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Show 1836- 1837] Flagg's Far West 259 Mississippi. Among these pleasant villas the little white farm- cottage, formerly the residence of Mr. C-, beneath the hills, surrounded by its handsome grounds, and gardens, and glittering fishponds, partially shrouded by the broad leaved catalpa, the willow, the acacia, and other ornamental trees, presents, perhaps, the rarest instance of natural beauty adorned by refined taste. A visit to this delightful spot during my stay at St. Louis informed me of the fact that, within as well as abroad, the hand of education and refinement had not been idle. Paintings, busts, medallions, Indian curiosities, & c, & c, tastefully arranged around the walls and shelves of an elegant library, presented a feast to the visiter as rare in the Far West as it is agreeable to a cultivated mind. Near this cottage is the intended site of the building of the St. Louis Catholic University, a lofty and commanding spot. 11' A considerable tract was here purchased, at a cost of thirty thousand dollars; but the design of removal from the city has for the present been relinquished. Immediately adjoining is situated the stately villa of Colonel OTallon, with its highly- cultivated gardens and its beautiful park sweeping off in the rear. In a very few years this must become one of the most delightful spots [ 246] in the West. For its elegant grounds, its green and hot houses, and its exotic and indigenous plants, it is, perhaps, already unequalled west of Cincinnati. No expense, attention, or taste will be wanting to render it all of which the spot is capable. Leaving the Bottom, the road winds gracefully off from m For a brief history of the inception of St. Louis University, see ante, p. 169, note iai. At a meeting of the trustees on May 3,1836, a commission was appointed to select a new site for the university. A farm of three hundred acres recently purchased, on the BeUefontaine road, three and a half miles from St. Louis, was chosen; plans were formulated, contracts made, and the foundations dug. On the death of the contractors, the enterprise was abandoned; but the land, sold a few years later, proved a valuable investment. See Scharf, St. Louis, i, pp. 860, 861.- ED. |