History of Early Steamboat Navigation on the Missouri River, Volume 1 (of 2) / Life and Adventures of Joseph La Barge

by Hiram Martin Chittenden

An interesting sequel of Lafayette’s visit to St. Louis occurred in that city in 1881, on the occasion of the visit of Lafayette’s grandson with General Boulanger and party, who had come to America to attend the centennial celebration of the surrender of Yorktown. Captain La Barge was sent for, to meet the distinguished company at the Merchants’ Exchange. When introduced to the members of the party, the grandson of Lafayette came forward, and taking La Barge by both hands, looked at him a moment and said: “You have seen one whom I wish it were my lot to have seen, and that is my revered grandfather.” He cordially urged the Captain to come to his home if he should ever visit France, and in other ways showed an almost affectionate interest in this individual who had once, though but a boy, beheld the face of his distinguished ancestor.

EARLY SCHOOLING.

Captain La Barge’s schooling was necessarily very limited, for the educational facilities of St. Louis in those days were of a truly primitive order. He first went to a schoolmaster of considerable local renown, Jean Baptiste Trudeau, at the latter’s private residence on Pine Street, between Main and Second. Here he studied the common branches, all in French. He went for a time to Salmon Giddings, founder of the First Presbyterian Church, in St. Louis, and later to a more pretentious school kept by Elihu H. Shephard, an excellent teacher. At both of these schools instruction was given in English. Captain La Barge’s parents foresaw that their native tongue could not long survive in common use, and felt it to be their duty to equip their son, so far as their slender means would permit, with the language of his country. The pupil found the task a tedious one, and was a long while in mastering it. He never forgot the almost insurmountable obstacle he found in the English “th.” He used his native language in common intercourse down to nearly 1850, and retained a fluent command of it to his death. He also acquired a very perfect command of English, in which there was no trace of foreign accent, but in which the mellowing influence of the softer tongue had produced a modulation of the voice that was very pleasant to listen to.

IN COLLEGE.

In 1819 there was established in Perry County, Mo., a Catholic School, St. Mary’s College. Young La Barge was sent there at the age of twelve, and remained three years. On their way to the college himself and father traveled by the steamer Tuscumbia. It was Captain La Barge’s first ride in a kind of boat with which most of his after life was to be connected. The desire of the young man’s parents was to educate their son for the priesthood, and his course at college was shaped somewhat to that end. But the boy did not fall in with their plans, as his tastes ran in a different direction. He did not finish the course, for his career at the school was summarily cut short by a delinquency which is the only one we have to record in a life of more than fourscore years. He became involved in intrigues with young women to an extent which barred him from a further continuation of his course.

IN HARD LUCK.

Associated with him in this unfortunate episode was Edward Liguest Chouteau, a youth of about the same age as himself. The young men walked to St. Genevieve, on the Mississippi. Chouteau was without funds, and La Barge nearly so, having scarcely the amount of a single steamboat fare to St. Louis. They found the De Witt Clinton at the bank on her way up the river. La Barge told the captain of the boat the straight story of their misfortune: that they had only enough money for a single fare to St. Louis, and would have to walk unless they could make some arrangement with him. He laughed, and told them to get on board and he would see them home. This incident, in which the two young men were companions in misfortune, was not forgotten by either, and we shall have occasion to refer to it again in the course of this narrative.

After La Barge left college his father placed him in the office of John Bent, a leading lawyer of St. Louis, and one of the noted Bent brothers. He soon became disgusted with his new situation on account of his preceptor’s habit of excessive drink. He then went into a clothing store, and after remaining about a year, left that.

ATTRACTIONS OF THE FUR TRADE.

The restless ambition of the young man was now directed toward a kind of life which, in every portion of the country, has filled up the period between discovery and settlement—the business of the fur trade. At this particular time it was the only business carried on in the trans-Mississippi territory beyond the few scattering settlements along the lower Missouri. Large parties of hunters and trappers remained constantly in the wilderness, wandering all over those vast regions in quest of beaver and other fur. Each spring expeditions set out for various points in the Far West from Santa Fe to the British boundary, carrying supplies and recruits and bringing back the furs collected during the previous year. The great bulk of this business was done along the Missouri River, where trading posts were established throughout the entire valley. The annual journeys to these posts were always made by water. In the keelboat days they consumed an entire summer, but after the steamboat came they were completed by the middle of July.