a numerous band of woolly-haired imps, by no means handsome; but Mrs. Pope petted
them, and genuine affection seemed to exist on both sides. Tomorrow we leave St. Louis.
On the whole it has left me the pleasant impression of young and expansive life.

Tradition tells of the consideration which Madame Chouteau bestowed
upon her slaves. There were free negroes in St. Louis long before the American
occupation. They received concessions of land. The wills filed in the colonial
records show that freedom was given to faithful servants. To the Spanish
governor petitions, such as the following, were addressed:

Louis Villars, lieutenant of infantry, in the batallion of Louisiana, humbly prays you
that he is the owner of a negress named Julie, about thirty years of age; that she has ren-
dered him great services for a number of years, especially during two severe spells of sick-
ness your petitioner has undergone. The zeal and attachment she exhibited in his service
having completely ruined her health, he desires to set her at liberty with a view to her
restoration.

In 1801 and 1802, a subject of considerable correspondence between the
Spanish governor at St. Louis and his superior at New Orleans was the importa-
tion of negro slaves into St. Louis and into other settlements of Upper Louisiana.
The Spanish representative at New Orleans was Juan Ventura Morales. In
1801 he sent to the Spanish governor at St. Louis, Don Carlos Dehault Delassus,
a copy of royal orders "that His Majesty does not wish for the present to have
any negroes introduced into that province." The reason assigned is that the
King "has allowed 5,000 negroes to be introduced free under a concession given
to a French firm, Cassague, Huguel, Raymon and company.

"For your information," writes Morales, "I send you copy of the royal
orders." And he adds, "May the Lord keep you many years."

About ten months later Intendant Morales wrote at considerable length
about this order against importation of slaves into St. Louis. The inference
might be drawn that Governor Delassus had found difficulty in the enforcement
of the royal orders and had questioned the wisdom of the orders. It seems
evident that Don Carlos felt the need of advice or instruction from his superior.
Morales wrote in May, 1802, in this way:

It is not the place of the subordinate chiefs or of any good subject to inquire or in-
vestigate the causes which may help the King in his determinations. The duty of these
chiefs is to obey and comply blindly with whatsoever is ordered to them and what is pre-
scribed in the royal laws unless by so doing they see there is some danger. In such cases
the subordinate chiefs can delay the compliance with such orders until the King shall learn
of this and may resolve what His Eoyal Majesty shall consider agreeable. Under this
principle, the introduction of negroes being considered, it is my duty to obey and comply
with the orders of His Majesty.

Morales tells Delassus that he has been denying the applications of planters
to import slaves and that this policy must continue until the French firm has
brought in the 5,000 under the concession. He points out to Delassus the argu-
ment which may be used in defense of the royal orders and suggests the course
of action against the violators of the King's instructions:

The King, perhaps, had strong political reasons for the concession given to the men-
tioned French citizens. It might compromise his royal authority if this Intendance should
not watch for the introduction of negroes. To refuse the introduction of negro slaves we

MRS. MARY F. SCANLAN
(Miss Mary F. Christy)

MRS. MARY ANN WAY
(Miss Mary Aim Ellis)

MRS. CAROLINE O'FALLON
(Miss Caroline Schutz)

MRS. VIROTNIE S. PEUGNET MRS. MARY ANN BOYCE EDGAR

(Miss Virginie Sarpy) (Miss Mary Ann Boyce)

ST. LOUIS WOMANHOOD

ST. LOUIS WOMANHOOD 721

have an excuse in the revolution attempted not many years ago in Virginia and Carolina
by that class of people. There is no doubt that the American government and the owners
of slaves wish to get free of these people at any sacrifice. What, then, would become of
this Province if its chiefs, with closed eyes to such an important matter should permit the
introduction of such a dangerous people?

Intendant Morales proceeds with real diplomacy to make a fine virtue of
the necessity to enforce the royal orders :

The unfortunate example of the French islands and the knowledge of what was at-
tempted in the north colonies, which was not effected because the plot was discovered
in time, must persuade not only the sensible men but also those who are interested in an
imaginary prosperity caused by this dangerous people, that it would be against public tran-
quillity and law and justice if this Intendance does not see the wise order prohibiting intro-
duction of negro slaves is not ignored. Therefore I request you to exercise the most exact
watchfulness without accepting any permission but the one from the King. In the event
there shall be any introduction of negro slaves you will make verbal process of the case
and apprehend the negroes. You will forward everything to this Intendance.

The first list of taxpayers of St. Louis is not a long one but it contained
the names of several people of color who owned real estate. Geoffrey Camp
was listed as a mulatto and Marie Labastille as "negresse libre." Suzanne,
"negresse," owned a house and lot which was assessed at $250, quite a com-
fortable homestead for 1805. Laveille, "free negro;" Flores, "free negress;"
were among these first taxpayers in St. Louis. Esther Morgan, "a free mulatto,"
owned valuable property on South Third street. When the first constitution
for Missouri was to be framed, a ticket of candidates who were "opposed to
the further introduction of slavery into Missouri" was nominated but failed of
election. The persons on this first anti-slavery ticket in St. Louis were J. B. C.
Lucas, Cash Bowles, Robert Simpson, William Long, Rufus Pettibone, John
Brown and John Bobb.

The negro population of St. Louis in 1870 was only 22,045, about one-
twelfth of the city. In thirty years thereafter it had not kept pace with the city's
growth. In 1900 there was one person of African descent to about twenty white
people in St. Louis.

During one of the cholera epidemics Major Richard Graham, living at his
country seat, Hazelwood, wrote to a friend: "The cholera made its appearance
and was followed by a congestive fever which carried off sixteen of my negroes.
. . . It has shattered me a good deal. Marshall and I have not as yet re-
covered from the shock of melancholy feelings in seeing so many human beings
dying around me and looking up to me as their only hope in their despair and
their agonies. My place was a perfect hospital and Mrs. Graham and myself
constant attendants and nurses amidst the thickest of the cholera. We escaped
as well as our children." Mrs. Francis D. Hirschberg, who was Miss Mary
Frost, a granddaughter of Major Graham, wrote in comment on this letter:
"A sidelight, this, upon the position of master and slave — since so often mis-
understood. The kindly Virginia traditions were held to: no slaves were sold;
no corporal punishment was allowed. The family ties were held as sacred and
respected accordingly."

When Robert Lewis went to California in the rush of 1849 he took with
him Jesse Hubbard, a slave who belonged to his wife. Lewis and the colored
man came back with $15,000. The master divided fairly with the slave. Hub-

20- VOL. II.

722 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

bard took his share to his mistress, who in her turn divided with him and gave
him his freedom. The negro bought a farm and settled in St. Louis county.

Rev. Dr. Truman M. Post described the people as he found them when he
first came to the city in 1833 : "The society of St. Louis as I found it then,
though largely French, was quite cosmopolitan, made up from all parts of the
United States and from countries beyond the sea. Its tone and spirit of frank,
genial hospitality strongly attracted me." Dr. Post deplored the existence of
slavery in St. Louis as the "one skeleton in the closet of our house of beauty,
promise and pride." He spoke of the "earnest, brave, accomplished Christian
women." He was full of confidence in the future of St. Louis society. "The
city was not without signs of a profounder and a more enduring prosperity in
the rise of institutions — moral, religious and humanitarian — in which a living
Christianity in the people must develop itself. Hospitals, asylums, homes and
benevolent societies were clustered around the multiplying churches, while
schools, academies, universities, libraries, newspapers and the varied educational
instrumentalities gave proof of the consciousness of the higher needs of in-
tellectual and moral culture, and of the presence among us of that which must
be the hope and glory of every community — a class of public-spirited and large-
minded philanthropic Christian men."

The slave traders had no social recognition in St. Louis. One of them was
stoned by boys shortly before the Civil war. St. Louis parted with slavery
willingly. What pro-slavery sentiment had existed was largely because of sym-
pathy for the south, where family ties bound and trade relations existed.

Organized charity in St. Louis began in 1824. It was the result of a move-
ment by the foremost women of the city. The first meeting was held at the
residence of the governor, Alexander McNair. Mrs. George F. Strother was
chosen president of the Female Charitable society, as it was named, and Mrs.
McNair was made the first vice president. It is told of the wife of the first
editor in St. Louis that no one in need was turned away from her door. Mrs.
Sarah Charless lived to be eighty-one years of age. She was a resident of
St. Louis half a century. St. Louis was notably lacking in hotels when Joseph
Charless came to start the first newspaper. Strangers whose credentials or
appearances justified were made welcome at private houses. To accommodate
the newcomers who often found it difficult to obtain shelter, Mr. and Mrs.
Charless opened their home, which was a large one on Fifth and Market streets.
A sign was hung from a post, bearing the announcement "Entertainment by
Joseph Charless." With the house was a garden, one of the finest in St. Louis,
occupying half of the block bounded by Fourth, Fifth, Market and Walnut
streets. There the vegetables and fruits were raised for the table which became
famous. In a card to the Gazette Mr. Charless stated that strangers "will
find every accommodation but whiskey." Mrs. Charless was one of the most
active members of the Presbyterian church.

Women had their share in the patriotic events of the pioneer period. The
Gazette told of a Fourth of July celebration in 1809. Toasts were offered by
ladies. Mrs. McClure offered: "Long may we enjoy peace and equality, and
our religious and civil rights under the auspicious wings of the American
Eagle."

MISS HESTER. BATES LAUGHLIN
1894

MISS BESSIE KINGSLAND

1895

MISS LOUISE McCREERY
1896

MISS JANE DOROTHY FORDYCE
1897

QUEENS OF THE VEILED PROPHET

ST. LOUIS WOMANHOOD 723

Miss Jane McClure gave: "The genius of the seventeenth century, Dr.
Priestley."

The sentiment chosen by Mrs. Coats was: "Perpetual disappointment to the
enemies of the Union."

By Mrs. Blair the following was proposed : "The memory of General Wash-
ington and all the heroes of 1776."

This celebration was held at Harrisonville, on the Illinois side of the Mis-
sissippi, a few miles below St. Louis. Opposite Harrisonville, on the Missouri
side, was Herculaneum. For both of these settlements their founders Had great
expectations, confident that they would rival if not surpass St. Louis.

A romance of the decade 1820-30, coming down to the present through
family traditions links the names of two of the famous Coalter sisters with two
St. Louisans who became eminent. There were five of the Coalter sisters. The
family was among the best of South Carolina. Three of the sisters married
South Carolinians, William C. Preston, Chancellor Harper and Dr. M. Means.
Edward Bates, the young St. Louis lawyer, courted Caroline J. Coalter. He
was rejected, but so gently that the friendship between them continued. One
of Edward Bates' strong characteristics was the ability to inspire confidence in
himself. Miss Coalter was induced to admit to her suitor that her preference
was for Hamilton Rowan Gamble, the young Virginia lawyer who had come
out to join his elder brother, Archibald. Miss Coalter explained that she could
never marry Hamilton because of his habits. Edward Bates, so the tradition
runs, went to Gamble, told him what he was losing and induced him to sign
the pledge. Gamble kept the pledge. He became exemplary in his habits. In
1827 Hamilton Gamble and Caroline Coalter were married. But before that
Edward Bates had married Julia D. Coalter, the sister of Caroline. A third of
a century later these two men, both of Virginia descent, with South Carolina
wives, became leading characters in the opposition to secession of Missouri.
Bates went into Lincoln's cabinet and Gamble became the war governor who
organized Missouri for loyalty to the Union.

The seven daughters of Rufus Easton, the first postmaster of St. Louis,
formed one of the most notable groups of young women during the years when
St. Louis was passing through the transitions of village, town and city. The
mother of the Easton girls was a New York lady of culture. As they grew
up the girls received the very best educational advantages which could be given
them. Their hands were sought in marriage by some of the foremost young
men of that generation. One of the sisters married Henry S. Geyer, the lawyer ;
another, Archibald Gamble, brother of the governor; a third, Major Sibley,
with whom she founded Lindenwood seminary at St. Charles. Another of the
Easton sisters became the wife of Hon. Thomas L. Anderson of Palmyra.

Second marriages in the early days of St. Louis were made the occasion of
strenuous congratulation. John F. Darby told this in his Recollections:

The custom had prevailed in St. Louis, from time immemorial, when a widower or
widow got married, to charivari them on the night of the wedding. It was determined,
therefore, to charivari Colonel O 'Fallen on the night of his second marriage. For this
purpose about a thousand or twelve hundred of the "boys" collected together and proceeded
down the street, and stopped in front of the house where the wedding took place. They had
horns, trumpets, tin pans, tambourines, drums, triangles, and every conceivable instrument

724 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

that could make a noise. They yelled, they screeched and shouted. They bleated like
sheep; they lowed like cattle; they crowed like chickens. They had a sprinkling of the
Rocky Mountain fur traders and trappers with them, who occasionally seasoned the enter-
tainment with Indian yells and warwhoops. They made such a hideous noise and confusion
of sounds that the guests in the house could hardly hear themselves talk.

At last Judge Peck, of the United States court for the Missouri district, who had
stood up with Colonel O 'Fallen on that occasion, came out on the little platform in front
of the house, and called out in a loud voice, ' ' Silence ! Silence ! ' ' The noise was ceased.
Judge Peck went on to say: "I want to know who is the commander of this very re-
spectable company of gentlemen ? ' ' Colonel Charles Keemle stepped forward and said that
he "had the honor to command this very respectable company of gentlemen." Judge Peck
proceeded : "I am instructed by Colonel O 'Fallen to say to this very respectable company of
gentlemen, that he recognizes them all as his friends, and that they are authorized to go
forth and enjoy themselves, and make merry at his expense at any place they choose. ' '

The crowd gave three cheers for O'Fallon, and went off down town, where they
caroused, drank and frolicked all night. It was reported that they cleaned out two gro-
ceries for which Colonel O'Fallon had to pay $1,000 the next day.

A curious craze reached St. Louis in 1839. It affected all of the women
folk. The climate of St. Louis was especially adapted to the mulberry. An
acre of mulberry trees would feed the worms, and the worms would produce
cocoons, giving thousands of dollars' worth of silk. For a time silk culture
was on every feminine tongue. Mulberry trees were planted until the suburbs
of St. Louis promised to become one great mulberry grove. The legislature
granted a charter. The Missouri Silk company was organized. There was
something wrong in the theory. The silk industry never attained practical
results. Mulberry groves languished and disappeared.

The distribution of $1,000,000 of money and real estate in philanthropy
and charity was the record one St. Louis woman left behind her, as devoid of
publicity as circumstances would permit. Mrs. Anne Lucas Hunt died thirty
years ago. The institutions she founded or fostered are still doing good. Her
mother died in 1811, a few years after the family settled here. The girl of
fifteen came into the management of the household of her father, Judge J. B.
C. Lucas. She had the vivacity of her French descent. Her own personality
as well as her father's official station made her one of the social leaders -of St.
Louis. Her first husband was Theodore Hunt, who had retired from the United
States navy, and her second husband was Wilson P. Hunt, his cousin. Mrs.
Hunt founded the house of the Good Shepherd, the church and the school of
St. Mary's. She gave largely to the Little Sisters of the Poor. As a widow,
managing her great estate as if she held it in trust, giving with discrimination
a fortune to do good, shunning any personal credit for her benevolence, trans-
mitting her business affairs to others as she neared four-score and finally en-
joining such arrangements for her funeral as should avoid display, Anne Lucas
Hunt was one of the most impressive personalities in St. Louis womanhood.

A woman's influence and judgment laid the foundation of the great Lucas
estate. When Judge Jean Baptiste Charles Lucas accepted the appointment of
commissioner of land claims and judge of the territorial court at St. Louis from
President Jefferson, he was living near Pittsburg on a farm. Some time before
he had taken a lot in Pittsburg for a fee. He had traded the lot for a horse.
By a sudden rise in values of real estate, the lot sold for $25,000. The incident
made a deep impression upon Mrs. Lucas. The judge moved to St. Louis in

MISS MARIE SCANLAN

1898

MISS ELLEN H. WALSH
1809

MISS SUSAN LARKIN THOMSON

1900

MISS EMILY WICKHAM
1901

QUEENS OE THE VEILED PROPHET

ST. LOUIS WOMANHOOD 725

1805. He sold his farm for $5,000. After his arrival here he put into land
his surplus and his salary. He was influenced to do so by Mrs. Lucas. Mrs.
Hunt told the story in a sketch of the family written many years ago :

On the advice of my mother, who had learned experience from the sale of the Pitts-
burg lot, he invested his salary in the purchase of land. He bought mostly out lots, facing
on what is now Fourth street, each lot being one arpent wide by forty arpents deep. All
this land was used as a common field, each man cultivating what he pleased. There were
no fences of any kind on it. By purchasing a lot at a time, he at length came to own all
the land from Market street to St. Charles and from Fourth street to Jefferson avenue.
He did not buy it as a speculation but for what it would produce; it turned out, however,
to be an immense speculation, for the whole seven arpents front did not cost him over
seven hundred dollars, and that property is now worth, I suppose, seventy millions. A
hundred dollars was what he usually paid for an arpent in width by forty deep, though
sometimes he got it for less. The heirs to this vast estate need not thank my father for
it, for he was too much of a politician to think of investing his money in land; it was my
mother's foresight that suggested the investment which turned out so well.

There were twelve children in the family of John Mullanphy, all of whom
received educational facilities unusual for that day. Most of the children were
sent to Europe to complete their educations. The last daughter died in a convent
in Paris. Jane married Charles Chambers; Katherine married Major Richard
Graham, of the United States army; Ann married Major Thomas Biddle of
the United States army, who was killed in a duel with Spencer Pettis ; Mary
married General W. S. Harney, of the United States army; Eliza married John
Clemens; Octavia married first Dr. Delany and later, after his death, Judge
Boyce.

Ann Biddle was the first of her sex in the United States to be mentioned
prominently for canonization. It was said that she had bestowed more on
charities than any other woman in the United States. When she died in Jan-
uary, 1846, her funeral was attended by an immense number of people, the
children of the male and female orphan asylums being present. Mrs. Biddle
had given up her private residence to the orphan asylum which her father had
endowed. She made provision for a building for indigent widows.

Practical forms the philanthropic efforts of St. Louis men and women of
all generations have assumed. The story that John F. Darby told to illustrate
Bryan Mullanphy's policy of helping people to help themselves is entertaining:

One gloomy day, late in the evening, a woman was sitting at the old market, holding
a fine looking cow. She had come from a farm on the Illinois side to sell the cow. She
had been waiting hours for a purchaser. In passing Judge Mullanphy saw her. He asked
what she was going to do with the cow. The woman said she wanted to sell her. The
judge inquired the price. The woman told him. "Is she a good cow?" asked Judge
Mullanphy. "She is," said the woman, "and a fine one to milk." The judge inquired
why the cow, if so good, was for sale. The woman replied that she had so many children
to support she was compelled to sell the cow to raise some money. The judge remarked
that if his stable was finished, so that he had a place to keep the cow he would buy her,
but the stable ' ' was not finished. ' ' Here the judge performed a sort of theatrical part,
running across Market street to the north side. The poor woman thought she had lost an
opportunity to sell the cow. But after crossing the street, Judge Mullanphy stopped a
minute, as if considering something. He then went back to the woman and said: "I will
give you the money for the cow now, — here it is," handing the money. "You take the cow
back to your place in Illinois, and keep her for me; and here is some more money to pay
you for keeping the cow for me." Mullanphy never sought for the woman or the cow after-
wards.

726 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Winifred Patterson gave $648,000 to philanthropic and religious purposes,
dividing the money among ten or twelve St. Louis institutions. A lifetime of
devotion to philanthropy in the most effective forms has been the record of
Mrs. C. C. Rainwater. The Young People's Humane society, the first of its
kind in this country, was organized in 1885 by Mrs. Ida Holt with sixteen
members between the ages of five and twelve years. It attained a membership
of i, 800.

The home for girls maintained by the Sisters of Mercy is conducted on a
plan quite unlike any other institution. It provides several departments graded
to meet the circumstances of respectable self-supporting girls. In the depart-
ment of St. Michael's Private Accommodation girls are boarded at $3.50 a
week; in St. Catherine's, at $2.50 a week; in St. Xavier's, at $i a week. St.
Xavier's department affords a home for young girls who are just beginning to
support themselves on small wages. The dollar a week means three meals,
light, water, heat and use of laundry. As their circumstances improve, the girls
remove to other departments. In a fourth department deserving girls tempo-
rarily out of employment work for their board until they can obtain places. In
a fifth department the youngest girls out of homes are given training to fit
them for situations. St. Joseph's Hospitality is a refuge for the night, given
to homeless women.

"United Jewish Charities" in St. Louis means the Jewish hospital on Delmar
boulevard, the Home for Aged and Infirm Israelites on South Jefferson avenue
and the Jewish Educational Alliance on Ninth and Carr. This alliance institu-
tion contains a night school, kindergarten, industrial school, commercial school,
legal aid bureau, penny savings bank, conservatory of music and department
of advanced classes. The United Jewish Charities carries on a branch of the
pure milk commission, cooperates with the juvenile court, aids the truant officer
of the board of education. It comprises also the United Hebrew Relief associa-
tion, the Selma Michael Day nursery and the Free Employment bureau.

The loveliest woman of St. Louis in 1812 was Isabelle Gratiot, grand-
daughter of Madame Chouteau. She had beauty of feature and charm of man-
ner. The social event of that year was the marriage of Isabelle Gratiot and
Jules DeMun, one of the best educated young men of the town, for St. Louis
had not then become a city. Jules DeMun had lived in France and England.
He had enjoyed the best of educational advantages. He spoke and wrote Span-
ish. His manners were gentle and retiring. The union was ideal. There were
five daughters. Isabelle, the namesake of her mother, became the wife of
Edward Walsh and their first born was Julius S. Walsh. Julie DeMun married
Antoine Leon Chenie. Louise was Mrs. Robert A. Barnes. Emilie became
the wife of Charles Bland Smith. Walsh was from Ireland. Barnes was a
native of the District of Columbia, descended from a Maryland family. Smith
was a native of St. Louis, of Virginia and Kentucky descent. Only one of these
four great-granddaughters of Madame Chouteau married into a French family.
In his will Robert A. Barnes, who left a great estate to found a hospital, re-
ferred to Mrs. Barnes as "my beloved wife, the most devoted daughter, wife
and mother I ever knew." Mrs. Barnes was a devout Catholic. There was not
only no conflict of religious opinion between them but Mrs. Barnes coincided

MISS MAUD WELLS
1902

MISS LUCILLE CHOUTEAU
1903

MISS STELLA WADE
1904

MISS JULIA CABANNE
I9o:>

ST. LOUIS WOMANHOOD 727

heartily with her husband in his plans to place his hospital bequest in the hands
of Methodist trustees.

From Fincastle in Botetourt county, Virginia, came several of the brides
of pioneers to St. Louis. One of these was Sarah Mitchell, whose father had
removed west in 1818. At the golden wedding of Mr. and Mrs. William Glas-
gow,— the lady was formerly Miss Sarah Mitchell, — the story was told that
when Mr. Glasgow first saw the young lady in St. Louis he was so pleased with
her appearance he declared at once that she should become his wife. Miss
Mitchell was at that time only sixteen years old, but that had been the marrying
age among the young ladies of her family for four generations, and she said
she felt bound to keep up the old custom. Mr. and Mrs. Glasgow went to live
about 1831 in a three-story dwelling on Fourth street, between Market and
Walnut. At that time this seemed to be so far out in the country that Mrs.
Glasgow's lady friends expressed regret, saying it would not be convenient to
visit her in such a distant suburban dwelling. Most of the residences of that
period were on Main street between Walnut and Poplar and on Chestnut and
Pine between Main and Third streets. Golden weddings have been notable in
the Glasgow family, this one in St. Louis in 1868 being the third that had oc-
curred in the line of descent. It was said of William Glasgow when he cele-
brated his golden wedding anniversary that during over half a century of
residence in St. Louis he had never been known to speak an unkind word to
a human being. Members of his family asserted that they had never heard a
cross word come from his lips. Mr. Glasgow had passed through troubles and
reverses as well as successes in a long business career, but had borne them with,
a fortitude so extraordinary as to make his disposition a matter of marvel in the
community.

Seven of the nine persons who organized the first Presbyterian church in
St. Louis were women — Mary Hempstead, Britannia Brown, Chloe Reed, Mary
Keeny, Magdalen Scott, Susanna Osborne, Susan Gratiot and Sarah Beebe.

The mother of Thomas H. Benton came to St. Louis, traveling on the
steamboat "Whig," in the summer of 1831. She came on board at a landing
called Trinity, six miles above Bird's Point. The boat had stopped there about
midnight. The accommodations were exhausted; Mrs. Benton was turned over
to a sleepy chambermaid and received very scant attention. She was so in-
dignant that the next morning she sent for Captain Artus and ordered him to
put her ashore anywhere on account of the treatment she had received on board
the "Whig." Mrs. Benton at that time was about eighty years old, but very
vigorous. It took considerable persuasion on the part of the captain to calm
her and to induce her to continue her trip to St. Louis.

Charm of manner was not derived wholly from the French element in St.
Louis. There were early families like that of Beverly Allen which exerted
marked influence for good upon the social life of St. Louis and which conr
tributed to give St. Louis its character for courtesy and hospitality. When
St. Louis was not much more than in name a city, it was a custom of Beverly
Allen to call upon young lawyers and business men coming to establish them-
selves here. He did more than offer a courteous welcome in words. He ex-
tended encouragement to them in ways that they never forgot. He invited them

728 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

to his home. Beverly Allen was the son of a Richmond, Va., merchant. He
was educated in the law at Princeton and came to St. Louis in 1827. Mrs.
Allen was a daughter of Judge Nathaniel Pope, who moved the line of Illinois
fifty-one miles further north than originally fixed and kept Chicago in the state.
She was a sister of Major-General John Pope. The daughters of Beverly Allen
married George D. Hall, Isaac H. Sturgeon and John C. Orrick.

Of Judge William C. Carr it was said that he crossed the Mississippi river
one winter on floating cakes of ice at the imminent hazard of his life, floating
down stream for miles before he could make the landing. He was coming from
the east and was prompted to this act in order to be with his dying wife.

William L. Sublette married an Alabama lady, Miss Frances Hereford, to
whom his younger brother, Solomon P., had been quite attentive. When the
captain died he left his fortune to Mrs. Sublette, on condition that she would
not change her name. After a period of mourning the widow became the wife
of Solomon P. Sublette. She did not change her name.

A notable friend of libraries, of music and of art throughout the half
century of his life in St. Louis was James Clark Way, of Pennsylvania Quaker
descent, closely related to the family of which Bayard Taylor, traveler and
author, was a member. Mr. Way was one of the group upon whom Rev. Dr.
William G. Eliot depended to carry out his public-spirited projects for making
St. Louis a better place in which to live. He married in 1839 the niece and
adopted daughter of John Perry, the pioneer lead miner, who had come to St.
Louis and had built one of the most imposing private residences of that period
at Sixth and Locust, where the Equitable building stands. Mary Ann Ellis
was one of the beauties of St. Louis during the thirties. The Perrys spent
their summers at White Sulphur Springs and there President Van Buren was
entertained by them.

One of the Virginia brides who brought grace and beauty to St. Louis
womanhood was Angelica Peale Robinson, who became Mrs. Richard J. Lock-
wood. She was the granddaughter of the beautiful Angelica Peale who lowered
the laurel wreath upon the head of George Washington as he rode under the
triumphal arch at Philadelphia, going to New York to be inaugurated President
the first time. She was a descendant of the famous portrait painter, Charles
Wilson Peale. Hospitality in its most natural form has been characteristic of
St. Louis womanhood through generations. That quality Mrs. Lockwood pos-
sessed in marked degree. Nearly fifty years the home of Mrs. Lockwood, both
in' the city and in the country, was one of the places from which the guest car-
ried away most pleasant memories. Some one traveling in England met a lady,
formerly of St. Louis but residing abroad, who asked about Mrs. Lockwood and
added, "Of all the people I knew in St. Louis the one who stands out most
pleasantly in my memory is Mrs. Lockwood." Such homes as that of the Lock-
woods gave St. Louis its deserved reputation for perfect hospitality.

Two heroic characters of the war time in St. Louis were Mrs. Mary Ann
Boyce Edgar and Mrs. Margaret A. E. McLure. Mrs. Edgar was of southern
nativity; she was born in Alabama. Her parents were of North Carolina fami-
lies who traced back their descent from the colonial settlers on Albemarle Sound.
With the beginning of the war this southern born woman promptly showed her

MISS MARGUERITE TOWER
1906

MISS MARGARET CABELL

1907

MISS DOROTHY SHAPLEIGH

1908

QUEENS OF THE VEILED PROPHET

ST. LOUIS WOMANHOOD 729

devotion to the Union. She was one of a group of St. Louis women who met
in July, 1861, a few days after the battle of Bull Run to plan how they could help
the National government by relief work. Mrs. Edgar became the leader and
the organizer. Fremont called for lint, for bandages, for other hospital sup-
plies that women could prepare. The organization was called the Fremont Re-
lief society. The room at headquarters that had been assigned was needed. Mrs.
Edgar moved the society to her own residence. There for a year and a half
great quantities of material for which the surgeons were calling were prepared
and sent out. The early battles found the government without hospitals, with
next to no preparation for the wounded. Mrs. Edgar assisted to find nurses,
fo assemble supplies, to prepare hospital accommodations. As the work in-
creased the Western Sanitary commission and the Ladies' Union Aid society
were developed. Not until the emergency had passed did Mrs. Edgar rest from
her merciful efforts. She ably assisted James E. Yeatman, the head of the sani-
tary commission. Mrs. Margaret A. E. McLure was of Pennsylvania birth.
Her grandfather laid out the town of Williamsport, which became Mononga-
hela City. The Parkinsons for generations were prominent in Western Penn-
sylvania affairs. Finely educated, of strong character, accustomed to think for
herself, Mrs. McLure believed firmly in the justice of the southern cause. She
did not hesitate to let her sentiments be known and was made a prisoner in her
own house. In the spring of 1863, with other women who felt as she did, Mrs.
McLure was put on board a boat and sent down the river to the Confederate
lines. She had given her eldest son to the cause. Exiled from home for her
convictions, she devoted herself to the parole camps and hospitals, doing all that
she could to relieve and comfort the Confederate soldiers. Returning to St.
Louis, Mrs. McLure became the leading spirit in the Daughters of the Confed-
eracy, and in the relief work of that organization for the widows and orphans of
Confederates. Twenty years after the war a daughter of one of these noble
women married a son of the other.

Organization and work of St. Louis womanhood to mitigate the horrors
of war took on a variety of forms in 1861-5. The Ladies' Union Aid society
gave special attention to the hospitals. Of this body Mrs. Alfred Clapp was the
president. In the military hospitals of St. Louis during the first three years of
the war, there were cared for 61,744 patients, of whom 5,684 died. Negro
refugees straggled into St. Louis from the south. They were just out of bondage
and as helpless as little children. The Ladies' Freedmen association undertook
to meet the pressing necessities of these unfortunate people. Thousands were
cared for until they could be put to work. The president of this society was
Mrs. Lucien Eaton. In the summer of 1864, the work of relief had reached such
proportions that the women of St. Louis met in Mercantile Library hall and
organized the Ladies' National League with 1,200 members. The wife of Rev.
Dr. Truman M. Post was the president of the league. A star was worn as the
badge of membership. The vice presidents were Mrs. George Partridge, Mrs.
Frank P. Blair, Mrs. R. P. Clark, Mrs. Wyllis King, Mrs. Charles D. Drake,
Mrs. Charles W. Stevens. The treasurer was Mrs. R. H. Morton.

To St. Louis, in 1881, came a group of distinguished French officers, visit-
ing the United States to participate in the centennial observance of the surrender

730 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

at Yorktown. They were descendants of the officers who fought with Lafay-
ette and Rochambeau and de Grasse for American independence. Accompanied
by the representative of the French legation at Washington, these Frenchmen
were touring the country. They were entertained by the Merchants' Exchange
and by United States army officers at Jefferson Barracks. But of the attentions
bestowed by St. Louis upon the visitors nothing impressed them so deeply and
awakened such enthusiasm among them as the reception given in their honor
by Mrs. Mary F. Scanlan. There have been social affairs in St. Louis which
were historic and this was one of them. Nowhere in the United States, said
these officers, had they received a social welcome to compare with that given
them by Mrs. Scanlan. General Boulanger, representing the French army, ex-
pressed the appreciation of himself and his associates for a reception which had
deeply touched them. Mrs. Scanlan was the granddaughter of Nicholas Jarrot,
a Frenchman full of the republican spirit which prevailed in St. Louis from the
days of Laclede. He settled in Cahokia and built the historic Jarrot mansion,
one of the first brick buildings in the Mississippi valley. Nicholas Jarrot's busi-
ness relations were with St. Louis. His daughter, Melaine Jarrot, married Sam-
uel C. Christy. Like so many others of the old French families, Mrs. Scanlan
combined with her social graces practical zeal in the field of benevolence.

The Civil war was a period that tried the constancy of St. Louis woman-
hood. Robert Randolph Hutchinson was one of the Missouri Minute men whose
flag hung from a window of the old mansion on Fifth and Pine streets in the
spring of 1861. He was first lieutenant of a company at Camp Jackson at the
time of the capture. Soon after the release he went south and became an officer
in the First Missouri Infantry, which Colonel John S. Bowen organized at
Memphis for Confederate service. When Mr. Hutchinson went away from St.
Louis in 1861, an engagement existed between Miss Mary Mitchell, a descendant
of William Christy, and himself. The two did not see each other until February,
1865, when Miss Mitchell obtained from President Lincoln a special permit to
visit Colonel Hutchinson, then a prisoner of war at Fort Delaware. Three days
after his release from prison, Colonel Hutchinson and Miss Mitchell were
married.

St. Louis gained many excellent citizens through the war. The Steedmans
were South Carolinians, an old family, the members of which had given account
of themselves in every war from the Colonial period down. Five Steedmans were
in South Carolina's famous Military Institute at one time. Dr. Isaac G. W.
Steedman was colonel of the First Alabama at Island No. 10, when the Confed1
erate forces were forced to yield after a six weeks' siege. He was brought to St.
Louis and confined in Gratiot street prison, from the windows of which he
received such an impression of St. Louis as prompted him to settle here at the
close of the war. The family of James Harrison lived across the street from the
Gratiot street prison, and showed the prisoners kindly attentions. When Dr.
Steedman came to St. Louis after the war he renewed an acquaintance formed
with Miss Dora Harrison. Marriage followed.

"Mimi" was a pet name for girls in the old French families a century ago.
It was Indian and meant little pigeon. "Virginia" was a favorite name for
daughters among the French families. The suggestion did not come from the

.MISS GRACE SEMPLE

MISS FRANCES W1CK11AM BRYAN

THE VEILED PROPHET

MISS LEAH VAN RIPER
MAIDS OF HONOR, 1908

ST. LOUIS WOMANHOOD 731

Old Dominion state. Baby girls were christened Virginia because the mothers
had read, tearfully, the story of Paul and Virginia. Bernardine de Saint Pierre's
novel came out in 1797. It circulated all over the world and reached St. Louis.
The romance made the first literary impression on the village. It prompted the
use of the name of the heroine many times.

The Sneed sisters were daughters of Rev. Samuel R. Sneed, a Presbyterian
minister widely known through Kentucky and Indiana before the Civil war. Anna
E. Sneed started Kirkwood seminary in one room with seven pupils the first
year of the war, 1861. As the school prospered, Mary C. Sneed and Hattie E.
Sneed became teachers. The Sneed sisters were born to teach. The career of
Anna Sneed Cairns belongs to the history of education of American women. It
has been of more than local significance. Anna Sneed graduated at the since
famous Monticello seminary in 1858. She could enter no college. Higher edu-
cation for her sex was a dim dream. The girl of seventeen wanted to know more
of the classics. She had come from a great family of teachers, — including such
men as Alpheus Crosby, who was the author of the Greek grammar ; Dr. Dixey
Crosby, and Chancellor Crosby, of New York. Her mother had been a teacher,
prepared under Miss Lyon, the founder of Mt. Holyoke, and Miss Grant in their
Ipswich school, which was the beginning of the New England movement to
supply colleges for women. Anna Sneed, at seventeen, entered upon a lifetime
of teaching, carrying on her studies in Latin, Greek, German and French, with
tutors. She continued her history and literature and the sciences. The Civil
war played havoc with the schools in Missouri. It closed the seminary at Lex-
ington, Missouri, where Miss Sneed had been engaged, and led to the establish-
ment of the little Kirkwood institution out of which grew Forest Park University.

The indomitable courage of Anna Sneed Cairns, with the unfailing support
of two steadfast friends of education for women, created Forest Park Univer-
sity. The site was a cornfield when Mrs. Cairns took possession and when the
late John G. Cairns began to plan the group of buildings — a homelike, brooding
place for a teaching mother and her flock of studying maidens — no street cars
approached that locality. During eighteen months, in all seasons, Mrs. Cairns
drove to town and carried out to the institution everything that was placed on
the table. Debt had been incurred. This heroic woman limited herself to one
dress, one pair of shoes, one pair of black kid gloves a year. Hudson E. Bridge
had been a mainstay of the institution while it was located in Kirkwood. The
two friends of education who came to the rescue and stood by from the begin-
ning of Forest Park University were Melvin L. Gray and Miss Ellen J. McKee.
It is difficult to believe that Mrs. Cairns could have developed her institution to
its present proportions without the help of these two. Mr. Gray indorsed all of
the notes of the institution and gave wise legal advice without compensation
during a period of years. Miss McKee made a gift of $5,000 at a crisis which
saved the university. Becoming interested, this Christian lady, of unostentatious
and far reaching benevolence, gave, when needs were greatest, sums ranging
from $500 to $1,000, and contributed half of the cost of the McKee gymnasium.

Forest Park University has grown in ways other than the assembling of
buildings. In 1888, Ernest R. Kroeger, composer and musician of wide fame,
organized and took charge of the college of music as a department of the uni-

732 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

versity. Five years later the college of liberal arts, under a charter drawn by
Reverend Messrs. Martin, George, Burnham, Luccock and others of the city
ministers, was established to give four full years of college education. Profes-
sors were drawn from the best colleges for women in the eastern states. Edu-
cation at Forest Park does not sacrifice the spiritual for the intellectual. The
Bible is studied daily. Evangelical Christianity is taught. Five of the trustees
must be pastors of evangelical churches of St. Louis.

Perhaps in the history of Mrs. President Cairns' activities there is nothing
quite so astonishing as the manner in which she carried the legislation which
gave the south side of Forest Park and the university its street car facilities.
Mrs. Cairns pushed the movement along until it reached the house of delegates.
She discovered that the property owners who were cooperating with her had
planned a wine dinner for the railroad committee. This was a shock to the
woman who had worked for prohibition at Jefferson City and who had stumped
all Texas as the representative of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.
Mrs. Cairns offered as a substitute a dinner to be served at the university by the
young ladies. Thither Jim Cronin and the committee were conveyed. Cronin
was impressed with the circumstances and the committeemen conducted them-
selves decorously until one of the bright girl students recited a piece entitled,
"What makes your nose so red, Pa?" Mr. Cronin and the committee, then and
there, declared the bill should go through and it did, although one delegate com-
mented, "Think of a bill like that going through on turkey and ice cream !" The
proposed ordinance reached the mayor and was vetoed. "The Lord's will be
done," President Cairns said when the news was phoned from the city hall.
Then came two years more of hard lobbying with President Cairns and Jim
Cronin championing the measure. One delegate said to the good woman, "Why,
Mrs. Cairns, doncher know this 'aint the way to get a bill through?"

"I don't know of any other way to get the bill through except by your votes,"
said Mrs. Cairns, looking the combine member straight in the eyes.

The session of the municipal assembly was within one day of the close.
Two members came out to the university on Sunday and told the president that
if she would come down to the city hall on Monday, get the bill engrossed with
a couple of amendments, it should be taken care of. Mrs. Cairns passed all of
Monday at the city hall. At three o'clock in the afternoon, the council passed
the bill and one hour later it went through the house of delegates. Pupils of
Forest Park University a few months later rode to and from the institution.

Old newspaper men sustained a shock when first the skirts of the news-
paper woman swept the bare floor of the city editor's room. It was a great in-
novation that introduced into the profession the refining influence of woman. It
seemed to mean that the staff must learn to sustain the physical effort of writ-
ing without shedding coats. From the day the pen woman entered the news-
paper field the old order of things was changed. The newspaper woman set
the pace in many kinds of newspaper work. She did not like to write about
crime, sociologically. If she was sent to report a trial, she told how the defend-
ant was dressed, what mannerisms distinguished the learned counsel. She
passed by the evidence as of little, or at least minor, consequence, but she wrote
what people liked to read, and they asked for more. The newspaper woman of

MISS CORA SOUTH BROWN MISS GLADYS BRYANT SMiTH

MAIDS OF HONOR. 1909

MISS SUSAN CARLETON
1909

MISS LUCY NORVELL

1910

QUEENS OF THE VEILED PROPHET

ST. LOUIS WOMANHOOD 733

St. Louis from that earliest introduction to the present generation has been a
credit to the profession, an honor to St. Louis womanhood.

Forest, O'Fallon and Carondelet added 1,700 acres to the park space of St.
Louis. The city indulged in the pride of possessing more park area to the
family than any other large city of the country. That was a distinction. But
St. Louis did not acquire another acre of park until the distinction had been
long outgrown. A third of a century passed. The population of St. Louis
doubled. Then came an awakening to the manifold uses of parks. "Lungs for
the city" the park advocates of 1870-80 felt they were providing. The next
generation made something more than breathing places of the parks. Boating on
small lakes, picnics, baseball diamonds, a trotting track, tennis courts added the
elements of recreation. It remained for the instinct of motherhood to point the
way to uses of the parks of St. Louis far beyond the anticipations formed in the
earlier years. Within the first decade of the new century, this city has come
into realization of possibilities for moral as well as physical good in the parks.

In the summer of 1900 a committee of ladies from the Wednesday club
obtained the use of two yards, the basement and the kindergarten rooms of the
Shields' school, and at their own expense carried on a vacation playground for
little children. Every year the movement has expanded with the evidence of its
value until St. Louis has a public recreation commission, half a score of equipped
playgrounds — not in borrowed schoolyards but in parks — public baths, and public
convenience stations.

During the first decade of the new century St. Louis has gone forward
with leaps and bounds in all things material and in educational and religious
facilities. In keeping with this progress — material, intellectual and spiritual — is
the movement which takes into account the welfare of the city's childhood.
Attendance upon these playgrounds has gone far beyond the half million mark*.
The commission has its authority founded upon ordinance. The revenues of
the city provide for the playgrounds and the baths as consistently as for any
other municipal function.

The municipal administration of Rolla Wells and the park administration
of Philip C. Scanlan made permanent and expanded the public recreation move-
ment. The inception, the early impetus, the positive encouragement of the
movement came from the Wednesday club, through the vacations playground
committee composed of Mrs. Dwight Tredway, Mrs. Frank P. Crunden, Mrs.
George S. Mepham, Miss Sarah Tower, Miss Nellie Richards, Miss Charlotte
Rumbold, Mrs. E. C. Runge, Mrs. Charles L. Harris, Mrs. A. H. Blaisdell, Mrs.
E. A. DeWolf. When the municipal government took over and enlarged the
movement, Miss Charlotte Rumbold's genius for such work was utilized. Miss
Rumbold became secretary to the public recreation commission and active man-
ager of the playgrounds.

The second year after the Wednesday club ladies tried the experiment at
the Shields' school, they enlarged their work by adding two other schools. The
next year the pocketbooks of the civic league men were opened and three new
playgrounds were conducted by the open-air playground committee of that body.
Mr. and Mrs. John Fowler met all of the expenses of a public playground for
several years. Notable impetus was given to the local movement by the estab-

734 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

lishment and conduct of a model playground during the World's Fair. When
the Exposition ended the equipment of this playground was purchased and put
into permanent use in Forest Park. In 1906, the playground had become a
part of the city's life. It commanded the attention of the municipal government.
Upon the recommendation of Mayor Rolla Wells, the Municipal Assembly
authorized the Park commissioner to maintain four playgrounds in parks.
These expanded the work which was still being carried on by the volunteer St.
Louis Playground association, fostered by the Wednesday club and the Civic
League. The next year the municipality, by ordinance created the Public Recre-
ation commission. The Park commissioner became the chairman ex officio. The
four members were citizens who served without compensation.

"Public recreation" under the St. Louis commissioners came to mean more
than keeping children out of mischief. It wasn't limited to the physical benefits
of the gymnastic apparatus. Every playground soon had its little library. For
the children under five years, carts, hammocks, swings and sand boxes were
supplied. But above that age, up to fifteen, there was manual training mixed
with the games. Minds were stimulated and fingers were taught. The close
of the playground season, which was the beginning of the public school session
in September, 1908, brought to the meet in Forest Park, from all of the play-
grounds, for the finals of skill and the comparison of manual training work,
thousands of children and a surprising collection of useful and artistic handi-
work. The work was optional with the children. The classes were made up of
volunteers. A tea party was a Saturday morning feature, with little girls mak-
ing and serving and dishwashing. Story-telling by amateur romancers was in-
troduced upon certain days of the week. The first public bathhouse came into
existence naturally as a supplement to the playgrounds evolution and then fol-
lowed the establishment of the public convenience stations. All of these inno-
vations met with heartiest commendation of public sentiment. They led up
quickly to the demand for more parks — not great outlying tracts, for lungs of
future generations, but small parks for more playgrounds, and bathhouses and
public convenience stations in the crowded centers of population.

Emerson Bainbridge, an eminent engineer of Great Britain, visited the
United States in 1904. He spent some time in St. Louis. He investigated busi-
ness methods as well as conditions. He looked into the industries of St. Louis.
Upon his return to England, Bainbridge published his "Notes," and put upon the
title page, "for private circulation." Some portion of his stay in St. Louis, the
engineer gave to the Exposition, of which he wrote "it is impossible to speak too
highly." He added this comment: "To the ordinary observer, one of the most
striking things in the St. Louis World's Fair is the good order observed by
everybody." After giving in considerable detail the result of his investigation
of business methods in St. Louis, Mr. Bainbridge paid a tribute to the business
women of this city:

In looking for reasons for the quick manner in which the United States build up
successful enterprises, one cannot overlook one element of vitality which appears to
constitute a very important factor, viz., the manner in which the young women of the
lower middle and working classes give their lives to business work. For instance, there
is no comparison between the appearance of English cities at midday, and that of a city
like St. Louis. In the neighborhood of the banks and brokers' offices, the streets are

MISS ADA RANDOLPH
Queen

MISS VIRGINIA ELLIOT
Maid of Honor

MISS EDNA SIMMONS DELAF1ELD
Maid of Honor

MISS PRUDENCE ZEIBIG
Maid of Honor

COURT OF THE VEILED PROPHET
1911

ST. LOUIS WOMANHOOD 735

filled with many hundreds of trim, neatly dressed, superior looking young women, all
with an air of business, either going to or from their lunch or their business houses.
There is no doubt that this class is doing much more active commercial work in America
than in Great Britain.

In 1910 there were 90,003 "business women" in St. Louis according to an
investigation made by the directors of the Young Women's Christian associa-
tion. The organization had 4,500 members. It conducted a physical depart-
ment, ,a lunch room, an educational department, a social department and other
lines of recreation and improvement for business women. In the spring of that
year the Association under the leadership of Mrs. D. R. Williams, the president,
conducted a three weeks' campaign to raise a fund for a down-town building,
having outgrown the mansion, free use of which had been given, for a period of
some years by the owner, Samuel M. Dodd. The campaign was inaugurated
with a gift of $50,000 by Colonel James G. Butler and resulted in the raising of
approximately half a million of dollars.

A native of the south, educated in the east, experienced in professional
life of the west, Dr. David Franklin Houston found and was impressed in St.
Louis with "the wholesome state of the social mind and the ordering of the
domestic life, which presents a spectacle of gentility, decency and purity almost
unique in the life of the large cities of our day." A higher tribute to St. Louis
womanhood of today could not be put in language.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE USEFUL CITIZEN

Laclede's Sound Judgment — The Crisis of Organization — A Plan of Settlement Which Endured
— St. Ange and the Government He Headed — The First Labor Issue in the Community —
Thornton Grimsley, the Wise Man of the Hour — How St. Louis Dealt icith a Cholera
Epidemic — Masterful Treatment of Know Nothing Riots — John 0 'Fallon, Apostle of Civic
Spirit — 0. D. Filley and the Committee of Public Safety — The Feverish Winter and
Spring of 1861 — Formation of the Union Regiments — A Secret Mission to Jefferson Davis
— Cannon with Which to Bombard the Arsenal — Arrival of " Tamaroa Marble" — Lyon's
Council of War — A Divided Committee — The March on Camp Jackson — City's Baptism
of Blood — Rioting Suppressed by Mayor Daniel G. Taylor — The Panic of Sunday — Harney
Relieved and Lyon Promoted — Moral Courage of William G. Eliot — The Protest Against
Assessment of Southern Sympathizers — Sudden and Peremptory Instructions from Wash-
ington— Western Sanitary Commission — James E. Yeatman's Great Work of Relief —
Author of the Plan of the Freedmen's Bureau — Mr. Teatman Asked to Solve "the Cotton
and Negro Questions" — The Safety Committee of 1877 — Dictation 1o State and City by
Workingmen's Associations — The Great Railroad Strike — Settled Without Loss of Life
in St. Louis — The Police Reserves — Business Men's League and Civic Federation — The
Eight Tears of the World's Fair Mayor.

In my judgment the best citizen who devotes himself most earnestly to the public service

receives from the community he serves far more than he can give. For myself, I have

-experienced nothing but kindness from the people of St. Louis for me and mine ; and the balance

sheet of the fifty years' residence shows me largely their debtor. — William Greenleaf Eliot, at

his semi-centennial.

The useful citizen of St. Louis! For a day, a week, a decade, in an emer-
gency, through a crisis — he was the person who did something signal for the
welfare of the community.

The first useful citizen of St. Louis was the founder. He made no false
start, no mistake ; he builded with marvelous wisdom.

Pierre Laclede, in the month of December, traversed what is now the city
and the eastern part of the county, by a zigzag course of many miles with such
thoroughness that he was able to select the best possible site for St. Louis.
There was nothing haphazard in this prospecting. When he had completed the
exploration, Laclede stood on the hill, the present site of the court house, and
told Auguste Chouteau he was "delighted to see the situation." He did not
hesitate a moment to form there the establishment which he proposed. And
from that day, 147 years ago, nobody has found anything better. St. Louis is
just where Pierre Laclede located it.

The founder had the vision of the born engineer. His mind was compre-
hensive in its action. Time determined the wisdom of the choice. Laclede
studied the shore line to the cliffs overlooking the Missouri. He examined the
country back from the Mississippi front. He had no second choice. He did
not waver or confer. Here was to be his settlement. Here was just what he had
been looking for.

In his experience below, Laclede had suffered from high water. He selected
for St. Louis a site that would never overflow. And yet the elevation was not

737
21-VOL. II.

738 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

impossible of ascent on the river side or difficult of approach from any other
direction. Down the river and up the river were bottom lands. Farther to
the north and to the south were higher limestone bluffs. Back of them the coun-
try was more rugged. Laclede passed over the high bluffs and low lands. He
came to the plateau which his vision told him was the fortunate medium of
elevation above the water. With Auguste Chouteau beside him, the founder
came in from the west over the series of gentle ridges. He noted the prairies
and the groves. Winter though it was, his agricultural training revealed to him
the natural fertility of the soil. Laclede knew something of geology. He saw
the outcroppings of limestone. He recognized the abundance of building mate-
rial, stone and wood, at hand. To be sure, it was not for him to realize what
the vast beds of underlying clays promised. The age of cement and concrete
was in the future. In so far as a mind keenly observant, informed upon mate-
rial conditions of the middle of the eighteenth century could fathom, Laclede
knew he had found an ideal site. He looked no farther. He committed him-
self unreservedly. He marked the trees for his own house and business. He
located them where for more than one hundred years was to be the center of
the commerce of St. Louis.

An eminent French engineer, Nicollet, came to St. Louis in 1836. He
worked five or more years on an elaborate hydrographic survey of the region
west of the Mississippi, including the Valley of the Missouri and the parts
northward. Assigned to assist him was a young lieutenant of the army, Fre-
mont, afterwards the Pathfinder. Returning with his notes and data, Nicollet
took up his residence in Baltimore and prepared his report. He died before the
manuscript went to the printer. The government published the report in 1843.
f While pursuing his scientific work Nicollet became deeply interested in the
early history of St. Louis. He devoted time to his research. Auguste Chouteau
had died only a few years before. Pierre Chouteau was still living. With him
the engineer conversed frequently and at length about the founder and the
founding of St. Louis. He avowed his intention to write in detail what he had
learned. To his care was intrusted the diary which Auguste Chouteau had kept
from the beginning of the settlement through more than forty years. Other
papers relating to Laclede and the pioneer period of St. Louis were loaned to
Nicollet. All of this historical material of priceless value was carried to Balti-
more, but was never returned. It was destroyed by fire.

When the War Department officials examined the papers left by Nicollet
they found, with the hydrographic report a sketch of the founding of St. Louis,
possibly the first chapter of what the author intended to write. They incorpo-
rated this sketch in the public document devoted to the hydrographic survey.

Referring to the origin of St. Louis in the grant "to a company of mer-
chants in New Orleans," Nicollet says: "M. Laclede, the principal projector of
the company, and withal a man of great intelligence and enterprise, was placed
in charge of the expedition."

One historic fact which much impressed the French engineer, after he had
traversed the Trans-Mississippi region from St. Louis northward, was the wis-
dom Laclede exercised in the selection of his site. This Nicollet dwelt upon.
He had obtained from the documents loaned to him and from interviews with

THE USEFUL CITIZEN 739

the early settlers still living a description of the site of St. Louis as it was when
Laclede saw it first in December, 1763. Nicollet wrote:

The slope of the hills on the river side was covered by a growth of heavy timber
overshadowing an almost evergreen sward free from undergrowth. The limestone bluff
rises to an elevation of about eighty feet over the usual recession of the waters of the
Mississippi and is crowned by an upland or plateau extending to the north and west,
and presenting scarcely any limit to the foundation of a city entirely secure from the
invasion of the river. At the time referred to, this plateau presented the aspect of
a beautiful prairie, but already giving the promise of renewed luxurious vegetation in
consequence of the dispersion of the larger animals of the chase and the annual fires
being kept out of the country. It was on this spot that the prescient mind of M. La-
clede foresaw and predicted the future importance of the town to which he gave the
name of St. Louis and about which he discoursed a few days afterwards with so much
enthusiasm in the presence of the officers at Fort Chartres. But winter had now set in
(December), and the Mississippi was about to be closed by ice. M. Laclede could do
no more than cut down trees and blaze others to indicate the place which he had selected.
Keturning afterwards to the fort where he spent the winter, he occupied himself in mak-
ing every preparation for the establishing of the new colony.

Leadership of men is a quality bred. Laclede inherited it. He developed
the trait while forming his settlement. When the expedition reached Ste. Gene-
vieve in November, 1763, winter was beginning. A thin crust of ice formed
mornings in the still, shallow water along shore. Laclede learned for the first
time of the treaty ceding French possessions east of the Mississippi to England.
Timorous excitement was in every French household. French garrisons were
receiving the word to get ready to go south. French settlers of the Illinois
country were of more than half mind to abandon their homes and follow. La-
clede pushed on his flotilla a few miles to Fort Chartres. He unloaded his goods
and warehoused them in the fort. The panic spread. The influence of actual
military preparation to evacuate was reinforced by the urgent advice of the
commandant to the settlers to go with him.

In the midst of winter Laclede found his location. He hurried back to
Fort Chartres to spread the information of his plans. He delegated the actual
work of clearing the ground and erecting the first buildings. Against the ill-
advised exodus Laclede opposed his power of persuasion. He won. Settlers
turned from the official head to the born leader. When Neyon de Villiers floated
away down the Mississippi, only the weaklings of the pioneer communities fol-
lowed him. Laclede mastered the situation. Relations with de Villiers were
strained. The commandant saw his purpose to draw away to New Orleans the
entire population thwarted. He was resentful. Yet such was the tact of Laclede
that no open outbreak occurred and the founder carried on his campaign to win
habitants for St. Louis up to the very day of de Villiers' departure. He drew to
his settlement the strong and courageous.

Before St. Louis was six months old Laclede had given further evidence
that his was no ordinary character. He had drawn the plan of the settlement for
the guidance of Auguste Chouteau even before he left Fort Chartres and the
disturbed communities on the east side of the river. Influenced by Laclede's
courageous reasoning rather than by de Villiers' ruinous forebodings the set-
tlers began the migration to the new settlement. Some moved before de Vil-
liers and the soldiers left for New Orleans. Others came later. But as these
new settlers arrived they found the town laid out. They were assigned, by

740 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Auguste Chouteau first and by Laclede after he took up his residence, sites on
which to build their new homes.

The word of Laclede was accepted as law. By what authority? His char-
ter from the French governor-general at New Orleans was the exclusive trach
with the Indian nations of the Missouri country for a period of eight years.
This privilege was quickly enforced. One of the early acts of Laclede was the
expulsion of a trespassing fur trader. This was done summarily. The moral
effect on the settlement was marked. Laclede was the governor of the new set-
tlement. He had no commission. He had what was stronger — recognition of
his authority by common consent of the governed. Laclede's house was the
seat of this government. If the founder had no written authority, no code, he
was a man born to lead, and was accepted by those he led.

Not alone were the settlers and traders of the Illinois country in their
recognition of Laclede's influence. When, in 1765, St. Ange de Bellerive turned
over Fort Chartres to Captain Stirling and the English, he faced the question
of his future. Without hesitation he marched his garrison of forty French
soldiers to St. Louis and remained there. He lived in Laclede's house. He
performed the duties of commandant. The news had come up the river that
St. Louis was in Spanish territory. In Lower Louisiana there was revolt.
The right to self government was proclaimed at New Orleans. Over St. Louis
the flag of France still floated. Through those years of uncertainty and blood-
shed at New Orleans, the settlement of Laclede passed without anything more
than well controlled excitement. Laclede was a republican at heart. He awaited
the issue in Lower Louisiana. If Lafreniere and his compatriots won, Laclede
and St. Ange would join in the organization of the republic. They had created
the capital of Upper Louisiana. While the revolution below went on, Laclede
was cultivating the fur trade. He was laying foundations for the greater
St. Louis.

The plan which Laclede drew for his settlement is the basis of the present
map of St. Louis. The founder laid out three streets following the curve of
the river front. These are today Main, Second and Third streets; they agree
with the lines of Laclede's map. In his planning the founder showed in one
particular more foresight than those who came after him. He established a
public square, or park, on the river front in the heart of his settlement. The
Place d'Armes was the name he bestowed upon the reservation. Its boundaries
were the river, Main, Walnut and Market streets. The locality was not a
steep slope from Main street to the water in those days. The river, when of
good stage, swept along the base of a cliff or bluff of rock, about thirty-five
feet high. The Place d'Armes was a little plateau with this bold front on
the river. In the year 1908, the Civic League of St. Louis planned and pro-
posed to the people of St. Louis a treatment of the river front which was
almost an artificial reproduction of Laclede's Place d'Armes, as he tried to
preserve it one hundred and forty-seven years ago. Utilitarian St. Louis put
a market house on the Place. When the French names of the streets gave way
to English, Market street took its title from the practical use to which Laclede's
square had been put. Then came the day when St. Louis, looking westward,
saw nothing beautiful in a river front. The Place d'Armes passed into private

PIERRE LACLEDE, THE EOUNDER OF ST. LOUIS
Bust in Merchants-Laclede Bank, by George Julian Zolnay

THE USEFUL CITIZEN 741

possession. Across the street from where Laclede located his house and place
of business, was built the Merchants' Exchange to become the city's trade
center until the removal to the Chamber of Commerce on Third and Pine
streets.

St. Ange came to St. Louis in 1765. Just after the beginning of 1766 he
began to govern. Until that time the habitants had held the locations which
Laclede assigned them for homes. They wanted titles, evidences on paper, of
ownership. Laclede and St. Ange considered the problem. Two lawyers,
Labusciere and Lefebvre, who had moved from the east side of the river, were
called into the conference to help frame the forms to be adopted. St. Ange
added to his functions the issue of grants or titles. Among the first to take
out these grants to the property they occupied were Laclede and Labusciere.
The founder showed the people his faith in the land system which he had
devised. In making his allotments to newcomers Laclede usually bestowed
a quarter of a block. In some cases, which were exceptional, he gave half a
block. In a very few instances the assignment covered an entire block. The
deeds or grants which St. Ange issued to the holders to confirm the assign-
ments made by Laclede were recorded in a book. The system of Laclede stood
the test of Spanish authority first and of American authority later. Laclede's
distribution of land to settlers, confirmed in instruments of writing by St. Ange,
remains today undisturbed, with all of the authority of government sustaining
it. The livre terrien of Laclede, St. Ange, Labusciere and Lefevre is the
beginning of the realty records of St. Louis.

The year came round which terminated the period of exclusive trading
in the Missouri country by Maxent, Laclede & Company. Indeed that privi-
lege was not really in force after the cession by France to Spain. In 1770 arrived
the Spanish governor, Piernas, with a garrison to put into effect Spanish
authority. Laclede met the new conditions readily. He had made St. Ange
a member of his household. He now welcomed the Spanish governor and gave
him headquarters in his house. A new flag went up in front of the stone house,
the yellow between the red. But Laclede still continued to be the power behind
the government. He still controlled the fur trade of the Missouri. The per-
sonality of the founder was greater than the flag.

In 1774 St. Ange died. Perhaps the old soldier hadn't much to leave. His
will was the expression of his confidence and admiration. He named Laclede
as the executor of his will.

In 1778 Laclede coming up the river from New Orleans on the tedious
three months' journey, was stricken. He died near the mouth of the Arkansas
river. His body was buried at the foot of a tree. The next year an expedition
was sent down to bring the body of the founder to St. Louis. The effort was
useless. In the flood period the river had undermined the bank. The body
of Laclede and the tree which marked his grave had been carried away. The
founder's days of useful citizenship for St. Louis were ended.

When the estate of Laclede was inventoried one item told the story of the
founder's sacrifice of self interest for the help of others. It was:

Notes of various parties irrecoverable 27,891 livres.

742 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Laclede left the mill and the water power, which sold at auction for 2,000
livres. He left a farm on the grand prairie. This farm brought 750 livres or
$150. Colonel Maxent, the New Orleans partner in the firm of Maxent, Laclede
& Co. was the chief creditor of Laclede. He chose Auguste Chouteau to be the
executor of Laclede's estate. Chouteau was Laclede's stepson. He had been
the chief clerk of the firm of Maxent, Laclede & Co. More than this, he had
been the trusted confidant of the founder from the beginning of the settlement.
The selection of Auguste Chouteau showed two things — the complete confidence
Colonel Maxent had in Laclede's family and the disposition to treat his heirs
with liberality. In New Orleans as well as in St. Louis, the public spirit of
Laclede was known. His invaluable services to St. Louis were recognized.
The governor general took a personal interest in the settlement of Laclede's
affairs. He wrote from New Orleans to the lieutenant governor at St. Louis
asking him to interest himself:

"Endeavor to have the heirs of Laclede satisfied as far as possible in regard
to what is due the deceased."

Chouteau, after a year, was able to pay Colonel Maxent 2,625 h'vres and
to deliver to him sundry notes, the face of which was 38,523 livres. But this
included 27,527 livres "irrecoverable" and 7,527 livres "which may be collected."

Upon the memorandum submitted to him by Auguste Chouteau, Colonel
Maxent wrote "from all of which I release said Chouteau from any responsi-
bility, he having executed his commission."

This was all there was to show for the fifteen years Laclede had devoted
to the founding and upbuilding of St. Louis. He had secured to his wife and
children a home on Main and Chestnut streets. To protect his partner, Colonel
Maxent, from loss on account of the notes, bad and doubtful, which he was
carrying, Laclede, the year before he died, conveyed to Colonel Maxent all of
his interest in the block of ground and in the buildings thereon, bounded by
Main, Second, Walnut and Market streets. His principal asset of value was the
mill. Even that had not been a source of profit to him personally. In 1767
he had purchased the mill because it was not equipped to meet the needs of
the community. He had expended a great deal of money, increasing the water
power and enlarging the capacity. So liberally had Laclede managed the mill
for eleven years that it had cost him much more than he had made out of it.

The founder of St. Louis did not amass wealth. He formed "a settlement
which might become hereafter one of the finest cities of America." With fore-
sight which seems marvelous now, he located his settlement and planned it.
He carried the community through the crisis of organization and established
government. He drew to him strong men from half a dozen other settlements,
much older and seemingly permanent. He distributed the lots without cost to
the newcomers. He obtained for the holders formal confirmation of the hold-
ings. He made St. Louis the capital of Upper Louisiana with a population
nearly half as large as New Orleans. He was a useful citizen.

Until May, 1840, the working day of St. Louis was "from sun up to sun-
set." Mechanics and laborers, when employed by the day, began as the sun
rose and stopped as it set. This made a day of varying length. In the summer
time, when the sun rose very early, an hour from six to seven o'clock was

THE USEFUL CITIZEN 743

allowed for breakfast. The day was broken by a full noon hour from twelve
to one. This was custom, but it was well settled custom. Bricklayers started
a movement to have ten hours made a working day. The employers refused to
accede. The journeymen stopped work and paraded the streets without dis-
turbance. They called a mass meeting in the afternoon of May 23rd. Members
of all trades attended the meeting. By some one's happy inspiration Thornton
Grimsley was nominated to be chairman. He was a manufacturer who had
built up a large business and' had found time to perform many public duties.
If a celebration was to be gotten up, Thornton Grimsley was the first one
thought of for the committee to make the arrangements. He was the grand
marshal of more processions than any other man of his generation in St. Louis.
He was a high officer in the military organization of his day. He was respon-
sive to every kind of a public call and he always did the right thing. So when
a hard-fisted bricklayer moved "that Colonel Thornton Grimsley take the chair,"
the colonel didn't flinch. He went forward and called for order with as much
dignity as if he were to preside over a gathering of "the best citizens."

The colonel expressed the sense of the honor he felt upon being called
upon to be chairman of a mass meeting of journeymen. He told his hearers
that he would discharge the duties as well as he was able. And then Colonel
Grimsley proceeded in his own excellent way to solve the first labor problem
presented to St. Louis. He said he wasn't a bricklayer, but a maker of saddles
and harness ; that he employed many journeymen. His hearers might think
from that he was not in sympathy with such a movement as the mass meeting
represented. That would be a mistake, for he believed a ten-hour day was
honorable and just.

"I see many employers of journeymen in other trades before me," Colonel
Grimsley went on. "If they come into this ten-hour system, they may in some
instances lose a little time of painful toil, but they will be rewarded for the
sacrifice in better, willing labor, and will enjoy the smiles of wives and little
children at the early return of their husbands and fathers from labor, if they
will go and see them."

Thus Colonel Grimsley talked until he had sentiment all one way. Other
employers of labor followed him with expressions of willingness to make the
concession. Without legislation, without disorder, with a single day's strike
that was not attended by an unpleasant incident, the ten-hour labor day went
into effect in St. Louis.

Wage-earners from the earliest times found good treatment in St. Louis.
When this was no more than a fur trading settlement, labor was recompensed
at the rate of two livres a day. That was $11.25 per month. At the same time
similar labor in the American colonies and later in the American states on the
Atlantic coast was paid six dollars a month. The flat boatmen, who constituted
the lowest class of unskilled labor, received not less than eight dollars a month
at St. Louis.

Consideration for employes has gone farther in St. Louis than in any other
city of the United States. A fine example of this, not exceptional perhaps, is
given in the policy of the Norvell-Shapleigh Hardware Company. Of 450
employes in the Washington avenue house of this company, 150 are women.

744 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

They have a rest room with a matron who, on proper representation by a woman
employe that she needs to rest for a few minutes or an hour, approves an
application- for-leave card to the proper department head, and the female em-
ploye is released. The hours for work and lunch are so arranged that the
women work one hour less than the men, and go to and return from lunch half
an hour later. One hour is allowed for lunch, and there are lunchrooms in the
building. A roof garden with gymnastic apparatus is provided for lunching and
for outdoor exercise in good weather. At Christmas the company makes a
present to every employe of a half month's salary. Nine months in the year
the house observes the Saturday half-holiday, except that it is an essential part
of its system that a force shall remain Saturday afternoons to finish the week's
work in the entry and invoicing departments. No invoice received Saturday
is ever carried over till Monday. The staff which works the Saturday half-
holiday is given a Wednesday half-holiday. The company maintains a sick-
benefit fund, made up of fees received by all officers and employes for jury and
witness fees. This is a considerable fund, as the total of employes, including
the force employed in the company's big warehouse, numbers over six hundred.
There is also a house physician, whose services are given employes without
charge, at the expense of the company.

In five weeks of 1832 five per cent of the population of St. Louis died of
cholera. It was as if in 1911 the deaths from an epidemic disease had num-
bered 35,000 in a little more than a month. The visitation came in October.
The weather was cool and cloudy. Laborers stopped work and stood on the
street corners. Business was almost suspended. The feeling of depression was
general. Men were seen one day and missed the next. Those who kept their
minds occupied with ordinary affairs and made no changes in the habits of dress
and food, seemed less liable to attack and had the best chance of recovery.
The panic stricken, those who stopped work, those who doctored themselves
with preventatives, were easy victims.

The epidemic of cholera which most severely afflicted St. Louis, which
brought out the ability of the city to deal with a great emergency and which
led to permanent measures of protection from these visitations was in 1849.
The community consisted of 63,000 people. The number of deaths from cholera,
according to Dr. Engelmann, was 4,317 and from other causes 4,000 more.
St. Louis dealt with the unprecedented situation through a committee of public
health. Colonel Robert Moore, the author of "Notes on the History of Cholera
in St. Louis," says:

On the 25th of June, a mass meeting was assembled at the court house, at which the
propriety of quarantine was at last suggested, and the authorities strongly denounced for
their inaction. A committee of twelve, two from each ward, was appointed to wait upon
the city council and urge immediate action. The latter body was not at that time in
session, and many of its members had sought places of safety outside the city. By vigorous
efforts, however, they were hastily assembled on the afternoon of the next day (June 26),
and audience given to the prayer of the committee. By way of answer, an ordinance
wTas passed at the same sitting, and approved by the mayor, Jas. G. Barry, by which the
city government was virtually abdicated in favor of the petitioners. The committee of
twelve appointed by the mass meeting the day before, composed of T. T. Gantt, R. S.
Blennerhasset, A. B. Chambers, Isaac A. Hedges. James Clemens, Jr., J. M. Field, George
Collier, L. M. Kennett, Trusten Polk, Lewis Bach, Thomas Gray, and Wm. G. Clark,

JOHN O'FALLON

OLIVER D. FILLEY JAMES E. YEATMAN

USEFUL CITIZENS

THE USEFUL CITIZEN 745

were made a ' ' committee of public health ' ' with almost absolute power. Authority was
conferred upon them to make all rules, orders, and regulations they should deem necessary,
and any violation of their orders was made punishable by fine up to five hundred dollars.
This authority was to continue during the epidemic. Vacancies in the committee were
fo be filled as they themselves should determine, and $50,000 was appropriated for their
use.

The committee, thus suddenly clothed with the sole power and responsibility, at once
took up their task. At their first meeting, held on Wednesday, June 27, certain school
houses in each ward were designated as hospitals, and physicians appointed to attend
them. They also provided for a thorough cleansing of the city, to be begun at once, with
an inspector or superintendent for each block. Among these ' ' block inspectors, ' ' as
they were termed, were many of the best citizens of the city, who entered into the
work with the utmost zeal, and declined afterward to receive any pay.

On the next Saturday, June 30, the- committee recommended "the burning, this evening
at 8 o'clock, throughout the city, of stone coal, resinous tar, and sulphur" — a measure
which seems to have met with much favor, for in the next day's paper we are told that
on the night before ' ' in every direction the air wras filled with dense masses of smoke,
serving, as we all hope, to dissipate the foul air which has been the cause of so much
mortality." The committee also appointed Monday, July 2, to be observed as a day of
fasting and prayer — a recommendation with which, as with that for bonfires, there was
general compliance.

The committee, however, did not content themselves with prayers and smoke alone.
Thus, we are told that on Sunday the block inspectors continued their work of purification
without regard to the day, and on the very day of fasting and prayer appointed by
themselves, the committee dictated to the city council an ordinance, which was passed
the same day, establishing quarantine against steamboats from the south.

On the first day of August the committee of public health in a proclamation declared
the epidemic to be over. At the same time they closed their accounts, turning back to the
city treasury $16,000 of the $50,000; resigned their trust and adjourned sine die.

During this epidemic there was not a case of cholera among the students
or in the faculty of St. Louis University. The institution at that time was at
Ninth and Washington avenue, near some of the most fatal centers of the
disease. In the vicinity of the Sheridan Exchange, on Franklin avenue, were
two wells with only the thoroughfare separating them. It seemed as if every-
body who drank from one well was smitten with the cholera while all who
drank from the other were immune. One of the victims of the cholera epidemic
in 1850 was General Richard V. Mason. He was living at Jefferson Barracks
and was in charge of construction work there.

Masterful treatment of a crisis St. Louis showed in 1854. One of the
spasms of Know Nothingism occurred that year. Immigrants had been flock-
ing to St. Louis for several years. Irish and Germans were numerous among
the newcomers. They had votes. They were eager to embrace political oppor-
tunities. American residents of the city were resentful and inclined to regulate
the brand new citizens. At the city election of 1852 the Germans who were
classed as Benton Democrats took control of the First Ward polls at Soulard
market and prevented Whigs from voting. Dr. Mitchell was mobbed and Mayor
Kennett, the Whig candidate for reelection, was hissed. When the report was
brought up-town, Bob O'Blennis, the gambler, and Ned Buntline, the story
writer, assembled 5,000 men and marched down to Soulard market. Pistol
shots were fired. Stones were thrown. The crowd from up-town fired into
the market house. A shot from Neumeyer's tavern, on Seventh street and
Park avenue, killed Joseph Stevens of the St. Louis Fire company. The Amer-

746 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

leans charged the tavern, gutted it and burned it. They got two six-pounders
and located them on a Park avenue corner to rake the streets to the south
but did not fire. One party of fifteen hundred started for the office of the
Anzeiger "to clean it out," but met the militia and turned back. This trouble
wore itself out in a day. It was the curtain raiser for the election tragedy of
August, 1854. Antagonism toward foreigners had become intense. Foreign
born citizens offering to vote were challenged and called on to show their papers
and then declared to be disqualified.

At the Fifth Ward polls an Irishman stabbed a boy and ran into the
Mechanics' boarding house. The crowd followed, smashed the windows and
broke the furniture. Shots were fired ; other boarding houses in the neighbor-
hood were attacked. The crowd, swelled to several thousand, marched to
Cherry street and continued the wrecking of the boarding houses. It started
for the levee and met a crowd of Irishmen. In the fight two were killed. Battle
Row on the levee was stoned. Doors were broken in and furniture destroyed
in many houses. The mob went up-town, wrecking Irish boarding houses on
Morgan, Cherry and Green streets. At Drayman's hall on Eighth street and
Franklin avenue, the mob divided into parties, which continued the work of
destruction on the saloons until the militia dispersed them. The next day the
Continentals while proceeding along Green street were fired on. Two militia-
men, Spore and Holliday, were wounded. Near Seventh and Biddle, under
the shadow of St. Patrick's church, E. R. Violet, a well known and much liked
citizen, attempted to disarm a man, who was flourishing a pistol, and was killed.
Fighting occurred about the same hour at Broadway and Ashley street. A
saloon keeper named Snyder was killed. Three men were wounded. The riot-
ing went on until late that night. The next morning a meeting of citizens at
the Merchants' Exchange was called by the mayor. James H. Lucas was chair-
man and Hudson E. Bridge was secretary. The inherent sentiment of the com-
munity for law and order asserted itself. After an expression, the gathering
adjourned to the court house. A larger meeting was held. Captain N. J.
Eaton was commissioned by the voice of popular will to get up an organization
to suppress the disorder. Before the afternoon was over a force of seven hun-
dred citizens had been recruited. Major Meriwether Lewis Clark was given
the command. He had thirty-three captains in command of squads. This force,
composed of the best class of citizens, went on duty. The ordinary police force
was withdarwn. The rioting ceased immediately.

As they walked home from the breaking of ground near Fifteenth street
and Walnut street for the first railroad out of St. Louis, the Missouri Pacific,
James E. Yeatman asked John O'Fallon:

"Colonel, do you think it will pay?"

"No," said Colonel O'Fallon, with deliberation; "not in my time. Perhaps
not in yours. Eventually it will be profitable."

Colonel O'Fallon was one of the largest subscribers to the stock of the
original company. He had made his investment with the conclusion that he
would not see financial returns from it. After a little pause he resumed the
conversation :

"Mr. Yeatman," he said, "you will please not mention the amount of my
subscription."

THE USEFUL CITIZEN 747

John F. Darby, twice mayor of St. Louis, wrote of Colonel O'Fallon as "the
most open, candid and liberal man the city of St. Louis ever produced, the
leader of every public enterprise. He sprang to every business man's assist-
ance, without waiting to be called upon. He has done more to assist the mer-
chants and business men of St. Louis than any man who ever lived in the
town."

In the old days of banking in St. Louis those who desired loans wrote
their requests and dropped them in a box. On stated days, once or twice a
week, the box was opened; the applications were considered by the directors.
John O'Fallon was regular in his attendance at these meetings to consider loans.
He followed closely the reading of the requests. The mention of names well
known, of business men of established credit, interested him in only routine
way. But when an application from some one unknown to him was read, he
was all attention. Noting a disposition to turn upside down the request, which
was the token of disapproval, Colonel O'Fallon would ask: "Who is that man?
What does he do? How old is he?"

The last question was the most important. Often the responses were
meager. The applicant was almost a stranger to every director present. Did
anyone know anything to his discredit? If the answer was negative, Colonel
O'Fallon would say: "Let him have the money. I will indorse his paper."

Not once, not scores, but hundreds of times John O'Fallon did this. The
younger the man, the stronger the sympathy. The less known of the man,
provided that little information was not discreditable, the quicker the action in
favor of the loan.

Very rapidly St. Louis was expanding from 1840 to 1860. These were
years in which John O'Fallon, from his fiftieth to his seventieth year, staked
the trade and commerce of the rising city. In ways entirely his own, John
O'Fallon was the useful citizen of that period. He was the great indorser among
St. Louis business men. When the Polytechnic Institute was opened in the new
building on Seventh and Chestnut streets in 1857 John How said this:

It is not considered wise to indorse paper, and I shall not here justify the practice;
still this I may say on the authority of Colonel O'Fallon, that it is pleasant to look
around you as you descend into the vale of tears, and see the good done, business created,
families comfortable, city prospering, even if it has been brought about by the want of
common prudence in indorsing. True, as Colonel O'Fallon said, he had been often dis-
appointed in those he had aided, yet, on the whole, he was satisfied with the result.

John O'Fallon organized the first Sunday school in St. Louis. He con-
tinued his well doing all of his life. And when John O'Fallon died Bishop
Hawks told the people of St. Louis his philanthropies are "lithographed in
your very streets."

"I never permit myself to feel so bitter against a man that I cannot speak
to him." One who could say that and act it in 1861, as did O. D. Filley, was
qualified to be chairman of the Committee of Public Safety. The orator and
resolution writer were busy in St. Louis that winter. Captain Sam Gaty went
into the office of his lawyer, Samuel T. Glover, on Fourth and Olive streets,
and saw a gun in the corner. He asked a question and was answered with one.

"You secessionists don't expect to drive the Union men out of the city, do
you?" the lawyer said to his client in a rasping tone which had no good humor
in it.

748 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

On the 8th of January those who sympathized with the south resolved
"that we pledge Missouri to a hearty cooperation with our sister southern
states, in such measures as shall be deemed necessary for our mutual protection
against the encroachments of northern fanaticism and the coercion of the Fed-
eral Government."

On the Qth of January the Constitutional Union men met and organized
for the purpose of opposing Black Republicanism.

On the nth of January the Union men met in Washington Hall and took
steps to organize Union clubs, inviting all Union men to act together. Shortly
before the meeting Thornton Grimsley met his son-in-law, Henry T. Blow, and
warned him that the Washington Hall meeting was to be broken up. He told
him that one hundred secessionists had pledged themselves to do this. Colonel
Grimsley sympathized with the South. Colonel Blow was just as strongly a
Union man.

On the nth of January Mayor O. D. Filley sent to the common council
the following:

A very general and unusual excitement prevails in our community, and, although I
do not apprehend that any actual disturbance or interference with the rights of our citizens
will ensue, yet I deem it best that all proper precautionary measures should be taken to
prepare for any event. I would, hence, recommend that the members of the council, from
each ward, select from among their best citizens such a number of men as the exigencies
of the case may seem to require and organize them to be ready for any emergency
Our citizens are entitled to the full protection of the laws and must have it.

On the I2th of January Archbishop Kenrick published a card to the
Catholics of St. Louis advising them to avoid all occasions of public excitement :

To the Koman Catholics of St. Louis:

Beloved Brethren: In the present disturbed state of the public mind, we feel it our
duty to recommend you to avoid all occasions of public excitement, to obey the laws, to
respect the rights of all citizens and to keep away, as much as possible, from all as-
semblages where the indiscretion of a word, or the impetuosity of a momentary passion
might endanger public tranquillity. Obey the injunction of the Apostle, St. Peter: "Fol-
low peace with all men and holiness, without which no man can see God."

PETER EICHAED KENRICK,

Archbishop of St. Louis.

In the presidential campaign of 1860 there were "wide awakes" on the
republican side and "broom rangers" on the democratic side. Two months
before the inauguration of Lincoln, armed organizations, built upon the political
clubs, were drilling in St. Louis. Those whose sympathies were with secession
were "minute men." This organization came into existence at a meeting in
Washington hall the first week in January. Simultaneously began the forma-
tion of union clubs, which were called "union guards," "black jaegers," "home
guards." The minute men had headquarters in the Bertholcl mansion at Fifth
and Pine streets. They hung out a southern flag with its single star and
crescent.

In six weeks sixteen companies of the union guards had been formed. The
minute men were numerous. The drills were nightly. There was little attempt
at secrecy. In the central and northern parts of the city the minute men were
overwhelmingly strong. South of Market street were the strongholds of the
union guards. Every hall was an armory.

THE USEFUL CITIZEN 749

Giles F. Filley bought fifty Sharp's rifles, the crack fighting piece of that
day, and armed the men in his factory. Governor Yates of Illinois sent two
hundred muskets which were wagoned under cover of beer barrels to Turner
hall and distributed to union guards. To get more guns a fund of $30,000 was
raised. These historical incidents show how sentiment was seething in St. Louis
during the winter and spring of 1861.

Isaac H. Sturgeon had nearly $1,000,000 of gold and silver in the sub-
treasury. He was apprehensive about Federal property and made inquiry as
to conditions at the arsenal. Major Bell told him that there were 60,000 stand
of arms, 200 barrels of powder, many cannon and war supplies, with only one
man on guard over them at night. Mr. Sturgeon quickly reported this situation
to Washington. Lieutenant Robinson came with forty men. Troops were
moved up from the barracks. Captain Nathaniel Lyon arrived with a company
of regulars from Fort Riley but was not immediately put in charge. He wrote
to Blair in Washington of the inadequate plan of his superior, Major Hagner,
to defend the arsenal. "This," he said, "is either imbecility or villainy."

Coming to St. Louis from Jefferson City about this time, Governor Claib.
Jackson remarked "that if his advice had been taken the arsenal would have
been seized, when he could have walked in with ten armed men and taken it,
as it had no protection, but to do so now would cost the lives of a great many
men and the probable destruction of the city."

The Committee of Public Safety deserved the name. It saved the price-
less contents of the arsenal to the government. It held St. Louis loyal. It
mastered the most critical situation in the history of the city. It averted blood-
shed through the months while two hostile armies of its own fellow citizens
were camped within eyesight and earshot.

At the head of the Committee of Public Safety was Oliver Dwight Filley.
The other members were Samuel T. Glover, Francis P. Blair, Jr., J. J. Witzig,
John How and James O. Broadhead. These six men received their commission
to act from a mass meeting of unconditional Union men. Republicans, Douglas
Democrats and Bell and Everett Democrats united in this movement. They
had but one plank in their platform — "unalterable fidelity to the Union under all
circumstances." Previous to the nth of January a little group of Union men
met in Mr. Filley's counting room from time to time and planned the course
which was followed. The Committee of Public Safety was an evolution. When
the six men had been chosen, they made the Turner hall on Tenth near Market
street the headquarters. Their meetings were held daily.

Those winter and spring months of 1861 were a continuous crisis in St.
Louis. The marvel is that the city was not a battlefield long before Sumter
was fired upon. The fact of martial law long preceded the form. Again and
again the feeling approached dangerously near the line of mob violence and
was checked. On the side of those who sympathized with the south were
men who clung to the hope that war could be avoided by pacificatory measures.
They were Constitutional Union men. Among them were Henry Overstolz,
D. A. January, Albert Todd, J. W. Willis, William T. Wood, H. S. Turner,
N. J. Eaton, George Penn, Lewis V. Bogy, L. M. Kennett, P. B. Garesche,
John D. Coalter. The influence of these men was exerted to restrain the minute

750 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

men and their leaders from any overt act. Especially was it exerted to prevent
the seizure of the arsenal. No other city in the Union was so distracted as was
St. Louis in that period. But the bloodshed would have been much greater
if it had not been for these men who hoped to hold the southern states in the
Union by pacification. The Committee of Public Safety formally organized,
with Oliver D. Filley as president and James O. Broadhead as secretary. Black
Republicans who had voted for Lincoln were looked upon as enemies to the
public peace. Their expulsion from St. Louis was openly advocated. In a
county adjoining St. Louis a school teacher named Landfield, who had voted
for Lincoln and talked republicanism, was told to leave. He asked for a hear-
ing. A committee of twenty-eight leading citizens of the county heard what
the teacher had to say and confirmed the order of banishment. Citizens re-
solved "that they would do what they could to remove from St. Louis the
stigma of being an anti-slavery Black Republican county hostile to the institu-
tions of Missouri."

That gun in the corner of Samuel T. Glover's law office was not the only
one made ready. The stock of arms and ammunition in Woodward's hardware
store on Main street was depleted. More than one respectable church-going
resident swore occasionally in those times. The conditions, if they did not
justify, mitigated the offense of profanity.

The personal composition of the Committee of Public Safety was most
fortunate. Mr. Filley was from Connecticut, a descendant of one of the families
which came over in the Mayflower. Mr. How had been reared in Pennsylvania.
Mr. Witzig represented the great influx of German population. Mr. Blair was
of Kentucky birth, the son of a Virginia father. Mr. Glover was a Ken-
tuckian. Mr. Broadhead was of Virginia parentage. The widespread sources
of St. Louis population were well represented in the formation of the group.
Glover and Broadhead were lawyers of high standing, known personally to
Mr. Lincoln. John How had been mayor two terms and was a business man
of wide influence. Witzig had the confidence of his fellow countrymen. Blair
was the Washington connection. He had served one term in Congress and
was Representative-elect. To tell what manner of man the chairman was
detracts nothing from the honor due the men who were his associates on the
committee. Familiarly he was called "O. D." He was kindly and approach-
able. When the Committee of Public Safety had won, when it had become
safer in St. Louis to be a Union man than a secession sympathizer, the spirit
of retribution was indulged. Men were arrested and punished for words. Mr.
Filley protested. "Let them talk," he said. "If they do no overt act, do not
disturb them." But behind the kindly disposition was the spirit which knows
neither variableness nor shadow of turning when right is at stake. When cloth
was wanted to uniform the force he was recruiting, O. D. Filley gave his word
it would be paid for, and his word was accepted where another man's note
would have been asked. That was the reputation the chairman had in the
community.

Protection of persons prompted in the beginning the movement which took
form in the Committee of Public Safety. Then Mr. Filley and his associates
planned and armed to save the arsenal for the government. Next they en-

THE USEFUL CITIZEN 751

gineered the course which saved Missouri to the Union. The companies of
union guards grew into regiments. There wasn't enough blue cloth in the city
to uniform all. The committee sent one regiment, John D. Stevenson's, into
service clad in Kentucky homespun. When the committee called on Colonel
Robert Campbell for cloth he refused to sell; he said he would uniform Blair's
regiment at his own expense, and he did. The committee was making head-
way.

Delegation after delegation came from the south to show Missouri that
it was her duty to secede. Vest, of Cooper, offered the bill providing for a
convention to determine what course Missouri should pursue, the decision of
the convention to be submitted to the people for popular vote. St. Louis had
fifteen delegates in that convention. The unconditional Union men nominated
a ticket on which there were four Republicans and eleven Douglas, and Bell
and Everett Democrats. The ticket carried the city by a majority of 5,000.
The Committee of Public Safety not only had an army but it had scored a
political victory. The convention met in Jefferson City. Its purpose, as de-
fined by the Legislature, was "to adopt such measures for vindicating the
sovereignty of the state and the protection of its institutions as shall appear
to them to be demanded." The convention, after two days, adjourned to meet
in St. Louis on the day that Lincoln was to be inaugurated. The convention
met in Mercantile Library hall, up two long flights of stairs, in the old building
on Fifth and Locust. Two blocks down Fifth street the southern flag floated
in front of the Berthold mansion. In the convention the advocacy of secession
grew weaker session by session. Uriel Wright, the great advocate who had
moved juries as had no other man of that day at the bar of St. Louis, spoke:

I looked one day toward the southern skies, toward that sunny land which consti-
tutes our southern possessions, and I saw a banner floating in the air. I am not skilled
in heraldry, and I may mistake the sign, but as it first rose it presented a single dim
and melancholy star, set in a field of blue, representing, I suppose, a lost pleiad floating
through space. A young moon, a crescent moon, was by her side, appropriately plucked from
our planetary system, as the most changeable of all representatives known to it, a satellite to
signify the vicissitudes which must attend its career. The sad spectacle wound up with
the appropriate emblem of the cross, denoting the tribulation and sorrow which must attend
its going. I could not favor any such banner.

Hamilton R. Gamble, from the committee on Federal relations, reported
to the convention the resolutions for adoption. These resolutions declared :

That while Missouri cannot leave the Union to join the southern states, we will
do all in our power to induce them to again take their places with us in the family from
which they have attempted to separate themselves. For this purpose we will not only
recommend a compromise with which they ought to be satisfied, but we will endeavor
to procure an assembly of the whole family of states in order that in a general convention
such amendments to the constitution may be agreed upon as shall permanently restore
harmony to the whole nation.

Missouri had gone on record against secession. The Committee of Public
Safety continued to hold its meetings in Turner hall. For three months the
committee had existed without official recognition. It had created, and uni-
formed and drilled regiments. The government at Washington called upon
Missouri for four regiments. On the i/th of April Governor Jackson replied
to the call, refusing to furnish the troops. He wrote to Secretary of War
Simon Cameron, that the requisition was "illegal, unconstitutional and revolu-

752 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

denary." Four days later Lyon, at the arsenal received a telegram from Wash-
ington, sent to East St. Louis and carried by messenger across the river for
greater security. The message directed him "to arm the loyal citizens to pro-
tect public property. Muster four regiments into the public service."

Before nightfall the regiments raised by the Committee of Public Safety,
commanded by Blair, Boernstein, Sigel and Schuttner, were within the arsenal
walls, armed and supplied with ammunition. The Committee of Public Safety
had its own detective force, organized soon after the committee came into
existence. The head of the detective force was the ex-chief of police, J. E. D.
Couzins. One of the reports brought by the secret service to the Committee
of Safety was that the minute men were making preparations to attack the
arsenal on the night of the day the four regiments of union guards were mus-
tered in. The night passed without incident. The minute men wanted the
guns and powder in the arsenal. Their leaders discussed the possibilities of
capture. They were held back by those who sympathized with the south, but
who still hoped for a pacific settlement.

The last day of April brought from Washington complete recognition of
the Committee of Safety. The adjutant general sent, bearing the approval of
"A. Lincoln," this order to Lyon: "You will, if deemed necessary by yourself
and by Messrs. O. D. Filley, James How, James O. Broadhead, Samuel T.
Glover, J. J. Witzig and F. P. Blair, proclaim martial law in the city of St.
Louis."

The Committee of Public Safety was to all practical purposes the govern-
ment, so far as St. Louis was concerned. Perhaps never before was such power
placed in the hands of half a dozen men. These men derived their represent-
ative capacity from no election. The committee was the result of a mass
meeting of citizens. It had earned its recognition by what it had accomplished.
The work went on. A fifth regiment, Colonel Salomon's, was organized. A
brigade was formed with Lyon as general. The regiments were numbered.
Blair was colonel of the First and his major was J. M. Schofield, who was to
reach the highest rank in the regular army, lieutenant-general. Five additional
regiments were organized as the reserve corps. Their colonels were Almstedt,
Kallman, McNeil, B. Gratz Brown and Stifel.

Governor Jackson called a special session of the legislature for the second
of May to "enact such measures as might be deemed necessary for the more
perfect organization and equipment of the militia." At the same time he or-
dered the commanders to assemble their men in each militia district. The
organized militia of the St. Louis district obeyed orders. On the 6th day of
May, General D. M. Frost assembled the First and Second regiments on Wash-
ington avenue and marched to Camp Jackson, which had been laid out in Lindell
grove, a beautiful slope dotted with large trees on the east side of Grand avenue,
extending from Olive street on the north to Laclede avenue on the south.
The camp was named in honor of the governor, as custom required. Three
troops of militia cavalry under Major Clark Kennedy arrived in the camp
the next day. The First Regiment, Lieutenant-Colonel John Knapp command-
ing, was composed of long established military companies. The majority, per-
haps two-thirds of the members of this regiment and of the Engineer Corps,
National Guards, were Union men. Many of them ' afterwards served with

GEN. FRANZ SIGEL

GEN. U. S. GRANT

GEN. JOHN C. FREMONT

GEN. W. T. SHERMAN

GEN. JOHN McNEIL GEN. P. J. OSTERHAUS

ST. LOUIS IN THE CIVIL WAR

THE USEFUL CITIZEN 753

distinction in the Union army. The Second Regiment, Colonel John S. Bowen,
was composed largely of the minute men who had been organized as militia
in January from the "broom rangers" of the political campaign of 1860. The
United States and the Missouri State flags floated over Camp Jackson.

The general spirit of the camp was not warlike. Many of the militia
obtained daily furloughs and attended to the business down town, reporting
for dress parades and sleeping in camp. Of the plans of the governor very
few were informed. The forms of loyalty to nation as well as to state were
maintained. This concession to the strong Union element in the older military
companies was necessary. . .

What the governor of the state had planned he was not given opportunity
to carry out. "O. D." and the committee, sitting long and late, knew better
what was going on than did the citizen soldiers under the tents in Lindell grove.
Couzins' detectives were alert. When he called the legislature in extra session
and ordered the Missouri State guard into camp, Governor Jackson sent Cap-
tains Duke and Green on a secret mission to President Jefferson Davis at Mont-
gomery, Alabama, the Confederate capital. He asked for cannon to enable him
to take the arsenal at St. Louis by siege and assault.

The President of the Confederacy was quickly responsive. He was a
soldier and a fighter. He knew the arsenal and its surroundings. As an officer
in the regular army he had been stationed at Jefferson Barracks. Giving the
officers from Missouri an order on the arsenal at Baton Rouge for two 12-
pound howitzers and two 32-pound guns, with a supply of ammunition, Jeffer-
son Davis wrote to Governor Jackson : "These guns from the commanding hills
will be effective against the garrison and to break the enclosing walls of the
place. I concur with you as to the great importance of capturing the arsenal
and securing its supplies. We look anxiously and hopefully for the day "when
the star of Missouri shall be added to the constellation of the Confederate
States of America."

The Committee of Public Safety learned of the visit of the officers to
Montgomery. On the evening of the 8th of May, two days after the column
had marched out to Camp Jackson, the steamboat, J. C. Swon, with a southern
flag flying, arrived at the St. Louis levee. She had taken on board at Baton
Rouge the cannon and the ammunition intended for the siege of the arsenal.
The guns and the powder and ball were in boxes of various sizes marked
"Tamaroa marble." They were addressed to "Greeley and Gale." Carlos S.
Greeley and Daniel Bailey Gale were New Hampshire born. They were most
pronounced Union men. They were in the wholesale grocery business. When
the boxes of "Tamaroa marble" were unloaded Major James A. Shaler was
there to receive them, and the secret service men were there to see what became
of the consignment. Major Shaler was a staff officer of Colonel Bowen's regi-
ment of minute men. He removed the boxes quickly to Camp Jackson. The
detectives followed and then reported to the Committee of Public Safety at
Turner hall. The information was at once sent to Lyon at the arsenal. By
midday of May 9 Lyon, in disguise, was at Camp Jackson, examining the sur-
roundings. The boxes of "Tamaroa marble" were there, but unpacked. It
developed long afterwards that but very few officers and probably no men in

22-VOL. II.

754 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

the ranks knew of the arrival of the shipment. At four o'clock in the after-
noon Lyon was back in the arsenal and sending out messages to the members
of the Committee of Public Safety to come to him at seven o'clock In the even-
ing. Lyon, like Davis, was soldier and fighter. He had made up his mind what
to do. He wanted the committee to approve his plan. He proposed to take
Camp Jackson. Late into the night the members of the committee talked.
They were divided. There was no question of the gravity of the situation.
The guns and ammunition from the government arsenal at Baton Rouge were
in Camp Jackson. But the United States flag floated over Camp Jackson. There
had been no "overt act" — how those two words did roll from the tongue in
1861. The lawyers on the committee favored a legal process. They proposed
to Lyon to get out a writ of replevin for government property and have it
served on General Frost as the first step. That was law, they said, and should
be the first step. But Lyon said it was not war. Perhaps, in his mind he saw
those big guns on the high grounds south of him toward the marine hospital
and west of him where the Anheuser-Busch brewery is now. He insisted that
the bringing of the guns and the ammunition from Baton Rouge and the re-
moval of them to Camp Jackson were sufficient provocation. Late that night
the committee voted. Four approved Lyon's proposition to take Camp Jack-
son. Two opposed and urged the legal process be tried first. One of the two
was Samuel T. Glover. He insisted that the writ of replevin be sworn out
and that the United States marshal march at the head of the troops, carrying
the writ to serve as the first step. He went so far as to prepare the writ and
place it in the hands of United States Marshal Rawlings. But when the mar-
shal went to the arsenal next morning he was denied admittance. Another
early morning visitor was not only refused admission, but the written note
he carried was not accepted by Lyon. He was Colonel Bowen, commander
of the Second regiment, the minute men. Colonel Bowen bore a letter from
Frost to Lyon in which the commander of Camp Jackson denied that he or
any of his command had any hostile intention toward the United States govern-
ment. He referred to the reports that Camp Jackson was to be attacked, and
expressed the hope that they were unfounded. He concluded: "I trust that
after this explicit statement we may be able by fully understanding each other
to keep far from our borders the misfortunes which so unfortunately afflict
our common country."

> Bowen carried the letter back to Camp Jackson. He was a West Pointer,
a Georgian. He had resigned from the regular army and had established him-
self in St. Louis as an architect. There was no question as to his sympathies.
He believed in the right of secession. He was undoubtedly in sympathy with
Governor Jackson's purpose to get the arsenal. Frost, also, was a West Pointer.
His service in the army had been marked by special bravery. He was a New
Yorker by birth and of one of the old families of that state. Strangest of all
to tell, he had graduated at West Point in the same class with Lyon. Other
classmates of Frost were Grant, McClellan, Rosecrans and Franklin, all to
become famous Union generals. In the same class was Beauregard of Louisi-
ana. Frost carried the class honors in such company.

THE USEFUL CITIZEN 755

Bowen reported to Frost he was certain from what he had seen Lyon was
about to move on Camp Jackson. There was a hurried consultation. These
were brave men, but they had been trained in military precedents. They had
650 men in camp, some of them unarmed. Bowen had not been able to get guns
for all of his minute men. Resistance was folly. So the leaders, who had
studied in the same school that Lyon had, waited while the battalion of regulars
and six regiments of the ten recruited by the Committee of Public Safety,
marched up from the arsenal. Blair took Laclede avenue; Boernstein, Pine
street ; Schuttner, Market street ; Siegel, Olive street ; Gratz Brown, Morgan
street; McNeil, Clark avenue. In this order the regiments moved westward
toward Grand avenue; thousands of men, women and children filling the side-
walks and many following. The men who were marching were St. Louisans.
They were going out to kill or to take prisoners several hundred of their fellow
citizens. Lyon went through all of the forms of war. He posted his artillery.
He disposed of his troops so that the camp was surrounded. He demanded sur-
render. He had been a captain in the regular army when he came to St. Louis.
He was in command of the army raised by a Committee of Public Safety, but
was still without the commission suitable to the rank. He was calling for the
surrender of his former classmate who had stood above him in the class at
West Point and who was a brigadier general of state troops. When his force
was in position Lyon sent his demand in writing. His note set forth that Frost
was in communication with the Confederacy, and had received war material
therefrom which was the property of the United States. He charged Frost
with "having in direct view hostilities to the general government and coopera-
tion with its enemies." Thirty minutes were given for the answer. Frost replied,
protesting against the action of Lyon as unconstitutional. He added that being
wholly unprepared to defend his command from the unwarranted attack he
was forced to comply.

Lyon offered immediate parole to all who would take the oath of allegiance.
Several accepted the terms. The others refused, stating that they had already
taken the oath of allegiance, and to repeat it would be an admission that they had
been enemies. The regulars gathered up the arms, including the "Tamaroa
marble." The state militia were marched out and formed in line as prisoners,
with armed guards on both sides of them. A long wait occurred. The crowds
which had followed the regiments from down town pressed closer. They be-
came noisy. They guyed the soldiers. They grew bolder. Insults were shouted.
Clods were thrown. A pistol was fired. Then came war of the character which
Sherman described — "War is Hell !" Ninety men, women and children were
shot. Twenty-eight of them died on the streets or in the hospitals. A baby in its
mother's arms was killed. The column moved on slowly, armed men and pris-
oners, to the center of the city and then southward to the arsenal. The prisoners
were paroled. The baptism of blood, which the Committee of Public Safety for
four months stayed, had come at last.

From the steps of the Planters House, Uriel Wright, who had fought seces-
sion in the convention, Virginian born though he was, addressed a great throng
of excited men. He denounced "the Camp Jackson outrage." He said: "If
Unionism means such atrocious deeds as have been witnessed in St. Louis, I

756 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

am no longer a Union man." Mobs formed and wildly cheered the violent
speeches made by secession orators. One body of men started down Locust
street to destroy the Missouri Democrat office. Mayor Daniel Gilchrist Taylor,
who had succeeded Oliver D. Filley as the city's executive a few weeks before,
met the rioters and warned them to go back. Behind the mayor was a line of
policemen under Chief McDonough, blocking the entire street. The police were
armed with guns. Their instructions were to use the bayonet and then fire. In
the Democrat office the shooting stick had been laid aside for the shooting iron.
The force was armed. The building was prepared for desperate resistance.
This coming of a mob was the fulfillment of many threats from those who
sympathized with the secession movement. For this night the newspaper force
had been waiting weeks. The mob listened to the words of the mayor and went
back to the Planters to be satisfied with oratory.

The next day one of Lyon's regiments marched through the city. At Fifth
and Walnut streets a crowd hooted the soldiers. At Seventh and Olive streets,
the demonstrations became more hostile. Shots were fired. The troops replied
with a volley. Another long list of wounded was added. Sunday came with a
wild panic over reports that Lyon had determined to turn loose his regiments to
teach the city a lesson. By thousands, people fled from the city, to return a day
or two later. Union men were shocked. One delegation went to Washington
to urge the removal of Lyon. Another delegation went to urge Lyon's retention.
The Committee of Public Safety sent on its report of the Camp Jackson affair,
and every member signed the declaration that Lyon's act was justifiable. The
answer came in the relief of General Harney from the command of the Depart-
ment of the West on the i6th of May. The next day Lyon was appointed brig-
adier-general to date from the i8th of May. He followed up the success of
Camp Jackson by stationing strong detachments of his troops in different parts
of the city. General Harney was out of the city when Camp Jackson was taken.
He returned the next day. Before the order relieving him was delivered to him
Harney sent for Sterling Price, the major general commanding the Missouri
state guard. Price had been president of the convention which had declared
against secession. He was classed as a Union man, while sympathizing with
the south. With Harney, Price entered into an agreement that peace and order
should be maintained in "subordination to the general and state governments."
This meant that Missouri would remain in the Union, but that there must not
be military movements by the general government in the state. Harney was
relieved the last of May. Governor Jackson and Sterling Price came to St.
Louis and sought a meeting with Lyon. A conference was held on the nth of
June at the Planters. Governor Jackson proposed that the regiments raised
by the Committee of Public Safety and the state militia be disbanded. He prom-
ised that no munitions of war should be brought into the state; that citizens
should be protected in their rights ; insurrectionary movements should be sup-
pressed; that strict neutrality should be preserved. Lyon listened and replied.
The discussion occupied several hours. It ended when Lyon, rising from his
chair, said :

Rather than concede to the state of Missouri the right to demand that my govern-
ment shall not enlist troops within her limits, or bring troops into the state whenever
it pleases, or move its troops at its own will into or out of or through the state; rather

THE USEFUL CITIZEN 757

than concede to the state of Missouri for one single moment the right to dictate to my
government in any matter, however unimportant, I would see you (pointing in turn to
each man in the room) and you, and you, and every man, woman and child dead and
buried.

Addressing the governor, Lyon concluded: 'This means war. In an hour
one of my officers will call for you and conduct you out of my lines."

The high moral courage of one man averted what threatened to be a gross
injustice. In the summer of 1862 there issued from the general commanding
at St. Louis an order "to assess and collect without unnecessary delay the sum
of five hundred thousand dollars from the secessionists and southern sympa-
thizers" of the city and county of St. Louis. The order stated that the money,
was to be "used in subsisting, clothing and arming the enrolled militia while in
active service, and in providing for the support of the families of such militiamen
and United States volunteers as may be destitute."

The unpleasant duty of making and collecting the assessment was imposed
upon half a dozen of the best known citizens of St. Louis. The assessment
was begun. Collections were enforced by the military. Suddenly the board
having the matter in charge suspended the work. The order countermanding
the assessment came from Washington. It was terse: "As there seems to be
no present military necessity for the enforcement of this assessment, all pro-
ceedings under the order will be suspended."

Two weeks before General Halleck directed discontinuance, a letter was
sent to Washington saying "that the 'assessment' now in progress, to be levied
upon southern sympathizers and secessionists, is working evil in this community
and doing great harm to the Union cause. Among our citizens are all shades
of opinion, from that kind of neutrality which is hatred in disguise, through all
the grades of lukewarmness, 'sympathy' and hesitating zeal up to the full loyalty
which your memorialists claim to possess. To assort and classify them, so as. to
indicate the dividing line of loyalty and disloyalty, and to establish the rates of
payment by those falling below it is a task of great difficulty."

Reviewing the work as far as it had progressed, the writer continued : "The
natural consequence has been that many feel themselves deeply aggrieved, not
having supposed themselves liable to the suspicion of disloyalty ; many escape
assessment who, if any, deserve it ; and a general feeling of inequality in the rule
and ratio of assessments prevails. This was unavoidable for no two tribunals
could agree upon the details of such an assessment either as to the persons or
the amounts to be assessed without more complete knowledge of facts than are
to be attained from ex parte testimony and current reports."

The writer appealed for a stay of the assessment proceedings. When the
letter was written the intention was to have it signed by a number of loyal citi-
zens of St. Louis. But the leading Union men declined to sign. Their feeling
against the southern sympathizers was bitter. The war sentiment gripped.
Business had been paralyzed. Sentiment rather sustained a policy which pro-
posed to make sympathizers pay heavily toward the war expense. One man, with
a deep sense of justice, stood out alone. He had been among the foremost the
year previous in counseling the aggressive measures which made St. Louis a
Union city. But now, when the Union elements were all powerful, his appeal
for fairness toward the minority, got no hearing. He signed his letter and sent

758 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

it to Governor Gamble who forwarded it at once to Washington. Years after
the war this letter was printed in a St. Louis newspaper but without the signa-
ture and without mention of the name of Rev. Dr. William G. Eliot.

The character of the assessment proceedings will seem almost incredible to
this generation. When the board had organized to make the assessment the
president addressed a request to "the unconditional Union men of St. Louis"
to send in "such information as they have in their possession which will aid in
carrying out the requirements" of the orders. He concluded his request with,
"the board wish it to be understood that all communications and evidence will
be considered strictly private."

Unpreparedness was the state of the Union when Civil war broke out. Men
could be enlisted. Guns and uniforms could be bought. Cartridges could be
made. The fighting began as if no thereafter was taken into account. Back
from the front trickled the earliest human stream of wounded and sick. It
swelled rapidly as the months passed. The fighting became heavier. The cam-
paign told on the unseasoned. Born of a great emergency, late in the summer
of 1861, the Western Sanitary commission came into existence.

Fremont gave the Western Sanitary commission its being. The Pathfinder's
military career at St. Louis was brief. It was of sufficient duration to show
the need of an organization to mitigate the suffering. Fremont launched the
organization on its career of mercy by declaring in a military order: "Its gen-
eral object shall be to carry out, under the properly constituted military authori-
ties, and in compliance with their orders, such sanitary regulation and reforms
as the well-being of the soldiers demands."

The general proceeded to indicate in specific details some of the services
which might be performed. These were the selection and furnishing of buildings
for hospitals, the finding of nurses, the visiting of camps, the inspection of
food, the suggestion of better drainage, the obtaining from the public of means
for promoting the moral and social welfare of soldiers in camp and hospital.

To avert friction and enlarge usefulness, Fremont concluded his order
with the following: "This commission is not intended in any way to interfere
with the medical staff or other officers of the army, but to cooperate with them
and aid them in the discharge of their present arduous and extraordinary duties.
It will be treated by all officers of the army, both regular and volunteer, in this
department with the respect due to the humane and patriotic motives of the
members and to the authority of the commander-in-chief."

The hour had come. Where was the man? The people recognized the
emergency. Hearts were throbbing with sympathy. Hands were ready to con-
tribute. St. Louis was the center of activities for an extensive military front.
Here troops were mobilized. Hence armies moved southwest and south. Here
supplies were received and forwarded. Back to St. Louis came the boatloads
and trainloads of wounded. Whether Fremont's Western Sanitary commission
meant much or little depended upon the head. The man was found. He was
southern born, a native of Tennessee. He had lived in St. Louis nearly twenty
years. He was a banker, a little past forty years of age.

James E. Yeatman made the Western Sanitary commission. Good men of
St. Louis held up his hands. They were named with him — Carlos S. Greeley,

THE USEFUL CITIZEN 759

Dr. J. B. Johnson, George Partridge and Rev. Dr. William G. Eliot. They
were wise in counsel, efficient in assistance. But Mr. Yeatman was "Old Sani-
tary" to the soldiers in a thousand circling camps. This banker, in the prime
of manhood, had a bed put in a room connected with his office so that he might
be ready to respond to any call. He was on duty while he slept. A great organ-
ization was gradually built up under Mr. Yeatman's direction. Everywhere
in the north were local branches of the Western Sanitary commission. The
great work of relief was systematized and made effective. The collection and
forwarding of supplies contributed were directed and controlled as a banker
might deal with his country correspondents. There was no waste.

One of the first acts of Mr. Yeatman and his associates was to fit up and
open a hospital for five hundred soldiers on Fifth and Chestnut streets. In this
building were received the sanitary stores contributed from hundreds of cities,
towns and villages. As needed, these stores were distributed. Hospital after
hospital was prepared and opened as the wounded increased in numbers. Hos-
pital boats were put in service to bring the wounded from the battlefields. A
soldiers' home was opened in St. Louis to care for the furloughed and discharged
sick as they came from the front. The military prisons in and around St. Louis
were filled with Confederate soldiers and those who sympathized. The Western
Sanitary commission carried its work of relief into the prisons. Refugees flocked
to the city and were temporarily cared for. Homes for soldiers' orphans were
provided.

Nowhere else in the country was there a like center of suffering and misery
from the war. Nowhere else were relief measures of such magnitude under-
taken. The efficiency of Mr. Yeatman's organization came to be recognized the
country wide. An appropriation of $50,000 by the state of Missouri was made
for the commission. Another of $25,000 came later. The government of St.
Louis made appropriations and placed the money in Mr. Yeatman's hands.
Contributions came from all parts of the country. Here was the suffering.
Here came the contributions. In the midst of business depression, of war hard
times, the Mississippi Valley Sanitary fair held in St. Louis produced more than
$500,000. When the books of the Western Sanitary commission closed they
showed that Mr. Yeatman had handled in money and stores for mitigation of the
horrors of war $4,270,098.55. The magnificent liberality had been begotten of
implicit confidence in the integrity of the Western Sanitary commission.

Year after year, almost from the very beginning of hostilities, Mr. Yeatman
gave himself to this work. Repeatedly he left the headquarters of the commis-
sion in St. Louis and went to the front to see for himself the needs. He sought
the suffering and applied the measures of relief. It was this personal visita-
tion and inspection that won for him the tender regard of the soldiers and the
affectionate title of "Old Sanitary."

Catholic in his conception of the commission's purposes, this southern born
man, once a slave-holder, recognized the necessities of the freedmen. Great
numbers of these ex-slaves had drifted away from the plantations and into
communities. The commission sent physicians and nurses and then teachers.
Mr. Yeatman suggested the plan of the Freedmen's Bureau. He recommended
the leasing of abandoned plantations to negroes, to encourage them to become

760 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

self-supporting. These views were indorsed as offering an "absolute solution of
the cotton and negro questions." They appealed so to President Lincoln that
he sent for Mr. Yeatman and offered him the commissionership of the Freed-
men's Bureau. Four years previously Mr. Yeatman, accompanying Hamilton
R. Gamble, had called upon Mr. Lincoln. He was a Union man. His step-
father, John Bell, had headed the Union ticket as the Presidential nominee the
year before. Mr. Yeatman and Mr. Gamble believed that a pacificatory policy,
such as General Harney was pursuing in St. Louis, was wiser than the more
radical course advocated by Francis P. Blair, who wanted Harney superseded.
Mr. Lincoln rejected the advice of his visitors. Mr. Gamble and Mr. Yeat-
man came back to St. Louis, Mr. Gamble to become the provisional governor
of Missouri and to hold it in the Union at the cost of his life, Mr. Yeatman
to devote himself unsparingly to the mitigation of the horrors of war.

A committee of public safety dealt with the railroad strike of July, 1877. It
was composed of General A. J. Smith, Judge Thomas T. Gantt, General John
S. Marmaduke, General John S. Cavender, General John D. Stevenson and
General John W. Noble. Here were men who had faced each other on
opposite sides in the Civil war of the previous decade, men of northern and
men of southern birth. They were named by the mayor. The situation was put
in their hands. The committee announced recruiting offices in various localities
and called for volunteers. Within twenty-four hours five regiments were or-
ganized and the distribution of arms from the state government followed. The
force was called a posse comitatus. The second day found these volunteers on
guard duty at all public buildings and central points. Without uniforms, with
cartridge belts strapped around their waists and with guns on their shoulders
these citizen soldiers went on duty like minute men. The civilian army of law
and order was 5,000 strong. Business was suspended. In the doorways of stores
stood or sat squads of men with guns. The rioters marched through the streets
two days, compelling industries to shut down. At Schuler's hall on Broadway
and Biddle streets an executive committee of the strikers sat in continuous ses-
sion issuing proclamations and orders "in the name of all workingmen's associa-
tions." This revolutionary junta addressed the governor of the state, John S.
Phelps, calling for a special session of legislature to pass the eight-hour law and
provide for its stringent enforcement:

Your attention is respectfully called to the fact that a prompt compliance with this,
our reasonable demand, and that living wages be paid to the railroad men, will at once
bring peace and prosperity such as we have not seen for the last fifteen years. Nothing
short of a compliance to the above just demand, made purely in the interest of our national
welfare, will arrest this tidal wave of industrial revolution. Threats or organized armies
will not turn the toilers of this nation from their earnest purpose, but rather serve to
inflame the passions of the multitude and tend to acts of vandalism.

To Mayor Overstolz "we the authorized representatives of the industrial
population of St. Louis" addressed a request for "cooperation in devising means
to procure food." Then followed the declaration: "All offers of work dur-
ing this national strike cannot be considered by us as a remedy under the present
circumstances, for we are fully determined to hold out until the principles we are
contending for are carried."

THE USEFUL CITIZEN 761

"The stringency of food," the address continued, "is already being felt;
therefore to avoid plunder, arson or violence by persons made desperate by
destitution, we are ready to concur with your honor in taking timely measures to
supply the immediate wants of the foodless."

Another of the announcements of the "executive committee" notified physi-
cians and surgeons, members of the medical profession, that they would be
"professionally regarded during the present strike by wearing a white badge
four inches long and two inches broad, encircling the left upper arm, bearing a
red cross, the bars of which to be one inch wide by three inches long, crossing
each other at right angles, allowing the bars to extend one inch each way."

The day before the appeal for food, a mob broke into the Dozier, Weyl &
Co. bakery where the Globe-Democrat building stands on Sixth and Pine streets
and appropriated the bread and cakes. At Ninth street and Franklin avenue a
store was gutted and the dry goods, soap and other stock were thrown into the
street "so that the poor people might pick them up." At the Atlantic mills, the
proprietor George Bain, with sturdy Scotch determination, protested against
mob dictation to close. He was assaulted by a negro who attempted to brain
him with a hatchet.

The day after the issuing of the pronunciamentos the police and a large
force of the citizen soldiery marched to Schuler's hall, dispersed the crowd as-
sembled there, made some arrests and raided the offices of "the executive com-
mittee." Members of the committee escaped over the roof and through adjacent
buildings. The industrial revolution was ended. The citizens' military organi-
zations continued under arms until the 3ist, paraded through the business sec-
tion of the city and disbanded. This show of law and order strength was im-
pressive. St. Louis passed through the crisis without the loss of a life and with
very little loss of property. It suffered far less than most of the other large
railroad centers of the country. The quickness of the preparation to meet the
exigency was wonderful. The cool courage and perfect plan of the campaign
were admirable. Out of the test the city came with added evidence that her
self-government had reached its best development.

Out of the emergency of 1877 grew a military organization unique in the
martial life of St. Louis. The citizen volunteer companies did not disband
wholly. John F. Shepley, John W. Noble and other advisers passed upon the
legal questions and found the way clear to form Police Reserves. The crisis
of the railroad strikes had come so suddenly that it taught the lesson of quick
action. The state militia law required certain forms to be complied with. The
sheriff must apply ; the governor must feel assured of the necessity. Police Re-
serves could be called upon by the mayor. The citizen volunteers were con-
solidated into a full strong regiment of Police Reserves. Colonel James G.
Butler supplied the military genius which fashioned and trained the regiment
of Police Reserves into one of the most effective bodies of citizen soldiery any
American city ever had. The Police Reserves were uniformed and armed like
militia. They drilled, according to regular tactics, in the most convenient police
stations. They were subject to call at any hour of the day or night and the
summons was sounded on fire alarm bells. Colonel Butler perfected a plan which
made the Police Reserves minute men. If the Reserves' alarm sounded at night

762 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

a policeman was under instructions to arouse the nearest Reserve on his beat,
whose name and address he held. The first Reserve out had charge of the
members of his squad living in his neighborhood who were to be summoned by
himself and the policeman. Those Reserves living farthest from the police
station were called earliest. By the time the last of the Reserves were called
the movement in twos and threes and in groups of half a dozen toward the police
station was under way. So well was the plan of alarm and summons arranged
by Colonel Butler that the members of a company arrived at a station almost
simultaneously. The entire regiment, with the exception of the most distant
companies could be mobilized at the Four Courts with amazing quickness.

To realize the importance of this organization to the city, the inadequacy
of the police force of that period must be recalled. It must be remembered, too,
that those were the days of the red flag, of the International, of .mysterious
brotherhoods, of anarchical oratory. Labor and the trades had not organized
with the intelligence and conservatism they now show. A strike was almost
invariably seized upon as an opportunity by the lawless and the vicious. The
Police Reserves served St. Louis well. They became thoroughly drilled. So
strong was the esprit de corps that changes among the officers were rare. For
a long period the only officer to resign was Captain Shepard Barclay who reluct-
antly ceased to be a Police Reserve because his fellow citizens had elected him to
go to Jefferson City as a justice of the supreme court.

About the middle of the last decade of the century — 1895 — there developed
marked changes in St. Louis. Younger men forged to the front. The tendency
of organization and of public spirit for the common good began to show results
of great importance to the community. The Business Men's League, headed
successively by Samuel M. Kennard, Cyrus P. Walbridge, James E. Smith and
Walker Hill, with W. F. Saunders as general manager, entered upon a career
of beneficial effort such as no other organized body of business men in the coun-
try has achieved in the past sixteen years. It came into virile force just in
time to make possible the World's Fair. The Civic Federation, organized in
1896, with J. Charless Cabanne as president, also entered upon a career of great
usefulness. It drafted a school law which leading educators of the country
pronounced the best in existence. It pressed the bill through the legislature
and secured the reorganization of the board in spite of opposition. A saving of
$250,000 the first year with greatly improved facilities was the immediate result.
Isaac M. Mason, Elias Michael, Daniel G. Taylor, Rev. Leon Harrison, Everett
W. Pattison, Frederick N. Judson, Albert Arnstein, Henry Kortjohn and A. L.
Berry were notably active in this movement. Out of the Civic Federation grew
the Civic Improvement league and then the Civic league with George B. Leigh-
ton, Edward C. Eliot, Henry T. Kent, H. N. Davis, J. L. Hornsby, George D.
Markham and Saunders Norvell, successively giving time and energy to the
work, as presidents of the league.

THE USEFUL CITIZEN 763

1901-1909

Water Purified

New City Hospital built

First Public Bath House

First Playground opened

The City Hall completed

Five Playgrounds conducted

Seventy miles of Alleys paved

Home of Detention established

Water Rates reduced 25 per cent

Tuberculosis Commission created

Two Branch Dispensaries provided

City Forestry Department organized

Public Buildings Commission named

A Municipal Testing Laboratory built

Public Eecreation Commission created

Nine new Parks of 150 acres acquired

Public Service Commission established

Tonnage Tax on Steamboats abolished

Smoke Abatement Department organized

Board of Examiners of Plumbers selected

City divided into seven sanitary Districts

Expended upon Public Works, $3,844,920

Quarantine and Smallpox Hospital rebuilt

Commission of Hydraulic Engineers created

Two hundred and five miles of Streets paved

Six Engine Houses added at cost of $273,354

Emergency Hospital purchased at cost of $50,417

King's Highway Boulevard Commission appointed

Juvenile Court and Probation System inaugurated

Diphtheria Antitoxin supplied those unable to buy

Plans prepared for first section of Des Peres Sewer

Steel Hull Harbor Boat acquired at cost of $£9,000

Work House placed on almost self-supporting basis

Assessed Valuation of Eealty increased $98,785,520

One hundred and fifty miles of Sewers constructed

House of Eefuge transformed into Industrial School

Office of City Bacteriologist and Pathologist created

Quarantine Launch substituted for Ambulance Service

Contract for Gas Lighting effected at saving of $957,363

King's Highway Boulevard, nineteen miles long, laid out

Fire Department Companies increased by additional men

Contract for Electric Lighting made at saving of $615,040

Betterments provided at Waterworks at Cost of $5,500,000

Board of Control, St. Louis Museum of Fine Arts, appointed

Twenty-five School Buildings provided at cost of $3,719,547

Two Public Bath Houses Built; sites secured for three more

Assessed Valuation of Personal Property more than doubled

Interest saved on Bond Purchases before Maturity, $546,680

Three Branch Libraries completed and two under construction

Additions to Insane Asylum under Construction to cost $546,680

Improvements at Insane Asylum cut down death rate 50 per cent

Appropriated for Public Works in course of Construction, $859,771

About $2,000,000 saved annually to business by Terminal Commission

Four new Buildings added to Poor House and Old Buildings remodeled

Sanitary Inspection of Groceries, Meat Shops, Bakeries and Restaurants

764 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

On the 1 3th of April, 1909, the World's Fair mayor, Rolla Wells, concluded
eight years at the head of the municipal government and was succeeded by
Frederick H. Kreismann. On the evening of the I4th, a testimonial dinner was
given in honor of the retiring mayor by 440 citizens, embracing all vocations,
without regard to party. The president of the Business Men's League, James
E. Smith, was the chairman of the evening. The participants in the program
were the Rev. Dr. Samuel J. Niccolls, Mayor Frederick H. Kreismann, Former
Mayors Cyrus P. Walbridge and David R. Francis, Archbishop John J. Glen-
non, and Frederick W. Lehmann, president of the charter commission. A nota-
ble feature was the concise presentation of municipal achievement and advance-
ment during the eight years, 1901-1909 — the World's Fair period and the admin-
istration of Mayor Wells.

CHAPTER XXIX.
THE WORLD'S FAIR

Centennial of the Louisiana Purchase — Pierre Chouteau's Suggestion — Initial Action ~by the
Missouri Historical Society — The Committee of Fifty — ' ' Design and Form of Celebration ' '
Long Considered — "Some Form of Exposition" Recommended — Convention of State and
Territorial Delegates — Preliminary Organization of Two Hundred — Capital Stock, City
Bonds and Government Appropriation — Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company Formed
— Heavy Financial Obligations Assumed — The Clean Work Done at Washington — Stock-
holders Classified — William H. Thompson, "the Hitching Post" — Unprecedented Record
of Collections — High Ideals of the Exposition Management — President McKinley's Procla-
mation— Radical Departure in Exposition Organization — President and Four Directors
of Divisions — Man of the World 's Fair Hour — The Devoted Executive Committee — Foreign
Participation That Broke Precedents — Representation from Forty-three States and Five
Territories — Processes Rather Than Products, the Plan and Scope — New Wants Born
to Millions — The Educational Motive — Admissions, 19,60.4^55 — A Resident Population of
,20,000 — Analysis of the Attendance — Exposition Life — The 428 Conventions — Revenues
and Expenditures — World's Fair and the Press — The University Relationship — Material
Gains of St. Louis — Jefferson Monument.

Open ye gates. Swing wide ye portals. Enter herein ye sons of men and behold the
achievements of your race. Learn the lesson here taught and gather from it inspiration for
still greater accomplishments. — David R. Francis, Opening Day, April SO, 1904.

A descendant of the founder of St. Louis was the father of the World's
Fair of 1904. To the group of men and women who were keeping alive the
sacred fire of historical sentiment in St. Louis, Pierre Chouteau, in 1897, talked
of the coming centennial. He was insistent. He did not so much as suggest at
first the form of the universal exposition. But he dwelt upon the coming anni-
versary and urged the celebration of it in a manner commensurate with the
character of the occasion and with the importance of the city.

Others besides Mr. Chouteau had been inspired. William Vincent Byars,
Charles M. Harvey, Will C. Ferrill and perhaps some other editorial writers
had repeatedly and forcibly directed public attention to the propriety of a cele-
bration. As early as the selection of Chicago for the location of the World's
Columbian Exposition of 1893, David R. Francis had reminded a Congressional
committee that in a decade more another great anniversary would be claiming
attention.

But in the rooms of the Missouri Historical society, the movement which
culminated in the Universal Exposition of 1904 had its inception and the progen-
itor was Pierre Chouteau, great great grandson of Pierre Laclede. What
Pierre Chouteau advocated in the beginning was a celebration which should
worthily commemorate the century of American sovereignty west of the Mis-
sissippi and which might result in an adequate fireproof building for the Mis-
souri Historical society. Up to that time no formal step had been taken any-
where within the Louisiana Purchase looking to the observance of the centen-
nial, then half a dozen years away.

765

766 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

The Historical society acted. The subject was taken up by the advisory

committee, which is the governing body of the society, composed of: —

Marshall S. Snow, Chairman.

Joseph Boyce, George E. Leighton,

D. I. Bushnell, J. B. C. Lucas,

Pierre Chouteau, P. S. O'Keilly,

Melvin L. Gray, Charles D. Stevens,

Anthony Ittner, John H. Terry.

W. J. Seever, Secretary.

On the nth day of January, 1898, the advisory committee appointed a
special committee on "centennial celebration of the Louisiana Purchase." The
Historical society approved the report. The committee was composed of :

Pierre Chouteau, Chairman.

Charles F. Bates, J. B. C. Lucas,

Goodman King, Isaac W. Morton,

Marshall S. Snow.

Mr. Chouteau smiled grimly as he saw the result of his agitation had
brought upon himself the leadership of the movement. He Half suspected his
associates in the society had taken this course to unload responsibility on him.
But the special committee was strong in character. The members were ener-
getic. Goodman King was especially active. After several meetings Mr. Chou-
teau's committee determined to ask through the Historical society the appoint-
ment of a conference committee by the Business Men's League.

While Mr. Chouteau and his committee were holding meetings, Congress-
man Bartholdt, at Washington, in February, 1898, introduced a bill for an in-
ternational exposition at St. Louis to be held in 1903.

A few days previous the Central Trades and Labor Union of St. Louis
adopted resolutions favoring a World's Fair.

On the 26th of April, 1898, the Business Men's League acceded to the re-
quest of the Historical society and named this conference committee:
George W. Brown, Clark H. Sampson,

L. D. Dozier, C. P. Walbridge,

Frank Gaiennie, John C. Wilkinson.

These gentlemen, without exception, entered into the spirit of the move-
ment. As yet there was not even the suggestion of a World's Fair. But the
propriety, the advisability of a centennial celebration of some character was
assumed with enthusiasm from the first meeting. Outside of the two com-
mittees the movement had attracted at this time only languid interest. The
conference resulted in a recommendation that the Missouri Historical society
call a meeting of professional, business, social and trades organizations. On
the I7th of May, 1898, the call went out. It was addressed to these bodies in-
viting their officers to a meeting to consider the observance of the centennial:

Academy of Science. Master Builders Association.

Bar Association of St. Louis. Mercantile Club.

Business Men's League. Merchants' Exchange.

Commercial Club. National Building Trades Council.

Engineers ' Club. Noonday Club.

Exposition & Music Hall Association. Bound Table.

Implement & Vehicle Board of Trade. St. Louis Board of Fire Underwriters.

Latin American Club. St. Louis Clearing House Association.

THE WORLD'S FAIR 767

St. Louis Chapter, American Institute of St. Louis Furniture Board of Trade.

Architects. St. Louis Manufacturers' Association.

St. Louis Club. Union Club.

St. Louis Cotton Exchange. University Club.

St. Louis Eeal Estate Exchange.

The meeting was held. Those who attended resolved that the centennial
should be fittingly observed. They provided for a temporary organization to be
composed of a committee of fifty, such committee to be selected by a committee
of fifteen. The fifteen were chosen on the 3Oth of June, 1898. They were
called "the nominating committee for preliminary organization." They were:
Pierre Chouteau, Chairman.

D. R. Francis, H. W. Steinbiss,
Wm. Hyde, John H. Terry,

E. C. Kehr, W. H. Thompson,
L. D. Kingsland, Festus J. Wade,
Isaac W. Morton, Prof. S. Waterhouse,
Julius Pitzman, James A. Waterworth,
Chris. E. Sharp, John C. Wilkinson.

The committee of fifteen acted promptly. The committee of fifty to form
the preliminary organization was selected and brought together on the I2th
of July, 1898. The committee of fifty was widely and strongly representative :

E. B. Adams, E. C. Kehr,

Robert S. Brookings, S. M. Kennard,

George W. Brown, George E. Leighton,

Adolphus Busch, F. W. Lehmann,

Pierre Chouteau, George D. Markham,

Seth W. Cobb, Isaac W. Morton,

George O. Carpenter, Charles Nagel,

Murray Carleton, F. G. Niedringhaus,

H. I. Drummond, Julius Pitzman,

Wm. Duncan, Charles Parsons,

Edward Devoy, H. W. Steinbiss,

James J. Early, Christopher Sharp,

W. S. Eames, A. L. Shapleigh,

Benj. Eiseman, E. O. Stanard,

D. E. Francis, W. H. Thompson,

Frank Gaiennie, John H. Terry,

Jacob Furth, John W. Turner,

August Gehner, Dr. William Taussig,

William Hyde, Prof. S. Waterhouse,

H. C. Haarstick, J. A. Waterworth,

D. S. Holmes, Festus J. Wade,

H. Hitchcock, C. P. Walbridge,

Anthony Ittner, C. G. Warner,

H. C. Ives, M. C. Wetmore,

L. D. Kingsland, John C. Wilkinson,

W. J. Seever, Secretary.

At the first meeting, the committee of fifty named a sub-committee "on
design and form of celebration," composed of the following:

Pierre Chouteau, Chairman.

W. S. Eames, Frederick W. Lehmann,

D. R. Francis, Julius Pitzman,

William Hyde, William Taussig,

Halsey C. Ives, John H. Terry,

Sylvester Waterhouse.

768 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

When this committee on design was appointed a motion was offered in the
committee of fifty that the members be instructed to not consider the advisability
of a World's Fair. On the argument that the committee ought to be left un-
hampered, the motion was withdrawn. That it was offered may be taken as
evidence of the sentiment prevailing at the time. There was no doubt the feel-
ing against the exposition form of celebration was strong.

The committee worked zealously and intelligently. Regular meetings were
held at what was then the St. Nicholas hotel, now an office building, on Eighth
and Locust streets. While they lunched together the members took up and
discussed various forms of celebration. To each meeting was invited the repre-
sentative of some interest of the city and suggestions and opinions were sought.
Four months, in the late summer and fall of 1898, these meetings continued,
until the committee of ten had heard and deliberated upon every suggested
form of celebration. A park on the city front was considered. A monument to
Jefferson was discussed. A fireproof historical museum found much support.
But out of the four months of deliberation came more and more clearly the
crystallized conclusion that only by a universal exposition could the centennial be
properly observed.

On the 28th of November the committee of fifty was called together. A
unanimous report from the committee on design and form of celebration was
presented by Pierre Chouteau. It was a report which revealed the virile pen
of Frederick W. Lehmann. Taking up the various suggestions and showing
their inadequacy, meeting the several objections to an exposition, the commit-
tee concluded:

For the purposes of a general commemoration your committee is of opinion that only
some form of exposition will serve, at which the development and progress of the arts of
civilized life in the territory during the last hundred years may be appropriately displayed.

We have to deal with a territory that a hundred years ago was, throughout almost its
entire extent, a wilderness and a desert. The white settlements within its borders were not
of our nationality. The people spoke not our language nor did they profess our laws. In no
spirit of boasting may we say that now no portion of the United States is more thoroughly
American than the Louisiana territory. In public spirit and in private enterprise it stands
with the first. The achievements of this people during the hundred years that have passed
since the American flag was planted here, may well challenge the attention of the world, and
an exposition of them must prove to be an object lesson of universal interest.

We believe, too, that St. Louis is the place for such an exposition, and that once deter-
mined upon, our people would make it worthy of themselves and of the great occasion.

But the exposition should be in no sense a local one. It should be not only by the city
of St. Louis, nor even by the state of Missouri, but by the entire Louisiana territory. That
it may be so, nothing should be forestalled. All those who are to take part in it should have
a voice in determining where it shall be held and what shall be its characteristics.

To this end we recommend that there be called a convention of representatives from
all the states in the Louisiana Purchase to meet in St. Louis at an early day to determine
the time, place and manner of commemorating the acquisition of this territory by the United
States, and we submit herewith a resolution to that effect for the consideration of the Com-
mittee of Fifty.

The report was adopted unanimously by the committee of fifty. Resolu-
tions requested Governor Lon V. Stephens to invite the governors of states and'
territories within the Louisiana territory to send delegates, one for each con-
gressional district and two at large for each state, to a convention at St. Louis
on the ~ioth of January, 1899, "for the purpose of determining the time, place

THE WORLD'S FAIR 769

and manner of fittingly commemorating the centennial anniversary of the ac-
quisition by the United States of the Louisiana territory."

Every governor responded. The convention was held. It declared unan-
imously in favor of an exposition, chose St. Louis for the place, pledged sup-
port of the states and called upon the general government to aid the project.

St. Louis lost no time in perfecting the temporary organization for actual
preparation. A committee of ten to select a general committee of two hundred
was appointed. This committee of ten consisted of:

David E. Francis, Chairman.

James L. Blair, Jonathan Eice,

Adolphus Busch, W. H. Thompson,

C. W. Knapp, Festus J. Wade,

D. C. Nugent, Bolla Wells,
H. C. Pierce,

Breckinridge Jones, Secretary.

On the loth of February, 1899, the Committee of Two Hundred was named.
This was the organization which carried through the preliminary work making
possible the Exposition. It is the roll of honor of the World's Fair of 1904.
These men raised the $5,000,000 in subscriptions, carried through the legislation
and the election which secured $5,000,000 from the municipality and conducted
the campaign which inspired the United States Government to support the
movement on a scale of liberality which was beyond all exposition precedents.
They did it in just two years and two months. For the necessary expenses these
gentlemen raised a fund by voluntary contributions.

COMMITTEE OF TWO HUNDEED OEGANIZED.

February 10th, 1899.
Pierre Chouteau, Chairman.
D. E. Francis, Chairman Executive Committee.
W. H. Thompson, Chairman Finance Committee.
F. W. Lehmann, Chairman Committee on Legislation.
J. L. Blair, Chairman Legal Committee.
James Cox, Secretary.

A. A. Allen, Murray Carleton,

George L. Allen, George O. Carpenter,

D. Bowes, D. W. Caruth,
George W. Baumhoff, A. C. Cassidy,
George D. Barnard, Enos. Clarke,
James Bannerman, Charles Clark,
8. A. Bemis, Theo. P. Cook,
L. E. Blackmer, D. A. Cowan,
Henry Blackmore, Charles A. Cox,
C. F. Blanke, Seth W. Cobb,
Wilbur F. Boyle, D. Crawford,
Henry Braun, G. Cramer,

A. D. Brown, T. W. Crouch,

George W. Brown, W. W. Culver,

E. P. Bryan, John D. Davis,
Adolphus Busch, John T. Davis,
J. B. Case, H. N. Davis,
J. P. Camp, Edward Devoy,
James Campbell, Alex. N. DeMenil,

23- VOL. II.

770

ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

8. M. Dodd,
P. J. Doerr,
C. J. Dougherty,
L. D. Dozier,
W. H. Dittman,

F. A. Drew,
Wm. Druhe,

J. T. Drummond,
R. B. Dula,
William Duncan,
George F. Durant,
W. S. Eames,
James J. Early,
Benjamin Eiseman,
George L. Edwards,
H. W. Eliot,
Howard Elliott,
Daniel Evans,
J. M. Faithorn,
J. S. Finkenbiner,
Nathan Frank,

B. Graham Frost,
S. W. Fordyce,

C. August Forster,
Jacob Furth,
Frank Gaiennie,

G. W. Garrels,
Charles F. Gauss,
August Gehner,
H. W. Gays,
Morris Glaser,
Emile Glogau,

B. B. Graham,
Norris B. Gregg,
J. D. Goldman,
W. T. Haarstick,
Eussell Harding,

A. B. Hart,
Walker Hill,

F. D. Hirschberg,
Henry Hitchcock,
Joseph M. Hayes,

B. F. Hobart,
W. D. Holliday,

D. S. Holmes,
J. L. Hornsby,
Eichard Hospes,

D. M. Houser,

E. E. Hoyt,
W. L. Huse,

C. H. Huttig,
Anthony Ittner,
Halsey C. Ives,
George T. Jarvis,
Breckinridge Jones,

F. N. Judson,
John W. Kauffman,

E. C. Kehr,
S. M. Kennard,
J. H. Kentnor,

E. C. Kerens,
Goodman King,
L. D. Kingsland,
George J. Kobusch,
Max Kotany,
Charles W. Knapp,
J. J. Lawrence,
Arthur Lee,
George E. Leighton,
Wm. J. Lemp,

I. H Lionberger,
Isaac P. Lusk,
J. H. McCabe,
W. S. McChesney,
Wm. N. McConkin,
Eobert McCulloch,
J. W. McDonald,
Thomas H. McKittrick,
Wm. N. McMillan,
T. S McPheeters,
George A. Madill,
George D. Markham,

F. E. Marshall,
E. Mallinckrodt,
C. F. G. Meyer,
Haiden Miller,
Isaac W. Morton,
Charles Nagel,
L. C. Nelson,

T. K. Niedringhaus,
John W. Noble,
W. F. Nolker,
Byron Nugent,
J. B. O 'Meara,
E. S. Orr,
W. J. Orthwein,
Charles J. Osborne,

C. F. Parker,
H. C. Pierce,
Julius Pitzman,
H. S. Potter,
Emil Preetorius,
David Eanken, Jr.,
Joseph Bamsey, Jr.,
James A. Eeardon,
Charles Eebstock,
Leo Eassieur,
Valle Eeyburn,
Jonathan Bice,

E. C. Bobbins,

D. B. Eobinson,
L. M. Eumsey,
C. H. Sampson,
Wm. J. Scott,

THE WORLD'S FAIR 771

E. G. Scudder, David S. Tarbell,

John Scullin, Wm. Taussig,

E. M. Scruggs, C. E. Udell,

Louis Schaefer, C. P. Walbridge,

W. E. Schweppe, W. H. Walker,

Isaac Schwab, Richard Walsh,

E. H. Semple, C. G. Warner,

M. Shaughnessy, James A. Waterworth,

Chris. Sharp, Julius S. Walsh,

A. L. Shapleigh, Festus J. Wade,

M. S. Snow, Ellis Wainwright,

C. H. Spencer, Sylvester Waterhouse,

Wm. J. Stone, Thomas H. West,

H. W. Steinbiss, Ben Westhus,

C. A. Stix, Nat. Wetzel,

E. J. Strauss, M. C. Wetmore,

E. O. Stanard, Rolla Wells,

Adiel Sherwood, J. J. Wertheimer,

L. B. Tebbetts, John C. Wilkinson,

John H. Terry, Edwards Whittaker,

Wm. H. Thomson, W. H. Woodward,

Zach W. Tinker, Florence White,

Charles H. Turner, O. L. Whitelaw,

John W. Turner, Thomas Wright,

J. J. Turner, George M. Wright.

The same careful regard for representation of all interests in the city that
had governed the composition of the Committee of Two Hundred was observed
in the selection of the ninety-three directors. In eight years of the corporation's
existence comparatively few changes took place in the board. For the most part
vacancies were caused by death. The ninety-three memberships were filled with-
in the period mentioned by one hundred and eighteen persons. With one excep-
tion the elective officers remained the same from the organization of the com-
pany. They were :

David R. Francis, President.
Corwin H. Spencer, First Vice-President.
Samuel M. Kennard, Second Vice-President.
Daniel M. Houser, Third Vice-President.
Cyrus P. Walbridge, Fourth Vice-President.
Seth W. Cobb, Fifth Vice-President.
Charles H. Huttig, Sixth Vice-President.
August Gehner, Seventh Vice-President.
Pierre Chouteau, Eighth Vice-President.
Wm. H. Thompson, Treasurer.
Walter B. Stevens, Secretary.
Fred. Gabel, Auditor.

The only exception was the election of Franklin Ferriss, general counsel,
in place of James L. Blair. Judge Ferriss resigned from the circuit bench of
St. Louis to take the position of general counsel and held it from the date of
his election, through pre-exposition, exposition and post-exposition periods.

A list of all persons who served as Directors of the Louisiana Purchase
Exposition Company between the date of incorporation and 1911 is as follows:

772

ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Allen, Andrew A.
Anderson, Lorenzo E.
Baker, George A.
Bell, Nicholas M.
Bixby, Win. K.
Blanke, Cyrus F.
Blair, James L.
Boyle, Wilbur F.
Brown, Alanson D.
Brown, Geo. Warren.
Brown, Paul.
Busch, Adolphus
Butler, James G.
Campbell, James.
Carleton, Murray.
Chouteau, Pierre.
Cobb, Seth W.
Coyle, James F.
Cram, George T.
Crawford, Hanford.
Davis, John David.
Davis, H. N.
De Menil, Alexander N.
Dodd, Samuel M.
Dozier, Lewis D.
Drummond, Harrison I.
Dula, Eobert B.
Edwards, G. L.
Elliott, Howard.
Felton, Samuel M.
Ferriss, Franklin.
Fish, Stuyvesant.
Francis, David R.
Francis, Thomas H.
Frank, Nathan.
Frederick, A. H.
Gabel, Fred.
Garrels, Gerhard W.
Gehner, August.
Greene, William M.
Gregg, Norris Bradford.
Haarstick, W. T.
Hart, Augustus B.
Hill, Walker.
Hirsehberg, Francis D.
Holmes, John A.
Houser, Daniel M.
Huttig, Charles H.
Ingalls, M. E.
Ives, Halsey C.
Jones, Breckinridge.
Kennard, Samuel M.
King, Goodman.
Kinsella, W. J.
Knapp, Charles W.
Lawrence, J. J.
Lee, William Hill.
Lemp, Wm. J.
Lemp, Wm. J., Jr.

Lehmann, Frederick W.

McDonald, James W.

McKeen, Benjamin.

McKittrick, Thomas Harrington.

Madill, Geo. A.

Markham, George D.

Marshall, Finis E.

Meyer, C. F. G.

Michael, Elias.

Miller, Henry I.

Morton, Isaac W.

Niedringhaus, F. G.

Nolker, W. F.

Nugent, Daniel C.

O'Neill, Peter A.

Orr, Edward 8.

Parker, George W.

Pierce, Henry Clay.

Eamsey, Joseph, Jr.

Ranken, David, Jr.

Rice, Jonathan.

Sampson, Clark H.

Schotten, Julius J.

Schroers, John.

Schwab, Isaac.

Scruggs, R. M.

Scullin, John. ,

Shapleigh, Alfred Lee.

Simmons, E. C.

Smith, James E.

Spencer, C. H.

Spencer, Henry B.

Spencer, Samuel.

Steigers, William C.

Steinbiss, Herman W.

Stevens, Walter B.

Stix, Charles A.

Stockton, Robert H.

Tansey, George Judd.

Taylor, Isaac S.

Thompson, Collins.

Thompson, Wm. H.

Turner, Charles H.

Turner, J. J.

Van Blarcom, Jacob C.

Wade, Festus J.

Walbridge, Cyrus P.

Walsh, Julius S.

Warner, C. G.

Wells, Wm. B.

Wells, Rolla.

Wenneker, Charles F.

Wertheimer, Jacob J.

Whitaker, Edwards.

Whitelaw, Oscar L.

Woerheide, A. A. B.

Woodward, W. H.

Wright, George M.

Yoakum, B. F.

DAVID R. FRANCIS

THE WORLD'S FAIR 773

The high honor of directorship carried weighty responsibilities. The finan-
cial obligations were not light. After the city had been well canvassed for
subscriptions, the men selected for directors, each assumed the task of provid-
ing $10,000 additional subscriptions to make up the total necessary to secure the
United States Government aid. They gave the following pledge:

WHEREAS, the undersigned, all citizens of the City of St. Louis, are deeply interested
in the successful inauguration of a World's Fair in St. Louis, to be held in celebration of
the Centennial of the Purchase of the Louisiana Territory; and

WHEKEAS, we believe that the holding of said Fair will tend to enhance the value of our
property by conducing to the general prosperity of the City and State; and

WHEREAS, it is necessary to the holding of said Fair that the popular subscription of
$5,000,000 should promptly be completed.

Now, in consideration of the premises and of the mutual promises and undertakings of
the several subscribers, hereto, each and every one of us, each for himself and not for any
other, does hereby agree to procure subscriptions in good faith, from solvent persons to the
stock of the corporation to be organized for the holding of said Fair to an amountof $10,000
and in the event of his failure or inability to secure the full amount of said $10,000 of sub-
scriptions on or before the second day of January, 1901, then, on demand, to subscribe and
pay for in accordance with the usual subscription blank, such part of said $10,000 as he shall
have not then procured, or such less amount as shall be fixed by the Finance Committee as
his proportion of the then total deficit when such deficit shall have been equitably apportioned
among all those of the subscribers hereto who are then in default, provided that each one who
has made subscriptions in his own name hereunder shall have the privilege, from time to time,
for sixty days thereafter, of substituting other solvent subscribers for all or any part of said
subscription.

This agreement is not to become operative until there shall have been obtained a number
of subscribers hereto, or to copies hereof, sufficient in the judgment of the Finance Committee,
to complete, with the subscriptions already obtained, the total popular subscription of $5,000,000,
and in no case shall any subscriber hereto be required to procure or subscribe for more than
1,000 shares of said stock of the par value of $10,000.

When the first call for ten per cent on the stock was issued the directors
advanced $1,000, each, in addition to paying the assessment, that there might
be no delay in the organization of the corporation.

In the pre-exposition period, the summer of 1903, there arose an emer-
gency. Money was needed to keep the work going. Directors gave their notes,
each for $5,000, guaranteeing in advance the collections on the stock.

To comply strictly with the law requiring repayment of the Government
loan the directors at a subsequent time, in the summer of 1904, gave their notes,
each for $10,000, to raise money in anticipation of revenues.

When bonds were to be given the city for the use of Forest Park the
directors signed personally, obligating themselves to the amount of $200,000.
Again and again during the progress of preparation and during the exposition,
personal bonds upon land leases, upon loaned machinery, upon other conditions
were signed by these directors.

To the president, the treasurer, the vice-presidents no salaries were paid.
For the president, not long after the organization, a contingent fund of $25,000
was set apart. When the exposition closed less than $1,500 of the $25,000 had
been expended and that had been used to pay for the service of a personal
representative to look into complaints brought privately to the president's notice.
Officers and directors not only gave time without compensation but they paid
for personal expenses in the performance of their duties many thousands of

774 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

dollars which might, without cavil, have been charged against the company's
treasury. There was on the part of these directors a sense of personal honor
and dignity which barred all littleness.

The Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company was not a one-man or a
two-man organization. It was a board of ninety-three directors, the strong
characters, the positive individualities of the city's industries, trades and pro-
fessions. That there was never schism nor faction nor revolt was because
every one of the ninety-three was recognized as entitled to his opinion. More
than that, his opinion was invited and weighed on fair scales. In the nine hun-
dred typewritten pages of the proceedings of directors may be found the sub-
mission of every important proposition and question for judgment and decision
before action. In the thirty-six hundred typewritten pages of the executive
committee record is the evidence of the thoroughness with which all details
were threshed out and settled by majority vote.

The manner in which sentiment for the celebration of the centennial of
the acquisition of Louisiana made progress with the Administration, the Senate
and the House at Washington was wonderful. Even the St. Louis people who
had become imbued with the spirit were agreeably surprised at the rapidity
with which the sentiment spread and the strength which it displayed so far
from its starting point. Congress never before warmed up so rapidly and so
effectively to an exposition movement.

But sentiment, even of the strongest and best, must be backed by skillful
handling when it comes to a question of taking $5,000,000 out of the United
States Treasury. The Louisiana Purchase Exposition bill was managed with-
out a single mistake in the methods employed. If some precedents had been,
followed the St. Louis delegation would have employed a lobby and would
have spent money freely to expedite the legislation. Such employment would
have been a handicap. The money for it would have been thrown away. Not
a hired agent raised his voice for the bill. Not a dollar was squandered. It
was from inception to finish at Washington "clean legislation."

The St. Louis delegation was peculiarly fortunate in that three men well
versed in the ways of Washington had much to do with coaching the legisla-
tion. As a former member of the cabinet, as a frequent visitor to the national
capital on public business, David R. Francis possessed not only personal ac-
quaintance with many in Senate and House, but practical knowledge of methods.
Former Congressmen Nathan Frank and Seth W. Cobb, both having been
strong men in their respective Congresses, had the advantage of floor privileges.
Mr. Frank knew all of the leading Republicans in Congress and how to approach
them. Mr. Cobb had been so recently a representative that his appearance on
the Democratic side was the occasion for renewal of agreeable acquaintance.

In the House the three St. Louis Republican representatives, Richard Bart-
holdt, Charles F. Joy and Chas. E. Pearce devoted themselves day and night
to this measure, having the cordial cooperation of their twelve Democratic
colleagues in the Missouri delegation. If Representative Wm. A. Rodenberg
of East St. Louis had been a Missouri member he could not have been more loyal
or effective in the World's Fair movement. The appearance at Washington
from time to time of prominent St. Louisans, of the type of Corwin H. Spencer,

THE WORLD'S FAIR 775

D. M. Houser, Charles W. Knapp, Cyrus P. Walbridge, S. M. Kennard and
F. G. Niedringhaus had the effect to convince Congress that the entire city was
enlisted in the movement.

Individuals, firms and corporations contributing to the stock of the Louis-
iana Purchase Exposition Company numbered 16,927. The payments on sub-
scriptions had reached, in April, 1909, the sum of $4,925,000. The stockholders
were classified as to amounts paid, as follows:

No. of Subscribers Amount paid by Each.

2169 Less than $10. each.

5118 $10.

4607 $10. to $50.

2276 $50. to $100.

204 $100. to $150.

535 $150- to $200.

488 $200. to $300.

60 $300. to $400.

53°- • • $400. to $500.

80 $500. to $750.

353 $750- to $i,ooo.

179 $1,000. to $2,000.

208 $2,000. to $5,000.

56 , $5,ooo. to $10,000.

61 $10,000. to $50,000.

i $75>ooo.

i $210,000.

16,927

Vice President Walbridge spoke of William H. Thompson as "the hitching
post of the movement from the time of his connection with it." This was
said when the first stake for the World's Fair was driven in Forest Park. The
description was a happy one for the occasion. If a hitching post can be con-
ceived to be animate, to have the faculty of moving itself when and where
it is most needed, the description applied many times in the history of the
exposition.

In successive crises the World's Fair movement tied to Mr. Thompson
and he was "the hitching post." While David R. Francis, Corwin H. Spencer
and their associates in the winter of 1901 were nursing the World's Fair legis-
lation at Washington they were called upon to show that the city of St. Louis
had provided its share of $5,000,000 for the Exposition. This was during the
short session of Congress and what had to be brought about was record break-
ing action by the Municipal Assembly. Mr. Thompson accomplished it but
when both branches of the Municipal Assembly had passed the ordinance
Mayor Ziegenheim couldn't be found. James Cox carried the bill to the mayor's
house and waited on the door step hour after hour one cold winter evening
until the mayor returned and his signature was secured. The vital news was
flashed to Washington and poor Cox went home with a heavy cold which took
him to his grave a few months later.

776 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Mr. Thompson was not a "dominating influence" in the World's Fair organ-
ization and never wished to be so considered. He was a positive man. He
expressed his opinions and they had great weight. On more than one occasion
he found himself in a minority of the executive committee. When he was
out voted he took the result good humoredly. If events demonstrated that he
had been in the right he never said "I told you so." Early in the pre-5exposition
period there occurred one of these differences of opinion when Mr. Thompson
found himself almost alone. So strong was the antagonism of sentiment that
some of the directors were apprehensive of the consequences. They feared
that Mr. Thompson might withdraw from the exposition board. The issue was
taken. Instead of manifesting any resentment Mr. Thompson when sounded
as to his future action said with a trace of a smile :

"I never go back on my partners."

And he didn't. He was a "partner" in the World's Fair enterprise from
start to finish, in all that the word "partner" implied.

"Had it not been for the steady brain, the iron will and the quick percep-
tion of Mr. Thompson this stake would not have been driven." Vice President
Walbridge did not put the sense of dependence of the World's Fair directors
upon the sustaining qualities of the treasurer too strongly. The treasurer of
the exposition was all that Mr. Walbridge described him. He was more. He
possessed an attribute which contributed not little to make him the mainstay
of the exposition. Mr. Thompson was self controlled, strong willed and far
sighted but he was at the same time winning. The combination character was
extraordinary. Here was a man respected for his ruggedness of temperament,
admired for his native ability and loved for himself. Mr. Thompson drew to
him the affections of those with whom he was associated. He was a reticent
man. He was a positive man. He was a courageous man. He was a stubborn
man. He was a most lovable man.

The sentimental regard which so many entertained, in some cases with
surprise to themselves, toward Mr. Thompson was a powerful lever for the
financial success of the exposition. Men and interests that could have been
affected in no other way were drawn into the support of the movement by the
personal influence of Mr. Thompson, until the entire city's backing was behind
the enterprise. After the subscriptions were in and the amount necessary was
on paper; after this community had contributed as never before did a city of
like population and wealth to a public enterprise, Mr. Thompson's call upon
his fellow directors for checks of large amount was honored again and again
to meet emergencies. To no other man in St. Louis would such a tribute of
confidence in four and five figures have been paid.

It is an oft-told story that the solid men of St. Louis were not of one mind
as to the advisability of a World's Fair. Some held a conviction that the city
ought not to take upon itself such a burden. They stood aloof even after the
money had been pledged and the company had been organized. Then, without
ostentation, and in some cases without any publicity, one after another thfey
went to Mr. Thompson and handed to him personally their contributions in
large sums.

THE WORLD'S FAIR 777

The exposition passed through a series of financial crises, in every one of
which the vital value of William H. Thompson's personality was expressed.
The first subscriptions were taken in the Spring of 1899. When the company
was organized in the Spring of 1901 the finance committee was able to show
the sum of $5,070,845 pledged. There is not of record such a manifestation
of public spirit on the part of any other community. In what degree this
splendid result was due to the wise suggestion, the indefatigable effort, the
personal influence of William H. Thompson only those who were with him
throughout that campaign can appreciate.

The realization upon the pledges was another chapter. The first call on
the subscriptions was in the Spring of 1901. Thereafter Mr. Thompson de-
vised and pursued a systematic policy of appeal to subscribers. So well con-
sidered and so tactfully executed was the policy that the collections on the
subscriptions had reached $4,766,472.57 on the i8th of May, 1904. That was
the date of the filing of the first suit. Up to that time the cost of collections
had been only $20,071.02, a little more than one-third of one per cent to cover
all expenditures for salaries, stationery, rent, printing, postage and incidentals.
In the history of expositions there is no parallel to this successful management
of the subscriptions. To this record of exposition finance without precedent,
belongs the item of interest. Mr. Thompson collected from the banks and trust
companies with which he placed the funds of the Exposition company over
$200,000 for interest on the deposits pending disbursements.

High ideals in the evolution of the Universal Exposition, resources gen-
erous beyond precedent for such an enterprise, historic sentiment of great
strength for motive, flood tide of national prosperity — these formed a com-
bination of conditions to encourage. As preparation progressed there were no
backward steps. There were no blunders to be excused. From inception to
culmination this World's Fair movement passed successfully through the
periods of agitation, of legislation, of financiering, of construction, of installa-
tion, of attendance, to a glorious finish. It grew in magnitude with the passing
months. The exposition gained in impressiveness upon the public mind until
in its closing days it became the theme of praise on every tongue.

The greatness of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition was not in its acres of
length and breadth. Possibly, physical bigness was the first impression made
upon the minds of most visitors. That speedily gave way to more discriminat-
ing and more worthy credit. Those who planned, occupied more ground ; they
built larger; but they did not stop with acres and palaces. This World's Fair
of 1904 was designed in plan and perfected in execution during a period of
three years to a month. It opened within three days of the third anniversary
of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company's organization. The first year
saw the site secured, the foundations laid and the exposition palaces planned —
on paper. During the remaining two years the creation of the exposition —
those vital and essential parts of it which were not comprised in grounds and
buildings — progressed through the days and nights of unceasing thought and
toil. Frequently this was spoken of as "The St. Louis Exposition" or "The St.
Louis World's Fair." From the creative point of view the title was not a
misnomer. The Universal Exposition of 1904 was the more comprehensive

778 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

and appropriate title. The movement had its beginning with this community.
The great burden of responsibility was carried by the city and citizens of St.
Louis, but the Universal Exposition of 1904 in its entirety, physical and spiritual,
was due to the combined genius and experience of the whole world. From the
day the commission of architects convened in St. Louis, summoned by wire, to
view the grounds and to outline the main picture, it was more than "The St.
Louis World's Fair." As details of architecture and landscape were added to
the original scheme the construction and embellishment became more and more
the work and the glory of cities, states and nations until the exposition grew
into its just designation of universal.

Never in the world's history has there been such an assembling of nations
in competition, of that which was best in art and industry, of that which repre-
sented the civilization of each. To St. Louis came commissioners and exhibitors
of sixty-two independent nations, dependent sovereignties, if that expression
may be permitted, and colonies. The world conditions had changed since
T&93 when the Columbian Exposition was held at Chicago. The American
market, as well as the American territory had expanded. This country had in
the year preceding the exposition of 1904 bought of other countries more than
$1,000,000,000 worth of what they had to sell. This was considerably more
than $100,000,000 above any preceding year in the history of American com-
merce. The commercial argument or inducement for participation at St. Louis
was unanswerable. The political argument was of like potency. As a world
power this country had assumed vastly increased importance in a decade. The
warmly pressed invitation of the President of the United States to all the nations
of the earth to join in this "exhibit of arts, industries, manufactures and products
of the soil, mine, forest and sea" was entitled to most respectful heed and
received it.

A condition which materially encouraged and promoted universal partici-
pation by nations and their colonies, as well as by the states of this Union, was
the high and distinctive character of the plan and scope of this exposition.
Foreign commissioners, returning to their homes from their first visits to St.
Louis and from their first acquaintance with the advanced policies of this ex-
position, almost without exception, increased their, space applications. State
commissioners, after visiting St. Louis and conferring with the World's Fair
management, carried back the wondrous story until the whole world knew that
this was to be an exposition upon higher planes and with loftier ideals than
any preceding World's Fair. Parts of the world may have been exposition
tired when the Louisiana Purchase Exposition was suggested. They awakened
rapidly to the fact that this was a new kind of an exposition.

A radical departure in the theory of exposition organization was made
at St. Louis. No director-general was appointed. The president of the board
of directors was made the administrative and the executive head. Four grand
executive divisions were organized to report to the president: They were Ex-
hibits, Works, Exploitation, and Concessions and Admissions. The title of the
head of each division was director. These four coordinate officers, chief lieu-
tenants to the President, were:

THE WORLD'S FAIR 779

Director of Exhibits.

Director of Works.

Director of Exploitation.

Director of Concessions and Admissions.

This innovation in exposition practice was adopted after deliberation ex-
tending through several months. Doubt as to the practical operation of the
plan was expressed by some persons with exposition experience. It proved
to be not well founded. An unusual condition existed. The president of the
board of directors had been with this exposition movement from its inception.
He was the master spirit in all preliminary stages. His counsel prevailed in
the convention of delegates from the Louisiana Purchase states and territories.
He headed the executive1 committee which survived that convention, entrusted
with its recommendations. He became chairman of the executive committee of.
the Committee of Two Hundred which constituted the preliminary local organ-
ization. Withdrawing gradually from his own business affairs, he permitted
the interests of the exposition movement to engross his mind and his time.
Leading the delegation selected to visit the National capital he came to be
recognized, abroad and at home, as the head of the movement. When national,
state and city aid had been pledged and the time arrived to incorporate and
organize the Louisiana Purchase Exposition company, he alone was considered
for the presidency of the board of directors. Committed in his own mind,
responsible in the opinion of the public, the president of the board of directors
dedicated himself to the success of the exposition. The four directors of divi-
sions, Frederick J. V. Skiff, Isaac S. Taylor, Walter B. Stevens and Norn's B.
Gregg, were the staff.

Not the least interesting or significant of the motives which prompted
David R. Francis to give so generously his energies and time to the World's
Fair is embodied in this expression regarding the influence such a movement
would have upon the people of St. Louis: "St. Louis has needed something like
this," reasoned Mr. Francis. "We are a peculiarly self-centered people. We
own our own city. We have always stood ready to furnish capital to others.
We are strong and prosperous financially. But we are perhaps too independent.
We need to be brought more closely into contact with the outside world. We
need to have a certain narrowness of vision altered. We need to learn some-
thing of our own merits and possibilities, so that many of our own people
will realize a little better than they do that St. Louis is, in its way, as great a
city as any on the continent."

The man of the World's Fair hour cannot be characterized in fine words or
with elegant phrases. His personality and his acts made the impression which
did him justice.

In the early summer of 1901 Mr. Francis sat with the World's Fair
directors in a meeting of the house of delegates of St. Louis, called to consider
the merits of a proposed ordinance, essential to the success of the enterprise.
He spoke earnestly and persuasively of the exposition as a great public enter-
prise, entitled to consideration from the municipality. He introduced others.
In the midst of the hearing a pale-faced man came down the aisle and whis-
pered to him:

780 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

"Northern Pacific has gone to $1,000 a share."

"We haven't any," replied Mr. Francis in an undertone, "What of it?"

"Everything else is down fifteen to twenty-five points. There's a panic
on Wall street. We've been called for $450,000," the bearer of news went on
from bad to worse.

"Go back and get the money together. I'll be down town in a couple of
hours." And so dismissing his private affairs, Mr. Francis arose and introduced
another friend of the World's Fair to urge upon the delegates prompt perform-
ance of duty. It was characteristic of his perfect self-command.

Devotion to detail was another marked trait. Members of the executive
committee of the World's Fair came into their room one afternoon, for regular
session, and found Mr. Francis lunching on a sandwich. He had lingered too
long over business with one of the directors of divisions, and had missed his
usual luncheon. The committeemen chided him for neglect of himself. The
president looked thoughtful.

"I suppose you are right," he said. "Cold lunches are bad. They made
me sick at one time. When I got out of college I owed $300. I got a place as
shipping clerk at $50 a month with a commission house and thought I would
save money to pay the debt by carrying my lunch to work. Jim ! I expect you
remember when we used to carry our lunches, don't you?"

"Yes," said Mr. Campbell, "I remember."

"Well," continued Mr. Francis, "one day I became dizzy and fell against.
a wall. The doctor told me to stop carrying a cold lunch The committee will
come to order. What is the first business today?"

The executive committee was in session almost daily for many months.
The members, besides the president, were :

William H. Thompson, Vice-Chairman.

Charles W. Knapp. Corwin H. Spencer.

Wilbur F. Boyle. Murray Carleton.

C. G. Warner. L. D. Dozier.

John Scullin. James Campbell.

Eolla Wells. A. L. Shapleigh.

Nathan Frank. Breckinridge Jones.

Howard Elliott.

The expenditures by the sixty-two foreign nations and colonies participat-
ing amounted to $8,134,500. This amount does not take into consideration the
expenditures of private exhibitors from foreign countries, but only the dis-
bursements by foreign government officials. At Chicago, in 1893, were repre-
sented forty-five foreign nations and colonies by expenditures aggregating $5,-
982,894. Even the Paris Exposition of 1900 did not approach the measure
of foreign participation which characterized the exposition of 1904 at St.
Louis.

There was world wide significance in the extent of Asiatic participation.
The oriental sleeper awakened. Until this time no World's Fair had known
the official presence of China. Not only did that country officially accept but
the government proceeded with an impressive measure of vigor in this new
enterprise. The assistant commissioner general of China, with a retinue, was
the first of the foreign commissioners to take up residence in St. Louis. The

THE STATUE OF ST. LOUIS

Presented to the City of St. Louis by the Louisiana Purchase
Exposition

THE WORLD'S FAIR 781

flag of the yellow dragon was raised quickly on the World's Fair grounds,
following France, Germany, Mexico and Great Britain, which had in that order
taken formal possession of their sites for government buildings. A prince of
the imperial blood was the head of the Chinese commission.

Japan constructed and exhibited upon a scale beyond all previous exposi-
tion participation by her enterprising government and people. Siam, Ceylon,
Formosa, India, New Zealand were well represented.

It was to be expected that France, the country which gave to the United
States for $15,000,000 the domain which made all things possible to this coun-
try, would respond to the sentimental movement which prompted the celebra-
tion of the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase by a world's fair. France
accepted the invitation of the President of the United States quickly. That
set a pace for European action. Germany followed. Then came Great Britain,
Italy, Russia, Austria and Hungary, Belgium, Sweden, Holland, Denmark,
Greece, Bulgaria, Monaco, Switzerland, Portugal, Turkey.

Following so closely upon the Paris Exposition of 1900, this universal
exposition encountered in some European quarters inertia based upon a com-
plaint of exposition tiredness. The indisposition was temporary. It gave way
to rivalry and spirit of competition which rapidly occupied all of the floor space
allotted to foreign nations and clamored for nearly twice as much more.

From Alaska to Patagonia, with few and insignificant exceptions, the re-
publics and colonies on mainland or island belonging to the western hemisphere
joined in greater or lesser degree to make this a truly universal exposition.
Among South American republics, Brazil led with an appropriation of $600,000,
American money. Canada's participation was independent of Great Britain,
which decision when made was greeted with cheers in the Canadian legislative
body. Canada participated in magnitude and in character to emphasize Do-
minion enterprise and inclination toward the best of new world development.
Mexico's government building was the first of the foreign structures to be com-
pleted. The pavilion of the youngest nation stood side by side with that of the
oldest nation. China and Cuba were such close neighbors that only an imagi-
nary line separated their reservations in the universal exposition. The pres-
ence of China and Cuba at this World's Fair told the story of the evolution
of a world power. No doubt China remembered that in recent dire inter-
national peril the little finger of an American secretary of state had proven
more potent than the thigh of European diplomacy. Cuba had not been born
into the family of nations when the World's Columbian Exposition was held.

Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, the greater South Africa and the dependencies
of Central Africa were represented. British and Boers came to set up their
mementos of war and their evidences of restored peace and returning pros-
perity.

In point of magnitude, utility and importance, foreign representation in
the Louisiana Purchase Exposition greatly excelled that at any previous under-
taking of a similar nature and established a record that will be difficult to equal
for generations to come.

Twenty-three foreign national pavilions were erected on the World's Fair
grounds at St. Louis, while there were only eighteen at the Columbian Exposi-

782 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

tion. Those at St. Louis aggregated sixty per centum more in cost, $1,439,000,
and were forty per centum greater in combined area, 189,258 square feet.

The keen interest felt in this universal exposition was also well exemplified
by the unprecedented character and number of representatives sent to St. Louis
by the foreign countries. Three of the leading nations sent commissions pre-
sided over by princes of the blood royal, while the remainder had ambassadors,
officers of high rank, and other distinguished men at the heads of their com-
missions.

When Georgia in the early summer of 1903 placed upon her statute books
a World's Fair appropriation, forty-nine states, territories and island groups
of the United States had made financial preparation to be represented. Included
were New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma, Indian Territory, Alaska, the Philip-
pines and Porto Rico. Subsequently three more states joined the World's Fair
movement.

Briefly epitomized the growth of the United States found expression in
the participation by forty-three states, by five territories and by all territorial
possessions save Hawaii. This participation at St. Louis cost $9,346,677.
Eleven years before, at Chicago, forty-one states and two territories expended
on their exposition participation $4,539,428, and were proud of it.

Every state and territory within the boundaries of the United States
except one responded to the invitation to participate in the exposition, either
through the appropriation of funds by legislative enactment or by popular sub-
scription Many of the states resorted to both methods. In addition to the
states and territories within the United States proper, the District of Alaska,
the Philippine Islands, Porto Rico and Hawaii provided for participation
through proper official channels. All of these were worthily represented except
Hawaii, where the appropriation made by the legislature was rendered invalid
by a decision of the supreme court. The legislature of South Carolina made
a preliminary appropriation but the state failed to complete the plans through
complications which arose in the succeeding legislature. South Carolina, Dela-
ware and Hawaii were, therefore, the geographical subdivisions of the United
States which did not take active part in the exposition.

Forty-four states, territories and possessions had their own buildings on
the grounds ; some of them had more than one. Never before in the history
of expositions were the states and territories of the American Union so com-
prehensively represented. The total value of the participation, $9,346,677, in-
cluded all moneys appropriated by legislative assemblies, all funds raised by
popular subscription, and all exhibits loaned or donated to the commissions
representing the states and territories. The amount of money actually expended
by the commissions, derived from legislative enactment and popular subscrip-
tion was $7,092,786. The difference between the total cost of state participa-
tion, $9,346,677, and the cash expenditures, $7,092,786, represented the value
of exhibits donated or loaned to the commissions of the states and territories.

For the first time in the history of expositions the United States Govern-
ment made appropriations to defray the cost of exhibits of the resources of
Alaska and the Indian territory.

THE WORLD'S FAIR 783

For the first time in the history of expositions a special feature was made
of municipal exhibits. To the exploitation of this feature was given much
attention. The rapid advancement and development of the larger American
cities within the past decade and the numerous reforms and innovations made
in the management and government of municipalities prompted the Exposition
management to expect that the various cities would be able to illustrate the
methods which have made this development possible, in ways to elicit the ad-
miration and wonder of the millions of visitors. The Exposition erected the
Town Hall and laid out the Model Street along which the various cities were
invited to erect buildings in which to place their exhibits. The management
also erected an emergency hospital and provided for a children's playground.
The paving of the street was done with a variety of material — asphalt, brick,
macadam, concrete — at an expense of several thousand dollars. San Francisco,
New York, Minneapolis and St. Paul and Kansas City erected buildings and
installed municipal exhibits therein Boston had no building but placed splendid
exhibits in the Town Hall.

Under far spreading roofs of the palaces of Manufactures and Varied
Industries nine hundred industries found expression. Miles of aisles were
bordered by exhibits utilitarian and exhibits artistic. The House Beautiful,
The Home Comfortable, the Thing Useful and the Person Adorned were ex-
emplified. Two lessons were taught to the thousands of visitors who daily
wandered over the twenty-eight acres embraced within these two buildings.
The luxuries of life for the few in the nineteenth century may become the
utilities of life for the many in the twentieth. The artistic and the beautiful
are no longer beyond the reach of those moderately circumstanced.

New wants were born in millions of minds as the means to meet them
passed in countless review. Discriminating judges considered the displays in
the two hundred and thirty classes of exhibits of this department. When their
work was completed more than seven thousand grand prizes and medals had
been awarded for the superior excellence of things which contribute to comfort
of body and to pleasure of eye. Not merely progress in industrial art since
the Columbian Exposition of 1893 was marked, but advance since 1900 was
shown in comparisons with the Palace of Industries at Paris.

From "Old Ironsides" to "Saint Louis" the history of the steam locomotive
in this country was told in the exhibits of the Transportation department. Its
first successful chapter was the crude and clumsy product of 1831. This was
strikingly similar to the Planet which George Stephenson invented in England
a year or two earlier, a model of which was shown. In the group of earlier
inventions was a model of the locomotive which Napoleon's engineer, Cugnot,
fashioned in 1792, and which upon its initial trial on the streets of Paris became
unmanageable, butted into the church La Madeline and was condemned as a
device of Satan. "The Spirit of the Twentieth Century," weighing two hun-
dred thousand pounds, turning slowly upon a great steel turn table, with drive
wheels revolving, with electric headlight penetrating the remotest recesses of
the great building, with mechanism running noiselessly, completed the history.
But the record was not without forecast. Week after week, month after month,
from the opening to the closing of the Exposition, the latest products of the

784 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

locomotive builders of this and other countries were submitted to tests, scien-
tific and practical. Coal was weighed. Ash was measured. Steam was gauged.
Speed and power were recorded. The iron horse has reached his maximum
growth. His future development is the refining and perfecting process. The
locomotive tests of the Universal Exposition, conducted under the most perfect
conditions and under the closest technical supervision, became the standards
to guide the builders for years to come.

In many respects the exposition at St. Louis stood for years of lasting
influence and practical benefit to the world. There were tests and competitions
of various kinds conducted publicly and by unbiased experts. In the Mining
Gulch were carried on throughout the exposition tests of coal. The products
of the coal fields north and south, east and west were brought in carload lots.
Day and night the fires burned. Under the supervision of the United States
government the progress of consumption was studied in all of its stages and
bearings. Results of the coal tests constituted a record of permanent value.

Six months before the Exposition opened model dairy barns built upon
the most approved plans for such construction and with the latest improved
devices were occupied. Beside them were silos filled with milk-producing
forage crops. The dairy tests according to closely defined conditions and under
rigid rules began in December, 1903. They continued through many months.
Food was measured. Temperature and appearance of the cows were noted
day by day. Milk product was weighed. Cream, butter and cheese came under
critical examination by experts as to the quantity and quality. Successively
the barns were occupied by representative animals of various breeds. The find-
ings were based upon perhaps the most elaborate dairy tests ever conducted in
this country.

Under scientific auspices balloons containing delicate instruments were sent
up to obtain records of temperature, of currents and of other upper air con-
ditions to add to the knowledge of aerostatics. Associated with these ascensions
were kiteflying experiments and aeroplane trials. While no navigator of the
air was able to meet the conditions for the $100,000 airship flight, a new world's
record, well in advance of what had been done, was made in dirigible ballooning.

Processes rather than products, which it was proclaimed should distin-
guish the plan and scope of this Universal Exposition, were conspicuous in
every department. Wireless telegraphy was illustrated by daily operation of
the mechanism in the department of Electricity. Under the observation of
judges, officially appointed, messages were transmitted three hundred miles.
The successful sending of aerograms short distances, from one to ten miles,
was demonstrated in numerous instances. Transmission of sound without wire
was shown to be possible. Rays of light for medical purposes were produced
in several forms.

It was this policy of processes which filled to overflowing the great palaces
and which demanded such an assembling of power makers. The heaviest single
exhibit required one hundred cars, hauled by three engines. It weighed 3,325
tons. In the sixteen boilers of this exhibit were fourteen miles of four-inch
tubes presenting two acres of heating surface. Yet this exhibit was only one
and a small part of the power plant required to make the innumerable wheels

THE WORLD'S FAIR 785

go round. Steam was generated in a building of fireproof material about three
hundred feet square. It reached the engines occupying a space six hundred
feet long in another building, being carried in great pipes through a tunnel.
The power created represented the combined strength of forty thousand horses.
It was needed. A single process in the department of Manufactures was a
complete cotton mill occupying space eighty-one feet long and sixty-nine feet
wide. Marvelous performances with machinery were shown in weaving, in
shoe making and in scores of mechanisms. Twice the power provided at Paris
in 1900 and three times that required at Chicago, 1893, proved to be none too
much in the Universal Exposition of 1904. The value of the exhibits in the
department of Machinery exceeded $8,000,000. They demonstrated the won-
derful progress in creation of power. The prime movers of half a dozen coun-
tries worked side by side in competition.

If travel is educational, how could be estimated the benefits to almost
twenty millions of visitors by the Philippine Exposition, occupying thirty-five
acres and including in epitome the resources, the industries, the government
and the life of the Archipelago ; by Jerusalem with its reproduction of the sacred
and historic structures of the Holy City; by the Tyrol with its Alpine scenery;
by the Kraal from South Africa; by the Cliff Dwelling community; by the
Bazaars of Stamboul ; by the Streets of Cairo ; by India ; by Fair Japan ; by the
Chinese Village?

If the proper study of man is mankind what should be said of the oppor-
tunities afforded by object lessons such as the Pygmies of Central Africa; the
massive Patagonians; the polite Ainus, original people of Japan; the Vancouver
Islanders with their wealth of folk lore; the Igorotes; the Negritos; the Visa-
yans; the Moros ; the Esquimaux; the Cliff Dwellers; the representatives of
seventy tribes of Indians?

If there is satisfaction in close acquaintance with historic and typical
national architecture, among the benefits of the Exposition must be taken into
account the Castle of Charlottenberg, reproduced by Germany; the Grand Tria-
non, reconstructed in the midst of a French garden; the Palace of a prince of
the royal family of China; the Orangery with its quaint surroundings after the
landscape methods of two centuries ago; the Villa of Italy; the Town Hall of
Belgium; the Temple of Ceylon; the Chalet of Switzerland; the Imperial struc-
ture of Japan ; the home of Holland ; the country mansion of Sweden ; the
sacred edifice of Siam; the characteristic structures of Spanish America. If
there is inspiration in the lowly homes of some of the world's greatest men,
then among the cherished memories of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition
should be the cottage of Robert Burns ; the cabin in which Abraham Lincoln, a
boy of ten, lived; the log house erected by General Grant, built in his earlier
manhood ; the hunting ranch cabin of Theodore Roosevelt during his wild west-
ern, health seeking experiences.

If historic sentiment is worthy of cultivation in these later days, let it be
recalled that the Exposition included in its construction many buildings which
helped to familiarize this generation with the past. Notable were the New Jersey
tavern where Washington had his headquarters during one of the memorable
campaigns of the Revolution ; the home of Swedenborg, founder of a religious

24- VOL. II.

786 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

philosophy; the Hermitage associated with Jackson; Monticello the pride of
Thomas Jefferson ; the Beauvoir of Jefferson Davis ; the Cabildo of Louisiana ;
the colonial mansions of Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

The Exposition was satisfying. It was grand as a whole. It was beautiful
in detail. This verdict the visiting millions rendered with enthusiastic unanim-
ity. The architectural picture first amazed and then charmed. The scene south-
ward from the Louisiana Monument embracing the Grand Basin, the classic
facades of Education and Electricity, the Cascades in motion, the majestic
Colonnade of States, with the gem of all, Festival Hall, in this setting, must
live as long as the memory abides in those who saw it. The music of the
famous bands, of the orchestra swayed by Komzak, of the greatest of organs
responsive to Guilmant are recalled as the years pass. The stately maples, the
Sunken Garden, the flowers, the lagoons and above all, the myriads of lights
remain fond recollections.

To those who participated, actively or as lookers-on, the ceremonies and
the social events are pleasing reminiscences. In millions of lives the Universal
Exposition was an experience to be treasured to the end.

But what did the Universal Exposition inspire? In magnitude, in par-
ticipation, in number and character of exhibits it was far in advance of its
predecessors. The competition of the world was passed upon by a jury system
superior to any yet devised. The forty thousand awards to exhibitors stood
for excellence and superiority which cannot be questioned.

When the plan and scope of this Exposition was laid before one of the
crowned heads of Europe he listened without much comment until was reached
the proposal to bring together in a Universal Congress of Arts and Science the
wise men of all the world. Thereupon the Emperor gave, more than his assent
to participation, his hearty approval. The new thing of this Exposition was
the harmonizing, the unification of all knowledge to the uplifting of humanity,
to the betterment of mankind. That was the great lesson attempted. That
was to be the distinguishing note of progress in this Universal Exposition.
Time only can demonstrate the fulfillment of the high purpose.

Upon the one hundred and eighty-four days of the Exposition there passed
through the turnstiles and were counted 19,694,855 persons. On a balmy spring
day, the last day of April, the invocation of the Opening Ceremonies ended with
the Lord's Prayer while 187,000 people stood reverent. At midnight, the first
day of December the lights died away for the last time while a vast mass of
decorous humanity filled the Plaza of St. Louis. From first to last of these
impressive scenes one reads the history of this Universal Exposition in vain
for a record of unworthy demonstrations. There have been expositions where
fences have been razed to gain entrance, where riotous acts characterized clos-
ing hours, where panics led to much distress, where holocaust or crime cast
gloom over all. The Universal Exposition of 1904 was remarkably, excep-
tionally free from disorders and untoward incidents. The life of the World's
Fair is entitled to the award of most notable of all of the exhibits.

During the official hours of the Exposition the population averaged much
more than 100,000 persons daily. When the gates closed the population rarely
fell below 20,000. A site far exceeding that of any preceding World's Fair

THE WORLD'S FAIR 787

encouraged conditions which were without precedent. A hotel within the
grounds with thousands of guests and hundreds of employes was an unusual
exposition feature. The Philippine camps and villages housed a permanent
community the equivalents in numbers to a small city. The colonies of primi-
tive peoples scattered their habitations over many acres and numbered some
hundreds of persons. Within their camps the battalions of Boers and British
dwelt in harmony by night as well as by day. The Jefferson Guard and the
Fire Brigade were intramural contingents having no occasion to pass the gates
when off duty. Barracks and camps accommodated visiting bodies, military or
semi-military in character, numbering at times several thousand uniformed men.
The Pike was an avenue of nations, upon which communities, brought from
all parts of the world, had their habitations throughout the exposition period.
There were other not inconsiderable elements of permanent population. Many
buildings on the Plateau of States and in the Place of Nations had living and
sleeping rooms as well as their public accommodations. Commissioners, their
staffs and employes remained within the grounds.

When the music ceased, when the lights went out, when the Forest City
rested, here was still a great community of souls. This resident population
gave to the Exposition a character of its own. The two square miles of terri-
tory during the seven months was a city of 100,000 and more by day and of
20,000 and more after midnight. Into this city were gathered the peoples of
all hues and all climes. Babel had not so many tongues. Manners and customs
ranged from highest to lowest types of humanity.

Wonderful facts of this World's Fair community are to be recorded. Not
a contagious disease of serious character was reported. No universal exposi-
tion has come and gone with so few casualties, so little crime. An intramural
railroad of thirteen miles operated under the supervision of the director of
transportation, John Scullin, who gave his time without compensation, trans-
ported 6,274,000 passengers without serious accident to any of them. The holi-
day spirit never degenerated to that license which prompted disorder. The
pastimes were of endless variety but never degrading. The utilities never failed
before the demands of the greatest gatherings. The provisions for safety as
well as for comfort were always adequate.

Analysis of the attendance led to several interesting conclusions which
tended to give this Exposition a character of its own. No other exposition,
universal, technical, or local, drew such a large proportion of its attendance
from students and school children. No other exposition was so thoroughly
studied as was this by young visitors. From the middle of June to the Thanks-
giving holidays, the presence of the student and teacher was a very noticeable
fact. The Exposition made encouragement of this kind of attendance one of
its pronounced policies. During the summer, on certain days of the week,
children coming in company of adults were admitted without charge. When
the schools opened in September, children coming as schools or as classes,
accompanied by teachers to conduct them for study, in a systematic manner,
of the exhibits, were admitted on nominal charge. Day after day during the
fall months, flocks of children led by teachers were to be seen everywhere.
Courses of study of exhibits were laid out by teachers for their pupils and were

788 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

pursued faithfully. This was the first of expositions to elevate the educational,
above the commercial in its plan and scope. The practical application of this
theory was made by the exposition management of lasting good by the en-
couragement of attendance on the part of the teachable.

The fact may be stated that the rule of radius in attendance was not borne
out in the experience of this Universal Exposition of 1904. The usual pro-
portions between local and distant attendance was not sustained at St. Louis.
Greater attendance than experience promised came from considerable distances.
Many cities, towns and localities about equi-distant from St. Louis and Chicago
sent larger numbers of their citizens to this Exposition than they did to the
Columbian. This was demonstrated by the railroad statistics.

Attendance from foreign countries was much greater at St. Louis than at
Chicago. The Pacific slope sent to this Exposition perhaps three times as many
visitors as went from there to Chicago. It was estimated that seventy per cent
of the attendance at Chicago was local ; of the attendance at St. Louis not fifty
per cent was local.

Organized attendance never before was given such consideration in ex-
position management. In the life of no preceding exposition were the cere-
monial programs so important; the social events so conspicuous. Along these
lines the Universal Exposition of 1904 made for itself a distinctive character.
It added millions to what otherwise would have been the normal admissions.
It emphasized the permanent good.

In the evolution of the exposition the time has passed when exhibits are
more than of coordinate influence to attract the public. The architecture, the
landscape and the statuary are not of overshadowing interest. They can be
photographed and lithographed and pictured in words to satisfy the curiosity
and interest of many who must be moved by something more stimulating if their
presence is secured. Professional amusements are not of far reaching attrac-
tion.

To 428 conventions, international, national and state, — professional, in-
dustrial, religious, political, fraternal, educational, — the Exposition owed millions
of visitors who would not otherwise have seen its glories. The most of these
bodies which convened during the World's Fair were of national organization.
They drew their delegates from every part of the United States. They gave
to the sight-seeing the zest which comes through companionship. The spirit
of organization, of fraternity was strengthened by the coupling of the conven-
tion with the Exposition. The individual delegate, the body to which he be-
longed, the Exposition — all were gainers by the association.

In the light of the experience of this Universal Exposition, palaces and
their inanimate contents will never again constitute an exposition. The cere-
mony, the special event, the anniversary celebration, the human performance,
the social feature will be utilized and given increasing prominence. The exhibit,
no matter how wonderful, and the picture, no matter how grand, no longer
compel the attendance. Of 19,694,855 persons who passed through the turn-
stiles, the presence of 5,000,000 was due to other than the exposition sight-
seeing motive. To realize this it was only necessary to take the days made of
special interest by an unusual program appealing to the general public or to

ST. LOUIS AND GUIDING SPIRITS

THE WORLD'S FAIR 789

a section of it. Comparison of such days with those upon which the Exposition
was at its best, but without this extraordinary appeal, showed the marked dif-
ference in attendance.

State and city pride responded to the appeal and brought together fellow
citizens in great numbers. In exposition patronage the gregarious inclination
of humanity must be taken more and more into account. There was an in-
stance of this illustrated during the Exposition of 1904 when 2,100 of the 2,400
residents of a little Illinois city closed their stores, their shops and their homes,
and came in one day to the Exposition. There were many instances in which
fifty per cent of the population of a town came to the Exposition. The group,
not the individual, is the unit in Exposition attendance. The swelling of the
groups, not the adding of the individuals, is the line of least resistance in pro-
motion of Exposition attendance. The policy of the Universal Exposition of
1904 took this into account in a variety of methods adopted to increase the
admissions. Special days were not limited to states and cities. Educational
institutions, fraternal organizations, religious bodies, family associations were
given meeting places, supplied music, and encouraged to carry out programmes
of direct interest to their memberships. Hundreds of thousands of visitors
spent days upon the grounds when they scarcely saw the interior of a single
exhibit building. They were there for social reunion and for celebration; esprit
de corps was above all. Sight-seeing was subordinated. It would not have been
an exposition without the palaces and the exhibits. It might not have been an
exposition with them.

Gate receipts did not alone measure the success which came to the Exposi-
tion through special days and extraordinary programs. The ceremonies, the
receptions, the celebrations and the entertainments did much more than swell
the admissions. They enlarged interest in exhibits, they enriched sense of
grandeur in architecture and of charm in landscape. They rounded out the
greatness of the Exposition. The millions of visitors more than marveled and
admired. They lived the life of the Exposition.

From a plan and scope which determined that processes, not products,
should characterize, which insisted that exhibits must be operative, the evolu-
tion of an Exposition life was entirely natural. Day after day, night after
night, the heart of this Exposition throbbed; the mind of it brightened; the soul
of it broadened.

Those who lived the Exposition life for a month, a week, a day even,
went out having gained more than information, more than gratification of the
artistic sense. They learned better consideration for fellowmen, stronger pride
in country, deeper appreciation of the whole world.

This Exposition life was inspiring, uplifting, ennobling. It found expres-
sion in acts and utterances to become precious in memory, lasting in impressive-
ness. Its keynote was struck in the tone of the Dedication ceremonies. From
that time the pitch was not lowered, the high purposes did not fail, the en-
thusiasm did not flag, the fascination of the Exposition life did not wane.

Something doing every minute was the forcible though perhaps inelegant
tribute often paid to the Universal Exposition of 1904. It was truthful. Ac-
tivities were scheduled from early morning to late evening. They were varied.

790 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

There was no hour when special programs of entertainment or of instruction
were not provided to meet widely different tastes. Long lists of announcements
in the papers, the daily Official Program of many pages, the large bulletin
boards about the grounds kept before the visiting public the current events.
Those persons methodically inclined, the seekers after knowledge, the visitors
of pronounced tastes were enabled and encouraged to form definite purposes
in their exposition sight-seeing and study. Wide range of choice in recreation
and amusement was made possible. No former exposition carried the daily
provision of special features to such an extent as did this.

Financial results of the World's Fair at St. Louis were satisfactory. It
has come to be the accepted condition of these enterprises that they .do not
return considerable dividends in cash. Expositions are "timekeepers of prog-
ress," "milestones of civilization," not money makers. The capital invested
looks to indirect but not to direct returns. If an exposition pays its way in
operation, makes to the greatest good of the greatest number, then the indi-
vidual, the corporation, the government, the municipality considers the trial
balance satisfactory. So judged, the Universal Exposition of 1904 passed into
history as having been eminently successful.

The capital was $15,000,000 contributed in thirds by the United States
Government, by the municipality of St. Louis and by individual and corporation
stockholders forming the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company. This capi-
tal was invested permanently. It was the endowment of a great institution for
the public benefit.

The revenue from various sources amounted to over $27,000,000 the chief
of these yielding as follows:

Admission collections $ 6,243,835.15

Concession collections 2,878,554.94

Concession rentals 218,187.50

Intramural railroad fares 627,473.84

Service, power and light receipts 669,745.30

Interest on deposits 213,575.10

Transportation department collections 222,305.32

Music department receipts 146,538.48

Premiums on souvenir coins 53,296.48

Photo pass receipts 50,336.00

Miscellaneous (refrigeration, garbage, etc.) 152,853.41

General Service settlement 83,934.15

Salvage 616,843.78

Government appropriation 5,000,000.00

St. Louis bonds 5,000,000.00

Collections on stock 4,908,958.65

Total $27,086,438.10

The expenditures of the management to the close of the Exposition aggre-
gated over $26,479,947 leaving a surplus sufficient to meet the necessities of the
post-exposition period economically administered. The principal disbursements
were classified as follows:

THE WORLD'S FAIR 791

Preliminary expenses $ 37,418.78

Construction, grounds and buildings 16,745,857.10

Maintenance and rents 2,379,721.79

Division of Exhibits 2,271,947.98

Division of Exploitation 1,498,537.03

Protection, police, fire insurance 1,113,209.66

Division Concessions and Admissions 590,244.18

Executive and Administrative 581,002.05

Division of Transportation 378,233.79

Special Installation 125,000.00

Board of Lady Managers 97,305.14

Park Eestoration .« 308,370.27

National Commission 239,056.78

Miscellaneous 114,043.06

Total $26,479,947.61

To the newspapers of St. Louis the Louisiana Purchase Exposition move-
ment owed much. It might almost be said to have had its origin in a news-
paper office, or perhaps more truthfully in several newspaper offices of the city.
Publications were so nearly simultaneous as to suggest several newspaper minds
moving abreast in the same channel. The St. Louis press advocated a World's
Fair years before the preliminary organization. Newspaper encouragement
kept alive the project at succeeding crises from the beginning to the assured
fruition. Newspaper endorsement held up the arms of the men who were in
the forefront of the movement.

The first structure completed and dedicated on the World's Fair grounds
was fittingly the Press Building. President Francis paid this tribute:

It is meet that the first building we dedicate upon these grounds should be devoted to
the use of those whose labor and talents made known to the world our accomplishments and
our ambitions. In these days when the earth is in reality girdled, and when deeds of import
are related in words that burn, and heard by an audience more comprehensive than that included
in the limits of the missionary hymn, it is proper to promote in every feasible way the facili-
ties of those who represent agencies so useful and so potential.

From June, 1901, to December, 1904, covering the pre-exposition and
exposition periods, the daily newspapers of St. Louis printed 31,625 columns
of reading matter about the Exposition. The treatment was thorough. No
previous exposition was so interestingly described in all its subjects and in all
its phases. At no time was the tone of the St. Louis press unfriendly. The
Exposition was never belittled. No fakes were put out. No misrepresentations
were made which had to be subsequently explained. The result of the policy
of the St. Louis newspapers was seen in the growing popularity of the Exposi-
tion from inception to closing day; in a favorable appreciation by the public
more widespread, more earnest, more permanent than attained by any preced-
ing world's fair.

The Globe-Democrat printed of World's Fair matter between the dates
mentioned 1,006 pages, of which 400 pages were printed during the World's
Fair period.

The Republic, 1,012 pages, of which 421 pages were printed during the
World's Fair period.

792 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

The Post-Dispatch, 785 pages, of which 328 pages were printed during the
World's Fair period.

"The St. Louis Star, 482 pages, of which 204 pages were printed during the
World's Fair period.

The Chronicle, 148 pages, of which 65 pages were printed during the
World's Fair period.

The St. Louis World, 272 pages, of which 107 pages were printed during
the World's Fair period.

The Westliche Post, 709 pages, of which 409 pages were printed during
the World's Fair period. .

The Amerika, 154 pages, of which 60 pages were printed during the World's
Fair period.

There were published by weekly and monthly papers of St. Louis many
hundreds of pages of World's Fair matter.

The World's Fair Bulletin, edited and published by Colin M. Selph, was the
most ambitious periodical ever devoted to an exposition.

There came to the Exposition, accredited to the daily, weekly and monthly
press, 52,706 writers. The treatment of the Exposition by these writers insured
its lasting glory. The World's Fair at St. Louis was neither boomed nor dis-
credited. The treatment in the main was fair, discriminating, just. While the
Exposition was without form and void, it was in certain quarters a subject of
press skepticism. The Exposition was three months old before it was accepted
by newspapers three hundred miles away at its face value. The heart of the
Mississippi Valley was not exactly Nazareth, out of which no good could come,
but it was an unknown land to the most of the writers, and the ability of the
people of St. Louis to produce such an exposition as they promised was doubted
until long after the gates were opened. The ripples from this center of interest
grew larger and stronger, spread farther and farther, gradually shocking apathy
and overwhelming incredulity. It was not until the waning days of Autumn
that the wise ones journeyed from the far east to acclaim that the half had
not been told them. This Exposition grew upon the world as a discovery, a
matter of marvel. It passed into history with a practically unanimous verdict
by writers as the greatest of expositions, as better entitled to be called a Univer-
sal Exposition than any of its predecessors.

Five years passed after the close of the Columbian Exposition before Chi-
cago began to realize what a World's Fair had done for that community. And
ten years afterwards the impression of beneficial results was stronger than at
any preceding time.

Twenty-five years after the Centennial Exposition, one of the foremost
men of the city pointed out that the industrial activities of Philadelphia had
their awakening in the World's Fair of 1876. He made it clear that Philadel-
phia had become the great manufacturing center because of the Centennial Ex-
position.

The speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Cannon, visited the
World's Fair of 1904 in November, the closing month. Some one in his com-
pany drew attention to the number of young people on the grounds. A remark
was made about the benefit the youth would derive from such an experience as
the Exposition afforded.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, BY KARL BITTER

Heroic Statue for Jefferson Monument
Erected by the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company, 1911

THE WORLD'S FAIR 792

"My friends," said the Speaker, in his deliberate, impressive manner, "The
good influence of this Exposition will be felt by a generation yet unborn."

A notable and permanent asset of the St. Louis World's Fair was the profit
gained by Washington University through an intimate relationship with that
event. And a very notable contribution to the success of the World's Fair was
this relationship. The addition of three splendid granite buildings to the quad-
rangles of Washington University was only one of the benefits the institution
derived from the World's Fair. Within three months after the organization
of the Exposition Company negotiations were opened with Washington Uni-
versity for the use of its new campus and the buildings in course of construc-
tion thereon. This came about through the selection of the site for the Expo-
sition.

When the World's Fair management in the summer of 1901 sought a suit-
able exposition site, the choice was the western half of Forest Park. The city
readily agreed to lend that section of the park which was then in a state of
nature, a considerable portion of it being known locally as "The Wilderness."
The park acreage was not sufficient for the plans of the Exposition. Adjacent
tracts were obtained by rental. Two or more years earlier Washington Uni-
versity, which had been located for half a century near the center of the city,
had acquired 113 acres adjoining Forest Park on the west for a new site. Grad-
ing was in progress and the first quadrangle was in course of construction when
the university trustees were approached with the suggestion of leasing the
property to the Exposition. The first reply of the president of the University
Board of Trustees, Robert S. Brookings, was that if the proposed exposition
was to be conducted upon a high plane, if its dominating purpose was to be edu-
cational and instructive rather than merely amusing, he saw no objection to
consideration of the proposition to lease. The exposition management had high
ideals. It had set forth in the beginning a plan and scope comprehensive in the
way of entertainment, and also contemplative of benefits far beyond temporary
amusement. The earliest negotiations satisfied the Washington University
trustees as to the purposes of the exposition management. Before the close of
1901, the exposition management had secured the use of the campus, three-
quarters of a mile in length, and the use of the seven university buildings then
in the course of construction. The terms of the lease provided that the buildings
might be occupied for exposition purposes as soon as completed, that the rental
to be paid would be applied on the construction of other buildings in the uni-
versity group, and that these buildings would be completed in time for occupancy
before the opening of the World's Fair.

The exposition management had possession of the Washington University
site and buildings from the end of 1901 to the end of 1904. As rapidly as the
first quadrangle was completed the offices of the exposition management were
moved from rented quarters down town to these university buildings. When
the World's Fair opened the Exposition had in use ten great granite structures,
three of which had been built with the rental money, about $750,000. Perhaps
somewhat to the surprise of the exposition management, these university build-
ings proved to be readily adaptable to the uses of a World's Fair, so much so
that they might have been planned with that end in view. The main building of

794 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

the quadrangle became, until the close of the Fair, the Administration Head-
quarters. Other buildings supplied the exhibit halls for the department of An-
thropology and Ethnology, for the department of History and for the Physical
Culture department. They afforded convenient and comfortable offices for
the National Commission and the Board of Lady Managers. One of the build-
ings was occupied by the Jefferson Guards. The permanent and fireproof char-
acter of the university structures made it possible to secure such priceless ex-
hibits as the Queen's Jubilee presents, the Vatican mosaics and the historical col-
lection. These buildings furnished halls of various sizes which were in con-
tinual use throughout the exposition period for conventions, for congresses, and
finally for the International Congress of Arts and Science and for the Superior

Jury-
When the lease with the Exposition Company went into effect the univer-
sity management was in the midst of construction involving $1,500,000. Plans for
extensions had been made by the university architects, but the execution of
them would have been delayed five or ten years under the existing conditions
of the university's finances. The contract with the Exposition, however, made
available $750,000. The University was enabled at once to increase its construc-
tion expenditures 50 per cent. By the terms of the contract, as already stated,
the additional buildings were made ready for occupancy before the World's
Fair opened. Thus the facilities and capacity of the University were enlarged
not only greatly but more expeditiously than would have been the case under
ordinary circumstances. The material gain to the University was very large.
The moral benefits were even more important. Washington University was then
nearing its first semi-centennial. It was an institution which had received no
government, state, municipal, or denominational endowment. It had been the
product of the voluntary contributions to buildings, to support and to productive
permanent funds by business and professional men of St. Louis. It was an
institution in which the people of St. Louis took great pride, but except for the
personalities of distinguished graduates it had not much more than local repute.
This association with the World's Fair gave Washington University a national
and an international character. To quote the words of David R. Francis, presi-
dent of the World's Fair, also a graduate and trustee of the University :

The Universal Exposition of 1904 and Washington University will continue inseparably
connected in the minds and the memories of all who visited the St. Louis World 's Fair or came
under its far-reaching influence. The university site was the scene of one of the greatest
triumphs of peace. On it were assembled in friendly rivalry all nations, all races, — brought
together to demonstrate the achievements of human endeavor, the development of the human
intellect, and to make manifest what progress western civilization had made in the short space
of one century. So distinguished a company would consecrate any ground upon which it
assembled and when it established new and uniform international standards and promoted so
effectively the brotherhood of man, it immortalized the spot. The university structures, grace-
ful and substantial, commanded the admiration of millions of visitors, who at the same time
were deeply impressed with the liberality, the farsightedness and the wisdom of a people that
had made provision upon so broad and secure a plan for the conservation of what has been
attained, and for the accomplishment of still greater aims.

From the great arch of the Administration building, the main structure of the first
quadrangle of Washington University, was viewed a scene the like of which no other World's
Fair has afforded. This scene embraced the reservations of Austria, Sweden, Belgium, China
and the British Empire. Beyond and over the palaces of Transportation and of Varied

THE WORLD'S FAIR 795

Industries, on the left, in the Plaza of St. Louis, stood the great Louisiana monument, sur-
mounted by a female figure typifying peace, standing high above the eastern horizon of this
view. A little to the south and across the Grand Trianon of France and the pavilions of
Brazil, Cuba, Mexico and Siam, over the power building and the palaces of Machinery and
Electricity, the vision followed the graceful curve of the Terrace of States, with Festival Hall
as its center. It traced the incomparable outlines of that magnificent structure and was fixed
admiringly upon the goddess of victory, perched on the pinnacle of the dome. Those figures
symbolized the scope and achievements of man. Peace and victory. A victory of peace. The
temporary structures passed away, but from the grand arch of the main building of Wash-
ington University, memory preserves the incomparable scene.

Leading educators of the country became actively associated with the Ex-
position, and this was promoted by the relationship between the Exposition and
Washington University. Many members of the faculty of Washington University
served upon boards and committees of the World's Fair organization. Prominent
members of the Exposition's Board of Directors were at the same time members of
the Board of Trustees of Washington University; they were: David R. Francis,
W. K. Bixby, Adolphus Busch, and A. L. Shapleigh.

Several of the most notable educational features of the Exposition were
made possible and fostered by the occupancy of the university buildings. Classes
of blind children were brought from various institutions in different parts of
the country and housed in one of the university dormitories with their teachers,
attending a model school day after day in the department of Education. This
"live exhibit" was carried on for many weeks. During the summer eight hun-
dred superintendents and principals of schools were given comfortable accommo-
dations in one of the fire-proof dormitories, and passed their vacations in a
leisurely study of the Fair. Upon the University campus were conducted the
aeronautic contests, the results of which the world is now realizing. One of the
most active promoters of those experiments was Prof. C. M. Woodward, Dean
of the Engineering Department of Washington University. At the head of the
Advisory Council of the Missouri Historical Society where the World's Fair
movement had its inception was Dr. Marshall S. Snow, Dean of the College of
Washington University.

The material benefits which St. Louis received from the World's Fair were
set forth in impressive comparisons by the secretary and general manager of the
Business Men's League, W. F. Saunders, at the end of 1910.

During the five years beginning with 1906 and ending with 1910, the people,
of St. Louis expended $116,536,564 on new buildings. During the preceding
five years, beginning with 1901 and including the preparation for the World's
Fair and the costly construction for exposition purposes the amount expended
was $78,116,984. Instead of depression after the World's Fair St. Louis en-
tered upon a period of improvements and general prosperity such as the city
had never before known. Business doubled in ten years.

Bank clearings for 1900 were $1,688,849,494 and for 1910 they were
$3>727>949>379> more than twice as much.

In 1900 the freight brought into and carried out of St. Louis by rail and river
was 25,313,330 tons. In 1910 it was 51,918,100 tons, more than double.

Post office cash receipts, which measure the volume of business, were
$2,031,664 in 1900 and in 1910 they were $4,539,185, an increase of considerably
more than 100 per cent.

796 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

The census valued the factory product of St. Louis at $193,733,000 in 1900
and at $327,676,000 in 1910. The gain was sixty-nine per cent, better than any
other city of the class of St. Louis could show.

In 1900 the people of St. Louis built 2,513 houses of all kinds at a cost of
$5,916,984. In 1910 they built 9,419 houses and spent $19,600,063 upon them.

The assessed value of real estate and personalty of St. Louis in 1900 was
$380,779,280, and in 1910 it was $565,725,320.

"Louisana Purchase Day" was observed by St. Louis following the World's
Fair. Annually, on the 3Oth day of April, the officers and directors of the Louis-
iana Purchase Exposition assembled with city officials as their guests. In 1910
the gathering was of much more than local importance. It was made memorable
by the presentation of the plan for "the erection at St. Louis of a monument to
Thomas Jefferson in commemoration of the acquisition of the Louisana Terri-
tory."

The quoted words are from an act of Congress passed in March, 1909, to
encourage the movement. More than twelve months a commission was engaged
upon the work, to be submitted, first to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition direc-
tors, and, upon their approval, to the city of St. Louis. Beginning with the as-
surance that at least $200,000 would be available, the commission from time to
time submitted sketches of no fewer than five different designs.

The subject of a fitting monument to Jefferson in connection with the ac-
quisition of the Louisiana Territory grew upon the minds of the commission and
of the board of directors of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. The commis-
sion was given increased latitude. The result was that the monument as pro-
posed at the anniversary dinner of 1910 was designed to cost approximately
$500,000.

On Louisiana Purchase Day, 1911, the cornerstone of the monument
was laid. Addresses were delivered by Mayor Frederick H. Kreismann, Presi-
dent David R. Francis of the Exposition Company, and F. J. V. Skiff, director
of the Field Museum of Chicago. With the Jefferson Monument the Louisiana
Purchase Exposition Company redeemed its obligations to the United States
Government and to the City of St. Louis. By this concluding act the Exposi-
tion Company fulfilled the objects for which it was given existence by special
act of the Missouri Legislature. Under that act the incorporation was author-
ized:

(1) To inaugurate and hold national, international or world's fair, centennial or other
exposition; (2) to promote and encourage literature, history, science, information or skill
among the learned professions, intellectual culture in any branch or department, or the estab-
lishment of museums, libraries, art galleries or the erection of public monuments commemorative
of state or national historic events or persons, or for all of said purposes; (3) in general,
to promote, establish and maintain an institution or organization which tends to the public
benefit in relation to any or several or all of the objects above enumerated; and whatever may
be incidental thereto; provided, that the powers conferred by subdivisions 2 and 3 of this
section shall not be exercised by any corporation organized under this article unless the main
purposes of the organization of such corporation shall be those specified in division 1 of this
section.

The Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company would not have accomplished
that which it set out to do if it had stopped with the holding of the World's
Fair. It stood committed to remove the reproach voiced a quarter of a century

THE WORLD'S FAIR 797

ago by James G. Elaine. The time was the 3ist of March, 1887. The place
was the Merchants' Exchange. The occasion was a reception tendered to the
statesman. Standing before a great assemblage of business and professional
citizens, Mr. Elaine delivered one of the most pregnant utterances upon St. Louis.
He said:

Your growth, gentlemen, is the growth of the republic. In a peculiar sense, your growth
is the growth of the trans-Mississippi republic, a republic which is a far grander one, a far
richer one, than the entire Federal Union when Missouri became a member of it. And it is
in that great nation, hitherto and as yet scarcely developed — it is in that region that this great
city is to have its imperial growth and its enormous development. With 20,000 miles of river
by which you are connected with steam navigation; with 40,000 miles of railway in the old
Territory of Louisiana, which did not have one solitary mile when I was first in this city —
with all these vast agencies of transportation, what may not be expected of the place that
you have — that which, as a representative in Congress, I was long since familiar with? Yon
have that jealous, that watchful, care of your access to the sea for which the original Territory
of Louisiana was purchased during the administration of Jefferson.

It was to give this western country access to the open ocean of the world that the Mis-
sissippi was desired as an American river, and the people of St. Louis do well to jealously guard
that great outlet to the waters of the world.

But, gentlemen, with all the congratulations which I feel it in my heart to extend to you,
with all the compliments which your immense growth calls from every lip, I feel that I have
one reproach against the great trans-Mississippi republic. A little over eighty years ago it
belonged to a foreign power; and by the narrowest possible chance it was kept from falling
into the hands of England; but the watchful care, the great nerve and courage, the states-
manlike grasp of Thomas Jefferson, standing between the embarrassment of France and the
aggressive energy of Great Britain, plucked the whole Territory of Louisiana from the ambi-
tion of both and made it an American stronghold throughout its borders. And the vast domain
for which Jefferson gave $15,000,000 is now represented in seven great and prosperous states
and three large territories, which, in course of time, will add four or five states possibly to the
American Union. Never was a conquest so great — so extensive — acquired by peaceful methods.
Never was so great a conquest made by war that a conquering power was able to hold.

Then, let me say that my reproach to St. Louis, to every inhabitant of the Territory of
Louisiana, is that on its entire surface, which represents a third part of the United States,
there is not a statue raised in the honor of Thomas Jefferson.

St. Louis is the capital, the emporium, and will be for all time, of that which was the
Territory of Louisiana. I will be forgiven, I am sure, for reminding you of that gratitude to
the great man who, in the annals of those who founded the republic, should stand next 1o
Washington. I will be forgiven, I am sure, when I say that the duty of St. Louis, the duty
of the merchants of St. Louis, is to erect within your beautiful city a statue of him who, more
than any other man, created the republic.

Consideration of the form most appropriate to the character of Jefferson
and most appropriate to commemorate the Louisiana Purchase led by a prolonged
process of evolution to the plan adopted. Arches were sketched and discarded.
Jefferson was not a general of armies ; he was not distinguished for oratory.
Therefore, the exposition directors quickly disposed of two of the most common
forms in monumental design — the man on horseback and the man making a
speech.

Jefferson was a scholar, a writer, a maker of far-reaching history. Upon
two deeds of the pen rests his everlasting reputation with the American people —
the Declaration of Independence and the Louisiana Purchase. There are oil
portraits of Jefferson; there are several marble or bronze figures of Jefferson.
Nowhere else in this broad land is there a monumental structure, an historical
collection, to commemorate the man and his greatest deeds.

798 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

It is not difficult to trace the evolution by which directors and experts reached
the conclusion that this Jefferson monument should stand for something more
than architecture and art; that it should perpetuate in a living institution the
memory of Jefferson; that it should symbolize his spirit.

The commission which planned the details of the Jefferson monument as
the .result of more than a year's labor was composed of Isaac S. Taylor, who
was Director of Works for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Karl T. F. Bitter,
who was Chief of Sculpture for the Exposition, and George E. Kessler, who was
Landscape Architect for the Exposition.

The Jefferson monument is without counterpart in this country. Under an
immense arch will be the marble statue of Jefferson by Bitter. On either side of
the arch extend wings to be occupied by historical collections having special ref-
erence to the Territory of Louisiana. There is a Jefferson Hall, upon the walls
of which will be placed portraits of persons most conspicuous in the history of
the Louisiana Territory and of the thirteen states formed therefrom. Occupy-
ing a considerable portion of one of the wings will be an archaeological collec-
tion which the Missouri Historical Society has been assembling with continuous
effort directed to all parts of the Louisiana Territory during the last forty years.
Another feature will be the historical library which will include not only books
but thousands of manuscripts, diaries and letters, bearing upon the history of
this territory of the thirteen states. The collection of this material has been in
progress at St. Louis for more than half a century. The collection of manu-
script goes back to the earliest settlements in what was the Louisiana Territory.
It is already one of the largest collections in the United States. Many of the
manuscripts relate to the French and Spanish sovereignty. Included are orig-
inal petitions of many early settlers of Missouri and other states in the Louisiana
Territory for land grants. There are early marriage contracts. There are offi-
cial letters of the governors and commanders before the American authority
superseded the Spanish. There are contracts and negotiations more than a cen-
tury old. The first printing press set up and used west of St. Louis and the
second printing press brought to this side of the Mississippi is one of the histor-
ical exhibits. It was used at Franklin, Missouri, to print the "Missouri Intel-
ligencer" as early as 1819. One of the cannon carried on the steamboats of the
American Fur Company one hundred years ago is preserved. There are oil por-
traits of governors and prominent pioneers of the states within the Louisiana
Purchase.

The Indian collection is already large ; it includes 30,000 specimens. One of
the prized possessions of the Historical Society is the sun dial which Thomas
Jefferson made and used at his home, Monticello, in Virginia. Genealogies, pri-
vate letters and diaries of persons resident in the Louisiana Territory will be in-
cluded in a family history department. Some years ago the collection of mate-
rial of this kind was undertaken by the Missouri Historical Society. The accu-
mulation is already large and receiving frequent additions. With assurances of
protection against fire, this department devoted to the history of families resi-
dent in the Purchase states, will increase rapidly.

In such condition as to be easily accessible will be preserved in one of the
wings the plans, records and reports of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.

THE WORLD'S FAIR 799

Since the close of this exposition communities contemplating enterprises of the
exposition class have called upon the St. Louis organization at frequent intervals
for documents and forms. In many respects the organization and the methods
at St. Louis are regarded as furnishing models by those promoting exposition
projects. The St. Louis company has preserved blanks of every character,
drawings of all kinds of construction and reports of every division and depart-
ment, faithfully perpetuating the experience of this exposition. An exposition
library, containing probably the largest collection of exposition reports and expo-
sition literature in this country will find a place in this structure. The collection
goes back to the Crystal Palace in London and includes reports from exposi-
tions of other countries and of the United States.

The monument combines architecture, sculpture and landscape treatment.
The site selected was that made historical as the main entrance of the World's
Fair. The rotunda or arch is sixty feet in diameter with decorative features.
The entire front including the arch and the wings is more than three hundred
and thirty feet.

The facade of the central section is fronted by great stone columns. The
rotunda or arch is open. The width of the wings is fifty-five feet. The exte-
rior of the structure is of Bedford stone. The building is fireproof in the most
modern sense. To quote the architect, "There is not in it a piece of wood as
large as a lead pencil. The floors are of concrete composition ; the doors and the
window casings are of metal."

Bitter's immortal "Signing of the Treaty" will have a conspicuous place
under the arch. It represents Monroe, Barbois and Livingston putting their
signatures to the treaty of acquisition on the 3Oth of April, 1803.

Within the arch will be placed tablets of bronze bearing inscriptions relat-
ing to the history of the Louisiana Purchase. One of these inscriptions will tell
what Jefferson himself thought of the acquisition of Louisiana when it had been
accomplished. It is taken from President Jefferson's special message to Con-
gress after the transfer of Lower Louisiana, but nearly two months before the
raising of the United States flag at St. Louis. The words are these:

On this important acquisition so favorable to the immediate interest
of our western citizens, so auspicious to the peace and security of the
nation in general, which adds to our country territories so extensive and
fertile and to our citizens new brethren to partake of the blessing of
freedom and self-government, I offer to Congress and our country, my
sincere congratulations. — (President Jefferson's Special Message to
Congress, January 16, 1804.)

CHAPTER XXX
CENTENNIAL WEEK

The Century of Incorporation — Seven Days of Celebration — Organization and Preparation —
Policy of the Executive Committee — The Coliseum Dressed — A Court of Honor — Decora-
tions and Illumination — Music Day and Night — Historical Tablets — Planning the Pageants
— The Torpedo Flotilla — Church Day — Archbishop Glennon on the City's Individuality —
The 444 Religidus Organizations — Dr. Niccolls' Historical Sermon — Sunday Schools at
the Coliseum — The Parishes on Art Hill — Welcome to 400 Mayors — The Civic League
Luncheon — Flight of the Sphericals — Welcome Mass Meeting — Centennial Water Pageant
— Reception on 'Change and Luncheon by Merchants — Veiled Prophet, Pageant and Ball
— Municipal Parade — Corner Stone Ceremonies — Police Review — The Dirigibles in Forest
Park — Three Miles of Industries on Floats — First Flight of Curtiss — Ball of All Na-
tions— Historic Floats — March of the Educational Brigades — Twilight Flight by Curtiss —
German-American Entertainment — Automobile Parade — Dedication of Fairground — Curtiss
at Forest Park — Get-together Banquet — Review of Centennial Week — Visitors Numbered
150,000 — A Statue of Laclede, the Founder.

We have enshrined the men of a century ago. Let us see to it that the multitude crowding
to the next St. Louis Centennial, a century hence, shall put us in a niche no lower than that
in which we now place the pioneers of 1809. Perhaps the mass of every generation is too prone
to think that all wisdom will die with them. It is not easy, possibly it is not even flattering,
to think that perhaps present methods of work will appear as crude to the St. Louis generation
of 2009 as the methods in use in 1809 now appear to us. That coming generation may smile
at our rude and crude ways of doing things. We want to make sure that the smile will be
such as we now give to our predecessors of a century ago ; a smile of congratulation, of pride,
of genuine admiration and respect, even though mixed with amusement at prlmitiveness and
wonder at our achievement. If we are ever to be called primitive, let those who so call us be
compelled to say, as we say now, that the primitiveness of men great in the essential elements
of manhood is a mighty weapon for the advancement of mankind. If the next century should
bring to St. Louis a generation to look upon the railway, the telephone and telegraph, the sky-
scraper, and all of the other concomitants of our present civilization, and call them antiquated,
let us see to it now that that generation will be compelled to add that the men who wrought
with such poor tools wrought mightily, and for the ages. To do this we must hold fast to the
standards and the altars set up by those gone before us. They wrought through faith as well
as through courage. Wherefore it may be fitting to return to that fine fervor with which this
reflection begins, and say :

"Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget."

— D. G. Fitzmaurice, in Globe-Democrat, October, 1909.

In October, 1909, St. Louis looked backward upon a century of corporate
existence. A week was given to the celebration of this centennial. The entire
city entered into the spirit of it.

When St. Louis became a town, three only of the "taxable inhabitants" de-
clined to sign the petition. With practical unanimity the corporate beginning
was made.

St. Louis has had local antagonisms. Individual leaders, factions in the
population, sections of the community have contended sharply. But, from the
year of incorporation to the present day, every serious crisis confronting and
every momentous proposition appealing have found St. Louisans standing to-
gether, so closely, so unified as to make the majority irresistible, the minority
insignificant. This characteristic of solidarity has found signal expression in
every decade of corporate life. It was effective in the World's Fair of 1904 to
a degree that made the nations marvel. It was demonstrated in the observance
of Centennial Week.

801
25- VOL. II.

802 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

The Million Population Club, the Missouri Historical Society and the Civic
League took the initiative. Mayor Wells suggested to the Municipal Assembly
that the centennial be recognized. The council and the house of delegates ap-
pointed committees and by resolution requested the mayor "to call a meeting
of all of the business, civic and professional organizations of the city to meet
the joint committee of the Municipal Assembly to arrange a plan for a dignified
and an appropriate celebration of this important event." Through these steps
came about the organization of the St. Louis Centennial Association with the
following officers and executive committee :

PRESIDENT
Hon. Frederick H. Kreismann,

Mayor.

Vice-President, Vice-President,

Hon. John H. Gundlach, Hon. Edgar B. Rombauer,

President City Council. Speaker House of Delegates.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
George D. Markham, Chairman. Saunders Norvell, Vice-Chairman.

Walter B. Stevens, Secretary. Charles H. Huttig, Treasurer.

Arthur J. Fitzsimmons, Owen Miller, H. N. Davis,

E. V. P. Schneiderhahn, Frank Gaiennie, L. D. Dozier,

Harry A. Hamilton, Samuel D. Capen, Charles P. Senter,

Otto Buder, James E. Smith, Charles A. Stix,

James J. Gallagher, Charles F. Wenneker, E. J. Spencer,

Walter B. Douglas, Henry C. Garneau, Robert McCulloch,

J. A. J. Shultz, E. E. Scharff, A. O. Rule.

The first week in May found the offices of the association established in
the Mercantile Club. Not only was this courtesy accorded but during the six
months of Centennial activities the rooms of the club were utilized without
charge for meetings of committees and of various organizations interested in the
celebration.

The Municipal Assembly being prohibited by the charter to encourage the
movement with a direct appropriation, the Centennial Association raised the
needed funds through voluntary contributions obtained through a finance com~
mittee headed by H. N. Davis. The canvass resulted in the collection of $81,201,
to which were added proceeds from several sources, making the total amount
realized $85,704.34.

At the outset of preparations it was decided to devote the first full week of
October to the celebration, giving to each day a distinctive character, thus :

Church Day Sunday, October 3.

Welcome Day Monday, October 4.

Veiled Prophet Day Tuesday, October 5.

Municipal Day Wednesday, October 6.

Industrial Day Thursday, October 7.

Educational and Historical Day Friday, October 8.

St. Louis Day Saturday, October 9.

One of the striking and successful features of Centennial Week, an innova-
tion upon former celebrations, was the Court of Honor. It was designed by

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CENTENNIAL WEEK 803

VV. D. Crowell. Leaving conventional lines Mr. Crowell carried out a general
scheme of construction, taking into consideration the width of the street and the
buildings fronting thereon. He made a Court of Honor, which was artistically
beautiful and structurally comfortable, at the same time giving abundant space for
the movement of the parades. The Court of Honor occupied Twelfth street
from Olive street to Washington avenue.

Two grandstands were built at the corners of Olive and Twelfth streets,
extending 226 feet to the corners of Locust street. Two other, but smaller,
grandstands, seventy-five feet long, were erected at the corners of Twelfth street
and Washington avenue. Between the large and small stands were pilasters on
each side of Twelfth street, forming the main court. At the end of each stand
was a large pilaster, and behind the stands there were small pilasters. All pil-
asters were surmounted by tapering flagstaffs, the smaller ones ten and the larger
ones twenty feet high. To each of these a large American flag was unfurled, the
size of which was in proportion to the height of the pilaster. Just below the
large flags there were smaller American flags, arranged in rosette style. On
the front of these were American shields, surmounted by the American eagle.
The rosettes on the smaller poles had the St. Louis round shields. The back-
ground was of blue, the statue of St. Louis, in bas-relief, in white. The in-
scription encircling the statue, "St. Louis to the Front, Centennial, 1909," was in
white. The four daylight parades and the Veiled Prophet pageant passed
through the Court of Honor. All stands were open to the general public free of
charge at night. A band played from seven to eleven. George D. Markham,
chairman of the executive committee, instructed Owen Miller, chairman of the
music committee, to have the band play several dance numbers each night, mak-
ing it possible for those who wished to do so, to dance in the Court of Honor.
The chairman of the committee on the Court of Honor, on illumination and
decorations was Charles P. Senter.

For the one-hundredth corporate birthday St. Louis was dressed as never
before. From office buildings, banks, stores, hotels, newspaper offices and thea-
ters the decorations fluttered. In addition to the Veiled Prophet's colors of royal
purple, red and gold, the national colors, red, white and blue, which were,
officially, the Centennial colors, and the red and white colors of the torpedo
flotilla, were displayed. Some of the thoroughfares which presented the gayest
appearance were Washington avenue from Fourth street to Eighteenth, Broad-
way from Franklin avenue to Elm street, Sixth street from Franklin avenue to
Market street, Olive street west from Fourth, and Locust street between Third
and Twelfth.

The Washington avenue district was especially attractive with immense
streamers and flags. One flag at Eighth street, suspended from a flagpole, ex-
tended from the top of the fifth floor to the first floor. A building on Sixth
street was decorated with thirty-one oil paintings of all the mayors of St. Louis.

The Centennial illumination proved to be one of the most attractive night
features of the week. On the evening of Welcome Day, it was estimated that
75.000 people viewed the new lights on Broadway. Visitors from the east pro-
nounced Broadway the best lighted street in the United States. The crowds were
good natured ; there was no rowdyism, no unseemly indulgence in carnival spirit.

804 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

From Washington avenue to Elm street the thoroughfare presented the most
attractive appearance in its history. The system represented an outlay of
$10,000, the expense being borne by property owners on Broadway.

The Centennial Association expended $10,000 for music which was sup-
plied on the most liberal scale for the great parades, for four night functions
at the Coliseum, for open air concerts in the Court of Honor and for the water
pageant and the automobile procession. One of the innovations adopted in res-
pect to music by the chairman, Owen Miller, was the employment of bands of
fifty pieces. The purpose was to have one half of the double band playing while
the other half rested, and to have the full strength while the processions were
passing reviewing stands and the more prominent localities.

The historical committee under the direction of the chairman, Walter B.
Douglas, vice-president of the Historical Society, selected twenty historic sites
which were marked by tablets, with appropriate inscriptions for the, information
of citizens and visitors. Among the locations Judge Douglas selected were:

Site of house where Constitutional Convention of 1821 was held, northeast corner of
Third and Vine streets.

Home of Judge William C. Carr, southeast corner of Main and Spruce streets, the first
brick dwelling-house west of the Mississippi river. Built in 1815.

Colonel Thomas F. Eiddiek's home, built in 1818. West side of Fourth street near
Plum street.

Site of Fort San Carlos. Built by the Spanish in 1794. Southern Hotel.

Site of Bobidou house, where the first newspaper, The Missouri Gazette, was printed in
1808, northwest corner of Second and Market streets.

Government House, where transfer of Upper Louisiana to the United States was made,
March 10, 1804.

Home of Madame Chouteau, where Governor St. Ange died, December 26, 1774.

Dent house, where Grant and Miss Dent were married, August 22, 1848, southeast corner
of Fourth and Cerre streets.

Home of Pierre Chouteau, west side of Main street between Vine street and Washington
avenue.

Home of Laclede, and later of Auguste Chouteau, west side of Main street between
Market and Walnut streets, the first stone structure erected in St. Louis.

John F. Darby 's house, Third National Bank building.

Home of Wilson Price Hunt, leader of the Astoria Overland Expedition, west side of
Seventh street between Olive and Locust streets.

Home of Gabriel Cerre, the patriot who financed George Eogers Clark, northeast corner
of Main and Vine streets.

Home of Jean Baptiste Trudeau, the first schoolmaster, east side of Main street between
Chestnut and Market streets.

Home of Doctor Antoine Saugrain, the first St. Louis scientist, west side of Second street
between Mulberry and Lombard streets.

Home of Judge Jean B. C. Lucas, northwest corner of Seventh and Market streets.

Home of Manuel Lisa, the fur trader, Second and Spruce streets.

Home of Bartholomew Berthold, northwest corner of Broadway and Pine street, where
Confederate flag was raised in January, 1861.

Home of Governor Alexander McNair, first Governor of Missouri, northwest corner of
Main and Spruce streets.

Home of Thomas H. Benton, northeast corner of Fourth street and Washington avenue.

The several pageants of Centennial Week were formed with close attention
to detail and carried through with precision. These results were achieved by
months of study and planning. From early in May to the October day of frui-
tion, Mr. Wenneker's committee worked upon the Industrial parade. When

CENTENNIAL WEEK 805

growing interest on the part of manufacturers and merchants threatened to
overwhelm the committee with applications for place, censors were chosen.
Every design not considered of the desired standard for floats was rejected.
This policy, in the end, produced a trade pageant the like of which had never
before been seen in the west.

The educational and historical committees were engaged nearly four months
upon the details of their parade. They labored not for numbers or magnitude,
but for comprehensive and effective representation. And so it was that the
several divisions passing down the Court of Honor did not tire the spectators
by monotony, but were viewed with rising enthusiasm as they recalled the mili-
tary record and life of St. Louis; as they revealed the variety and flower of the
educational institutions; as they illustrated the great events in the evolution of
the city down to the incorporation.

In June the executive committee gave consideration to the problem of mov-
ing the parades. By reason of his proven fitness for the duties, Colonel E. J.
Spencer was chosen grand marshal of Centennial Week. Thenceforward, as
the educational, historical and automobile committees, having charge of parades,
reached conclusions in respect to composition of columns and routes of march-
ing, the arrangement of details, the orders for assembling and for moving, the
instructions to marshals and aides were left to Colonel Spencer. For the first
time in the history of St. Louis the streets in the routes of parades were roped.
Wire cables were stretched along the curbs. Police were detailed to hold spec-
tators upon the sidewalks. This innovation was in the main respected by the
throngs. It enabled more people to view the parades with satisfaction than if
the streets had been crowded beyond the curb lines.

Presence in the St. Louis harbor of the largest representation from the
United States Navy up to that time was a notable part of the national share in the
celebration. It was brought about by correspondence, which began in June.
With the approval of the executive committee, Chairman Markham addressed
the request to the secretary of the navy. He also wrote to the secretary of
commerce and labor, Mr. Nagel; to the St. Louis Congressmen, Messrs. Bar-
tholdt, Coudrey and Gill, asking their cooperation. The result was a prompt and
favorable response from Secretary Meyer.

The United States Navy was represented at the St. Louis Centennial cele-
bration by four vessels. The flagship of this Centennial fleet was the torpedo-
boat destroyer Macdonough, Lieutenant Willis G. Mitchell commanding. The
other ships of the fleet were the torpedo boat Thornton, Lieutenant Charles A.
Blakeley commanding; the torpedo boat Tingey, Ensign C. Nixon commanding;
and the torpedo boat Wilkes, Ensign George C. Pegram commanding.

This Centennial fleet did not leave St. Louis immediately after the Centen-
nial celebration, but remained to become part of President Taft's fleet on the
Mississippi river inspection trip which culminated in the Lakes- to-the-Gulf Deep
Waterway convention at New Orleans. These vessels made the voyage up the
Mississippi on schedule time and returned in accordance with a prearranged
program. They demonstrated the possibilities of successful inland navigation
at a season when low water was supposed to be almost prohibitive.

806 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

The formal arrival of the torpedo flotilla in the St. Louis harbor was the
official prelude to the opening of Centennial Week. At a few minutes past 12 m.,
Saturday, October 2d, the harbor boat Erastus Wells, carrying the Mayor
of St. Louis, many city officials and Chairman J. S. Bates with the fifteen mem-
bers of the Naval Reception Committee steamed down the river to meet and to
escort the flotilla from the anchorage opposite the Century Boat Club. The
river front along the course was thronged with people. The Eads bridge was
occupied by many more. Newspaper accounts estimated the number who wit-
nessed this entry into the St. Louis harbor by the flotilla at 100,000 persons.
Every steamboat, tug, locomotive and factory greeted the coming with noisy
welcome on the whistles. There was something going on every day of the Cen-
tennial Week for the officers and jackies of the torpedo flotilla. The officers
were included with the guests of honor at the Veiled Prophet Ball. Non-com-
missioned officers and jackies were guests of honor at the Ball of All Nations.
The officers participated with the Mayors in the reviewing of the several pageants
at the Court of Honor. The seamen formed a conspicuous feature in the mili-
tary division of the pageant on Friday. At the end of Centennial Week the
records showed that more than 100,000 visitors had been received on board and
had been shown about the torpedo boats. There were many hours during the
week when it was utterly impossible to accommodate those desiring to come on
board. For considerable periods of time as many as 10,000 people stood waiting
to be admitted.

Full and strong the note of religious sentiment was struck for the opening
of Centennial Week. The official signal was given at 5 159 Sunday morning by
the blasts of the whistle on the city harbor boat. From the Chain of Rocks to
the River Des Peres, from the edge of the Mississippi to Skinker road, the bells
rang out with whistles accompaniment. As the first grand chorus of greeting
died away, the chimes took up the solos in the form of familiar hymns. At the
early masses, in the Sunday schools, for the morning sermons, the spirit was the
Centennial.

The committee on Church Day was headed by Samuel Cupples, chairman,
and W. J. Kinsella, vice-chairman. The decision to begin Centennial Week
with religious features received the strong endorsement of all churches. To
the Catholic clergy Archbishop Glennon issued an address, saying: "It is especi-
ally becoming that our Catholic people should in every way in their power aid
in making the event not only a great civic but religious success." Right Rever-
end Daniel S. Tuttle, Bishop of the Diocese of Missouri, issued a special prayer
to be used in all of the Episcopal churches. The Evangelical Alliance by reso-
lution urged "thanksgiving services in all of the churches of the city."

Solemn pontifical high mass in the Old Cathedral was attended by Mayor
Frederick H. Kreismann, Vice-Chairman W. J. Kinsella of the Centennial Asso-
ciation and many officials of the city. It was celebrated by Bishop J. J. Hen-
nessey who was reared in the parish. The address by Archbishop Glennon was
of historical character. He said:

The fault, if fault it be, of many American cities is their dull sameness. They live and
grow just as others do. House is added to house, enterprise to enterprise, street to street, in
the same monotonous succession, and all we can say of them is, "how fast the growth and
how large the city." But of this city of ours can it be said not alone how fast it grows and

CENTENNIAL WEEK 807

how large it is, but also that its life stands individualized among the cities of America, with
a history and a spirit all its own; and for the beginning of all this we are indebted to the
Frenchman trader and missionary, the spirit of one, the sacrifice of the other and the union
of both in the lives of those who benefited by their ministration.

That the representatives of the cross of Christ came here as soon, if not sooner, than the
representatives of the crown of France is evident from the names of the cities here in the
valley, for as you sail along the Father of Waters you feel as if you were reciting the litany
of the saints — St. Mary, Ste. Genevieve, St. Louis, St. Paul.

And as a second and no less important element in this city's upbuilding, and in the
giving it that flavor and form that marks it among the cities of the West, it must be remem-
bered that not only had you the chivalry and courage of the Frenchman and the devotion and
sacrifice of the missionary, but you had what came nearer, perhaps, to the soul of the city
and its inner life ; you had, namely, the refinement, the gentleness and the charity of the women
of France.

While the trader traded and the pioneer wandered, while the missionary went forth from
camp to camp and tribe to tribe, there dwelt in homes that here were builded, however humble
they might be, the wives and daughters of the pioneers who brought with them all the glory,
all the civilization, all the Christianity of old France. So that from the very earliest days this
city became a center where social culture, refinement of manners, benevolence, charity and faith
found a home. Even at this later day, when several generations have come and gone, that
influence is far from being spent. It remains still to sweeten the lives and to bless the homes
of the majority of our people.

But this city of ours is no longer a French city. During the century that has elapsed
there came to it the people from Kentucky and Virginia, who could compete with the French-
man in his chivalry, and the people from New England, who could more than compete with
the Frenchman in his trade. And after and with these came the Irish, and after and with the
Irish came the German, Slav and Italian.

How these various races came, and how they worked since their coming are matters of
such recent history that I may be excused if I fail to recite them. Their coming, however,
their gradual absorption in the city's life, and their fusion one with another, produced the
city which we see today, a city wherein there is opportunity for honest men to live and work,
wherein there is opportunity for homes to be builded in peace and virtue, where there is found
a citizenship strangely without prejudice inherited or acquired, where their test of citizenship
is devotion to the city, as their test of faith is their devotion to the truth.

If our thought be directed to locality today, I do believe that of all the places to be
remembered, the place most fitted and opportune to commence this celebration is where we
here and now celebrate, for it was in this very spot the first church of St. Louis was built. It
was on this place that the solitary church of St. Louis stood a hundred years ago, and from-
that day unto this it has been the center whence the religion of France, the religion of two-
thirds of Christendom has grown, developed and reached outward into all this western land.

It was on the first of August, 1831, that Bishop Eosati blessed and laid the corner-stone
of this edifice, the future cathedral of St. Louis, and this was the fourth church builded on
this same site since the year 1770. And on the 26th of October, 1834, Et. Eev. Joseph Eosati,
bishop of St. Louis, consecrated with all possible solemnities the new cathedral of St. Louis,
which solemnity was honored by the presence of Et. Eev. Benedict Flaget, bishop of Bardstown ;
of Et. Eev. J. E. Purcell, bishop of Cincinnati, and of Et. Eev. Simon Brute, bishop-elect of
Vincennes, Ind., and of many priests, secular and regular.

Today the spiritual domain created, fostered and developed from this center contains
five ecclesiastical provinces outside of this one of St. Louis proper, six archbishops, twenty-
five bishops, representing so many dioceses, and a vast army of the clergy and faithful too
numerous to record, who, in the Valley of the Mississippi, and even to the mountain tops of
the west, proclaim the faith of St. Louis, defend the standard of Christ. While here in the
city of St. Louis proper, from this one church a hundred years ago there are now in the Catholic
faith eighty-two parish churches and sixty-five parish schools, with a long train of educational
institutions, both of primary and secondary education to answer to the spiritual and intel-
lectual needs of all the children.

808 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Most noteworthy, not only for the historical information which it contained
but for the liberal spirit characteristic of St. Louis religious life which it illus-
trated, was the centennial sermon of Rev. Dr. Samuel J. Niccolls of the Second
Presbyterian church. With the exception of Rev. Dr. M. Rhodes of St. Mark's
Evangelical Lutheran church, Dr. Niccolls had held his pastorate longer than
any other Protestant minister in St. Louis. He said:

In 1816, Eev. Salmon Giddings, the first settled Protestant minister in St. Louis, and the
first pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, wrote : ' ' Little attention has been paid to educa-
tion, and not more than one in five can read. The state of moral feeling and the tone of
piety is low throughout the country."

It was, indeed, high time that the leaven of the gospel, with its quickening and elevating
power, should be placed in the gathering meal. It required no prophetic vision to declare
what the future of the new city and the outlying territory would have been without it. Pre-
vious to the annexation the prevailing type of religion had been that of the Eoman Catholic
Church. Its zealous and self-denying missionaries had gone with the early voyagers and pioneers
and founded churches from the Great Lakes to New Orleans. In scores of settlements in the
western wilderness the symbol of our salvation had been lifted up Catholicism was the estab-
lished religion of the country. No other form of worship was allowed under the Spanish
and French rule. The reading and circulation of the Bible was forbidden. Indeed, some
Bibles distributed by the American Bible Society were burned by priestly orders on the soil
of Missouri. Happily, the days of religious intolerance, which then affected more or less all
branches of the church, have gone by.

The Eoman Catholic Church, always conservative, has, in spite of its cherished traditions,
been moved by the spirit of progress and has become a most important factor in the civiliza-
tion of the west. In this city it has greatly multiplied its churches, schools, hospitals and
asylums. Its leaders have been godly men of broad, statesmenlike vision, who have admin-
iitered the affairs of their branch of the church with marked discretion and success; and its
members are among our foremost citizens in seeking the highest welfare of our city. It occu-
pies a most influential position in the religious and social affairs of the city, and the history
of its progress furnishes a most instructive chapter in the story of the development of the
great Valley of the Mississippi. But I leave to those more familiar with it the full recital of
its progress, although venturing the prediction that before another hundred years have gone
by the relations between the different branches of the Christian church will be much more
intimate than they now are.

I turn now to what, to say the least, has been equally important in the growth of the
city, the entrance and development of Protestant Christianity.

The first emigrants to the newly acquired territory were chiefly of the Protestant faith.
It was estimated that as early as 1812 there were 1,000 families who were Presbyterians in
the territory; but, as they were widely scattered, there was no organization among them. The
first missionary preachers were of the Baptist and Methodist churches. Following them came
the Presbyterians, who had four or five preachers and a number of small churches in the terri-
tory as early as 1815; but up to this date there was no organized Protestant church in St. Louis.

On April 6, 1816, Eev. Salmon Giddings crossed the river after a journey of over twelve
months from New England, and on the next day preached to a small congregation, his first
sermon. He found the city without a Protestant minister, and himself an unwelcome herald
of the Gospel. Eumors had been circulated unfavorable to him. An article entitled ' ' Caution ' '
had appeared in the Missouri Gazette of that day, warning the people against him, and declar-
ing that he was an emissary of the famous Hartford Convention; but, unmoved by the report
and with that quiet persistence which characterized his subsequent ministry, he began his work.
He was a consecrated man of blameless life, sterling common sense, patient, persevering and
of indomitable will. He was ceaseless in his activities, preaching not only in the city, but in
the outlying settlements. The first church organized by him was at Belleview settlement, in
Washington county; the second at Bonhomme, October 16, 1816.

In St. Louis he started a school, from which he supported himself in his ministry. On
November 23, 1817, he organized the First Presbyterian Church, the first Protestant church in

CENTENNIAL WEEK 809

St. Louis. At its organization it consisted of nine members, and its two male members, Stephen
Hempstead and Thomas Osborn, were chosen ruling elders.

On December 18th, of the same year, the Presbytery of Missouri was organized in St.
Louis by the authority of the Synod of Tennessee. Its territory was wide enough, for it
included all that part of the United States west of the meridian line, drawn across the Cum-
berland Eiver. There were but four members of the presbytery — Salmon Giddings, Timothy
Flint, Thomas Donnell and John Matthews.

At that time there was no resident minister in the state of Illinois, and the total member-
ship of the presbytery did not exceed 200. Yet from this feeble beginning, there grew twenty-
nine presbyteries and three great synods, including a membership of more than 180,000 persons.

The first church under the care of Eev. Giddings grew slowly, but steadily. Through
his efforts the first house for Protestant worship was erected on the corner of St. Charles and
Fourth streets. The lot selected was then in the extreme western limits of the city, and the price
paid for it was $327. In the fall of 1818 a public meeting was called, of which Thomas H.
Benton was the secretary, to take measures for the erection of a building. Through strenuous
efforts and by collections in the east, the sum of $6,000 was secured, and a plain wooden
building was erected, which served as a place of worship until 1838. A noted pioneer minister,
Kev. John Leighton, D. D., who came to Missouri, in 1836, thus describes it:

"My first impression was of surprise that the good people of the church should have
located their place of worship away beyond the town and outside of the population. I glanced
to the west and the south, and beyond the unpaved street on which I stood. I could see little
but an unreclaimed flat, covered with stagnant water, with here and there a clump of brush.
Here, thought I, is another proof that Presbyterians are the 'Lord's foolish people,' for the
sake of a cheap lot, building their church where few of their neighbors would care to follow
them. The house itself was a very unpretending one, inferior to many of the wooden churches
we now have in the rural districts, and was surmounted by a belfry not unlike what we see
upon factories. That house subsequently underwent changes within and without, which were
thought to be elegant improvements befitting the condition of the little town. The pulpit was
brought down from its perch midway between the ceiling and floor ; and the roof was crowned
with what, in courtesy was called a steeple. But while the church was a very unpretending
building when I first saw it, we must not infer that the worshipers within it were all plain,
unpretending folk.

"Just about one year from that time, in the spring of 1837, the following scene might
have been witnessed: On a Sabbath morning a lady, dressed in heavy silk, advanced up the
street, having behind her a train of extraordinary length. This appendage was supported and
borne by two colored boys, one hand of each holding up the train, and the other hand of each
carrying this one a fan, and that one a hymn book. When the door of the church was reached
the train was dropped, the fan and the book were passed to the hands of the lady, and the
pages went their way."

The growth of the Presbyterian Church in the city can be readily traced by the number
of new organizations increasing year by year. In 1832 St. Louis claimed to have a population
of 7,000. Allowing for western boasting, it had probably 6,000. In that year a second church,
under the ministry of Eev. Dr. Hatfield, was organized, through a colony from the First Church.
This organization was subsequently dissolved and its members returned to the mother church.

In the same year, 1832, the Synod of Missouri was organized in the First Church of this
city. It was the year of the great plague, the visitation of cholera, which brought death and
lamentation to so many homes. The death rate was over twenty each day. The ministers
present at the organization of the synod remained in the city, preaching daily the offers and
consolation of the Gospel, and as a result there was a widespread revival of religion, which left
a permanent effect upon the moral and spiritual life of the city.

In 1838 the present Second Church was organized by a colony from the First Church, and
Eev. William S. Potts, D. D., was called to be its first pastor. From this time on the number
of churches increased rapidly with the increasing growth of the city. My limited time forbids
even a mention of their origin, location and names. It is enough now to say that the present
number of all branches of the Presbyterian Church, including missions in the city, is fifty-three,
distributed as follows: Presbyterian Church, United States of America, thirty-eight; Presby-
terian Church, United States, seven; United Presbyterian Church, four; Eeformed Presbyterian
Church, three; Cumberland Presbyterian Church, one.

810 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

But while the Presbyterian Church represents numerically the largest of the divisions of
Protestantism, it is very far from including the chief religious forces that have wrought for
the advancement of the city. The Baptist Church began its labors in the territory while it
was yet a Spanish province, but its first church in St. Louis was organized on February 18, 1818.
The Methodist circuit riders were engaged in their self-denying labors in the new territory as
early as 1810, and in 1820 the first Methodist church was organized in St. Louis. The first
Episcopal church was organized in 1819. Out of this organization Christ Church has grown.
The first United Presbyterian Church in St. Louis was organized in 1840, and there are now
four churches of that order in the city.

In St. Louis there is a large and influential part of our citizens speaking the German
language and using it in their public worship. The first Protestant church among them was the
German Evangelical Church of the Holy Ghost. It was organized in 1834, and became the
nucleus of the Evangelical Synod of the West, which has churches throughout the United States.

In 1838 a body of Lutherans who had been bitterly persecuted by the Government
of Saxony, sought refuge and liberty in the United States, and came to make their home in
this city. They established the first Lutheran church, adhering to the Augsburg confession.
Their growth was rapid, and they have now a large number of strong and influential churches
in the city. The Concordia College and Theological Seminary, a large printing house, and a
number of hospitals and asylums are in connection with this denomination. Lutheran churches
belonging to the different synods represented in this city have had a powerful and widespread
influence in the nurture of the religious life of the large German population in our midst.
Their testimony for evangelical truth has been strong and clear, and their method of religious
instruction in training children second to none. Difference in language, more than any doc-
trinal disagreements, has kept them from close affiliation with the English-speaking churches,
and for this reason many among us are unaware alike of their large numbers and their power
for good.

The Christians or Disciples of Christ, formerly known as Campbellites, from their renowned
leader, Alexander Campbell, began their labors in St. Louis in 1842, holding their services for
worshipers in private houses. Very soon a church of twenty-seven members was organized,
and from it has sprung a large number of thriving churches of that denomination in our midst.

Although many of the early settlers were from New England, the land of Congregational-
ism, no churches of that order were organized until the year 1852. The First Congregational
Church of this city was an offshoot from the Third Presbyterian Church.

In 1847 Eev. Truman Post came to this city as pastor of the Third Presbyterian Church,
with which he remained four years. At the request of several leading citizens, Dr. Post
preached on January 11, 1852, a discourse on Congregationalism. The result of this was the
organization, on March 14, 1852, of the First Congregational Church, of which Dr. Post be-
came the pastor. This position he held until his resignation in June, 1882. He was a man of
illustrious character, whose life and ministry left a profound impression upon the city, and
his memory is still fragrant.

Contemporary with his ministry was that of Dr. William G. Eliot, pastor of the Church
of the Messiah, who was a recognized leader in the educational and philanthropic work of the
city, and whose enduring monument is to be seen in Washington University and Mary Institute.

All the churches named and unnamed have wrought together for the moral and spiritual
uplifting of the city. It is not claimed that all have seen the truth with equal clearness and
fullness, or from the same angle of vision. There have been vain rivalries among them,
divisions that were disastrous and shameful, misconceptions and separating prejudices, but all,
according to their light, have stood for liberty of conscience, for freedom from ecclesiastical
tyranny and for the authority of the word of God. They have persistently upheld the claims
of eternal righteousness, and have called upon men to live in view of their relations to God
and an endless future.

According to statistics furnished by the Centennial Committee, of 444 religious organiza-
tions in the city, 76 are Catholic. The leading Protestant churches number as follows : Baptist,
23; Christian, 15; Congregational, 21; Lutheran, 29; German Evangelical, 24; Methodist, 46;
Presbyterian, 47; Episcopal, 31. A total of 236 Protestant churches.

CENTENNIAL WEEK 811

A little child led them. Tony Brickner, nine years old, conducted the In-
dustrial School Boy's Band, standing upon a chair. As he concluded each per-
formance, by the band, the little fellow turned and bowed, receiving enthusiastic
applause from all parts of the great audience which filled. the Coliseum the after-
noon of Church Day. Irt the midst of the programme from the platform,
{/Prof. R. O. Bolt, musical director, placed Dorothy Fitzroy, eight years old, upon
a table. From the farthest balconies the child looked scarcely as large as a fair-
sized doll. In the ranks on ranks of seats that stretched away, almost to the
ceiling of the big hall, thousands of eyes were turned toward the child. The
pianist struck a few notes. Then a sweet, quavering, childish voice floated up-
ward. To the upper rows of the highest gallery it was almost "as faint as a
whisper, yet the listeners could catch the words :

Some day the silver cord will break

And I no more, as now, shall sing,
But, O, the joy, when I shall wake

Within the palace of the Kingl

Thousands took up the chorus of the hymn and rolled it back in a great
wave of sound. She went on through with the other verses of the song, and,
when she sat down the applause lasted for several minutes.

Represented in the great audience, which filled every part of the Coliseum,
were one hundred and eighty Sunday schools of St. Louis. To each one of the
10,000 children entering the hall was presented a small flag. When Mayor
Kreismann, former Governor Folk and the other speakers arose, the children
waved these flags and accompanied this greeting with shrill cheering.

Rev. Dr. H. H. Gregg, of the Washington and Compton Avenue Presby-
terian Church, opened the program with a scripture reading. Rev. Dr. M.
Rhodes, of St. Mark's, a member of the International Sunday School Lesson
Committee, made the opening prayer, concluding with the Lord's Prayer, which
all repeated. J. J. Parks reviewed Sunday school effort, from the first Sunday
school in St. Louis, 100 years ago, with one teacher and five pupils, to the pres-
ent condition of 300 schools, 5,000 teachers and 81,000 pupils. The children
and the members of St. Mark's English Evangelical Lutheran Church marched
in procession from the church to the Coliseum. They carried banners and sang
hymns on the way. Before leaving the church, the marchers partook of a din-
ner, the first one served in that manner during the nearly half century pastorate
of the Rev. Dr. M. Rhodes. The dinner was arranged so that the Sunday school
and the congregation might go refreshed from the regular services to the Coli-
seum. It recalled the Sunday custom of a century ago, when the country con-
gregation brought their dinners and ate at the church between the morning and
the afternoon worship. The chairman of the committee having charge of Church
Day of Centennial Week, Samuel Cupples, occupied a box on the right of the
platform. With Mr. Cupples was Bishop E. R. Hendrix.

From noon until three o'clock the parochial schools were assembling on
and about Art Hill in Forest Park. When Archbishop Glennon arrived and
raised his hand for silence, there were assembled more than 25,000 children.
The great amphitheatre extending from the hill to the lake was fully occupied.
All faces were turned toward the statue of Saint Louis. The vast area was

812 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

divided into sections to which the parishes had found their way quickly and in
order. For three hours before the beginning of the ceremonies, street cars on
the routes to the park had been crowded, streets leading into the park had been
filled with automobiles, carriages and vans.

The program moved without confusion or delay. Two bands, Father Spig-
ardi's Italian band and Father Dunne's Newsboys' band and the Knights of
Columbus Choral Club led the music. When Archbishop Glennon raised his hand
and Rev. Joseph F. Lubeley, the leader, raised his baton, which was an Ameri-
can flag, silence came upon the multitude. Then Father Lubeley's hand swept
down in a wide arc and the great oudoor service had begun. The students of
Kenrick Seminary sang the invocation, "Veni Creator." The "Decade of the
Rosary" followed, and then from thousands of throats thundered forth, "Hail,
Virgin of Virgins." Arrayed in spotless white uniforms, the Knights of Col-
umbus Choral Club contributed sonorous choruses, lending an impressive and
beautiful solemnity and force to the religious songs. The large seminary choir
was of great assistance. They stood in rows at the back of the platform and
their voices carried far.

The Archbishop arose when the singing of America was finished and made
a short address. He congratulated the people of St. Louis, Catholic and Prot-
estant, on the Centennial anniversary of the incorporation of the city, and he
confessed to being moved deeply by the children's chorus. In the course of his
remarks the Archbishop said:

I remember reading of the field of Eunnymede, where a Catholic Bishop and Catholic
Knights fought for the liberties of the people, and obtained for their English King the
charter of our modern liberty. I remember reading of the field of the Cloth of Gold, where
King met King, to honor their country and their God. Children of St. Louis, this is not the
field of Eunnymede; this is not the field of the Cloth of Gold, but this is a field where I see
before me the pearls of the Saint Louis. This is your saint, you are his children, and on this
historic spot you will take his cross and bear it onward until another century shall be rounded
out. You are to be his crusaders, and will bear his cross upon your breasts. We are the older
ones. We are the relics of the century just gone, and we give to your keeping this cross, to
be true to your city, true to your saint and true to your God.

The address was short, and at its close Mayor Kreismann was seeen to
come upon the stand, arm in arm with Samuel Cupples, and followed by other
distinguished St. Louisans.

Archbishop Glennon turned to the crowd, who had cheered the Mayor,
signed for silence, and in a few words introduced the city's chief executive.
Mayor Kreismann, moved by the sight and the significance of the occasion, spoke
only a few minutes, and his speech, too, was one of congratulation and thanks
for the sight that confronted him.

"Personally conducted" describes the week-long reception tendered to visit-
ing Mayors. Early in the movement to celebrate the Centennial, Robert Burk-
ham, secretary to the Mayor of St. Louis, opened personal correspondence with
Mayors. He sought the name and vocation of each Mayor. He desired to know
if the Mayor was single or a man of family. He explained that the information
was desired to guide the Centennial Association in making the American Mayor
the guest of honor in the celebration of this one hundredth corporate birthday of
St. Louis. The Mayors began arriving at the City Hall by 10:00 a. m. on Mon-
day, Welcome Day. Each Mayor registered at a desk in the rotunda and each

CENTENNIAL WEEK 813

received a numbered badge. With the badge were telephone and telegraph
franks, street railroad coupon books and tickets to every Centennial event.
Meanwhile the reception went on in the Mayor's office. Mayors who had regis-
tered and found their escorts were taken at once to the receiving line in which
stood Mayor Kreismann, Governor Hadley, Adjutant-General Rumbold, Presi-
dent Gundlach of the City Council, Street Commissioner Tra villa, Sewer Com-
missioner Fardwell, Water Commissioner Adkins and other city officials and
members of the Governor's staff. Mayor Kreismann used his right hand for a
time in greeting the visitors shifted to the left and later back again to the right.
Former Governor D. R. Francis, chairman of the reception committee, was not
in the receiving line, but mingled with the Mayors and their escorts in the Mayor's
office. Former Gov. Folk stood in the corridor outside the Mayor's reception
room doing duty as a member of the reception committee. Many other well-
known St. Louisans were in the corridor where the Mayors were registering and
receiving their tickets. Among these were Harry B. Hawes, Arthur N. Sager,
F. W. Lehmann, Circuit Judges Shields, Kinsey and Muench.

At noon Colonel John A. Laird, President of the Board of Police Com-
missioners, and Colonels Martin Collins, Charles A. Houts, Charles Buffum,
George Robinson, C. C. Wolff and Nicholas Lamb, Jr., all of the Governor's
staff, preceded the city and state executives to the Twelfth street exit. The
visiting Mayors and their escorts followed. All were formed in line stretching
across the granite steps, while a score of photographers snapped the group. A
great crowd had gathered about the City Hall, and Colonel Laird was forced
to call on the police to assist him and the Governor's staff to clear the way for
the march to Hotel Jefferson.

The Industrial School Boys' band preceded Mayor Kreismann, Governor
Hadley and former Governors Francis and Folk. The visiting Mayors and the
committeemen followed in pairs. The sidewalk was used until Market street was
reached, when the band swung into the street and the Mayors did likewise.
Between lines of people the march proceeded. President Hornsby and other
officers of the Civic League awaited the Mayors at the hotel. The large ban-
quet hall was prepared to accommodate 650 guests and there were no vacant
chairs when all had been seated. Many members of the reception committee
remained outside the dining hall until assured all of the guests were taken care of.

President Joseph L. Hornsby, of the Civic League, sat at the center of the
speaker's table, from which point of vantage he could survey the long rows of
tables, seating the largest crowd that had gathered at a noonday meal in St.
Louis. It was the first time in the history of any city that so many Mayors had
dined in one room. Mayor Kreismann sat at President Hornsby 's left, while
Governor Hadley had the seat of honor at the toastmaster's right. Others as-
signed seats at the speakers' table were: John H. Gundlach, President of the
City Council ; former Mayor Rolla Wells ; Professor Isador Loeb, of the State
University; Mayor T. T. Crittenden, of Kansas City; George D. Markham,
chairman of the Centennial executive committee; Lieutenant W. G. Mitchell,
U. S. N. ; Mayor Joseph Oliver, of Toronto; former Governor J. W. Folk;
Mayor A. J. Mathis, of Des Moines ; David R. Francis, chairman Mayors' recep-
tion committee ; Frederick W. Lehmann, chairman Board of Freeholders ; Mayor

814 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Martin Behrman, of New Orleans; former Mayor C. P. Walbridge and Henry
T. Kent, chairman of the Civic League reception committee.

The formal programme following the luncheon was opened by David R.
Francis, who introduced Mr. Hornsby. All present arose in response to the
toast to the President of the United States. President Hornsby introduced in
turn Mayor A. J. Mathis of Des Moines, Professor Isador Loeb of the Uni-
versity of Missouri, Frederick W. Lehmann, president of the Board of Free-
holders, which was engaged in framing a new charter to be submitted to the
voters of St. Louis. The subject to which the speakers addressed their remarks
was "The Commission Form of Government."

Upon and immediately surrounding the grounds of the St. Louis Aero
Club were assembled before the middle of the afternoon 100,000 people. Mon-
day's program was devoted to the contests of spherical balloons. The enormous
gas holder on Chouteau and Newstead avenues was the focal point. For blocks
around the crowds occupied street corners and house tops from which the
balloons might be seen as soon as they left the grounds. The sending off of
the advertising balloons entertained the people. Twenty-four of these smaller
balloons of 3,000 feet capacity were started at short intervals. The task of
filling them began early in the afternoon. These balloons were partly filled
with air, and then were connected with the pipes running from the retort.
Gas was plentiful. The big holder contained 3,700,000 cubic feet at noon.
There was a pressure of one pound to the square inch. This was increased in
the afternoon to seven pounds. The two small balloons, The Peoria and The
Missouri, each of 40,000 cubic feet capacity, were the first of the racing balloons
to leave the grounds. They were the contestants in the long-distance race for
spherical balloons of 40,000 cubic feet capacity or less, and raced for the St.
Louis Centennial Cup as first prize, the second in the race also to receive a cup.

Eight large balloons, comprising the largest number which had ascended
in a single American aeronautic event, were sent away in the St. Louis Centen-
nial long-distance contest for spherical balloons. All were between 78,000 and
80,000 cubic feet capacity. Their pilots expected to be able to remain in the
air forty hours or more. A cloudless sky and hardly more than a breath of air
provided almost ideal conditions for the ascensions, each balloon being enabled
to get away on its flight without delay from weather conditions. The record of
this flight of balloons, in many respects beyond precedent in the United States,
was as follows:

St. Louis III.— S. Louis ("Tony") von Phul, St Louis, pilot; Joseph M. O'Reilly, aid,
near Lake Milli Lac, Minn., at 9:35 a. m. Wednesday. In air 40 hours, 24 minutes. Distance,
540 miles. Broke Lahm Cup record and won first prize, $600 or cup.

Indiana — H. H. McGill, of Osborn, Ind., pilot; J. H. Shauer, Indianapolis, aid, near
Albany, Minn., at 10 a. m. Wednesday. In air 40 hours, 35 minutes. Broke Lahm Cup record
and won second prize, $400 or cup.

Centennial — Lieut. H. E. Honeywell, St. Louis, pilot; J. W. Tolland, St. Louis, aid, landed
near Silas, Ala. Distance, about 485 miles. Broke Lahm Cup record and won third price,
$300 or cup.

Cleveland — J. H. Wade, Jr., of Cleveland, pilot; A. H. Morgan, Cleveland, aid, near
Alexander City, Ala., at 8:30 a. m. Wednesday. In air 39 hours, 45 minutes. Distance, 444
miles. Won fourth prize, $200 or cup.

CENTENNIAL WEEK 815

University City— John Berry, St. Louis, pilot; W. C. Fox, St. Louis, aid, near Mooresville,
Mo., at 3:15 p. m. Tuesday. In air 21 hours, 55 minutes. Distance, 204 miles. Won fifth
prize, $100 or cup.

Pommery — N. H. Arnold, North Adams, Mass., pilot; Leroy M. Taylor, New York, aid,
near Knobel, Ark., 5:30 p. m. Tuesday. In air 24 hours, 30 minutes. Attained height of
14,500 feet. Distance, 162 miles. Won $500 wager from Clifford B. Harmon, of New York.

New York — Clifford B. Harmon, New York, pilot; Augustus Post, New York, aid, near
Edina, Mo., at 5:41 p. m. Wednesday. In air 48 hours, 26 minutes. Attained altitude of
24,400 feet, establishing new American height record. Distance, 146 miles.

Disqualified :

Hoosier— Dr. P. M. Crume, Dayton, Ohio, pilot; J. H. Custer, Indianapolis, aid, near
Eussellville, Mo., at 11:20 a. m. Tuesday. In air 17 hours, 24 minutes. Distance, 123 miles.

Independent :

South St. Louis — Jack Bennett, St. Louis, pilot; M. A. Heimann, St. Louis, aid, near
Laredo, Mo., Tuesday. Distance, 206 miles.

Balloons of 40,000 cubic feet:

Peoria — James W. Bemis, St. Louis, pilot; George E. Smith, Peoria, 111., aid, near Lev-
ings, 111., Wednesday. Distance, 114 miles. Won first prize, Centennial Cup.

Missouri — Harlow B. Spencer, St. Louis, pilot; James P. Deniver, St. Louis, aid, near
Hibernia, Mo., Tuesday. Distance, 102 miles. Won cup.

Music by the Symphony Orchestra, addresses of greeting and of response,
stereopticon views of St. Louis, past and present, entertained the visiting Mayors
and 5,000 other people at the Coliseum Monday evening. The Welcome Mass
Meeting was under the direction of the Civic League. To an audience of 5,000,
David R. Francis, chairman of the reception committee, introduced President
Joseph L. Hornsby of the Civic League. Before presenting Mayor Kreismann
to extend the official welcome of the city to the visiting Mayors, Mr. Hornsby
said the League was proud that it had been called upon to act as host at this
first public meeting of Centennial Week. "We feel," he said, "that the work the
League has done for the city is not unappreciated." Official welcomes were
extended by Mayor Kreismann for the city and by Governor Hadley for the
state. The responses were by Mayor Oliver of Toronto and Mayor Behrman
of New Orleans.

Tuesday, Veiled Prophet Day, opened with the Centennial Water Pageant.
Crowds began to form on the levee as early as 8 o'clock in the morning. Noel
Poepping's American band of fifty pieces played at the landing of the harbor
boat. The Industrial School Boys' band, upon reaching the levee, was marched
to the upper deck of the Wells and began to play promptly in youthful rivalry
with the professionals. Mayor Kreismann was followed by over 300 of the
visiting Mayors, who came in groups with their escorts. The Erastus Wells,
carrying the city's guests, moved out to mid-stream where the torpedo flotilla
was lined in single column, dressed for the event. At the head of the flotilla
was the Macdonough, Lieutenant W. G. Mitchell, United States Navy. At
the conclusion of the pageant, Lieutenant Mitchell expressed to Sam D. Capen,
chairman of the day, an enthusiastic opinion. He said it was the greatest
pageant of the kind he had witnessed in this country. As a demonstration of
strength and efficiency of rowing and motor clubs in the St. Louis harbor, he
commended it most highly. Mayor Kreismann gave expression to the Cen-
tennial spirit in the morning aboard the Erastus Wells, as he watched the
brilliantly decorated craft swing by. "Oh, this is bully !" he said. "We certainly

816 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

have got a fine start on the week. Now let everything hum. I had no idea we
had so many pleasure craft in St. Louis. This is great ; simply great !" Stand-
ing near was Martin Behrman, Mayor of New Orleans. "This is the greatest
thing of the kind I ever saw," said Mayor Behrman.

The pageant was seen by 250,000 people massed along the banks of the
river. The course was four miles from the Merchants' bridge to the foot of
Market street. At the Eads bridge and between Carr and Market streets, the
throngs were especially notable. Not fewer than 25,000 viewed the spectacle
from the Eads bridge. Upon the levee from Carr to Market streets were
150,000. To the cheering of these spectators was added the screaming of
steamboat, railroad and factory whistles on both sides of the river. Excursion
steamers were crowded, roofs of buildings far back from the river were covered
with people. The flagship Harriett led the parade, followed by fifty shells — two
oars, three oars and up to ten oars. The shells moved in a double column.
Behind were in order the four divisions of power boats arranged according to
length, from twenty-five feet up to seventy-five feet. There were hundreds of
these power boats. Enthusiasm of the spectators increased to highest pitch
when the Independence II., owned by E. C. Koenig, drove past the torpedo boat
destroyer, the Macdonough, at the rate of thirty miles an hour.

In the division of shells were represented the Century Boat Club, the
Western Rowing Club, the North End Rowing Club, the Mound City Rowing
Club and the Central Rowing Club. In the power boat division were the St.
Louis Power Boat Association, the North End Club, the Central Club, the
Century Club, the South Side Club, the Carondelet Club, the Mound City Club,
the Wellston Hunting Club, the Western Rowing Club. The Alton and St.
Charles fleets sent delegations.

"Open day of Centennial Week" on the Merchants' Exchange followed
quickly the river pageant. The visiting Mayors, representing thirty states,
were escorted from the levee to the Exchange, arriving there at 1 1 :oo a. m.
At the Third street entrance they were met by a special reception committee,
headed by Chairman Parker H. Litchfield and President Edward E. Scharff.
Though the wires kept up incessant clicking recording the deals in other cities,
business was suspended. Preceded by Cavallo's band of forty pieces, the visit-
ing party marched to the Exchange floor. The greeting was the cheer, charac-
teristic and historic, from the assembled traders, an expression of appreciation
and enthusiasm, which prompted broad smiles on the faces of those thus
honored. The great hall was decorated with sheaves of grain and other farm
products. The wives and daughters of many of the guests of the city were
present. A welcome was extended by President Scharff, after which the guests
were entertained by the bulls and bears.

At i :oo p. m. the visitors and their escorts and members of the Exchange
to the number of between 600 and 700 marched to the Planters Hotel for
luncheon, where President Scharff presided. The speakers were Mayor F. H.
Kreismann, St. Louis ; Mayor A. M. Walker, Louisiana, Mo. ; Mayor W. S.
Jordan, Jacksonville, Fla. ; Mayor George L. Hutchins, Portland, Ore.; Mayor
Henry B. Denker, St. Charles, Mo.; Mayor E. A. Matthews, Clanton, Ala.;
Mayor George L. Smith, Faribault, Minn., and Mayor J. W. Finnegan, Chadron,
Neb.

CENTENNIAL WEEK 817

"When the World Rode" was the theme of the Veiled Prophet for 1909.
It was the story of transportation on land. Through the century of the incor-
porated existence of St. Louis was traced the evolution of wheels and motive
power. The Veiled Prophet is cosmopolitan. To St. Louisans of the latest
generation were shown the modes of conveyance enjoyed by their fathers, their
grandfathers and their great-grandfathers. But more than this, the primitive,
the civilized and the enlightened ways of transportation in other lands were de-
picted. The pageant told its narrative pictorially. No elaborate explanation
was required. Description was not essential. From the Veiled Prophet riding
upon the back of the dragon, according to mythology, down to the last float,
illustrating the present-day wonders of aviation, the tale of transportation was
told completely in the twenty moving chapters.

1. The Veiled Prophet. 11. The Mexican Ox Cart.

2. The Theme — Transportation. 12. Indians on the Trail.

3. Litter Bearers of Egypt. 13. Crossing the Andes.

4. The Chariot of Persia. 14. The Plains in 1849.

5. A Caravan of Arabia. 15. Locomotion in 1831.

6. Sleighing in Eussia. 16. The Era of Eails.

7. The Howdah of India. 17. Joy Biding in 1909.

8. Ancient Japan's Vehicles. 18. Subway and City.

9. A Dash by Sledge. 19. The Balloon in a Storm.
10. The French Coach of State. 20. A Journey in Ether.

The largest crowds which the streets of St. Louis had contained down to
the 5th of October, 1909, viewed the Centennial pageant of the Veiled Prophet.
This was the opinion of the police and of the oldest followers of the Prophet.
There was no rowdyism. Respect was shown to women and children. So
marked was the good behavior that it was commented upon by visitors.

In the West End the throngs broke precedents. Grand avenue from La-
clede to Lucas avenue was filled with humanity from street car tracks to the
walls of buildings. Every lawn, porch, doorway and coping was occupied.
Wide as is Washington avenue at Jefferson, a 'mighty effort of the police was
necessary to pass the pageant through. But all along the route patrolmen pro-
nounced the crowds the most orderly in their experience. At Union Station
that night the departing travelers were estimated by Station Master Clifford
at from 50,000 to 65,000. The day, in station crowds, broke all records.

A wonderful assemblage was the Veiled Prophet's Ball of Centennial
Week. It surpassed every other social event that St. Louis had known. It
amazed those visitors who had seen great balls in foreign capitals, in New York
and in other American cities. From 9:00 to 10:00 o'clock, while the Coliseum
was gradually filling with the ten thousand guests the St. Louis Symphony
Orchestra played. The Prophet made his entrance from under a gaily-colored
canopy, over the Locust street entrance, and, escorted by former Mayor Wells,
chairman of the Reception Committee, passed in front of the raised dais on
which the retiring queen, Miss Dorothy Shapleigh, and the matrons and maids
of honor had taken their seats at 9:30 o'clock. Behind the Prophet marched
the keeper of the crown jewels and the many characters from the floats of the
pageant, each escorted by a member of the Reception Committee. After passing
the throne the Prophet led his followers down to the farther end of the reserved

26-VOL. II.

818 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

space, and then slowly wound back and forth across the hall, until he reached
stairs leading to his throne. Still followed by his retainers and their escorts
he ascended to the throne, in front of which his retinue dispersed to the right
and left behind the maids and matrons. Advancing toward the retiring queen,
who rose to meet him, the Prophet saluted her with a low bow. The queen
presented to him a rose from an immense bouquet of American beauties which
she held in her hand, and, as the signal whistle announced the entrance of her
successor, she retired to a seat with the maids of honor.

Preliminary to the entrance of the new queen, Miss Susan Carleton, a
passageway was made through the crowd on the floor from the aisle in the first
balcony immediately east of the Washington avenue entrance, by stretching
silken ropes. Down this aisle to the reserved space and across to the throne
the three attendant maids — Miss Gladys Bryant Smith, Miss Cora South Brown
and Miss Gladys Kerens — were escorted. They were received by the Prophet
and received the jeweled token of his favor; they curtsied before him, amid the
applause of the spectators. Miss Carleton's appearance in the first balcony
was the signal for an outburst of applause, which increased as she reached the
cleared space of the arena. She was escorted by Mr. Wells; two pages bore
her train. As she reached the steps leading to tho Prophet he arose to receive
her. Curtseying low to his majesty and then to the matrons and maids of honor,
she bowed her head to receive the diadem which the Prophet placed upon it. To
the applause of the throng the pair bowed their acknowledgments and slowly
descended from the throne to open the ball with the "Prophet's landers." At
the conclusion of this intricate and beautiful dance the ropes were taken down
and the floor quickly filled with dancers.

"My compliments to Mayor Kreismann, and say the line is formed and
awaits his presence," Grand Marshal Spencer said to Sergeant Dempsey of the
Mayor's escort at exactly 9:30 Wednesday morning. Less than twelve hours
before that time the Veiled Prophet's pageant had taxed to the utmost the
transportation facilities and the police provisions. And now the first of the
great daylight parades was ready to move at the minute set by the official pro-
gram. The police brigade had formed. The long columns of city officials
and their forces were in place. The bands were clean and trim and fresh
looking, as if they had not played from beginning to end of the five miles' march
the night previously. The scene was a demonstration of the perfect organiza-
tion which had prepared the Centennial Week.

From early morning all street car lines leading to the business district had
been bringing the crowds. When the Mayor and his escort dashed up in re-
sponse to the Grand Marshal's notice and took place, the streets were thronged
with people. Two regiments of patrolmen, a squadron of mounted men, 5,000
officials and their forces, the representation of every kind of vehicle in muni-
cipal use and a division of the fire department were constituent parts of the
great procession. The marching, the uniforms, the banners, the condition of
apparatus — all of these told how admirably the committee in charge of Muni-
cipal Day had done its work. Banners proclaiming the accomplishments of
the several municipal departments were carried at the heads of the divisions.
Among the inscriptions were:

CENTENNIAL WEEK 819

'St. Louis has 700 miles of paved streets, and 100 miles of oiled streets."

'St. Louis has 630 miles of sewers."

' St. Louis has spent $16,500,000 for sewers. ' '

'St. Louis has pure water — only ninety-seven deaths from typhoid fever in 1908."

' St. Louis has thirty-four parks and squares, and eight public playgrounds. ' '

'Fire Department has 778 men and officers."

At the conclusion of the Municipal Parade, Mayor Kreismann and the
visiting executives marched from the Court of Honor to the site of the New
Municipal Courts building to lay the corner-stone. The site was surrounded
by a throng of many thousands. Within an enclosure, officials of the city of
St. Louis and the visiting Mayors assembled. The platform erected beside the
stone was occupied by Mayor Kreismann, Bishop Tuttle, President John H.
Gundlach, of the City Council, and Speaker Edgar R. Rombauer, of the House
of Delegates. The St. Louis Industrial School Band, which had led the pro*
cession from the Court of Honor to the Municipal Courts building site, played
"America." President John H. Gundlach, of the City Council, introduced
Bishop Tuttle, who offered the invocation. Following the prayer, President
Gundlach spoke. He especially emphasized the thought that nothing is more
expressive of the individuality of a community than the character of its public
buildings; that there is no other phase of municipal life which contributes so
much to the progress of a city as its public improvements. Mayor Kreismann
congratulated the city on the municipal progress of which the occasion was
evidence. He paid high tribute to the architect, Isaac S. Taylor, for his con-
ception of this new municipal architecture.

A review of the Police Department, the most perfect in the history of that
branch of the municipal service, followed fittingly the corner-stone ceremonies.
It was given in the presence of the city officials, the guests of the city and a
throng of spectators which overflowed Twelfth street. At the head rode Colonel
John A. Laird, President of the Board of Police Commissioners; Theodoric R.
Bland, Otto L. Teichmann and George P. Jones, Police Commissioners; Chief
of Police Creecy, Lieutenant-Colonel Gillaspy, Major McDonnell, Chief of De-
tectives Smith, Police Surgeon Robinson, Captain Hickman, Frederick Hus-
mann, Superintendent of Horse, and Lieutenant Schwartz. The patrolmen
came next. There were ten companies of ninety-six men each, commanded by
ten captains, two lieutenants and eighty sergeants. Following the patrolmen
came the color guard, composed of six sergeants bearing United States flags.
The patrol wagon division followed. It was in command of Lieutenant Nolte
and comprised nine wagons, including the new electric wagon. The mounted
squad, with fifty men, one lieutenant and five sergeants, under command of
Captain Martin O'Brien, followed, and just in the rear were the eight motor-
cycle men, thus bringing every branch of the department into line. Exhibition
drills were given. The mounted men aroused enthusiasm by riding company
front at walk, trot and gallop. The motorcycle men illustrated their work at
top speed.

The aeronautic events of Wednesday were with the dirigibles. Beachey
made a beautiful ascent in his dirigible, which looked like a great brown beetle
as it buzzed hither and thither above the heads of the people. The aeronaut
stood on the slender tubing of his frame, and drove his balloon apparently just

820 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH C[T¥

as he pleased. The dirigible would move along for a distance at great speed,
ascend at angle of 45 degrees, then pitch down at a like angle. All of the time
the aeronaut stood on the slender frame work, and with a turn of the wrist
changed the course right or left, up or down. He sailed hundreds of feet over,
the trees, went high above the Statue of Saint Louis and the Art Museum,
"turned her in her tracks" at will, and amazed all who saw him. Wednesday
morning about ten o'clock, in the presence of a few hundred spectators, Roy
Knabenshue made a flight, maneuvering over Aviation Field for several minutes
with his dirigible under perfect control.

At night Dr. Frederick A. Cook delivered at the Coliseum what was alleged
to be "the first complete account of his discovery of the North Pole."

The pageant with which Industrial Day began represented months of plan-
ning by the committee of which Charles F. Wenneker was chairman and many
weeks of work by 250 artists, decorators and mechanics. Between the eques-
trian figure of Saint Louis on the Million Population Club float, and the final
industrial float, were three miles of model factories and workshops in operation,
depicting the various processes of St. Louis manufactures. Twelve hundred
horses pulled floats or carried riders, and 650 musicians marched. The hard-
ware interests, the great dry goods concerns, the carpet houses, saddlery and
harness industries, cigars and tobacco, stoves, furniture, clothing, coffee and
tea, provisions, soap manufacturers, bakeries, flour mills, farm machinery, pack-
ing houses, building material, newspapers, patent medicines, carriages and
vehicles, laundries, agricultural implements, electrical supplies, plumbing, fuel
and ice, as well as various civic organizations, were represented in the long line
of floats. The band which headed the first division was composed of 100 pieces,
and the bands heading the other divisions had 50 pieces each. Of the musical
organizations, the Scottish pipers, in Highland costume, were especially popu-
lar. The aides to the grand marshal, C. F. Blanke, wore dark suits, dark hats,
black leggins and white gloves. The Million Population Club float led the
parade. It was drawn by twenty horses. "To the Front" was represented by
a live Saint Louis in armor.

Estimates of the number of people who visited Forest Park Thursday
afternoon ranged from 300,000 upward. The crowds began moving in the
direction of the park as soon as the Industrial parade downtown was concluded.
Three flights were made by Curtiss. Two of them were very early in the
morning. The third was in the dusk of evening. At 5 154, some time after
sunset, the aviator grasped the lever and started eastward on the park drive-
way. He had covered barely 300 feet when the machine left the ground and
sailed at a height of twenty-five feet. After going about 600 feet Curtiss
descended suddenly and received a rather severe jolt. He was in the air per-
haps fifteen seconds. Something happened to the engine, shutting off the motive
power. The increasing darkness prevented another attempt.

Thursday evening Ensign Logan marched a detachment of forty-eight sail-
ors from the torpedo-boat flotilla into the Coliseum and was met with round
after round of applause. He marched them twice around the hall with Chief
Machinist Knight leading the column, then turned them into company front
at the lower end of the hall and called for three cheers for St. Louis, three more

CENTENNIAL WEEK 821

for the Ball of All Nations and a final trio for Charles F. Wenneker, chairman
of the day and night. A brilliant crowd filled the boxes and balconies. The
visiting Mayors, members of the Million Population Club, the Centennial Asso-
ciation were well represented in the boxes and first balcony, and on the floor
after the national dances were concluded. These dances were given in costume
by natives or descendants of natives of the countries represented. They were:

1. Schuhplattler St. Louis Bavarian- Verein

2. Mazurka Polish National Alliance

3. Lauterbach St. Louis Schwabenverein

4. Vaf a Vadnal (Weavers ' Dance) Swedish Linea Society

5. Barn Dance The Latest Yankee Craze

6. Scottish Dances Scottish Societies of St. Louis

7. Beseda St. Louis Bohemian Gymnastic Society

8. Czardas Hungarian Workingmen's Sick Benefit and Educational Confederation

Not many of those who viewed the Historical and Educational Parade
Friday morning knew that the central figure on one of the floats was Auguste
Chouteau, the lineal descendant of the Auguste Chouteau who was trusted by
Laclede to command "the first thirty" sent in advance for the preparation of
the site of the city, February, 1764. Auguste Chouteau of this generation was
seventeen years of age. His progenitor, when trusted with the important com-
mission by Laclede, was thirteen years of age. The float upon which Auguste
Chouteau rode in the parade represented the landing of "the first thirty" and
the occupation of the site at Main and Walnut streets. At the head of the
Historical Division rode Pierre Chouteau, the lineal descendant of Pierre La-
clede. Upon the float illustrating the incorporation of St. Louis in 1809 the
characters impersonated were the first trustees, Auguste Chouteau, Chairman ;
Edward Hempstead, John Pierre Cabanne, William C. Carr and William Christy,
together with David Delany. The group upon the incorporation float was
made up of descendants or family connections of the original trustees or mem-
bers of the group approving the incorporation. William P. Kennett, Jr., repre-
sented Edward Hempstead. J. Charless Cabanne posed as his grandfather,
John Pierre Cabanne. William C. Carr was represented by his youngest son,
Robert S. Carr, now more than 70. William Christy Bryan appeared as William
Christy. On this float, also, was Lilburn G. McNair, grandson of Alexander
McNair, Missouri's first Governor. Great-grandsons and grand-nephews of
Jean Baptiste Ortes, third signer of the incorporation petition, were present in
the persons of Julian and Raymond Philibert and James McKim. Others par-
ticipating as auditors of the momentous proceeding were Wilson P. Guion and
W. J. Pourcelly, descendants of St. Louis' earliest citizens.

A figure that attracted attention along the entire line of march was that of
the Jesuit missionary, Jacques Marquette, impersonated by a young divinity
student of St. Louis University. His costume ^as true to the period depicted.
Credit for the correct detail of the historical floats was due the committee,
headed by Judge Walter B. Douglas, which supervised their construction.
Others of the committee who aided actively in the preparation of the pageant
were Pierre Chouteau, Professor William Carr Dyer, a descendant of William
C. Carr; the Reverend John P. Frieden, president of St. Louis University; the
Reverend William H. Fanning, of the same institution, and Professor Roland

822 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

G. Usher, of Washington University. The members of the Educational Com-
mittee having charge of the day and of the parade were: Henry C. Garneau,
chairman ; James M. Haley, secretary ; Rev. John P. Frieden, S. J. ; Eugene
Harms, Prof. C. M. Woodward, Rev. John F. Baltzer, Walter B. Douglas.

One of the conspicuous features of the Educational and Historical parade
was the escort of 164 mounted men from the National Stock Yards. Mayor
Silas Cook, of East St. Louis, was among the number. James H. Campbell
rode at the head of the horsemen, who were in uniform, having gray hats, black
riding coats, white trousers and yellow gauntlets. General John W. Noble rode
at the head of the first division. The military division proper, led by regulars
from Jefferson Barracks, and jackies from the torpedo flotilla, in command of
Lieutenant Mitchell, was directed by Brigadier General John A. Kress, U. S. A.
Governor Hadley and his staff, all mounted, were preceded by the First Regi-
ment Band. After the Governor marched the First Regiment, in regulation
blue, with Battery A, equipped for field service, the Missouri Naval Reserves
following.

Four venerable veterans of the Mexican war rode by. They were received
with patriotic demonstration. Then came representatives of the Grand Army
posts, Confederate veterans, Spanish war veterans, Naval veterans and Philip-
pine veterans, escorted by the cadets of Blees Academy. This was living
evidence that St. Louisans had borne their part in every national appeal to
arms during the past three-quarters of a century.

High School brigades, the flower of St. Louis youth, followed the Industrial
School band — Central High, McKinley, Yeatman and Soldan — uniformed in
white hats, white shirts and dark trousers. Sumner Negro High School, march-
ing proudly — the illustration of changed conditions since St. Louis became a
corporation, — closed the public school division.

Students of St. Louis University, Christian Brothers College, Washington
University, Concordia Seminary, Walther College and Eden College, 5,000
strong, composed the college division. As they passed the assembled Mayors
in the reviewing stand, they gave their college yells.

Mounted officers in the eighteenth century uniforms, headed by Major
Henri Chouteau Dyer, descendant of Auguste Chouteau, led the Historical
Division. The Knights of Columbus Zouaves escorted the first float which
represented the exploration of the Mississippi by Marquette and Joliet. Then
came a company of French soldiers and the second float, the founding of St.
Louis. A tribe of Red Men followed. The third float depicted the coming of
the Spaniards ; the fourth, the transfer to the United States ; the fifth, the return
of Lewis and Clark; sixth, The Missouri Gazette, the first newspaper office;
seventh, the incorporation of St. Louis.

Each float was cheered along the route. The crude print-shop of a century
ago attracted much attention. From it were distributed many thousands of
facsimile copies of the Gazette, October 4, 1809. Joseph Charless and Jacob
Hinkle, the characters in historic costume on the float, were represented by
C. W. Satterfield and Jesse E. Chapler, respectively, both employes of The
Republic, in its composing room. The representation of Charless, made up
from an oil painting in the possession of The Republic, was faithful. To the

CENTENNIAL WEEK 823

oddly arranged hair and ruffled shirt and the 1809 costume in general, the details
were perfect. Jacob Hinkle, who set the type for the first issue, was imper-
sonated by Jesse E. Chapler. All idea of Hinkle's personal appearance has
long since vanished, but Mr. Chapler was garbed in a costume such as Hinkle
must have worn in the old log cabin that July day when The Gazette was
started. The souvenir papers distributed from the float during the parade were
composed by Mr. Chapler. The reproduction of the old issue was faithful to
the last degree, Mr. Chapler, in his work, inverting letters, breaking them in
two, chipping commas and halving certain characters in order that the facsimiles
put out might be exact reproductions. The fourth and final division of the
parade was made up of postoffice employes, led by Postmaster Akins, in
Sheriff Louis Nolte's automobile. Six hundred letter carriers and an almost
equal number of postoffice clerks were in line.

In the dusk of Friday evening several thousand people had the satisfaction
of seeing a flight by Glenn H. Curtiss. There had been a delay of hours for
the wind to subside. The throng had thinned. Curtiss had postponed the
flight, hoping that the wind might die away at sundown. Leaving the route
which had been used previously for the starting place, Curtiss dashed across
the field into long grass. After he had gone about 60 yards, he rose gradually
to 25 feet in the air, greeted by the cheers of the waiting thousands. The
altitude was not maintained long. The aeroplane plunged downward, and it
seemed as if the flight would not be more than 100 yards. Instead of striking
the ground, the aeroplane skimmed along a distance of half a mile, then dropped
gently to the turf. It was brought back to the starting place by the aero corps
of the First Regiment. The flight lasted about forty seconds.

German-American in the best sense was the entertainment given at the
Coliseum Friday night. It illustrated the history of music and physical culture
in St. Louis. Max Zach and Friedrich Fischer conducted the musical numbers
while A. E. Vandervater and Otto Dreisel directed the Turners in their exhi-
bition. The mass chorus of 500 voices was led by Wilhelm Lange. The fes-
tival was under the charge of a committee headed by Edward L. Preetorius,
representing the German-American Alliance and the St. Louis Symphony Or-
chestra. It was German in its wealth of music, and American in the enthusiasm
which greeted the tableau of Columbia, Germania and St. Louis. It was a
made-in-St. Louis program. Excepting the address of Dr. C. J. Hexamer,
president of the National German-American Alliance and a single musical selec-
tion from Mozart, every number was of St. Louis talent or composition.

The orchestra began with Louis Mayer's impressive "March Triumphal."
This was followed by the beautiful "Hiawatha" as arranged by Ernest R.
Kroeger. Charles Kunkel at the piano gave Louis Conrath's Concerto in B-flat
minor, with the orchestra accompanying, receiving much applause. Notable
was Kunkel's "Alpine Storm" on the piano with orchestra accompaniment. No
less pleasing to enthusiastic auditors was Guido Vogel's "When the Heart Is
Young." The "Belle Minnie" of Otto Anschuetz was received with manifesta-
tion of delight. Abraham I. Epstein's "Gioja" was given a hearty reception.
The musical numbers were concluded with P. G. Anton, Sr.'s, "Overture Sym-
phonic" and Oswald Thumser's "Bohemia," both of which were warmly ap-

824 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

plauded. St. Louis composers impressed the character of their work as never
before upon a single night.

After the marvelous exhibition given by the United Turners, the closing
number was an allegorical tableau representing Columbia and Germania, in
long, flowing robes, at each side of a mailed figure representing St. Louis. As
the curtains were drawn back, disclosing the figures brilliantly illuminated, the
orchestra swung into the bars of the national anthem, and the audience arose
en masse, joining in the chorus with one mighty voice. As the crowds were
leaving the auditorium the playing of "Die Wacht am Rhein" was the occasion
for another demonstration.

The most imposing display of automobiles seen up to that time in the
Mississippi Valley, if not in any part of the United States, was the morning
event of Saturday — St. Louis Day. Headed by a band, Mayor Kreismann,
Centennial Grand Marshal E. J. Spencer and his aides ; Capt. R. E. Lee, parade
marshal, and O. L. Halsey, J. J. Behen, A. N. Stanley, H. B. Krenning, J. H.
Holmes and James Hagerman, Jr., of the Automobile Parade Executive Com-
mittee, the five divisions of the parade, comprising over 1,000 automobiles,
passed over the route from Vandeventer avenue to Broadway and back to
King's Highway at the rate of ten miles an hour, requiring two hours to com-
plete the parade. The automobiles represented a money investment placed at
$2,000,000. The parade was reviewed at the Court of Honor by the three
judges, who awarded prizes — B. F. Gray, Jr. ; Col. E. L. Preetorius and Col.
Isaac A. Hedges. Mayor Kreismann rode over the entire route of the parade,
and reviewed the line from the south steps of the Washington Hotel at King's
Highway and Washington boulevard.

Notwithstanding the shower just before noon, there assembled to partici-
pate in the dedication of Fairground Park 25,000 people. Preceding the exer-
cises was a procession with 5,000 in line. The parade formed at Twentieth
and Salisbury streets, with John H. Gundlach, President of the City Council,
as Grand Marshal. The reviewing stand was located on the spot where the
Prince of Wales entered the now historic amphitheater in 1860 — the amphitheater
where every prominent person who visited St. Louis during Fair Week of old
was entertained. The dedication of Fairground Park was carried through by
an efficient organization known as the North St. Louis Fairground Park Patrons'
Association. In the parade was a great company of children from nine turn-
verein societies, appropriately costumed and from the various North Side public
schools. About 200 pupils from Farragut School were dressed to represent
historical and typical characters of early St. Louis. Many uniformed G. A. R.
men from all the North St. Louis posts and Sons of Veterans marched. The
civic organizations were well represented. The program of exercises at the
park was as follows :

1. Band Concert.

2. Introduction by Mr. Aug. H. Hoffmann.

3. Song by School Children.

4. Address by Park Commissioner Scanlan.

5. Song by United Singers of St. Louis.

6. Dedicatory Address by Mayor Kreismann.

7. Music.

Parish Church at Bedous, where Pierre
Laclede was christened in 1724

Avenue in Bedous leading to the chateau
of the Lacledes

Laclede Coat of Arms

Granaries of the Laclede
estate at Bedous

Entrance to the Laclede
chateau at Bedous, Dr.
M a d a m e t , great-grand
nephew of Laclede, the
founder of St. Louis, stand-
ing in the gateway.

Chateau of the Lacledes
at Bedous, France. Birth-
place of the founder of St.
Louis, built in the thirteenth
centurv.

CENTENNIAL WEEK 825

8. Song by School Children.

9. Turners, Calisthenics.

10. Address by Hon. John H. Gundlach.

11. Song by United Singers of St. Louis.

12. Address by General John W. Noble.

13. Presentation of Flag by Ladies Auxiliary, "G. A. B.," to Mr. Aug. H. Hoffmann
as Chairman of North St. Louis Fairground Patrons' Association.

14. Music, Star Spangled Banner.

On the stand were two notable figures — Col. John McFall who com-
manded the Twenty-sixth Missouri Infantry, and Maj. Joseph A. Wherry, city
register between 1889 and 1893, who was a major in a Missouri regiment in the
Civil war. Both were present at the first fair held on the ground, more than
half a century ago, and both had attended every fair ever held there until the
last one in 1903. Maj. Wherry's grandfather, Mackey Wherry, was the first
register of St. Louis, in 1822, and his father, the late Joseph A. Wherry, was
the second register, from 1827 to 1843. At the conclusion of the dedication
speech a pretty scene was presented. At the entrance of a roped arena some
distance away, appeared the heads of six columns of school children. They
marched out into the arena, the little girls wearing white waists and dark blue
skirts, the boys white shirts and dark blue trousers. There were approximately
500 of them. They went into the customary "take distance" formation of
turners, and then, to the music of a band, gave an elaborate series of calisthenic
exercises.

Saturday evening, as the sun was sinking, Glenn H. Curtiss gave the most
successful and satisfactory flight of Centennial Week. Showers earlier in the
day had driven all but 5,000 from Forest Park. After a heavy shower shortly
before 5 o'clock, it seemed as if further demonstration would be impossible,
but at 5 the wind's velocity dropped to about four miles an hour. The aero-
plane was brought out. After a preliminary run of less han 400 feet down the
Park road, Curtiss went immediately to a height of 40 feet. This elevation was
maintained until he reached the lower end of the course. When he arrived at
the turning point in the eastern extremity of the field, the excitement became in-
tense. Before leaving, Curtiss had declared he would merely try a flight to the
eastern end of the course, but when that was reached he guided his machine
gracefully to the south and started in a sharp curve on the way back. This move
was greeted with cheer after cheer from the people on the field and the spectators
outside. When he made the turn, Curtiss was about seventy feet in the air, but
on the return trip, guiding his craft through the trees, he descended to about forty
feet, and as he came nearer the starting point he sailed for several hundred
feet only about twenty-five feet from the ground. The conclusion of the flight
was even more spectacular than the long sail down the course and back again.
As the machine came darting up the slope at a speed of forty miles an hour
it fluttered, hesitated, and then sank gracefully to the ground, over which it
ran until almost exactly upon the spot which it had quitted a minute and a
quarter before.

Over 1,500 representatives of the civic organizations of St. Louis occupied
seats at the banquet tables in the Coliseum Saturday night. Hundreds; of
visitors were in the balconies. The boxes were filled with prominent citizens.

826 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

This Get-Together banquet was under the auspices of the Missouri Manufac-
turers' Association. The details were successfully arranged and carried through
by a committee, the members of which were the presidents and secretaries of
forty organizations.

At the conclusion of the dinner, Peter M. Hanson introduced J. A. J.
Schultz, President of the Manufacturers' Association. Mr. Schultz, after a
brief speech upon the achievements and the prospects of St. Louis, when united
for a common purpose, introduced the chairman of the evening, Mayor Fred-
erick H. Kreismann. The Mayor received an ovation from the guests, and it
was several minutes before he was able to get order. His first words were
an expression of thanks, on behalf of himself and the city to the business men
of St. Louis who had been active in making the Centennial a success. There
was a note of sentiment in his voice when he alluded to two gatherings of chil-
dren, one at the Coliseum and the other on Art Hill, Church Day. "These
children," he said, "gave us evidences of the hope and pride and ambition of
those who will control the destinies of St. Louis for the next 100 years."

The spirit of the gathering was expressed in talks upon civic cooperation
and in resolutions looking to such harmonious action by the organizations as
will "push St. Louis 'To the Front' and keep it there."

More Mayors than were ever before assembled in the United States came
to honor Centennial Week. The acceptances numbered about 400, but some who
had not given previous thought to the invitation decided favorably at the eleventh
hour. Mayors were arriving several days before the week. Mayors continued
to come until the week was well night spent. All parts of the country, more
than thirty States, were represented. The minimum estimate of the visitors
drawn to the city by Centennial Week was 150,000. This was based upon
returns made by the Terminal Railroad Association, the United Railways, the
interurban systems and the bridge traffic. The United Railways reported 'to
the City Register that there were transported on the street cars during Centen-
nial Week 8,373,832 passengers, of whom 5,783,005 paid cash fares.

At the final meeting of the Executive Committee George D. Markham re-
viewed the week of celebration:

The programme oceuping every one of the seven days and seven nights moved with pre-
cision and in detail as planned by you. No re-arrangement, no substitution was found neces-
sary, as the week progressed. In accordance with your anticipation, one event succeeded an-
other smoothly and harmoniously. The monster religious demonstrations of Sunday at Art
Hill and the Coliseum were carried out upon a scale and with an enthusiasm unprecedented
for St. Louis. The welcome demonstration of Monday, including the reception to the visiting
Mayors, the luncheon of the Civic League and the mass meeting at the Coliseum were splen-
didly conducted. The balloon programme of Monday broke many precedents in aeronautics.
The water pageant of Tuesday was a surprise to this community. The Veiled Prophet parade
and the ball established new records in the long series of Veiled Prophet functions. The re-
ception by the Merchants Exchange and the luncheon following at the Planters House on
Tuesday gave our visitors a lasting impression of that great business organization. The
municipal pageant, the police review and the laying of the corner-stone on Wednesday were
an exposition of the utilities and resources of the St. Louis city government — instructive to
our visitors and to our own citizens. The Industrial pageant of Thursday morning exceeded
the expectations of all of us in its illustration of our commercial and manufacturing activi-
ties. Thursday afternoon witnessed the largest gathering of people seen in Forest Park since
St. Louis Day of the World's Fair. Perhaps public expectation had been wrought to a higher

CENTENNIAL WEEK 827

pitch than the present conditions and possibilities of aerial navigation warranted. Those who
knew by experience how difficult these conditions are realized that the nights by dirigibles
and by an aeroplane illustrated fairly the highest development in this science. Too much in
the way of praise can not be said of the beautiful ball of all nations Thursday night in the
Coliseum. The Historical, Educational and Military parade of Friday morning was, I believe,
the most perfect, the most charming pageant ever seen in the streets of St. Louis. Friday
afternoon, although the winds made the efforts almost impossible, there were witnessed further
aviation flights in Forest Park in the presence of a throng nearly as large as that of Thurs-
day. The German-American Alliance and St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in the Coliseum
Friday night gave our citizens and our visitors evidence of the high plane we have reached
as a community in musical matters. Saturday morning witnessed, in the parade of 1,000
decorated entries, the most elaborate demonstration of automobiles seen in the Mississippi
Valley, if not in the entire country. In no whit did the parade of school children and veter-
ans and the dedication exercises at Fair Ground Park Saturday afternoon fall below other
features of the week in interest. Centennial Week culminated in the "Get-Together Ban-
quet" at the Coliseum Saturday night, giving us evidence of an asset in the way of united
civic strength.

An innovation for St. Louis was the Court of Honor. This committee has revealed to
the community the possibilities of Twelfth street in connection with festival periods. In the
old time, Lucas Market Place was rfsed frequently for mass meetings and processions, but
never before had the space been occupied after the manner adopted for Centennial Week.
The decoration, the triumphal columns, the tiers of seats, the broad thoroughfare, the con-
certs made the Court of Honor a popular center of interest days and nights of the week. The
several parades gained in interest and were made doubly impressive by the movement through
the plaza. Without the reviewing stand, our visiting Mayors would have lost much of the im-
pression these displays made upon them.

In announcing to the committee that all financial obligations had been met
and that there remained in the hands of the treasurer approximately $10,000,
Mr. Markham said:

One feature of the programme as originally planned was not carried out. It was hoped
in the beginning that we might be able to emphasize the Centennial by the dedication of a
statue of the founder of St. Louis — Pierre Laclede — but collections in the early period of the
movement did not justify us in carrying out this plan. We now have in hand, if not the full
amount necessary for such commemoration of the founding of the city, at least a sum suffi-
cient to justify us in proceeding, confident that whatever additional may be needed will be
forthcoming. Your chairman, therefore, recommends that the surplus remaining be devoted to
this purpose.

By resolution unanimously adopted a committee composed of George D.
Markham, Saunders Norvell, J. H. Gundlach, H. N. Davis and Walter K.
Stevens was created "to devote the funds remaining in the hands of the treas-
urer, Charles H. Huttig, to a statue of Pierre Laclede, the founder of St. Louis."

As a result of a competition in which four sculptors participated, the model
submitted by George Julian Zolnay was selected. In the decision the com-
mittee was aided by the opinions of Professor Halsey C. Ives, director of the
City Art Museum; Theophile Papin, Jr., a descendant of Laclede; Isaac S.
Taylor and J. L. Mauran, architects ; and Karl Bitter, chief of sculpture of the
World's Fair of 1904. With the approval of the municipal authorities a site
adjacent to the new Municipal Courts was chosen for the statue.

In 1847 tne anniversary of the founding of St. Louis was well observed
with a parade, a mass meeting and a banquet. The orator of the day was Wilson
Primm. At the close of a long and fascinating recital of the beginning and
growth of St. Louis, the orator said:

828 ST. LOUIS, THE FOURTH CITY

Before taking leave of my audience, I claim the indulgence of a reference, again, to
the founder of our city. His spirit has departed but his memory holds a firm place in our
recollections.

By the lone river,
Where the reeds quiver
And the woods make moan

he sleeps the sleep that knows no waking. He died on his return from a business voyage to
New Orleans.

On the south bank of the Arkansas river, at its mouth, under the shade of the forest
trees, the rude coffin hastily constructed from the oar benches of his barge, and which en-
closed his body, was deposited in the grave.

After such a lapse of time, if the elements of his frame have assimilated themselves to
the mother earth so that they cannot be transferred to our midst, can we not and should we
not endeavor to pay some more enduring tribute to his memory, than the pomp and pageant
of this day?

This generation, 147 years after the founding and sixty- four years after
the orator put the appealing query to his fellow St. Louisans, acknowledges the
obligation and pays the "enduring tribute" to the memory of the founder.

PIERRE LACLEDE, THE FOUNDER OF ST. LOUIS
Centennial Statue, by George Julian Zolnay

CENTENNIAL WEEK 829

THE DEAD OF OLD TIME.

In all they wrought, the souls of these still live;

Their deed, their thought, each brave word bravely said,

Live past the grave and master it, to give

The living help and strength when life is fraught

With sorest need of courage. All the length

Of years, of time and change, the hopes, the fears,

The failures and f orgetfulness of lives between

Our lives and theirs, take nothing from their strength.

Their work still thrives unseen. And still their love,

Their faith, their hope endears each place they loved

And wrought in. The highest thought our lives conceal,

Their lives still mean. If they at length shall rise,

Or if in these low spheres, they never slept

Beneath this turf where those who loved them wept,

Do they not know the changes marvellous

Since once they seemed asleep? From graves grass-grown,

Dug deep into the clay, to hold them and to keep

Them surely for the time when yonder East

Shall flame with endless morning, do they rise

And sweep, with lifting wing and unsealed eyes,

Down all the vistas of these days of ours,

When life, with glories that they knew not, strives

With higher powers and vaster strength, to work

All that they left imperfect? It must be

That all their soul still flowers and bears its fruit

In fruit of ours; and all their loss is boot,

The gain of these our days, and those fair years to be,

When eyes now blinded, shall unclose and see,

All that the grave seals and the present hides.

Their life abides. They are not dead. For still
Our work is done to give them all their will.
Near and afar, from sea to sea across the land,
Their light is shed in light of every star,
Blent with the stronger flame of day and made
Intense, until our eyes are blinded, and betrayed
By glories of our day, we turn lest we should see
The dazzling radiance of the things to be,
When by our aftercomers, it is said
That we and these are of the old-time dead;
Yet still our work and all their work shall thrive
To win the years a light that shall not fade
Nor fail at last the stronger age, whose worth
From time's old stains and crimes and hopes betrayed,
Shall wrest the future of the ransomed earth.

— William Vincent Byars,
From "The Axemen-The Artifex." (Mss.)