CHAPTER II.
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH.
Joseph La Barge, son of Joseph Marie La Barge and Eulalie Hortiz, was born in St. Louis, October 1, 1815. He was the second child in a family of seven children, three boys and four girls, who all grew to adult years. The two brothers were Charles S., who was killed in a steamboat explosion in 1852, and John B., who dropped dead at the wheel in 1885 while making a steamboat landing at Bismarck, N. D.
INDIAN AND INFANT.
Soon after the birth of Captain La Barge the parents moved to the newly acquired farm in Baden. There is but one incident relating to the young child while living here that need detain us. Although this place was distant only six miles from where the courthouse of St. Louis now stands, it was at that time unsettled and uncleared, and Indians not infrequently roamed in the vicinity. The Sac and Fox tribes were particularly troublesome, and many were the outrages which they committed upon the isolated settlement. The incident in question occurred one day just before the father had started on his usual trip to town. He was loading his cart at some distance from the garden, where Mrs. La Barge had gone to dig some potatoes to send to her mother in the village. Housewives in those days seldom enjoyed the luxury of nurses, and Mrs. La Barge was obliged to carry her child with her into the garden. Depositing him between the rows of potatoes, she was proceeding with her work, when suddenly the house dog set up a cry of alarm. Looking up, Mrs. La Barge was horrified to see an Indian approaching. She uttered a scream and started for the house, forgetting in the suddenness of her alarm the baby in the garden. Meanwhile the father had heard the dog’s bark and his wife’s screams, and hastened to see what was the matter. His first question was about the baby, and Mrs. La Barge, more terrified than ever, rushed back to where she had left him. Fortunately the dog had held the Indian at bay, and when the father arrived, gun in hand, he beat a prompt retreat. Captain La Barge’s father often reminded him of this incident in after years, predicting that he would always escape harm from the Indians, for they had had their opportunity and had failed. In his many experiences with the Indians throughout a life spent in their country, he never suffered personal injury at their hands, and came to have faith in his father’s prediction.
Captain La Barge was not yet two years old when the first steamboat came to St. Louis, nor four when the first one entered the Missouri River. It is said that his father used to take him to the river bank to see these early boats, and that they always had a great attraction for his youthful fancy. To be a steamboat master was his ambition, and he spent much of his time as a child in drawing boats and making models, and thus unwittingly training himself for his after career.
The boy was a leader among his fellows, and an expert in all youthful games practiced at the time. In contests of skill among the boys of the village each side was anxious to secure Joe La Barge. “He could jump higher,” says one authority, “run faster, and swim farther than any other lad in the town.”
LAFAYETTE’S VISIT.
BOTH FRENCHMEN.
Among the noteworthy events of Captain La Barge’s childhood, the memory of which clung by him even in old age, was the visit of Lafayette to St. Louis in 1825. This venerable patriot, whom, next to Washington, Americans in that day delighted to honor, arrived in St. Louis on board the steamer Natchez, at 9 A. M., May 29. He was met at the wharf by a committee of leading citizens, and an address of welcome was made by the Mayor, to which Lafayette responded. He then entered a carriage with the Mayor and Mr. Auguste Chouteau and Stephen Hempstead, a soldier of the Revolution, and was driven to the house of Mr. Pierre Chouteau, Sr., which had been prepared for his reception. He was escorted by a company of light horsemen, and also by a company of uniformed boys, of whom Captain La Barge, then ten years old, was one. The Captain always remembered the venerable appearance of the General and his review of the youthful troop. He shook hands with them, indulged in the pleasant questions which age delights to ask of youth, and doubtless himself took a keen pleasure in the incident, because most of his youthful auditors could reply in his own tongue.[6]