OCR Text |
Show 148 Early Western Travels [ Vol. 26 market- house now stands. The town was then laid off, and named in honour of Louis XV., the reigning monarch of France, though the settlers were desirous of giving it the name of its founder: to this Laclede would not consent. He died at the post of Arkansas in 1778; Colonel Chouteau followed him in the month of February of 1829, just sixty-four years from the founding of the city. He had been a constant resident, had seen the spot merge from the wilderness, and had become one of its most opulent citizens. For many years St Louis was called " Pom [ 120] Court," from the scarcity of provisions, which circumstance at one period almost induced the settlers to abandon their design. In 1765 Fort Chartres was delivered to Great Britain, and the commandant, St. Ange, with his troops, only twenty-two in number, proceeded to St. Louis; and assuming the government, the place was ever after considered the capital of the province. 118 Under the administration of St. Ange, which is said to have been mild and patriarchal, the common field was laid open, and each settler became a cultivator of the soil. This field comprised several thousand acres, lying upon the second steppe mentioned, and has recently been divided into lots and sold to the highest bidder. Three years after the arrival of St. Ange, Spanish troops under command of Don Rious took possession of the province agreeable to treaty; im but, owing to the dissatisfaction of the inhabitants, no official authority was exercised until 1770. Thirty years afterward the province was retroceded to France, "* For the history of Fort Chartres, see A. Mkhaux's Travels, in our volume iii, p. 71, note 136. For a biographical sketch of St Ange, see Croghan's Journals, in our volume i, p. 138, note 109.- ED. *• At the dose of 1767 Captain Francisco Rios arrived at St. Louis in pursuance of an order cf D'UUoa, governor of Louisiana. The following year he built Fort Prince Charles, and although at first coldly received, won the respect of the inhabitants by his tact and good judgment. After the expulsion of D'UUoa in the revolution of 1768, Rios returned with his soldiers to New Orleans.- ED. |