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Show 1836- 1837! Ft* gg's Far West 145 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 stoccade. All this is now confined to the southern or French section of the city; a right Rip Van Winkle- looking region, where each little steep- roofed cottage yet presents its broad piazza, and the cosey 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 antiquated villages of which we have [ 118] 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. 106 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 defence. The march of improvement has encroached upon the premises of these ancient edifices somewhat; yet they ate still inhabited by the posterity of their builders, and remain, with their massive walls of stone, monuments of an earlier era. The site upon which stands St. Louis was selected in 1763 by M. Laclede, a partner of a mercantile association at New- Orleans, to whom D'Abbadie, Director- general of the province of Louisiana, had granted the exclusive privilege of the commerce in furs and peltries with the Indian '" For a biographical sketch of Pierre and Auguste Chouteau, the elders, see James's Long's Expedition, in our volume xvi, p. 275, note 127.- ED. |