When, in the autumn of 1858, I made St. Louis my adopted home, the name of Thomas H. Benton was on all lips. He had died in April of that year. The people of the city were justly very proud of him. He had represented Missouri for thirty years in the Senate of the United States, and was unquestionably the most distinguished man of the State and of the Northwest. A funeral procession fully five miles in length had followed his body to its burial-place in Belle Fontaine Cemetery. But this great man, like many others who have been pre-eminent, had marked peculiarities. In the Senate he was called “The Magisterial.” In consonance with that descriptive phrase, when he addressed crowds at political meetings in St. Louis, he never said, “Fellow-citizens,” but always simply, “Citizens.” And the contents of his speeches from the stump were often quite as magisterial.
Mr. Benton, while United States Senator, at times took an active part in the election of congressmen from St. Louis. It was customary then for those opposed to each other to speak in turn to the people from the same platform. On one occasion Mr. Crum was the name of the candidate who, with Mr. Benton, was addressing the voters of the city. Near the close of one of Mr. Benton’s speeches, he said, “Citizens, is my opponent a loaf, or even a crust? No,” then suiting the action to the word, he apparently picked up and held a very small particle between his thumb and finger, while he added in a tone of great contempt,—“No, citizens, he is nothing but a tiny Crum.”
During another canvass, he was stoutly opposing Mr. Bogie, who was a candidate for Congress. Late one evening when about to close his speech in reply to him, he said, “Citizens, you have been told that my opponent’s name is Bogie. Citizens, it is a mistake; his name is Bogus. But, citizens, notwithstanding that, like Cato of Rome, I would now send my servants (slaves) to light him home, were it not that to-morrow you would be asking, ‘Mr. Benton, what sort of company do your servants keep?’”
In 1856, his son-in-law, John C. Fremont, was offered the Republican nomination for the Presidency, and asked him if he thought it was best for him to accept it? Benton, believing the Republican party to be sectional, was bitterly opposed to it; so he said to Fremont, “If you accept the nomination, I’ll drop you like a hot potato, sir! like a hot potato, sir!”
These incidents, standing alone, would misrepresent Mr. Benton; but they throw a side-light on his character and help us better to understand the most eminent citizen of St. Louis, a statesman of large mold and of a well-merited national reputation.
The early history of St. Louis is so full of interest that we cannot refrain from briefly noting a few items that belong to it. Its beginning carries us back to 1764. It was then a mere trading-post of a company of merchants, whose leader was Pierre Ligueste Laclede. The post consisted of one house and four stores. It was named St. Louis in honor of the patron saint of Louis XV of France. Though not possessing the dignity of an incorporated town, the following year it became the capital of Upper Louisiana. Through the wise foresight of Jefferson, despite his party principles, the vast and vaguely defined territory of Louisiana was purchased from France at a time when Napoleon sorely needed money. In transferring this immense region there were two formal ceremonies, one at New Orleans, Dec. 20th, 1803; the other at St. Louis, on March 10th, 1804. On the latter day Major Stoddard, who was the agent of the French Government to receive Upper Louisiana from Spain, for France, was also the accredited agent of our government to take over the same territory for the United States. That one man should represent both nations in affairs of such tremendous importance was, to say the least, unique.[[1]] This ceremony of transfer took place at the northeast corner of First, or Main, and Walnut Streets. The event should be commemorated by some suitable tablet or monument erected on the spot of transfer. We trust that the Missouri Historical Society will have the honor of doing this work so consonant with its aims and character.
The town of St. Louis was laid out between the river and the first range of bluffs on the west, and a series of circular towers was erected around it for defence. The houses were mainly built of rough stone and whitewashed, and each house had a separate lot for fruit and flowers. These houses were without cellars. The first house provided with such a convenience was built by Laclede on what is now called Main Street, between Market and Walnut. Indian women and children helped dig it, carrying out the dirt on their heads, in wooden platters and baskets. In this house civil government was inaugurated in 1765 by Captain Louis Saint Ange, Acting French Governor of Upper Louisiana; in it, also, the Marquis de Lafayette was entertained in 1825.
The streets of the old town were all quite narrow; it was thought that such streets could be more easily defended. And there they are, cramped and narrow to this day. But in time the land above and west of the village was laid out in town lots, and the chief promoters of this enterprise, Judge Lucas and Colonel Chouteau, built their dwelling-houses far back from the river and the old town, the former at the corner of Seventh and Chestnut Streets, the latter at the corner of Sixth and Olive Streets. In 1809, the year in which St. Louis was incorporated as a town, Fort Belle Fontaine became the headquarters of the Department of Upper Louisiana. It was several miles north of the village, on a high bluff, overlooking the Mississippi. The land for this fort was secured by treaty from the Sac and Fox Indians. On it was a great spring of pure water capable of supplying a thousand men; hence the name of the fort, Belle Fontaine.
St. Louis was early called the Gateway of the West. In 1817 the first steamboat tied up to her levee.[[2]] This was the beginning of an imperial trade. Streams of commerce now began to flow into her markets from the great continental rivers, from the upper Mississippi, the Illinois, the Missouri, the Ohio, the lower Mississippi with its far-reaching affluents; and, through the Gulf of Mexico, even from the cities of the Atlantic seaboard. For many years her chief trade had been in the pelts and furs of wild animals; but now this lucrative traffic was greatly augmented. For forty years the annual value of it alone was between two and three hundred thousand dollars, while commerce in all agricultural products and in manufactured goods was constantly swelling in volume. Still it is worthy of note that deerskins were an article of barter, and furs were currency in St. Louis, from the days of Laclede until Missouri became a State in 1821; and a year later, even before St. Louis had five thousand inhabitants, it was chartered as a city.
When under Spanish control, it was strictly Roman Catholic. In 1862 I met at a wedding in St. Louis a lady almost a hundred years old. She was still in excellent health. Her intellect was clear and vigorous. As she took my arm to go to the wedding supper, she archly remarked, “Your wife will not be jealous when she learns how old I am.” Yet, when we were seated at the table, after some moments of absolute silence on her part, into which I did not venture to intrude, she said, “I do believe that God has forgotten me.” I looked at her with mingled astonishment and curiosity and said, “Why so?” She replied, “All the friends of my early life are gone and I am left alone.” She now became reminiscent and added, “I lived here when St. Louis belonged to Spain. And just as for many years no free negro has been permitted to enter this city without a pass, so for years, in my early life, no Protestant could enter it without a written permit from the Spanish authorities.”